A

....
....

PRIMER

ON ETHICS

A
PRIMER
ON ETHICS

By Tibor R. Machan

University of Oklahoma Press

Norman and London

F , UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO LIBRARIES

'"EARNING RESOURCE CENTER-SCOTT PARK

This book is published with the generous

assistance of Edith Gaylord Harper.

A section of chapter 10, "Children's Rights

and Obligations," was previously published
as "Between Parents and Children" in
the Journal of Social Philosophy 23, no. 3
(1992), 16-22. Reprinted by permission
of the Journal of Social Philosophy.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Machan, Tibor R.
A primer on ethics / by Tibor R. Machan.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8061-2946-8 (cloth: alk. paper)
1. Ethics. I. Title.
BJI012.M324 1997
170-dc21
96-6502
CIP
Text design by Cathy Carney Imboden.
Text is set in New Century Schoolbook.
The paper in this book meets the
guidelines for permanence and durability
of the Committee on Production Guidelines
for Book Longevity of the Council on
Library Resources, Inc. @
Copyright 1997 by the University of
Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publishing
Division of the University. All rights
reserved. Manufactured in the U.S.A.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

,I

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e

For my wonderful children

Kate, Thomas, and Erin '

/13;;' f

li17

CONTENTS

1.

2.

3.
4.

5.

6.

7.

Preface
Acknowledgments
Preliminary Considerations
What Is Ethics?
Why Study Ethics?
How Is Ethics Possible?
Assumptions Made in Ethics
Free Will?
Moral Skepticism
The Best Theory Is As True As Can Be
Facts and Values
Metaethics and Criticism of Moral Theories
Metaethical Theories
Criticism of Moral Theories
Types of Moral Theories
What Is Morally Good and Right?
Ethical Positions
More Ethical Positions in Brief
Some Political Systems
Ethics as a Personal Concern
Ethics in Everyday Life
Commonsense Ethics
Theistic Ethics
Challenges to Ethics
Ethical Subjectivism

ix
xiii

3
5
7
10
11

13
23
27
29
33
33
36
37
39
39
63
65
78
78
79
80
90
91

viii

""" CONTENTS

Ethical Relativism
Nihilism
8. Rethinking the Fact/Value Dichotomy
A Value-Free Study of Human Life?
Are Ethical Judgments Bogus?
Facts, Values, and Reality
Goodness and Empiricism
Proving Values Knowable
9. Applying Ethics
One Convincing Moral Outlook
Some Ethical Quandaries
On Moral Challenges
10. Conclusion
Questions for Discussion
Notes
Recommended Reading
Index

96
101
107
108
110
111
112
115
118
119
127
158
161
171
173
179
181

PREFACE

Ace 0 R DIN G to much of the educated world in our time,

.L:"'1.human actions are best understood in terms of individual histories and community influences. For many people,
including teachers and leaders, this idea is axiomatic and has
replaced concepts of personal responsibility, free will, human
agency, moral blame, and praise-which some thinkers have described as prescientific assumptions. The behavior of grownups
is widely attributed to their experience as children and to the
constraints imposed on them, for example by schools. It is
strongly implied that individuals are not free to decide their
own conduct, although as links in a chain of causal forces they
may oblige others to act in one way or another.
Yet as one philosopher observes, "The claim that the individual could have acted otherwise is central to our notions of praise
and blame."1 It is also central to the idea that we should have
behaved differently in the past or that we should do so in the
future (actions in this context include not just observable behavior but our thoughts about the world and about ourselves).
Which view is correct? To what extent are people puppets of the
environment? To what extent are we our own agents?
Whenever people criticize human conduct, including a person's ideas, ethical considerations are immediately involved.
Ethics as a field of inquiry is concerned with how humans ought
to act. To say that someone should consider a different argu-

PREFACE

ment about free will (for example) is one kind of ethical claim,
because it speaks to the issue of how we should use our minds
and presupposes that we can in fact decide-that we can make
the right choice in this area.
An ethical claim, however, must square with other aspects
of our lives: it must be both practical and capable of being made
operational without being mysterious. Ifit remains vague or incomprehensible, then it gives us an excuse to avoid considering
how we ought to behave from day to day. When we act without
thinking, we dodge taking responsibility for ourselves.
This book aims to set forth, succinctly, the basic elements
of ethical inquiry without suggesting that teachers or anyone
else can free students from the task of becoming good people.
I have tried to suggest the nature of the ongoing debate about
free will and other aspects of ethics. I do not pretend to complete
neutrality; some of the positions that I describe seem to me the
right ones. In these pages I sometimes explain where I stand
and why, and I also describe and appraise the ideas of critics.
The book is intended for use with at least one other text that
presents major ethical theories by central moral thinkers past
and present. I have listed some seminal works at the end. I have
also included questions to help students reflect on their reading,
although classroom teachers will be the most effective guides.
I should note at the outset that in philosophical studies of morality generally, how much support a given position
receives from individuals, groups, or society at large is unimportant. Even the most renowned philosopher may be wrong,
and the public sector as a whole is no less susceptible to error.
Respectability and popularity sometimes supplant independent judgment, especially when there is little time to study
the various competing ethical positions. By the same token,
individuals-you and I-must often act quickly on our moral
beliefs, without taking the time and intellectual energy to appraise them. And even if we found the time, what would we

PREFACE

.IJIfIf

xi

discover? Would we learn that our most cherished assumptions

rest on nothing more than a persistent tradition? Would we
perhaps find that our conduct has no rational basis?
Ifwe pursued such a line of reasoning far enough, we might
conclude that human beings are unable to double-check (and
revise) their inherited ideas. If so, we would have to excuse
a racist, anti-Semite, or sexual chauvinist just because of the
culture in which he or she had grown up. The possibility of
blaming a person's conduct exclusively on factors beyond his or
her control raises questions that are especially troubling in our
times. We cannot hope to answer these questions here, but we
can at least begin to explore them.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Kimberly Wiar at the University of Oklahoma Press

for her encouragement and support in bringing this book to
publication. My friends Jim Chesher, Mark Turiano, and Aeon
Skoble have helped me avoid embarrassing mistakes, keep the
work balanced without becoming gutless, and tighten some
sections that needed tightening.
My gratitude goes also to my many hundreds of students
and several dozen colleagues-from California State College,
Bakersfield; the State University of New York at Fredonia;
the University of California, Santa Barbara; the University of
San Diego; Franklin College, Switzerland; the United States
Military Academy at West Point; Adelphia University; and of
course Auburn University. Over thirty years they have helped
shape my understanding of the subject matter to be covered in
an introductory book on ethics.
THANK

....
....

PRIMER

ON ETHICS

1
PRELIMINARY
CONSIDERATIONS

courses differ from other courses in at least two

ways. First, many college students have studied other
subjects in a systematic way but not philosophy. Students have
come into contact with ethical considerations for the most part
only while they observed other people, listened to Sunday school
teachers, read editorials, heard lectures from their parents,
read plays and novels (or moralizing pulp fiction), and watched
television or movies. Still, people do not usually take notes when
they do these things and do not reflect on them in an attentive,
systematic, organized fashion.
Most people know, more or less, that ethics is concerned
with the distinction between right and wrong, good and evil,
and proper and improper conduct. Most people also have some
ideas about how to recognize ethical ideas and moral virtues,
but the basis for these ideas, and possible alternatives, usually get short shrift. In an ethics course, we begin with these
considerations.
Second, ethics courses differ from those in other disciplines
in what they offer. Courses in biology, history, and many other
fields are taught, even at the college level, as sources of information. In the hard or natural sciences (and in many social
T HIe s

. , A PRIMER ON ETHICS

sciences) every era reaches a consensus regarding the answers

and theories seen as good (and from time to time the consensus shifts). Students receive the accepted wisdom, test it for
strength, and then build on it in advanced courses. Introductory courses necessarily ask students to defer to the judgment
of professors and textbooks and to take much on faith.
Some philosophy courses proceed in the same way. Students
tend to trust the professor's description of an ethical position,
the gist of a theory, the nature of supporting arguments, and so
forth. In contrast, ethics professors are not mainly consultants,
trainers, or guides for their students. (In their own conduct,
admittedly, they model human actions, especially as they carry
out their duties as teachers and scholars. Still, the same could
be said of everyone we meet.) In ethics courses, unlike other
classes, students are not simply told the score. Instead they
are asked to scrutinize competing answers to questions and the
arguments advanced to support them.
Students beginning the study of philosophy often feel confused at the start. There are usually a great many ideas,
assumptions, and theories and much new terminology. The
emphasis in the classroom falls on scrutiny rather than on acceptance. There seems to be little in the way of universally
accepted or settled knowledge. In an ethics class or text, we encounter a special approach to education: students learn through
dialogue, back-and-forth argumentation and speculation about
competing ideas.
I do not mean that in ethics there are no right answers.
I mean that the teaching of a course involves not imparting
answers but rather assuring that different ideas come in for
scrutiny and that students take responsibility for selecting
one as right. I shall return later to the implications of this
statement.
Why does ethics differ from other areas of study? The reason
is that, like other branches of philosophy, it is considered to

PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS _

have no orthodoxy that can simply be assumed. No view, that

is, can be accepted on faith from one generation to the next.
Ethical considerations form an integral part of human existence
and are constantly disputed. Human beings argue about ethics
partly because it is so central to their lives.
WHAT Is ETHICS?
The field of ethics, or morality-I use the two terms interchangeably-studies the proper standards and principles of
human conduct. Otherwise stated, the discipline considers
various answers to the question "How should I live?"
Everyone seems to ask this question. People usually do so
when they face some particular problem in life, but it sometimes
arises in response to general concerns: "Can I have two drinks
and still drive home safely?" "How can I talk to my mother
so that she will listen?" "How can I help this company keep
employee loyalty after all the layoffs?" "How, basically, should
I lead my life?" ''What is the most important thing for me to
consider when I make decisions?" The focus may be on the
details of our lives or on the broad task of how people ought
to behave. Ethics usually means determining what it is most
important for us to do-specifying the conduct most befitting
us as humans.
Wejudge actions and people on the basis of moral (or ethical)
principles or standards. We may call one action vicious, vile,
or reckless or maybe wonderful, great, or swell. In our eyes
someone may be a jerk, a bastard, or a cad or, alternatively,
a decent gal or a really bad dude. The terms we use depend
on the context and often on the slang in our particular era.
In more profound moments, for example, we may describe
someone or something as "noble," "honorable," or "exemplary."
In any case, as we go about our daily business, we never stop
appraising people and their actions, from schoolmates, parents,
and teachers to rock stars, political, military, or diplomatic

. . A PRIMER ON ETHICS

leaders, and even fictional characters. We are concerned not

just with how well they perform (whether they do their jobs
in a way that seems right and proper) but also with how good
they are as human beings (whether they seem basically decent
and virtuous). Ethical issues arise whenever we consider how
people behave and what guides their conduct.
That ethics, or morality, is the single most widespread concern of human beings is clear from the most cursory survey
of today's novels, plays, poems, movies, and even sitcoms. We
speak of the actors in such dramas as "characters," and indeed
one of the main questions in ethics asks what our characterour basic moral nature-should be. It is not accidental that one
word is used in both senses. A person's ethical or moral makeup
is his or her character, and fictional personages impress us by
virtue of their values and general orientation toward life. We
are vitally interested in seeing whether they handle their conflicts and relationships, and the consequences of their actions,
in a proper, ethical way.
In the field of ethics, then, we examine courses of action.
We want to identifY moral standards, to evaluate them, and to
make sure that we know which ones we ought to live by. We need
to know with reasonable certainty: after all, we do not want to
judge ourselves or others haphazardly or wrongly. Ethics as a
philosophical discipline allows us to reflect in a clear, orderly,
dispassionate fashion.
The customs of a particular group of people are not for the
most part the concern of the study of ethics, although they may
be influenced by the group's moral standards. The discipline
tends to be concerned instead with what is good and evil, or
right and wrong, for human beings generally, by virtue of their
humanity. Most important, it concerns things that they have the
power to choose, not what happens to them because of factors
beyond their control.

PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS

4IJII'

Few things in life are as pervasive as norms of conduct. Every day the news abounds with the problems ofliving and acting
properly. Politics and the law are the more public branches of
ethics. (In the classical sense, politics and the law concern themselves with how people should live in a community, or with the
basic governing principles of community life.) Not surprisingly,
controversy is almost the rule in this field. People argue about
right and wrong all the time. Philosophers disagree about the
best way of understanding ethics. Not everyone will agree with
the ideas in this book. Consequently you should approach the
statements that you read here as a starting point and reflect
on them carefully, without taking them as the last word by any
means.
WHY STUDY ETHICS?

In each age some people scrutinize their most basic convictions

and debate different approaches and answers, probably because
the issues involved are too important for casual treatment and
cannot be left for others to handle (whether peers, parents,
grandparents, or even thinkers of previous epochs). In some
special fields we do tend to trust the pioneers who preceded us
and to build on their work without repeating it. In basic areas,
however, we tend to want to see for ourselves. This concern may
explain the generation gap: young people cannot simply accept
their elders' notions about God, morality, politics, the arts,
culture, and other matters. Parents, on the other hand, want to
be sure that their offspring benefit from their experience.
Why is ethics part of human life? Philosophers and others
have given very different answers to this question. As we will
see, some deny that morality has any bearing on human life at
all. Here I will offer my own reasons for disagreeing with this
group.
Human beings are free in ways that other animals are

I/Iif1 A PRIMER ON ETHICS

not. Unlike other creatures, we need to take initiative in our

lives and to choose between alternatives. If we are not always
considering different options, at least we seem to be capable
of doing so. "Should I experiment with drugs or avoid them?"
"Should I drive when I have taken a drink or two or seek help
with reaching my destination?" "Should I take my parents'
advice about my career or let the matter ride?" "Should I be
sexually intimate casually or should I save intimacy for people
who mean a great deal to me, maybe only in marriage?" "Should
I seek a job that will help me get some money early in life or
one that requires extensive study and preparation?" "Should I
support politicians who promise to provide me with benefits for
my life or those who aim to make sure I can take care of myself
in peace?" Human beings ask such questions all the time even
if they do not say them out loud.
Now, animals also face some basic alternatives. Their nature
equips them, however-and here I mean their particular traits
as the kind of animals they are-with inborn genetic prompts on
which they rely to produce results that are good for them individually and for the species. Animals, as far as we know, do not
plan their actions even though they suffer from harmful consequences if something interferes with their normal development
and behavior. Nonhuman animals do select from alternatives,
not on their own initiative, but because they are genetically
programmed to behave in a certain way.
Geese instinctively fly south for the winter, and the few
that stay behind do so because something has interfered with
the impulse that prompts them to migrate. Human beings
apparently do not come with such a detailed automatic pilot,
or innate guidelines. When things go awry for you and me,
however, we often seem to have done wrong although we had
the opportunity to do right.
If you disagree with this idea, you might try arguing with
people who found it true. If you did, you would be claiming that

PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS ' "

they had gone wrong-had failed to go right although they had

the opportunity. In other words, what you were doing would
contradict what you were saying. Our confidence in humans'
ability to choose a course of action or thought must be deeply
entrenched if we cannot even deny it without presupposing that
it exists. We will return to this point later.
Clearly we think along these lines whenwe say, for example,
"Shoot, I should have done this, but I didn't," or when we
apologize or exclaim, "I sure am glad I got it right this time!"or when we take pride in the results of our efforts. More
often, perhaps, we comment on other people's behavior in this
way. "Jerry should have been more logical, should have driven
less recklessly, should have performed that operation more
carefully, should have studied harder." Or we might say, "My
roommate really should have cleaned up after the party."
In any case, the right course of action does not emerge automatically. Ifwe pay attention, we may find some clues. Study
of the human body, for example, and even mere experience, can
tell us about some of the biological requirements for our survival. Yet to perform the tasks oflife successfully we need to be
aware of more than just pain and pleasure.
The question "How should I live?" must be answered. Where
many important issues in our lives are concerned, no instinct
will tell us what to do. Ethics examines, clarifies, and tries to
identify answers at least in general terms. Specific answers
that fit particular circumstances remain, inevitably, for the
individual to determine, since he or she alone may be privy to
the relevant details.
Ethics takes as its purpose helping us discover the most
general, universal principles that may be used to guide human
conduct. It helps us answer certain questions that we all confront unless we are intellectually incapacitated. By our words,
our thoughts, and our actions, we all somehow reply to the question "How should I live?" Like much else in ethics, however,

10

JIIfI1 A PRIMER ON ETHICS

need for knowledge remains controversial. Some observers argue that none is required. And some maintain that ethics is not
a valid discipline at all.

How Is

ETHICS POSSIBLE?

Some aspects of human life are optional. Higher education can

be part of our lives or not, as we choose. Some institutions
are similarly optional; a college mayor may not have amateur
athletics, for example. The presence or absence of such features
may be explained in terms of the wishes that people happen to
have, which may change with little consequence for human life
in general. The same cannot be said of ethics, however. Ethics is
not an accessory in human life. Everyone must play the moral
game. Even trying not to play it amounts to playing it, though
probably badly.
Before we can prove that ethics is indispensable, we must
show that it is an integral part of our lives. In explaining why we
need it, I have made many assumptions. These are controversial
and must be discussed before we can seriously consider whether
ethics is fundamental for human life or is a bogus field.

2
ASSUMPTIONS
MADE IN ETHICS

people think that ethics and science are incompatible.

Many social scientists and psychologists believe that various factors beyond people's control explain their conduct. If you
think about it, you will recall times when you were convinced
that something made you act badly. Perhaps you faulted some
event in your upbringing or some cultural influence. (We tend
to explain away our own conduct and to blame other people for
theirs.)
The existence of ethics as a legitimate field of inquiry is
often in dispute. That it is an integral part of human life is not
obvious. Before ethics may be said to exist, some other facts
must hold true. Consider, for example, the claim "Judy should
not lie," or "The president of the United States ought to stop
trying to control people's lives." "Ought" implies "can." When
we say that someone ought to do something, we presuppose
that this person is capable of doing it and can decide to do it
or to refrain. In each case the speaker assumes that Judy and
the president can choose what they will do. In addition, both
claims presuppose that Judy and the president-indeed anyone
who looks into the matter-can identify certain standards of
conduct.
OME

12

A PRIMER ON ETHICS

First, then, ethics requires us to make some genuine choices,

to be able to initiate some actions. If we cannot, then the
notion that we should or should not act one way or another
simply does not apply. If I am incapable of driving a car, then
it is meaningless to tell me not to drive recklessly. Second,
ethics demands that the principles that apply to conduct be
identifiable, objective. Principles relate to action, to how we
should behave, and to the basis on which we choose a course of
action. To become wealthy, for example, we need to follow some
precepts, perhaps having to do with frugality, productivity, and
shrewdness. By the same token, we need guidelines to achieve
happiness or blessedness or forgiveness or to live a life that
is morally good. These rules must be clear before they can be
meaningful. Otherwise they cannot be learned, as they must be
if we are to apply them daily.
If we could not identify principles, we could not compare
alternative courses of conduct and make an intelligent choice.
That is, we would have no basis for discriminating among them.
If we sought prosperity, for example, we would need to decide
how to achieve it, or how to invest our money. How could we
know which ways are best? Without criteria, the choice would
be haphazard.
In real life, however, we make principled choices daily.
The precepts we follow depend on our goal and enable us to
reach it. The fields of medicine, engineering, and business offer
particularly clear examples. Possibly, then, we have satisfied
the second requirement of ethics-that we be able to identify
principles of conduct.
Let us now see whether our two assumptions-that we
have the power to choose and that we can identify principles
of conduct-seem reasonable or appear to be based on mere
prejudice or myth. Without deciding conclusively one way or the
other, we will consider the major points for and against both.
In so doing, we will be verifying that there is a basis for ethical

AsSUMPTIONS MADE IN ETHICS

III'

13

inquiry. If the field's foundations are unstable, ethics itself is

unsupported and might just as well be relegated to the realm
of the occult, with astrology and palmistry.
FREE WILL?

We must first determine whether we have free will-not necessarilyall of us all of the time but rather most of us normally, as a
rule. In other words, are human beings, as they have appeared
throughout history (though again not when intellectually incapacitated or significantly damaged) capable of initiating the
behavior in which they engage?
As we saw in chapter 1, if we cannot choose whether or not
to do something, there is no sense in praising or blaming us
for what we do. Consider the insanity plea in criminal trials. If
you have no power over your actions, you cannot be regarded
as guilty: you did not intend to do what you did.
Similarly, if you are not responsible for the work that is
being praised, then you cannot take credit for it. Many women
do not like to have men constantly call attention to their looks.
The women believe that their figures and features are not of
their own making, and they wish the men would pick something
over which they had had greater influence. (Liking someone's
looks is another matter, of course.) Still, if people have no power
over their own actions, praise and blame are forever irrelevant,
inapplicable.
Do human beings have free will? Let us begin our inquiry by
considering some objections. Afterward we will return to arguments that demonstrate both the possibility and the existence
of free will.
Against Free Will

Nature's laws versus free will. One of the major objections to

the concept of free will starts with the observation that nature

14

A PRIMER ON ETHICS

is governed by a set of laws, mainly those of physics. These

laws are said to control all material substances. Since human
beings are basically complex mixtures of material substances,
so the argument goes, whatever governs material substance in
the universe must also govern human life.
According to the argument, in other words, we humans are
subject to the kind of causation that affects everything. The
same idea is evident in the statement that what we or others do
is the result of prior events. We are part ofan inevitable process
and can therefore neither prevent nor control our actions. Since
all events belong to a perpetual chain of cause and effect,
humans have no more free will than anything else in the
universe.
You (or I) might argue that the chain had to start somewhere,
that at some time a precipitating event occurred as a result
of someone's initiating action. This event, termed an "original
cause," would be a prerequisite for free will. It is argued that
there is certainly no such thing as an original cause in the rest
of nature, however. According to one advocate of determinism,
"The best response to the demand for an explanation ofthe relation between an originator and decisions is that an explanation
cannot be given. We have to regard this relation as primitive or
unanalyzable."l In other words, no evidence or argument can
be given for the origination or initiation of an action.
The determinist claims that all of our actions, including decisions, should be regarded as the effects of prior events-that
everything we do is the result of some set of causal circumstances. This theory, it is said, makes better sense than the
alternative, which would be no explanation at all.

Affirming initiative. Now, we might say that the determinists

are right in some areas ("domains") but not in all. Cause and
effect are clearly evident, for example on the billiard table,
in geological movements, and in the motion of the planets.

ASSUMPTIONS MADE IN ETHICS &If1

15

But is the cause of a musical composition-the composeralso the effect of a prior cause, so that the composer may
not be said to have made an original contribution?2 According
to this argument, then, nature exhibits innumerable different
domains that differ in complexity and organization.
"Causal" reasoning does not necessarily rule out the possibility that a thing may cause some of its own behavior ("agent," or
"original," causation). Causal interactions depend on the nature
ofthe beings that interact. We need to investigate the capacity
of the beings before ruling out agent causation.
As we have seen, then, there may be in nature a form of
existence that exhibits free will. The possibility is something
to be determined and is not precluded by a narrow worldview
or metaphysics that assigns everything just one set of causal
features. Nature, which seems to comprise many types and
kinds of things, may encompass free will.
Having established the possibility offree will, we will shortly
consider whether or not it actually exists.

We cannot know of free will. Another obstacle considered to

interfere with the possibility of free will has to do with the limits
of our knowledge. The dominant mode of studying, observing, or
examining nature is called "empiricism." Many thinkers believe
that we can know about nature only through feedback from
our sensory organs. Our senses give us no direct evidence of
free will, however, and in the absence of such evidence-so the
argument goes-free will cannot be said to exist.
We can know of free will. Still, the notion that all knowledge
must be empirical is wrong. We know many things through
observation in combination with inference and theory construction. (We do not even know empirically that empiricism is our
sole form of knowledgeD
Let us consider some examples. Many phenomena in the

16

I!I/P A PRIMER ON ETHICS

universe, including criminal guilt, are detected without eyewitnesses but by means of theories that seem to explain our
observations best. This statement is true even in the natural sciences. Much of our wisdom in biology, astrophysics, subatomic
physics, botany, and chemistry, not to mention psychology, consists not of observable data but of theoretical inference. The
theory that best accounts for things is the one that consistently
permits the fullest, most accurate predictions.
We may find that free will belongs to this category of theories. In other words, free will may be something that we cannot
directly observe but that has considerable explanatory value.
It might, for example, account for the relatively large number
of mistakes that human beings make by comparison with other
animals. Free will might also illuminate the odd things that
people do which do not fit into the theory of mechanical causation associated with physics. We know, for instance, that some
people with bad childhoods tum into decent citizens, while others become crooks. In this area empiricism would clearly not
help us.
Free will is weird. Thinkers sometimes object to the notion of
free will because nonhuman beings in nature do not exhibit it.
It is argued that because dogs, cats, lizards, fish, and frogs have
no free will, we are being arbitrary when we impute it to human
beings. Why should people be regarded as free to do things when
the rest of nature is not? Opponents of the free will idea who
advance this argument include the behaviorist psychologist B.
F. Skinner. 3
Free will is natural. As I suggested above, free will could be just
another attribute, one of many encompassed by the tremendous
variety of nature. Determinism seems to dictate how things
can be (determinism seems to entail a very specific ontology),

AsSUMPTIONS MADE IN ETHICS I/IIfI

17

to stipulate that each thing can move only when prompted by

something else. This law, however, cannot be shown to hold
universally so as to preclude free will.
Does God allow free will? According to a theological argument,
if God knows everything, God knows the future, and what we do
is therefore unalterable. If God knows that you will have three
children, then you have no choice-you have three children.
Your fate is preordained.
God's "knowledge" is mysterious. We cannot draw inferences
about human knowledge on the basis of divine knowledge. God's
knowledge is not likely to be the kind that humans have. Indeed,
the nature of God's knowledge is a mystery.
For Free Will
Thus far we have considered only whether free will is possible.
But does it actually exist? I offer four arguments that have been
proposed by philosophers in support of an affirmative answer.
Are we determined to be determinists? According to one argument, ifwe are fully determined in what we think., believe, and
do-if, that is, we regard everything as the effect of some antecedent cause-then our belief in determinism is itself a result
of this determinism. By the same token, it can be argued that
determinism is responsible for the view that determinism is
false. No matter what you believe, in short, you had to believe
it. Whether or not we turn out to be determinists, we cannot
appraise the issue objectively, because our view on the matter,
one way or the other, ad infinitum, is predetermined. In the absence of any objective assessment, we cannot solve the problem
and end the debate.
The very idea that we can attain philosophical, scientific,

18

PRIMER ON ETHICS

or judicial objectivity, or that we can ever know anything,

has to do with freedom. Without objectivity, nothing can be
verified. Consequently, if we are engaged in the business of
learning about truth and distinguishing it from falsehood, then
we are asserting that human beings have some degree of mental
freedom. This view was propounded by Immanuel Kant, the
important eighteenth-century philosopher, and more recently
by Nathaniel Branden, a psychologist who defends free will.4

Should we become determinists? Determinism presents us

with another dilemma. The determinist wants us to believe in
determinism and in fact believes that we ought to do so rather
than subscribe to the notion of free will. But as we have seen,
"ought" implies "can." That is, when we say that someone ought
to do something, we presume both capacity and the power to
choose. The determinist is thus implicitly saying that it is up to
us to decide whether to regard determinism or free will as the
better doctrine. This statement, however, assumes that we are
free to decide!
In other words, we cannot even defend determinism without assuming that we have the power to make choices about
arguments, evidence, and the operation of reasoning itself. We
encounter this paradox whenever we meet people who blame
us for failing to see that people cannot be blamed for their actions because their fate is not in their hands. If someone spoke
to you or me in this way, we might well ask, "Which is it? Can
you blame a person or not?" In one book defending determinism,
the author concludes with the following question: "If ['Left-wing
politics is less given to attitudes and policies that have something of the assumption of free will in them'], should one part
. of the response . . . be a move to the Left in politics? I leave
you with that bracing question."5 Yet if the answer is predetermined, a person will have no choice in whether to move right or
left, and there is no genuine question. 6

AsSUMPTIONS MADE IN ETHICS

IIIfIf

19

We often know we are free. In many areas of our lives, introspective knowledge is taken very seriously. Let us say that you
go to the doctor complaining of pain, and she asks you where
it is. If you say, "It's in my knee," the doctor doesn't say, "Why,
you can't know. This is not public evidence. I will now find out
directly and verifiably where you hurt." In fact your evidence
is very good. Witnesses at trials are asked for the same kind of
evidence when they are told to report what they have seen. The
demand for such testimony calls for evidence that is in one sense
introspective. That is, it requires us to look within and to affirm:
"This is indeed what I have seen or heard." The demand forces
us to refer to a memory, a source of information to which others
are not privy without our reports. Introspective evidence is also
involved in the various sciences when people describe what they
have read on surveys or have seen on gauges or instruments.
We tend to regard introspective evidence as reasonably
reliable. How, then, should we react when someone says, "Damn
it, I didn't make the right choice" or "I should have done x, and
I failed to do it"? People often speak of having made different
choices and of having intended one thing but not another.
Furthermore, they often accuse themselves of having failed to
act in some way-and as we have seen, the act of blaming
implies awareness of the power to choose (and also invokes the
notion of personal responsibility).
In short, people all around us, drawing on their experience,
provide abundant evidence regarding their free choices. If we
simply disregarded this evidence, we would also invalidate
much other information from such sources that we treat as
decisive.
Science discovers free will. The existence of free will, finally,
is also supported by the fact that humans apparently have
the capacity to self-monitor. The structure of the human brain
allows us, so to speak, to govern ourselves. We are able to

20

J.!II' A PRIMER ON ETHICS

oversee our lives, to determine where we are going, and (as

a consequence) to change course. In this way we alter our
habits, control our tempers, lose or gain weight, correct our
technique on the piano, and even modify firmly held opinions.
We demonstrably exercise this sort of free will.
A number of scientists, including Roger W. Sperry, have
found evidence for the existence of free will in this sense.
Sperry's view depends on some of the premises that I have
already discussed. It presupposes, for example, that different
kinds of causes occur in nature and that the brain as a complex
neurophysiological system may manifest self-causation. (In an
organism with our sort of brain, some mental functions may
occur by what Sperry calls "downward causation," for which he
finds some evidence in the external environment as well.?
When we consider examples of such free will, in line with
Sperry's theory, we can identify a locus of individual selfresponsibility, or initiative, or, to use Ted Honderich's term,
origination, in the way in which we contemplate ourselves and
in the way in which we behave. 8
Some cautionary words. Support for the existence of free will
notwithstanding, outside influences clearly determine human
behavior in some cases. A brain tumor, a severe childhood
trauma, and an automobile accident are all examples of intrusive forces that sometimes incapacitate people. In addition,
attorneys and expert witnesses would sometimes have us believe that people who engage in criminal behavior cannot
control their actions. People whose behavior or judgment is
involuntary cannot be said to possess free will.
Compatibilism. People who deny the existence offree will cannot distinguish between cases in which the individual decides
his or her behavior and cases in which the behavior is determined by forces beyond his or her control. In cases of the

AsSUMPTIONS MADE IN ETHICS JI!1f

21

latter sort, we may regard the behavior as good or bad (in

terms of value theory) but we deny-in the absence ofindividual volition-that it is morally and legally significant. In such
cases, however, as we have seen, it is not possible to discuss
how people ought to act (the rightness of conduct, or morality)
without accepting free will. Philosophers who discuss ethics but
deny free will and consequently have trouble distinguishing between morality and value theory include Marxists and some
utilitarians.
Nevertheless, some thinkers argue that even if genetics or
the environment dictates our behavior or our judgments, we
may still speak of morality. Such thinkers are called compatibilists. They use the terms "ethics" and "morality," however,
with a special meaning: ethics is good behavior understood as
conduct that conforms to certain standards, regardless of the
reasons for conformity. So defined, ethics may concern itself
with values and the best way to secure them, whether or not
anyone can influence their achievement. The meaning of ethics
changes drastically when we eliminate the concept of personal
responsibility or agency.
Is Free Will Well Founded?
We now have a collage of arguments in support of free will.
Can anyone do better with this issue? I do not know. We should
perhaps confine ourselves to looking for the best among the
competing theories. Are human beings doing what they do
solely because offorces that act on them? Or do people, having
the requisite capacity, often fail to take charge of their lives
properly or effectively and make bad choices? Which theory, the
free will or the deterministic, best explains the world and its
complexities as we know them?
I believe that the free will view makes better sense. It is
superior to the deterministic theories in accounting for the
array of possibilities, accomplishments as well as defeats, joys

22

J!I!if A PRIMER ON ETHICS

as well as sorrows, and creation as well as destruction, that we

associate with human life. It also explains why we see so much
change in language and in custom, style, art, and science.
Unlike other living beings, whose possibilities are largely
fixed by instincts and reflexes, people initiate much of their
activity, for better and for worse. Drawing on their distinctive
capacity for forming ideas and theories, for artistic and athletic
inventiveness, human beings constantly remake their world
without being obliged to do so. Such activity becomes intelligible
once we acknowledge the ability to initiate conduct rather than
relying solely on external forces for stimulus. This ability also
presents humans with certain challenges, not the least of which
is that no single formula or system can reasonably be expected
to manage human affairs in the future, however much some
social scientists seem to hope that it will. Social engineering
thus offers little prospect of solving human problems. Education
and individual initiative remain our only recourse.
Free will does not contravene social science, however, as long
as the latter is not conceived in strict deterministic terms and
the former is considered to permit long-range commitments,
chosen policies or strategies, institutional involvement, and
so forth. Some choices commit people to long-range behaviors
whose impact on the social world can be studied. When someone
enters graduate school, begins a new career or relationship,
or creates an institution, for example, we expect that person's
future behavior to reflect the choice in certain predictable ways.
In economics, we might study the marketplace as an arena
within which people freely choose how they will earn a livelihood, what they will produce and consume, and how they will
market products, bargain for prices, wages, and benefits, and
so forth. Economists examine the various permutations and
consequences of such choices as well as regular features of
marketplace activity.
People are free to act as commercial agents in a number

AsSUMPTIONS MADE IN ETHICS LfIIii'

23

of ways. They go about their business more or less intensely

at different periods in their lives, for reasons of their own as
they address their circumstances. We need not identify a cause
of these events, and yet all of these actions are open to moral
evaluation. 9
Much order, even predictability, is nevertheless evident in
people's economic activities, providing that we do not expect to
see impersonal laws or random forces played out precisely, as
they would be by Halley's comet or by a subatomic particle. In
acknowledging free will, social scientists are not obligated to
abandon their science. In fact, the contrary is true: the concept
of free will may bring them closer to scientific knowledge of
human life.
MORAL SKEPTICISM

Let us now turn to the second assumption: can we identify principles of conduct? Otherwise stated, is there any basis for our
ethical or moral judgments? When a politician is denounced,
or when a newspaper is criticized for its reporting, can we
discern any underlying standards? What justifies the derogatory judgments? How do we know that the aggrieved child was
mistreated by its parents-or that the patient's physician engaged in malpractice? Is ethics a realm in which claims can be
established as right without reference to any standards?lo
Constraints of space make it possible here only to lay the
foundation for inquiry and to outline considerations involved in
the debate.
Against Morality
The arguments advanced against the existence of moral standards have several different grounds.
Moral diversity versus objectivity. As we noted above, people
frequently differ in their views regarding right and wrong.

