A Practical and Cooperative Introduction To Ethical Theory

A PRACTICAL AND COOPERATIVE
INTRODUCTION TO ETHICAL THEORY

Fall 2009 Version
Nicholaos Jones
The University of Alabama in Huntsville
This document is licensed under the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States license.
This license is available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/
A Practical and Cooperative Introduction to Ethics
Contents
Disclaimer ........................................................................................................................................ 4
Preface ............................................................................................................................................. 6
For the Instructor ........................................................................................................................ 6
For the Student............................................................................................................................ 8
For Both ....................................................................................................................................... 8
Chapter 1: Basics ........................................................................................................................... 10
1.1 "Right" and "Wrong" ........................................................................................................... 10
1.2 Ethical Theories ................................................................................................................... 12
Chapter 2: Divine Commands ........................................................................................................ 14
2.1 Theory.................................................................................................................................. 14
2.2 Features ............................................................................................................................... 15
2.3 Implications ......................................................................................................................... 16
2.4 Application........................................................................................................................... 17
Further Reading ......................................................................................................................... 18
Reading Excerpt from Robert C. Mortimer's Christian Ethics ................................................... 19
Chapter 3: Virtues.......................................................................................................................... 23
3.1 Theory.................................................................................................................................. 23
3.2 Features ............................................................................................................................... 29
3.3 Implications ......................................................................................................................... 34
3.4 Application........................................................................................................................... 39
Further Reading ......................................................................................................................... 42
Reading Excerpt from Marcus Aurelius' Meditations ............................................................... 43
Interlude 1: Moral Disagreement and Moral Realism ................................................................... 48
I1.1 Moral Realism ..................................................................................................................... 48
I1.2 Moral Relativism................................................................................................................. 50
I1.3 Moral Emotivism ................................................................................................................ 53
I1.4 Explaining Persistent Moral Disagreement ........................................................................ 56
Chapter 4: Consequences .............................................................................................................. 58
4.1 Theory.................................................................................................................................. 58
4.2 Features ............................................................................................................................... 67
4.3 Implications ......................................................................................................................... 71
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4.4 Application........................................................................................................................... 74
Further Reading ......................................................................................................................... 76
Reading Excerpt from Jeremy Bentham's Principles of Morals and Legislation ....................... 77
Reading Excerpt from John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism............................................................. 81
Chapter 5: Dignity .......................................................................................................................... 82
5.1 Theory.................................................................................................................................. 82
5.2 Features ............................................................................................................................... 87
5.3 Implications ......................................................................................................................... 95
5.4 Application........................................................................................................................... 97
Further Reading ....................................................................................................................... 101
Reading Excerpt from Immanuel Kant's Fundamental Principles ........................................... 102
Interlude: Theory Overload ......................................................................................................... 105
Chapter 6: Natural Laws .............................................................................................................. 106
6.1 Theory................................................................................................................................ 106
6.2 Features ............................................................................................................................. 111
6.3 Implications ....................................................................................................................... 115
6.4 Application......................................................................................................................... 123
Further Reading ....................................................................................................................... 127
Reading Excerpt from Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica .................................................. 128
Chapter 7: Theoretical Pluralism ................................................................................................. 132
7.1 Incomplete Theories .......................................................................................................... 132
7.2 Moral Psychology .............................................................................................................. 135
7.3 Cooperation, not Confrontation ........................................................................................ 138
Reading Excerpt: Joshua Greene, "From Neural 'Is' to Moral 'Ought' .................................... 139
Epilogue ....................................................................................................................................... 142
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Disclaimer
This is a work in progress. I have done my best to eliminate misspellings, grammatical errors,
and other mistakes. But, most likely, some remain.
If you identify any mistakes, or if you have other suggestions for improving this text, please
email them to <nick.jones[AT]uah.edu>. Thank you.
Jones
Do not act as if you were going to live ten

thousand years. Death hangs over you.
While you live, while it is in your power,
be good.
- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book IV
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Preface
For the Instructor
This book omits several components that standard introductory ethics textbooks include. There
is no exegesis of primary texts. There is no discussion of the origin or intellectual history of any
ethical theory. There are no refutations of any ethical theory. There is no presentation of
arguments for or against any theories.
There are two reasons for these omissions. First, this is a book for freshman- and sophomore-
level students with no background in the study of philosophy, who are required to take an ethics
course as a general education requirement. Textual exegesis is more suitable for students in
upper-level courses, who have some familiarity with philosophy in general and are prepared to
learn how to read philosophical texts. Historical discussion, when of value, can be provided by
the course instructor as supplementary material. Counterexamples and argumentation are
more suitable for students who have some familiarity with logical reasoning and an antecedent
familiarity with the basic ideas of the major ethical theories.
Second, I believe that introductory ethics should be taught as a science. This is not to say that I
believe that ethics is science, or that ethical theories are scientific theories. I am agnostic about
these issues. (I don't even know how to go about forming a responsible opinion on these
issues.) I do believe, however, that the best way to introduce ethical theory is to teach ethical
theories in the way that scientists teach scientific theories. In a typical introductory physics
course, for example, there is no exegesis of Newton's Principia; there is no discussion of how
Newton discovered the law of universal gravitation or how that law helped in discovering
Neptune and Pluto; there are no counterexamples to that law; and there is no presentation of
arguments or evidence for or against that law. Instead, there is a statement of the law; an
explanation of the law's meaning and its significance; examples to illustrate how to apply the
theory to real-world problems; and perhaps a brief discussion of the law's range of application.
This book departs from the standard introductory ethics textbook in virtue of following the
pattern of a typical introductory physics textbook. (This is what makes the book a practical
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introduction to ethical theory.) The first chapter introduces the notion of an ethical theory.
Each of five subsequent chapters states an ethical theory, explains its meaning and significance,
and uses examples to illustrate how to apply the theory. A final chapter discusses the limited
scope of each theory. Typical introductory ethics textbooks, in contrast, do not discuss the
significance of the various ethical theories, show how to apply each theory only briefly (if at all),
and do not treat each ethical theory as correct within a restricted domain of application
(preferring, instead, to view the different theories as competitors with universal scope).
There is a time and a place for interpreting, extracting, and evaluating arguments from
philosophical texts. I do not think that the time and place is an introductory ethics course
designed for students who are not philosophy majors. Ethical theory is difficult enough to
understand without trying to learn, at the same time, the art of reading philosophy and the art
of developing arguments and counterexamples. Moreover, the point of such a course is not to
expose students to hermeneutics and logic; it is to expose them to ethics.
I find that students are more engaged in the study of ethics, and better retain information about
ethical theories, when pedagogy focuses on understanding and applying theories rather than on
interpreting texts and understanding arguments. When I teach introductory ethics as a science,
the large majority of students leave with a solid ability to state the basic tenets of the major
ethical theories and apply each theory in a rigorous and thoughtful way to real-life issues. This, I
take it, is the point of making the study of ethics a general education requirement: to help
students to be more reflective in their moral deliberations. The trade-off for this result is that
my students also leave with very little knowledge about the arguments in favor of the different
ethical theories or the main objections to each theory. That is a trade-off I am willing to make.
Moreover, it is a loss that is a cost only under the presumption that each theory purports to give
a complete and correct characterization of the moral universe. I explain why this is so, and offer
an alternative to said presumption, in the book's final chapter. (This is what makes the book a
cooperative introduction to ethical theory.)
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For the Student
Welcome. If you are a practical-minded student you might be wondering, "What is there to
learn about ethics, and what's the point of learning it?" I'd like to answer the first of these
questions now and save my answer to the second question for the epilogue at the end of the
book. (Don't skip ahead and read it now—it will make no sense.)
I begin my answer with some mundane observations. Most people have a good idea of which
sentences are grammatical and which are not. These same people, however, often have trouble
in saying what it is that makes a sentence grammatical. (Personally, I learned the rules for
English grammar in primary and secondary school and then promptly forgot most of them upon
completing my last English-composition course in college. I know some people who never
learned the rules at all and yet have the ability to form perfectly grammatical sentences.) This is
because it is one thing to know what something is (grammatical/ungrammatical) and quite
another thing to know why something is what it is. Most everyone can speak grammatically.
But it takes special study to understand why some ways of speaking are grammatical and others
are not.
Knowing about ethics is like knowing about grammar. Most people (this includes you!) have a
good idea of which actions are right and which are not. These same people, however, often
have trouble in saying what it is that makes an action right. This is the point of studying ethical
theories: each theory provides a hypothesis about what makes some actions right and others
wrong. What there is to learn about ethics, then, are different hypotheses about the nature of
moral facts.
For Both
Maybe this textbook is a bad idea. In her article "Theory and Reflective Practices" (from
Postures of the Mind, University of Minnesota Press, 1985), Annette Baier agrees:
The standard undergraduate course in, say, medical ethics, or business ethics, acquaints
the student with a variety of theories, and shows the difference in the guidance they
give. We, in effect, give courses in contemporary moral theory, and like courses in
comparative religion, their usual effect in the student is a loss of faith in any of the
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alternatives presented. We produce relativists and moral skeptics, persons who have
been convinced by our teaching that whatever they do in some difficult situation, some
moral theory will condone it, another will condemn it. The usual, and the sensible,
reaction to this confrontation with a variety of conflicting theories, all apparently having
some plausibility and respectable credentials, is to turn to a guide that speaks more
univocally, to turn from morality to self-interest, or mere convenience …. In attempting
to increase moral reflectiveness, we may be destroying what conscience there once was
in those we teach.
If Baier's psychologizing is correct, this book is a corrupter of youth.
I'd like to write a book that enlightens and improves students without corrupting them. So let
me end this preface with three prefatory remarks.
First, no ethical theory in this book is entirely correct. At least, that's what I believe. What this
means is that this book will not teach you any theory that can be used, without further thought,
to legitimate a particular course of action. This book does not condone moral selectivism.
Second, every ethical theory in this book contains some grain of truth. At least, that's what I
believe. What this means is that this book will not leave you with no guidance at all on how to
behave. This book does not condone moral apathy.
Third, the grains of truth in each of this book's ethical theories are compatible with each other.
At least, that's what I believe. What this means is that this book does not support the view that
different actions are right for different people because rightness depends on which theory a
person believes. This book does not condone moral relativism.
I promise to further elaborate upon these remarks later, in the book's final chapter. Doing so
now would be premature: you need to know what the ethical theories are before you can
understand why they are not entirely correct and why, despite this, they each get at some truth.
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Chapter 1: Basics
1.1 "Right" and "Wrong"
Perhaps the most significant part of a child's early education is learning how to behave. Children
learn how to play games such as peek-a-boo and patty-cake. They learn how to use eating
utensils and bathroom facilities. They learn how to share and take turns and play nice with
others. More generally, they learn the various customs of their family and their society: saying
please and thank-you, listening to authority figures, not staring at people with disabilities, and
so on. This learning is a matter of enculturation, of being programmed to behave in culturally
acceptable ways.
In addition to imitating role models (including, sometimes unfortunately, other children),

children become enculturated by hearing claims about what is right and what is wrong. For
example, they might learn to not keep secrets from their parents by being told, "Keeping secrets
from your parents is wrong." They might learn to offer their friends some of their Halloween
candy by being told, "Sharing is right." Examples like these indicate that one of the fundamental
social purposes of claims involving the terms "right" and "wrong" is to guide behavior: one
should do what is right, and one should avoid doing what is wrong. Accordingly, the prevalence
of these terms--or closely related terms--in the discourses of social traditions concerned with
regulating human behavior should be unsurprising. (Consider, for example, the prevalence of
"legal"/"illegal" in governmental discourses and of "righteous"/"sinful" in religious discourses.)
An interesting--albeit obvious--empirical fact is that children in different cultures learn different

behaviors: enculturation is culture-relative. For example, ancient Greek children learned that it
is right to cremate their dead relatives, while ancient Persian children learned that it is wrong to
cremate their dead relatives and right to bury them with their bodies intact. Children in
traditional Jewish families, but not in Catholic families, learn that it is wrong to eat pork. This
indicates that what children learn about rightness and wrongness is a matter of cultural custom:
different cultures deem different actions as right and wrong, and different cultures sometimes
disagree about what is right and what is wrong.
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There are two different ways to interpret the cultural relativity of claims about rightness and
wrongness. One is that the rightness or wrongness of an action is nothing more than the
action's conformity or lack of conformity to the teachings of a particular cultural tradition. The
other is that although there is a sense in which an action's rightness or wrongness is a matter of
the action's relation to the teachings of a particular cultural tradition, there is also a sense in
which it is a matter of the action's relation to culture-independent facts about right and wrong.
These interpretations disagree over whether there is a culture-independent way to judge the
teachings of one cultural tradition as more correct than the teachings of a different cultural
tradition: according to the first interpretation, there is not; according to the second
interpretation, there is.
This book adopts the second interpretation. It does this without providing an argument in favor
of this interpretation. To be sure, there are arguments that could be given. One argument, for
example, is that if the first interpretation were correct then Martin Luther King Jr.'s civil rights
protests were wrong in virtue of violating then-accepted cultural standards. However, these
arguments are more appropriate for an advanced study of ethics. What is appropriate for the
introductory study in this book is a discussion of how there could possibly be culture-
independent facts about right and wrong.
If you disagree with the second interpretation, I have a favor to ask of you: suspend that opinion
when reading this text. This will help you to understand the theories in this book about what
the culture-independent facts about right and wrong are, even if in the end you think that all of
these theories false. Moreover, apart from this prudential reason for suspending your opinion,
it is the humble thing to do. Because, throughout our intellectual history, there have been many
people who do not share your opinion. (I dare say that at least some of these people have been
at least as intelligent as you.) These people were not idiots, or insane, or brain-washed by
authorities. Many of them were free and independent thinkers who challenged deeply
ingrained prejudices of their day. Don't let pride get in the way of your learning how these
people could have thought that there are culture-independent facts about right and wrong.
Don't let pride close your mind to the possibility that perhaps there is a sense in which rightness
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and wrongness is more than conformity to or departure from the teachings of a particular
cultural tradition.
1.2 Ethical Theories
Let us assume, then, for the sake of learning, that there is a sense in which an action's rightness
or wrongness is a matter of the action's relation to culture-independent facts about right and
wrong. When it helps with clarity, let us refer to these facts as facts about rightness and
wrongness in a moral sense (as opposed to a cultural or legal or religious sense) or as facts
about moral rightness and moral wrongness (as opposed to cultural or legal or religious
rightness and wrongness).
The moral rightness of an action, unlike the cultural or legal or religious rightness of an action, is
not necessarily about whether the action conforms to the laws of some culture or government
or religion. For example, an action can be morally right even if it violates the law of some
government: during the protest for civil rights in the United States, some people intentionally
violated segregation laws as part of a nonviolent resistance to those laws--and although their
actions were illegal, this does not necessarily mean that their actions were not morally right.
Similarly, an action can be morally wrong even if it conforms to the law of some government.
For example, slavery was legal in the pre-Civil War South; but this does not necessarily mean
that slavery was morally right. Moreover, although the legality of an action can change with
changes in what the laws are, the morality of an action need not change when the laws change.
This is why it makes sense to think of the United States' laws as changing from allowing actions
that are not morally right to forbidding actions that are not morally right. (Similar points apply
to changes in the teachings of cultural or religious traditions.)
An ethical theory is a hypothesis about what facts make various actions right or wrong in a moral
sense. The chapters to follow discuss several different ethical theories. Each theory provides an
answer to the question "What is it that makes a morally right action morally right and a morally
wrong action morally wrong?" Each theory answers this question in a different way. This means
that at most one of the theories in this text is completely true (and perhaps all of them are
false). This text does not aim to provide you with the resources for deciding which theory, if
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any, is true: that would be out of place in an introductory discussion of ethical theories. Instead,
the aim of this text is to help you to understand what each theory says, and thereby to give you
an idea of what sense it might make to hold that some actions are right or wrong independently
of cultural or legal or religious traditions.
Warning: When learning about an ethical theory for the first time, people often have a strong
inclination to immediately disagree with the theory or to search their brains for reasons why the
theory is false. This is a good inclination to have: it indicates a critical mind, and it is good to
think critically about theories of all sorts (ethical, scientific, or otherwise). However, although
the inclination is good, indulging in the inclination is not good for the purpose of understanding
the theory. It is usually easy to formulate objections to a theory. But this is unproductive if
those objections are based upon a misunderstanding of what the theory says.
One mark of a mature mind is having patience to understand a theory before trying to refute it.
Think about how silly it would be to disagree with quantum mechanics for the reason that it says
that the world is a creation of our minds: quantum mechanics does not say this, and objecting to
quantum mechanics for this reason indicates only ignorance on the part of the person making
the objection. So here's a recommendation: before trying to figure out why an ethical theory is
false, make sure you understand what the theory says.
The text is designed to help you do this: after stating each theory, the text gives examples to
illustrate what the theory says and takes some time to draw out the implications of the theory.
Make sure you take the time to understand each theory before you indulge your inclination to
refute it. Remember that the point of this text is not to discover a true ethical theory, but rather
to discover how ethical statements could be statements of fact. Even if every ethical theory in
this text is false, each theory still offers a way of understanding how there could be culture-
independent facts about moral rightness and moral wrongness.
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Chapter 2: Divine Commands

