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Ethics: Theory and Practice
Jacques P. Thiroux
Keith W. Krasemann
Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Chapter Eight
Setting Up a Moral System: Basic
Assumptions and Basic Principles
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Conflicting General Moral Sense
• Consequentialism v. Nonconsequentialism
– We must consider the consequences of our
decisions, acts, and rules, but at the same
time be aware of and avoid the endjustifies-the-means problem
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Conflicting General Moral Sense
• Self v. Other-interestedness
– There are problems associated with a totally
self-interested basis for morality; therefore,
I agree with the utilitarian approach of
doing what is in the best interest of
everyone
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Conflicting General Moral Sense
• Act v. Rule
– In a moral system, we require freedom (act)
and yet also stability and order (rule)
• Emotion v. Reason
– In a moral system, we require reason
without excluding emotion
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Basic Assumptions
• What constitutes a workable and livable moral
system:
– Rationally based and yet not devoid of emotion
– Logically consistent but not rigid and inflexible
– Universality or general application to all humanity
and yet be applicable in practical ways to
individuals and situations
– Able to be taught and promulgated
– Ability to resolve conflicts
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Including Rational and
Emotional Aspects
• Emotion
– Moral issues have an emotional dimension
– But we cannot make moral decisions solely based
on emotion alone
– Feelings are too unreliable and individualistic
– Another basis that is fairer and more objective is
needed
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Including Rational and
Emotional Aspects
• Reasoning implies several things:
– Logical argument, which includes supplying
empirical evidence in support of one’s position
– Logical consistency, which involves avoiding
fallacies and making sure that one’s argument
follows smoothly from one point to the next until
it arrives at a logical conclusion
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Including Rational and
Emotional Aspects
• Reason (cont’d)
– A certain detachment from feelings; this springs
from reasoning’s formality, which forces one to
consider the truth and validity of what the
individual and others are thinking and saying
– A common means by which differences in feelings,
opinions, and thoughts can be arbitrated
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Logical Consistency
• Logical consistency creates stability within a
moral system
• But a moral system that says something can
never in any situation be done morally is too
rigid
• Therefore, we must strive for logical
consistency but allow for enough flexibility so
that the system remains applicable
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Universality and Particularity
• Universality
– Morality that attempts to help all human beings
relate meaningfully must strive to possess
universal applicability
• Particularity
– But one’s moral system should not become so
generalized and abstract that it cannot be applied
to particular situations and individuals
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Ability to Be Taught and
Promulgated
• If any moral system is to be applied to more
than one person, it must be able to be
promulgated, that is, laid out for people to see
and understand
• It should also be teachable so that others can
learn about is regardless of whether they wish
to accept or reject it
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Ability to Resolve Conflicts
• A workable moral system must be able to
resolve conflicts among duties and
obligations, and even among its participants
• If any moral theory or system proposes a
series of duties and obligations that human
beings ought to perform or be responsible for,
yet fails to tell people what they should do
when these conflicts arise, then the entire
theory is thrown into doubt
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Basic Principles, Individual
Freedom, and Their Justification
• The problems of morality center essentially
upon two areas:
– How to attain unity and order by working with
basic principles so as to avoid the chaos of
situationism and intuitionism
– How to allow individual and group freedom to
work with such principles meaningfully
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Basic Principles, Individual
Freedom, and Their Justification
• The Value of Life principle states that human
begins should revere life and accept death
• The Principle of Goodness or Rightness is
ultimate to any moral system, and it requires
that human beings attempt to do three things:
– Promote goodness over badness and do good
– Cause no harm or badness
– Prevent badness or harm
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Basic Principles, Individual Freedom,
and Their Justification
• The Principle of Justice or Fairness
– This is distributive justice, meaning that human
beings should treat other human beings justly and
fairly when attempting to distribute goodness and
badness among them
– Theories about, and ways of distributing, good
and bad have been fully described in Chapter 6
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Priority of the Basic Principles
• There are two ways of establishing the priority
of the five moral principles
• In the first, or general, way, the principles are
classified into two major categories based
upon logical and empirical priority
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Priority of the Basic Principles
• First Category:
• Value of Life principle
– Because without life there can be no morality
whatever
• Principle of Goodness
– Because it is the ultimate principle of any moral
system
• Both are logically and empirically prior to the
other three principles
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Priority of the Basic Principles
• Second category:
• Principle of Justice of Fairness
– Because in most human actions more than just
one person is involved, and some form of
distribution of goodness and badness must be
established
• Principle of Truth Telling or Honesty
– Because it follows from the need to be fair and
just in one’s dealings with others
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Priority of the Basic Principles
• Second category (cont’d):
• Principle of Individual Freedom
• Because each individual is the only one truly able
to decide what is good for himself
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Priority of the Basic Principles
• In the second, or particular way, priority is
determined only be referring to the actual
situation or context in which moral actions
and decisions occur
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Situation or Context
• Importance of the situation and context of
moral problems and basic principles
– The situation or context is important because
morality always occurs in particular situations to
particular people, never in the abstract
– We must start from a broad yet humanly
applicable, near-absolute principle so that there
will be some basis for acting morally and avoiding
immorality
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Humanitarian Ethics
• Humanitarian Ethics is an eclectic approach, a
“mixed deotological,” or combined
consequentialist-nonconsequentialist and actrule, approach to morality
• How did these two moral issues hold up under
the five principles?
– Living together before marriage
– Rape
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