24

III' A

PRIMER ON ETHICS

Given that there are very many moral opinions, how can there
be one true moral standard applicable to all? Some thinkers
argue that cross-cultural and historical diversity precludes any
single objective standard governing human action. It is mostly
cultural anthropologists who advance this view-for example,
Ruth Benedict. ll

No evidence of the senses supports moral claims. As we have

also noted above, moral judgments cannot be verified by direct
observation. I can tell you whether or not the janitor is vacuuming the hallway, whether people smoked cigarettes in this room
today, where China's borders are on the wall map, and whether
or not it is raining, all by consulting my senses. My senses will
not, however, help me decide whether to tell the truth, defend
welfare for the poor, avoid pornography, or advocate banning
abortions. Accordingly, some people argue that moral disputes
are impossible to settle. This argument is stressed in particular
by logical positivists such as A. J. Ayer. 12

The gap between "is" and "ought." According to the rules of

sound reasoning (good judgment), when a conclusion is drawn
from premises, the terms present in the conclusion must also
appear in the premises. Yet when we begin an argument with a
claim that one or another thing is so, no "ought" or "should" is
present. As we have seen, however, these terms must appear in
any conclusion having moral import. It is clear, then, that moral
conclusions cannot be derived from nonmoral premises. The
gap between "is" and "ought" was first noted by the philosopher
David Hume (1711-1776).

Morality is against nature. We would never think of praising or

blaming rocks, trees, birds, or fish. Consequently, according to
one argument, it is arbitrary and unjustifiable to bring morality
into the picture when we consider human affairs. Nothing else

AsSUMPTIONS MADE IN ETHICS . ,

25

in nature is subject to moral judgment or evaluation, so why

should people be? John Mackie contends that moral values, if
they existed, would be "entities or qualities or relations of a
very strange sort, utterly different from anything else in the
universe. "13
For Morality
Various counterarguments have been advanced to suggest that
moral standards do exist.

Diversity is more apparent than real. Three subarguments address apparent diversity. First, it is said that moral opinions
tend to differ about details, not basics. Then, too, the appearance of diversity is sometimes fostered by individuals who want
to obscure moral standards to avoid charges of wrongdoing.
Finally, some people, acting as professional devil's advocates,
promote skepticism (and the appearance of diversity) by continually testing, questioning, and seeking to verify (these people
may avoid acting like skeptics with their children, friends, and
political representatives, however).
Perceptual knowledge is not all. We have seen that direct
observation--evidence of the senses-is often invoked to prove
a point. In complicated areas, though-for example, in astrophysics, particle physics, psychology, and crime detection, to
name just a few-sensory evidence is insufficient, and complex theories and definitions are used for verification. It is
the same with moral judgments (for example, we may need
to use a definition of "good" or "morally right" for purposes
of verification)-and ethics in fact proposes such theories and
definitions.
How not to deduce but to derive "ought" from "is." When
Hume wrote about the is/ought gap, he was arguing against

26

" " A PRIMER ON ETHICS

thinkers who believed that moral conclusions can be deduced

from premises stating facts of various kinds. Deductions are
formal statements that link premises with conclusions using
logical structure and the essential meaning of the terms. Given
their form, deductions never establish anything strictly newwhatever they establish is already implicitly true.
But not all arguments consist of deductions; some are
inferential. That is, some arguments extrapolate from our observations, reflections, economical theorizing, and so forth to
develop a new understanding of the world. Sherlock Holmes
notwithstanding, detectives rely on inferential reasoning, not
deductive, to identifY a suspect. Nor do scientists work in a
strictly deductive fashion. Instead, they advance their understanding by developing and evaluating concepts and theories to
find those with the greatest explanatory value. Indeed, we are
most often concerned to establish definitions that are the product not of deduction but of generalization, analogy, abstraction,
and even serendipity.
Accordingly, if we do not insist on deduction, we can design arguments whose premises include theories or definitions
of "good" and "ought to" and thus support particular moral
judgments. One example would be:
The will of God is good.
Everyone ought to do that which is good.
Therefore everyone ought to obey the will of God.

Another might be:

For human beings, goodness is living.
For human beings, thinking promotes living.
For human beings, thinking promotes goodness.

We cannot simply dismiss these theories. One of them may

capture accurately the meaning of the relevant terms and may
thereby allow us to infer moral conclusions. 14

ASSUMPTIONS MADE IN ETHICS

27

Nature is diverse enough to allow for major differences. Even

if moral judgments or evaluations are applied solely to humans
(and not to animals or to inanimate objects), there is nothing
odd about the disparity. It may be the case, as Mary Midgley has
argued, that the distinctiveness of human beings consists precisely in their ethical nature. 15 Indeed, Aristotle also advanced
this view. After all, many of the products of human activitysuch as board games, museums, symphony music, philosophy,
and the novel-occur nowhere else in the universe.
THE BEST THEORY Is As TRUE As

CAN

BE

To decide which theory is better, we must determine which one

sheds greater light on the complexities of human life. When we
consider the arguments for determinism and for free will, which
gives us a better understanding of why social engineering and
government regulation and regimentation do not work, of why
there are so many differences between individuals and cultures,
and of why people can disagree with each other? The preferable
explanation may be that people are free to diverge because they
are not set in their ways, as cats, dogs, and orangutans tend
to be. The behavior of these creatures is in principle easier to
predict, because (as far as we now know) they are not creative
in the sense of being able to originate ideas and actions.
The ideas produced by human beings can introduce new
sorts of behavior in familiar situations. We allude to this tendency when we say that people often interpret their experiences
differently. Nonetheless, we are able to predict individuals' behavior somewhat, because they often make up their minds in a
particular way and keep to their decisions over time. We have
this tendency in mind when we say that people honor their commitments, show integrity, and are loyal. At times, then, we can
guess what others will do. Even in such cases, however, our
predictions are not ironclad but only statistically significant.
Hedge our bets as we may, people very often surprise us-

28

8fI!I A PRIMER ON

ETHICS

and if we leave one culture and enter another, they surprise

us even more. The complexity, diversity, and high degree of
individuation that we associate with human beings are better
explained by hypothesizing that they are free than it is by
assuming that they are determined. Thus we have satisfied
one requirement for ethics to be a bona fide subject matter of
genuine concern.
Similarly, we have seen that the objections to the possibility
of firm ethical standards run into difficulties. What they offer
can be explained even if there are firm moral standards, whatever they may be. So it seems that the second assumption of
ethics, that there exist such firm standards, is also likely to be
true. And that is where we will leave this basic issue for now.

3
FACTS
AND VALUES

HE CONCEPT of value is used to mean, generally, anything that people strive for-what a person seeks out or
pursues. Ethics takes as one of its concerns the identification of
values that are fundamental for human existence. It seeks to
define those that humans ought to pursue, those that we should
choose, and how we should rank them. Otherwise stated, ethics
is concerned with moral virtues or principles, with the distinctively human good, or (again) with basic right conduct in human
life. The standards that it seeks to delineate are those that we
should use in deciding how to conduct ourselves.
Our decisions in this realm may be explicit or implicit, nearly
subconscious. We may not reflect on them at length. Yet unless
these decisions conform to basic guidelines, they will not fit into
a consistent, workable life plan. Ethical principles supposedly
steer us toward a good human life, which is the first goal of
everyone.
The principles of ethics involve basic moral values. The concept of value, however, is often used at moments when morality
is not involved, for example when we speak of valuables, the
truth of a statement, or something's aesthetic or economic
worth. We sometimes also speak of values in a specific context.

30

J!Ii1 A PRIMER ON ETHICS

Here we are typically concerned with what is good or bad but

not with what is morally right or wrong.
Let us consider a few examples. Diseases are bad for living
creatures, but there is nothing morally wrong or evil about
them unless agency is involved. Then we presume that the bad
things could have been avoided, because the agent could have
chosen to act otherwise. It is awful when someone contracts
HN, but it could only be morally wrong or evil if the disease
was transmitted because someone intentionally or carelessly
engaged in unsafe sex. Even apart from human life, we often
make value judgments-for example, as we lament that the
tomatoes or grapes in our garden have withered away without
ripening, that animals in the wild starve or freeze to death,
or that the ecosystem as a whole is damaged by some natural
disaster such as a volcano. Interestingly, if we regarded the
volcano as God's instrument, we could still not allege that God
had done something morally bad since God is considered perfect
by definition-a difficulty that relates to an ancient problem in
theology.
Philosophers and ordinary people alike often talk about the
similarity or difference between facts and values. Some argue that any opinion regarding values is as good as any other,
whereas we have clear standards for discriminating between
facts and nonfacts. The distinction indicates that values cannot be objects of knowledge, because nothing can be objectively
known if all different opinions are equally correct. If the sharp
dichotomy between facts and values is justified, then ethics
probably cannot be a clear, intelligible field; ethical inquiry under these circumstances would be indeterminate, even illusory.
(We will discuss subjectivism and relativism in chapter 7.)
According to another viewpoint, ethical values, or virtues,
may be regarded as one type of rather complicated fact. The
answer to the ethical question ''What should I, a human being,
do?" can be a factual statement of the form "People should act
so as to achieve some goal." This answer does not differ in type

FACTS AND VALUES

AIJif

31

from answers to simpler questions such as the following: "What

should I, a carpenter, do?" and "How should an airline pilot
act?" We could easily consider the following answers factual:
"Learn to excel with your tools, and produce quality furniture"
and "Never make long-range social plans in one location." These
answers, however, respond to questions about particular sorts
of human living, not human life in general, and so they are
relevant only for specialized or role ethics and not for the broad
field of ethics generally. In ethics generally, the question "How
should a person live?" might be answered with "Live so that you
will serve God's will" or "Live to achieve the highest degree of
personal excellence."
This view of ethics reflects the more basic idea that human
life-indeed all life-has inherently values. A living creature,
in other words, inevitably grapples with conditions that either
promote or impede its well-being. Once life has emerged in the
world, values become part of the world's facts.
Many philosophers, and others, deny that ethics concerns itself with any kind offacts except incidentally. (We will consider
such arguments later at greater length.) These thinkers accept
what is usually called the fact/value dichotomy or the is/ought
gap, by which they mean that facts (or what is the case) represent a fundamentally different area of concern from values (or
what ought to be the case).
Even outside philosophy, especially in the social sciences,
much is said about facts versus values and about judgments of
fact versus opinions or feelings as to what is of value. Otherwise
stated, some of the things we say state facts (rightly or wrongly),
whereas other remarks express opinions or feelings about facts
(and so right and wrong do not apply). Later I will show how
people who deny that values can be facts still advance views
about what is right and wrong.
Strictly speaking, any ethical position, theory, or system that
presents itself as a field of knowledge must view values as a
type of fact or as somehow objective and not merely dependent

32

. , A PRIMER ON ETHICS

on the opinions of an individual or a group. We cannot grasp

moral or ethical values unless they are a kind of fact in the
world, because we cannot otherwise separate those that have
been correctly identified from those that have not. If we can
provide no objective standards for telling the two groups apart,
then ethics-the business of discriminating between right and
wrong conduct, morally good and evil beings, and decent and
indecent actions-becomes impossible.
The kinds offacts with which ethics deals are not necessarily
identical to those of, say, history or physics. The fact, if it is
one, that "Human beings ought to be honest in their dealings"
differs from the fact, if it is one, that Richard Nixon resigned
the U.S. presidency on August 1,1974, or that salt dissolves in
water. Nonmoral facts also come in different versions, however.
Consider the following examples.
Two plus two equals four.
Black holes absorb all the matter surrounding them.
Socks are worn on the feet.
Photosynthesis is an organic chemical process.

These facts differ considerably from each other and from

the statement about Nixon's resignation. The difference, which
relates to their nature and constitution, affects the procedure
we must use to discover them. Rather than distinguish simply
between facts and values, then, we should conclude that there
are all sorts of different facts, some of which amount to the
values that are proper for living a human life.
Considered in this light, ethics is as much a feature of the
world as, say, the laws of physics or biology. The subject of inquiry, however, is the guidelines for living that are appropriate
for one particular life form-a human being capable of making
free choices and needing standards in order to make them well.
Socrates and Aristotle understood ethics in this way, but it has
also been regarded in different terms.

4
METAETHICS
AND CRITICISM OF
MORAL THEORIES

HE TERM "metaethics" refers to the topics that must be

covered before we can discuss ethics. Metaethics thus encompasses the foundations of ethics. We dealt with some of
these when we considered the pros and cons of free will and
objective moral standards. Now we will briefly consider some
of the outstanding metaethical positions on ways of justifying
ethical standards.
METAETHICAL THEORIES
Imagine that your uncle is an alcoholic (he drinks beer), and you
are trying to decide whether to hide his bottles. Some observers
might argue that you should try to make him stop (because
drinking is bad for him). Others would say that he has the right
to drink if he wants to-it is his life, after all-and that you
should avoid imposing your values on him. At a different level,
we may ask, "How can we ever decide how to act? How can we
identify the ethical principles that we should follow?"
The following theories operate at this higher level. They are
concerned with justifying ethics. Whereas ethical theorists pro-

34

1#1 A PRIMER ON ETHICS

pound arguments for basic principles of conduct, metaethical

theorists show how the basic principles are evident.
Cognitivism
The cognitivist view holds that the truth of moral judgments can
be demonstrated-that morality is knowable. (Noncognitivism
is the denial of this view. Noncognitivists often argue that ethics
is actually a branch of psychology and is concerned with feelings
or attitudes rather than with knowledge.) Plato and Kant were
metaethical cognitivists. A. J. Ayer, a prominent noncognitivist,
proposed emotivism, the idea that ethical claims are disguised
manifestations of emotion. 1 Noncognitivists include the logical
positivists. According to these philosophers, only judgments or
statements that could be confirmed by observation could set
forth something we know to be true or false.
Naturalism
Naturalists maintain that ethics is based on human nature.
(There are some variations. Some thinkers use "naturalism" to
mean that the subject matter is not supernatural, and others
that the natural sciences deal with it.) Human nature supposedly encompasses any facts that make us human beings. Our
biological constitution and our capacity for thinking are part of
our human nature, whereas our color, our weight, and our age
are not. Naturalists hold that we must look to our human nature for ultimate guidance in determining how we ought to act.
(Nonnaturalists disagree.) Naturalism is a form ofcognitivism,
since it holds that we can know right and wrong on the basis of our knowledge of human nature. Aristotle and Ayn Rand
were metaethical naturalists; nonnaturalists have included G.
E. Moore and Jean-Paul Sartre.
Conventionalism
Conventionalists believe that moral principles reflect a consensus that members of individual cultures reached over hundreds

METAETHICS AND CRITICISM OF MORAL THEORIES

J!IJf1

35

and thousands of years. When we call ethical principles "society's basic edicts," we are suggesting that they are not so
much discoveries as agreed-upon formulations. The agreement
is sometimes thought to be worldwide and sometimes to be specific to particular cultures or societies (or ethnic groups or even
gender groups). Conventionalism is a form of noncognitivism,
since it treats ethics not as discoverable or provable but rather
as having evolved and having become entrenched over time.
Thomas Hobbes and David Hume were prominent metaethical
conventionalists.
Pragmatism
We use the term "pragmatic" in daily life to mean practical,
expedient, and realistic, as in "President George Bush had a
pragmatic foreign policy." The philosophical pragmatist holds
that moral principles should afford effective means of helping
us reach practical goals. Someone can be pragmatic in personal
matters (small scale) or in social matters (large scale). Either
way, the guidelines focus on the way things work to further some
interest. John Dewey, Sidney Hook, and Richard Rorty are all
metaethical pragmatists, although they do not see eye to eye on
many issues.
Intuitionism
Intuitionism, a somewhat odd form of cognitivism, holds that
moral principles arise from deeply held convictions or beliefs
known to be true not because of argument or analysis but
because of gut feelings. We all have moral intuitions, and we
should trust them. Even people who have never explored ethics
have moral sentiments. These feelings furnish our best guide
to how we should conduct ourselves. The basic idea here is the
same as that in the old saw about woman's intuition: we should
base our morality on the innate wisdom that we all have and
not on the dictates of some fancy theory. Sir David Ross and
John Rawls are two intuitionists.

36

J/IJf1 A PRIMER ON ETHICS

Mysticism
Mystics regard moral principles as basically mysterious revelations from God or from some other supernatural source. As the
utterances of superior beings, far beyond the reach ofour faculty
for understanding, moral principles cannot be apprehended rationally and must be accepted on faith. (I will return to this
point later.) St. Augustine's metaethics seems to fit this view,
as do some views derived from various Western and Eastern
theologies.
CRITICISM OF MORAL THEORIES

When we try to answer the questions that we raise about the

world in a systematic, self-conscious way, we advance theories.
These answers are carefully devised, with arguments, distinctions, clarifications, and other ingredients that help us to be
precise. Ethical theories are also subject to critical criteria or
standards, either internal or external.
Internal criticism, in any discipline, considers whether a
theory meets certain basic structural requirements. For example, does the theory avoid contradictions (is it consistent?)? Is
it unambiguous (set forth in clear, precise language)? Can the
theory be applied in the intended field (in ethics: can we act on
the theory's proposal?)? Can the theory be generalized, and is it
comprehensive or complete (does it cover everything addressed
by the question that it tries to answer?)?
External criticisms deal with the comparative advantages of
a theory. For example, does one theory cover as many problems
in the field as another (is the theory more powerful?)? Is the
theory consistent with generally accepted beliefs, knowledge,
and so forth? Does the theory address our concerns in a given
field better than other theories do? Does it deal more fully with
commonsense concerns, or does it do violence to elementary
wisdom? (A theory that made it okay to beat small children or

METAETHICS AND CRITICISM OF MORAL THEORIES

Ali'

37

to betray our friends would be nearly impossible to justify.)

Ethical theories may be subjected to criticism in these two
fairly distinct areas just like theories in other disciplines. Since
experiments are nearly impossible to conduct in ethics, greater
stress falls on how well a moral theory handles thought experiments, imaginary cases, and situations that we actually face in
real life. It is vital that we select realistic cases and not demand
that the theory do the impossible, for example give us answers
to science fiction questions or situations that cannot be clearly
understood. Appropriate questions, phrased in terms of "What
if?" must address something that individuals may actually encounter in their lives. By the same token, the cases investigated
in conjunction with the testing of scientific theories must be
connected with reality even if only remotely.
TYPES OF MORAL THEORIES

Specific ethical theories are broadly classified as deontological,

consequentialist, and teleological.
A deontological moral theory focuses on the intention that
underlies an action. In everyday ethical talk, for example, we
often hear the expression "It is the thought that counts." If
someone does something that is highly valued but the person
has ulterior motives (for example, he or she wants power or
praise or favors granted in return), then the act itself is deemed
morally insignificant. Immanuel Kant advanced this point.
By his account a moral act must aim for nothing beyond its
realization as a moral act. The moral goodness of a deed derives
from its being intended by the agent to be nothing except a
morally good deed. A person may act in accordance with ethics
or morality, but if she does it for pleasure or hopes to go to
heaven or to win public approval as a result, no moral praise
will be forthcoming even though the act accords with morality.
An agent exhibits moral goodness only when he has the purest
intention to be morally good.

38

l1li' A PRIMER ON ETHICS

A consequentialist ethical theory, on the other hand, is concerned solely with effecting valued results, regardless of the
motivation. To do the morally right thing is to produce what is
good or valuable, whatever the person may intend by the action. An everyday expression that perhaps captures this sense
is "The proof of the pudding is in the eating." Hedonists and
some utilitarian moral theorists best exemplify the consequentialist type of ethical theorizing. Some of them might better be
considered value theorists in that they are less interested in an
agent's moral character or nature than in the behavior that will
contribute to a better world.
Teleological moral theories are often confused with consequentialist types, but there is a difference between the two. A
teleological ethics, such as that of Aristotle, considers worthwhile goals or objectives of central importance in making
actions morally good and demands, in addition, that actions
succeed in achieving the goal. In a way this type of morality
combines the features of the two described above: it must be
intended because of a valued goal, and it must accomplish its
purpose. The effort alone will not make the act fully worthy.
The category into which a moral theorist fits will have much
to do with the philosophical framework underlying the ethical
position being advanced. In some schools of philosophy, or
branches thereof, it is nearly impossible to speak of intentionmaterialism and even empiricism are examples. In others it is
impossible to identify an action's consequences for certain. In
still others both intentions and results are accepted as quite
natural. A detailed, advanced study of ethical theories would
evaluate each position in light of the overall philosophical
approach.

5
WHAT

Is

MORALLY

GOOD AND RIGHT?

NE SENSIBLE explanation for the existence of ethics, as

we have seen, is that human beings need principles by
which to guide their lives so that they can live well as human
beings. Philosophical inquiry into the issues may yield a correct
moral position. Philosophers who advance ethical positions aim
to help answer the moral questions that human beings ask.
The main ethical question is: "How should I, a person, live
my life?" We will examine some of the competing moralities that
offer answers by first outlining their idea of the highest good, or
the main goal for which humans should strive. We will discuss
only those ethical positions that offer an argument in support of
their answer. Later in the chapter we will briefly consider some
that propose revelation, special intuition, mystical insight, and
the like in place of argument.
ETHICAL POSITIONS
Hedonism
Goal and principles. Ethical hedonism, we should note at the
outset, differs from psychological hedonism, which holds that
people are always pursuing pleasure no matter what else they

40

A PRIMER ON ETHICS

are doing. Ethical hedonism, in contrast, holds that we ought

to act so as to secure the maximum amount of pleasure for
ourselves (that is, for the individual who acts). Jeremy Bentham
is perhaps the best known exponent of ethical hedonism.
The hedonists' goal is sometimes understood to be increasing
the intensity or amount of pleasure. Some hedonists concern
themselves with the pleasure only of human beings and not of
animals. For others the pleasure of the individual actor or agent
is the only relevant goal to be pursued.
According to the form of hedonism that declares the maximum possible amount of pleasure as the proper moral goal
that everyone should pursue, pleasure is a good in itself. The
concern is not with the pleasure of some individual person but
with pleasure as such. (We say that, according to this view,
pleasure is considered to have intrinsic value, independent of
its worth to someone or something.) That pleasure is a good
in itself may seem obvious. If a person feels good, that person
feels pleasure, plain and simple. The goodness of good feelings
is self-evident. Under normal circumstances, at least, humans
are beings who welcome pleasure and resist pain. The theory
that pleasure itself is intrinsically good thus has considerable
intuitive appeal.
It is less evident that we should increase the amount of
pleasure (regardless of whose it is) just because it is normally
preferable to pain. Possibly, though, if we can calculate the
increase that our actions will bring us and those near us, we
can identify principles of conduct that will accomplish this
limited goal. Still, no one person can calculate the amount of
pleasure versus pain in the world. If the goal is an increase in
the total amount of pleasure, it is not possible to answer the
ethical question "How should I act?" It is probably impossible to
determine whether more for oneself translates into an increase
for the world overall, especially since a gain in pleasure may
produce some increase in pain. Remember that one requirement

WHAT

Is MORALLY GOOD AND RIGHT?

.,

41

of an ethical theory is that the moral goal(s) specified must be

reachable.
The best thing that can be said about this form of hedonism
may be that it may evolve into a different form, which we will
consider next. Rather than speak of "the maximum amount of
pleasure," possibly a confused idea, perhaps we should consider
the type of hedonism that deals with increasing individual
pleasures.
Another possibility would be to address ourselves to maximum pleasure in the sense of "welfare," which governs much
social or public policy. When social planners allocate the resources at their disposal, they often think in terms of the
likelihood that a certain distribution scheme will increase the
community's well-being overall. We will consider this point
more fully in connection with utilitarianism.
A more traditional form of hedonism says that we ought to
act so as to attain the greatest amount of pleasure for ourselves.
Hedonism considers both the intensity and the quantity of pleasure to be measurable. Some hedonists distinguish sharply
between the finer pleasures appreciated by humans and the
simple pleasures experienced by other animals. Other hedonists see no basis for such a distinction and believe that for
every person the proper goal should be the accumulation of as
many pleasant experiences as possible. If so, then the principles of conduct that we would invoke in making decisions would
be those most likely to promote the attainment of this goal.
We should notice that this doctrine takes the correct form for
a moral point of view. That is, we are to do something that we
are capable of doing (in this case choose to increase our pleasant
experiences), and we are to live according to principles that we
can identifY. The doctrine has not yet been shown to be correct,
but as described, it can be a candidate for the best moral position
for human beings. It offers a plausible answer to the question
"How should I live as a human being?"

42

IfIi1 A PRIMER ON ETHICS

Criticism and replies. There have been many objections to the

view that hedonism affords the best answer to the moral question. We can briefly survey these challenges now and postpone
until later a consideration of whether they are decisive. l
An internal problem associated with hedonism is that when
we pursue pleasure we often find ourselves undecided about
what to do. Many pleasures may seem equally appealing: going
to the movies, staying home to watch television, having dinner
with friends, reading a magazine article, playing basketball,
and so forth. 1b choose among the options, we may need a
standard apart from the maximization of pleasure.
Even if we could decide the matter, say, by flipping a coin, we
would frequently find our pursuit of personal pleasure in conflict with other people's desires. If someone wanted my company
and I did not want his, one of us would lose. In the community
at large, then, all people will not be able to pursue pleasure at
all times-some will have to abandon the objective on at least
some occasions. Yet a basic moral principle must be generalizable. We cannot require one agent to follow a basic principle that
all ethical agents cannot. A moral position that produces frequent conflicts between people cannot be generalized to apply
to everyone.
In addition, we may note as a criticism of one form of
hedonism that physical pleasures are probably not the only
ones we are capable of feeling. Human beings have a more
complex emotional makeup than other animal forms, even the
so-called higher creatures. The probable reason is our advanced
consciousness and our sensitivity to factors other than the
physical. Ifwe speak of measuring physical pleasures alone, we
may be imposing an artificial restriction.
Furthermore, we may eventually find it possible to measure
at least the intensity of other experiences, which could then
become other goals to be pursued. More complex forms of pleasure, however, such as emotional satisfaction, are the products

WHAT

Is MORALLY GOOD AND RIGHT? IJIfi'

43

of learning and opportunity. They are not inherent in human

nature. These complex pleasures or satisfactions are thus not
universalizable, because not all people can refer to them. The
possibility of conflict within oneself and among different people increases considerably when complex pleasures are taken
as goals that we should all pursue.
The hedonist will of course have replies to these objections
whose merits we will not discuss here. Ask yourself, as a reader,
what reply you might make. For example, concerning the need
to choose among equivalent pleasures, the hedonist might argue
that the flip of a coin is as good a way as any of reaching a
decision. The case in which an increase in one person's pleasure
effects a decrease in someone else's might prompt the hedonist
to claim that constraints on human action exist no matter what
goal we choose to discuss; at such times it is necessary simply to
be aware of this fact and to calculate the maximum attainable
pleasure accordingly.
The hedonist may concede that more complex pleasures are
more difficult to measure but may nonetheless urge us to do the
best we can with what we know. In response to those who say
that universal pleasures are impossible because people have
different degrees of access to education and to opportunities
for pleasure, the hedonist might say, "Pleasures come in many
forms, but they are all pleasures and can be measured as such.
A person has the duty to increase the amount of personal
pleasure, whatever the kind. The objection is irrelevant."
The idea that we have the moral responsibility to seek pleasure for ourselves is not widely publicized except perhaps in
Playboy and similar magazines. Still, in ordinary life people
look for opportunities to enjoy spectator sports, parties, vacations, eating, drinking, and sexual activities. Some people
pursue these pleasures diligently, even systematically. Often
we view such conduct as reflecting inner drives rather than
conscious choice. If so, the conduct would have no moral sig-

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A PRIMER ON ETHICS

nificance, since choice must be possible before ethics can even

enter the picture. For some of us, however, the pursuit of pleasure is indeed a serious business, something to be learned and
cultivated that is not at all inborn. It is not obviously absurd
that experiencing the maximum possible amount of pleasure
could be the moral goal for which all human beings should
strive. Some prominent philosophers (for example, Jeremy Bentham) have argued with great complexity and ingenuity for just
this position. People who are concerned to know what is good
and what human beings should do will benefit from examining
these ideas closely, however unpopular they may be within our
culture.
Utilitarianism

Goal and principles. Utilitarianism, as we will see, is related

to hedonism. The doctrine's name suggests that utilitarians
emphasize what is useful. The doctrine states, however, not
that the good is what is useful but that the good is the greatest happiness of the greatest number of whatever can be happy.
John Stuart Mill, a philosopher and political economist, is
most notably associated with ethical utilitarianism even though
quite a few notable others (such as Henry Sidgwick) also espoused the position. (A number of social theorists, especially
in the field of political economy, would classifY themselves as
utilitarians. They are thereby adopting an ethical viewpoint
rather than a more descriptive analytical framework involving
considerations of what people actually desire.) Happiness in
utilitarianism is not the same thing as pleasure, although it is
related to pleasure. More accurately, it is the greatest welfare
(well-being, even satisfaction) ofthe greatest number of human
beings, which is the proper goal of human activity.
Before we can examine the arguments for and against utilitarianism, we must ask how this welfare or happiness is to be
defined. In most utilitarian theories (and several versions are

WHAT

Is MORALLY GOOD AND

RIGHT?

IJi'

45

in evidence), welfare is closely tied to the achievement of desired goals-the satisfaction of preferences, wants, and wishes.
Utilitarians maintain that whenever someone's desires are satisfied, that person is well off, and that person's welfare has
arguably been attained. As utilitarians realize, however, some
desires conflict with others and may harm the individual or
society. Qualifications are therefore needed to make the theory plausible. Some theorists hold that desires or preferences
that interfere with others' realization of their preferences do
not count as significant in our understanding of welfare and
what we should do to achieve it. Others construe welfare as
depending on healthful or natural desires or preferences.
Utilitarian welfare or happiness is frequently identified
with physical and psychological well-being (as defined by the
medical and psychological scientists in a community) rather
than being left for subjective determination on the basis of
desires, preferences, and so forth. The health and economic
well-being of a community's members are frequently regarded
as indicators. (In political theory this goal comes to the fore
in the doctrine of the welfare state.) With these initial points
in mind, we can now ask why we should think of the good
as utilitarians do. Why should we all strive for the greatest
happiness of the greatest number?
Utilitarianism, like many other ethical theories, is tied to
broader philosophical positions. One key point in utilitarian
ethics is the idea that the good must be identifiable by means of
observation. We could not otherwise know what is good-that is,
what human beings are supposed to achieve. Ifwe cannot know
what is good, and thus cannot learn how to achieve it, then we
cannot hold ourselves and others responsible for doing so. Only
the things in the world that are perceivable can be known. If
there is a good we should strive for, then it must be perceivable.
This view of human knowledge provides a background for our
discussion of utilitarianism.
Now that we know how to identify the good, we might con-

46

A PRIMER ON ETHICS

clude that the best candidate is the combination of physical

and mental well-being. While the latter is difficult to identify,
the former appears knowable. Consequently utilitarians usually focus on physical welfare, which consists in the satisfaction
of basic human wants and needs. These include food, shelter,
medical care, and protection from the elements and from disasters. Most obvious is the need for economic well-being-the
capacity to obtain from various sources in nature and in society
the essentials for subsistence. The material conditions needed
to maintain one's physical health and safety, and the requirements for sustaining those conditions, are clearly identifiable
as good for us.
Measuring mental well-being is not so easy. Utilitarian theory usually leaves the matter to subjective judgment. In other
words, the individual appraises his or her psychic welfare except in some drastic cases, where psychological distress is
clearly evident to observers. (In the terms of this theory it is possible to deny that someone is mentally or psychologically well
off, even when the person claims to be well off, but only rarely.
Involuntary hospitalization usually involves such exceptions.)
In summary, utilitarian ethical theory is the view that the
good is a state of physical and psychological well-being, the
former identifiable publicly, the latter left to each person to
judge privately. Right conduct maximizes the amount of what
is good in the world, that is, it increases to the fullest possible
extent people's physical and psychological well-being. This view
can be implemented and meets the criteria for a sound theory
of knowledge. Advocates hold that utilitarianism succeeds in
comparison with other theories. It makes sense and can be used
to conduct one's life, whereas other theories fail on both counts.