2.1 Theory
From both an historical and a contemporary point of view, probably the most important and
influential theory about what makes an action right or wrong is Divine Command Theory. The
theory is this:
What makes an action right is the fact that God approves of the action, and what makes
an action wrong is the fact that God disapproves of the action.
For example, suppose that God disapproves of adultery. Also suppose that a husband engages
in adulterous behavior with a mistress. Then, according to Divine Command Theory, the
husband's action is wrong, and the fact that makes this action wrong is God's disapproval of
adultery. (That is, according to Divine Command Theory, the statement "The husband's
adulterous behavior is wrong" is true, and the fact that makes this statement true is God's
disapproval.) Similarly, suppose that God approves of loving one's neighbors. Also suppose that
a fortunate young couple opens their house to a nearby family after that family's house is
destroyed in a hurricane. Then, according to Divine Command Theory, the young couple's
action is right, and the fact that makes this action right is God's approval of loving one's
neighbors. (That is, according to Divine Command Theory, the statement "The young couple's
charitable behavior is right" is true, and the fact that makes this statement true is God's
approval.)
Facts about God's attitudes of approval and disapproval depend upon neither people's opinions
about those commandments nor a cultural consensus about those opinions. For example,
suppose that God disapproves of adultery. Then disagreement about whether God disapproves
of adultery, and even universal belief that God approves of adultery, does not change what God
disapproves. Instead, such disagreement or belief indicates only that some people have
mistaken opinions about God's attitude toward adultery, because God's attitudes do not depend
in any way upon what people happen to believe about those attitudes. So Divine Command
Theory helps to explain how facts about right and wrong can be culture-independent: if the
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theory is true, the facts that make actions right or wrong are facts about God's attitudes of
approval and disapproval toward those actions.
2.2 Features
Divine Command Theory is an extremely attractive theory, at least from a traditional theological
perspective. There are three main reasons for this. First, the theory preserves God's status as
creator. For if Divine Command Theory is true, God is the creator of what is right and what is
wrong, since God is the source of his attitudes toward various actions. Secondly, the theory
preserves God's status as all-good. For if Divine Command Theory is true, and if God does only
those actions of which he approves and never those actions of which he disapproves, then all of
God's actions are right. Finally, the theory preserves God's status as all-powerful. For if God's
attitudes are not what make actions right or wrong, and if God's being all-powerful means that
God must always do what is right, then God's decisions about what to do might be constrained
by facts outside of God's control, and this would be a limitation on God's power.
Apart from its theological attractiveness, Divine Command Theory helps to explain why
someone might consult the Bible for moral guidance. If the Bible contains revelations about
God's attitudes toward various actions, and if Divine Command Theory is true, then the Bible
contains information about which actions are right and which actions are wrong. For similar
reasons, Divine Command Theory helps to explain why some people might believe that prayer
provides moral guidance about what to do in tough situations. If prayer is a reliable way of
determining what God's attitude is toward a possible course of action, and if the theory is true,
then prayer is a source of information about whether that course of action is right. Likewise,
Divine Command Theory helps to explain why Catholics treat the Pope as a moral authority. If
Catholics are correct in believing that the Pope has an authoritative access to what God's
attitudes are, and if the theory is true, then the Pope is an authority about the facts that make
some actions right and other actions wrong.
Divine Command Theory also helps to explain why some people might believe that there is an
intimate connection between leading a religious life and being a morally upright person. For if
Divine Command Theory is true, the way to know right from wrong is to know about God's
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attitudes. If one supposes that one way to know about God's attitudes is to learn about them
through doing things that only religious people tend to do, namely, reading the Bible and going
to church and praying, and if one supposes that people who do these things take what they
learn to heart, it follows that people who do these things act in morally righteous ways. If one
also supposes that people who do not do these things have no way of knowing what God's
attitudes are, it follows that people who do not do the things that religious people tend to do
have no idea whether their actions are right or wrong. (Of course, perhaps being religious is not
the only way to know about God's attitudes. For example, perhaps knowledge of those
attitudes is now a pervasive aspect of secular culture. And perhaps not everyone who reads the
Bible and goes to church takes what they learn to heart. These claims, if true, weaken the
connection between being religious and being morally righteous.)
2.3 Implications
Divine Command Theory has several interesting, and perhaps surprising, consequences. The
first is this: if God neither approves nor disapproves of a particular action, then that action is
neither right nor wrong. For example, if God neither approves nor disapproves of stem cell
research, and if Divine Command Theory is true, then stem cell research is neither right nor
wrong. Instead, it is a morally neutral action. This consequence helps to explain why, say,
Christians might believe that the Bible is not the only source of information about God's
attitudes. If one supposes that the Bible does not provide information about all of God's
attitudes, and if one supposes that some actions not discussed in the Bible are nonetheless
wrong and that it is possible to know this, there must be other ways to know about God's
attitudes, if Divine Command Theory is true.
A second interesting consequence of Divine Command Theory is that if God does not exist, then
no actions are wrong. If God does not exist, God does not disapprove of any actions. And if God
does not disapprove of an action, that action is not wrong, according to Divine Command
Theory. This is probably why some people--Dostoevsky is probably the most famous--say that if
God does not exist then everything is permitted. But technically speaking, this is true only if
God's attitudes are what make actions right or wrong. (That is, it is true only if Divine Command
Theory is true.)
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This second consequence helps to explain why someone might believe that there is nothing to
stop atheists from being immoral. Atheists hold that God does not exist. And if Divine
Command Theory is true, then atheism entails that no actions are wrong. (Incidentally, this is
another reason that someone might believe in an intimate connection between living a religious
life and being a morally upright person.) Of course, there are atheists who believe that there
are opinion- and culture-independent facts that make some actions morally wrong. What the
preceding line of thought shows is that atheists who believe this are committed to Divine
Command Theory being false.
2.4 Application
Using Divine Command Theory to determine whether an action is right or wrong involves
following a two-step process.
Step 1: Determine God's attitude toward the action.
Step 2: If the attitude is one of disapproval, conclude that the action is wrong; and if the
attitude is approval, conclude that the action is right.
Divine Command Theory itself does not provide any guidance about how to determine God's
attitudes toward various actions. (That is, the theory does not provide any guidance about how
to complete Step 1 for the application of the theory.) Some common ideas about how to
determine God's attitudes include consulting a sacred text, praying, listening to one's
conscience, or listening to an authority about God's revelations. (The reason for the adjective
"Command" in the name of this theory is the traditional assumption that God's commandments
indicate God's attitudes of approval and disapproval.)
For the sake of illustration, suppose that the Bible provides true information about God's
attitudes toward various actions. In particular, suppose that God's commandments in the Bible
indicate which actions God approves and which actions God disapproves. Then consider the
following action: Jack borrows Diane's car, crashes it into a river, but tells Diane that he cannot
return her car because someone stole it. One of God's commandments (let us suppose) is "Thou
shalt not lie." This commandment indicates that God disapproves of lying. Hence, according to
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Divine Command Theory, since Jack lies to Diane about why he cannot return her car, Jack's
action is morally wrong.
The major drawback to applying Divine Command Theory is that doing so requires knowledge of
what God's attitudes are toward various actions. But even if God reveals his attitudes of
approval and disapproval to us, sometimes this revelation is ambiguous. The major religious
traditions sometimes disagree about key moral issues. For example, God disapproves of eating
pork according to Islam; but God does not disapprove of eating pork according to Christianity.
Christianity holds that God disapproves of polygamy; but Mormonism holds that God approves
of polygamy. Moreover, sometimes there is disagreement about God's attitude toward an
action within a religious tradition. For example, United Methodists disagree over whether God
disapproves of homosexual marriage; and Southern Baptists disagree over whether God
approves of ordaining women as clergy. When there are conflicting interpretations about what
God's attitudes are, at most one interpretation can be correct. But it is not at all clear how to
decide which interpretations are mistaken. This means that it is not at all clear how to use
Divine Command Theory for obtaining correct moral guidance. (Or, at the very least, this means
that the applicability of Divine Command Theory depends upon a serious theological foundation
that provides the resources for determining what God's attitudes of approval and disapproval
are.)
Further Reading
Philip L. Quinn's Divine Commands and Moral Requirements (Oxford University Press: 1978) and
Edward Wierenga's article "A Defensible Divine Command Theory" (Nous 17:3 (1983), 387-407)
provide in-depth discussions of contemporary divine command theory; both are written for an
academic audience. (Wierenga's article is available online through JSTOR, at
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/2215256>.) Robert Adam's Finite and Infinite Goods: A
Framework for Ethics (Oxford University Press: 2002) provides an extensive discussion of ethics
from a theistic (Christian) perspective. Paul Helm's anthology Divine Commands and Morality
(Oxford University Press: 1981) contains a collection of influential articles on divine command
theory.
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Reading Excerpt from Robert C. Mortimer's Christian Ethics
This excerpt from Christian Ethics (1950) presents Mortimer's endorsement of Divine Command
Theory and his views about what some of God's commands are. In the first paragraph,
Mortimer states one of the purposes of revelation: it tells us about God's nature and about what
actions are pleasing or displeasing to God. The second paragraph argues that we have an
obligation to obey God's commands, to do what is pleasing to God and avoid doing what is
displeasing to God, in virtue of God being our creator and things having an obligation to obey
their creator. (This is analogous to the argument that we should obey our parents because they
gave birth to us.) In the third paragraph, Mortimer explicitly endorses Divine Command Theory:
"An action is right because God commands it." And he notes that, according to this theory, the
rightness of an action does not depend upon any person's opinions or preferences. In the fourth
paragraph, Mortimer notes a further corollary of Divine Command Theory, namely, that what is
right for one person is right for everyone and what is wrong for one person is wrong for
everyone: ethics is universal. The remaining paragraphs discuss the role of the Bible in giving us
information about morality.
==============================================================================
The Christian religion is essentially a revelation of the nature of God. It tells men that God has
done certain things. And from the nature of these actions we can infer what God is like. In the
second place the Christian religion tells men what is the will of God for them, how they must live
if they would please God. ... The man who knows about God—has a right faith—knows or may
learn what conduct is pleasing to God and therefore right.
The Christian religion has a clear revelation of the nature of God, and by means of it instructs
and enlightens the consciences of men. The first foundation is the doctrine of God the Creator.
God made us and all the world. Because of that He has an absolute claim on our obedience. We
do not exist in our own right, but only as His creatures, who ought therefore to do and be what
He desires. We do not possess anything in the world, absolutely, not even our own bodies; we
hold things in trust for God, who created them, and are bound, therefore, to use them only as
He intends that they should be used. This is the doctrine contained in the first chapters of
Genesis. God created man and placed him in the Garden of Eden with all the animals and the
fruits of the earth at his disposal, subject to God's own law." Of the fruit of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil thou shall not eat." Man's ownership and use of the material world
is not absolute, but subject to the law of God.
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From the doctrine of God as the Creator and source of all that is, it follows that a thing is not
right simply because we think it is, still less because it seems to be expedient. It is right because
God commands it. This means that there is a real distinction between right and wrong which is
independent of what we happen to think. It is rooted in the nature and will of God. When a
man's conscience tells him that a thing is right, which is in fact what God wills, his conscience is
true and its judgment correct; when a man's conscience tells him a thing is right which is, in fact,
contrary to God's will, his conscience is false and telling him a lie. It is a lamentably common
experience for a man's conscience to play him false, so that in all good faith he does what is
wrong, thinking it to be right. "Yea the time cometh that whoever killeth you will think that he
doeth God service." But this does not mean that whatever you think is right is right. It means
that even conscience can be wrong: that the light which is in you can be darkness....
The pattern of conduct which God has laid down for man is the same for all men. It is
universally valid. When we speak of Christian ethics we do not mean that there is one law for
Christians and another for non-Christians. We mean the Christian understanding and statement
of the one common law for all men. Nonbelievers also know or can be persuaded of that law or
of part of it: Christians have a fuller and better knowledge. The reason for this is that Christians
have by revelation a fuller and truer knowledge both of the nature of God Himself and of the
nature of man.
The Revelation in the Bible plays a three-fold part. In the first place it recalls and restates in
simple and even violent language fundamental moral judgments which men are always in
danger of forgetting or explaining away. It thus provides a norm and standard of human
behavior in the broadest and simplest outline. Man's duty to worship God and love the truth, to
respect lawful authority, to refrain from violence and robbery, to live in chastity, to be fair and
even merciful in his dealings with his neighbor—and all this as the declared will of God, the way
man must live if he would achieve his end—this is the constant theme of the Bible. The effect of
it is not to reveal something new which men could not have found out for themselves, but to
recall them to what they have forgotten or with culpable blindness have failed to perceive....
And this leads to the second work of Revelation. The conduct which God demands of men, He
demands out of His own Holiness and Righteousness. "Be ye perfect, as your Father in Heaven is
perfect." Not the service of the lips but of the heart, not obedience in the letter but in the Spirit
is commanded. The standard is too high: the Judge too all seeing and just. The grandeur and
majesty of the moral law proclaims the weakness and impotence of man. It shatters human
pride and self-sufficiency: it overthrows that complacency with which the righteous regard the
tattered robes of their partial virtues, and that satisfaction with which rogues rejoice to discover
other men more evil than themselves. The revelation of the holiness of God and His Law, once
struck home, drives men to confess their need of grace and brings them to Christ their Savior.
Lastly, revelation, by the light which it throws on the nature of God and man, suggests new
emphases and new precepts, a new scale of values which could not at all, or could not easily,
have been perceived.... Thus it comes about that Christian ethics is at once old and new. It
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covers the same ground of human conduct as the law of the Old Testament and the "law of the
Gentiles written in their hearts." Many of its precepts are the same precepts. Yet all is seen in a
different light and in a new perspective—the perspective of God's love manifested in Christ. It
will be worth while to give one or two illustrations of this.
Revelation throws into sharp relief the supreme value of each individual human being. Every
man is an immortal soul created by God and designed for an eternal inheritance. The love of
God effected by the Incarnation the restoration and renewal of fallen human nature in order
that all men alike might benefit thereby. The Son of God showed particular care and concern for
the fallen, the outcast, the weak and the despised. He came, not to call the righteous, but
sinners to repentance. Like a good shepherd, He sought especially for the sheep which was lost.
Moreover, the divine drama of Calvary which was the cost of man's redemption, the price
necessary to give him again a clear picture of what human nature was designed to be and to
provide him with the inspiration to strive towards it and the assurance that he is not irrevocably
tied and bound to his sinful, selfish past, makes it equally clear that in the eyes of the Creator
His creature man is of infinite worth and value.
The lesson is plain and clear: all men equally are the children of God, all men equally are the
object of His love. In consequence of this, Christian ethics has always asserted that every man is
a person possessed of certain inalienable rights, that he is an end in himself, never to be used
merely as a means to something else. And he is this in virtue of his being a man, no matter what
his race or color, no matter how well or poorly endowed with talents, no matter how primitive
or developed. And further, since man is an end in himself, and that end transcends this world of
time and space, being fully attained only in heaven, it follows that the individual takes
precedence over society, in the sense that society exists for the good of its individual members,
not those members for society. However much the good of the whole is greater than the good
of any one of its parts, and whatever the duties each man owes to society, individual persons
constitute the supreme value, and society itself exists only to promote the good of those
persons.
This principle of the infinite worth of the individual is explicit in Scripture, and in the light of it all
totalitarian doctrines of the State stand condemned. However, the implications of this principle
for human living and for the organization of society are not explicit, but need to be perceived
and worked out by the human conscience. How obtuse that conscience can be, even when
illumined by revelation, is startlingly illustrated by the long centuries in which Christianity
tolerated the institution of slavery. In view of the constant tendency of man to exploit his fellow
men and use them as the instruments of his greed and selfishness, two things are certain. First,
that the Scriptural revelation of the innate inalienable dignity and value of the individual is an
indispensable bulwark of human freedom and growth. And second, that our knowledge of the
implication of this revelation is far indeed from being perfect; there is constant need for further
refinement of our moral perceptions, a refinement which can only emerge as the fruit of a
deeper penetration of the Gospel of God's love into human life and thought.
Another illustration of the effect of Scripture upon ethics is given by the surrender of the
principle of exact retribution in favor of the principle of mercy. Natural justice would seem to
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require exact retributive punishment, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The codes of
primitive peoples, and the long history of blood feuds show how the human conscience has
approved of this concept. The revelation of the divine love and the explicit teaching of the Son
of God have demonstrated the superiority of mercy, and have pointed the proper role of
punishment as correction and not vengeance. Because of the revelation that in God justice is
never unaccompanied by mercy, in Christian ethics there has always been an emphasis on the
patient endurance of wrongs in imitation of Calvary, and on the suppression of all emotions of
vindictive anger. As a means to soften human relations, as a restraint of human anger and
cruelty, so easily disguised under the cloak of justice, the history of the world has nothing to
show comparable to this Christian emphasis on patience and mercy, this insistence that even
the just satisfaction of our wrongs yields to the divine example of forebearance. We are to be
content with the reform or at least the restraint of the evil-doer, never to seek or demand
vengeance.
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Chapter 3: Virtues
Do the things external which fall upon thee distract thee? Give thyself time to learn
something new and good, and cease to be whirled around. But then thou must also avoid
being carried about the other way. For those too are triflers who have wearied themselves
in life by their activity, and yet have no object to which to direct every movement, and, in a
word, all their thoughts.
- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book II, Paragraph 7
3.1 Theory
Children learn how to behave from their parents. Children who are racist tend to have parents
who are racist. Children who are extremely polite tend to have parents who are extremely
polite. Children prone to worrying tend to have parents who are prone to worrying. And so on.
Parents are role models for their children.
People other than parents, of course, also influence how children behave. Hearing a classmate
say bad words, or watching a classmate act meanly toward others, sometimes leads a child to
exhibit those behaviors. By the same token, children who are taken to church on a regular basis
and act in pious ways outside of church most likely learned how to be pious from their
congregation. Children imitate others in their surroundings, to sometimes good and sometimes
bad effect.
The way a person behaves as an adult is largely a matter of behaviors learned as a child.
Moreover, these learned behaviors are hard to break, because they form part of a person's
character. People who regularly act in good ways tend to have a good character, and people
who regularly act in bad ways tend to have a bad character. For instance, a serial killer probably
has a personality that is dulled to the suffering of others, whereas a saint probably has a
personality that is highly sensitive to that suffering.
Even though our behaviors are, for the most part, the result of how we learn to behave from
others, there remains a difference between the kinds of behaviors that contribute to a person
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having a flourishing and well-lived life and the kinds of behaviors that contribute to a person
having a disappointing, unsatisfactory, or otherwise poorly spent life. For instance, people who
behave in friendly ways to others tend to have better overall lives than those who are anti-
social. Those who help friends in their times of need tend to have better overall lives than those
who never offer assistance. Those who endure through challenges tend to have better overall
lives than those who retreat from difficulties or admit defeat too easily. Those who enjoy
pleasures in moderation tend to have better lives than those prone to excess. Those who are
diligent and work hard tend to have better lives than those who are lazy or unwilling to work.
And so on.
Since the ways a person behaves stem from the person's character, the differences between
behaviors that contribute to a flourishing life and those that interfere with it correspond to
differences between character traits that produce behaviors conducive to a person's flourishing
and character traits that produce behaviors inimical to that flourishing. The former kinds of
traits are called virtues; the latter, vices. That is, the virtues are those character traits a person
has that contribute to their flourishing; the vices, those that interfere with or detract from their
flourishing.
Different traditions, distilled from generations of personal experiences and observations,

