Philosophy-Discussion Forum 2
chapter 7
Moral Knowledge
We have been talking about moral truth, but how can we know it? We have seen the structure or form that an ethic takes, but what about the content? How do we come to recognize moral principles? How can we discover the moral rules we should follow? How can we test our moral beliefs to be more sure they are correct?
Common Morality
Experience is a great teacher, it is said, accumulating lessons learned from life and passing them on from generation to generation. A traditional wisdom results, that has been tried and tested through the years. The history of jurisprudence acknowledges a common law of this sort, established in social practices rooted in a dim and distant past but still significant enough to be a guide for positive law. Analogously, some people speak of a common morality established by social sentiment over the years and significant enough to be the guide to a more systematic ethic.
It must be acknowledged that the moral wisdom of a culture frequently offers a great deal of lasting value. It has been forged and refined over the course of time amid varied circumstances in the heat of the universal human condition and the unchanging pressures of our common human nature. And similar moral concerns have often been noted in cultures with vastly different histories. [1]
But problems arise. The first concerns the extent of such common morality, for it tends to deal with cases and common areas of life as they have been in the past, a limited array of things in any case, and to lack overall principles from which moral dilemmas and novel moral issues might be addressed. Is piecemeal wisdom a broad-enough basis for a comprehensive ethic? The second problem concerns the finality of common morality: if it has been accumulating over the years, then presumably the process continues, with changes that track the changing moral climate. Common Western morality today is markedly different from that of the 1950s, and different again from America of the 1860s. Historical and cultural relativism rears its head. And the Christian in particular would be wary of any moral consensus of an ungodly society in a fallen world.
Several attempts have been made to overcome these obstacles. One of these is the measured empiricism of utilitarians guided by careful generalizations about observable regularities in human behavior, which we analyzed in chapter five. But this, we concluded, is insufficient for defining the good, calculating consequences and ensuring distributive justice. It was supposedly scientific, objective and independent of all nonempirical input, but by itself it yields no oughts, no moral principles other than utility, and is in reality an ethical cul-de-sac, a dead-end street.
Conscience
Another attempt to overcome the limitations of a common morality, one developed by eighteenth-century “moral sense” phi losophers, maintained that we are all endowed by God with a specifically moral faculty which balances our natural tendency toward self-love with an additional tendency toward benevolence. [2] Some thought this moral faculty was a distinctive sentiment or feeling. Francis Hutcheson thought that an aesthetic appreciation for altruism offsets our egoism, while Lord Shaftesbury claimed that we feel pleasure when the two harmonize. Others regarded the moral sense as a cognitive faculty: denying I ought to keep a promise, for instance, is to say that a promise is not a promise, and that is self-contradictory. Bishop Butler labeled this kind of moral faculty “conscience.” [3]
But the two problems of common morality persist. The moral faculty (conscience, if you will) has only a limited range of operation, and on many matters we likely “have no conscience.” Moreover it varies significantly from person to person and culture to culture, seeming to depend on moral training and cultural conditioning as much as anything—as psychologists are quick to point out. Again relativism raises its head. Where then is the reliability of moral knowledge?
Note that Butler’s use of conscience for a universal moral faculty hardly coincides with the biblical usage. In Scripture, a person’s conscience can be weak, seared or defiled, and where it prods and pricks depends on how it is informed and shaped. It may indeed be informed by the biblical record of God’s law or by nature’s witness to the moral law (Rom 2:14-16), but it may also be sadly misinformed. Conscience in and of itself is a variable, unsure and often defective guide. If we take the term literally (Greek syneidēsis), it simply means a capacity to put things together and make judgments.
What then are we to make of the idea of a moral faculty? It represents a dated faculty psychology. It also seems an overly ambi tious theory if it does not reconcile our moral differences. In fact, William Frankena suggests that such a faculty simply indicates a “moral point of view” we take in caring about issues and wanting to make rational judgments about them in a personally disinterested way. [4] In itself it provides neither a substantive moral principle (like justice), nor moral rules, nor judgments about particular actions.