Act and rule utilitarianism. Ethical discussions usually consider two forms of utilitarianism. Act utilitarianism is the
position that on each separate occasion when we decide to do

WHAT

Is MORALLY GOOD AND

RIGHT?

IfJ1

47

something, we must first determine what will contribute most

to the greatest happiness of the greatest number and then act
accordingly. Rule utilitarianism is the position that a set of
principles needs to be identified and applied to decision making. The consistent application of this set produces the greatest
happiness of the greatest number. Rule utilitarianism tends to
be favored over act utilitarianism, if only because act utilitarianism confronts us with a task that seems impossibly tedious
and time-consuming. We could bog down attempting such an
impossible task.

Criticism and replies. Utilitarianism has its problems. It is

sometimes criticized as unworkable. It is impossible to know
whether or not some action in fact contributes to the overall
well-being of a community's membership, and it is even more
difficult to determine whether it benefits humanity as a whole.
If it is impossible, in line with the utilitarian goal, to guide
one's conduct by asking whether maximum happiness is being promoted, then the theory falls prey to the criticism that it
does not translate into meaningful guidelines that can be implemented. As we have seen, any proposed ethical theory that
cannot provide such guidelines is unsuccessful by definition.
Another criticism observes that people might act in accordance with utilitarian ethics and have obviously nonutilitarian
motives. An individual might contribute to the welfare of millions (let us say by funding a new museum in Washington, D.C.)
simply to achieve a good reputation, with no thought of the
greatest happiness. (Some "philanthropists" help the poor in
order to satisfy a need for personal recognition.) Still another
objection to utilitarianism holds that it requires a centrally organized, dictatorial state. A great bureaucracy would be needed
to assemble a vast quantity of information before the greatest
welfare of the greatest number could be achieved. To determine
what actions, or even rules, realize the maximum benefit, ev-

48

"'" A PRIMER ON ETHICS

eryone's needs and the total resources of the community must

be known. Such knowledge would be useless if it were not possible to distribute resources to those most able to benefit from
them. (The utilitarian theory of justice is therefore often called
distributive justice.) Consequently, community experts, or on
a large scale a fully centralized state, would be needed to discharge the ethical responsibilities that each person would bear
as a moral agent.
Such an arrangement would be moral paternalism, critics
have argued. Individuals would lose the responsibility for attaining the proper goals of human conduct, and political leaders
would be the sole moral decision makers. Utilitarianism would
then become something other than an ethical theory, which
requires self-responsibility.
As a final objection, utilitarianism is said to violate certain commonsense ethical precepts. By its tenets, arguably, it
would often be morally acceptable to lie, to cheat, and even to
murder to advance the goal of the greatest happiness of the
greatest number of people. Some persons achieve psychic wellbeing when they are told lies (about their actions, health, looks,
achievements, and so on). Promises might have to be broken in
terms of utilitarian ethics, because keeping them would not contribute to the "greater good. Violating a person's last will and
testament, for example, might enhance the public welfare, as
might reneging on campaign promises to political constituents
with no clout to assure their fulfillment. These and similar
loopholes make utilitarianism suspect. Our commonsense ethical precepts may not furnish a sufficiently complete ethical
doctrine, but we must beware of theories that betray them
altogether.
Utilitarians would respond to these charges in a variety of ways. Where the unworkability of utilitarian ethics is
concerned, there may be no satisfactory answer. It is possible within utilitarianism to identify general principles. These

WHAT

Is MORALLY GOOD AND RIGHT? .IJ!IJIf

49

permit a person to work, as a rule utilitarian, on behalf of

mankind's overall happiness without even knowing the specific contribution of a particular act. Ifwe were able to identify
some general principles or rules of conduct that would aid us
in supporting the utilitarian goal, then we could pursue that
goal. In personal conduct as well, we might follow the principle
"Whenever possible, pay attention to what people around you
need." Our actions would then be oriented toward the general
utilitarian goal.
People who furthered the goal of utilitarianism without intending to do so could be viewed as doing the right thing for
the wrong reasons. What is crucial, as we have seen, is that
actions are right because they contribute to the greatest happiness of the greatest number, not because they enhance the
actor's reputation. Someone who acts from purely selfish motives may not be praiseworthy, but his actions may nonetheless
be right. In this case we might recall the saying that hypocrisy
is the compliment vice pays to virtue.
Even those with questionable motives are impelled to do
right in order to attain some respectability. A tool does not
become bad as a result of occasional misuse. The fact that
people can do right by utilitarian standards without meaning
to does not invalidate the standards. With regard to people who
intended to further the utilitarian good but failed, they should
have paid greater attention to what needed to be done. Meaning
well is not enough. We must verify that we are fulfilling the
requirements for success. "I meant well" merely shows that
matters could have been worse. (Common sense tells us that "I
meant well" is often offered to excuse negligence rather than as
evidence of serious intent.)
That utilitarianism requires a centrally organized society
is also open to argument. We may recall that each person is
the best judge of his or her psychic well-being. There is a great
deal of psychic well-being involved even in what appears to

50

&Ii' A

PRIMER ON ETHICS

be plain physical well-being, and so decisions about what will

produce one's happiness will to a large extent need to be one's
own. In tum, a utilitarian society would be more likely to be
individualist than collectivist. Many utilitarians argue that it
is impossible to engage in interpersonal utility comparisons,
because we simply cannot weigh and compare the importance
to different people of their preferences, desires, and welfare,
either physical or psychic. Consequently the only way to secure
the greatest happiness of the greatest number is by forgoing
central economic planning and moral paternalism in general.
Allowing everyone to engage in the pursuit of personal happiness is the best route to the greatest happiness of the greatest
number. (If it followed this path, utilitarianism might change
into a form of egoism, a position we will consider shortly.) This
perspective suggests that a free market economy may be best
for the distribution of wealth (to achieve the utilitarian goal).
If no one may use force or fraud to coerce others, then voluntary cooperation and competition can satisfy desires, needs,
and preferences. Since individuals tend to know best what will
contribute to their well-being or happiness, this arrangementrather than a centrally organized society amassing massive
amounts of information about millions of diverse individualsis best for the purpose of living life ethically by utilitarian
standards.
Finally, the commonsense ethical precepts may not be sound
anyway. If so, seeking to adjust them in a comprehensive ethical
system could be a bad idea from the outset. Even if these
precepts do embody practical wisdom distilled from millennia
of human existence, possibly utilitarian ethics do not contradict
them. In some cases utilitarian conduct might violate these
precepts, but it would not necessarily do so in reality. It is
quite likely also that if these precepts express practical wisdom
(developed unsystematically), then they are the general rules
that utilitarians believe will promote the greatest happiness

WHAT

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51

of the greatest number. Habits such as being honest, keeping

promises, and abiding by someone's last will and testament
might further the utilitarian goal. Honesty, integrity, fairness,
and other widely acclaimed virtues would then be regarded as
the correct means of achieving the utilitarian good.
We will return to some features of utilitarianism when
we consider political philosophy. For now, this brief discussion should suffice to acquaint readers with a prominent and
philosophically significant ethical theory. It is perhaps the
most widely discussed and respected ethical position among
Anglo-American philosophers today.
Altruism
Goal and principles. Altruism is undoubtedly the moral position with the largest number of advocates, defenders, and
champions in human history and within our culture. "'Altruism'
[is] assuming a duty to relieve the distress and promote the
happiness of our fellows .... Altruism is to ... maintain quite
simply that a man may and should discount altogether his own
pleasure or happiness as such when he is deciding what course
of action to pursue."2
While philosophers debate many moral positions, the altruistic one is unusual in having achieved prominence within the
nonphilosophical community. Most people have been told that
altruism is the moral code by which we should live our lives.
The idea is now virtually synonymous with moral goodness. August Comte, a French philosopher and sociologist, named the
doctrine, but many philosophers (most recently Thomas Nagel)
have propounded its substance. It is probably the most widely
professed moral position.
Although the term was coined in recent times, the basic
idea of altruism is very old indeed. It is that the moral goal of
every human being should be the well-being, or good, of oth-

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A PRIMER ON ETHICS

ers. Service to other people alone, or to humanity in general,

is the altruistic moral goal, and the more specific principles of
morality (or human virtues) must work toward its achievement.
The standard of morality consists in the provision of whatever
others need for their well-being. (Some people believe that altruistic behavior is automatic, especially among some species
of animal, but this is not an ethical view, because it denies the
role of human choice. Some sociobiologists fall into this group as
theorists who think that human behavior can be explained by
the principles of our communal biological makeup. Ethics, however, is mostly concerned not with explaining human behavior
but with guiding it.)3
The argument for altruism reflects mainly the belief that unless people regard doing good for others as their primary moral
responsibility, they will treat others ruthlessly and cruelly. Altruism opposes a perceived human propensity for exploiting
people at every opportunity. In a way, altruism is a viewpoint
that treats selfish pursuits as evil (or at least morally inferior)
and believes that they lead to conflict unless humans are restrained by morality, that is, by the obligation to serve others,
to help them, and to love them.
The doctrine of Christian charity, as proposed by St. Augustine, resembles altruism once it has been divorced from the
goal of gaining everlasting salvation. Altruism views human
nature as basically antisocial, with human behavior tending toward hurting others as necessary to satisfy one's own pleasures
and desires. 4 Altruism considers it a central feature of morality
to steer human beings away from the impulse toward selfgratification, self-serving conduct, pride, vanity, and conceit.
Instinctual drives provide adequately for each individual.
Suitable motivation, best furnished by a morality, is required to remove us from the realm of the jungle, the sphere of
beastlike existence, to a higher, civilized, peaceful, cooperative
stage. We share our natural selfishness with other animals. Our

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53

human motives, cultivated by a recognition of the quarrelsome,

hostile tendencies in us, should direct us toward the well-being
and benefit of our fellow humans.
Once we have acknowledged that the urge toward selfsatisfaction is part of our natural, even instinctive, constitution,
then it follows that any viable moral position must direct us
outside ourselves, away from self-service. The reason is that,
as we noted earlier, moral goals must be something that we can
choose to pursue. We must choose moral principles. Altruism
directs us toward the goal of benefiting others or society or
humanity (variations arise in different altruistic positions). We
can choose this goal; it is not automatic or innate. In addition,
we can all choose it, or at least so it would initially seem. Being
generalizable, it can serve as the proper goal for human beings.
Without the universal moral responsibility to pursue this
goal, we would have no motivation to practice the virtues that
can produce a peaceful, productive, just society. Why would
we want to be honest, fair, and honorable? Why would we
pay our debts, keep our promises, respect others' property,
fight for the security of the community, and defend liberty?
Animated by the drive toward self-satisfaction, why would we
not cheat, lie, steal, murder, and neglect the welfare of others or
our community? According to the altruistic position, no reason
exists for refraining from such conduct unless the duty to serve
others binds us all.

Criticism and replies. Despite altruism's great prominence,

there are objections. First, it could well be false that people's
innate motives or drives cause them to promote their own
well-being and to exploit others whenever possible. Morality
is needed before we can learn to live well. Without morality,
therefore, we cannot know what is to our own benefit or to
anyone else's. On the other hand, we might be able to discover
our own best interest more readily than we could that of others.

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ON ETHICS

Second, it is not obviously true that our nature prompts us

to harm others at every opportunity. All of us probably have
the capacity for destructive action, yet we are not necessarily
tending toward it. Ifhuman nature did entail such basic drives,
ethical positions advanced by philosophers and other thinkers
could probably not escape their influence. Altruism itself would
very likely reflect these tendencies. Also, many people who
have chosen to pursue their self-interest and self-satisfaction
seem not to have found that harming others advanced their
own goals. On the contrary, selfish people, concerned with
helping themselves, often engage in very productive and widely
beneficial endeavors. Even at a glance, then, selfishness seems
not to lead to the exploitation of others.
Altruism presumes that it is in our selfish interest, more
often than not, to hurt people-to treat them unfairly, to lie,
to cheat, and to be unjust. This assumption presupposes that
human nature benefits when we do harm to others. The idea
is not at all self-evident, however, especially once we have
conceded that humans are not innately destructive or hostile.
If mutual antagonism is the norm among people, then it must
be that nature in general produces freak entities, beings with
mutually incompatible tendencies. (True, both theology and
psychology have hypothesized just such inner tension within
human nature.)
Finally, altruism is not as practical as it at first appears.
Before we can do good for others, we must know what that
good is. Certainly we can decide for ourselves. Yet mistakenly
or not, others may not accept our judgment. If doing good for
them requires acting against their judgment, then open conflict
may result. The evidence from mothers, friends, governments,
and other institutions that meddle-fully supported by good
intentions-bears out this statement. By the same token, if
people in general instinctively protect their own interests, then
is not the need or responsibility to do them good and to serve

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55

others' interests (which are already being served) superfluous?

The altruist would offer several replies to these concerns.
History demonstrates man's destructive nature. Some people may escape its force, even without adopting the altruistic
position, but they can do so only by chance. Any sustained participation in social life requires altruism. (Morality is of no
concern to people living alone on desert islands.) The notion that
people might themselves benefit from treating others fairly,
speaking honestly, respecting each other's needs and wants,
and even helping each other is perhaps correct in some instances. Still, in times of danger or scarcity, people would most
likely go to any lengths if they were not required, as a matter
of moral duty, to serve others first. Morality certainly may be
unnecessary under normal, uncomplicated circumstances. But
when difficult decisions must be made, we can live right only
by choosing the principles that do not come naturally-the ones
that do not simply accommodate our inclinations.
Second, it is not at all odd for human nature to be somewhat freakish. Human beings are unique in nature. No other
living creatures have created so much misery for themselvesso much internal con:fl.ict and agony. Humans are neurotic,
psychotic, nervous, guilt-ridden, awkward, frightened, and
otherwise plagued animals. In light of this species-specific peculiarity, it seems reasonable to constrain human conduct,
to redirect people away from themselves and toward others.
In the absence of such guidance, human beings would have
disappeared from the earth long ago.
With respect to the difficulty of practicing altruism, we can
say only that we must take care to assure that our efforts on
others' behalf are for their own good. Once suitable precautions
have been taken, we can justify acting against others' mistaken
judgment. Is it not preferable to help others who disagree rather
than to allow them to injure themselves by rejecting our help?
Where would millions of people be without the help offered by

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laws that prohibit self-destructive conduct! What is important

is that people receive help, not what they believe about it.
It has been objected that help for others is superfluous, given
that they are impelled to help themselves. Nevertheless, by
distancing ourselves from our own drives, we can be more objective, accurate, and successful in helping people generally and
can thereby find some peace. In cases where others are being
helped, careful judgment can take the place of arbitrariness.
Egoism
Pseudoegoisms. Egoism comes in several versions, one of which
is that everyone always acts in his or her own interest. This
view, called psychological egoism, is not a possible ethical position because it lacks one crucial feature: the individual is not
free to pursue or refrain from pursuing the right course of conduct. There is no mention of what should be done, only of what
is being done.
Furthermore, we may seriously question whether the claim
of psychological egoism itself is true. The position appears to be
vacuous or plainly false. If things that everyone does count as
acting in one's own interest, then so labeling them does not help
us understand what people do. Ifthere is a stable standard for
measuring what is in one's own interest, too, then clearly not
everything people do meets it, since people (and even one person
over time) often do very different, indeed conflicting, things.
Several other versions of egoism that are often discussed
also fail to qualify as possible moral positions. The subjectivist
egoist, who claims that his or her best interest-as he or she
perceives it-alone has merit, fails because morality must be a
universalizable system rather than one that applies to only one
person or group of people as a unique guide.
Similarly, a moral position cannot provide that all people
should do what they feel like as individuals. As with hedonism,

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57

what is liked, desired, or welcomed varies enormously and

cannot be formulated in such a way that everyone can pursue it.
Furthermore, people are not free to choose in this area. Before
moral significance could attach to enjoying something, learning
to like it would have to precede liking it. The process oflearning
must come first, with the emotional response only second. The
reason is that although we can choose to initiate the learning
process, we cannot choose to like someone or something. Most
emotions are not chosen in the requisite sense. They are rather
responses elicited from us on the basis of our earlier learning
and choices or perhaps because of some innate disposition.
Ethical egoism (or individualism). Egoism as a bona fide moral
position avoids the problems noted above. The basic statement
of this position is that each person should live so as to realize
his or her rational self-interest. People will not automatically
act rationally on their own behalf, and so this is a matter for
conscious choice. Furthermore, such a standard of conduct can
be applied to us all, supposedly because people's rational selfinterest is whatever suits them as human beings and as the
individuals they are. Anyone can discover his or her rational
self-interest. (This view is proposed most notably by the novelist
Ayn Rand and by the philosophers Jesse Kalin and Eric Mack.)5
The case for ethical egoism can be summarized as follows.
As self-de~ermined living beings, we need a set of standards
to guide our conduct, which is a sound morality. Its goal is to
enable us to succeed at living well, a goal we share with all
other living beings-only they act instinctually while we must
choose. Finally, it is selves or egos-individual human beingswho are alive and whose success at life is threatened if they fail
to identify and act on the principles that lead them to success.
Humans, unlike animals, cannot live automatically. We
must learn how. The particular life we can pursue, and the
choices it affords, are our own. By understanding who and what

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we are, we can identify the standards by which we can most

likely advance our lives. These are our virtues. Why should
we be honest? Why should we act courageously, generously,
prudently, justly? Why should we have integrity? Because, the
ethical egoist answers, doing so enables us to live a successful
human life, one that is proper and fitting.
In short, the ethical egoist holds that living a successful
human life is the value to be pursued with a moral code. Since
one's own successful or happy life is the only one that a person
can promote in a morally relevant way, by choice, each person
should proceed to do so in the context of his or her particular
circumstances. More briefly stated, people should pursue their
own individual happiness. The moral principles that make it
possible to do so are the virtues suited to human life.
The details of the egoist moral code, like those of the other
positions that we have considered, cannot readily be discussed,
because ethical systems concern broad guidelines, not the concrete decisions that each of us continually needs to make. 6 Thus
the virtue of honesty can generally be defended as a principle
of morality (and indeed in more than one ethical system), yet
moral philosophy cannot establish exactly what a person should
or should not say.
The central virtue of the egoistic ethics is rationality, a
uniquely human mode of awareness. Success in life or happiness for any individual must be achieved in a way suited to
human life. We are morally virtuous when we choose to be as
fully human as possible in our circumstances-when we strive
to excel at being as we are. Each person has the distinctive
human capacity to think at will and to attend to the world rationally (sustaining careful, logical thought). Therefore, to succeed
as a person, everyone should choose to do so. For the egoist,
rationality is the highest virtue, although ethical egoism encompasses other virtues, which must be rationally established
(or at least susceptible to being so established).7

WHAT

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"'"

59

Finally, the goal-someone's happiness-should be sharply

distinguished from pleasure, fun, or thrills. Egoism of the sort
that can be a moral position is not hedonistic, although for most
people being happy will also involve many enjoyable experiences. Happiness, in this context, is a positive or joyful attitude
each of us feels about how well we are doing in our own lives as
people. 8 Human beings, as reflective, self-conscious creatures,
can benefit from doing what suits them, and knowing that they
have been the cause of this benefit is a source of immense joy.
The phenomenon resembles what some psychologists describe
as self-esteem. 9
Unlike other ethical positions, egoism defines the proper
attitude in life as informed selfishness but not pathological
self-centeredness (egotism). Egoism regards as virtues pride,
ambition, integrity, honesty, and other traits that are highly
prized. It advocates selfishness with regard to the sort of self
that is proper for humans and not just any sort of self. (Indeed
whether selfishness should be regarded as good or bad depends
on the nature of that self.) Self-sacrifice and devotion to others
as a matter of principle are considered morally repugnant.
The most reprehensible way of conducting oneself, however, is
to fail to exercise rational judgment, to evade reality, and to
abandon oneself to blind impulse, to others' influence, to the
dictates of thoughtless cliches, and the like. Since knowledge
is indispensable for successful realization of goals, including
the central goal of happiness, failure to try to acquire it-and
thereby to foster error, misunderstanding, and confusion-is
disastrous for oneself and immoral.
Egoism is not widely advocated as an ethical code. Indeed,
some of those who use the term favorably often argue that ethics
should be abandoned. They believe that we are always being
egoistic (selfish) even when we appear not to be. As we noted
above, this position is psychological, not ethical, egoism.
Many people seem to have accepted egoism as their ethical

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system without being able to articulate its tenets fully. People

strive to be happy, to succeed on the job, at school, in marriage,
and in the numerous projects that they undertake. Inventors
usually pursue success avidly, as do financiers, politicians,
doctors, and most productive people. (Some obviously meantempered people also strive to succeed, but very often they
seek results without the work that is naturally required.) Even
rationality is often acknowledged as a significant virtue, for
example when people fault themselves for an oversight by
saying, "Damn it, I didn't think!"

Critics and defenders. The critics have much to say about the
egoist's position. They fault it for its allegedly naive view of
human nature-the idea that we are born without destructive
impulses and that we should simply proceed to achieve our
natural goals. They say that egoism leads to self-centeredness,
egotism, and the ruthless pursuit of gain, wealth, and power,
prompted by the complex and often destructive motives that lie
deep within us. (In a way, altruism is the ultimate criticism of
egoism!)
On a more formal note, some critics fault egoism as a moral
theory on the ground that it cannot be implemented universally.
Suppose someone asks you what he or she should do, and suppose that it would in fact be in his or her interest to marry the
person whom you also want to marry. Could you as a consistent
egoist advise this person correctly? If you do, you will undermine your own self-interest; if you do not, you demonstrate that
egoism cannot be universalized to everyone. In general, when
human interests conflict, egoism appears to set people on a war
path, because it lacks a coordinating principle that transcends
the competing claims. Critics therefore accuse egoism of generating contradictory plans of action: people both should and
should not do certain things. Any ethical position caught in
this dilemma must fail because it suggests that what a person
should do cannot be done.

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61

A further objection is that all the talk about happiness really leaves us with very little to go on. Just what exactly should
we pursue? By saying that happiness consists in the awareness
of ourselves as living successfully-that is, rationally-egoism
asserts that rational living will lead to something that we ought
to achieve. But is it not possible that something other than
this happiness (which seems very self-indulgent anyway) might
be worth pursuing? Could there not perhaps be more important goals-political liberty, social justice, being a productive
member of society-that overshadow happiness?
Finally, it does not even appear likely that rationality
can produce happiness for a person. Many rational peoplescholars, artists, scientists, lawyers, and writers-have been
notably unhappy. Then, too, some of the most irrational, whimsical, and haphazard people retire in luxury to Miami Beach to
live out their lives in bliss.
The ethical egoist will have answers to these objections.
Again, the reader will need to assess both the objections and
the answers. In response to the charge that he is naive about
human nature, the egoist could reply that he is concerned only
with the essentials. What the critic sees as naivete in reality
amounts to focusing on only the morally relevant aspects of
every person, the capacity freely to choose to think. The misery,
neurosis, cruelty, and self-destruction that characterize some
human life may often be explained in terms of people's refusal
to ponder the requirements of their lives and their willingness
to meddle in the lives of others (always for others' good). Were
people to focus first of all on doing good for themselves, much
of the disarray would disappear. Moreover, such factors do not
prove that conflict is inherent in human nature. If some wellintegrated people attain peace of mind and happiness, it is at
least theoretically possible for everyone to do so.
The case about conflicts of interest, usually a conflict of
desires and wishes, begs an important question, or so the egoist
would say. If rationality is the first principle or virtue of egoism,

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then it would be appropriate to start by asking, "What should

we do when our needs or wishes conflict?" We should not assume
that the conflict cannot be resolved. If the rational answer is
to cheat and lie, then so be it. Cheating and lying are then the
right choice. (Sometimes cheating and lying seem quite right,
as when we deceive a crook or lie to save a life.)
Lying would not be rational, however, in most cases, including the one cited earlier involving rival suitors. After having
appraised the consequences, neither individual would trust the
other's advice, and the loved person would be deprived of a say
in the matter. In such a case it could tum out to be irrational
to lie. The rational course could well be to explain that both
people are in love with the individual, to give each a chance to
earn this person's love, and then to let the chips fall where they
may. Certainly friends have taken this approach before and are
proud of it.
In general, egoism holds that each person should pursue
his or her own happiness or success in life. Furthermore,
the means by which all human beings can attain this goal
is rational thought, which is in everyone's self-interest. Selfinterest, so understood, cannot be viewed as pitting good (that
is, self-interestedly motivated) individuals against each other.
Conflicting desires can be reconciled by careful thought, which
is in everyone's best interest. Only in periods of inattentiveness or irrationality, when we are impulsive and refuse to think
matters through carefully, will conflicts be handled badly.
The difficulty of defining happiness is a problem not of ethics
but of epistemology. This difficulty faces any complex system
of ideas. It is enough to note, according to the egoist, that being happy differs from being satisfied, pleased, contented, or
thrilled-it is the realization (with the corresponding feeling)
of having performed well in life and of having lived fully as a
human being. To be successful in the broadest sense means to
do well what people alone can do, namely guide their lives ra-

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63

tionally. No more skepticism is warranted here than anywhere

else when we deal with difficult issues.
Egoists grant that rational conduct will not guarantee a long
and happy life. Accidents can happen. Rationality holds out a
greater promise of success than the alternatives do, however.
We cannot compare one person's rational life with another's
irrational life without making sure that the two people started
from essentially similar points. True, some who have lived
irrationally may be comparatively well off in contrast to those
who live rationally but in extremely different situations. What
is crucial for ethical egoism is that living rationally is very
likely to make each person happier, and to promote greater
self-esteem, than will living irrationally. Moral theorists who
advocate egoism propose that the rational life merits further
examination to determine whether it is not indeed the most
promising method for achieving happiness.
We can go no further here. Egoism is not widely defended,
mostly because many people, among them most recent philosophers, believe that the human ego or self is in some ways
governed by other, nonethical philosophical considerations. The
human ego is viewed by many as a bundle of prerational, even
irrational passions that some nonegoistic or antiegoistic moral
system could perhaps tame. The last version of egoism I have
presented rejects this view of the human ego. This rejection demands independent argument, however, which I have merely
outlined.
MORE ETHICAL POSITIONS IN BRIEF

Stoicism
The Stoics held that although we should strive to be happy and
fulfilled, we should seek this goal by not desiring anything at
all. Ifwe do so, we will never be disappointed, disillusioned, or
unhappy. Stoicism contends that true happiness is best attained
by dissociating ourselves from temporal, fleeting pleasures. A

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happy, virtuous life consists in detachment from everything in

the world, which brings inner peace.
Epicureanism
Epicureanism is popularly associated with gourmet eating and
to many people appears closely allied with hedonism. The two
are not the same, however. Epicureanism focuses on a higher
sort of happiness that is associated mainly with the mind in its
most cultured state. The reasoning here is somewhat similar to
that which we find in Stoicism: the worldly pleasures are not
subject to our control as are the joys of the mind. This view is a
version of subjectivism or hedonistic egoism and proposes that
everyone should pursue his or her higher satisfactions in life.
Contrary to popular opinion, Epicureanism does not require its
devotees to pursue sensual thrills or aesthetic delights. Rather,
it counsels inner peace and freedom, the basic ingredients of
true pleasure.
Asceticism
Like Stoicism, asceticism prescribes self-denial but not for the
sake of personal happiness. Quite the contrary. At least as far
as living in this world is concerned, asceticism requires selfdenial and self-discipline to promote the achievement of various
religious, supernatural, or otherworldly goals, such as eternal
salvation or ultimate spiritual unity with the oneness of the
universe.
Situationism
Situationism endeavors to construct an ethics on a foundation
of relativism and subjectivism that proponents of this view
find irrefutable. Since (as we have seen) both doctrines are
antithetical to ethical inquiry, the best we can do is to admit
them and see what can be salvaged. Situationism arises from
the convictions of certain Existentialists, for example that no

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65

human nature can be identified and God does not exist. It holds
that if we approach living with a feeling of love, of authentic
devotion, this spirit will steer us in the only meaningful right
course, especially in our relationship with others.
Environmentalism
Environmental ethics is sometimes derived from one or another of the major ethical theories. A utilitarian may argue
for reducing automobile exhaust fume emission, for example,
to enhance the general welfare. There are, however, schools
of environmental ethics that derive an entire morality from
certain views about nature, the wilderness, or God (or Gaia)
as Nature. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) captured this
outlook: "The more we depart from the state of nature, the
more we lose our natural tastes." "All is good coming from the
hand of the Author of all things; all degenerates in the hands
of man."lO Concomitants of this moral position include frugality, restraint, moderation, and conservation rather than growth
and abundance. Personal conduct and public policy directives
stress recycling, the preservation of wilderness, restrictions on
energy consumption, and comparable measures.
SOME POLITICAL SYSTEMS

While ethics, politics, public policy, and other normative areas

can be kept distinct-by which I mean that we can consider
each one apart from the others-they are closely intertwined
in our lives. Ethics addresses the issue of how we ought to
live, as we have seen, and politics deals with how to organize
a community of human beings. Since we spend much of our
lives in the company of others with whom we are more or less
intimately connected, our actions usually involve other people.
Between the strictly private and the strictly public lie numerous
levels of social involvement that we might term "social," as in
"social and political philosophy."

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ETHICS

Since most ofthe specific cases discussed in this book belong

in the sphere of the social and the political, there is good reason
to examine some of the more general political positions being
debated today. The following brief sketches, hardly more than
definitions, indicate just a few of the key ideas and ideals of
politics.
Feudalism
Although feudalism has little tradition in our hemisphere,
it was once an extremely popular system in Europe, and it
remains influential in some parts of the world. In a feudal order,
vassals hold land that is worked by serfs. In return for the land,
the vassals provide overlords with military and other services.
The feudal system involves a hierarchical social structure,
usually with a monarch or other supreme ruler at the top
and various levels of nobility below, in gradually descending
order of importance, with the serfs at the bottom. Feudalism
predominated in medieval Europe and much of the rest of the
world and gave rise to many legal features of contemporary
societies. ll The feudal system of government derives largely
from historical events and from certain ideas that became
prominent in various philosophical and theological systems,
including the notion that some people are naturally or by divine
edict superior in moral and other respects to the rest and ought,
therefore, to exercise paternalistic authority over them. This
form of elitism-the entrenched superiority of the select few,
who often govern-includes aristocracy, the "rule of the best"
(but note that the meaning of "best" may change drastically
over time).
In a feudal system, also, designees of the royal family typically control major social institutions-commerce, religion,
property holdings, and professional positions. Accordingly, the
economic system of mercantilism is closely linked to feudalism,
as is the institution of a state church. (Since the prevailing

WHAT

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RIGHT?

