FOR LADY TAYLOR PHD

examined_life__mdc_textbook.pdf

Home >Literature homework help >FOR LADY TAYLOR PHD

An Examined Life Critical Thinking and Ethics

Octavio Roca Matthew Schuh

01_bos5511X_TitleCopyright_i-ii.indd 1 10/07/14 9:15 PM

Copyright © 2015 by McGraw-Hill Education LLC. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a data base retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 TBA TBA 17 16 15 14

ISBN-13: 978-1-259-35511-0 ISBN-10: 1-259-35511-X

Learning Solutions Consultant: Salim Bradley Project Manager: Kathy Phelan Cover Designer: SPi Global Cover Photo Credits: Lester Daniel Sánchez, El Techero (private collection)-El Techero

01_bos5511X_TitleCopyright_i-ii.indd 2 10/07/14 9:15 PM

Contents

INTRODUCTION 1 Letter to Menoeceus (complete): Reading 4 Letter from Birmingham Jail (complete): Reading 9 The Rebel(selection): Reading 24

Part I. CRITICAL THINKING 1. CHAPTER 1: How and why we make moral arguments. 37 Introduction 37 “Fetch and roll over weren’t enough—then they sent me to philosophy classes.” 45 Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake? (selection): Reading 46 The Guest (complete): Reading 55

Part II. ETHICAL THEORIES 2. CHAPTER 2: Wrong Is Always Wrong—Kant’s Categorical Imperative. 71 Introduction 71 Concerning a Pretended Right to Lie from Motives of Humanity (selection): Reading 74 “It all depends on how you define ‘chop.’” 79 Lying (selection): Reading 80

3. CHAPTER 3: Consequences Matter—Utilitarianism. 93 Introduction 93 An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (selection): Reading 96 Utilitarianism (selection): Reading 107

4. CHAPTER 4: Continental Perspectives 118 Introduction 118 “Religion is the opium of the people, Fred.” “Just say no, Karl.” 121 Manifesto of the Communist Party (selection): Reading 122 Existentialism Is a Humanism (complete text): Reading 134 The Myth of Sisyphus (selection): Reading 152

http://create.mcgraw-hill.com

Copyright by McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

This McGraw-Hill Create text may include materials submitted to McGraw-Hill for publication by the instructor of this course. The instructor is solely responsible for the editorial content of such materials. Instructors retain copyright of these additional materials.

ISBN-10: ISBN-13:

2014

1308242034 9781308242033

iii

02_bos5511X_FM_piii-viii.indd 3 25/07/14 7:48 am

5. CHAPTER 5: A Matter of Virtue 158 Introduction 158 “Doing something never solves anything.” 160 “‘Give me liberty or give me death.’ Now, what kind of person would say something like that?” 163 After Virtue (selection): Reading 165 “I’ve tried a lot of life strategies, and being completely self-serving works best for me.” 175

6. CHAPTER 6: Does It Matter How I Feel About It? Ethical Subjectivism. 177 Introduction 177 A Treatise of Human Nature (selection): Reading 179

7. CHAPTER 7: Does Morality Depend on God or Society? Relativism, Divine Command, Natural Law. 187

Introduction 187 “We can be proud of our little Attila. He has totally absorbed the Hun ethic.” 189 Cultural Relativism and Cultural Values (selection): Reading 193 “I hope this isn’t meant to be a criticism of our current life style.” 207 Euthyphro (complete text): Reading 208 “This is a little embarrassing to admit, but everything that happens happens for no real reason.” 222

Part III. CONTEMPORARY ETHICAL ISSUES 8. CHAPTER 8: Women’s Rights, Human Rights 227 Introduction 227 The Subjection of Women (selection): Reading 230 Feminism and Moral Theory (selection): Reading 241 The Making of a Woman: Reading 254 What Do Women Want in a Moral Theory? (selection): Reading 260

9. CHAPTER 9: Humans and Other Living Creatures 274 Introduction 274 “I was a very fragile kid.” 276 “They’ve got me doing cosmetics research.” 277 The Rights of the Nonhuman World (selection): Reading 278

10. CHAPTER 10: Whose Life is It Anyway? Euthanasia, Assisted Suicide, Suicide. 298 Introduction 298 The Wrongfulness of Euthanasia (complete): Reading 301 Active and Passive Euthanasia (complete): Reading 307 “Is this what I want to be doing with my death?” 314 Looking for the Exit Door (selection): Reading 315

11. CHAPTER 11: The Death Penalty 323 Introduction 323 The Metaphysics of Morals (selection): Reading 326 Capital Punishment (selection): Reading 332 “I’m sorry, but I’m morally and politically opposed to hangman.” 347

12. CHAPTER 12: Sexual Morality and Reproductive Rights 349 Introduction 349 The Vatican Declaration on Sexual Ethics 352 Gay Basics: Some Questions, Facts, and Values (complete): Reading 357 On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion (selection): Reading 372

02_bos5511X_FM_piii-viii.indd 4 25/07/14 7:48 am

13. CHAPTER 13: Civil Rights and the Struggle for Racial Equality 384 Introduction 384 Remarks at the “Let Freedom Ring” Ceremony Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of

the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom by Barack Obama 388 The Case Against Affirmative Action (selection): Reading 392 Affirmative Action: Pro (selection): Reading 403

14. CHAPTER 14: Marriage Equality 416 Introduction 416 In Defense of Marriage: The Amendment That Will Protect a Fundamental Institution by

John Cornyn 421 “On the contrary, I do feel that our marriage still works, we just have to start marketing it

differently.” 427 Questions About Same-Sex Marriage by Human Rights Campaign 428

15. CHAPTER 15: Free Speech 437 Introduction 437 On Liberty (selection): Reading 439 There’s No Such Thing as Free Speech and It’s a Good Thing Too (selection): Reading 451

16. CHAPTER 16: The World As We Found It 460 Introduction 460 The Age Of Innocence 462 Global Climate Change by William J. Clinton 463 “When the waters subside, the problem’s going to be mold.” 471

17. CHAPTER 17: Critical Thinking and the Good Life 473 Introduction 473 On the Happy Life (selection): Reading 475 “A grand jury sitting in Terre Haute, Indiana, today handed up an indictment of society.” 486 Visible Man: Ethics in a World without Secrets by Peter Singer 487 The Elements of Moral Philosophy (selection): Reading 492 “But, remember, you’re responsible for your own happiness.” 504

02_bos5511X_FM_piii-viii.indd 5 25/07/14 7:48 am

Credits

1. Letter to Menoeceus (complete): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 4 2. Letter from Birmingham Jail (complete): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 9 3. The Rebel (selection): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 24 4. Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake? (selection): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 46 5. The Guest (complete): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 55 6. Concerning a Pretended Right to Lie from Motives of Humanity (selection): Reading:

from Abel: Discourses 74 7. “It all depends on how you define ‘chop.’”: Cartoon from The New Yorker Cartoon Collection 79 8. Lying (selection): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 80 9. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (selection): Reading:

from Abel: Discourses 96 10. Utilitarianism (selection): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 107 11. “Religion is the opium of the people, Fred.” “Just say no, Karl.”: Cartoon from The New Yorker

Cartoon Collection 121 12. Manifesto of the Communist Party (selection): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 122 13. Existentialism Is a Humanism (complete text): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 134 14. The Myth of Sisyphus (selection): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 152 15. After Virtue (selection): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 165 16. “I’ve tried a lot of life strategies, and being completely self-serving works best for me.”: Cartoon from

The New Yorker Cartoon Collection 175 17. A Treatise of Human Nature (selection): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 179 18. Cultural Relativism and Cultural Values (selection): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 193 19. “I hope this isn’t meant to be a criticism of our current life style.”: Cartoon from The New Yorker

Cartoon Collection 207 20. Euthyphro (complete text): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 208 21. “This is a little embarrassing to admit, but everything that happens happens for no real reason.”:

Cartoon from The New Yorker Cartoon Collection 222 22. The Subjection of Women (selection): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 230 23. Feminism and Moral Theory (selection): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 241 24. The Making of a Woman: Reading: from The Sociology Collection 254 25. What Do Women Want in a Moral Theory? (selection): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 260 26. “I was a very fragile kid.”: Cartoon from The New Yorker Cartoon Collection 276 27. “They’ve got me doing cosmetics research.”: Cartoon from The New Yorker Cartoon Collection 277 28. The Rights of the Nonhuman World (selection): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 278 29. The Wrongfulness of Euthanasia (complete): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 301

02_bos5511X_FM_piii-viii.indd 6 25/07/14 7:48 am

30. Active and Passive Euthanasia (complete): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 307 31. “Is this what I want to be doing with my death?”: Cartoon from The New Yorker Cartoon

Collection 314 32. Looking for the Exit Door (selection): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 315 33. The Metaphysics of Morals (selection): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 326 34. Capital Punishment (selection): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 332 35. “I’m sorry, but I’m morally and politically opposed to hangman.”: Cartoon from The New Yorker

Cartoon Collection 347 36. The Vatican Declaration on Sexual Ethics: Chapter 7 from Analyzing Moral Issues, Sixth Edition by

Boss, 2013 352 37. Gay Basics: Some Questions, Facts, and Values (complete): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 357 38. On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion (selection): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 372 39. Remarks at the “Let Freedom Ring” Ceremony Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the March on

Washington for Jobs and Freedom by Barack Obama: Annual Editions Article Collection 388 40. The Case Against Affirmative Action (selection): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 392 41. Affirmative Action: Pro (selection): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 403 42. In Defense of Marriage: The Amendment That Will Protect a Fundamental Institution by John Cornyn:

Annual Editions Article Collection 421 43. “On the contrary, I do feel that our marriage still works, we just have to start marketing it differently.”:

Cartoon from The New Yorker Cartoon Collection 427 44. Questions About Same-Sex Marriage by Human Rights Campaign: Annual Editions Article

Collection 428 45. On Liberty (selection): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 439 46. There’s No Such Thing as Free Speech and It’s a Good Thing Too (selection): Reading: from Abel:

Discourses 451 47. The Age Of Innocence: Cartoon from The New Yorker Cartoon Collection 462 48. Global Climate Change by William J. Clinton: Annual Editions Article Collection 463 49. “When the waters subside, the problem’s going to be mold.”: Cartoon from The New Yorker Cartoon

Collection 471 50. On the Happy Life (selection): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 475 51. “A grand jury sitting in Terre Haute, Indiana, today handed up an indictment of society.”: Cartoon from

The New Yorker Cartoon Collection 486 52. Visible Man: Ethics in a World without Secrets by Peter Singer: Annual Editions Article

Collection 487 53. The Elements of Moral Philosophy (selection): Reading: from Abel: Discourses 492 54. “But, remember, you’re responsible for your own happiness.”: Cartoon from The New Yorker Cartoon

Collection 504

vii

02_bos5511X_FM_piii-viii.indd 7 25/07/14 7:48 am

02_bos5511X_FM_piii-viii.indd 8 25/07/14 7:48 am

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

1Introduction

INTRODUCTION

Our task needs explaining, and the explanation is simple. Critical thinking and ethics can easily be treated as separate branches of philosophy, but in this book it is our goal to bring them together and show them to be not only related but necessarily so. Ethics, as Socrates noted long ago, is about how nothing less than we ought to live. The right way to live and the right thing to do are questions as old as humanity, and they remain as challenging as ever. They are not easy questions, but the fact that a question is difficult does not mean that there is no answer. It simply means the question is difficult.

And so with philosophy in general and with ethics in particular. “The unexamined life is not worth living,” Socrates said shortly before his death, as reported in Plato’s Apology. How should we examine our lives critically? How do we seek moral truths?

Some questions are easier than others. The statement “2+2=4” is true, because I or anyone else can verify it: Just take two of anything, add two more of the same thing, and you will always have four. You can use your fingers. There is no situation where the answer will be 3 or 17. The statement “My dog Jordi is on the couch” is true if indeed I can see that Jordi is on the couch wagging his tail as I utter the statement. That’s easy to verify. The statements “Lying is wrong,” “I don’t owe anything to anybody,” “Affirmative action is no longer necessary” and others along those lines are more difficult to ascertain as true or false. The problem is far from clear. Since Kurt Gödel famously rocked the foundations of mathematics in 1931 by demonstrating that not every mathematical truth can be proved, verifiability and truth are not always seen as companions. The dazzling clarity of “2+2=4” may be something to aim for, but there are many who believe we will never reach that sort of clarity in higher math, much less in moral matters. Still, we try.

This book of readings and commentary follows the path of those efforts. Part I, Critical Thinking, lays the foundation for moral arguments and involves the student in constructing, analyzing, and evaluating those arguments as well as in applying critical thinking skills to everyday life. Common fallacies, valid inferences, induction, deduction, and abduction all are explored with a view to providing students with analytical tools that are crucial in making moral decisions. Critical thinking, the way we apply logic to solve a problem or answer a question, is a skill that no one is born with. We have to learn it. Along the same lines, no one is born good or bad; we have to learn that too. Ethics is a systematic study of that learning process.

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 1 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

2 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

An Examined Life: Critical Thinking and Ethics

Because moral questions are hardly new, and there is no need to rein- vent the wheel, Part II, Ethical Theories, provides an overview of the main historical threads of moral philosophy, that is, the way great thinkers before us and today have dealt and continue to deal with tough ethical problems. Here we will consider all the elements of a moral decision: the act in ques- tion; the consequences of that act; and the moral agent, that is, the person performing the act. At every step, our aim is to connect theory with praxis, to illuminate the relation between an ethical theory with its application to a specific moral problem, to analyze how ethical theory helps explain the pro- cess of deciding right and wrong. In other words, Part II deals with thinking critically about the right way to live and the right thing to do when faced with ethical problems. Part 3, Contemporary Ethical Issues, offers a wide selec- tion of some of these problems and provides practical ways to analyze specific moral decisions. Women’s rights, civil rights, marriage equality, reproductive rights, assisted suicide and euthanasia, the death penalty, the way we treat animals and the way we treat the Earth, the way we treat ourselves—all of these topics and others that merit lively debate are included. All of them benefit from a solid foundation in critical thinking as well as with a close acquaintance with moral theory. Instructors in any undergraduate ethics course may choose to emphasize one part more than another in this text- book, and indeed each part could be the basis for a whole semester’s worth of class discussion. Taken as a whole, The Examined Life: Critical Thinking and Ethics provides the opportunity to apply critical thinking to real moral prob- lems, not just to read about ethics but to live ethically by informed choice.

