Ethics, Morality, and Metaethics
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Ethics, Morality, and Metaethics
A knowledge of ethical theory has enormous practical benefits. It can free us from prejudice and dogmatism. It sets forth the comprehensive systems from which to orient our individual judgments. It carves up the moral landscape so that we can sort out the issues in order to think more clearly and confidently about moral problems.
Louis P. Pojman, Discovering Right and Wrong
There can be no complete non-personal, objective justification for acting morally rather than nonmorally.
Kai Nielsen, “Why Should I Be Moral?,” in Readings in Ethical Theory
1—Introduction
What exactly is morality and why does it seem to matter so much to us? Is there really an objective difference between good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, and if so, how can we tell the difference? Is some form of moral relativism the best ethical theory? Is there a broad ethical theory that is most consistent with Scripture, and if so, what is it? These and many other questions arise when one begins to think deeply about ethical issues. In the next four chapters, many of these questions will be addressed. This important exploration of ethical topics will be launched in this chapter by looking at an overview of the field of ethics, examining the main options in metaethics regarding the meaning of moral terms and the nature of moral propositions, such as Persons have intrinsic value or It is wrong to steal, and probing the question, why should I be moral?
2—Morality and the Field of Ethics
2.1 The Nature of Morality
Ethics can be understood as the philosophical study of morality, which is concerned with our beliefs and judgments regarding right and wrong motives, attitudes, character, and conduct. When an ethicist studies morality, certain value concepts are the center of focus: right, wrong, good, bad, ought, duty, virtuous, blameworthy, and so on.
But there is a problem. Most of these value concepts have a nonmoral as well as a moral usage. For example, given certain evidence regarding weather patterns, one “ought” to believe that it will rain in the next twenty-four hours. But the “ought” here is a rational ought, not a moral one. One may be irrational not to hold this belief, but one would not be immoral. Again, some paintings are good and others bad, but these terms express aesthetic evaluations, not moral ones. Religion, law, custom, etiquette, politics, and other fields use value terms. Is there any way to state a set of necessary and sufficient conditions that can be used to draw a line between the moral and nonmoral uses of these value terms? Among other things, such a set of conditions could be used to define ethics more precisely.
In general, it is very difficult to state an airtight set of necessary and sufficient conditions for almost anything. For example, it would be difficult to state such a set for defining play, sport, love, history, friendship, justice, or anxiety. But in each of these examples people can recognize clear cases of the term in question and clear cases that are not examples of the term. What Mickey Mantle did with the New York Yankees is sport, but what a mailman does in delivering letters is not.
In epistemology, there is a view called particularism (see chap. 4). According to particularism, one does not always need a set of necessary and sufficient conditions before one can know clear cases of a thing in question; instead, we first recognize particular cases of that thing. By way of application, we can all recognize clear cases of a moral and nonmoral use of value terms without having criteria for such differentiations. Actually, we start with clear cases: “Stealing is wrong” is a moral statement, and “Eating peas with a knife is wrong” is a statement of etiquette. Then we use these to test alternative formulations of necessary and sufficient conditions. These conditions can, in turn, be helpful in shedding light on borderline cases that are more difficult. “It is wrong to drive on the left side of the street in the United States” may use “wrong” as a moral term, a legal term, or both. However, knowledge of the clear cases provides justification for the conditions, not conversely.
The following have been offered by a number of philosophers as a set of necessary (and/or sufficient) conditions for defining morality:
1. A judgment is moral only if it is accepted as a supremely authoritative, overriding guide to conduct, attitudes, and motives.
The point of this criterion is that morality must have top priority over all else in our lives. In this way, morality is contrasted with mere custom, etiquette, and, perhaps, law. This criterion certainly captures much of what we want to say about morality. However, some would argue that it is inadequate as a necessary (or sufficient) condition for morality on the grounds that it is possible to have other duties, such as religious duties, that might override mere ethical duties. For example, some would claim that the worship of a divine being takes precedence over a moral duty to obey the state or the moral duty not to offend others. A rejoinder to this argument could point out that these religious duties and moral duties are not mutually exclusive and are, instead, both within the realm of morality. However, it is not at all clear that religious duties are exhausted by their moral dimension. Thus the argument is inconclusive. Whereas this criterion may not be necessary for addressing all cases of morality, in a weakened form it is helpful in many moral contexts. Moral judgments are extremely important, they carry a great deal of authority, and they override considerations of mere etiquette, custom, and law.
