Ethics Course Pack

The hard copy of the course pack (purchased through Dollar Bill Copying) contains almost all materials for this course. This web version does not contain the copyrighted articles, which are of course a central part of the course. I post it here so you can use the links for quick reference or just rely on it if you misplace your course pack or are waiting to receive it from Dollar Bill. You can also click on entries in the Table of Contents to go to that section.

Table of Contents

Introduction to Ethics Material in this first section deals with basic ethical concepts and principles. It is written by the instructor and provides an essential foundation for the entire course.

CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS PHILOSOPHICAL ETHICS?.................................................................4

Introduction..........................................................................................................................4 Ethical and Scientific Inquiry: Similarities..........................................................................6

Ethical point of view as impartial and rational.............................................................6 The rejection of custom as a basis for ethics ................................................................7 The rejection of authority as a basis for ethics .............................................................8 The rejection of feelings as a basis for ethics...............................................................8

Ethical and Scientific Inquiry: Different Meanings of “Evidence”.....................................9 A Lesson in Logic..............................................................................................................10

CHAPTER 2: THEORIES OF OBLIGATION .............................................................................13 Three levels of judgment: particular cases, principles, and theories .................................13 Two Approaches to Ethical Theory ...................................................................................15 Consequentialism...............................................................................................................15

What Consequences Are “Good”?..............................................................................16 Consequentialism “in practice” ..................................................................................19 Cost-Benefit Analysis as Applied Utilitarianism .......................................................20

The method of cost-benefit analysis....................................................................21 Problems of Cost-Benefit Analysis: Quandaries of Quantifying Goodness .......21

Non-Consequentialist Criticisms of Consequentialism .....................................................24 Utilitarianism does not take into account rights and rules. ........................................25 Utilitarianism does not take into account justice........................................................26 Consequentialism does not take into account the morally relevant difference between acts and omissions ......................................................................................................28

Consequentialism does not take into account special obligations to special people..29 Non-Consequentialism versus Consequentialism..............................................................30 Kant’s Rule-Based Ethics ..................................................................................................32

The “Good Will”.........................................................................................................32 The Categorical Imperative ........................................................................................33

The rationality of the categorical imperative ......................................................34 The impartiality of the categorical imperative ....................................................36

Difficulties of Kantian Ethics ............................................................................................38 Kant’s ethics is too abstract to yield concrete moral rules .........................................38 Kant’s ethics yields conflicting moral rules ...............................................................39 Kant’s rules are too rigid ............................................................................................39

Which Ethical Theory Is the Right One?...........................................................................40 CHAPTER 3: THE CHALLENGE OF ETHICAL RELATIVISM ..............................................41

Arguments for Ethical Relativism .....................................................................................41 Arguments Against Ethical Relativism..............................................................................43 Is Reasoning Effective? .....................................................................................................44

CHAPTER 4: THE CHALLENGE OF ETHICAL EGOISM .......................................................46 The Challenge of Ethical Egoism ......................................................................................46 Arguments for Ethical Egoism...........................................................................................47

Ethical egoism promotes the interests of everyone ....................................................47 Ethical egoism is the only standard people are capable of following ........................48 Ethical egoism is an ultimate principle of ethics........................................................50

The Arguments Against Ethical Egoism............................................................................50 Group Egoism ....................................................................................................................51

CHAPTER FIVE: TO WHOM (OR WHAT) ARE WE MORALLY OBLIGATED? .................52 The Concept of Moral Considerability ..............................................................................52 Developing Rational Criteria of Moral Considerability ....................................................53 Fetuses ...............................................................................................................................53

Help With Readings ................................................................................................................................................ 1 Ethical Relativism................................................................................................................1 Outline of Singer, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” .......................................................3 Arthur's Case Against Singer...............................................................................................4 Noonan and the Issue of Abortion .......................................................................................6 Warren on Abortion .............................................................................................................7 Outline of Thomson on Abortion.........................................................................................9 Thomson and Singer on Obligation ...................................................................................10

THE MAJOR ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY................................................................................12 Instructions.........................................................................................................................12 Topics.................................................................................................................................12

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HOW TO SUCCEED IN THIS COURSE .......................................................................................................................14 How to Read a Philosophical Essay ..................................................................................14 How to Write a Philosophical Essay..................................................................................16

Guidelines that Apply to All Writing Assignments....................................................16 Guidelines for the Major Argumentative Essay .........................................................17 Summary of An Essay’s Key Elements......................................................................18 Mistakes to Avoid.......................................................................................................18

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Chapter 1: What Is Philosophical Ethics? Introduction

“The bombers alone provide the means of victory.” —Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of England, referring to the war against Nazi Germany, 1940.

Churchill confronted one of modern history’s most anguishing moral dilemmas. He faced what he regarded as the prospect of an immeasurable evil, the victory of Nazi Germany over Britain and other Allied powers in World War II. He judged that the only way to stop Hitler and the Nazis was to use Britain’s Bomber Command with the purpose of killing a large number of ordinary citizens in German cities. The bombings, he concluded, would demoralize the Nazis and greatly increase the chance of defeating them in the war.

Some British officials opposed Churchill’s decision and argued that British air attacks should aim only at military targets, not civilians. They insisted that they were fighting against Hitler’s Nazi morality, and they did not want to imitate him by killing innocent people. They argued that attacking civilian targets is always wrong, even in a war against a supremely evil enemy.

Suppose that Churchill were correct in thinking that the chance of defeating Hitler was small unless German cities were bombed. Suppose he were correct in predicting that the intentional killing of German civilians stood a good chance of turning the war in Britain’s favor. Under these circumstances, would bombing German cities be morally permissible?1

Churchill experienced a classic moral dilemma. He could not avoid making an ethical or moral decision,2 a decision about values. Even doing nothing would be a decision with profound implications. So how does one in Churchill’s position figure out what is the morally correct thing to do? We need a method for making moral decisions. Developing such a method is a central goal of philosophical ethics.

Churchill’s moral predicament was historic and monumental, but we all make ethical judgments every day. Even wondering, “what should I do now?” raises an ethical issue. Ethical questions arise because human beings have the distinctive ability to ask about not only how things are but also how they should be. And we address this question whenever we wonder whether we “ought” to do something or ask if one state of affairs is “better” than another.

1This summary of Churchill's dilemma closely follows Michael Walzer's description of it in Just

and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations, Basic Books, New York, 1977, pp. 255-263.

2There is no generally agreed-upon distinction between the terms "ethical" and "moral." In this course, the two words will be used interchangeably.

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The following questions from a popular calendar suggest moral choices any of us might face:

• If you earned the same wages no matter what job you had, what would you do? • When you are old, which would you rather have: considerable wealth but few fond

memories, or a wealth of fond memories but little in the way of material possessions? • Would you be willing to endure four months of isolation on a rocky island if you knew

you would not only survive the difficult experience but would come away from it with an unwavering core of self-confidence and spiritual awareness?

• If you knew that upon death each of us would be reincarnated as a random baby somewhere in the world, would it make you favor increasing government aid to Third World countries? Note that you would have about a 50 percent chance of returning as either Chinese or Indian.

• If you could choose either to be honest and yet not have people trust you or to be dishonest and have people trust you, which would you pick?3

If you think seriously about questions like these, you will find yourself thinking about your values, about what you regard as worthwhile in your life. If you discuss these questions with others, you will encounter disagreement because thoughtful people have different views about what is of central importance in a human life. Though your decisions about ethical questions will not affect as many people as Churchill’s, you are no less involved in making moral choices.

The field of ethics addresses the need that most people feel to clarify their values. And philosophical ethics, the subject of these chapters, seeks not only to clarify values but to help us resolve disagreements about them, and to do so in a systematic and reasoned way. When addressing questions like those above, philosophers seek to discover not what people would do but what they should do. Often people are inclined to prefer things even when their judgment tells them they ought to prefer something else. Whereas the field of psychology studies people’s actual preferences and behavior (and their causes), philosophical ethics focuses on judgments about what things are good or worth preferring. In this way ethics aims to offer people standards for how they should act.

Ethical inquiry ultimately concerns every person’s search for what Socrates called “the good life,” the life of human excellence. In plainer terms, ethics addresses our concern about the “best” way to make use of the one span of time that we have on this earth. On the social and political level, ethics addresses the question of “the good society,” the form of social organiza-tion that will best promote human good. Looked at this way, ethics or morality is much broader (and more interesting) than it is often taken to be. It is not about some narrow code of prohibi-tions that someone else imposes on you. It is not especially concerned about sexuality, though sexual ethics may be part of more general moral concerns. It is not necessarily associated with any particular religion or even with religion at all. Rather, it is a central concern for all persons who wish to reflect on how to live their lives.

However, philosophical ethics does differ from the way many people ordinarily think about ethics. Philosophers are committed to seeking the truth about ethics using the method of reasoning. Significantly, philosophers also question whether a purely rational approach to ethics

3Page-a-Day 1989 Questions Calendar, Gregory Stockman, Workman Publishing Company.

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is possible and whether reasoning is capable of yielding ethical truths, but they use reasoning even when they investigate these very questions.

These considerations point to the main themes around which this course is organized. Most of the course focuses on the use of reasoning to answer ethical questions, questions about the best way to live our lives and questions about resolving social and political dilemmas. This is the core project of philosophical ethics. Later in the course will explore several challenges to this standard approach of philosophical ethics, including a challenge to the idea of impartial reason as the only proper approach to morality.

Before we can step back and consider the limits of ethical reasoning, we need first to see what it means to base ethical claims on reason and why philosophers are committed to trying to do so.

Ethical and Scientific Inquiry: Similarities Scientific beliefs differ from person to person, but what is actually true presumably remains

the same. At its most ambitious, philosophical ethics also aims for the kind of “truth” that is objective and universal, not a “truth” that varies from person to person.

Probing Further: Can There Ever Be “Objective Truth”? Philosophers debate what it means to talk about an objective or universal truth in both

science and ethics. Some philosophers would say that certain beliefs are more worth holding if they have more evidence in their favor but would shy away from claiming that any belief is “true” in some objective sense. It is possible, for example, that even if rationality and standards for good evidence are common to all human beings, what we take to be rational is just a product of the way all our minds are constructed. We still would not know that our minds are constructed to guarantee that what seems rational to us actually corresponds to what really exists in the world. Maybe whoever (or whatever) created us made our minds so that things that seem to us to be rational and “well supported with evidence” actually have no independent existence outside our minds.

Notice that this skepticism about truth applies to mathematical and scientific truths as well as to ethical truths. If the skeptic is right, when we think we are learning new things about the world, we are actually, at most, learning about the structure of our own minds.

Ethical point of view as impartial and rational There is a special reason that universal truth is important for ethics. A major task of ethics is

to resolve conflicts of interest, to offer a “fair” or “morally correct” solution when different people, or different nations, press opposing demands. If what is ethically right differed from person to person, or from group to group, there would be no impartial standpoint from which to balance competing claims.

The need to solve conflicts of interest leads many philosophers to define the moral point of view as necessarily an impartial point of view. Whether it is possible to attain such a detached

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standpoint is a subject of much debate4, but if we define the ethical point of view as one of pure impartiality, then we need at least to strive to detach ourselves from the interests and concerns of any particular individual, culture, or nation. Philosophers have invented numerous devices for describing this impartial attitude; for example, it has been conveyed through the image of an impartial benevolent spectator or of a God’s-eye view of the world. As one philosopher puts it, “the good of any one individual is of no more importance, from the point of view...of the Universe, than the good of any other.”5 Using this approach, anyone confronting a moral dilemma will, ideally, come to the same solution. If it is morally right for Churchill to bomb German cities, then, theoretically, even German citizens would agree with this judgment—if they adopt the impartial point of view.

In the standard approach to philosophical ethics, being impartial is closely tied to being rational. Impartiality requires using a method that is common to all persons, rather than with what is particular to our histories, such as our being Americans, Germans, Muslims, or Jews. Rationality is held to be what all persons have in common, and reliance on reasoning is considered our best hope for reaching universal ethical truths. Specifically, standard philosophical ethics rejects three non-rational sources for ethical beliefs: customs, authority, and feelings. It is important to see why.

The rejection of custom as a basis for ethics If one investigates the customs of different cultures, one discovers a wide range of moral

beliefs and practices, each of which may have a deep significance for the people who hold them. If we believe tolerance to be a good moral value, we may be inclined to say that each culture is entitled to practice its customs. But these customs reflect moral values that may conflict with one another. They may offer radically different ideas on the role of women, on the extent to which people may gain private wealth, and on whether people should be allowed to oppose the government’s policies. Philosophical ethics seeks to learn which beliefs are the ones most worth holding. At its boldest, it asks which beliefs are most likely to be true, and the mere appeal to custom cannot answer this question.

In this respect philosophical ethics is a lot like science. Different cultures have different ideas on scientific issues, too. There may still be cultures that believe the earth is flat. While we may not wish to force others to change their beliefs, we still want to know which beliefs are worth holding and which are not. And we determine this not by which beliefs are “customary” but rather by asking which beliefs can be supported with evidence and which lack sufficient evidence. The “faith” of the philosopher, like that of the scientist, is that a belief that can be supported with evidence is a belief that is more worth holding. Like scientists, moral philosophers seek to determine which beliefs can be backed up, supported, defended, and justified—all different ways of saying the same thing. Reasoning, as we will see, is the method that philosophers use to support or justify their beliefs.

4 Later in the course we will discuss in much more detail whether it is possible and even desirable to

attain pure impartiality in ethics.

5Henry Sidgwick, The Method of Ethics (7th Ed.), p. 382, quoted by Peter Singer, "All Animals Are Equal," in Understanding Moral Philosophy, ed. James Rachels, p. 287.

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Since philosophical ethics is committed to accepting only ethical beliefs that are supported with good reasoning, a moral claim, like a scientific claim, cannot earn favor merely by being customary in a given society, including our own. We must recognize that equally thoughtful people in other cultures or in other periods of history have held ethical beliefs vastly different from those held by our culture today. What is more unsettling, we have to acknowledge that had we been reared in a different culture, we probably would have very different ethical attitudes from those we now hold. A philosophical approach does not demand that we reject everything we have been taught, but it does insist that we scrutinize everything and not hold any belief simply because the culture in which we happen to be living taught it to us.

The rejection of authority as a basis for ethics Philosophers also reject appeals to authority as a foundation for ethical claims. An

“authority” can take many forms, including parents, laws, religious leaders, and books that are claimed to be sacred, such as the Bible, the Talmud, the Koran, or the Book of Mormon. One problem with appealing to authority is that authorities disagree, and one needs some basis, independent of any one of the authorities, to decide which authority is most worthy of obedience. If one were to try to decide to choose the authority with the “best” values, one would first need some way of learning which values are best before accepting any particular authority. In that case the authority would not actually function as the source of values, and one might as well simply try to learn which values are best directly, without relying on any appeal to authority.

If one tries to make legal authority the basis for ethics, then one is in the absurd position of saying that any change in the current laws must, by definition, be immoral. If the very standard of what is moral were current law, then any change in the law would be a deviation from morality. It seems more reasonable to judge whether a proposed change in the law is desirable by asking whether it, or the current law, better accords with morality, rather than trying to base all moral judgments on what the law happens to be in a particular country at a particular time.

A practical difficulty with appealing to authority is that if each person loyally follows the ethical dictates of her chosen authority, there will be little chance of reaching a universally accepted standard. We tend to think that truth in, for example, medical science, is universal, so the laws of medicine are the same for an Islamic doctor and a Christian doctor. Likewise, from a philosophical point of view, we aim for an ethical truth that will apply to all persons and all times. If persons were to ground their moral beliefs on different ethical authorities, there would be little chance of resolving ethical disagreements.

This last point, that reliance on authority might make agreement impossible, has practical importance, especially given the diversity of American society, but it does not speak to the truth of an ethical belief. Even if everyone agrees about an ethical believe (maybe because they rely on the same authority), that belief could still be false. Just because a group of people all agree that slavery is acceptable (or that the earth is flat) does not make that belief true. Defending or justifying a belief means offering good reasons for it, not just pointing to or achieving a consensus.

The rejection of feelings as a basis for ethics Ethical philosophers also reject subjective feelings as a basis for ethics. How we feel is

molded in large part by the particular circumstances of our lives—our parents, our friends, and our culture in general. These feelings have the power to cause us to believe certain things, but

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our being caused to believe something by powerful feelings no more guarantees the worthiness or truth of a belief than our being caused to believe something through the action of a powerful chemical. A scientist might have a very strong feeling that an experiment will produce a certain result, but that feeling alone cannot count as evidence for a particular conclusion. Similarly, many who carried out the Inquisition, the atrocities of Hitler, or the recent “ethnic cleansing” of Muslims in Bosnia were no doubt prompted by strong and even sincere feelings. In both science and in ethics, emotion can lead us astray; we need to evaluate with reasoning whether the belief we have been led to by our feelings is actually well grounded; that is, whether it is supported with evidence.

There is another problem with using our feelings as a basis for ethics: we may have feelings that conflict with one another. We then need a method for judging which of our feelings is most worthy of being acted upon, and our feelings alone cannot determine this.

Ethical and Scientific Inquiry: Different Meanings of “Evidence”

The standard philosophical approach, then, is to base ethical judgments not on customs, authority, or feelings but on reasoned argument. What a repeatable experiment is to a scientific claim, reasoned argument is to an ethical claim. And just as a scientist must learn not only to do experiments but to construct the right experiments and draw the right conclusions from them, so one engaged in ethical inquiry must not only offer arguments but learn to construct good, well-reasoned, appropriate arguments. When scientists oppose each other, each has some evidence to support his position, and it is even more usual for thoughtful philosophers to disagree with one another. Each philosopher will offer arguments as “evidence,” and then our task is critically to analyze which arguments are the strongest.

The parallel between ethical and scientific inquiry must not be carried too far, however. Though both insist that claims be backed up with “evidence,” the form of evidence appropriate to ethics is different from scientific evidence because ethical questions are different in their very nature from scientific questions. A scientific problem is generally a dispute about what the facts are in a given situation, so the “evidence” for a scientific claim usually takes the form of providing new data that are gained through the empirical method; that is, through observation and experience (e.g., an experiment). An ethical problem, in contrast, may exist even after all the facts are known, so the evidence that is needed to resolve the problem will not take the form of new data. An ethical problem focuses not on factual judgments but on judgments about values.

Think, for example, of two doctors who disagree on whether abortion is morally appropriate in a particular case. Most likely they already agree on the relevant facts: for example, the structure of the fetus at six weeks, the degree of risk of pregnancy to the mother, and the likelihood that the fetus will develop normally. There may be no new medical or psychological fact to be discovered that would alter either physician’s opinion about the moral permissibility of an abortion. Yet they still disagree about something. The kind of “evidence” that they need to decide on the ethics of abortion is a reasoned argument about values, which is something quite different from simply amassing new data. This is not to say that the facts are irrelevant to making ethical decisions. In some cases the facts will be crucial. However, in many cases, and the ones on which we will most often focus, even after all the facts are known, the moral issue may still not be resolved.

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The relation between factual (or empirical) judgments and ethical (or normative) judgments is also clear with respect to Churchill’s dilemma about whether to bomb German cities. Clearly factual data, including predictions about what is likely to happen in the war both with and without using the Bomber Command, are relevant to Churchill’s decision. Should he learn that the war is likely to be won without bombing civilian targets, Churchill’s whole moral predicament would be totally different (and easier). But factual data alone are not sufficient for making a final moral decision because even if we assume that the facts are exactly what Churchill claimed them to be, we still may find it difficult to know what course of action is the morally right one.

Philosophical ethics thus uses a method of inquiry that is both different from most other areas of study, especially the sciences, and also different from the way most people ordinarily think about moral judgments. Its project is an ambitious one: to recognize that factual judgments alone cannot provide a foundation for value judgments, yet not to base value judgments merely on customs, appeals to authority, or personal feelings. Many people think that if a question cannot be settled by an appeal to facts, then one must either depend on some authority or else rely on subjective feelings. Philosophical ethics offers an alternative method; namely, to justify ethical claims, to show that some ethical claims are more worthy of belief than others, because they are more rationally defensible.

How can reasoned argument show that one claim is more worth believing than another? The best way to answer this question is by actually reading arguments for particular ethical positions, such as those you will read in this course. Though these essays may contain more complex argumentation than what you have been exposed to previously, you are already familiar with ethical argumentation from many popular sources. Virtually every newspaper editorial or opinion column argues for an ethical position. No writer expects you to believe the way she does on a controversial issue without offering you good reasons. And this is true not only in ethics but in government or business as well. Anyone who advocates a position, whether it be for an ethical claim or for a corporate plan of action that is designed only to advance that company’s interests, must be prepared to defend it with reasoned arguments. Thus the reasoning skills that you learn in ethics have practical value in many other fields as well. You need to be able to defend your positions with good arguments for two reasons: first, and most important, unless you consider and weigh the arguments for different positions, you cannot know which position is most worthy of your belief; second, even if you feel sure that your position is the best one, you will not be effective in persuading other thoughtful people to believe it unless you can offer them good arguments in its favor.

You will be better able to evaluate the arguments in the readings if you consider more closely how reasoned argumentation works.

A Lesson in Logic A reasoned argument is trying to reach a conclusion. It does this by setting out some

statements, called premises (or assumptions), from which the conclusion “follows” (logically). For example, say I was trying to get you to believe the conclusion that "U.S. actions in Iraq are wrong." I might try this:

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(P1) It is always wrong to try to overthrow a legitimate government.

(P2) The U.S. is trying to overthrow the government of Iraq.

(C) Therefore, U.S. actions in Iraq are wrong.

This argument states two premises, so there are two stated premises in the argument, (P1) and (P2). For the conclusion, (C), to be true, both of the stated premises must be true and the conclusion must follow from the stated premises.

To say that “a conclusion follows from the stated premises” is the same as saying that there are no hidden premises. A hidden premise is a premise that is needed to make the conclusion follow, though it was not stated. If you are opposing an argument, you will want to see if you can find any hidden premises in it. But remember, the hidden premise is not your argument; it is the claim needed by the argument that you are opposing. It is the missing link in that argument. It is what must be shown to be true before that argument can work.

