Master 278: The Peculiar Character of Moral Requirements
i. It's been a few weeks since the Winter quarter started and I'm TA-ing for a Contemporary Moral Issues course. This post is based on some stuff I was thinking about related to our first discussion section.
The approach that we're taking to this course is very interesting because it starts right off the bat by setting before students some tough ethical dilemmas. Not only are these ethical dilemmas difficult to resolve but they all involve hypothetical cases. Now if you're setting up a long-term program of moral education, I would definitely not recommend this approach. You really ought to start with the clear cases, inculcate a well-rounded moral outlook, and only then raise the difficult cases. Otherwise it's too easy for students to just dismiss the idea that there is anything coherent grounding moral and ethical requirements. But this philosophy course is not set up as part of a long-term program of moral education, so it might not be so inappropriate for us to take this approach.
Still, one of the things that I want to work on is making sure that my students do have a solid grasp on how the puzzle cases that we're working with are related to larger and overarching ethical issues. So many interesting philosophical issues were raised in my first thirty-minute discussion with them. We couldn't deal with any of them at any depth. But that's why blog posts are nice.
ii. In the beginning of my discussion section, I tried to lead them through a process of clarifying the subject matter of ethics. I started by drawing a basic distinction between the descriptive and the normative. So where human behavior is concerned, we may distinguish between what people actually do and what people should do. The former is descriptive, the latter normative. Now keeping these straight can be a little tricky. After all, we might ask a question like, "What do most Americans believe one should do in such-and-such a scenario?" This question is descriptive--it asks what Americans' believe. But it asks about Americans' normative beliefs--about their beliefs about what one should do. As long as we can keep the distinction straight, it's a useful one. What distinguishes the subject matter of ethics from that of other fields is that it is concerned with the normative rather than with the merely descriptive.
iii. But further clarification is required. After all, normative statements come in a variety of contexts. So compare the statement, "You should be kind and not bully people," with the statement, "You should take the LSAT." There are a number of differences between these two statements. For instance, the first one concerns one's conduct toward other people while the second concerns how one promotes one's own ends. One of the things that these statements share in common is use of the word "should." Both are normative statements; however (and this is the difference that I want to focus on) one is a moral requirement while the other is not. We could multiply examples of both moral requirements and non-moral requirements. What we then want to get clear on is what determines whether a particular requirement is moral or not.
It seems like one could have moral requirements that are directed at one's self (which means that moral requirements do not necessarily concern one's conduct toward others). Perhaps certain forms of self-mutilation, for instance, are immoral. But one thing that is often thought of as distinguishing the moral from the non-moral is the requirements' universal scope. "You should take the LSAT," only applies to a person who has as their goal getting into law school. If I am not planning or interested in going to law school, then it's simply not the case that I should take the LSAT. That requirement does not apply to me. But many have thought that the application of moral requirements does not depend on the particular interests or aims that one happens to have.
Actually the requirement of universal scope is probably not enough to distinguish moral from non-moral requirements. Some might think that certain rational and prudential requirements also apply universally. So it might not be a moral requirement that one so act as to promote one's long-term self-interest, but it is plausibly a requirement of rationality or prudence. Someone who was neglectful of their well-being would not be acting as they should, even if they would not be acting immorally. But I won't say more about that.
iv. Let's just consider for the moment that morality and ethics are concerned with the normative, as opposed to the descriptive. And they are concerned with universal requirements rather than local or contingent requirements.
What I want to focus on now is one way of trying to isolate the distinctive character of moral requirements and one of the curious features of this approach. You can try this exercise as well: consider, for a moment, why it is the case that (generally) people should not lie. What are the reasons that people (generally) should not lie?