2. A judgment is moral only if it is a prescriptive imperative that recommends actions, attitudes, and motives and not merely a factual description about actions, attitudes, and motives.
This criterion expresses the distinction between a mere descriptive, factual “is” and a prescriptive, evaluative “ought” and identifies morality with the latter. It should be clear that this criterion is not a sufficient condition for morality, since there are aesthetic oughts (the piece ought to be played at this tempo for maximum beauty) and rational oughts (in light of the evidence, one ought to believe what Smith said). Furthermore, there are other points to morality besides providing prescriptive action guides for conduct; for example, some moral statements are used to praise and blame, some merely to describe what is right without necessarily commanding that one do what is right. Nevertheless, this criterion does capture an important aspect of moral judgments. They do prescribe our moral duties rather than merely describe what people actually do.
3. A judgment is moral only if it is universalizable, that is, if it applies equally to all relevantly similar situations.
The main point of this criterion is to express the conviction that moral judgments must be impartially applied to moral situations by taking into account all of the morally relevant features of the situation. If someone claimed that one act is right and a second act is wrong, but that person was unable to cite a relevant distinction between the two acts, then the judgment would seem arbitrary and without adequate foundation. This criterion points to an important aspect of morality: moral judgments are not arbitrary expressions of personal preference. They are rationally justifiable claims that, if true, are binding on all cases that fit the relevant conditions on which the claim is based. If one act of lying is wrong, then in the absence of relevant features (e.g., a certain act of lying may be the only way to save a life), all acts of lying are wrong.
4. A judgment is moral only if it makes reference to proper human flourishing, human dignity, the welfare of others, the prevention of harm, and the provision of benefit.
Inasmuch as this criterion makes exclusive reference to human beings, it is clearly inadequate as a necessary condition for morality. Animals and the environment are, arguably, appropriate objects of moral concern in their own right and not merely because such concern is of benefit to human flourishing. But if this caveat is kept in mind, criterion (4) is a good one. It focuses attention on the fact that much of the point of morality is to preserve the dignity, welfare, and richness of human life.
In summary, we can all recognize examples of moral and nonmoral judgments without possessing a set of necessary and/or sufficient conditions for drawing a line of demarcation between them. And while perhaps no airtight set of conditions exists, the same situation obtains when we try to define other areas of our intellectual and cultural life. Nevertheless, the four features above do seem to capture much of what we mean by morality. For the most part, morality is supremely authoritative, prescriptive, universalizable, and makes reference to human dignity, welfare, and flourishing.
We have seen that ethics is the study of morality. In addition, we have looked briefly at the nature of morality. Now let us survey the various branches of ethics as a field of study.
2.2 The Field of Ethics
At least four different areas of study focus on morality. Two are nonnormative in that they do not seek to prescribe what ought or ought not to be done. On the other hand, the two areas of normative ethics do seek to offer guides for determining right or wrong actions, attitudes, and motives.
The two nonnormative approaches to the study of morality are descriptive ethics and metaethics. Descriptive ethics is a factual study of moral attitudes, behaviors, rules, and motives that are embodied in various individuals and cultures. As such, descriptive ethics is not really a branch of ethics, but a sociological, anthropological, historical, or psychological view about ethics.
Metaethics involves two main areas of investigation. First, metaethics focuses on the meaning and reference of crucial ethical terms, such as right and wrong, good and bad, ought and ought not, duty, and so on. For example, metaethics investigates the meaning of a statement like “Love is a virtue.” Emotivism is a view in metaethics that translates this statement as follows: “Hurrah! Love!” According to emotivists, moral statements are not indicative statements that can be true or false, but are mere expressions of feelings that seek to evoke similar feelings in others. A second view is metaethical relativism, which translates “Love is a virtue” to mean “Love is preferred by those in our culture.” Some ethical naturalists treat the statement as making this claim: “Love is what most people desire” or “Acts of love tend to promote survival.” Ethical nonnaturalists claim that the statement ascribes a second-order nonphysical property—virtuousness—to a first-order nonphysical property—love. In this way, ethical nonnaturalists treat “Love is a virtue” as analogous to “Red is a color.” If the latter is true, it commits us to the existence of two properties: redness and coloredness. If the former is true, it commits us to the existence of two moral properties: love and virtuousness.