Intuitionism
Twentieth-century intuitionists take a somewhat different tack, locating the common moral sense in relation not to particular acts but to an overall moral principle. G. E. Moore claimed that our intuition is of the good in a utilitarian sense, [5] and W. D. Ross that it is of the right (the deontological principle). [6] Granted that basic intuition, we can derive further moral guidance—whether for good ends to seek or for right rules to follow.
Again two main criticisms can be leveled. First, moral intuition is so variable that radical differences arise among people’s intuitions. Second, we are not told what makes the good good or the right right. Ross allows that in some sense moral obligation is part of the structure of the universe, but this needs to be spelled out in a way that justifies his conclusions as to what is right.
Duty for Duty’s Sake
Taking as his starting point the common idea that only a good will is good without qualification, Immanuel Kant argued that a good will excludes willing something either because of its desirable consequences or because of our own inclinations. Nor is it enough to act just in accordance with duty; we must act out of regard for duty and respect for moral law. [7] This is a universal and necessary moral principle, and from it Kant develops various formulations of his famous categorical imperative. We should always act from maxims (rules), he says, that can without selfcontradiction be universalized. For example, a needy student might promise to repay a loan without any intention of doing so. But if this became a universal rule, nobody would ever make student loans. This guiding maxim would be self-contradictory, and should not be adopted in the first place. But this is a negative criterion which can only disqualify some things and rule them wrong. It cannot function positively in telling us what is right: we can bring candidates to the bar of reason, but we cannot derive moral rules for ourselves. Kant’s further formulation, “always treat persons as ends and not just as means,” is stated positively enough and can be very fruitful, but as it stands it, too, is not sufficient. To derive from it, for example, a full human rights theory that respects whatever is essential to personhood would additionally require definition of the essential characteristics of the human person. [8]
Kant’s perception of the need for a deontological principle is to be appreciated, as is his emphasis on right motivation and the inherent value of persons. But further objections have been raised to his extreme confidence in the person of good will and what is rationally derivable therefrom. In moral matters especially, we have mixed motives and a vast capacity for self-deception. We mask our true intentions by rationalizing what we do. The selfcontradictoriness of a morally wrong maxim is indeed significant; but we have problems, first, with our ability (and willingness) to expose such contradictions and, second, with the limited extent of application that results. Common morality once again appears an inadequate source of moral knowledge.
Where then shall we turn? For the theist, the key is the relationship of God to moral knowledge. We have, of course, the biblical revelation and the specific moral teaching it gives. We have drawn on what it says or implies about relativism, egoism and a purely consequentialist approach, about the good, about justice and love; we have its deontological emphasis on moral law. Now we must pick up on the biblical teaching about a general revelation of moral law accessible to all people at all times, to which all of us are accountable (Rom 1—3). I am not satisfied to locate that general revelation in a moral faculty or to give it an intuitionist interpretation.
Natural Law
The Bible comes closer, I suggest, to so-called natural law theories than it does to intuitionism. Here again care is needed, because natural law is sometimes identified with a common morality developed in the course of history. I have in mind, however, not this historicist view but instead the metaphysical natural law theories that find moral law written into the very nature of human existence.
The ancient Stoics initiated one such tradition, claiming that all nature is governed by rational laws that keep it operating in a harmonious and unified fashion, each part performing its proper function. [9] Natural law is then what reason prescribes for the harmonious and just ordering of a society, and, since we are rational beings, we can determine rationally what natural law requires. Centuries later, during the Enlightenment, this was picked up and further developed by John Locke, Thomas Jefferson and others in their theories of natural human rights divinely endowed. Locke also suggests that we can deduce moral law from the nature of the human person as a rational and self-determining being. [10] I shall return to this tradition when we discuss human rights in chapter nine.