The best way to test the strength of an argument is by seeing whether it can withstand criticism.6 To criticize an argument, you look to see (1) whether its premises are true and (2) whether its conclusion follows from its premises. Imagine that you wanted to oppose the argument about U.S. action in Iraq. One thing you could do is show that one of the stated premises is wrong. Either one would be controversial to many foreign policy experts, and if one were really going to argue for the conclusion (C), he would have to say a lot more about why you should believe (P1) and (P2). We’ll deal with that a bit later. But let’s say we can agree that (P1) and (P2) are true. Does the conclusion, (C), logically follow from (P1) and (P2)? Put another way, and this is what “logically follow” means, if (P1) and (P2) are true, must (C) also be true? If not, then there must be a hidden premise, and you should try to figure out what it is. Stop right now and decide whether you think (C) follows from (P1) and (P2). If you don’t think so, try right now to write out exactly what you think the hidden premise is.

The conclusion does not follow. (If you got that wrong, you have another chance to look back at the argument and try to figure out the hidden premise before you read the answer.) The hidden premise (P3) is “The government of Iraq is a legitimate one.” Let’s make it a stated premise and see what the argument looks like. (P1) It is always wrong to try to overthrow a legitimate government.

(P2) The U.S. is trying to overthrow the government of Iraq.

(P3) The government of Iraq is a legitimate one.

(C) Therefore, U.S. actions in Iraq are wrong.

Of course for the conclusion to be true, it is not enough that it follow from the premises. To say the conclusion follows from the premises only means that if all the premises are true, then the conclusion is true. So we now need to ask whether the premises are true.

6For an excellent discussion of this point and the methods associated with it, see Jack Meiland, College Thinking: How to Get the Best Out of College, Mentor, 1981, chapters 3-5.

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Someone arguing for the conclusion above would need to argue for each of the premises. In defending (P1), for example, one might argue that every country has a right to determine its own political system and values, free of outside interference. In arguing for (P1), one would be advancing new premises, and in this “side” argument, (P1) would function as a conclusion. Then, after the truth of (P1) was thought to have been reasonably established, it would again be used as a premise in the larger argument.

How long can we keep going back further and further like this, continually examining more and more basic premises? Well, as long as we want, but philosophers don’t feel a need to “prove” absolutely everything, only to give good reasons that would show a reasonable person that a given claim is worthy of belief. For instance, if someone were to argue that “Policy X causes needless suffering; therefore Policy X is wrong,” he probably only needs to demonstrate that the stated premise, “Policy X causes needless suffering,” is true. Of course, someone could still say, “Okay, you’ve shown that Policy X causes needless suffering, but there is a hidden premise; namely, “whatever causes needless suffering is wrong.” One could say this, but it might be fair to ignore such an objection because the hidden premise is just not very controversial or worth arguing about. If someone doesn’t see the avoidance of needless suffering as a good reason to reject Policy X, then maybe there is nothing more to be said.

What is the point of this whole procedure if it is not to reach the kind of absolute proof that geometry aims for? (Actually geometry starts with given, unproved assumptions, too.) The point is to show that some claims can be supported with good reasons and others cannot be. Philosophers assume that a claim that can be backed up with good reasons is a better claim, one more worthy of belief, one (many would add) more likely to be true, than a claim that cannot be so defended. (See “Probing Further, Can There Ever Be ‘Objective Truth?’” on page 6.)

When we discuss controversial issues, you will see that philosophers offer arguments that lead to conflicting conclusions, such as “abortion is never permissible” and “abortion is permissible whenever a woman chooses it.” Neither philosopher’s argument may seem unsound in an obvious way, yet both conclusions cannot be true. How can we tell which argument is stronger?

To ask this question is to go from the necessary first stage of understanding what an author says to the more advanced task of engaging in philosophical ethics yourself. To do this, you must evaluate each author’s argument by looking at both its stated and hidden premises, thinking of how their truth might be challenged and seeing whether those challenges can be answered. The response to a challenge may reveal still other premises that are needed to establish the truth of one of the premises in the original argument. The process of going to deeper levels of an argument and weighing challenges and responses is the essence of philosophical inquiry. Teaching you how to do this is a major goal of this course.

A good philosophical essay will (1) offer arguments to support its thesis and also (2) anticipate and respond to objections. When you read the essays in this course, look for specific arguments and responses to objections. After you feel you understand a philosophical essay, try to think of criticisms that the author did not anticipate. Imagine how the author might respond, and consider whether the author’s original argument can withstand your criticisms. Engaging in this process will not only help you in this course; more important, it will help you develop your own values based on critical reasoning.

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Chapter 2: Theories of Obligation It should now be clear that philosophical ethics involves more than compiling a list of our

preferences. Philosophers attempt to use reasoning to answer questions about values and, ultimately, about the best way to live. Since a life consists largely of actions, much of moral inquiry focuses on which actions are the right ones.1 Therefore, one important goal of philosophical ethics is to formulate a theory of right action.

Three levels of judgment: particular cases, principles, and theories

We can think of ethical judgments about actions on three levels, from the least to the most general: particular cases, principles, and theories. Let’s use the issue of abortion as an example. We can judge in a particular case that abortion for a particular person in a particular situation would (or would not) be morally permissible. But it is hard to imagine even the least philosophically oriented person remaining completely on this level. To do so would be to take each instance of abortion and to make an ethical judgment only on it, making no attempt to relate the different cases to one another. A person who did this could judge one case of abortion morally permissible and then another case morally wrong, even though it is similar in all relevant respects to the first case.

Most people demand a degree of consistency in the different judgments they make about particular cases of abortion (or anything else). Another way to make this point is to say that we expect people to be able to answer the question, “why?” when they assert, for example, that a case of abortion would be morally wrong. And we expect an answer in the form of a moral principle, such as “It is morally wrong to kill people.” Principles, then, function to explain our judgments in particular cases and to provide consistency among them.

Principles are more general than judgments in particular cases, and different principles can also be more or less general. The principle “Abortion is always wrong” covers all instances of abortion, but is not as general as “Killing is always wrong,” which covers all instances of killing. A person who appeals to a general principle is expected to employ it consistently in all cases where it applies. Someone who wishes to defend a position against abortion on the grounds that “killing a person is always wrong” would, if consistent, need to oppose the death penalty as well as abortion. This is not to say that it is inconsistent to oppose abortion and yet to favor the death penalty; it is only to say that opposing abortion on the grounds that killing is always wrong is inconsistent with favoring the death penalty. A person who opposed abortion and yet favored capital punishment might consistently do so by appealing to a slightly narrower principle, such as “killing an innocent person is always wrong.”

Formulating a principle that one can hold consistently does not guarantee that one’s principle is sound, however. One might consistently maintain the principle “you should exert power over others whenever you are capable of doing so,” or any of hundreds of other possible principles. The real challenge is to know which of all the possible ethical principles are the ones most

1 This sentence may seem uncontroversial, but we will examine a challenge to it later in the

course. See Mayo, “Virtue or Duty” in Sommers, pp. 310-315.

worthy of belief. This requires moving to the level of theories, a level even more general than that of principles.

Just as we expect people to be consistent in their judgments on particular cases, we also expect people to be consistent in their principles. A person may hold one principle that covers all acts of killing, another principle addressing obligations to endangered species, and still another dealing with racial discrimination. But there must be a reason for holding each of these principles rather than others, and there must be some connection between the different principles we hold. We cannot, for example, claim that we must save endangered species based on the more general principle that “all life is sacred” and then fail to apply that principle when dealing with treatment of persons from a certain ethnic group. Just as we can ask people “why?” when they assert that a particular action is right or wrong, we can also demand a reason for believing one principle rather than another. Typically the answer will take the form of a more general principle; for example, one might defend the principle that “abortion is wrong except to save the mother’s life” by appealing to the more general principle that “killing a person is always wrong except in self-defense.” But we can press the demand for rational justification still further and ask for a reason to accept even that more general principle. We can demand a first principle from which more particular principles are derived. When we demand this most general kind of standard of ethical action, we are at the level of ethical theory.

An ethical theory attempts to answer the question, “what makes a right act right?” If sound, a theory tells us what it is that all morally right actions have in common that make them right actions. A theory provides a definition of right action.

Probing Further: The Relation of Theory to Particular Cases The relationship between theory and more particular judgments is complex. Ideally one

would decide on a correct theory, and then whenever one comes across a particular moral problem, whether it be about killing or taxation or breaking promises or anything else, one would simply apply the theory. But the reality is that we do not have the kind of perfect intellects that allow us to know which theory is correct, and as we try to formulate an ethical theory we can stand behind, we often find ourselves testing the theory to see what answer it yields in particular cases.

This appears paradoxical: theories are supposed to be guidelines for particular cases, yet we check our theory in light of its application to actual cases. But this procedure has analogies to the method of science. In science we develop general explanations or theories to explain phenomena, and the more phenomena a theory explains, the more confidence we have in the theory. If a theory in which we have confidence seems to conflict with what we observe in a particular case, we may decide that our observation in the particular case is mistaken, but we might also decide that it is our that theory needs to be further refined.

Developing a sound ethical theory may require continual revisions and refinements also, and one of the ways of testing a theory is to see whether it accords with those of our judgments on particular cases in which we have the greatest confidence. For example, we are probably more confident that “it is wrong to torture a child for pleasure” than we are of any theoretical standard we might formulate. Therefore, we might safely conclude that any theory that implied that we are morally required to torture a child for pleasure is a theory in need of revision.

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Theories of right action are theories about moral obligation, and it is important to be clear about what philosophers do and do not mean by this phrase. A basic assumption in ethics is that certain actions are morally required, and it is the job of an ethical theory to tell us what kind of actions these are. To say that an action is morally required is also to say that performing the act is a moral obligation, a moral duty, something that one should do, and something one ought to do. Each of these is a different way of saying the same thing. To say that a person is “morally obligated” to do something generally means that if that person chooses freely, then she is morally praiseworthy if she does the action and morally blameworthy if she fails to do it. Failure to do an action that one is “morally obligated” to do is “morally blameworthy” (when one chooses freely) because one chose not to do what she ought to have done. But it is important to realize that saying someone is morally obligated to do something is not to say that the person should be forced to do it or that any particular punishment should be administered if the person does not do it. Those are separate matters, questions of political and legal philosophy. What an ethical theory attempts to do is to define a standard for moral obligation, something that can instruct people who wish to be moral what choices they should freely choose to make.

Two Approaches to Ethical Theory Consider again Churchill’s moral dilemma about whether to bomb German cities. Let’s

assume that Churchill is right in his moral judgment that (a) it would be extremely bad if the Nazis won the war and that Churchill is also right in his factual determinations that (b) a Nazi victory is a real threat and that (c) bombing German cities is the only way significantly to reduce that threat. Even granting all this, and even assuming that ethics must be impartial—considering equally Germans, Britons, and everyone else—people will still disagree about the morality of bombing with the intent to kill innocent civilians.

This example can illustrate the two major theoretical approaches to defining “right action.” One approach, broadly known as consequentialism, judges the rightness or wrongness of an action purely on the basis of the action’s likely consequences. The second approach, non-consequentialism, considers the consequences of an act either morally irrelevant or only one of several factors that must be considered in evaluating whether an action is moral. Thus, the most fundamental controversy in standard ethical theory is whether an action’s consequences are the sole basis for determining its morality.

Consequentialism The first approach, known either as consequentialism or utilitarianism,2 claims that the only

basis for judging the morality of an act is by its consequences for all those who are affected. If an action is likely to produce, for all affected, a better balance of good over bad results than any other action, then, according to utilitarianism, it is the morally right thing to do. One way the utilitarian defends this approach is to claim that there can be no point to moral theory other than to advance general human welfare. The utilitarian must be impartial, not favoring himself or the people closest to him. But if an act promotes general human welfare more than any other act, it must be the morally required action.

2Some philosophers define utilitarianism so that it is one kind of consequentialism while others

make no distinction between the two terms. In this book the two terms are used interchangeably.

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Though consequentialism appears straightforward enough, it is hardly uncontroversial, as an application to Churchill’s dilemma will demonstrate. If Churchill wants to justify bombing innocent German civilians on utilitarian grounds, he would need to claim that even taking into account the bad consequences of innocent people suffering and dying, in the long run the likely balance of good and bad results will be more favorable with the bombings than without them. If he refrains from using the Bomber Command, the German civilians will be spared, but many other innocent people will die and, most important, the Nazis will be likely to win the war, which will cause tremendous suffering for an enormous number of people. Churchill, if he were arguing as a utilitarian, might even point out that his failure to bomb civilians would, in effect, be causing the death and enslavement of millions of people who could have been saved and that the refusal to bomb civilians would actually be the more murderous act. This approach seems at odds with the way many people think about morality, but that alone does not show it to be mistaken. The utilitarian would insist, in fact, that one of the virtues of utilitarian theory is to challenge the unreflective and largely intuitive morality that many people hold and to replace it with a more rational method.

At the core of the utilitarian approach is the conviction that no action is inherently good or bad just because of the kind of action that it is. “Killing innocent people” is a category of action that generally provokes moral revulsion, but the utilitarian claim is that we should oppose such an action when, and only when, it leads to worse consequences than another available act (or doing nothing). Usually this is the case, so generally utilitarians oppose killing innocent people. But if there should be a case—and perhaps Churchill’s predicament is an example of one—where killing innocent people produces better results than refraining from killing, then acting with an intent to kill is the right action in that situation. In contrast, those who oppose utilitarian theory will reject the idea that the results of an action are the only things morally relevant to consider. Some will claim that certain kinds of actions (like killing an innocent person) are inherently bad actions, whatever the consequences.

Utilitarians prefer to characterize actions as “right” or “wrong” rather than as good or bad. Whether an action is the right one at a particular time depends on whether the consequences that follow from it are good or bad. According to the consequentialist, the only things in the world that can be characterized as “good” or “bad” are the results of actions, not the actions themselves.

Applying the utilitarian approach to Churchill’s decision leads to an argument in the following form, where the first premise is the utilitarian standard itself:

(P1) An action is morally required if it, of all available acts, is the one most likely to promote the best possible balance of good over bad consequences for all those affected.

(P2) Bombing German cities with the intent to kill civilians is the act, of all available acts, that is most likely to promote the best possible balance of good over bad consequences for all those affected.

(C) Therefore, bombing German cities with the intent to kill civilians is morally required.

What Consequences Are “Good”? Though all consequentialists agree that actions are right or wrong depending only on whether

their consequences are good or bad, they disagree about what constitutes a “good” consequence. 16

Though this disagreement among utilitarians does not go to the core of the debate between the two different approaches to ethics, we need to say something about what the utilitarian means by “ultimate good” and to examine some of the leading candidates for this title.

There are, of course, many things that we consider good in the world, but when consequen-tialists refer to the “ultimate good,” they mean not those things that are good only because they lead to something else that is good but rather those things that are intrinsically good, good in and of themselves. For example, people often consider money a “good,” but only because it may lead to other things that people value. Money, therefore, has no intrinsic value; its value is derived from something else that is valued for its own sake. In some situations, it may not be good at all. When utilitarians say that an act’s rightness depends on its producing “good,” they are referring to that which is good in itself, and therefore always good. If we can ask about something, “what is it good for?” and can give an answer, then it probably is not an intrinsic good.

What things are intrinsically good? We might think of things like friendship, beauty, and kindness, but we need to consider whether these would be good if they did not lead to human happiness or satisfaction. If they are only good because they lead to greater happiness, then they are not intrinsically good after all. But if we ask “what is happiness itself good for?” we may find it impossible to answer; happiness seems to be worthwhile in and of itself. For this reason many utilitarians have proposed that happiness is in fact the only intrinsically good thing. Historically, in fact, utilitarianism has often been identified as a theory that approves of actions based on whether they produce happiness (rather than “good consequences” generally). “The greatest happiness for the greatest number” is sometimes thought to capture the essence of the utilitarian approach.

Probing Further: What Is “Happiness?” Even utilitarians who agree that “happiness” is the ultimate good may disagree about what happiness

is. There is an historic debate between two utilitarians, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Jeremy Bentham (1784-1832), claimed that happiness was nothing but a quantity of pleasure: the more pleasure, the more happiness. John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) agreed that happiness is pleasure but argued that more pleasure alone does not necessarily create happiness. According to Mill, the amount of happiness an act produces depends not only on the quantity of pleasure that results from it but on the quality of the pleasure. Mill thought that some very intense pleasures might be of low quality and not produce as much happiness as smaller amounts of higher quality pleasures.

Mill thought that identifying happiness, the ultimate good, with amounts of pleasure was mistaken and would lead to putting things like soap operas or video games (or the equivalent in his day) ahead of Shakespeare and Plato. True, Mill might grant, some people get more pleasure out of watching wrestling on television than seeing Shakespeare at Stratford, but they can’t be said to be happier because the pleasure is of such low quality. Mill is famous for saying, “better Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied,” better the somewhat frustrated pursuit of “higher pleasures” than the gluttonous satisfaction of lower ones.

Is this just the worst form of “elitism?” Mill’s distinction of higher and lower pleasures has been the subject of ridicule, but Mill would defend it by explaining that what he means by one pleasure’s being “higher” than another is only that it is the one that is preferred by a majority of people who have experienced both. He would then point to the development of our intellectual or aesthetic capacities. Isn’t it true that a person who has experienced more sophisticated art, drama, literature, or philosophy generally prefers it to the five-and-dime variety she might previously have been drawn to? And isn’t it

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also true that this development only works in one direction, that people don’t go from being lovers of Shakespeare to devotees of “As the World Turns”?

There are, however, forms of utilitarianism that take something other than happiness to be intrinsically good. One popular alternative to happiness is the satisfaction of desires or preferences. Imagine that the government has a choice between spending a certain amount of money either to subsidize the production of Shakespeare or to provide television access to all National Football League games. A consequentialist who saw the satisfaction of preferences as the standard of right action would need to be guided by whatever would satisfy the actual desires of people to the greatest degree. If more people would strongly prefer football games, then making them available for people to enjoy is, by definition, a morally better act than increasing access to Shakespeare. According to “preference utilitarianism,” satisfying actual preferences is the only intrinsic good.

The “happiness utilitarian”3 opposes this and argues that simply giving people what they want doesn’t necessarily make people happier, and what is intrinsically good is happiness. The happiness utilitarian is more sympathetic than the “preference utilitarian” to paternalistic actions, actions that restrict people’s freedom for what is regarded as their own good. The word “paternalistic” comes from a root meaning “father,” and to act paternalistically involves treating an adult as a father would appropriately treat his children. To defend paternalistic action, one must claim to know better than another person what is good for that other person, as a parent could claim to know better than a child whether it would be good for the child to play in the street. A preference utilitarian will have a difficult time making this claim since a person’s good is identified with satisfying that person’s desires, and people generally know better than anyone else what they desire, even if they may be mistaken about what will increase their genuine happiness.

Though paternalism sanctions infringements on personal freedom, it is often though to be appropriate. Laws that require people to get a doctor’s prescription for certain medications are paternalistic laws. People would be freer if they could choose to buy whatever drugs they wanted. But restricting people’s freedom to act on their desires may promote overall happiness and is often thought to be the right thing to do.

Paternalism also might be justified where a person’s current preference is the result of lack of information or the manipulative effects of advertising or propaganda. For example, a person may have a strong desire to smoke cigarettes because advertising has made him believe that smoking will make him into a “Marlboro man,” stronger and more virile (when actually it will do just the opposite). If we make satisfying the actual desires of people the ultimate moral standard, then we cannot take into account how people got the desires that they have. We cannot distinguish between “genuine” desires and those that are the result of ignorance or manipulation.

Preference utilitarians respond to this challenge in one of two ways. Some preference utilitarians attempt to devise formulas to exclude consideration of certain kinds of desires, such as those based on ignorance or misinformation. They then need to develop a way to distinguish between preferences that count and those that don’t, and it’s not clear whether the method of preference utilitarianism itself can do this.

3 The formally more appropriate term is eudamonistic (happiness) or hedonistic (pleasure) utilitarian.

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Other preference utilitarians simply “bite the bullet” and claim that even if a preference is based on misinformation, the preference still exists, and the ethical action is truly the one that will improve the balance of actual satisfaction over dissatisfaction in the world. This claim has particular importance for the ethics of capitalism. (See “Probing Further: Preference Utilitarianism and Capitalism.”)

Probing Further: Preference Utilitarianism and Capitalism Capitalism is often justified on preference-utilitarian grounds as the system most able to

increase the balance of satisfaction over dissatisfaction in the world. Under capitalism the choice of products produced is determined by “market demand”; in

other words, by how great a desire there is for the product. If there is a society where more people have an intense desire for cosmetics, soft drinks, and cigarettes than for elementary school teachers, poets, and musicians, then that society will produce what people want and more high-paying jobs will go to people who develop cigarette advertisements than to those who write poetry or teach elementary school children.

Critics of capitalism argue that it encourages a society to devote too many of its resources to frivolous products and to neglect what people truly need. One kind of preference utilitarian response is to argue that it is morally right to increase human satisfaction, and the only measure of human satisfaction is what people actually prefer. To distinguish between what people prefer and what they “need” or should prefer assumes that policy-makers know better than the people what is good for them.

Consequentialism “in practice” Whatever conception of the ultimate good utilitarians adopt, they generally try to quantify

the good and bad consequences of each available action and recommend the one likely to produce the best possible balance of “plus points” over “minus points.” In assigning these numbers, the utilitarian must consider (a) the number of people who will be affected, (b) the intensity of the effect, and (c) the likelihood of the effect actually occurring. Let’s imagine that only two actions are possible, A and B. If A produces two units of good for two people and B produces 2 units of good for 4 people, then B would appear to produce twice as many “plus points” (twice as much good) as A. They each have the same “intensity” for each person affected, but B affects more people. But the amount of good produced by an action must be weighed against the bad it creates, so if A produces no harm while B produces 6 units of harm, then A’s net value (+4 points) will be higher than B’s (8 minus 6, or 2).

All this talk about plus and minus points of goodness (or happiness or satisfaction of desires) may seem artificial, and this is a criticism we will need to examine. But there is a common objection to the utilitarian approach that is actually quite weak, and we should dispose of it first. The weak objection is that utilitarianism is a poor theory because we can’t know what the consequences will be in the future.