.IJIi'

67

church authorities are nevertheless often separate from the

state, complex dilemmas of spiritual and political leadership
sometimes arise.)
Fascism is arguably a modem version offeudalism in which
an inspired leader rises to political leadership and persuades
the citizenry that he or she can do the right thing for the country,
not by following some plan, but by relying on personal insight
and wisdom.
Constitutionalism
The term "constitution" derives from "to constitute." This means
"to be the basic structure for something." Thus a constitutional
system of government usually involves a written document that
forms the basis for governmental decisions. When we hear the
slogan "government by law, not by men," we interpret it as a call
for a constitution that will guide those in charge of government,
so that they can be held accountable for how they govern, in
contrast to absolute rulers, who may do as they please.
Constitutionalism may be found in a monarchy or a democracy. Although constitutional democracy is the preferred system
of government in our time in most of the world, constitutional
monarchy once had its day. (A parliamentary system provides
for partly decentralized rule by council, with political representatives from various regions of a country participating.)
Constitutions usually list basic principles of decision making
and set forth limits on the power or authority of the governing
administration. The U.S. Constitution, for example, has a Bill
of Rights that restricts the authority and scope of government.
Constitutional systems are usually recommended because
rules increase the predictability of the acts taken by government within a given geographical area. Yet since there is no
way to predict the problems that people will face over the long
term, a constitution usually needs to be interpreted so that it
can be applied to situations not foreseen when it was originally

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A PRIMER ON ETHICS

drafted. A great deal of controversy surrounds the interpretive

process. The United States has a system ofjudicial review. Iflegislatures or other lawmaking bodies proposed policies that were
regarded as conflicting with the Constitution, the matter could
be taken before federal courts, and ultimately the U.S. Supreme
Court. The policies in question would then be declared legal or
illegal, depending on whether or not they were considered to
accord with the Constitution.
Another source of controversy about constitutionalism is
whether it is ultimately democratic-whether it provides for
government by the people. A constitution extends the ideas
and ideals of the drafters and framers far into the future,
beyond their lifetimes. As a result some thinkers have called
constitutions dictatorial and undemocratic. Constitutionalism
is also said to impose on the future the misconceptions and
narrowmindedness of the past. Unless the constitution itself
provides some handy way of making adjustments, it can come
to seem obsolete or anachronistic and may cause civil upheaval.
Yet without some basic procedural document, government
would arguably degenerate into arbitrary rule reflecting the
whims and passions of a monarch or the people. For this reason
constitutionalism has usually found ardent supporters, such as
the American founders (see Cato's Letters and The Federalist
Papers, books that contain pertinent discussions).12
Socialism
Economic considerations have loomed very large in modern political theory generally and in socialism in particular. Socialism
is most often defined as the political economic order within
which the means of production are publicly owned and are (usually) administered by government. Despite the economic focus
of this definition, socialism as a system addresses the nature
of human life as a whole. Socialists view each human being as
part of a large whole-society or even humanity. Marx declared,

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69

"The human essence is the true collectivity of man," meaning

that a human being is communal in orientation and fully aware
of belonging to "the organic body" ofhumanityP
Although not all socialists stress the collective nature of
human life, most would agree that human beings are basically
social animals and cannot be understood, let alone flourish,
apart from their society. Furthermore, the individual cannot
prosper independent of the community. Socialists regard the
privatization of human life as at best a historical stage and at
worst a complete distortion of human needs. Private property,
for example, and individual rights more generally, contravene
the proper lifestyle for humans, and human beings will be
alienated in any system that involves the legal affirmation of
privacy. 14
Although socialism stresses the health of society or humanity as a whole, this cannot be separated from the well-being of
the constituent parts, namely individual people. The essential
attribute of a good or just human community is cooperation,
as opposed to competition or rivalry, in all realms of lifeeconomic, scientific, political, and athletic. In the economic
realm, all production and distribution of value should be administered on a collective basis rather than privately (limited
competition is acceptable in some economic spheres, however,
under a policy dubbed "market socialism"). While socialists do
not necessarily espouse central microeconomic management
and planning, they do privilege the viewpoint of the public at
large, with private initiative taking a subservient role. The
idea is that only when human beings collectively manage their
economic lives will they experience themselves as fully emancipated and fully realized as human beings. The reason is that
humans are naturally conscious producers. Since production
is necessarily a social phenomenon, participation in the social organization of production is necessary before people can
experience themselves as they truly are.

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Socialism can take several forms. Some thinkers claim that,

at least at the beginning of a socialist society, central planning
allows those who understand the need for socialism to help raise
others' awareness. Other thinkers favor a more democratic socialism that allows members of the community to set priorities
for the whole and to receive feedback in a kind of ongoing dialogue. Still others, as I have indicated, identify the need for only
limited socialization in economic and other matters, mostly to
assure the satisfaction of basic human needs.
Like language, human life in general is a social process. It
is just as erroneous to believe that we can shape our individual
lives as it is to think that we can invent our own language. This
idea is perhaps a key reason for claiming that socialism is the
proper form of human social life.
Libertarianism and Capitalism
Libertarianism as a political system claims that the highest
political good is the protection of the individual citizen's right
to life, liberty, and property. Capitalism is the economic system
of libertarianism, since in libertarian societies, the right to
private property-that is, the right to own anything of value
(but not, of course, other human beings, who are themselves
owners}-receives full respect and protection as an institution.
Libertarian law rests on the idea that the individual is
the most important member of society. Groups that form
with the consent of individual members include the military,
corporations, universities, clubs, and the government itself.
Libertarian society prohibits involuntary servitude first and
foremost and promotes, via political administration, the liberty
of all persons to advance their own objectives, provided that
they do not violate anyone's rights.
There is disagreement as to whether the label "capitalism"
should be applied to the economic order under libertarianism, mostly because the definition often varies, depending on

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71

whether its author has a favorable or unfavorable view of the

system. Some have insisted on the use of "laissez-faire," in memory of the French entrepreneurs who exclaimed, when the king
asked what the government could do to help the economy, "Laissez faire, laissez passer," or "allow us to do, allow us to act."
Some use F. A. Hayek's term "the spontaneous order" to stress
the system's support of uncoerced behavior. There is also the
more popular term "free enterprise." Yet "capitalism" is most
widely used, by both critics and supporters, to denote an economic order in which individuals have the right to own property
and to determine its use.
By itself capitalism is an economic arrangement of an organized human community or polity. Often, however, entire
societies are called capitalist, mainly to stress that they have
thriving commerce and industry. Strictly speaking, capitalism
presupposes a libertarian legal order governed by a legal system
in which the principle of private property rights plays a central role. Such a system oflaws has historically been grounded
on various classical liberal ideals in political thought. Support
for these ideals may draw on positivism, utilitarianism, natural
rights theory, and/or individualism as well as on arguments invoking the merits of laissez-faire (no government interference
in commerce), the "invisible hand" (as a principle of spontaneous social organization), prudence and industriousness (as
significant virtues), and the price system as a regulator distinct
from central planning (for balancing supply and demand).
Otherwise stated, "capitalism" and "libertarianism" indicate
that citizens in the community have the basic right to make
their own (more or less wise or prudent) decisions concerning
their labor and property. Thus capitalism encompasses freedom of trade and contract, the free movement of labor, and
protection of property rights against both criminal and official
intrusiveness.
The concept of freedom plays a central role in the under-

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standing of both libertarianism and capitalism. There are two

prominent ways of understanding the nature of freedom as it
pertains to human relationships. The one that fits with capitalism is negative freedom: the lack of interference from others
that all people in society enjoy with respect to themselves
and their property. Citizens are free, in this sense, when no
other adult person has authority over them that they have not
granted oftheir own volition. The other meaning of freedom relates to the government's support of citizens' goals and purposes
so that they may prosper. Under this conception of (positive)
freedom a person may progress, advance, develop, or flourish
only thanks to the efforts of capable others.
In international political discussions the concept "capitalist" is used very loosely. Italy, New Zealand, the United States,
Sweden, and France-very diverse societies-are all considered
capitalist. Clearly, no country today is completely capitalist.
None enjoys a condition of economic laissez-faire in which governments stay out of people's commercial transactions except
when conflicting claims over various valued items demand adjudication. But many Western-type societies protect a good deal of
free trade even if they also regulate most of it. Just as countries
are called "democratic" as long as there is substantial suffrage
even though many citizens may be prevented from voting, so
the country is usually considered capitalist if it secures substantial free trade and private ownership of the major means of
production (labor, capital, and intellectual creations). Political
economists endorse capitalism most often because the system
supports the creation of wealth. Such theorists also credit capitalism with other worthwhile traits, however, such as the
encouragement of progress, political liberty, and innovation.
Thinkers who defend the system for its practical virtues
(such as its propensity to stimulate the production of wealth)
are distinct from those who champion the system because they
consider it morally just. The first group argues that a free

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market or capitalist economic system is of great public benefit,

even though it depends for its operation on private or even social
vice, such as greed, ambition, and exploitation. As Bernard
Mandeville, the author of The Fable of the Bees, observed,
capitalism produces "private vice, public benefit." Many moral
theorists see no virtue in efforts to improve one's own life. They
believe, however, that enhancing the overall wealth of a human
community is a worthwhile goal.
Thinkers who stress the moral or normative merits of capitalism, mostly libertarians, say the system rewards prudence,
hard work, ingenuity, industry, entrepreneurship, and personal or individual responsibility in all spheres of human life.
This alone makes the system morally preferable to alternatives. Libertarianism or capitalism is considered not only useful
but morally preferable also because it makes possible agency
and the exercise of genuine moral choice as noncapitalist,
collectivist systems or economic organizations would not.
Capitalist theorists note that most critics of capitalism demean wealth. Most critics, indeed, denounce the pursuit of
human individual well-being, and especially luxury, as long as
there are needy people on earth and, more recently, as long
as any portion of nature is overrun by human beings (the argument implies that humans are not natural creatures). The
champions of capitalism charge, however, that this perspective
reflects utopian thinking and amounts to begrudging anyone a
measure of well-being, since some people will always be poor
some of the time and people will continue to transform nature.
Yet the capitalist advocate is not necessarily recommending reckless treatment of the environment. Indeed, arguably
the strict and consistent adherence to the principle of private
property-through, for example, privatization and a prohibition
on the private as well as public dumping of waste-may solve
the environmental problems we face better than any central
planning proposed by champions of the environment. Libertar-

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ians and capitalists think that the environment suffers worst

when the "tragedy of the commons" is permitted-when commonly owned values are overused, since everyone is deemed to
have the right of access to them, while no one in particular has
the responsibility of caring for them.
Capitalism rests in large part on the belief that human
beings are essentially individuals and a society's laws must
value individuals above all else. Most historians of ideas admit that human individuality attracted little attention until
the modern age. Even in our time, groups-ethnic, religious,
racial, sexual, national, cultural, and so forth-have greater
social significance than individuals. Individuals are constantly
asked to make sacrifices for groups. In capitalism, however,
the individual-as the sovereign citizen or the consumer-is
king. A capitalist system does not place a premium on economic
equality, however, as group thinking would, since in groups all
members are deemed entitled to a fair share.
Welfare Statism
The welfare state or, from the economic viewpoint, the mixed
economy, combines the principles of capitalism and socialism.
Sometimes this system stresses moral considerations more
than economic ones. Basically the welfare state is a legal system
that aims to secure for everyone the negative right to liberty
and the positive right to well-being.
The welfare state, which is to say most Western countries,
balances two values that its advocates regard as the bedrock
of a civilized society. No one's sovereignty should be seriously
compromised, nor should anyone's standard of living drop below
a certain level. This scenario is difficult to maintain, because
at different times one of the two objectives will probably take
priority, and in mostly democratic systems political leaders
vacillate between them. The right to strike, for example, which
is the negative liberty to quit one's job in an effort to gain respect
for one's terms of employment, may conflict with the positive

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right to be provided with various services-health care, mail

delivery, or education.
In the welfare state, both negative and positive rights receive legal protection. Negative rights prescribe respect for a
person's life, liberty, and property-that is, everyone is by law
supposed to refrain from interfering with these. Positive rights,
in turn, entail respect for a person's basic needs-that is, people who lack the wherewithal to subsist, or even to flourish, are
supposed to receive benefits through an appropriate public policy (taxation, mandated services, public education, and national
health care).
The moral underpinnings of the welfare state may be utilitarianism, altruism, or certain intuitively held moral precepts.
Utilitarianism demands that everyone pursue the general welfare and justifies the implementation of any public policies that
might be needed. Although many utilitarians believe that the
general welfare is best achieved when government operates in a
largely laissez-faire fashion, there is no objection to government
intervention in social affairs as necessary to give all members of
society a decent and prosperous form of life. Altruists, in turn,
want people above all else to help others and favor introducing
public measures as necessary to secure such help. Finally, there
is the widely held gut feeling that everyone must be guaranteed
both a measure of personal liberty and social welfare lest the
quality of life in society decline below acceptable standards.
While people object to the welfare state on several other
grounds, its supporters consider it the most stable modern
political order. Although controversy surrounds it, on the whole
and in the long run, its supporters maintain, the system seems
satisfactory and just.
Communitarianism
Communitarianism represents a sort of halfway house between
the collectivist system of socialism and the individualist framework of capitalism. The idea is less amenable to sharp definition

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than are these others. Roughly, it stands for the view that
human beings are necessarily or essentially parts of distinct
human groups (communities) with diverse values, histories,
priorities, practices, laws, and cultures. The organizing principles of these different groups themselves vary. There is no one
true social and political order nor even any universal ethics.
Rather, the particular character of the communities tells members how to live, what laws to enact, and what aesthetic and
religious values to embrace.
Some communities may be Spartan, others Stoic, yet others bohemian, and so forth. Each may have its peculiar way of
life without condemning a different way. Yet despite popular
opinion to the contrary, individuals do not consent to participate in the community's form of life. Such an idea derives from
a mistake: a transcendent or general principle of human nature requires every community to adhere to certain minimal
standards of justice. No such transcendent principle exists, according to many communitarians, and so communities that, say,
grant individuals certain rights are simply different from, and
not superior to, those that do not. 15
Actually, little else can be said here about communitarianism, because there are simply too many types, each with its own
framework and priorities. The main point is that rules, laws,
and ideals all result from the evolving consensus or collective
practices of the community's membership. Just as socialism
considers humanity the whole to which individuals belong,
communitarianism identifies different ethnic, national, racial,
gender, cultural, and professional groups as the whole to which
the individual member belongs. We might consider, for example, that languages developed in part to fit the circumstances
of different linguistic communities, with no language superior
to (or even fully translatable into) any other.
Communitarians often unite in criticizing bourgeois society and liberal capitalism, which stress individuality, privacy,

WHAT

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77

personal freedom, consent, and competition. Communitarians

believe that liberal capitalist views rest on a seriously flawed
view of human nature. They are convinced, also, that the central idea ofliberal capitalism is Homo economicus, or "economic
man." This concept figures prominently in economic analysis
and treats individuals as autonomous entities who enter the
world fully formed, self-sufficient, and ready to make choices
in the market. While other conceptions of the human individual might support liberal capitalism, Homo economicus has
attracted the attention of communitarians and has prompted
them to elaborate their position.

6
ETHICS AS
A PERSONAL CONCERN

THICAL positions, unlike some other issues in philosophy,

bear directly on people's daily problems. No matter what
happens, people must make decisions. We make a choice even
when we leave things to others or conclude that we have no
options. In metaphysical and epistemological matters, most
people tend to rely on common sense, at least in their ordinary
activities, if not in their professions. Ethics, however, requires
them to be almost constantly aware of the uniquely human
challenge to live right.
ETHICS IN EVERYDAY LIFE
Virtually every moment of our waking life we must decide what
to do. Should we buy new Nikes now or save the money until
we have a steady job? Should we attend all classes, no matter
how dull they are? Should we get beer illegally or have alcoholfree parties until we are old enough to buy it ourselves? Should
we act friendly with George or tell him that we are angry
about the way he treated Sally? When we decide such matters,
do we follow sound standards, in line with principles that are
well founded? Do we choose our conduct, in areas major and
minor, for the long and short term, arbitrarily or randomly,

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without reflection? Do we make at least our crucial decisions

carefully, often relying on ethical notions that we were taught
but remaining mindful ofthe need to reach our own conclusions?
Whatever we do, we constantly confront the possibility that
our decisions are ethically relevant, bearing on issues of general
significance for the way we lead our lives. If ethics concerns
the problem of living well or living badly as human beings,
then we need to understand how it bears on our actions. We
may not always be to blame when we make mistakes; it is
sometimes not possible for us to identify the right conduct. Yet
maybe we should pay more attention to these issues, at least
in reflective moments (not obsessively, neurotically). As in the
law, ignorance is not always an excuse; sometimes it results
from having neglected a matter that we should really have
investigated. Perhaps today, in an age when philosophers in
academe have shown themselves less than eager to teach ethics,
we should each as individuals assume more responsibility.
Because of its universal human concern, ethics demands our
careful attention even when we might prefer to leave it to
specialists.
COMMONSENSE ETHICS

In this book I have noted repeatedly that we are all aware

of ethical principles, that we are all more or less sensitive to
various moral virtues. We live largely by such awareness and
sensitivity, even when we yield to some temptation that would
not square with it.
Our morality, then, is not acquired in the way that we
learn the periodic table or the alphabet. We absorb ethics by
osmosis, noting the example set by parents, neighbors, and
others, along with the scolding and praise we receive from
them. I will say more on this point later. For now, let us note
merely that beliefs in what is right and wrong are often close
to being intuitive, unselfconscious. They are not just beliefs of

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the kind we have about, say, Argentina's geography or Lincoln's

role in the American Civil War. Instead these constitutional
convictions, as it were, are almost an intrinsic part of us, as
we see when they are violated and we respond with outrage or
indignation or when they are upheld and we feel that we have
witnessed nobility of character. Minor and major instances of
heroism arouse such feelings in people who share the hero's
values.
Ethical convictions, somewhat like linguistic competence,
are not systematically acquired. Some philosophers even suggest that moral and linguistic virtues are kin and require
similar care, probably because they have vague origins and
we may readily be tempted to violate them. In any case, even
someone raised among thieves will probably encounter the commonsense view that stealing is wrong. The very idea is part of
the intellectual, philosophical, and moral atmosphere that we
all absorb.
THEISTIC ETHICS

Guiding Principles
Most people who think about morality or ethics associate these
areas of concern with religion, and yet in the discussions above,
I did not mention religion. The reason is that an ethical system must be shown to be sound without reliance on things
that cannot be rationally apprehended. Most religions are essentially supernaturalistic, or mystical. The few that are not
tend to identify God with nature, with the universe as a whole.
For them the discussion of ethical issues given above could suffice. Other religions base their moral codes not on arguments
but on faith. Still other religions hold that even though God is
supernatural or transcends reality, rational investigation can
discover the moral or ethical code that God designed for human
beings. These religions, too, would allow for the possibility of

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treating ethics (natural law, moral law) much as I have done in

the preceding chapters.
The matters that we will now consider are very controversial. Adherents of nearly every religious persuasion have their
own way of describing how ethics fits into their framework.
Those who have thought these matters through will probably
want to state the problem in their own words. Many will regard what follows as biased. In this area as in others, students
will ultimately have to develop their own ideas. First, however,
they will find it useful to learn about the age-old conversation
on this topic.
Most religions (and there are hundreds) hold that the central
duty of all persons is to achieve the salvation of their souls.
This view, somewhat imprecise so as to allow for the numerous
variations, is the crucial feature of theistic ethics. If we are to
pursue our inquiry along philosophically appropriate lines, we
must hold that we can know and understand what is meant
by the salvation of our souls. According to theistic ethics the
salvation of the soul is achieved by fulfilling the will or purpose
of God. Our ethical position, then, requires that all persons
be able to know the will or purpose of God, which in turn
means that we must be able to know much of God. Because no
ethical position can apply to only some people, theistic ethics
too must be understandable by all individuals (although not by
the crucially incapacitated).
Many religious people will find this last point somewhat unusual. We should remember, however, that few religions allow
for proof of an ethical position's correctness. Many abide by various moral edicts as a matter of faith, or at least trust in the
spiritual leaders. We are concerned here not with the religions
themselves, which are backed by faith, but with their ethics.
These can be open to philosophical scrutiny and demonstration. Still, faith-reliant views raise many philosophical issues

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as well, mostly in the field of epistemology, which deals with the

meaning of knowing, believing, being convinced of something,
and understanding.
The ethical positions taken by some major organized religions-especially Roman Catholicism-may be described as
cognitivist. The cognitivist position starts with the proof of
God's existence. It then describes God's nature and God's creation of the universe and mankind and spells out God's will,
God's purpose, and how God wants us to live. God makes His
will known to us, presumably by numerous means that he
chooses. The Bible and the words of individuals inspired by an
awareness of God tell people everywhere how to do God's will
and thereby save their souls.
As it turns out, there are many conflicting views on the goal
that God sets for us and the virtues we must have to reach it.
The idea that there are many religions-as many as 1,200 in
the United States alone-and that therefore none could be right
is, however, incorrect. People can be mistaken, and some have
been for many centuries, about a number of things and still be
at least partly right or eventually reach enlightenment.
The various religious ethics are not so very different from
one another at bottom. Most of them are a variety of (moderate)
altruism. Religions throughout the world, for example, exhort
adherents to love their neighbor as they do themselves. A religious ethical code generally also provides for serving the needs
of others, whether mankind generally or the poor specifically.
Most religions that accept the existence of an independent,
objective God also exhort us to have faith in His design or
purpose for us-that is, we must never discount the will of
God. Indeed, this is one of the enormous rewards of religious
conviction: God helps us when we are in doubt; God gives us
guidance; the virtues required of each of us are just the virtues
that make living a success rather than a failure.
Theistic ethics clearly considers many people in need of

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guidance. Such is especially the case in systems that include

the concept of original sin or regard man as basically flawed
in character. The "fall of man" is a prominent idea in many
Christian ethics. We have already touched on this point in
connection with other ethics, but in the religious context the
theme of man's basic imperfection (the view that as a human
being each of us is flawed) looms very large. As a result, many
religions arrange to teach morality to people who would not on
their own search out or discover the will of God. Missionary
service may be understood as the desire to give moral guidance
to those who were unable to obtain it directly from God because
they did not seek him out. Some prominent non-Christian
religions also hold that human beings are (at least initially)
misguided as to what is important. They are too caught up
with this world and with themselves and too little mindful of
the cosmos to which they belong. Religious moral or ethical
guidance helps people overcome such mistakes and illusions.
To a large extent, then, priests, elders, and other spiritual
leaders teach religious ethics. The mode of moral education
differs from one religion to another, but certain features remain
basically the same. Parables in many cases convey the essence
of the good life.
In summary, then, theistic ethics accepts God as benevolent
designer and holds that we are duty bound to learn and fulfill
God's plan as it applies to us. In practical terms this mandate
often means trusting religious leaders or theologians to tell
us which virtues we should cultivate. In many religions these
virtues help guide us toward eternal, otherworldly salvation,
which the soul experiences, as a consequence of a life well lived,
only after the body has died.
In one crucial respect the virtues taught by most religions tend to be altruistic. God's design is for humanity, and
our duty is to contribute to humanity's role, to further its
well-being. (Most Roman Catholics oppose abortion and contra-

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ception partly because they believe sexual intercourse should

be reserved for procreation and should not be treated as
merely a source of physical pleasure. Procreation as a goal
helps humanity to serve God and to flourish as God's favorite
creature.)
Criticism and Replies
One of the crucial problems of all theistic ethics arises less from
consideration ofthe ethical principles than from the problem of
God's existence. The field of metaphysics makes God's existence
a crucial topic. Without exploring metaphysics, let us for the
present accept that God exists and that we can know this as
well as certain essential aspects of God.
We now face the familiar problem of thinking about ethics
in line with our assumptions about God's nature. First, would
God, an all-good and all-powerful being, allow terrible things
to occur? Earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, and other
disasters occur all the time, maiming and killing innocent and
guilty alike.
Second and more to the point of ethics, why would God put
human beings through the agony of having to make choices that
could lead to either a good life or a bad one? If God loved us,
if God were the supremely good being, would He not come to
our aid under every situation and save us even from our own
weaknesses? Third, why would an all-powerful, all-knowing,
and all-good being create something that could engage in all
the kinds of moral wrongdoing that are associated with human
beings? In short, why would God permit the existence of evil in
the world?
Again, this problem, strictly speaking, has to do not with
theistic ethics but with the reconciliation of God's existence and
the existence of good and evil in the world. Still, at one point
the problem touches ethical issues directly.

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When we consider how we ought to act, we may ask: "Is it

not God who determines what I do, so any action I take is right,
since God never makes happen what is morally wrong?" But
this would make us morally impotent. If, however, God does
not determine what we do, then we still require moral learning
that will make our actions and ourselves morally good.
Another problem that emerges in theistic ethics more strictly
concerns our understanding of human virtue, or what makes a
human being good. According to a number of theistic ethics, it is
impossible for human beings to be entirely good. We are created
in the image of God, but we cannot achieve the perfect virtue
that God (or Jesus or Allah) possesses. In other words, each of
us must fail at something that we all must nevertheless attempt
to achieve-namely perfect goodness. (Under the tenets of some
religious creeds, perfect goodness may prove to be something a
human being can achieve. This achievement, however, would
be very rare.)
The idea of being perfectly good is difficult to grasp. It may
mean simply that someone is as virtuous as circumstances
permit. In the kind of ethics we are now considering, this feat is
not sufficient for perfection. The idea is itself unrealizable but
serves as a goal to be approximated.
Theistic ethics suggests to some people that human beings
are left in a hopeless bind: we should each strive to be a
good person yet do so in the full know ledge that we will not
succeed. It may thus be argued that such ethical systems
are internally incoherent, since they require human beings to
aspire to something unattainable. People are then duty bound
to accomplish the impossible.
As to the need to rely on the work of the clergy or ministry,
we are faced with the problem of elitism. This problem is not
unique to theistic ethics. Some philosophers have argued that
a chosen group of well-situated people (such as philosophers)

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can achieve excellence and must act as moral guardians for

everyone else. Theistic ethics have often been mixed with such
nontheistic doctrines. Some of the views that various organized
religions have used to justify the role of the clergy possibly
derive from such nontheistic doctrines.
One problem with the idea that the clergy are needed because they are persons who have access to God's will is that not
everyone can be reached by them. Each day some people are
born who will never meet a priest, nun, or minister and who will
never read a book relating the parables. Are they to be barred
from the morally good life?
This objection cuts to the heart of the theistic ethics which
rely on knowledge that must be imparted by the few with
a clear understanding of God's wilL Since the basic virtues
must be universally implementable, people whom the clergy
cannot reach cannot become virtuous. As a result, this "moral"
position is impossible. Finally, insofar as theists are altruists,
the criticism of altruism applies to them as well.
If we leave aside the issue of God's existence, the first
response to criticism of theistic ethics addresses the question
of whether God's perfect goodness can be reconciled with the
existence and possibility of evil in human life. One way of
answering this objection is to maintain that God's will is good
and that the human struggle between good and evil, between
living well or badly, is itself good. To make this good possible, it
is necessary to allow for the struggle and for the accompanying
possibility of evil.
Normally, a human being can choose to do right and to live
well instead of badly. God makes evil possible but not necessary!
Good cannot be possible unless evil is possible too. Thus God's
perfect goodness guarantees only that good can be achieved,
not that it will be. 1 Moreover, the good that may be brought
into the world by human choice is greater than the good that
would be there without human choice. Thus by making evil
possible, God is actually creating a better world than the one

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that would otherwise exist.

One way of meeting the objection that theistic ethics sets
impossible goals-that is, that a life of true virtue cannot be
sustained by us-is to suggest the value of very high ideals,
that is, of noble goals that are not fully reachable. Virtues such
as justice, kindness, humility, and charity should be guidelines
somewhat like the mathematical ideal of a circle. We cannot
live up to these standards fully, just as we can never draw a
perfect circle no matter how hard we try. Still, it is our duty
to make a valiant attempt in every situation, however discouraged we might be about failure: these virtues should serve as
unattainable but essential goals that guide our conduct. There
is nothing wrong with setting such goals as long as our efforts
bring us sufficiently close to perfection.
It can be argued, furthermore, that the people who are
excluded from the province of ethics are neither good nor evil in
their conduct and lives. Like young children, who can make only
limited choices, these people have no moral responsibilities and
no moral faults or virtues. Only reasonably mature individuals
have developed the capacities for the ethical life. Those people
who are totally ignorant of the will of God but have never
willfully turned away from God's teachings are like children or
members of primitive tribes. They are morally untouched.
Before closing this section, I must reiterate that not all
people who believe in God think that morality is related to His
will or plan. Some argue that God created the universe with
the best plans God could conceive, for a world that would be the
best even if it existed without God's coming into the picture. In
other words, God created the world as it must be, no more and
no less. This view resembles the beliefthat God would never will
anything contradictory. It implies that what is right or wrong
has to do with the kind of plan that would produce our world,
not with God himself.
N aturallaw theorists, some of them pre-Christian philosophers, believed that the universe contains basic laws of exis-

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tence, including laws to govern humanity-principles describing the good life for all people. They therefore thought that they
could identify, without reference to God, the moral principles
by which we should conduct life, even though some of them believed that something like God exists. The God in which these
philosophers believed, however, was not the familiar Christian,
Moslem, or Hindu God, with an active will that keeps shaping
the world. Instead He was a necessary being-an indispensable,
immutable fact on which everything else depends but which
does nothing except support everything else. Such a God is the
foundation of morality in the limited sense that existence itself
is the basis for morality-and for everything else.
A different group of theists conceives of God as Someone
who created humanity without having any special plans for us.
According to these theists, how we ought to live is for us to
discover, not for God just to decide. These ways of viewing the
matter are, at best, a small minority position within theism.
Finally, a large segment of humanity does not view God
or ethics as a matter for rational understanding at all. For
many people God is a personal issue, something not open to
demonstration or proof. The existence of a divine being is not
like other features of reality that most of us consider knowable
by anyone with normal human capacities. A current expression
in modem theology is that God is dead. The saying may be
interpreted as meaning that the idea of God's independent
existence is no longer plausible. Instead, God must be defined
as the deepest concerns we have, our ultimate concerns. This
general idea figures in religious movements which preach that
God is whatever we think God is. God "exists" in one's heart,
soul, or consciousness, nothing more.
The ethical notions that emerge from such views are similarly perplexing. What is right and wrong is not universalizable.
Instead, right or wrong is a matter of personal conscience, with
no possible basis in reality that would enable all of us to discover

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89

it. A person's own subjective conscience, and sincere feelings,

dictate what is right or wrong. We now tum to some of these
views, which are not especially wedded to religion.
To end the present discussion, let us consider one last point
in support of theistic ethics as a route to good human conduct.
Some thinkers stress that human life undeniably has a mysterious dimension. Theism is the way to appreciate this dimension
as well as the awesome task of living in a way that reflects
our awareness ofit. The above-mentioned problems confront us
only if we fail to appreciate the mystery of godliness fully. There
may be significant objections if we insist that God and what
follows from Him must completely accord with human critical
thought. Once we acknowledge a mysterious dimension, however, we cannot approach God and the ethical life implied by
God's reality in the same way that we deal with engineering,
technical, and scientific tasks.
This attitude, sometimes called fideism, has been alternatively accepted and rejected by the leaders of many religious
orders, including Roman Catholicism. It proposes, essentially,
that we must not subject what is godly to the routine scrutiny of
human reason and that, in any case, human reason itself rests
on a godly faith in the end, whether or not we acknowledge that
it does so. In short, reason is itself something we follow as a
matter of faith: we irrationally believe that reasoning will be
fruitful.

7
CHALLENGES
TO ETHICS

1 I made a case for the existence and function

of morality as such-for whatever particular moral position
is correct. In chapter 2 I discussed the two major underlying assumptions of ethics, without which ethics would probably not
exist as a field of human concern. In the course of discussing the
second assumption, I also noted some objections that might be
made to my introductory remarks. In other words, I listed some
features of moral skepticism, of doubtfulness about the possibility of morality. At this point I will examine some additional
challenges to ethics.
As in the field of metaphysics (the study of the most basic
facts of reality, ifthere are such), and epistemology (the theory
of knowledge), in ethics some thinkers argue that we must
abandon our attempts to get it right. There simply are no
answers to questions such as "What is morally good, right,
wrong, or evil?" The point is not that one or another answer is
not right but that none could be right.
Although we very briefly reviewed some of the objections
the
idea that moral standards might be identifiable, at this
to
point we may usefully explore some prominent positions of
moral skepticism, that is, disbelief in ethics altogether.
N CHAPTER

CHALLENGES TO ETHICS

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91

These positions and their arguments are not simply philosophical exercises meant to sharpen our minds on the topic.
Everyone who tackles important questions seeks a sound foundation for answers. Skeptical questions are useful as means of
ascertaining that one's answers are the best that can be given.
We engage in this kind of discussion often, as when we debate
whether there are exceptions to hypothesized rules or when we
consider the need to reconcile contradictions. But sometimes
the questions do not sharpen the answers. Ethical skeptics are
those who argue not that a better answer is needed to the question of ethics but that no (correct) answers are possible, now or
ever.
ETHICAL SUBJECTIVISM

Principles
One well-known antiethical viewpoint will hardly be a novelty
to the reader of this book. This is the widespread idea that no
one can say what is right and wrong except the person or people
involved. To put it another way, ethical subjectivists hold that
whether some act is good or bad is a matter of how it appears
to the individual who is doing the evaluating. If the individual
regards it as the right course, then so it is; ifhe or she does not,
then it is not. All depends on the person concerned.
This concept has been expressed in all human societies. I
have perhaps expressed it here in a somewhat different fashion
from others, however. Fine distinctions are possible even within
this general viewpoint. Some would say that anything is right if
someone believes it to be right. Others would say that deciding
or choosing to do something makes that action right. Yet others
hold that right and wrong (or should and should not) are not
meaningful ideas-inasmuch as the terms denote no common,
identifiable object, principle, or topic-but instead are confused
ways of saying that a person wants what is said to be right or
does not want what is said to be wrong.