Another natural law tradition comes from Aristotle, who held that every kind of thing that exists is endowed by nature with an inherent end to which it tends. The essence of humanness is that of a rational animal, so our natural end, indeed our highest and all-encompassing end, is to live a life in accordance with reason. [11] Thomas Aquinas, the medieval Christian scholar, took this further: since God created us to pursue good ends, we should always seek the good and avoid evil. For all beings whose natural end is to exist, humans included, there is a natural law of self-preservation. We should, for instance, protect human life. Again, in common with other animals, we have an essential and natural sexual drive and a tendency to educate our offspring. This, too, is a good end to which natural law directs us. As distinctively rational beings, moreover, we are directed into a rationally ordered society and are intended to know the truth about God. So an orderly society and truth about God we should also pursue. [12]
Natural law theories have had a long and lasting influence in the history of ethics. Their attractiveness is evident in that they provide an objective, as opposed to a subjective, basis for moral knowledge, and they check both common morality and individual beliefs by what is essential and universal to our humanness. The Stoic and Aristotelian versions, however, depend on their particular metaphysical theories, and no natural law ethic can be more firmly established than what it says about the nature of persons.
The Law of God and His Creation
The general concept of a moral law written into our nature as human beings is, however, theologically attractive. [13] This is an ordered creation, as we have observed before, and it is ordered with a view to God’s purposes in creating as he did. What he created is good, and the ends for which he created are also good—good ends that we as God’s servants should pursue. Equally telling, perhaps more so, are some biblical indications of this.
Paul in Romans 1 speaks of some human actions as contrary to nature: he echoes the Genesis record about man and woman created in God’s image, their lives and their heterosexuality protected therefore by the law of creation (Gen 1:26-31; 2:18-25; 4:8-16; 9:1-6). Elsewhere, too, Scripture takes note of a creationally based morality (Mt 19:4-12; Mk 7:18-23; 1 Tim 4:1-5; Jas 3:9). The Old Testament prophets hold nations accountable that did not have access to the Jewish law. It would perhaps be too much to say that the creation proves each ingredient in God’s moral law. The biblical direction is rather that the creation bears witness to the moral law, that creational indicators point to good ends God intended in making us as he did, and that God’s law is the law of creation.
It is important here to distinguish what is essential to human nature, inherent in it, from what is culturally or historically relative, superimposed by a particular society or by individual differences. Some, like Jacques Ellul, have argued that human nature is not now as God intended, that our sinfulness has destroyed the original structure of things, or that Christ’s kingdom is altogether new. [14] Theologians Thielicke and Bonhoeffer disagree, insisting that Jesus Christ himself is the Creator and that his grace restores us to the purposes for which he made us in the beginning (compare Heb 2:6-15). [15] The doctrine of common grace also assures us that God protects sinful people from the worst in themselves, bearing witness still to his creative wisdom and power.
But if disagreement about metaphysical views of human nature handicaps the older natural law theories, how can we proceed? Our starting points are the biblical indications that (1) this is an ordered creation and (2) we were made in God’s image and for his purposes. To these we may add (3) the biblical recognition of universal spheres of human action such as those delineated in the second half of the Decalogue, and (4) the divine appointment of some universal types of social institutions, such as those embodying the husband-wife relationship, economic relationships and the political order. These point out to us where natural moral indicators may be found in creation.
Parellels to this approach can be found in at least two philosophers. F. H. Bradley’s famous essay “My Station and Its Duties” derives a knowledge of moral duties from what one’s social, political or family status might be, for every role we play brings its own obligations. Bradley’s problem was that his conception of a station in life was too largely that of the conservative Englishman of his day. Again, W. D. Ross speaks of “trailing obligations” that accompany various human relationships and activities. Having made a promise, I have obligations. Being married and a parent brings obligations too. Both Bradley and Ross suggest in effect that we draw on a phenomenological description of universal aspects of human existence from which moral obligations follow.
