MORAL PHILOSOPHY THROUGH THE AGES
Chapter Outlines
2. Aristotle’s Virtue Theory
Introduction
Road rage example
Terms
Virtue: a good habit we develop which regulates emotions and urges
Vice: bad habits we develop when we fail to acquire virtues
Virtue theory: the foundation of morality is the development of good character traits
Early Greek views of virtue
Arete, excellence
Cardinal virtues in Plato’s theory: wisdom, courage, temperance, justice
Aristotle’s theory
Appetite regulating habits
Division of the soul (rational/irrational – calculative/appetitive/vegetative)
Virtues are dispositions at a mean between extremes (see chart)
Practical wisdom
Difficult to find the mean
Practical wisdom assists in finding the mean
It intuitively grasps our ultimate function
Involves deliberating about the best way of attaining it
Moral choices are freely chosen
Summary
Moral virtues are habits which regulate the desires of our appetitive nature
Most virtues are at a mean between two vicious habits
Our practical wisdom guides us in developing moral virtues by gradually informing us of our ultimate function and showing us the best means of attaining it
My moral actions are freely chosen and are an extension of my virtuous habits
Good temper
Good temper
Five factors
(1) Appropriate person, (2) appropriate offense, (3) appropriate degree, (4) appropriate quickness, (5) appropriate length of time
Development and Decline of Virtue Theory
Golden age of virtue theory
Epicureanism: virtuous life involves pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain
Stoics: resigning oneself to fate; knowledge oriented virtues: intelligence, bravery, justice, self-control
Christian virtues: faith, hope, charity
Modern philosophy
Aristotle’s theory became virtue theory
Criticisms by Grotius: (1) can’t adequately account for truthfulness and justice, (2) rights are most important for justice; (3) a good person doesn’t have special moral insight
Virtue-based morality vs. Action/rule-based morality
Virtue-based
(1) greater importance is placed on developing good character traits, rather than acting in accord with moral rules;
(2) good actions are those which flow from our virtuous character traits; and
(3) morality is a matter of being a “good person” which involves having virtuous character traits.
Action/rule-based morality
(1) emphasis is placed on proper actions which conform to moral rules;
(2) although good character traits help might help us perform good actions, they do not define good actions; and
(3) people are judged based on their actions, not on whether they are “good people.”
Growing emphasis on moral rules (e.g. utilitarianism)
Contemporary Issues
Feminist defense of virtue theory
Males follow rules
Females are more nurturing
Feminists disagree about whether virtues should replace, or supplement male-modeled views
Noddings believes Aristotle’s list comes from an elite social class
Virtues with or without rules
Strong virtue theory: eliminate all rules from virtues
Weak virtue theory: some rules establish when a character trait is good or bad
Three rule aspects to Aristotle’s theory: practical wisdom, the virtues become rules by which we judge others, political rules extend from moral virtue
Contemporary critiques
Crit: problem in determining who is virtuous (can’t read minds, external criteria are no guarantee of a person’s inner disposition
Reply: we look to actions as indicators of character traits
Crit: Some acts are so bad that we must devise a special list of prohibited offenses, e.g. murder
Reply: make a hierarchy of actions based on how well they conform to the virtuous mean
Crit: virtue theory permits us to occasionally act badly, as long as the virtue remains intact (emphasizing long-term traits)
Reply: each action is judged according to whether it departs from a virtuous standard
Reply: even occasional bad acts compromise virtuous conduct
The best teacher of morality
Memorizing rules vs. instilling good habits
6. Clarke and Hume: Moral Reason vs. Moral Feeling
Introduction
Charity
Emotional appeals by Save the Children
18th century debate about the role of reason vs. emotions in moral matters
Clarke’s Moral Rationalism
Eternal relations
Mathematical: "greater than," "less than" and "equal to"
Statements are fit or proportioned if they exhibit the ideal relation
e.g. the money in my bank account is less than the money in my attorney’s bank account
Religious: “infinite greatness”
Actions are fit if they exhibit the ideal relation
e.g. worshiping God
Moral: “equality” “the promotion of universal good,” and “helping others from danger”
Actions are fit if they exhibit the ideal relation
e.g. enslaving others would be unfit
Self-evidence
Moral relations are self-evident to any rational person, and binding on God
God exhibits them perfectly since he is perfect; humans are morally fallible since we are distracted by our emotions
Summary
Eternal moral relations exist, which include equality, promoting universal good, and helping others from danger.