The success of this book will be measured by how our students become better able to analyze moral arguments, to recognize moral pitfalls, to strive for clarity as they strive for engagement in their society. It will measured by how students distinguish between persuasion and influence, by how they may see through biased reports in the news media, by how they apply critical thinking skills to evaluate political ads, talk-radio rants, Internet claims and outrageous tweets. The success of Critical Thinking and Ethics will be measured by students who are encouraged to dig deeper and pick Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex or any of the several major works that are excerpted here. In that sense, we hope to provide not only a textbook but also a context for a lifelong path of thinking critically about moral matters, for a way to live an examined life.

The context must be there, for all our students. Ours is not a homoge- neous student population, and increasingly there seems to be less and less of a shared culture in our exuberantly multicultural society. Our humanity and our reasoning should be common ground. That is our starting point.

“There always comes a time in history when the person who dares to say that 2+2=4 is punished by death. And the issue is not what reward or what punishment will be the outcome of that reasoning. The issue is simply that 2+2=4.” Albert Camus

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 2 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

3Introduction

The problem with the American melting pot myth is that a lot of people just don’t want to melt. Pointing this out is one of the ways to highlight the diverse array of colors in the mosaic of American democracy and culture. It is also a way to enrich the students’ awareness of critical thinking and ethics as an integral thread in the fabric of our lives.

When it comes to the American student body in the 21st Century, diver- sity is not an agenda, it is a reality.

Informed civic engagement with that diversity is a necessity. This is not in any way a question of arid scholarship. It is far from being a project for insulated academics to carry out in a mythical ivory tower. Today’s students boast a dazzling rainbow of economic, racial, ethnic and cultural backgrounds. African-Americans, Cuban-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Venezuelan-Americans—to name only a few Hispanic-Americans—in addition to Brazilian-Americans, Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, Norwegian-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Christian-Americans, Muslim- Americans, Buddhist-Americans and more. None of these have to live on that hyphen, none of them ever should have. And none can be excluded from the scope of studying critical thinking and ethics, from learning effec- tive ways to reason and to consider their values and those of society criti- cally, to recognize good and bad arguments when presented with them in their daily lives.

In the American student body of the 21st Century, recognizing diversity is crucial in another way. There are students in our classrooms who will con- tinue their studies in some of the finest graduate schools, medical schools, business schools, law schools; students who will go on to careers in film, theater, dance and art; students who even now may be well on the road to playing key roles in their communities as police officers, fire-fighters, nurses, future politicians. There also are students on work-release programs from prison. Students with fortunate backgrounds and supportive families, and students who may find themselves homeless and living in a car during the semester. There are students that professors have learned to treat kindly if they fall asleep in an early morning class because perhaps they have stayed up all night cleaning a local food store. Their desire to get an education is heroic. These are all, it is worth noting, recent real examples from the authors’ own Critical Thinking and Ethics classes at the nation’s largest insti- tution for higher learning. These students, all of them, deserve the chance.

All of them deserve the opportunity because opportunity changes every- thing. And we will all be better off, our society will be better off, if all of them are equipped with critical thinking skills, if they start on the road to informed civic engagement, to becoming caring and responsible citizens. If all of them can bring open-mindedness to their engagement with different points of view. If all of them are better equipped to use their reason. This is their country, this is our country. These are our students, and it to them above all that Critical Thinking and Ethics is dedicated.

Octavio Roca and Matthew Schuh

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 3 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

4 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

Letter to Menoeceus

Epicurus

Epicurus was born of Athenian parents in 341 B.C.E. on Samos, an island off the coast of Asia Minor. At fourteen he began studying philosophy under Pamphilius, a follower of Plato. He then spent three years at Teos, a city on the coast of Asia Minor, as a student of Nausiphanes, who was a disciple of Democritus. When he was eighteen, Epicurus went to Athens to serve two years in the military (a requirement for Athenian citizenship). He then rejoined his parents, who had moved to Colophon in western Asia Minor. Epicurus continued to study philosophy and in 311 established a school at Mytilene, a city on the island of Lesbos. He later set up a school at Lampsacus, on the Hellespont. In 307, accompanied by his followers, Epicurus came to Athens and purchased a house. The house had a garden, and this became the site of Epicurus’s school. The school was a community of men and women—and at least one slave—who lived according to the master’s teachings. Epicurus headed the community (which came to be called “the Garden”) until he died in 270, at the age of seventy-two.

Most of Epicurus’s writings have been lost. What remains is a collection of his sayings known as the Principal Doctrines, another collection called The Vatican Sayings (so named because the manuscript is in the Vatican Library), fragments of his treatise On Nature, a letter to Herodotus, and a letter to Menoeceus. An additional work, in the form of a letter from Epicurus to Pythocles, seems to be have been written by a disciple.

Our reading is the Letter to Menoeceus. Epicurus sets forth for Menoeceus his central teachings pertaining to the proper conduct of life. (1) The gods exist, are immortal and blessed, and take pleasure in human beings who are like themselves. (2) It is foolish to fear death, since death is nothing when we are alive (it has not yet come) and nothing when we are dead (since we no longer exist). (3) The first principle and goal of a happy life is pleasure, which is not sensual indulgence (as Epicurus’s detractors misrepresent his doctrine) but “the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul.” (4) The fundamental virtue is prudence, which enables us to choose pleasures intelligently. (5) We are responsible for our actions and are not ruled by necessity or chance.

▼

Epicurus to Menoeceus:1 Greeting. Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the

search [of it] when he is grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul. And to say that the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness is not yet or that it is now no more. Therefore both old and young ought to seek wisdom, the former in order that, as age comes over him, he may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been; and the latter in order that, while he is young, he may at the same time be old, because he has no fear of the things which are to come. So we must exercise ourselves in the things which bring happiness, since, if that be present, we have everything, and, if that be absent, all our actions are di- rected toward attaining it.

Those things which without ceasing I have declared to you, those do, and exercise yourself [in them], holding them to be the elements of right

Letter to Menoeceus (complete): Reading 5An Examined Life: Critical Thinking and Ethics Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete) © The McGraw−Hill Companies, 2006

life. First, believe that God is a living being immortal and blessed, accord- ing to the notion of a god indicated by the common sense of mankind. And so believing, you shall not affirm of him aught that is foreign to his im- mortality or that agrees not with blessedness, but shall believe about him whatever may uphold both his blessedness and his immortality. For verily there are gods, and the knowledge of them is manifest; but they are not such as the multitude believe, seeing that men do not steadfastly maintain the notions they form respecting them. Not the man who denies the gods worshipped by the multitude, but he who affirms of the gods what the mul- titude believes about them, is truly impious. For the utterances of the mul- titude about the gods are not true preconceptions but false assumptions. Hence it is that the greatest evils happen to the wicked and the greatest blessings happen to the good from the hand of the gods, seeing that they are always favourable to their own good qualities and take pleasure in men like unto themselves, but reject as alien whatever is not of their kind.

Accustom yourself to believe that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply sentience, and death is the privation of all sentience. Therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life an illimitable time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For life has no terrors for him who has thorough- ly apprehended that there are no terrors for him in ceasing to live. Foolish, therefore, is the man who says that he fears death, not because it will pain when it comes, but because it pains in the prospect. Whatever causes no an- noyance when it is present, causes only a groundless pain in the expectation. Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that when we are, death is not come; and when death is come, we are not. It is nothing, then, either to the living or to the dead, for with the living it is not, and the dead exist no longer. But in the world, at one time men shun death as the greatest of all evils, and at another time choose it as a respite from the evils in life. The wise man does not deprecate life nor does he fear the cessation of life. The thought of life is no offence to him, nor is the cessation of life re- garded as an evil. And even as men choose of food not merely and simply the larger portion, but the more pleasant, so the wise seek to enjoy the time which is most pleasant and not merely that which is longest. And he who ad- monishes the young to live well and the old to make a good end speaks fool- ishly, not merely because of the desirableness of life, but because the same exercise at once teaches to live well and to die well. Much worse is he who says that it were good not to be born, but when once one is born to pass with all speed through the gates of Hades. For if he truly believes this, why does he not depart from life? It were easy for him to do so, if once he were firmly convinced. If he speaks only in mockery, his words are foolishness—for those who hear, believe him not.

We must remember that the future is neither wholly ours nor wholly not ours, so that neither must we count upon it as quite certain to come, nor despair of it as quite certain not to come.

6 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 4 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

Letter to Menoeceus (complete): Reading 5Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

Letter to Menoeceus

Epicurus

▼

Epicurus to Menoeceus:1 Greeting. Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the

Those things which without ceasing I have declared to you, those do, and exercise yourself [in them], holding them to be the elements of right

Letter to Menoeceus (complete): Reading 5 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete) © The McGraw−Hill Companies, 2006

We must remember that the future is neither wholly ours nor wholly not ours, so that neither must we count upon it as quite certain to come, nor despair of it as quite certain not to come.

6 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 5 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

We must also reflect that, of desires, some are natural, others are groundless; and that of the natural some are necessary as well as natural, and some natural only. And of the necessary desires, some are necessary if we are to be happy, some if the body is to be rid of uneasiness, some if we are even to live. He who has a clear and certain understanding of these things will direct every preference and aversion toward securing health of body and tranquillity of mind, seeing that this is the sum and end of a blessed life. For the end of all our actions is to be free from pain and fear, and, when once we have attained all this, the tempest of the soul is laid— seeing that the living creature has no need to go in search of something that is lacking, nor to look for anything else by which the good of the soul and of the body will be fulfilled. When we are pained because of the ab- sence of pleasure, then—and then only—do we feel the need of pleasure. Therefore we call pleasure the [first principle and the goal] of a blessed life. Pleasure is our first and kindred good. It is the starting-point of every choice and of every aversion, and to it we come back, inasmuch as we make feeling the rule by which to judge of every good thing. And since pleasure is our first and native good, for that reason we do not choose every plea- sure whatsoever, but often pass over many pleasures when a greater annoy- ance ensues from them. And often we consider pains superior to pleasures when submission to the pains for a long time brings us as a consequence a greater pleasure. While therefore all pleasure, because it is naturally akin to us, is good; not all pleasure is choiceworthy—just as all pain is an evil, and yet not all pain is to be shunned. It is, however, by measuring one against another, and by looking at the conveniences and inconveniences, that all these matters must be judged. Sometimes we treat the good as an evil, and the evil, on the contrary, as a good. Again, we regard [being inde- pendent] of outward things as a great good, not so as in all cases to use lit- tle, but so as to be contented with little if we have not much, being honestly persuaded that they have the sweetest enjoyment of luxury who stand least in need of it, and that whatever is natural is easily procured and only the vain and worthless hard to win. Plain fare gives as much pleasure as a costly diet, when once the pain of want has been removed, while bread and water confer the highest possible pleasure when they are brought to hungry lips. To habituate oneself, therefore, to simple and inexpensive diet supplies all that is needful for health and enables a man to meet the necessary require- ments of life without shrinking, and it places us in a better condition when we approach at intervals a costly fare and renders us fearless of fortune.

When we say, then, that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are under- stood to do by some through ignorance, prejudice, or wilful misrepresenta- tion. By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul. It is not an unbroken succession of drinking-bouts and of revel- ry, not sexual love, not the enjoyment of the fish and other delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, search-

Letter to Menoeceus (complete): Reading 7 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete) © The McGraw−Hill Companies, 2006

ing out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest tumults take possession of the soul. Of all this the beginning and the greatest good is prudence. Therefore pru- dence is a more precious thing even than philosophy; from it spring all the other virtues, for it teaches that we cannot lead a life of pleasure which is not also a life of prudence, honour, and justice; nor lead a life of pru- dence, honour, and justice, which is not also a life of pleasure. For the virtues have grown into one with a pleasant life, and a pleasant life is insep- arable from them.

Who, then, is superior in your judgement to such a man? He holds a holy belief concerning the gods and is altogether free from the fear of death. He has diligently considered the end fixed by nature and under- stands how easily the limit of good things can be reached and attained, and how either the duration or the intensity of evils is but slight. Destiny, which some introduce as sovereign over all things, he laughs to scorn, affirming rather that some things happen of necessity, others by chance, others through our own agency. For he sees that necessity destroys responsibility and that chance or fortune is inconstant; whereas our own actions are free, and it is to them that praise and blame naturally attach. It were better, in- deed, to accept the legends of the gods than to bow beneath that yoke of destiny which the natural philosophers2 have imposed. The one holds out some faint hope that we may escape if we honour the gods, while the ne- cessity of the naturalists is deaf to all entreaties. Nor does he hold chance to be a god, as the world in general does, for in the acts of a god there is no disorder; nor to be a cause, though an uncertain one, for he believes that no good or evil is dispensed by chance to men so as to make life blessed, though it supplies the starting-point of great good and great evil. He be- lieves that the misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool. It is better, in short, that what is well judged in action should not owe its successful issue to the aid of chance.

Exercise yourself in these and kindred precepts day and night, both by yourself and with him who is like you; then never, either in waking or in dream, will you be disturbed, but will live as a god among men. For man loses all semblance of mortality by living in the midst of immortal blessings.

NOTES

1. Nothing is known about Menoeceus. [D.C.A., ed.] 2. natural philosophers: philosophers of nature; natural scientists [D.C.A.]

