WHY STUDY ETHICS?

It is clear that we often disagree about questions of value. Should same-sex marriage be legal? Should women have
abortions? Should drugs such as marijuana be legalized? Should we torture terrorists in order to get information from
them? Should we eat animals or use them in medical experiments? These sorts of questions are sure to expose
divergent ideas about what is right or wrong.

Discussions of these sorts of questions often devolve into unreasonable name- calling, foot-stomping, and other
questionable argument styles. The philosophical study of ethics aims to produce good arguments that provide
reasonable support for our opinions about practical topics. If someone says that abortion should (or should not) be
permitted, he or she needs to explain why this is so. It is not enough to say that abortion should not be permitted
because it is wrong or that women should be allowed to choose abortion because it is wrong to limit women’s choices.
To say that these things are wrong is merely to reiterate that they should not be permitted. Such an answer begs the
question. Circular, question-begging arguments are fallacious. We need further argument and information to know why
abortion is wrong or why limiting free choice is wrong. We need a theory of what is right and wrong, good or evil,
justified, permissible, and unjustifiable, and we need to understand how our theory applies in concrete cases. The first
half of this text will discuss various

theories and concepts that can be used to help us avoid begging the question in debates about ethical issues. The
second half looks in detail at a number of these issues.

It is appropriate to wonder, at the outset, why we need to do this. Why isn’t it sufficient to simply state your opinion and
assert that “x is wrong (or evil, just, permissible, etc.)”? One answer to this question is that such assertions do nothing to
solve the deep conflicts of value that we find in our world. We know that people disagree about abortion, same- sex
marriage, animal rights, and other issues. If we are to make progress toward understanding each other, if we are to
make progress toward establishing some consensus about these topics, then we have to understand why we think
certain things are right and others are wrong. We need to make arguments and give reasons in order to work out our
own conclusions about these issues and in order to explain our conclusions to others.

It is also insufficient to appeal to custom or authority in deriving our conclusions about moral issues. While it may be
appropriate for children to simply obey their parents’ decisions, adults should strive for more than conformity and
obedience to authority. Sometimes our parents and grandparents are wrong—or they disagree among themselves.
Sometimes the law is wrong—or laws conflict. And sometimes religious authorities are wrong—or authorities do not
agree. To appeal to authority on moral issues, we would first have to decide which authority is to be trusted and
believed. Which religion provides the best set of moral rules? Which set of laws in which country is to be followed? Even
within the United States, there is currently a conflict of laws with regard to some of these issues: some states have
legalized medical marijuana or physician assisted suicide, others have not. The world’s religions also disagree about a
number of issues: for example, the status of women, the permissibility of abortion, and the question of whether war is
justifiable. And members of the same religion or denomination may disagree among themselves about these issues. To
begin resolving these conflicts, we need critical philosophical inquiry into

basic ethical questions. In Chapter 2, we discuss the world’s diverse religious traditions and ask whether there is a set of
common ethical ideas that is shared by these traditions. In this chapter, we clarify what ethics is and how ethical
reasoning should proceed.

WHAT IS ETHICS?
On the first day of an ethics class, we often ask students to write one-paragraph answers to the question, “What is
ethics?”

How would you answer? Over the years, there have been significant differences of opinion among our students on this
issue. Some have argued that ethics is a highly personal thing, a matter of private opinion. Others claim that our values
come from family upbringing. Other students think that ethics is a set of social principles, the codes of one’s society or
particular groups within it, such as medical or legal organizations. Some write that many people get their ethical beliefs
from their religion.

One general conclusion can be drawn from these students’ comments: We tend to think of ethics as the set of values or
principles held by individuals or groups. I have my ethics and you have yours; groups—professional organizations and
societies, for example—have shared sets of values. We can study the various sets of values that people have. This could
be done historically and sociologically. Or we could take a psychological interest in deter- mining how people form their
values. But philosophical ethics is a critical enterprise that asks whether any particular set of values or beliefs is better
than any other. We compare and evaluate sets of values and beliefs, giving reasons for our evaluations. We ask
questions such as, “Are there good reasons for preferring one set of ethics over another?” In this text, we examine
ethics from a critical or evaluative standpoint. This examination will help you come to a better understanding of your
own values and the values of others.

Ethics is a branch of philosophy. It is also called moral philosophy. In general, philosophy is a discipline or study in which
we ask—and attempt to answer—basic questions about key areas or subject matters of human life and about pervasive
and significant aspects of experience. Some philosophers, such as Plato and Kant, have tried to do this systematically by
interrelating their philosophical views in many areas. According to Alfred North Whitehead, “Philosophy is the endeavor
to frame a coherent, logical, necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can
be interpreted.”1 Some contemporary philosophers have given up on the goal of building a sys- tem of general ideas,
arguing instead that we must work at problems piecemeal, focusing on one particular issue at a time. For instance, some
philosophers might analyze the meaning of the phrase to know, while others might work on the morality of lying. Some
philosophers are optimistic about our ability to address these problems, while others are more skeptical because they
think that the way we analyze the issues and the conclusions we draw will always be influenced by our background,
culture, and habitual ways of thinking. Most agree, however, that these problems are worth wondering about and caring
about.

We can ask philosophical questions about many subjects. In the philosophical study of aesthetics, philosophers ask basic
or foundational questions about art and objects of beauty: what kinds of things do or should count as art (rocks
arranged in a certain way, for example)? Is what makes something an object of aesthetic interest its emotional
expressiveness, its peculiar formal nature, or its ability to reveal truths that cannot be described in other ways? In the
philosophy of science, philosophers ask whether scientific knowledge gives us a picture of reality as it is, whether
progress exists in science, and whether the scientific method discloses truth. Philosophers of law seek to understand the
nature of law itself, the source of its authority, the nature of legal interpretation, and the basis of legal responsibility. In
the philosophy of knowledge, called epistemology, we try to answer questions about what we can know of ourselves
and our world, and what it means to know something rather than just to believe it. In each area, philosophers ask basic
questions about the particular subject matter. This is also true of moral philosophy.

Ethics, or moral philosophy, asks basic questions about the good life, about what is better and worse, about whether
there is any objective right and wrong, and how we know it if there is.

One objective of ethics is to help us decide what is good or bad, better or worse. This is generally called normative
ethics. Normative ethics defends a thesis about what is good, right, or just. Normative ethics can be distinguished from
metaethics. Metaethical inquiry asks questions about the nature of ethics, including the meaning of ethical terms and
judgments. Questions about the relation between philosophical ethics and religion—as we discuss in Chapter 2—are
metaethical. Theoretical questions about ethical relativism—as discussed in Chapter 3—are also metaethical. The other
chapters in Part I are more properly designated as ethical theory. These chapters present concrete normative theories;
they make claims about what is good or evil, just or unjust.

From the mid 1930s until recently, metaethics predominated in English-speaking universities. In doing metaethics, we
often analyze the meaning of ethical language. Instead of asking whether the death penalty is morally justified, we
would ask what we meant in calling something “morally justified” or “good” or “right.” We analyze ethical language,
ethical terms, and ethical statements to determine what they mean. In doing this, we function at a level removed from
that implied by our definition. It is for this reason that we call this other type of ethics metaethics—meta meaning
“beyond.” Some of the discussions in this chapter are metaethical discussions—for example, the analysis of various
senses of “good.” As you will see, much can be learned from such discussions.