One utilitarian response to this objection is incorporated into the very formula for calculating good and bad consequences; namely, that the likelihood of a result occurring is part of what determines its numerical value. This is actually a point we all take for granted in decision-

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making and is not unique to the utilitarian. If a surgeon judges that a successful operation will produce very good consequences, she must nonetheless consider the likelihood (“the percentage chance”) that the surgery will be successful and also the likelihood of bad consequences, such as death of the patient. If surgery to cure blindness has a 97% chance of being successful and only a .1% chance of causing the patient’s death, obviously there are stronger grounds for going ahead with the operation than if the same chance of success needs to be balanced against a 30% chance of death. The utilitarian is only recommending in the area of ethics what most of us consider a sound practice in many other areas. If we didn’t think it rational to “play the odds” in this way, we might never drive home from our jobs or our classes. Playing the odds, with the best information we can get (which will always be imperfect), is clearly rational. The fact that we cannot know for sure what will happen is a feature of the world we live in and of our limited capacities to predict the future. This is not a weakness of utilitarian theory. The question we need to ask, in assessing utilitarianism, is whether making the attempt to predict consequences, and basing our decision on that attempt, is a defensible method for making moral decisions.

The objection to utilitarianism that is based on our not knowing for sure what all the future consequences will be seems to be based on a false hidden assumption; namely, that the best ethical approach is the one that is simplest to follow, the one that tells you without a doubt what is ethically right to do.

The “argument” would be as follows: (P1) A good ethical theory must be simple and provide definite answers to guide action. (P2) Utilitarianism is not simple and does not provide definite answer to guide action. (C) Therefore, utilitarianism is not a good ethical theory. The conclusion logically follows from the premises, but there is no good reason to believe

that the first premise (P1) is true. Acting ethically may be a complex matter, and a theory that tried to simplify it would not accurately reflect the complexity of moral life.

Cost-Benefit Analysis as Applied Utilitarianism However artificial it may seem to assign “points” to good and bad consequences, this is

exactly the procedure that is often used to determine policies in government and business. Cost-benefit analysis is one accepted method for making policy decisions; it is basically “applied utilitarianism.” Of course governments and businesses rarely adopt the moral point of view, which would require that all persons affected be considered equally. The interests of citizens are in practice weighed more than those of aliens, and benefiting stockholders counts more than benefiting Palestinian refugees. But even though governments and businesses do not adopt the impartial point of view, they do, within the range of their concern, often employ a method of deciding policy based on quantifying consequences that parallels consequentialist ethical theory.

Cost-benefit analysis is important to understand for three reasons. First, it demonstrates a way in which the philosophical theory of utilitarianism is put into practice by policy-makers. Second, many of the issues and concerns raised by cost-benefit analysis reveal problems of utilitarian theory in general. Third, as a method which focuses on the mathematical calculation of results and which attempts to eliminate intuitive and emotional responses, cost-benefit analysis offers one good test of the claim that ethical decisions should be made using a purely rational method.

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The method of cost-benefit analysis Almost every decision of government is, in effect, an ethical problem. Policy-makers

frequently must decide, given limited resources, what programs should be pursued and which are either not desirable to pursue or of lower priority. An underlying assumption of cost-benefit analysis, like the utilitarian theory on which it is based, is that the morally best policies are those that maximize good results at the least expense or, to put it in policy-maker’s terms, those policies that are economically most efficient.

Cost-benefit analysis may, for example, be used in evaluating environmental policies. The government may need to decide whether to enact stricter air pollution regulations; in particular, more stringent controls on automobile emissions. The benefits or “plus points” resulting from such a policy might include improved health, a lower mortality rate from respiratory disease, and the aesthetic value of clearer air. The costs or “minus points” will be the dollars required for such a program: government inspections, higher automobile prices that everyone will have to pay, and the resulting inflation. The ethical question is whether the government should expend some of the society’s limited wealth on this program, rather than some other program.

Cost-benefit analysis aims to answer this question by quantifying the good and bad results likely for a proposed policy. Ideally, decision-makers would then choose those polices that are most likely to produce the best ratio of positive over negative consequences. The benefits of a particular clean air program could be compared to alternative air pollution programs and also to proposals for spending an equivalent amount of money in other areas, such as education, defense, or housing. In principle, cost-benefit analysis is the ideal utilitarian tool because it offers a mathematical way to compare the “good” coming out of different actions and thereby to resolve the ethical questions that policy-makers confront.

Problems of Cost-Benefit Analysis: Quandaries of Quantifying Goodness In practice cost-benefit analysis is more problematic. Though “cost” can usually be

expressed quantitatively in terms of the amount of money a program requires, the benefits are more difficult to quantify. Yet cost-benefit analysis, like utilitarianism, must find a way to express benefits as “plus points” that can be compared both to the costs and to the benefits of alternative courses of action. This is generally done by translating different kinds of “goods” into monetary terms; that is, into dollars that can be compared with the dollars the program would cost. Whether a program is ethically sound then becomes a question of the degree to which the dollars spent will yield a dollar return.

But how can the benefits of cleaner air or improved education be expressed in dollars? The need to quantify benefits and measure them against dollar costs is one of the most troubling aspects of cost-benefit analysis. Two approaches are possible. One response to the problem is simply to focus on those benefits that clearly are quantifiable, such as dollars saved that would have had to be spent repairing buildings damaged by dirty air. But in focusing only on such quantifiable benefits, more important but less easily quantified benefits may be overlooked. Critics of cost-benefit analysis emphasize this “dwarfing of soft variables,” the tendency of cost-benefit analysis to neglect those equally important “softer” benefits that are not easily translated into numbers. For example, one study that analyzed the benefits and costs of a cloud-seeding program to increase agricultural production in Colorado expressed the negative value of more frequent rain only in terms of the tourist dollars Colorado could be expected to lose. Completely

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overlooked were the feelings of local residents who would be deprived of the enjoyment of sunny days.

Generally, however, an attempt is made to quantify the “softer” benefits as well. For example, the improved health of workers can be converted into money saved in sick pay, and the reduction in heart and lung disease might be expressed in terms of health care dollars saved. Whether these numbers accurately convey the full meaning of even these benefits is debatable.

The greatest controversy about quantification of benefits surrounds those programs where the main benefit is the saving of human lives. Many expensive programs—environmental protection, worker safety, health maintenance—are justified on the grounds that they prevent deaths. How does one use cost-benefit analysis or “applied utilitarianism” to compare the dollar costs of a proposed program with the benefit of saving a given number of lives? Doing this requires assigning a dollar value to each life saved, and this is precisely what the cost-benefit analyst tries to do.

Assigning a dollar value to human life raises disturbing issues, but before deciding categorically that doing so is obnoxious and immoral, one must ask what alternatives are available to the policy-maker who aims to make moral choices with limited resources. The cost-benefit analyst insists that a rational, mathematical procedure is likely to produce greater benefits than a decision influenced by emotional considerations that may be psychologically powerful but morally irrelevant. So, for example, the cost-benefit analyst may decide that it is “too expensive” to treat an elderly hospital patient or that a clean air program is too costly for the number of lives it would save, but his justification will be that the same amount of money could do more good somewhere else. It is important to realize that he is not saying that treating the older patient or enacting the clean air program is morally right but impractical; rather, he is saying that these programs would be morally wrong because they would not create benefits as great as could be created if the resources were used differently. For cost-benefit analysis, and for utilitarianism generally, morality requires using all resources—not just money, but limited time, as well—in the most efficient way, the way most likely to produce the greatest benefits with the least expenditure.

Applied utilitarians have therefore developed methods for assigning dollar values to human lives. The usual method is one based on preference utilitarianism, which judges the amount of “good” in a human life by how strongly a person actually prefer to live. Cost-benefit analysis adds that the strength of this preference is to be measured in the dollars they are willing to spend to avoid death. Of course one cannot ask people how much they would spend to preserve their lives (because the amount might be unlimited), but one can ask how much they would be willing to pay to have their risk of death reduced. The average dollar value of each life can then be calculated, based on how much people are willing to pay to increase their chances of living.

For example, imagine that the government is considering a water treatment program that would reduce the death rate from cancer by 1%. To decide whether the benefits outweigh the costs, surveys would ask people how much they would be willing to pay to have their risk of dying reduced by 1%. Since 1% is 1/100th, whatever the average amount people are willing to pay would be multiplied by 100 to determine, in numbers of dollars, how strong a preference people have to live and, for policy purposes, how much “good” preservation of a single life represents. The annual cost of the entire program would then be divided by the estimated number of lives that would be saved each year in order to determine the cost of the program “per life saved.” Ideally, this program could then be evaluated against the amount of good expected from

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other life-saving programs (and the good of other programs that merely improve the quality of life), and the most “cost effective” programs would be the ones judged most worthy of adoption.

If we imagine a cost-benefit approach that considers equally all persons affected, we have a utilitarian model of pure rationality and pure impartiality. Many people have strong reactions either for or against this approach, but it is important not to make a final judgment too quickly. In particular two extreme reactions are worth avoiding.

One extreme is to endorse cost-benefit analysis or applied utilitarianism as a scientific answer to solving moral dilemmas. On this view traditional ideas about moral wisdom, careful judgment, and the judicious weighing of arguments are expendable because all we need to do is to calculate accurately—or to find computers that can—and then churn out the plus and minus values. Indeed, the original aim of utilitarianism was to provide a scientific foundation for ethical judgments, and cost-benefit analysis might be thought to have accomplished this.

However, it should be clear that cost-benefit analysis itself requires making many ethical judgments that cannot be made scientifically. Often the need for these judgments is obscured by simply making certain ethical assumptions, but it is the job of an ethicist to examine and, when necessary, to challenge these very assumptions. For example, were all benefits considered or were the “softer” variables overlooked just because they could not easily be quantified? Were benefits or harms that will occur several years in the future counted less (“discounted”) than those that will occur sooner? This is a particularly important issue in environmental policy where the harms to be avoided might not become apparent for several generations. Though many utilitarians today believe that a distant benefit or harm is just as morally significant as one occurring in the near future (so long as both are equally likely to happen) most cost-benefit analyses count benefits or harms less, by a certain percentage (the “discount rate”) for each year into the future that they are expected to occur.

Assigning a dollar value to a human life often requires the adoption of methods that are even more problematic. For example, how much people say they are willing to pay for something often depends on how the question is worded. If people are asked how much they would pay to have the chance of their own death reduced by 5%, they will be much more generous than if asked about their willingness to pay to have the death rate in their community reduced by 5%, though of course the two questions are logically equivalent.

These, and other technical issues, jeopardize the objectivity of any cost-benefit analysis. These problems do not challenge the desirability, in principle, of using the method in the best way one can. However, they should make people extremely skeptical about the actual use of cost-benefit analysis in public life. There are so many variables that can be played with that any consulting firm that uses a cost-benefit analysis and comes out with a result different from the one wanted by the organization that hired it can simply change one of the variables. But even if one is not so cynical about the way cost-benefit analysis is actually used, one still must realize that there is no clear, scientific way to answer ethical questions such as how much “good” saving a human life represents or whether harm to future generations is as significant as harm to our own generation.

Another extreme reaction is to condemn cost-benefit analysis either because of the difficulty of assigning dollar values to everything or simply on the grounds that it is a cold and heartless procedure.

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The difficulty of assigning dollar values to “softer” variables, such as the enjoyment of a clear view when the sky is not polluted, is important to recognize; however, it does not

necessarily doom cost-benefit analysis. One must simply be aware of these limitations and try as well as one can to take them into account. The most important question about any ethical approach is whether it is desirable to aspire to. Just because a method is difficult to employ does not negate the value of the theory it is based on.

The objection to cost-benefit analysis that it is cold and heartless appears to come closer to focusing on the core question. In effect, the critic is saying that even if our minds were perfect computers and could quantify all benefits and costs, the method still would not be a desirable one. But just to say that it would be “cold and heartless” (or something equivalent) is not sufficient. The critic needs to spell out why ethical decision-making should not be based on purely rational standards. To criticize an ethical approach for being “heartless” raises a much larger issue of ethics; it is a criticism of any ethical standard based purely on rationality, not just a challenge to cost-benefit analysis. Such a critic is not arguing primarily that there are good reasons for accepting an approach other than cost-benefit analysis. She is claiming that something other than “good reasons” must be included in our approach to morality. Put another way, she is saying that ethics is a matter of the heart as well as the head.

A standard philosophical response is to dismiss this kind of criticism. We have already examined why philosophers reject feelings as a basis for ethical judgments. Many would go further and say that it is absurd even to include feelings, along with reason, as foundations for ethics. To do so, one would need to know which feelings we should use and to what extent we should let those feelings shape our ethical decisions. But to do that, one would need to have good reasons for accepting some feelings rather than others and a rational standard for knowing just how much feelings could be relied upon. In that case, ethics is ultimately based on reason after all.

The standard philosophical approach defines ethics as purely rational and purely impartial, and it makes a compelling case for its position. Nonetheless, later in this course we will examine some recent challenges to this standard approach to ethics and raise again, at a deeper level, the question of whether the heart as well as the head must necessarily be involved in moral choice. For the present, cost-benefit analysis stands as one good example of the attempt to purge feelings and intuitions from ethics, and it is an approach that is actually employed by policy-makers in government and business.

Non-Consequentialist Criticisms of Consequentialism Cost-benefit analysis is one particular way of applying utilitarianism. Even if cost-benefit

analysis were judged to be flawed, some other form of utilitarianism might be morally sound. On the other hand, if utilitarianism itself is untenable, then any particular form of it will also be unsound. So the larger question, and one of the central questions in all ethical theory, is whether consequentialism is a good ethical theory. Put another way, assume that we are committed to reasoning as the foundation for ethics, assume that we know what the intrinsic good is, assume that we are able to predict future consequences, and assume that we can somehow quantify the good and bad consequences perfectly. Would basing our moral judgment of an action on whether it is likely to produce the best balance of good over bad results be a fully adequate approach to ethics? The most important ethical criticisms of utilitarianism are directed toward showing that this whole approach is either fundamentally flawed or incomplete because there are good reasons to consider other things about an action besides what is likely to result from it. We will

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examine four criticisms of utilitarian ethical theory, each of which also provides some insight into the spirit of non-consequentialist ethical theories.

Utilitarianism does not take into account rights and rules. The concept of human rights is central both to many popular discussions of morality and to

the philosophical approach of non-consequentialist ethical theories. To say that someone has a right to something means, at the least, that he has a strong claim that does not depend entirely on whether respecting the claim will yield good consequences. For example, if we accept the claim that “all persons have a moral right not to be tortured for their political beliefs,” then it may be wrong to torture to gain valuable information in war even though not torturing would result in worse consequences, for more people, than torturing. Likewise, if we hold that “innocent people have a right not to be targets of bombing attacks,” then Churchill would be morally wrong to bomb German cities even if doing so would have better results than not doing so. There is something else, namely rights, that must be considered.

Non-consequentialists disagree both about what rights actually exist and whether rights are absolutely binding in all cases. What rights-oriented theorists share is the conviction that there are some claims that have moral force independent of considerations of consequences. The most extreme kind of rights-oriented position would give no weight at all to the results of an action and might claim that certain rights—for example, the right not to be tortured—are absolute, meaning that nothing could ever justify violating them. A non-absolute rights theorist might hold that certain rights must be respected unless outweighed by some other moral consideration that is even more important. Among these considerations could be other rights or an overwhelming balance of consequences. But even this kind of non-absolute rights position is not the same as consequentialism because it does not judge the rightness of an act solely on the basis of consequences. Any rights-oriented theories is committed to the claim that there are, at least in principle, some circumstances in which the action which produces the best results is not the morally right one because respecting rights has independent moral force.

Those who employ the concept of moral rights as an argument against utilitarianism cannot argue that we should respect rights because doing so, in the long run, produces better results for all. Anything that produces better consequences is exactly what the utilitarian favors, so this claim is an appeal to the utilitarian standard rather than a criticism of it. Moreover, it would make the need to respect rights depend, in each case, on whether, in fact, better results would be likely to occur. The whole point of moral rights is to assert a claim that is not wholly dependent on the consequences. Whether moral rights, properly understood in this way, are a necessary part of ethics is a central point of dispute between consequentialists and non-consequentialists.

The utilitarian response to a rights-oriented criticism is to deny that any such rights exist. Jeremy Bentham, an early utilitarian, called the notion of rights “nonsense on stilts,” or high-minded nonsense. If the only purpose of morality is to promote human welfare, then “rights” must be mythical entities because they require one to respect a claim even when doing so sacrifices general human good.

Support for the idea of rights, and criticism of utilitarianism for its disregard of rights, is closely related to an appeal to the need for ethical rules. Rules and rights are actually two sides of a coin: a right guarantees something for the person acted upon, whereas a rule spells out an obligation for the person acting. Any rights-oriented principle could be expressed as a moral rule. For example, if we claim that “innocent people have a moral right not to be killed,” that

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implies a moral rule, such as “it is morally wrong to kill innocent people.” Whenever we assert that someone has a right, we are suggesting that there is a moral rule obligating other people to respect that right.

Probing Further: “Rule Utilitarianism” There is a form of utilitarianism, quite different from the one we have discussed, which does

appeal to moral rules. “Rule utilitarianism,” as it is generally known, claims that we should follow those moral rules which, if followed by everyone, would yield the best consequences.

Notice how “rule-utilitarianism” differs both from “regular” or “act” utilitarianism and a fully rule-based, non-consequentialist theory. In act utilitarianism the question is what the consequences would be of this particular action, and an action is morally right if the results are likely to be better than the results of any alternative action. In rule utilitarianism an action is right because it adheres to a good rule, and a good rule is one which, if followed by everyone, would produce the best results.

A completely non-consequentialist rule-based theory shares with rule-utilitarianism the idea of acting on certain morally good rules, but for the non-consequentialist the moral foundation of those rules is something inherent about the actions they characterize, not the results of people following the rule.

Notice that the spirit behind both rights and rules is to characterize certain kinds of actions as inherently moral or immoral, and this is precisely what the utilitarian claims is impossible to do. If the entire basis of an action’s moral worthiness is based on its results, as the utilitarian claims, then there can be no way to characterize kinds of actions as inherently good or bad irrespective of those results.

It is important to stress that this entire criticism refers to moral rights and moral rules rather than to legal rights and rules. Though a utilitarian denies any independent status to moral rights and rules, she need not disapprove of legal rules and legal rights. For a utilitarian whether or not to enact a particular law is simply an action that must be judged by its consequences, like any other action. A utilitarian would claim that whether or not a particular legal right or rule should be adopted is something that must be decided on the basis of comparing the results that would be likely to follow from adopting or not adopting the particular right or rule in question. But classical utilitarianism, as we have discussed it, cannot endorse a moral rule, such as “lying is always wrong,” because the justification of such a moral rule would need to be based on something about the quality of lying itself, not what would happen if people actually followed the rule.

Since the original development of utilitarianism, philosophers have formulated a theory known as “rule utilitarianism,” which does appeal to moral rules as well as to consequences. (See “Probing Further: ‘Rule Utilitarianism’”) Rule utilitarianism is one of several attempts philosophers have made to combine the best elements from each of the two approaches to ethics, consequentialism and nonconsequentialism.

Utilitarianism does not take into account justice. Justice is the element of morality that focuses on the distribution of goods, privileges,

burdens, and punishments. “Distributive justice” is primarily concerned with how fairly

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economic goods are distributed in society, whereas “retributive justice” addresses the issue of what punishments are due to people who have committed immoral actions. Frequently questions of justice are formulated in terms of what is owed to people or what people deserve, and it is therefore closely related to the spirit of rights-oriented ethics. Utilitarianism is criticized for totally ignoring these considerations.

Consider a fundamental question of economic justice: on what basis should wealth be distributed in society? Capitalism and socialism provide conflicting answers to this moral question. The utilitarian answer must, by definition, be that the morally best distribution scheme is the one that maximizes good consequences over bad consequences to the highest degree. The critic of utilitarianism argues that this standard could result in some people benefiting at the expense of others.

Imagine that of all possible distribution schemes, the one that gives enormous wealth and political privilege to 90% of the population and impoverishes (or even enslaves) the remaining 10% actually produces more “plus points” than any other system. This is possible because even though the misery of the 10% would count in determining the “net plus points” from the system, the tremendous benefits that would go to the 90% might outweigh that misery and outweigh it to a greater degree than any other possible economic system.

Now imagine two tax proposals that would, like all tax changes, alter the distribution of goods in the system. Proposal A would result in a very slight reduction in wealth for the 90% who are already well off, and the money would be used to help the poor. Since many fewer people are poor, the gain for each person might be quite significant. Nonetheless, let’s suppose that by doing this the total amount of “plus over minus” points in the system would be slightly less than it was originally, perhaps because of the costs of administering the new program.

Proposal B is a tax plan that would have precisely the opposite effect: the rich would become richer, and the poor would become poorer. However, under proposal B, perhaps because of the incentives provided for wealthy people to produce more, the gain for the wealthy would be greater than the loss for the poor, so the total “net value” in the system would increase.

The utilitarian would have to favor proposal B over proposal A because he is only concerned about the amount of good that each plan yields. Proposal B actually improves the “amount” of human welfare in the society when all persons are considered equally. There are more rich people in the society, so even a slight gain for each one of them will add up to more “points” than a more substantial loss for each poor person.

Utilitarianism is criticized for ignoring the way in which goods are distributed, which is held to be morally significant, independent of the amount of good produced. According to the critic, economic goods and political privileges must be distributed fairly, and fairness may include requirements such as giving people what they deserve and not allowing some people to benefit at the expense of others. These considerations of justice are ignored by the utilitarian and emphasized by the nonconsequentialist.

Utilitarians generally respond to this criticism in one of two ways. One defense is to claim that grossly unequal and seemingly “unjust” distribution schemes would not be adopted, even using consequentialist standards, because they tend to have bad consequences. For example, vast inequalities may provoke resentment, disorder, or even rebellion. These bad effects, the utilitarian must insist, is what makes such systems wrong to begin with.

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Critics of consequentialism find this response flawed. First, as a matter of principle, even if it were true that grossly unequal or slave-type systems inevitably create resentment and disorder, that is still not the reason they are wrong; the system would be unjust even if those consequences did not occur. Second, an implication of the utilitarian position is that if the government could find a sure-fire way to prevent disorder, perhaps even drugging the impoverished or the enslaved people so that they would not be aware of suffering, then the utilitarian would have no reason to object to such a system. Yet, the critic emphasizes, the method of distributing goods in the system is inherently wrong because it is unjust.