8 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

An Examined Life: Critical Thinking and Ethics6

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 6 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

Letter to Menoeceus (complete): Reading 7Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

Letter to Menoeceus (complete): Reading 7 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete) © The McGraw−Hill Companies, 2006

NOTES

1. Nothing is known about Menoeceus. [D.C.A., ed.] 2. natural philosophers: philosophers of nature; natural scientists [D.C.A.]

8 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 7 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

Letter to Menoeceus Epicurus

Reading Questions

According to Epicurus:

1. Why do the gods bestow blessings on the good and bestow evils on the wicked?

2. Why is death nothing to either the living or the dead?

3. What is the end (goal) of all our actions? What occurs when we attain this goal?

4. Why are some pleasures not choiceworthy, even though all pleasure is good?

5. What does prudence teach us?

Discussion Questions

In your own view:

1. Is it foolish to fear death?

2. Is pleasure the ultimate goal of life?

3. Are all pleasures good?

4. Are some pleasures qualitatively better than others? If so, is this because something other than pleasure is intrinsically good?

5. Are virtues intrinsically good, or good only insofar as they lead to pleasure?

Letter to Menoeceus (complete): Reading 9Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete) © The McGraw−Hill Companies, 2006

An Examined Life: Critical Thinking and Ethics8 Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy

Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

Letter From Birmingham Jail

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. He attended Morehouse College and during his senior year decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and be- come a Baptist minister. Upon graduating in 1948, he entered Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. There he was deeply influenced by Mohandas Ghandi’s philosophy of nonviolence and became convinced that black Americans should use this strategy to attain their civil rights. King received his bachelor of divinity degree in 1951. He then began doctoral studies in theology at Boston University, com- pleting his degree in 1955. While still working on his doctorate, King became pastor at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. In 1954 he led a boycott of the city transit company to protest segregated seating on buses. Within a year the buses were desegregated. Encouraged by this success, King began to work for civil rights on a national basis by forming the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1960 he moved to Atlanta, where he directed the Conference and served as copastor (with his father) at Ebenezer Baptist Church. In 1963 he and many others were arrested and jailed for participating in a demonstration in Birmingham. Later that year King helped organize a massive demonstration in Washington, D.C., for civil rights leg- islation. King addressed the crowd, proclaiming ‘‘I have a dream’’— a dream of inter- racial equality and harmony. The following year King received the Nobel Prize for Peace. In 1968, while in Memphis to support a strike by sanitation workers, he was killed by a sniper’s bullet.

King’s works include Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (1958), Why We Can’t Wait (1964), and Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967).

Our reading is King’s ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (published in Why We Can’t Wait), an essay King wrote in 1963 when in jail for protesting segregation at lunch counters and discrimination in hiring practices. King’s essay is a response to eight members of the clergy who had published a statement criticizing his civil rights activi- ties as ‘‘unwise and untimely.’’ King explains that blacks in America have waited for over three centuries to gain their basic human rights — and that they should wait no longer. In answer to the objection that his nonviolent activities sometimes violate laws, King distinguishes just and unjust laws. Just laws should be obeyed, but unjust laws are not binding because they contradict moral laws and degrade human beings. There are some situations in which even just laws are not binding, however. For example, a law requiring a permit for a parade is just, but it need not be obeyed when it is used for the unjust purpose of denying citizens the right of peaceful assembly and protest. King explains that a person who breaks a just law as a form of protest must do so openly and with a willingness to accept the penalty. Responding to the charge that he is an ex- tremist, King points out that nonviolent protest is certainly less extreme than violence. He admits, however, that in a certain way he is an extremist — an extremist for love and justice.

▼ April 16, 1963 My Dear Fellow Clergymen: While confined here in Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities ‘‘unwise and untimely.’’ Seldom do I

18 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 8 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

9Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

Letter to Menoeceus Epicurus

Reading Questions

According to Epicurus:

1. Why do the gods bestow blessings on the good and bestow evils on the wicked?

2. Why is death nothing to either the living or the dead?

3. What is the end (goal) of all our actions? What occurs when we attain this goal?

4. Why are some pleasures not choiceworthy, even though all pleasure is good?

5. What does prudence teach us?

Discussion Questions

In your own view:

1. Is it foolish to fear death?

2. Is pleasure the ultimate goal of life?

3. Are all pleasures good?

4. Are some pleasures qualitatively better than others? If so, is this because something other than pleasure is intrinsically good?

5. Are virtues intrinsically good, or good only insofar as they lead to pleasure?

Letter to Menoeceus (complete): Reading 9Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete) © The McGraw−Hill Companies, 2006

Letter from Birmingham Jail (complete): Reading

The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think inten- sively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest men- ace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no mor- als.” Martin Luther King

Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy

Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

Letter From Birmingham Jail

Martin Luther King, Jr.

King’s works include Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (1958), Why We Can’t Wait (1964), and Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967).

18 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 9 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

An Examined Life: Critical Thinking and Ethics10 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy

Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for any- thing other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.

I think I should indicate why I am here in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the view which argues against ‘‘outsiders coming in.’’ I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every southern state, with head- quarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty-five affiliated organiza- tions across the South, and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Frequently we share staff, educational and financial re- sources with our affiliates. Several months ago the affiliate here in Birming- ham asked us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct-action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented, and when the hour came we lived up to our promise. So I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here. I am here because I have organiza- tional ties here.

But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their ‘‘thus saith the Lord’’ far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what hap- pens to Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial ‘‘outside agitator’’ idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an out- sider anywhere within its bounds.

You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the condi- tions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city’s white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.

In any nonviolent campaign there are four steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification; and di-

Letter from Birmingham Jail (complete): Reading 19 Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

rect action. We have gone through all these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Bir- mingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good-faith negotiation.

Then, last September, came the opportunity to talk with leaders of Bir- mingham’s economic community. In the course of negotiations, certain promises were made by the merchants — for example, to remove the stores’ humiliating racial signs. On the basis of these promises, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to a moratorium on all demonstrations. As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken prom- ise. A few signs, briefly removed, returned; the others remained.

As in so many past experiences, our hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us. We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community. Mindful of the difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self-purification. We began a series of workshops on nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves: ‘‘Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?’’ ‘‘Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?’’ We decided to schedule our direct-action program for the Easter season, realiz- ing that except for Christmas, this is the main shopping period of the year. Knowing that a strong economic-withdrawal program would be the by-prod- uct of direct action, we felt that this would be the best time to bring pressure to bear on the merchants for the needed change.

Then it occurred to us that Birmingham’s mayoralty election was com- ing up in March, and we speedily decided to postpone action until after election day. When we discovered that the Commissioner of Public Safety, Eugene ‘‘Bull’’ Connor, had piled up enough votes to be in the run-off, we decided again to postpone action until the day after the run-off so that the demonstrations could not be used to cloud the issues. Like many others, we waited to see Mr. Connor defeated, and to this end we endured postpone- ment after postponement. Having aided in this community need, we felt that our direct-action program could be delayed no longer.

You may well ask: ‘‘Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?’’ You are quite right in calling for negotia- tion. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a commu- nity which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing

20 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 10 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

11Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy

Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

In any nonviolent campaign there are four steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification; and di-

Letter from Birmingham Jail (complete): Reading 19 Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

20 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1 Letter from Birmingham Jail (complete): Reading

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 11 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

An Examined Life: Critical Thinking and Ethics12 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy

Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent-resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word ‘‘tension.’’ I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socra- tes felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.

The purpose of our direct-action program is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.

One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is untimely. Some have asked: ‘‘Why didn’t you give the new city administration time to act?’’ The only answer that I can give to this query is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one, before it will act. We are sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Albert Boutwell as mayor will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is a much more gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to maintenance of the status quo. I have hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reason- able enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Indi- viduals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was ‘‘well timed’’ in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word ‘‘Wait!’’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This ‘‘Wait’’ has almost always meant ‘‘Never.’’ We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that ‘‘justice too long delayed is justice denied.’’

We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God- given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, ‘‘Wait.’’

Letter from Birmingham Jail (complete): Reading 21 Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your 20 million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you sud- denly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amuse- ment park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an un- conscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an an- swer for a five-year-old son who is asking: ‘‘Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?’’; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading ‘‘white’’ and ‘‘colored’’; when your first name becomes ‘‘nigger,’’ your middle name becomes ‘‘boy’’ (however old you are) and your last name becomes ‘‘John,’’ and your wife and mother are never given the respected title ‘‘Mrs.’’; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of ‘‘nobodiness’’ — then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: ‘‘How can you advocate break- ing some laws and obeying others?’’ The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘‘an unjust law is no law at all.’’

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because seg- regation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segrega-

22 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 12 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

13Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy

Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

Letter from Birmingham Jail (complete): Reading 21 Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

22 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1 Letter from Birmingham Jail (complete): Reading

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 13 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

An Examined Life: Critical Thinking and Ethics14 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy

Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

tor a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an ‘‘I – it’’ relationship for an ‘‘I – thou’’ relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an exis- tential expression of man’s tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.

Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.

Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state’s segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Ne- groes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured?

Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.

I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segrega- tionist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the con- science of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the high- est respect for law.

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks

Letter from Birmingham Jail (complete): Reading 23 Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobe- dience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was ‘‘legal’’ and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was ‘‘illegal.’’ It was ‘‘illegal’’ to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country’s anti-religious laws.

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward free- dom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘‘order’’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’’; who paterna- listically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘‘more convenient season.’’ Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would under- stand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transi- tion from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively ac- cepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn’t this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of

24 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 14 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

15Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy

Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

Letter from Birmingham Jail (complete): Reading 23 Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

24 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1 Letter from Birmingham Jail (complete): Reading

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 15 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

An Examined Life: Critical Thinking and Ethics16 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy

Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn’t this like condemning Jesus because his unique God-consciousness and never-ceasing devotion to God’s will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must come to see that, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber.

I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth con- cerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: ‘‘All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thou- sand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth.’’ Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democ- racy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.

You speak of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I began thinking about the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of compla- cency, made up in part of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppres- sion, are so drained of self-respect and a sense of ‘‘somebodiness’’ that they have adjusted to segregation; and in part of a few middle-class Negroes who, because of a degree of academic and economic security and because in some ways they profit by segregation, have become insensitive to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up across the nation, the largest and best-known being Elijah Muhammad’s Muslim movement. Nourished by the Negro’s frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination, this movement is made up of people who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man is an incorrigible ‘‘devil.’’

Letter from Birmingham Jail (complete): Reading 25 Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need emu- late neither the ‘‘do-nothingism’’ of the complacement nor the hatred and despair of the black nationalist. For there is the more excellent way of love and nonviolent protest. I am grateful to God that, through the influence of the Negro church, the way of nonviolence became an integral part of our struggle.

If this philosophy had not emerged, by now many streets of the South would, I am convinced, be flowing with blood. And I am further convinced that if our white brothers dismiss as ‘‘rabble-rousers’’ and ‘‘outside agita- tors’’ those of us who employ nonviolent direct action, and if they refuse to support our nonviolent efforts, millions of Negroes will, out of frustration and despair, seek solace and security in black-nationalist ideologies — a de- velopment that would inevitably lead to a frightening racial nightmare.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him that it can be gained. Consciously or unconsciously, he has been caught up by the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America and the Caribbean, the United States Negro is moving with a sense of great urgency toward the promised land of racial justice. If one recognizes this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community, one should readily understand why public demonstrations are taking place. The Negro has many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations, and he must release them. So let him march; let him make prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; let him go on freedom rides — and try to understand why he must do so. If his repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history. So I have not said to my people: ‘‘Get rid of your discontent.’’ Rather, I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now this approach is being termed extremist.

But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an ex- tremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a mea- sure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: ‘‘Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.’’ Was not Amos an extremist for justice: ‘‘Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.’’ Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: ‘‘I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.’’ Was not Martin Luther an extremist: ‘‘Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God.’’ And John Bunyan: ‘‘I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience.’’ And Abraham Lincoln: ‘‘This nation cannot survive half slave and half free.’’ And Thomas Jefferson: ‘‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. . . . ’’ So the ques- tion is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will

26 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 16 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

17Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy

Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

Letter from Birmingham Jail (complete): Reading 25 Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

26 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1 Letter from Birmingham Jail (complete): Reading

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 17 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

An Examined Life: Critical Thinking and Ethics18 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy

Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary’s hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime — the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

I had hoped that the white moderate would see this need. Perhaps I was too optimistic; perhaps I expected too much. I suppose I should have real- ized that few members of the oppressor race can understand the deep groans and passionate yearnings of the oppressed race, and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent and determined action. I am thankful, however, that some of our white brothers in the South have grasped the meaning of this social revolution and com- mitted themselves to it. They are still all too few in quantity, but they are big in quality. Some — such as Ralph McGill, Lillian Smith, Harry Golden, James McBride Dabbs, Ann Braden and Sarah Patton Boyle — have written about our struggle in eloquent and prophetic terms. Others have marched with us down nameless streets of the South. They have languished in filthy, roach- infested jails, suffering the abuse and brutality of policemen who view them as ‘‘dirty nigger-lovers.’’ Unlike so many of their moderate brothers and sisters, they have recognized the urgency of the moment and sensed the need for powerful ‘‘action’’ antidotes to combat the disease of segregation.

Let me take note of my other major disappointment. I have been so greatly disappointed with the white church and its leadership. Of course, there are some notable exceptions. I am not unmindful of the fact that each of you has taken some significant stands on this issue. I commend you, Reverend Stallings, for your Christian stand on this past Sunday, in welcom- ing Negroes to your worship service on a nonsegregated basis. I commend the Catholic leaders of this state for integrating Spring Hill College several years ago.

But despite these notable exceptions, I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say this as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I say this as a minister of the gospel, who loves the church; who was nurtured in its bosom; who has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen.

When I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery, Alabama, a few years ago, I felt we would be supported by the white church. I felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South would be among our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright op- ponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresent- ing its leaders; all too many others have been more cautious than coura- geous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained-glass windows.

Letter from Birmingham Jail (complete): Reading 27 Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

In spite of my shattered dreams, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the channel through which our just grievances could reach the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disap- pointed.

