From Moral Philosophy Through the Ages
James Fieser
#3. VIRTUE THEORY
INTRODUCTION.
The media has recently focused on a phenomenon called road rage in which drivers become enraged at offending motorists and confront them. In Durham, North Carolina a driver’s education teacher was enraged when his car was cut off by another vehicle:
[David] Cline was teaching two female students how to drive when the other car cut them off, according to police. Cline instructed the student driver to chase down the car, police said. They caught up to [Jon David] Macklin, and Cline got out and punched him, police said. Macklin then took off, and the instructor allegedly had the student chase him again.
The teacher was charged with simple assault and was suspended from his job. He later resigned from his middle school position. Although this particular situation has an element of irony, many other stories of road rage are nothing but tragic. On Virginia’s George Washington Parkway, two motorists confronted each other when changing lanes, and the dispute erupted in a high-speed battle. Both drivers lost control, passed over the centerline, and killed two innocent motorists. Studies by the AAA suggest that about 30 deaths in a one-year period are directly attributable to road rage. However, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration stated that in a one-year period, two thirds of 41,000 total highway deaths are at least partly attributable to road rage. In either case, most of the deaths occur from assailants using their vehicle as a weapon or by using guns they have with them.
The circumstances that spark road rage are mostly trivial. A motorist might brake abruptly, swerve into another lane or honk the horn. This prompts shouting, tailgating, obscene gestures, high-speed chases, and direct physical confrontations. There are several psychological explanations for the road rage phenomenon. Traffic is continually becoming heavier and thereby causing sensory overload. Many assailants are in large sports utility vehicles, which perhaps gives them a false sense of invulnerability. The root of the problem, however, is that the assailant experiences a strong emotion of anger and seemingly loses ability to control it. Many relatively minor events in our daily lives have the potential to make us angry. The cat might knock over a plant, the new stereo might malfunction, a store clerk might be rude, or the neighbors might be too noisy. We learn to combat our angry urges, though, and react in a civilized manner.
Anger is just one strong feeling that we must keep in check. Others are sexual appetite, hunger, envy, malice, hatred, resentment, fear, pride, and desire. Imagine what people would be like if we never retrained any of these emotions. We would constantly be at war with others and society as we know it would collapse. Controlling strong emotions is a matter of training. Our parents and teachers begin training us when we are young. As we get older, we continue the training process on our own. Eventually we develop habits that become fixed character traits of our personality. In short, we acquire what moral philosophers call virtues. A virtue is a good character trait that we develop that regulates emotions and urges. Typical virtues include courage, temperance, justice, prudence, fortitude, liberality, and truthfulness. Vices, by contrast, are bad character traits that we automatically develop in reaction to the same emotions and urges when we fail to acquire virtues. Vices include cowardice, insensibility, injustice, and vanity. As a fully developed moral theory, virtue theory is the view that the foundation of morality is the development of good character traits, or virtues. A person is good if he has virtues and lacks vices.
Early Greek View of Virtues. Historically, virtue theory is one of the oldest moral theories in Western philosophy, having its roots in ancient Greek civilization. The Greek term for virtue is arete, which means “excellence.” Greek epic poets and playwrights, such as Homer and Sophocles, described the morality of their heroes and antiheroes in terms of their respective virtues and vices. Their characters’ successes and failures hinged on their virtuous or vicious character traits. For example, in Sophocles’s tragic play Oedipus Rex, king Oedipus’s life crumbles after he unknowingly kills his father and sleeps with his mother. These tragic acts themselves, though, are a consequence of his character flaws, particularly pride and overconfidence.
Discussions of the virtues become more formalized by Plato who stressed four particular virtues: wisdom, courage, temperance and justice. Early Christian theologians dubbed these cardinal virtues, given their central role for Plato, especially regarding Plato’s description of the human psyche. According to Plato, the human psyche has three distinct parts: one that reasons, one that wills, and one that has appetites. The job of our reason is to make sound judgments, and the job of the will is to ally itself with reason rather than appetite. We have wisdom when our reason is informed by general knowledge of how to live. We have courage when our will always obeys reason, regardless of what our appetites say. We have temperance when our reason governs our appetites. We have justice when each of the three parts of our psyche performs its proper task with informed reason in control. Plato believed that these virtues were unified insofar as all four require a properly developed reason. So, for Plato, if I have one of these virtues, I will necessarily have them all. Although Plato’s vision of reason’s involvement in virtues influenced later theorists, the details of his four cardinal virtues had limited impact given their somewhat forced reliance on his specialized theory of the psyche. The more developed analysis of virtues was left to his student, Aristotle (384-322 BCE.).
ARISTOTLE’S THEORY.
Aristotle’s account of virtue is found in his work The Nichomachean Ethics, which he named in honor of his son Nichomachus. The work is long, at around 200 pages, and only the highlights of his theory can be presented here.
Appetite-Regulating Habits. There are three main steps in Aristotle’s discussion of virtues. The first step involves establishing the fact that humans strive after an ultimate good that defines who we are. The subject of ethics is an attempt to discover this goal. For Aristotle, our ultimate good is an end that we seek in and of itself, and not merely for the sake of something else. In general, we call this ultimate end “happiness” (eudamonea), although this term is used in so many ways that we need to specify more precisely what it involves. Human happiness is different than the contentment that dogs experience, for example, and such happiness is unique to our human construction and purpose. The second step in Aristotle’s discussion involves discovering our uniquely human purpose by analyzing our uniquely human psyche. He offers this division of the human psyche:
Calculative (logic, math, science)
Rational <
Psyche Appetitive (emotions, desires)
Irrational<
Vegetative (nutrition, growth)
According to Aristotle, the psyche has an irrational element that is similar to that of non-human animals, and a rational element that is distinctly human. The highest aspect of the rational part is calculative in nature, and is responsible for the human ability to contemplate, reason logically, and formulate scientific principles. This is a uniquely human ability. At the other extreme, the most primitive and irrational element of our psyche is the vegetative faculty that is responsible for our physical nutrition and growth. This is a factor present in all life forms, and not just in humans and other animals. Between the two extremes there is an additional faculty that is by nature irrational but is guided by reason. This is the appetitive faculty and is responsible for our emotions and desires. The appetitive faculty is irrational since even lower animals experience desires. However, this faculty is rationally guided since humans have the distinct ability to control these desires with the help of reason. The human ability to properly control these desires is called moral virtue, and is the focus of ethics.
The third and last step in Aristotle’s discussion involves a description of the moral virtues themselves. Aristotle makes three general observations about the nature of moral virtues. First, he argues that the ability to regulate our desires isn’t instinctive, but learned and is the outcome of both teaching and practice. Second, he argues that desire-regulating virtues are character traits, or habitual dispositions, and shouldn’t be seen as either emotions or mental faculties. Third, moral virtues are desire-regulating character traits that are at a mean between more extreme character traits. If we regulate our desires either too much or too little, then we create problems. For example, in response to our natural emotion of fear when facing danger, we should develop the virtuous character trait of courage. If we develop an excessive character trait by curbing fear too much, then we are said to be rash, which is a vice. If, on the other extreme, we develop a deficient character trait by curbing fear too little, then we are said to be cowardly, which is also a vice. The virtue of courage, then, lies at the mean between the excessive extreme of rashness, and the deficient extreme of cowardice. Aristotle notes that this is similar to how “excess or deficiency of gymnastic exercise is fatal to strength.”
Most moral virtues, and not just courage, fall at the mean between two accompanying vices. Aristotle describes 11 virtues in particular that follow this model. Each virtue and vice arises in reaction to some specific appetite or desire we have. His analysis is summarized in this table:
Appetite || Vice of Deficiency | Virtuous Mean | Vice of Excess
Fear danger || Cowardice Courage Rashness
Pleasure || Insensibility Temperance Intemperance
Give money || Stinginess Generosity Extravagance
Spend money || Pettiness Magnificence Vulgarity
Self-worth || Humility Self-respect Vanity
Honor || No Ambition Right Ambition Over-ambition
Anger || Spiritlessness Good Temper Ill temper
Social life || Unfriendliness Friendly Civility Bootlickingness
Truth || False Modesty Sincerity Boastfulness
Amusement || Humorlessness Wittiness Buffoonery
Fear dishonor || Immodest Modesty Bashfulness
Of these 11 virtues, the pinnacle of these for Aristotle is self-respect, which is also translated as “pride” or “high-mindedness.” It involves having a respectful attitude about our self-worth in everything that we do. For example, it is unbecoming for a self-respecting person to be cowardly when facing danger, or to be insensible with pleasure, or to be stingy about giving money.
Aristotle notes that that there weren’t enough terms in his language to adequately name all the virtues and corresponding vices. This is also the case with the English language, and it may be difficult at first to grasp the relation between the various virtues and vices on the above list. Aristotle also notes that not all virtues fall at a mean between two more extreme dispositions. One such virtue is that of justice, which simply has injustice as its contrary. The virtue of justice involves being lawful and fair. The unjust person, by contrast, is unlawful, unfair, and greedily grasps at things.
Practical Wisdom. Although Aristotle’s analysis of the above 11 virtues fits into a nicely organized scheme, in common life situations it is in fact hard to pinpoint the mean between two extreme dispositions. Suppose that I am a soldier and I know in theory that if my fear gets the best of me I will be a coward, and if I completely ignore my fear I will be rash. Somewhere in the middle lies courage. However, how many bullets need to fly above my head before I can courageously crawl back into my foxhole for safety? Suppose I am a college student and I understand that temperance involves knowing how to regulate my desire for pleasure. Am I insensible if I completely avoid going to fraternity parties? And, if I do go, how many beers can I have before I am intemperate? Suppose that, in my drive for success at my job, I understand that lack of ambition will get me fired, but too much ambition will destroy my home life. How much devotion should I show at my job?
Aristotle confesses that it is indeed difficult to live the virtuous life primarily because of the challenges presented in finding the mean between the extremes. He notes that calculating the mean isn’t simply a matter of taking an average. For example, if drinking 20 cans of beer at a party is too much, and drinking zero cans is too little, this doesn’t imply that I should drink 10 cans of beer, which is the mathematical mean. However, there is a solution to this problem. Aristotle explains that an aspect of our calculative reasoning called practical wisdom (phronesis) helps us find the virtuous mean. There are two components to practical wisdom. First, it intuitively grasps our ultimate purpose in life. In a nutshell, our ultimate purpose is to be community-oriented rational creatures. Each properly formed virtue contributes to fulfilling this ultimate purpose. Second, practical wisdom involves deliberating about and planning the best way of attaining this ultimate purpose. As a soldier, cowering in my foxhole won’t help me attain my community-oriented purpose; being too rash won’t help me either. Practical wisdom will help me assess the risks in different combat situations, and it will help me see when it would be most effective for me to charge against the enemy. Similarly, practical wisdom will help me figure out how many beers I should drink at a party, and how much ambition I should have at my job. With each dilemma we face, then, our practical wisdom will help us chisel out the appropriate conduct that will facilitate our ultimate purpose.
In spite of the assistance that we receive from practical wisdom, we shouldn’t see it as a small voice within us that tells us for each action whether that action hits the mean or one of the extremes. First, when we are in the process of developing virtuous habits, practical wisdom doesn’t pronounce judgment on each of our actions. Instead, through our life experiences, we gradually develop a sense of our ultimate purpose and just as gradually we cultivate virtuous habits. Second, once our virtuous habits are developed, we act spontaneously without step by step rational prompting. For example, once I learn how to be a safe automobile driver, my highway manners become second nature and I slow down before approaching a stop sign without consciously thinking about it.
If I successfully acquire virtues, then I attain the status of a good person. As a good person, each of my actions will be a reflection of the virtuous character traits that I developed. However, Aristotle argues, each action must be freely chosen. That is, the action must have its causal origin within me, and can’t be mechanically imposed on me by other people. Further, for my choice to be truly free, I must know all of the important details pertaining to the action in question. He argues that freedom of the will is a factor with both virtuous choices and vicious choices.
Good Temper. In view of our opening illustration of road rage, let’s look at Aristotle’s discussion of the virtue of good temper, which is the seventh virtue listed on the above chart. Good temper properly curbs one’s appetite of anger. If I curb my anger too much I have the vice of spiritlessness, and if I don’t curb it enough I have the vice of ill temper. For Aristotle, there are five factors involved in our appropriate response to anger. We should only become angry (1) at the appropriate person, (2) for an appropriate offense, (3) to an appropriate degree, (4) with appropriate quickness, and (5) for an appropriate length of time. He concedes that it is difficult to precisely define what counts as “appropriate” in these five circumstances, but maintains that the good tempered person won’t allow himself to be dragged around by his passions, and will be guided by practical wisdom. Aristotle believes that it is appropriate to get angry when someone callously insults us. However, the good-tempered person isn’t vengeful, and to a degree he accepts his situation.
As for the vice of spiritlessness, there are several reasons why it is bad for us to completely lack expressions of anger. If we never react in anger even when there is a proper cause, then it will appear to others that we will tolerate injustice. People will think that we won’t defend ourselves and, for example, we will sit back and put up with insult after insult against our loved ones and ourselves. In a word, people will see us as fools. In spite of how bad it is to be completely unaffected by anger, Aristotle believes that it is better to err on the side of spiritlessness than on the side of ill-temper since spiritless people are easier to live with.
On the other extreme, ill-tempered people respond inappropriately to anger with at least one of the above five factors. In fact, Aristotle notes that we have different names for ill-tempered people based on the combination of factors in which they fail. Hotheaded people get angry too quickly, with the wrong people, for the wrong reason, and to the wrong degree (factors 1-4). However, they get over their anger quickly (factor 5), which is the best thing about them. Choleric people get angry quickly at everything on every occasion (factors 1, 2 and 4). Brooding people fail mainly with the fifth factor and carry out their anger far too long. Bad-tempered people get angry at the wrong things for a long period of time (factors 2 and 5) and won’t be satisfied until they inflict punishment on the offender. How would Aristotle view the person who exhibits road rage? The enraged driver has perhaps picked out the appropriate person for an appropriate offense, and maybe is angry for an appropriate length of time. But the degree of his reaction is far too extreme and his angry reaction is far too quick. His principal failure, then, is with factors (3) and (4).
These are the main points of Aristotle’s virtue theory:
· Moral virtues are habits that 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 purpose and showing us the best means of attaining it
· My moral actions are freely chosen and are an extension of my virtuous habits
Aristotle himself summarizes his notion of moral virtue here:
Virtues are means between extremes; they are states of character; by their own nature they tend to the doing of acts by which they are produced; they are in our power and voluntary; they act as prescribed by right governance [i.e., practical wisdom]. [Nicomachean Ethics, 1114b 25]
Virtue Theory After Aristotle. For almost 2000 years Greek notions of virtue -- and Aristotle’s theory in particular -- were central to Western conceptions of morality. The details were sometimes different, but moral philosophers consistently emphasized the need to acquire good character traits that guide our actions and thereby make us good people. Immediately after Aristotle, the rival philosophical schools of Epicureanism and Stoicism offered competing views of morality and the virtues. Epicurus (341-270 BCE) identified the virtuous life with the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. By contrast, Zeno of Citium (334-262 BCE), the founder of Stoicism, emphasized the importance of resigning oneself to fate and suppressing our desires for things beyond our control. For Zeno, virtue is intimately connected with our knowledge of the physical world and, to this end, the virtuous person develops four knowledge-oriented virtues. Through intelligence I know what is good and bad. Through bravery I know what to fear and what not to fear. Through justice I know how to give what is deserved. Through self-control I knows what passions to ignore.
With the arrival of Christianity, the Apostle Paul endorsed the virtues of faith, hope, and charity, which were later dubbed the “theological virtues” in contrast to Plato’s four “cardinal virtues.” Medieval theologians sometimes referred to the “seven virtues,” combining the three theological virtues with the four cardinal virtues. Medieval theologians such as Aquinas held Aristotle in especially high regard and wrote commentaries on the Nichomachean Ethics, and this perpetuated Aristotle’s analysis of the virtues. By the Renaissance, philosophical discussions of virtue were mainly analyses of Aristotle’s theory.
TRADITIONAL CRITICISMS OF VIRTUE THEORY.
In the 17th century, interest in Aristotle’s version of virtue ethics declined. His theory wasn’t outright rejected; instead, leading moral philosophers believed that virtues were only of secondary importance in explaining moral obligation. Of primary importance was the need to follow rational moral rules and make sure that our actions abided by those rules.
Grotius’s Criticism: Many Virtues are not at a Mean. In his work The Law of War and Peace (1625), Dutch philosopher Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) began the attack on Aristotle by arguing that his theory fails as a systematic account of morality. Grotius focuses specifically on Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean. For Aristotle, virtues regulate our desires insofar as we form middle-ground habits between more extreme habits. According to Grotius, some virtues do indeed control our passions through a middle course, but not all virtues do this, and, in fact, some virtues are actually extreme dispositions. For example, Aristotle lists insensibility -- or contempt for pleasure -- as a vice, but Grotius believes that this is a virtue. Aristotle lists ambitionlessness -- or contempt for honor -- as a vice, but Grotius believes that this too is a virtue. In religious matters, Grotius believes that it is impossible to worship God too much, or seek heaven too much, or fear hell too much. The larger point, for Grotius, is that morality consists of following the rational rules of natural law, and not in scouting about for an elusive middle ground of behavior. Grotius believes that everyone has access to the rules of natural law, and our reason will quickly tell us when we should seek a middle ground, and when we should do something in the extreme.
On face value Grotius’s criticism seems plausible: we can understand how Aristotle might have forced a number of virtues into a mold that they didn’t quite fit. However, if we carefully examine the specific cases that Grotius cites, Aristotle’s account of middle-ground virtues seems on target. Are contempt for pleasure and honor really virtues as Grotius claims? For average people in average social situations, these extreme behaviors don’t seem appropriate. By having contempt for all pleasure, we cut ourselves off from many of life’s best opportunities, such as romance, good food, or entertainment. By having contempt for all honor, we feel incomplete in what we try to accomplish in life. Grotius also believes that it is virtuous to be extreme in our worship of God, fear of hell, or desire of heaven. Similarly, though, for average people in average social situations, if we focus too much on religious matters, then we may neglect our earthly responsibilities.
When praising these extreme character traits, perhaps Grotius has in mind religious believers, such as monks, who devote their lives to austerity. Monks deny all bodily pleasures and any emotional pleasure that comes from personal accomplishment. Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) discusses what he calls “monkish virtues” and, unlike Grotius, Hume readily calls them vices:
Celibacy, fasting, penance, mortification, self-denial, humility, silence, solitude, and the whole train of monkish virtues ... server to no manner of purpose .... We justly, therefore, transfer them to the opposite column, and place them in the catalogue of vices ... [Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, 9:1]
For Hume, these monkish qualities are actually vices since they don’t make life more agreeable for ourselves or other people. Instead, they inhibit our happiness. Perhaps, like Grotius, Hume has also gone too far in assessing extreme monkish character traits. Although these may be vices for people in normal social situations, they are not vices for the monks themselves. The monks themselves believe that they are bettering their lives through their more extreme behavior. And -- most significantly for Aristotle’s theory -- the monks will likely feel that they too are following a middle ground life-style. Even a zealous monk could become too extreme and starve himself to death, or whip himself to death, or pray to the point of becoming insane.
So, contrary to Grotius, it seems appropriate to discover virtues through middle-ground dispositions -- both for ordinary people and for monks. Many Eastern religions provide two separate lists of moral codes: one for monks, and one for non-monks, and each of these codes are reasonable in their own contexts. The key issue, then, is identifying one’s social context and finding the appropriate mean in that context.
