PHIL 201
WHY BE MORAL? TRANSCRIPT
S1:
Hello, and welcome to this presentation for PHIL 201: Philosophy and Contemporary Ideas. I am
Dr. Mark Foreman. With this presentation, we begin our final unit in this course—a unit on
ethics.
A good way we might begin this unit is to ask the question, “Why be moral? Why should we live
a moral kind of life?” In order to understand that question, we first need to understand what the
question is asking.
S2:
What do I mean when I ask the question, “Why be moral?” The question itself is somewhat
vague and ambiguous. So we need to make some important distinctions. There are two
distinctions I want to make to understand exactly what I’m asking before we try to answer it.
The first distinction is to distinguish between motive and justification. My motive has to do with
why I am doing something. The justification behind it has to do with why it is the right thing to
do. Sometimes we tend to conflate these two—we bring them together as if they are the same
thing. But they really are not.
Suppose you and I are traveling down the road one day. You’re driving the car and I’m sitting in
the passenger side, and we are just talking. Then you begin to up your speed a little bit. Let’s say
the speed limit on the road is 55, but you are doing 70 miles per hour. Down the road in front of
us, we see a car pulled off to the side of the road. We see the familiar lights on top of the car. All
of a sudden, you put your brake on to slow down to 55 miles per hour. I turn to you and ask you,
“Why are you going slower? Why are you going 55 miles per hour?” Your immediate answer
might be “because I don’t want to get a ticket. I don’t want the police officer to pull me over. I
don’t want a ticket on my record. I don’t want to have to pay a fine.” What you are telling me is
your motive for slowing down, and it is a perfectly reasonable answer.
But it could be that I was asking you another question. Maybe by saying “Why are you going 55
miles per hour,” what I meant to say was “Why is this the right thing to do? Why do we have
speed limits? Why is it right to go 55 miles per hour? That is really a different question. We don’t
have speed limits so that policemen can give us tickets. Speed limits are there to make the roads
safer for everybody around. If you are going at a slower speed, you’ll have more control over
your vehicle. If an emergency comes up, you’ll be able to stop quicker. There are all sorts of
reasons for why we have speed limits. That question is asking for the justification for why we
have the moral law, not necessarily your motive for why you should follow it. There is a big
difference between motive and justification, so we need to keep them separate for the time being.
What I’m really asking for in my question, “Why be moral?” is not your motive behind it. Your
motive could be all sorts of reasons. You’re moral because you don’t want people to think ill of
you, you want people to think well of you, so you live a moral life in front of them. Or you are
moral because you think God will think good of you. Those are all good reasons for the motive,
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but I’m asking more for the justification. Why is being moral the right way to live? Why is that
the right thing to do? That’s a different question than the motive question.
There’s another distinction we need to make that I believe is very important in understanding this
question. We need to make a distinction between specific actions and the moral point of view.
Again, the question itself is somewhat vague. I could be asking you why the particular action that
you are doing is the morally right or wrong thing to do here. In other words, I could be asking
you about a specific action like “Why is it morally right to do this as opposed to doing that?” But
that’s not really what I want to do here. I want to get to something else. What I really want to talk
about is why are you adopting what we call the moral point of view? Why is that the right thing
to adopt? That’s the real question I want to ask.
Again, to understand the question, we need to know what I mean by the moral point of view.
S3:
The moral point of view is basically an approach to life that involves at least these four basic
elements:
1. First of all, it is to subscribe to normative judgments about actions, principles, and
motives. What do we mean by a “normative judgment”? It is simply a judgment of right
and wrong. When we say we adopt the moral point of view, we certainly recognize that
certain actions are right and certain actions are wrong. We’re going to make judgments
about that. Or certain principles or certain motives behind what people do are right or
wrong. We make those kinds of judgments. So the first aspect of the moral point of view
is that we make judgments—normative judgments, value judgments—about actions,
principles, and motives.
2. The second part of the moral point of view is to universalize judgments concerning
morally relevant similar situations. What do we mean by “universalize” our judgments?
When I something is right or wrong, I’m not saying it is only right or wrong for me; I’m
saying it’s right or wrong for everybody in this particular situation to have done that. If
it’s wrong for me to rob or mug somebody, it’s wrong for everybody to rob or mug
somebody. That’s what it means to universalize. But notice I say it is concerning morally
relevant similar situations. What we mean is that when we make a judgment about
something being right or wrong, we are saying it in a morally relevant way.
a. For example, is it wrong to take a knife and cut somebody with it? Not always.
Surgeons do this all the time. But there are certainly some situations where it is
wrong. Like if a mugger comes to rob somebody and cuts them with a knife, then
it’s wrong. So what we mean is, in morally relevant similar situations to that, it’s
morally wrong for everybody to do it—not just me. But we do recognize that
there are some situations where cutting somebody may be perfectly legitimate. So
we want to universalize our judgments concerning morally relevant similar
situations.
3. A third aspect of the moral point of view is to formulate ethical views in a free, impartial
and enlightened way. What we mean by this is that we have an obligation to make sure
our ethical view that we hold is freely formed—that we are not forced to take this view.