I have heard numerous southern religious leaders admonish their wor- shipers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers declare: ‘‘Follow this decree because integration is morally right and because the Negro is your brother.’’ In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sancti- monious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard many ministers say: ‘‘Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern.’’ And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other-worldly religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular.

I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other southern states. On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South’s beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive outlines of her massive religious-education buildings. Over and over I have found myself asking: ‘‘What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of inter- position and nullification? Where were they when Governor Wallace gave a clarion call for defiance and hatred? Where were their voices of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?’’

Yes, these questions are still in my mind. In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise? I am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson and the great-grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.

There was a time when the church was very powerful — in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians en- tered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being ‘‘disturbers of the peace’’ and ‘‘outside agitators.’’ But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were ‘‘a colony of heaven,’’ called to obey God rather than man. Small

28 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 18 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

19Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy

Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

Letter from Birmingham Jail (complete): Reading 27 Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

28 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1 Letter from Birmingham Jail (complete): Reading

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 19 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

An Examined Life: Critical Thinking and Ethics20 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy

Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be ‘‘astronomically intimidated.’’ By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests.

Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent — and often even vocal — sanction of things as they are.

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrele- vant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into out- right disgust.

Perhaps I have once again been too optimistic. Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world? Per- haps I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual church, the church within the church, as the true ekklesia and the hope of the world. But again I am thank- ful to God that some noble souls from the ranks of organized religion have broken loose from the paralyzing chains of conformity and joined us as active partners in the struggle for freedom. They have left their secure con- gregations and walked the streets of Albany, Georgia, with us. They have gone down the highways of the South on tortuous rides for freedom. Yes, they have gone to jail with us. Some have been dismissed from their churches, have lost the support of their bishops and fellow ministers. But they have acted in the faith that right defeated is stronger than evil trium- phant. Their witness has been the spiritual salt that has preserved the true meaning of the gospel in these troubled times. They have carved a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of disappointment.

I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of this decisive hour. But even if the church does not come to the aid of justice, I have no despair about the future. I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are at present misunderstood. We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with America’s destiny. Before the pilgrims landed at Plym- outh, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence across the pages of history, we were here. For more than two centuries our forebears labored in this country without wages; they made cotton king; they built the homes of their masters while suffering gross injustice and shameful humiliation — and yet out of a bot- tomless vitality they continued to thrive and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.

Letter from Birmingham Jail (complete): Reading 29 Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

Before closing I feel impelled to mention one other point in your state- ment that has troubled me profoundly. You warmly commended the Bir- mingham police force for keeping ‘‘order’’ and ‘‘preventing violence.’’ I doubt that you would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent Negroes. I doubt that you would so quickly commend the policemen if you were to observe their ugly and inhumane treatment of Negroes here in the city jail; if you were to watch them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls; if you were to see them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys; if you were to observe them, as they did on two occasions, refuse to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together. I cannot join you in your praise of the Birmingham police department.

It is true that the police have exercised a degree of discipline in handling the demonstrators. In this sense they have conducted themselves rather ‘‘nonviolently’’ in public. But for what purpose? To preserve the evil system of segregation. Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. Perhaps Mr. Connor and his policemen have been rather nonviolent in public, as was Chief Pritchett in Albany, Georgia, but they have used the moral means of nonviolence to maintain the immoral end of racial injustice. As T. S. Eliot has said: ‘The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason.’’

I wish you had commended the Negro sit-inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of great provocation. One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to face jeering and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a 72-year-old woman in Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride segregated buses, and who responded with ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired about her weariness: ‘‘My feet is tired, but my soul is at rest.’’ They will be the young high school and college students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and will- ingly going to jail for conscience sake. One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo-Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Decla- ration of Independence.

30 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 20 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

21Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy

Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

Letter from Birmingham Jail (complete): Reading 29 Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

30 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1 Letter from Birmingham Jail (complete): Reading

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 21 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

An Examined Life: Critical Thinking and Ethics22 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy

Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

Never before have I written so long a letter. I’m afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts and pray long prayers?

If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me.

I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circum- stances will soon make it possible for me to meet each of you, not as an integrationist or a civil-rights leader but as a fellow clergyman and a Chris- tian brother. Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radi- ant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.

Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood Martin Luther King, Jr.

Letter from Birmingham Jail (complete): Reading 31 Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

Letter from Birmingham Jail Martin Luther King, Jr.

Reading Questions

According to King:

1. What happened when black leaders sought to negotiate with the city officials of Birmingham? What happened after promises were made to black leaders by the leaders of Birmingham’s economic community?

2. What is a person’s moral responsibility when confronted with an unjust law? What determines whether a law is just or unjust?

3. Why are white moderates a serious obstacle to the civil rights movement?

4. What will happen if today’s church does not regain the sacrificial spirit of the early church?

5. Who are the real heroes of the civil rights movement?

Discussion Questions

In your own view:

1. Is it morally permissible to disobey an unjust law? Is it morally obligatory?

2. What is the proper criterion for determining whether a law is unjust?

3. Are those who commit civil disobedience morally obligated to accept the legal penalties?

4. Is nonviolence a more effective strategy than violence for changing unjust social conditions?

5. In what circumstances, if any, is it morally permissible to use violence to protest unjust social conditions?

32 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 22 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

23Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy

Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood Martin Luther King, Jr.

Letter from Birmingham Jail (complete): Reading 31 Abel: Discourses Political and Social Philosophy Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’’ (complete)

Letter from Birmingham Jail Martin Luther King, Jr.

Reading Questions

According to King:

2. What is a person’s moral responsibility when confronted with an unjust law? What determines whether a law is just or unjust?

3. Why are white moderates a serious obstacle to the civil rights movement?

4. What will happen if today’s church does not regain the sacrificial spirit of the early church?

5. Who are the real heroes of the civil rights movement?

Discussion Questions

In your own view:

1. Is it morally permissible to disobey an unjust law? Is it morally obligatory?

2. What is the proper criterion for determining whether a law is unjust?

3. Are those who commit civil disobedience morally obligated to accept the legal penalties?

4. Is nonviolence a more effective strategy than violence for changing unjust social conditions?

5. In what circumstances, if any, is it morally permissible to use violence to protest unjust social conditions?

32 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1 Letter from Birmingham Jail (complete): Reading

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 23 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

An Examined Life: Critical Thinking and Ethics24 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Albert Camus, ‘‘The Rebel’’(selection)

The Rebel

Albert Camus

Albert Camus was born in 1913 in Mondavi, Algeria. When he was less than a year old, his father was killed in a battle in World War I. His mother then moved the family to Algiers, where Albert attended primary and secondary school. He later enrolled in the University of Algiers, where his academic interests were literature, theater, and philoso- phy and he supported himself by doing odd jobs. His social concern led him to join briefly the Algerian Communist Party (1934 – 1935). Additionally, he founded an ama- teur theater and began writing and producing plays. Camus graduated from the Uni- versity of Algiers in 1936 with a degree in philosophy. He then pursued a career as a journalist, working first in Algiers and then, for a brief time, in Paris. In 1940 he re- turned to Algiers and taught in a private school. Two years later he went back to Paris, writing for the leftist newspaper Combat and serving as its editor from 1944 to 1947. While holding these various jobs, Camus also wrote and published essays, novels, and plays. From 1947 on, he devoted himself full-time to writing — and was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1957. Camus died in an automobile accident near Sens, France, in 1960.

Camus’s major works are Caligula (play; written 1938, published 1945), The Stranger (novel, 1942), The Myth of Sisyphus (essay, 1942), The Plague (novel, 1947), The Rebel (essay, 1951), The Fall (novel, 1956), and The Possessed (play, 1959).

Our reading is Part One of Camus’s essay The Rebel. In this section, which has the same title as the essay as a whole, Camus presents his initial overview of the nature of rebellion. (The remaining sections of the essay explore the notion of rebellion in greater detail.) He explains that a rebel is someone who rejects an infringement of his or her rights and who simultaneously affirms certain values — values that are common to all human beings. The rebel adopts an ‘‘all or nothing’’ attitude, wanting either to be identified with those values or to be destroyed by the forces opposing them. After contrasting his concept of rebellion with the German philosopher Max Scheler’s no- tion of resentment, Camus explains that genuine rebellion is possible only in societies where persons are aware of their freedom to accept or reject religion and its absolute values. The rebel must reject religion, but how can the rebel ground the values that underlie his or her rebellion without it? Camus argues that the basis of these values lies in the human solidarity implied in the very act of rebellion.

▼

Part One: The Rebel

What is a rebel? A man who says no, but whose refusal does not imply a renunciation. He is also a man who says yes, from the moment he makes his first gesture of rebellion. A slave who has taken orders all his life suddenly decides that he cannot obey some new command. What does he mean by saying ‘‘no’’?

He means, for example, that ‘‘this has been going on too long,’’ ‘‘up to this point yes, beyond it no,’’ ‘‘you are going too far,’’ or, again, ‘‘there is a limit beyond which you shall not go.’’ In other words, his no affirms the

8 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Albert Camus, ‘‘The Rebel’’(selection)

existence of a borderline. The same concept is to be found in the rebel’s feeling that the other person ‘‘is exaggerating,’’ that he is exerting his au- thority beyond a limit where he begins to infringe on the rights of others. Thus the movement of rebellion is founded simultaneously on the categori- cal rejection of an intrusion that is considered intolerable and on the con- fused conviction of an absolute right which, in the rebel’s mind, is more precisely the impression that he ‘‘has the right to . . .’’ Rebellion cannot exist without the feeling that, somewhere and somehow, one is right. It is in this way that the rebel slave says yes and no simultaneously. He affirms that there are limits and also that he suspects — and wishes to preserve — the existence of certain things on this side of the borderline. He demonstrates, with obstinacy, that there is something in him which ‘‘is worthwhile . . .’’ and which must be taken into consideration. In a certain way, he confronts an order of things which oppresses him with the insistence on a kind of right not to be oppressed beyond the limit that he can tolerate.

In every act of rebellion, the rebel simultaneously experiences a feeling of revulsion at the infringement of his rights and a complete and spontane- ous loyalty to certain aspects of himself. Thus he implicitly brings into play a standard of values so far from being gratuitous that he is prepared to support it no matter what the risks. Up to this point he has at least remained silent and has abandoned himself to the form of despair in which a condition is accepted even though it is considered unjust. To remain silent is to give the impression that one has no opinions, that one wants nothing, and in certain cases it really amounts to wanting nothing. Despair, like the absurd, has opinions and desires about everything in general and nothing in particular. Silence expresses this attitude very well. But from the moment that the rebel finds his voice — even though he says nothing but ‘‘no’’ — he begins to de- sire and to judge. The rebel, in the etymological sense,1 does a complete turnabout. He acted under the lash of his master’s whip. Suddenly he turns and faces him. He opposes what is preferable to what is not. Not every value entails rebellion, but every act of rebellion tacitly invokes a value. Or is it really a question of values?

Awareness, no matter how confused it may be, develops from every act of rebellion: the sudden, dazzling perception that there is something in man with which he can identify himself, even if only for a moment. Up to now this identification was never really experienced. Before he rebelled, the slave accepted all the demands made upon him. Very often he even took orders, without reacting against them, which were far more conducive to insurrec- tion than the one at which he balks. He accepted them patiently, though he may have protested inwardly, but in that he remained silent he was more concerned with his own immediate interests than as yet aware of his own rights. But with loss of patience — with impatience — a reaction begins which can extend to everything that he previously accepted, and which is almost always retroactive. The very moment the slave refuses to obey the humiliat- ing orders of his master, he simultaneously rejects the condition of slavery.

The Rebel(selection): Reading 9

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 24 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

25The Rebel (selection): ReadingAbel: Discourses Human Nature Albert Camus, ‘‘The Rebel’’(selection)

The Rebel

Albert Camus

▼

Part One: The Rebel

8 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Albert Camus, ‘‘The Rebel’’(selection)

The Rebel(selection): Reading 9

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 25 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

An Examined Life: Critical Thinking and Ethics26 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Albert Camus, ‘‘The Rebel’’(selection)

The act of rebellion carries him far beyond the point he had reached by simply refusing. He exceeds the bounds that he fixed for his antagonist, and now demands to be treated as an equal. What was at first the man’s obstinate resistance now becomes the whole man, who is identified with and summed up in this resistance. The part of himself that he wanted to be respected he proceeds to place above everything else and proclaim it preferable to every- thing, even to life itself. It becomes for him the supreme good. Having up to now been willing to compromise, the slave suddenly adopts (‘‘because this is how it must be . . .’’) an attitude of All or Nothing. With rebellion, aware- ness is born.

But we can see that the knowledge gained is, at the same time, of an ‘‘all’’ that is still rather obscure and of a ‘‘nothing’’ that proclaims the possi- bility of sacrificing the rebel to this ‘‘All.’’ The rebel himself wants to be ‘‘all’’ — to identify himself completely with this good of which he has sud- denly become aware and by which he wants to be personally recognized and acknowledged— or ‘‘nothing’’; in other words, to be completely destroyed by the force that dominates him. As a last resort, he is willing to accept the final defeat, which is death, rather than be deprived of the personal sacra- ment that he would call, for example, freedom. Better to die on one’s feet than to live on one’s knees.