Kant’s Criticism: Without Moral Principles Misapplied Virtues become Vices. German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) recognized that virtues are important for developing our worth as people. However, he argued that virtues have no moral value unless they are directed by rational moral principles. In fact, for Kant, if our virtues are not guided by moral principles, then they actually become vices. For example, according to Kant, “the coolness of a villain makes him not only much more dangerous but also immediately more abominable in our eyes than he would have been regarded by us without it.” That is, we typically think that it is a virtue to be cool headed; but when a villain is cool headed, this actually makes him more evil than he would have been otherwise. Although Kant does not reject virtues, he believes that they are secondary to our need to follow moral principles. Our primary moral task is to discover the rules of morality, and then shape our character based on these rules.
Philosophers before Kant also recognized that misapplied virtues become vices. One of the most dramatic illustrations of this is given by French statesman Maximilien de Béthune (1559-1641). De Béthune describes a man he knew who had an extraordinary number of virtues:
His genius was so lively that nothing could escape his penetration, his apprehension was so quick, that he understood every thing in an instant, and his memory so prodigious, that he never forgot anything. He was master of all the branches of philosophy, the mathematics; particularly fortification and designing. Nay, he was so thoroughly acquainted with divinity, that he was an excellent preacher ... He applied this talent to imitate all sorts of persons, which he performed with wonderful dexterity; and was accordingly the best comedian in the world. He was a good poet, an excellent musician, and sung with equal art and sweetness. ... His body was perfectly proportioned to his mind. He was well made, vigorous and agile, formed for all sorts of exercises. He rode a horse well, and was admired for dancing, leaping, and wrestling. He was acquainted with all kinds of sports and diversions, and could practice in most of the mechanical arts.
As de Béthune continues his description, he suggests that all of these virtues become tainted when we consider the horrible qualities of the same person:
Reverse the medal: He was a liar, false, treacherous, cruel, and cowardly, a sharper, drunkard and glutton. He was a gamester, an abandoned debauchee, a blasphemer and Atheist. In a word, he was possessed of every vice, contrary to nature, to honour, to religion, and society: he persisted in his vices to the last, and fell a sacrifice to his debaucheries, in the flower of his age; he died in a public stew, holding the glass in his hand, swearing, and denying God.
Both de Béthune and Kant expose a genuine problem for virtue theory, which is that virtuous character traits by themselves are not necessarily good. Kant indeed gives one successful solution to this problem, namely, that we should develop our virtues in response to general moral principles that we follow. Although a successful solution, this isn’t the best solution.
Many moral philosophers -- including Cicero, Hutcheson, Balfour, and Beattie -- distinguished between two groups of character traits, the first being more important than the second:
Moral virtues: benevolence, fidelity, integrity, justice, humanity, generosity
Intellectual abilities: courage, coolness, industry, intelligence, wit, good manners, eloquence
According to these philosophers, it is more ethically important for me to develop moral virtues, such as benevolence, rather than intellectual abilities, such as courage. In fact, my overall moral goodness depends on me developing moral virtues, rather than intellectual abilities. So, if we first develop moral virtues, such as benevolence, then we won’t be able to misapply intellectual abilities such as courage. We can see this by returning to Kant’s example of the cool-headed villain. Kant’s villain lacks moral virtues, but has the intellectual ability of coolness, which he misapplies. Suppose, though, that the villain had a moral conversion and acquired moral virtues such as justice. As a morally just person, his coolness would then become a moral asset rather than a moral liability. It is difficult to even see how a just person could ever misapply his intellectual virtue of coolness. The distinction between moral virtues and intellectual abilities also solves the puzzle raised by de Béthune’s example. The man’s “virtues” first listed by de Béthune are really only intellectual qualities, and the man’s vices next listed are mostly genuine moral vices.
In short, to solve the puzzle of misapplied virtues, we don’t have to subordinate virtues to moral rules, as Kant argues. Instead, we can recognize and adopt a superior class of truly moral virtues, and this will prevent us from misapplying our intellectual abilities.
Mill’s Criticism: Morality involves Judging Actions and not Character Traits. British philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) recognized the importance of virtues in forming our personal character and our opinion of people. Good people, he believed, are people who have virtues, such as charity. Mill also recognized that virtues are important for inclining us to act properly. If I have the virtue of charity, for example, then I will be more inclined to help others in need. Nevertheless, Mill argued that the job of morality is to assess people’s actions and not their character:
... no known ethical standard decides an action to be good or bad because it is done by a good or a band man, still less because done by an amiable, a brave, or a benevolent man, or the contrary. These considerations are relevant, not to the estimation of actions, but of persons ... [Utilitarianism, Ch. 2]
According to Mill I am morally guilty only for what I actually do, and not for what I am inclined to do. Suppose, for example, that I dive into a river to rescue someone from drowning, and that I’m motivated by the hope of getting a reward. Mill believes that I did the morally right thing. What matters is that I in fact rescued that person, and it doesn’t matter what specifically inclined me to do it. So, since virtues are only inclinations, then they are not relevant in our assessment of the actions themselves.
Although we should disregard virtuous inclinations when making moral judgments, Mill is quick to point out that we must recognize the immediate intention behind an action. The intention involves the action’s specific purpose. For example, when I dive into the river, my intention is to rescue you, and it is not my intention to drag you out of the river and torture you to death. My intention to rescue you will be the same, regardless of whether I am motivated by greed or benevolence. Mill recognizes that he might be going too far by devaluing the importance of virtues, but he believes that is best to err on the side of caution and rigidly judge people for each of their intended actions.
Mill is correct that we often judge people’s intended actions, and not their predispositions. This is similar to how we legally judge criminals for the crimes that they actually commit, and not for their criminal predispositions. However, contrary to Mill, there are clear cases in which both moral and legal judgments go beyond the intended action and focus also on predispositions. This is clearly the case with repeat offenders who show a predisposition towards immoral or illegal actions. Suppose that you are typically a mild-mannered person, but on one occasion you get into a bar fight and break a guy’s nose. This is certainly bad, but not as bad as if you were predisposed to violence -- and especially if you displayed this predisposition by routinely getting into bar fights. Sometimes we carry our moral track record around with us, and we expect that people will judge our actions based on the kind of person that we’ve become.
The upshot of the situation is that moral judgments are more multifaceted than Mill allows and sometimes we look beyond the intended action to the virtue or vice.
CONTEMPORARY DISCUSSIONS OF VIRTUES AND RULES.
Continuing the trend set by Grotius, Kant and Mill, moral philosophers during the late 19th and early 20th centuries typically assigned virtues a secondary place within their theories. In 1958, philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe published an influential article titled “Modern Moral Philosophy” in which she harshly criticizes the direction of moral philosophy since the days of Grotius. According to Anscombe, modern moral theories inconsistently advance moral rules without any notion of a rule giver. She advises that we abandon the entire rule-based approach in favor of the virtue-based approach offered by Aristotle, which avoids this inconsistency.
Anscombe and other critics suggest that there are essentially two approaches to morality: virtue-based theories and action/rule-based theories. According to virtue-based theories, (1) greater importance is placed on developing good character traits, rather than acting in accord with moral rules; (2) good actions are those that flow from our virtuous character traits; and (3) morality is a matter of being a good person, which involves having virtuous character traits. By contrast, according to action/rule-based theories, (1) emphasis is placed on proper actions, which conform to moral rules; (2) although good character traits might help us perform good actions, they don’t define good actions; and (3) people are judged based on their actions, not on whether they are good people.
Feminine Ethics and Virtue Theory. Virtue-based theories received an extra boost from some recent feminist philosophers who argue that action/rule-based morality is male-centered. Contemporary feminist writers express a wide range of ideas, and it is a mistake to associate any particular moral theory with the entire group. However, a theme in many feminist writers is that, historically, the creation of strict moral rules is modeled after practices that were traditionally male-dominated, such as acquiring property, engaging in business contracts, and governing societies. The rigid systems of rules required for trade and government set a pattern for creating equally rigid systems of moral rules, such as lists of moral rights and duties. Some of this may be the result of a male instinct to organize and pigeonhole things. It may also be the result of self-serving male interests, which involved creating moral rules that subverted the interests of women, such as requiring women to be obedient, industrious, servile, and silent. Men not only created the rules of morality itself, but they also created the rules that govern proper discussion of morality, so input from women became almost impossible.
Women, by contrast, traditionally had a nurturing role by raising children and overseeing domestic life. These tasks require less rule-following, and more spontaneous and creative interaction. Proponents of a view called feminine ethics argue that we should use the woman’s experience as a model for moral theory, and the basis of morality should be caring for others as would be appropriate in each unique circumstance. On this view, we first listen to people’s concerns and try to understand the total situation; we then respond to the diversity of needs and perspectives reflected in the situation. This involves acquiring nurturing character traits and having our actions flow from these. This stands in sharp contrast with male-modeled morality in which the agent mechanically performs his duty as moral laws require. Some feminist philosophers argue that a morality based on female virtues should replace male-modeled moral systems that emphasize rules. More moderate writers argue that it should only be a supplement.
Although many feminists endorse virtue-based approaches to ethics in general, contemporary philosopher Nel Noddings argues that Aristotle’s specific account needs modification. Aristotle’s list of specific virtues comes from an elite social class, as opposed to social classes of slaves and women who had more subservient roles in society. For Noddings, feminine morality is a quest for new virtues based on traditional women’s practices that we see in everyday experiences. For example, accepted women’s occupations today are cooking, cleaning, nursing, secretarial services, and childhood education. Although these are roles that women should rise above, they nevertheless reflect a caring mentality, which Noddings believes is inherent to women.
Virtues With or Without Rules? Anscombe and some feminine ethicists suggest that virtue theory should be completely independent of moral rules. Is this plausible? One side of the dispute, which we will call strong virtue theory, maintains that rules must be eliminated from all notions of virtue. That is, morality is founded entirely on virtuous character traits such as courage, and these virtues are independent of ideal principles. The other side of the dispute, which we will call weak virtue theory, maintains that there is either a single rule or a core set of rules that establish when a character trait is good or bad. Some of the appeal of strong virtue theory undoubtedly stems from a frustration with the inadequacies of various action/rule-based approaches to morality, such as those proposed by Kant and Mill. As some feminists argue, rigid rules seem so contrary to the nurturing dispositions needed for genuine morality that we should simply reject them. However, in spite of the appeal of strong virtue theory, it isn’t clear that classical virtue theorists held to this strong notion when devising their theories. Three aspects of Aristotle’s theory in particular suggest that rules are at least part of virtue-based morality.
First, Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean is itself a general principle, which some followers of Aristotle call “the principle of the golden mean.” This principle is that right or virtuous actions are those that intermediate between extreme responses. This rule is somewhat flexible and depends on our specific circumstances and the guidance of practical wisdom. Nevertheless, it is still the standard in determining virtuous conduct. Second, each specific virtue is a standard by which we assess the correctness of our own actions as well as those other people. This is clear in Aristotle’s discussion of the virtue of good-temper noted above. We praise people who abide by the virtuous mean of good temper, and blame those who don’t. He also advises us as individuals to “cling to the middle state” of good temper so that we become praiseworthy. Similarly, the virtues of courage, temperance, generosity, and self-respect all become standards by which we praise and blame actions.
A final “rule” aspect of Aristotle’s theory involves the intimate connection he establishes between ethics and politics. Ethics involves the discovery of our ultimate human purpose as developed in virtuous character traits. Politics extends directly from this and involves legislating “what we are to do and what we are to abstain from” (Nichomachean Ethics, 1.2). Part of this is establishing just actions and just punishments (Politics, 7:13). Virtues, then, are only the starting point; the next step is to create governing bodies, social classes, and the obligations of both rulers and citizens, all of which is rule-oriented. In view of these “rule” aspects of Aristotle’s theory, he is best seen as a weak virtue theorist as defined above.
Contemporary Criticisms. In spite of the recent strong support for virtue-based morality, defenders of action/rule-based approaches point out several limitations with virtue theory. However, most of these are attacks on strong virtue theory. Because of the popularity of such criticisms, it is important to see how defenders of weak virtue theory can quickly answer these charges. First, critics charge that there is a problem with determining precisely who is virtuous. It doesn’t help to look for some external criterion, such as visible indications in the person’s action, since outward actions are no guarantee that the person’s inner self is virtuous. It also doesn’t help to look for an inner criterion, such as the agent’s self-respect or integrity, since we don’t have the ability to read people’s minds. In response, weak virtue theorists say that we look at people’s actions as indicators of their character traits. For example, we spot whether a given action appears ill tempered. We then praise or blame the action based on whether it approaches the virtuous mean.
Second, critics argue that some acts are so intolerable, such as murder, that we must devise a special list of prohibited offenses. Virtue theory doesn’t provide such a list. In response, it is easy for the weak virtue theorist to construct a list of prohibited actions. When we assess how well a person’s actions conform to the virtuous mean, it becomes evident that some actions are more blameworthy than others are. We then make a list of these actions. Although Aristotle doesn’t provide a definitive list, he does note that certain vices are worse than others. For example, in the above discussion of good-temper, he argues that the vice of ill temper is worse than the vice of spiritlessness. Also, other virtue theorists do provide short lists of prohibited actions that stem from serious vices, the most famous of which is the medieval list of seven deadly sins.
Finally, critics argue that virtue theory permits us to occasionally act badly, as long as the virtue in question remains intact. For example, virtue theory emphasizes long-term character traits, such as honesty or generosity. Because of this long-term emphasis, we might overlook particular lies or particular acts of selfishness on the grounds that they are only temporary departures from our overall dispositions. The weak virtue theorist has two responses to this charge. First, once we set virtues up as standards of praise and blame, we are in a position to judge every particular action that departs from a given virtuous standard. The occasional lie, for example, will stand out and call for judgment. Second, it may be a mistake to think that occasional departures such as white lies don’t compromise virtuous character traits. With many virtues, to be virtuous means to always have exemplary conduct. For example, even a single act of marital infidelity sufficiently signals a lack of virtue. A politician who publicly lies even once loses the trust of the people. It may sometimes seem as though we can still be virtuous while occasionally acting unvirtuously, but this may only mean that we have compromised our standards of morality.
THE VALUE OF VIRTUE THEORY.
Virtues play some role in most traditional moral theories and even Grotius, Kant, and Mill don’t suggest that we completely abandon interest in them. The real questions concern, first, how important of a role virtues should play in a theory, and, second, what specific virtues should we adopt.
Incorporating Virtue Theory into Other Moral Theories. Regarding the first question -- how important of a role virtues should play -- our discussion so far suggests that they certainly deserve a central role, but not the only role. First, even the simple task of listing various virtues involves at least some rules. To determine whether a given character trait is virtuous as opposed to vicious, we will likely fall back on some rule, such as the Principle of the Golden Mean. We are also likely to see each specific virtue itself as a standard and rule that indicates proper conduct. So, at minimum, we should prefer weak virtue theory to strong virtue theory. Second, moral judgments are quite varied and even weak virtue theory can’t adequately explain this diversity without bringing in other theories. Suppose that, when driving down the highway, I accidentally cut off another driver who then flies into a rage and runs me into a ditch. Aristotle would say that the other driver was immoral largely because he had the vice of intemperance. This, though, is only one kind of moral assessment, and it isn’t even the most natural assessment that we might make. Instead, I might say that the driver was immoral because he caused me emotional pain for no justifiable reason. I might also say that the driver violated my rights -- specifically my right not to be physically attacked. If I am religious, I might say that the man sinned by going against God’s will.
Contemporary virtue theorist Alasdair MacIntyre would say that I’m uttering nonsense with these other moral assessments -- regardless of how commonly we speak about personal happiness, individual rights, or the will of God. MacIntyre believes that today we have only fragments of conflicting moral traditions:
… we continue to use many of the key expressions [of morality]. But we have – very largely, if not entirely – lost our comprehension, both theoretical and practical, of morality. [After Virtue, 1]
To make sense of morality, according to MacIntyre, we need to follow Aristotle’s view of virtues. Contrary to MacIntyre, though, it isn’t reasonable to simply dismiss most of our moral vocabulary simply because it doesn’t draw on virtue theory. More importantly, it is not even possible for us today to abandon these other moral notions in exclusive favor of virtue theory. Notions of moral rights are firmly imbedded into American moral consciousness, particularly the natural rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as endorsed by the Declaration of Independence. Religious believers who ground morality in God’s will are not likely to shift to Aristotle’s virtue theory anytime soon. To best understand morality and theorize about it, we should begin by acknowledging the wide range of approaches that people actually do take to the subject. Virtue theory is only one of many approaches.
Concerning the second question -- what specific virtues we should focus on -- it is clear that Aristotle’s short list of virtues is incomplete. Whereas Aristotle stopped at about a dozen virtues, 17th and 18th century virtue theorists expanded the list to as many as 100 distinct virtues. Today we should modify the list even more. Feminist critics such as Noddings correctly point out that Aristotle’s list reflects an aristocratic bias that we should reject. Following the observations of feminists, we should include more feminine and nurturing qualities. As social trends shift and we become more receptive to racial, ethnic, and gender diversity, we should adopt virtues of social tolerance and acceptance. With growing interest in animal rights and environmental issues, we should cultivate virtues that display a sensitivity to these concerns. Part of the task of moral philosophers is to sift through social trends and update moral theories in this way.
The Best Teacher of Morality. Although we want to view virtue theory as only one of many approaches to morality, we want to keep in mind virtue theory’s unique asset. Imagine that, as a parent, you want to teach your child that it is wrong to become inappropriately enraged. When your child is older, you don’t want him to give in to road rage, beat his wife, or perform any other action that is the consequence of inappropriate anger. Imagine further that you had two teaching methods available. The first method established meticulous rules for what counts as inappropriate anger in virtually every circumstance. It also included rules describing the kinds of punishments that were justified for each type of violation. According to this first teaching method, your child would memorize all these rules so that, for each situation that arises, your child immediately knows the right thing to do. The second method doesn’t involve memorizing specific rules, but, instead, focuses on instilling good habits. Using various techniques, such as behavior modification, you teach your child to avoid inappropriate action and become habituated towards appropriate action. You also give him techniques so he can properly modify his behavior on his own, without your constant monitoring. All other factors being equal, which of these two methods would work best in preventing inappropriate anger? The habit-instilling method appears to be the winner.
Virtue theorists capitalize on the benefits of teaching morality through creating virtuous habits. They argue that the most important thing about studying ethics is its impact on conduct. Aristotle himself said that he wrote the Nichomachean Ethics “not in order to know what virtue is, but in order to become good.” Detailed lists of rules in and of themselves don’t make us better people, but instilling good habits does. In 1993, attorney William J. Bennett edited an anthology titled The Book of Virtues, which quickly became a best seller. The work contains classic stories and folk tales highlighting 10 virtues, including self-discipline, compassion, responsibility and friendship. Bennett says that the work is meant to assist in the “time-honored task of the moral education of the young.” Among the essential elements of moral training, he notes that “Moral education must provide training in good habits. Aristotle wrote that good habits formed at youth make all the difference.”
In our actual lives as we raise our children, we will likely adopt a hybrid approach to teaching morality which involves both teaching rules and instilling good habits. The fact remains, though, that it is a mistake to completely ignore the benefits of virtue theory in moral instruction. Society needs all the help it can get in improving its moral climate. To that end moral philosophers of all traditions should welcome the contributions of virtue theory.