ETHICAL AND OTHER TYPES OF EVALUATION

“That’s great!” “Now, this is what I call a delicious meal!” “That play was wonderful!” All of these statements express
approval of something. They do not tell us much about the meal or the play, but they do imply that the speaker thought
they were good. These are evaluative statements. Ethical statements or judgments are also evaluative. They tell us what
the speaker believes is good or bad. They do not simply describe the object of the judgment—for example, as an action
that occurred at a certain time or that affected people in a certain way. They go further and express a positive or
negative regard for it. Of course, factual matters are relevant to moral evaluation. For example, factual judgments about
whether capital punishment has a deterrent effect might be relevant to our moral judgments about it. So also would we
want to know the facts about whether violence can ever bring about peace; this would help us judge the morality of
war. Because ethical judgments often rely on such empirical information, ethics is often indebted to other disciplines
such as sociology, psychology, and history. Thus, we can distinguish between empirical or descriptive claims, which state
factual beliefs, and evaluative judgments, which state whether such facts are good or bad, just or unjust, right or wrong.
Evaluative judgments are also called normative judgments. Moral judgments are evaluative because they “place a
value,” negative or positive, on some action or practice, such as capital punishment.

Descriptive (empirical) judgment: Capital punishment acts (or does not act) as a deterrent.

Normative (moral) judgment: Capital punishment is justifiable (or unjustifiable).

We also evaluate people, saying that a person is good or evil, just or unjust. Because these evaluations also rely on
beliefs in general about what is good or right, they are also normative. For example, the judgment that a person is a
hero or a villain is based upon a normative theory about good or evil sorts of people.

“That is a good knife” is an evaluative or normative statement. However, it does not mean that the knife is morally good.
In making ethical judgments, we use terms such as good, bad, right, wrong, obligatory, and permissible. We talk about
what we ought or ought not to do. These are evaluative terms. But not all evaluations are moral in nature. We speak of a
good knife without attributing moral goodness to it. In so describing the knife, we are probably referring to its practical
usefulness for cutting. Other evaluations refer to other systems of values. When people tell us that a law is legitimate or
unconstitutional, that is a legal judgment. When we read that two articles of clothing ought not to be worn together,
that is an aesthetic judgment. When religious leaders tell members of their com- munities what they ought to do, that is
a religious matter. When a community teaches people to bow before elders or use eating utensils in a certain way, that
is a matter of custom. These various normative or evaluative judgments appeal to practical, legal, aesthetic, religious, or
customary norms for their justification.

How do other types of normative judgments differ from moral judgments? Some philosophers believe that it is a
characteristic of moral “oughts” in particular that they override other “oughts,” such as aesthetic ones. In other words, if
we must choose between what is aesthetically pleasing and what is morally right, then we ought to do what is morally
right. In this way, morality may also take precedence over the law and custom. The doctrine of civil disobedience relies
on this belief, because it holds that we may disobey certain laws for moral reasons. Although moral evaluations differ
from other normative evaluations, this is not to say that there is no relation between them. In fact, moral reasons often
form the basis for certain laws. But law—at least in the United States—results from a variety of political compromises.
We don’t tend to look to the law for moral guidance. And we are reluctant to think that we can “legislate morality,” as
the saying goes. Of course, there is still an open debate about whether the law should enforce moral ideas in the context
of issues such as gay marriage or abortion.

There may be moral reasons supporting legal arrangements—considerations of basic justice, for example. Furthermore,
the fit or harmony between forms and colors that ground some aesthetic judgments may be similar to the rightness or
moral fit between certain actions and certain situations or beings. Moreover, in some ethical systems, actions are judged
morally by their practical usefulness for producing valued ends. For now, however, note that ethics is not the only area
in which we make normative judgments.
 TRAITS OF MORAL PRINCIPLES

A central feature of morality is the moral principle. We have already noted that moral principles are guides for action,
but we must say more about the traits of such principles. Although there is no universal agreement on the
characteristics a moral principle must have, there is a wide consensus about five features: (1) pre- scriptivity, (2)
universalizability, (3) overridingness, (4) publicity, and (5) practica-bility. Several of these will be examined in chapters
throughout this book, but let’s briefly consider them here.

First is prescriptivity, which is the commanding aspect of morality. Moral principles are generally put forth as commands
or imperatives, such as “Do not kill,” “Do no unnecessary harm,” and “Love your neighbor.” They are intended for use:
to advise people and influence action. Prescriptivity shares this trait with all normative discourse and is used to appraise
behavior, assign praise and blame, and produce feelings of satisfaction or guilt.

Second is universalizability. Moral principles must apply to all people who are in a relevantly similar situation. If I judge
that an act is right for a certain person, then that act is right for any other relevantly similar person. This trait is
exemplified in the Golden Rule, “Do to others what you would want them to do to you.” We also see it in the formal
principle of justice: It cannot be right for you to treat me in a manner in which it would be wrong for me to treat you,
merely on the ground that we are two different individuals.4

Universalizability applies to all evaluative judgments. If I say that X is a good thing, then I am logically committed to
judge that anything relevantly similar to X is a good thing. This trait is an extension of the principle of consistency: we
ought to be consistent about our value judgments, including one’s moral judgments. Take any act that you are
contemplating doing and ask, “Could I will that everyone act according to this principle?”

Third is overridingness. Moral principles have predominant authority and override other kinds of principles. They are not
the only principles, but they take precedence over other considerations, including aesthetic, prudential, and legal ones.
The artist Paul Gauguin may have been aesthetically justified in abandoning his family to devote his life to painting
beautiful Pacific Island pictures, but morally he probably was not justified, and so he probably should not have done it. It
may be prudent to lie to save my reputation, but it probably is morally wrong to do so. When the law becomes
egregiously immoral, it may be my moral duty to exercise civil disobedience. There is a general moral duty to obey the
law because the law serves an overall moral purpose, and this overall purpose may give us moral reasons to obey laws
that may not be moral or ideal. There may come a time, however, when the injustice of a bad law is intolerable and
hence calls for illegal but moral defiance. A good example would be laws in the South prior to the Civil War requiring
citizens to return runaway slaves to their owners.

Fourth is publicity. Moral principles must be made public in order to guide our actions. Publicity is necessary because we
use principles to prescribe behavior, give advice, and assign praise and blame. It would be self-defeating to keep them a
secret.

Fifth is practicability. A moral principle must have practicability, which means that it must be workable and its rules must
not lay a heavy burden on us when we follow them. The philosopher John Rawls speaks of the “strains of commitment”
that overly idealistic principles may cause in average moral agents.5 It might be desirable for morality to require more
selfless behavior from us, but the result of such principles could be moral despair, deep or undue moral guilt, and
ineffective action. Accordingly, most ethical systems take human limitations into consideration.

Although moral philosophers disagree somewhat about these five traits, the above discussion offers at least an idea of
the general features of moral principles.
 DOMAINS OF ETHICAL ASSESSMENT

At this point, it might seem that ethics concerns itself entirely with rules of con- duct that are based solely on evaluating
acts. However, it is more complicated than that. Most ethical analysis falls into one or more of the following domains:
(1) action, (2) consequences, (3) character traits, and (4) motive. Again, all these domains will be examined in detail in
later chapters, but an overview here will be helpful.

Let’s examine these domains using an altered version of the Kitty Genovese story. Suppose a man attacks a woman in
front of her apartment and is about to kill her. A responsible neighbor hears the struggle, calls the police, and shouts
from the window, “Hey you, get out of here!” Startled by the neighbor’s reprimand, the attacker lets go of the woman
and runs down the street where he is caught by the police.

Action

One way of ethically assessing this situation is to examine the actions of both the attacker and the good neighbor: The
attacker’s actions were wrong whereas the neighbor’s actions were right. The term right has two meanings. Sometimes,
it means “obligatory” (as in “the right act”), but it also can mean “permissible” (as in “a right act” or “It’s all right to do
that”). Usually, philosophers define right as permissible, including in that category what is obligatory:

1.) A right act is an act that is permissible for you to do. It may be either (a) obligatory or (b) optional.

a.) An obligatory act is one that morality requires you to do; it is not permissible for you to refrain from doing it.
b. )An optional act is one that is neither obligatory nor wrong to do. It is not your duty to do it, nor is it your duty
not to do it. Neither doing it nor not doing it would be wrong.

