Philosophy

Week One Instructor’s Notes

Welcome to the study of ethics. Be sure that you are familiar with all the course documentation that has been posted to our D2L site. You will be held responsible to conduct yourself in exact accordance with all course instructions and policies.

In these Instructor’s Notes for the first week I want to help orient you in the subject you are going to study. So first I give a description of what ethics, also known as “moral philosophy”, is all about. Then I will briefly say something about how ethics is pursued from a philosophical perspective, the methodology of ethics.

What Ethics is All About

The branch of philosophy called Moral Philosophy (also called Ethics) can be

divided into two sub-branches, metaethics and normative ethics. In metaethics we address two kinds of question. First, we attempt to define the

terminology that is commonly used in discussions about ethics, discussions about what we ought to do, what policies we ought to devise, how we ought to treat others. Terms like ‘morally right’, ‘human rights’, ‘obligation’, ‘virtue’, ‘empathy’, ‘fair’, ‘democratic’, ‘well-being’, ‘justice’, ‘benevolence’, ‘care’, ‘informed consent’ ‘autonomy’, and so forth are common in ethical discussions. Part of the job of metaethics is to attempt to define these terms, and again, the job of definition is extraordinarily difficult. Each of these concepts is complex, and there is disagreement over how each is to be correctly defined. For example, there are many different kinds of human right; some rights (“general rights”) are said to be enjoyed by everyone (such as the right to life), while other rights (“specific rights”) are said to be enjoyed only by those with certain characteristics (for example, only those who are eighteen or older have the right to vote). Some rights are rights to have something (“positive rights”, like a right to basic nutrition), while other rights are rights to not be interfered with (“negative rights”, like the right to freedom of expression). And what does it mean, exactly, to say that someone has a right to something? This appears to be a complex characteristic involving obligations on the part of others. Further, we of course must ask “what rights do people have?”. The Bill of Rights gives one sort of answer to this question, while the Universal Declaration of Human Rights gives another. Other terms, like ‘justice’ and ‘virtue’, are even more complex, even more difficult to define.

The second job of metaethics is to attempt to answer the question “are any moral rules or claims or judgments true, and if so, how can we prove that they are true, how can we justify them?”. We are asking here the age-old and controversial question of whether there are any moral truths, whether there are any moral facts, or whether morality is simply a matter of convention or opinion or personal taste. If I say “Marva should not steal from the corner store”, I have made a claim about what is morally right; is my claim true, is it a fact that stealing from the corner store is wrong? And if so, how could I prove that what Marva is doing is wrong? There do not seem to be any scientific experiments I can perform or mathematical proofs I can give to show that what Marva is doing is wrong. In answering this question, philosophers divide into two camps: on the one hand are the moral realists and on the other are the moral anti-realists. Moral realists make three claims: (i) there are moral facts or truths, (ii) these facts or truths are independent

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of anyone’s opinions or beliefs, and (iii) we know some of these facts or truths.1 So the moral realists think that there is a moral order to the universe, that there are truths or morality; it is either right or wrong, in fact, to steal from the corner store or to invade Iraq or to euthanize the incurably sick. Moreover, these truths of morality have nothing to do with people at any given time think the truths or morality are. The moral facts are like physical or mathematical facts—it does not matter what people’s opinions or beliefs about those facts are. Even though many people believed at one time that the earth was flat, they were simply wrong. The earth, then as now, was roughly a spheroid, no matter what people’s opinions happened to be. Someone may not believe that -1+1=0, but they would just be wrong about the facts; the sum of -1 and 1 is not dependent on anyone’s beliefs or opinions about what that sum is. The moral realists say that morality is the same; there are right and wrong answers to moral questions, questions about how to live and how to treat others, and those answers do not depend in any way upon what people happen to believe the answers to those questions are; people can be mistaken about what the correct answer to a moral question is. Moral realism is a popular view about morality; many people seem to believe that moral discussions have a point, and that there is a correct answer to most moral questions. Many people seem to think that capital punishment and abortion are either right or wrong, and it is our duty to find out which.

Moral antirealism, on the other hand, comes in may different forms depending upon which of the three components of moral realism is denied. And each form of antirealism is also quite popular. For example, one form of moral antirealism called moral skepticism denies claim (iii) of the moral realist. The moral skeptic says that we can never have adequate justification for any moral claim (or rule or judgment), and so we have no moral knowledge. The moral skeptic leaves open the possibility that there are moral facts or truths, but just denies that we can ever know what any of those moral facts might be.