My students listed a number of reasons. If you're caught, bad consequences may follow. If you're caught, that lie can undermine future trust. The consequences of being found in a lie are sometimes (maybe often) worse than the consequences of what you lied about. The list could go on, of course. But now I'd like to point out one particular reason that is separate from three that I've listed so far: people should not lie because it's morally wrong.
v. What's interesting is the thought that the moral badness of lying seems to be distinct from the various possible bad consequences of not lying. And this raises a question: exactly what does moral wrongness amount to? "Lying is morally wrong"--what exactly does that entail? It's natural to think that the badness (including the moral badness) of certain actions is tied primarily to their negative consequences. But some have worried that this places moral requirements on shaky footing.
Consider, if you could tell a lie and knew that (1) no one would find out, (2) no one would be emotionally hurt, (3) no damage to people's trust in you would result, and (4) no harm to anyone would result from the deception, and (5) telling the lie would be advantageous--would you tell the lie. Would it be permissible for you to tell the lie? Or would it still be the case that you should not tell the lie? And if it would be the case that you should not tell the lie, why should you still not tell the lie. We're supposing that no bad consequences whatsoever would follow. So what sense can then be given to the idea that it would be morally wrong to tell the lie?
vi. When we frame the question in this way, it can appear that the concepts of moral rightness and wrongness are tenuous at best. A consequentialist might charge that these concepts, when divorced of any connection with particular consequences, are indeed simply empty. Actions cannot be morally good or bad, says the consequentialist, apart from their good or bad consequences.
I, myself, doubt that consequentialism is true. Must I, therefore, commit myself to the notions of right and wrong, accepting that no intelligible account of their underpinnings can be given? I'd like to think not. Indeed, I think it would be problematic to think that any action that has no negative consequences is still morally impermissible. But that is not because the negative consequences are what make the action morally bad. Rather, it is because negative consequences necessarily follow from morally bad actions.
So I accept the following conditional: if action A is morally bad, then action A will have bad consequences. From this, it follows by contraposition that if action A will not have bad consequences, then action A is not morally bad. But this conditional does not demonstrate that what makes an action morally good--the explanation of its being morally good--is the fact that it leads to good consequences. Rather, it is precisely because an action is morally good that we expect good (in various forms) to result from it. And it is because an action is morally bad that we expect bad to result from it. I don't know that I can offer a strong positive argument for preferring my order of explanation to the alternative. Arguments against consequentialism are not too hard to find.
vii. But if this is right, then what are we to make of the exercise I introduced earlier? When we imagined stripping away all the various negative consequences of telling a lie, it looked like we couldn't maintain (except dogmatically--in the pejorative sense of that word) that lying in that situation would be bad. But notice, that doesn't mean that only results/consequences are what make lying immoral. That just means that the complete absence of negative consequences would show that the action was not bad to begin with.
But this also suggests a further thought. We might have been too quick in supposing that we could imagine a scenario in which a person told a lie without there being any negative consequences. We may not have been looking at the situation aright. And, indeed, there have been some who claimed that all immoral acts are always accompanied by some negative consequence. (Again, this does not mean that what makes some action moral or immoral is the consequences of that act. It just means exactly what we would expect of bad actions--that they lead to bad consequences.
What negative consequence might always accompany an immoral action? If we look at the external consequences of that act (lying, cheating, stealing, murdering) we probably won't find it. Instead, we'll have to look at the immoral act itself. Plato made a suggestion about this in the Republic. He suggested that unjust acts always have a negative effect on that person's soul--leading to a state of disorder and unhealth. He compares justice in the soul to health in the body. Unjust acts weaken and disable the soul--interfering with its ability to function as it ought and to facilitate the flourishing of that individual. The kind of deception, manipulation, self-absorption that are reflected in lying cannot be divorced from it. If they could, well, that would just show that lying in that instance is not a bad thing. But I think we ought to be skeptical of anyone who claims to be so self-aware that they can assure us that in any particular case of speaking an untruth, they don't have to fear for any such consequences. Just ask them to tell you why they feel the need to lie.
Are there hard cases? Absolutely. But dealing with those hard cases comes at a later stage in the process of moral education. That's a cop-out, I know. (Haha.) Or is it? Have you mastered the basics in this instance? Think about it.