2.) A wrong act is one you have an obligation, or a duty, to refrain from doing: It is an act you ought not to do; it is not
permissible to do it:

In our example, the attacker’s assault on the woman was clearly a wrong action (prohibited); by contrast, the neighbor’s
act of calling the police was clearly a right action—and an obligatory one at that.

But, some acts do not seem either obligatory or wrong. Whether you take a course in art history or English literature or
whether you write a letter with a pencil or pen seems morally neutral. Either is permissible. Whether you listen to rock
music or classical music is not usually considered morally significant. Listening to both is allowed, and neither is
obligatory. Whether you marry or remain single is an important decision about how to live your life. The decision you
reach, however, is usually considered morally neutral or optional. Under most circumstances, to marry (or not to marry)
is considered neither obligatory nor wrong but permissible.

Within the range of permissible acts is the notion of supererogatory acts, or highly altruistic acts. These acts are neither
required nor obligatory, but they exceed what morality requires, going “beyond the call of duty.” For example, suppose
the responsible neighbor ran outside to actually confront the attacker rather than simply shout at him from the window.
Thus, the neighbor would assume an extra risk that would not be morally required. Similarly, while you may be obligated
to give a donation to help people in dire need, you would not be obligated to sell your car, let alone become
impoverished yourself, to help them. The complete scheme of acts, then, is this:
1.) Right act (permissible)

a.) Obligatory act

b.)Optional act
(1) Neutral act
(2) Supererogatory act

2.) Wrong act (not permissible)

One important kind of ethical theory that emphasizes the nature of the act is called deontological (from the Greek word
deon, meaning “duty”). These theories hold that something is inherently right or good about such acts as truth telling
and promise keeping and inherently wrong or bad about such acts as lying and promise breaking. Classical deontological
ethical principles include the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule. The leading proponent of deontological ethics in
recent centuries is Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), who defended a principle of moral duty that he calls the categorical
imperative: “Act only on that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it would become a universal law.”
Examples for Kant are “Never break your promise” and “Never commit suicide.” What all of these deontological theories
and principles have in common is the view that we have an inherent duty to perform right actions and avoid bad actions.

Consequences

Another way of ethically assessing situations is to examine the consequences of an action: If the consequences are on
balance positive, then the action is right; if negative, then wrong. In our example, take the consequences of the
attacker’s actions. At minimum he physically harms the woman and psychologically traumatizes both her and her
neighbors; if he succeeds in killing her, then he emotionally devastates her family and friends, perhaps for life. And what
does he gain from this? Just a temporary experience of sadistic pleasure. On balance, his action has overwhelmingly
negative consequences and thus is wrong. Examine next the consequences of the responsible neighbor who calls the
police and shouts down from the window “Hey you, get out of here!” This scares off the attacker, thus limiting the harm
of his assault. What does the neighbor lose by doing this? Just a temporary experience of fear, which the neighbor might
have experienced any- way. On balance, then, the neighbor’s action has overwhelmingly positive con- sequences, which
makes it the right thing to do.

Ethical theories that focus primarily on consequences in determining moral rightness and wrongness are sometimes
called teleological ethics (from the Greek telos, meaning “goal directed”). The most famous of these theories is
utilitarianism, set forth by Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806– 1873), which requires us to do
what is likeliest to have the best consequences. In Mill’s words, “Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote
happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.”

Character Traits

Whereas some ethical theories emphasize the nature of actions in themselves and some emphasize principles involving
the consequences of actions, other theories emphasize a person’s character trait, or virtue. In our example, the attacker
has an especially bad character trait—namely, malevolence—which taints his entire out- look on life and predisposes
him to act in harmful ways. The attacker is a bad person principally for having this bad character trait of malevolence.
The responsible neighbor, on the other hand, has a good character trait, which directs his

outlook on life—namely, benevolence, which is the tendency to treat people with kindness and assist those in need.
Accordingly, the neighbor is a good per- son largely for possessing this good trait.

Moral philosophers call such good character traits virtues and bad traits vices. Entire theories of morality have been
developed from these notions and are called virtue theories. The classic proponent of virtue theory was Aristotle (384–
322 BCE), who maintained that the development of virtuous character traits is needed to ensure that we habitually act
rightly. Although it may be helpful to have action-guiding rules, it is vital to empower our character with the tendency to
do good. Many people know that cheating, gossiping, or overindulging in food or alcohol is wrong, but they are
incapable of doing what is right. Virtuous people spontaneously do the right thing and may not even consciously follow
moral rules when doing so.

Motive

Finally, we can ethically assess situations by examining the motive of the people involved. The attacker intended to
brutalize and kill the woman; the neighbor intended to thwart the attacker and thereby help the woman. Virtually all
ethical systems recognize the importance of motives. For a full assessment of any action, it is important to take the
agent’s motive into account. Two acts may appear identical on the surface, but one may be judged morally blameworthy
and the other excusable. Consider John’s pushing Mary off a ledge, causing her to break her leg. In situation (A), he is
angry and intends to harm her, but in situation (B) he sees a knife flying in her direction and intends to save her life. In
(A) he clearly did the wrong thing, whereas in (B) he did the right thing. A full moral description of any act will take
motive into account as a relevant factor.

CONCLUSION

The study of ethics has enormous practical benefits. It can free us from prejudice and dogmatism. It sets forth
comprehensive systems from which to orient our individual judgments. It carves up the moral landscape so that we can
sort out the issues to think more clearly and confidently about moral problems. It helps us clarify in our minds just how
our principles and values relate to one another, and, most of all, it gives us some guidance in how to live. Let’s return to
questions posed at the beginning of this chapter, some of which we should now be able to better answer.

What is the nature of morality, and why do we need it? Morality concerns discovering the rules that promote the human
good, as elaborated in the five traits of moral principles: prescriptivity, universalizability, overridingness, publicity, and
practicability. Without morality, we cannot promote that good.

What is the good, and how will I know it? The good in question is the human good, specified as happiness, reaching
one’s potential, and so forth.

Whatever we decide on that fulfills human needs and helps us develop our deepest potential is the good that morality
promotes.

Is it in my interest to be moral? Yes, in general and in the long run, for morality is exactly the set of rules most likely to
help (nearly) all of us, if nearly all of us follow them nearly all of the time. The good is good for you—at least most of the
time. Furthermore, if we believe in the superior importance of morality, then we will bring children up so that they will
be unhappy when they break the moral code. They will feel guilt. In this sense, the commitment to morality and its
internalization nearly guarantee that if you break the moral rules you will suffer.

What is the relationship between morality and religion? Religion relies more on revelation, and morality relies more on
reason, on rational reflection. But, religion can provide added incentive for the moral life for those who believe that God
sees and will judge all our actions.

What is the relationship between morality and law? Morality and law should be very close, and morality should be the
basis of the law, but there can be both unjust laws and immoral acts that cannot be legally enforced. The law is
shallower than morality and has a harder time judging human motives and intentions. You can be morally evil, intending
to do evil things, but as long as you don’t do them, you are legally innocent.
What is the relationship between morality and etiquette? Etiquette consists in the customs of a culture, but they are
typically morally neutral in that the culture could flourish with a different code of etiquette. In our culture, we eat with
knives and forks, but a culture that eats with chopsticks or fingers is no less moral.

1.2 Agency

If, as the result of an earthquake, a boulder were to break off from the face of a cliff and kill an unfortunate mountaineer
below, it wouldn’t make sense to hold either the boulder or the Earth morally accountable for her death. If, on the other
hand, an angry acquaintance dislodged the rock, aiming to kill the mountaineer for the sake of some personal grudge,
things would be different. Why?