The important thing here is not to survey all the options in metaethics. Later in the chapter, the most prominent options will be examined. Rather, the present point is that metaethics does not provide explicit principles to aid us in determining what is the right or wrong course of action to take in a given situation. Instead, metaethics primarily focuses on giving a conceptual analysis of the meanings of moral terms and moral sentences.
A second area of metaethical investigation is the question of the structure of moral reasoning and justification. Are reasoning and justification relevant in morality? If so, is moral justification the same as scientific justification or is it different? For example, if one is an emotivist (moral statements are mere expressions of feelings), then rational, moral justification for a moral statement is impossible, for one does not give a justification for an expression of emotion. Such an expression is neither true nor false.
On the other hand, if one is an ethical naturalist (e.g., moral statements describe what most people, in fact, happen to desire), then scientific methodology would be the appropriate model for moral justification. One can determine what most people desire by a scientifically controlled survey. Again, if one is an ethical nonnaturalist, one may argue that moral reasoning ultimately appeals to a basic, irreducible intuition of a moral property or moral proposition in justifying moral positions. For example, it seems to be intuitively self-evident that persons have value and that mercy as such is a virtue.
Neither descriptive ethics nor metaethics is the central focus of this section of the book, except where certain moral positions will be evaluated. The next few chapters focus on normative ethics. Normative ethics proper seeks to formulate and defend basic moral principles, rules, systems, and virtues that serve as guides for what actions ought or ought not to be taken, what motives ought or ought not to be embraced, and what kinds of persons we ought or ought not seek to be. Utilitarianism, deontological ethical theories, and virtue ethics are examples of normative ethical theories. Applied ethics is the area of study that centers its investigation on specific moral issues, such as abortion, euthanasia, and capital punishment, and seeks to bring normative ethics to bear on them.
3—Metaethics and the Meaning of Moral Statements
In the previous section, metaethics was defined as that branch of philosophy that analyzes the meaning of certain moral terms (right, wrong, good, bad, ought, worth, and so forth). Certain moral statements make reference to persons or actions. With regard to persons, one might affirm the moral statement “Persons ought to be treated as ends in themselves” or “Persons have intrinsic value and dignity.” With regard to actions, one might affirm “The act of loving your neighbor is morally right” or “Murder is wrong.” In general, many moral statements are of this form: X is right (or wrong). X has value (or fails to have value).
Different metaethical views have been offered that analyze statements like these differently. The major options in metaethics can be summarized as follows:
I. Noncognitivist Theories
A. Emotivism
B. Imperativalism/Prescriptivism
II. Cognitivist Theories
A. Subjectivist Theories
1. Private Subjectivism
2. Cultural Relativism
B. Objectivist Theories
1. Ethical Naturalism
2. Ethical Nonnaturalism
3.1 Noncognitivist Theories
Noncognitivism denies that moral statements (e.g., “X is right”) are indicative statements that can be either true or false. Consider the statement “The apple is red.” This is an indicative statement. It asserts an alleged fact that has ontological implications. It asserts that there is an apple that exists and has an existent property, redness, in it. So indicative statements have ontological implications. Further, they can be either true or false. In this case, if the apple really is red, the statement is true. If the apple were green, it would be false. So indicative statements are cognitive in the sense that they can be either true or false, and they have ontological implications because they assert that some state of affairs obtains in the world.
Noncognitivist theories or moral statements, however, deny that moral statements are either true or false and that moral statements have ontological implications. Emotivists hold that the meaning of moral statements consists in the expression of emotions: “X is right” really means “Hurrah for x!” Statements like “X is wrong” really mean “Ugh! x!” For example, when someone says that murder is wrong, emotivists hold that the person is merely expressing the feeling “Ugh! I hate murder!”