Summary. Aristotle offered the view that morality consists of developing virtuous habits that are a mean between extreme vicious habits. Philosophers during the Middle Ages adopted Aristotle’s view, although virtues were reduced to a secondary status by 17th and 18th century moral philosophers. Grotius argued that Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean fails since some virtues such as religious worship actually require extreme behavior. In response, we noted that virtues in fact do occupy a middle-ground, although the middle ground must be seen within particular social contexts. Kant argued that some virtues -- such as cool-headedness -- might become vices if they aren’t guided by higher moral principles. We’ve seen, however, that we can avoid misapplying virtues by distinguishing between more important moral virtues, such as justice, and less important intellectual qualities, such as cool-headedness. By acquiring the more important moral virtues, we thereby avoid misapplying the less important intellectual qualities. Mill argued that morality involves judging a person’s actions and not a person’s character. Contrary to Mill, though, we saw that at least sometimes it is relevant to consider a person’s character when judging actions, especially with repeat offenders.
Contemporary discussions of virtue assess the relative merits of virtue-based morality vs. action/rule-based morality. Some feminist philosophers reject the action/rule-based approach for being to male in orientation, and instead suggest that morality involves acquiring more feminine virtues such as nurturance. In response, we distinguished between strong virtue theory, which rejects all rules, and weak virtue theory, which involves some rules. We noted that Aristotle himself is a weak virtue theorist, and that weak virtue theory sidesteps many common criticisms against virtue theory in general. In conclusion we saw that virtue theory is only one of many approaches to moral philosophy, although virtue theory is uniquely suited for teaching morality.
Sources
Quotation on road rage is from The Washington Post, Thursday, October 16, 1997.
Plato’s discussion of the divisions of the soul is in the Republic Book 4.435, and his account of the unity of the virtues is in the Protagoras 349b.
The discussion of Aristotle’s theory presented here is from Nichomachean Ethics, Books 1-5, which is available in several modern translations.
Grotius’s discussion of Aristotle is from On the Law of War and Peace (1625), Prolegomena, 43-35. The best current translation of this work is that by Francis W. Kelsey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1925).
Hume’s discussion of monkish virtues is from his Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, 9.1. The best current edition of this work is edited by Tom Beauchamp (Oxford: Oxford University Press: 1999).
Kant’s criticism of virtue theory is from his Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), which is available in several modern translations.
The quotation from Maximilien de Béthune, duc de Sully (1559-1641) appeared in his Mémoires des sages et royales oeconomies (Amsterdam, 1652-62), translated into English in Memoirs of Maximilian de Bethune, duke of Sully, prime minister to Henry the Great (London, Printed for A. Millar, 1756). The quotation is as appears in James Balfour’s A Delineation of the Nature and Obligation of Morality (1753), Chapter 5, which is available in a recent facsimile reprint (Bristol: Thoemmes, 1989).
Mill’s criticism of virtue theory is in chapter 2 of Utilitarianism (1863), which is available in several modern editions.
Elizabeth Anscombe’s contemporary defense of virtue theory is in “Modern Moral Philosophy” (1958), Philosophy, 1958, Vol. 33; this article is reprinted in her Ethics, Religion and Politics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1981).
Nel Noddings discussion of feminist ethics and virtue theory is in “Ethics From the Stand Point of Women” in Woman and Values, ed. Marilyn Pearsall (Wadsworth)
Some of the contemporary criticisms of virtue theory are taken from Robert Louden “On Some Vices of Virtue Ethics” (1984), American Philosophical Quarterly, 1984, Vol. 21
Alasdair MacIntyre’s contemporary defense of virtue theory is in After Virtue, second edition, (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1984).
Suggestions for Further Reading
Commentaries on Aristotle’s ethical theory include John M. Cooper, Reason and Human Good in Aristotle (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975), W. Hardie, Aristotle’s Ethical Theory (Oxford University Press, 1980); H.H. Joachim, Aristotle: The Nichomachean Ethics (Oxford University Press, 1954); Martha Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness (Cambridge University Press, 1986); Amelie Rorty, ed., Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics (University of California Press, 1980).
John Duns Scotus discusses various medieval philosophers on the subject of the interconnectedness of virtues (Ordinatio III, suppl. dist. 36), translated in Duns Scotus on the Will and Morality (Washington D.C.: Catholic Uiversity of America Press, 1986) tr. Allan B. Wolter. James Beattie discusses early virtue theorists who distinguished between moral virtues and intellectual abilities; see Beattie’s Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth (1770), Part 3, Chapter 2, recently edited by James Fieser (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 2000). For a discussion of 18th century philosophers who also made this distinction, see James Fieser “Hume’s Wide View of the Virtues” in Hume Studies, November 1998.
J.B. Schneewind describes the post-Renaissance decline of virtue theory as a matter of continual revision, rather than a matter of complete rejection; “The Misfortunes of Virtue” in Ethics, 1990, Vol. 101.
For contemporary discussions of virtue theory see Philippa Foot, Virtues and Vices, (University of California Press, 1978), William Frankena, Ethics (Prentice-Hall, 1963), Chapter four, R. Kruschwitz, ed., The Virtues: Contemporary Essays on Moral Character (Wadsworth, 1987), and Greg Pence, “Recent Work on the Virtues,” in American Philosophical Quarterly, 1984, Vol. 21.
#9. MORAL REASON VS. MORAL FEELING
INTRODUCTION.
Approximately 12 million children die each year from disease and hunger-related illnesses, most of whom are from developing countries that lack adequate social and economic structures. Developing countries are often overpopulated and farmers just barely grow enough food to meet the country’s normal food demand. Then, during occasional times of drought, food production greatly drops, and there’s simply not enough to go around. Children are hit harder than adults in times of famine mainly because adults can go longer without food than children. Charitable organizations in the U.S. and other industrial countries try to reduce the number of casualties by providing food and health supplies to needy families. The Save the Children organization is recognized as one of the most effective charities of this kind in America. Part of its success owes to the heart-wrenching descriptions it provides of needy and abused children around the world, such as this:
Daniel was born in a small village in Mozambique and spent his first ten years there. ... One summer night seven years ago, a band of armed rebels burst into their family compound, then kidnapped Daniel ... at gun point. All night long he marched. He arrived at the rebel camp the next morning ... his bare feet badly cut and swollen ... his body shaking with fear. ... Daniel was held captive for five years. He didn’t see his parents or anyone he knew. Beatings were common. At first he took care of the cattle and served the soldiers. Later, he was given a gun, taught to use it and forced to kill.
The story continues that, after a peace treaty, Save the Children helped reunite Daniel with his family. Celebrity spokespeople for this organization -- such as Sally Struthers, Brooke Shields and David Bowie -- make public appeals and tell us that for only a few dollars a month we can help these children. The appeals are convincing and our hearts go out to the young victims. If we feel enough compassion for them, then we might even give money to the organization to support their efforts.
The appeals made by such charitable organizations are blatantly emotional. They tug on our heartstrings to prompt us into action, specifically to get us to make a financial commitment. They imply that there is an intimate connection between our sympathetic feelings and our sense of moral obligation. We can feel that it is our duty to assist these needy children. However, some philosophers believe that emotional appeals are manipulative and have nothing to do with morality. True morality, they argue, is purely rational and must be free from all emotional considerations. Although we naturally feel pangs of sympathy for people in need, true morality requires that we set these feelings aside and base our judgments on the cool and impartial dictates of reason. Other philosophers, though, disagree and argue that moral judgments have little to do with human reason. We are morally motivated by emotions and our moral assessments of other people are basically emotional reactions.
During the 18th century, British moral philosophers hotly debated the role of reason vs. the role of emotions in moral matters. Several philosophers of the early 18th century took the hard line position that morality is strictly a matter of rational judgment. Perhaps the most famous advocate of this view is Samuel Clarke (1675-1729). Clarke’s chief opponent was David Hume (1711-1776) who argued that moral approval is not a rational judgment, but a pleasing emotion that we experience when we observe someone’s conduct. We will look at this 18th century dispute between reason and emotion and consider the impact of this discussion on later moral philosophy.
CLARKE’S RATIONALIST THEORY.
Since the time of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, philosophers often argued that moral truths exist in a spiritual realm and that we access these moral truths through a special rational faculty. The theory of natural law forged in the Middle Ages perpetuated this view and held that moral truths are imbedded in nature. Clarke is at the tail end of this tradition. Many of the great figures in natural law theory, such as Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), emphasized the political implications of natural law, specifically how we form governments and international laws. Clarke, though, focuses mainly on the moral implications of natural law, and how we as ordinary people discover moral truths through the use of our reason.
Eternal Moral Relations. Clarke’s central message is simple: moral truths are like mathematical truths, which are eternal. Just as we access mathematical truths through reason alone, we also access moral truths through reason alone. Clarke argues for his view by first examining mathematical truths. According to Clarke mathematical truths rest on relations between numbers, specifically the relations of “greater than,” “less than” and “equal to”:
That there are differences of things; and different relations, respects or proportions, of some things towards others; is as evident and undeniable, as that one magnitude or number, is greater, equal to, or smaller than another. [Discourse, 1]
According to Clarke, these mathematical relations have fixed and eternal meanings, which even God can’t change. We rationally grasp these mathematical notions and use them in our ordinary lives. For example, I might make the statement that “the money in my bank account is less than the money in my attorney’s bank account.” This statement is true if it lives up to the ideal mathematical meaning of “less than.” In Clarke’s words, my statement will be fit or proportioned with respect to the mathematical relation of “less than.”
Clarke continues that there are also nonmathematical eternal laws, which he calls laws of righteousness. Just as mathematical laws are grounded in eternal mathematical relations, moral laws are grounded in moral relations. Clarke lists three specific laws of righteousness, each of which involves a distinct moral relation. First, there is the law of righteousness towards God, which hinges on the relation of “infinite greatness”. Since God is infinitely great in comparison to us, then it is fit or proportioned for us to worship and adore God. The second law of righteousness is the law of equity, which involves dealing with others in ways that are right and just. For Clarke, the law of equity hinges on a relation of equity that exists between people, and this relation is simply the Golden Rule: “Whatever I judge reasonable or unreasonable for another to do for me; that, by the same judgment, I declare reasonable or unreasonable, and I in the like case should do for him.” For example, it would be unreasonable for me to steal my neighbor’s lawnmower, since I would find it unreasonable for him to steal my lawnmower. When I follow the Golden Rule, then my actions are fit and proportioned to this relation of equity. By and large, the law of equity demands that we only avoid harming others in ways that we ourselves would not want to be harmed. However, Clarke argues that the third law of righteousness moves beyond the issue of harm and instead mandates us to more actively promote the well-being of others. This third law is the law of benevolence, which hinges on a relation of doing the greatest good. This law requires us to help others in need and, more generally, to strive to make the world a better place.
Just as even God can’t alter mathematical laws and their relations, Clarke argues that God can’t alter the three laws of righteousness and their relations either. Further, just as our knowledge of mathematical relations is self-evident and purely rational, so too is our knowledge of moral relations. In fact, Clarke feels that our knowledge of moral relations is so self-evident that he even ridicules those who would deny them:
These things are so notoriously plain and self-evident, that nothing but the extremest stupidity of Mind, corruption of Manners, or perverseness of Spirit can possibly make any Man entertain the least doubt concerning them. For a Man endued with Reason, to deny the Truth of these Things, is the very same thing, as if a Man that has the use of his Sight, should at the same time that he beholds the Sun, deny that there is any such thing as Light in the World; or as if a Man that understands Geometry or Arithmetic, should deny the most obvious and known Proportions of Lines or Numbers, and perversely contend that the whole is not equal to all its parts, or that a Square is not double to a triangle of equal base and height. [Discourse, 1]
Clarke argues here that it is as stupid for a rational person to deny moral relations as it is for a person with eyes to deny that the sun shines. Clarke continues noting that these moral relations are binding on all beings that can rationally intuit them. Since God is a supremely rational being, then he can flawlessly intuit these moral relations and will carry them out in practice. Humans are rational and, so, we too perceive moral relations and are bound by them. However, our reason is limited and we are distracted by our human emotions. Also, through improper upbringing, our rational abilities might become corrupted. So, unlike God, we are morally fallible.
Here are the main points of Clarke’s theory:
· There are three eternal laws of righteousness, namely, worship of God, equity, and benevolence, which rest on three related moral relations.
· Our knowledge of moral relations is purely rational and self-evident to all humans, just as is our knowledge of mathematical relations.
· We judge the fitness or unfitness of our actions in reference to these eternal moral relations.
· Although we are morally bound by these eternal moral relations, our finite reason and human emotions sometimes prevent us from proper moral motivation.
Clarke didn’t think that his list of the laws of righteousness was particularly original, and he says a more detailed list of our various duties “may easily be supplied abundantly out of several late excellent writers.” What is unique with Clarke, though, is his notion of moral relations and how these parallel mathematical relations.
Hume’s Criticisms of Clarke. Hume thought that natural law philosophers were wrong about the eternal status of moral truths and also about the role of reason in making moral judgments. In attacking this tradition, Hume focuses specifically on Clarke’s theory of moral relations. According to Hume, moral assessments can’t be judgments about relations since we find exactly the same relations in both moral and nonmoral situations. Hume makes this point here by comparing a young tree killing its parent tree and a man killing one of his parents:
... let us chuse any inanimate object, such as an oak or elm; and let us suppose, that by the dropping of its seed, it produces a sapling blow it, which springing up by degrees, at last overtops and destroys the parent tree: I ask, if in this instance there be wanting any relation, which is discoverable in parricide or ingratitude? [A Treatise of Human Nature, 3:1:1]
Hume suggests here that it is no moral crime when a young tree overgrows and kills its parent tree. However, it is a moral crime when someone like the Roman Emperor Nero kills his mother. Since both of these situations exhibit the same relation, then moral assessments must be different than rational judgments about relations. Stated more precisely, Hume’s argument is this:
(1) Anything that exhibits a given moral relation would be judged good or bad accordingly. [Clarke’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, it is false that anything that exhibits a given moral relation would be judged good or bad accordingly.
On the face of it, Hume’s argument appears weak, particularly regarding premise two. There is a big difference between Nero killing his mother and a young tree overgrowing and killing its parent. Nero acted with a motive, but young trees are not the kind of things that can have motives. In response to Hume’s attack, then, Clarke would simply reject premise two in the above argument. Hume anticipates this problem, though, and challenges us to specify exactly the kind of relation exhibited between Nero and his mother. Suppose that Clarke says that the relation involves ill will in Nero’s motive toward his mother; young trees clearly don’t have motives of ill will. According to Hume, that particular relation won’t work since we would all be guilty of a moral crime anytime we felt ill will towards another person, even when we never actually acted on our ill will. To avoid this conclusion, suppose, instead, that Clarke locates the relation in Nero’s action towards his mother, and not Nero’s motive. For Hume, that relation won’t work either since it would apply to non-human things that don’t have motives, such as trees, and we are back where we started. So, premise two in Hume’s argument is stronger than we might initially think.
However, there is a third option that Hume doesn’t consider. Instead of looking at either motives or actions, suppose that we look at what philosophers call intentional actions. Some of our actions are nonintentional, such as seizures, sneezes, and coughs. They just happen without any planning or purpose on our part. Other actions, though, are intimately connected with some intended goal, such as me brushing my teeth, or Nero killing his mother. Although trees might exhibit nonintentional movements, such as swaying in the wind or growing towards the sun, they certainly don’t exhibit intentional action. Based on this understanding, Clarke could say that Nero’s act is wrong since it displays the relation of an intentional act of killing an innocent person. This relation won’t apply to people who simply have bad thoughts, nor will it apply to young trees. So, Hume’s argument against Clarke fails.
Although Hume’s young tree argument doesn’t successfully refute Clarke, Hume offers two additional arguments that are more compelling. First, Hume argues that when we closely examine the contents of any morally significant action, such as a murder, we will never locate a special moral fact or moral relation about which we can make a rational judgment. All that we will find is our own feeling. Second, Hume asks us to compare whether moral assessments are more like rational judgments, such as “4 is greater than 3,” or more like aesthetic pronouncements, such as “this painting is beautiful.” Hume believes that moral assessments are clearly more like aesthetic pronouncements, and these are feelings and not rational judgments. Hume’s point in both of these arguments is that we can easily see the emotional component of moral assessments, but we can’t so easily articulate the rational component. Although a diehard rationalist like Clarke might still insist that the rational component is obvious, most of us will probably agree that the emotional component is more obvious.
Hume summarizes his attack on moral rationalism in what has become one of the most famous passages in Western moral philosophy:
In every system of morality which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs. When [all] of a sudden I am surprised to find that, instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is and isn’t, I meet with no proposition that isn’t connected with an ought or an ought not. The change is imperceptible, but is, however, of the last [and greatest] consequence. For as this ought or ought not expresses some new relation or affirmation, it is necessary that it should be observed and explained. And at the same time, [it is necessary] that a reason should be given for (what seems altogether inconceivable) how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it. [A Treatise of Human Nature, 3:1:1.]
Hume’s point is that 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.” According to Hume, we can’t simply rationally deduce statements of obligation from statements of fact. Even if it is a fact that Daniel is starving, we need our emotions to make the assessment that we should help feed Daniel. Clarke’s blunder is that he claims as a point of fact that there are eternal relations, and then he concludes that we ought to follow these relations as laws of righteousness. Contemporary moral philosophers encapsulate Hume’s point with the slogan that, “We cannot derive ought from is.” That is, we can’t rationally deduce statements of obligation from statements of fact. No collection of facts will ever entail a judgment of value, so values must come from another source.
HUME’S MORAL THEORY.
Once Hume dispenses with Clarke’s notion of moral rationalism, he then explains in more detail how emotion is involved in moral assessments. Hume was inspired by several earlier British moral philosophers who proposed that we have a moral sense that enables us to perceive and assess right and wrong conduct.
Early Moral Sense Theories. The first British writer to use the term “moral sense” was Anthony Ashley Cooper (1671-1713), better known as the Earl of Shaftesbury. In his Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit (1699), Shaftesbury maintains that our moral sense perceives moral qualities in much the same way as our eyes perceive colors:
The case is the same in mental or moral subjects, as in [our sense perceptions of] ordinary bodies, or the common subjects of sense. The shapes, motions, colors, and proportions of these latter being presented to our eye, there necessarily results a beauty or deformity, according to the different measure, arrangement and disposition of their several parts. So in behavior and actions, when presented to our understanding, there must be found, of necessity, an apparent difference, according to the regularity or irregularity of the subjects.
Although Shaftesbury doesn’t give a detailed description of our moral sense, it appears that he takes the notion of “sense” literally and is willing to classify it as a sixth sense. This literal understanding of the moral sense is in part based on a broad definition of “sense perception”. For example, British philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) broadly defines the notion of sense perception here:
... when I say the senses convey into the mind, I mean, they from external Objects convey into the mind what produces there those Perceptions.” [Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 2:1:3]
Based on Locke’s definition, any mental faculty that can convey external qualities may be called a “sense”.
Shaftesbury’s suggestion took hold, and other moral philosophers developed the notion of the moral sixth sense in greater detail. The most influential of these was Irish philosopher Francis Hutcheson (1694-1747). Hutcheson made it clear that he took the notion of moral sense literally:
[The] power of receiving these [moral] perceptions may be called a moral sense, since the definition [of “sense”] agrees to it, viz. a determination of the mind, to receive any idea from the presence on an object which occurs to us, independent on our will. [Inquiry Concerning Moral Good and Evil, 1:1]
According to Hutcheson, all of our senses involve two things: (1) an object that we perceive, and (2) a mental perception that we form in response. For example, with my sense of sight I am presented with a physical object, such as a chair, and I form a visual perception of that object in my mind. Similarly, the objects of my moral sense are benevolent actions that people perform, such as donating to charity. The mental perception that I form is a feeling of pleasure. For Hutcheson, then, my moral sense enables me to detect benevolence in an action and my subsequent feeling of pleasure constitutes my approval of that benevolent action.