One of the key differences between the two deaths is that the second, unlike the first, involves “agency.”This difference
is a crucial one, as agency

is often taken to be a necessary condition or requirement of moral responsibility. Simply put, something can only be
held morally responsible for an event if that something is an agent. Angry colleagues are agents but the Earth is not
(assuming, of course, that the Earth isn’t some animate, conscious being).This seems obvious enough, but what precisely
is agency, and why does it matter?

Agency for many involves the exercise of freedom. Freedom is usually taken to require the ability to act otherwise or in
ways contrary to the way one is currently acting or has acted in the past. For many holding this point of view, being
responsible (and thence an agent) means possessing a “free will” through which one can act independently of desires
and chains of natural causes. Of course, there are also many philosophers who don’t think much of this conception of
freedom. Most of the critics, however, nevertheless do accept using the term for actions that proceed in a causal way
from one’s self or one’s own character in the absence of external compulsion, coercion, or mental defect. (These
philosophers are called “compatibilists.”)

Conditions of agency

For thinkers following Aristotle (384–322 BCE), agency requires that one understands what one’s doing, what the
relevant facts of the matter are, and how the causal order of the world works to the extent that one is able to foresee
the likely consequences of chosen courses of action.

It’s also important that an agent possess some sort of self-understanding – that is, some sense of self-identity,
knowledge of who and what one is, what one’s character and emotional architecture are like, what one is capable and
not capable of doing. Self-knowledge is important because it doesn’t normally make sense to think of someone as a free
agent who is unaware of what he or she does – for example, while asleep or during an unforeseen seizure. It can still
make sense to talk of some of this kind of action as the result of agency, however, if the impairments that lead to the
unconscious conduct are the result of one’s own free choices. For example, consider someone who voluntarily gets
drunk while piloting an airliner, knowing full well what’s likely to happen; or consider someone else whose ignorance
about the small child standing behind the car he has just put into gear results from negligence, from his not bothering to
look out the rear window.

For Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), the ability to reason is crucial to agency. In Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason (1788),
what’s important is that one act unselfishly, purely on the basis of reason or a certain kind of rational principle (a
categorical imperative), instead of on the basis of desire or fear. Only this sort of rational action qualifies for Kant as
truly moral action, because even acting well on the basis of desire ultimately boils down to the same thing as acting in
other ways for the sake of desire. Desires and fears simply come over us, the result of natural and social causes beyond
our control. To act strictly from desire is to be a slave to desire. Only by acting on the basis of reason alone are we, for
Kant, autonomous – that is, self-governing beings who legislate moral laws of action to ourselves.

Other conditions of agency

But perhaps it’s wrong to regard feelings and desires as irrelevant. Indeed, shouldn’t moral agency also be understood
to require the capacity to sympathize with others, to be distressed by their suffering, and to feel regret or remorse after
harming others or acting immorally? Would it make sense to regard as a moral or free agent a robot that behaved
rationally and that possessed all the relevant information but didn’t have any inner, affective life? It’s not obvious what
the answer to this question is. Star Trek’s Mr. Spock, for example, seemed to be a moral agent, even though the only
reason he had for condemning immoral acts was that they were “illogical.”

Similarly, it might be thought that the right social conditions must be in place for moral agency to be possible. Could
people truly be moral agents capable of effective action without public order and security, sufficient means of
sustenance, access to information and communication, education, a free press, and an open government? But again,
this is far from obvious. Although it seems true that when civilization breaks down immorality or amorality rises, it also
seems excessively pessimistic to conclude that moral agency is utterly impossible without many of the supports and
constraints of society.

Types of agent

It may seem strange to consider things like corporations or nations or mobs or social classes as agents, but the issue
often arises in reflections about whether one should make judgments that attribute collective responsibility. People did
speak of the guilt of the German nation and demand that all Germans contribute to war reparations after World War I.
When the government of a truly democratic nation goes to war, because its policy in some sense expresses “the will of
the people,” the country arguably acts as though it were a kind of single agent. People also, of course, speak collectively
of the responsibilities of the ruling class, corporations, families, tribes, and ethnic

groups. Because human life is populated by collectives, institutions, organizations, and other social groupings, agency
can sometimes be dispersed or at least seem irremediably unclear. These “gray zones,” as thinkers like Primo Levi (The
Periodic Table, 1975) and Claudia Card (The Atrocity Paradigm, 2002) have called them, make determining agency in
areas like sexual conduct and political action exceedingly difficult.

There are three ways of understanding how we talk about collectives as agents. One is that it’s just mistaken and that
collectives cannot be agents. The second is that collectives are agents in some alternative, perhaps metaphorical sense –
that they are like real agents but not quite the same as them. The third is that collectives are as much agents as
individual people, who are themselves perhaps not as singular, cohesive, and unified as many would like to believe.

1.4 Autonomy

The legitimacy of “living wills” or “advance directives” is at present a hotly contested social and moral issue. Expressing
people’s preferences should they become unable to do so because of illness or injury, these curious documents aim to
make sure that physicians treat individuals as they wish, not as others think best. The 2005 case of Terri Schiavo, the
brain-damaged American woman whose husband and parents fell into a sensational and painful legal wrangle
concerning her wishes, illustrates all too well the reasons people write living wills.
Proponents of the practice argue that one of the most important bases for the human capacity to act in moral ways is
the ability not only to choose and to act on those choices but also to choose for oneself, to be the author of one’s own
life. This capacity is known as “autonomy.” But what does it mean to be autonomous?

Autonomy requires, at the very least, an absence of compulsion. If someone is compelled to act rightly by some internal
or external force – for instance, to return a lost wallet packed with cash – that act isn’t autonomous. So, even though the
act was morally proper, because it was compelled it merits little praise.

For philosophers like Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), this is why autonomy is required for truly moral action. Kant argues in
his Critique of Practical Reason (1788) and elsewhere that autonomously acting without regard for one’s desires or
interests is possible because people are able to act purely on the basis of rational principles given to themselves by
themselves. Indeed, the word “autonomous” derives from the Greek for self (auto) and law (nomos) and literally means
self-legislating, giving the law to one’s self. Actions done through external or internal compulsion are, by contrast,
“heteronomous” (the law being given by something hetero or “other”). In this way autonomy differs from, though also
presupposes, metaphysical freedom, which is commonly defined as acting independently of the causal order of nature.
Political freedom, of course, has to do with people’s relationship to government and other people regardless or their
relationship to systems of cause and effect. But theories of political freedom also draw upon the concept of autonomy.

Politics

Conceptions of autonomy are important politically, because one’s ideas about politics are often bound up with one’s
ideas about what people are and what they’re capable of doing or not doing. Those who think that people are not
capable or little capable of self-legislating, self-regulating action are not likely to think that people are capable of
governing themselves.

Liberal democratic theory, however, depends upon that ability. The authority of government in liberal democracies
draws its justification from the consent of the governed. Through systems of elections and representation the people of
democracies give the law to themselves. Liberal democracies are also configured to develop certain institutions (like the
free press) and to protect political and civil rights (such as the rights to privacy and property) toward the end of ensuring
people’s ability to act autonomously and effectively. In this way, liberal democrats recognize autonomy not only as an
intrinsic human capacity but also as a political achievement and an important element of human well-being.

The legitimacy of liberal democracy is therefore threatened by claims that human beings are not the truly autonomous
agents we believe our- selves to be. And there is no shortage of people prepared to argue this view. Many critics
maintain that people really can’t act independently of their passions, of their families, of the societies in which they live,
of customs, conventions, and traditions, of structures of privilege, exploitation, and oppression, including internalized
oppression. Some go as far as to claim that the sort of autonomy liberal democrats describe is the fantasy of wealthy,
white, European and North American males – or, worse, a privilege they enjoy only because they deny it to others. Still
other critics regard the idea as a mystifying ideology through which the ruling class deludes people about the exploitive
system under which they labor.