Values, according to good authorities, ‘‘most often represent a transi- tion from facts to rights, from what is desired to what is desirable (usually through the intermediary of what is generally considered desirable.)’’2 The transition from facts to rights is manifest, as we have seen, in rebellion. So is the transition from ‘‘this must be’’ to ‘‘this is how I should like things to be,’’ and even more so, perhaps, the idea of the sublimation of the individual in a henceforth universal good. The sudden appearance of the concept of ‘‘All or Nothing’’ demonstrates that rebellion, contrary to current opinion, and though it springs from everything that is most strictly individualistic in man, questions the very idea of the individual. If the individual, in fact, accepts death and happens to die as a consequence of his act of rebellion, he dem- onstrates by doing so that he is willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of a common good which he considers more important than his own destiny. If he prefers the risk of death to the negation of the rights that he defends, it is because he considers these rights more important than himself. Therefore he is acting in the name of certain values which are still indeterminate but which he feels are common to himself and to all men. We see that the affirmation implicit in every act of rebellion is extended to something that transcends the individual in so far as it withdraws him from his supposed solitude and provides him with a reason to act. But it is already worth noting that this concept of values as pre-existent to any kind of action contradicts the purely historical philosophies, in which values are acquired (if they are ever acquired) after the action has been completed. Analysis of rebellion leads at least to the suspicion that, contrary to the postulates of contempo- rary thought, a human nature does exist, as the Greeks believed. Why rebel if

10 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Albert Camus, ‘‘The Rebel’’(selection)

there is nothing permanent in oneself worth preserving? It is for the sake of everyone in the world that the slave asserts himself when he comes to the conclusion that a command has infringed on something in him which does not belong to him alone, but which is common ground where all men — even the man who insults and oppresses him — have a natural community.

Two observations will support this argument. First, we can see that an act of rebellion is not, essentially, an egoistic act. Of course, it can have egoistic motives. But one can rebel equally well against lies as against oppression. Moreover, the rebel — once he has accepted the motives and at the moment of his greatest impetus — preserves nothing in that he risks everything. He demands respect for himself, of course, but only in so far as he identifies himself with a natural community.

Then we note that rebellion does not arise only, and necessarily, among the oppressed, but that it can also be caused by the mere spectacle of op- pression of which someone else is the victim. In such cases there is a feeling of identification with another individual. And it must be pointed out that this is not a question of psychological identification — a mere subterfuge by which the individual imagines that it is he himself who has been offended. On the contrary, it can often happen that we cannot bear to see offenses done to others which we ourselves have accepted without rebelling. The suicides of the Russian terrorists in Siberia as a protest against their comrades’ being whipped is a case in point. Nor is it a question of the feeling of a community of interests. Injustices done to men whom we consider ene- mies can, actually, be profoundly repugnant to us. There is only identifica- tion of one’s destiny with that of others and a choice of sides. Therefore the individual is not, in himself alone, the embodiment of the values he wishes to defend. It needs all humanity, at least, to comprise them. When he rebels, a man identifies himself with other men and so surpasses himself, and from this point of view human solidarity is metaphysical. But for the moment we are only talking of the kind of solidarity that is born in chains.

It would be possible for us to define the positive aspect of the values implicit in every act of rebellion by comparing them with a completely nega- tive concept like that of resentment as defined by Scheler.3 Rebellion is, in fact, much more than pursuit of a claim, in the strongest sense of the word. Resentment is very well defined by Scheler as an autointoxication — the evil secretion, in a sealed vessel, of prolonged impotence. Rebellion, on the contrary, breaks the seal and allows the whole being to come into play. It liberates stagnant waters and turns them into a raging torrent. Scheler him- self emphasizes the passive aspect of resentment and remarks on the promi- nent place it occupies in the psychology of women who are dedicated to desire and possession. The fountainhead of rebellion, on the contrary, is the principle of superabundant activity and energy. Scheler is also right in saying that resentment is always highly colored by envy. But one envies what one does not have, while the rebel’s aim is to defend what he is. He does not

The Rebel(selection): Reading 11

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 26 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

27The Rebel (selection): ReadingAbel: Discourses Human Nature Albert Camus, ‘‘The Rebel’’(selection)

10 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Albert Camus, ‘‘The Rebel’’(selection)

The Rebel(selection): Reading 11

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 27 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

An Examined Life: Critical Thinking and Ethics28 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Albert Camus, ‘‘The Rebel’’(selection)

merely claim some good that he does not possess or of which he was de- prived. His aim is to claim recognition for something which he has and which has already been recognized by him, in almost every case, as more important than anything of which he could be envious. Rebellion is not realistic. According to Scheler, resentment always turns into either unscru- pulous ambition or bitterness, depending on whether it is implanted in a strong person or a weak one. But in both cases it is a question of wanting to be something other than what one is. Resentment is always resentment against oneself. The rebel, on the contrary, from his very first step, refuses to allow anyone to touch what he is. He is fighting for the integrity of one part of his being. He does not try, primarily, to conquer, but simply to impose.

Finally, it would seem that resentment takes delight, in advance, in the pain that it would like the object of its envy to feel. Nietzsche4 and Scheler are right in seeing an excellent example of this in the passage where Tertul- lian5 informs his readers that one of the greatest sources of happiness among the blessed will be the spectacle of the Roman emperors consumed in the fires of hell. This kind of happiness is also experienced by the decent people who go to watch executions. The rebel, on the contrary, limits himself, as a matter of principle, to refusing to be humiliated without asking that others should be. He will even accept pain provided his integrity is respected.

It is therefore hard to understand why Scheler completely identifies the spirit of rebellion with resentment. His criticism of the resentment to be found in humanitarianism (which he treats as the non-Christian form of love for mankind) could perhaps be applied to certain indeterminate forms of humanitarian idealism, or to the techniques of terror. But it rings false in relation to man’s rebellion against his condition — the movement that en- lists the individual in the defense of a dignity common to all men. Scheler wants to demonstrate that humanitarian feelings are always accompanied by a hatred of the world. Humanity is loved in general in order to avoid having to love anybody in particular. This is correct, in some cases, and it is easier to understand Scheler when we realize that for him humanitarianism is repre- sented by Bentham6 and Rousseau.7 But man’s love for man can be born of other things than a mathematical calculation of the resultant rewards or a theoretical confidence in human nature. In face of the utilitarians, and of Emile’s preceptor, there is, for example, the kind of logic, embodied by Dostoievsky in Ivan Karamazov,8 which progresses from an act of rebellion to metaphysical insurrection. Scheler is aware of this and sums up the concept in the following manner: ‘‘There is not enough love in the world to squander it on anything but human beings.’’ Even if this proposition were true, the appalling despair that it implies would merit anything but con- tempt. In fact, it misunderstands the tortured character of Karamazov’s re- bellion. Ivan’s drama, on the contrary, arises from the fact that there is too much love without an object. This love finding no outlet and God being denied, it is then decided to lavish it on human beings as a generous act of complicity.

12 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Albert Camus, ‘‘The Rebel’’(selection)

Nevertheless, in the act of rebellion as we have envisaged it up to now, an abstract ideal is not chosen through lack of feeling and in pursuit of a sterile demand. We insist that the part of man which cannot be reduced to mere ideas should be taken into consideration — the passionate side of his nature that serves no other purpose than to be part of the act of living. Does this imply that no rebellion is motivated by resentment? No, and we know it only too well in this age of malice. But we must consider the idea of rebellion in its widest sense on pain of betraying it; and in its widest sense rebellion goes far beyond resentment. When Heathcliff, in Wuthering Heights,9 says that he puts his love above God and would willingly go to hell in order to be reunited with the woman he loves, he is prompted not only by youth and humiliation but by the consuming experience of a whole lifetime. The same emotion causes Eckart,10 in a surprising fit of heresy, to say that he prefers hell with Jesus to heaven without Him. This is the very essence of love. Contrary to Scheler, it would therefore be impossible to overemphasize the passionate affirmation that underlies the act of rebellion and distinguishes it from resentment. Rebellion, though apparently negative, since it creates nothing, is pro- foundly positive in that it reveals the part of man which must always be defended.

But, to sum up, are not rebellion and the values that it implies relative? Reasons for rebellion do seem to change, in fact, with periods and civiliza- tions. It is obvious that a Hindu pariah, an Inca warrior, a primitive native of central Africa, and a member of one of the first Christian communities had not at all the same ideas about rebellion. We could even assert, with consid- erable assurance, that the idea of rebellion has no meaning in these particu- lar cases. However, a Greek slave, a serf, a condottiere of the Renaissance, a Parisian bourgeois during the Regency, a Russian intellectual at the begin- ning of the twentieth century, and a contemporary worker would undoubt- edly agree thatrebellion is legitimate, even if they differed about the reasons for it. In other words, the problem of rebellion seems to assume a precise meaning only within the confines of Western thought. It is possible to be even more explicit by remarking, like Scheler, that the spirit of rebellion finds few means of expression in societies where inequalities are very great (the Hindu caste system) or, again, in those where there is absolute equality (certain primitive societies). The spirit of rebellion can exist only in a society where a theoretical equality conceals great factual inequalities. The problem of rebellion, therefore, has no meaning except within our own Western society. One might be tempted to affirm that it is relative to the development of individualism if the preceding remarks had not put us on our guard against this conclusion.

On the basis of the evidence, the only conclusion that can be drawn from Scheler’s remark is that, thanks to the theory of political freedom, there is, in the very heart of our society, an increasing awareness in man of the idea of man and, thanks to the application of this theory of freedom, a

The Rebel(selection): Reading 13

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 28 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

29The Rebel (selection): ReadingAbel: Discourses Human Nature Albert Camus, ‘‘The Rebel’’(selection)

12 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Albert Camus, ‘‘The Rebel’’(selection)

The Rebel(selection): Reading 13

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 29 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

An Examined Life: Critical Thinking and Ethics30 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Albert Camus, ‘‘The Rebel’’(selection)

corresponding dissatisfaction. Actual freedom has not increased in propor- tion to man’s awareness of it. We can only deduce from this observation that rebellion is the act of an educated man who is aware of his own rights. But there is nothing which justifies us in saying that it is only a question of individual rights. Because of the sense of solidarity we have already pointed out, it would rather seem that what is at stake is humanity’s gradually in- creasing self-awareness as it pursues its course. In fact, for the Inca and the pariah the problem never arises, because for them it had been solved by a tradition, even before they had had time to raise it — the answer being that tradition is sacred. If in a world where things are held sacred the problem of rebellion does not arise, it is because no real problems are to be found in such a world, all the answers having been given simultaneously. Metaphysic is replaced by myth. There are no more questions, only eternal answers and commentaries, which may be metaphysical. But before man accepts the sacred world and in order that he should be able to accept it — or before he escapes from it and in order that he should be able to escape from it — there is always a period of soul-searching and rebellion. The rebel is a man who is on the point of accepting or rejecting the sacred and determined on laying claim to a human situation in which all the answers are human — in other words, formulated in reasonable terms. From this moment every question, every word, is an act of rebellion while in the sacred world every word is an act of grace. It would be possible to demonstrate in this manner that only two possible worlds can exist for the human mind: the sacred (or, to speak in Christian terms, the world of grace) and the world of rebellion. The disap- pearance of one is equivalent to the appearance of the other, despite the fact that this appearance can take place in discon-certing forms. There again we rediscover the All or Nothing. The present interest of the problem of rebel- lion only springs from the fact that nowadays whole societies have wanted to discard the sacred. We live in an unsacrosanct moment in history. Insurrec- tion is certainly not the sum total of human experience. But history today, with all its storm and strife, compels us to say that rebellion is one of the essential dimensions of man. It is our historic reality. Unless we choose to ignore reality, we must find our values in it. Is it possible to find a rule of conduct outside the realm of religion and its absolute values? That is the question raised by rebellion.

We have already noted the confused values that are called into play by incipient rebellion. Now we must inquire if these values are to be found again in contemporary forms of rebellious thought and action, and if they are, we must specify their content. But, before going any farther, let us note that the basis of these values is rebellion itself. Man’s solidarity is founded upon rebellion, and rebellion, in its turn, can only find its justification in this solidarity. We have, then, the right to say that any rebellion which claims the right to deny or destroy this solidarity loses simultaneously its right to be called rebellion and becomes in reality an acquiescence in murder. In the

14 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Albert Camus, ‘‘The Rebel’’(selection)

same way, this solidarity, except in so far as religion is concerned, comes to life only on the level of rebellion. And so the real drama of revolutionary thought is announced. In order to exist, man must rebel, but rebellion must respect the limit it discovers in itself — a limit where minds meet and, in meeting, begin to exist. Rebellious thought, therefore, cannot dispense with memory: it is a perpetual state of tension. In studying its actions and its results, we shall have to say, each time, whether it remains faithful to its first noble promise or if, through indolence or folly, it forgets its original pur- pose and plunges into a mire of tyranny or servitude.

Meanwhile, we can sum up the initial progress that the spirit of rebellion provokes in a mind that is originally imbued with the absurdity and apparent sterility of the world. In absurdist experience, suffering is individual. But from the moment when a movement of rebellion begins, suffering is seen as a collective experience. Therefore the first progressive step for a mind over- whelmed by the strangeness of things is to realize that this feeling of strange- ness is shared with all men and that human reality, in its entirety, suffers from the distance which separates it from the rest of the universe. The malady experienced by a single man becomes a mass plague. In our daily trials rebellion plays the same role as does the ‘‘cogito’’ 11 in the realm of thought: it is the first piece of evidence. But this evidence lures the individ- ual from his solitude. It founds its first value on the whole human race. I rebel — therefore we exist.

� N O T E S

1. ‘‘Rebel’’ translates the French revolté, which probably derives from the Latin revolvere, ‘‘to revolve.’’ [D.C.A., ed.]

2. André Lalande, Vocabulaire technique et critique de la philosophie (1902). [A.C.] Lalande (1867 – 1963) was a French philosopher. [D.C.A.]

3. Max Scheler, Über Ressentiment und moralisches Werturteil (1912). Scheler (1874 – 1928) was a German philosopher. [D.C.A.]

4. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900) was a German philosopher. [D.C.A.] 5. Tertullian (about 160 – 200) was a north African Christian theologian.

[D.C.A.] 6. Jeremy Bentham (1748 – 1832) was an English philosopher who advo-

cated utilitarianism, the ethical theory that one should always act in a way that maximizes ‘‘utility,’’ which Bentham defined as the greatest happi- ness of the greatest number. He proposed a mathematical system for calculating utility. [D.C.A.]

7. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1778) was a French (Swiss born) philoso- pher. He expresses his belief in the goodness of human nature in Émile (1762), his treatise on education. [D.C.A.]

8. Fyodor Dostoievsky, The Brothers Karamazov (1879 – 1880). [D.C.A.]

The Rebel(selection): Reading 15

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 30 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

31The Rebel (selection): ReadingAbel: Discourses Human Nature Albert Camus, ‘‘The Rebel’’(selection)

14 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Albert Camus, ‘‘The Rebel’’(selection)

� N O T E S

1. ‘‘Rebel’’ translates the French revolté, which probably derives from the Latin revolvere, ‘‘to revolve.’’ [D.C.A., ed.]

2. André Lalande, Vocabulaire technique et critique de la philosophie (1902). [A.C.] Lalande (1867 – 1963) was a French philosopher. [D.C.A.]

3. Max Scheler, Über Ressentiment und moralisches Werturteil (1912). Scheler (1874 – 1928) was a German philosopher. [D.C.A.]

4. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900) was a German philosopher. [D.C.A.] 5. Tertullian (about 160 – 200) was a north African Christian theologian.

[D.C.A.] 6. Jeremy Bentham (1748 – 1832) was an English philosopher who advo-

7. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1778) was a French (Swiss born) philoso- pher. He expresses his belief in the goodness of human nature in Émile (1762), his treatise on education. [D.C.A.]

8. Fyodor Dostoievsky, The Brothers Karamazov (1879 – 1880). [D.C.A.]

The Rebel(selection): Reading 15

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 31 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

An Examined Life: Critical Thinking and Ethics32 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Albert Camus, ‘‘The Rebel’’(selection)

9. Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (1847). [D.C.A.] 10. Johannes Eckart (about 1260 – 1327; better known as Meister Eckart) was

the founder of German mysticism. [D.C.A.] 11. cogito: shorthand for the statement of the French philosopher René Des-

cartes (1596 – 1650), ‘‘Cogito ergo sum,’’ ‘‘I think, therefore I am.’’ This principle is the basis of Descartes’s entire philosophy. [D.C.A.]

16 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Albert Camus, ‘‘The Rebel’’(selection)

The Rebel Albert Camus

Reading Questions

According to Camus:

1. In what way does the rebel say yes and no simultaneously?

2. How does rebellion transcend individualism?

3. How does rebellion differ from resentment?

4. Why does the problem of rebellion not arise in non-Western societies? Why does it not arise in societies that accept the notion of the sacred?

5. How are rebellion and human solidarity interconnected?

Discussion Questions

In your own view:

1. Does the rebellion of a slave against a master typify all acts of rebellion?

2. Is rebellion always for something, and not merely against something?

3. Does rebellion necessarily imply solidarity with all human beings?

4. Are true rebels always willing to die for their cause?

5. Can a religious believer be a rebel?

The Rebel(selection): Reading 17

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 32 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

33The Rebel (selection): ReadingAbel: Discourses Human Nature Albert Camus, ‘‘The Rebel’’(selection)

9. Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (1847). [D.C.A.] 10. Johannes Eckart (about 1260 – 1327; better known as Meister Eckart) was

the founder of German mysticism. [D.C.A.] 11. cogito: shorthand for the statement of the French philosopher René Des-

cartes (1596 – 1650), ‘‘Cogito ergo sum,’’ ‘‘I think, therefore I am.’’ This principle is the basis of Descartes’s entire philosophy. [D.C.A.]

16 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Albert Camus, ‘‘The Rebel’’(selection)

The Rebel Albert Camus

Reading Questions

According to Camus:

1. In what way does the rebel say yes and no simultaneously?

2. How does rebellion transcend individualism?

3. How does rebellion differ from resentment?

4. Why does the problem of rebellion not arise in non-Western societies? Why does it not arise in societies that accept the notion of the sacred?

5. How are rebellion and human solidarity interconnected?

Discussion Questions

In your own view:

1. Does the rebellion of a slave against a master typify all acts of rebellion?

2. Is rebellion always for something, and not merely against something?

3. Does rebellion necessarily imply solidarity with all human beings?

4. Are true rebels always willing to die for their cause?

5. Can a religious believer be a rebel?

The Rebel(selection): Reading 17

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 33 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Epicurus, “Letter to Menoeceus.” In Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, ed. and trans. R. D. Hicks. vol. 2. London, England: William Heinemann, 1925.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Why We Can’t Wait . New York: Harper & Row, 1964.

An Examined Life: Critical Thinking and Ethics

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 34 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

Part I. CRITICAL THINKING

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 35 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 36 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

CHAPTER 1: How and why we make

moral arguments.

INTRODUCTION

Critical Thinking and Logic

Logic is something that we often employ in our daily lives and yet few of us have ever studied the subject. Logic is the science of reasoning, the study of rational thought. Employing logical principles allow us to determine reasonable goals and allow us to accomplish them in a straight forward manner. Logic is a formal discipline or branch of Philosophy. It is a branch of philosophy that has made tremendous progress since its early beginnings in the 4th century B.C.E. in ancient Greece. The formal study of logic can take years. At universities around the world there are numerous courses taught at various levels of study on a variety of types of logic, each one employing a formalized structure and method. For the purposes of this book, a brief introduction to logic and critical thinking will grant a foundation better to organize our thoughts and analyze the thoughts of others.

Critical thinking on the other hand, is less formalized, less structured than logic. Are some ways of approaching problems better than others? If your car would not start, would it be reasonable at the first sign of trouble to tear out the engine and install a new one? Most of you would say, “Of course not!” What would you do first? It seems that the first thing you would do is to check the gas, perhaps the battery, and then try to get a jump start? All of those options seem reasonable. The person that began by pulling apart the engine would seem, at best eccentric, at worst, crazy in our eyes.

Critical thinking involves the engagement of a thinker in rational delib- eration towards a resolution of a problem. There are various skills employed by one engaged in rational deliberation. The skills employed include: empir- ical investigation, analysis of evidence, development of reasons in support of an argument, assessment of arguments, and the ability to articulate and justify the analysis and arguments, and the ability to justify premises and conclusions. These are skills that are necessary in all aspects of our daily life as citizens, professionals, and persons. The goal of this text is to facilitate application of these skills to a wide variety of topics.

“He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.” John Stuart Mill

Chapter 1: How and Why We Make Moral Arguments

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 37 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

38 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

There is a clear connection between logic and critical thinking. Logic is a formalized way to evaluate knowledge claims and to establish that which is unknown based upon that which is known. As Charles Sanders Pierce said, “The object of reasoning is to find out, from the consideration of what we already know, something else which we do not know…Consequently, rea- soning is good if it be such as to give a true conclusion from true premises, and not otherwise.”

Some of these attempts to justify our beliefs are better than others, but all are rational (so long as they make reference to reason as opposed to feel- ings or sentiments) in that they attempt to provide reasons for the position or view that we support. In order to be a critical thinker, one must employ and apply various formal and informal principles of logic.

The reasons that we employ in order to support a position are called the premises while the position itself is known as the conclusion. Taken together, the premises and the conclusion form an argument. At times, in a verbal dis- cussion, the tone of voice gives a clue as to which sentences offer reasons and which indicate the conclusion to be proved. Further, in a language such as English, there exist certain key words that make conclusions easy to spot. Words such as these are often indicative of a conclusion: “Therefore,” “thus”, “conse- quently”, “ hence”, “so”, “it follows that”, or “the implications are”. Carefully choosing our words, and listening carefully to the words of others, are crucial steps towards having a meaningful discourse regarding moral issues.

Semantics and Meaning

Semantics is the study of the meaning of words. From the very beginning of Western philosophy, people have struggled to understand the relationship between words, meanings and thoughts. The ancient Greeks understood the importance of language. The Sophist philosopher Gorgias famously claimed that the world, if it actually existed and was actually comprehen- sible, was impossible to communicate to other people because words could not accurately represent our ideas. Socrates, one of the most influential of the ancient Greek philosophers, was constantly in search of the defini- tion and meaning of words. In the process of attempting to determine the nature of concepts such as beauty and justice, he devised a theory of mean- ing and of the function of language.

Language is used in a variety of ways to express our thoughts and feel- ings regarding the world. There are three important aspects of language. Language is used to command action, convey emotion, and provide descrip- tions of the world. A central problem in the interpretation of meaning is the fact that a single sentence can command action, convey emotion, and provide a description of the world. In other words, a single statement can have multiple meanings. As such, it is both useful and necessary to make a distinction between a sentence, which is a group of words, and a proposi- tion, which is the meaning of those words.

The fact that a sentence is distinct from the proposition it asserts can be seen by means of a simple example: “I am studying philosophy,” and “Estou

An Examined Life: Critical Thinking and Ethics

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 38 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

estudando a filosofia,” as well as “Я изучаю философию,” all affirm the same proposition. Each sentence, although written in a different language, con- vey the same propositional meaning. It conveys the same idea, in a number of different languages, English, Portuguese, and Russian. The meaning that they convey is clear. Further, this statement can be either true or false.

Structure of Formal Arguments

Formal logic--employ a structured argument with a set of premises and one conclusion.

1. If P then Q Premise Argument 2. P Premise 3. Therefore Q Conclusion

If the structure of the argument is VALID, meaning that it has the correct formal structure, and if the premises are TRUE then the CONCLUSION must be TRUE!

Formal Fallacies

1. PàQ 1. PàQ 2. P 2. Q 3. Q 3. P

VALID INVALID Example A Example B

1. If I live in Florida à I live 1. If I live in Florida à I live in the USA in the USA

2. I live in Florida 2. I live in USA 3. Therefore I live in the USA 3. I live in Florida

VALID INVALID

It is easy to that example B is invalid, because just because someone lives in the USA, it does not follow that she lives in Florida. A person could live in Florida, but she also could live in Texas, North Carolina, or any one of the states or territories within its possession. Whereas it is clear to see that in you live in Florida, then you must also reside within the USA.

Informal Fallacies

In order to identify an informal fallacy one must understand the context, meaning and relevance of the premises to the conclusion. Informal fallacies commit a fallacy of relevance in that such either they explicitly or implicitly assume premises that are not relevant or do not support the conclusion.

Appeal to Force (Argumentum ad baculum)

In this fallacy the premise used to support a particular conclusion is one of violence, force, or harm. For example: Suppose your boss says, “If you vote for Clinton for president, then I will fire you.” In this case, you may feel

Chapter 1: How and Why We Make Moral Arguments

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 39 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

40 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

coerced into voting for another candidate. It should be clear that a threat of violence is entirely irrelevant to the truth of either the premise or a conclu- sion of an argument.

Appeal to Pity or Emotion (Argumentum ad misericordiam)

In this circumstance, a person appeals to the emotions of another in an effort to prove the conclusion of an argument. As opposed to playing on our fears, as in the previous fallacy, this fallacy plays upon our sympathies. When a student, in an effort to get a grade changed, begins to cry or weep to the professor, they are committing this fallacy.

Another example of this type is often found in the court of law. When the accused perpetrator asks for leniency or mercy and begins to beg and cry for all to see. In such a case, it would be a mistake, to find someone inno- cent simply because you feel sorry for them. In a case such as this, it might be appropriate to reduce their sentence, depending upon how believable you find their remorse to be. Whether this is another application of this fal- lacy is contentious, since in practice, convicted felons are often given lesser sentences when they appear to acknowledge and regret their actions.

Appeal to Ignorance (Argumentum ad ignorantiam)

This fallacy can take two forms: A) Arguing from the absence of proof to the presence of disproof. Or to say it in another way, to argue from the absence of evidence for the confirmation of a hypothesis to evidence for the discon- firmation of said hypothesis. B) Arguing from the absence of disproof to the presence of proof.

Appeal to or Against the Person (Argumentum ad hominem)

Argue that a proposition must be true or false, because of the person mak- ing the argument. This is a Fallacy in reasoning- you should attack the argument not the person making it. For example if Brittney Spears were to give a lecture on some of the finer points of parenting, and you argued that she must be wrong-- because of who she is, regardless of what she actually says--then you have committed this fallacy. It might be the case that she has learned some important life lessons and has something important to say on this topic.

By the same token, if you argue that something must be true because of who is saying it, regardless of their arguments in support of their thesis, then you have committed this fallacy as well. Suppose you assume that for- mer Secretary of State Colin Powell’s view on weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) must be true, simply because he is claiming it to be so. Assuming the truth of his statements on the subject before the United Nations paved the way for the longest war in American history, one based on factual state- ments that were not true: there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the American invasion of that country. This form of the fallacy is basi- cally the same as the appeal to authority discussed below. The difference is that in this form of the fallacy the person making the claim need not be an authority in the field.

An Examined Life: Critical Thinking and Ethics

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 40 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

Appeal to or Against the delivery (Fallacy of Delivery)

The fallacy of delivery involves attacking the person (not the argument pre- sented) because of how some states the argument. As my wife often says, it is not what I say, but how I say it. Ultimately, regardless of how straight for- wardly, bluntly, or rudely someone states his or her position, what matters in regards to critical thinking is the analysis of the argument itself. This may make it extremely painful to admit that the person presenting a position is right (when they do some in such a condensing or obnoxious manner), but those feelings are irrelevant to the question of sound reasoning. In such a case you may be committing both the fallacy of ad hominem and appeal to emotion, as you are allowing your own feelings to cloud your ability to reason.

Appeal to Authority (Argumentum ad auctoritatem)

In this fallacy you claim that an argument is true simply because it is given by an authoritative source. At times this may be a difficult argument to detect, as we trust in authoritative sources for many of our beliefs about the world.

If I visit a physician and ask him to diagnose a specific ailment, he may say it is: Hypoglycemia. Technically, if I take him at his word, without asking for further details as to the nature of his diagnosis, then I have committed this fallacy.

Let’s say that recently a physician wanted to perform an adenotonsil- lectomy, removal of the adenoids and tonsils upon my son. I went to ask the physician why he thought it was necessary to perform the surgery. He said that my son had “polyandrosomething or other” and that was why the surgery needed to be performed. To which I asked, and what is the basis of this diagnosis.