When pressed, the utilitarian must concede that should it be possible to create an economic or political “slave” system, benefiting some at the expense of others, and should that system actually produce the best possible balance of good over bad consequences than any other system, it would be morally appropriate. Though they would insist that this is only a theoretic possibility, consequentialists would argue that so long as such a system promotes human welfare to a greater degree than any other system, it is the right one. To think otherwise—to invoke notions of what people “deserve,” or abstract justice or rights—is, according to the utilitarian, to recommend a reduction in human welfare, and to do this is to go against the whole point of ethics.

Consequentialism does not take into account the morally relevant difference between acts and omissions

Critics of utilitarianism claim that there is a morally relevant difference between acting and failing to act (“omissions”), even if the results in both cases are the same. But for the consequentialist even a choice not to do something must be regarded as an “action,” and if bad consequences flow from a failure to act, that “omission” is just as subject to moral censure as an action that produces identical effects. The objection is that this utilitarian position disregards the special responsibility moral agents have for what they actually do, in contrast to things they let happen.

Suppose you know someone who visits an impoverished area of Biafra in order to kill ten innocent people. The result of this action is ten innocent deaths, a bad consequence not likely to be outweighed by any good ones that might also exist. The utilitarian would, of course, disapprove of such an action. Now imagine that you know someone else (perhaps yourself) who receives an appeal for money to aid starving Biafrans, who has no doubt that giving $200 would save at least ten Biafran children’s lives, who is capable of giving $200 for this relief fund, but who chooses instead to use the money to buy a sport coat. The result of this failure to aid Biafrans is that ten people die who might have been saved. The utilitarian must consider both the act of killing and the failure to help to be equally bad acts since both have identical consequences. The critic claims that this absurd implication of utilitarianism reveals one of its key weaknesses, one which goes to the core of what it means to be a moral agent.

Central to morality, according to the non-consequentialist critic, is the idea of a moral agent, a person who chooses to act in a certain way. A moral agent’s action is not the same as a physical event occurring in the world. Events, like floods and hurricanes, can have bad consequences, but we do not assess them in moral terms because they are not the actions of an agent. Likewise, a puppy dog or a sunset might cause much pleasure, but we do not consider them to have the same moral worth as a person’s kindness, even when they produce as much good. The problem with utilitarianism is that it totally disregards the special features of moral agency which make actions different from mere happenings.

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One central feature of a moral agent is acting with particular intentions. In fact it may be difficult even to categorize an action without taking some account of its intention. Whether a certain physical movement is correctly described as “moving one’s fingers,” “pulling the trigger of a gun,” or “attempting to kill someone” depends in large part on the intention of the person acting. However, since the utilitarian assesses all actions only on the basis of their results, without regard to intentions, he is forced into the absurd position of concluding that not sending money to save the lives of ten Biafran children is just as bad an act as going to Biafra to kill ten children. But suppose the person who fails to give money had donated to Biafran relief aid in each of the last five weeks but decided this week to buy himself a suit instead. Clearly the intent of his action is not to kill children, yet, since their deaths result from his “omission,” he is in effect responsible for them. Notice that this is true even though the children would have died even if he had never been born.

The consequentialist response to this criticism is to claim that it rests on a failure to distinguish between evaluating actions and evaluating the moral character of persons. The act of killing ten Biafran children and the act of letting them die by not sending money are morally equivalent, according to the consequentialist. What is morally different are the characters of the two persons. Intentions might be relevant in assessing moral character, but actions themselves become no better or worse when the intentions are pure or perverse.

Consequentialism does not take into account special obligations to special people The following dialogue between the non-consequentialist critic and the utilitarian illustrates

another important criticism of consequentialism, its failure to consider that we have special obligations to “special” people.

Critic: What if your choice were between giving money to save ten Haitian children or to save your own father?

Utilitarian: I would of course have to consider the results of each course of action. Maybe my grief and my family’s grief would be so great if my father died, acting to avoid all that suffering would be the right action. You aren’t saying that I have to ignore my own suffering, are you?

Critic: No, but if you are a real utilitarian, you can’t consider your own suffering—or your family’s suffering—any more than anyone else’s, either. Let’s imagine that the grief of each of those ten children’s families would be just as great as that of your family.

Utilitarian: But I need to consider this: if I help my father, I know I can save his life, but if I give money to some distant place, I don’t know if it will do any good.

Critic: Now you are changing the situation. If your real principle is to put your money where it is likely to do the most good, then you would be obligated to give it to the Haitian children unless you have real evidence that it wasn’t likely to help. But it seems to me that your whole utilitarian position is weird and downright inhuman. Let’s imagine that you had the same reason to believe that your money would save the Haitian children as that it would help your father. Still, it goes against all our moral feelings and intuitions to let one’s own father die in order to save ten strangers.

Utilitarian: Whether it goes against “all our moral feelings” is morally irrelevant to me. The advantage of a rationally based ethical theory like utilitarianism is that it guides us to do the right thing even when the right thing shocks us, goes against our feelings, or opposes our “intuitions.”

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Critic: But you are assuming that “the right thing” is only the action that creates the best results. I don’t doubt that giving the money to the Haitian children would be likely to produce better results. But I think helping one’s own father is more important than impersonally maximizing good results.

This exchange is typical of the debate between utilitarians and their critics. Critics claim that utilitarianism lead to actions that contradict our deeply held sense of morality; in this case, our sense that we have special obligations toward a close family member. Utilitarians may argue that a look at all the consequences, not just the most obvious ones, shows that utilitarianism does not necessarily contradict our moral attitudes. But the utilitarian must also argue that if our “deeply held sense of morality” does not lead us to the act with the best consequences, then it is our sense of morality that must be modified, not utilitarian theory.

Of course critics of utilitarianism must say more than that the disregard of special obligations goes against our deepest moral feelings. They must give some reason why these feelings are good foundations for action. In the case of children, the reason might be that having children expresses a kind of promise or commitment to give them special care and attention. The idea that we should keep promises that we have made in the past is not a utilitarian idea, but the critic of consequentialism might defend it as an important principle that implies that we have special responsibilities for particular people. Of course the principle of promise-keeping applies most obviously only to one’s children. Can you think of other good nonconsequentialist principles that might suggest special obligations toward our parents or close friends or cousins?

Non-Consequentialism versus Consequentialism A central question of all ethical theory is whether consequentialism is a fully adequate

theory, so it will be useful to note a number of things about consequentialism and the criticisms of it.

First, consequentialism is criticized both for being too lax and for being too stringent. One familiar critique of utilitarianism is that it would allow and even require the performance of cruel and inhuman actions: experimenting on children without their consent if a sufficient quantity of beneficial information could be obtained from the experiment, distributing wealth in a vastly unequal way if the happiness of the rich majority sufficiently outweighed the misery of those impoverished, and, of course, torturing and killing innocent people in war if doing so is sufficiently effective in advancing the cause of the “good” side.

Yet non-consequentialists also criticize utilitarianism for requiring too much. Taken literally, consequentialism demands that each person always act to promote the best possible balance of good over bad consequences. Doing some good is not enough; if by act or by “omission,” one is failing to do something which could have promoted more good or relieved more misery in the world, then one is not meeting one’s utilitarian obligation. In a world in which many people are always suffering, few actions will qualify for fulfilling one’s utilitarian duty. A hospital worker in the United States who could be saving more lives if he worked in Pakistan or Uganda would presumably be failing in his utilitarian obligation to promote the best possible results.

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Probing Further: Must We Always Promote the Greatest Possible Good? Utilitarians are divided on exactly how far our moral obligation extends. One view is that

each person is acting appropriately if she simply creates more plus points than minus points with each action. This is a plausible position since such a person is introducing into the world more good than bad, compared to the state the world would be in if the person never existed.

However, if we apply this interpretation to many situations, its flaws become apparent. Say you could save ten innocent children’s lives by doing a fatal experiment on one equally innocent child. Doing the experiment results in nine fewer deaths than would have occurred had you not existed (or not acted at all). But imagine that you could have saved those ten children’s lives by doing the same experiment in a test tube. Surely in that case it is morally wrong to experiment on the innocent child.

Examples like this, which could of course be multiplied, suggest that it’s not enough to produce more good than bad; one must choose the act, of all available acts, which has the most favorable balance of good over bad consequences. This is the more usual interpretation of utilitarianism.

However, it is this reading of the utilitarian standard which suggests that it may be a theory that requires too much of us. On this view, we would appear to be morally obliged to be working to prevent suffering every moment of our lives.

The question of how much we are obligated to sacrifice our interests for that of other people is a key question both for consequentialist and non-consequentialist ethical theory.

Second, consequentialist considerations are purely future-oriented, concerned exclusively about what is likely to happen. A major criticism of consequentialism is that it ignores other kinds of appropriate bases for moral duty. Consider the following controversial non-consequen-tialist claims:

• The inherent nature of persons entitles them to certain basic moral rights. • A person, because of her past behavior deserves certain rewards or punishments. • One’s having made a past promise or commitment creates a moral duty to fulfill the

terms of that agreement (even if not doing so would create somewhat better results). • A person’s standing in a certain relationship to other persons or institutions—being, for

example, a son or daughter of someone, a member of a particular ethnic group, or a citizen of a particular country—may itself create distinctive moral obligations.

It will be important to examine both whether these are sound claims and whether non-consequentialists can formulate a theory which adequately takes them into account in a way that utilitarianism does not. Though non-consequentialists agree that “future results” are not the only morally relevant consideration, they do not agree on exactly what the other foundations of moral duty are. For example, among non-consequentialists who assert the existence of moral rights, there is no consensus about precisely what those rights are, whether there can be conflicts between different moral rights, and how any such conflicts are to be resolved. Nor is it clear whether non-consequentialists are able to incorporate the idea of “special obligations to special people” while still upholding the idea that the moral point of view must be purely impartial.

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Kant’s Rule-Based Ethics Any theory which denies that actions can be morally judged purely on the basis of their

consequences is a non-consequentialist theory, but non-consequentialists differ about whether consequences are one of the factors relevant to judging actions. Some non-consequentialists claim that several factors, including consequences, are morally relevant to assessing actions; others hold that consequences are not relevant at all. The theory most sharply opposed to utilitarianism is that of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Whereas utilitarians judge actions by their results and ignore the intentions of the persons acting, Kant denies that consequences have any moral significance and begins his consideration of the moral worth of actions by focusing on the intention of the person acting.

According to Kant actions can be judged morally only because a person, something with rational nature, freely chooses whether to do the right thing. Good and bad consequences can flow from many things besides the actions of moral agents, but those events are not subjects of ethics. Imagine, for example, that on a given day two children are killed: one child is murdered by a person scheming to gain the child’s inheritance; the other child is struck by lightning. The death of the two children might be equally bad results, but Kant would insist that we not call the lightning striking the child a “bad action,” the kind of thing subject to moral evaluation. What distinguishes the action of a moral agent from a mere event in the world is that moral agents have intentions; specifically, they can formulate the idea of a moral principle and decide whether or not to follow it.

Kant is famous for saying that the only absolutely good thing in the world is a “good will,” by which he means the willingness of a person to summon all her energies to follow correct moral principles. To understand Kant, we will need to examine three elements of this formulation: (a) Kant’s focus on intention, (b) Kant’s emphasis on moral principles, and, most important, (c) Kant’s basis for determining which of all possible principles are the morally “correct” ones.

The “Good Will” According to Kant, a good will is an orientation to follow moral principles simply because

behaving that way is the right thing to do. To have a good will requires being a moral agent with the ability to choose freely. Lightning is not a moral agent because how it “behaves” depends purely on natural causes acting on it. Therefore, lightning that kills a child can be unfortunate, but it cannot be morally bad. According to Kant, lower animals that act on the basis of instincts lack a free will; when they act, they “could not have done otherwise,” so it makes no sense to call what they do morally good or bad. On Kant’s view of human nature, our emotions, desires, and psychological inclinations are purely the result of natural causes, which are not under our control. Therefore, if our actions were always the result of whatever happened to be our strongest desire, we would be no different from lower animals. Some people might be “fortunate” to have some desires rather than others, but we could not call anyone morally better just because they had the luck of having some desires rather than others. The person who acts on naturally kind desires is not acting with a “good will” in the Kantian sense. It is not our desires that make persons moral agents.

Kant considers persons to be moral agents because he believes we possess a capacity that goes beyond the mere sum of our desires or inclinations, the ability to act on principle. Kant claims that rational nature gives people the ability to judge that there are good reasons to follow

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certain moral principles, totally apart from whether they have any desire to do the actions that the principles call for. And it is only when persons do indeed act on moral principles that Kant considers their actions to have moral worth and to be expressions of a “good will.”

Kant’s view will be clearer (and perhaps seem stranger) if we apply it to a concrete case. Imagine that you have two neighbors, neither of whom kill you. One of your neighbors does not kill you because he has no desire to kill; he is naturally a kind, generous person with no hateful, let alone murderous, wishes. Since this person is just doing what he wants to do—to act kindly and refrain from violence—Kant attaches no moral worth to his action. Your other neighbor has an extremely strong desire to kill you; in fact he wakes up every day with this as his most intense wish. However, he knows that killing is morally wrong, so he freely chooses to follow the moral principle against killing. According to Kant, his behavior has moral worth because it is grounded in his sense of moral obligation.

Notice three things about this example. First, Kant is claiming that it is possible to act in a way that opposes even one’s strongest desire. Kant is not saying that there is some other, stronger desire that opposes this neighbor’s desire to kill. Rather, he is claiming that unlike animals that act as a result of their strongest desires or natural processes (like lightning) that behave however causes dictate, persons have a free will, which is precisely the ability to control one’s actions regardless of the psychological desires one may be lucky or unlucky enough to have.

Second, Kant claims that one’s action cannot be called morally praiseworthy just because one does the right thing. Even assuming that your neighbor’s refraining from killing you is the right thing, if that restraint is purely the result of natural forces like desires or inclinations, it is no more morally praiseworthy than a beautiful sunset or a well-tempered puppy dog. Of course the fact that your neighbor is kind to you and has kind desires does not mean that he is not also acting on moral principle, but it’s hard to know for sure. We would have to take away his kindly disposition and see if he still acts kindly. In the case of your second neighbor, we know for sure that the source of action is a sense of moral duty, so we know it has moral worth. To put this point in Kant’s own terms, it is not enough that an action accord with duty; to be morally praiseworthy, an action must be done “from duty.”

Third, moral goodness for Kant has nothing to do with “personality” in the way that term is most frequently used. For Kant what makes us moral agents has nothing to do with our desires, inclinations, or temperaments; these are psychological traits that we share with animals and over which we have no immediate control. Moral agency is based in a willing self which is more than the sum of desires which make up what we typically call a person’s character or personality. This view implies that if we want to educate people to be moral, we should not focus on shaping their desires and inclinations but instead direct our attention on the ability of people to understand and follow moral principles, regardless of what their desires may.

The Categorical Imperative Kantian ethics stresses adhering to correct moral principles and is appropriately considered a

rule-based ethics. But to say that the right act is one that follows correct moral rules does not give any indication of which rules are the correct ones. A person can formulate and act on all kinds of wrong rules, too: “always exploit other people,” “lie whenever you can get away with it,” and so forth. So Kant needs to tell us how to know which rules are the right ones, and he does this through his idea of the categorical imperative.

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The “categorical imperative” can be considered a kind of “super-rule” that instructs us which of all the possible rules are the morally good ones. An “imperative,” of course, is a command, something that tells us we should do something. Kant thinks that most of the imperatives we face are hypothetical rather than categorical. A hypothetical imperative is a command that tells us to do something if some particular condition holds. It is only binding if that condition exists. The following are some typical examples of hypothetical imperatives:

• If you are an American citizen, you should vote in Presidential elections. • If you want to earn lots of money, you should acquire a marketable skill. • If you have diabetes, you should receive insulin treatments.

Hypothetical imperatives, like those above, apply only for people in certain roles or with certain desires or in certain kinds of conditions. Kant claimed that the very idea of morality was of a categorical imperative, a command that applies to all persons at all times without any ifs, ands, or buts. The categorical imperative is the supreme rule of morality, that which we are commanded to do not because we happen to be in a particular situation but simply because we are persons; that is, beings with rational nature.

Kant formulated the categorical imperative as a rule that would test other rules; for a rule to be a moral rule, it must meet the test of the categorical imperative. Kant stated this test in three ways but claimed that each of them is simply a different way of saying the same thing (though this may not be immediately obvious). The two best-known formulations of the categorical imperative are:

1. Act only on that maxim [rule] that you can at the same time will to be a universal law. 2. So act as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of any other, always as

an end and never merely as a means. How did Kant come up with these particular tests as “the supreme law of morality?” Two

underlying assumptions guide Kant’s ethics: (a) correct moral rules are rational rules and (b) all persons have intrinsic (and equal) moral worth. The first formulation of the categorical imperative stresses that a rule, to be moral, must meet the test of rationality. The second formulation emphasizes the equal worth of persons. Though we will discuss the two formulations separately, for Kant, as we will see, they are intertwined. In its insistence that moral rules both accord with reason and treat persons equally, Kantian ethics thus shares with consequentialism a commitment to the standard view that the morality must be both rational and impartial.

The rationality of the categorical imperative One function of the categorical imperative is simply to test whether a rule is rational. At its

simplest, Kant’s rationality requirement bars certain rules as irrational just as a mathematician rejects “2+2=5” as logically inconceivable. The clearest example of an irrational rule is one that contradicts itself; e.g., “never lie but lie when it is convenient to do so.” This is straightforward enough but not very helpful in eliminating many unacceptable candidates for moral rules. Kant takes the idea of rationality further by claiming that since ethics must apply to all persons, ethical rules must not only be self-consistent; they must also be universalizable; that is, it must be possible for all persons, universally, to will that the rule be followed.

Some rules cannot be willed universally simply because there is no logical possibility for everyone to practice them. For example, the rule, “never help other people but always accept

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help from them” could be practiced by one person, but it is logically impossible to imagine a world in which everyone followed this rule; there simply would be no one to do the helping if everyone sought help from others but never offered help. This is an example of a rule that simply cannot be conceived as universal.

There are other rules that can be conceived universally but which Kant claims could not be “willed” universally. What Kant means by this formulation is the subject of much debate. It is tempting to interpret Kant as meaning that people would not wish to see everyone practicing such a rule, but Kant is quite insistent that psychological matters like wishes are irrelevant to ethics. Kant is concerned about the rules that a purely rational being could “will” to follow, and he even says that no part of his ethics has anything to do with particular qualities of human beings as a species. If there are any other rational beings in the universe, beings with entirely different psychological desires or wishes (or none at all), Kant’s ethical framework would presumably apply to them.

By testing whether a rule can be “willed universally,” Kant seems to have in mind something between a purely logical test, the possibility of thinking of the rule’s being universally followed, and a psychological test, the actuality of flesh-and-blood human beings wishing to see the rule obeyed by everyone. Though it is not precisely clear what this “in between” is, Kant helps by giving a few examples of rules that fail to meet this unusual test.

The rule “never help others when they are in need” is (unlike “never help others but always be helped by them”) clearly a rule that everyone could imagine all people following, but Kant says that a rational person could not will it:

. . .although such a maxim could be a universal law of nature, one could not will it to be a universal law of nature without having one’s will come into conflict with itself. For we know that many situations will arise in which one will need the love and concern of others. So if one were to will such a law of nature, one would be depriving himself of that aid he knows he will need.4

This sounds as if it is an appeal to consequences, and it has sometimes been interpreted that way, but if Kant is clear about anything, he is clear about denying to consequences any relevance in the moral assessment of action. Kant seems to have in mind that a rule like this could not be “willed” universally because the very idea of “being in need” suggests that one wills help. If one universally wills the idea of never helping anyone in need, that would imply that one were willing to affirm the idea of not being helped even when in need oneself. And this is irrational not because it is something most people would not wish on themselves—maybe some masochists do wish it—but because the very idea of being in need in some way implies a will to be helped.

This interpretation helps to distinguish Kant’s rationality test from either the Golden Rule or from a utilitarian standard that looks at the results of actually following a form of conduct. According to the Golden Rule, if I am someone who genuinely does not like receiving help from others, then I should refuse help when others need it. Whether or not I should offer help is dependent on my particular temperament and my own set of preferences, things which Kant regards as morally irrelevant in determining the rationality of a moral rule.

4Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), trans. Manuel Velesques.

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According to consequentialist thinking, whether or not you should help others in need depends a lot on the kind of community you live in. Most communities are made up of some good people and some bad people, and it’s a general feature of human nature that people tend to respond more kindly to people who are kind and generous to them. So in the “real world” (the one we know and live in), there are good consequentialist reasons for you to be helpful to other people who are in need because doing so will make it more likely that a greater number of people will follow your example (both with you and with one another). But now imagine two other possible worlds, one in which everyone is perfectly good and always helps one another and one in which everyone is perfectly bad and never helps one another. Imagine that in each of these worlds the people are such pure examples of goodness and badness that nothing you do will influence their behavior in the least. If your only reason for acting helpfully toward others in need were consequentialist, there would be no point in either of these worlds for doing so. People are going to help you and one another or not regardless of what you do. Under the Kantian standard, in contrast, there would be as much reason to follow the rule to help people in need as there would be in our “real” world. The rule about helping is not dependent on the particular circumstances of the world, the feelings and psychological propensities of others in the community. Rather, it derives its moral force, according to Kant, from the sheer logic of the rule itself.

The impartiality of the categorical imperative Kant’s second formulation of the categorical imperative stresses the inherent and equal worth

of all persons. For a rule to be a moral rule, it must be one that does not treat persons merely as means but as ends. Persons, according to Kant, must be thought of as having worth in and of themselves, not because they can be useful in achieving some other purpose, however noble it might be. For Kant it is never moral to “use” people, even in order to help a greater number of people.