Hume not only read Hutcheson’s description of the moral sense, but Hume knew Hutcheson personally and corresponded with him. In his own moral theory, Hume downplays the literal notion of “moral sense” proposed by Hutcheson, but nevertheless agrees with Hutcheson’s main point: moral approval is a pleasing feeling, and not a rational judgment.
The Moral Spectator’s Sympathetic Feelings. Most simply, Hume’s theory is that moral approval is only a pleasing feeling that we experience when we observe conduct. When I see someone donate to charity, I sympathetically feel pleasure for the receiver of that donation. On the other hand, if I see someone steal a car, I sympathetically feel pain for the car owner. The experience of pleasure is my moral approval, and the experience of pain is my moral disapproval. Hume states his basic view here:
... moral distinctions depend entirely on certain peculiar sentiments of pain and pleasure, and that whatever mental quality in ourselves or others gives us a satisfaction, by the survey or reflexion, is of course virtuous; as every thing of this nature, that gives uneasiness, is vicious. [A Treatise of Human Nature, 3:3:1]
Hume’s account of morality involves a complex chain of events between three players: a moral agent, a receiver, and a moral spectator. The moral agent is a person who performs an action, such as donating to charity or stealing a car. The receiver is the person directly affected by the agent’s action, such as a person who receives charity, or a victim who gets his car stolen. The moral spectator is a person who observes or imagines the receiver, and makes a moral assessment about the agent. All moral assessments start with an agent’s motivated action, extend through the consequences to a receiver, and end with sympathetic feelings of pleasure or pain in the mind of a spectator.
When moral spectators pass judgment on the actions of moral agents, there are distinct psychological events going on in the minds of all parties involved, which we can chart out here:
AGENT | RECEIVER | SPECTATOR
character trait useful or agreeable sympathetic
leading to action consequences pleasure/pain
To illustrate these various psychological components, suppose that you (the agent) donate to Save the Children to specifically help improve the life of Daniel (the receiver). I (the spectator) assess that your act of charity is morally good. According to Hume, my feelings of moral approval are in response to your character trait as reflected in your action. Hume also argues that your character trait is the motive behind your action, and your trait will either be instinctive, or it will have been acquired through social conditioning. In this case, your act of charity is motivated by benevolence, which, according to Hume, is largely an instinctive character trait.
If we suppose that Save the Children does its job properly, then your act of charity will have a direct impact on Daniel’s life. Specifically, you will make him happier than he would otherwise be. According to Hume, there are two types of effects stemming from morally approvable actions. First, the action will be immediately agreeable to the receiver, and thereby give him pleasure. Second, the action will be useful to the receiver and indirectly give him pleasure. In Daniel’s case, he will be immediately pleased by your simple act of charity in and of itself, and he will also be pleased by the use that his family can make of the donated money, such as providing him with more food. In both cases, Daniel experiences pleasure from your charitable act.
As a spectator, I can personally witness or at least imagine the pleasure that Daniel experiences through your act of charity. Once I observe Daniel’s pleasure, I too will experience pleasure for him vicariously or, in Hume’s words, sympathetically. Hume uses the term “sympathy” in a literal sense and he sees it as a human instinct by which the receiver’s emotions are transferred to a spectator. An illustration from physics will help explain this literal notion of sympathy. Imagine that I have two acoustic guitars side by side. If I pluck the low E string on one guitar, then, the low E string on the second guitar will automatically vibrate, without me even touching the second guitar. Physicists refer to this phenomenon as the “sympathetic vibration of strings.” Analogously, Hume describes what we may call a “sympathetic transference of emotion.” If Daniel experiences pleasure because of your donation, then that pleasure will be transferred to me and I myself will be pleased. My sense of pleasure, then, constitutes my moral approval towards your benevolent motive. That is, my feeling of pleasure is my moral approval of you. I then deem that your initial character trait is a virtue, as opposed to a vice.
According to Hume, all moral assessments follow the above formula, even when we assess that a person is morally bad. Suppose that you steal your neighbor’s car. You, again, are the agent, but this time you are motivated to steal because you have an unjust character trait concerning property rights. Your unjust act of stealing has negative consequences on your neighbor’s life. First, your neighbor will be immediately outraged because you simply took something of his. Second, he will be inconvenienced. For both of these reasons he will experience emotional pain. When I, as the spectator, see your neighbor’s pain, I too experience his pain sympathetically. My pain, then, constitutes my moral condemnation of your unjust character trait, which I thereby deem to be a vice.
The radical part about Hume’s theory is that moral assessments aren’t rational judgements, as Clarke and other moral rationalists believed, but only feelings in the mind of the spectator. Hume boldly makes this point here:
To have the sense of virtue, is nothing but to feel a satisfaction of a particular kind from the contemplation of a character. The very feeling constitutes our praise or admiration. We go no farther; nor do we enquire into the cause of the satisfaction. [A Treatise of Human Nature, 3:1:2]
For Hume, the spectator’s feelings are the final authority in moral assessments, and we can’t seek for a further explanation of moral assessment beyond these. In addition to his radical claims about the spectator’s moral approval, Hume made equally daring claims about the nature of moral motivation and God’s role in morality.
Moral Motivation and Morality Without God. For the sake of argument, let’s grant Hume’s point that the spectator’s moral approval is an emotion and not a rational judgment. There is still a question of what motivates the agent to perform a given action to begin with. For example, what specifically sparks you as an agent to donate to Save the Children or to perform any other moral action? According to Clarke, your reason tells you that it is the right thing to do, and, so, your reason motivates you to act. According to Hume, though, for any action that you perform as an agent, you are only ever motivated to act from emotion, and never from reason. Reason is inert, and won’t by itself incline us to do anything even if our lives depend on it. Hume illustrates his view here:
It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger. It is not contrary to reason for me to chuse my total ruin, to prevent the least uneasiness of an Indian or person wholly unknown to me. It is as little contrary to reason to prefer even my own acknowledged lesser good to my greater, and have a more ardent affection for the former than the latter. [A Treatise of Human Nature, 2:3:3]
Although a little extreme, Hume’s basic observation is correct. Something must motivate us to prefer one thing over another, and even a truckload of reasons won’t motivate us. According to Hume, human reason only addresses questions of truth and falsehood, such as whether it is true or false that children are starving in Third World countries. But, reason is completely indifferent to what it determines, and reason won’t get us to act one way or another. So, without emotion there is nothing to keep me from preferring the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.
Even though reason won’t motivate us to act in any way whatsoever, Hume concedes that reason plays a minor role as an information gatherer. Specifically, reason helps us discover facts that we might emotionally respond to -- such as facts about the specific countries in which people are starving. But, I still need emotions to make me prefer to do something about it. In Hume’s words, “Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.”
In short, Hume believes that moral rationalists are misguided about both the spectator’s evaluation of moral conduct and about the agent’s motivation for acting. Hume pushes this a step further and concludes that morality as a purely human phenomenon – involving only human emotion – and morality has no relation to God. Hume makes his case most clearly in one of his letters to Hutcheson:
If morality were determined by reason, that [determination] is the same to all rational beings. But nothing but experience can assure us that the sentiments are the same. What experience have we with regard to superior beings? How can we ascribe to them any sentiments at all? They have implanted those sentiments in us for the conduct of life like our bodily sensations, which they possess not themselves. [Hume to Hutcheson, March 16, 1740]
In this passage Hume gives two reasons for denying that morality applies to superior rational beings, such as God or angels. First, moral feelings depend on a physical body, which God and angels lack. This means that spiritual beings cannot be emotionally motivated to act in the way that human moral agents are motivated. This also means that spiritual beings won’t have sympathetic feelings of moral approval in the way that human spectators have such feelings. Second, in this passage Hume argues that it is only through experience that we can conclude that all human beings have similar moral feelings. Since we have no experience of superior beings, then we cannot make similar conclusions about their moral nature.
Hume’s moral theory appears to be the first account of ethics since ancient Greece and Rome that doesn’t involve the existence of God. Some philosophers during the modern period, such as Grotius and Hobbes, tried to minimize God’s involvement in moral matters. However, these philosophers still maintained that God endorses the same moral values that we do, and that God also urges us to be moral. According to Hume, though, even if God exists, it doesn’t seem that morality has anything to do with God.
Here are the main points of Hume’s theory:
· Moral agents perform actions that are motivated by either instinctive or acquired character traits, and, in either case, are sparked by emotions and not reason.
· Receivers experience pleasure (pain) either immediately from the agent’s action, or from the usefulness (inconvenience) of that action.
· 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).
CRITICISMS OF HUME.
When Hume’s moral theory first appeared, reactions were almost unanimously critical. One opponent accused Hume of “sapping the foundations of morality” insofar as Hume links morality exclusively with human psychological makeup. Most moral philosophers agreed with Hume that feelings play some role in moral assessment. However, they attacked Hume for making moral assessment exclusively a matter of emotion. The most articulate critic to make this point was Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid (1710-1796).
Reid’s First Criticism: Hume Abuses Common Moral Language. Shortly after Hume’s death, Reid published a detailed critique of Hume’s moral theory, which, even today, remains one of the most insightful discussions of Hume. Reid agrees with Hume that the moral spectator in fact does have an emotional response to the agent’s action. However, for Reid, the emotional reaction is only of secondary importance. Like Clarke, Reid held that true moral assessment is a rational judgment, and, for Reid, our emotional reaction is almost like an afterthought. According to Reid, Hume’s theory fails because it blurs the distinction between the spectator’s rational assessment and the spectator’s emotional response. Reid makes his point with two distinct arguments. Reid’s first argument is straightforward: our common use of moral language shows that moral assessments are really rational judgments, and Hume abuses language by linking moral terms with the spectator’s feelings:
When Mr Hume derives moral distinctions from a moral sense, I agree with him in words, but we differ about the meaning of the word sense. Every power to which the name of a sense has been given, is a power of judging of the objects of that sense, and has been accounted such in all ages; the moral sense therefore is the power of judging in morals. But Mr Hume will have the moral sense to be only a power of feeling, without judging: This I take to be an abuse of a word. [Essays on the Active Powers of Man, 5:7]
Reid argues that we all can clearly distinguish between a spectator’s report about feelings, and a spectator’s rational judgment about an agent’s action. And, based on how we in fact use common moral terms, we all clearly understand that moral assessment is a rational judgment, and not a report of feelings. Hume, though, abuses language by giving key moral terms an unconventional meaning; specifically, Hume implicitly defines the term “moral sense” to mean only a power of feeling, without any rational judgment. Not only does Hume do this with the term “moral sense” but, Reid argues he also does this with the terms “decision,” “determination,” “approbation,” “praise,” and several other key terms. So, according to Reid, if Hume would have paid attention to how we commonly use moral terms, then Hume would have seen that moral assessment is a rational judgment, and not a report about feelings.
But if Reid is correct that common language is so clear about moral assessment, then how did Hume manage to even get his theory published? According to Reid, Hume plays a trick with language by carefully selecting specific terms, such as “approval,” which in English commonly involve both a rational judgment and an emotional reaction. So, if Hume says, “moral assessment only involves a spectator’s approval,” then we initially agree with Hume, since our common notion of approval has a rational component. However, Hume then pulls the wool over our eyes by explaining that “approval” means only that a spectator feels pleasure. We then agree with this too, since our common notion of “approval” also has an emotional component. As logicians say, Hume equivocates on the term “approval” by secretly playing off of two meanings of a single word.
For the sake of argument, let’s grant Reid’s point that Hume equivocates on key moral terms such as “approval” when Hume claims that moral assessments are only reports of feelings. However, we can accuse Reid and other moral rationalists of doing the same thing. As Reid himself notes, the common meaning of the word “approval” includes both a rational and an emotional component. When Reid and others emphasize the rational component of moral approval, they then ignore the built-in emotional component of this term. Even the term “judgment” has an emotional component in common language. For example, when I “judge” that a hamburger doesn’t taste as good as a cheeseburger, or that the blue curtains don’t look as nice as the green curtains, these clearly involve emotional reactions. Almost any similar term that we use for moral assessment will include an emotional component. In our common moral discourse, we rarely use purely rational terms such as “deduce” as in, for example, “I deduce that it is wrong for Smith to kill Jones.” Instead, we select terms that have both an emotional and a rational component. So, our common moral language in fact indicates that moral assessment is not purely a matter of rational judgment, but also involves an emotional response.
In short, although Reid attacks Hume for restricting moral approval to a spectator’s emotions, at best Reid only shows that there is some rational component to morality along with an emotive component. And it isn’t clear from Reid’s observations whether reason or emotion play the dominant role. Perhaps reason only plays a secondary role as a “slave of the passions” as Hume suggests. Common language alone won’t settle this.
Reid’s Second Criticism: Reporting Feelings differs from Approving. Reid’s second argument against Hume is that reporting my feelings about an agent’s conduct isn’t logically equivalent to my approval of an agent’s conduct. To make is point Reid asks us to compare two statements such as these:
(1) I (the spectator) approve of an agent’s conduct.
(2) An agent’s conduct gave me (the spectator) an agreeable feeling.
According to Hume’s theory, the two statements are essentially the same since my approval of an agent’s conduct is identical to a specific agreeable feeling that I experience. However, contrary to Hume, Reid argues that the two statements are not at all the same. The first expresses an assessment about the agent, whereas the second merely testifies that the spectator had a feeling. This difference becomes more apparent when we examine the logical relation between the two statements, as Reid describes here:
the first [statement] may be contradicted without any ground of offence, such contradiction being only a difference of opinion, which, to a reasonable man, gives no offence. But the second speech cannot be contradicted without an affront; for, as every man must know his own feelings, to deny that a man had a feeling which he affirms he had, is to charge him with falsehood. [Essays on the Active Powers of Man, 5:7]
Suppose, Reid suggests, that we negated the first sentence, yet at the same time asserted the second:
(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.
If Hume’s theory is correct, then we would contradict ourselves if we asserted the above two statements at the same time. For Reid, however, it is totally plausible that I could disapprove of an agent’s conduct, yet at the same time have an agreeable feeling about that agent’s conduct. Take Robin Hood, for example, who stole from the rich and gave to the poor. I may disapprove of the fact that he stole, but I may still feel good about Robin Hood’s actions if I sympathize with the plight of the poor. So, although Hume believes that statements (1) and (2) are identical, according to Reid they really aren’t identical since we can meaningfully deny statement (1) while asserting statement (2) at the same time.
How might Hume respond? Reid poses a genuine problem that pushes Hume’s theory to its limits. If we analyze the Robin Hood case in more detail, we can see precisely how the problem arises. In this situation, Robin Hood is the agent who steals from the rich with the intention of giving to the poor. I am the spectator who feels either pleasure or pain in sympathy with the receivers. Who, though, are the receivers? In this case there are two groups of receivers: the rich and the poor. The rich are victims of Robin Hood’s thievery, and the poor are beneficiaries of his benevolence. This explains why I can disapprove of Robin Hood’s conduct (on behalf of the rich) yet also feel good about it (on behalf of the poor). To be more precise, then, we must reword the two apparently contradictory statements as follows:
(a) I disapprove of (i.e., feel bad about) Robin Hood’s conduct on behalf of the rich; and
(b) I approve of (i.e., feel good about) Robin Hood’s conduct on behalf of the poor.
Strictly speaking, statements (a) and (b) aren’t logically contradictory, since the laws of logic don’t prevent me from having mixed and competing feelings about something. So, once we speak more precisely about the object of our disapproval and the object of our agreeable feelings, the contradiction disappears.
Although this solves the apparent logical problem that Reid points out, our solution creates a different problem for Hume. Specifically, we still need to make some definitive moral pronouncement about Robin Hood’s conduct: should we approve of it or disapprove of it? Four options suggest themselves in cases like Robin Hood’s, in which a single action has good consequences for one receiver, yet bad consequences for another receiver:
(1) We should side with our feeling of approval (on behalf of the poor).
(2) We should side with the feeling of disapproval (on behalf of the rich).
(3) We should compare the approval against the disapproval, and side with the strongest one.
(4) We should both approve and disapprove of Robin Hood’s conduct at the same time.
Hume simply didn’t address this issue. If we speak on behalf of Hume, though, the best solution seems to be option 3. That is, we should, consider all the positive and negative consequences of the agent’s action as all receivers are affected. We should then endorse the action if it produces a stronger feeling of approval vs. disapproval.
THE VALUE OF HUME’S THEORY.
Hume’s moral theory involves an interplay between (1) the agent’s character trait, (2) the consequences of the agent’s action on the receiver, and (3) the spectator’s sympathetic feeling of approval/disapproval. Hume’s immediate critics, such as Reid, focused mainly on this third component and, so, they believed that Hume’s fundamental contribution to moral theory concerned the role of the moral spectator. However, in the years following Reid, moral philosophers became more intrigued by the second component, specifically Hume’s view that an agent’s actions have useful and agreeable consequences on the receiver. When Hume spoke about an agent’s “useful” consequences, he often used the word utility as a synonym. So, according to this next generation of moral philosophers, the heart of Hume’s theory was his theory of utility, namely, that morality involves assessing the pleasing and painful consequences of actions on the receiver.
Utilitarianism and The Fate of the Agent and Spectator. By the late 18th century – about 10 years after Hume’s death -- many moral philosophers latched onto Hume’s “theory of utility” as it was then commonly called. One of these was William Paley (1743-1805). Paley was a religiously conservative philosopher and he made a name for himself by writing books that defended God’s existence and the Christian faith. In his first published book, The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (1785), Paley adopts Hume’s theory of utility and argues that we should act in ways that bring about the most pleasure. However, Paley gives his theory a Christian spin by arguing that we should maximize utility since God wants us to be happy. Paley’s book quickly became a standard ethics textbook in many British and American universities, and this greatly increased the popularity of the theory of utility. A second important philosopher who was influenced by Hume was Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). Bentham endorsed social contract theory in his youth, but writes that after reading Hume’s account of utility, “I felt as if scales had fallen from my eyes.” In his work Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), Bentham greatly enlarges on Hume’s theory of utility and provides the foundation for 19th century discussions of utilitarianism.
Although Paley and Bentham were advocates of Hume’s general view of utility, they both strongly rejected the role of the spectator in moral decision-making -- which Hume believed was so important. Bentham argued specifically that if you --as a spectator -- appeal to your feelings as a way of determining morality, then you make right and wrong “just what you please to make them.” According to Bentham, your feelings are too whimsical, and relying on them would make you despotic or dictatorial. Just as Paley and Bentham rejected the role of the spectator’s sympathetic feelings, later utilitarian philosophers rejected the role of the agent’s character traits. British philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) makes a clear argument for rejecting considerations about the agent’s mental dispositions:
It is often affirmed that utilitarianism renders men cold and unsympathizing; that it chills their moral feelings toward individuals; that it makes them regard only the dry and hard considerations of the consequences of actions, not taking into their moral estimate the qualities from which those actions estimate. … [I answer that] These considerations are relevant, not to the estimation of actions, but of persons … [Utilitarianism, 2]
According to Mill, an action isn’t made right simply because it is done by someone who has a noble character trait. Instead, it is only the consequences of an action that make it right or wrong.
The thrust of the utilitiarian approach after Hume was that the only things that matter in morality are the consequences of an agent’s action on the receiver. The agent’s character traits are not particularly relevant, and neither are the spectator’s feelings. In essence, utilitarians snipped off both the agent and the spectator parts of Hume’s system, leaving only the pleasing and painful consequences as affect receivers. Utilitarians such as Bentham and Mill believed that it was important to make moral judgments as scientific and objective as possible. Emphasis on the mental states of agents and spectators muddle the process, and the most objective procedure is to simply inspect the balance of pleasure and pain as affects all receivers. The outcome of this inspection then will constitute our moral judgment. This involves only a little observation and a little calculation, which anyone can do objectively. It is roughly the same kind of empirical assessment that I make when I say, for example, that “Smith has more hair on his head than Jones has on his head.”