We judge the fitness or unfitness of our actions in reference to these eternal moral relations.
Our knowledge of moral relations is purely rational and self-evident to all humans.
Although we are morally bound by these eternal moral relations, our finite reason and human emotions sometimes prevent us from proper moral motivation.
Hume’s Criticisms of Clarke
1. Nero and the tree
Argument
(1) Anything that exhibits a given moral relation would be judged good or bad accordingly. [rationalist's target supposition]
(2) A young tree overgrowing and killing its parent exhibits the same relation as Nero killing his mother.
(3) Since Nero's act is morally bad, then so too is that of the young tree.
(4) Clearly, this is absurd, hence, moral approval is not a judgment about relations.
Crit: trees don’t have motives, Nero has the motive of ill will
Hume’s Reply: the motive of ill will alone will not make us bad since we would all be guilty of a moral crime anytime we felt ill will towards another person
Crit: trees don’t have intentional actions;
Nero’s act is wrong since it displays the relation of an intentional act of killing an innocent person
2. Examine any morally significant action: we will only find feelings, not moral facts or relations
3. Moral judgments are more like aesthetic judgments (which are feelings) than rational judgments
Can’t derive Ought from Is
Rationalistic discussions of morality all begin with statements of fact, such as "Daniel is starving," and then conclude with a statement of obligation, such as "We should help feed Daniel."
Even if it is a fact that Daniel is starving, we need our emotions to make the assessment that we should help feed Daniel
Hume’s Moral Theory
Early Moral Sense Theories
Shaftesbury: moral sense perceives moral qualities similar to how our eyes perceive colors
Literal notion of moral sense based on Locke’s definition of sense perception
Any mental faculty that can convey external qualities may be called a “sense”
Hutcheson: (1) objects of moral sense are benevolent actions, (2) mental perception of the moral sense is a feeling of pleasure
Hume: nonliteral understanding of moral sense, but sees moral approval as a pleasing feeling, not a rational judgment
The Moral Spectator’s Sympathetic Feelings
Roles of agent, receiver, and spectator (summary points in text)
Agent: perform actions that are motivated by either instinctive or acquired character traits
Receiver: experience pleasure (pain) either immediately from the agent’s action, or from the usefulness (inconvenience) of that action
Spectator: Moral spectators sympathetically experience pleasure (pain) when observing the receiver’s pleasure (pain)
The moral spectator's pleasure (pain) constitutes his moral assessment of the agent's character trait, thereby deeming the trait to be a virtue (vice)
Examples:
Approval: from a benevolent motive, the agent donates to charity, which directly and indirectly pleases the receiver; the spectator symaphetically feels the receiver’s pleasure; this pleasure constitutes the spectator’s approval of the agent’s motive
Disapproval: from an unjust motive, the agent steals a car, which directly and indirectly displeases the receiver; the spectator symaphetically feels the receiver’s pain; this pain constitutes the spectator’s disapproval of the agent’s motive
Morality without God
We cannot know God’s view of morality since (a) a spectator’s moral assessment depends on human psychology/physiology, and (b) God lacks a biological body
Reid’s Criticisms of Hume
Reid’s general view
Agrees with Clarke that moral assessments are rational judgments
Hume’s theory fails because it blurs the distinction between the spectator’s rational assessment and the spectator’s emotional response
Abusing Common Moral Language: common moral language shows that moral assessments are really rational judgments, and Hume abuses language by linking moral terms with the spectator’s feelings
Hume’s equivocation: Hume uses terms like “approval” that have both a rational and emotive meaning; we agree with Hume because of the rational meaning, but Hume then downplays this rational component
Reply: Reid also equivocates by focusing only on the rational meaning of terms like “approval” thereby downplaying the emotive component
At best, Reid only shows that there is a rational component to morality along with an emotive component
Reporting feelings vs. approving: reporting my feelings about an agent’s conduct is not logically equivalent to my approval of an agent’s conduct
Argument:
If Hume’s theory was correct, it would be inconsistent for us to utter the following to statements at the same time
(1’) it is not the case that I approve of an agent’s conduct, and
(2) an agent’s conduct gave me an agreeable feeling
However, we can utter them at the same time, e.g. Robin Hood scenario
Reply: there are really two receivers: the rich who are violated, and the poor who benefit
We disapprove of Robin Hood on behalf of the rich, yet have an agreeable feeling on behalf of the poor
Lingering problem: how do we assess an agent’s conduct when there are mixed consequences
Four options
(1) We should always side with our feeling of approval.