A pattern for moral reasoning now emerges, suggested by the Christian doctrines of creation and general revelation but developed via an account of universal and essential features of human existence. With regard to any moral problem, several questions must be asked:
1. What universal human action spheres are involved (work, sex, play and so on), and what social institutions (family, government and so on)?
2. What are the essential purposes inherent in the nature of these human activities and these social institutions?
3. How can these purposes best be pursued with justice and love?
The first question is answered descriptively. But because each action sphere and institutional involvement brings its own moral responsibilities, we can speak with Ross of prima facie duties. [16] When such duties conflict and moral dilemmas arise, then one’s actual duty might be other than it would be in a simpler case. “Obey governmental authority” is a prima facie rule to be consistently followed, and we need overriding moral justification for any exception. But exceptions arise, for instance, if we have to choose between disobeying government and surrendering our Jewish neighbors to the Gestapo, or if we are drafted to serve in an unjust and disproportionate war.
The second question, that of God’s purposes inherent in our nature, may often be answered from a theology of our activities and institutions, a theology that draws together biblical indications about the purposes God intended in our sexuality, in our work and play, in the family, in government, and so forth. This requires a great deal of careful attention if we are to avoid slipping into the fallacies and heresies of our day. But we may also tackle the question on the basis of general revelation, from what we know of the essential and unavoidably inherent nature of such an activity or institution—despite our cultural or psychological differences. Some understanding of pertinent sciences will help. Are there features of human sexuality that speak to its intended ends? or of human work? or of marriage and family? or of punishment? [17]
We must emphasize that in looking for biblical and natural indications of the good ends we should pursue, we are, like Aristotle, thinking of what is universal and essential to humans, not what marks only some of us as individuals. Today’s common stress on self-actualization is individualistic, and a goal of individualistic self-actualization is a form of ethical egoism. Moreover, what promises to give us satisfaction and a sense of fulfillment individually may not at all be what God intended: our individual possibilities may be distortions of what is good. For the same reason, empirical generalizations about what people find fulfilling are not enough. We must look for creational indicators of what is inherent and essential. In regard to sex, for instance, potential for reproduction is biologically indisputable, and this fact has moral implications we will pursue later.
The third question, about how we should pursue the good ends for which we are created, presupposes a clear grasp of the principles of justice and love and what they require, as well as the ability to relate them to particulars. This is where consequences come in, for they affect the overall justice of an action or policy; they will be agonized over with love. This stage is often the hardest, for it requires a deep moral sensitivity, a careful knowledge of all the factors involved and wisdom in putting it all together. We must keep in mind that creationally based moral knowledge, like knowledge of other sorts, is less explicit than Scripture, and in acquiring it we are not infallible. Our ignorance will show, as will our oversights, hasty judgments and lack of wisdom. Our minds need always to be enlightened by God.
Observe where we have now come. Common morality, we argued, has some credibility but is piecemeal and subject to change. We needed both to account for its merits and to find something better grounded and more reliable. A creationally based ethic of the sort I have proposed is indeed better grounded, and the moral knowledge it affords is more self-critical and more reliable than unexamined intuitions or uncritical acceptance of a moral tradition. But at the same time it explains why common-sense morality has the value it does, and why our moral intuitions should at least be considered. If the moral law is indeed written into the way we are made, if there are any natural moral indicators bearing witness to what God intended in essential and universal areas of human activity, then we should expect some degree of moral awareness to have developed in these regards. And that is what common morality often reveals. Some moral beliefs are indeed quite “natural.”
Examples are now needed as to how the kind of moral knowledge envisioned here actually works, and these will follow shortly. But one further theoretical problem must come first: how can we move logically from what is essential and inherent in human existence to what ought to be? From where does the ought arise? The problem has haunted ethical theory, particularly the consequentialist views. How can a Christian ethic, which appeals to what is, handle the problem? That is the subject of our next chapter.