identify different character traits as virtuous. The Buddhist tradition identifies as virtues
humility, self-mastery, equanimity, solicitude, nonviolence, and responsibleness. The Confucian
tradition identifies gravity, generosity, sincerity, earnestness, kindness, honesty, uprightness,
integrity, politeness, altruism, loyalty, and benevolence as virtues. The Order of St. John, which
upholds a medieval code of chivalry, identifies as virtues prudence, temperance, justice,
fortitude, humility, compassion, courtesy, devotion, mercy, purity, peace, and endurance. The
Catechism of the Catholic Church (Part 3, Section 1, Article 7) emphasizes seven virtues:
Prudence, which "disposes practical reason to discern our true good in every
circumstance and to choose the right means of achieving it,"
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Justice, which "consists in the constant and firm will to give their due to God and
neighbor,"
Fortitude, which "ensures firmness in difficulties and constancy in the pursuit of the
good,"
Temperance, which "moderates the attraction of pleasures and provides balance in the
use of created goods,"
Faith, which consists in belief in God and revelation,
Hope, which fuels desire for an eternal life with God, and
Charity, which underlies loving "God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor
as ourselves for the love of God."
Finally, a popular early medieval Christian tradition identifies chastity, abstinence (self-control),
liberality (willingness to help), diligence, patience, kindness, humility (not trying to control
everything), and justice (honesty and impartiality) as virtues. (The counterparts to the first
seven of these form what is known as the seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath,
envy, and pride.)
The differences among these traditions are due, in part, to different emphases and interests.
They are due also to different opinions about what makes a human life full and satisfying. A
unifying feature of all the virtues from these different traditions, however, is that each helps us,
in some way, to reconcile ourselves to the large-scale structural defects of human existence.
Despite our best efforts, there is no way to insulate ourselves from profound ignorance of how
the world works and how we can thrive therein, experiences of arbitrary suffering, the ravages
of aging, the vulnerability of all we cherish to time and chance, and, lastly, the probable
untimeliness of our death. (The Buddhist tradition pithily captures these defects with the first of
its Four Noble Truths, that life is dukkha/unsatisfying.) For example, at some point in each of
our lives, an acquaintance will become ill for no apparent purpose. Friendships will fade. Loved
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ones will die. Do what we might to postpone such events, our efforts are guaranteed to end in
failure to prevent them. This is all the more true with our own deaths: controlling when and
how it happens is possible only on the condition that we end it prematurely, while preventing or
indefinitely postponing it is not even possible.
The best we can do when confronted with these large-scale structural defects is to reconcile
ourselves to our situation. Doing this seems to be at least a minimal condition for having a full
and satisfying life: the amount of concentration and effort involved in the absence of
reconciliation--with either struggling to forestall tragedy and death or despairing over one's
inability to do so--leaves little remaining energy for enjoying one's life, developing one's
interests and affections, and so on. There is probably more to living a good life than reconciling
oneself to life's large-scale structural defects. Different traditions surely diverge on how to best
understand what this something more amounts to. Different traditions also diverge with the
label they give to the state in which one reconciles oneself to life's large-scale defects: Buddhists
call it nirvana (enlightenment); Christians, salvation or redemption; Hindus, moksha (freedom).
More important than these differences, however, is a similarity among the traditions: each of
them recommends certain ways of behaving that help us to reconcile ourselves to the large-
scale structural defects in our lives, and each of them recommends cultivating tendencies that
reliably result in such behaviors. (We have been calling these tendencies virtues.) Some
traditions emphasize the so-called cardinal virtues--such as self-confidence, flexibility,
perseverance, fair-mindedness, and moderation--that help us reconcile ourselves to life's
defects by taking life on its own terms and making the most of it. (Think here of self-help
advice, similar to what you might find in, say, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.) Other
traditions emphasize the so-called theological virtues--such as faith, hope, and charity--that help
us reconcile ourselves to life's defects by changing our basic attitude toward those defects from
one that seeks to resist, deny, or avoid them to one that accepts them and perhaps embraces
them as valuable elements of human experience. (Think here of people who have undergone a
conversion experience, such as the born-again alcoholic who has a different attitude after his
conversion and no longer feels the need to deal with life's difficulties by drinking.)
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Throughout life, people acquire new character traits that either help or interfere with having a
good life, and they and either lose or (more often) reinforce old character traits. A person is
virtuous to the extent that he or she has virtuous character traits. For instance, Ebenezer
Scrooge has virtue to the extent that he is industrious, honest, and hard-working; but he lacks
virtue insofar as he is stingy and mean-spirited. Most people have virtue to some less than
perfect extent, in virtue of lacking some virtue or other (which does not necessarily mean having
a vice rather than a virtue, since a person can fail to be, say, generous without being greedy).
Discounting the influence of luck, people with more virtues have a better chance of having a
flourishing life than people with fewer virtues. And the more virtues a person has, the higher his
or her chances of flourishing in life.
If a person were to possess all of the virtues, and to possess them in exactly the right
combination, that person would have the maximal chance of flourishing in life. Of course, there
probably is no such person. But if there were, he or she would be a perfectly virtuous person. In
the same way that a perfectly calibrated global positioning system has the best chance of
successfully navigating to a given destination (barring interfering influences like electrical surges
or unexpected power failures), a perfectly virtuous person has the best chance of successfully
navigating to a good life (barring interfering influences like natural disasters or unexpected
illness).
Virtue Ethics is a theory about moral rightness and moral wrongness that treats the perfectly
virtuous person as the standard of moral behavior. That is, according to Virtue Ethics,
What makes an action in a given situation right (in a moral sense) is the fact that a
perfectly virtuous person would choose to perform the action in that situation.
What makes an action in a given situation wrong (in a moral sense) is the fact that a
perfectly virtuous person would choose to not perform the action in that situation.
(To get an intuitive feel for the idea behind this theory, consider the WWJD--What Would Jesus
Do--bracelets. The idea behind these bracelets seems to be that, in deciding how to act, one
ought to attempt to act in the way that Jesus would choose to act. This makes sense under the
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presumption that Jesus is a perfectly virtuous person--a presumption that those who purchase
the bracelets probably accept.)
For example, suppose that while on the way to an important meeting you notice a child
drowning in the middle of a large pond, with no one else in the vicinity and no time to call for
help. Suppose also that the perfectly virtuous person, out of benevolence, compassion,
responsibility and bravery, would choose to forego arriving at the meeting on time in order to
save the child. Then, according to Virtue Ethics, rescuing the child is morally right and failing to
rescue the child is morally wrong.
For a second example, suppose that a teenager steals money from his parents in order to
support his drug habit. Suppose also that a perfectly virtuous person, due to their good work
ethic, honesty, piety toward their parents, and sense of justice, would choose to not steal
money for such a purpose. Then, according to Virtue Ethics, stealing the money is morally
wrong.
Facts about how a perfectly virtuous person would choose to behave do not depend upon
people's opinions or cultural traditions. This is not to say that these facts are easy to discover.
Far from it, since perfectly virtuous people do not exist! But the perfectly virtuous person's
being an ideal fiction does not mean that the perfectly virtuous person's choices are at all a
matter of subjective opinion.
Consider, for instance, the behavior of ideal gases. An ideal gas is a gaseous collection of
particles that are point-sized (unextended) and perfectly elastic (when an ideal gas particle
collides with another particle, it bounces off with no loss of energy). There are no ideal gases in
nature: the ideal gas is a fiction. Nonetheless, how ideal gases behave is not a matter of
personal opinion. If someone claims that the pressure and volume of an ideal gas are not
inversely proportional to each other, their claim simply is mistaken. And it is mistaken in virtue
of facts about ideal gases (even though these are facts about a fiction rather than facts about
something in the actual world). Moreover, there are ways to discover facts about how ideal
gases behave--but these ways involve more than observing the behaviors of actual gases.
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Virtue Ethics treats the perfectly virtuous person like the ideal gas. Although the perfectly
virtuous person is a fiction, there are facts about how the perfectly virtuous person would
choose to behave in various circumstances. There are ways to discover these facts, but these
ways involve more than observing the chosen behaviors of actual, less than perfectly virtuous
people. And, in fact, these ways are harder to carry out than the ways of discovering facts about
ideal gases, because knowing about virtue is more difficult than knowing about gases:
knowledge of virtue requires not only a basic understanding of dynamics but also a deep
understanding of human nature and the kinds of lives that are good for humans. (For one
suggestion about how to discover what a perfectly virtuous person would choose to do, see the
fourth section of this chapter.)
3.2 Features
For the most part, our experiences with elders gives us a rough understanding of which
character traits are virtuous and which are vicious. Whence Marcus Aurelius:
Examine men's ruling principles, even those of the wise, what kind of things they avoid,
and what kind they pursue (Meditations, Book IV).
(For an example of this in action, read Plutarch's Parallel Lives.) This is the idea behind our
choosing to emulate some people as role models. Of course, our selection of role models can be
prejudicial or influenced by other, even more covert, forms of bias. It is possible, after all, for a
person's upbringing to be so morally corrupt as to render the person incapable of reliably
assessing what kinds of people have flourishing lives. Virtue Ethics, however, is an empirical
ethical theory, in virtue of holding that the facts that make actions right or wrong are, at least in
part, empirically-accessible facts about the world. Hence, in principle, any disagreement
concerning the virtues is amenable to resolution through empirical investigation.
Consider how such an investigation might go. The goal would be to discover whether a
particular character trait--say, temperance--tends to help a person become reconciled to the
large-scale structural defects of life and otherwise flourish in their life. (This is analogous to the
goal of discovering whether smoking tends to "help" people develop lung cancer.) So we need
to study two groups of people: one group that is temperate, and one group that is not. Of
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course, the people in each group might differ with respect to other character traits. For
example, some people in the temperate group might be generous, and others might be mean-
spirited. (This is analogous to smokers and nonsmokers differing in their other behaviors, such
as level of exercise and diet.) To eliminate any effects due to these other factors, we need to
select people for each group from a large, random sample. Ideally, the sample of people in the
study also will be stratified by factors such as social, economic, racial, educational, and cultural
background. These classifications will help to further eliminate effects due to other character
traits, as well as eliminate the influence of luck on life outcomes. (This is standard procedure in
statistical sampling methods. For example, the Gallop Poll uses a stratified random sample of
only several thousand people to (usually reliably) predict election outcomes for a population of
millions.) If, after a long period of time, the number of people in the temperate group with
good lives were significantly higher than the number of people in the not-temperate group with
good lives, this would provide evidence that temperance is a virtue. (This would be the same
kind of evidence studying of smokers and nonsmokers over long periods of time provides for
smoking being carcinogenic.) Of course, this evidence is not infallible: further investigation
might yield different conclusions about which traits are virtuous and which are vicious. But this
is not surprising, insofar as one expects figuring out how to live a moral life to be at least as
difficult as, say, figuring out which chemical substances are carcinogenic.
Virtue Ethics, accordingly, holds out the possibility of making progress in our understanding of
morality through a scientific investigation of people's lives. In addition to this interesting
theoretical feature of Virtue Ethics, however, there is an equally interesting practical feature,
namely, the motivation the theory provides for being morally upright in one's actions.
According to Virtue Ethics, always doing what a perfectly virtuous person would choose to do
amounts to doing the best one can to ensure that one's life is full and satisfying, and having such
a life seems to be desirable in itself. (Ask yourself: All other things being equal, would you
rather have a life in which you are reconciled to the large-scale structural defects in live or a life
in which you never cease struggling against those defects?) Of course, it is possible to imitate a
perfectly virtuous person's choices throughout life and yet have an unsatisfying life. Indeed,
there is no guarantee that a perfectly virtuous person, if one were to exist, would have a good
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life. This is due to the possibility of external circumstances, beyond anyone's control, being
unfavorable. For example, a person with all of the virtues cannot choose to act in virtuous ways
if she lacks the appropriate resources; and a perfectly virtuous person's choices can be thwarted
due to purposeful interference from mean-spirited people or purposeless interference from
natural forces.
The motivation that Virtue Ethics provides for acting in morally upright ways helps to give
content to what it means to call some actions right and other actions wrong. Virtue Ethics
postulates (plausibly) that at least one primary goal of a person's life is to become reconciled to
the large-scale structural defects of life. It defines the perfectly virtuous person as that
individual with the best chances of achieving this goal. Accordingly, a perfectly virtuous person
chooses to act in ways that direct their life toward the goal of becoming reconciled to the
unsatisfactory (but inescapable) features of life: their choices are always directed toward this
goal. Insofar as this goal is a goal of human life in general, actions by others that imitate what a
perfectly virtuous person would do also are directed toward attaining this goal. Such actions
thereby direct a person's life in the right direction, toward its destination. Conversely, actions
that do not imitate what a perfectly virtuous person would choose direct a person's life away
from its destination, in the wrong direction.
Consider a navigational analogy. When I travel, I use a GPS device. I enter my desired
destination, and the GPS provides directions to that destination. (Sometimes it provides several
different sets of directions; more on this in the next section.) If I follow the directions, I
maximize my chances of arriving at my destination. (But following the directions does not
guarantee this; external circumstances, such as road construction or weather hazards, might
interfere.) If the GPS says to turn head north on the interstate and I do, I am heading in the
right direction; if, instead, I head south, I am heading in the wrong direction. Virtue Ethics treats
the perfectly virtuous person like a perfectly reliable GPS device. It stipulates that acting rightly
is a matter of following the perfectly virtuous person's directions, while acting wrongly is a
matter of following contrary directions.
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Apart from explaining what we might mean in calling some actions right and others wrong,
Virtue Ethics also helps to explain the idea that having a good life results from learning and
cultivation rather than chance. According to Virtue Ethics, the result of acting in ways that a
perfectly virtuous person would choose to act is, with good luck, a full and satisfying life.
Knowing how a perfectly virtuous person would choose to act requires having an appropriately
developed sensibility that allows one to imagine how such a person would choose to act, since
there are no actual perfectly virtuous people to consult for their opinions or look to for
guidance. This sensibility is unlikely to be attained by chance, because there are many
environmental factors that present vicious (vice-driven) behaviors in a good light, and because it
is not always easy to discriminate between choices conducive to a good life and those
detrimental to a good life. Moral instruction, then, is the means by which one obtains an
appropriate sensibility for how a perfectly virtuous person would choose to act. Moreover,
putting into action the knowledge obtained through such instruction requires practice, since
doing what virtue requires is not always easy and often involves ignoring inclinations to act in
vicious ways. So, in the right circumstances (with the right luck), learning and cultivation
produce a good life: a good life results from choosing to behave like the perfectly virtuous
person (and the right kind of luck!); and these choices require not only learning how a perfectly
virtuous person would choose to act but also cultivating oneself in ways that allow one to put
this learning into practice.
Virtue Ethics also has interesting connections to a religious approach to morality. It avoids the
problem of how to decipher God's attitudes toward various actions while yet allowing for a
significant connection between religious revelation and morality. One way to interpret stories
and historical reports from sacred scriptures is as a collection of wisdom literature, highlighting
those kinds of tendencies that are virtuous and those that are vicious. For example, Proverbs
contains many passages that highlight as virtuous dispositions being industrious, thrifty, discrete
in one's actions and accomplishments, honest, chaste, kind, caring toward the poor, loving
toward one's neighbor, and humble in estimating one's worth. Proverbs 3 lists several other
virtuous dispositions, including being reverent, merciful, truthful, gracious, understanding, wise,
pious, confident, courageous, accordant (not divisive), content (not envious), and meek. And
Proverbs 31 emphasizes several virtues for wives in particular, such as being faithful, caring,
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charitable, frugal, and industrious. So, like Divine Command Theory, Virtue Ethics can
accommodate the idea that religious texts (such as the Bible) are sources of moral guidance. It
also can accommodate the idea that religious authorities are moral authorities, if one assumes
that religious authorities, through their extensive training and spiritual meditations, are experts
about how perfectly virtuous people would choose to behave in various circumstances.
Assuming that insights into these virtues are divinely inspired (through, say, prophetic
revelation), Virtue Ethics thereby accommodates the idea that God and religion provide moral
guidance. This guidance takes the form of advice about or insight into the character traits of
someone who is perfectly virtuous. But, according to Virtue Ethics, it is not this advice (or the
attitudes expressed through the advice) that makes actions right or wrong; instead, what makes
actions right or wrong is facts about how someone who properly appreciates this advice would
choose to behave. Moreover, Virtue Ethics does not tie morality to the existence of God in the
way that Divine Command Theory does. If Virtue Ethics is correct, there can be a significant
distinction between right and wrong actions even if there is no God, because a character trait's
virtuousness (or viciousness) does not depend upon the existence of a God that makes it
virtuous (or vicious). Nor does our knowledge of virtue depend upon divine revelation.
Consider, for example, ancient Greek Stoicism, as presented by Marcus Aurelius. He identifies
fourteen key virtues: authority (having a sense of one's social standing), easy-goingness, mercy
(being mild and gentle), dignity (having a sense of self-worth), tenacity (having determination to
stick to a purpose), frugalness, gravity (being responsible, earnest, and responsive to the
importance of events), respectability, humanity (being civilized, cultured, well-educated),
industriousness, dutifulness (including religious piety, loyalty to one's country, and devotion to
others), prudence, wholesomeness (being healthy and clean), sternness (having self-control),
and truthfulness. Confucianism offers an additional, non-European tradition of virtue ethics,
identifying virtues such as piety toward one's family and ancestors, benevolence, reciprocity
(not treating others in ways you do not want to be treated), humility, contentedness, and
moderation. Both Stoicism and Confucianism claim knowledge of these virtues without
assistance from divine revelation. (See Marcus Aurelius' Meditations and Confucius' Analects.
Marcus Aurelius, for example, devotes Book I of his treatise to listing virtues and the role
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models--grandfather, mother, great-grandfather, several teachers and friends, brother, and