Kant’s requirement that we treat all persons as “ends” takes the equal worth of persons farther than utilitarianism. A utilitarian must be impartial in judging the effects of actions, and each person must count equally when judging good and bad results. I cannot give myself or my family more points just because it is we who are going to be harmed by an action. If I will be harmed “ten points worth,” then those ten points count no more and no less than “ten points worth” of harm to a person 6,000 miles away. But it is no violation of impartiality to count my pain twice as much if an action actually will cause me twice as much pain. Utilitarian theory allows, indeed requires, that we balance some people’s good or harm against that of others. This means that even under the impartiality followed by consequentialism persons may be used as means.

Imagine that doing a painful experiment against a person’s will is the only way to save fifty other human lives. From an impartial utilitarian perspective, it seems likely that doing the experiment is the morally correct action. You are not favoring each of the people whose lives can be saved; it’s just that there are more of those people, so considering each person equally results in “trading off” one life in order to save fifty. Kant opposes this kind of “trade off” because it treats a person as a means and fails to recognize the intrinsic worth of that person.

Kantians criticize utilitarians for lacking “respect for persons”; that is, for disregarding the inherent dignity and literal “integrity” (unity) of each person. From a Kantian point of view, what utilitarians do is equivalent to merging all human consciousnesses and considering them to

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be one vast container of good and bad experiences. For a utilitarian, an action is right if the container (the world of conscious beings) is kept at the highest net value. But this ignores the fact that the world’s supply of conscious experience is divided into separate persons, each of which has inherent worth.

Kantians see utilitarians doing with a group of persons what is only reasonable when restricted to the experience of a single person. An individual person may trade off good and bad experiences. For example, you may decide to endure thirty minutes of pain at the dentist in order to gain years of freedom from dental problems. You may choose to suffer through many minus points of pain in a college course you detest in order to achieve the benefits of a college degree. It is reasonable for a single person to regard moments of experience, near and far, as of equivalent value and to decide to sacrifice the quality of some moments to gain much greater benefits at other moments. But what the utilitarian does, and what Kantian theory forbids, is to trade off one person’s conscious moments for that of other people. It merges all the conscious moments together and claims that it is reasonable to make some people suffer if enough other people can benefit. Kant’s imperative that people never be treated as “mere means” deems all such actions as morally unacceptable.

Kant’s vision of the perfectly moral society is one that is a “kingdom of ends,” one in which there are no superiors or inferiors, one in which each person recognizes the equal and inherent worth of every other person. This does not rule out all relationships where one person serves another. A person may work for another in return for wages or volunteer for a medical experiment, but this is morally acceptable only when the person freely consents to the arrangement. Free and informed consent are important requirements that follow from the Kantian idea that persons must be treated as ends. When a person does so consent to serve another, that person is not being used as a “mere means.”

Kant thinks of this second formulation of the categorical imperative, the requirement that persons be treated as ends rather than as mere means, as equivalent to the first formulation, which requires that a rule be one which one could will to universalize. The connection seems to be that no one could will to have himself or herself treated as a mere means. When one asks whether one could will a rule to be universalized, she is asking whether she could will the rule she is about to follow not just in the particular case at hand but for all similar cases, including those in which her own role was the opposite of what it is; for example, where she were not the person acting but the person being acted upon. For example, if I am about to break a promise to a person because it is convenient, I must ask if I could will that everyone follow that principle of promise-breaking. The very idea of everyone’s following such a principle implies others breaking their promises to me. If I respect the inherent worth of all persons, then I cannot will that this principle be followed universally because it implies that I will to have myself be used as a means. And it is never rational for a person to will that he himself be used as a means. To do so would be to regard a person not as having intrinsic value but only instrumental value, the value of a “thing” that is useful for pursuing other ends.

Though Kant’s categorical imperative does not depend on the actual desires and wishes of the person acting, it is in its “spirit” quite similar to the Golden Rule. Both the categorical imperative and the Golden Rule ask a person to act toward others on the basis of principles that one could will others follow when acting toward him. The difference is that Kant claims that a rational being simply cannot will that certain principles be universalized, irrespective of the

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person’s particular desires or personality. Whether universal reason can make such moral judgments is a subject of much debate.

Difficulties of Kantian Ethics Though the “spirit” of Kantian ethics has been enormously influential, Kant’s ethical theory

has also been subject to severe criticism.

Kant’s ethics is too abstract to yield concrete moral rules One criticism of Kant is that the purely formal test of “universalizability” cannot yield useful

moral principles. If one asks only whether a principle can be “willed universally,” one will end up excluding all kinds of principles that should not be excluded and including other principles that do not merit acceptance. For example, some have argued that one could not act on the principle to become a doctor because one could not will that everyone be a doctor. And since one can will universally that everyone use a striped toothpaste, it would seem that using a striped toothpaste is a morally binding principle.

The problem of relating pure rationality to “real world” cases might be partially resolved by classifying actions less generally. Perhaps my action is not “becoming a doctor” but rather “becoming a doctor in a world that needs doctors” or even “becoming a doctor in a world that needs doctors and where I have an exceptional talent for medicine.” Surely there are many situations where a very general classification of an action leaves out morally relevant details. A person deciding not to have children where there is a strong probability that the children would be severely deformed is obviously facing a different ethical choice from the general decision not to have children. Even if the principle of not having children cannot be universalized, the principle of not having deformed children might be universalizable.

A difficulty with this approach is that it is not clear how specific one should be in classifying an action. Should my lying to a murderer be classified as simply an act of lying or even more generally as an act of “speaking,” or should it be described as an act of “saving lives,” “lying with an intent to save lives,” or “thwarting a murderer”? Kant’s categorical imperative offers no clear guidelines on this point.

Many interpreters of Kant are much more liberal than Kant himself was about formulating rules. Whereas Kant thought the categorical imperative ruled out all lying, other Kantians propose that we can act on rules that include qualifications. On this view, we don’t have to ask simply whether one should follow the rule “always tell the truth” or the rule “always lie.” The rule, “never lie except to save a human life” is every bit as much of a rule as the more general “never lie.” When one lies to save a life, one is not making an exception to the rule because the life-saving exception is built into the rule itself. On the other hand, going to the other extreme and describing an action so specifically that it refers only to the particular case one confronts is clearly against the spirit of Kant’s ethics. You can’t offer up a rule like “never lie unless your name is Oliver North and you are serving under a President named Ronald Reagan.” But beyond proper names, particular dates, and specific places, it is not always clear which conditions are morally relevant ones.

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Many philosophers have attempted to capture the spirit of Kantian ethics but to reformulate his theory to allow, as Kant did not, the inclusion of some factual considerations. Once we make rules so specific that we are referring to things like the probability of deformed children or the overcoming of a murderer, we seem to be sneaking in factual considerations in the very way we

classify actions. Some other theorists have done this more straightforwardly by developing modifications of Kantian theory. (One of the most well known such theories is John Rawls’ theory of justice.)

Kant’s ethics yields conflicting moral rules A second criticism of Kant’s ethics is that even if it does provide concrete moral rules, it

offers no way to resolve conflicts among different, equally “universalizable” rules. Kant himself thought that no two rules that met the test of universalizability could conflict. However, many interpreters of Kant disagree.

Though there is much confusion about exactly what rules are in accord with Kant’s categorical imperative, Kant himself mentions a few. Two of these are the rule that we should develop our own talents and that we should help others in need. One problem with these rules goes back to the first criticism of Kant’s ethics: it is not clear why violating them cannot be as universalizable as following them, why someone cannot will that everyone follow the rule to be lazy and let his talents “rust” or to stay to himself and neither accept help nor give any help to others.

Even if we assume that both the rule to develop our talents and the rule to help others can be generated from the categorical imperative, we still seem confronted with the possibility of a conflict between them. To what degree must I help others where doing so compromises my ability to develop my own talents? The utilitarian uses a quantitative method to resolve problems like these, but Kant is not open to that approach. Yet it is not clear that his theory provides us a way to resolve such conflicts.

Kant’s rules are too rigid One of the most frequent criticisms of Kant is that his rules are too rigid. As we saw, in

Kant’s own account, lying is always immoral, and no reference to the disastrous consequences of telling the truth are morally relevant. But what should do you as a Kantian if Charles Manson comes into your house and asks you where your children are hiding? Kant claims that you are obligated not to lie, but you are permitted to remain silent. You don’t have to say, “the youngest is in this closet, and my daughter is hiding in the bedroom,” but you cannot intentionally mislead a mass murderer either, even if you judge this to be the only way to save your children. Many critics, including many who would not go to the other extreme and accept a purely utilitarian standard, consider rules such as this one overly rigid. It may be that lying is not justified whenever better consequences would be created by lying and yet not be the case that lying is always wrong. Finding this “middle ground,” possibly a synthesis of consequentialist and Kantian ethics, has been the aim of many ethical theorists.

Kantian rules may often be thought to correspond to rights. If people are obligated to follow a rule to keep their promises to other people, then we may also say that persons have a right that promises made to them be kept. The issue of how rigid or flexible a rule should be parallels the question of whether rights are absolute. It is consistent with Kantian ethics to suppose that certain actions, actions which treat people as mere means, are violations of rights. Kant’s position seems to be that it is never permissible to violate a person’s rights, but this, too, may be overly rigid.

Imagine that the only way to save thousands of children’s lives would be to do a dangerous and painful experiment on one person who refuses to give his consent. Experimenting on

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someone against his will is a classic case of using a person as a “mere means.” We might well suppose that Kant is right to think that there is something inherently bad about doing this and that it would be wrong to do such an experiment even when it would allow us to bring about slightly better results in the world than not doing the experiment. If so, we agree with Kant that morality is not exhausted by a consideration of consequences. But if the effects of not doing the experiment were overwhelmingly bad, we might think that there comes a point when it is morally appropriate to infringe the right of a person not to be “used” in an experiment. After all, each of the other people whose lives will be saved are equally innocent, equally valuable. But Kant’s rule against using people as a means in this way is absolute, and so is the corresponding right of a person not to be used. To many of Kant’s critics, this approach to morality is too rigid.

Kantian ethical theory is, along with utilitarianism, one of the two main approaches to contemporary ethics. However, most Kantians do not accept Kant’s own formulations in their original form. The task then becomes to offer a theory in the spirit of Kant that captures the essence of his theory, the idea that each person has an intrinsic value that cannot be “traded off,” while allowing for the flexibility that is needed to serve as a standard for concrete decision-making by flesh and blood human beings.

Which Ethical Theory Is the Right One? We have reviewed some of the main theories philosophers have advanced for judging the

morality of actions. We are now ready to see how these theoretical approaches are applied to concrete issues such as abortion and economic justice. This would be a lot easier, of course, if we knew which theory is the right one; then we could just apply it to every moral problem we confront in order to get the “right answer.”

Of course ethics is more difficult than that. Our search for the “best” ethical theory is just beginning. As you grapple with particular moral problems, think of how consequentialists and nonconsequentialists would approach each issue. You will read authors who argue for their positions drawing upon utilitarian principles and other authors who appeal to rights, rules, and justice. You may at different times find one or another approach most persuasive, and you may be tempted to say that for some issues utilitarianism is the right theory but that something closer to Kant’s ethics works best on other issues.

However, to pick and choose a different ethical theory for each issue is to abandon the whole project of finding a consistent standard for moral action. The whole point of an ethical theory is to guide us to the right action in particular cases and to insure consistency in our judgments. If we first decide which action is right and then invoke the theory that accords with our particular judgment in a given case, we are using the theory more as an after-the-fact rationalization than as a guiding standard.

We may still feel that no one theory tells the whole story about what makes an action morally right. If we are not to abandon the search for a defensible ethical theory, we then need to develop higher-level criteria to instruct us exactly to what extent to use consequentialist thinking and to what extent to employ nonconsequentialist principles. Another way of putting this is that we need a new ethical theory that incorporates the best elements of the primary theories. We may touch on some of the possibilities during the course.

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Chapter 3: The Challenge of Ethical Relativism Philosophical ethics uses reason in an attempt to reach well-grounded ethical conclusions

that will apply universally to all persons at all times. If the faculty of reason is shared by all persons, then a “reasonable” argument for an ethical position should win the assent of all rational people. In practice, of course, people disagree in their ethical beliefs, and determining which reasons are the most powerful may itself be the subject of much philosophical controversy. This does not mean, however, that there cannot be a “right” answer. When controversy exists about scientific claims, we do not conclude that each answer is correct for the person who believes it. Philosophers, likewise do not give up on the idea of there being a “most reasonable” ethical conclusion just because people currently disagree about what it is. Disagreement may be due to people failing to be completely rational, to their being insufficiently critical, or to their relying, even without their knowing it, on emotions or customary ways of thinking.

Some philosophers do reject the idea of universal truth in ethics. Ethical relativists claim that what is true in ethics is dependent upon (or relative to) what group or culture one belongs to. They claim that there is no one truth in ethics but that what is true varies from group to group and from one period of history to another. Thus, for the ethical relativist, slavery might really have been morally right in Mississippi in 1830 even though it is morally wrong today. There simply is no universal truth about the moral wrongness of slavery.

At the extreme ethical relativists make the truth of an ethical claim depend upon each individual’s beliefs. This is tantamount to saying that there is no objective standard at all in ethics, only the different beliefs of individuals, each of which is assumed to be subjectively “true” for that person. Ethical skepticism is the claim that there is no way to judge the different subjective ethical beliefs of individuals.

Arguments for Ethical Relativism One argument in favor of ethical relativism is the fact that cultures and groups do not agree

about ethics. Cultures exist where women are not thought entitled to the same rights as men. Cultures disagree about the morality of homosexuality, abortion, and even the owning of private property. And if we look not only to different cultures today but to different periods of history, we find even more dramatic differences in ethical belief. The ethical relativist claims that what is ethical clearly depends upon the time and place in which one lives.

The claim that different cultures disagree about ethics is known as “sociological relativism.” It is a purely factual or descriptive claim, and it is crucial to see that it is not the same claim as ethical relativism. Sociological relativism only claims that what some cultures believe about morality is different from what other cultures believe about morality. Ethical relativism claims that what is actually true in ethics differs from culture to culture.1

Sociological relativism is probably true, and ethical relativists sometimes use the truth of sociological relativism as support for ethical relativism. The idea seems to be that since cultures have different beliefs about morality, there cannot be one universal ethical truth. However, taken by itself, this is a weak argument for ethical relativism. The mere fact that beliefs differ from

1 For more help in understanding the relationship between ethical relativism and sociological

relativism, see the study guide on ethical relativism on page 1 of the last section of this course pack.

time to time and place to place does not imply that the actual truth differs. The ethical relativist needs to show that there cannot be a universal truth in ethics, but if her only support is sociological relativism, all she has shown is that ethical beliefs differ. Unless we assume that whatever people believe must be true, there is no reason to think that variations among beliefs imply differences in truth.

That differences in belief are compatible with the existence of a single, universal truth is clear when we think about science. There probably still exist differences in belief about the shape of the Earth. Some cultures may believe the Earth is flat. But we do not conclude that wherever the Earth is believed to be flat, it really is flat. Therefore, just because there exist different beliefs about the morality of abortion or capital punishment, we need not conclude that no universal truth exists about these matters.

The flaw in this argument for ethical relativism can be shown in another way. We can see that there is a hidden premise in the argument. The stated premise in the argument is sociological relativism, the purely factual (non-normative) claim that “Different cultures have different moral beliefs.” The conclusion is that “Different cultures have different moral truths.” This conclusion does not follow without an additional premise; namely, something like “Whatever a culture believes in ethics is true” or “No culture is mistaken in any of its ethical beliefs.” According to the critic of ethical relativism, there is no more reason to believe that premise than to believe that a culture cannot be mistaken in its scientific beliefs.

Probing Further: Is Ethical Relativism Paradoxical? According to the ethical relativist, the only way to know what is morally right in a culture is

to determine what that particular culture believes or practices. Ethical relativism ultimately claims that reasoning is powerless to show that the ethical position of one culture is better grounded than that of another. Yet the ethical relativist presumably believes that he has good reasons to favor ethical relativism over the belief in universal ethical truths (ethical absolutism). The ethical relativist does not just say that ethical relativism is true in those cultures that believe it to be true; rather, he claims that it is a universal truth about the nature of ethics. Is this self-contradictory?

Not necessarily. The ethical relativist claims that no ethical claims are universally true. Ethical claims are those that actually characterize such things as actions or traits of character as good and bad or right and wrong. Ethical relativism is not itself such a claim; it is a claim on a higher level about the nature of ethical claims. It exists on what philosophers call the “meta” level. Just as metaphysics does not itself make claims about energy or other forces in the physical world the way physics does but instead deals more abstractly with claims about reality, so “meta-ethics” does not itself make moral claims but studies the nature of moral claims and the methods used to demonstrate their truth. Ethical relativism can be considered a meta-ethical claim focusing on the nature of ethical truth itself. Thus it is at least possible that ethical relativism is universally true, even though this would imply that no actual ethical claims are universally true.

Ethical relativists respond with a second, more sophisticated argument that, compared to science, there is more reason to think that differences in ethical belief imply the absence of a universal truth. The reason is that in ethics there is no method by which we can verify the truth or falsity of a belief, whereas in science we can perform observations and experiments to

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“prove” that some beliefs are true and some are false. For example, we can demonstrate, with “real” evidence, that the Earth is closer to being round than flat, but there is no way similarly to demonstrate the morality or immorality of abortion.

The upshot of this response is to deny that reasoned argument can be a form of “real” evidence in support of ethical claims. Whereas the ethical relativist may implicitly respect the scientific method as a way to verify the truth of a scientific claim, he seems to be claiming that each culture (or even each individual) has its own idea of “good reasons,” and there is no way to determine that some arguments are stronger or more effective than others.

The best way to respond to this argument is simply to show that reasoning can be effective in advancing ethical positions. This will be discussed shortly (see “Is Reasoning Effective” on page 44). But the assumption that reasoning can support one ethical claim over another is shared by the authors of almost all the essays in this course since they offer reasons for believing one ethical position over another. So we test the power of reason to justify an ethical claim whenever we evaluate any piece of work in philosophical ethics.

Arguments Against Ethical Relativism Ethical relativists claim that each culture or group has its own ethical “truth” which may

differ from the “truths” of other cultures or groups. But one criticism of ethical relativism is that it cannot even determine the ethical “truth” in a particular culture. This is true for a number of reasons. First, it is not clear what the boundaries of a “culture” are. If we are trying to figure out what is ethically right on abortion, do we consider “the United States” one culture, or do we assign a different “truth” about abortion to each religious group? Might not Catholics have a “truth” on abortion that is different from liberal Protestants? Perhaps young people constitute a relevant group on the issue of abortion, different from older people. Or women, in contrast to men. In short, the ethical relativist claims that ethical truth depends on what culture or group one belongs to, but she has no clear standards for determining the relevant culture or group.

Second, even if we could determine the relevant group, we would not always know what is ethically right for that group. To determine what is “true” for a culture, the relativist needs empirical evidence that a group shares a certain ethical belief or practice. But it is not always clear what a group’s belief or practice is. Sometimes a group might believe one thing and practice something else, such as the American view of cheating on income taxes. Often there will be no consensus of belief and practice. We could take the majority’s position as the standard, but then we are in the absurd position of saying that something is right in a culture because 51% believe in it, but if next year 51% are against it, then it becomes wrong.

Another major argument against ethical relativism is that the idea that a majority (or even a consensus) position in a culture makes that position morally right has absurd implications. If a majority in a country support abortion, then anyone who opposes it is by definition wrong. The permissibility of abortion has nothing to do with a woman’s right to choose, the moral status of the fetus compared to the mother, the results of abortions, or any other quality of abortion. The only thing that makes it right is that it is approved of by most people in the culture. If child-beating were approved, then it would be right, too. Now if somehow the abortion opponent can get a large majority to support his position, then abortion becomes wrong simply because most people oppose it. Again, the wrongness of abortion has nothing to do with any quality of the act of abortion itself. If a majority opposed tooth-brushing, that would be wrong too.

Notice also that it does not matter what method the abortion opponent uses to get a consensus, whether it be verbal persuasion, a chemical in the drinking water, or the annihilation

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of all proponents of abortion. Once the society reaches a consensus against abortion, abortion, for the ethical relativist, is morally wrong in the only sense in which anything can be morally wrong. Thus it is often said that for the ethical relativist, might truly makes right. If the Nazis had been victorious in World War II and killed anyone who opposed them, then there would now be a consensus in favor of Nazi values and, according to ethical relativism, the Nazis would actually be morally right for our culture, not just believed to be right. (Of course the ethical relativist denies that there is any distinction between ethical belief and ethical truth.)

Ethical relativism opposes the idea that we can evaluate a culture’s values in any way other than by using that culture’s same values as a standard. Likewise, no proposal for a change in policy can be assessed on its merits; for example, by seeing whether there are good reasons to change current policies. Since current policies are by definition morally right for the ethical relativist, any changes from the status quo must be rejected as immoral. Whether the change is one proposed by Jesus or Hitler, it is by definition wrong because the only standard of moral rightness is what is currently believed or practiced. The ethical relativist cannot ask whether a particular change would represent moral progress or moral regression because there is no independent standard to use to compare current policies to the new ones being proposed.

The lack of any standard of morality independent of the beliefs or practices of a particular culture also makes it meaningless to compare the ethics of two different cultures. Which culture has higher moral standards, South Africa under apartheid or present-day Sweden? For the ethical relativist this has to be a meaningless question (not just one difficult to answer). The question has no meaning because there can be no comparison of the ethical standards of different cultures since the only possible ethical standard is that of a single culture. If people find the question meaningful, they must have some idea of an independent, possibly universal standard in ethics against which the two cultures are to be judged.2

Ultimately, the case against ethical relativism rests on the claim that ethics is not fundamentally different from science in one respect: they both seek universal truth based on rational standards of evidence. Even those who doubt that reason is a perfect instrument for assessing ethical claims are likely to think that torturing children for pleasure is wrong because of something about the act itself (or the consequences of the act), not merely because people in this culture at this time tend to disapprove of it. If they have good reasons for their disapproval, then they may be able to offer effective arguments even to those people who, because of their cultural or personal history, cannot yet see the wrongness of torture.

Is Reasoning Effective? We must now confront a core question: can reason, as a human faculty, provide sufficient

evidence to support ethical claims? Perhaps the best way to answer this question is to see how philosophers actually argue for different ethical positions and then to determine whether rational argument gets us anywhere. However, it can be shown, even before we look at particular essays, that some reasons simply are more worthy of acceptance than others.