Imperativalism/prescriptivism agrees with emotivists that moral statements are not indicative statements of fact. But they do not think that moral statements are expressions of feeling. Rather, they hold that moral statements are merely moral commands whose sole function is to guide action. “X is right” is merely the command “Do x!”
Noncognitivist theories of moral statements fail to do justice to the nature of morality. At least three objections can be raised against both views. First, moral judgments can occur in the absence of feelings or in the absence of commands, and some expressions of feelings or some commands are not moral judgments. For example, one can form the judgment “Killing rats is wrong” without feeling or commanding anything. But if a moral judgment is just an expression of a feeling or the issuing of a command, then it would be impossible to have a moral judgment without feeling or without commanding. Feelings and commands may be a part of a general theory of morality, but they do not exhaust the nature of morality. Similarly, someone can express a feeling when he stubs his toe on a table (“Ugh! I hate tables!”), but this expression is not a moral judgment. So moral judgments can occur without feelings or commands and vice versa. Thus they cannot be identical.
Second, emotivism and imperativalism imply that there is no such thing as moral education (since there is no cognitive information to learn) and there is no such thing as a moral disagreement. Consider two people who appear to be having a moral disagreement about abortion. Person A says, “Abortion is right,” and person B says, “Abortion is wrong.” Emotivists analyze these statements such that A is saying, “Hurrah! I (A) love abortion!” and B is saying, “Ugh! I (B) hate abortion!” According to emotivist (and imperativalist) translations of the statements, there is no disagreement occurring, since neither person is making a factual claim that could be true or false. Disagreements occur when one person asserts that some claim is true and another asserts that it is false. So emotivism and imperativalism imply the impossibility of moral disagreement. But any view that implies such an implausible assertion as this is inadequate as a general theory of moral meaning.
Finally, some moral statements seem to stand in logical relations with other moral statements. For example, the statement “I have a duty to do x” seems logically to imply the statement “I have a right to do x.” But emotional utterances or mere imperatives do not stand to other emotional utterances or mere imperatives in logical relationships. Only indicative statements can stand in logical relationships to one another. So emotivism and imperativalism fail to account for this feature of morality.
An imperativalist may respond to this last argument as follows. Consider this syllogism:
Syllogism A:
1. All promises being kept, please.
2. This is a promise.
3. This promise being kept, please.
The imperativalist may argue that moral imperatives may be expressed by sentences like (1), which contain two components: a descriptive component to the left of the comma (“All promises being kept”) and an imperative component to the right of the comma (“please”). The descriptive component describes a state of affairs, in this case, a world in which all promises are kept. Now a possible world in which all promises are, in fact, kept would logically imply that some specific promise is kept. So in a sense, (1) and (2) do imply (3) even though, strictly speaking, none of these propositions is either true or false. But if we allow that there seems to be a sense in which the first two premises imply the conclusion, then the imperativalist can argue that this is enough to show that moral imperatives stand in logical relations to other moral imperatives.
Does this imperativalist rejoinder work? The answer seems to be no. As the argument stands, given that (1) through (3) are neither true nor false, it is not clear that (1) and (2) logically entail (3). The only sense in which this could be true is if one removes “please” from (1) and (3) to form the following:
Syllogism B:
1’. All promises are kept.
2’. This is a promise.
3’. This promise is kept.
In this case, (3’ ) does follow from the premises. However, syllogism B no longer contains moral statements because on the imperativalist view, what makes a proposition a moral one is its imperatival force expressed in the word please. It is “please” that gives (1) through (3) their action-guiding potential. Thus the only way that the moral propositions in syllogism A can be said to stand in logical relations to each other is if we drop their distinctively moral component to generate syllogism B. Since B is no longer composed of moral propositions, this response fails.
3.2 Cognitivist Theories
Cognitivism holds that moral statements make truth claims because they are indicative statements that convey descriptive factual information: the statement “x is right” can be either true or false. Nevertheless, cognitivist theories of the meaning of moral statements differ in what they identify as the object that ethical statements describe.