(2) We should always side with the feeling of disapproval.
(3) We should balance the approval against the disapproval, and side with the strongest one.
(4) We should both approve and disapprove of his conduct at the same time.
Utilitarians (successors to Hume) took option 3
The Fate of the Agent and Spectator
Utilitarian critique of Hume
The only things that matters in morality are the consequences of an agent’s action on the receiver
Mill: the agent’s character trait doesn’t count since noble character traits don’t make actions right
Bentham: the spectator’s feelings don’t count since our feelings are too whimsical
20th century vindication of Hume
Current emphasis on virtue theory brings back the agent’s character traits
Current emphasis on language philosophy (emotivism) brings back the spectator’s moral feelings
9. Mill and the Utilitarian Tradition
Introduction
Karla Faye Tucker: executed in 1997 for killing two people; first woman in 130 years to be executed in Texas
Tucker’s argument for clemency: by remaining alive society would be better off than it would be if she was executed
Utilitarian moral theory: an action is morally right if it serves the greatest good for the greatest number of people
Hedonistic utilitarianism: morality is determined according to how much pleasure or pain is produced from a course of action
Historical Development of Utilitarianism
Early contributors
Epicurus:
(1) Pleasure is the primary motivator, and (2) pleasure is the standard we use in judging whether something is good
Hutcheson:
(1) Compute consequences of our actions; (2) the standard of morality is the happiness/pleasure produced as all people are affected; (3) includes both long term and short term happiness; (4) includes both higher and lower pleasures
Hume:
(1) Usefulness (utility) of actions is connected with the pleasing consequences of actions; (2) some actions are useful only when followed as a rule (early version of rule utilitarianism)
Beccaria: that long term imprisonment is a far better deterrent on crime than the death penalty
Godwin: if forced to choose between saving the life of a socially important person vs. the life of an ordinary relative, general happiness dictates that we must choose the important person
Bentham’s Utilitarianism
Two main features:
(1) Bare bones version of utilitarianism, without extraneous doctrines, such as virtues, the role of God, or moral sense
(2) Utilitarian calculus, which offers a price way of quantifying pleasures and pains
Seven factors of the calculus:
(1) intensity; (2) duration; (3) certainty; (4) remoteness, that is, the immediacy of the pleasure or pain; (5) fecundity, that is, whether similar pleasures or pains will follow; (6) purity, that is, whether the pleasure is mixed with pain; and (7) extent, that is the number of people affected
Two problems with Bentham’s theory
(1) Too much precision, which is almost impossible to carry out in practice
(2) Every action becomes a moral issue since there might be an alternative that brings about more happiness
Stems from the fact that Bentham offers a theory of act utilitarianism
Act utilitarianism vs. rule utilitarianism
Act-Utilitarianism: in determining morality, we should calculate the pleasurable and painful consequences of our individual actions.
Two tiered system: right actions are determined by appealing to the criterion of general happiness
Rule-Utilitarianism: in determining morality, we should calculate the pleasurable and painful consequences of the moral rules that we adopt.
Three tiered system: right actions are determined by appealing to rules which in turn are determined by appealing to the criterion of general happiness
Mill’s Utilitarianism
Summary of Mill’s theory:
General happiness is the sole criterion of morality, and “happiness” is defined as pleasure.