For example, imagine that someone were arguing that a particular case of abortion is morally permissible. Say that person could demonstrate that without the abortion, both the mother and the fetus would die. For most people, this consideration would count as a powerful reason for

2 For this section of argument against ethical relativism, I owe much to W.T. Stace, The Concept of Morals, section included in Burr and Goldinger, Philosophy and Contemporary Issues, 7th Edition, Prentice-Hall, 1996.

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judging the abortion acceptable. Of course it relies on the truth of a starting premise, “abortion is morally permissible whenever both the mother and fetus would die without an abortion.” This premise is not obviously true, and the person who just points out the fact that the mother and fetus would die has not made any attempt to demonstrate its truth. But it is clearly a morally relevant consideration, and at first view at least, it counts as one good reason to think the abortion is permissible. (Perhaps, after further discussion, there might appear to be even stronger reasons against the abortion.)

Contrast this kind of argument with something quite different. Imagine that the person arguing for the abortion pointed out that “the mother has blonde hair” or “the father very much wants the child.” The first point seems totally irrelevant and the second, if anything, goes against the idea of thinking the abortion is acceptable. It is hard to imagine any rational person who would regard these as good arguments for the morality of an abortion.

We have touched on three possible arguments in support of the permissibility of a particular case of abortion, and we have made some judgment about each of them. Without adding a lot of additional premises, it does not seem that any reasonable person, regardless of the culture he came from, could have wildly different assessments of the strength of these arguments.

We rely on this same kind of common reason (or “common sense”) in many discussions of international affairs. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq, claimed that Kuwait really is just a part of Iraq. Though most people doubted that this was true, people from all cultures generally agreed that this is the kind of reason that might justify the Iraqi action. Had Saddam Hussein operated on an entirely different logic from our own, he might have just as well said, “we wanted to take over Kuwait” or “we thought it would be fun for our troops to dominate another people.” But everyone recognizes that these are not moral reasons for an action. They might each be true, but they still would not provide an ethical justification for invading another country. What does and does not count as a good ethical reason tends not to be deeply mysterious. We rely on our sense of what is reasonable when we try to resolve international conflicts. We also rely on our common human power of reasoning when we discuss contemporary moral issues, such as those in this course.

A final point. The claim that there is such a thing as good and bad reasoning does not depend on the claim that all people will ever actually reach agreement. The strength of an ethical argument does not depend on people actually accepting it. There will always be people so controlled by their feelings or by the customs they are used to that they will not be able to reason critically. But just because an untrained person cannot see the strength of a philosophical argument is no more reason to reject the argument than a person’s not being able to follow the logic of a geometric proof is reason is reject the proof. Philosophical argument may be more subtle and more open to criticism than the most obvious geometric proofs, but the faith of the philosopher is that sustained inquiry eventually will provide clarification of the issues in a manner accessible to any reasonable mind.

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Chapter 4: The Challenge of Ethical Egoism How Much Are We Obligated to Sacrifice for Others?

Fifteen to 20 million people die of hunger and starvation each year, 41,000 die each day, 28 people every minute, 21 of them children.1 The cost of saving many of these people is relatively small. Dehydration, a major cause of death in many countries, can be reversed by distributing little packets of sugared, salted water at a cost of about 10 cents per life saved.

Imagine that you receive an appeal from Oxfam America, a major charitable organization. It says that with a $50 contribution, you can save 100 lives. You would otherwise spend the $50 on movies or other entertainment. Are you morally obligated to give that money to Oxfam America?

Now imagine that you have just given $50 to Oxfam America. It’s still true that another 100 lives could be saved if you gave an additional $50. You have to admit that you are not down to your last penny and that none of your basic needs would suffer if you gave more. Are you obligated to donate another $50? To what degree are you obligated to sacrifice your own welfare to help starving people?

Perhaps no ethical question is more fundamental than the degree to which we are obligated to sacrifice our own interests either to help other people or to prevent harm to others. A typical “moral dilemma” presents a situation in which we can benefit a great deal, but only by hurting someone else, or one in which we can greatly benefit others but only at some expense to ourselves. Exactly how much are we morally obligated to sacrifice our own interests for other people?

Traditional moral thinkers have held one of three positions on the question of how much we should weigh our own interests relative to the interests of others. We can count ourselves to the exclusion of everyone else (ethical egoism), we can consider our own welfare equally with the welfare of others (ethical universalism), or we can ignore our own good entirely and aim only to promote the good of other people (ethical altruism). Not many people claim to meet the purely selfless and even saintly altruistic standard, though some interpret Christianity as demanding that we aspire to exactly that. The main debate among philosophers is between the first two standards, ethical egoism and ethical universalism.

Consequentialism and non-consequentialism are both universalistic theories. Whether one judges acts by their results or in terms of rules and rights, one considers oneself as no more or less important than anyone else. Both theories, in spite of their obvious differences, share a commitment to the impartial point of view.

The Challenge of Ethical Egoism Ethical egoism is the position that persons are morally obligated to promote only their own

interests. This does not mean one should always act selfishly: often it will be in your own interest

1Leaflet from The Hunger Project.

to help a friend (who may later help you) or to give to charity (to gain a reputation for generosity). Nor does it mean only thinking of immediate gain. A businessperson may have good egoistic reasons not to cheat customers because in the long-run being honest with customers is probably good for business.

Egoistic reasons for acting may be quite subtle. One may help others in order to avoid guilt, or to have a good feeling about oneself. But the justification for acting must always be that the act, of all those available, promotes one’s own interests to the greatest possible degree. According to the ethical egoist, one should never act purely out of a desire to help someone else or with a motive of “being moral,” where “morality” is construed universally.

Probing Further: Ethical Egoism and Guilt over Selfish Behavior A paradoxical feature of some accounts of ethical egoism is that avoidance of guilt may

be given as a reason for doing an action that helps others at some expense to oneself. But if one were truly a consistent ethical egoist, one should not be feeling any guilt for failing to help others. One usually feels guilty when one fails to do what is morally required. But since, for the ethical egoist, one is required only to advance one’s own interests, one should feel guilty only when one fails to look out for oneself.

An ethical egoist might respond by pointing out that even though it is irrational to feel guilty when one considers only oneself, people who have been raised in traditional cultures do in fact feel such guilt. Since even an ethical egoist might be able to predict about herself that she is going to feel “irrational” guilt if she fails to help someone, she must take seriously the harm that such guilt will do to herself. So she may end up helping someone at her own expense because failing to help will result in the even greater harm of inflicting irrational guilt on herself.

Of course in the long-term the ethical egoist would recommend that people re-educate themselves not to feel this kind of irrational guilt. Instead one should feel guilty, as an egoist, when one’s irrational guilt prevents one from fully advancing one’s own interests!

Arguments for Ethical Egoism Three main arguments are advanced to support ethical egoism: (1) it is the best way to

promote the best interests of everyone; (2) it is the only ethical standard people are capable of following; (3) it is an ultimate principle of ethics.

Ethical egoism promotes the interests of everyone Many ethical egoists argue that the best way of promoting everyone’s interests is for each

person to consider only himself. This claim parallels one that is often made on behalf of capital-ism, that the best way to benefit everyone economically is for each person to pursue his own economic interest. According to Adam Smith, an early advocate of capitalism, an “invisible hand” will insure that all the individual interests achieve some kind of harmony.

This argument is a purely empirical claim which must be shown to be true or false through our experience with the world. Many people have claimed that the economic argument is false,

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that the problems of pollution, toxic wastes, and overpopulation all demonstrate that the guiding hand that is supposed to produce general welfare out of individual self-seeking is not merely invisible but nonexistent. Similarly, the critic of ethical egoism might claim that there is simply no evidence to show that the general good is best promoted by individuals considering only their own interests.

A more powerful criticism of this argument focuses not on whether or not it is empirically true but, rather, on whether it would support ethical egoism even if it were assumed to be true. If the whole reason for being an ethical egoist is to promote the general good, then the ultimate ethical standard would seem to be the welfare of all people, not just oneself. Ethical egoism is proposed only as a tactic for bringing about the general welfare. Someone offering this argument as a reason for being an ethical egoist would adhere to egoism only so long as it did in fact promote the general welfare. Thus the argument is not really an argument for the principle of ethical egoism.

Ethical egoism is the only standard people are capable of following A second argument for ethical egoism also appeals to a factual claim; namely, that people are

only capable of acting with a self-interested motive. Before examining whether this is true, it is important to see why this purely factual claim, this claim about the way humans are, has anything to do with ethical theory, which is concerned with how humans should be.

An axiom of ethics is that “ought implies can”; in other words, it makes no sense to say that someone “ought” to do something if it is something she cannot do. I cannot tell you that you have a “moral obligation” to jump up 100 feet or change the chemical composition of your genes. If it is impossible for someone to do something, then it cannot be a moral obligation.

When ethical egoists claim that it is impossible for people to act with anything but a self-interested motive, they are not just saying that people find it easier to act to promote their own interests than the interests of others. This latter claim is almost surely true, yet it has no relevance for ethics. It is perfectly intelligible to say that someone is morally obligated to do something that she does not find easy to do. A person can be morally obligated to do something extremely difficult, something that she resists very strongly. But—and this is the ethical egoist’s point—a person cannot be “obligated” to do something that she is absolutely incapable of choosing.

The factual claim that people are incapable of acting except with their own interest in mind is psychological egoism. If psychological egoism is true, then no universalistic ethical theory can possibly be true. Ethical egoism would be the only theory human beings could follow.

But is psychological egoism true? This is a matter that should interest all of us, even apart from its importance for ethics. We often want to know whether human beings are capable of acting without a selfish motive. For some people, the human capacity for love requires the ability genuinely to care about others for their own sake. A more cynical view is that even in our supposedly most loving moments, we are really acting to get something for ourselves: reciprocated love perhaps, or even just the satisfaction of knowing that one is a loving person.

Most philosophers find psychological egoism to be flawed. First of all, even if all people act to satisfy some desire for themselves, there is still an important distinction between people who can derive satisfaction only from actions that promote their own interests and people who derive satisfaction from acting on behalf of others. Maybe what is means to be generous (or even ethical, contrary to Kant) is to be the kind of person who has a desire to help other people.

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The psychological egoist responds by pointing out that if a person helps others because he desires to, then he really is acting out of a selfish motive, that of satisfying his own desire. But this response fails to distinguish between a desire’s being “one’s own” and a desire’s having as its content the promotion of one’s own interests. What the psychological egoist must show is that every action must have a selfish motive. If you give $10,000 for famine relief because that is what you desire to do, you are surely satisfying one of your desires, but that doesn’t mean that your desire is a self-interested one. You may actually have no motive other than to help starving people, and merely pointing out that giving satisfies your desire does not show that your motive was self-interested.

Imagine that you visit your grandmother in the hospital every day even though it no longer gives you pleasure to do so. You may not even be sure that she recognizes you, and you are foregoing other activities you would

greatly enjoy. If you accept that this is possible, how is such action to be explained? One possibility is that you simply judge it to be the right thing to do. According to Kant, you may act on this judgment even if you have no desire at all to visit your grandmother.

Probing Further: Does Psychological Egoism Make Ethical Egoism Pointless?

If psychological egoism is true, then no universalistic ethical theory is possible. It might also be thought that psychological egoism negates even ethical egoism. If persons are only capable of acting with a self-interested motive, what point would there be in telling people that they are morally obligated to act self-interestedly? Wouldn’t this be like telling a person that he is “morally obligated” to breathe when she has no choice except to breathe?

Not exactly. Ethical egoism might be instructing us to act in accord with our genuine, long-term self-interest. Even if psychological egoism is true, that means only that we act in what we think is our self-interest, but we may not always get it right. Since we have the freedom to choose unwisely, the ethical egoist would be instructing us to make the right choices, those that truly advance our own interests.

The threat that psychological egoism poses to ethics does demonstrate that ethics only makes sense for beings who have the capacity for free choice. If we could make no free choices, it would never make sense to say we are “obligated” to make one choice rather than another. We usually think of non-human animals as beings without a free choice; therefore, we do not apply the notion of “moral obligation” to them. If we think of human beings as having only a narrow range of possible choices—for example, to act only in ways that they believe advance their own interests—then the scope of possible obligations will be correspondingly limited. Thus psychological egoism may not eliminate the notion of moral obligation, but it does narrow it considerably. We can only have an obligation to choose things we are capable of choosing.

The psychological egoist claims, however, that no action occurs unless one desires the action. In the case of your sick grandmother, you must have wanted something—perhaps feeling that you were a dutiful grandchild or avoiding guilt—more than the enjoyable activities you sacrificed. But even if this is true, it might still be the case that you only have such desires because you first either make a moral judgment that visiting your grandmother is the right thing

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to do or first have an unselfish desire to relieve your grandmother’s suffering. It might only be because of that moral judgment or that unselfish desire that you would feel good about visiting or guilty about not visiting. It is not enough for the psychological egoist to point out that visiting your grandmother helps you avoid guilt; she must demonstrate that you are visiting your grandmother only for the purpose of avoiding guilt.

If psychological egoism is false, then it is possible that people are obligated to sacrifice their own interests for those of others, however difficult this might be.

Ethical egoism is an ultimate principle of ethics If ethical egoism cannot be justified because it promotes the good for all and if psychological

egoism fails, then the ethical egoist might still claim that for each person to promote his own interests is simply an ultimate principle of ethics. We are now at the point of asking about the very meaning of “ethics.” And the major argument against ethical egoism is simply that, whatev-er egoism is, it is not an ethical theory because, by definition, the ethical point of view must be impartial.

The Arguments Against Ethical Egoism Many philosophers claim that the ethical point of view must, by definition, be impartial

because that is the only way that ethics can perform one of its functions, solving conflicts of interests. Peoples’ interest often clash, and if ethics told each person to pursue his interest alone, there would obviously be no way to reach a “fair” or “just” solution to a conflict. So in order to solve conflicts of interest, we must not identify with the interests of any one party in the dispute; rather, we must be “disinterested,” as a judge is disinterested. Though we might be very concerned about a conflict, we must not make our ethical judgments having an “interest” or stake in the way the conflict is resolved.

Imagine the following everyday example of a conflict of interest. You and an acquaintance are asked to paint a neighbor’s garage for a total payment of $100. You expect it will take the two of you about five hours, and you arrive promptly Saturday morning at 7 A.M. to begin work. Your acquaintance fails to show up, so you begin painting. You finish the job ten hours later, and your neighbor comes out to pay you $100.

At this point your acquaintance shows up and says he wants to claim his $50. When you protest his failure to help with the painting, he points out that just because one part of the agreement couldn’t be kept is no reason not to keep the other part of it. He tries every means he can to persuade you to give him $50.

What is a “fair” solution to this conflict of interest?

Assuming no extraordinary circumstances—for example, that you are a millionaire and your acquaintance is starving—the answer seems obvious. But notice that it is obvious only from an impartial point of view. Were we to follow the ethical egoist’s prescription, we could only advise each party to pursue what is good for himself. Your interest would be to keep the $100. Your acquaintance’s interest would be to get at least $50—or even $100 if he could manage it. But we have the sense that you can fairly pursue your interest here not simply because it is your interest but because, from an impartial perspective, there are good reasons backing up your claim.

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Utilitarian and formalist ethical theories try to specify exactly what those reasons are. Ethical egoism, by its very nature, cannot do this.

If ethics must, by definition, take an impartial point of view, then ethical egoism cannot be an ethical theory at all. It is not that it is a poor ethical theory; rather, it is simply not a candidate for an ethical theory. However, you can still ask, “is there any reason for me not to act egoistically?” but it is important to be clear that you are no longer asking whether it is ethical to act egoistically. Instead you are granting that the ethical way of acting requires impartiality, and you are asking, “why should I be ethical?” Once we accept that the ethical point of view requires impartiality, ethical egoism is best seen as a challenge to all ethical theories rather than as itself a candidate for an ethical theory.

Group Egoism The debate between ethical egoism and ethical universalism focuses on the actions of

individual persons. The controversy has parallels in discussions about corporate responsibility and the behavior of nations in the international arena. The view that corporations or nations should pursue only their own interests is a form of “group egoism,” where the corporation or the nation takes the place of the individual. Those defending this view may offer arguments that mirror the arguments of an ethical egoist. An alternative strategy is to claim that universalistic morality applies only to individuals and that businesses and nations act in domains that are not subject to moral judgment in the same way as individual behavior.

Many of the arguments against ethical egoism also apply to group egoism. The argument that ethics must be impartial in order to solve conflicts of interests seems especially powerful when considering international conflicts. Take, for example, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Middle East. Some Israelis may think it is in Israel’s interest to remove or kill all the Palestinians and take over the entire area. Some Palestinians may think it is in their interest to eliminate all the Israelis. Fanatics on both sides are probably wrong to believe these things, but even if each side were right, neither of these narrowly self-interested positions could ever offer a way of solving the conflict of interest that exists between Israel and Palestine. To take an ethical perspective requires viewing the matter from a larger position than that of just one of the parties in the dispute. It requires a “disinterested” perspective which group egoism cannot, by its very nature, offer.

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Chapter Five: To Whom (or What) Are We Morally Obligated? You are a space explorer. In your travels you come across all kinds of phenomena:

rocks, rivers, volcanoes, and things that look like animals. In some cases you want to do experiments on the weird entities you encounter. But the question occurs to you: do I have any moral obligations to these beings or can I do anything I want with them?

What qualities would a being need to have for it to be an object of moral concern? Would it be sufficient for it to be “alive”? Would it need to be able to move on its own? To be conscious? To communicate with others? To be capable of fully developed rational thought?

The impartial ethical standpoint requires that we not consider ourselves or our family more than others, but it does not specify who or what counts as an “other.” Some cases are clear: adult human beings count; chairs and tables do not. But many moral questions focus on entities that are in a gray zone:

• If a doctor has to choose between saving the life of a fetus or saving the life of the mother who conceived it, what is the morally correct choice?

• Is it wrong to inflict painful experiments on dogs in order to develop a new shade of lipstick?

• If we could bury toxic wastes using a much less expensive method and we knew for sure that no living person would be harmed but that it would endanger future generations, would it be wrong to bury the wastes cheaply?

• Would it be okay to violate the clear desires in someone’s will if that was the only way to benefit a living person?

• Would it be permissible to destroy the Grand Canyon if, at some future time, there was no person who cared about preserving it?

Fetuses, animals, possible people in future generations, cadavers, and areas of natural beauty are all examples of phenomena whose moral status is debatable. Yet many moral decisions, like those listed above, cannot be made until we decide to what degree each of these kinds of things “count.”

The Concept of Moral Considerability To say that something “counts” ethically is to say that it is the kind of being to which we

may have moral obligations. A being which merits this kind of moral attention is morally considerable. It has moral standing, and its welfare cannot be ignored. Notice, however, that we may have moral obligations regarding entities which we have no obligations to. For example, you have an obligation regarding your neighbor’s lawn chair; you cannot do anything you want with it. But the chair itself is not morally considerable, and you have no direct obligations to the chair itself. Rather, you have obligations to your neighbor, and therefore you have obligations with respect to the chair. The question of moral standing only concerns the issue of direct obligation. It asks what things we have obligations to, not for the sake of something else that has moral standing but for the sake of the thing itself.

The question of moral considerability is of equal interest to utilitarians and formalists. If pigs are morally considerable, then utilitarians, who calculate the plus and minus points of each

action’s consequences, must include an action’s effects on the pig in their calculations. For a formalist, a being that is morally considerable is the kind of being that can have rights or the kind of being which can be objects of concern for moral rules. For example, if a rights-oriented theorist judged a dog to be morally considerable, this would imply that a dog is the kind of being that can have rights.

It is important to realize that even if we conclude that we have no direct obligations to things like animals and fetuses, that will not mean that we can do anything we want with them. We often have obligations regarding things that in themselves have no moral standing. We are not lone space explorers. Other people probably care about the fate of fetuses and animals, and we have moral obligations to those people even if we do not have obligations to entities judged to be non-persons. But the issue of moral considerability is one with great practical implications nonetheless. If fetuses and animals are judged not to be morally considerable, then the only basis for obligation regarding these beings would be that someone with moral standing cares about them. In that case it might be wrong to torture your neighbor’s dog but okay to torture a stray animal in a dark alley. Or wrong to kill a wanted fetus but all right to do painful experiments on an unwanted fetus, especially if they are done without the knowledge of anti-abortion groups.

Developing Rational Criteria of Moral Considerability If we are committed to a rational approach to ethics, we cannot just decide separately in

each instance whether a being has moral standing. We need consistent principles that help us correct for the distortions brought on by our emotions. Psychologically, we are likely to feel more toward cute, cuddly animals than to intelligent but ugly rats. We probably will sympathize more with the life of a fetus if we are shown a picture of it, especially a picture that highlights the fetus’s similarity to a baby. As space explorers, we probably would favor beings that looked like ourselves, even if there were other, more bizarre-looking creatures around whose mental faculties more closely resembled our own. But from a strictly rational point of view these are not relevant considerations. There must be something about a particular being that gives it moral standing, and any other being with that same quality must merit the same moral attention.

We might consistently employ any of several possible principles to judge that something is morally considerable. For example, we could require that the being be “alive.” But that seems to set the standard too low, admitting amoebas and bacteria among the beings to which we have moral obligations. At the other extreme, we could require “rationality,” but that would exclude infants and the mentally retarded. Determining exactly what is needed and what is sufficient for a being to be morally considerable is a daunting task. Some philosophers are content to suggest rough or approximate standards. Others have given up altogether.

A larger issue in the debate on moral considerability is whether we need to be strictly rational in establishing criteria. Some philosophers reject the purely rational approach and claim that the kinds of feelings we have toward a being is a morally relevant consideration. Being philosophers, however, they are then obliged to give reasons for claiming that moral consider-ability can be affected by what kinds of feelings people have toward a certain kind a being. It is important to examine these philosophers’ views carefully in order to determine whether they actually advocate making feelings the basis for an ethical judgment or whether they are just utilitarians who are rationally calculating all of an action’s consequences, including among those consequences the feelings of other people. In the latter case, the judgment itself is being made in a purely rational way, in accord with the “standard” approach to ethics, because the judgment is not based on the feelings of the person doing the judging.