At which point he explained the observations he had made on several occasions of the inflammation of the glands in question, and how this had lead him to a differential diagnosis of the condition. Although, I have no formal training in medicine, I do have formal training in philosophy which allowed me to go beyond a presumed authority of the physician in question, to ask his rationale and for him to provide arguments in defense of the claim that the surgery was necessary.

In the end, he could not provide any empirical basis, an, in fact the sur- gery was in conflict with current best practices of evidence based medicine. After further consultation with a second physician (who stated that such a surgery was unnecessary) the surgery was canceled. Authorities and experts have a place in our society, but they must have clear arguments in favor of their views, they cannot simply support their views solely on the basis of their positions.

Appeal to the Majority (Argumentum ad populum)

This fallacy can be witnessed daily as we watch television advertisements. TV ads often make reference to the fact that 4 out of 5 doctors prescribe brand X or that most people prefer one brand of soda to another. When the only reason given for the superiority of one product over another is the

Chapter 1: How and Why We Make Moral Arguments

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 41 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

42 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

fact that more people use it, then the fallacy of appeal to the majority has been committed. Simply because more people believe that something is correct, it does not follow that it actually is. As you may know, the majority of Americans voted for George W. Bush at least once (officially twice) for the office of president of the United States of America, yet it does not fol- low, solely on the basis of popular opinion, that he was the best candidate for the job. The majority may be correct about a particular belief, but they may be mistaken. To rely solely upon this opinion is a mistake in reasoning.

False Cause (Non causa pro causa)

Any argument in which the premises do not provide support for a con- clusion claiming a causal connection is said to commit the fallacy of false cause. Generally false cause is based on a mistaken believe between two events and a claim that there is a connection between them. For example, a superstitious person may believe that their bad luck is the result of break- ing a mirror or that a lucky charm had bearing upon winning a game of chance. The establishment of a causal connection between two objects or events is often an empirical question which can be addressed by proper investigation. In principle a rabbit’s foot might influences luck, but proving that would require empirical evidence which demonstrated that a person’s luck improved while in possession of the object-- although the mechanisms producing the luck might be unknown. Recently researchers in England conducted an experiment where one group of test subjects were told they were going to use a “lucky putter” used by a British Open champion to putt while a control group was given a “regular” putter. In the end, the lucky group outperformed the control group. Neither group knew they were, in fact, using the same putter. The experiment has been repeated several times and each time the “lucky” putter out performs the “regular” putter. The researchers believe that luck is not the cause factor but rather people’s internal perceptions of luck.

Irrelevant Conclusion or Red Herring (Ignoratio elenchi)

The irrelevant conclusion or red hearing fallacy involves arguing about something that is not at issue to confuse the argument. For example, some opponents of stem cell research argue that it is the same as abor- tion. Although in both cases a potential person ceases to exist, there are a number of morally relevant differences between the two cases. In stem cell research the cells involved are pre-embryonic--the cells are obtained in vitro (in a laboratory setting) and harvested in a test tube between five to seven days after conception. Stem cells from an aborted fetus, on the other hand, involves in vivo embryos from which the stem cells are obtained. Although the cases may seem similar, mixing the issue of abortion into the debate on stem cell research is a case of employing a red herring.

Begging the Question or (Petitio Principii)

When one “begs the question” against an argument, he or she structures a position so that it is beyond question--regardless of empirical facts. For

An Examined Life: Critical Thinking and Ethics

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 42 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

example, if someone claims that all animals lack basic rights, without provid- ing additional evidence or premises in support of that view, then they are begging the question against those that deny that claim. This is not to say that compelling argument cannot be given for or against animal rights, but in the case noted above, more evidence must be provided.

Another example, from psychology, may help to illustrate this notion of begging the question. Some argue the Freudian psychological theory is struc- tured in such a way that it begs the question against opponents. For example if the theory predicts that a particular individual ought to display a particular neuroses (and the individual does not) then the Freudian will claim that they are “repressed”. In this way, regardless of the empirical evidence, the theory cannot be disproven. This is not to say that the theory is false, although some critics from Adolf Grünbaum to Jean-Paul Sartre have stated that Freud’s theory is at best false, at worse pseudo-scientific. Rather, it is to say that some philosophers argue that it begs the question against opponents.

Circular reasoning (Circulus in Probando)

Circular arguments assume the conclusion in one or more of the premises. There are any number of examples of this type of reasoning, the most famous, perhaps, being the Cartesian Circle, named for René Descartes. In his work, Meditations on First Philosophy, he argues that “I now seem to be able to lay it down as a general rule that whatever I perceive very clearly and distinctly is true.” From this he argues that he clearly and distinctly conceives of God, and then argues that because God does in fact exists, that all ideas that are clear and distinct are also true. A deductive version of the argument is below:

1. I think therefore I am 2. I have a clear and distinct conception of God. 3. In order for a lesser being to have an idea of a greater being, that idea

must originate with the greater being. 4. Therefore, God Exists. 5. God exist and is good therefore he would not let the evil demon deceive

us ( or allow humanity to commit systematic errors in reason and judg- ment) about the world.

6. Therefore, the world exists as we perceive it so long as we have a clear and distinct conception of it.

The problem with the above argument is that Descartes assume clear and distinct ideas are true so that he may prove the existence of God, but then uses the existence of God to prove that clear and distinct ideas are, in fact true. This is clearly circular reasoning and leads to the failure of the entire chain of reasoning.

Equivocation or Ambiguity of Terms

Equivocation involves a conflation of definitions or deliberate or acciden- tal ambiguity in a term. The ancient Greek Sophist Gorgias noted argues

Chapter 1: How and Why We Make Moral Arguments

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 43 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

44 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

that it was impossible to communicate our ideas because they could not adequately be capture by words. Although this extreme position is clearly false, Gorgias was right to note that unless a word conveys the same mean- ing to everyone involved communication can be impossible. For example, if your boyfriend says you are “dating” but dating to him means he is dat- ing you and three other girls, whereas for you it means he is dating you exclusively, this confusion is a result of the lack of clarity regarding the term “dating”.

Some extreme proponents of animal rights argue that animals have human rights, and that people have rights, ergo people and animals have the same rights. Most reasonable people would not argue that people have the same rights as animals. Certainly animals cannot vote, drive a car, or own a home- so clearly the rights possessed by people and animals are different. The confusion arises as a result of equivocation. The confusion is a result of the fact that the supposed rights of animals and the rights of people have not been specified in the above statements, thereby leading to the confusion. Equivocation can be avoided by clarifying the terms involved either by clearly defining the terms and elaborating upon their meaning so that all parties involved in the discussion have a clear conception of their intended use.

Octavio Roca and Matthew Schuh

An Examined Life: Critical Thinking and Ethics

“Fetch and roll over weren’t enough — then they sent me to philosophy classes.” 571

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 44 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

45“Fetch and roll over weren’t enough—then they sent me to philosophy classes.”

“Fetch and roll over weren’t enough — then they sent me to philosophy classes.” 571

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 45 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

An Examined Life: Critical Thinking and Ethics46 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

Abel: Discourses Ethical Theories H. A. Prichard, ‘‘Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?’’ (selection)

Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?

H. A. Prichard

H. A. Prichard was born in 1871 in London, England. He was educated at Clifton and New College, Oxford University, and then began teaching at Oxford. He was a fellow at Hertford College 1895 to 1898 and a fellow at Trinity College from 1898 until 1923, when poor health caused him to resign. In 1928 Prichard was appointed White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he remained until his retirement in 1937. His students over the years included Gilbert Ryle (1900–1976), H. L. A. Hart (1907–1993), Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997), A. J. Ayer (1910–1989), and J. L. Austin (1911–1960). Prichard received an honorary degree from the University of Aberdeen, in Scotland, and continued to write until his death at Oxford in 1947. His writings include Kant’s Theory of Knowledge (1909) and two posthumous volumes of essays edited by W. D. Ross, Moral Obligation, Essays and Lectures (1949) and Knowledge and Perception, Essays and Lectures (1950).

Our reading is from Prichard’s 1912 article, “Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?” Prichard here defends moral intuitionism—the doctrine that the moral rightness of an action is perceived immediately, and is not discovered by discerning that it has some quality shared by all morally right actions. For example, actions are not morally right and obligatory because they are intrinsically good, because their consequences are good, or because they are done from a certain kind of motive. To intuit moral rightness and obligation correctly, we may first need to think more fully about the consequences of an action, or about our relation to the persons involved in the action. But once we carry out these preliminaries, our apprehension of moral rightness and obligation is immediate. Prichard explains that moral rightness is not the same as moral goodness: the former refers to the act in itself, while the latter refers to the motive of the agent. A right action is morally good only if the agent performs it “because it is right, that is, from a sense of obligation.” Moreover, a morally good act is not the same as a virtuous act, since a virtuous act is done from a desire that is intrinsically good, whereas a moral act may be done simply from obligation.

Prichard concludes by answering the question posed by the title of his article. If moral philosophy rests on the assumption that it is possible to prove that the things we intuit as morally right and obligatory really are so, and then attempts to produce such a proof, moral philosophy rests on a mistake. For moral rightness cannot be demonstrated, but “can only be apprehended directly by an act of moral thinking.” The proper task of moral philosophy is to reflect on the immediacy of our knowledge of moral rightness and the similarly immediate apprehension of the goodness of the virtues and other dispositions.

�

Reprinted from H. A. Prichard, “Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?” Mind, new series 21 (January 1912).

Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake? (selection): Reading 53 Abel: Discourses Ethical Theories H. A. Prichard, ‘‘Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?’’ (selection)

. . . The sense of obligation to do, or of the rightness of, an action of a par- ticular kind is absolutely underivative or immediate. The rightness of an action consists in its being the origination of something of a certain kind A in a situation of a certain kind, a situation consisting in a certain rela- tion B of the agent to others or to his own nature. To appreciate its right- ness, two preliminaries may be necessary. We may have to follow out the consequences of the proposed action more fully than we have hitherto done, in order to realize that in the action we should originate A. Thus we may not appreciate the wrongness of telling a certain story until we realize that we should thereby be hurting the feelings of one of our audience. Again, we may have to take into account the relation B involved in the sit- uation, which we had hitherto failed to notice. For instance, we may not appreciate the obligation to give X a present, until we remember that he has done us an act of kindness. But given that, by a process which is of course merely a process of general and not of moral thinking, we come to recognize that the proposed act is one by which we shall originate A in a relation B, then we appreciate the obligation immediately or directly, the appreciation being an activity of moral thinking. We recognize, for instance, that this performance of a service to X, who has done us a service, just in virtue of its being the performance of a service to one who has rendered a service to the would-be agent, ought to be done by us. This apprehension is immediate, in precisely the sense in which a mathematical apprehension is immediate—for example, the apprehension that this three-sided figure, in virtue of its being three-sided, must have three angles. Both apprehen- sions are immediate in the sense that in both insight into the nature of the subject directly leads us to recognize its possession of the predicate; and it is only stating this fact from the other side to say that in both cases the fact apprehended is self-evident.

The plausibility of the view that obligations are not self-evident but need proof lies in the fact that an act which is referred to as an obligation may be incompletely stated, [with] what I have called the preliminaries to appreciating the obligation being incomplete. If, for example, we refer to the act of repaying X by a present merely as giving X a present, it appears—and indeed is—necessary to give a reason. In other words, wher- ever a moral act is regarded in this incomplete way, the question “Why should I do it?” is perfectly legitimate. This fact suggests, but suggests wrongly, that even if the nature of the act is completely stated, it is still necessary to give a reason, or, in other words, to supply a proof.

The relations involved in obligations of various kinds, are, of course, very different. The relation in certain cases is a relation to others due to a past act of theirs or ours. The obligation to repay a benefit involves a rela- tion due to a past act of the benefactor. The obligation to pay a bill involves a relation due to a past of ours in which we have either said or implied that we would make a certain return for something which we have

54 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 46 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

47Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake? (selection): ReadingAbel: Discourses Ethical Theories H. A. Prichard, ‘‘Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?’’ (selection)

Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?

H. A. Prichard

�

Reprinted from H. A. Prichard, “Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?” Mind, new series 21 (January 1912).

Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake? (selection): Reading 53 Abel: Discourses Ethical Theories H. A. Prichard, ‘‘Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?’’ (selection)

54 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 47 25/07/14 3:03 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

An Examined Life: Critical Thinking and Ethics48 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

Abel: Discourses Ethical Theories H. A. Prichard, ‘‘Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?’’ (selection)

asked for and received. On the other hand, the obligation to speak the truth implies no such definite act; it involves a relation consisting in the fact that others are trusting us to speak the truth, a relation the apprehen- sion of which gives rise to the sense that communication of the truth is something owing1 by us to them. Again, the obligation not to hurt the feelings of another involves no special relation of us to that other—that is, no relation other than that involved in our both being men, and men in one and the same world. Moreover, it seems that the relation involved in an obligation need not be a relation to another at all. Thus we should admit that there is an obligation to overcome our natural timidity or greediness, and that this involves no relations to others. Still there is a relation involved, namely, a relation to our own disposition. It is simply because we can, and because others cannot, directly modify our disposi- tion that it is our business to improve it, and that it is not theirs—or at least not theirs to the same extent.

The negative side of all this is, of course, that we do not come to appreciate an obligation by an argument (that is, by a process of nonmoral thinking) and that, in particular, we do not do so by an argument of which a premise is the ethical but not moral activity2 of appreciating the goodness either of the act or of a consequence of the act—that is, that our sense of the rightness of an act is not a conclusion from our appreciation of the goodness either of it or of anything else.

