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Ethics 160
Moral Arguments
Reasons and Arguments
• Different claims have different uses in our
language. Sometimes, a claim or claims are used
as a reason to believe another claim.
• When claims are used in this way, an argument is
present. (An argument is not merely a
disagreement)
• A claim that is used a reason for believing
another claim is called a premise. The claim that
is being supported in this way in an argument is
the conclusion.
Standard Form
• Arguments are often written in a special
format. Premises are numbered, and written
above their conclusions:
1. Premise 1
2. Premise 2
C. Conclusion
What makes an argument good?
• It is often taken to be the case that an
argument is good if it is persuasive, that is, if
people are inclined to accept it.
• People accept all kinds of foolish things. This
is no standard of quality.
• In fact, Western philosophy was born when
some people drew a distinction between
philosophy and sophistry.
What makes a good argument:
• Validity
– Means that IF the premises
are true, then the
conclusion has to be
– In other words, there is a
proper logical relationship
between the premises and
the conclusion
– In other words, the
premises, IF true, really are
a reason to believe the
conclusion
• Soundness
– Means the argument is
valid AND
– Means that the premises
ARE true
Examples:
P1: Bill and Hillary Clinton have the same last
name
P2: People with the same last name are siblings
C: Bill and Hillary Clinton are siblings
This is a valid argument because IF the premises
were true, the conclusion would have to be.
The argument is not sound because P2 is false.
Example:
P1: Whoever wrote the Bible is a great author
P2: Charles Dickens wrote the Bible
C: Charles Dickens is a great author
This argument is also valid, because IF the
premises were true, the conclusion would have
to be, but again, it is unsound because P2 is
false.
A common moral argument structure:
1. Moral principle (typically contains the word ‘should’,
‘ought’, ‘must’, ‘is right/wrong’, etc.)
2. Statement of a particular case that appleis to the
principle.
C. Connects the two statements in a logical way (ends up
with the moral approach to the stated case)
Example:
1. The new construction proposal would break the state
budget
2. The state should not break its budget
C. The state should reject the new construction proposal.
Ways of disputing a moral argument:
• Could claim it is invalid
• Could claim that the principle in P1 is false
• Could claim that the case in P2 doesn’t in fact
fit the principle.
Truth Evaluable Language
• Note that in order to be used in an argument, language
has to be of a sort that is truth-evaluable, that is, that
can be true or false. Premises are judged on the basis
of whether they are true or false, and arguments are
put together so that true premises related in the
proper way will generate a true conclusion.
• However, since some kinds of language are not truth
evaluable, they are not (and cannot be) used in
arguments. Things like questions, commands,
exclamations, greetings, etc. are all excluded from use
in arguments because they are not statements at all
(and thus are not truth evaluable)
Moral Language
• In order to use moral language in arguments
we must accept that moral language is truthevaluable.
• In other words we have to accept that moral
language is more like a statement than a
command, an exclamation, etc.
• This position is referred to as realism, and
commits itself to the existence of moral facts.
Moral Realism
• Anti-realists about morality contend that moral language
corresponds with no recognizable category of facts.
– Prescriptivists are a kind of antirealist who claim that all moral language is
just a set of commands (thus not truth evaluable) in disguise.
– Emotivists are a kind of antirealist who claim that all moral language is just
a set of emotional expressions (thus not truth evaluable) in disguise.
• Realists claim that moral language is not in disguise at all and that
what look like truth-evaluable statements really are truth evaluable
statements. Realists correspondingly associate moral language with
one (or more) of a number of factual categories, a few examples of
which are:
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
sociological belief
human well-being
the outcomes of rational procedures
interpersonal conventions
human well-feeling
natural science
theology
Moral disagreement
• The fact that people disagree about morality
does not indicate in any way whether there
are or are not moral facts.
• On the contrary, if two people are to have a
substantive moral disagreement, there has to
be some fact of the matter with respect to
morality, or else the moral dispute is just so
much useless noise.
Moral Facts
• If someone claims that there are moral facts, they
are merely claiming that when someone says
“Action X is moral” they might be saying
something true, and they might be saying
something false. This is a rather unobjectionable
claim.
• If someone not only says that there are moral
facts, but also says that they know what all of
them without a doubt are, then you should start
to get skeptical.