Time, though, seems to have vindicated Hume against utilitarian efforts to eliminate the roles of the agent and spectator from moral theories. In recent years, many moral philosophers have come to the defense of virtue theory – a theory that stresses the importance of the agent’s character trait in moral assessment. For virtue theorists, when we judge people’s actions, we in fact make pronouncements against their habitual traits, along with all the social history that contributed in forming those traits. Similarly, contemporary philosophers of language maintain that the role of the spectator is central to understanding the meaning of moral assessments. Some philosophers go as far as to say that morality involves only a consideration of the spectator’s emotional response to a given situation. The genius of Hume’s theory is that it links together the views of the virtue theorist concerning the agent, the utilitarian concerning the receiver, and the language philosopher concerning the spectator.
Summary. We can summarize the various views presented here by returning to the issue of charity. All moral theorists believe that charity is one of our chief moral obligations. Clarke believed that we’re obligated to be charitable since there exists an eternal moral relation of benevolence, which we immediately grasp through our reason. As a moral agent, my sheer awareness of this relation should motivate me to act charitably. As a spectator, you have a rational ability to judge eternal truths, including eternal truths about charity. Hume criticized Clarke for deriving ought from is, that is, beginning with the factual claim about eternal relations, and concluding that we ought to follow these relations as laws of righteousness. Hume argued that charity begins with an instinctive motive in the mind of the spectator, has useful and agreeable consequences on the receiver, and produces a feeling of moral pleasure in the mind of the spectator. Hume also argued that when I, as an agent, donate to charity, I am motivated completely by emotion, and not by reason. Hume maintained that morality has nothing to do with God since, first, morality rooted in human physical makeup, and, second, God is a spirit and does not have any physical emotional makeup.
Reid criticized Hume for abusing common language by downplaying the rational component of terms like “approval”. In response, we saw that rationalists such as Reid also abuse language by downplaying the emotional component. such terms. Reid also criticized Hume for failing to distinguish between the act of moral approval and a report of one’s feelings. In response, we saw that Hume can consistently identify the two. We concluded that a key benefit of Hume’s theory is that it connects together the concerns of virtue theorists, utilitarians, and language philosophers.
Sources
Quotations by Samuel Clarke are from A Discourse Concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion (1706). This text is available in reprints of Clarke’s collected Works (1738) and in British Moralists, ed. D.D. Raphael (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1969).
Quotations by Francis Hutcheson, Inquiry Concerning Moral Good And Evil (1725), included in Raphael’s British Moralists.
David Hume’s moral theory is found in A Treatise of Human Nature, Book 3 (1740), and An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751). Both of these texts are available in several modern editions.
Thomas Reid’s critique of Hume is found in his Essays on the Active Powers of Man, Essay 5 (1788). Reid’s text is available in several modern editions. Quotations are from Essay 5, Chapter 7.
The quotation by Jeremy Bentham concerning Hume’s influence on him is from A fragment on Government (1776), 1:36, footnote. The quotation concerning the despotism of moral spectator theories is from Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), 2:14, footnote. Both of these are taken from the The Works of Jeremy Bentham, edited by John Bowring (London: 1838-1843).
The quotation by J.S. Mill is from Utilitarianism (1863), 2, which is available in several modern editions.
Suggestions for Further Reading
For selections from the writings of 17th and 19th century British moral theorists, see L.A. Selby-Bigge, ed., British Moralists (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1897), and D.D. Raphael, ed., British Moralists: 1650-1800 (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1969).
For a discussion of British moral theories see W.D. Hudson, Ethical Intuitionism. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1967).
For 18th and 19th century commentaris on Hume’s moral theory, see Early Responses to Hume’s Moral, Literary and Political Writings, ed. James Fieser (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1999), Vol. 1.
For commentaries on Hume’s moral theory see Pall S. Ardal. Passion and Value in Hume’s “Treatise”. (Edinburgh: University Press, 1966); J.L. Mackie, Hume’s Moral Theory. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980).
#11. UTILITARIANISM
INTRODUCTION.
On February 3, 1998, 38-year-old Karla Faye Tucker became the first woman executed in the state of Texas in over 130 years. Formerly a drug addict and prostitute, in 1983 Tucker and a friend ended a three-day drug binge by attempting to steal a young man’s motorcycle. They broke into the man’s apartment, and hacked him and a visiting woman friend to death with a pickax. After the episode, Tucker bragged that she got a sexual thrill from the murders. She and her accomplice were caught a month later, and ultimately sentenced to death. Because of her unique situation as a woman on death row, her newly found religious conviction, and her paradoxically warm personality, Tucker gained worldwide notoriety as her execution day approached. Pope John Paul II made a public appeal for clemency. Tucker herself believed that her life should be spared since she reformed to the point that she was no longer part of society’s crime problem, but part of the cure. In an interview two weeks before her execution Tucker explained,
I can witness to people who have been on drugs or into prostitution or into all of that, and they’ll listen to me because they know I understand and can relate to them. And I can keep them from going down that road, because I can let them know. I changed. You can too.
Clemency was not granted, and the execution took place as planned.
Tucker argued that her life should be spared since remaining alive would serve the greater social good. Her reasoning strategy was utilitarian in nature. Most generally, utilitarianism is the moral theory that an action is morally right if it serves the greatest good for the greatest number of people. To determine whether Tucker should be executed, the utilitarian compares the total good resulting from her execution with the total good resulting from her remaining alive. Tucker believed that more good would result if she remained alive. However, defenders of capital punishment also use utilitarian reasoning and argue that the greater social good is served by executing some criminals. After her execution, a relative of one of Tucker’s victims said in utilitarian fashion that “The world’s [now] a better place.” Presumably, executing criminals such as Tucker sends a strong signal to other would-be criminals and deters them. It also assists in the psychological healing process of victims and their families.
Utilitarians believe that the sole factor in determining an action’s morality is the balance of social good vs. social evil. Appeals to moral intuitions, social traditions or God’s wishes are not relevant. Utilitarianism has a long history, but the most famous versions of the theory emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries, particularly as championed by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. We classify their particular theories as hedonistic utilitarianism. The word “hedonistic” means pleasure-seeking, and hedonistic utilitarians argue that morality is determined according to how much pleasure or pain is produced from a course of action. For example, on the issue of capital punishment, hedonistic utilitarians would argue that this practice is justified only if it produces a greater amount of pleasure vs. pain. Other non-hedonistic versions of utilitarianism emerged in later years. We will discuss the development of the utilitarian theory here.
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF UTILITARIANISM.
Utilitarianism isn’t the invention of any single philosopher and the general theory is as old as ancient Greece. The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-270 BCE.) gives a clear statement of the role of pleasure in moral judgments:
We count pleasure as the originating principle and the goal of the blessed life. For we recognize pleasure as the first and fitting good, for from it proceeds all choice and avoidance, and we return to it as the feeling-standard by which we judge every good. [Letter to Menoeceus]
Pleasure is clearly an important motivator in our lives, and most moral philosophers find at least some place for pleasure within their theories. What is distinct about Epicurus’s view, though, is that pleasure and the avoidance of pain is the single standard by which we determine happiness and thereby judge our actions. Ultimately, Epicurus’s theory didn’t take hold and, in the centuries following Epicurus, moral philosophers emphasized the roles of virtue, natural law, and the will of God. Humanist philosophers of the Renaissance revived Epicurus’s theory, and by 18th century, several philosophers defended the pleasure criterion of morality.
18TH Century Contributions. Irish philosopher Francis Hutcheson (1694-1747) offered this systematic formula linking morality with happiness:
That action is best, which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers; and that worst, which, in like manner, occasions misery. [An Inquiry concerning Moral Good and Evil, 3:8]
Here and in his other ethical writings, we find most of the key elements of utilitarianism. First, in Hutchesons words, we are to compute the consequences of our actions. Second, the standard of moral evaluation is the greatest amount of happiness or pleasure that results, as all people are affected. Third, Hutcheson provides details about the range of consequences that count: long-term, short-term, direct, and indirect consequences all enter into the computation. Finally, he provides details about what counts as happiness or pleasure: higher intellectual pleasures and lower bodily pleasures are relevant, both with varying degrees of intensity and duration.
Influenced by Hutcheson, David Hume (1711-1776) further developed this intuition. Hume argues that when we survey what people commonly consider to be moral conduct, we must conclude that morally right actions are those that produce useful or immediately pleasing consequences for oneself or others. Two features are unique to Hume’s theory. First, as criteria of moral evaluation, the useful consequences of actions are as important as the immediately pleasing consequences of actions. Sexual chastity, for example, is morally proper primarily because it has useful consequences in holding together the family unit. Hume uses the term utility in reference to these useful consequences, and it is from Hume’s expression that later commentators coined the term utilitarianism. The second unique feature of Hume’s theory is that some actions are useful only when followed as a rule. Again, with sexual chastity, isolated instances of sexual fidelity won’t have the consequence of holding together family units. Hume believes that, to have useful consequences, chastity needs to be followed as a rule, even by single women who are past childbearing age. In Hume’s words,
... a single act of justice [or chastity], considered in itself, may often by contrary to the public good; and it is only the concurrence of mankind, in a general scheme or system of action, which is advantageous. [A Treatise of Human Nature, 3:3:1]
Hume’s reasoning here is the foundation of what has later been called rule-utilitarianism. By the end of the 18th century dozens of prominent moral theorists were influenced by Hume’s theory of utility and proposed similar views. The most important of these theorists was British philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), who acknowledged Hume as his immediate source of inspiration.
Bentham’s Utilitarian Calculus. Bentham presents his theory of utility in his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), which he wrote as a kind of moral guidebook for legislators as they make public policy. Although the bulk of this work focuses on issues of criminal conduct, the opening chapters systematically describe how utility is the ultimate moral standard for all actions. Bentham states his principle of utility here:
By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question: or, what is the same ting in other words, to promote or to oppose that happiness. I say of every action whatsoever; and therefore not only of every action of a private individual, but of every measure of government. [Principles of Morals and Legislation, 1:2]
Two features of Bentham’s theory are especially unique. First, Bentham offers a bare-bones moral theory, which consists of only one factor: the pleasing or painful consequences of actions. Although the above theorists put forward the basic elements of utilitarianism, they also incorporated non-utilitarian doctrines into their moral theories. Some of these extraneous doctrines are that morality is ultimately founded on the will of God, that sympathy is needed to counterbalance human selfishness, that virtues underlie our moral actions, that we rationally intuit our duty, and that we judge conduct through a moral sense. For Bentham, some of these doctrines are nonsensical, and the rest are irrelevant. His rejection of these more traditional elements of moral theory gave utilitarianism the reputation of being Godless, impersonal, skeptical, and relativistic.
The second and most important feature of Bentham’s theory is his method for precisely quantifying pleasures and pains, better known as the utilitarian calculus. Bentham argues that the complete range of pleasing and painful consequences of actions can be quantified according to seven criteria: (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. In footnote to a later edition of the Principles, Bentham summarizes these criteria in a rhyme, which he says might assist us in “lodging more effectually, in the memory, these points”:
Intense, long, certain, speedy, fruitful, pure --
Such marks in pleasures and in pains endure.
Such pleasures seek if private by thy end:
If it be public, wide let them extend.
Such pains avoid, whichever by they view:
If pains must come, let them extend to few.
[Principles of Morals and Legislation, 4:2]
Bentham is very explicit about how the calculus works. For example, if we wanted to determine the morality of executing Karla Faye Tucker, we would first calculate all of the pleasure and pain that she personally would receive from the execution. We do this by examining her relevant pleasures and pains, one at a time. One specific pleasure/pain that she would experience would involve her contemplating her own death. As she sits in her cell, and thinks about the fact that she will soon die, she undoubtedly has a strong painful experience of dread. According to Bentham’s calculus, we need to construct a pleasure-pain chart that takes into account the first four factors above. We also assign numerical values to these factors, perhaps on a scale of one to ten:
Pleasure Pain
Intensity: 0 10
Duration: 0 2
Certainty: 0 10
Immediacy: 0 10
Concerning the intensity of her pleasure/pain, we may presume that Tucker would derive no pleasure from the events immediately surrounding her death, and she would experience very intense emotional pain at the prospect of losing her life. The duration of the emotional pain would be relatively brief, but it would be certain and immediate.
After we chart out the first four factors, we then consider the other three factors separately. Bentham’s purity factor involves whether an act produces both pain and pleasure. We’ve already taken this into account in the above chart by noting that she will experience only pain and no pleasure. The fecundity factor involves any similar long-term residual pleasures and pains that might result from an action. Since Tucker’s execution was carried out successfully, then there are no residual pleasures and pains for her. On the other hand, if her execution was botched on its first attempt and she had to go through the process again a month later, then we would need to devise another pleasure-pain chart for the new execution. The above chart quantifies only the psychological anguish that Tucker would experience when contemplating her own death. However, there are other distinct pleasures and pains that she would experience regarding her execution. For example, she would be distressed by being permanently separated from her family, and she would be frustrated with the criminal justice system. For each of these additional pains or pleasures, we need additional pleasure-pain charts.
Finally, Bentham’s extent factor involves all the pleasures and pains experienced by other people. So, once we fully account for Tucker’s pleasures and pains, we then construct similar pleasure-pain charts for each pleasure and pain experienced by each person affected by Tucker’s execution. This includes the pleasures experienced by people who want Tucker dead, such as the victim’s relatives and those who commiserate with the relatives. This also includes the pains experienced by those who want her alive, such has Tucker’s own relatives and even people like the Pope who oppose capital punishment and are pained by another execution. At this stage, thousands and perhaps millions of pleasure-pain charts would be involved. We then take the combined pleasure score from all charts and compare it to the combined pain score from all charts. If the pleasure column has the higher score, then executing Tucker would be moral. If the pain column has the higher score, then the execution is immoral.
Limitations of Bentham’s Theory. There are two fundamental problems with Bentham’s utilitarianism. First, Bentham imposes a precision on a subject that doesn’t allow for such close detail. Walking through even a single illustration shows that it is virtually impossible to do a complete utilitarian calculus, and this constitutes the strongest argument against it. When the Principles first appeared, two book reviewers attacked Bentham for the excessive detail that appears throughout his entire discussion. The Analytical Review charged that “perhaps the love of discrimination has been sometimes carried too far, and been productive of divisions and subdivisions of little use to a legislator”. The Critical Review commented more strongly that “Long and intricate discussions end in trifling conclusions; affected refinement sometimes stands in the place of useful distinctions, and the parade of system is so highly labored as frequently to disgust....” Bentham was well aware of this overall problem with the Principles, and for that reason he delayed its publication for nine years.
The second problem with Bentham’s theory is that every conceivable human action becomes a moral issue that should be submitted to the utilitarian test. Even a simple act such as selecting toothpaste may involve a pleasure/pain calculus of purchasing one toothpaste brand vs. another. Also, when pushed to its extreme, I couldn’t justify spending my time on any simple leisure activities, such as watching TV. Instead, I presumably should spend my time on actively increasing general pleasure, such as doing volunteer work for Meals on Wheels. The root of the problem is that Bentham endorses what commentators call act-utilitarianism, rather than the rule-utilitarian view hinted at by Hume. The two approaches may be defined here:
Act-Utilitarianism: in determining morality, we should calculate the pleasurable and painful consequences of our individual actions.
Rule-Utilitarianism: in determining morality, we should calculate the pleasurable and painful consequences of the moral rules that we adopt.
Act-utilitarianism involves a two-tiered system of moral evaluation: (1) right actions are determined by appealing to (2) the criterion of general happiness. For example, according to act-utilitarianism, it would be wrong for me to steal my neighbor’s car since this act would produce more general unhappiness. Rule-utilitarianism, though, involves an intermediary step and is a three-tiered system of moral evaluation: (1) right actions are determined by appealing to (2) moral rules, which are determined by appealing to (3) the criterion of general happiness. For example, according to rule-utilitarianism, it would be wrong to steal my neighbor’s car since this act violates the rule against stealing, and we endorse this rule since it promotes general happiness. Although act-utilitarianism has the problem that every conceivable action becomes a moral issue, this isn’t a problem with rule-utilitarianism. For example, we wouldn’t be promoting general happiness by making hard and fast rules about choosing toothpastes or watching TV. Instead, general happiness would be better served if we endorsed a rule that allows each of us a range of free activity.
In spite of the problems with Bentham’s theory, his view of utilitarianism gained a following. By the mid 19th century Bentham’s name was so strongly linked with utilitarianism that one commentator of the time felt compelled to remind people that Bentham didn’t invent the doctrine. The next great step in the development of utilitarianism came with British philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806-1873).
MILL’S UTILITARIANISM.
Bentham was John Stuart Mill’s Godfather and teacher, and the young Mill followed his mentor’s account of utilitarianism. In early adulthood, Mill suffered an emotional breakdown, which he attributed to his heavily analytic education. Bentham died shortly after, and Mill felt free to reevaluate the ideas of his upbringing. Mill’s early writings show a growing with discontentment Bentham’s overly technical utilitarian calculus. In his fifties, Mill finally took the opportunity to write a popular defense of utilitarianism in view of the excessively scientific and skeptical reputation that the doctrine obtained through Bentham. This appeared in three installments in Fraser’s Magazine in 1861, and was published in book form in 1863 under the title Utilitarianism.
Elements of Mill’s Theory. Commentators argue that there is little in Mill’s theory that is completely original. In fact, we can outline many features of Mill’s theory by simply listing its similarities with previous theories. First, like Bentham, Mill believes that the sole criterion of morality is general happiness, that is, the maximum pleasures and the minimum pains that a society of people can experience. Second, like Bentham, Mill believes this criterion can be expressed somewhat scientifically in the form of a single principle:
Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote [general] happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of [general] happiness. [Utilitarianism, 2]
Third, like Hutcheson, Mill argues that happiness consists of both higher intellectual pleasures, and lower bodily pleasures. Finally, like Hume, Mill focuses on the good or bad consequences that emerge from rules of conduct and, as such, Mill is classified as a rule-utilitarian. According to Mill, we appeal to the utilitarian principle only to establish moral rules. On rare occasions, though, I may be caught in a moral dilemma between two conflicting rules. Suppose that I borrow your gun and promise to return it when you ask for it. The next day, you have a dispute with your boss and in a fit of rage you ask for the gun back. I am now caught in a dilemma between two conflicting moral rules: I should keep my promises, yet I shouldn’t contribute to the harm of others. In such rare cases, I can determine the proper course of action by appealing directly to the utilitarian principle to see which rule has priority. Mill explains this point here:
We must remember that only in these cases of conflict between secondary principles [that is, rules] is it requisite that first principles [of general happiness] should be appealed to. There is no case of moral obligation in which some secondary principle is not involved ... [Utilitarianism, 2]
In this case, I bring about more happiness by following the rule to avoid harming others, and, so I should hold onto your gun.
As noted, Bentham presents a bare bones account of utilitarianism by not incorporating traditional moral concepts such as the will of God, virtues, a moral sense, rational intuition, and sympathetic feelings. Mill also rejects most of these traditional notions, although he does find a place in his theory for socially-oriented moral feelings such as sympathy, the feeling of duty, and the feeling of unity. For Mill, these feelings are necessary to give people the motivation to pursue general happiness. Without such motivation, utilitarianism would be a sterile principle without any practical value.
General Happiness and Higher Pleasures. The most characteristic feature of Mill’s utilitarianism is his distinction between higher intellectual pleasures and lower bodily pleasures. Although Hutcheson made this general distinction, Mill develops the notion and makes it central to his theory. Mill introduces the topic as a response to a specific criticism: utilitarianism is a doctrine worthy only of swine since swine too pursue pleasure. Mill responds that the concept of pleasure includes intellectual as well as bodily pleasures, and pigs clearly can’t experience intellectual pleasures.