Medical ethics

The concept of autonomy has become increasingly important, however, in medicine. Many medical ethicists have
effectively argued that because human beings are autonomous, no medical treatments ought to be administered to
patients without their informed consent to any procedures or therapies – unless they’re not competent to make
informed choices (e.g. perhaps because of mental illness). That is, patients must both: (1) under- stand what is to be
done to them, what risks are entailed, and what consequences may follow; and (2) agree to the treatment in light of that
understanding. When they fail to acquire informed consent, medics are said to act paternalistically, invasively, and
disrespectfully, deciding what’s best for an adult who really should be allowed to make such decisions for him or herself.

Problems, however, with the requirement to respect autonomy arise in trying to determine precisely when a patient is
incompetent, as well as when a patient is sufficiently well informed. Just how much mental impairment is too much; just
how much information is enough? Living wills are intended as one way to get around at least some of these problems.

1.1 Relative Ethics

These may seem to be very broad ethical questions, yet the existence of child labor, breast ironing, female circumcision,
and divergent sexual practices make them very real questions – and in some cases, where children’s lives are at stake,
quite urgent. People have thought about and struggled with these kinds of questions about the origins of ethics for
many centuries. When one faces these hard questions, thinks about the philosophical problem of the origins of ethics,
and becomes aware of the great variety of human customs the world over, it becomes tempting to say that right and
wrong are just a matter of opinion, since what is regarded as right or wrong in one culture may not be seen in the same
way in another culture. Right and wrong seem culturally relative. Also, some practices that were once regarded as right,
either a century ago or 20 years ago, are nowadays regarded as wrong. Ethical standards seem to change, and there is so
much disagreement between cultural practices that ethical relativism, the view that right and wrong are always relative,
seems justified (see Figure 1.1).

Those who defend the idea that ethics is relative emphasize the differences among our ethical judgments and the
differences among various ethical traditions. Some relativists call these cultural and ethical traditions folkways. This is a
helpful concept for understanding ethical relativism because it highlights that the ways and customs are simply
developed by average people (folk) over long periods of time. Here is how the twentieth‐century social scientist William
G. Sumner describes the folkways:

The folkways…are not creations of human purpose and wit. They are like products of natural forces which men
unconsciously set in operation, or they are like the instinctive ways of animals, which are developed out of experience,
which reach a final form of maximum adaptation to an interest, which are handed down by tradition and admit of no
exception or variation, yet change to meet new conditions, still within the same limited methods, and without rational
reflection or purpose. From this it results that all the life of human beings, in all ages and stages of culture, is primarily
controlled by a vast mass of folkways handed down from the earliest existence of the race. (Sumner 1906: 19–20)
Folkways: The concept that customs are developed by average people (folk) over long periods of time.

Something is right, an ethical relativist will say, if it is consistent with a given society’s folkways and wrong if it goes
against a society’s folkways. Relative ethics will say that in cultures where female circumcision has taken place for
centuries, it is right to continue to circumcise young girls, and wrong to attempt to change this tradition.

Relativists believe that ethical differences between cultures are irreconcilable. On their view, irreconcilable differences
are actually quite predictable because each society today has its own unique history and it is out of this history that a
society’s ethical values and standards have been forged. Around the globe, each society has its own unique history;
consequently, each society has its own unique set of ethical standards. Relativists would say that if there are any
agreements between cultures on ethical values, standards, or issues, we should not place any importance on that
accidental fact, because, after all, the true nature of ethics is relative, and the origin of ethics lies in each society’s
unique history.

1.2 Universal Ethics

Not everyone, though, is content with the relativist’s rather skeptical answer to the question about the ultimate nature
and origin of ethics. Instead of a relativist answer to the question, plenty of people have asserted that not everything is
relative. A critic of relativism will say that not everything in ethics is relative, because some aspects of ethics are
universal. Those who hold this view are called ethical universalists. In contrast to the ethical relativist who claims that all
ethics is relative, the universalists contend that there are at least some ethical values, standards, or principles that are
not relative. And this somewhat modest claim is all that a universalist needs to challenge the relativist’s generalization
that all ethics is relative. An easy way to grasp what universalists are talking about is to consider the concept of universal
human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was created in 1948 by the United Nations General Assembly.
It has inspired close to 100 bills of rights for new nations. People who believe in universal human rights hold ethical
universalism: they believe there are certain rights that all human beings have, no matter what culture or society they
belong to. An ethical relativist will deny this, and maintain that rights are meaningful only within a particular cultural
tradition, not in a universal sense.

1.3 Cultural Relativism or Ethical Relativism?

In order to achieve a bit more clarity on the issue of relativism, we must consider the difference between cultural
relativism and ethical relativism. Cultural relativism is the observation that, as a matter of fact, different cultures have
different practices, standards, and values. Child labor, breast ironing, divergent sexual practices, and female circumcision
are examples of practices that are customary in some cultures and would be seen as ethical in those cultures. In other
cultures, however, such practices are not customary, and are seen as unethical. If we took the time to study different
cultures, as anthropologists and other social scientists do, we would see that there is no shortage of examples such as
these. As the anthropologist Ruth Benedict has put it: “The diversity of cultures can be endlessly documented” (1934:
45).

As examples, consider wife and child battering, polygamy, cannibalism, or infanticide. There are some cultures
(subcultures at least) that endorse these practices as morally acceptable. Western culture, by contrast, regards these
practices as immoral and illegal. It seems to be true, therefore, just as a matter of fact, that different cultures have
different ethical standards on at least some matters. By comparing different cultures, we can easily see differences
between them, not just on ethical matters, but on many different levels.
Cultural Relativism: The theory that, as a matter of fact, different cultures have different practices, standards, and
values.

What we need to notice about ethical relativism, in contrast with cultural relativism, is that ethical relativism makes a
much stronger and more controversial claim about the nature of ethics. Ethical relativism is the view that all ethical
standards are relative, to the degree that there are no permanent, universal, objective values or standards. This view,
though, cannot be justified by simply comparing different cultures and noticing the differences between them. The
ethical relativist’s claim goes beyond observation and predicts that all ethical standards, even the ones we have not yet
observed, will always be relative. More simply put, ethical relativism is an ethical theory, hence its name. Cultural
relativism is not an ethical theory, it is simply the view that cultures differ and display much diversity.

1.4 Cultural Relativism and Universal Ethics

A universalist will respond to ethical relativism by pointing out that very general basic values – not specific moral rules or
codes – are recognized, at least implicitly, to some extent in all societies. Even though on the surface, in particular
actions or mores, there seems to be unavoidable disagreement, a universalist will observe that there are general values
that provide the foundations of ethics (see Figure 1.2). One ambition, then, for the universalists who wish to immerse
themselves in cultural studies, is not only to attempt to understand and appreciate other cultures’ perspectives and
experiences, but to detect what common ground – common values – are shared by the different cultures. Certainly
there is cultural difference on how these values are manifested, but according to universalism, the values themselves
represent more than arbitrary social conventions.

Figure 1.2

An ethical universalist, then, can agree that there are cultural differences and that cultures display diversity. But
universalists will also claim that only some social practices are merely conventional; they hold that not all practices are
merely conventional. Thus universalists will explain that it is possible to believe that both ethical universalism and
cultural relativism are true (see Figure 1.3).
Figure 1.3

Although ethical universalism is conceptually consistent with cultural relativism, this point can sometimes be
overlooked, since social scientists from the first half of the twentieth century who carried out extensive research into
different cultures and societies have contributed to the linking in our minds of ethical relativism and cultural relativism.
The distinction between cultural relativism and ethical relativism is an important one. Everyone agrees with cultural
relativism, even universalists, but not everyone agrees with ethical relativism. Ethical relativism is a theory about the
ultimate nature of ethics, cultural relativism is only a theory about cultural diversity.

2.7 Egoism

“All sensible people are selfish,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82). Nowadays, conventional wisdom is that one
doesn’t even have to be sensible to selfish – because in fact everyone is always selfish. In some circles, a belief in
genuine altruism is taken as a sign of naivety.