father--from whom he learned them.)
3.3 Implications
Morality, according to Virtue Ethics, is contextual. In assessing an action's moral status, Virtue
Ethics asks us to consider not only how a perfectly virtuous person would choose to behave, but
also how the circumstances surrounding the action would affect the perfectly virtuous person's
choice. (Analogy: Whether the right direction to your destination involves going north or going
south depends upon the details of your departure point.) This feature of Virtue Ethics does not
mean that rightness and wrongness is subjective. (Analogy: The fact the correct directions
depend upon one's departure point does not mean that correct directions are subjective.)
Instead, it means that an action's moral status often depends upon not just what the action is
but also what the circumstance is in which the action occurs.
One interesting consequence of this contextualism is that Virtue Ethics allows for the possibility
of an action being right for one person but wrong for another person. This is due to the fact
that particular details about a person's life can affect how that person would choose to act if he
or she were perfectly virtuous. For example, suppose that you find yourself in a situation in
which a person asks you to keep a secret about their recent (and harmless) underage drinking
with friends over the weekend. Whether a perfectly virtuous person would choose to comply
with such a request might depend upon whether the perfectly virtuous person is a friend or a
parent or a teacher or a sibling: perhaps, qua teacher, the perfectly virtuous person would
immediately notify the parents, whereas qua friend the perfectly virtuous person would notify
the parents only when given other reason for concern. (Analogy: Whether the right direction to
your destination involves going north or going south depends upon the details of your departure
point.)
A similar consequence of Virtue Ethics's contextualism is that the theory allows for the
possibility of an action being right for a person in one culture but wrong for that very same
person if he or she were to belong to a different culture. This is due to the fact that some
virtues involve acting in ways that respect one's cultural traditions. Consider, for example, the
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virtue of ritual propriety. (Confucians call this li; it is one of the most discussed virtues within
Confucianism.) Ritual propriety involves honoring the customs of one's society. This is a virtue,
because it helps one to interact smoothly with others and to appropriate one's culture as one's
own. But acting in a way that is ritually propitious involves different actions in different
cultures. In contemporary American society, for example, exhibiting this virtue requires not
making loud and obnoxious jokes during a funeral eulogy, saying 'please' and 'thank you,' giving
firm (but not too firm) handshakes or exchanging hugs when greeting others, tipping at least
10% (preferably 20%!) at restaurants, wearing shoes and shirt in public stores, answering the
phone with 'hello,' and so on. These customs are not universal. In France, for example, the
custom is for women friends to greet each other with air kisses (le bises) rather than hugs:
French people who prefer hugging to air kissing do not exhibit ritual propriety, even though
Americans who prefer hugging to air kissing do. And neither of these preferences is ritually
propitious in Asian cultures that greet others with bows rather than physical contact.
The way in which Virtue Ethics allows an action's moral status to depend upon culture makes
Virtue Ethics easy to confuse with cultural relativism about right and wrong. Like Virtue Ethics,
relativism allows for an action to be right for a person in one culture but wrong for that very
same person if he or she were to belong to a different culture. Cultural relativism differs from in
the explanation it gives for why an action's moral status can vary depending upon culture.
According to cultural relativism, facts about the norms of a person's culture are what make that
person's actions right or wrong. So, for example, according to cultural relativism, drinking
alcohol is wrong for people from Muslim cultures, but it is not wrong for people from most
Christian cultures, and what makes drinking alcohol wrong for one group but not for the other
are facts about those groups' cultural norms. In contrast, if Virtue Ethics were to entail that
drinking is wrong for Muslims but not for Christians, it would do so in virtue of facts about the
perfectly virtuous person's chosen behavior and the sensitivity of this choice to cultural norms.
To better highlight the difference between Virtue Ethics and cultural relativism, consider how
each theory evaluates protesting an unjust law. Specifically, consider Rosa Park's action on a
Montgomery City bus in 1955. Upon boarding the bus, she sat toward the middle of the bus,
directly behind ten seats reserved for whites. When those reserved seats were full and another
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white man boarded the bus, the bus driver insisted that Rosa Parks vacate her seat for the man
and move toward the back of the bus. This was a standard social custom in the South at the
time, based upon a culture of racial segregation. Rosa Parks refused to move. According to
cultural relativism, her refusal was morally wrong, because it violated the norms of her culture.
According to Virtue Ethics, however, Rosa Parks was morally right to refuse the bus driver's
request: although her action did not exhibit ritual propriety, it did exhibit the virtues of justice
and courage (among others)--and in this case, these other virtues would override a perfectly
virtuous person's sense of ritual propriety. More generally, then, Virtue Ethics allows some
cultural protests to be morally right, whereas cultural relativism does not.
Virtue Ethics also has an interesting consequence regarding the importance of different groups
of people. The theory entails that sometimes acting in morally right ways requires treating
some people as more important than others. (Virtue Ethics thereby rejects the idea that
everyone has an equal moral status, or that all people are equally valuable.) Some virtues
involve giving special consideration to a select group of people. For example, the virtue of filial
piety involves being loyal and obedient to one's parents and older relatives, and being
appropriately reverent toward one's ancestors. If a girl were forced to choose between saving
her mother's life and saving a stranger's life, and if the only relevant difference between the
options were that one involves saving her parent and the other involves saving someone to
whom she hears no special relationship, Virtue Ethics would entail that the girl should save her
mother rather than the stranger, because only that option exhibits filial piety (and the options
are otherwise on a par with respect to the remaining virtues). More generally, the virtue of
fidelity--being loyal to one's friends and family--allows that, in some cases, Virtue Ethics entails
that the right action is the one that shows favoritism or preference toward one's friends and
family over strangers.
Similarly, patriotism is a virtue that involves being loyal and respectful of one's country. So if a
Canadian were forced to choose between helping Canada develop a devastating weapon and
helping Canada's mortal enemy (whatever that might be) to develop the same weapon, and if
the only relevant difference between the options were that one involves the Canadian helping
her country and the other involves the Canadian betraying or endangering her country, Virtue
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Ethics would entail that the Canadian should help Canada develop the weapon, because only
that option exhibits loyalty.
That Virtue Ethics sometimes favors being partial toward certain groups of people does not
mean, however, that the theory always favors this kind of partiality. The virtues of fair-
mindedness and justice (giving each person their due) sometimes enjoin treating everyone
impartially. For example, a perfectly virtuous person probably would choose to feed his son
before feeding a stranger, because the virtue of being loyal to his family would override the
virtue of being charitable toward others. Yet a perfectly virtuous person probably would choose
to recuse himself from serving on a jury for his son's murder trial, because the virtues of being
just and honest would override the virtue of being loyal to his family. So the virtues that favor
treating some people as more important than others do not always dominate a perfectly
virtuous person's choices. Incidentally, prudence is the virtue that helps one to know when
some virtues are more or less important than others, and in particular when virtues favoring
partiality are more or less important than virtues favoring impartiality.
The sometimes complicated interplay between different virtues, and the fact that there is no
clear-cut rule for which virtues are more important than others, highlights a further
consequence of Virtue Ethics, namely, that morality is demanding. According to the theory,
actions which result from improperly employing the virtues are morally wrong. This is because a
perfectly virtuous person not only has all the virtues but also gives each virtue its full and proper
significance when choosing how to act on the basis of those virtues. Consider, for example, a
situation in which a friend asks for your honest opinion about some recent event. The virtues
relevant to how a perfectly virtuous person would choose to act include honesty and
friendliness. Suppose, for the sake of the example, that the perfectly virtuous person would
choose to give her honest opinion in a gentle way, taking into account how her friend has
responded to similar responses in the past in order to maximize the chances of preserving their
friendship. Suppose also that you give an honest answer, and that you do so in a matter-of-fact
way, not taking into account how your response might affect your long-term friendship. Then,
even though your action apparently exhibits no vice, Virtue Ethics entails that your action is
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morally wrong, in virtue of not employing the virtues of honesty and friendliness in the right
way.
This consequence of Virtue Ethics highlights the difficulty of acting in a way that a perfectly
virtuous person would act. Yet it does not necessarily entail that Virtue Ethics imposes demands
on morality that are too stringent. An alternative interpretation is that this consequence
confirms the truism that doing what is right is difficult. For doing what is right requires not only
acting on the basis of virtuous character traits; it also requires using those traits in the right way.
This is difficult for the same reason that executing an Olympic-quality balance beam
performance is difficult. In the balance beam case, not only must one stay on the balance beam,
one must also move in the right way while on the beam. There are many ways to fail to exhibit
virtues, just as there are many ways to fall off the balance beam; and there are many ways to
exhibit the virtues in a less than perfect manner, just as there many ways to move on the
balance beam in a less than Olympian way.
The analogy between virtuous behavior and Olympic-quality performance highlights a further
consequence of Virtue Ethics, namely, that sometimes there can be more than one right action
to perform in a given situation. Consider again the navigation analogy. Sometimes a GPS device
provides multiple possible routes to the same destination--say, one that is the fastest but
involves tolls, one that avoids toll roads but requires more mileage, one that takes the least
mileage by avoiding highways but requires more time, and so on. All such routes equally
accomplish the purpose of providing reliable guidance to the destination, and the choice of
which one to actually take depends only upon personal preferences that do not alter the fact
that the directions leads people who follow them to their destination (if nothing unexpected
happens along the way).
A similar situation is possible with Virtue Ethics. Sometimes there are a variety of actions that a
perfectly virtuous person would choose to do in a given circumstance, each of which perfectly
exhibits the virtues. All such actions equally accomplish the purpose of providing reliable
guidance to a good, flourishing life, and the choice of which action to perform depends only
upon personal preferences that do not alter the fact that someone who performed the action
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would be guided toward the goal of having a good life (if nothing unexpected happens along the
way). When there are such situations, Virtue Ethics entails that each of the actions is right.
(There is not a notion of degrees of rightness (or wrongness) in Virtue Ethics: the theory
contrasts right actions with and wrong ones, but does not allow some actions to be more right
(or wrong) than others.)
That a perfectly virtuous person sometimes has no preference for which action to perform, from
amongst a range of perfectly virtuous actions, suggests that sometimes a perfectly virtuous
person has no preference for which action to choose to perform at all. Consider, for example, a
choice between silently counting to twenty while jump roping and counting each jump once, or
else silently counting to ten while jump roping and counting only every other jump. If this
decision has nothing at all to do with having a flourishing life, the perfectly virtuous person will
have no preference at all for how to behave and, if forced to make a decision, their choice
would be random. When, as in this example, the way in which a perfectly virtuous person
would choose to behave in a given situation is a matter of chance, Virtue Ethics entails that none
of the available actions are right and that none are wrong. Instead, they actions are morally
neutral: they are neither right nor wrong. (This is analogous to the neutral position in a car's
transmission: if the car is facing one's destination, drive takes one in the right direction, reverse
takes one in the wrong direction, and neutral leaves one in place--it neither takes one closer to
or farther from one's destination.)
3.4 Application
Using Virtue Ethics to determine whether an action is right or wrong in principle involves
following a two-step process.
Step 1: Determine whether a perfectly virtuous person would have any preference over
whether to perform the action. If the perfectly virtuous person would not, conclude
that the action is neutral. If the perfectly virtuous person would, proceed to Step 2.
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Step 2: Determine whether a perfectly virtuous person would choose to perform the
action. If the perfectly virtuous person would, conclude that the action is right; if not,
conclude that the action is wrong.
Virtue Ethics itself, unfortunately, provides no guidance on how to determine what a perfectly
virtuous person would choose to do. Knowing what such a person would choose to do involves
having moral sensitivity. This sensitivity results from a proper moral education--and
unfortunately, for the most part, we lack such an education in virtue of living in communities
with less than perfectly virtuous role models. Consequently, the preceding process often is not
practicable. Alleviating this problem requires, in the absence of proper moral training, a
heuristic method for determining what a perfectly virtuous person would choose to do. This is
no easy task and any suggestion serves, at best, as a fallible guide to moral rightness and
wrongness. Moreover, relying upon a heuristic method brings with it the possibility that the
method gives incorrect verdicts in certain cases in virtue of being a deficient method. But these
are unavoidable potential costs to applying a theory with the aid of a heuristic device.
To make the appeal to a heuristic more palatable, consider an analogy with mathematics.
Oftentimes, when using mathematics to model some complex behavior in the real world, our
equations are unmanageably complex. There is no easy way to solve these equations
analytically. This does not mean, however, that the equations are useless. There are well-
defined heuristic methods for obtaining approximate solutions to the equations. The results
obtained with these methods are not exactly correct, and sometimes they are entirely wrong-
headed. Some heuristic methods provide more reliable solutions than others. And, for many
purposes, there is some heuristic that is sufficiently accurate.
Keeping in mind the potential drawbacks of heuristic methods in general, here is a four-step
heuristic procedure for determining whether a perfectly virtuous person would choose to
perform an action (which is not to say that there are not other, different heuristic procedures
for doing this):
Step H1: Determine the main alternatives to the action.
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Step H2: Develop a list of all the virtues that are relevant to the situation.
Step H3: For each action (the action in question and the main alternatives), and for each
virtue on the preceding list, determine whether that action exhibits that virtue.
Step H4: Determine which action exhibits the most virtues. If the action in question
exhibits the most virtues, tentatively conclude that a perfectly virtuous person would
choose to perform the action (and, in virtue of this, tentatively conclude that the action
is right). If the action in question does not exhibit the most virtues, tentatively conclude
that a perfectly virtuous person would not choose to perform the action (and, in virtue
of this, tentatively conclude that the action is either neutral or wrong).
The basic idea behind this heuristic procedure is that there is a positive correlation between the
number of virtues that an action exhibits and the likelihood that a perfectly virtuous person
would choose to perform that action. This is a naïve idea, since it overlooks the facts that an
action's exhibiting of a virtue is a matter of degree rather than all-or-nothing, that not all virtues
have equal importance in every situation, that different virtues might complement or conflict
with each other. The point of these omissions is to simplify the complexity of the variables that
one must take into account in computing what a virtuous person would choose to do. For there
is no simple algorithm for ranking the degree to which an action exhibits a virtue, for
determining the relative importance of different virtues in different situations, or for assessing
the way in which particular virtues interact with each other in a particular situation. The
practical consequence of this is that it is possible for the heuristic procedure to give incorrect
predictions about whether a perfectly virtuous person would choose to perform an action, when
one or more of these omissions are relevant to the action's overall virtuousness. In other
words: use the heuristic procedure with care.
Also, note that this heuristic procedure provides no guidance on determining whether a
perfectly virtuous person would either choose to not perform the action or else have no
preference over whether to perform the action. Determining whether a perfectly virtuous
person has a preference over whether to perform the action requires answering the question
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'Does the action either help or interfere with making progress toward having a good life?' If the
answer is 'Yes,' the perfectly virtuous person has a preference and the action is either right or
wrong. If the answer is 'No,' the perfectly virtuous person has no preference and the action is
morally neutral.
Further Reading
The classic treatise on virtue ethics is Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. There are many
translations available. I recommend W.D. Ross', which is freely available online at
<http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html>. John M. Cooper's Reason and Human
Good in Aristotle (Indianapolis: 1975) provides an excellent modern exegesis of Aristotle's
theory. Stephen Darwall's anthology Virtue Ethics (Oxford University Press: 2002) collects
historically influential articles on Aristotelian virtue ethics, while Timothy Chappell's edited
volume Values and Virtues: Aristotelianism in Contemporary Ethics (Oxford University Press:
2006) gives an up-to-date series of articles on contemporary attitudes toward and
developments of Aristotle's theory. Robert Adams' A Theory of Virtue: Excellence in Being for
the Good (Oxford University Press: 2006) is an in-depth contemporary presentation and defense
of virtue ethics, written for an academic audience. Bryan Van Norden's Virtue Ethics and
Consequentialism in Early Chinese Philosophy (Cambridge University Press: 2007) contains an
extended exegesis of Confucian moral theory, interpreting it as a kind of virtue ethics that is
interestingly different from Aristotle's theory. Jörg Schroth provides an extensive bibliography
on virtue ethics in an online PDF, available at <http://ethikseite.de/bib/cvirtue.pdf>.
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Reading Excerpt from Marcus Aurelius' Meditations
Marcus Aelius Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 CE), at age 40, became Emperor of the Roman
Empire, having been adopted by Rome's previous emperor, Antoninus Pius. Threats by enemy
invaders, natural disaster--famine, earthquakes, fires, and plague--and internal revolt
dominated his reign. He bore these difficulties stoically, and literally so, having studied Stoic
philosophy--a Roman development of Aristotelian virtue ethics--since he was a teenager.
The following excerpt, translated by George Long, is the entire first book of his Meditations,
written while on campaign against invading German forces in the Danube (probably 171-175
CE). The Meditations themselves are a series of reflections, written as a personal journal, in
which Marcus Aurelius reflects upon philosophical theories, most likely in an attempt to "dye his
soul" in the theories, helping him to habituate his mind to new ways of thinking and thereby
transform his character, behavior, and way of life. Book I contains his reflections on his
instruction in virtue and, in the final paragraph, his reflections on the role of luck in his life.
==============================================================================
1. From my grandfather Verus I learned good morals and the government of my temper.
2. From the reputation and remembrance of my father, modesty and a manly character.
3. From my mother, piety and beneficence, and abstinence, not only from evil deeds, but even
from evil thoughts; and further, simplicity in my way of living, far removed from the habits of
the rich.
4. From my great-grandfather, not to have frequented public schools, and to have had good
teachers at home, and to know that on such things a man should spend liberally.
5. From my governor, to be neither of the green nor of the blue party at the games in the Circus,
nor a partisan either of the Parmularius or the Scutarius at the gladiators' fights; from him too I
learned endurance of labour, and to want little, and to work with my own hands, and not to
meddle with other people's affairs, and not to be ready to listen to slander.
6. From Diognetus, not to busy myself about trifling things, and not to give credit to what was
said by miracle-workers and jugglers about incantations and the driving away of daemons and
such things; and not to breed quails for fighting, nor to give myself up passionately to such
things; and to endure freedom of speech; and to have become intimate with philosophy; and to
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have been a hearer, first of Bacchius, then of Tandasis and Marcianus; and to have written
dialogues in my youth; and to have desired a plank bed and skin, and whatever else of the kind
belongs to the Grecian discipline.
7. From Rusticus I received the impression that my character required improvement and
discipline; and from him I learned not to be led astray to sophistic emulation, nor to writing on
speculative matters, nor to delivering little hortatory orations, nor to showing myself off as a
man who practises much discipline, or does benevolent acts in order to make a display; and to
abstain from rhetoric, and poetry, and fine writing; and not to walk about in the house in my
outdoor dress, nor to do other things of the kind; and to write my letters with simplicity, like the
letter which Rusticus wrote from Sinuessa to my mother; and with respect to those who have
offended me by words, or done me wrong, to be easily disposed to be pacified and reconciled,
as soon as they have shown a readiness to be reconciled; and to read carefully, and not to be
satisfied with a superficial understanding of a book; nor hastily to give my assent to those who
talk overmuch; and I am indebted to him for being acquainted with the discourses of Epictetus,
which he communicated to me out of his own collection.
8. From Apollonius I learned freedom of will and undeviating steadiness of purpose; and to look
to nothing else, not even for a moment, except to reason; and to be always the same, in sharp
pains, on the occasion of the loss of a child, and in long illness; and to see clearly in a living
example that the same man can be both most resolute and yielding, and not peevish in giving
his instruction; and to have had before my eyes a man who clearly considered his experience
and his skill in expounding philosophical principles as the smallest of his merits; and from him I
learned how to receive from friends what are esteemed favours, without being either humbled
by them or letting them pass unnoticed.
9. From Sextus, a benevolent disposition, and the example of a family governed in a fatherly
manner, and the idea of living conformably to nature; and gravity without affectation, and to
look carefully after the interests of friends, and to tolerate ignorant persons, and those who
form opinions without consideration: he had the power of readily accommodating himself to all,
so that intercourse with him was more agreeable than any flattery; and at the same time he was
most highly venerated by those who associated with him: and he had the faculty both of
discovering and ordering, in an intelligent and methodical way, the principles necessary for life;
and he never showed anger or any other passion, but was entirely free from passion, and also
most affectionate; and he could express approbation without noisy display, and he possessed
much knowledge without ostentation.
10. From Alexander the grammarian, to refrain from fault-finding, and not in a reproachful way
to chide those who uttered any barbarous or solecistic or strange-sounding expression; but
dexterously to introduce the very expression which ought to have been used, and in the way of
answer or giving confirmation, or joining in an inquiry about the thing itself, not about the word,
or by some other fit suggestion.
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11. From Fronto I learned to observe what envy, and duplicity, and hypocrisy are in a tyrant, and
that generally those among us who are called Patricians are rather deficient in paternal
affection.
12. From Alexander the Platonic, not frequently nor without necessity to say to any one, or to
write in a letter, that I have no leisure; nor continually to excuse the neglect of duties required
by our relation to those with whom we live, by alleging urgent occupations.
13. From Catulus, not to be indifferent when a friend finds fault, even if he should find fault
without reason, but to try to restore him to his usual disposition; and to be ready to speak well
of teachers, as it is reported of Domitius and Athenodotus; and to love my children truly.
14. From my brother Severus, to love my kin, and to love truth, and to love justice; and through
him I learned to know Thrasea, Helvidius, Cato, Dion, Brutus; and from him I received the idea of
a polity in which there is the same law for all, a polity administered with regard to equal rights
and equal freedom of speech, and the idea of a kingly government which respects most of all
the freedom of the governed; I learned from him also consistency and undeviating steadiness in
my regard for philosophy; and a disposition to do good, and to give to others readily, and to
cherish good hopes, and to believe that I am loved by my friends; and in him I observed no
concealment of his opinions with respect to those whom he condemned, and that his friends
had no need to conjecture what he wished or did not wish, but it was quite plain.
15. From Maximus I learned self-government, and not to be led aside by anything; and
cheerfulness in all circumstances, as well as in illness; and a just admixture in the moral
character of sweetness and dignity, and to do what was set before me without complaining. I
observed that everybody believed that he thought as he spoke, and that in all that he did he
never had any bad intention; and he never showed amazement and surprise, and was never in a
hurry, and never put off doing a thing, nor was perplexed nor dejected, nor did he ever laugh to
disguise his vexation, nor, on the other hand, was he ever passionate or suspicious. He was
accustomed to do acts of beneficence, and was ready to forgive, and was free from all
falsehood; and he presented the appearance of a man who could not be diverted from right
rather than of a man who had been improved. I observed, too, that no man could ever think
that he was despised by Maximus, or ever venture to think himself a better man. He had also
the art of being humorous in an agreeable way.
16. In my adoptive father I observed mildness of temper, and unchangeable resolution in the
things which he had determined after due deliberation; and no vainglory in those things which
men call honours; and a love of labour and perseverance; and a readiness to listen to those who
had anything to propose for the common weal; and undeviating firmness in giving to every man
according to his deserts; and a knowledge derived from experience of the occasions for vigorous
action and for remission. And I observed that he had overcome all passion for boys; and he
considered himself no more than any other citizen; and he released his friends from all
obligation to sup with him or to attend him of necessity when he went abroad, and those who
had failed to accompany him, by reason of any urgent circumstances, always found him the
same. I observed too his habit of careful inquiry in all matters of deliberation, and his
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persistency, and that he never stopped his investigation through being satisfied with
appearances which first present themselves; and that his disposition was to keep his friends,
and not to be soon tired of them, nor yet to be extravagant in his affection; and to be satisfied
on all occasions, and cheerful; and to foresee things a long way off, and to provide for the
smallest without display; and to check immediately popular applause and all flattery; and to be
ever watchful over the things which were necessary for the administration of the empire, and to
be a good manager of the expenditure, and patiently to endure the blame which he got for such
conduct; and he was neither superstitious with respect to the gods, nor did he court men by
gifts or by trying to please them, or by flattering the populace; but he showed sobriety in all
things and firmness, and never any mean thoughts or action, nor love of novelty. And the things
which conduce in any way to the commodity of life, and of which fortune gives an abundant
supply, he used without arrogance and without excusing himself; so that when he had them, he
enjoyed them without affectation, and when he had them not, he did not want them. No one
could ever say of him that he was either a sophist or a home-bred flippant slave or a pedant; but
every one acknowledged him to be a man ripe, perfect, above flattery, able to manage his own
and other men's affairs. Besides this, he honoured those who were true philosophers, and he
did not reproach those who pretended to be philosophers, nor yet was he easily led by them.
He was also easy in conversation, and he made himself agreeable without any offensive
affectation. He took a reasonable care of his body's health, not as one who was greatly attached
to life, nor out of regard to personal appearance, nor yet in a careless way, but so that, through
his own attention, he very seldom stood in need of the physician's art or of medicine or external
applications. He was most ready to give way without envy to those who possessed any
particular faculty, such as that of eloquence or knowledge of the law or of morals, or of anything
else; and he gave them his help, that each might enjoy reputation according to his deserts; and
he always acted conformably to the institutions of his country, without showing any affectation
of doing so. Further, he was not fond of change nor unsteady, but he loved to stay in the same
places, and to employ himself about the same things; and after his paroxysms of headache he
came immediately fresh and vigorous to his usual occupations. His secrets were not but very
few and very rare, and these only about public matters; and he showed prudence and economy
in the exhibition of the public spectacles and the construction of public buildings, his donations
to the people, and in such things, for he was a man who looked to what ought to be done, not to
the reputation which is got by a man's acts. He did not take the bath at unseasonable hours; he
was not fond of building houses, nor curious about what he ate, nor about the texture and
colour of his clothes, nor about the beauty of his slaves. His dress came from Lorium, his villa on
the coast, and from Lanuvium generally. We know how he behaved to the toll-collector at
Tusculum who asked his pardon; and such was all his behaviour. There was in him nothing
harsh, nor implacable, nor violent, nor, as one may say, anything carried to the sweating point;
but he examined all things severally, as if he had abundance of time, and without confusion, in
an orderly way, vigorously and consistently. And that might be applied to him which is recorded
of Socrates, that he was able both to abstain from, and to enjoy, those things which many are
too weak to abstain from, and cannot enjoy without excess. But to be strong enough both to
bear the one and to be sober in the other is the mark of a man who has a perfect and invincible
soul, such as he showed in the illness of Maximus.
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17. To the gods I am indebted for having good grandfathers, good parents, a good sister, good
teachers, good associates, good kinsmen and friends, nearly everything good. Further, I owe it
to the gods that I was not hurried into any offence against any of them, though I had a
disposition which, if opportunity had offered, might have led me to do something of this kind;
but, through their favour, there never was such a concurrence of circumstances as put me to the
trial. Further, I am thankful to the gods that I was not longer brought up with my grandfather's
concubine, and that I preserved the flower of my youth, and that I did not make proof of my
virility before the proper season, but even deferred the time; that I was subjected to a ruler and
a father who was able to take away all pride from me, and to bring me to the knowledge that it
is possible for a man to live in a palace without wanting either guards or embroidered dresses,
or torches and statues, and such-like show; but that it is in such a man's power to bring himself
very near to the fashion of a private person, without being for this reason either meaner in
thought, or more remiss in action, with respect to the things which must be done for the public
interest in a manner that befits a ruler. I thank the gods for giving me such a brother, who was
able by his moral character to rouse me to vigilance over myself, and who, at the same time,
pleased me by his respect and affection; that my children have not been stupid nor deformed in
body; that I did not make more proficiency in rhetoric, poetry, and the other studies, in which I
should perhaps have been completely engaged, if I had seen that I was making progress in them;
that I made haste to place those who brought me up in the station of honour, which they
seemed to desire, without putting them off with hope of my doing it some time after, because
they were then still young; that I knew Apollonius, Rusticus, Maximus; that I received clear and
frequent impressions about living according to nature, and what kind of a life that is, so that, so
far as depended on the gods, and their gifts, and help, and inspirations, nothing hindered me
from forthwith living according to nature, though I still fall short of it through my own fault, and
through not observing the admonitions of the gods, and, I may almost say, their direct
instructions; that my body has held out so long in such a kind of life; that I never touched either
Benedicta or Theodotus, and that, after having fallen into amatory passions, I was cured; and,
though I was often out of humour with Rusticus, I never did anything of which I had occasion to
repent; that, though it was my mother's fate to die young, she spent the last years of her life
with me; that, whenever I wished to help any man in his need, or on any other occasion, I was
never told that I had not the means of doing it; and that to myself the same necessity never
happened, to receive anything from another; that I have such a wife, so obedient, and so
affectionate, and so simple; that I had abundance of good masters for my children; and that
remedies have been shown to me by dreams, both others, and against bloodspitting and
giddiness...; and that, when I had an inclination to philosophy, I did not fall into the hands of any
sophist, and that I did not waste my time on writers of histories, or in the resolution of
syllogisms, or occupy myself about the investigation of appearances in the heavens; for all these
things require the help of the gods and fortune.
Among the Quadi at the Granua.
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Interlude 1: Moral Disagreement and Moral Realism