It will probably be urged that on this view our various obligations form . . . an unrelated chaos in which it is impossible to acquiesce. For, according to it, the obligation to repay a benefit, or to pay a debt, or to keep a promise, presupposes a previous act of another; whereas the obliga- tion to speak the truth or not to harm another does not; and, again, the obligation to remove our timidity involves no relations to others at all. Yet, at any rate, an effective argumentum ad hominem3 is at hand in the fact that the various qualities which we recognize as good are equally unrelated— for example, courage, humility, and interest in knowledge. If, as is plainly the case, agatha differ he-i agatha,4 why should not obligations equally differ qua5 their obligatoriness? Moreover if this were not so, there could in the end be only one obligation, which is palpably contrary to fact.6

Certain observations will help to make the view clearer. In the first place, it may seem that the view, being (as it is) avowedly

put forward [by me] in opposition to the view that what is right is derived from what is good, must itself involve the opposite of this, namely the Kantian7 position that what is good is based upon what is right—that is, that an act, if it be good, is good because it is right. But this is not so. For, on the view put forward [by me], the rightness of a right action lies solely in the origination in which the act consists, whereas the intrinsic goodness of an action lies solely in its motive; and this implies that a morally good action is morally good not simply because it is a right action but because it

Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake? (selection): Reading 55 Abel: Discourses Ethical Theories H. A. Prichard, ‘‘Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?’’ (selection)

is a right action done because it is right, that is, from a sense of obligation. And this implication, it may be remarked incidentally, seems plainly true.

In the second place, [my] view involves that when, or rather so far as, we act from a sense of obligation, we have no purpose or end. By a “pur- pose” or “end” we really mean something the existence of which we desire, and desire of the existence of which leads us to act. Usually our purpose is something which the act will originate, as when we turn round in order to look at a picture. But it may [also] be the action itself (that is, the origina- tion of something), as when we hit a golf ball into a hole or kill someone out of revenge. Now if by a purpose we mean something the existence of which we desire and desire for which leads us to act, then plainly so far as we act from a sense of obligation, we have no purpose consisting either in the action itself or in anything which it will produce. This is so obvious that it scarcely seems worth pointing out. But I do so for two reasons. (1) If we fail to scrutinize the meaning of the terms “end” and “purpose,” we are apt to assume uncritically that all deliberate action (that is, action proper) must have a purpose; we then become puzzled both when we look for the purpose of an action done from a sense of obligation, and also when we try to apply to such an action the distinction of means and end, the truth all the time being that since there is no end, there is no means either. (2) The attempt to base the sense of obligation on the recognition of the goodness of something is really an attempt to find a purpose in a moral action in the shape of something good which, as good, we want. And the expectation that the goodness of something underlies an obliga- tion disappears as soon as we cease to look for a purpose.

The thesis, however, that so far as we act from a sense of obligation, we have no purpose, must not be misunderstood. It must not be taken either to mean or to imply that so far as we so act we have no motive. No doubt in ordinary speech the words “motive” and “purpose” are usually treated as correlatives, “motive” standing for the desire which induces us to act, and “purpose” standing for the object of this desire. But this is only because, when we are looking for the motive of some action, say some crime, we are usually presupposing that the act in question is prompted by a desire and not by the sense of obligation. At bottom, however, we mean by a motive what moves us to act.8 A sense of obligation does sometimes move us to act, and in our ordinary consciousness we should not hesitate to allow that the action we were considering might have had as its motive a sense of obligation. Desire and the sense of obligation are coordinate forms or species of motive.

In the third place, if the view put forward be right, we must sharply distinguish morality and virtue as independent, though related, species of goodness, neither being an aspect of something of which the other is an aspect, nor again a form or species of the other, nor again something deducible from the other; and we must at the same time allow that it is

56 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 48 25/07/14 3:04 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

49Abel: Discourses Ethical Theories H. A. Prichard, ‘‘Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?’’ (selection)

Certain observations will help to make the view clearer. In the first place, it may seem that the view, being (as it is) avowedly

Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake? (selection): Reading 55 Abel: Discourses Ethical Theories H. A. Prichard, ‘‘Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?’’ (selection)

is a right action done because it is right, that is, from a sense of obligation. And this implication, it may be remarked incidentally, seems plainly true.

56 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1 Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake? (selection): Reading

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 49 25/07/14 3:04 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

An Examined Life: Critical Thinking and Ethics50 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

Abel: Discourses Ethical Theories H. A. Prichard, ‘‘Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?’’ (selection)

possible to do the same act either virtuously or morally or in both ways at once. And surely this is true. An act, to be virtuous, must, as Aristotle saw, be done willingly or with pleasure; as such it is not just done from a sense of obligation but from some desire which is intrinsically good, as arising from some intrinsically good emotion. Thus in an act of generosity the motive is the desire to help another arising from sympathy with that other; in an act which is courageous and no more (that is, in an act which is not at the same time an act of public spirit or family affection or the like), we prevent ourselves from being dominated by a feeling of terror, desiring to do so from a sense of shame at being terrified. The goodness of such an act is different from the goodness of an act to which we apply the term “moral” in the strict and narrow sense, namely, an act done from a sense of obligation. Its goodness lies in the intrinsic goodness of the emotion and the consequent desire under which we act, the goodness of this motive being different from the goodness of the moral motive proper, namely, the sense of duty or obligation. Nevertheless, at any rate in certain cases, an act can be done either virtuously or morally or in both ways at once. It is possible to repay a benefit either from desire to repay it, or from the feeling that we ought to do so, or from both motives combined. A doctor may tend his patients either from a desire arising out of interest in his patients or in the exercise of skill, or from a sense of duty, or from a desire and a sense of duty combined. Further, although we recognize that in each case the act possesses an intrinsic goodness, we regard that action as the best in which both motives are combined; in other words, we regard as the really best man the man in whom virtue and morality are united.

It may be objected that the distinction between the two kinds of motive is untenable on the ground that the desire to repay a benefit, for example, is only the manifestation of that which manifests itself as the sense of obligation to repay whenever we think of something in the action which is other than the repayment and which we should not like, such as the loss or pain involved. Yet the distinction can, I think, easily be shown to be tenable. For, in the analogous case of revenge, the desire to return the injury and the sense that we ought not to do so, leading, as they do, in opposite directions, are plainly distinct; and the obviousness of the distinc- tion here seems to remove any difficulty in admitting the existence of a parallel distinction between the desire to return a benefit and the sense that we ought to return it.

Further, the view implies that an obligation can no more be based on or derived from a virtue than a virtue can be derived from an obligation, in which latter case a virtue would consist in carrying out an obligation. And the implication is surely true and important. Take the case of courage. It is untrue to urge that, since courage is a virtue, we ought to act coura- geously. It is and must be untrue because, as we see in the end, to feel an obligation to act courageously would involve a contradiction. For . . . we

Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake? (selection): Reading 57 Abel: Discourses Ethical Theories H. A. Prichard, ‘‘Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?’’ (selection)

can only feel an obligation to act; we cannot feel an obligation to act from a certain desire, in this case the desire to conquer one’s feelings of terror aris- ing from the sense of shame which they arouse. Moreover, if the sense of obligation to act in a particular way leads to an action, the action will be an action done from a sense of obligation, and therefore not, if the above analysis of virtue be right, an act of courage.

The mistake of supposing that there can be an obligation to act coura- geously seems to arise from two causes. In the first place, there is often an obligation to do that which involves the conquering or controlling our fear in the doing of it, for example, the obligation to walk along the side of a precipice to fetch a doctor for a member of our family. Here the act- ing on the obligation is externally, though only externally, the same as an act of courage proper. In the second place, there is an obligation to acquire courage (that is, to do such things as will enable us afterwards to act courageously), and this may be mistaken for an obligation to act coura- geously. The same considerations can, of course, be applied, mutatis mutandis,9 to the other virtues.

The fact, if it be a fact, that virtue is no basis for morality will explain what otherwise it is difficult to account for, namely, the extreme sense of dissatisfaction produced by a close reading of Aristotle’s [Nicomachean] Ethics. Why is the Ethics so disappointing? Not, I think, because it really answers two radically different questions as if they were one: (1) “What is the happy life?” (2) “What is the virtuous life?” It is, rather, because Aristo- tle does not do what we as moral philosophers want him to do—namely, to convince us that we really ought to do what in our nonreflective con- sciousness we have hitherto believed we ought to do; or, if not, to tell us what, if any, are the other things which we really ought to do, and to prove to us that he is right. Now if what I have just been contending is true, a sys- tematic account of the virtuous character cannot possibly satisfy this demand. At best it can only make clear to us the details of one of our obli- gations, namely, the obligation to make ourselves better men. But the achievement of this does not help us to discover what we ought to do in life as a whole and why; to think that it did would be to think that our only business in life was self-improvement. Hence it is not surprising that Aris- totle’s account of the good man strikes us as almost wholly of academic value, with little relation to our real demand. . . .

I am not, of course, criticizing Aristotle for failing to satisfy this demand, except so far as, here and there, he leads us to think that he intends to satisfy it. For my main contention is that the demand cannot be satisfied, and cannot be satisfied because it is illegitimate. Thus we are brought to the question: “Is there really such a thing as moral philosophy, and, if there is, in what sense?” . . .

The sense that we ought to do certain things arises in our unreflective consciousness, being an activity of moral thinking occasioned by the vari-

58 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 50 25/07/14 3:04 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

51Abel: Discourses Ethical Theories H. A. Prichard, ‘‘Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?’’ (selection)

Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake? (selection): Reading 57 Abel: Discourses Ethical Theories H. A. Prichard, ‘‘Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?’’ (selection)

The sense that we ought to do certain things arises in our unreflective consciousness, being an activity of moral thinking occasioned by the vari-

58 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1 Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake? (selection): Reading

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 51 25/07/14 3:04 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

An Examined Life: Critical Thinking and Ethics52 Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

Abel: Discourses Ethical Theories H. A. Prichard, ‘‘Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?’’ (selection)

ous situations in which we find ourselves. At this stage our attitude to these obligations is one of unquestioning confidence. But inevitably the appreci- ation of the degree to which the execution of these obligations is contrary to our interest raises the doubt whether after all these obligations are really obligatory—that is, whether our sense that we ought not to do cer- tain things is not illusion. We then want to have it proved to us that we ought to do so—that is, to be convinced of this by a process which, as an argument, is different in kind from our original and unreflective apprecia- tion of it. This demand is . . . illegitimate.

Hence in the first place, if, as is almost universally the case, by moral philosophy is meant the knowledge which would satisfy this demand, there is no such knowledge, and all attempts to attain it are doomed to failure because they rest on a mistake, the mistake of supposing the possibility of proving what can only be apprehended directly by an act of moral think- ing. Nevertheless the demand, though illegitimate, is inevitable until we have carried the process of reflection far enough to realize the self-evidence of our obligations—that is, the immediacy of our apprehension of them. This realization of their self-evidence is positive knowledge, and so far, and so far only, as the term “moral philosophy” is confined to this knowledge and to the knowledge of the parallel immediacy of the apprehension of the goodness of the various virtues and of good dispositions generally, is there such a thing as moral philosophy. But since this knowledge may allay doubts which often affect the whole conduct of life, it is, though not extensive, important, and even vitally important.

In the second place, suppose we come genuinely to doubt whether we ought, for example, to pay our debts owing to a genuine doubt whether our previous conviction that we ought to do so is true—a doubt which can, in fact, only arise if we fail to remember the real nature of what we now call our past conviction. The only remedy lies in actually getting into a sit- uation which occasions the obligation, or—if our imagination be strong enough—in imagining ourselves in that situation, and then letting our moral capacities of thinking do their work. Or, to put the matter gener- ally, if we do doubt whether there is really an obligation to originate A in a situation B, the remedy lies not in any process of general thinking, but in getting face to face with a particular instance of the situation B, and then directly appreciating the obligation to originate A in that situation.

� N O T E S

1. owing: to be paid [D. C. Abel, editor] 2. For Prichard, for an activity to be moral, and not merely ethical, it must

be done from a sense of obligation. [D. C. Abel] 3. argumentum ad hominem: (Latin, “argument to the person”) an

argument directed not against an opponent’s contention, but against

Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake? (selection): Reading 59 Abel: Discourses Ethical Theories H. A. Prichard, ‘‘Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?’’ (selection)

the opponent himself or herself (here, Prichard’s argument directed not against his opponent’s point that the various things called obligations are unrelated, but against his opponent’s acceptance of the fact that the various things called good are equally unrelated) [D. C. Abel]

4. agatha differ he-i agatha: good things differ in the way they are good (agatha is Greek for “good things”; he-i is Greek for “as”) [D. C. Abel]

5. qua: in respect to [D. C. Abel] 6. Two other objections may be anticipated: (1) that obligations cannot

be self-evident, since many actions regarded as obligations by some are not so regarded by others; and (2) that if obligations are self-evident, the problem of how we ought to act in the presence of conflicting obligations is insoluble. To the first I should reply: (a) that the appreciation of an obligation is, of course, only possible for a developed moral being, and that different degrees of development are possible; (b) that the failure to recognize some particular obligation is usually due to the fact that, owing to a lack of thoughtfulness . . . , the preliminaries to this recognition are incomplete; (c) that the view put forward is consistent with the admission that, owing to a lack of thoughtfulness, even the best men are blind to many of their obligations, and that in the end our obligations are seen to be coextensive with almost the whole of our life. To the second objection I should reply that obligation admits of degrees, and that where obligations conflict, the decision of what we ought to do turns not on the question “Which of the alternative courses of action will originate the greater good?” but on the question “Which is the greater obligation?” [H. A. Prichard]

7. Kantian: relating to the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) [D. C. Abel]

8. The word “motive” derives from the Latin movere, “to move.” [D. C. Abel] 9. mutatis mutandis: (Latin) with the necessary changes being made

[D. C. Abel]

60 ANALYZING MORAL ISSUES - Vol. 1

03_bos5511X_int_p001-068.indd 52 25/07/14 3:04 pm

Abel: Discourses Human Nature Epicurus, ‘‘Letter to Menoeceus’’ (complete)

53Abel: Discourses Ethical Theories H. A. Prichard, ‘‘Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?’’ (selection)