3.2.1 Subjectivist Theories
Subjectivism holds that moral statements convey information about the speaker of the moral statement. According to private subjectivism, “x is right” states the psychological fact that “I like x.” This differs from emotivism. Emotivism holds that moral statements merely express feelings. Private subjectivism, however, holds that moral statements do not express feelings but describe the psychological state of the speaker. An expression of feeling cannot be false. But if person A says “I dislike x,” then this can be false if A really likes x but does not want to admit it. Cultural relativism is the view that statements like “x is right” state the sociological fact that “We in our culture like x.”
Cultural relativism and private subjectivism are very much alike and will be criticized more fully in chapters twenty-two and twenty-three. But for now, it should be pointed out that few philosophers hold that these metaethical theories are adequate treatments of morality. The main reason is that they make moral statements into nonmoral statements. The statement “x is right” appears to be a moral statement that makes a normative claim about right and wrong, and it implies a statement about what one ought to do. But the psychological and sociological translations of this statement, “I like x” and “We in our culture like x,” make no normative claims whatever. They assert what people happen to like. So they do not translate moral statements; they transform them inappropriately into nonmoral statements. Thus private subjectivism and cultural relativism cannot be adequate understandings of moral meaning.
3.2.2 Objectivist Theories
Objectivist theories agree with subjectivist theories of moral meaning in holding that moral statements assert true or false statements of fact. However, rather than focusing on the speakers of moral statements, objectivism holds that moral statements are stating facts about the acts of morality themselves or the objects that are said to have value.
The statement “The apple is red” says something about the apple. The statements “Persons have value” and “Murder is wrong” say something about persons and acts of murder. Just as “The apple is red” asserts that the apple has a property (redness), so moral statements assert that persons or moral acts have certain properties. In short, objectivist theories hold that moral statements convey information about persons or moral acts by describing properties of those persons or acts.
It is here that agreement among objectivists ends. The two major versions of objectivism—ethical naturalism and ethical nonnaturalism—disagree over the nature of the moral properties that moral judgments ascribe to persons or acts. The debate between them is over the issue of moral reductionism (i.e., over whether moral properties can be reduced to or identified with nonmoral properties). Ethical naturalists say that such a reduction is correct, and ethical nonnaturalists say that moral properties are unique and cannot be reduced to nonmoral properties.
Ethical naturalism is a reductionist view that holds that ethical terms (goodness, worth, and right) can be defined by or reduced to natural, scientific properties that are biological, psychological, sociological, or physical in nature. For example, according to ethical naturalism the term right in “X is right” means one of the following: “What is approved by most people”; “What most people desire”; “What is approved by an impartial, ideal observer”; “What maximizes desire or interest”; “What furthers human survival.” The important point here is that these moral terms and moral properties are not irreducibly moral in nature. Moral properties (e.g., worth, goodness, or rightness) turn out to be properties that are biological or psychological.
Furthermore, according to ethical naturalism, these properties can be measured by science by giving them operational definitions. Consider an example. Suppose “X is right” means “X is what most people desire,” and one goes on to argue that the presence of pleasure and the absence of pain is what most people desire. A scientist could measure the presence of pleasure and the absence of pain by defining such a state in physiological terms—the presence of a certain heart rate, the absence of certain impulses in the nervous system, slight coloration of the skin. “Rightness” means what is desired by most people; what is desired by most people is the presence of pleasure and the absence of pain; and pleasure and pain can be defined by certain physical traits of the body. Thus the moral property of rightness has been reduced to a natural property that can be measured.
Two major objections can be raised against ethical naturalism both based on its moral reductionism. First, it confuses an “is” with an “ought” by reducing the latter to the former. Moral properties are normative properties. They carry with them a moral “ought.” If some act has the property of rightness, then one ought to do that act. But natural properties like the ones listed do not carry normativeness. They just are. Second, every attempted reduction of a moral property to a natural one has failed because there are cases where an act is right even if it does not have the natural property, and an act can have the natural property and not be right. For example, suppose one reduces the moral property of rightness in “X is right” to “X is what is approved by most people.” This reduction is inadequate. For one thing, the majority can be wrong. What most people approve of can be morally wrong. If most people approved of torturing babies, then according to this version of ethical naturalism, this act would be right. But even though it was approved by most people, it would still be wrong. On the other hand, some acts can be right even if they are not approved of (or even thought of, for that matter) by most people.