I1.1 Moral Realism
A notable feature of contemporary discourse about ethical issues is the persistence of moral
disagreement. Unsurprisingly, there exists a wide variety of opinion on the ethical permissibility
or desirability of abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, health care reform, public welfare,
and so on. People, after all, differ widely with respect to their personal background and
experiences, their family values, and their cultural history. These same differences, however, do
not produce persistent disagreement within contemporary discourse about scientific issues. For
example, through the 1800s, scientists debated whether light is best characterized as a particle
(with a well-defined trajectory) or a wave (with an amplitude but no well-defined trajectory).
Debate raged among scientists in the 1950s regarding whether the universe expands or, instead,
remains in a steady state. More recently, scientists debated whether humans have a significant
impact on global warming. There is now no serious debate about how to correctly answer these
questions (at least among those in a position to make an informed judgment about the issues).
But disagreement about how to correctly answer moral questions is not like this. Scientific
disagreement is fleeting. Moral disagreement, in contrast, is persistent.
That moral disagreements resist resolution is a sociological fact that cries out for an explanation.
Why are disagreements regarding moral issues more recalcitrant than, say, scientific
disagreements? What makes morality so challenging (and frustrating!)? Why can we
determine, within a few generations, that the universe expands, while centuries of discussion
among our best and brightest cannot resolve the issue of whether, say, homosexual intercourse
is immoral?
Virtue Ethics offers an explanation based upon the extreme complexity of morality. What
makes an action right or wrong in a particular circumstance, according to Virtue Ethics, is a fact
about how a perfectly virtuous person would choose to behave in that circumstance. But facts
about how a perfectly virtuous person would choose to behave are difficult to discover, since
such choices require properly balancing the virtues relevant to the action, since the virtues
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sometimes interact with each other in complex and surprising ways, and since there are no
perfectly virtuous people to consult for guidance about these interactions. The state of moral
inquiry, according to this explanation, resembles the state of physics prior to the modern era, in
which we lacked the equipment and expertise to successfully obtain evidence about the
ultimate composition of material objects.
Divine Command Theory offers a similar explanation for the persistence of moral disagreement.
What makes an action right or wrong, according to Divine Command Theory, is a fact about
God's attitude toward that action. But facts about God's attitudes are difficult to discover,
because God himself is hidden from us, because experiences of the divine often are ambiguous
and require interpretation, and because we are uncertain about how to discern genuine from
fabricated or otherwise counterfeit revelation.
Despite their differences, Virtue Ethics and Divine Command Theory agree that there are facts
about what make actions right or wrong, that these facts exist independently of human opinion
and cultural norms, and that it is possible, in principle, to discover at least some of these facts
and thereby obtain moral knowledge. All of this is compatible with some questions of morality
being persistently unresolved (and perhaps irresolvable) in virtue of the extreme difficulty of
either discovering the facts that make particular actions right or wrong or using those facts in
order to make correct inferences about morality. Moreover, there is a wide array of evidence
that supports and confirms this shared foundation of Virtue Ethics and Divine Command Theory.
First, there is not persistent moral disagreement about every moral issue. No one disagrees, for
example, that killing innocent toddlers for the sake of pleasure is morally reprehensible, that
sharing one's toys is morally admirable, or that raping pre-teen girls in the hope of curing one's
HIV infection is immoral. It would be difficult to explain this agreement if moral knowledge
were impossible. Secondly, agreement about these moral issues is robust across cultures. This
would be incredibly surprising if the facts that give moral status to these actions were not
independent of cultural norms and personal opinion. Finally, we express our attitudes about
these issues in the form of declarative sentences (e.g., 'Rape is immoral'). This would be
grammatically incorrect if moral claims were to characterize something other than facts. (A
declarative sentence, by definition, declares that some fact is (or is not) the case.)
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Moral Realism is the thesis that there are facts about what make actions right or wrong, that
these facts exist independently of human opinion and cultural norms, and that it is possible, in
principle, to discover at least some of these facts and thereby obtain moral knowledge. Virtue
Ethics and Divine Command Theory are particular kinds of Moral Realism. If Moral Realism is
false, so too are Virtue Ethics and Divine Command Theory.
The remainder of this Interlude considers two competitors to Moral Realism. The first is Moral
Relativism, according to which there are facts about what make actions right or wrong but these
facts do not exist independently of human opinion and cultural norms. The second is Moral
Emotivism, according to which there are no facts about what make actions right or wrong.
These rival theses offer competing explanations for the persistence of moral disagreement. The
aim of this Interlude is not, however, to show that these rivals are false. Instead, the aim is to
contrast the merits of these competitors with the merits of Moral Realism itself, as a way to
better understand the crucial underlying presumptions of theories like Virtue Ethics and Divine
Command Theory.
I1.2 Moral Relativism
According to Moral Relativism, there are facts about what make actions right or wrong, but
these facts do not exist independently of personal opinions of cultural norms. Our moral
discourse, according to Moral Relativism, involves declarations of fact. But these facts vary in
some human-dependent way. For example, according to Moral Relativism, the very same facts
that make killing innocent people morally wrong in one culture or for one person might make
killing innocent people morally right in some other culture or for some other person. In
contrast, according to Moral Realism, if killing innocent people is always wrong in one culture or
for one person, it is always wrong in every culture and for all people.
According to Moral Relativism, sometimes a persistent moral disagreement is not a genuine

disagreement. Instead, sometimes it is merely a failure to realize that the correct answer to a
moral question varies due to divergent personal opinions or cultural norms. Consider, for
example, the persistent disagreement regarding the moral status of polygamy. Fundamentalist
Mormans hold that polygamy is not morally wrong, whereas Fundamentalist Baptists hold that it
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is. According to Moral Relativism, there is not a genuine difference of opinion here. Polygamy is
wrong for Fundamentalist Baptists, but it is not wrong for Fundamentalist Mormons; and since
polygamy's being wrong for one group is consistent with its being right for a different group,
Fundamentalist Baptists and Fundamentalist Mormons both are correct in the opinions.
(Compare: You don't like the teacup ride because it is boring to you. I don't like it because it is
hectic to me. If we were to debate whether the teacup ride is boring or hectic, our debate
would not be genuine: we're both right, because the facts about whether the teacup ride is
boring or hectic depend upon our personal preferences.)
There are (at least) two kinds of Moral Relativism. The most popular is Cultural Relativism,
according to which the facts that make actions right or wrong are cultural norms. (This is an
instance of Moral Relativism, because cultural norms vary among cultures.) Hence the ancient
Greek poet Pindar:
Custom is the king of all.
For example, ancient Indians ate the bodies of their dead fathers, whereas ancient Greek buried
the bodies of their dead fathers. (Herodotus reports this in his Histories, 3.38.) According to
Cultural Relativism, it is morally acceptable to eat your father's corpse if you are an Indian.
What makes this true is a fact about ancient Indian cultural norms. Similarly, it is morally
unacceptable to eat your father's corpse if you are a Greek, and what makes this true is a fact
about ancient Greek cultural norms. Cultural Relativism treats morality like the law: just as what
is legal or illegal depends upon the laws of one's country, what is moral or immoral depends
upon the customs of one's culture.
Another popular version of Moral Relativism is Moral Subjectivism, according to which the facts
that make actions right or wrong are personal preferences. (This is an instance of Moral
Relativism, because personal preferences vary among persons.) Whence (perhaps) Hamlet:
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so (Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2).
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For example, you might find homosexuality to be morally reprehensible, while I find it to be
morally unproblematic. If so, then according to Moral Subjectivism, it is morally wrong for you
to engage in homosexual behavior, and what makes this true is a fact about your personal
preferences. Similarly, it is morally acceptable for me to engage in homosexual behavior, and
what makes this true is a fact about my personal preferences. Moral Subjectivism treats
morality like aesthetics: just as what is attractive or ugly depends upon personal sensibilities,
what is moral or immoral depends upon personal preferences.
The main merit of Moral Relativism is its ability to justify tolerance of different lifestyles.
Consider the principle that one should not interfere with others unless one can justify this
interference to them. This principle is plausible: interfering with other people's affairs seems to
require having good reasons to do so. If the principle is correct, Moral Relativism can justify why
we should not interfere with the traditions of other cultures and the preferences of other
people. Suppose, for example, that our culture treats men and women as social equals while
another culture treats women as socially subordinate to men. Then Moral Relativism entails
that treating men and women unequally is morally wrong for us but morally acceptable for
those in the other culture. This means that there is no reason we can give to justify interfering
with that culture's gender practices (regarding, say, arranged marriages or working
arrangements or inheritance agreements). Hence, according to the preceding principle, we
should not interference with those practices.
Moral Realism also can justify tolerance. But the justification is partial and more complicated, in
virtue of depending upon particulars of the lifestyle at issue. Suppose, for example, that Virtue
Ethics is correct. Further suppose that a perfectly virtuous person would choose to tolerate
differences in lifestyle regarding gender practices. Then, quite apart from whether interfering
with other people's affairs requires being able to justify that interference to them, Virtue Ethics
entails that interfering with other cultures' gender practices is morally wrong. If, however, a
perfectly virtuous person would choose to not tolerate differences in lifestyle regarding gender
practices, Virtue Ethics entails that interfering with other cultures' gender practices is morally
right.
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That Moral Realism does not always justify tolerance of other lifestyles is one way in which
Moral Realism is superior to Moral Relativism. For Moral Realism, unlike Moral Relativism,
sometimes justifies intercultural (and interpersonal) moral criticism. We sometimes view the
practices of other cultures as morally reprehensible. Consider, for example, the widespread
practice of protesting human rights violations in other cultures, or condemning practices from
our nation's history--such as slavery and involuntary colonization--as morally misguided. Such
attitudes are fundamentally incoherent if Moral Relativism is correct. For, according to Moral
Relativism, we ought to tolerate those violations and practices: even though they are not
morally acceptable for our culture, they are morally acceptable for those other cultures. Only
Moral Realism accommodates the reasonableness of moral criticism.
I1.3 Moral Emotivism
According to Moral Emotivism, there are no facts about what make actions right or wrong. Our
moral discourse, according to Moral Emotivism, does not involve declarations of fact. (All the
more so, it does not involve declarations about facts that exist independent of personal opinion
or cultural norms. Moral Emotivism rejects both Moral Realism and Moral Relativism.) Instead,
moral discourse involves expressions of emotion, and these expressions are sometimes
(misleadingly) conveyed through declarative sentences. For example, according to Moral
Emotivism, "Killing innocent people is wrong" does not characterize a kind of action--the killing
of innocent people--as having a kind of factual property--wrongness. Instead, "Killing innocent
people is wrong" is merely a commonly accepted way of conveying a negative attitude toward
the killing of innocent people. When properly understood, according to Moral Emotivism,
"Killing innocent people is wrong" amounts, perhaps, to the exclamation "Boo for killing
innocent people!" Similarly, when properly understood, "Loving your neighbor is good"
amounts, perhaps, to the exclamation "Hurrah for loving your neighbor!"
According to Moral Emotivism, moral disagreements are disagreements of attitude toward

various kinds of action. For example, those who find capital punishment morally objectionable
have the attitude "Yay for capital punishment," while those who find it morally acceptable have
the attitude "Boo for capital punishment." These kinds of disagreement are persistent, because
there is nothing--no fact--that the parties to the dispute disagree about. Just as some people
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find abstract impressionistic art beautiful and profound while others don't "get it," moral
attitudes are a matter of taste. And there's no way to resolve disputes regarding matters of
taste.
The main merit of Moral Emotivism is its ability to explain morality's motivational power.
People who adopt a positive attitude toward a particular kind of action often feel motivated to
perform those actions. For example, people who exclaim "Hurrah for going to the beach!" often
have a motivation to go to the beach. Similarly, people who adopt a negative attitude toward a
particular kind of action often feel motivated to avoid those actions. For example, people who
exclaim "Boo for going to the dentist!" often avoid going to the dentist. Moral Emotivism
explains this connection between moral attitude and behavioral motivation: the attitude causes,
or provides, the motivation. For example, those who claim that genocide is morally wrong are
expressing the attitude "Boo for genocide!", and this attitude provides motivation to advocate
government intervention for victims of genocide in other countries. (Of course, attitudes do not
always produce the appropriate behavior. Sometimes we experience akrasia, also known as
weakness of will or incontinence, and do not act in accordance with our attitudes. Paradigm
cases of akrasia are the smoker who, despite having the attitude "Boo for smoking!", continues
to smoke heavily, and the abused wife who, despite having the attitude "Boo for staying with
my drunk and violent husband!", continues her silent suffering.)
A similar explanation is available to Moral Realism. But it is more complicated. According to

Moral Realism, moral claims express beliefs about facts. These beliefs cause attitudes toward
particular kinds of action and, as Moral Emotivism maintains, these attitudes provide behavioral
motivations. For example, my belief that spinach is infected with E.coli causes me to have the
attitude "Boo for eating spinach!", and this attitude provides me with motivation for not
ingesting spinach. Similarly, according to Moral Realism, those who claim that genocide is
morally wrong are expressing the belief that genocide is morally wrong, this belief causes the
attitude "Boo for genocide!", and this attitude provides motivation to advocate government
intervention for victims of genocide in other countries. Whereas Moral Emotivism treats the
moral attitudes like "Boo for genocide!" as primitive, Moral Realism treats those attitudes as
derivative, based upon more fundamental beliefs about morality.
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One way in which Moral Realism is superior to Moral Emotivism is its ability to explain our
practice of making arguments and drawing inferences that rely upon moral claims. (This is
connected to what is known, in the philosophical literature, as the Frege-Geach Problem.)
Consider, for example, the following argument:
1 - Tormenting the cat is wrong.
2 - If tormenting the cat is wrong, getting your little brother to torment the cat is wrong.
3 - Therefore, getting your little brother to torment the cat is wrong.
This seems to be a valid argument: if both premises are true, the conclusion also must be true.
(Compare: All humans are mortal; if all humans are mortal, no human lives forever; therefore,
no human lives forever.) The standard way of understanding what makes an argument valid
presupposes that the elements of the argument--the premises and conclusion--are declarative
sentences. Moral Realism accepts this presumption as true of moral claims and thereby can
adopt the standard explanation for why the argument about tormenting the cat is valid.
Moral Emotivism, in contrast, denies that moral claims are declarative sentences. Instead,
according to Moral Emotivism, the argument about tormenting the cat really has the following
content:
4 - Boo for tormenting the cat!
5 - If Boo for tormenting the cat!, Boo for getting your little brother to torment the cat!
6 - Therefore, Boo for getting your little brother to torment the cat!
According to the standard way of understanding what makes arguments valid, this is not even
an argument. Hence, it is not a valid argument. And if it is not a valid argument, it has the same
status as the following (intuitively invalid argument):
7 - Tormenting the cat is wrong.
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8 - If feeding the cat is not wrong, getting your little brother to feed the cat is not wrong.
9 - Therefore, getting your little brother to feed the cat is not wrong.
(Compare: All humans are mortal; if all humans are immortal, no human ever dies; therefore, no
human ever dies.) So Moral Emotivism seems not to explain the difference between good
inferences that invoke morality and bad inferences that invoke morality. (Moreover, even if
Moral Emotivism can explain this difference, doing so requires complicating the standard way of
understanding what makes arguments valid. Moral Realism does not require this complication.)
I1.4 Explaining Persistent Moral Disagreement
Moral Realism, Moral Relativism, and Moral Emotivism provide three competing explanations
for why moral disagreements, unlike scientific disagreements, tend to resist resolution.
According to Moral Realism, questions of morality persist because it is extremely difficult to
discover the facts that make particular actions right or wrong and to use those facts in order to
make correct inferences about morality. According to Moral Relativism, moral disagreements
persist because we tend not to notice that the correct answer to a moral question varies due to
divergent personal opinions or cultural norms. Finally, according to Moral Emotivism, moral
disagreements persist because there is no fact that the parties to the disputes disagree about.
Moral Relativism is superior to Moral Realism in virtue of more simply justifying tolerance of
alternative lifestyles. But Moral Realism also can justify such tolerance (in certain cases), and it
is superior to Moral Relativism in virtue of being able to justify moral criticism of alternative
lifestyles. (Question for the Reader: Does Moral Emotivism justify either tolerance of other
lifestyles of moral criticism of those lifestyles?)
Moral Emotivism is superior to Moral Realism in virtue of more simply explaining the power of
morality to motivate behavior. But Moral Realism also can explain this connection, and it is
superior to Moral Emotivism in virtue of being able to explain the difference between good
inferences that invoke morality and bad inferences that invoke morality. (Question for the
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Reader: Does Moral Relativism explain wither the motivating power of morality or the
difference between valid and invalid arguments that contain moral claims as premises?)
The chapters in this book discuss ethical theories that are instances of Moral Realism. This is not
because the book presumes that Moral Realism is correct. (For the sake of full disclosure,
however, I happen to think that it is, because Moral Realism seems to provide the best
explanation of the role of morality in our daily lives.) Instead, this book discusses only theories
that are instances of Moral Realism because these theories are the most historically influential
and best developed. (Discussion of Moral Relativism and Moral Emotivism began in earnest only
in the 1900s, while serious discussion of theories that presume the truth of Moral Realism dates
back to at least the ancient Greeks.) Whether Moral Realism is correct is, to be sure, an
important and interesting question. But it is more appropriate for a more advanced study of
ethics.
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Chapter 4: Consequences
I had what might truly be called an object in life: to be a reformer of the world. My
conception of my own happiness was entirely identified with this object. The personal
sympathies I wished for were those of my fellow labourers in this enterprise. I endeavoured
to pick up as many flowers as I could by the way, but as a serious and permanent personal
satisfaction to rest upon, my whole reliance was placed on this; and I was accustomed to
felicitate myself on the certainty of a happy life which I enjoyed, through placing my
happiness in something durable and distant, in which some progress might always be
making, while it could never be exhausted by complete attainment. This did very well for
several years, during which the general improvement going on in the world and the idea of
myself as engaged with others in struggling to promote it, seemed enough to fill up an
interesting and animated existence.
- John Stuart Mill, Autobiography, Chapter 5
4.1 Theory
Some actions are better than others in terms of their expected consequences. Consider, for
example, a scenario in which some bank robbers take four hostages upon becoming trapped in
the bank by the arrival of the police. The police have several courses of action available to
them, including: storming into the bank, guns blazing, shooting anyone in sight, in order to
prevent the bank robbery; allowing the bank robbers to get away with the hostages in tow;
allowing the bank robbers to escape in return for the safe release of the hostages; or negotiating
with the bank robbers while secretly sending a S.W.A.T. team into the bank to capture the
robbers. Storming into the bank with guns blazing is probably the least attractive option, since it
is the only option in which one would expect at least some of the hostages to be harmed or
killed. Probably the most attractive options are negotiating or bargaining with the bank robbers,
since one would expect all of the hostages to survive unharmed. (Whether sending in the
S.W.A.T. team is better than allowing the robbers to escape depends upon the skill level and
success rate of the S.W.A.T. team and more particular details about the situation.)
The practice of ranking potential courses of action in terms of the desirability of their expected
consequences is commonplace in everyday reasoning. People go to college after high school
rather than straight into the workforce because they expect that a college education will make
their life better in the long term. People save their extra money in banks rather than burning it
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in campfires because they expect that saving money for a rainy day (or a major life event, such
as buying a house) rather than using it for kindling will make their life better in the long term.
People take a sick relative to a doctor rather than only praying for them because they expect
that medicine, as opposed to prayer alone, will make their relative's life better in the long term.
(Of course, some people pray for a sick relative rather than taking the relative to a doctor; but
these people also tend to believe that not using medicine is better for their relative in the very
long term--that is, for their relative's afterlife.)
Common sense-based comparisons about the expected benefits of alternative courses of action
tend to be reliable. When we judge which of several options probably has the most benefit, we
draw upon our past experiences and the collective wisdom of our family and community. But
these comparisons are not always reliable, because they are not driven by any theoretical
account of what it is for one action's expected consequences to be better than another's, and
because they are subject to personal bias and oversight.
Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that takes facts about the expected benefits of alternative
courses of action to determine the moral status of various actions. This theory provides
guidelines for a more systematic approach to measuring the expected benefits a course of
action has for a person, and thereby provides a theoretical foundation for comparisons about
the expected benefits of alternative courses of action. The basis for this approach is the notion
of expected utility.
The expected utility of an action for a person is the amount of benefit that the action is likely to
produce for that person, at both the time of the action and into the foreseeable future. (Note
that this is not the same as an action's actual utility, which is the amount of benefit the action
actually produces.) Expected utility is, by design, an objective feature of the world that depends
upon neither people's opinions nor cultural traditions. The degree to which an action benefits a
person--the action's expected utility for that person--is, in this respect, akin to a person's
temperature on a Fahrenheit scale: although a person might feel warm to one person and cool
to another, their having a temperature of, say, 98.1 degrees Fahrenheit is independent of any
person's opinion. Similarly, although Jack might think that an action has a high expected utility
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for Cindy and Rick might think that the same action has only a moderate amount of expected
utility for Cindy, the amount of expected utility the action actually has for Cindy does not
depend upon any person's opinion: it is a fact "out there" in the world.
A common convention in measuring an action's expected utility for a person is to use a ranking
scale that ranges from -10 to +10. An action should be measured as having an expected utility
of -10 for a person if the action is likely to produce the maximum amount of harm (or,
equivalently, the minimal amount of benefit) to the person. An action should be measured as
having an expected utility of +10 for a person if the action is likely to produce the maximum
amount of benefit to the person. And an action should be measured as having an expected
utility of 0 for a person if it is likely to produce just as much benefit as harm for the person.
(Another common convention is to introduce a unit of measurement, analogous to "degree
Fahrenheit" or "grams," for amounts of expected utility. A popular name for this unit is a util
(pronounced "yew-tills" with an emphasis on the first syllable): an action has N utils for a person
just in case it has an expected utility of N for that person.)
Several factors should be taken into account when estimating an action's expected utility for a
person. The first is the amount of pleasure the action is likely to produce for the person. This
includes sensual pleasure; but it also includes emotional and intellectual pleasure (and any other
kind of pleasure). Consider, for example, the contrast in the expected utility of seeing two
different movies: an action-adventure flick with no plot and an action-adventure flick with an
interesting, intellectually stimulating plot. If the action-adventure parts of each movie produce
the same amount of sensual pleasure (in the form of endorphin releases and such) but the one
with the interesting plot produces, in addition, intellectual pleasure from engaging the audience
in the plot, and if the movies otherwise tie with respect to other kinds of benefit, then viewing
the one with the plot has more expected utility than viewing the one with no plot.
There is more to an action's expected utility, however, than the amount of pleasure the action is
likely to produce, because actions can have benefits other than pleasure. To understand why
this is so, consider a fictional device called a pleasure machine. (A version of this idea appears
as the virtual brothel in Minority Report.) The pleasure machine has the power to give the
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person who uses it an unlimited amount of pleasure in an incredibly short amount of time. For
example, if you were to use the pleasure machine, you could receive the pleasure of a thousand
incredible massages and a thousand delicious milkshakes and a thousand mind-blowing orgasms
in, say, one minute. Now imagine two people, John Doe and Rich Roe. John has a fulfilling
career, a loving family, and several excellent friends; he enjoys his hobbies and volunteers at a
local soup kitchen. Rich, in contrast, hates his job, has a dysfunctional and unhappy family life,
constantly experiences stress due to conflicts between his work and family, and lacks a social
life; he fails to find meaning in his everyday activities. However, Rich has a pleasure machine,
which he uses every night on the "High" setting for ten minutes. Now consider: whose life is
likely to be the best overall? If pleasure is all there is to expected utility, then Rich's life is clearly
better overall: Rich can receive a thousand times as much pleasure in five minutes as John
receives in an entire day. But Rich's life is not better. John's life has more overall benefit to it
than Rich's.
Thought experiments like the pleasure machine suggest that there are several elements to take
into account other than sensual pleasure when calculating an action's expected utility. Two
obvious factors are the amount of intellectual and emotional pleasure the action is likely to
produce. There also are (at least) two less obvious factors that qualify as benefits. The first is
the degree to which the action is likely to promote people's sense of dignity--their sense of self-
worth and their sense of having control over their lives. This is relevant, because an action that
produces extreme pleasure for a person, but at the cost of the person's dignity (for instance,
forced attachment to a pleasurable virtual reality while one's body is liquefied for food--like in
The Matrix), is not as beneficial to the person as an action that produces considerably less
pleasure but allows the person to retain their dignity. (Which would you prefer: the pleasurable
virtual reality or your dignity?) The second additional factor is the degree to which the action is
likely to increase the harmonious integration of a person's life. This is relevant, because an
action that produces extreme pleasure, but only in virtue of making the different areas of one's
life (family, work, school, friends) harder to coordinate, is not as good as an action that allows
one to integrate the different areas of one's life. (Which kind of life would you prefer?)
Accordingly, when calculating the expected utility of an action for a person, it is important to
take into account not only the amount of pleasure the action is likely to produce for the person,
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but also the likely degree to which the action affects the person's sense of dignity and the
harmonious integration of their life.
Utilitarianism, following our common-sense model of practical deliberation, takes comparisons