Human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites and, when once made conscious of them, do not regard anything as happiness which does not include their gratification. [Utilitarianism, 2]
Lower pleasures traditionally include those from food, sex, self-gratification, and other base instincts. By contrast, higher pleasures are those derived from music, art, and other intellectual accomplishments. According to Mill, higher pleasures are qualitatively superior to lower pleasures insofar as they are more highly valued even when limited in number. For Mill, Bentham erred by attempting to determine total happiness through assigning numerical values to pleasures and pains, with no regard for their qualitative differences. An early commentator wrote that Mill’s emphasis on higher pleasures established a “new utilitarianism” since higher pleasures are subjective, and thus can’t lend themselves to objective quantification. For Mill, then, we can’t technically have a utilitarian calculus in which we tally numbers that represent differing quantities of pleasures and pains.
Although we can’t calculate general happiness in the way that Bentham describes, Mill nevertheless tried to offer some objective standard for ranking the comparative value of differing pleasures. Specifically, Mill presents a test for determining whether one pleasure is qualitatively superior to another. Take, for example, the pleasures that we may experience from visiting an art museum verses attending a monster truck rally. Assume first that an impartial judge is acquainted with both events. The pleasure from the museum visit will be qualitatively superior if (a) the judge prefers the museum visit over the truck rally, (b) the museum visit is accompanied by some pain (such as a two hour drive), and (c) the truck rally is quantitatively superior (such as a four night truck-a-rama). Mill believes that an impartial judge will prefer the higher pleasure to the lower because we all have a sense of dignity, at least initially. People sometimes choose the lower pleasure since it is easy to kill our more noble feelings, and we often don’t have the opportunity to keep our intellectual tastes alive:
Men lose their high aspirations as they lose their intellectual tastes, because they have not time or opportunity for indulging them; and they addict themselves to inferior pleasures, not because they deliberately refer them, but because they are either the only ones to which they have access or the only ones which they are any longer capable of enjoying. [Utilitarianism, 2]
.
In short, according to Mill, 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.
These are the main points of Mill’s utilitarianism:
· General happiness is the sole criterion of morality, and “happiness” is defined as pleasure.
· Higher intellectual pleasures are more valuable than lower bodily pleasures.
· We appeal to the greatest happiness principle only when evaluating rules of conduct, and not individual actions.
· We cannot quantifiably calculate which rules produce the greatest pleasure, although we can objectively determine whether one pleasure is higher than another.
TRADITIONAL CRITICISMS OF MILL.
Because Utilitarianism was written in a popular format, one early commentator noted that he expected Mill to follow up with a “longer and more elaborate” book on the subject. But Mill never did. Within a decade several studies appeared attacking virtually every aspect of Mill’s theory, and, by the turn of the century, Mill’s book became, as one commentator said, “more universally familiar than any other book in the whole literature of English Utilitarianism.” Criticisms of Mill’s work continue to this day, many of which attempt to refine his theory and bring it in line with our common moral intuitions. We will look at three classic criticisms of Mill’s theory.
Bradley’s Criticism: Utilitarianism Conflicts with Ordinary Moral Judgments. One of the earlier arguments against Mill, launched by British philosopher F.H. Bradley (1846-1924), is that utilitarian moral judgments often conflict with our ordinary conceptions of moral obligation. For example, it is theoretically possible that cheating on one’s spouse maximizes general happiness, but we nevertheless believe that adultery is wrong:
Let us take the precept, Do not commit adultery. How are we to prove that no possible adultery can increase the overplus of pleasurable feeling? [Ethical Studies, 3]
According to Bradley, there are morally proper behaviors that “we should choose even if no pleasure came from them.”
We can illustrate Bradley’s point further by considering cases in which we might exploit someone if doing so produces general happiness. For example, suppose that a town hero is brutally murdered, the police have no suspects, and the city is on the verge of rioting in protest. In response, the police trump up charges against some insignificant person, knowing full well that this person is innocent. The town is satisfied, and life returns to normal. To use another illustration, suppose that a society arbitrarily singles out a handful of people to become their slaves. The slaves surely suffer, but we might argue that the greater good of that society is served through the slaves’ services. However, we commonly feel that it is simply wrong to frame an innocent person or enslave someone, in spite of the general good that these actions might produce. On Bradley’s reasoning, then, utilitarianism is an inadequate moral theory since it can be used to justify these kinds of exploitation in the name of general happiness.
Defenders of utilitarianism have made great efforts to show how their system won’t exploit individuals. First, utilitarians argue that long-term consequences are a factor in the morality of any action. The possibility of exposing police conspiracies, or the emergence of slave rebellions are long-term negative consequences of the above two cases. In fact, the long-term negative consequences of slavery in the U.S. are still unfolding. Utilitarians are correct that attention to long-term consequences will show the disutility of exploiting individuals in some circumstances. However, the problem remains that, with careful planning and an eye to the future, we might successfully exploit individuals without the penalty of long-term negative consequences. For example, if the police are careful to contain their conspiracy, or slave owners successfully address the problem of slave uprisings, then, perhaps, their acts won’t have long-term negative consequences.
A second line of defense against this problem is open to proponents of rule-utilitarianism such as Mill. According to rule-utilitarianism, we don’t calculate the consequences of each action, such as enslaving Jones in particular; instead, we calculate the consequences of each rule we adopt, such as “slavery ought to be permitted.” When we focus on these exploitive rules, it becomes clear that adopting them will produce more unhappiness than happiness. But critics have countered that, although this may block the adoption of many exploitive rules, some carefully worded exploitive rules may still produce more happiness than unhappiness. For example, it may serve general happiness to adopt the rule that “we may torture terrorist prisoners to extract terrorist plots from them.” But rule-utilitarians have a answer to even this problem. Let’s take this rule: “We may never exploit individuals, even for an alleged greater good.” Adopting this blanket policy would cover all exploitive situations, including both exploitive actions, and exploitive rules. Further, utiltarians would argue that adopting this blanket rule will promote more general happiness than would be the case if it wasn’t adopted. For, even if some instances of exploitation (either acts or rules) do serve general happiness, most exploitation will result in unhappiness. The tendency of exploitation in general, then, is toward unhappiness. So, a rule prohibiting all exploitation will be one that, on balance, serves general happiness.
Grote’s Criticism: Utilitarianism only Perpetuates the Status Quo. Suppose that we wanted to determine whether capital punishment was morally proper. According to Mill, we find this out by looking at how much pleasure and pain results from allowing capital punishment. This involves an experiential inspection of the various consequences, and, in essence, this approach grounds morality in our factual observations. In his posthumously published book An Examination of the Utilitarian Philosophy (1870), John Grote (1813-1866) criticizes this purely experiential approach to determining our moral obligations. For Grote, appeals to experience will only perpetuate the status quo, and won’t include an ideal moral goal towards which we should aim. In Grote’s words, Mill bases morality only on what is the case, rather than what ought to be the case. Morality should include guidelines for moral improvement, but we will never get such guidelines by appealing to only what is the case. Grote makes this point here:
Man has improved as he has, because certain portions of his race have had in them the spirit of self-improvement, or, as I have called it, the ideal element; have been unsatisfied with what to them at the time has been the positive, the matter of fact, the immediately utilitarian; have risen above the cares of the day… [An Examination of the Utilitarian Philosophy, 13]
According to Grote, to get ideal guidelines, we need an intuitive knowledge of morality, which is beyond mere experience.
Mill has a solution to this problem. The notion of general happiness is very elastic insofar as it includes “many and various pleasures,” with “few and transitory pains.” In his Systematic Logic, Mill argues that the notion of pleasure is broad and includes all pleasing conscious states. Among these various pleasures, certainly there is room for the pleasure we derive from attempts at moral reform and social improvement. In fact, a key theme throughout Utilitarianism is that, over time, the status quo of general happiness will improve through education and science. This prospect is something that we can take pleasure in right now. Therefore, although the criterion of general happiness is based on experiential observation, general happiness is elastic enough to include the pleasure of establishing ideal moral goals.
Unfortunately, elasticity in the notion of general happiness has negative implications as well as positive ones. To illustrate, Italian philosopher Caesar Beccaria (1738-1794) describes a situation in which a cruel government inflicts pain on its citizens to keep them in fear. However, over time, the government will be de-sensitized to the suffering it inflicts, and the citizens themselves will increase their toleration for the suffering they can endure. So, over time, the government must become more cruel and unjust to maintain the same level of fear that was previously achieved with less cruelty. If Beccaria is accurate in his description of our ability to adjust to cruelty, then Grote’s criticism re-emerges. For, our perception of happiness at any given moment -- either now or in the future -- may not be sufficient to either recognize or condemn excessively cruel conduct. An independent standard of ideal morality is required to assure that cruelty is correctly identified, and then condemned. From this perspective, the experiential basis of Mill’s utilitarianism appears inadequate.
Albee’s Criticism: Higher Pleasures are Inconsistent with Hedonism. We saw that the most distinctive feature of Mill’s utilitarianism is his view that happiness consists of both higher and lower pleasures, and that higher pleasures are qualitatively superior to lower pleasures. It is also this aspect of Mill’s theory that has generated the most criticism. The problem is that Mill appears to offer two separate standards of general happiness: (1) pleasure, and (2) dignity. If we see pleasure as the sole criterion, then we must de-emphasize dignity. However, if we see dignity as the principal criterion, then we must de-emphasize pleasure. Critics of Mill, both past and present, see this as a big problem. American philosopher Ernest Albee (1865-1929) concisely states the central problem here:
The inconsistency, in truth, may be expressed in a word: If all good things are good in proportion as they bring pleasure to oneself or others, one cannot add to this statement that pleasure itself, the assumed criterion, is more or less desirable in terms of something else (e.g., human dignity) which is not pleasure. [A History of English Utilitarianism, 12]
We can also express this problem in terms of the distinction that Mill draws between quantitative and qualitative pleasures. If the superiority of higher pleasures is quantitative, then the higher/lower distinction is unnecessary and Mill contradicts himself; if the superiority of higher pleasures isn’t quantitative, then Mill’s hedonism is compromised.
The problem here is genuine, and Mill simply can’t hold up both pleasure and dignity as the principal standard of happiness. We might try to rescue Mill from this problem and side with either one standard or the other. One option is to reject pleasure as the ultimate standard and judge actions based on the dignifying nature of conduct. This, though, is a rather clumsy standard since we don’t typically think of morality in terms of dignifying vs. undignifying behavior. Also, this standard will produce counterintuitive moral judgments. For example, any number of medical procedures are undignifying, such as pap smears or prostate exams. Or, think of the indignity of simply going to the bathroom – an activity that we share with the lowest of animals. However, in spite of their inherent indignity, these activities are certainly not immoral. And, compared to more dignifying activities, it doesn’t make sense to say, for example, that prostate exams are less moral than visiting an art museum.
The other option is to set aside the notions of dignity and qualitative superiority, and simply see pleasure as the standard of happiness. This solution ultimately makes Mill more like Bentham, since the difference between pleasures would only be quantitative. This even allows for the possibility of a utilitarian calculus of differing quantities of pleasure. However, this option resurrects the problem that Mill hoped to avoid, namely, that utilitarianism is a doctrine worthy only of swine since swine also pursue pleasure. Ultimately, then, dignity and quantitative pleasure each seem to be inadequate standards of morality.
THE CONTINUING UTILITARIAN TRADITION.
Bentham and Mill’s hedonistic utilitarianism is a mixed bag. On the plus side, by focusing exclusively on the pleasure that results from a course of action, morality stands up to experiential and even scientific judgment. Hedonistic utilitarians argue that we can record experiences of pleasure, quantify degrees of pleasure, and use this as the basis of our moral judgments. Moral assessment, then, isn’t a matter of wishy-washy feelings or personal intuitions; instead hedonistic utilitarianism places the issue of morality squarely in the arena of public observation. Even today many philosophers and social scientists defend hedonistic utilitarianism because of its objectivity. Books in microeconomics routinely include chapters on techniques for numerically measuring utility. On the minus side, critics point out that pleasure isn’t the only thing in life that is morally significant. Religious and political martyrs are vivid illustrations of this. Many people throughout history felt morally compelled to defend their religious or political ideals knowing full well that they would be tortured and ultimately killed for their actions. Their lives would have been more pleasurable – or at least far less painful -- if they simply conformed to social expectations. It seems, then, that an important part of our moral assessments go beyond mere pleasure.
Mill himself acknowledged that mere pleasure isn’t the only thing that counts and, as we’ve seen, he addressed this problem with the notion of higher pleasures. Perhaps Mill would say that martyrs experience higher pleasures that counterbalance their pains. To more successfully address this problem, some contemporary defenders of utilitarianism abandon pleasure altogether as the ultimate criterion, and propose a standard that is broad enough to include cases like religious and political martyrs. The two most popular alternatives are ideal utilitarianism and preference utilitarianism.
Ideal Utilitarianism and Preference Utilitarianism. Ideal utilitarianism is the view that the morally right course of action is the one that brings about the greatest amount of goodness, regardless of what we specifically identify as good. Many things in life are intrinsically good, such as aesthetic beauty, integrity, friendship, fulfillment of desires, fairness, or freedom. However, we shouldn’t single out any one of these qualities as definitive, which is exactly what Bentham and Mill did by focusing on pleasure. According to British philosopher G.E. Moore (1873-1958), it is actually impossible for us to pinpoint all of the qualities that constitute absolute goodness:
It is just possible that the Absolute Good may be entirely composed of qualities which we cannot even imagine. This is possible, because, though we certainly do know a great many things that are good-in-themselves, and good in a high degree, yet what is best does not necessarily contain all the good things there are. [Principia Ethica, 6:11]
Rather than focusing on a specific quality, such as pleasure, we should instead recognize that any consequence that counts as good needs to be entered into the utilitarian tally. Suppose that I live in a repressive country and am considering voicing my unpopular political opinions. I not only tally the pain I will experience from being tortured, which is clearly bad, but I also tally the assertion of my freedom and the integrity of my convictions, which are good things. How do we recognize the various things that count as good? Moore argues that we should start by pointing out the flaws in popular standards of goodness that leave out important goods. Moore concludes that the ideal standard that we arrive at will emphasize a mixture of aesthetic enjoyments, such as beauty, and admirable mental qualities such as sociability. Ultimately, we must rely on intuition to recognize the various goods.
Preference utilitarianism is the view that the morally right course of action is the one that maximizes our preferences. Again, if I live in a repressive country and am considering expressing my unpopular political opinions, I would tally my preference of free expression in addition to the pain I would experience from being tortured. Preference utilitarianism is most associated with British philosopher R.M. Hare (b. 1919). There are three key aspects to Hare’s account. First, to say `that I “prefer” something simply means that I would choose that thing if the appropriate situation arose. For example, to say, “I prefer that Karla Faye Tucker should be executed,” means that I would choose for her execution if I had the chance. Second, my preferences include a combination of both immediate preferences and long-term preferences. Among other combinations, it includes (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. Third, my preferences are not merely restricted to myself, but also include preferences for other people. That is, some of my preferences must be impartial and universal, and I must imagine what my preferences would be if I was in someone else’s shoes. For example, I would not prefer that, if I were Tucker, I should be executed. But I would prefer that, if I were a relative of the victim, Tucker should be executed. According to Hare, I need to tally my own preferences for myself, and weigh them against what I’d prefer if I were other parties involved. If my preferences focused only on myself, then I would be an egoist, and not a utilitarian.
Both ideal utilitarianism and preference utilitarianism allow us to tally a broad range of possible consequences in our utilitarian calculus. Contrary to hedonism, they recognize that pleasure isn’t the only thing that counts. However, ideal and preference utilitarians pay a price for being so inclusive, namely, that they lose objectivity. As mentioned earlier, according to hedonistic utilitarians, pleasure can be experientially measured. However, ideal goodness and personal preferences cannot be experientially measured. These are founded in gut feelings and private intuitions, which don’t lend themselves to public inspection. Consequently, many utilitarians stick with the old hedonistic version in spite of its narrowness.
Problems with the Bare Bones Utilitarian Formula. Utilitarians from Bentham and onward are united in the view that morality is a matter of weighing the positive vs. the negative consequences of a course of action. We described this earlier as a bare bones concept of morality, which doesn’t involve other considerations such as virtues, God’s will, natural law, or natural rights. Utilitarian writers present different claims about the purpose of the bare bones utilitarian formula. They sometimes see it as (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. But no version of utilitarianism is successful in any of these claims. First, utilitarianism doesn’t accurately describe how we always make moral decisions, as we can see from the Tucker story. Although both sides of the dispute at some point offered utilitarian reasoning for their views, they also appealed to a variety of non-utilitarian reasons. Tucker herself believed that, as a matter of simple mercy, society should forgive criminals who reform. Her critics argued that she should be executed based on an “eye for an eye” notion of justice. Appeals to simple mercy or “eye for an eye” justice don’t involve utilitarian tallies of good or bad consequences. Also, utilitarianism involves a type of arithmetic by which we subtract the weight of the negative consequences from the weight of the positive consequences. Those calling for Tucker’s execution appear to have simply dismissed the positive consequences of her staying alive. That is, they did not subtract the positive consequences from the negative ones, as a true utilitarian would.
Second, it isn’t clear that we should adopt the utilitarian formula when making all of our moral decisions. Immanuel Kant made this point specifically with regard to capital punishment. Although Kant himself defended the death penalty, he argued that if we execute a criminal because of its positive value on society, such as crime deterrence, then we are using the criminal as a tool for our own purposes. For Kant, it is always bad to use someone as a tool, even if the person in question is a criminal. Finally, in many if not most cases, the utilitarian formula is neither a quick nor an easy way of making moral decisions. It is difficult to see how many people might be affected by a given course of action. It is also difficult to know how to assign weight to the various good or bad consequences that emerge. Although hedonistic utilitarians brag that pleasure can be experientially quantified, the fact remains that scientists haven’t yet invented a pleasure meter. Assigning weight to pleasures and pains will still involve some level of subjective judgment.
Perhaps the problem with utilitarianism is its bare bones claim that morality depends entirely on calculating consequences. Philosophers today are drawn to simple formulas and to simple explanations to complex philosophical puzzles. But moral decision-making appears to be one area that we can’t account for with a simple and unified formula. Our actual moral decision-making process depends on a patchwork of various theories and explanations that can’t be reduced to a single theme. At times we do rely on utilitarian reasoning and, to that extent, it is an important part of moral decision-making. Utilitarians just need to abdicate their claim to sole authority.
Summary. Many philosophers from ancient times believed that pleasure is the standard by which we should judge moral conduct. Philosophers during the 18th century refined this notion and, with Bentham, we find the classic statement of hedonistic utilitarianism. According to Bentham, we determine whether an action is right by calculating all of the pleasure and pain that results from that action. We noted two problems with Bentham’s approach. First, the process of calculating consequences is too long and involved to be of practical value. Second, on Bentham’s view, even trivial actions that I perform have moral significance since I should be maximizing general happiness. Both of these problems rest on Bentham being an act-utilitarian, insofar as we must calculate the consequences of each of our actions. Mill offered a version of rule-utilitarianism, which holds that we only test the utility of moral rules, not each action. Mill also parted company with Bentham by emphasizing the difference between higher pleasures and lower pleasures. For Mill, higher pleasures are more important than lower ones and are also incapable of numerical computation.
