What Would a Satisfactory Moral Theory Be Like?
In one sense the principles of morality are fairly obvious and have been constant for centuries. Aristotle said that the two highest virtues were friendship and contemplation. Epicurus agreed as did the Stoics. Of course, friendship is only possible within a context of other important values such as trust, caring, sympathy, and empathy. These were well-known important character traits to the Greeks and were still being discussed and endorsed in the 18th century during the Enlightenment by such thinkers as David Hume and Adam Smith. We've seen through this course so far the importance of reason as a guide to our moral thinking and our quest to offer justification for moral judgments.
This is where things get complicated. While our moral intuitions have remained constant our ethical theories seem to always fall short of their intended goal which is to provide a rational framework for moral judgments. For some ethical theories, this shortcoming is internal. We saw this in the case of egoism, emotivism, and relativism in particular. For other ethical theories, the assault is external. For many people, the assault on values is coming from the culture itself. This is a complicated issue, to say the least, and it's often hard to gain perspective on such issues while we are in the era we're speaking of.
Are we having more problems with morality today? Some issues seem to be more prevalent and worrisome but perhaps we are making progress on others. As an educator, I experience problems of academic honesty regularly and the prevalence of plagiarism is sometimes shocking. Are moral lapses like this due to the lack of a satisfactory moral theory? Perhaps. There could be many other factors involved as well. Moral theory on its own cannot address all of the issues we face. But some conclusions are in order to assess what we've gained so far in our investigation of moral philosophy.
Rachels specifies some interesting factors which would be involved including:
Modesty
Reason
Desert
Motives
Consequences
Community
Justice and fairness
Let's consider each of these in turn in order to understand what we can about a satisfactory moral theory.
Modesty: Human beings have trouble with this one sometimes as we think we're the most important creation in the universe. But, given the history of that universe and our relative recent arrival, Rachels suggests that a little modesty is in order. Another factor involved in this is the simple fact that we do not know nearly as much as we think we do or think we should about the world in which we live. The biologist Lewis Thomas is particularly eloquent on this subject pointing out that biologists don't even know fully how a cell works! Our ignorance is much greater than our knowledge in almost every field we study: physics, psychology, biology, cosmology, and yes philosophy too. This has inspired some thinkers to advocate a provisional theory in ethics. We'll consider a more recent attempt to do this in another lecture.
Reason: The importance of reason in morality cannot be overstated. Given the normative element involved, we need good justification based on reason to back up our moral judgments and imperatives. Our struggle in ethics has been to reason in a consistent logical way. Furthermore, reason requires us to act impartially. That is, if a particular fact justifies acting in one case, then we must accept that the same fact would justify the same action in similar cases. We also must be able to recognize that some reasons are not relevant to justify differences in treatment. Among these Rachels lists differences in skin color and gender.
Desert: But, we've seen that impartiality itself can be taken too far as the utilitarians did. We offered a possible solution by adding feminist and virtue ethics to our moral thinking. The general notion involved here is to treat people as they deserve to be treated. We saw this emphasized in Kant's principle of respect and Hobbes' social contract. People deserve to be treated with a minimum level of respect and dignity but people who knowingly harm others deserve punishment as well. Perhaps we will find that Kant's brand of retributivism is too harsh but some form of desert is necessary to an adequate moral theory.
Motives: Another important aspect of Kant's theory was motivation. We need to evaluate our actions, in part, according to what is motivating them. Clearly, an action is better if our motive is to help someone as opposed to being only self-serving. And as feminist and virtue theory showed us focusing on motivation is important because it helps explain why impartiality does not always apply. We are motivated to act towards our friends, parents, children differently than strangers and this is appropriate. One cannot always act according to the principle of utility which demands that we act to maximize the greatest happiness of the greatest numbers. Nor should we always act this way. We have to balance our competing motives towards ourselves, our loved ones, our communities, and so on.