--
God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.
The approach that we're taking to this course is very interesting because it starts right off the bat by setting before students some tough ethical dilemmas. Not only are these ethical dilemmas difficult to resolve but they all involve hypothetical cases. Now if you're setting up a long-term program of moral education, I would definitely not recommend this approach. You really ought to start with the clear cases, inculcate a well-rounded moral outlook, and only then raise the difficult cases. Otherwise it's too easy for students to just dismiss the idea that there is anything coherent grounding moral and ethical requirements. But this philosophy course is not set up as part of a long-term program of moral education, so it might not be so inappropriate for us to take this approach.
Still, one of the things that I want to work on is making sure that my students do have a solid grasp on how the puzzle cases that we're working with are related to larger and overarching ethical issues. So many interesting philosophical issues were raised in my first thirty-minute discussion with them. We couldn't deal with any of them at any depth. But that's why blog posts are nice.
ii. In the beginning of my discussion section, I tried to lead them through a process of clarifying the subject matter of ethics. I started by drawing a basic distinction between the descriptive and the normative. So where human behavior is concerned, we may distinguish between what people actually do and what people should do. The former is descriptive, the latter normative. Now keeping these straight can be a little tricky. After all, we might ask a question like, "What do most Americans believe one should do in such-and-such a scenario?" This question is descriptive--it asks what Americans' believe. But it asks about Americans' normative beliefs--about their beliefs about what one should do. As long as we can keep the distinction straight, it's a useful one. What distinguishes the subject matter of ethics from that of other fields is that it is concerned with the normative rather than with the merely descriptive.
iii. But further clarification is required. After all, normative statements come in a variety of contexts. So compare the statement, "You should be kind and not bully people," with the statement, "You should take the LSAT." There are a number of differences between these two statements. For instance, the first one concerns one's conduct toward other people while the second concerns how one promotes one's own ends. One of the things that these statements share in common is use of the word "should." Both are normative statements; however (and this is the difference that I want to focus on) one is a moral requirement while the other is not. We could multiply examples of both moral requirements and non-moral requirements. What we then want to get clear on is what determines whether a particular requirement is moral or not.
It seems like one could have moral requirements that are directed at one's self (which means that moral requirements do not necessarily concern one's conduct toward others). Perhaps certain forms of self-mutilation, for instance, are immoral. But one thing that is often thought of as distinguishing the moral from the non-moral is the requirements' universal scope. "You should take the LSAT," only applies to a person who has as their goal getting into law school. If I am not planning or interested in going to law school, then it's simply not the case that I should take the LSAT. That requirement does not apply to me. But many have thought that the application of moral requirements does not depend on the particular interests or aims that one happens to have.
Actually the requirement of universal scope is probably not enough to distinguish moral from non-moral requirements. Some might think that certain rational and prudential requirements also apply universally. So it might not be a moral requirement that one so act as to promote one's long-term self-interest, but it is plausibly a requirement of rationality or prudence. Someone who was neglectful of their well-being would not be acting as they should, even if they would not be acting immorally. But I won't say more about that.
iv. Let's just consider for the moment that morality and ethics are concerned with the normative, as opposed to the descriptive. And they are concerned with universal requirements rather than local or contingent requirements.
What I want to focus on now is one way of trying to isolate the distinctive character of moral requirements and one of the curious features of this approach. You can try this exercise as well: consider, for a moment, why it is the case that (generally) people should not lie. What are the reasons that people (generally) should not lie?
My students listed a number of reasons. If you're caught, bad consequences may follow. If you're caught, that lie can undermine future trust. The consequences of being found in a lie are sometimes (maybe often) worse than the consequences of what you lied about. The list could go on, of course. But now I'd like to point out one particular reason that is separate from three that I've listed so far: people should not lie because it's morally wrong.
v. What's interesting is the thought that the moral badness of lying seems to be distinct from the various possible bad consequences of not lying. And this raises a question: exactly what does moral wrongness amount to? "Lying is morally wrong"--what exactly does that entail? It's natural to think that the badness (including the moral badness) of certain actions is tied primarily to their negative consequences. But some have worried that this places moral requirements on shaky footing.