Ethical nonnaturalism is the only view we have considered that holds that irreducible moral facts and properties really exist as part of the furniture of the universe. In addition to natural properties (redness and so forth), there are moral properties (rightness, goodness, worth), which persons and acts have and which moral statements ascribe to persons and acts. “X is right” ascribes an unanalyzable, irreducible moral property to x, just as “The apple is red” ascribes the natural property redness to the apple. Most Christian theists have advocated some form of ethical nonnaturalism since they hold that God himself has certain morally relevant value properties (goodness, holiness, and so forth), that persons made in his image have worth and dignity (as he does), and that some acts have the property of moral rightness.
Critics of nonnaturalism often use what J. L. Mackie has called the argument from queerness, which has both a metaphysical and an epistemological component. Mackie argues:
If there were objective values, then they would be entities or qualities or relations of a very strange sort, utterly different from anything else in the universe. Correspondingly, if we were aware of them, it would have to be by some special faculty of moral perception or intuition, utterly different from our ordinary ways of knowing everything else.
Mackie is arguing—asserting might be a better word, for this is not much of an argument as it stands—that moral values are so odd that their existence would be strange and our ability to know them would be odd. But why should anyone agree with Mackie about this? If morals do exist, why would anyone expect them to be like other kinds of things? Mackie appears to be faulting moral values for not behaving like physical objects. But this is an absurd example of fault-finding. If moral values are not physical objects, then why should people expect them to be like physical objects? If Mackie is correct in his view, then a host of entities—numbers, persons, laws of logic, universals, sets, and any other nonphysical entity—go by the boards because they are “queer.”
Mackie’s objection is a mere assertion of bias in favor of naturalism. It seems reasonable to say that if a physicalist version of philosophical naturalism is true, then objective moral values do not exist. But it is often the case in philosophy that one person’s modus ponens is another’s modus tollens. Mackie would affirm the antecedent and deny the objectivity of moral values. However, an opponent would deny the consequence and thus deny that a physicalist version of philosophical naturalism is true. In chapter twenty-six we will revisit this dialectic and see that the objectivity of moral values provides grounds for believing in the existence of God.
In sum, these are the major options in metaethics. In addition to the analysis of moral terms and assertions, another important issue in metaethics is the problem of justifying the moral point of view itself.
4—Why Should I Be Moral?
A mature philosophy of life should include an answer to the question of why one should be moral. But the question, why should I be moral? needs clarification. Three points should help to clarify the question.
First, one can distinguish specific moral acts (an act of kindness, an act of self-sacrifice) from what philosophers call the moral point of view. The question, why should I be moral? is really asking, why should I adopt the moral point of view? So it is important to understand what the moral point of view is. If one adopts the moral point of view, then one does the following: one subscribes to normative judgments about actions, things (persons, the environment), and motives; one is willing to universalize his judgments; one seeks to form his moral views in a free, unbiased, enlightened way; one seeks to promote the good. In other words, if one adopts the moral point of view, one submits to and seeks to promote the dictates of normative, universalizable morality in a mature, unbiased, impartial way. One embraces the dictates of morality and seeks to live in light of the moral point of view. Such a viewpoint governs one’s life and priorities. So understood, the question, why should I be moral? becomes the question, why should I adopt the moral point of view as a guiding force over my life?
Second, one can distinguish between motives and reasons for adopting the moral point of view. Regarding the former, the question asks what motivates one to adopt the moral point of view. Motives do not need to be rational factors. For example, one could say that he was motivated to adopt the moral point of view because it gave him approval from his parents and society or simply because of a certain urge or feeling to do so. Regarding reasons, the question asks what rational justification can be given for adopting the moral point of view. The question is usually framed in terms of reasons, but both reasons and motives are relevant to a full discussion of why one adopts the moral point of view.