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One argument for ethical subjectivism is that nothing can

be invoked to demonstrate that something is right or wrong.
People are unique. They are all creative, developing free agents
and share nothing in common aside from the fact that they
are all free to do as they will. There is no human nature from
which to glean principles to help us make our choices. We are
each fully responsible for creating ourselves as we will, not as
some preestablished standard or code or set of principles would
require. Even our understanding of the world may be entirely
unique and not shared with others. We must acknowledge this
fact. There is no right and wrong; there are only the choices
that we make. Indeed, human life is the complex and confusing
affair that it obviously is because life shapes us into the selves
that we all are. To pretend that some standards can be identified
to guide us in our conduct is self-delusion and invites us to kid
ourselves instead of accepting the reality that we are free and
on our own. (This attitude is very close to the existentialist view
of the human situation.)
Another subjectivist viewpoint asserts that we are not free
at all. We cannot make choices, right or wrong, about our actions. We are guided by our innate constitution (instincts) or
by our environment (sensory or social stimuli) to do as we will.
Our likes and dislikes come about willy-nilly, without our having a hand in their development or assessment. We are like the
rest of the animal kingdom (except with respect to our greater
biological complexities), and we move about in our world in
accordance with the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology, economics, and politics. These laws govern
our behavior. They are not easy to identify, true, and it remains
for science to determine exactly what does playa decisive role
in human affairs. But there is no reason to think that we differ from molecules, stones, planets, plants, zebras, and the rest
of nature, all of which conform to a predetermined, preexisting
order of things. In short, we are complex machines developed

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through evolution by the forces of nature. Considerations of

right and wrong are mere prescientific confusion.
This form of subjectivism denies that we choose what is
right and wrong. But it does concede that individuals (subjects)
produce utterances such as "This is right" and "This is wrong."
Such statements, however, mean no more than "I approve of
this" or "I dislike that." This position is regarded as subjectivist
because it makes approval and disapproval contingent on the
individual's background. (Advocates of this position sometimes
hold that the utterances involved can mean "We approve" and
"We disapprove.")
Some subjectivists hold that we should not prejudge the
source of our values, however we came to develop them. Values remain unknowable for these thinkers, however. Here
subjectivism simply rejects the possibility of universal values,
identifiable by and for everyone. Instead, we can voice our feelings of approval or dismay; these we feel strongly and can
articulate with such ethical phrases as "It is wrong to hurt
little children" or "Everyone should tell the truth." In this perspective, right and wrong are still no more than preferences,
although no claims are advanced about what causes them, if
anything, and why someone does or does not have these preferences. The issue of freedom of choice remains unsettled here,
but the character of statements about right and wrong is still
subjectivist.
Finally, a more positive yet still subjectivist position holds
that it i.s possible to know what is right and wrong but that
the judgment in each case applies to a particular subject or to
a given individual. Thus "Human beings should cultivate the
virtue of integrity" will be rejected by this view, but "Johnny
should cultivate the virtue of integrity" could be either right
or wrong, depending on Johnny's identity. In some respects
this view belongs in the category of ethical theories termed
relativistic, since the idea here is that right and wrong can be

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discovered only as matters related to a given person's feelings

or desires. (There is a different view, called agent relativism,
in which what is right and wrong relates to who and what a
person is, as a matter of objective fact, and not merely to how
the person feels.)
Since no general, universalizable standard of right and
wrong is available in line with the subjectivist approach, it
cannot be a bona fide moral position. Each of us, however, may
be able to tell what is right or wrong for ourselves. How can we
do so without some general standard? The answer is that the
standard will depend on our objectives. Here, too, in the end
there is no basis on which to judge the goals. Although we may
be able to learn, in relation to them, whether some actions or
policies are right or wrong, there are no governing objectives
or highest good on the community level, and so there is no way
to appraise the merits of goals on the individual level. In line
with this reasoning, we might state that if we wanted to become
wealthy, we should learn about domestic and international
finance. But whether we ought to become wealthy, whether
being wealthy is good for one, is not answerable in this position.
Criticism
The reader will benefit from investigating the various subjectivist views critically. Here we will criticize only one subjectivist
viewpoint, ethical subjectivism. The others have already been
challenged, by implication, in connection with the ethical theories discussed earlier. To see whether the answers given below
are sufficient, the reader will need to do much independent
thinking.
Ethical subjectivism poses two challenges to ethics. First,
in most of its renditions human nature is a myth-each person
must create his or her own nature. Second, it does not permit
us to identify a standard of moral conduct.
One problem with denying the existence of human nature

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95

is that the theory itself rejects any such denial. After all, when
we say that humans are the sort of beings who must create
themselves and that they are free to become what they want
to be, we say exactly what human nature is. (The theory may
attempt to argue that each person's character must be of his or
her own choosing-that none of us is made into a certain quality
of person. But the argument for individual character does not
deny that we are all human by virtue of some features that all
humans share.)
In objection to the subjectivists we could go on to claim
that the theory in fact proposes a standard of right and wrong,
however much this is denied. Because we human beings are
self-moved, free, and undetermined, it is our task to carry out
the activities we can freely engage in, to be creative as only
human beings can be. To be individuals true to the requirements of our human nature is to be creative, ever-growing,
ever-developing, never-stagnant beings coping with our own circumstances. Whatever our freedom consists in, whatever it is
that we are ultimately free to do, is just what we ought to do
and do well.
Even without leaving the theory itself, then, we can challenge some of the conclusions of subjectivism. Noting that this
standard applies to us all is not to say that we are all compelled to live by it, that we have no other choice. It is a simple
matter for us to defeat our unique freedom to be creative. We
need only to refrain from exercising our minds so as to learn
and from implementing the general standard acquired in our
individual situation. The standard does not supply the means
of implementation. We ourselves are responsible for devising
it. Consequently the failure of people in various cultures to adhere to particular moral principles does not prove that these
principles are inapplicable to them.
The subjectivist would probably respond that the reference
to human nature in the objection is misleading. Even if we are

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all free, we are not indeterminate (unless we understand "determinate" to mean "fixed or unchangeable in any respect"). If
we can change tomorrow, if we can reject our freedom by failing
to exercise it, if we can commit suicide, how then can we have a
determinate, exact nature? To use "indeterminacy" under these
circumstances would be to destroy the term's meaning in other
contexts.
What, then, do we mean when we say that we ought to exercise our freedom where this freedom manifests itself? Perhaps
we are free in thought, in emotional capacity, or in any or all
our behavior. All we know is that we are free. This is hardly
enough to generate some moral position. It amounts to confusing morality-a set of reasonably precise guidelines to human
conduct-with the mere realization that we are responsible for
acting and deciding. In the end we perhaps have nothing to go
on but our feelings. The possibility of escape from subjectivity
is an illusion. Self-delusion alone makes us think it possible.
As mentioned before, the subjectivism outlined here is
closely tied to the philosophy of existentialism. The existentialist view is best stated by its advocates, however, and many of
them are critical of the treatment given their ideas in lectures
and books. You should therefore treat the discussion here as
separate from the existentialist view, an independent challenge
to the possibility of ethics.
ETHICAL RELATIVISM

Principles
In one respect subjectivism is a variety of relativism: right and
wrong relate to our subjective, private, unique characteristics.
Egoism is also sometimes considered subjectivist, but in the
classical egoist position, right and wrong relate to us as human individuals, not as unique, isolated entities. As long as
there is a firm, stable basic core, we should not call an ethical
position relativist simply because it permits some variation to

CHALLENGES TO ETHICS ",.,

97

accommodate different circumstances.

Relativism is broader than subjectivism because it does
not specify to what standard judgments of right, good, wrong,
or bad and so forth relate. It holds that whether some act
is right or wrong is, or can depend on, a variety of factors.
People's economic situations, national or cultural origins, level
of intelligence, or historical era might all affect the answer
given to the ethical question. In each case the central point is
that there can be no answer to the ethical question "How should
I, a human being, live?" According to the various relativistic
ethics, only the following type of question is answerable: "How
should I, a rich person, a poor person, a Jew, a woman, a
twentieth-century poet, an Italian, a first-century carpenter, or
a scientific genius live?" In other words, no fundamental human
morality is available.
Another way of stating this idea is to say that what is right
and wrong is culturally based, to be determined by referring to
social or community standards. Indeed, such a position arises
from the more basic contention that even the meanings of our
terms, the most basic aspects of the way we understand the
world, derive from our communities.
The relativist's argument also comes in several varieties. It
rests mainly on the widespread realization that people live in
very different circumstances and engage in a great variety of
practices, most of which are considered right or good by many of
the people concerned who are their intimates. Roman Catholic
standards for sexual conduct will differ from those of secular
humanists. Moslems disagree with Western liberals as to the
role woman ought to play in society. Within these groups the
members mayor may not meet the applicable standards and
may be criticized or punished accordingly. But these same standards are irrelevant for outsiders unless they are the subject
of study (for example, by a foreign visitor or anthropologists or
students of world religions).

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ETHICS

More often relativism emerges in response to the belief

that no objective, stable, and universally applicable standards
of human conduct can be identified. When this proposition is
accepted-as it is mostly when successful arguments in support
of moral positions cannot be found-relativism is advanced as
an alternative. Its specifics depend on the form proposed, but
it usually provides that we are bound at least by the practices
and codes of our culture, profession, age group, and so forth.
The relativist's only absolute is the following rule: each person
ought to cultivate the virtues that his or her group-ofwhatever
kind-accepts. We cannot know whether these ideals are right
in some ultimate, objective, transcultural sense (that is, for
human beings as such).
To some extent the famous Western idea of democracy encompasses elements of relativism. When we accept democracy
as the highest ideal of a community, and when we do not confine the democratic process to certain issues and not others,
then we accept relativism about values: we treat the support
or opposition of a majority of the voters as sufficient grounds
for considering the proposition either right or wrong. In a pure
democracy, nothing is binding except that which is chosen by the
majority of the people. The decisions (or compromises) endorsed
by the majority of the people then determine the standards of
political propriety-the ideals and values to be protected and
preserved by law.
One form of relativism is offered by those who believe that
people of different class origin (from different economic or social
backgrounds) are forced by their circumstances to accept ideals
or virtues suited to the advancement of their class. According to
this version of relativism, which we touched upon in connection
with subjectivism (involving personal approval), our circumstances actually produce the ideals or virtues that we ought to
cultivate. The underlying view that our environment produces
human action actually eliminates the very possibility of ethics

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in the sense being treated here. If our economic circumstances

force us to behave as we do, then we cannot be personally
responsible for our actions, and thus ethics makes no sense.
Criticism
Before we may criticize relativism, we must determine whether
no basic principle(s) of human conduct can be identified. One
or two points can be raised, however, independently of such detailed and in-depth consideration. (Our discussion of various
moral positions should provide the necessary context for determining whether relativism starts off correctly.) For example, is
it true that different societies, nations, and occupational and
economic groups all have fundamentally different ideals? Some
common thread seems to be evident in all cultures and groups
of people. For instance, life appears to have considerable value,
as do children, property, family, and other key things. While
notions of how human beings ought to live often vary in their
details from culture to culture, from society to society, and from
religion to religion, certain broad edicts do not.
In any society parents ought to rear their children for success in adult life. Just what such rearing will involve may vary,
but the variations may have to do with differences in circumstances (which may affect the application of principles) and may
proceed in ways that are optional from the moral point of view.
We might compare this scenario to nutrition: the basic principles of healthful eating are roughly similar for people, but
exactly how people ought to eat will vary considerably, depending on age, climate, and other factors. Medicine, too, offers an
analogy: basic principles of good health are the same for all human beings, although individuals and groups differ, sometimes
in important respects, and medical treatment depends on the
type of case and the individual. Those who reject relativism
need not endorse the view that everywhere, anytime the very
same actions will count as morally right for all. They need only

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maintain that we may identify certain fundamental principles

of right conduct that apply to everyone.
Also, is it not possible that people in some cultures or
groups are morally corrupt? Most people in Nazi Germany may
have been morally defective. Some thinkers assert that the
Soviet and South African cultures were substantially morally
corrupt, while others say the same of Iran and of some places
in the West. (Some self-proclaimed spokespeople for the Native
Americans and for African Americans denounce white people
in such terms.) Should we not ask whether these claims are
true rather than whether they are supported by some cultural
perspective? To take seriously the view that no universal moral
principle(s) are possible or exist, we would have to prove that
none of the above claims could possibly be correct-that they
all express special, limited biases or preferences or something
equally weak.
Although moral standards or principles, if they exist, cannot
yield predictions as scientific principles are supposed to, some
ethical systems hold that if we disregard what is right and
do the wrong thing, we will live a bad life in crucial respects
(we will be unhappy, miss out on pleasures, or incur divine
punishment).
Some relativists mistakenly argue that identifying some
universal moral principles would entitle people to coerce others
into abiding by them. The fear of moral authoritarianism has
given considerable support to relativism. Yet it does not follow
from" A knows B should do X" that "A should (or may justifiably)
force or coerce B to do X." So this fear is unwarranted, except
perhaps on grounds of some dubious psychological assumptions
that knowledge of morality tends to lead people to impose their
judgments on others.
If relativism holds that people ought to act as their peer
group believes they should, this itselfbecomes a moral principle
in need of proof. (A similar problem arises with epistemological

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relativism: why should what is "true for Hungarians" or "true

for women" bind all Hungarians or all women?) Significant
differences among individuals may themselves justify different
frameworks for determining what is right and wrong. At least
the relativist would have to concede this point.
Again, ethical relativists will have answers, and one of them
is that although morality may apply to those who accept no part
of it, it cannot be necessary if cultures can exist without it! How
could we prove the truth of a moral system if entire groups of
people could live without being subject to the pronouncements
of that system? The onus of proof lies with those who claim
that there is a universal moral position. They must show that
each society, group, or historical epoch requires at least some
of the virtues that are part of a sound moral position. Without
such proof, relativism is arguably the most sensible view of the
matter.
The main objection, that relativism is inconsistent because
it too offers an absolute moral principle, is simply incorrect.
Relativism does not offer a moral position. It reports a fact
of life. The questions "What should I do?" or "How should I
live?" have meaningful answers only if we adopt the principles
widely accepted in the relevant group (whichever, wherever,
and whenever). To say so is not to take a moral position but
merely to consider the proper meaning of the term "morality."
NIHILISM

Principles
Unlike the skeptical positions concerning the very possibility of ethics, the viewpoint known as nihilism opposes values
explicitly.
The term "nihilism" originated in the Latin word nihil,
meaning "nothing." Basically the doctrine attacks the value of
values, or morality itself. Most nihilists are actually fervent
opponents of their culture's dominant values, although more

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broadly speaking, nihilism advocates opposition to all moral

and political values. The nihilist rejects the very idea that moral
(and political) values should be instrumental in human life.
Since nihilism opposes values, it usually embodies certain
theories about the uses to which morality and political theory
are put. By and large, nihilists take a cynical view of human
nature. They believe, in the main, that moral positions, especially those that gain prominence within a culture, are devices
by which parasitic people who lack willpower and are incapable
of creativity exploit the creative forces (people) in a culture.
Nihilists see moral values as means by which the productive,
imaginative, genuinely powerful elements of humanity are subordinated to its baser members. Consciously or unconsciously,
moralists, according to the nihilist, seek to sabotage the very
best in human beings. By intimidation, threat of punishment,
doctrines of divine retribution (for example, the idea of hell
and damnation in an afterlife), and the like, moralists foist
upon people practices, systems, and institutions that destroy
the life-sustaining features of the human race.
One of the most brilliant and forceful nihilists in Western
intellectual history was Friedrich Nietzsche, a nineteenthcentury German philosopher. Nietzsche's nihilism in part attacked the philosophical ideas about morality that were prominent in his own times both in academic circles and in the culture
at large. He rejected Christianity's conceptions about morality
(such as doctrines about the supreme virtue of humility, selfsacrifice, and charity). He regarded such moral ideals as part of
a slave morality. He also opposed the philosophical conception
of the nature of morality developed by Immanuel Kant, another
prominent German philosopher. Nietzsche thought that in his
moral writings Kant deliberately transplanted values from our
natural world to a separate theoretical or ideal world where
values acquired the character of formal rules or mathematical

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principles. For Kant, values had little to do with problems of

living such as the consequences of actions and the benefits or
losses that each person can encounter in life. Nietzsche thought
that this position pitted human beings against morality, so that
morality itself had to be rejected.
But Nietzsche's nihilism can also be regarded as a call
for the rejection of the prevailing conception of morality. He
himself predicted that the twentieth century would see a return to nihilism. He hypothesized that new values would
then be created-values suited to human life, not to human
enslavement.
The nihilist's position, in general, reflects total dismay and
disgust with the so-called morally good human life. As a result
the nihilist sometimes rejects and opposes all actual and possible moral positions. But as with Nietzsche, the nihilist often
responds with a sharp attack on prevailing ideals and values
only to cry out for new ones. Beyond the occasional call for
new values, nihilists in general do not believe that values can
be demonstrated objectively. Therefore the new values must in
some sense be relative to the character of the willing individuals
who select them.
Criticism
Nihilism is not very systematic. Lacking a structure within it, it
must often be given one, and criticism of it is therefore difficult.
Nihilism is more often a desperate (though brilliant, powerful,
and even dazzlingly beautiful) form of protest than a precise argument in support of some philosophical viewpoint. Therefore,
nihilists will most likely greet carefully formulated intellectual objections to their outcries with dismay. A nihilist might
well regard such rejoinders as tantamount to meeting a call for
protest and action with a theory about protests and action. A
few points must be made about the nihilist's outcry, however.

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It does have theoretical features, it does involve assumptions,

and it does use ideas that may initially appear meaningful and
prove very difficult to understand when we examine them carefully. In short, if we are to take the nihilist seriously, we are
entitled to examine the position and to apply certain standards.
First, in a basic sense values are just what the nihilists are
asking for. By opposing values, they proclaim some oftheir own.
The strict nihilist tells us to abandon our concern with values
and moral truth. However petty the procedure may appear to
him, we must determine whether the call itself is warranted.
Is it true that we ought to abandon a concern with values? Is
this universally true? Will the quality oflife be improved if we
do so? The nihilist is apparently obliged to answer yes to all
these questions. But the nihilist who does so is not being candid
with us. Nihilists do not tell us to discard all values. Instead
they advise us that certain moral positions are in fact wrong
and destructive. True, the nihilist disdains argumentation. At
times the polite exchanges of ideas among philosophers and
theologians offend him: he finds them phony and trivial. But it
will not do to abandon the arena. The charge of phoniness needs
to be established, not just asserted. Perhaps the philosophers
who advocate a morality that is indifferent to human life have
left reality behind. Still, it is possible that they are sincere:
simply to attack them as frauds and enemies of humankind will
leave them feeling hostile, defensive, and uncooperative.
Nietzsche himself seems to have had ideals that he regarded
as suited to human life. Perhaps he did not think that during
his own times it would be useful to be constructive. Therefore he
denigrated the existing moralists and moralities. But his criticism does not actually reject morality. Nietzsche too criticized
from a moral point of view; he too argued for what should be
done rather than for what was being done. He foresaw a future
time, furthermore, when proper values would be generated,
after the improper ones had wrought their destruction.

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105

Finally, it is one thing to argue that dominant moral currents

are destructive, but it is quite another to claim that morality
as such is destructive. Assume, for a moment, that a correct
moral position can be identified, that human beings should
do some things by virtue of their humanity, in order to live
well rather than badly. It is quite possible that privately, with
little advertising and historical notoriety, many people have
indeed practiced proper moral principles. Notions of morality
in a culture may become distorted by news media or by the
pronouncements of politicians, religious leaders, or parents.
Nevertheless, morality may also manifest itself properly.
Otherwise stated, many people do the right thing and avoid
doing the wrong thing, in many more or less complex situations. Thus while many Germans perhaps subscribed to
national socialism (Nazism), others acted courageously, honestly, justly-that is, in accordance with sound virtues. This is
at least one possible way of viewing the matter. Nihilism perhaps misses a different point: evil rarely announces itself as
such; instead it puts on the facade of good. As Shakespeare observed in King Lear, "Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem
vile."
The nihilist would probably respond that we are merely
playing into the hands of his enemies by trying to save morality. He will say that we are missing his point: morality is a
fundamental mistake. We must reject it altogether rather than
attempt to resurrect it. Whatever we put forth as the proper approach to human life, let it be nothing like morality. Let it be
something basically different. Moreover, some nihilists (probably including Nietzsche) would protest that it is wrong to ask
for universally applicable principles of human conduct.
Humanity is not homogeneous. Different ways of life may
be appropriate for different people; to pretend otherwise undermines life itself. Geniuses cannot be expected to live by a code
suited to people with only modest intellectual and creative pow-

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ers. The universal application of moral principles and duties

stifles human beings. However much nihilists seem to call for a
different morality, they are in fact rejecting the idea of morality completely. Instead they are demanding that people be freed
from the shackles of codes, principles, and virtues.

8
RETHINKING
THE

F ACT/V AL DE

DICHOTOMY

N THIS chapter I will take a different approach to the problem at hand. Rather than present arguments for and against
various positions, I will defend particular answers to certain
questions in moral philosophy. This chapter will therefore be
more argumentative than its predecessors.
Ordinarily textbooks confine themselves to explaining work
done in the discipline of moral philosophy without defending
particular positions advanced. But it is tiresome to review an
endless sequence of ideas introduced by "on the one hand," "on
the other hand," "and then again," and so forth. At a certain
point the student reader is sufficiently familiar with the terrain
to be ready to encounter the views of the teacher author.
In class too, after an overview of the discipline's terms and
major schools, it is time to introduce some views and to defend them. By doing so we show, if nothing else, that we are
dealing with a subject in which argumentative, albeit friendly,
exchange is crucial, since we cannot perform experimental
research like that seen in most sciences. Let me start by discussing a metaethical issue, one that has preoccupied moral

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philosophers for centuries. I will also advance my views in the

course of doing so, ending with a clear statement of my position
in favor of cognitivism.
A VALUE-FREE STUDY OF HUMAN LIFE?
In contemporary philosophical circles the fact/value dichotomy

has considerable force. The idea is that the world, with human
beings in it, contains facts as well as values. While the former
are constants, matters upon which we can all agree, the latter
cannot be proved and do not elicit general agreement. At the
outset we discussed this issue in connection with the debate
about the possibility of morality. Now we will explore this issue
as it figures within prominent philosophies of our time.
The view that facts and values are fundamentally different has always had champions. The several social sciences
largely accept this view. Many scholars regard economics, sociology, psychology, and history as "value free." Economists,
for instance, attempt to understand human economic activities
without considering what people ought to do. If an economist is
asked how prices rise or fall, why inflation occurs, or what produces unemployment, the answers are not supposed to address
what might be right or wrong in the society. Economics eschews,
for example, the notions of exorbitant prices, token wages, and
excessive inflation, mainly because they involve evaluations. In
debates about whether women are paid as they deserve to be
in comparison with men, the economist tends to abstain. The
reason is that most economists believe that the kind of support
that is available for factual judgments is not available for value
judgments.
Sociologists, political scientists, and anthropologists often
treat values or claims about what we ought or ought not to
do as arbitrary, an expression of bias or ideology. As a matter
of policy they disregard values completely in scientific discussions (except as facts about people's beliefs, desires, and

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preferences, for example in opinion surveys). Even psychologists and psychiatrists, who deal with individuals directly in
a therapeutic situation, often proclaim that they can make no
moral judgments and that to impose their own moral views
upon their assessment of patients would introduce an arbitrary,
extraneous element. Nondirective therapy has a long tradition!
Although exceptions can be found, and in some respects
attitudes appear to be changing, our culture is committed to
a predominantly value-free, or amoralist, approach to human
affairs. The value-free stance also explains why only religion
should take morality into account in understanding human life:
it is generally accepted that, in the religious domain, matters
must be taken on faith without reliance on facts.
The value-free view of all science follows from the belief that
moral issues do not lend themselves to objective study and understanding. Within this position the phrase "That is a value
judgment" means "That is your bias-just a matter of how you
personally feel about it." As a feeling, a value judgment is neither right nor wrong. We simply have or lack feelings; they
are not formed by careful analysis and argument. Accordingly,
when value judgments are viewed as feelings, it is understood
that they do not contribute to an objective evaluation. If I say,
"Any president is wrong who lies to the citizenry in the course
of carrying out his executive responsibilities," I am assumed to
be expressing my own personal feeling or bias, conveying nothing that could be right or wrong and certainly not a claim that is
demonstrably true or false. Similarly, if the claim "It was wrong
for the United States government to enter the compound of the
Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, or to veto the bill upholding
ownership rights for those with beachfront property" can be no
more than an expression of a feeling, then whether the government should or should not have taken such action will be
impossible to discuss rationally. Even such claims as "Honesty
is something we ought to practice," or "Injustice should be made

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illegal" are beyond rational, factual assessment and merely express someone's bias or some community's common but in the
last analysis arbitrary belief. In one school of jurisprudence,
theorists argue that laws cannot be based on any firm foundation because values reflect human will, the enacted desires of
the people with power, and cannot be determined to be right.
(This is the ancient debate between the natural law school of
legal theory and the realist or positivist school.)
ARE ETHICAL JUDGMENTS BOGus?

The idea we are here discussing is, then, the prominent notion
in some philosophical systems: beliefs about right and wrong,
about what we ought' or ought not to do, are not really judgments but convey feelings. The reason for voicing such feelings
may be to persuade others to feel as we do about something or
to articulate community norms. Values, however, have no objective, independent merit. Only within a certain community of
persons could they be defended on the basis of the attitude or
the form oflife practiced within the community. But such value
judgments or moral claims do not demonstrably hold for people
anywhere, anytime.
Some thinkers have claimed, similarly, that ethics, politics,
and other normative areas such as aesthetics are ineffable,
not open to meaningful rational examination. According to
many such philosophers, moral and political differences are
unresolvable except, perhaps, within groups that have already
agreed on certain basic norms that are, however, neither right
nor wrong. As Professor Richard Rorty noted, we "cannot say
that [e.g.] democratic institutions reflect a moral reality and
that tyrannical regimes do not refl.ect one, that tyrannies get
something wrong that democracies get right."l
No doubt many people disagree with this proposition. Ordinary human beings who do not concern themselves professionally with exploring the matter tend, also, to be divided

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on the issue, even within themselves. At times we regard a

moral judgment as objectively true-for example, we argue that
condemning someone for his membership in a racial group is
morally wrong. At times we assert that where and how we were
raised determine, for example, whether we think that to engage
in premarital sex is morally wrong.
The main issue here, with which philosophers grapple, is
whether value and moral judgments can be proved true. If they
are sentiments or attitudes, of course, then they cannot. But
why should they be regarded as sentiments or attitudes?
According to one prominent view, values cannot be facts,
so they must be something like feelings. This view is not an
ethical position as such. 2 Moreover, it cannot be classified as
relativism or subjectivism, both of which discuss the source of
values, not whether they could be a variety of facts. The nature
of values would be considered in the field of ontology, a subdivision of metaphysics, since it is concerned with the nature of
being. There are, however, connections between the metaethical positions of subjectivism and relativism and certain aspects
of metaphysics and ontology.
FACTS, VALUES, AND REALITY

First, the issue of values concerns ontology because we are asking how values might exist. Many different types of things exist.
Days are temporal existents (beings), distances are spatial,
ideas are mental, and tables are material. There may be a type
of being termed ethics or morality. It is thus vital for us to consider the ontological status ofvalues carefully before concluding
that values cannot be a feature of reality, a type of fact.
Second, the issue of values is also an epistemological issue,
because we are concerned with what kinds of facts we can
identifY, how we can know them. We do not attain knowledge
of the existence of every kind of thing in the same way. The
things that we know share some common features-attributes

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that make them knowledge-but it is very likely, for example,

that we learn about the existence of electrons and the merits of
poetry differently.
Nevertheless, many philosophers clearly believe that it is
impossible for values to be factual in nature or, otherwise
stated, that what is good or bad, let alone what is morally good
or evil, reflects not objectively knowable reality but only some
subjective attitude on our part. We can now examine arguments
supporting this position.
GOODNESS AND EMPIRICISM

Empiricism, as we have seen earlier in this book, holds that

knowledge must always amount to or rest entirely on sensory
evidence. This position has been very influential in human
intellectual history and especially in connection with the systematic scientific investigation of nature. Experimentation that
can yield observable results, statistical analyses of empirical
data, and so forth has for the last several centuries elicited
widespread intellectual respect. But ifthere were such "facts"or existents-as moral values or goodness, sensory experience
alone would not permit us to know them. This statement holds
even if sensory data might enter the process. Moral knowledge
possibly includes sensory data as well as some inferred features,
as is true in most areas where experience does not exhaust the
grounds on which knowledge rests-for example in physics or
cosmology.
Suppose that someone makes the following claim: "Each
human being should seek happiness in life." First, there may
be little or no evidence at some time that anyone actually seeks
happiness in life. The claim, however, is not that people do seek
happiness but that they should. How could a theory that ties
all knowledge exclusively to sensory impressions include the
moral value or merit-of the pursuit of happiness, perhaps, or
the practice of honesty or humility-as a form of knowledge?

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Clearly it could not. Therefore, we must concede that moral

values or virtues are not knowable ifwe accept strict empiricism
as the correct theory of human knowledge.
If we take values as expressing things desired, feelings, or
the like-that is, if we equate any value (say, the goodness of
honesty or justice) with the existence of some desire-then we
can easily identify values by noting whether someone is desiring
something (honesty would then be a value for those who desire
it). From the empiricist theory of knowledge, it is not difficult
to derive the position we are now discussing. This position
states that values are either simply the desires or wishes that
some people have and others do not or that they are drastically
different from other facts known by us. A false analogy is often
drawn using the act of seeing. The analogy holds that when I
see, I see a fact; when I hold a value, I do not see any fact.
Accordingly, values are not any type or kind of facts-or so the
strict empiricist would argue.
Most social scientists, however, do not say that feelings
or sentiments cannot be known. Extreme behaviorists alone,
who accept only the existence of bodily movements, would
make this claim. Many social scientists (and some philosophers)
do believe, however, that declarations of feeling can never
be true or false. Such statements cannot contribute to our
understanding of the world and our relation to it, although we
could learn things about the person who exhibits them. So when
someone tells us, say, that it is morally wrong to enter the civil
wars of foreign countries, this statement could not be true or
false. It states not what someone knows but only what someone
feels. Or so some argue.
The view that we have been considering here concerning the
nature of facts and values, judgments concerning reality, and
supposed judgments about moral issues is prominent within
both our culture and the current philosophical mainstream (although changes are underway in both). But its prominence tells

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us nothing about whether the view is correct. Indeed, more recently, in late twentieth-century moral philosophy, two other
possibilities have gained greater popularity among philosophers and, more slowly, in the culture in general. One is
the position that a moral truth is a powerful, undislodgeable
intuition, an unshakably firm belief regarding rightness or
wrongness, that is not capable of objective demonstration. The
other is the not entirely unrelated position that no one's ideas
about anything can be proved true or false, whether about moral
or nonmoral matters, and "truth" itself can be reinforced by our
communities but not objectively established.
Both views leave the central questions of ethics and politics
unresolved. Both hold that it is impossible to reach agreements
on ethics, or even on scientific matters, that can be grounded
in objective reality and shown to be binding for human beings
generally.
While many thinkers disagree with these views, they are
embraced by some prominent thinkers and are perhaps the
most widely embraced in our era. Richard Rorty, as we have
seen, would argue that there are no correct answers in these areas but only views that have been embraced by the community.
Indeed, "correct" or "true" merely denotes such endorsement.
No objective truth is possible. Truth comes only from one's community. We should thus aim for solidarity, not objectivity, when
we search for answers.
I will not consider objections at the present time. The criticisms discussed in connection with empiricism and pragmatism
will permit the reader to assess the merits of these views. In
short, the fact/value dichotomy rests largely upon the empiricist view of knowledge. The denial, then, of our capacity to
know things in reality, including values, derives support from
the view that our knowledge cannot be founded on any independent, objectively ascertainable facts, because when we know
something, we necessarily inf:l.uence it. 3 If these positions are

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false, the fact/value dichotomy and the relativism of both facts

and values, respectively, are very likely also mistaken.
PROVING VALUES KNOWABLE

The problems associated with our ability to know moral principles do not end when we disprove empiricism. Even if we could
show that empiricism is false, or at least only partly truethat is, if we could know things in other ways than by sensory
evidence-we have not settled the issue of moral knowledge. A
successful, sound, positive theory is required. The various moral
positions we have considered, in combination with foundations
laid in other branches of philosophy, suggest such positive theories. The reader will now be able to pursue the search for an
answer to the main questions of morality. Starting with the discussions presented here, we will be able to undertake the search
with some hope of success.
The search itself is not easy to conduct. The various arguments that dispute the very possibility of morality are not the
only ones with which we must contend. Other, more complicated
objections are evident from some of the challenges addressed to
the specific moral positions covered here. For example, thinkers
sometimes object to a moral theory on the ground that it cannot be applied in many situations. If true, this charge would
mean that such a morality is inadequate. As we have seen, to
be genuine a moral position must be capable of being applied
universally. People must be able to do what they ought to do. If
virtue or moral excellence requires the impossible, then virtue
or moral excellence is itself impossible.
One way of testing moral positions is to confront them with
hypothetical situations. If a moral theorist advances provisions
(for example, as just or right) that lead to incompatible, contradictory requirements, then again the morality is invalid
because it requires the impossible.
But hypothetical examples are often not acceptable. Some

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are very sketchy. One that is frequently used involves a desert

island on which there are two persons and a cup of water
sufficient only for one person's survival until help arrives. The
question is: what should either party do? Various moralities are
called upon to provide the best answer. But the example is very
odd. Where did these people come from? Are both equally good
people? Do they deserve equal concern from the moral point of
view? Can the moral issues be handled without our knowing
much more about the situation?
The lesson to be learned may be that frightful fantasies are
not suitable for the testing of a moral position. When we search
for a sound moral position, we must make sure that the testing
ground is itself appropriate. Consider such questions as the
following: "If you were alive in the fifteenth century with the
knowledge that we have in the twentieth, and you found people
starving because there was not enough food, what should you
do?" Well, if you knew then what we came to know much later,
for example about agriculture or mass production, then perhaps
you should build a factory to produce food by modern technology.
But in the fifteenth century such knowledge was not available,
of course, and the hypothesis is unrealistic. The right answer
might then have been to help people come to terms with the
plight and ease them toward inevitable death by starvation.
In order to test theories, people sometimes present challenges that have a science fiction, fantastic, or at least highly
unusual nature. In moral theorizing people do so with particular frequency because they need to demonstrate the theory's
adaptability. Human life changes quite rapidly, and a theory
that cannot accommodate change is basically useless.
Underlying such challenges is the view that a theory must
cover a certain range of cases. Some such cases, however, cannot even be understood in terms of current knowledge and are
the products largely of our imagination. The proper way of testing moral positions is hotly disputed. In many cases it may be

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appropriate to ask whether the method proposed for these tests

is itself sound. If the method is questionable, then a moral theory that it finds deficient may yet be established as sound by
some more reality-oriented means. So if a test involves not simply highly probable circumstances-based on or projected from
current scientific research-but outright fantasies or science
fiction, it may well not address the substance of moral theories.
The impossible cannot be required in science or in other
areas of human inquiry. Thus a successful moral theory may not
have to settle highly imaginative, fantastic problems. In short,
when we examine a moral theory, we must scrutinize questions
that begin with "What if?" and not treat them as necessarily
valid.
What are we, then, to think about the supposed conflict
between facts and values? Based on what I have been offering
for consideration in the last several pages, it is probably best
to view values as a type of fact. Facts of morality, then, would
arise in connection with human living because we are the kind
of beings that must make choices and needs a standard for
making them in order to live rightly, or properly. As is the
case in medicine, very broad principles of living properly can
be identified, and we ought to choose these for guidance in our
particular lives. When we implement them, they will always
have to be adjusted to specific circumstances. But as broad
guidelines they are, nonetheless, quite possibly sound for us
all. Exactly what these guidelines are is not the issue here,
only whether they are likely, or possible, for us to discoverto identify. Despite all the skeptical claims, there seems to be
good reason to believe that some ways of living are right while
others are wrong, not as a matter of opinion but of fact.

