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PHILOSOPHY 224
MORAL THEORY: INTRODUCTION
THE ROLE OF REASONS
• A fundamental feature of philosophy's
contribution to our understanding of the
contested character of our moral lives is the
insistence that our responses to moral
concerns must be justified.
• That is, we must have reasons for believing
what we do about torture or any other moral
issue.
• An essential element of the philosophical
attempt to provide justifying reasons is the
appeal to moral theory.
WHAT IS A MORAL THEORY?
• Answering this question requires we ask
some subsidiary ones.
• What concepts do moral theories rely
on?
• What do moral theories aim to provide?
• How and why do moral theories employ
moral principles?
• How are moral theories structured?
THE RIGHT AND THE GOOD
• All moral theories employ and deploy
these two main concepts.
• "Right" and it's inverse "Wrong" are
typically used to evaluate actions.
• "Good" and it's inverse "Bad" typically
assess the value of agents,
experiences, things, or states of affairs.
RIGHT/WRONG ACTION
• The concept "Right" has both a
narrow and a broad meaning.
• Narrowly, right actions are those we
are morally obligated to do.
• Broadly, right actions are all actions
that are not wrong.
• The concept "Wrong" as only one
meaning.
TRIPARTITE DEONTIC SCHEMA
• Given these accounts of the rightness
and wrongness of actions, ethicists
typically divide the realm of actions for
purposes of moral evaluation into
three basic categories.
Obligatory
Actions
Permissible
Actions
Forbidden
Actions
MORAL VALUE
• When we identify something or someone as
good or bad, we are speaking to its
character, and particularly of that value
that it has.
• Things can have or be valuable in one of
two ways.
• Intrinsic value refers to a character or feature inherent in the
thing.
• Extrinsic value refers to how a thing is related to some other
valuable thing (ultimately one with intrinsic value.
• Intrinsic value is what philosophers are
typically concerned with.
TRIPARTITE AXIOLOGICAL SCHEMA
• Given the dominance of intrinsic value
we can once again identify three
basic value categories.
Intrinsically
Good
Intrinsically
ValueNeutral
Intrinsically
Bad
A THEORY OF THE RIGHT AND THE
GOOD
• Given these accounts of the Right and
the Good, we can identify three tasks
that a moral theory must accomplish.
• MT must identify the right-making features
of actions.
• MT must provide an account of intrinsic
value.
• MT must specify how these accounts can
serve as the basis for the justification of
specific moral conclusions.
TWO MAIN AIMS OF MORAL THEORY
• These three tasks of moral theory provide us
with the means of distinguishing two main
aims.
• The theoretical aim (corresponding to the first two
tasks) is to identify the underlying features of
actions, persons and other morally relevant
elements that make them right or wrong, good or
bad. In other words, MTs have to explain what
makes something morally relevant.
• The practical aim (corresponding to the third task)
is to be action-guiding. In other words, MTs must
provide us with resources with which to respond to
the moral issues that confront us.
TAKING AIM WITH MORAL
PRINCIPLES
• One tool that philosophers use to
satisfy these aims is the moral principle.
• A moral principle is a general
statement of the right-making
characteristics of actions or of the
specification of intrinsic value.
• Principles that focus on actions are called
"Principles of Right Conduct."
• Principles that focus on intrinsic value are called
"Principles of Value."
WHAT ABOUT THE SECOND AIM?
• PRC and PV certainly seem to satisfy
the theoretical aim of MTs, but what
about the practical aim?
• The operative presumption is that if the
principles are correct, then employing
the principles to evaluate proposed
actions or possible value assignments
provides justifying reasons (as well as
motivation) for moral decision making.
CONFLICT OF THE PRINCIPLES
• Though all MTs have to include both a
PRC and a PV, typically these
principles are not equal in any given
theory.
• Some theories make the Good more
important than the Right, some the
Right more important than the Good.
• The former are called "Value-based
MTs" the latter are called "Duty-Based
MTs."
A PLURALITY OF THEORIES
• Given that different moral theories
emphasize different principles, you shouldn’t
be surprised that when we start looking at
specific theories, we will find that they
highlight different features of our moral lives.
• In many cases, these differences mask an
essential continuity in moral evaluations, but
on occasion there will be important
evaluative differences.
• We need to consider how we should
evaluate the differing claims of the moral
theories we will discuss.
EVALUATING ETHICAL THEORIES
• In addition to a consideration of the adequacy of the
arguments offered in support of a particular theory, there are
a number of features which a successful ethical theory must
exhibit.
• The two central features correspond to the two main aims of
moral theory
Corresponding to the theoretical aim is the principle of
explanatory power: a theory should help us understand our moral
evaluations. The better the explanation, the better the theory.
•
•
You know murder is wrong. Now ask yourself why? That's a harder question to
answer than it might at first seem, and moral theory can fill in the explanatory gap.
Corresponding to the practical aim is the principle of practical
guidance: a theory should help us make the morally correct
choices. The better the guidance, the better the theory.
•
•
If you are faced with the challenge of having to help a friend decide whether or
not to have an abortion, you need a theory that provides determinate, consistent,
and actionable verdicts.
THE EXAMPLE OF ETHICS BY
AUTHORITY
• We can begin to appreciate the value of
these evaluative principles by putting them
to work in a consideration of a popular, but
not necessarily successful, approach to
moral theory.
• "Ethics by Authority" refers to a family of
approaches to moral justification which
share the insistence that all the moral
explanation and guidance we need can
be located in some "authority."
DIVINE COMMAND THEORY
• DCT is one example of an authority based moral theory.
• The key claim of DCT is that, an action is right if and only
if [iff] (and because) God does not command that we
not do that action.
• One of the virtues of this approach is that it does satisfy
MT's practical aim.
• The 10 commandments don't leave a lot of wiggle room.
• However, it does nothing to satisfy the explanatory aim.
• Why should we honor our parents?
• To say that "it pleases God" just pushes the question back a level. Why
does/should it please God? God's willing it is no explanation of why it is
the right thing to will. Insisting that God is good doesn’t help. After all,
goodness is a moral quality which still needs an explanation.
ETHICAL RELATIVISM
• ER is another example.
• It's key claim is that an action (performed by
a member of Group G) is right iff the moral
norms accepted by G permit the
performance of the action.
• Like with DCT, ER seems appropriately
action-guiding, but it doesn’t do any better
job with the theoretical aim.
• Why should the fact that a majority of some members of a group
believe that the death penalty is morally acceptable make it so?
• Most Europeans used to believe that the earth was flat, but that
didn’t make it so.
WHAT HAVE WE SEEN?
• Our consideration of DCT and ER has revealed
that these two very common "moral theories" do
not satisfy the evaluative constraints which
moral theories should satisfy.
• At the very least, this fact calls into question the
ability of these two ways of thinking about
morality to do the work we ask of moral theories.
• When we review later in the semester a range of
specific moral theories, we will consider whether
they do a better job of satisfying these
constraints.