about the expected utility of various actions to be relevant to whether those actions are right or
wrong in a moral sense. An action's having a negative expected utility does not necessarily
guarantee that it is an immoral action. Sometimes the best outcome we can hope for is one
that minimizes negative expected utility, and in such situations morality might dictate doing the
action with the best expected outcome even though the action has a negative expected utility.
Similarly, an action's having a positive expected utility does not necessarily guarantee that it is
moral action. For example, overdosing on pain pills might have a positive expected utility, in
virtue of eliminating a person's incessant and incurable pain; but taking a reasonable amount of
pain medication and continuing to live might have more expected utility and thereby be the
right thing to do. What matters to an action's moral status, according to Utilitarianism, is not
just an action's expected utility. What matters is how the action's expected utility compares to
the expected utility of available alternative actions.
Furthermore (and this is important to note!), this comparison is a comparison of the overall
expected utility of the various actions, rather than a comparison of the expected utility of the
actions for an individual. An action's overall expected utility is the straight sum of the action's
expected utility for everyone who might be affected by the action, no matter how indirect the
effect is. Since this sum ranges over everyone, calculating an action's overall expected utility
requires counting the action's expected utility for each person at least once. And since this sum
is a straight sum, calculating an action's overall expected utility requires counting the action's
expected utility for each person no more than once. Abbreviating the phrase "expected utility"
with the letters EU and leaving implicit a reference to a particular action, the general formula for
calculating an action's overall expected utility, where N people are affected by the action, is:
Overall EU = (Person 1's EU)*1 + (Person 2's EU)*1 + … + (Person N's EU)*1.
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This formula should make apparent the way in which overall expected utility is a straight sum
for everyone's expected utility. (In contrast, a weighted sum might change the multiplicative
factor from "1" to "2" for only persons 1 through 10; and a sum that does not range over
everyone might include the expected utilities for persons 1 through 10 but not for anyone else
affected.)
For example, the overall expected utility for a person's donating money to charity includes the
amount of expected utility that the donation is likely to produce for the person who makes the
donation as well as the amount of expected utility the action is likely to produce for those
assisted by the donation. If the donation has -5 utils for the person donating and, on average,
+3 util for each of 20 others affected by the donation, the donation's overall expected utility is
(-5)*1 + (+3)*20 = -5 + 60 = +54.
Similarly, the overall expected utility of a person's robbing a jewelry store includes the amount
of expected utility the robbery is likely to produce for the thief as well as the amount of
expected disutility the robbery is likely to produce for the jeweler, the jeweler's family, the
jeweler's customers, and so on. (Utilitarianism treats disutility/harm as a negative amount of
utility/benefit.) For the most part, actions that less directly affect a person have expected
utilities closer to 0 for that person; while actions that more directly affect a person have
expected utilities closer to the extremes of the util scale (-10 or +10) for the person, with actions
having positive impact tending to be closer to +10 and actions having negative impact tending to
be closer to -10.
According to Utilitarianism, comparisons between the overall expected utility of an action and
the overall expected utility of available alternative courses of action are part of what make an
action either right or wrong. But such comparisons are not the only factors that determine
whether an action is right or wrong. Utilitarianism allows that what people call right or wrong
varies depending upon their cultural background. For example, orthodox Jews call eating pork
wrong; orthodox Christians do not. However, unlike cultural relativism, Utilitarianism does not
allow that an action can be right in one culture but wrong in another culture. Actions that are
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right in one culture are, for Utilitarians, merely not right in certain other cultures; and actions
that are wrong in one culture are merely not wrong in certain other cultures.
In order to avoid ambiguity over whether an action is not right in virtue of being wrong or not
right in virtue of cultural norms, Utilitarianism introduces a new category of moral assessment.
This is the category of being worthy of respect. Actions that are worthy of respect are those that
both (1) have the potential for being assessed as right, given appropriate cultural norms, and (2)
have no potential for being assessed as wrong, independently of cultural norms. According to
Utilitarianism, comparisons between an action's overall expected utility and the overall
expected utility of available alternative actions fundamentally determine an action's moral
status. As such, Utilitarianism posits that
What makes an action worthy of respect (from a moral point of view) is the fact that no
available alternative action has more overall expected utility.
Whether an action that is worthy of respect is also right (from a moral point of view) depends,
according to Utilitarianism, upon cultural traditions regarding failure to perform the action. This
attempt to accommodate a particular kind of cultural relativity with our moral language
produces the following distinction between actions that are morally right and actions that are
not right in virtue of cultural norms (as opposed to in virtue of being wrong):
What makes an action right is the fact that it is worthy of respect and failure to perform
the action deserves some sort of reprimand or punishment.
What makes an action merely worthy of respect is the fact that it is worthy of respect
but failure to perform the action does not deserve some sort of reprimand or
punishment.
Consider, for example, a mother trying to support her starving children. If robbing a jewelry
store has more overall expected utility than alternative available to the mother (finding a job,
panhandling, and so on), robbing the store is worthy of respect. And if the mother's choosing to
do something other than rob the store deserves a reprimand, her robbing the store is morally
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right. (In our culture, her choosing to do something other than rob the store probably does not
deserve a reprimand, since choosing to respect the law is commendable; and if it does not, then
her robbing is merely worthy of respect.)
For a second example, suppose that while walking to class one morning, you notice a child
drowning in the middle of a large pond. Suppose that no one else is in the vicinity, and that
there is no time to call for help before the child drowns to death. There are at least three
alternative courses of action available to you: jump into the water to save the child; continue to
class and ignore the child; jump into the water to make the child drown faster (and thereby
suffer for a shorter amount of time). Of these actions, saving the child probably has the most
overall expected utility, even if doing this is not likely to result in any benefit to yourself,
because the child and the child's family are likely to benefit from the child's remaining alive, and
this probably outweighs the amount of disutility that likely would be produced by the child's
death and any benefit you are likely to gain by continuing to class or actively drowning the child.
Hence, according to Utilitarianism, saving the child is worthy of respect; and since failure to save
the child deserves at least a communal reprimand (in virtue of being callous, perhaps), this
action is also morally right.
A similar set of conditions helps to disambiguate an action's being wrong in virtue of cultural
norms and an action's being wrong in virtue of not being right. Any action that is not worthy of
respect is unworthy of respect. According to Utilitarianism, this means that
What makes an action unworthy of respect (from a moral point of view) is the fact that
some available alternative course of action has more overall expected utility.
Whether an action that is unworthy of respect is also wrong (from a moral point of view)
depends, according to Utilitarianism, upon cultural traditions regarding performance of the
action. This produces the following distinction between actions that are morally wrong and
actions that are not wrong in virtue of cultural norms (as opposed to in virtue of being right):
What makes an action wrong is the fact that it is unworthy of and doing the action
deserves some sort of reprimand or punishment.
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What makes an action merely unworthy of respect is the fact that it is unworthy of
respect but doing the action does not deserve some sort of punishment or reprimand.
For example, suppose that while late for an extremely important meeting, you are walking
through the city and notice an old lady struggling to cross a busy street. There are at least three
alternative courses of action available to you: help the lady cross the street and be even later for
your meeting; ignore the lady; push the lady into oncoming traffic. Suppose you choose the
third option, because you happen to get a rush from watching people get run over by cars, and
because the "accident" will give you an excuse for being late to your meeting (and thereby keep
you out of trouble with the boss). Then, according to Utilitarianism, your chosen action is
morally wrong, even if it has the most expected utility for you. In the first place, the action is
unworthy of respect, because either of the other two alternatives has more overall expected
utility. (Remember to take into account the expected utility for the lady, the lady's family, other
pedestrians, and nearby drivers.) And, in the second place, the action is morally wrong, because
it is unworthy of respect and illegal (it counts at least as manslaughter).
The distinctions between actions that are right and actions that are merely worthy of respect,
and between actions that are wrong and actions that are merely unworthy of respect, attempt
to capture the idea that the terms "right" and "wrong" have stronger connotations than "worthy
of respect" and "unworthy of respect, and that the variance in these connotations depends
upon cultural background. Whence John Stuart Mill:
We do not call anything wrong, unless we mean to imply that a person ought to be
punished in some way or other for doing it; if not by law, by the opinion of his fellow-
creatures; if not by opinion, by the reproaches of his own conscience (Utilitarianism,
Chapter 5).
The key distinction among actions, however, is between actions that are worthy of respect and
those that are unworthy of respect. Utilitarianism draws this distinction by appealing to facts
about comparative overall expected utility. Any further distinctions are mere attempts to
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accommodate ways of speaking. (Analogy: Being from the South, you say "Coke;" being from
the North, I say "Sprite." But we're referring to the same refreshing lemon-lime beverage.)
Facts about expected utility do not depend upon people's opinions or cultural traditions.
Rather, they depend upon objective probabilities about the consequences of actions. For
instance, there are opinion- and culture-independent facts about the likely consequences of
smoking, including how nicotine affects a person's body chemistry, how smoking affects the
person's lungs and skin and teeth (in the short- and long-term), how smoking affects those who
inhale second-hand smoke, and so on. Although it is not always easy to figure out what these
facts are, the facts do not depend in any essential way upon the smoker's cultural traditions or
personal opinions about smoking. Accordingly, Utilitarianism helps to explain how smoking--or
any other action--can be worthy or unworthy of respect independently of cultural traditions.
For if the theory is true, the facts that make an action worthy or unworthy of respect are facts
about the overall expected utility of that action as compared to the overall expected utility of
available alternative actions, and these facts do not depend upon cultural traditions or personal
opinions. (Incidentally, some economics try to measure something called "well-being;" this is
one way of trying to measure expected utility.)
4.2 Features
Like Virtue Ethics, Utilitarianism is an empirical ethical theory, in virtue of holding that the facts
that make actions right or wrong are empirically-accessible facts about the world. However,
unlike Virtue Ethics, Utilitarianism holds that these empirically-accessible facts are measurable,
at least in principle. For one can imagine a technologically sophisticated civilization having
something like a utilometer, a device for measuring how much utility actions are likely to
produce. Perhaps this utilometer is a massive computer that contains data about the amount of
utility that past actions produced and uses this data to predict the amount of utility that current
actions will produce (in the way that weather computers contain data about past weather
behavior and use this data to predict current and future weather). But, regardless of whether
any civilization ever produces such a device, its mere conceivability illustrates the way in which
Utilitarianism treats morality as independent of culture and religion and personal opinion.
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A second feature of Utilitarianism is that it is cosmopolitan. That is, Utilitarianism treats

everyone as having an equal moral status. For, according to the theory, when calculating the
overall expected utility of an action, the amount of each person's expected utility gets counted
once and only once. For example, if an action affects only two persons, producing +10 utils for
one person and -6 utils for the other, Utilitarianism calculates the overall expected utility for the
action with the formula +10 + (-6) = +4. (There is an important issue here, namely, which beings
matter. Some argue that only human beings should be included when calculating overall
expected utility; others--such as ethical vegetarians--that other sentient beings should be
included too. This is a vexed topic and, unfortunately, beyond the scope of this textbook. We'll
simply adopt the more conservative position, sometimes known as species-ism that only human
beings count.)
Of course, it is possible to modify Utilitarianism so that it is not cosmopolitan. For instance, if

one adopts the rule that the citizens of one's country count ten times as much as everyone else,
the resultant theory would be a nationalistic version of utilitarianism. If one adopts the rule that
members of one's race count ten times as much as everyone else, the resultant theory would be
a racist version of utilitarianism. If one adopts the rule that member's of one's gender count
more than everyone else, the resultant theory would be a sexist version of utilitarianism.
Traditional Utilitarianism, however, is cosmopolitan, for the reason that noncosmopolitan
theories are not impartial and thereby violate the idea that everyone has an equal status when
it comes to morality. (Virtue Ethics, for example, is not cosmopolitan.)
A third feature of Utilitarianism is that, according to the theory, every life has a price. For,
according to Utilitarianism, there can be situations in which the morally respectable thing to do
is take a person's life, even if that person is innocent and has done no harm to anyone--indeed,
even if that person has been a perfect saint throughout their life. Consider, for example, a
situation in which six survivors of a ship wreck manage to reach the only available life raft.
Suppose that the life raft comfortably can hold three people and, at its maximum, barely can
hold five people. Then the Utilitarian would reason as follows: If all six people board the raft, all
six will surely die, since the raft will sink and the water is too cold to support human life until a
rescue team arrives. If only three people board the raft, then two people will suffer and die in
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exchange for the comfort of the three raft passengers. If five people board the raft, then
although the raft's passengers will be uncomfortable, only one person will die. The option with
the most overall expected utility--or, equivalently, the least overall expected disutility--is for five
people to board the life raft while one person remains in the water (awaiting certain death from
hypothermia). Moreover, in order to maximize this overall expected utility, the person who
remains in the water should be the person who probably will experience and create the least
amount of utility in the future. So, for example, if there are five young adults and one widowed,
childless nonagenarian who is expected to die of cancer within the year, probably the morally
respectable action, according to Utilitarianism, is to forbid the nonagenarian access to the life
raft (and forcefully prevent access, if need be)--and this is the case even if the nonagenarian has
lived a morally outstanding life, since Utilitarianism only treats the (expected) consequences of
an action as relevant to the moral status of the action.
For a more well-known example, consider the Christian's story about Jesus' crucifixion.
According to the story, once there was a man, Jesus, who committed no sinful acts for his entire
life, and who willingly underwent crucifixion, which is an extremely painful way to die. Being
crucified had a low expected utility for Jesus. Yet, according to Christians, Jesus' crucifixion has
an incredibly high overall expected utility, because one of its expected consequences is that all
devout people are forgiven their sins and thereby spared eternal suffering and damnation upon
their deaths. (In theological terms, Christians view Jesus' crucifixion is a substitutionary
atonement.) In contrast, had Jesus not underwent crucifixion (and, according to the story, it
seems as if he could have chosen to avoid it had he wanted to), he would not have suffered the
way that he did, but many devout people also would not be spared eternal suffering and
damnation. So, between Jesus' options, his undergoing crucifixion has the most overall
expected utility. Hence, according to Utilitarianism, it is a morally worthy of respect. Indeed,
according to Utilitarianism, had Jesus chosen to avoid being crucified, his action would have
been unworthy of respect from a moral point of view (though not, of course, from a prudential
point of view), even if Jesus was a moral saint, and even if he did not deserve such a
punishment.
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A fourth feature of Utilitarianism is that it separates the moral assessment of a person's actions
from the moral assessment of the person. (This fits with the Christian saying "Hate the sin, love
the sinner.) Consider the cases of the untalented lifeguard and the untalented assassin. The
lifeguard has nothing but good intentions to keep everyone safe in the water; but she happens
to do her job very poorly, constantly harming the people she tries to save. When someone is in
danger, the lifeguard's good intentions drive her to try to help them; but her misfortune results
in their always being harmed more than if she had not tried to help at all, and she persists in her
efforts even though no one expects her luck to change. According to Utilitarianism, the
lifeguard's rescue actions are unworthy of respect. In contrast, the assassin has nothing but bad
intentions to kill all of her marks; but she always happens to do her job very poorly, constantly
benefitting the people she tries to kill, and she persists in her efforts even though no one
expects her luck to change. (For example, in one scheme, she tried to assassinate someone by
poisoning a scratch-off lottery ticket and giving the ticket to the person; but the "poison" was
harmless and the ticket won the grand prize.) When someone has been selected for
assassination, the assassin's bad intentions drive her to try to kill them; but her misfortune
results in their probably being helped more than if she had not tried to harm them at all.
According to Utilitarianism, the assassin's actions are (sometimes) worthy of respect.
These two consequences of Utilitarianism--that the lifeguard's actions are unworthy of respect
while the assassin's are worthy of respect--are counterintuitive, insofar as the lifeguard's actions
seem to be good in virtue of her good intentions and the assassin's actions seem to be bad in
virtue of her evil intentions. Utilitarianism gives different verdicts, because, according to the
theory, intentions are not relevant to the moral status of actions: only (expected) consequences
matter. Nonetheless, Utilitarianism is compatible with taking the lifeguard to be a good person
who does morally unworthy actions (in virtue of her bad luck) and the assassin to be a bad
person who does morally respectable actions (in virtue of her bad luck). For the theory is only a
theory about what makes gives actions their moral status. The theory says nothing at all about
what makes persons morally good or morally bad. Accordingly, Utilitarianism can accommodate
the idea that intentions matter to morality, by allowing that although intentions are irrelevant to
the moral status of actions, they nonetheless help to determine the moral character of persons.
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4.3 Implications
Like Virtue Ethics, Utilitarianism allows that sometimes there is more than one right action
available to perform in a given situation. For example, if two actions have the same overall
expected utility, and if these actions have more overall expected than any other alternative
actions, then each action is worthy of respect. If, in addition, failing to perform either of the
actions does not deserve a reprimand, both actions are morally right. (Question for the Reader:
Does Utilitarianism also resemble Virtue Ethics in allowing for the possibility of morally neutral
actions?)
One potentially problematic consequence of Utilitarianism is that it seems to neglect the special
roles that we occupy and the moral duties that flow from those roles. Consider a scenario in
which, for whatever reason, your mother and the Pope are trapped in a burning building:
neither can escape without assistance, you are the only person in the vicinity, and the fire is
raging so fiercely that everyone will be dead if you wait for help from the fire department but
you only have time to save one person. Also suppose, for the sake of the example (and with no
offense to your mother) that the Pope's life has more expected utility for other people in the
world than your mother's: perhaps this is because, although both bring utility to their family and
friends, the Pope brings benefits to Catholics all over the world. (If you'd like, also imagine that
you are not Catholic, so that you have no special attachment or devotion to the Pope.) You have
three choices: save only your mother, save only the Pope, or save no one. The third option
clearly has the least overall expected utility: although you avoid potential harm to yourself, your
mother and the Pope both suffer a gruesome death. Moreover, given that the Pope's life has
more expected utility for other people in the world than your mother's life, saving only your
mother has less overall expected utility than saving only the Pope. Hence, according to
Utilitarianism, the morally respectable action is to save the Pope and allow your mother to be
incinerated.
This consequence of Utilitarianism is a result of its being a cosmopolitan theory, according to