-------9

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ETHICS

w.

stop at this point and leave readers to find

answers to their ethical questions for themselves. Indeed,
they would be expected to do so in most cases, certainly as
regards the details oftheir own lives. But teachers of ethics have
ethical beliefs, which students may profitably examine. Like
other teachers, I do not expect students to treat my views like
some kind of divine law. Rather they should stimulate further
thought.
At this point I will therefore advance some moral solutions
to problems that most of us find pressing. Readers should
be aware at the outset that the ethical framework for these
solutions is controversial. Other philosophers who see things
differently advocate other positions. Still, I plan to offer the
reader a starting point for the examination of diverse ethical
perspectives.
When we consider answers to ethical problems in the context
of a course on ethics, we do so to prepare ourselves to act on
those answers. We have the luxury of considering alternative
answers. We can begin with one such answer and determine
whether it makes sense. One way of proceeding involves asking
whether the ethical system that would be invoked in its defense
E COULD

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has good support. To understand the importance of doing so, it

is useful to have some such answers in view even if they are
outlined only sketchily.
We have already considered some ethical systems, so they
can be invoked as alternative frameworks in the task of moral
problem solving as well as scrutinized with some care in the
context of class discussion or scholarly reflection. Let me then
develop what I regard as the most fruitful approach to moral
problems, in this case mainly involving concerns relating to
technological, biological, and medical developments.
ONE CONVINCING MORAL OUTLOOK

By all accounts moral principles or virtues serve principally to

guide human beings in their future actions. We can no longer
control the past. We do tend to accept, both in morality and in
the criminal law, that we largely determine for ourselves, at
least within some range of possibilities, what we will do. I can
no longer change what I said in the past, whereas I can freely
decide what I will say next, even though my choice is likely to
be delimited by factors operative in my past-for example, if I
am speaking professionally, by the topic on which I was invited
to speak, by time constraints, by my abilities, and by the logic
of the title given my speech. Still, here as elsewhere, the future
is partly up to me-and the future is partly up to all of us as we
embark upon it.
The future is the clearest problem for us. We can choose
among numerous options in deciding what we will do, whereas
we can do little about the past apart from learning to understand it as well as possible. Furthermore, as to the future, not
all ofthe possible choices will be good ones.
Our problem, then, is to choose in such a way that what
we will do is right-or as right as we can make it. In the last
analysis ethics takes as its subject what is right to choose and
what is wrong. Ifwe are questioned about our proposed course

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of conduct, the most important final question that we confront

asks whether the conduct is morally right (ethical) and whether
it accords with moral virtue. Regardless of any merits the
conduct might have-whether it is interesting, adventurous,
beautiful, profitable, progressive, helpful to people, innovative,
or anything else-if it is morally wrong, we ought not to do it.
By the same token, however deficient some action might be, if
it does, in fact, turn out to be the morally right thing to do, it
ought to be done.
Nevertheless, a problem arises immediately from the evident fact that moral principles-the proper guidelines to human
conduct-rest on what we have learned in the past. Most of
us, indeed, guide ourselves by reference to moral habits, moral
traditions, and moral preconceptions. Will these sources of guidance apply in the future? Will they need to be revised, and
perhaps even abandoned, in favor of new principles?
Clearly these questions are significant. Past experience
shows us that many of the claims of morality are not fixed, even
if we reject the counsel of moral relativists and skeptics who
believe that all ethical ideals are transient. We do not need to
agree in order to feel concern about whether moral principles
are adequate to meet the challenges of the future.
Some moral ideas and even ideals have changed throughout
human history. A long time ago old people were allowed to
wander off into the woods to die quietly when their time came.
Most societies today would regard such treatment as immoral
and cruel. At one time it was considered honorable to settle
quarrels by means of a duel. This form of dispute resolution
is now deemed barbaric. People discovered to be spies used
to be punished by torture. Public policy today denounces such
punishment as impermissible, inhumane, and often a violation
of human rights.
Even in the more mundane areas of child raising, marriage,
and commerce, changes are apparent. Parents once thought

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physical discipline appropriate for young children. Parents and

teachers who use it today are often accused of child abuse. Divorce and especially premarital sexual relationships were at
one time believed to be fundamental violations of morality. Today they are often regarded as morally justified. Again, in the
past it was deemed wicked to engage in usury-to earn interest
(in sometimes exorbitant amounts) on money lent. Nowadays,
however, nearly all commercial lenders charge interest for
loans.
Let us not misunderstand these points. We need not agree
with all of the instances of alleged moral change mentioned
above. But as examples they help us appreciate the possibility
that morality may develop and change.
Positive change in one area, furthermore, may not extend
to all moral principles. Irreverence to God, callousness toward
those who need help, inattentiveness in one's own life, or some
other attitude or form of conduct could well be wrong at any
time, in any place. To take an easy example, wanton murder
may have been wrong throughout human history-which is not
to say that homicide, the killing of human beings, has been
or is now always wrong. But it is at least readily imaginable
that the slaughter of human beings is a fundamental wrong
and that the principle prohibiting it would remain as a general
principle of right social conduct among human beings for all
time. Some other principle might emerge that is more basic
and unalterable, at least as long as human nature remains
essentially the same. Some people argue that, like murder, the
wanton killing of other animals, especially those at the top of the
evolutionary ladder, is morally objectionable, now that we know
that animals closely resemble us in some areas (for example in
the ability to feel pain).
Indeed, in our view of ethics in relation to our future, some
basic moral principle must arguably remain stable. After all,
morality as an area of human concern arises in response to a

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most natural and ongoing human question: "How should I act?"

Once we appreciate that the "I" is always a human being, then
we must see the question as universal-one that is in principle
on the minds of all human beings. Consequently, when we
attempt to answer such a question, our answer at some very
basic level must be very general indeed-the purpose morality
serves is, after all, to provide people, by virtue oftheir humanity,
with some basic guidance in living their lives. To live humanly
is, in a sense, to live morally. Living humanly is, indeed, what
all of us embark upon, at least by implication, when we choose
to stay alive and to carryon with our lives.
Let me expand on this very important point. One useful
way of understanding morality involves drawing an analogy
with rules of professional conduct. We are often familiar with
the ethical codes that apply, for example, to the practice of
law, medicine, engineering, and business. We are less familiar,
perhaps, with ethical precepts that govern various special tasks
that we may assume in our lives-as parents, friends, athletes,
citizens, or even just neighbors. In both instances, we can easily
appreciate that by embarking on the profession or the task,
we commit ourselves to following certain standards. Indeed, in
some cases we are held legally accountable-as when a doctor
is charged with medical malpractice or when a parent abuses
or neglects a child (a parental form of malpractice). In such
cases we hold that the person under scrutiny has a duty to meet
certain standards by virtue of his or her profession or task.
Violation of these standards is tantamount to the violation of
an oath.
A moral system, in its sweeping application to all humans,
takes precedence over the ethics of any profession. In life, the
most general standards of morality may appear to be a kind
of code that we must accept because we have embarked upon
human life. Our acceptance does not occur instantaneously.
Child raising is in part a way to introduce a person gradually to

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the standards applicable to human life. Still, in general when

we ask "How should I act?" we may fruitfully consider this
question to amount to nothing more or less than an inquiry into
the underlying principles.
The crucial part of our inquiry entails finding the most basic
principle informing human life. What principle might that be?
Here again we may draw an analogy to a profession or a special
task: we need first to understand the nature of the business at
hand. What does it mean to be a lawyer, a business professional,
or a doctor? What does it mean to be a parent or a friend?
What goals or purposes do these roles serve? In this way we
will perhaps discover the principles involved in acting in each
special capacity.
Where the fundamental principle of morality is concerned,
we must find out what it means to be a human being. Only when
we have done so can we determine what most basic standard
or standards we need in order to lead our lives. These are the
considerations that people usually have in mind when they
consider the meaning or purpose of human life or their own
particular lives.
Obviously the search is a laborious one. Most people have
exerted themselves to find an answer. Certainly most moral
philosophers have done so. Not surprisingly, different answers
have emerged. Yet we may not conclude that just any answer
will do, although skeptics often draw this conclusion in the
absence of consensus. Arguably, however, their inference is not
valid. Many people who search may find the wrong answer.
Even the right answer may lead some people in some wrong
directions if they do not reason carefully. Indeed, disagreements
prevail in part for this reason despite the dominance of some
basic moral standards throughout much of human history. Not
all people draw the best inferences from basic moral ideals.
Some thinkers even maintain that the failure too shows the
futility of the effort, but again the inference is hasty.

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Without taking stock of all the problems that attend our

task, let me now consider what might be the most basic moral
standard for human beings to live by and how this standard
might help us approach an uncertain future. Clearly, some
of what lies ahead of us will not be very different from past
experience. Some problems that we will encounter will be novel,
however. We should briefly explore these to see what form basic
morality may take in our future.
Regarding the most basic principle of morality, we must note
two points at the outset. Such a principle must be one that we
can choose to live by or not to live by. Otherwise our compliance
with it or violation of it has nothing to do with morality. If we
cannot choose whether or not to abide by a principle, as we
have seen earlier in this book, we cannot be held responsible
for doing so.
Second, only one course of action is universally open to
us as human beings-most others are more special, regional,
historically conditioned, and the like. This conduct may be characterized as "thinking rationally" or "thinking with ideas." We
do not automatically focus on and think about the world. This
problem too arose earlier, when we considered why determinism may well be false, since it confounds rational understanding
with just believing something because we had to.
The human mind must be free to think, otherwise thinking
cannot be distinguished from simply wondering, fantasizing,
or casually forming impressions. As Ralph Waldo Emerson
observed, "Intellect annuls Fate. So far as a man thinks, he is
free .... The revelation of Thought takes man out of servitude
into freedom." Emerson also wrote, "What is the hardest task
in the world? To think."l These remarks suggest where we are
headed in the present discussion.
What is human nature? What makes us humans rather
than, say, dogs, roses, or rocks? The answer will tell us where to
look for a basic moral principle. The attribute in question will be

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what unites us with all past, present, and future members of the
human race. On many other counts-concerning matters that
are more specialized-we differ tremendously. Our age, physical constitution, sexual identity, economic background, national
origin, natural environment, and so forth sort us human beings
into many different groups. Our humanity unites us, however,
and also confronts us with some very basic common tasks.
Now, Aristotle's definition of a "human being" as a rational
animal-a biological entity that is able to and needs to think
with ideas-still works best. It does not require a human to
be an intellectual who does a lot of deliberate, theoretical
thinking and verbalizing, as Aristotle felt inclined to do. Only
some people will share this inclination. If we take "rational
animal" to mean needing to guide oneself in life by the use of
ideas, thoughts, theories, principles, notions, conceptions, and
so forth, we have a description that every human being fits.
We are all of us beings of this sort unless we are crucially
incapacitated and thus essentially defective as people, so that
others must care for us.
It is not possible to defend this view extensively here. We
may nonetheless note, in its support, that we pronounce someone dead when his or her brain-the seat of reasoning or the
soul-has permanently ceased to function. The part of the brain
at issue is the cerebral cortex, where thinking is performed.
Lower mental functions may remain. Breathing, for example,
may continue under the guidance of automatic brain processes,
but a p~rson stops being human because he or she cannot think
and will never be able to do so again. At the other end of the
life span, at the start, the human being emerges with the development in the fetus of a capacity to form some minimal ideas,
a development that probably occurs in about the twenty-fifth
week of life.
Some thinkers contend that a human being begins at conception, but this assertion rests not on evidence from natural

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science but on faith or basic convictions concerning, for example, the mysterious event of ensoulment. While people are free
to hold this belief, the event cannot be inspected publicly, remains inherently mysterious, and thus has no place in a theory
designed to serve all human beings, whatever their religious
persuasion. Here we are concerned to make, however briefly, a
more naturalistic, universally accessible case for morality along
lines advanced by some ancient and recent philosophers. 2
Why is our basic capacity to think of such fundamental
importance in our search for basic moral principles? Because we
are unique in that we may both use rationality in our lives and
fail to do so: we must initiate the thought process and cannot be
compelled. True, we may be encouraged to keep thinking. Or we
may be physically prevented from engaging in thought. But the
decision to initiate and sustain the effort is uniquely in our own
power. Indeed, ifit were not, as we have seen, the occurrence or
nonoccurrence of rational activity would be morally and legally
irrelevant.
Yet our choice to think clearly is relevant. Charges of malpractice, or more generally negligence, all make sense because
they involve the agent's failure to attend, to think, and to be
thoughtful when the agent had a responsibility to do so. There
cannot be a penalty for being tall or short or blond or male or
born to such and such parents in this or that country, because
these matters do not lie within our control. Whether we use
our heads, however, is up to us. It is perhaps the only activity common to all members of the human race, past, present,
and future. It remains for human beings to use their heads well
rather than badly.
The discussion above should illustrate a moral position that
can compete with others advanced by major thinkers whose
work is studied in courses in mornl philosophy. Let us now
consider several issues in personal, social, and public ethics.
Some verge strongly in the direction of law and public policy.

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Where I state my own position, the reader should recall the

approach to ethics discussed above as supporting it. I will
present different approaches to the issues based on different
ethical frameworks.
SOME ETHICAL QUANDARIES

We should note that there is no one plain and simple ethical

approach apart from fundamental concern with what should
be done or what should have been done. Accordingly, different
ethical systems answer the various questions differently. Philosophical ethics asks which of the ethical systems is sound and
offers the best general answer to how we ought to live our lives.
Altruists, egoists, hedonists, utilitarians, Aristotelians, Kantians, and Marxians most often approach problems differently.
All attempt to apply an ethical perspective to some human problem. No such thing as the ethical answer can be found, only that
which is provided by one or another system of ethics, although
some of these will not be sound. Sometimes "this is the ethical thing to do" actually means "this is what the correct or best
ethical system requires of us."
As we have noted already, even without any decisions about
which system is sound, most of us take a commonsense ethical
approach to problems. (We have such an approach in nearly any
discipline that has become a specialty. Physics, chemistry, law,
sociology, economics, and the rest all have their commonsense
versions, which most ordinary people, nonspecialists in these
fields, carry as tools for coping with life.) Thus most folks tend
to regard dishonest actions as wrong, courageous actions as
right, and so forth. Our commonsense morality is too loose to
be dependable in all cases but is suggestive enough to help us
in many circumstances. It clearly breaks down when decent
people see themselves in irresolvable conflicts, just as amateur
chemistry is insufficient to create birth control pills.
What is troublesome and why ethical systems are proposed

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is that common sense breaks down at times, for example when

courage and prudence, honesty and generosity, and justice and
charity appear to conflict. In such a case, sometimes dubbed
a moral dilemma, we need a system of ethics by which to
determine our ethical priorities.
The specific normative topics that I wish to touch upon
include some with which we are familiar enough but not necessarily precisely in the terms being used here. I selected some
(but not all) of those that I found pressing. In most cases I
present at least two sides in the debate, although in some I simply layout a position that is worth considering and can serve
as a good starting point for discussion.
Most of these topics are ethical with a strong social component. Naturally enough, these tend to become the focus of
widespread public attention. Many others could be discussed,
but some of them are more properly seen as involving the personal ethical challenges that individuals confront: decisions
about a career choice, sexual conduct, economic and financial
needs, medical problems, and ethnic or racial concerns. Even
these topics usually have a social dimension, since human beings make decisions in the context of interactions with fellow
human beings.
Still, the problems mentioned below involve social and public policy and often invite legal or political solutions. All entail
an ethical question and demand an ethical solution on which
any social, public, and legal policy could rest. Furthermore, the
ethical problems confronting individuals tend not to be clearly
identifiable, let alone soluble, because of the very significant differences among human beings. Such differences may also be the
source of the great variations of customs, habits, and practices
that distinguish societies and fuel the arguments of cultural
relativists.
Although we are probably able to identifY some general
moral virtues such as prudence, courage, honesty, justice, and

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generosity, the ways in which people exhibit them will differ.

Courage will prompt an accountant and a soldier to do very
different things. The balance struck between prudence and
courage will similarly depend on the circumstances. It is very
difficult to make moral judgments from afar without knowing
the details. For this reason elaborately plotted dramas and
novels, with characters who are quite fully developed, make the
best morality plays.
Ethical principles are easier to identify than to apply in
individual cases, as we may readily see in the law. We know generally which basic laws should govern us (and the constitutional
framers managed to draft them in a reasonably short time), but
it is very difficult to determine who has violated them (a lengthy
trial is often needed). Moral theorists note that some particular cases of right and wrong action recall the agent-relative
model-meaning that the interpretation given the moral principle will depend very much on the specific situation. What one
person ought to do will be determined not only by the fact that
he or she is a human being, or even a mother or doctor or advertising executive, but also by individual makeup and situation.
For example, a married man with children may appropriately
work shorter hours than a single professional woman because
of his family responsibilities.
Not surprisingly, there is also considerable debate about the
universalizability of ethical judgments. Some general principles
seem clearly applicable to people in certain roles, such as parents, airline pilots, ship captains, soldiers, and auto mechanics.
Are there specific actions we all ought to take, regardless of
any individual differences among us? Or is it not possible for
morality to identify such actions?
When we tum to individual cases, we do better with broader
social and political topics than we do when we are trying
to determine whether a person should have acted in some
particular way, an area best explored in drama and biography.

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Abortion
Most of us see the abortion controversy in terms of the prolife
and the prochoice positions. The central issue dividing the two
sides is disagreement about the point at which a human being
comes into existence, whether at conception or later, sometime
between birth and about the twenty-fourth week of pregnancy.
Ifthe being that emerges at conception is a human infant, then
aborting it would in most cases be homicide.
Some people argue about the moment at which life begins
during pregnancy. But this cannot be the real question, since
most prolife advocates are perfectly willing to end life-for example, they accept killing animals for food-and some prochoice
advocates support animal rights.
So the problem with abortion is not whether something that
has a heartbeat or even feels pain may be killed with impunity.
The problem is, rather, the point at which a human being comes
into existence. Human beings ordinarily have a right to their
lives, and so homicide or killing them, except in extraordinary
circumstances, should be prohibited and severely punished.
Thus-according to most prolifers-most abortions should also
be prohibited, since they involve "murdering unborn babies."
Those who take the prochoice side in this debate tend to
believe that a potential human being, not an infant, emerges
at conception or shortly thereafter. Only later does this being
qualify as an infant, either when the fetus has developed considerably (for example, by acquiring its cerebral cortex or higher
brain capacity, or when it is born and is recognized as a young
person) or when the fetus becomes viable, or capable of living
outside the uterus. Prochoice advocates generally argue that
early abortions amount to the killing of a potential human being, not of an actual one-as killing a caterpillar would not be
killing a butterfly.
The terms "prolife" and "prochoice" are obviously shorthand.

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"Prolife" suggests that advocates favor the life of the fetus

or unborn child over the pregnant woman's liberty to decide
whether to carry to term. "Prochoice" suggests that it is more
important for the pregnant woman to be free to decide whether
to continue the pregnancy, at least in its early stages.
Most prolifers have religious reasons for their view. They
believe that God instills the soul in the embryo, zygote, or early
fetus. Such ensoulment is considered to mark the beginning
of human life for the being in question. To cause its death
thereafter (for example, by aborting it) thus violates the right to
life. When prochoice advocates are accused of killing innocent
human life, the charge is equivalent to infanticide, the murder
of children.
Some prolifers advance secular reasons for their position.
They claim, for example, that if the early fetus is not protected,
the status of human life could gradually degenerate, so that in
time it would become permissible to kill not just young fetuses
but also infants for reasons the parents deem important. This
case is called the slippery slope argument for banning most
abortions. According to other prolifers, the important point is
that the zygote, embryo, or fetus develops into an infant and
eventually into an adult, so if killing an innocent infant or adult
is murder, then so is killing a zygote.
Prochoice advocates may deny that most abortions, notably
those prior to the twenty-fourth week of pregnancy, involve
the killing of a human being or child. Alternatively, they may
claim that even if a child does come into existence at conception
or thereabouts, a ban on abortion would enslave the pregnant
woman.
Some prochoicers think in terms not of the pregnant woman's
right but rather of women's political power. According to this
view, women should be able to use their bodies as they see fit.3
The idea here is that the prolife position often treats women
as reproductive machines subjugated mostly to the will of men.

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Some feminists who are prochoice hold this view. Even when
women consent to such treatment, they tend to do so because
they lack political and economic power.
As the discussion so far makes clear, one difficulty with
the abortion debate is that the various sides approach it from
drastically different philosophical or theological viewpoints.
They have already committed themselves to very controversial
ideas about the nature of God, human sexuality, and the nature
of personhood. These more basic views largely inform their
ideas about abortion and many other matters.
For example, one position on abortion arises from the more
basic view that a human being is most fundamentally a rational
animal, an ethical primate, to use Mary Midgley's term. 4 As
such, a zygote, embryo, or fetus is but a potential human being,
at least until its higher brain functions develop. Until that time
abortion may be morally objectionable on many grounds, but it
is not homicide. This view rests on a secular approach to dealing
with ethical and, especially, public policy or legal problems.
In a multicultural country in particular, the secular approach
ensures that all citizens have some common ground on which
to judge a case. Ensoulment, being too closely tied to religious
faith, cannot be discussed across religious and cultural groups,
as legal policies should be. Law needs to be based on factors
and principles that are accessible to all persons not crucially
incapacitated (for example, mentally retarded).
The slippery slope argument is possibly too cautious. We
differentiate between adolescents and adults all the time, for
example in deciding when people may sign contracts, vote,
and buy cigarettes. We are therefore clearly able to make
crucial distinctions even when they are murky rather than
sharp. In many other spheres we deal with gray areas. We
feel comfortable distinguishing mules from donkeys, mountains
from hills, lakes from oceans, and planets from meteors. At
the end of life, moreover, people pronounced brain dead often

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become transplant donors. The individuals who receive their

organs are considered no less human as a result-indicating
that in this area too, someone is human chiefly by virtue of
having a functioning higher brain.
Another view rests mainly on the commitment to a given
religious understanding of human life that makes it a person's
duty to subordinate sexual or other pleasures to higher goals,
including the goal of fulfilling God's command that we should
multiply ourselves, reproduce, and not seek pleasure for its
own sake. Accordingly, the real problem with abortion is that
it subverts one of our primary goals in life, something no
one has a right to do. This prolife position follows a religious
commandment and rests on faith that a person is morally
obligated to follow, not just on narrow arguments about when
a human being comes into existence.
We have not settled the matter. We have merely considered
several positions and approaches to a serious ethical and legal
problem. In this instance disputants are divided in part by how
they understand the facts. Even if the debate is to some extent
concerned with the purpose of sexual intercourse in human
life, in the actual dispute about abortion the subject is rarely
mentioned.
We can skip here the discussion about pregnancies arising
from rape or incest, because they are issues of detail and are
mostly of concern only to the prolife side. We will also skip the
difficult issue of late-term abortions, which are defended by
some on the ground that the emerging child may suffer from
serious physical impairments and that hazards may threaten
the pregnant woman when she gives birth. 5
As to the basic ethical and legal issues in the abortion
controversy, it is crucial to notice that, in the main, all sides
often seem to view the right to life as central in social-political
philosophy. They treat it as largely established that a human
being, once we have one, has the basic right to life-meaning

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that no one may kill it. The foundation of such a basic right is
itself a major source of dispute in ethics and political philosophy.
Still, in the abortion debate it does not occasion disagreement
among most participants. Most people in the debate accept that
if something is a human being, it has the (negative) right to
life-that is, the right not to be killed.
Advertising
A frequent object of scorn in our culture is advertising. Indeed,
business in general is not held in very high esteem. One reason
is that people engaged in trade are often looking for profitseeking to satisfy personal economic goals. The idea of trying
to increase benefits for oneself, in turn, has often been morally
suspect. Certainly some ethical systems treat such a goal as
morally undignified or base if not downright evil. For instance,
altruism teaches that we ought to help other people. In business
this is hardly the first goal that most people pursue.
Advertising, in particular, is an important means of attracting customers. Business owners often use all sorts of gimmickry,
polemics, and jingles or whatever to improve their chances of
making a sale. This is so clearly self-promoting that it earns
moral respect only from an ethical egoist perspective. Yet even
if egoism is questionable, most moral theories recognize the
virtue of prudence. Aristotle stressed it, and it is listed as the
first of the cardinal virtues. Advertising could be seen as a form
of prudence, at least when we consider this virtue in relation to
economics.
Yet advertising has been criticized by some prominent intellectuals, including the economist John Kenneth Galbraith. 6
His objection is that advertising helps companies create new
desires in us for things that we could easily do without. The
acquisitive impulse permits companies to continue to produce
their wares in the belief that we will continue to purchase them.
As a result society's resources are wasted on trivial pursuits,
while important social endeavors are underfunded.

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Another criticism of advertising is that when a product or

service is promoted, we hear only part of the truth, if that much,
about it, and so we cannot make an informed choice to purchase
it. 7 Such partial truth is tantamount to deception by omission.
If advertising does not convey the whole truth to the public,
it is misleading-dishonest and therefore inherently immoral.
Probably for such reasons people believe that there must be
something shady about advertising.
F. A. Hayek responded to Galbraith's objection by noting
that although advertising tries to create new desires, nearly
all creative activity has this side effect-whether art, science, or philosophy.8 Whenever people invent something new,
others may become attracted to it. We are not merely stimulusresponse machines, however. We are able to scrutinize our
desires and to pick and choose which of them to satisfy. That
some people are unable to resist temptation cannot be blamed
on those who try to attract their patronage. People are responsible for controlling themselves and must not lead others' lives
for them in this respect or in some other. We all need to be
prudent, whether we are buyers or sellers.
As to the criticism about advertisers' failure to tell the
whole truth, it may be answered that they have no moral
obligation to do so. Honesty does not demand full disclosure to
everyone. Buyers should seek out the best deal for themselves;
sellers should stick to promoting their wares truthfully. But
being truthful does not mean being someone else's consumer
protection agent. The market generally makes room for all
commercial parties to advance their interest, via marketing
and advertising, but it is admittedly not primarily a charitable
forum. 9
Assisted Suicide
In some states majorities of voters have passed laws permitting
the practice of assisted suicide. Those principally affected are
usually the terminally ill or people with a debilitating illness

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who are in extreme physical pain, who want to die but do not feel
competent to end their lives decisively and relatively peacefully.
Such persons want help in committing suicide. Many believe
that they have the right to seek out such help without exposing
would-be assistants to possible criminal charges. Opponents of
assisted suicide tend to believe that no one has the right to
help another person hasten death, either because suicide itself,
being morally wrong, should be legally wrong, or because the
assistance is itself a form of homicide, the killing of another,
and no law ought to sanction it.
The reasons given in support of the right to seek assistance
may be summarized as follows: everyone has the right to decide
whether to live or die. Having any right amounts to having
exclusive authority to choose-for example, a person who has
the right to speak may decide whether or not to do so, and no
one may command this right on behalf of this person. The right
to life, accordingly, means that we may each decide whether or
not to continue to live. We also have the right to free association.
And we have the right to mutual terms-that is, if I want
to associate with another person in some endeavor who also
wants to assciate with me in it, and no third party's rights are
in jeopardy, no one is justified in coming between us. Indeed,
the right of free association is simply a special right derived
from the basic rights to life and liberty. To seek assistance in
committing suicide, therefore, is the exercise of (a) the right to
life and (b) the right to freedom of association among consenting
adults.
Usually, however, the right to assisted suicides is defended
on somewhat narrower grounds, with the extreme nature of
the situation as an added premise of the argument. In other
words, defenders do not usually argue that just anyone has
the right to commit suicide. (Suicide is, indeed, banned in most
societies, even in the United States, where the law is supposed
to secure everyone's right to life. The Constitution does not

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mention a right to life.) Arguments in favor of assisted suicide

typically mention a basic right to life, at least when the subject
is discussed in the context not of existing law but of moral and
political theory.
Opponents of assisted suicide tend to argue either that (a)
no one has the right to take his or her own life, or (b) no one
can consent to have his or her life taken by another (which
is what assisted suicide amounts to). The law is supposed to
help preserve life, so it would be perverse to make suicide legal.
Furthermore, law is supposed, most important, to secure one's
life from possible threats by others, which it would not be if
assisted suicides became legal.
Objections to assisted suicide also frequently cite the possibility of abuse. People desperate enough to try to commit
suicide, it is said, are often not competent to decide whether
they should live or die. They are easily manipulated, sometimes
by next of kin, who may stand to benefit from the death. Along
similar lines, it is said that doctors confront a gradual erosion
of their duty to heal people if they participate in suicide.
Finally, the opposition to assisted suicide often cites communitarian ideas in support of its case. According to this argument,
an individual belongs not to himself or herself alone but also
to the community, of which he or she may well be a vital part.
Communities flourish in large measure because their members
are treated as indispensable. Consequently, to permit them to
commit suicide, and especially to have assistance from others
in doing so, would weaken the community's well-being.
Capital Punishment
Most systems ofjustice presume that human beings can control
their conduct at least somewhat and that they have the power to
choose to follow or violate certain standards of conduct. They are
thus responsible for their actions that involve breaking laws.
Such responsibility carries with it the high probability that

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when they violate some very serious laws, usually involving

life-and-death issues (murder, armed robbery, rape, treason,
and so forth), they will be punished for their transgression
(unless it can be shown that they were powerless to choose to
act differently, as when someone is deemed criminally insane).
The exact link between punishment and criminal responsibility is too complex to probe here. Generally speaking, the
most severe violations of the law are considered punishable
by death, thus the institution of capital punishment, while in
purely moral matters, where there is no question of illegal activity, punishment is considered unwarranted-the bad deed
is somehow construed to be self-punishing or deserving of social ostracism, rebuke, or the like. Controversy surrounds the
question of the law's proper scope, and this is not our topic.
The questions raised by capital punishment are narrower:
is it too severe a response to the voluntary, free choice to
commit a horrible crime? Does anyone deserve to be killed?
Should governments administer death even if it appears to be
deserved? What if the wrong person is put to death? Does capital
punishment deter crime? Does the death sentence make the
legal system (and its administrators) itself complicit in murder?
Those who defend capital punishment fall into two main
groups: those who consider it a useful deterrent to criminal
conduct and those who believe it is sometimes proper retribution even if it does not deter. The first group argues, roughly,
that since most people value their lives highly, they will refrain
from reprehensible acts if they know that the penalty may be
death. Not all murders are premeditated, of course, but ifviolent crimes are well known to be punishable by execution, even
people who tend to be reckless are likely to hesitate. If the possibility of death discourages people from severe criminal conduct,
capital punishment is justified, because, in utilitarian terms,
the reduction of heinous crimes makes society happier.
Those who consider execution proper retribution for certain

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crimes argue that wrongdoers must accept the consequences

of their conduct. Murderers should understand that they have
failed to respect human life. The way to send criminals the message is to do to the culprit what he or she did to others. This
is the ancient "eye for an eye" notion of justice somewhat standardized. (Proponents do not suggest that those who tortured
victims before killing them should themselves be tortured.) The
perpetrator of severe crimes must grasp the degree of severity
involved, and capital punishment achieves this objective splendidly. In some sense the perpetrator of the crime has a right to
be punished-and those administering the laws of society ought
to execute the penalty as a matter of duty. It really does not
matter whether the example deters others, since the main concern is the proper response to an individual convict's criminal
judgment and conduct.
Opponents also produce many lines of argumentation, of
which we will sample a few, in outline form. Some deny, flatly,
that capital punishment deters. They argue that no causal relationship has ever been found to suggest that putting criminals
to death discourages others from committing crimes. People interpret the actions of their fellow human beings in different
ways. The question then becomes how potential criminals view
the state's execution of someone. There is no assurance that
executions of criminals will be seen as a threat, especially to
irrational people who find it personally acceptable, in terms of
their convictions, to murder someone or commit some other severe crime. Some discussions draw on comparative statistical
analyses, and there is also disagreement regarding the proper
interpretation of the data gathered.
Critics of the retributionist view argue in part that when
we make death a form of punishment, so that killing becomes
a matter of state policy, we tend to demean the law, reducing
it to the level of the criminal who destroys lives. Furthermore,
it is argued that citizens in a society that practices capital

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punishment are likely to devalue human life as they become inured to execution. Some argue merely that executions are cruel
and unusual, in that the state, acting dramatically, pompously,
and publicly, inflicts more serious injury on a person than that
person inflicted upon others relatively privately.
Capital punishment is also criticized because it is irrevocable and because there is the possibility of human error. The
courts especially, which rely on hindsight and the more or less
thorough examination of a case, should arguably refrain from
imposing capital punishment, since it is easy to kill the wrong
person. Even if a criminal deserves the most severe punishment, for our own sake, out of prudence, we should not impose a
sentence that cannot be altered if we prove to have been wrong.
According to this reasoning, which is probably most likely to
emerge from classical egoism, members of a society should concern themselves with their own well-being rather than with the
punishment of others, whether or not they deserve it.
To this last position some reply that capital punishment
should be reserved for cases in which we are certain of the
verdict. If someone were convicted merely on circumstantial
evidence, we would not administer irrevocable punishment. In
some cases, however, no one can doubt the guilt of the accused.
One example is Jack Ruby's televised killing of Lee Harvey
Oswald, himself in custody because he was charged with the
assassination of John F. Kennedy. In these cases, surely, we
would not need to worry about the possibility that we had made
a mistake.
Yet even in such apparently open and shut cases we might
worry-for example, about whether the perpetrator was competent to be a bona fide culprit. Perhaps the person couldn't help
himself and modem medical knowledge was not sophisticated
enough to diagnose his or her mental aftliction. While this may
be rare enough, capital punishment, being final, would make
any form of redress impossible in any case.
So the debate continues.