Consider, if you could tell a lie and knew that (1) no one would find out, (2) no one would be emotionally hurt, (3) no damage to people's trust in you would result, and (4) no harm to anyone would result from the deception, and (5) telling the lie would be advantageous--would you tell the lie. Would it be permissible for you to tell the lie? Or would it still be the case that you should not tell the lie? And if it would be the case that you should not tell the lie, why should you still not tell the lie. We're supposing that no bad consequences whatsoever would follow. So what sense can then be given to the idea that it would be morally wrong to tell the lie?
vi. When we frame the question in this way, it can appear that the concepts of moral rightness and wrongness are tenuous at best. A consequentialist might charge that these concepts, when divorced of any connection with particular consequences, are indeed simply empty. Actions cannot be morally good or bad, says the consequentialist, apart from their good or bad consequences.
I, myself, doubt that consequentialism is true. Must I, therefore, commit myself to the notions of right and wrong, accepting that no intelligible account of their underpinnings can be given? I'd like to think not. Indeed, I think it would be problematic to think that any action that has no negative consequences is still morally impermissible. But that is not because the negative consequences are what make the action morally bad. Rather, it is because negative consequences necessarily follow from morally bad actions.
So I accept the following conditional: if action A is morally bad, then action A will have bad consequences. From this, it follows by contraposition that if action A will not have bad consequences, then action A is not morally bad. But this conditional does not demonstrate that what makes an action morally good--the explanation of its being morally good--is the fact that it leads to good consequences. Rather, it is precisely because an action is morally good that we expect good (in various forms) to result from it. And it is because an action is morally bad that we expect bad to result from it. I don't know that I can offer a strong positive argument for preferring my order of explanation to the alternative. Arguments against consequentialism are not too hard to find.
vii. But if this is right, then what are we to make of the exercise I introduced earlier? When we imagined stripping away all the various negative consequences of telling a lie, it looked like we couldn't maintain (except dogmatically--in the pejorative sense of that word) that lying in that situation would be bad. But notice, that doesn't mean that only results/consequences are what make lying immoral. That just means that the complete absence of negative consequences would show that the action was not bad to begin with.
But this also suggests a further thought. We might have been too quick in supposing that we could imagine a scenario in which a person told a lie without there being any negative consequences. We may not have been looking at the situation aright. And, indeed, there have been some who claimed that all immoral acts are always accompanied by some negative consequence. (Again, this does not mean that what makes some action moral or immoral is the consequences of that act. It just means exactly what we would expect of bad actions--that they lead to bad consequences.
What negative consequence might always accompany an immoral action? If we look at the external consequences of that act (lying, cheating, stealing, murdering) we probably won't find it. Instead, we'll have to look at the immoral act itself. Plato made a suggestion about this in the Republic. He suggested that unjust acts always have a negative effect on that person's soul--leading to a state of disorder and unhealth. He compares justice in the soul to health in the body. Unjust acts weaken and disable the soul--interfering with its ability to function as it ought and to facilitate the flourishing of that individual. The kind of deception, manipulation, self-absorption that are reflected in lying cannot be divorced from it. If they could, well, that would just show that lying in that instance is not a bad thing. But I think we ought to be skeptical of anyone who claims to be so self-aware that they can assure us that in any particular case of speaking an untruth, they don't have to fear for any such consequences. Just ask them to tell you why they feel the need to lie.
Are there hard cases? Absolutely. But dealing with those hard cases comes at a later stage in the process of moral education. That's a cop-out, I know. (Haha.) Or is it? Have you mastered the basics in this instance? Think about it.
--
God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.
posted by Metaphysician_delta | 7:30 PM
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