Consequences: Of course, this is not to deny the importance of consequences in our actions. We ought to strive to make the consequences of our actions as good as possible. Rachels advocates what he refers to as "multiple strategies utilitarianism." Here the standard is not simply the abstract principle of utility but that principle combined with the more personal considerations of motive and desert. "What is important is that people be as happy and well-off as possible." In economics, this is often referred to as the Pareto Optimum after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. The basic idea is that we should strive to reach a state where everyone is as well off as possible without making anyone worse off in the process. It's a pretty high standard to achieve but perhaps worth using as the ideal. The important point about multiple strategies utilitarianism is that we recognize that there may be many ways of achieving the ideal and at different times, different strategies are necessary to achieve the result. Sometimes focusing on our own concerns is the appropriate course of action, while at other times our actions should be more selfless.
Community: We don't live on islands to ourselves and our actions take place within a moral community. The Greeks recognized this and defined the self in large part in relation to the community: the polis. From this concept, we get our word politics. This word often has a negative connotation but the basic point seems valid that morality exists within a communal setting and as the political commentator George Will eloquently puts it "statecraft is soulcraft." Of course, Thomas Hobbes also recognized the importance of community as providing a rational justification for our entering into a social contract as a basis for our morality. As Rachels puts it "we ought to be concerned about everyone whose welfare might be affected by what we do." A tall order but given that our actions do affect others we ought to be cognizant of that and work to make the effects as positive as possible.
Justice and Fairness: These subjects have received increasing attention in the 20th century due in large part to books like the late John Rawls' A Theory of Justice written in 1971 and Robert Nozick's response to that book written in 1974 titled Anarchy State and Utopia. Of course, concern for justice and fairness is not a new thing in ethics but we saw how utilitarianism did fail to take these important concepts into account. Kant saw his theory of retributivism as a corrective to this shortcoming at least in the area of punishment. Fairness relates as well to our recurring emphasis on impartiality and has many practical implications not only in the justice system but also in the workplace.
A nice synopsis of much of what we've covered so far this semester is offered in a by Anita Allen titled The New Ethics. In this book, she addresses some very practical issues (which we'll be addressing very soon in this class) such as cheating at home, work, and school, end-of-life issues, family issues, and other important concerns. She concludes with what she calls an agenda for better ethics which consists of 12 points most of which are self-explanatory. I'll leave you with these to consider until our next lecture.
1. Take yourself seriously
2. Resist temptation
3. Accept blame
4. Learn from mistakes
5. Be a cleaner competitor
6. Do not try to outthink ethics
7. Nurture caring, fair-minded youth
8. Enforce ethical standards
9. Search for hidden ethical issues
10. Self educate
11. Acknowledge interdependence
12. Value but improve traditions
This is where things get complicated. While our moral intuitions have remained constant our ethical theories seem to always fall short of their intended goal which is to provide a rational framework for moral judgments. For some ethical theories, this shortcoming is internal. We saw this in the case of egoism, emotivism, and relativism in particular. For other ethical theories, the assault is external. For many people, the assault on values is coming from the culture itself. This is a complicated issue, to say the least, and it's often hard to gain perspective on such issues while we are in the era we're speaking of.
Are we having more problems with morality today? Some issues seem to be more prevalent and worrisome but perhaps we are making progress on others. As an educator, I experience problems of academic honesty regularly and the prevalence of plagiarism is sometimes shocking. Are moral lapses like this due to the lack of a satisfactory moral theory? Perhaps. There could be many other factors involved as well. Moral theory on its own cannot address all of the issues we face. But some conclusions are in order to assess what we've gained so far in our investigation of moral philosophy.
Rachels specifies some interesting factors which would be involved including:
Modesty
Reason
Desert
Motives
Consequences
Community
Justice and fairness
Let's consider each of these in turn in order to understand what we can about a satisfactory moral theory.
Modesty: Human beings have trouble with this one sometimes as we think we're the most important creation in the universe. But, given the history of that universe and our relative recent arrival, Rachels suggests that a little modesty is in order. Another factor involved in this is the simple fact that we do not know nearly as much as we think we do or think we should about the world in which we live. The biologist Lewis Thomas is particularly eloquent on this subject pointing out that biologists don't even know fully how a cell works! Our ignorance is much greater than our knowledge in almost every field we study: physics, psychology, biology, cosmology, and yes philosophy too. This has inspired some thinkers to advocate a provisional theory in ethics. We'll consider a more recent attempt to do this in another lecture.