Higher intellectual pleasures are more valuable than lower sensual pleasures
When possible, we appeal to the greatest happiness principle only when evaluating rules of conduct, and not individual actions
We are psychologically motivated to pursue general happiness, and general happiness is the only thing that we in fact desire
Higher pleasures are more valuable than lower pleasures
Higher pleasures cannot be quantified and entered into a numerical calculus
Higher pleasures are (1) the main ingredients of general happiness, (2) grounded in our intellectual abilities, (3) qualitatively superior to lower pleasures, (4) spawned by our sense of dignity, and (5) vulnerable to neglect
Traditional Criticisms of Mill
Bradley: utilitarian moral judgments often conflict with our actual moral obligations
Utilitarianism will justify exploiting others for the greater good
e.g., police framing an innocent person to make citizens happy
e.g., enslaving someone
Reply:
(1) Must take into account long term consequences of our actions, which might include exposing police corruption and slave rebellions
(2) Rule utilitarianism avoids this by adopting the following rule: : "We may never exploit individuals, even for an alleged greater good”
Grote: utilitarianism only perpetuates the status quo
Appeals to experience will only perpetuate the status quo, and will not tell us what we ought to do, or offer us a guide for moral improvement
Reply: Mill’s notion of happiness is very broad and will include the pleasure we experience through moral reform and social improvement
Crit: we may not be able to experientially recognize cruelty at any given time; thus we need an ideal standard of morality to help us pick it out
Albee: higher pleasures are inconsistent with hedonism
If we see pleasure as the sole criterion, then we must de-emphasize dignity (i.e., the basis of higher pleasures); however, if we see dignity as the principal criterion, then we must de-emphasize pleasure
If the superiority of higher pleasures is quantitative, then the higher/lower distinction is superfluous and Mill contradicts himself; if the superiority of higher pleasures is not quantitative, then Mill's hedonism is compromised
Long’s reply: “higher pleasures” are actually quantitatively superior, and not qualitatively superior; a life style of higher pleasures is quantitatively superior to a lifestyle of lower pleasures
Crit: inconsistent with Mill’s text
Crit: it is not clear that people with higher pleasure lifestyles in fact are quantitatively happier than people with lower pleasure lifestyles
Revisions of Utilitarianism
Assessment of hedonistic utilitarianism
Good points: emphasis on pleasure places morality in the arena of public observation
Bad points: pleasure is not the only thing in life that is morally significant, e.g., religious and political martyrs who endure torture for upholding the integrity of their convictions
Ideal Utilitarianism
Morally right course of action is the one that brings about the greatest amount of goodness, regardless of what we specifically identify as good
G.E. Moore: (1) we can’t pinpoint any specific quality that is good; (2) we intuitively recognize goodness; (3) we can sketch out an ideal standard or conglomerate package of good qualities, which includes beauty and sociability
Preference Utilitarianism
The morally right course of action is the one that maximizes our preferences
R.M. Hare:
1. To “prefer” something simply means that I would choose that thing if the appropriate situation arose
2. Preferences include (a) what I prefer right now to attain right now; (b) what I prefer right now to attain in the future, and (c) what I will prefer in the future to attain in the future
3. Must include other people’s preferences: I must imagine what my preferences would be if I was in someone else’s position
General problems with utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is not always (1) a description of how we actually make moral decisions; or (2) a description of how we should make moral decisions; or (3) a quick and easy test to use in making moral decisions
Our actual moral decision making process depends on a patchwork of various theories and explanations that cannot be reduced to a single theme
11. Emotivism and Prescriptivism
Introduction
Examples of the most grossly immoral conduct in recent years: Nazis exterminating six million Jews, My Lai massacre, Apartheid government, Jonestown, Sadam Hussein bombing Kurds with chemical weapons
Defininitions:
Emotivism: the fundamental meaning of moral utterances is that they express our feelings
Prescriptivism: the fundamental meaning of moral utterances is that they prescribe or prompt others to adopt some specific behavior
Ayer's Theory
Logical Positivism and the verification principle
Analytic statements
e.g., all bachelors are unmarried men
True by definition
Empirical statement
e.g., the door is brown
Requires sense perception and observation
Hume’s fork
Analytic and empirical statements are the only legitimate types of knowledge
Ayer’s verification principle:
“… a sentence had literal meaning if and only if the proposition it expressed was either analytic or empirically verifiable”
Analytic: either explicitly true by definition, or reducible to statements that are true by definition
Empirically verifiable: some possible experience will either confirm or disconfirm it
Examples:
Triangles have three angles (analytic)
The White House is in Washington D.C. (empirically verifiable)
There are flowers growing on the planet Neptune (empirically verifiable)
Every two minutes, everything in the universe doubles in size (nonanalytic, unverifiable)
"the Absolute enters into, but is itself incapable of, evolution and progress" (nonanalytic, unverifiable)
Metaphysical, religious, and ethical statements are rejected as factually meaningless (although they have a nonfactual practical function)
Descriptive Utterances vs. Performative utterances
Factually descriptive utterances:
Passes the verification principle, are true or false statements about the world
Implicitely performative utterances:
Fails the verification principle, are not true or false statements about the world, yet verbally accomplish some task
Commands: Shut the door!, Keep your dog out of my yard!