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The moral standing of the fetus is a topic of heated debate because of its implications both for abortion and for medical experimentation on fetuses. At one extreme are those who regard the fetus as nothing more than a clump of cells, a part of a woman’s body, like a fingernail. At the other extreme are those who view even a one-day-old conceptus as a full person.

Disagreement exists not only about the moral status of the fetus but on a number of related issues as well. Some authors try to draw a sharp line—for example, conception, viability, or birth—before which there is no moral considerability and after which there is full “humanity.” Other authors claim that the gradual development of the fetus, from a conceptus to an organism that resembles a baby, makes impossible any sharp line defining moral considerability.

Abortion and fetal experimentation will obviously be easier to justify if the fetus is not morally considerable. But the importance of the issue of moral considerability is itself an area for debate. Some writers on abortion assume that everything depends on whether or not the fetus is a person: if it is, abortion is always, or nearly always, wrong; if it is not, abortion is always permissible. But others challenge this view and argue that even if the fetus is a person, there will still be a range of cases where abortion is acceptable and even if the fetus is not a person, abortion may still be wrong in some cases.

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Help With Readings The materials in this section are an essential part of this course. They consist of outlines of

difficult articles, analyses, and background materials. A good procedure is first to skim any articles assigned, then read any study guides on that

topic, then go back and study the articles carefully. Finally, reread the study guide and write down questions or topics you wish to explore in class or during office hours.

Additional materials may be posted on the course web page or distributed as handouts in class. If you miss a class, please be sure to obtain any materials that you missed. I don’t always have all the old handouts with me in class, so check the web page first or you may need to come to my office or copy them from another student.

Many of the enclosed materials summarize and explain the major points in difficult articles. Please read them carefully. They do not, of course, substitute for reading and taking your own notes on the articles themselves, and you should not be tempted to use them that way. Doing so would deprive you of a major value of this course, reading the actual works of original philosophers. You should also be aware that some test questions focus on material found only in the articles themselves, and tests may include a section asking you to identify passages from the articles. (It’s the easiest section for those who have done the readings and the hardest for those who haven’t.) On quizzes, you usually can use your own reading notes but not the text or this course pack.

Ethical Relativism This is designed to help you understand ethical relativism, ethical absolutism, and the

difference between these two concepts and sociological (descriptive) relativism and sociological (descriptive) absolutism. The only philosophical debate is between ethical relativism and ethical absolutism. Sociological relativism is a purely factual claim and would be of no interest to philosophy except that many ethical relativists think that the truth of sociological relativism supports ethical relativism. (Sociological absolutism is not a concept that comes up very often, though once you understand the others, you should also understand it.)

The key question is are there any universal truths in ethics; in other words, truths that apply to all persons at all times? The ethical absolutist (consequentialist or non-consequentialist) answers “yes,” and this is the standard position in philosophical ethics. The ethical relativist challenges the standard view and answers NO: there are no universal ethical truths.

Definitions of ethical relativism. • The claim that there are no universally true ethical principles that apply to all persons

at all times. • The claim that there is no universal truth in morality. • The claim that what is (truly) morally appropriate in one culture (or period of history)

may be (truly) morally wrong in another culture (or period of history).

Examples of claims supporting ethical relativism. • Slavery was really morally appropriate in the eighteenth century, but slavery is

morally wrong today. • It wrong to put old people out in the snow to die in America, but it is not wrong for

many Eskimo cultures. ["For many Eskimo cultures" does not just mean "in the beliefs of many Eskimo cultures"; that would just be sociological relativism.]

• Abortion is morally okay in cultures where it is believed to be moral, but it is ethically wrong wherever it is morally disapproved of.

Definitions of sociological relativism. • The claim that different cultures have different moral beliefs. • The claim that there is no universal agreement on ethical matters among different

cultures (or periods of history). • The claim that what is believed to be morally right in one culture (or period of history)

may be believed to be morally wrong in another culture (or periods of history).

Examples of claims supporting sociological relativism. • Slavery was considered ethical in the eighteenth century, but it is believed to be

immoral today. • Making a profit is condemned in China, but it is approved of in the United States. • There is no universal agreement among different cultures on the morality of

abortion.

Sociological relativism and ethical relativism. Sociological relativism says nothing (and claims to say nothing) about whether ethical truths

are universal. It only makes the factual claim that different cultures have different ethical beliefs. Even ethical absolutists can and often do agree with sociological relativism. (See above claims supporting sociological relativism; they are not very controversial.) All sociological relativism says is that in different cultures (and periods of history) there is a lot of disagreement about ethics. Notice that the same thing could be said about science (but no one would think that showed there was no one truth in science).

So why is sociological relativism important to discuss at all in philosophy if most people agree with it? The reason is that many ethical relativists think that it supports ethical relativism. In the simplest form they use sociological relativism as their only premise, as follows:

Premise: Different cultures have different moral beliefs (sociological relativism). Conclusion: Therefore, there is no one truth in ethics (ethical relativism). The reasoning, in everyday language, goes like this: if different cultures have different

moralities, then there can be no one morality. But they are confused. It's true that if different cultures "have different moralities" in the sense of having different beliefs about morality, then there is no one agreed-upon morality. But it does not logically follow that there is no one true morality. Maybe there is one true morality (ethical absolutism) even though different cultures have different beliefs about what that truth is (sociological relativism). In other words, maybe one or more cultures is wrong in its beliefs. We don't hesitate to say this in areas outside ethics. Just because there is no agreement on some scientific matter (like the shape of the earth), we do not conclude that there cannot be one universal truth about that matter.

The ethical relativist who uses appeals to sociological relativism needs an additional premise; namely, "Whatever a culture believes in morality is true," or "No culture can be wrong in its moral beliefs." But this is exactly what ethical absolutists would argue against. Ethical absolutists claim that through reasoned argument we can distinguish which beliefs are well grounded and worthy of our acceptance from those beliefs that are not well grounded and therefore not worthy of our acceptance. This parallels the scientific method, which helps determine which empirical scientific claims are well grounded and which are not. True, both in science and in ethics we may not reach any absolute certainty or “proof,” and thoughtful people

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may continue to disagree. But that does not imply that every belief is as good as any other or that a rational method is useless in separating well-grounded claims from those with no foundation at all.

Both the consequentialist and nonconsequentialist are ethical absolutists because they both claim that there are good reasons to support their theories, reasons that apply to all cultures at all times. In contrast, the ethical relativist makes no appeal to reasoning as the foundation for ethical truth. According to the ethical relativist, the basis for an ethical claim’s being correct in a given culture is simply that it is believed or practiced in that culture. For a consequentialist it might be wrong to break promises because doing so results in distrust and for a formalist it might be wrong to break promises because doing so treats other people as a means or violates their rights. For an ethical relativist, breaking promises would be wrong in a given culture only because that culture believed promise-breaking is wrong (and would not be wrong in a culture that believe promise-breaking to be a good thing).

Outline of Singer, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” I. Two basic assumptions stated and defended.

A. Assumptions stated.

1. Suffering and death from lack of food, clothing, and shelter are bad. 2. If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening without thereby

sacrificing something of comparable moral importance, we ought to do so. (That is, we have a moral obligation to do so.) This principle is a crucial claim in the essay, and we will label it “CMI” to emphasize “comparable moral importance.”

B. Assumptions defended.

1. Proximity or distance does not affect our obligation. 2. My being one of millions who could help does not affect my individual obligation. II. It logically follows from the above two premises (assumptions) that if it is in our power to

prevent suffering and death from lack of food, clothing, and shelter without thereby sacrificing something of comparable moral importance, we ought to do so. [Note that this is an exact logical conclusion from the two premises.] This will involve our reformulating the distinction between duty and charity. We have a duty to sacrifice in order to help starving people, and we are blameworthy if we fail to do so. (It is not simply a matter of "charity.")

III. Responses to both philosophical and practical objections.

A. Objection: This is too drastic a revision of our moral scheme (our usual way of thinking about morality).

Singer: How people do in fact judge is not the issue; the issue is how they should judge these matters.

B. Objection: The basis of moral duty is the necessities of a particular society. Singer: The moral point of view requires us to look beyond the interests of our own

society. [The moral point of view must be impartial, counting all persons equally, not favoring those in our own society.]

C. Objection: If the demands of morality are set too high, people will ignore morality. Singer: People's actions and beliefs are influenced by what is expected of them; setting a

higher standard will influence people to aspire to a higher morality.

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D. Objection: Singer's view would require us to work fulltime to prevent suffering. Singer: This does not follow necessarily from my principles, but given the current

suffering in the world, we are so obligated.

E. Objection (practical): Famine relief is a governmental responsibility, not an individual one.

Singer: This objection would be relevant only if it could be shown that individual giving would lessen governmental aid; actually, it would likely increase it.

F. Objection (practical): Population control, not money, is the answer. Singer: If so, we are obligated to sacrifice our time and money to work for population

control. Question: how much does Singer require us to give? Distinguish between Singer's main thesis,

(give until sacrificing something of comparable moral importance, "CMI") and his weaker or “more moderate” thesis (sacrifice until giving up something of moral significance.).''

Singer’s position here is an excellent example of the standard view in philosophical ethics: rational and impartial. In this course we will examine several different kinds of objections to Singer: for example, Arthur argues against Singer’s utilitarian position and Cottingham argues against the assumption (in the standard view) that ethics must be impartial.

Arthur's Case Against Singer The “Greater Moral Evil Rule” or “CMI”

Arthur calls Singer's crucial premise—the one we have called “CMI”—the greater moral evil rule. The two names for this premise both emphasize the same point: my own suffering is morally no more important than the suffering of others. The name “CMI” emphasizes that I am morally required to sacrifice to prevent something bad for someone else unless the sacrifice would be comparable to the bad I am preventing. (That's a lot of sacrifice!) Arthur calls this the “greater moral evil rule” to stress that Singer's premise means that we are entitled to keep what we earn only if there is no way to prevent a greater evil by giving our earnings away. (Again, a lot of sacrifice.)

Think carefully about Arthur's view of the “greater moral evil rule.” Although Arthur clearly opposes Singer's conclusions about famine relief, he does not deny that “the greater moral evil” rule is important. In fact, he identifies its spirit with Thomas Jefferson's principle of equality and the idea that “like amounts of suffering or happiness are of equal importance, no matter who experiences them.” In other words, Arthur thinks this principle is basic to any standard, impartial view of ethics, including his own. Where he differs from Singer is that he believes that “CMI” IS ONLY ONE PART OF MORALITY, NOT THE WHOLE OF IT.* So we now need to ask: what does Arthur think Singer's view leaves out?

Entitlements: Rights and Desert Arthur criticizes Singer for ignoring an aspect of morality that he regards as important in

addition to the greater moral evil rule; specifically, the idea of entitlements.

*Similarly, he believes a consideration of consequences is one part of morality, not the whole of it, and this makes

Arthur a nonconsequentialist.

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Unlike the greater moral evil rule (CMI) which focuses on future consequences, entitlements are non-consequentialist and base moral obligations on the past. Arthur refers to two kinds of entitlements: rights and desert. For example, you have a right to your second eye and second kidney because it is yours, even if better consequences would come about from your giving them away. A farmer who works hard may deserve more food than a neighbor who does not work, even if the neighbor will suffer more without the food. Whereas Singer's CMI only considers consequences, Arthur claims we must also consider rights and desert.

One of Arthur's most powerful arguments is his attempt to reduce Singer's position to absurdity. Arthur argues that Singer's crucial “CMI” premise logically implies that people have a moral obligation to do things like give up parts of their bodies to other people who need them more. If that conclusion is truly “absurd,” then there must be something wrong with Singer's CMI premise. (See class discussion of this form of argument.)

Note carefully that even Arthur claims that sometimes the greater moral evil rule (CMI) will outweigh rights and desert (e.g., see p. 797), but where he differs from Singer is in claiming that sometimes rights and desert will outweigh CMI. This means that sometimes we are not morally obligated to give something away even though our gift would prevent a greater moral evil.

This Is “Our Commonly Shared Morality,” But Is It the Right One? Arthur keeps saying that not only consequences (CMI) but also entitlements are part of “our

commonly shared morality.” If all Arthur is saying is that entitlements are part of our culture's current customary morality, that would just be a descriptive claim and not an argument against Singer. Arthur recognizes this when he says (p. 798): “But unless we are moral relativists, the mere fact that entitlements are an important part of our moral code does not in itself justify such a role. Singer. . .can perhaps be seen as a moral reformer. . .” And of course that is how Singer does regard himself. So what Arthur needs to do is to show that the idea of entitlements is a well-grounded, justified ethical concept, not merely one we currently tend to accept. He tries to do this in the next few paragraphs (pp. 798-99). How well he does that could be a subject of debate; Singer would not accept Arthur's idea that a correct moral code must be one that is able to gain support from almost everyone. That might be true of a legal code, but for Singer, as a moral reformer, the correctness of a moral code would not depend on the kinds of things Arthur cites. Who do you think is right about this?

A Closer Look At Arthur's Position on Rights Arthur's argument against Singer is based on Arthur's claim that rights must be considered,

not just consequences. But what rights would limit our obligation to give to starving people? Arthur claims that wealthy people not only have a right to their body parts (above) but also a right to their fairly acquired property. Notice, however, that even Arthur does not claim that property rights are absolute, and he says that the obligation to help suffering people sometimes outweighs the right to property (p. 797).

But even someone who agreed with Arthur about the existence of rights might challenge Arthur by claiming that the right of starving people to get help from the wealthy outweighs the right of the wealthy to keep their property.** Arthur would argue against this on the grounds that there is an important difference between negative rights and positive rights. This is an important

**Singer is a consequentialist, so he denies that any moral rights exist. But Singer quotes St. Thomas Aquinas, who

claims that the poor have a right to be given what they need from those people who have more than they need. (p. 416)

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distinction in political philosophy and one we will encounter again in discussing Thomson's essay on abortion.

Any right implies some kind of obligation; namely, an obligation to respect the right. A negative right implies a negative obligation, an obligation not to do something. For example, the negative right not to be killed implies an obligation not to kill. A positive right, in contrast, implies that someone has a moral obligation to do something. Much controversy exists about whether there are any positive rights. An example of a claim to a positive right would be a right of hungry people to food. We cannot respect this right simply by not stealing from them: we have to act to provide the food. Arthur argues that positive rights only come about when there has been some kind of promise or contract. (See pp. 796-97.) This is a crucial claim, one with which some philosophers would disagree. Could it, for example, be reasonably claimed that a starving person has a right to help from the wealthy simply by being a fellow human being on this planet? We will examine this debate about rights in class discussion.

Noonan and the Issue of Abortion The moral issue and the legal issue are separate

We will mainly be concerned with the moral question: "under what circumstances, if any, is abortion morally permissible?" The legal question is separate and, applied to abortion, is "under what circumstances, if any, should abortion be restricted by law?" It is not necessarily inconsistent to claim that abortion is immoral but should not be restricted by law. (Of course, each position needs to be argued for.)

An outline of Noonan's overall argument It might seem that Noonan's thesis is that "the fetus is a person." Most of his essay is devoted to

showing this. But he does develop a thesis on the abortion issue itself, and the claim that "the fetus is a person" is really just the most important and controversial premise leading to that thesis (and the conclusion of his argument). One way of outlining his argument in premise-to-conclusion form is indicated below. (Why do you think he devotes most of his essay to premise 3?) 1. It is morally wrong to injure one's fellow man (another human being) without good reason. 2. The only good reason for injuring another human being to the point of killing is to save one's

own life (self-defense). 3. The fetus is a human being, a "fellow man." 4. Abortion is an act of killing a fetus. 5. Therefore, ABORTION IS MORALLY WRONG EXCEPT TO SAVE THE MOTHER'S

LIFE.

Noonan's argument for the humanity of the fetus Noonan argues that the fetus is a person or, more specifically, that "conception is the only non-

arbitrary place to draw the line between the nonhuman and the human." There are two parts to this argument. The negative part, to which he devotes the most attention, is that any other place to draw the line between the nonhuman and the human is flawed and cannot be defended. He discusses several other possible places where others have suggested the line might be drawn: viability; having had experience; eliciting sentiments, like grief, from adults; being sensed through touch and sight; and social visibility. Noonan tries to show why each of these is not justifiable. The most important is viability. Look closely at why Noonan thinks viability (the point where the fetus can exist independently) is not a good criterion of full humanity and ask yourself how the defender of viability as a standard of humanity might respond to Noonan.

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Noonan's positive argument for conception as the point at which the fetus becomes human is that at conception the fetus receives the human genetic code. But why is conception not just as arbi-trary a point to draw the line as viability or the other standards he rejected? Noonan uses his probability argument as supporting evidence (which he does not claim is decisive). He asks whether there is any point in the development from sperms and eggs to adult reasoning beings which represents an "objective discontinuity." He decides that that point is conception. A sperm cell has a one in 200 million chance of becoming a zygote, whereas after conception there is a 4 out of 5 chance that the conceptus will develop fully.* This "sharp shift in probabilities" of development is further evidence for Noonan that conception is the correct place to draw the line between the pre-human and the human.

Noonan's probability argument also implicitly (i.e., in an unstated way) responds to two objections:

Objection 1: If one goes back to the tiny conceptus and calls that a human, why not go back all the way to sperms and eggs? They, too, have the capacity to develop into full, reasoning beings.

Objection 2: One cannot call the fetus human at conception. At that point there is still a good chance it will be naturally, spontaneously aborted. A single egg may still split to become twins or combine with another egg to become one organism. Surely we cannot talk of a fetus being a human when it is not even determined whether it will be a human or two humans.

Do you see how the probability argument can be used to respond to these two objections? (Whether it is a good response you must judge.)

Larger implications of this issue The question of whether the fetus is a person is an important one in the abortion controversy.

But asking that question requires us to ask what makes anything a person. When we are asking this, we are perhaps really asking "what kinds of beings have "moral standing?"; that is, what kinds of beings might we have moral obligations to? This larger question will be important when we talk about other issues besides abortion, such as the question of whether we have moral obligations to non-human animals.

Warren on Abortion

The concept of personhood Warren's first concern is to determine if the fetus is morally considerable. To "count"

morally, Warren assumes the fetus must be a "person," the kind of being that has equal moral rights. This is all Warren means by "personhood," "moral humanity," or being "a member of the moral community." These phrases are interchangeable and by "moral community," Warren is not speaking of any actual community.

Warren thinks it is confusing to use the concept "human," as Noonan does, to refer to beings who are persons (or members of the moral community). This is because there are two distinct meanings of "human." There is biological or genetic humanness, which simply means being a member of the human species. The fetus is certainly "human" in this sense. But it would be a mistake to think that this alone implies that the fetus is human in the morally relevant sense. To be "morally" human means to be "human" not as a mere biological category but to be "human" in the sense in which we assume that "humans" are the kind of beings that have rights.

*Note that Noonan can't say "a four out of five chance of becoming a human being" because his claim is that at conception it already is human.

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Once we realize that the biological and moral senses of "human" are different and that to be a "person" means to be human in the moral sense, then we can see that "some human beings are not people, and there may well be people who are not human beings." Merely having human genes will not be enough to consider a being a person, a "moral human." [Of course to call a being a "moral human" in the sense being discussed here would not say anything about whether the being was moral or immoral. That is a totally different issue.]

What Is Required to Be a Person? What qualities are necessary and sufficient for being a person is a huge question, and Warren

doesn't attempt to give a full answer. She just lists five traits that she thinks all will agree are central to personhood and then claims that (a) any being that has none of the five traits is not a person, and (b) fetuses do not have any of the five traits.

Is Warren convincing on this point? Her first trait, "consciousness," requires interpretation. If she just means any form of consciousness, then some fetuses clearly do have that trait. If she means a more fully developed consciousness, then it is not obvious that everyone would agree that that is necessary for personhood. Consider whether similar criticisms could be made of the other traits she cites.

Objections to Which Warren Responds What Warren does in the remainder of the essay can be considered her responses to

objections. She discusses three objections: (1) Even if the fetus is not yet a person, it is sufficiently like a person to have full moral rights. (2) Even if the fetus is not yet a person, it has full moral rights by virtue of being a potential

person. (3) [Postscript] Warren's criteria of personhood would make it permissible to kill not only fetuses

but also infants. The Fetus is LIKE a Person

It is true that the fetus becomes more and more like a person as it develops. But the relevant factors for personhood are still those traits listed above, and the fetus lacks those traits.

We may feel more toward fetuses who come to look more and more like persons, but "mere emotional responses cannot take the place of moral reasoning in determining what ought to be permitted." In this Warren agrees with Noonan--"feeling is notoriously an unsure guide to the humanity of others"--but see English's different perspective.

The Fetus is a POTENTIAL Person The idea that a fetus will become a person may only mean that the fetus is a resource (like

oil), something not to be squandered; it would not mean that the fetus has intrinsic worth and rights of its own. But Warren does not insist on that point and is willing to concede that potential persons do have some prima facie right to life. But she claims--in a crucial passage--that "such a right could not possibly outweigh the right of a woman to obtain an abortion, since the rights of any actual person invariably outweigh those of any potential person, whenever the two conflict." Do you see any problems with this claim? Wouldn't Warren need to claim that any right of an actual person outweighs any right of a potential person? Isn't this a much "stronger" claim, and one much harder to support? (See class discussion of this point.)

Is Warren's analogy of the space explorer a good one? Can you see any morally relevant differences between his/her situation and that of a woman contemplating abortion?

Warren and Infanticide

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Warren claims that her position would not justify infanticide so long as there are others who were concerned about the infant. She also claims there are morally relevant differences between keeping alive a fetus against the mother's wishes and keeping alive an infant against the parents' wishes.

Outline of Thomson on Abortion Introduction: To grant that a fetus is a person with rights does not necessarily prove that

abortion is immoral. Example of the famous violinist hooked up to your kidneys raises this question: does the "right to life" of this person imply that you must not unplug yourself from (and thereby kill) him? 1. A woman has a right to defend her life when fetus threatens it.

(a) This is so even though fetus is an innocent person. (b) We do not, however, have a general right to do anything needed to save our lives.

2. Third parties may intervene to protect a mother's life since she owns her body. Authorities whose role it is to secure people's rights (doctors? the law?) should so intervene.

3. Fetuses (and persons generally) have a right to life, but this does not include the right to use another person's body (as the violinist example shows). Hence, the "right to life" may not imply a right not to be killed.