Bradley criticized that utilitarianism conflicts with common moral values; for example, on utilitarianism, I could justifiably exploit people if doing so maximized happiness. In response, utilitarians point out that such exploitation is not justifiable if we consider long-term negative consequences and if we adopt rules against exploitation. Grote criticized that utilitarianism locks us into the morality of the status quo, and doesn’t account for moral progress. In response, a utilitarian might argue that we can take pleasure now in the possible moral reforms of the future. Albee criticized that Mill inconsistently holds to two standards of moral value: pleasure and dignity. We’ve seen that this poses a genuine problem for Mill’s theory. Contemporary critics argue that hedonistic utilitarianism is misguided since pleasure isn’t the only thing of value in life. In response, ideal utilitarians such as Moore note recommend that we tally the total good vs. bad that results from a course of action. Preference utilitarians such as Hare recommend that we assess our total preferences regarding a course of action. We noted in conclusion that we should take into account utilitarian considerations, but this should not comprise our entire moral evaluation.
Sources
The interview with Karla Faye Tucker is from Larry King Live, January 31, 1998.
The quotation by Epicurus is from Letter to Menoeceus, tr. Norman Lillegard, in Metaethics, Normative Ethics, and Applied Ethics, ed. James Fieser (Belmont: Wadsworth Publications, 2000).
The quotations by Francis Hutcheson, Inquiry Concerning Moral Good And Evil (1725), 3:8, in British Moralists, ed. D.D. Raphael (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1969).
The quotation by David Hume is from in A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), 3:3:1, which is available in several modern editions.
Quotations by Jeremy Bentham are from Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), in The Works of Jeremy Bentham, edited by John Bowring (London: 1838-1843).
The review of Bentham’s Principles in the Analytical Review is from Vol. 5, 1789, pp. 306-310; the review in the Critical Review is from Vol. 68, 1789, pp. 333-340.
The early comment about the popularity of Bentham’s theory is from Simon Laurie’s On the Philosophy of Ethics (Edinburgh: Edmonston & Douglas, 1866).
The early comment about Mill establishing a “new utilitarianism” is from Simon Laurie’s Notes Expository and Critical on Certain British Theories of Morals (Edinburgh: Edmonston & Douglas, 1868), p. 114.
Quotations by Mill are from Utilitarianism (London: Parker, Son and Bourn, 1863), which is available in several modern editions.
In An Examination of the Utilitarian Philosophy (London: Bell, 1870), p. 9, John Grote writes that he expected Mill to follow up with a longer book.
Ernest Albee describes the universal familiarity of Mill’s book in A History of English Utilitarianism (New York: MacMillan, 1902), p. 249.
The quotations from F.H. Bradley are from Ethical Studies (London: Henry S. King, 1876), Essay 3, p. 81, 97.
The quotations by John Grote are from An Examination of the Utilitarian Philosophy (London: Bell, 1870), p. 308.
Caesar Beccaria’s point about mental adjustment to cruelty appears in On Crimes and Punishments (1764), Ch. 27, which is available in several recent translations.
The quotation by Ernest Albee is from In A History of English Utilitarianism (New York: MacMillan, 1902), p. 252.
G.E. Moore’s version of utilitarianism appears in the closing chapter of Principia Ethica, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903). The term “ideal utilitarianism” was coined in reference to Moore’s theory by W.D. Ross in The Right and the Good (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930)
R.M. Hare’s version of preference utilitarianism is in his book Moral Thinking, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981).
Kant’s discussion of capital punishment is in The Metaphysical Elements of Justice, tr. John Ladd (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965), pp. 99-107.
Suggestions for Further Reading
18th century writers that adopt utilitarian-type reasoning include Claude-Adrien Helvetius’s Essays on the Mind (1758), Cesare Beccaria’s On Crimes and Punishments (1764), Joseph Priestley’s Essay on the First Principles of Government (1768), William Paley’s The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (1785), and William Godwin’s Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793).
For recent commentaries on Mill’s moral theory, see Fred Berger, Happiness, Justice, and Freedom: The Moral and Political Philosophy of John Stuart Mill (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984); Wesley E. Cooper, New Essays on John Stuart Mill and Utilitarianism (Guelph, Ont.: Canadian Association for Publishing in Philosophy, 1979); Samuel Gorovitz, Utilitarianism with Critical Essays (Indianapolis: Bobbs Merril, 1971); J.B. Schneewind, Sidgwick’s Ethics and Victorian Moral Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977).
For contemporary discussions of utilitarianism, see Michael D. Bayles, ed. Contemporary Utilitarianism, (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1968); Richard B. Brandt, Morality, Utilitarianism, and Rights (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Samuel Scheffler, Consequentialism and its Critics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); J.J.C. Smart and Bernard Williams, Utilitarianism: For and Against (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973).
#13. EMOTIVISM AND PRESCRIPTIVISM
INTRODUCTION.
Some things in life are so obviously immoral that there is nothing about their ethical status to dispute. In World War II, German Nazi soldiers exterminated six million Jews. In the Vietnam war American soldiers massacred hundreds of civilian women and children in the village of My Lai. Shortly after the Vietnam War, Cambodia’s communist leader Pol Pot attempted to turn his country into an agrarian utopia and, in the process killed more than 1 million of his people. Many of civilization’s worst moral crimes, are acts of genocide, a term which means the deliberate extermination of a racial group.
Recently, a new atrocity has been added to the list of genocide acts, namely, the killing of almost a million Tutsi people in the African country of Rwanda. Rwanda has two main ethnic groups, the Hutu, which comprised 85% of the population, and the Tutsi, which made up about 14%. The two groups continually competed for political dominance over the country, and the dominant group feared the possibility of Tutsi control. By 1994 the Rwandan government was weaken because of widespread famine and various rebel attacks. A Hutu rebel force killed the Rwandan president of 20 years, and the new Hutu rulers sought to end their problems by targeting the Tutsi for elimination. During a 100-day period in the Summer of 1994, the Hutu succeeded in killing 2/3 of the country’s Tutsi people. Hundreds of thousands of Hutu people went from house to house -- often in their own neighborhood -- raping, robbing and slaughtering their ethnic rivals. The killings were mainly done at close range with machetes, spears, and clubs.
The more horrible the offense, the more resolute we are about our moral assessment, and in the worst cases we describe the offense with the word “evil,” a term that we reserve for only the most immoral actions. In spite of how vivid and self-evident some immoralities are, there is still a vagueness in our moral judgments that needs clarification. What exactly do I mean when I say “It is wrong to commit genocide”? Most moral philosophers of the past assumed that our moral judgments were simply about the presence or absence of some moral quality. The phrase “It is wrong to commit genocide” could be variously interpreted according to these theories:
Scotus’s theory: “Genocide is contrary to God’s commands”
Locke’s theory: “Genocide violates our natural rights”
Clarke’s theory: “Genocide is contrary to eternal moral relations”
These are only three examples of many possible interpretations. Beginning in the early 20th century, though, many philosophers questioned this approach. When I make the statement, “It is wrong to commit genocide” I am not making a factual statement about the presence or absence of a moral quality. Instead, I am merely expressing my personal attitudes, feelings, and recommendations about genocide. It makes no difference how obviously immoral or evil the conduct is; the actual meaning of my moral assessment is simply a reflection of my individual attitude. This view was developed in two related theories. According to the theory of emotivism, the fundamental meaning of moral utterances is that they express our feelings. According to prescriptivism, the fundamental meaning of moral utterances is that they prescribe or prompt others to adopt some specific behavior. When first proposed, both of these theories were sharply attacked. For critics, it seems that my moral condemnation against genocide, for example, is much more than a reflection of personal emotions and urgings. There is something factually wrong about using such weapons. We will look at the emotivist and prescriptivist theories and see if they are as off the mark as critics argue.
AYER’S THEORY.
One of the founders and most radical defenders of emotivism and presciptivism was British philosopher A.J. Ayer (1910-1989). Ayer’s ethical views are presented in his influential book Language, Truth and Logic (1936), a work that defends a controversial philosophical position known as logical positivism. Since Ayer’s view of moral judgments is largely an offshoot of logical positivism, we will briefly look at that theory.
Logical Positivism and the Verification Principle. Philosophers from centuries back commonly distinguished between two kinds of statements, such as these:
(1) All bachelors are unmarried men
(2) The door is brown
The first statement is true by definition and doesn’t rely for its truth on sense perception or observation. If we know that the word “bachelor” by definition includes the notion of a single male, then it is clearly true that “all bachelors are unmarried men.” Philosophers commonly call this kind of sentence an analytic statement, which also include mathematical truths such as “three times five is equal to the half of thirty.” By contrast, the truth of the second statement above can’t be established merely through definitions but instead relies on sense perception and observation. We must visually observe the color of the door to establish that it is brown. Philosophers call these empirical statements.
Scottish skeptic David Hume (1711-1776) pushed the distinction further and argued that analytic and empirical statements were the only legitimate types of knowledge that we have. Commentators refer to this view as Hume’s fork since, according to Hume, all legitimate quests for knowledge “fork” or divide between these two types of statements. Hume ruthlessly applied this principle to traditional philosophical discussions and rejected any philosophical theory if it involved neither analytic nor empirical truths. Hume dramatically expresses this method of assessment here:
When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles [i.e., Hume’s fork], what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance, let us ask, “Does it contain any [analytic] abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number?” No. “Does it contain any [empirical] experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence?” No. Commit it then to the flames. For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion. [Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 12:3]
Inspired by Hume, philosophers of the logical positivist movement in the 1930s adopted a similar method of assessing the truth and meaning of knowledge claims. They proposed what they called the verification principle and, like Hume, they used it to test the meaning of various assertions.
Ayer’s account of logical positivism and the verification principle is perhaps the best known, and he gives his principle here:
The principle of verification is supposed to furnish a criterion by which it can be determined whether or not a sentence is literally meaningful. A simple way to formulate it would be to say that a sentence had literal meaning if and only if the proposition it expressed was either analytic or empirically verifiable. [Language, Truth and Logic, Introduction]
According to Ayer, a statement is meaningful if it is either analytic or empirically verifiable. Ayer took great pains to show precisely what is involved in both analyticity and empirical verifiability. Most simply, a statement is analytic if it is either explicitly true by definition, or reducible to statements that are true by definition. A statement is empirically verifiable if some possible experience will either confirm or disconfirm it. To illustrate Ayer’s verifiability principle, consider these statements:
(1) Triangles have three angles.
(2) The White House is in Washington D.C.
(3) There are flowers growing on the planet Neptune.
(4) Every two minutes, everything in the universe doubles in size.
The first of these statements is meaningful since it is analytically true by definition that triangles have three angles. The second statement is meaningful since we can empirically verify the location of the White House by going to Washington and seeing it. The third of these statements is also meaningful since at least in theory it is possible to construct a spaceship and fly to Neptune to confirm or disconfirm whether flowers are growing there. Finally, the fourth of these statements is meaningless since it is neither analytically true by definition nor empirically verifiable. Specifically, it isn’t empirically verifiable since any theoretical measuring device I might use will itself also double in size.
Using the verification principle, Ayer rejects as meaningless various assertions about metaphysics, religion, and ethics. For example, Ayer considers the following metaphysical statement by British idealist philosopher F.H. Bradley: “the Absolute enters into, but is itself incapable of, evolution and progress.” For Ayer, this statement is meaningless since it is neither analytically true nor empirically verifiable. Take, now, an ethical statement such as “it is morally wrong to commit genocide.” This statement is also meaningless since it too is neither analytically true nor empirically verifiable. Although moral utterances are factually “meaningless” in Ayer’s strict sense of that term, they are not complete gibberish. That is, they are not on the same level as the nonsensical utterance, “The time now is green.” When I make moral utterances, people know how to respond appropriately to me in their actions and in their words. Ayer concedes this much and recognizes that moral utterances perform some practical function in our lives, even though they are factually meaningless.
Descriptive Utterances vs. Performative Utterances. To better understand the nonfactual practical function of ethical utterances, we need to distinguish between two types of utterances: (1) factually descriptive utterances, and (2) implicitly performative utterances. Although Ayer himself didn’t use this precise terminology, he relied on the underlying concepts. Factually descriptive utterances are those that pass the test of the verification principle, such as these:
Triangles have three angles
The door is brown
Jones claims to have seen Elvis
Smith’s pierced eyebrow is infected
More generally, each of these utterances is an either true or false statement about the world. To test, for example, whether “the door is brown” is factually descriptive, we need only to ask, “Is it true or false that ‘the door is brown’?” Since this question is intelligible, then the statement, “the door is brown” is factually descriptive.
By contrast, implicitly performative utterances are a special class of statements that technically fail the test of the verification principle, and are not factually descriptive. Examples of these are,
Shut the door!
Keep your dog out of my yard!
Oh, my aching back!
Three cheers for Old Glory!
The first two statements above are commands, and the second two are expressions of feelings. Although we understand what is being said by each of these utterances, the statements don’t literally express truths or falsehoods. Using the above test, it makes no sense to ask, “Is it true or false that ‘Shut the door’?” In addition to being nonfactual, they are implicitly performative in the sense that they verbally accomplish some task. As such, they can be reasonably translated into statements that begin with the phrase “I hereby....” For example, I can rephrase each of the above utterances as these:
I hereby ask you to shut the door.
I hereby ask you to keep your dog out of my yard.
I hereby express my feelings concerning my aching back.
I hereby express my feelings for Old Glory.
Now examine this list of moral utterances:
It is wrong to commit genocide.
Donating to charity is good.
Murdering people is wrong.
Mother Teresa was a good woman.
Are these utterances factually descriptive, or are they implicitly performative? The traditional view of moral utterances is that they are factually descriptive, since it seems intelligible to ask, “is it true or false that ‘Donating to charity is good’?” This traditional view is sometimes called cognitivism since it holds that the truth-value of moral utterances can be known or are subject to cognition. A clearer name for this view, though, is descriptivism since we are providing factual descriptions in our moral utterances.
Ayer challenges the descriptivist interpretation of moral utterances and argues that, although they may appear to be true or false statements about the world, they are not really factual descriptions. Instead, they are implicitly performative utterances, which are disguised as factual descriptions. In Ayer’s terminology, they are “pseudo-concepts”:
We say [of ethical statements] that the reason why they are unanalysable [or factual] is that they are mere pseudo-concepts. The presence of an ethical symbol in a proposition adds nothing to its factual content. Thus if I say to someone, “You acted wrongly in stealing that money,” I am not stating anything more than if I had simply said, “You stole that money.” In adding that this action is wrong I am not making any further statement about it. I am simply evincing my moral disapproval of it. It is as if I had said, “You stole that money,” in a peculiar tone of horror, or written it with the addition of some special exclamation marks. The tone, or the exclamation marks, adds nothing to the literal meaning of the sentence. It merely serves to show that the expression of it is attended by certain feelings in the speaker. [Language Truth and Logic, 6]
Ayer argues here that the presence of an ethical term in a sentence adds no factual content, but only performs the function of expressing our feelings. This view is sometimes called noncognitivism since it holds that the truth-value of moral utterances cannot be known, or aren’t subject to cognition. We will use the name performativism in reference to this view, given its emphasis on performing something rather than describing something.
Emotivism and Prescriptivism. According to Ayer, we perform two distinct tasks with our moral utterances. First, moral utterances express our feelings, similar to the way we express our feelings with the statement “Three cheers for Old Glory!” This aspect of Ayer’s theory is commonly called emotivism. To illustrate, the statement “Mother Teresa was a good woman” simply expresses our approval of her, and could be reworded more accurately as “Three cheers for Mother Teresa!” Alternatively, we can state it as “I hereby express my feelings of approval for Mother Teresa.” On Ayer’s interpretation, expressing my feelings about Mother Teresa isn’t the same thing as reporting my feeling about her. Compare these two statements:
(1) “Three cheers for Mother Teresa!”
(2) “I approve of Mother Teresa.”
The first of these statements expresses my feeling of approval of Mother Teresa and isn’t factual. However, the second of these reports my feelings and is factual since it is either true or false that “I approve of Mother Teresa.” At an initial glance, the difference between expressing feelings and reporting feelings seems trivial. For Ayer, though, the difference is enormous. When I make moral assessments, my expression of feelings doesn’t even rise to the level of a report. When I morally approve of something, I am merely being like a cheerleader. When I morally disapprove of something, I am being like a heckler. Ayer doesn’t claim to have invented this theory but explains that Hume hinted at it 200 years earlier:
... if we did insist on extracting from Hume a reformulation of our moral statements, we should come nearer the mark by crediting him with the modern “emotive” theory that they serve to express our moral sentiments rather than with the theory that they are statements of fact [that report] about one’s own or other people’s mental condition. [Hume, p. 85]
According to Ayer, the second thing that we perform with our moral utterances is that we make commands, similar to the way we make a command in the statement “Keep your dog out of my yard!” Ayer makes this point here:
It is worth mentioning that ethical terms do not serve only to express feeling. They are calculated also to arouse feeling, and so to stimulate action. Indeed some of them are used in such a way as to give the sentences in which they occur the effect of commands. [Language Truth and Logic, 6]
This aspect of Ayer’s theory is commonly called prescriptivism, in the sense that we prescribe, or urge others to adopt specific behavior. For example, the statement, “Murdering people is wrong,” is primarily a command urging people to not murder. This statement could be more accurately reworded as, “Don’t murder!” or “I hereby ask you to not murder.”
British philosopher R.M. Hare (b. 1919) helped clarify this prescriptive component of moral utterances. According to Hare, although when I make moral utterances I intend for you to do something, technically I don’t use moral utterances to persuade you to do something. Moral prescriptions are not just another means of inducing someone to act, such as propaganda, bribery, or torture. Instead, prescriptive language presupposes that someone asks us “what shall I do?” The answer to this question is the prescriptive command that “you should do X”. This is similar to what is implied by ordinary commands, such as “Shut the door”. When I utter this command, I am not coaxing you to shut the door. I assume that you are already predisposed to respond to my request to do something. I am merely signaling you to respond in that way.
Here are the main points of Ayer’s theory:
· 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.
When Ayer’s Language, Truth, and Logic first appeared, many readers were horrified at his bold attempt to reduce traditional areas of philosophical discourse to meaningless utterances. One such response was this:
Under the pretence of ultimate wisdom it [Ayer’s book] guillotines religion, ethics and aesthetics, self, persons, free will, responsibility and everything worth while. I thank Mr. Ayer for having shown us how modern philosophers can fiddle and play tricks while the world burns.
Ten years after the publication of his book, Ayer noted that his treatment of morality in particular “provoked a fair amount of criticism.” We will look at two main criticisms, each of which Ayer responded to.
Ross’s Criticism: Performativism is Based on the Faulty Verification Principle. British philosopher W.D. Ross (1877-1971) charged that Ayer’s performativist account of moral utterances rests on the verification principle. Since, according to Ross, the verification principle has problems, then the performative theory inherits those faults. What is wrong with the verification principle? Let’s note two commonly mentioned problems. First, logical positivists have difficulties when arriving an acceptable formulation of “empirical verifiability.” Suppose that I define empirical verifiability as this:
A statement is empirically verifiable if it is possible to have some direct experience that will confirm its truth.
Unfortunately, this criterion won’t apply to obviously factual statements such as “all humans are mortal.” The problem here is that no direct experiences can fully verify universal statements. Although logical positivists continually attempted to refine the notion of “empirical verifiability,” no revision appears to be immune from similar counterexamples.
A second problem with the verification principle is that it fails its own test. Suppose that I uttered the verification principle in this sentence:
A statement is factually meaningful only if it is either analytic or empirically verifiable.
My utterance itself is neither analytic nor empirically verifiable, hence my statement isn’t factually meaningful. If I insist that my utterance really is factually meaningful, then I must conclude that the verification principle is too restrictive. On the other hand, if I accept that my statement of the verification principle is factually meaningless, then I don’t have a good reason to advise you to accept the verification principle. For these and other reasons, there are genuine problems with the verification principle.