Third, it is not clear what kind of justification the question is seeking. What kind of “should” is involved in, why should I be moral? If it is a moral “should,” then the question is asking for a moral justification for adopting the moral point of view. If a moral “should” is used in the question, then some philosophers think the question involves a pointless self-contradiction. For one is then asking for a moral reason for accepting moral reasons. In other words, if one is using a moral “should” in the question, then one is already reasoning from within the moral point of view, since one is already willing to acknowledge a moral answer to a moral question. But if one has already adopted the moral point of view, then there is not much point in asking for a moral reason for doing so. About the only answer one could give to the question would be that it is just morally right to adopt the moral point of view. But if one is willing to adopt the moral point of view because such an act is morally right, then one has already adopted the moral point of view without knowing it. So the question, why should I be moral? is not really using a moral sense of “should,” and if it is, the only answer is that such an act is just the morally right thing to do.
But there is a different notion of “should” that is better suited as a part of the question. This is a rational “should.” According to this sense of “should,” one is not asking the question, why should I be moral? from within the moral point of view, but from outside the moral point of view altogether. In other words, one is asking the question, What rational justification can be given to me as to why it would be reasonable for me to adopt the moral point of view rather than some other point of view, say, an egoistic self-interested point of view by which I govern my life for my own best interests without regard for the moral point of view at all? As one seeks to formulate a rational life plan for oneself, a well-thought-out, reasonable approach to the way one will live one’s life so as to be a rational person, why should the moral point of view be a part of that rational life plan? In sum, the question, why should I be moral? is asking for the motives, but more importantly, the reasons why someone should adopt the moral point of view as a part of a rational plan of life.
Part of the rational assessment of an ethical theory or, more generally, an entire worldview is the evaluation of the answer that theory or worldview provides to the question, why should I be moral? Different answers have been given to the question, but the two most prominent have been the egoistic and theistic replies. Roughly, the egoistic response says that one ought to be moral just in case that it is in one’s best interests to do so. In one way or another, theistic responses incorporate reference to the existence of God. For example, one ought to be moral because the moral law is true and is constituted by the nonarbitrary commands of a good, just, wise, loving God or because the moral law is grounded in the way we were designed by such a God to function properly. Ethical egoism will be examined in chapter twenty-three and God’s relationship to moral obligation will be analyzed in chapter twenty-nine. The question, why should I be moral? should be kept in mind while reflecting on those discussions.
Chapter Summary
Ethics can be understood as the philosophical study of morality, but because value concepts such as “ought” have a nonmoral and moral usage, there is need to clarify the nature of morality. Certain conditions have been offered for characterizing a judgment as moral: it must be accepted as a supremely authoritative guide to conduct, attitudes, and motives; it must be a prescriptive imperative; it must be universalizable; and it must make reference to things such as proper human flourishing, human dignity, and so forth.
There are at least four different areas of study that focus on morality. Two are nonnormative: descriptive ethics and metaethics. Two are normative: normative ethics proper and applied ethics.
Various noncognitivist and cognitivist metaethical theories were analyzed. The former deny that moral statements are either true or false. Emotivism and imperativalism/prescriptivism are the main versions of noncognitivism. Cognitivist theories depict moral statements as indicatives. Subjective cognitivist theories (private subjectivism and cultural relativism) imply that moral statements convey information about the speaker of the moral statement. Objectivist theories imply that moral statements convey information about moral acts themselves or the objects (e.g., human persons), which are said to have value. Ethical naturalists claim that moral properties can be reduced to nonmoral properties, and ethical nonnaturalists disagree with this claim.
When properly understood, the question, why should I be moral? amounts to the question, What rational justification can be given to me as to why it would be reasonable for me to adopt the moral point of view rather than some other point of view, say, an egoistic self-interested point of view where I govern my life for my own best interests without regard for the moral point of view at all?
Checklist of Basic Terms and Concepts
applied ethics
cognitivism
cultural relativism
descriptive ethics
descriptive, factual “is”
emotivism
ethical naturalism
ethical nonnaturalism
ethics
imperativalism/prescriptivism
metaethical relativism
metaethics (two areas of investigation)
moral point of view
moral reductionism
moral “should”
noncognitivism
normative ethics
normative ethics proper
objectivism
particularism
prescriptive, evaluative “ought”
private subjectivism
rational life plan
rational “should”
subjectivism
universalizable
value concepts