Expressions of Feelings: Oh, my aching back!, Three cheers for Old Glory!
Hereby rule: we can reasonably translate such statements into sentences that begin with “hereby”
Status of moral utterances
Traditional view: moral utterances are factually descriptive (descriptivism/cognitivism)
Ayer’s view: moral utterances are implicitly performative (performativism/noncognitivism)
Are disguised as propositions (pseudo-propositions)
Emotivism and prescriptivism
Emotivism: moral utterances express our feelings
e.g., “Mother Teresa is a good woman” means “Three cheers for mother Teresa” or as "I hereby express my feelings of approval for Mother Teresa"
Is not a report of feelings, e.g. “I approve of Mother Teresa”
Prescriptivism: moral utterances prescribe or urge others to adopt specific behavior
e.g., “Don’t Murder” means “I hereby ask you to not murder”
Hare:
Although I use moral utterances to intend for you to do something, I am not persuading or coaxing you
Presupposes that someone asks “what shall I do”?
Summary
Statements are factually meaningful only if they are either analytically true by definition, or empirically verifiable.
Moral utterances are not factually meaningful, but only implicitly perform something.
The emotive performance of moral utterances is that they express our personal feelings.
The prescriptive performance of moral utterances is that they urge others to adopt specific behavior.
Criticisms of Ayer
Ross's criticism: Ayer’s performativism fails because the verification principle fails
Common criticisms against the verification principle
No version of the verification principle appears to be immune from counterexamples
e.g.,: “A statement is empirically verifiable if it is possible to have some direct experience that will confirm its truth”
This version will not allow us to verify obviously factual statements such as “all humans are mortal”
Verification principle fails its own test
That is, the verification principle is neither true by definition, nor empirically verifiable
Ayer's reply: performativism is valid on its own account, independently of the verification principle
Counter reply: some kind of verification principle is needed to establish that moral utterances are not factually descriptive
Moore’s criticism: performativism cannot adequately account for moral arguments.
We use facts when arguing for our moral views, however, for Ayer, moral arguments are more like hissing matches
Ayer's reply: the central issue in moral disputes involves our presupposed value systems, which reduces to insults, not arguments
Stevenson: disputes of fact vs. disputes of attitude
e.g. “Bob’s car is a Ford/Chevy” “Bob’s car is cool/uncool”
Counter reply: value systems can be changed with enough education and enough time
Insults reflect our frustration with the lack of time we have in a dispute
Descriptive and Performative Elements
Ayer's principal mistake:
Restricting moral assessments to only performative components
Stevenson and Hare
Stevenson: moral language is vague, and there are several ways to analyze moral utterances
Pattern 1: "This is good" means (1) I approve of this and (2) I want you to do so as well
(1) both describes and expresses my feelings; (2) urges others to do so
Pattern 2: "X is good" means (1) X has various morally relevant qualities (e.g., X is universally pleasing), and (2) hooray for X, and (3) you should approve of X as well.
(1) emphasizes more descriptive elements
Hare: the descriptive component of moral utterances changes from judgment to judgment, although the prescriptive component stays the same
Descriptive meaning of this may widely vary depending on who makes the utterance and what moral theory they ascribe to
Prescriptive meaning does not change, and is therefore the primary meaning
Asserting moral truths
Performative
I hereby express my feelings of disapproval concerning chemical weapons (emotive)
I hereby urge you to adopt my attitude (prescriptive)
I hereby assert the truth of the statement "the use of chemical weapons is immoral" (assertive)
Descriptive
I disapprove of the use of chemical weapons (report of feelings)
The use of chemical weapons contributes to general unhappiness (natural description)
The use of chemical weapons violates our human rights (metaphysical description)