Emerson’s line, however, need not inspire cynicism. The question, “Can egoism be morally justified?” is clearly not self-
contradictory and needs to be answered. Furthermore, if being good and being selfish happen to require the same
things, then selfishness would be something to celebrate.

Psychological egoism

First, however, something must be said about the view that, as a matter of fact, everyone is at heart an egoist. People
may not do what’s in their own best interests, but they will, according to the psychological egoist, only do what they
believe is in their own best interests. Apparent counterexamples are just that – apparent. Take the sentiments
expressed in Bryan Adams’s soppy ballad, “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You.” Echoing countless other love songs, Adams
sings “Take me as I am, take my life. / I would give it all,

I would sacrifice.”Yet even this extreme profession of selflessness can easily be seen as masking a deeper selfishness.
Why, after all, is he saying this? For the purposes of seduction, of course. He may believe he is sincere, but then perhaps
this is one of nature’s tricks: only by fooling the seducer can the seduction be successful. Besides, even if he’s telling the
truth, what does that show? That he would rather die than be without his love? Selfishness again! Death is better than
being miserable for him.

This view – known as psychological egoism – can be very persuasive. But although you can always explain away altruistic
behavior in selfish terms, it’s not clear why we should prefer a selfish explanation over an altruistic one simply because
it’s possible to do so.

From a logical point of view it’s important to see that from the fact that the act is pleasing it doesn’t follow that the act
was done for the sake of the pleasure. From the fact that saving a drowning swimmer makes one feel good, for example,
it doesn’t follow that the saving was done for the sake of the good feeling. Pleasure may be a happy result of an action
while not being the reason for the action.

There’s also an objection that can be brought against the egoistic hypothesis from the point of view of scientific method
– it can’t be tested. If every act can be interpreted as selfish, it’s not even possible to construct an experiment that might
falsify the hypothesis. If someone saves a drowning swimmer, he did it for selfish reasons. If he doesn’t save the
drowning swimmer, he didn’t do it for selfish reasons. Admissible hypotheses must, at least in principle, be somehow
testable. And since every possible act can be interpreted as selfish, no observation could ever in principle test psycho-
logical egoism.
Ethical egoism

Even if psychological egoism is true, however, it only says something about the facts of human psychology. It doesn’t say
anything about whether or not being egoistic is rational or moral – whether one ought to be selfish. In short, it leaves all
the big ethical questions unanswered. Ethicists cannot avoid the question of whether egoism is morally justified.

Adam Smith (1732–90) took a stab at an answer, at least in part, by arguing that selfishness in economic affairs is
morally justified because it serves the common good in the most efficient way: “It is not from the benevolence of the
butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner,” he wrote, “but from their regard to their own interest.
We address ourselves, not to their humanity but their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of
their advantages.”

Smith’s argument in The Wealth of Nations does not, however, justify what is known as ethical egoism: the view that it’s
always ethical to act in one’s own interests. Even though it may be true that egoism is an efficient route to the common
good in certain contexts, it’s implausible that it’s always so. Contrary to popular conception, Smith’s general moral
theory is, in fact, decidedly not egoistic, grounding morality instead in sympathy, moral sentiment, and an unselfish
“impartial spectator.” Smith does not defend ethical egoism as a universal or even general principle. To do that, one
needs to argue that egoism is itself morally justifiable, that it’s justifiable even if it doesn’t serve as a means to some
other good. Rational egoism

So, how might one argue that egoism is ethically justified? Well, many believe that ethics must be rational. Moral laws
might not be entirely derived from rational principles, but at the very least ethics must accord with reason, and not
command anything contrary to reason – that is, any- thing that’s inconsistent, self-contradictory, or conceptually
incoherent. So, if ethics must be rational, and one may rationally (consistently, etc.) act for the sake of self-interest, then
acting selfishly meets at least a rationality test for morality.

It’s not at all clear, however, how acting rationally for the sake of self- interest is in any ethical sense decisive. Helping
oneself seems no more or less rational than helping someone else. Might one not act rationally for the sake of immoral
aims? Indeed, many would argue that aims or goals cannot be established by rationality alone.

Perhaps the most important question with regard to this issue is whether there’s any conflict between self-interest and
altruism anyway. Many ancient Greek philosophers, including Plato and Aristotle, wouldn’t have seen any conflict
between egoism and altruism because they thought that if one behaves badly one ultimately harms oneself. The greedy
man, for example, is never at peace with himself, because he is never satisfied with what he has. In contrast, as Plato
had Socrates say before his own execution, “a good man cannot be harmed either in life or in death.”That may be too
optimistic a view. But the idea that being good is a form of “enlightened self-interest” is plausible.

But does enlightened self-interest give people a reason for being altruistic, or does it show genuine altruism isn’t
possible? Some would argue that any act that’s in one’s self-interest cannot be called altruistic, even if it helps others:
the concept of altruism excludes self-interested actions, even those that coincide with the interests of others. An
alternative view holds that altruism and self-interest are compatible: the fact that do-gooders know that doing good
helps them in no way diminishes the extent to which what they do is done for others. The dilemma can be posed with
regard to the Bryan Adams song. Is he lying when he says everything he does, he does it for her, if he also does it for
himself? Or has he just conveniently neglected to point out that his altruism requires no self-sacrifice?
 2.8 Hedonism

Why be moral? One way to try to answer this question is to consider why it would be a good thing if every moral
problem were actually sorted out. What would everyone being good actually lead to? World peace. No one dying of
hunger. Everyone being free. Justice reigning supreme. And what would be so good about that?

The obvious answer is that then everyone would be happy – or at least, as happy as is humanly possible. So, the point of
being good is that it would lead to a happier world.

If this is right, then the basis of morality is hedonism: the view that the only thing that is of value in itself is happiness (or
pleasure, though for simplicity we will talk only of happiness for now), and the only thing bad in itself is unhappiness (or
pain). This might seem a surprising conclusion. After all, hedonism is usually associated with the selfish pursuit of
fleeting pleasures. So, how can it be the basis of morality?

Happiness as the ultimate good

The answer to this question must start with an explanation of why happiness is the only good. Aristotle (384–322 BCE)
thought this was evidently true, because there are things done for their own sake and things done for the sake of
something else. Things done for the sake of something else are not valuable in themselves, but only instrumentally
valuable, as means to an end. Those things done for their own sake, in contrast, are intrinsically valuable, as ends in
themselves. Of all the good things in life, only happiness, it seems, is prized for its own sake. Everything else is valued
only because it leads to happiness. Even love is not valued in itself – a love that makes us permanently miserable is not
worth having.

There is, however, nothing in this conclusion that entails pursuing selfish, fleeting pleasures. Epicurus (341–271 BCE),
one of the first hedonic philosophers, understood this well. He thought that no one could be happy if he or she
permanently sought intense pleasures, especially of the fleeting kind (what he called kinetic or active pleasures). Rather,
to be truly happy – or, perhaps better, “content” – one needs a certain calm, tranquility, and peace of mind (static
pleasures). And if we see that happiness has value in itself, then we have reason to be concerned with the happiness of
others, not just our own. Hence, Epicurus concluded, “It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and
honorably and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and honorably and justly without living pleasantly.”

One of the most important hedonic ethics of the modern era is the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham (1749–1832) and
John Stuart Mill (1806–73). From the same premise – that pleasure and happiness are the only goods, and pain and
unhappiness the only evils – they concluded that actions are right in so far as they promote the greatest happiness of
the greatest number and wrong in so far as they diminish it.

Precisely what?

One of the recurring problems for hedonic philosophies is pinning down just what it is that is supposed to be intrinsically
valuable. Is it pleasure – by which we mean pleasant sensations? Or is it happiness, in which case what is that? A stable
state of mind? A temporary feeling of well-being? Objectively flourishing? Or are each of these good in themselves?