which every person has an equal moral status. For cosmopolitanism entails that your mother
has no special standing in comparison with the Pope, and this means that you cannot treat your
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mother's potential suffering in the fire as more significant than the Pope's. This is problematic,
because it seems as if people have special obligations to their family and friends, in virtue of the
intimate ties of affection they share, and that these special obligations demand, among other
things, that one treat the suffering of one's family and friends as more important than the
suffering of strangers, no matter how much pleasure those strangers give to others. (Recall
Virtue Ethics on this point, and in contrast to Utilitarianism.)
The preceding worry is based upon the intuitive idea that each person's family and friends have
a special moral status. This idea is directly opposed to cosmopolitanism. The Chinese
philosopher Mozi offers a thought experiment for the superiority of being impartial rather than
partial. (In his experiment, the person who follows Utilitarianism is the "universal minded man"
and the person who gives special consideration to family and friends is the "partial man.") The
experiment invokes a fictional situation in which a person must entrust the care of his loved
ones to a stranger because, for whatever reasons, his loved ones are unable to care for
themselves:
Suppose here is a broad plain, a vast wilderness and a man is buckling on his armor and
donning his helmet to set out for the field of battle, where the fortunes of life and death
are unknown …. Now let us ask, to whom would he entrust the support of his parents
and the care of his wife and children? Would it be to the universal minded man, or to
the partial man? It seems to me that on occasions like these, there are no fools in the
world. Though one may disapprove of universality [impartiality] himself, he would
surely think it best to entrust his family to the universal-minded man. Thus people
condemn universality in words but adopt it in practice, and word and deed belie each
other. I cannot understand how the men of the world can hear about this doctrine of
universality and still criticize it!
Note that Mozi's experiment assumes that the soldier cannot leave his loved ones with another
relative, that the soldier's loved ones cannot care for themselves, and that the soldier has no
special reason to think that the caretaker has any special affection toward the soldier's loved
ones. This is important: it forces one to judge the relative superiority of partiality and
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impartiality when one has no evidence that favoring partiality will bring special benefits. In such
a situation, Mozi claims that it is better for the soldier to leave his loved ones with the person
who follows Utilitarianism. His reason, presumably, is that the Utilitarian would give the
soldier's family the same moral status as his own, whereas the "partial man" would give the
soldier's family a lower moral status than his own. So the soldier should expect his family to be
better off with the Utilitarian than with the "partial man."
This result of Mozi's thought experiment translates into a Utilitarianism-based argument for
treating everyone as if they have the same moral status (cosmopolitanism) rather than treating
some people as if they have a different moral status than others. If cosmopolitanism is false,
then each person should give their loved ones a special moral status. Yet, in Mozi's thought
experiment, the soldier should leave his loved ones with the stranger who does not give loved
ones a special moral status. Hence, even if cosmopolitanism is false, the soldier should
encourage other people to behave as if it is true. This point holds more generally: anyone who
is concerned about the welfare of their loved ones cannot consistently hold that treating loved
ones as if they have a different moral status than others is the best way to behave. In particular,
those who treat their loved ones as if they have a different moral status cannot do this
consistently. Hence, according to Mozi's argument, insofar as we want to adopt a view about
the moral status of persons that we can hold consistently, we should reject the partial man's
view and behave as if cosmopolitanism (the only other option) is correct.
Apart from worries about the moral status of those toward whom one feels special affection,
Utilitarianism has a second potentially problematic consequence: it ignores the role of fairness
in determining the moral status of actions. Consider, for example, a scenario in which a scientist
is about to finish the first ever cure for the HIV virus. Imagine that the scientist's research is so
complicated that she is the only one who can complete the research, that doing so will take two
weeks, but that she has been diagnosed with kidney failure and will die within a week unless she
receives an immediate transplant. Also imagine that, although no kidney donors are a match for
the doctor, her newest lab assistant is. Finally, imagine that this lab assistant has already
donated one of his kidneys, that he is not a match for any available kidney donors, that he is not
particularly competent at his job (or life in general), and that he has refused repeated requests
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to donate his kidney (and his life) for the scientist. Then, between the options of forcefully
taking the assistant's kidney and allowing the scientist to die, the kidney hijacking has the most
overall expected utility: although the assistant and his family suffer, the scientist lives and saves
the lives of thousands who would otherwise die from HIV. Hence, according to Utilitarianism,
stealing the assistant's kidney is worthy of respect and allowing the scientist to die is unworthy
of respect. This consequence violates the intuition that it is unfair for the assistant to be forced
to sacrifice his kidney, even if doing so serves the greater good.
Other examples of how Utilitarianism ignores considerations of fairness include cases in which
punishing an innocent person or not punishing a guilty person have more overall expected utility
than doing what is fair (namely, not punishing the innocent and punishing the guilty). Such
examples indicate that Utilitarianism sometimes yields verdicts that disagree with popular
notions about morality. The basic reason for this disagreement is Utilitarianism's feature that
every life has a price. For if every life has a price, there always will be situations in which the
expected gain from sacrificing that life outweighs the expected cost of not doing so; and some
of those cases will be ones in which the sacrifice of the life is unfair. The fancy way to put this
point is to say that Utilitarianism does not respect the dignity of persons. (The next chapter
discusses an ethical theory that avoids this consequence in virtue of postulating that the
rightness or wrongness of an action depends upon whether the action treats people in a
dignified way.)
4.4 Application
Using Utilitarianism to determine whether an action is right or wrong (or merely worthy or
unworthy of respect) involves following a four-step process.
Step 1: Determine all of the potential courses of action available in the situation.
Step 2: Calculate the overall expected utility for each course of action.
Part A: For each course of action, determine how much utility the action is likely
to produce for each person affected by the action.
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Part B: For each action, add together the amounts of utility the action is likely to
produce for each person, counting each person exactly once.
Step 3: Conclude that the action with the most overall expected utility is worthy of
respect (from a moral point of view) and that all of the other actions are unworthy of
respect (from a moral point of view).
Step 4: If failure to perform the action that is worthy of respect deserves some sort of
reprimand or punishment, conclude that doing that action is morally right; otherwise,
conclude that the action is merely worthy of respect. Similarly, if doing one of the
actions that are unworthy of respect deserves some sort of reprimand or punishment,
conclude that doing such an action is morally wrong; otherwise, conclude that the
action is merely unworthy of respect.
Utilitarianism itself does not provide any guidance about how to determine potential alternative
courses of action (Step 1): this requires creativity and imagination. Nor does the theory provide
guidance on how to determine an action's expected utility (Step 2 Part A): this requires empirical
research. Fortunately, common sense and past experience usually suffice for approximately
correct estimates. Finally, Utilitarianism provides no guidance on whether performing an action,
or failing to perform an action, deserves a reprimand of any sort (Step 4): this requires
familiarity with cultural norms and varies from culture to culture.
Of course, sometimes using Utilitarianism does not require completing all four steps in their
entirety. For instance, suppose that one wants to determine whether an action is morally right.
Then if there is one alternative action that has more overall expected utility, one can conclude
that the action in question is not morally right--and one do so without calculating the overall
expected utilities for all alternative courses of action. Similarly, if one wants to determine
whether an action is morally wrong, it suffices to show two things: first, that there is at least one
alternative action that has more overall expected utility; second, that the action in question
deserves some sort of punishment or reprimand.
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Further Reading
The classic treatise on Utilitarianism is John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism (1861). Henry Sidgwick's
The Methods of Ethics (1874) is an influential development of Mill's theory, contrasting
Utilitarianism with egoism and moral intuitionism and defending it against various objections.
Steven Darwall's anthology Consequentialism (Oxford: 2003) collects historically influential
articles on Utilitarianism, as well as more contemporary presentations, defenses, and criticisms
of the theory. J.J.C. Smart and Bernard William's Utilitarianism: For & Against (Cambridge:
1973) showcases two excellent contemporary philosophers debating the merits of
Utilitarianism. Philippa Foot's "Utilitarianism and the Virtues" (Mind 94 (1985), 196-209)
contrasts Utilitarianism and Virtue Ethics, defending the latter over the former. Peter Singer's
Animal Liberation (Random House: 1975) applies Utilitarianism to the ethics of animal
treatment, and is the locus classicus for the contemporary animal rights movement.
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Reading Excerpt from Jeremy Bentham's Principles of Morals and Legislation
In this excerpt from An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), Bentham
presents the basic features of Utilitarianism. Chapter 1 presents, in turn: a definition of utility, a
procedure for calculating a community's utility, and the principle of utility. Chapter 4 gives
instructions on how to measure utility and further elaborates upon how to calculate an action's
overall utility. Chapter 5 catalogues the various sources of utility.
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Chapter I: Of the Principle of Utility
I. Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and
pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we
shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and
effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think:
every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm
it. In words a man may pretend to abjure their empire: but in reality he will remain subject to it
all the while. The principle of utility recognizes this subjection, and assumes it for the
foundation of that system, the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of
reason and of law. ...
II. The principle of utility is the foundation of the present work: it will be proper therefore at the
outset to give an explicit and determinate account of what is meant by it. By the principle of
utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever,
according to the tendency it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party
whose interest is in question: or, what is the same thing in other words, to promote or to
oppose that happiness.
III. By utility is meant that property in any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit,
advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness (all this in the present case comes to the same thing) or
(what comes again to the same thing) to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or
unhappiness to the party whose interest is considered: if that party be the community in
general, then the happiness of the community: if a particular individual, then the happiness of
that individual.
IV. The interest of the community is one of the most general expressions that can occur in the
phraseology of morals: no wonder that the meaning of it is often lost. When it has a meaning, it
is this. The community is a fictitious body, composed of the individual persons who are
considered as constituting as it were its members. The interest of the community then is, what
is it?— the sum of the interests of the several members who compose it.
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V. It is in vain to talk of the interest of the community, without understanding what is the
interest of the individual. A thing is said to promote the interest, or to be for the interest, of an
individual, when it tends to add to the sum total of his pleasures: or, what comes to the same
thing, to diminish the sum total of his pains.
VI. An action then may be said to be conformable to the principle of utility, or, for shortness
sake, to utility, (meaning with respect to the community at large) when the tendency it has to
augment the happiness of the community is greater than any it has to diminish it.
X. Of an action that is conformable to the principle of utility one may always say either that it is
one that ought to be done, or at least that it is not one that ought not to be done. One may say
also, that it is right it should be done; at least that it is not wrong it should be done: that it is a
right action; at least that it is not a wrong action....
Chapter IV: Value of a Lot of Pleasure or Pain, How to be Measured
II. To a person considered by himself, the value of a pleasure or pain considered by itself, will be
greater or less, according to the four following circumstances:
1. Its intensity.
2. Its duration.
3. Its certainty or uncertainty.
4. Its propinquity [nearness in time] or remoteness.
III. These are the circumstances which are to be considered in estimating a pleasure or a pain
considered each of them by itself. But when the value of any pleasure or pain is considered for
the purpose of estimating the tendency of any act by which it is produced, there are two other
circumstances to be taken into the account; these are,
5. Its fecundity, or the chance it has of being followed by sensations of the same kind:
that is, pleasures, if it be a pleasure: pains, if it be a pain.
6. Its purity, or the chance it has of not being followed by sensations of the opposite
kind: that is, pains, if it be a pleasure: pleasures, if it be a pain.
These two last, however, are in strictness scarcely to be deemed properties of the pleasure or
the pain itself; they are not, therefore, in strictness to be taken into the account of the value of
that pleasure or that pain. They are in strictness to be deemed properties only of the act, or
other event, by which such pleasure or pain has been produced; and accordingly are only to be
taken into the account of the tendency of such act or such event.
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IV. To a number of persons, with reference to each of whom to the value of a pleasure or a pain
is considered, it will be greater or less, according to seven circumstances: to wit, the six
preceding ones; viz.,
1. Its intensity.
2. Its duration.
3. Its certainty or uncertainty.
4. Its propinquity [nearness in time] or remoteness.
5. Its fecundity.
6. Its purity.
And one other one; to wit:
7. Its extent; that is, the number of persons to whom it extends; or (in other words) who
are affected by it.
V. To take an exact account then of the general tendency of any act, by which the interests of a
community are affected, proceed as follows. Begin with any one person of those whose
interests seem most immediately to be affected by it: and take an account,
1. Of the value of each distinguishable pleasure which appears to be produced by it in

the first instance.
2. Of the value of each pain which appears to be produced by it in the first instance.
3. Of the value of each pleasure which appears to be produced by it after the first. This
constitutes the fecundity of the first pleasure and the impurity of the first pain.
4. Of the value of each pain which appears to be produced by it after the first. This
constitutes the fecundity of the first pain, and the impurity of the first pleasure.
5. Sum up all the values of all the pleasures on the one side, and those of all the pains on
the other. The balance, if it be on the side of pleasure, will give the good tendency of
the act upon the whole, with respect to the interests of that individual person; if on the
side of pain, the bad tendency of it upon the whole.
6. Take an account of the number of persons whose interests appear to be concerned;

and repeat the above process with respect to each. Sum up the numbers expressive of
the degrees of good tendency, which the act has, with respect to each individual, in
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regard to whom the tendency of it is good upon the whole: do this again with respect to
each individual, in regard to whom the tendency of it is good upon the whole: do this
again with respect to each individual, in regard to whom the tendency of it is bad upon
the whole. Take the balance which if on the side of pleasure, will give the general good
tendency of the act, with respect to the total number or community of individuals
concerned; if on the side of pain, the general evil tendency, with respect to the same
community.
VI. It is not to be expected that this process should be strictly pursued previously to every moral
judgment, or to every legislative or judicial operation. It may, however, be always kept in view:
and as near as the process actually pursued on these occasions approaches to it, so near will
such process approach to the character of an exact one.
Chapter V: Pleasures and Pains, Their Kinds
I. Having represented what belongs to all sorts of pleasures and pains alike, we come now to
exhibit, each by itself, the several sorts of pains and pleasures. Pains and pleasures may be
called by one general word, interesting perceptions. Interesting perceptions are either simple or
complex. The simple ones are those which cannot any one of them be resolved into more:
complex are those which are resolvable into divers simple ones. A complex interesting
perception may accordingly be composed either, 1. Of pleasures alone: 2. Of pains alone: or, 3.
Of a pleasure or pleasures, and a pain or pains together. What determines a lot of pleasure, for
example, to be regarded as one complex pleasure, rather than as diverse simple ones, is the
nature of the exciting cause. Whatever pleasures are excited all at once by the action of the
same cause, are apt to be looked upon as constituting all together but one pleasure.
II. The several simple pleasures of which human nature is susceptible, seem to be as follows:
1. The pleasures of sense.
2. The pleasures of wealth.
3. The pleasures of skill.
4. The pleasures of amity.
5. The pleasures of a good name.
6. The pleasures of power.
7. The pleasures of piety.
8. The pleasures of benevolence.
9. The pleasures of malevolence.
10. The pleasures of memory.
11. The pleasures of imagination.
12. The pleasures of expectation.
13. The pleasures dependent on association.
14. The pleasures of relief.
III. The several simple pains seem to be as follows:

1. The pains of privation.
2. The pains of the senses.
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3. The pains of awkwardness.