4. The right to life is not a right not to be killed, but rather a right not to be killed unjustly. (a) Abortion would be unjust killing if mother had "invited" fetus into her body. (It would be

taking away from the fetus something that she owes it-the use of her body-just as one of two brothers jointly given chocolates owes the other brother half of them.)

(b) Becoming pregnant is not necessarily such an invitation. (Hence the mother does not owe the fetus use of her body any more than she would owe it to an uninvited violinist hooked up to her. True, the mother may be "partially responsible" for the pregnancy, but only in the way in which a person who opens her room window is "partially responsible" for the entrance of a burglar.)

5. Not only is aborting a pregnancy not always a violation of the fetus's rights; it is not necessarily an immoral act on any other grounds either.

(a) If pregnancy lasted only an hour and required no great sacrifice for the woman, the fetus would not have any more of a right to the mother's body. But then it would be immoral to abort for a different reason: it would be a failure to be "minimally decent."

(b) Making large sacrifices (e.g., a nine-month pregnancy) is more than is required by minimal decency. Thus, whenever the fetus does not have a right to the mother's body, the mother is not morally required to make large sacrifices (e.g., a nine-month pregnancy) in order to keep it alive.

6. Anti-abortion laws are inconsistent: they require us to be Good Samaritans, whereas in other areas laws do not even require us to be "Minimally Decent Samaritans." If we are not morally required to be Good Samaritans, then third parties (e.g., doctors) should be permitted to remove women from the unwanted situation (pregnancy) which nature may put them in. [Thomson's essay was written before anti-abortion laws were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.]

7. Parents do not have any "special responsibility" toward a fetus unless they have not taken "all reasonable precautions" against having a child. "Surely, we do not have any such 'special responsibility' for a person unless we have assumed it, explicitly or implicitly." [Examine

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this claim carefully.] 8. Not all abortions are morally permissible. (a) Abortions merely to avoid a minor inconvenience are morally indecent and therefore

impermissible (even though not cases of injustice or violations of rights; see #5 above). (b) It is not permissible to kill the fetus in cases where the pregnancy can be aborted

(stopped) without bringing about the fetus's death.

Thomson and Singer on Obligation Introduction

Utilitarianism and formalism are full theories of moral obligation. Each aims to give a general standard for all right actions. In other words, each gives a standard of what we ought to do, what we have a duty to do, what we are morally obligated to do, what we should do. (These are all different ways of saying the same thing.) Neither Thomson ("A Defense of Abortion") nor Singer ("Famine, Affluence, and Morality") appeals to an ethical principle as broad as a full ethical theory, but each author does appeal to certain slightly more narrow principles of moral obligation. In addition to examining Thomson on abortion and Singer on famine relief, it is important to look at the position of these authors on larger questions of ethics. A question that both authors address is how much a person is morally obligated to sacrifice in order to help another person. More specifically, both authors address this question: "Under what circumstances, and on what basis, are persons obligated to sacrifice their own interests to prevent the death of another person?"

Singer's principle of obligation The key principle that Singer appeals to is this: "If it is in our power to prevent something

bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing something of comparable moral importance, we ought to do so." Look carefully at that principle and how Singer explains it in his article. As we have discussed, it is basically a utilitarian principle in spirit.

Background for Thomson Some of what Thomson says can be confusing, so before outlining her principles of

obligation (which can be compared to Singer's above), it might be helpful to explain a few things. 1. Once Thomson grants, for purposes of argument, that the fetus is a person, everything she

says about our obligation to fetuses can be applied to the issue of our obligation to persons in general.

3. As Thomson uses the terms, an "unjust act" is the same thing as "an act that violates rights." For her, that is what it means for an act to be unjust. Remember, though, that justice and rights are, for Thomson, only one part of ethics.

4. Thomson claims we not only have an obligation to avoid unjust acts (acts that violate rights); we also have a moral obligation to avoid acts that fail to meet standards of "minimal decency." Sometimes she sounds as if she is saying that minimal decency is not really an obligation but just something it would be nice for us to do. A careful examination of the article will show this not to be the case. Minimal decency is a moral obligation.

5. Thomson does have a concept of actions that are not obligations but that would be "nice" for us to do. Philosophers call these actions "supererogatory" (super=beyond; thus "beyond our obligation"). These are acts which are praiseworthy to do but not blameworthy not to do.

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These are very different from obligatory acts, which are praiseworthy to do and blameworthy to fail to do.

Now we must get straight on these things: (1) What are Thomson's two bases for obligation, parallel to Singer's one principle above? (2) What actions does Thomson consider supererogatory, "beyond our obligation"; i.e., nice to do but not obligatory? Then, of course, we want to see how these principles relate to abortion.

Thomson's principles of obligation We can now set out what Thomson's principles are. Strictly speaking, Thomson addresses

only the question of when we are obligated to prevent the death of another person. Thomson sets forth two bases for our obligation to preserve another's life.

1.We are obligated to preserve another's life when that person has such a right against us. This occurs (only) when we have made an explicit or implicit commitment to the person. (For example, if we do not use contraception, we have in effect "invited" the fetus into our bodies, and this is an implicit commitment that gives the fetus rights against us.) To violate rights is unjust, and it does not matter whether the sacrifice involved on our part is small or large. 2.We are obligated to preserve another's life even if the other has no rights against us if and only if it would involve no significant sacrifice on our parts. To do less is to fail to be minimally decent. Note carefully: these are two distinct bases of obligation. Where one is obligated on grounds of rights, it does not matter what the sacrifice is. And where one is obligated on grounds of minimal decency, it is not necessary to have made a commitment.

Note carefully: these are two distinct bases of obligation. Where one is obligated on grounds of rights, it does not matter what the sacrifice is. And where one is obligated on grounds of minimal decency, it is not necessary to have made a commitment.

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The Major Argumentative Essay Instructions

Probably the most important and most challenging assignment of this course is the argumentative essay. Writing an argumentative essay requires that you understand what other authors have said, but it also challenges you to go beyond that and to argue for a position of your own. I hope you will use this assignment as an opportunity to think through your own position on an issue that matters to you. The quizzes and statements should help you practice how to focus sharply on arguments, an essential skill for writing these essays.

Be sure that your essay takes into account all relevant arguments from the readings and from class discussion. This is absolutely essential and cannot be overemphasized. (A paper that goes off on its own and ignores the readings will not be accepted as a paper for this course.) You may also benefit from reading additional articles from philosophical sources. I can help you find these. Whether or not you choose to incorporate arguments from additional readings, it is essential that you use, and refer to by page number, relevant arguments from the readings in course texts. (Of course you should not cite the text just for the sake of doing so; the text should be cited only when exactly relevant to the argument you are discussing.)

Please consult the detailed instructions for writing the major argumentative essay, which are in this section of the course pack, beginning page 16.

Please feel free to discuss your paper with me as you are developing it. In fact I strongly encourage you to do this. I can be most helpful if you come in with a typed outline or first draft. Your outline should include the following, each in one clear sentence: your position (central thesis); arguments for your position, objections to each argument, response to each objection. Do not just number your entries; rather, identify each one with one of the labels indicated above (e.g., "response to objection to first argument") followed by a colon and then one clear sentence. Your "one clear sentence" for each entry should not include the transitions that will be in your essay itself (e.g., "Another strong objection is"). The entry should just state the substantive claim itself (e.g., "Women have an absolute right to control their own bodies").

You should include a final version of your outline with your essay. It should be typed neatly and follow the steps indicated above for outlines; in particular, each item labeled clearly.

Topics Argue for or against one of the following claims. 1. If it is in our power to prevent suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical

care without thereby sacrificing something of comparable moral importance, we should do so. [As opposing views, most obviously Arthur, but also Cottingham, Thomson and Wolf are relevant.]

2. We are morally obligated to save the life of another person only when we either have a special responsibility for that person or when saving the person's life requires no significant sacrifice on our part. (This is meant to accord with Thomson's position.)

3. Abortion is morally permissible only when completing the pregnancy threatens the mother's life.

4. Abortion is morally permissible whenever a woman chooses it.

5. Abortion is morally permissible whenever a woman has used the best means of contraception available.

6. You may also develop your own thesis on abortion in answer to the question: “Under what circumstances, if any, is abortion morally permissible?”

The next four topics are somewhat more difficult because they require you to argue about ethical theory. For these essays it will be appropriate to use concrete moral problems as examples, but remember that they will ONLY be EXAMPLES to support your larger arguments. (Examples are not themselves arguments.)

7. Utilitarianism is a sound and fully adequate standard for moral judgments.

8. The notion of "rights" is an essential aspect of any adequate theory of ethics.

9. The next two topics deal with issues to be discussed later in the course. If we have not adequately discussed these issues before the paper is due, you may ask for an extension.

10. The only appropriate approach to ethics is one that adheres to strict impartiality.

11. The standard approach to ethics is fully adequate. (You would, of course, need to define the elements of the “standard” approach that you are defending or arguing against.)

You may propose other topics in writing. For example, you may wish to base your essay on issues raised in parts of the Sommers volume we did not read. Or you may wish to write on a contemporary moral problem such as the treatment of animals, euthanasia, environmental preservation, economic justice, racial and sexual discrimination, affirmative action, capital punishment, pornography and censorship. Additional reading in philosophical sources would be required, and I can help you locate these (and often lend them to you). These topics and the readings you will use must be discussed and approved in advance. This is a protection to you; otherwise you might spend a lot of time on a paper that would not be accepted.

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How to Succeed in This Course

How to Read a Philosophical Essay Probably the greatest difference between students who do well and students who do poorly in

philosophy courses is in their ability to read and comprehend a philosophical essay. If you learn how to read a philosophical essay, you will also be at least half the way toward knowing how to write one. You will also have learned a skill that is central to analytic thinking that will help you in other courses and in many other projects. A major purpose of the writing assignments in this course is to help you to learn and practice this skill. You should be able to state specific points discussed below, each in one clear sentence (OCS).

You need to take notes on every philosophical essay you read. You should outline the essay after reading it, and be sure to include the elements discussed below, each in one clear sentence: • the central thesis of the essay • the arguments given to support the central thesis • any objections the author discusses • the author’s responses to the objections

These are the same elements that will make up the argumentative essay that you will write. (The book, College Thinking, How to Get the Best Out of College, by Jack Meiland, discusses these elements in detail.)

(1) Central thesis. Every essay contains lots of different points, but the first thing you need to determine is what the central thesis of the essay is, what everything else in the essay is designed to demonstrate. Every essay you read (aside from editors’ introductions or my writing in handouts or the course pack) is trying to argue for a particular claim. You need to be able to state this claim in one clear sentence. This will be an assertion (claim) that something is true. It is not a question (e.g., “Is abortion permissible?”), and it is not just the topic (e.g., “the morality of abortion”). It is the author’s overall position; for example, “Abortion is morally permissible whenever a woman chooses it” or “Abortion is never morally permissible.” This should always be a normative claim.

You should skim each essay before reading it carefully and, after skimming, try to determine the central thesis. Then you will be able to go on to the next step. (You may later find that you need to revise your statement of the thesis. Remember, the thesis cannot be the same as one of the particular arguments supporting the thesis.)

(2) Arguments to support the thesis. The next thing you need to look for are the author’s specific arguments in defense of his or her overall position (thesis). You should, again, be able to state each argument in one clear sentence; for example, “The fetus is a person with rights.”

(3) Objections. The claims most worth believing are those that have the strongest arguments in their favor. But usually there are arguments on both sides of a controversial issue. How do we know which are the best and strongest arguments? Philosophers test an argument (or a whole position) by seeing whether it can withstand objections. So a good philosophical essay will usually anticipate and discuss why a thoughtful person might oppose the overall position in the essay and each of the arguments given in support of that position. You should be able to state,

again in one clear sentence, any objections the author raises, either to his/her overall position or to specific arguments.

(4) Responses to objections. Good philosophical essays discuss thoughtful objections in order to respond to them; that is, in order to show that the original position and the arguments in support of the position can stand up to objections. You should be able to state in one clear sentence the responses to objections, and you should make sure that these claims really do respond to the objection you just stated.

Your outline of an essay may include entries like these: • Central thesis: Abortion is permissible whenever a woman chooses it. • First argument for thesis: A fetus is not a person with moral rights. • Objection to argument: A fetus does have rights because a fetus is a human being. • Response to objection: To have moral rights a being must have the qualities of a full person,

and not all beings that are biologically human meet the requirements for personhood.

This is just one possible example and covers only one argument. You would have similar steps for the remaining arguments. Of course there may be several objections to one argument or several responses to one objection. See the “checklist for essays” in this course pack.

On class writing assignments, you will be asked to state positions, arguments, objections, and responses in one clear sentence. If you outline your own essay before writing it, each entry will probably be the first sentence of a paragraph. The paragraph would then go on to develop the claim. You need to develop not only your own arguments but also the objections.

Of course the purpose of all this is to be able to critically evaluate an essay to determine whether the claims it makes are ones worth believing. So the larger purpose is to seek truth about ethical questions. When you write your own essay, you will be taking into account all that you have read, but you will also be doing philosophy yourself, not just repeating the authors. For example, you might raise an objection that an author did not raise or might attempt to show why an author’s response to an objection was not a good one. But the starting point for your essay will be the arguments discussed in the readings. (Early assignments will only ask you to explain readings.) You must take readings into account and show that you understand them. Outlining each of the readings will not only enormously help your understanding but also be something to which you can refer when writing your paper.

Remember OCS = One Clear Sentence A Key to Success in this Course!

(“OCS” is not a well known abbreviation outside this course.)

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How to Write a Philosophical Essay

Guidelines that Apply to All Writing Assignments 1. Please type/computer-print, double or 1.5 spacing. Use your best-quality, most readable font

at least 11 point or (preferably) 12-pt preferred. Leave margins wide enough for comments. If you find it absolutely impossible to type or to hire someone to type for you, please print in blue or black ink, skip every other line, and use only one side of each page. If there is no room for comments at the bottom of the last page of your essay, please include a title page or a blank sheet at the end.

2. Address only the exact topic. If there is a choice of many topics, write the number of your topic on the very top sheet of your essay, upper right-hand corner. (I sort papers by topic.). Please number your pages, too (so my comments can refer to particular points in your essay).

3. Please use the kind of paper on which it is easy to write comments. Avoid onion skin and glossy erasable paper.

4. Please staple pages together at the upper left-hand corner. Don’t just fold the edges! (It’s useless for keeping pages together.) Do not put your paper in any kind of folder or binder.

5. Always retain a separate photocopy of your finished essay in case your paper is misplaced or stolen. (This is more likely to happen if you hand in your paper at a time different from others in the class.) Keep both a hard copy and a backup on disk.

6. Late papers will be recorded as late, and this will be considered in deciding your final course grade. Also, I will not read late papers until I have read on-time work in all my classes, so there may be a very substantial delay in returning late papers. Your final paper for a course must be on time if you wish to be sure of receiving a course grade.

7. Please consult with me in advance in case of any genuine emergency that prevents you from meeting the paper’s due date. (In that case your paper will not be marked “late.”) If you “find yourself” in the unfortunate position of still working on or finishing up your paper at the last minute, please do not avoid class on the day the paper is due. (It’s going to be late either way since papers are due at the beginning of class.) Come to class and take the time later to finish writing and proofreading your paper. If your printer breaks down, hand in the diskette and then turn in the hard copy when you can (if I can’t convert the file).

8. Never turn in two different writing assignments at the same time since a major purpose of multiple papers (or outlines or prospectuses) is for you to learn from the comments on your earlier effort(s). Therefore, I will accept only one essay (or essay-related assignment) at a time. For my part, if your first assignment is on-time, I will always return it with comments well before your second one is due.

9. If a paper is sloppily presented and clearly not proofread, it is not finished. It will be returned to you for completion, and you will need to turn it in as a late paper. Take the time to proofread with a dictionary. If you have a computer spell-checker, use it; however, be aware that doing so does not replace careful proofreading.

10. Take advantage of office hours to discuss outlines or first drafts of your essay. Have these typed or written legibly if you want me to read them (which is usually the idea!). Come at a point when you still have time to make some substantial revisions. Expect our discussion of your paper to complicate things for you and make your paper in some respects more difficult to complete, but the positive side is that you will have a chance to make changes based on 16

comments you would otherwise have received only after turning in your paper. With some further work, your final paper will be much more likely to be a good one. (I’ll even help you with some of that work.)

11. Always feel free to talk over any problem you may be having in writing your paper. Remember, the whole purpose of papers is to help you learn.

You must document! You must document every idea you use, whether you quote it or not, whether you use it directly as you found it

or modify it, whether you are endorsing it or arguing against it. If the source is not required reading for this class, you must use a regular footnote. If the source is one of the required readings, it is sufficient for you to put the author and page number in parenthesis in the text of your paper; e.g.: (Mill, pp. 64-65). In a complete reference, book titles are underlined or italicized, while titles of articles are in quotation marks (not underlined).

It’s not enough to include a general bibliography. It is important to cite the reference you use, with its page number, right in the body of your paper at the point where you are using it.

Know what plagiarism is in all its forms-ask questions if in doubt-and realize that in fairness to all students, any cases of cheating will be dealt with very harshly and could even lead to expulsion. Always be prepared to defend your essay orally. You may be asked to discuss your paper orally for many reasons; this is not necessarily an accusation of plagiarism.

Guidelines for the Major Argumentative Essay The first set of guidelines below is in the form of questions. In the best essays every question

could be answered “yes.” Detailed discussion of these issues is offered in Jack Meiland, College Thinking: How to Get the Best Out of College. 1. Is your essay addressed to the precise topic? Do you see the topic as posing a complex

problem without an easy answer? (If not, you should probably choose another topic.) If you wish to write on a paper topic other than one recommended, this is always possible but only if you formulate your proposed topic in writing and submit it well before the paper is due. Your proposal will receive a prompt response, usually with comments and suggestions. (Or just come to office hours with your written proposal.)

2. Do you clearly state your position (central thesis)? Do you precisely state it in one sentence in either the last sentence of your first paragraph or in your second paragraph? Does everything in your essay in some way relate to this central claim? Do you show exactly how it relates? Have you mercilessly deleted everything that does not support your thesis?

3. Do you begin your next paragraph with a statement of your first argument supporting your position? Does the first sentence of this paragraph state the exact argument, not just what it is “about”? Is everything in the rest of this paragraph a development of this exact argument?

4. Does your next paragraph begin with a statement of an objection to your first argument? Is it the strongest objection you can think of? Does the rest of your paragraph develop that objection to the point where a reader can see why a thoughtful person might believe it? Are you careful to phrase the paragraph so that the reader knows that it is in fact an objection, not a claim that you support (in conflict with the previous paragraph)?

5. Does your next paragraph offer a response to the objection? Does the first sentence of the paragraph state exactly what the response is? Does the rest of the paragraph develop that response? Is the response much more than a restatement of the original argument? Does it support the original argument, taking into account the objection?

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6. Does the remainder of your essay adhere precisely to this argument-objection-response format?

7. Do you have a concluding paragraph that briefly ties together what you have done in your essay?

8. Does your essay take into account all relevant arguments from the texts? Is your essay rooted in these texts? Does it cite exact page numbers?

9. Have you worked over your sentences to be sure that they are clear, precise, and grammatical? Have you used a dictionary? Have you proofread for errors?

10. Did you really have to wrestle with the issues when writing your paper? Were you ever tempted to think that the opposing position might actually be the stronger one? Do you consider the topic more complex now than before you wrote the essay?

Summary of An Essay’s Key Elements • Statement of your position (thesis) either at end of short introductory paragraph or in a

separate second paragraph of its own, following your introductory paragraph. • First argument for your position. [Generally, the very next paragraph.] • Objection to first argument for your position. • Response to objection to first argument for your position. • Second argument for your position. • Objection to second argument for your position. • Response to objection to second argument for your position. • Objection to position. • Response to objection to position. • Short concluding paragraph.

10. Variations: There may not be an objection to the position or there may be several. There may be several responses to one objection. Or several objections to one argument. (If so, a response should be given immediately after each objection.) There may be an objection to a response; in fact, a good, probing essay will usually need at some point to follow a response to an objection with an objection to that response. You will then need to respond to that further objection. This might even continue for several “rounds.” This sounds more complicated than it is; it is actually like a good, probing oral discussion.

Now that you know what to do, here are a few things to be sure NOT to do…

Mistakes to Avoid 1. Trying to discuss too many arguments and not discussing any in depth. (Limit yourself to the

strongest arguments and the strongest objections.) 2. Failing to use specific arguments from the articles in the text. Taking into account all

relevant arguments from the text is essential. (These need not and usually should not be directly quoted, but exact page references must be given each time an idea is derived from a source, including our text.)

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3. Beginning an argumentative paragraph with something other than a statement of the argument. Example: “My second argument revolves around the issue of privacy.” My comment will be “What IS the argument?” First state exactly what the argument is in one clear sentence. Then go on to discuss it. The exact same thing applies to objections and responses. Your first sentence should state what the objection or response is.

4. Not choosing strong objections or not developing the objection well enough to show why a thoughtful person would hold it. If a case cannot be made for the objection to the extent that one can see why a thoughtful person might hold it, then it is not an objection worth raising. Each objection should be developed in a paragraph of its own.

5. Having a response that just repeats the original argument. The response should support the original argument, taking into account and responding to the exact objection raised.

6. Using as an objection to an argument for your position something that is really a criticism of the general position rather than a criticism of the specific argument that was just given. Sometimes an objection could be looked at either way. If so, just show in your wording why it can be considered the way you have chosen to regard it.

7. Note this one especially. Not making it clear what is an argument for your position and what is an objection. This kind of essay reads as if it is just contradicting itself, giving one argument in one paragraph and then an opposing point in the next. Use transitions to make it clear to your reader what is happening in the essay. A transition might be something like “A possible objection to this argument is that...”

8. Common wording mistakes:

Frequently Seen Mistake Correct Explanation/Note

Arguement Argument The “e” is dropped from “argue”

Existance Existence

It’s Its (unless you mean “it is”)

“It’s” is correct only if you mean “it is.” Example of both uses: IT’S CORRECT IN ITS OWN WAY.

Its’ Its (or it’s for “it is”) Never correct; there is no such word.

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