The problem is a persistent and serious one, for if we understand happiness and pleasure in conventional senses, it
becomes far from clear that they are intrinsic goods, above all others. Moreover, philosophers’ attempts to precisely
define the crucial qualities of pleasure (as Bentham did, for example, by pointing to properties like “intensity” and
“duration”) are notoriously slippery. Critics of Mill’s work argue that, if he were serious, he would have to admit that the
life of a contented pig is better than that of a troubled philosopher. Mill tried to reply to this by distinguishing between
higher pleasures of the mind and lower pleasures of the body (Utilitarianism, 1859).
But what makes higher pleasures higher? Mill thought “competent judges,” who had experienced both, would prefer a
life with some higher pleasures than one with only lower ones, but not vice versa. Yet, even if this were true, it doesn’t
seem to be the case that the higher pleasures are preferred simply because they are more pleasurable. If, however,
there are other reasons for choosing them, then hedonic considerations are not the only important ones after all.

Robert Nozick made an even stronger argument against hedonism in a thought experiment in which he asked if one
would choose to live happily in a virtual world or less happily in the real one. Almost everyone, he suggested, would
prefer the real world, which suggests people prefer reality to happiness. If that’s right, then happiness is not the only
thing that’s good in itself. It seems that truth and authenticity are, as well.

AYER AND EMOTIVISM

The next player in the story is Alfred Jules Ayer (1910–1989), who was influenced both by Hume’s and Moore’s
presentation of the fact–value problem. Hume and Moore each showed two things. First, they explained why there is a
fact–value problem; second, they offered solutions to the problem by showing what moral value really is. For Hume, the
problem involves the fallacy of deriving ought from is, and his solution is that moral value rests on emotional reactions.
For Moore, the problem involves the naturalistic fallacy, and his solution involves intuitively recognizing moral goodness
within things.

Ayer also takes this two-pronged approach. First, he argues that the fact– value problem arises because moral
statements cannot pass a critical test of meaning called the verification principle. Second, expanding on Hume, his
solution is that moral utterances are only expressions of feelings, a position called emotivism. Let’s look at each of these
components.

Ayer’s Theory

Regarding the verification principle, in the 1930s, Ayer went to Vienna to study with a group of philosophers called the
“Logical Positivists,” who believed that the meaning of a sentence is found in its method of verification. According to
that test, all meaningful sentences must be either

(a) Tautologies (statements that are true by definition and of the form “A is A” or reducible to such statements) or

(b) Empirically verifiable (statements regarding observations about the world, such as “The book is red”).

Based on this test, mathematical statements are meaningful, such as all triangles have three sides, because they are
tautologies. The statement “The Empire State Building is in New York City” is meaningful because it is empirically
verifiable.

What, though, about value statements such as “Charity is good”? According to the above test, they are meaningless
because they are neither tautologies nor verifiable statements. That is, it is not true by definition that charity is good,
and there is no way to empirically verify whether charity is good. Similarly, according to the above test, a theological
statement such as “God is guiding your life” is meaningless because it is neither a tautology nor empirically verifiable.
Ayer makes his point about the meaninglessness of value utterances here:

[T]he fundamental ethical concepts are unanalyzable, inasmuch as there is no criterion by which one can test the validity
of the judgments in which they occur. ... The reason why they are unanalyzable is that they are mere pseudo-concepts.
The presence of an ethical symbol in a proposition adds nothing to its factual content. Thus if I say to someone, “You
acted wrongly in stealing that money,” I am not stating anything more than if I had simply said, “You stole that money.”
In adding that the action is wrong, I am not making any further statement about it.

His argument is essentially this:

(1) A sentence is meaningful if and only if it can be verified.

(2) Moral sentences cannot be verified.

(3) Therefore, moral sentences are not meaningful.

Thus, there is a fact–value problem insofar as moral utterances fail the verification test and are not factual statements.

Ayer’s solution to the fact–value problem is that moral utterances function in a special nonfactual way. Although they
are indeed factually meaningless, they are not just gibberish. For Ayer, utterances such as “Charity is good” express our
positive feelings about charity in much the same way as if we shouted out "Charity—hooray!” Similarly, the utterance
“Murder is wrong” expresses our negative feelings about murder just as if we shouted “Murder—boo!” The view that
moral utterances merely express our feelings is called emotivism. Ayer emphasizes that moral utterances don’t even
report our feelings; they just express our feelings. Here’s the difference:

Reported feeling: “Charity is good” means “I have positive feelings about charity.”

Expressed feeling: “Charity is good” means “Charity—hooray!”

Even reports of feelings are in some sense factual: It is either true or false that “I have positive feelings about charity,”
and I can empirically verify this with a psychological analysis of my mental state. However, the emotional expression
“Charity—hooray!” is like a grunt or a sigh; there is nothing to factually report.

Philosophers have introduced two terms to distinguish between factual and nonfactual utterances: cognitive and
noncognitive. When a statement has factual content, it is cognitive: We can know (or “cognize”) its truth value—
whether it is true or false. When a statement lacks factual content, it is noncognitive: It has no truth value. Traditional
moral theories all claim to be cognitivist: They all claim that moral statements have truth value. Here is how four
traditional theories would give a cognitivist interpretation of the moral utterance “Charity is good”:

Egoism: Charity maximizes self-interest.

Utilitarianism: Charity maximizes general pleasure.

Kantianism: Charity is a rational duty.

Virtue theory: Charity promotes human flourishing.

Moore’s emotivist solution to the fact–value problem is also cognitivist because for him “Charity is good” means
“Charity has the indefinable property of moral goodness” (which, according to Moore, we know to be true through
moral intuition). For Ayer, all these cognitivist theories are misguided. Because moral utterances like “Charity is good”
do not pass the test for meaning by the verification principle, they cannot be cognitive. The content that they have is
only noncognitive and takes the form of expressing our feelings.
Ayer’s account of emotivism directly attacks many of our cherished assumptions about morality. We typically think that
moral utterances are factually meaningful— not so according to Ayer. We typically think that morality involves some use
of our reasoning ability—again, not so for Ayer. What’s perhaps most unsettling about Ayer’s theory is its implication
that ethical disagreement is fundamentally a disagreement in attitude. Suppose you and I disagree about whether
abortion is morally permissible and we debate the issue—in a civilized way without any emotional outbursts. In Ayer’s
view, this is still simply a matter of us having underlying emotional attitudes that conflict; it is not really a disagreement
about facts of the matter.

Criticisms of Emotivism

Several objections to Ayer’s emotivism were quickly forthcoming after the appearance of his book. A first criticism was
that the verification theory of meaning, upon which Ayer’s emotivism was founded, had serious problems.

Specifically, it did not pass its own test. Here in brief is the principle:

Verification principle: A statement is meaningful if and only if it is either tautological or empirically verifiable.

We now ask the question, “Is the verification principle itself either tautological or empirically verifiable?” The answer is
that it is not, which means that the verification principle is meaningless. If that’s the case, then we are not obliged to use
the verification principle as a test for moral utterances. The rest of Ayer’s emotivist analysis of morality thus falls apart.

Second, there is a problem with the emotivist view that ethical disagreements are fundamentally disagreements in
attitude. Specifically, this blurs an important distinction between having reasons for changing attitudes and having
causes that change our attitudes. Suppose again that you and I are debating the abortion issue. Consider now two
methods of resolving our dispute. Method 1 involves you giving me a series of reasons in support of your position, and I
eventually agree with you. Method 2 involves a surgeon operating on my brain in a way that alters my emotional
attitude about the abortion issue. Method 1 involves reasons behind my changed view, and Method 2 involves causes
for my changed view. The emotivist theory cannot easily distinguish between these two methods of attitude change.
One way or another, according to emotivism, changes in attitude will come only through some kind of causal
manipulation with our emotions. This is a problem because virtually everyone would agree that there is a major
difference between what is going on in Method 1 and Method 2, and it is only the former that is a legitimate way of
resolving moral disagreements.