Another form of moral antirealism, moral relativism, accepts the realist’s claims (i) and (iii), but denies (ii). The moral relativist says that there are indeed moral truths, but those truths are dependent upon belief. In particular, moral relativism comes in two common forms (and there are others as well), individual moral relativism and cultural moral relativism. Individual moral relativism says that what is morally correct (true) for a person is determined by whatever that person believes is morally correct (true), that is, moral truth for a person is relative to their personal beliefs. So if I believe that stealing is wrong, then for me it is wrong; but if someone else believes that stealing is morally acceptable, then for them stealing is morally acceptable. Cultural moral relativism says that what is morally correct for a person is determined by (you guessed it) that person’s culture. If stealing from the corner store is acceptable in a person’s culture, then it is morally acceptable for that person to steal from the corner store.2

1 For readings on moral realism and anti-realism, see G. Sayre-McCord, ed., Essays on Moral Realism. 2 Clever arguments have been given in favor of both forms of relativism, but both forms of relativism also suffer from severe conceptual difficulties. In the case of individual relativism, we wonder about the status of the claim “what is morally correct for an individual is determined by their beliefs”; is that itself a moral claim? If so, relativism is somehow self-defeating, for if that claim is itself a moral claim, then it is only true for

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Other forms of moral antirealism include expressivism and moral nihilism. Expressivism is a denial of (i); the expressivist says that moral statements are just expressions of emotion, and so are not true or false. Saying that “Marva ought not steal from the corner store” is just to say something like “Marva’s stealing, YUCK” or “Boo on Marva’s stealing”. (When I stub my toe and say “Ouch”, my sentence, ‘Ouch’, is not true or false but is rather just an expression of feeling). Moral nihilists also deny (i), but make the radical claim that all moral language is utterly meaningless, and when people are engaged in moral discussions they are doing nothing more than uttering gibberish at each other. Of course, the nihilist must then explain why this strange practice of making meaningless noises at each other has developed in human societies, and why people typically take this activity as being so important. Part of the work of metaethics is to decide whether moral realism or some form of moral antirealism is correct.

Normative ethics has the task of figuring out what actually is morally required, morally acceptable, and morally wrong. The word ‘normative’ has ‘norm’ as its root; a norm is a rule for behavior. So the job here is to discover the correct norms for behavior. In normative ethics we ask, for example, “how should I treat others, what obligations do I have to others”? If I see someone in need and I am able to help, must I help? And how much help must I give? If I see someone collapse, is it morally acceptable for me to simply walk right by? Must I give ten percent of my income to help those in need? And what do I do if my obligations to others conflict? For example, sometimes my obligations to my family conflict with my obligations to my friends. Which obligations should take precedence? What should I do if my obligations to family conflict with my obligations to country? Because it also seems that people can have obligations to themselves, normative ethics also asks what my obligations to my self are. We are inclined to say that someone who spends all day every day watching infomercials, eating only Dorritos, and drinking whiskey with one hand and shooting up heroin with the other, is someone who has a character flaw, a moral flaw, because they are not fulfilling their obligations to themselves.

Not all philosophers who work in normative ethics think that we will never be able to state exceptionless rules for moral behavior because the variables that determine morally right action in particular cases are so complex that no rule we can formulate in advance will be correct in all cases. Aristotle is an example of such a philosopher.3

someone who believes it; if someone does not believe it, but rather endorses moral realism, then it seems that for them morality is not relative to what they happen to believe. In the case of cultural relativism, there is a great deal of conceptual work that has to be done before we can even begin to understand what the cultural relativist is saying exactly. We must know what it means for a moral rule or claim to be “accepted in a culture”. What exactly is a culture, and how do cultures determine a moral code? What happens if a culture’s moral code is inconsistent, that is, says contrary things about a particular moral question? It seems that cultures are often inconsistent in just this way. How do we determine what a person’s cultural affiliation is? And can a person be a member of more than one culture? If so, what if the moral codes of those cultures conflict? 3 His great work on normative ethics is the Nicomachean Ethics; the translation by T. Irwin available from Hackett publishers is excellent.

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Aristotle believed that the job of normative ethics was not to find rules for morally correct behavior, but rather to discover what a person ought to seek in life, what he called “the highest good”. Normative ethics, for Aristotle, was the study of how to live the best life, what the best thing to seek in life is. He thought that the highest good was what he called eudaimonia, which means something like “flourishing as a human being”. So the study of normative ethics is the study of what it means to flourish as a person, what it means to be an excellent example of the species. For Aristotle, flourishing as a human being involves becoming a virtuous person; so part of the work of normative ethics is to say what the virtues are and to determine how they can be acquired.

In normative ethics we also tackle moral questions that arise in particular kinds of context. For example, in medical ethics we consider moral questions that arise in health care: for example, is euthanasia morally acceptable, at least in certain kinds of case?, must a doctor inform their patient of all relevant information about their case, even if doing so will have an adverse effect on the patient’s health?, is basic health care a general human right?. In environmental ethics we consider questions concerning our moral obligations to the non-human environment: must human communities fit more closely with nature?, may we eat meat?, may we use non-human animals for medical experimentation?, do we owe any obligation to future generations to conserve vital resources?, should forests be preserved?, and other such questions. In political philosophy we consider questions about the proper nature of government and the limits of government authority (is democracy the most fair form of government?, is a proportional parliamentary system the most just form of democracy?, to what extent should government regulate economic activity?, when is it morally acceptable to declare war?, is a flat tax more just than a progressive tax system?, is civil disobedience morally legitimate?, should personal wealth be limited to aid the poor?). We also consider questions of legal theory in political philosophy (sometimes called philosophy of law), for example, should guilt be determined by jury?, what limits should be observed by agents of the state during investigations?, is it appropriate for investigators to lie to suspects they are interrogating?, should torture be used in interrogation?, is capital punishment morally acceptable?, and so forth.