Reason: The importance of reason in morality cannot be overstated. Given the normative element involved, we need good justification based on reason to back up our moral judgments and imperatives. Our struggle in ethics has been to reason in a consistent logical way. Furthermore, reason requires us to act impartially. That is, if a particular fact justifies acting in one case, then we must accept that the same fact would justify the same action in similar cases. We also must be able to recognize that some reasons are not relevant to justify differences in treatment. Among these Rachels lists differences in skin color and gender.
Desert: But, we've seen that impartiality itself can be taken too far as the utilitarians did. We offered a possible solution by adding feminist and virtue ethics to our moral thinking. The general notion involved here is to treat people as they deserve to be treated. We saw this emphasized in Kant's principle of respect and Hobbes' social contract. People deserve to be treated with a minimum level of respect and dignity but people who knowingly harm others deserve punishment as well. Perhaps we will find that Kant's brand of retributivism is too harsh but some form of desert is necessary to an adequate moral theory.
Motives: Another important aspect of Kant's theory was motivation. We need to evaluate our actions, in part, according to what is motivating them. Clearly, an action is better if our motive is to help someone as opposed to being only self-serving. And as feminist and virtue theory showed us focusing on motivation is important because it helps explain why impartiality does not always apply. We are motivated to act towards our friends, parents, children differently than strangers and this is appropriate. One cannot always act according to the principle of utility which demands that we act to maximize the greatest happiness of the greatest numbers. Nor should we always act this way. We have to balance our competing motives towards ourselves, our loved ones, our communities, and so on.
Consequences: Of course, this is not to deny the importance of consequences in our actions. We ought to strive to make the consequences of our actions as good as possible. Rachels advocates what he refers to as "multiple strategies utilitarianism." Here the standard is not simply the abstract principle of utility but that principle combined with the more personal considerations of motive and desert. "What is important is that people be as happy and well-off as possible." In economics, this is often referred to as the Pareto Optimum after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. The basic idea is that we should strive to reach a state where everyone is as well off as possible without making anyone worse off in the process. It's a pretty high standard to achieve but perhaps worth using as the ideal. The important point about multiple strategies utilitarianism is that we recognize that there may be many ways of achieving the ideal and at different times, different strategies are necessary to achieve the result. Sometimes focusing on our own concerns is the appropriate course of action, while at other times our actions should be more selfless.
Community: We don't live on islands to ourselves and our actions take place within a moral community. The Greeks recognized this and defined the self in large part in relation to the community: the polis. From this concept, we get our word politics. This word often has a negative connotation but the basic point seems valid that morality exists within a communal setting and as the political commentator George Will eloquently puts it "statecraft is soulcraft." Of course, Thomas Hobbes also recognized the importance of community as providing a rational justification for our entering into a social contract as a basis for our morality. As Rachels puts it "we ought to be concerned about everyone whose welfare might be affected by what we do." A tall order but given that our actions do affect others we ought to be cognizant of that and work to make the effects as positive as possible.
Justice and Fairness: These subjects have received increasing attention in the 20th century due in large part to books like the late John Rawls' A Theory of Justice written in 1971 and Robert Nozick's response to that book written in 1974 titled Anarchy State and Utopia. Of course, concern for justice and fairness is not a new thing in ethics but we saw how utilitarianism did fail to take these important concepts into account. Kant saw his theory of retributivism as a corrective to this shortcoming at least in the area of punishment. Fairness relates as well to our recurring emphasis on impartiality and has many practical implications not only in the justice system but also in the workplace.
A nice synopsis of much of what we've covered so far this semester is offered in a by Anita Allen titled The New Ethics. In this book, she addresses some very practical issues (which we'll be addressing very soon in this class) such as cheating at home, work, and school, end-of-life issues, family issues, and other important concerns. She concludes with what she calls an agenda for better ethics which consists of 12 points most of which are self-explanatory. I'll leave you with these to consider until our next lecture.
1. Take yourself seriously
2. Resist temptation
3. Accept blame
4. Learn from mistakes
5. Be a cleaner competitor
6. Do not try to outthink ethics
7. Nurture caring, fair-minded youth
8. Enforce ethical standards
9. Search for hidden ethical issues
10. Self educate
11. Acknowledge interdependence
12. Value but improve traditions