Third, morality seems deeper than mere emotions or acting on feelings or attitudes. Moral judgments are
universalizable: If it is wrong for Jill to steal, then it is wrong for anyone relevantly similar to Jill to steal. Emotivism
reduces morality to isolated emotive expressions or attitudes that don’t apply universally. It makes more sense to see
morality as a function of applying principles such as “It is wrong to steal,” which has a universal element.

Ayer’s version of emotivism is rather extreme, and it is no surprise that it creates so many problems. A more moderate
version of emotivism was later pro- posed by Charles Leslie Stevenson (1908–1979) in his book Ethics and Language
(1944).5 Stevenson agrees that moral utterances have an emotive component that is noncognitive. However, he argues
that moral utterances sometimes have cognitive elements too. Moral utterances are so complex, Stevenson says, that
we cannot give a specific pattern that applies to all moral utterances all the time.

Nevertheless, a typical moral utterance like “Charity is good” might have these specific components:
Emotive expression (noncognitive): “Charity—hooray!”

Report about feelings (cognitive): “I approve of charity.”

Description of other qualities (cognitive): “Charity has qualities or relations X, Y, and Z” (for example, reduces suffering,
reduces social inequality).

Stevenson’s suggestion is reasonable. If we are unhappy with Ayer’s extreme emotivism, we can still accept that there is
some noncognitive emotive element to moral utterances. Indeed, considering how frequently emotion enters into our
moral evaluations, such as the opening example from the Weblog, we will want to recognize at least a more limited role
of emotive expressions within moral discussions.

WHAT CONSTITUTES A MORAL DILLEMA LINK

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-
dilemmas/#ConMorDil

ETHICAL REASONING AND ARGUMENTS

It is important to know how to reason well in thinking or speaking about ethical matters. This is helpful not only in trying
to determine what to think about controversial ethical matters but also in arguing for something you believe is right and
in critically evaluating positions held by others.

The Structure of Ethical Reasoning and Argument To be able to reason well in ethics you need to under- stand what
constitutes a good argument. We can do this by looking at an argument’s basic structure. This is the structure not only of
ethical arguments about what is good or right but also of arguments about what is the case or what is true.

Suppose you are standing on the shore and a per- son in the water calls out for help. Should you try to rescue that
person? You may or may not be able to swim. You may or may not be sure you could rescue the person. In this case,
however, there is no time for reasoning, as you would have to act promptly. On the other hand, if this were an imaginary
case, you would have to think through the reasons for and against trying to rescue the person. You might conclude that
if you could actually rescue the per- son, then you ought to try to do it. Your reasoning might go as follows:

Every human life is valuable.

Whatever has a good chance of saving such a life
should be attempted.
My swimming out to rescue this person has a good
chance of saving his life.
Therefore, I ought to do so.
Or you might conclude that you could not save this person, and your reasoning might go like this:

Every human life is valuable.

Whatever has a good chance of saving such a life
should be attempted.
In this case, there is no chance of saving this life
because I cannot swim.
Thus, I am not obligated to try to save him (although,
if others are around who can help, I might be
obligated to try to get them to help.)

Some structure like this is implicit in any ethical argument, although some are longer and more complex chains than the
simple form given here. One can recognize the reasons in an argument by their introduction through key words such as
since,

because, and given that. The conclusion often contains terms such as thus and therefore. The reasons supporting the
conclusion are called premises. In a sound argument, the premises are true and the conclusion follows from them. In the
case presented earlier, then, we want to know whether you can save this person and also whether his life is valuable.
We also need to know whether the conclusion actually follows from the premises. In the case of the earlier examples, it
does. If you say you ought to do what will save a life and you can do it, then you ought to do it. However, there may be
other principles that would need to be brought into the argument, such as whether and why one is always obligated to
save someone else’s life when one can.

To know under what conditions a conclusion actually follows from the premises, we would need to analyze arguments in
much greater detail than we can do here. Suffice it to say, however, that the connection is a logical connection—in other
words, it must make rational sense. You can improve your ability to reason well in ethics first by being able to pick out
the reasons and the conclusion in an argument. Only then can you subject them to critical examination in ways we
suggest here.

Evaluating and Making Good Arguments

Ethical reasoning can be done well or done poorly. Ethical arguments can be constructed well or constructed poorly. A
good argument is a sound argument. It has a valid form in which the conclusion actually follows from the premises, and
the premises or reasons given for the conclusion are true. An argument is poorly constructed when it is fallacious or
when the reasons on which it is based are not true or are uncertain. An ethical argument always involves some claim
about values—for example, that saving a life is good. These value-based claims must be established through some
theory of values. Part I of this book examines different theories that help establish basic values.

Ethical arguments also involve conceptual and factual matters. Conceptual matters are those that relate to the meaning
of terms or concepts. For example, in a case of lying, we would want to know

what lying actually is. Must it be verbal? Must one have an intent to deceive? What is deceit itself? Other conceptual
issues central to ethical arguments may involve questions such as, “What constitutes a ‘person’?” (in arguments over
abortion, for example) and “What is ‘cruel and unusual punishment’?” (in death penalty arguments, for example). Some-
times, differences of opinion about an ethical issue are a matter of differences not in values but in the meaning of the
terms used.

Ethical arguments often also rely on factual claims. In our example, we might want to know whether it was actually true
that you could save the drowning person. In arguments about the death penalty, we may want to know whether such
punishment is a deterrent. In such a case, we need to know what scientific studies have found and whether the studies
themselves were well grounded. To have adequate factual grounding, we will want to seek out a range of reliable
sources of information and be open-minded. The chapters in Part II of this book include factual material that is relevant
to ethical decisions about the topics under consideration.

It is important to be clear about the distinction between facts and values when dealing with moral conflict and
disagreement. We need to ask whether we disagree about the values involved, about the concepts and terms we are
employing, or about the facts connected to the case.

There are various ways in which reasoning can go wrong or be fallacious. We began this chapter by considering the
fallacy of begging the question or circular argument. Such reasoning draws on the argument’s conclusion to support its
premises, as in “abortion is wrong because it is immoral.” Another familiar problem of argumentation is the ad hominem
fallacy. In this fallacy, people say something like, “That can’t be right because just look who is saying it.” They look at the
source of the opinion rather than the reasons given for it. You can find out more about these and other fallacies from
almost any textbook in logic or critical thinking.

You also can improve your understanding of ethical arguments by making note of a particular type of reasoning that is
often used in ethics: arguments from analogy. In this type of argument, one com- pares familiar examples with the issue
being disputed. If the two cases are similar in relevant ways, then whatever one concludes about the first familiar case
one should also conclude about the disputed case. For example, Judith Jarvis Thomson (as discussed in Chapter 11) once
asked whether it would be ethically acceptable to “unplug” someone who had been attached to you and who was using
your kidneys to save his life. If you say that you are justified in unplugging, then a pregnant woman is also justified in
doing the same with regard to her fetus. The reader is prompted to critically examine such an argument by asking
whether or not the two cases were similar in relevant ways—that is, whether the analogy fits.

Finally, we should note that giving reasons to justify a conclusion is also not the same as giving an explanation for why
one believes something. A woman might explain that she does not sup- port euthanasia because that was the way she
was brought up or that she is opposed to the death penalty because she cannot stand to see someone die. To justify
such beliefs, one would need rather to give reasons that show not why one does, in fact, believe something but why one
should believe it. Nor are rationalizations justifying reasons. They are usually reasons given after the fact that are not
one’s true reasons. Rationalizations are usually excuses, used to explain away bad behavior. These false reasons are
given to make us look better to others or our- selves. To argue well about ethical matters, we need to examine and give
reasons that support the conclusions we draw.