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Children's Rights and Obligations

In this instance I will make the case for a certain moral
assessment of parent-child relationships.1o
We tend to take it for granted that the parent-child relationship has certain moral dimensions. Such concepts as parental
authority, child abuse, the duty to obey, and so forth suggest that
this statement is true. We also distinguish between the legal
and the moral dimensions of parent-child relationships when,
for example, we speak of the legally enforceable duty of child
support or of children's rights that may be protected by lawor, in the alternative, of a parent's moral responsibility to teach
values and the child's responsibility to help around the house.
Yet it is not entirely clear just how these moral components
of the parent-child relationship arise. Ifparents beget children,
why are parents then obligated to do anything special on their
behalf? And if the child refuses to obey the parents, what is
wrong apart from a kind of recklessness that invites untoward
repercussions from the parents? Certainly much of the law
across the civilized world affirms the obligations of parents and
children, but it does not explain their origins. When children
challenge a parent, for example, or when a parent is merely
considering how to behave toward children, we cannot look to
the law for an appropriate response. Since much of family life
is carried on behind closed doors, mere legal guidelines do not
suffice to steer people in the right direction.
I propose an understanding of the moral dimensions of
parent-child relations that may well do more than clarify the
matter for the participants. In short, I wish to propose a way
of answering the relevant questions that most parents and
children will readily understand. In particular I want to explore
why children should obey their parents and what parents owe
their children and why.
One way to understand parents' authority over their children and its limits-which includes why children should obey

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their parents-is by answering the question "What would my

child, once he or she became an adult, have wanted me to do
for (and maybe to) him or her as a child?" To understand our
obligations to our children, we must recognize that in voluntarily becoming parents we agree to treat our children as provided
by the answer to this question. The answer indicates what parents owe children-but the form taken by the duty is something
particular, dependent upon the individual child and his or her
circumstances.
We may usefully take the same approach to discovering why
parents have authority that children ought to accept. Would a
grown person wish that her parents had guided her in certain
ways when she was young? Would she ask for some sternness
in this guidance-for example, the parents should not permit
her to start smoking, should make her go to bed at a reasonable
hour, should demand that she do her homework, and so forth?
More specifically, say a child has musical talent. Would the
grownup who had been this child have wanted his parents to
have insisted, using discipline if necessary, that he develop this
talent? If so, and if parents ought to rear their children to grow
into mature and fulfilled adults, then this answer would tell
them how to treat their children. In general terms, parents
should seemingly rear their children as they think the child,
once grown, would ask them to.
We might draw the same conclusions about general moral
standards and mores that we did with measures pertaining
to individual development. Whatever the child as adult would
rationally propose, of course, would necessarily be limited to
the possible. The parents could not be asked to finance an
unaffordable lifestyle or to act in ways that would otherwise
exceed their capacities.
Why does this approach appear to be fruitful as a way of determining parents' obligations toward their children? Because
it takes into account what a grown adult would want to have had

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done for and to him as a child. Furthermore, it also takes into

account the individuality of the child in question, not simply
some generalities about child raising.
A crucial element of self-development is becoming the person
one will be as a matter of choice, not because of coercion. The
rational reconstructive approach to child rearing does justice
to this point. That is, our approach respects the human being's
essential autonomy or free will. If we focus on what the adult
version of our child would want, we acknowledge the role of
autonomous choice early, if only in a surrogate fashion. As
parents, we stand in for the adult child and thus give the child
a kind of self-direction.
This approach also ensures the requisite amount of socialization or moral teaching from parents. A grown person
could not reasonably want to be brought up without regard to
sound moral standards. Since moral teaching involves disputed
notions-especially if complete moralities are being taught
rather than commonsense moral ideals-parents' moral teaching would always have to be somewhat provisional. That is,
parents would need to be aware that they would eventually be
challenged and should thus be willing to defend their moral
teaching by giving the child reasons that he or she could understand and could eventually evaluate. It would be evident that
either mere indoctrination or indifference to moral issues would
constitute, at least in part, neglectful child rearing.
We might approach the question of what children owe their
parents and why by asking what parents need from children so
that they can maintain the household. A child should obey her
parents because doing so gives her the best chance of optimal
development as long as parents are endeavoring to promote her
development. Since children are not able to evaluate the situation fully, the general prescription "Obey your parents" makes
sense in the context of most parent-child relationships. Once
the child-rearing experience ceases to be the best alternative-

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for example, when beatings occur, when talents are neglected,

when wildly irrational moralities are promulgated-and the
child or someone representing her interest can grasp that this
point has been reached, there is no longer a duty of obedience,
and the child ought to seek a better situation. Since it is hard for
a child to have and to act on such knowledge, public awareness
of appropriate parenting skills (and danger signals) is needed.
When a child is persistently hidden from public view, for example, closer public scrutiny of the family situation may be
warranted.
Here too we engage in rational reconstruction to identify
the morally justifiable course of action. As a rational adult I
can imagine how I would have wanted to be brought up. Indeed
we often address this question in our later years, sometimes
with the aid of a therapist or friends, sometimes entirely on our
own. We may decide that our parents should have made us eat
nourishing food, do our homework, get exercise, exhibit good
manners, earn good grades, and so forth. They ought not to have
forced us to follow in Father's footsteps or to adopt Mother's
tastes in clothes. We are probably indifferent with regard to
some matters, of course, such as vacation spots chosen, novels
to be read at different ages, and so forth.
What about religion and politics? Here rearing would presumably entail handing down some values but with the understanding that these would become areas of personal choice later
in the child's life. We cannot rationally ask parents to avoid
imparting their values to their offspring-indeed, part of their
responsibility involves doing so. But it is sensible to insist, also,
that parents help children understand the nature and difficulty
of the challenges that lie ahead. In this way parents merely prepare the child for adolescence and seek to buffer the shock of
change.
Children, we may assume, want to become successful adults
and therefore want their parents to prepare them for such suc-

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cess. Is the assumption rational? Yes, since children's interest

in living communicates to parents the message: "Do well by
me, since I am committed to living well-something you, my
parents, ought to have anticipated when I was born."
A kind of teleological ethics, then, seems to make the best
sense of parental authority and children's obedience. Given the
rational assumption that children want to be brought up in certain ways, parents have the authority to create the conditions
for such rearing. These conditions also set limits on parents.
There is a final topic to be considered. Clearly children are
not without rights-indeed, some positive rights (for example,
the right to be fed). First, like adults, they have rights to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They may not be killed, assaulted, or robbed. A child, as a dependent being, lacks the full
autonomy needed to exercise basic rights independently and
does so with the help of parents. Parents supervise children's
choices, their actions, their disposal of their property, and their
efforts generally to secure happiness. Such supervision, as we
have seen, must comply with certain standards.
Every normal child deserves some measure of autonomy.
Children are not zoo animals, to be barred from exploring the
neighborhood to make contact with other people. Furthermore,
because parents are deemed to have invited children into their
lives, and because offspring are dependents, parents are committed to providing for them. May the government enforce
these obligations? Yes, because parents have assumed a legally
enforceable duty to children. How we understand breach of
that duty, and what action we take when it occurs, will vary,
depending on the era and the climate of public opinion.
When people have children, the parents enter into a compact
with the adults the children will become. This concept may
be difficult to appreciate, because the relationship is unique,
one that is possible only with human children. Parents can be
understood only as having made a promise or having taken an

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oath to support children by providing whatever they need in

order to grow up. In other words, children are entitled to such
support from their parents because-in the eyes of society-it
has been promised to them. Let us examine this idea in greater
detail.
Children are young human beings, normally on their way
to adulthood, when they will become moral agents who depend
upon the normal upbringing they received to enable them to do
well in their lives and to make good choices. We expect parentsto-be to know how children develop. So when they undertake
to become parents, we expect them to know that they are
responsible for raising their children to become capable adults.
Children, in turn, conceivably have the (positive) right to be
treated in ways that will help them become sound or able adults.
Children have this right by virtue of the parents' choice to bring
them into the world. Without appropriate rearing, children may
become adults who cannot choose to live right, in which case
they will fail to become persons. In such a case the parents'
promise or oath will not have been properly carried out.
Now, in a civilized society the government tries to ensure
that the contract between parents and children is upheldon both sides. The parents' authority has official support, and
abuse of their authority can bring criminal charges and/or the
termination of parental rights. Parents may be prosecuted for
negligence if they fail to comply with parental duties in some
respects-by abusing or neglecting the child in crucial ways, for
example.
It is also appropriate for children's duty of obedience to
their parents to receive official backing. Runaway kids should
be returned home as long as there is no proof of child abuse.
Children should not be treated as adults when they attempt
to behave as adults-for example, when they try to purchase
cigarettes or alcohol as minors or when they try to marry.

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Everyone ought to recognize that children are dependents and

may not be counted upon to act wisely on their own behalf.
Parents too must be required to provide the support necessary to enable children to embark upon adulthood successfully.
At a child's birth-and perhaps even from an earlier time, if personhood is determined to begin earlier-citizenship should be
recorded. Children should be provided with all the protection to
which they are entitled. If children are not being provided for,
law officers should have the authority to investigate. Because
children have special status, and their parents have a special
duty, the state exercises a certain legal authority over parents
that it lacks over adults without children.
We can easily see why this would be a proper way to
handle parent-child relations. Children are not property but
offspring-very young human beings personally "(pro)created,"
"invited," or "adopted" to be loved and, by implication, to be
reared until they reach maturity.
Gambling
Gambling occupies a uniquely ambiguous place in moral theory,
as it does in the eyes of the law. Some people regard it as a form
of recreation, permissible as a way of relaxing a bit, to give the
gambler respite from hard work. For others any gambling, especially the organized kind found in casinos and at racetracks,
is morally degenerate, a sure sign of moral corruption. Gambling is often regarded as casting doubt on individual virtues,
especially prudence and industry.
We all know that places exist throughout society, such as
Atlantic City, New Jersey, Las Vegas, Nevada, or the numerous
Native American bingo centers, where gambling is enthusiastically pursued and indeed officially encouraged (it is often a
source of state revenue). Citizens of the United States are thus
in the curious position of living in a country where they both

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"have the right to gamble and are prohibited from doing so. It
is fair to say, furthermore, that society's overall stance is not
clear: is gambling recreation or an immoral indulgence?
Opponents of gambling argue that it is generally corrupting.
To gamble is to pursue unearned income and thereby to flout
the time-honored connection between work and wealth. Gamblers learn to trust not the effort to produce but the throw of the
dice, something that is random, a function of chance. Since such
trust is often disappointed, gamblers are emotionally volatile
and swing from euphoria to deep depression. Furthermore,
gambling tends to make a person dependent on worldly pleasures, which great wealth can achieve, rather than on sensible
moderation, which stresses life's spiritual dimensions.
Supporters maintain that gambling now and then is entertainment, recreation, toying with risk, rather like going to an
amusement park. According to the argument, gambling affords
a sense of risk and adventure without requiring the gambler to
take big chances. That some people suffer harm from gambling
merely demonstrates a given of ethics, namely that a person
can choose to live well or badly, approaching life with decency
and good sense or with deviousness and recklessness.
From a utilitarian perspective we could defend gambling as
a source of state funds in this country and abroad. Gambling, at
least in limited measure, can also improve a community's wellbeing, without the need for coercive taxation, by bringing more
business into the area.
People who travel to Monte Carlo or Vegas may not always
be levelheaded about gambling, but people who travel to work
or eat out are not always careful and cautious either. Work and
play alike are subject to abuse. Gambling is play, and abusers
should be told that they are going overboard, not that they are
doing something inherently wrong. Moreover, the fact that some
people are immoderate does not prove that everyone is out of
control.

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Nor is there any virtue in outright prohibition, especially if

it is backed by legal sanctions, by punishment. No one earns
moral credit for refraining from a reckless act simply because
engaging in it will result in great loss. Choosing the morally
right course merits praise only if the choice reflected moral
considerations, not fear of prosecution and conviction.
Different ethical systems, as we have seen, treat moral
worthiness differently. Still, even in commonsense terms, when
a person is frugal from a belief that frugality is right, the belief
makes the behavior morally worthwhile, not some incidental
valued result or good feelings associated with it. In other words,
a person should be frugal on principle, in nearly all but the most
extraordinary circumstances, regardless of his or her specific
aims.
Yet there are those who would argue that by prohibiting
gambling the state would be doing what a sound moral system
is supposed to achieve, namely promoting proper behavior by
people. It is not the thought but the consequence that makes a
person's behavior ethical. This consideration is especially germane to gambling and other destructive behavior that tempts
many people and must be countered by an equally strong
motivation, such as fear.
The Treatment of Animals
Still another area of serious moral debate concerns the treatment of animals, especially those with fairly complex emotions
and feelings, such as pleasure, pain, fear, anticipation, and so
forth. Some people argue that animals have basic rights, not
unlike those of human beings or at least children. Others claim
that we need to consider the pain and pleasure of animals, their
well-being or interest, as well as that of human beings. People
who subscribe to this last view tend to argue for vegetarianism
and against animal experimentation, slaughter, and sporting
events such as bullfights.

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Some people contend that animals have no rights that would

dictate their proper treatment but that we should consider their
feelings for the sake of our own moral well-being. We should be
kind to animals-human~ven as we use them for our benefit.
Defenders of animal rights start with the belief that human
beings, acting collectively, have devised rights for themselves
as a way of securing their interests. According to Charles Darwin's theory of evolutionary biology, there is no great difference
between humans and other animals. Therefore, they should all
be regarded as having rights that the law ought to protect.
Defenders of animals also require us to consider their
pain and pleasure, as we do our own work, from a utilitarian perspective. The greatest happiness or well-being of the
greatest number applies to all sentient beings. (The exact cutoff point is impossible to identify.) As we decide how to treat
animals, we should therefore recognize that millions of them
are routinely-and immorally-sacrificed, often in excruciating ways, to promote various human objectives. It is our proper
goal in life, the utilitarian claims, to maximize well-being, to
create as much of it as we can. By depriving animals of pleasure
and inflicting great pain as we use them for our own purposes,
we are acting counterproductively. On occasion animals, just
like humans, might have to be treated painfully but not on the
present scale.
Some people hold that animals differ from us and that people
owe them little. Still, in deference to our own sensibilities,
we should be aware of their feelings and inflict pain on them
only when there are good reasons for doing so. Such reasons
could include medical experimentation, sports, and culinary
pleasures. Wherever possible we ought to minimize the pain we
inflict on animals.
Whether laws ought to be passed protecting the interest of
animals is similarly open to debate. Some are in favor, and some
maintain that the proper treatment of animals must be left to

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the conscience of human beings, although we canjudge people's

conduct in this area by objective standards of right and wrong.
(Not all moral wrongs need be legally prohibited-indeed, such
prohibition deprives us of bona fide moral choices, since we
are threatened with sanctions unless we comply. As we noted
above, it is not morally praiseworthy to pursue a course of action
merely to avoid punishment.)
The most extreme view about animals is that they are
biological machines, entirely unfeeling, and we may do with
them as we wish. Since they have no noteworthy feelings, how
we treat them depends entirely on our goals.
Racial Discrimination
In the United States of America, especially, the issue of race
relations is uppermost in the minds of many people concerned
with ethics and public policy. Yet elsewhere, too, this topic is
not far from view, even if it is cast mainly in terms of ethnicity
and not race per se.
The questions that arise include whether there is any justification for regarding members of racial groups other than one's
own differently in various realms of human interaction. Racial
discrimination is now generally outlawed in our economic relations, but many people act as if such discrimination were
quite acceptable in more personal, intimate areas. Is this attitude sensible? What position should we take on racism in the
economic realm? Should it be publicly banned, regulated, or
left to the moral choices made by the economic agents? Should
members of races who suffered grave injustice in the past be
compensated, given special breaks, or should public policy leave
them to fend for themselves, without regard for the historical
record?
The main problem with race is that it is an attribute which
none of us can choose any more than we can choose our height.
It is plainly unjust to blame or praise the people for things

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that are beyond their control. Nevertheless, even if someone's

skin color or height has no moral significance, surely it carries
weight in other areas. Sometimes, for example, we choose to associate with people because oftheir personalities and physique.
We ask people for dates who appeal to us in ways unrelated to
moral character. Aesthetics, compatibility, and attractiveness
matter. Even if this fact of life leaves people feeling disappointed, in some areas we are not regarded as reprehensible for
discriminating in this way.
If we are at all justified in seeking some personal pleasure
and happiness in our lives, we ought to indulge our personal
tastes even as we deal with others. We should clearly pursue
forms of recreation and culinary pleasures that please us. In
areas apart from education and personal growth, we should
buy books and music that we like. We should find and engage
in the type of exercise that suits us best. So when it comes to
areas of intimate personal concern, we are justified in satisfying
our own particular standards. Nearly any ethical theory would
agree, as would commonsense morality, unless in pursuing
these personal goals we run afoul of primary moral objectives.
An egoist would find the above-mentioned course of conduct
more acceptable than a utilitarian and far more so than an
altruist, while the hedonist would make it morally obligatory.
Few would assert that pleasing one self in these ways is outright
immoral, and for the sake of prudence we ought to act along
such lines.
When we take the same approach to professional associations, however, objections quickly spring to mind. If we were
to pick business associates on the basis of personal tastes,
we would be violating the unspoken principle that colleagues
should be chosen on the basis of their ability to advance one's
business or economic objectives. This statement is especially
true in a corporate setting, where the executive is literally obligated to the shareholders not to hire on the basis of any criteria
other than ability to contribute to the enterprise.

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Even in my private life it is true that I ought to purchase

my milk where I get the best buy, not where my personal
biases are accommodated. I ought to promote the junior vice
president in my firm who advances company welfare rather
than the one whom I find attractive or the one who puts me
at ease. Professional ethics requires us to live up to an oath
of office, as it were. If I start teaching or practice medicine,
the goals implicit or explicit in these endeavors must guide my
choices, not personal matters. Perhaps I enjoy handsome tall
people, but if a short, chubby, balding individual seems most
likely to further the aims of the firm that I manage, I should
hire or promote that person. Attractive women may be socially
desirable, but when we consider doing business with other
people, their contribution to business objectives, not beauty,
ought to count the most.
Whether these principles of professional ethics ought to be
legally mandated is itself a hotly debated issue. Some argue
that legal enforcement is needed because people are too tempted
to forget the priorities that they have set, and the resulting
bias in the market hurts innocent people. Discrimination may
adversely affect entire generations, and so public policy must
seriously discourage it. This policy objective is especially important in public institutions, which ought to exemplify the
country's social-political philosophy, not the preferences of individual administrators. Some claim that by legally mandating
such conduct, unless by mutually acceptable contract or labor
agreements, we not only violate moral autonomy but also court
further discrimination. It is impossible, for example, to compel
customers to be fair when they go shopping. Employees too can
seekjobs purely on the basis of personal preferences with complete impunity. If so, however, then forcing some people to be
fair-for example, employers-is itself not fair.
Here too broader considerations of political philosophy enter in. If we believe in protecting individual rights to life,
liberty, and property, this credo will affect public policy on

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racial matters. However eager we may be to erase prejudice,

we may not resort to coercive measures that force people to
interact. Yet even under these circumstances some measures
must be taken to preclude discrimination. Hiring practices, for
example, should be fully disclosed and not revealed only after
prospective employees have appeared seeking work. A place of
business that discriminates should be required to proclaim the
fact to avoid misleading advertisement or outright deception.
Otherwise people should be legally free to do as they choose.
If we see society not in individualist terms, however, but
more as socialists or even communitarians, we will take a
different attitude toward the public policy that should prevail.
If it is understood that we belong to our communities, that we
are parts of a large whole (society, the nation, or humanity),
then our legal obligations will depend upon the goals that these
larger entities should pursue.
If society takes harmony between the races as its goal, effective laws to this end ought to be enacted. Sometimes even the
mere symbolic expression of an objective can command public
policy. If a country has for much of its existence not just tolerated but actively promoted discrimination in the form of slavery
and segregation, then programs like mandated affirmative action, as both a form of remedial action and a social corrective,
may be warranted.
Sometimes a form of cultural bias is construed as racism.
Members of certain races are often united by cultural tiespreferences in the area of music, art, dress, and etiquette-and
not just by skin color or other physical attributes. Cultural preference can still be unjust, especially when it enters into personnel decisions where there is no real conflict between a person's
cultural heritage and his or her professional competence in the
workplace.
Political discrimination must be viewed differently, since we
may choose our political views for ourselves or inherit them
from our parents. Whether political discrimination amounts

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to insidious bigotry will depend on the circumstances. The

same holds for religion, which is often passed down from one
generation to the next.
If ajob applicant for a prominent and well-paying position in
one's own company opposes one's own religious views vigorously
in public, it may be morally imperative not to ally oneself with
that person, even if the business would clearly benefit from his
or her expertise. Jews will not eagerly appoint anti-Semites to
prominent posts in their firms. Yet when we are considering
the duties of, say, a personnel manager in a publicly held
corporation, he or she would not be justified in excluding the
applicant on the basis of religion beliefs, since the firm belongs
to the stockholders who are owed competent service, regardless
of the personal views of employees.
Racial, ethnic, and religious discrimination can be acceptable when it is not an obstacle to justice-for example, in
personal relations (race and religion are often specified in newspaper personal ads). When discrimination affects people in
a professional context-so that it extends beyond the arena
of personal choice and begins to impinge on the performance
of teachers, sellers of insurance, company managers, athletic
coaches, and politicians-it is morally objectionable and may
warrant legal sanctions. The moral and legal aspects of such
discrimination are hotly debated. Should it be legally forbidden
or morally opposed? Should present remedies seek to rectify
past (rather than merely present) discrimination? Should we
include not just race and sex but also religion and political
conviction when we prohibit discrimination? Discrimination
against Nazis or Communists would seem reasonable, since
these doctrines advocate objectionable conduct. What about discriminating against people who believe in religions that you or
I consider morally misguided?
Little can be said in favor of any kind of discrimination
on the basis of racial or sexual inferiority, since we have no
proof of such inferiority. Nevertheless, some people argue that

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such issues are, after all, subjective. We have no basis for

condemning racial or sexual discrimination, according to these
people, or at least none that avoids circularity or violation of the
is/ought gap. Noone can claim, truthfully, that there is anything
wrong with disliking others because of their race, sex, or other
attributes even if these traits are unchosen ones. (I discussed
this line of thinking earlier in the book.)
Still, by any bona fide moral viewpoint, it would be unjustifiable to hold race or sex against others (or against oneself,
for that matter). The reason is that moral fault can be found
with someone only if the person in question had some choice in
the matter. If, nevertheless, race and sex do figure when someone chooses friends or romantic partners, there may be some
aesthetic or other justification pertaining to one's particular
preferences or tastes. People have the right to associate with
others on their own terms. This political idea is clearly defensible. They might also have likes and dislikes that draw them
toward people of certain racial and/or sexual characteristics.
(You or I might like it very much if a member of the opposite
sex returned our affection, but we would feel differently if we
found the other person unattractive for some reason. Moreover,
although homophobia prompts censure, it is not sexism to be
heterosexual or homosexual.)
It is always possible, of course, that when we cite personal
preferences or tastes, we are merely concealing our belief that
we regard another person or group as inferior, in which case
we are guilty of racism or sexism after all, having pronounced
moral judgment against a person on the basis of his or her race
or sex.
Sexual Harassment
In recent history women have begun speaking out. They have
declared (and are declaring) what they want in areas including
relations with the opposite sex. Indeed men are also beginning

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157

to concern themselves with such issues. When women and

men associate with each other in professional circumstances,
the possibility of sexual interaction is now a subject for much
concern.
Still, where apart from the workplace are men and women
going to meet so that they may learn about each other's personality, values, tastes, and preferences? Bars surely are not
the best spot. It seems right and proper for men and women
to become acquainted at work, come to admire each other, and
sometimes even fall in love. On the other hand, professional
situations have their own particular dynamics. The firm's employees are expected to focus on professional goals, not personal
ones. At the office, factory, shop, or university, professionals ought to concentrate on doing the job well. Anything else
amounts to a failure to fulfill one's responsibility.
In some cases such a failure can actually harm associatesas when attorneys or physicians, not to mention teachers,
psychologists, and psychiatrists, make passes at their clients.
There is also often an imbalance of power (or workplace authority), so that although the situation for romance at first
seems optimal, the relationship may run aground when the two
parties are unable to negotiate because they are not on equal
footing.
Sexual harassment is an unwelcome attempt repeatedly to
involve someone sexually or romantically. It may not amount to
assault, but it can involve unwelcome touching, intimate language, or frequent closeness. If the job brings people together,
they ought to address themselves to the tasks at hand rather
than to behavior that undermines it. There will, no doubt, be
gray areas-offices have picnics, bowling leagues, parties, and
other occasions when the job is not the main focus. Still, the
principle to follow, it is argued, involves making sure that one's
conduct is not offensive to the other person and taking no for
an answer. People should both give and heed appropriate cues

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in the workplace. It is important to respect physical bound-

aries, to steer clear of language that some may find offensive,

and to avoid telling suggestive anecdotes that may violate office
decorum.
Some people argue, however, that neat rules will never
govern the romantic-sexual entanglements of human beings,
that there is something inherently mysterious, confusing, even
wild in this realm that defies intervention. People just have
to fend for themselves. As long as the matter involves adults,
and as long as professional ethics are observed (the job must
get done), the rest should be left to fate. To regard women, for
example, as warranting special consideration is to underrate
them, to demean them. Women are not children and can, when
they try, fend well enough for themselves. They do not require
elaborate company policies, let alone federal or state laws, to
protect them from men. If they cannot cope, let them leaveand the same goes for any whining men who find their female
or homosexual superiors too imposing. Let them handle the
situation on their own terms, without trying to follow rules
that must ultimately be phony. In this realm it is impossible
to identify any such standards-romance is more like art than
like law.
ON MORAL CHALLENGES

I have given only a few examples of the sorts of moral problems

that will continue to confront us and capture public attention.
There are many others, some of them personal, unique, and
thus relevant only to the individuals who face them. These arise
in the course of parenting, marital tasks, professional projects,
and dealings with friends and neighbors. Such problems require
solutions tailored to the individuals affected. The best investigations of different scenarios appear in good novels, movies,
and television programs and in biographies and the personal
lives of individuals. Moral solutions require, most of all, the

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close attention of the people involved, guided by the basic moral

virtues.
To live morally it is probably most important to focus on the
tasks we face and to think clearly about them. Even when the
results are not an unequivocal success, ifwe have been attentive
and conscientious in life, and not apathetic or indifferent, we
can derive at least a measure of pride from having done our level
best, which is all that can really be expected from any human
being.
I have concentrated mainly on ethics in my general discussion and less on politics except in a few of the particular cases we
have just considered (public attention usually focuses on ethical
problems of broad social relevance). In the philosophical community there is a great deal of discussion about where the line
should be drawn between ethics and politics. Some philosophers
find it important and meaningful to separate the two; others
think ethics is largely politics, a matter of collective concern.
In my view there is an important distinction between right
conduct for individuals and the law that regulates our communities, although I do see the two areas as related. We can decide
how to constitute a community only after we know how we ourselves should act. In a primer on ethics, the latter should be of
greater concern to us.
It is of course impossible to separate ethics and politics
completely. What we ought to do will have enormous influence
on the governing principles of society and human interaction.
Some see ethics as the normative field and politics as the
metanormative, mainly because politics involves the preconditions for choices that guide personal and social action or conduct
in the community context. ll The First Amendment of the U.S.
Constitution, for example, prohibits the government from regulating our choice of religion, of companions, and of words or
thoughts. Government is precluded from prescribing because
individual liberty is paramount. The framers believed, with

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some lamentable exceptions, that as much as possible, people

should guide their own lives and make their own choices. The
law therefore confines itself largely to setting forth what government ought and ought not to do. This orientation, which
belongs in the liberal political tradition in the classical sense,
was elaborated by John Locke, Adam Smith, and John Stuart
Mill, thinkers who advocated a society in which government
operated with rather limited scope and powers.
Other political outlooks include, for example, Marxian socialism, in which the ethical and political realms are indistinguishable. Marxists view people's lives as intricately
interwoven on all fronts. There is thus no separate private (personal, familial, recreational, or even professional) realm. There
are a few incidental personal concerns. Everything else is a
matter of collective concern. As Marx observed, "The human
essence is the true collectivity of man," meaning that we are
social beings rather than private individuals. 12
Some people take a middle-of-the-road approach to the issue
and advocate communitarianism, the welfare state, or market
socialism-the labels multiply year after year as scholars try
to articulate how human beings ought to live in each other's
company.
In this work I have not attempted to address politics in any
detail. In the process I have indicated that I regard the classical
liberal position as more sensible than one that proclaims our
collective nature as dominant. I agree that human beings are
essentially social and political animals, as Aristotle noted long
ago, but I believe that an irreducible (existential) individuality
is inherent in all human life. The stress on individuality is
especially evident in ethics-that is, in each person's moral
responsibility to conduct his or her life properly. To elaborate
upon this idea, however, I would need a longer book. 13