To the extent that Ayer’s performative theory of moral utterances is based on the verification principle, then Ross seems correct that Ayer’s performativism also has problems. In response to Ross’s criticism, Ayer argued that his performative theory of moral utterances is “valid on its own account,” irrespective of its initial association with the verification principle. For Ayer, when someone makes a moral utterance, such as “Mother Teresa was a good woman,” we are entitled to ask whether that statement is factually descriptive or implicitly performative. Ayer believes that we won’t find any descriptive content in it and so we must see it as implicitly performative.
However, Ayer’s response isn’t satisfactory. It doesn’t seem possible to brand moral utterances as purely performative without appealing to either the verification principle or a similar principle that is just as restrictive. Here is Ayer’s principal argument for performativism:
(1) Moral utterances are either factually descriptive or implicitly performative.
(2) Moral utterances are not factually descriptive.
(3) Hence, moral utterances are implicitly performative.
The key premise is the second one. What reason do we have to maintain that moral utterances are not factually descriptive? Our only answer is to show that they don’t live up to a specific standard of factualness. At a minimum this requires that we consider conservative litmus tests for factualness, such as whether an utterance is true by definition, and whether an utterance is empirically verifiable. If we stop at these two litmus tests, then we thereby rely on the verification principle. Suppose instead that we considered additional litmus tests that are more inclusive, such as whether an utterance has practical value in our lives. These, though, will render moral utterances factually descriptive, and won’t give Ayer the result that he wants. So, the above argument locks us into a litmus test that is at least as restrictive as the verification principle, if not the verification principle itself.
In short, it looks like Ross is correct that Ayer’s performativist account of moral utterances fails since it rests on the questionable verification principle.
Moore’s Criticism: Performativism does not Account for Moral Arguments. According to Ayer, moral utterances are not statements of fact, and are merely performative in the sense that they express our feelings and urge others to adopt our view. This means that if you and I dispute about a controversial moral issue, such as abortion or capital punishment, we are not disputing about facts. Instead, for Ayer, we are just expressing different opinions. British philosopher G.E. Moore (1873-1958) argued that performativism is an inadequate theory of moral utterances since it doesn’t recognize that, in moral disputes, we truly argue about facts. Stated precisely, Moore’s criticism of performativism is this:
(1) If performativism is true, then we cannot factually argue about questions of moral value.
(2) In point of fact, we can engage in genuine factual arguments about questions of moral value.
(3) Therefore, performativism is false.
In defense of premise two, Moore maintains that an important and obvious feature of morality is that we can argue about questions of moral value, and our arguments involve questions of fact:
... when I judge of a given action that it was wrong, and you perhaps of the very same action that it was not, we are not in fact differing in opinion about it at all; any more than we are differing in opinion if I make the judgment “I came from Cambridge to-day” and you make the judgment “I did not come from Cambridge to-day” [Philosophical Studies, 10]
Moore states here that moral disputes are not merely differing opinions but, instead, the disputes are factual in nature. For example, I may argue that abortion is morally permissible, and you may argue that it is morally wrong. We may argue back and forth on the issue, examining factual evidence and drawing factual conclusions. However, if performativism is true, then moral arguments of this sort are not possible. For Ayer, what appears to be a moral argument is in reality more like two snakes hissing at each other. Moore, by contrast, thinks that moral disputes are not just hissing matches, but instead have a genuine argumentative component.
Ayer was aware of Moore’s criticism, but wasn’t convinced. According to Ayer, if we closely look at moral disputes, we see that we never use arguments to show our opponent that he has the wrong ethical feeling or the wrong value system. The most that we do is show that our opponent is mistaken about some facts about the case, such as a person’s true motive, or the actual consequences of a person’s action. If our opponent isn’t persuaded by these facts, then we give up reasoning with him and start insulting him for having an inferior sense of morality. For Ayer, this shows that the most central part of moral assessment isn’t a question of facts or argumentation, but rather a question of a presupposed value system. Again, at this crucial level, so-called moral disputes are just hissing matches. American philosopher Charles L. Stevenson (1908-1979) helps clarify this point. According to Stevenson, when we engage in moral discussions we principally dispute with each other about our respective attitudes, rather than about facts. To illustrate this difference, if I say “Bob’s car is a Ford” and you say “Bob’s car is a Chevy”, then we are disputing about facts. On the other hand, if I say that “Bob’s car is cool” and you say “Bob’s car is uncool” then we no longer have a dispute about facts, but instead have a dispute about attitudes. Unlike factual disputes, attitude disputes can’t be resolved by simply appealing to facts. For Ayer, then, ethical statements such as “abortion is morally permissible” involve disputes of attitude.
Does Ayer’s response to Moore succeed? Ayer is correct that we often resort to insults when our quick and ready factual observations fail to win our opponents over to our side. However, resorting to insults doesn’t necessarily mean that we’ve reached a performative level in the discussion at which all reasoning fails. Instead, we may just be displaying our frustration that we don’t have enough time to overturn the huge body of beliefs that comprise our opponent’s value system. Each of our value systems is the result of years of education, indoctrination, and reinforcement. The individual beliefs are woven together into a larger fabric that collectively reinforces each strand. But, with enough new facts and enough time, we can unweave the old fabric and replace it with a new one. For example, after four years of science classes in college, a student might revise or reject his literal understanding of the Biblical view that God created the world in six days. We resort to insults when we see that we can’t duplicate the educational experiences of four years of college within five minutes of conversation.
DESCRIPTIVE AND PERFORMATIVE ELEMENTS.
The above criticisms suggest that Ayer’s principal mistake was restricting moral assessments to only performative components. There is little doubt that part of our moral assessment involves performative expressions of feelings and commands. However, at least some of the time our assessment also involves a factually descriptive component. Moral philosophers after Ayer recognized this and offered theories combining the descriptive and performative elements. The two leading contributors to the discussion are Stevenson and Hare, both mentioned earlier.
Stevenson and Hare. Near the end of his life, Ayer commented that his account of ethical judgments was “much more adequately developed by the American philosopher Charles Stevenson in his book Ethics and Language.” In his 1944 book, Stevenson explains how moral utterances involve both performative and descriptive elements. He observes that our use of moral language in every day life is very vague and there is no single way of analyzing all moral utterances. Sometimes the purpose of my moral assessment is mainly to reflect my personal attitudes, and other times I aim to make more objective judgments. To simplify matters, Stevenson proposes two distinct patterns that cover the various ways that we naturally make moral judgments. The first pattern for analyzing moral utterances is as this:
“This is good” means (1) I approve of this and (2) I want you to do so as well
The above pattern contains both descriptive and performative elements. The first phrase “I approve of this” literally describes my feelings, but it also expresses my feelings, particularly when accompanied with specific gestures and tones of voice. The second phrase “I want you to do so as well” is literally a description of my desire to influence you. However, it too has a performative component and involves my attempt to urge you to change your attitude. In this first pattern, the descriptive parts of my utterances are completely limited to my own attitude.
The second pattern for analyzing moral utterances extends the descriptive element beyond my personal attitude:
“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.
Compared to the first pattern, this second pattern emphasizes more objective descriptive qualities, such as, for example, that a particular action is “universally pleasing.” This pattern also downplays the descriptive references to the speaker’s attitude, specifically the speaker’s reports of his feelings. According to Stevenson, this emphasis on more objective descriptions allows “descriptive references of the ethical terms to become as complicated as any occasion or context may require.” However, Stevenson notes, just because this second pattern allows one to include a string of objective qualities, such as universal pleasure, it isn’t necessarily any more ethically rich than the first pattern. Any quality that we link with X in this second pattern we can indirectly squeeze into what we say about X in the first pattern, particularly when we offer reasons for why we approve of something.
In his book, The Language of Morals (1952), Hare offers a different account of the relation between the descriptive and performative elements of moral utterances. Hare’s theory focuses principally on the prescriptive component of moral assessments, rather than the emotive component. According to Hare, the descriptive component of moral utterances changes from judgment to judgment, although the prescriptive component stays the same. Take, for example, the utterance that “genocide is wrong.” The descriptive meaning of this may widely vary depending on who makes the utterance and what moral theory he ascribes to. For example, it can mean “genocide is contrary to God’s will,” or “genocide violates human rights” and dozens of other meanings. However, regardless of who makes the utterance and what theory he follows, the prescriptive meaning is precisely the same: “Don’t commit genocide.” Because the prescriptive meaning of moral utterances is constant, Hare concludes that the prescriptive meaning is primary and the descriptive meaning is secondary.
Additional Performative Functions of Moral Statements. We learn from Ayer that moral utterances are performative insofar as they express our emotions and prompt others to behave in certain ways. However, we don’t want to follow Ayer’s zealousness and say that moral utterances are only performative, and never descriptive. We learn from Stevenson that there are many types of moral utterances and that we can’t impose a single interpretation on them all. Finally, we learn from Hare that the factually descriptive components of moral utterances vary in different contexts. When we include both performative and descriptive elements in our analysis of moral utterances, then the usual attacks against emotivism and prescriptivism are no longer appropriate. We have only produced a fuller and more psychologically accurate depiction of moral utterances. For example, when I make the moral assessment that “Genocide is immoral” my assessment may mean all of the following at the same time:
Performative
I hereby express my feelings of disapproval concerning genocide (emotive)
I hereby urge you to adopt my attitude (prescriptive)
Descriptive
I disapprove of genocide (report of feelings)
Acts of genocide contribute to general unhappiness (natural description)
Acts of genocide violate our human rights (metaphysical description)
But the analysis of our moral statements shouldn’t end here. Moral psychology is very complex and the odds are that we will continually discover additional nuances of meaning in our moral judgments and add them to the list started by Ayer, Stevenson, and Hare. We will note four additional performative implications of moral statements.
First, the emotive component of moral utterances needs to be split into two parts. When Ayer and Stevenson discuss the emotive element of moral utterances, they principally have in mind the emotional approval or outrage that we express towards a person who performs an action. Suppose, for example, that someone robs your house. On their theories, when I say that “robbery is wrong” I am expressing my disapproval towards the people who robbed you. In addition to this emotional reaction against the robbers, though, I am also expressing sympathetic sorrow towards you insofar as you are harmed by the robber. We can similarly see two emotive elements to our approval of good conduct. Suppose, for example, that after you are robbed, a generous person replaces your stolen property free of charge. When I say “charity is good”, I am expressing my both emotional approval towards the donor and also my sympathetic joy towards you. So, using the example of genocide, if I state that genocide is immoral, my utterance in part means,
I hereby express my feelings of disapproval toward the perpetrators, and
I hereby express my sympathetic sorrow towards the genocide victims
We may call these respectively the emotively approving/disapproving and the emotively sympathetic functions of moral utterances.
A second meaning of at least some moral utterances is that we are asserting the truth of our moral judgment. This is most evident when we are disputing with someone and we want to underscore that our moral judgment is true, or perhaps even absolutely and universally true. Explicit examples might include, “it is true that genocide is immoral,” “it is an absolute truth that we have duties toward our fellow humans,” or “it is a universal truth that we forfeit our rights when we violate the rights of others.” I can also implicitly make truth assertions in moral judgments, without using the actual words “it is true that.” Suppose that you say, “I don’t believe that genocide is wrong.” In response I may say, “But genocide is wrong.” My point here is to assert that something is actually true, which you believe to be false. Asserting truth in our moral judgments is another performative element of moral utterances, and not a descriptive element. We don’t add descriptive content to our judgment by underscoring its truth component. It is more like adding a special exclamation point to the end of a sentence. As such, if I implicitly or explicitly state “it is true that genocide is immoral,” my utterance means,
I hereby assert the truth of the statement “genocide is immoral”
We may call this the assertive function of moral statements.
A third performative element included in at least some moral utterances is that we make statements to remind ourselves of our previously established moral attitudes. From our earliest days as children, we adopt various moral standards from our parents, and, as we mature, we continually add to the list. It would be nice if we could remember all of these standards all of the time, but, in point of fact, we can’t. We can remember the obvious standards, such as that it is wrong to lie, steal, and murder; however, more particular moral standards are easily forgotten. For example, I may forget that it is wrong to give obscene gestures to other motorists on the highway, or that I should treat strangers respectfully. Even the issue of genocide is one that might require some memory jogging if the issue comes up only every few years. When we make moral statements and engage in moral debates, at least part of the task is to bring us up to speed on our previously established moral views. So, if I state that genocide is immoral, my utterance in part means,
I hereby remind myself that I previously disapproved of genocide
We may call this the recollective function of moral utterances.
A fourth and related performative function of moral utterances is that we use them to motivate ourselves to do the morally right thing. Ayer, Stevenson and Hare each noted that we make moral statements to prescribe or urge other people to adopt our views. However, a person sometimes makes moral statements to motivate himself to behave morally. Suppose that a man leaves his wallet unguarded and for a moment and you are tempted to take it. You may say to yourself that stealing is wrong in order to help resist. You may even give yourself reasons for why stealing is wrong, such as it violates people’s rights or that it causes more unhappiness than happiness. Hearing the dialog in your mind or saying it out loud may sometimes provide the motivation to do the right thing. And, at least some of the time, this is in fact what we do. So, if I state that genocide is immoral, my utterance in part means,
I hereby urge myself to behave consistently with my disapproval of genocide
We may call this the self-motivative function of moral utterances.
Skeptical Implications of Extreme Emotivism and Prescriptivism. The best way to deflect criticisms of emotivism and prescriptivism is to retain the descriptive components of our moral statements and simply supplement this with various performative components. Nevertheless, when philosophers today discuss emotivism and prescriptivism, they typically have in mind the more extreme view that Ayer proposed, which allows no room at all for descriptive components. The extreme versions of emotivism and prescriptivism are attractive to people who are skeptical about speculations concerning laws of nature, divine commands, and eternal truths. The only thing that we know for sure about moral judgments is how they make us feel, and it is best to restrict our moral theories to that. So, when I say “murder is wrong” I am really expressing my negative feelings about murder and am imploring you to adopt my attitude. This is not only skeptical, but it is pessimistic since it puts moral judgments on the same level as other expressions of personal preference, such as “The tuna casserole today is horrible, and I suggest that you avoid it.” Two centuries ago extreme emotivist and prescriptivist theories would have brought down the wrath of religious and political officials for undermining the stability of social values. Philosophy isn’t just armchair speculation, officials believed, since the riffraff of society will latch onto any theory that leads to anarchy; reducing morality to personal preference would invite such chaos. Today no one sees emotivism, prescriptivism or any other pessimistic moral theory as a social threat, so proponents are not attacked with the same zeal as were philosophical villains from past centuries.
Even though the extreme theories of emotivism and prescriptivism pose no threat to society, we still should consider whether they adequately capture the meaning of our moral statements. The issue of genocide highlights a big problem with the adequacy of these theories. Genocide is clearly one of the greater moral evils that face human society, and the seriousness of the issue is not fully captured by the emotivist and prescriptivist accounts. On these theories, it seems that the serious nature of the genocide issue simply involves adding the word “extreme” to our utterances:
I hereby express my extreme disapproval concerning genocide
I hereby extremely urge you to adopt my attitude
This, though, does not fully capture the urgency of situations such as the systematic slaughtering of nearly a million Rwandans. Suppose that, instead of inserting the word “extreme” only once, I insert it twice, such as “I hereby express my extreme, extreme disapproval concerning genocide.” But this also doesn’t fully capture the urgency of the issue. How many times, then, must I insert the word “extreme” before I can adequately express the issue’s importance? The fact is that there is only so much extreme disapproval that I am psychologically capable of expressing, and, with colossal evils such as genocide, I will psychologically max out long before I begin to capture the issue’s true importance.
To fully depict the importance of the genocide issue, then, I have no choice but to bring in some descriptive component about the immorality of genocide that extends beyond my limited psychological expressions. Traditional moral theories offer a variety of descriptive elements that better convey greater urgency, such as “Genocide is contrary to God’s commands,” “Genocide violates our natural rights,” or “Genocide is contrary to eternal moral relations.” As skeptics point out, though, these statements rest on concepts that have serious philosophical problems, and, some of these concepts might simply be gibberish. The safest way to add a descriptive component, though, is to steer clear of metaphysical descriptions and instead make a generic moral statement, such as “Genocide is morally evil.” It is true that the skeptic might still dispute the factual nature of “moral evil”. However, unlike metaphysical descriptions, the notion of “moral evil” is universally understood and tied to virtually everyone’s common life experiences. The less we attempt to clarify the concept of moral evil, the better it serves as a factual description of humanity’s most immoral deeds.
Summary. Ayer advanced the logical positivist view that statements are factually meaningful only if they are analytic or empirically verifiable. Thus, for Ayer, moral statements such as “genocide is wrong” are not factually meaningful since they fail this test. Although moral statements don’t factually describe anything, they nevertheless have a performative function and, by making moral statements we accomplish specific tasks. One task, according to the emotivist theory, is that we express our feelings. Another task, according to the prescriptivist theory, is that we urge others to adopt our views. Ross criticized Ayer for grounding his view of morality on the faulty theory of logical positivism. We’ve seen that Ross’s criticism is well founded. Moore argued that Ayer’s theory fails to take into account genuine disagreements of fact. We’ve seen that this criticism too is well-founded. The principal fault of Ayer’s theory is that it confines the meaning of moral statements to performative elements, and completely rejects the descriptive elements. Stevenson developed Ayer’s theory by offering two patterns for interpreting moral statements. Both of these patterns contain performative and descriptive elements. Hare argued that the performative elements of moral statements are primary to the descriptive elements since the performative elements are the same for everyone, but the descriptive ones have a variety of different meanings.
To the common list of performative elements of moral statements, we added several new ones: the emotively sympathetic function, the assertive function, the recollective function, and the self-motivative function. Moral skeptics today sometimes adopt extreme theories of emotivism and prescriptivism, which reject any factually descriptive component of moral statements. We noted that this doesn’t adequately depict the importance of major moral tragedies, such as genocide, and we must bring in a factual component, the safest of which rests on the factual notion of moral evil.
Sources
A.J. Ayer’s Language Truth and Logic first appeared in 1936, and in 1946 Ayer added a lengthy introduction clarifying and revising some of his points. The text of the 1946 edition is available in a recent facimile reprint by Dover Publications; quotations here are from the Dover edition.
Ayer’s emotivist interpretation of Hume is in Hume (New York: Hill and Wang, 1980).
W.D. Ross’s attack on Ayer is in The Foundations of Ethics (1939), pp. 30-41.
G.E. Moore’s attack Ayer is in Philosophical Studies (London: Routledge, 1992), “The Nature of Moral Philosophy”.
Ayer’s comment about Stevenson is from Philosophy in the Twentieth Century (New York: Vintage Books, 1994), p. 139.
Quotations by Charles L. Stevenson are from The Ethics of Language, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1944).
R.M. Hare’s distinction between descriptive and prescriptive meanings of ethical terms is found in The Language of Morals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952), and more briefly in his article “Ethics” in A Concise Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. J.O. Urmson.
Suggestions for Further Reading
R.M. Hare’s ethical views are in his three main books: The Language of Morals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952); Essays on the Moral Concepts, (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1972); and Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Method, and Point (Oxford : Clarendon Press 1981).
C.L. Stevenson’s ethical views are in his two main books: The Ethics of Language, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1944); Facts and Values (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963).
For discussions of emotivism and precriptivism see Mary Gore Forrester, Moral Language (Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982); John Ibberson, The Language of Decision: An Essay in Prescriptivist Ethical Theory (Houndmills: Macmillan, 1986); Stephen Satris, Ethical Emotivism, (Boston: M. Nijhoff 1987); Ezra Talmor, Language and Ethics, (New York : Pergamon Press, 1984); J.O. Urmson, The Emotive Theory of Ethics (London: Hutchinson, 1968).