An example of an argument from normative ethics is an argument devised by the Libertarian philosopher John Hospers, an argument designed to prove that everyone has a right to own private property. We often take this for granted, but we should always try to find good reason for our beliefs. Moreover, there are some who have claimed that private property is a form of theft and ought to be abolished, and many more who claim that the right to property ought to be severely limited in many kinds of circumstance. So having an argument to establish a right to private property will help us see what sorts of limits on property ownership might make moral sense. Here is Hospers’ argument:

(1) Everyone has the right to live as they choose, compatibly with the same right of everyone else. (the Libertarian Principle)

(2) In order to exercise my right to live as I choose I will need to own the tools to do so, I will need some private property.

(3) Everyone has a right to whatever is necessary in order to exercise any rights that they have.

Thus, everyone has a right to private property.

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The first premise is the basis of the Libertarian theory of morality, we can call this the Libertarian Principle. The idea is that since no person owns another, we all have the right to live according to our own decisions, as long as we do not interfere with anyone else’s decisions about how to live their lives. This is why Libertarians oppose taxation, seat belt laws, and drug regulations. Premise (2) points out that if I am going to live according to my choices, I will need ready access to the tools necessary to do that. For example, if I choose to go to school, I need to own some books, a pen, and some paper. I could not be successful in school if anyone could simply use my books whenever they wanted; often I would not be able to read the book when I needed to. By owning the book I am ensured that when I need to read it, in order to live in accord with my choice to study, I will be able to read it. Premise (3) makes the claim that if there is something necessary for me to enjoy a right that I have, I must have a right to that which is necessary. Otherwise, there is no real sense in which I have the first right. For example, in order to exercise my right to freedom of expression, it is necessary that I be able to appear in public without my mouth being gagged. So if I really have the right to freedom of expression, I must also have the right to appear in public without my mouth being gagged.

The premises of this argument are certainly attractive, and the conclusion does seem to follow from those premises. But certainly there are objections that can be made if we think carefully and creatively enough. As an exercise, construct a couple of objections to the Libertarian argument.

Methodology of Ethics

We address the questions of metaethics and normative ethics in the following

manner. First, we state an answer to the question at hand, being sure to give working definitions for those terms in the answer that are complex, controversial, or ambiguous. We then must state an argument that supports the answer. That is, we must give reasons that will prove that our answer is correct. The reasons given in an argument are called its premises. The example above concerning the Libertarian view of property rights is an argument offered to support the conclusion that everyone has a right to private property (perhaps offered in answer to the question “is private property morally permissible?”). Claims (1), (2) and (3) are the premises of that argument. A philosophical approach to ethics is thus a reasoned or principled approach in which we try to identify those general moral reasons or principles that show that our moral conclusions are correct.

Once an argument has been offered for a moral position, it will be our job to ask two questions. First, we will ask what insights, what truths are expressed in the argument. Even when we disagree with its conclusion or one or more of its premises, when an argument has been carefully presented there are usually helpful insights and moral truths expressed in the premises and conclusion. Our first job is always to ask what those truths are. Second, we attempt to construct objections to the argument, even when we agree with the premises and the conclusion. There are two kinds of objection that can be made to an argument. On the one hand, we may object that one or more of the premises is false. On the other hand, we may object that the conclusion would not follow from the premises even if the premises were all true, that is, we might object that the argument is invalid.

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After objection, the discussion continues, by answering objections and proposing new arguments and conclusions. Course Structure

Our focus this term will be normative ethics (although in the last week of the term we will do some reading on questions of metaethics). And we will approach questions of normative ethics from the perspective of four different conceptions of what is valuable or morally significant. Chapter 4 of the Weston text explains how this approach will work, and then Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8 explain each of the four different value perspectives in detail. Then we will learn some tools for seeing how to best apply those different perspectives to actual moral questions that we face; that is the subject of Chapters 9 through 14 of Weston (of which we will read most though not all). Finally, we will see how different philosophers apply different values to actual moral questions, and everyone will get exercise in applying the different values as they see fit in those same cases; that is the subject of Parts 1, 2, and 3 of the George text. Part 4 of George discusses various questions in metaethics. So in summary, you will (a) learn about four different moral perspectives, (b) learn strategies for applying those perspectives to actual moral questions, and (c) apply those perspectives to actual moral questions as part of a dialogue with professional philosophers.