10
CONCLUSION

preceding chapters we have focused mainly on alternative ethical systems and the problem of identifying one
that is universally binding, that is, true. We have also discussed
some substantive ethical issues in line with my own ethical
position, which is classical egoism.
I have touched upon other issues, but I have by no means
considered all the problems that emerge within this one branch
of philosophy. Aside from the question of which ethical system is
right, what the true principles of morality are, and the like, for
example, philosophers often examine the character or structure
of moral principles. That is, if moral principles can be identified,
what do they look like? Are they principles of a tactical or strategic sort, so that by involving them we are better able to achieve
certain goals? Or are they more likely to be principles such as
those found in "formal systems" (for example, mathematics)binding on grounds of what might be called internal necessity?
Perhaps neither-or maybe both? As we saw earlier, the former
conception of moral principles is usually called consequentialist or teleological (which means roughly "forward directed"),
whereas the latter is called formalist or deontological (which
means roughly "inherently compelling"). Some argue that such
divisions are artificial and that moral principles are both forward directed and formal, both consequentialist (identified by
N THE

162

JJIIi' A PRIMER ON ETHICS

reference to consequences) and internally binding (imposing the

requirement that we adhere to them as a matter of principle).
Another issue that moral philosophers investigate is the
nature of obligations, duties, promises, virtues, and so forth.
These are central moral or ethical concepts or notions, whatever
the ethical system that we regard as correct. Their character
in any case needs to be specified. The central concept of any
moral position is sometimes said to be "duty" or "obligation."
This view is contrasted with that which identifies "virtue" or
"goodness" as the central moral concept, overriding all others.
In some cases philosophers claim that anything morally binding
must ultimately be derived from a basic moral duty on which
each person should act. In other cases the basic principle is held
to be a central value or good that each person should pursue.
Some argue that all moral edicts and judgments must ultimately be traced to an imaginary social contract to which
human beings are party. The idea here is that the best way
to learn what human beings ought to aim for in life, how they
ought to conduct themselves-or, in the phrase used by some
political philosophers, what the principles of justice are-is to
imagine a contract that might have been drawn by people who
were thinking about living together in a society. The social
contract theory oflaw is well known, especially in political philosophy and elsewhere, but even in the broader area of morality
some have approached the issue by way of the contractarian
path.
Moral theories are not normally invoked in moral judgments, however, just as theories in psychology, chemistry, or
physics are not explicitly invoked when we encounter the subject matter of these fields in our daily lives. The need for theories
arises when commonsense knowledge, moral or otherwise, fails
to supply adequate guidance. We know well enough, without
moral theories, that people ought to tell the truth, ought to face
threats and danger with courage, ought to be careful and pru-

CONCLUSION _

163

dent as they plan various courses of action, and ought to treat

others justly and generously. But when conflicts arise between
these commonsense moral notions, theories help settle them. A
theory of ethics is a very broad but systematic response to the
question "How should I live?" with a built-in (a) justification of
the answer and (b) ranking of virtues or moral principles.
Suppose a theory states, "People ought to pursue pleasure
in their lives." The theory will then arrange moral principles
in line with this priority and will place, for example, selfsatisfaction or prudence at the top of the list of virtues, thereby
helping the individual to choose between conflicting ways of
acting. If someone needs to know whether to be honest or to
be generous, and cannot be both, a theory will help settle the
dispute. A theory of ethics, as in any other field, establishes a
sort of long-range order, making it unnecessary to determine
what to do on every occasion. A theory produces principles for
us and ranks them so that we can conduct our lives without
stopping for tedious, time-consuming deliberation every time
we must act. "Honesty is the best policy" might be one such
principle.
Throughout this book I have presented some of the specialized topics in ethics in terms that should be familiar to most
readers. These topics carry other labels. As I mentioned above,
for example, the fact/value dichotomy is often called the is/ought
problem, the issue being whether arguments with premises that
contain the connective "is" can be used to prove conclusions with
the connective "ought to."
I have also discussed extensively the basic requirements
that any bona fide ethical system must satisfy. For example, in
each ethical system, human beings must be free to choose, principles of conduct must be knowable, and human beings must be
able to identify a common reachable goal, however general. The
philosophical slogan that denotes these requirements is "ought
implies can." Before people can practice a principle, various

164

A PRIMER ON ETHICS

requirements must be met. Any ethical system must be internally consistent, must contain sufficiently precise terms, must
be capable of universalization, and must be practicable. The
system must also, generally speaking, accommodate ordinary
moral precepts. No genuine ethical system, for example, could
sanction wanton killing, cruelty to innocent people, rampant
dishonesty, or blatant cowardice. Even after these requirements have been met, the ethical system that best answers our
moral concerns will demonstrate its superiority to others by being comprehensive, complete, and realistically defensible (that
is, it will not rely on anything unbelievable or fundamentally
incomprehensible to prove it right).
Several phrases, bordering onjargon, have developed within
professional philosophical circles in relation to ethics (for example, "supererogatory" or "indefeasible" principles). No one
outside the community of professional philosophers needs to
learn these terms. It is more important to grasp the ideas that
are captured by the shorthand references.
As with all fields of inquiry, in ethics there are many important technicalities. Specialists develop fine distinctions and
nuances. These are not trivial within technical philosophy, just
as legal niceties are crucial for those dealing with the finer
points oflaw. But they are not central for purposes of acting decently and of acquainting oneself with moral theory, one of the
key branches of philosophy.
It remains for us to consider, in conclusion, one question that
is asked with particular frequency: "Who is to say what is right
or wrong?" The reasons for asking this question are not always
the same, but the implications are very interesting.
Many people believe that some authority figure (a father, a
mother, the church, or the state) decides what is right and what
is wrong. But we may ask: is it correct to think of morality as a
matter of authority? In a sense there is no harm in doing so, at
least initially.

CONCLUSION

IIf'

165

Let us assume that morally proper conduct can be identified:

we should be honest with our friends, at least. Let us suppose
that some good people in our midst have accomplished this
objective. This assumption might be much like accepting that
some people have managed to identify the correct medical
principles or the laws of biology. Medical doctors, for instance,
are among those credentialed to say what constitutes health
and what does not. Who can identify an automobile engine that
runs well? Presumably an auto mechanic can.
So perhaps the answer to the question "Who is to say?" is
that people with skill and experience doing the morally right
thing can say what is good or evil, right or wrong. Clearly some
people have had such stature-Buddha, Confucius, Socrates,
Jesus, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther
King, and many more. Other frequently consulted individuals
have included Dante, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Hemingway,
and at least some of the main characters in their works offiction
who have stood as ethical models for us.
Yet we must not forget that morality is everyone's concern.
It is a constant and inescapable part of everyone's life. The
question of who decides is therefore important. We cannot
address ethics-in contrast to medicine, law, accounting, or
education-only now and then or here and there. We are always
dealing with moral problems just by having to guide our lives,
needing to decide what we will do next. So we cannot just rely on
some specialists in this realm, people who will straighten things
out for us when we are in ajam but for whom we otherwise have
no need.
In a sense, then, probably everyone needs to be an authority
on what is right or wrong. The way, in turn, to become an
authority may well be to think about how to live, to ask about
and discuss the issue, to read about how others have lived. We
all participate in the moral aspect of human life as we do not
in business, law, medicine, education, carpentry, or farming,

166

LfIfJiI A PRIMER ON ETHICS

where it is perfectly possible to divide the labor. The role of

the teacher in morality is not too powerful, whereas the role
of morally good persons in a person's life certainly is. (Indeed,
one of the most interesting questions of ethics, since Socrates
raised it, has been "Can morality be taught?")1
In nearly all the professions some people keep to a mostly
theoretical plane, others are concerned with application, and
still others practice. In law there are scholars, lawyers, and
jurists as well as many other professionals who pursue ancillary activities. In education there are theorists, administrators
of institutions, and teachers. Economists, managers, and businesspeople make up the field of commerce. These divisions are
not sharp, and people in one branch usually need to be familiar
with the others.
In moral matters the situation may be the same. Moral
philosophers are professionally concerned with theoretical issues of morality-that is, why we need it, which system makes
the best sense, and which virtues should be primary and which
subordinate. Educators, conscientious parents, and community
leaders teach moral positions by example and by instruction.
The rest of us apply moral principles directly.
Here too no sharp divisions are possible. In law, the scholars
know about legal technicalities and must apply the principles
to their own conduct. Doctors must concern themselves personally with health measures, aside from curing others who are ill
and studying recent advances in medicine. By the same token
the layman must follow moral principles but will also need to inspect them and maybe even to decide whether the theoreticians
have done their job well. And philosophers of ethics must themselves live as moral agents. They can hardly bury themselves
in books and leave the matter at the office when they go home.
Remarkable and widely admired human beings such as
Socrates, Jesus, Buddha, the saints, creative geniuses, statesmen, military leaders, artists, educators, doctors, and the like

CONCLUSION.IJIif

167

are frequently viewed as "moral authorities." That is to say,

such people are often considered to exemplifY the moral life, either fully or at least in some domain of human affairs. They
are examples not simply of greatness but of human moral excellence. Someone could be a great pianist and yet a morally
detestable person. It is more often assumed, however, that the
great human beings-not necessarily the popular ones-also
demonstrate how to lead a good human life in the context of
their own situation.
In a sense, some people may indeed have the authority to
"say" what is right or wrong. But they do not do so simply
by saying what is right. Instead they exemplifY and embody
human virtue and thus inform the rest of mankind of what it is
to be good. (The most vicious, degenerate, and malicious people
around best exemplifY human evil. They would very likely not
characterize themselves as such. By their conduct, however,
they show what evil is, at least within their own sphere of
activity.)
There is another source of moral information, if we may call
it that, namely literature and drama, which mostly deal with
moral problems. The best playwrights treat moral issues with
incredible force and clarity. Films too explore moral existence.
Art forms are mainly concerned with the implementation and
practical consequences of certain moral positions. The task of
formulating arguments to support and justify various moral
positions, as well as the job of addressing skepticism, belongs
in the philosopher's domain. Yet when philosophy fails to work
on these problems energetically enough-when the field itself
is in bad shape, so to speak-others may take up the task. In
short, no one is permanently charged with attending to the
more systematic moral aspects of human life. In contrast to
other spheres of human activity, which may concern us only
sporadically or never, the issues of morality can never be left
aside.

168

.If!I1f A PRIMER ON ETHICS

No one can evade the question "How should I, a human

being, live?" Whether we dismiss the question, investigate it to
avoid confusion, or attempt to answer it-everyone is concerned
to some extent, even if involvement is not acknowledged as
such. To rely on others to say what is right and wrong is risky.
Seeking advice from trusted friends, and from people who are
themselves morally good, or from artists, educators, and others
who communicate about such matters, may itself at times be
the morally proper thing to do. If it is possible to know what is
morally right, it may also be possible to identify someone who
guides his or her life by a sound moral position. We may well be
able to trust those whom we know to have been virtuous. Yet
here too people can change.
Ultimately we cannot abdicate our own role of moral agent.
(Some philosophers have addressed the question "Why should I
be moral?" as if taking part in moral or ethical decision making
were an option that we could simply accept or reject. But it
is probably impossible for most human beings, apart from the
sociopath and the mentally incapacitated individual, to opt out
of "the moral game.")
It is said that no man is an island. Perhaps the statement
is true. But perhaps, also, in some matters each of us is always
alone, ultimately responsible. Morality would appear to be one
such area. Even people who believe in collective moral responsibility (and collective moral pride or guilt) try, in their articles,
books, and lectures, to persuade individuals, who will or will
not heed their words. These individuals will be admonished to
accept the proffered view. They will then be blamed if they do
not and praised if they do.
I argued earlier that probably the most important choice for
us to make, the one that ultimately sets us on the best available
course, is to pay attention, to think. Because ethics addresses
a dynamic and changing aspect of reality-human life-any
ethical system will probably fail to anticipate every eventuality.

CONCLUSION'"

169

It then becomes necessary for each of us to figure out the answer

for ourselves. Some of the "What if" challenges must be met
with "Well, we will figure it out when we get there, because
we will be vigilant and conscientious, within our power, to take
in everything. That is our only hope and we are probably up
to it most of the time." The point is not to be intellectual and
articulate-although in some cases these qualities are neededbut to think and try to solve problems rather than theorize
about them, which is the job of intellectuals. To the central
question of morality, "How should I conduct myself?" the right
answer may be, "I ought to pay attention and think before I act."

QUESTIONS
FOR DISCUSSION

n ethics classes spontaneous discussion is often shaped by the

concerns of students and teachers and the larger community
surrounding the classroom. Here are just some examples of
relevant questions with a bearing on the broader, theoretical
areas of the discipline of ethics, to help readers begin to reflect
on the subject.

1. Why does ethics arise in human life? In your own

2.

3.

4.
5.
6.

words, describe objections you would raise to the answer

offered in this book.
What basic or minimum requirements must a theory
satisfy to qualify as a genuine moral position? Why are
these requirements basic?
If morality is possible, what relationship exists between
facts and values? If morality is not possible, what sense
might we make of moral language?
What is hedonism? Why could it be a moral position?
What objections would you raise to the morality of
hedonism?
What is altruism? Egoism? What objections to these
moral positions would you consider forceful?

172

."

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

7. What are the distinguishing features of theistic ethics?

Discuss theistic ethics critically. (Offer objections, respond to them, and evaluate the theory on the basis of
arguments.)
8. What arguments would you offer to support the subjectivist position in ethics? What objections would you
raise? Discuss some well-known moral wrongs-deceit,
fraud, injustice, and the like-in terms of the subjectivist
approach.
9. What arguments support relativism? List some of the
relativist positions on moral values. Select one that you
believe has the most merit. Criticize it and defend it.
10. What positions on the nature of morality would you
call realist or objectivist or naturalist-or their opposite? (Analyze the implications of these terms and then
describe morality in the way that fits each of them best.)
11. What is nihilism? What are the best reasons for holding
this position? Criticize the position.
12. Outline the empiricist case against the possibility of
morality or moral knowledge. Construct a criticism of
the empiricist case against morality.
13. Explain your own attitude toward morality, or ethics.
Has the discussion in these pages changed your mind in
any way? What was your view before you read this book?
What do you think now? Is there a difference? Why?
14. Give some examples of what you regard as morally
wrong conduct. How would you defend your judgment?
15. Defend the view of morality you consider correct and
then defend some position in ethics or show why none
can be supported successfully. (Where do you place your
own outlook within the general framework presented,
and why?)

NOTES

PREFACE

1. Paul Johnston, Wittgenstein and Moral Philosophy (London:

Routledge, 1989), 236 n. 27.
2. AsSUMPTIONS MAnE IN ETHICS
1. Ted Honderich, How Free Are You? The Determinism Problem
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 42-43.
2. Even in physical reality, as in the freezing of water, the causal
relationship is not exactly the same as in other domains. The freezing
occurs by what has been called "downward causation" rather than by
the more familiar "action-reaction" causation.
3. See B. F. Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity (New York:
Bantam Books, 1972).
4. See Nathaniel Branden, The Psychology of Self-Esteem (New
York: Bantam Books, 1969).
5. Honderich, How Free Are YOu? 129.
6. It is no genuine question, as Joseph M. Boyle, G. Grisez, and o.
Tollefsen indicate in Free Choice (South Bend, Ind.: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1976).
7. Roger W. Sperry, Science and Moral Priority (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1983). By "downward causation" is meant the process
of something's being caused or produced because of a structural feature
of the situation; for example, water freezes because of its molecular
structure.
8. See Honderich, How Free Are You?

174

J!IIi'

NOTES TO PAGES

23-42

9. For more on this point, see Tibor R. Machan, ed., Commerce

and Morality (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1988), especially
"Ethics and Its Uses."
10. This view is advanced in the name of Ludwig Wittgenstein by
Johnston, Wittgenstein and Moral Philosophy. But see, in contrast,
Julius Kovesi, Moral Notions (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1967). Kovesi also approaches ethics using Wittgenstein's teachings.
11. Ruth Benedict, Patterns of Culture (Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Co., 1934).
12. See A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic (New York: Dover
Publ., 1952). A very helpful discussion of the type of argument Ayer
advances can be found in Laurie Calhoun, "Scientistic Confusion
and Metaethical Relativism," Ethica 7:2 (1995): 53-72. See also Renford Bambrough, Moral Scepticism and Moral Knowledge (Atlantic
Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1979).
13. J. L. Mackie, Ethics (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1977),38.
14. For more along these lines, see W. D. Falk, Ought, Reasons,
and Morality (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986), especially
"Goading and Guiding" and "Hume on Is and Ought."
15. See Mary Midgley, The Ethical Primate: Humans, Freedom, and
Morality (London: Routledge, 1994).
3.

FACTS AND VALUES

1. Actually, this is a highly disputed point. Still, it appears that

we can distinguish between talking about God and talking about
moral good or evil, since even to regard God as "all good" requires
understanding both concepts independent of each other.

4.

METAETHICS AND CRITICISM OF MORAL THEORIES

1. The most developed version of emotivism may be found in

Charles L. Stevenson, Ethics and Language (New Haven, Conn.: Yale
University Press, 1952).
5.

WHAT

Is MORALLY GOOD AND

RIGHT?

1. Many critics of moral positions simply assume that some courses

of conduct or goals are of prime moral significance and then argue that

NOTES TO PAGES

42-58 8/11

175

the theory being examined fails because it does not accommodate this
assumption. This approach is highly debatable, however, since it assumes that we "know intuitively" which moral principles are primary.
Although we may know, from our ordinary experiences and learning,
that certain principles are morally important, it is not possible, without
further systematic reflection, to determine which of these principles is
primary, which secondary, and so forth. Moral dilemmas arise from situations that appear to pit our moral principles against one another, so
we need to rank the principles. Philosophical ethics becomes important
in this area.
2. See W. G. Maclagan, "Self and Others: A Defense of Altruism,"
Philosophical Quarterly 4 (1954): 109-10.
3. "To explain" can be used narrowly, to mean "to provide external or prior causes for," or more broadly, "to render understandable,
meaningful." The former excludes ethics, and the latter does not.
4. Most altruists subscribe to the religious doctrine of original sin as
well as to the more secular view that we are all naturally inclined to be
callous toward others. One good place to find a statement on original
sin is in Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind (Chicago: Regnery,
1953), while Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan (Baltimore: Penguin Books,
1968) includes a statement on callousness.
5. For more on this point, see Tibor R. Machan, "Egoism, Psychological Egoism, and Ethical Egoism," in P. H. Werhane and R. F. Freedman,
eds., The Blackwell Companion to Business Ethics (London: Basil
Blackwell, 1996). I am also a proponent of what I call "classical egoism or individualism." See, for example, Tibor R. Machan, Capitalism
and Individualism (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990).
6. If an ethical system provided an individual with step-by-step
instructions for living-a blueprint, as it were, rather than a general
set of guidelines-ethical behavior would in a sense be passive, not the
result ofthe individual's initiative.
7. Ethical egoism is a view that has been developed by several
philosophers, including (some would argue) Aristotle, Bishop Butler,
Ayn Rand, Jesse Kalin, Eric Mack, and myself. See Tibor R. Machan,
"Recent Work on Ethical Egoism," in K. J. Lucey and T. R. Machan,
eds., Recent Work in Philosophy (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Allenheld,
1983). See also W. D. Falk, "Morality, Self, and Others," in Ought,

176

NOTES TO PAGES

58-86

Reasons, and Morality.

8. Tibor R. Machan and Douglas J. Den Uyl, "Recent Work on the
Concept of Happiness," American Philosophical Quarterly 21 (1984):
1-31. See also David L. Norton, Personal Destinies: A Philosophy of
Ethical Individualism (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
1976).
9. See, for example, Nathaniel Branden, The Psychology of SelfEsteem.
10. Quoted in Dixy Lee Ray, Thrashing the Planet (Washington,
D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1990), 80.
11. For example, the police power of states derives from the idea
that the head of the feudal order is the "keeper of the realm" and must
safeguard the material, spiritual, and moral welfare of people within
a given jurisdiction.
12. John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, Cato's Letters: or, Essays
on Liberty, Civil and Religious and Other Important Subjects (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1995). Alexander Hamilton, James Madison,
John Jay, and Roy P. Fairfield, The Federalist Papers (New York: Viking
Penguin, 1987).
13. Karl Marx, Selected Writings, ed. David McLellan (London:
Oxford University Press, 1977), 126 (first quotation). Karl Marx, Grundrisse, trans. and ed. David McLellan (New York: Harper Torchbooks,
1971), 33 (second quotation).
14. For extended discussions of these issues, see Tibor R. Machan,
ed., The Main Debate: Communism ~rsus Capitalism (New York:
Random House, 1988).
15. For this line of communitarian reasoning, see Richard Rorty,
Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1991), especially "Solidarity or Objectivity" and "The Priority
of Democracy to Philosophy." A somewhat different, though also less
clear-cut, version of communitarianism is advanced by Amitai Etzioni,
The Spirit of Community (New York: Crown, 1994).
6.

ETHICS AS A PERSONAL CONCERN

1. Here we need to mention again that theistic ethics sometimes

holds that goodness comes about because a perfect God wills it, so that

NOTES TO PAGES

86-135 _

177

goodness depends on God's will. Yet this is criticized on the grounds

that unless some idea of goodness is independent of God, the very idea
that God is perfectly good is empty, meaningless. This point figures
heavily in the debate about whether people who do not believe in God
could be morally good.
8.

RETHINKING THE FACTNALUE DICHOTOMY

1. Richard Rorty, "The Seer of Prague," New Republic, July 1, 1991,

37.
2. We might, of course, say that certain feelings are unhealthy,
certain tastes vulgar, and certain attitudes perverse or degenerate. But
if we tried to prove these claims, an advocate of the position described
above might respond that they too were unprovable, just like value
judgments. All of them merely express feelings, tastes, attitudes about
other people's feelings, tastes, and so forth.
3. Tibor R. Machan, "Some Reflections on Richard Rorty's Philosophy," Metaphilosophy 24 (January/ApriI1993): 123-35.

9. APPLYING ETHICS
1. Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Fate" and "Intellect," The Complete
Writings (New York: William H. Wise &Co., 1929), 527, 224.
2. I have in mind Aristotle, Spinoza, Locke, Ayn Rand, and Mary
Midgley, among others.
3. See, for example, Catherine A. MacKinnon, Feminism Unmodified (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), 93ff.
4. Mary Midgley, The Ethical Primate.
5. Some of these matters are discussed in the applied ethics texts
listed at the end of this book. There is also a very balanced discussion
of this topic in Alissa Rubin, "Partial Truths: The Late-Term Abortion
Saga," The New Republic, March 4,1996,27-29.
6. John Kenneth Galbraith, "The Dependence Effect," in Milton
Snoeyenbos, Robert Almeder, and James Humber, eds., Business
Ethics (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1983),425-30.
7. Burton Leiser, "Deceptive Practices in Advertising," in Tom L.
Beauchamp and Norman E. Bowie, eds., Ethical Theory and Business
(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1983), 334-43.

178

IJ!II1

NOTES TO PAGES

135-166

8. F. A. Hayek, "The Non Sequitur of the 'Dependence Effect,'" in

Beauchamp and Bowie, Ethical Theory and Business, 363-66.
9. Tibor R. Machan, "Advertising: The Whole or Only Some of the
Truth?" Public Affairs Quarterly 2 (1987), 59-71.
10. The original version of this discussion was Tibor R. Machan,
"Between Parents and Children," Journal of Social Philosophy 23
(Winter 1992): 16-22.
11. Possibilities for personal action range from such private issues
as the choice of a career or a romantic partner, to the sort of sport
we want to pursue, to family matters such as how to deal with our
parents once we have grown up, how we should discipline our children,
and what help, if any, we should offer neighbors in distress. Social
action broadly construed might involve professional ethics in medicine,
law, business, education, the arts, and politics (for example, what
duty, if any, do we have to our clients, students, patients, patrons,
and constituents?). On ethics and politics in community life, see, for
example, Douglas B. Rasmussen and Douglas J. Den Uyl, Liberty and
Nature (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1991).
12. Karl Marx, Selected Writings, ed. David McLellan (London:
Oxford University Press, 1977), 128.
13. See Tibor R. Machan, Human Rights and Human Liberties
(Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1975) and Capitalism and Individualism (New
York: St. Martin's Press, 1990). See also my brief book The Virtue of
Liberty (lrvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: FEE Books, 1994).
10. CONCLUSION
1. See, for example, Barbara Darling-Smith, Can Virtue Be Taught?
(South Bend, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993).

RECOMMENDED
READING

Almond, Brenda, ed. Introducing Applied Ethics. Oxford: Basil Blackwell,1995.

Gold, Steven Jay, ed. Moral Controversies. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth,
1993.
Machan, Tibor, ed. Commerce and Morality. Lanham, Md.: Rowman
and Littlefield, 198B.
McGee, Robert W., ed. Business Ethics and Common Sense. Westport,
Conn.: Quorum Books, 1992.
Olen, Jeffrey, and Vincent Barry, eds.Applying Ethics. Belmont, Calif.:
Wadsworth,1996.
Regan, Tom, ed. Earthbound: New Introductory Essays in Business
Ethics. New York: Random House, 1984.
Regan, Tom, ed. Just Business: New Introductory Essays in Environmental Ethics. New York: Random House, 1993.
Shaw, William H., ed. Social and Personal Ethics. Belmont, Calif.:
Wadsworth,1993.
Sher, George, ed. Moral Philosophy: Selected Readings. Fort Worth,
Tex.: Harcourt Brace, 1996.
Skoble, Aeon, and T. R. Machan, eds. Political Philosophy: Essential
Selections. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1998.
Stein, Harry. Ethics (and Other Liabilities). New York: St. Martin's
Press, 1982.
Sterba, James P. Contemporary Social and Political Philosophy. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1994.
Sterba, James P., ed. Morality and Social Justice. Lanham, Md.:
Rowman and Littlefield, 1995.

INDEX

Abortion, 130-34
Advertising, 134-35
Altruism, 60, 175n; business and,
134; criticism of, 53-56; goals
and principles, 51-53; religion
and, 82, 83-84, 86; selfishness
and, 52-54; welfare statism
and,75
Animal rights, 149-51
Aristotle, 27, 32, 34, 38, 125, 134,
160
Asceticism, 64
Assisted suicide, 135-37
Authoritarianism, moral, 100
Ayer, A. J., 34
Benedict, Ruth, 24
Bentham, Jeremy, 40, 44
Brain and free will, 19-20
Branden, Nathaniel, 18
Buddha, 165, 166
Capitalism, 70-74
Capital punishment, 137-40
Gato's Letters, 68
Child-parent relations, 141-47

Choice. See Free will

Classical egoism. See Ethical
egoism
Cognitivism, 34, 35, 82
Commonsense ethics
(commonsense morality),
79-80,127-28,162-63
Communitarianism, 75-77, 137
Compatibilism, 20-21
Comte, August, 51
Confucius, 165
Consequentialism, 38, 161
Constitutionalism, 67-68
Conventionalism, 34-35
Dante, 165
Darwin, Charles, 150
Deductive reasoning, 26
Democracy and relativism, 98
Deontology, 37, 161
Determinism versus free will,
14-23,27-28
Dewey, John, 35
Discrimination, 151-56
Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 165
Downward causation, 20, 173n

182

J!JIfIf

INDEX

Egoism. See Ethical egoism

Elitism, religion and, 85-86
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 124
Emotivism, 34
Empiricism: fact/value dichotomy
and, 112-15; free will and, 1516; moral standards and, 24,
25
Environmentalism, 65
Environment and capitalism,
73-74
Epicureanism, 64
Epistemology, 82, 111-12
Ethical egoism (individualism),
57-63, 161; advertising and,
134; capital punishment and,
140; subjectivism and, 96;
utilitarianism and, 50
Ethical relativism: criticism of,
99-101; principles of, 96-99
Ethical subjectivism: criticism of,
94-96; principles of, 91-94
Ethical theory, 162-63. See also
Moral theories
Ethics: authority in, 16467; choice and, 119, 124;
commonsense and, 79-80,
127-28; compatibilism and,
20-21; and conduct, objective
principles of, 12,13; courses,
3-4; defined, 5-7; parentchild relations and, 141-47;
politics and, 65-77, 15960; professional, 157-58,
178n; religion and, 80-89;
requirements of, 163-64;
skepticism and, 90-106;

teleological, 145; theistic,

80-89, 176-77n; validity of
study, 7-10; values and, 2932. See also Metaethics; Moral
principles
Existentialism, 64-65, 92, 96

Fable of the Bees, The, 73

Fact/value dichotomy, 31,108-17,
163; empiricism and, 112-15
Federalist Papers, The, 68
Feudalism, 66-67
Fideism,89
Formalism, 161
Free will: arguments against,
13-17; arguments for, 1723; child rearing and, 143;
compatibilism and, 20-21;
determinism and, 14-23,
27-28; human brain and, 19-20
Gaia, 65
Galbraith, John Kenneth, 134-35
Gambling, 147-49
Generation gap, 7
God, 174n, 176-77n;abortion
and, 131, 132, 133;
environmentalism and, 65; free
will and, 17; mysticicm and,
36; situationism and, 64-65;
theistic ethics and, 80-89
Happiness, 44-45, 58-64. See
also Welfare
Hayek, F. A., 71, 135
Hedonism, 56-57; criticism of,
42-44; Epicureanism and, 64;

INDEX.IJIfI

goals and principles of, 39-41

Hemingway, Ernest, 165
Hobbes, 11loD1as,35
Honderich, Ted, 20
Hook, Sidney, 35
Hume, David, 24, 25-26, 35
IndividualisD1, 57-63. See also
Ethical egoisD1
Inferential reasoning, 26
Intuitionism, 35
Is/ought gap (is/ought problem),
24,25-26,31,156,163
Jesus, 165, 166
Justice, distributive, 48

183

Moore, G. E., 34
Moral paternalism, 48, 50
Moral principles (moral
standards): arguments against
existence of, 23-25; arguments
for existence of, 25-28; choice
and, 124; empiricism and, 24,
25; fundamental and basic,
123-126; primary, 174-75n;
stabilityof,121-22
Moral skepticism, 23-27, 90-106
Moral theory, 36-38
Mysticism, 36

Kalin,Jesse,57
Kant, ImD1anuel, 18, 34, 37,
102-103
Kennedy, John F., 140
King, Martin Luther, 165
King Lear, 105

Nagel, 11lomas, 51
Naturalism, 34
Natural law: free will and,
13-14; religion and, 87-88
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 102-105
Nihilism: criticism of, 103-106;
principles of, 101-103
NoncognitivisD1, 34, 35
Nonnaturalists,34

Libertarianism, 70-74
Lincoln, AbrahaD1, 165
Locke, John, 160
Logical positivists, 34

Ontology, 111
Original sin, 83
Oswald, Lee Harvey, 140
"Ought implies can," 11, 163

Mack, Eric, 57
Mackie, John, 25
Mandeville, Bernard, 73
Marx, Karl, 68-69, 160
MarxisD1, 21,160
Metaethics, 33-36
Midgley, Mary, 27, 132
Mill, John Stuart, 44, 160

Parent-child relations, 141-47

Plato, 34
Pleasure, hedonism and, 39-44
Politics: child rearing and, 144;
ethics and, 65-77, 159-60
Pragmatism, 35
Prochoice, 130-134
Professional ethics, 152-55,

184

J!IIiI'

INDEX

157-58,178n
Prolife, 130-34
Racial discrimination, 151-56
Rand,Ayn, 34-57
Rationality: child rearing and,
142, 144--45; egoism and, 58,
59, 61-63; fideism and, 89;
human beings defined by, 124,
125-26, 132
Rawls, John, 35
Reasoning, deductive versus
inferential, 26
Relativism. See Ethical
relativism
Religion: abortion and, 131-133;
child rearing and, 144; elitism
and, 85-86; ethics and, 80-89;
natural law and, 87-88
Rights: animal, 149-51;
children's, 141-47; negative
versus positive, 74-75
Right to life, 133-34, 136-37
Rorty, Richard, 35, 110, 114
Ross, Sir David, 35
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 65
Ruby, Jack, 140
Saint Augustine, 36, 52
Sartre,Jean-Paul,34
Selfishness: altruism and, 52, 54;
egoism and, 59
Sexual harrassment, 156-58
Shakespeare, William, 105, 165
Sidgwick, Henry, 44
Situationism, 64-65

Skinner, B. F., 16
Smith, Adam, 160
Social contract theory, 162
Socialism, 68-70, 160
Social science, free will and,
22-23; value and, 108-109, 113
Socrates, 20, 32, 165, 166
Stoicism, 63-64
Subjectivism. See Ethical
subjectivism
Suicide, 135-37
Teleological ethics, 38, 145
Teleology, 161
Theistic ethics, 80-89, 176-77n
Theory, purpose of, 162-63
Utilitarianism, 21, 38, 41; act
versus rule, 46-47; animal
rights and, 150; capital
punishment and, 138; criticism
of, 47-51; environmentalism
and, 65; gambling and, 148;
goals and principles, 44--46;
welfare statism and, 75
Values, 29-32; epistemology
and, 111-12; as facts, 31-32,
117; nihilism and, 101-104;
proving knowable, 115-17;
social sciences and, 108-109,
113; subjectivism and, 93
Washington, Cieorge, 165
Welfare, 44-51
Welfare statism, 74-75