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We are not being coerced; this is our view that we freely take. We are impartial when we
take this view. We are not just taking the ethical view that fulfills our desires. We are
saying that this is the best view for everyone involved. We are enlightened—we are
taking the time to reflect, to think about our ethical views. That is very important. It’s
important that you formulate the ethical view that you think is right freely, impartially,
and that you really reflect on it. I might disagree with your ethical view about something,
but I can at least respect it if you have reflected and you are freely taking this impartial
view. I really have a problem with a person I might agree with, but who hasn’t taken the
time to think much about ethics. So we need to formulate our ethical views in a free,
impartial, and enlightened way.
4. Finally, the fourth aspect of the moral point of view is what we call the Synderesis Rule.
This word, Synderesis, is kind of an old word. It comes out of the Middle Ages, and it
means “to promote the good and to avoid evil.” This is kind of the first principle behind
all morality. We recognize that morality is about promoting that which is good and
avoiding that which is evil. We certainly strive to do that in a moral point of view.
The moral point of view involves these four basic elements.
To subscribe to normative judgments about actions, principles, and motives.
To universalize judgments concerning morally relevant similar situations.
To formulate ethical views in a free, impartial and enlightened way.
To follow the Synderesis Rule: to promote the good and to avoid evil.
Our question, of course, is “why should I adopt this as a way of life?” I don’t have to. I could be
a relativist and say there is no morality out there. I won’t make any moral judgments about
anybody. I will allow life to go on: you do what you want to do, and I will do what I want to do.
But most of us have adopted something like this moral point of view. Why? Why should we
adopt this? There are three basic answers.
S4:
There are three general answers to the question, “Why should I be moral?”
1. First of all, there’s the consequentialistic answer: we should be moral because it achieves
the best results. In fact, that’s what many people think morality is about. It is about
achieving good results, and being moral will help us achieve those results. That’s why we
are moral: we want to achieve the best consequences we can achieve. This method is
called Consequentialistic Ethics, and it has resulted in a number of theories. Two of the
most important ones are 1) egoism, which is concerned with the best results for me, and
2) utilitarianism, which is concerned for the best results for everyone else. It is moral
because it will achieve the best results for everybody involved. I think utilitarianism is
probably the most popular theory in our Western society. Most people tend to think this
way. You do that which is best for the majority of people to make them as happy and
fulfilled as you possibly can. So Consequentialistic Ethics says we should be moral
because it achieves the best results.
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2. Deontological Ethics, which is another method for doing ethics, says we should be moral
because it is right in and of itself. It doesn’t look at something outside of itself, like
consequences, to determine what is right or wrong. It says that some things are right and
some things are wrong, and we should do the right things because they are right. We have
a duty to do that which is right. A number of theories come out of this. These theories are
differentiated by where they get their ethical rules from or moral rules from
a. Divine Command Theory says our moral rules come from the divine commands
of God. That is how we determine what is right and what is wrong. We follow
them because they are from God and they are right.
b. Natural Law Theory says that our moral rules come from examining within
ourselves. Our human nature will tell us what is right and what is wrong. Our
human nature is a reflection of the nature of God, we are all created in the image
of God, and therefore, in an indirect way, this also appeals to God for where our
moral rules come from.
c. Kantian Duty-Based Theory argues that reason is how we arrive at our moral
rules. We use reason, and that which is irrational or unreasonable is something
that is wrong to do. That’s what Kant will say in his duty-based theory.
But all of the deontological ethics want to say that we do things because they are right, in
and of themselves and not because of results. These first two methods, Consequentialistic
Ethics and Deontological Ethics, are the two most heavily competing methods. Do we do
it because of results, or do we do it because it is the right thing to do?
3. There is a third view that has just recently (in the past 20 years or so) become very
predominant in ethics. It is called Aretaic Ethics, which says that we should be moral
because that is the kind of person we want to be. This is where virtue ethics comes from.
a. Virtue-based ethical theories want to say that we’ve misplaced the debate. We are
always talking about what we should do, what is the right thing to do. But what
we should really be talking about in ethics is what is the right kind of person to
be. Because if we are the right kind of person, then what we do and the results
will all flow out of who we are. So the most important question is “what kind of
person do I want to be?” And that is how I determine what is right or what is
wrong.
S5:
Another way that we can examine this question is to note that there are three elements to every
moral event.
S6:
You have a person (represented here by a nurse)…
S7:
…who performs an action (doing something good, such as helping with surgery)…
S8:
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…that has a result (you see here a healthy patient with the nurse).
Person, action, and result. Those are the three elements involved in every moral event.
S9:
The question we want to ask is, “Where is the good in this event?” We recognize that morality is
all about achieving the good. But exactly where is the good located.
S10:
Some locate the good in the consequences. They say that morality is all about achieving good
consequences. We do that which achieves the good.
S11:
Some would argue that the good is located in the action itself—that some actions are right and
some actions are wrong. We do the good when we perform the right action. That is doing good in
and of itself. Those are our Deontologists.
S12:
Finally, there are some who argue that the good is in the person. It is the person that is good, and
if we have good persons, good persons will do good actions that will have good results.
Therefore, we should be concentrating on persons.
Those are our virtue ethics theories. Person, action, result. Virtue ethics, deontology,
consequentialism. Where is the good located? That’s something you have to decide. As you study
through this section on ethics, hopefully you will come to a decision about where you think this
should be. Maybe there is a way to put all three of these together—to prioritize them in some sort
of way. That is something that you have to decide as you read through the material.
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