4. The pains of enmity.
5. The pains of an ill name.
6. The pains of piety.
7. The pains of benevolence.
8. The pains of malevolence.
9. The pains of the memory.
10. The pains of the imagination.
11. The pains of expectation
12. The pains dependent on association.
Reading Excerpt from John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism
In this important (and oft-neglected) excerpt from Chapter 5 of Utilitarianism (1863), Mill makes
the interesting point that an action that fails to maximize overall utility is not necessarily wrong:
for the action to be wrong, it also must deserve some sort of punishment or reprimand, either
from others or from the person's conscience. He also makes the point that an action that
maximizes overall utility is not necessarily right: for the action to be right, it also must be
something that would deserve some sort of punishment or reprimand if the person were to not
do it.
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We do not call anything wrong, unless we mean to imply that a person ought to be punished in
some way or other for doing it; if not by law, by the opinion of his fellow-creatures; if not by
opinion, by the reproaches of his own conscience. This seems the real turning point of the
distinction between morality and simple expediency. It is part of the notion of Duty in every one
of its forms, that a person may rightfully be compelled to fulfil it. Duty is a thing which may be
exacted from a person, as one exacts a debt.... Reasons of prudence, or the interest of other
people, may militate against actually exacting it; but the person himself, it is clearly understood,
would not be entitled to complain. There are other things, on the contrary, which we wish that
People should do, which we like or admire them for doing, perhaps dislike or despise them for
not doing, but yet admit that they are not bound to do; it is not a case of moral obligation; we
do not blame them, that is, we do not think that they are proper objects for punishment. ...
[W]e call any conduct wrong, or employ, instead, some other term of dislike or disparagement,
according as we think that the person ought, or ought not, to be punished for it; and we say, it
would be right, to do so and so, or merely that it would be desirable or laudable, according as
we would wish to see the person whom it concerns, compelled, or only persuaded and
exhorted, to act in that manner.
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Chapter 5: Dignity
"I'll tell you what. I could kill that damned old woman and make off with her money, I
assure you, without the faintest conscience prick," the student added with warmth. The
officer laughed again while Raskolnikov shuddered. How strange it was!
"Listen, I want to ask you a serious question," the student said hotly. "I was joking of
course, but look on here; on one side we have a stupid, senseless, worthless, spiteful, ailing,
horrid old woman, not simply useless but doing actual mischief, who has not an idea what
she is living for herself, and who will die in a day or two in any case. You understand? You
understand?"
"Yes, yes, I understand," answered the officer, watching his excited companion
attentively.
"Well, listen then. On the other side, fresh young lives thrown away for want of help
and by thousands, on every side! A hundred thousand good deeds could be done and
helped, on that old woman's money which will be buried in a monastery! Hundreds,
thousands perhaps, might be set on the right path; dozens of families saved from
destitution, from ruin, from vice, from the Lock hospitals—and all with her money. Kill her,
take her money and with the help of it devote oneself to the service of humanity and the
good of all. What do you think, would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of
good deeds? For one life thousands would be saved from corruption and decay. One death,
and a hundred lives in exchange—it's simple arithmetic! Besides, what value has the life of
that sickly, stupid, ill-nurtured old woman in the balance of existence? No more than the
life of a louse, of a black-beetle, less in fact because the old woman is doing harm. She is
wearing out the lives of others; the other day she bit Lizaveta's finger out of spite; it almost
had to be amputated."
"Of course she does not deserve to live," remarked the officer, "but there it is, it's
nature."
"Oh well, brother, but we have to correct and direct nature, and, but for that, we should
drown in an ocean of prejudice. But for that, there would never have been a single great
man. They talk of duty, conscience—I don't want to say anything against duty and
conscience;--but the point is, what do we mean by them?"
- Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Part I, Chapter VI
5.1 Theory
There are different senses in which something might be called a person. For example, having a
human genetic code makes something a person in the biological sense, while having a certain
legal status makes something a person in the legal sense. In the biological sense, human adults
and human fetuses are persons, but amoeba, dolphins, God, angels, and humanoid aliens (think
about Vulcans or Klingons from Star Trek) are not. Whether something is a person in the legal
sense varies depending upon the laws in effect. In the contemporary United States, both human
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adults and certain kinds of businesses are persons in the legal sense, but amoebas, dolphins, and
God are not. In the early decades of the United States neither slaves nor women were persons
in the legal sense, and in ancient Greece only Greek citizens were persons in the legal sense (so
that, among others, Persian citizens were not).
In addition to the biological and legal senses of 'person,' there is a moral sense of person.
Something that is a person in the moral sense has a moral standing: it is possible to treat the
thing in ways that are morally right and in ways that are morally wrong. Stones, for example,
are not persons in the moral sense, because it is not possible to do a moral harm to stones. In
contrast, adult human beings are paradigm cases of things that are persons in the moral sense,
because adult humans can be treated in ways that are bad from a moral point of view.
Being a person in a moral sense seems not to be the same as being a person in the legal sense,
since it is possible for laws to fail to respect a being's moral status. For example, although adult
human women were not persons in a legal sense in the early United States, they were, at that
time, clearly persons in the moral sense. (Indeed, their moral personhood helped to motivate
changes to the laws in the United States during the women's suffrage movement.) Similarly,
being a person in the moral sense seems not to be the same as being a person in the biological
sense, since there seem to be entities that have a moral status despite lacking a human genetic
code. For example, although neither God nor angels nor humanoid aliens (if any of the
preceding exist) are humans in the biological sense, it seems possible to treat such beings in
ways that are bad from a moral point of view.
Deontology is an ethical theory that postulates that being human in a moral sense means having
dignity. Dignity is a property that gives its possessor absolute and incomparable worth. Having
absolute worth means that a being's worth does not depend upon anything else, such as its
usefulness or attractiveness or social status; and having incomparable worth means that nothing
is more valuable than a being with dignity. Adult humans are supposed to be the paradigm
cases of beings with dignity, while stones and trees are paradigm cases of beings without
dignity. According to Deontology, if God, angels, or humanoid aliens have dignity, they have a
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moral status and thereby qualify as persons in a moral sense. (See the next section for a brief
discussion of what gives something dignity.)
Although anything that is a person in the moral sense is dignified, it is possible to treat such a
person in a way that does not respect their dignity, by valuing the person as worth less than
something else. For example, killing a police officer during a bank robbery involves valuing
escaping with stolen money as worth more than the officer's life and thereby fails to respect the
officer's dignity. Raping a person fails to respect their dignity, in virtue of valuing the pleasure of
sexual intercourse as worth more than the victim's choice over whether to participate in that
intercourse. And enslaving a person without their consent does not respect the person's
dignity, in virtue of valuing the slave's ability to make and pursue their life plans as worth less
than the slave's labor and the slaveholder's power over the person. The paradigm ways of
failing to respect a person's dignity include:
- denying that the person has any moral worth;
- valuing a person's life as worth less than something else;
- valuing a person's ability to make plans for their life as worth less than
something else; and
- valuing a person's ability to freely choose how to act as worth less than
something else.
Other actions that fail to respect a person's dignity include taking one's own life in order to stop
pain, sacrificing a person's life to save the life of someone else, coercing a person to do
something against their will, and lying to a person in order to manipulate their future behavior.
If, as Deontology postulates, being a person in a moral sense means having dignity, then any
action that fails to respect a person's dignity involves a moral mistake: it involves valuing the
person as worth less than something else, despite the person's dignity guaranteeing that the
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person is not worth less than anything else. Deontology stipulates that morally wrong actions
are actions that commit this kind of moral mistake. That is, according to Deontology,
What makes an action wrong is the fact that it involves valuing a person as worth less
than something else.
For example, suppose that Jack borrows $100 dollars from his friend Jill in order to buy a
birthday present for his mother, agreeing to pay her back after he receives his next paycheck.
But also suppose that Jack makes this agreement with no intention to keep his promise. Jack's
making a false promise to Jill indicates that he values Jill's ability to make an informed decision
(namely, the decision of whether to give Jack $100 with no expectation of repayment) as worth
less than his being able to give his mother a relatively expensive birthday present: if he valued
differently Jill's making an informed decision, he would not have lied to her in order to
manipulate her behavior. Jack's false promise involves valuing Jill--and, specifically, her power
of free choice--as worth less than his mother's birthday present (and perhaps his mother's
happiness). Hence, according to Deontology, Jack's making a false promise is morally wrong.
What makes an action morally right, according to Deontology, is not merely that the action does
not involve valuing some person's life as worth less than some other person or object. For this
would mean that every action is either morally right or morally wrong, and there are many cases
of actions that are neither morally right nor morally wrong. Consider, for example, a scenario in
which Jack goes to the store to buy a present (after depositing Jill's $100 into his bank account).
Suppose that, even though he could use a credit or debit card, he decides to write a check to
pay for his purchases, because the cancelled check helps him to keep track of his finances.
Jack's decision increases the time that other people must wait in the checkout line to purchase
their goods. So his decision involves valuing the time of other people as worth less than his
being able to manage his finances. But this does not involve an infringement upon any other
customer's dignity, because using a check is not (usually) a life-threatening activity, does not rob
anyone of the ability to make plans for how to live their life (although it might interfere with
their carrying out these plans), and does not involve manipulating or coercing other people's
behaviors in a way that robs them of being able to make an informed decision about their
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actions. Hence, according to Deontology, Jack's decision is not morally wrong. (This is so even if
his decision happens to be inconsiderate.) But neither is his action morally right; it has no moral
worth at all.
Deontology appeals to motivation in order to distinguish between actions that are morally right
and actions that are morally neutral (neither right nor wrong). In particular, the theory says that
what gives an action positive moral worth is that the action is performed for the sake of valuing
people correctly, as having absolute and immeasurable worth. That is, according to Deontology,
What makes an action morally right is the fact that it does not involve valuing some
person as worth less than something else and the action is done for the sake of
respecting the dignity of persons.
What makes an action morally neutral is the fact that it does not involve valuing some
person as worth less than something else and the action is done for the sake of
something other than respecting the dignity of persons.
Jack's decision to write a check at the store is morally neutral because, although it is not morally
wrong, his motivation in writing a check is to better manage his finances rather than to treat the
customers as dignified.
For an example of an action that Deontology deems to be morally right, suppose that, rather
than making a false promise to Jill in order to get $100, Jack tells Jill that he probably cannot
repay her when he asks for the money. Also suppose that Jack's reason for being truthful to Jill
is his desire to respect Jill's dignity as a person and his realization that he would not fulfill this
desire if he were to be dishonest in asking for Jill the money. Then, provided that Jack does not
otherwise coerce Jill into giving him the money, Jack's requesting $100 is not morally wrong,
because it does not fail to respect Jill's dignity. Moreover, since Jack's motivation in being
upfront with Jill about his intention (or lack thereof) to later repay Jill is a desire to respect her
dignity, Deontology entails that Jack's being truthful in asking Jill for $100 is morally right. (In
contrast, if Jack's motivation in being truthful to Jill were to avoid damaging his friendship with
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Jill or to avoid hurting his chances of receiving financial gifts from other friends, his action would
be morally neutral according to Deontology.)
Facts about whether an action involves valuing a person as having less than immeasurable
value, and facts about a person's motives in performing an action, do not depend upon people's
opinions or cultural traditions. For instance, suppose that everyone believes that slavery
involves valuing slaves as what they are actually worth, because everyone believes that slaves
are worth only as much as horses and other work animals. Then, despite this universal consent,
everyone is simply mistaken about what slaves are worth. Similarly, suppose that the
neighborhood miser donates his fortune to a local charity for the sake of helping the poor to
preserve their lives and pursue their life projects (which are two ways to respect people's
dignity). Then even if, according to cynical popular opinion, his motivation is to make other
people like him, this does not change the fact about what his actual motivation is. (This is not to
say that it is always easy to discover what a person's motives are. But the issue of why someone
performs an action is separate from the issue of how we can know such a thing.) Accordingly,
Deontology helps to explain how actions can be right or wrong independent of personal
opinions or cultural traditions: if the theory is true, the facts that make actions right or wrong
are facts about how those actions value people and what the motivations are of the people who
perform the actions.
5.2 Features
A slogan that encapsulates the basic idea of Deontology is: Respect people's dignity, for the sake
of respecting their dignity. (An even shorter slogan: Respect dignity for dignity's sake. This is
sort of like "Be good for goodness' sake.") Deontology postulates that each person has
immeasurable value, and this is a technical way to say that each person is dignified. (In contrast,
rocks and rivers are not dignified, because they have a limited value.) To respect a person's
dignity is to be responsive to their having immeasurable value by not treating them as if they are
worth less than something else. And to do this for the sake of respecting their dignity is to be
responsive to their dignity because of desiring to respect their dignity (rather than, say, because
of desiring to be popular or fashionable).
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Unlike Virtue Ethics, Deontology is not a theory according to which an action's rightness or
wrongness depends upon whether performing the action helps with achieving a good life (in
virtue of originating from virtuous character traits) or interferes with achieving a good life.
Instead, Deontology offers an alternative explanation for some connections between virtue and
vice) and morality, namely, that virtues (and vices) are relevant to the moral status of actions
insofar as they produce actions that respect (or fail to respect) the dignity of persons. For
example, prideful or arrogant actions are wrong insofar they involve as valuing ourselves as
worth more than others or demanding that others value us as worth more than them, whereas
humble actions are right insofar as they involve paying special attention to everyone's having
equal worth. Contemptuous actions are wrong insofar as they involve denying that others have
dignity, while generous actions are right insofar as they involve paying special attention to the
dignity of those in need and taking steps to promote their ability to pursue their own goals.
Unlike Utilitarianism, Deontology is not a theory according to which rightness or wrongness

depends upon facts about the consequences (or expected consequences) of actions. For,
according to Deontology, an action's moral status is a matter of how it values people and why it
values them in that way, and neither of these factors depends upon how the action affects (or is
likely to affect) people in the present or future: both factors are attitudes, and facts about these
attitudes pre-exist facts about the consequences that result (or are likely to result) from acting
upon such attitudes. Indeed, as the above slogan suggests, the facts that determine an action's
moral status are facts about whether the action is done out of respect for people (a valuational
attitude), for the sake of respecting people (a motivational attitude).
Deontology seems to be very similar to the Golden Rule. For, according to what we might call
the Deontological Rule, a person ought to treat everyone with respect. According to the Golden
Rule, a person ought to treat others the way he or she wants to be treated. It is tempting to
conclude that the Deontological Rule merely restates the Golden Rule in different language,
because most people want to be treated with respect. But the Deontological Rule says
something different than the Golden Rule, because not everyone wants to be treated with
respect. Consider, for instance, an extreme masochist who delights in being beaten and
otherwise treated as worthless by a master. The masochist wants to be treated as worthless;
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and this means that the masochist does not want to be treated with respect. Indeed, the
masochist wants to be disrespected. Hence, whereas the Golden Rule entails that the masochist
ought to treat others as worthless, Deontology entails that the masochist ought not treat others
the way he wants to be treated (and that the masochist thereby ought to violate the Golden
Rule when interacting with others).
Accordingly, Deontology is a theory quite distinct from the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule
endorses actions that treat others with disrespect, provided that the person who performs the
action wants to be treated with disrespect. But Deontology never endorses such actions. In
other words, the Golden Rule focuses on people's psychological preferences, while Deontology
treats psychological preference as irrelevant to an action's moral status. Of course, the
Deontological Rule is similar to a qualified form of the Golden Rule, namely: A person ought to
treat others the way he or she wants to be treated, but only if the person wants to be treated
with respect. Yet even this modified Golden Rule is not the same as the Deontological Rule,
because the modified Golden Rule does not forbid failing to treat oneself with respect--it only
says how one ought to treat others--whereas the Deontological Rule forbids failing to treat
anyone with respect, even if the person is one's self.
An interesting feature of Deontology is its ability to capture a platitude of common sense

morality, namely, that a person's life is priceless. (This distinguishes Deontology from both
Virtue Ethics and Utilitarianism: Virtue Ethics allows one person's life to have more worth than
another's if, say, the former person is your mother and the latter is a stranger; while
Utilitarianism allows one person's life to be less valuable than another's if, say, preserving the
former's has more overall expected utility than preserving the latter's.) This platitude expresses
itself in the attitude that keeping a sick person alive is worth any cost even when doing so is
prohibitively expensive, and in the feeling of repugnance at the Environmental Protection
Agency's valuing (in 2004) a human life as worth $6.1 million. But the platitude concerns more
than the value of a person's being alive rather than dead: it also concerns the value of the
person's power of choice. For example, slavery involves attaching a (monetary) price to human
life; but, in most cases, paying this price involves purchasing control over the slave's activities
rather than their continued existence. Furthermore, the platitude that human life is priceless is
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not limited in scope to the claim that human life has an immeasurable monetary value. This
extended sense in which human life is priceless expresses itself in the attitude that it is not
worth sacrificing a person's life in order to gain happiness, and in the feeling of repugnance at a
rapist whose action values the victim's desire to not engage in sexual intercourse as worth less
than the rapist's pleasure in performing the rape. Deontology captures all of these senses in
which a person's life is priceless by postulating that people have dignity. (And one way to
understand what it means to say that people have dignity is to reflect upon the preceding
senses in which a person's life is priceless.)
As an ethical theory, however, Deontology does not stipulate what it is that gives a person
dignity. (What gives a person dignity is a question for metaphysics--the investigation of what
there is in the world and what properties those things have--rather than ethics.) This is a vice
insofar as one lacks a prior understanding of what it is to be a person in a moral sense and have
a moral status. But it is also a virtue, because it allows Deontology to be compatible with both
religious and secular perspectives about the nature of (moral) personhood.
The standard religious view on (moral) personhood is that what makes something a person in
the moral sense is having an immortal soul, and that what gives a person dignity is the fact that
he or she has an immortal soul. (The idea here is that since nothing is more valuable than an
immortal soul, nothing is more valuable than beings who are people in the moral sense.)
Although he subscribes to Divine Command Theory, Robert Mortimer nicely presents this
perspective on moral personhood:
Revelation throws into sharp relief the supreme value of each individual human being.
Every man is an immortal soul created by God and designed for an eternal inheritance.
… *A+ll men equally are the children of God, all men equally are the object of His
love. In consequence of this, Christian ethics has always asserted that every man is a
person possessed of certain inalienable rights, that he is an end in himself, never to be
used merely as a means to something else. And he is this in virtue of his being a man,
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no matter what his race or color, no matter how well or poorly endowed with talents,
no matter how primitive or developed.
When Mortimer asserts that a person is "never to be used merely as a means to something
else," he is expressing the idea that it is wrong to perform actions that value people as worth
less than they are. Mortimer asserts this wrongness to be a consequence of the (purported) fact
that all people "equally are children of God." His idea seems to be that, since all people are
created by God, and in particular since all people are created by God with an immortal soul
designated for an eternal inheritance, all people are immeasurably valuable. So valuing
someone as worth less than something else is quite literally an error (or, in moral language, a
wrong), because anything with immeasurable value is never worth less than something else. (A
2008 document from the Roman Catholic Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dignitas
Personae, similarly justifies each person's immeasurable worth: "man has unassailable value
[because] he possesses an eternal vocation and is called to share in the trinitarian love of the
living God." That is, people have dignity because they have immortal souls--in virtue of which
they have an eternal vocation--and because they are created by God--in which of which they are
called to love God.)
Secular views about moral personhood, regardless of whether they are theistic or atheistic,
avoid reference to any supernatural entities, such as souls or God, and to any supernatural
activities, such as creation by God or living after death. The dominant secular view, originating
with the Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant (who was a Christian Pietist), is that what
makes something a person in the moral sense is the fact that it has autonomy, and that what
gives something dignity is not merely its being alive--trees, after all, are living but lack dignity--
but its having autonomy. Autonomy ("auto": self; "nomos": law, regulation, government) is the
ability to set goals and make free choices about how to attain those goals.
Showing that having autonomy gives something dignity requires three assumptions. The first is
that entities receive their value from the role they play in the plans and choices of autonomous
beings. Consider, for example, paper money. A piece of paper has value as money, according to
this assumption, because beings with autonomy choose to assign value to it: if they did not
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choose to use paper money in a certain way, it would be worth no more than paper litter. The
second assumption is that whatever gives entities value must be more valuable than those
entities and more valuable than any collection of those entities. Given these assumptions, it
follows that anything with autonomy has more value than anything else and, moreover, that
anything with autonomy has more value than any collection of entities no matter how large the
collection. For example, these assumptions entail that no amount of money and no amount of
luxury goods is worth more than anything that has autonomy. If one adds a third assumption,
that whatever gives objects value is not itself given value by anything, then it also follows that
nothing with autonomy is more valuable than any other thing with autonomy. This entails that
nothing with autonomy is worth less than anything else, which is just what it means to say that
having autonomy gives something dignity.
But what entities have autonomy? Normal-functioning adult humans have autonomy, as do
God, angels, and (perhaps) certain humanoid aliens. (For a non-human example, consider
Satan. Real or fictional, our idea of Satan is one of a being who is not a person in the biological
sense but who is capable of sinning by freely choosing to violate God's commandments.) Robots
and trees, in contrast, lack autonomy, because their actions result entirely from digital or
genetic programming. Hence, according to Kant's theory, normal-functioning adult humans,
God, and angels have dignity, while robots and trees do not. Whether human fetuses and young
children have dignity, according to this secular perspective, depends upon whether beings with
the potential to set goals and make free choices count as having autonomy, albeit having it in
the sense in which, say, an acorn has branches. And whether incompetent and senile human
adults have dignity depends upon whether beings that once had autonomy count as still having
it, albeit having it in the sense in which, say, a pile of rubble has a house wall in it. (We won't
further discuss issues about Kant's theory of what makes something a person in a moral sense.
That's a topic for a metaphysics course or an advanced course in ethical theory.)
Regardless of which metaphysical theory about the source of dignity and moral personhood one
prefers to conjoin to Deontology, Deontology as an ethical theory has several interesting
features. First, if we assume that an action's moral wrongness warrants expecting others to
avoid performing the action, it helps to explain some of the expectations we have in our
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interactions with professionals. For example, we expect lawyers to get our approval before
doing anything legally binding on our behalf so that we can decide for ourselves whether to
accept whatever legal obligations are at stake; we expect doctors to tell us the truth about our
medical conditions so that we can make informed decisions for ourselves; and we expect
pharmaceutical companies to tell us the possible side effects of their medications so that we can
decide for ourselves whether the risks are acceptable. Failing to meet any of these expectations
involves failing to respect our dignity in virtue of infringing upon our power of choice. Hence,
according to Deontology, failing to meet these expectations is morally wrong.
Secondly, Deontology helps to explain the exceptions we make to these expectations. For
example, sometimes we lie to children in order to coax them into doing things they do not want
to do. Sometimes we make medical decisions on behalf of mentally disabled adults without first
obtaining their consent. And we often use nonhuman animals for labor or food without even
asking their permission. These actions infringe upon the power of choice (and sometimes the
life) had by children, disabled people, and animals, respectively. Yet, despite this, we sometimes
believe these actions to be morally unobjectionable. Deontology supports this attitude. For,
according to Deontology, what makes it wrong to use something without its consent, or to make
decisions on behalf of someone without their consent, is that fact that doing so fails to respect
its dignity. And if, as might be the case in certain situations, some children and mentally
disabled persons and nonhuman animals lack dignity, it is not possible for any action fail to
respect their dignity. (Of course, an odd consequence of this is that it is not at all clear whether
Deontology explains the wrongness of, say, raping humans and animals who lack dignity. But
this is a topic appropriate for a more advanced study of ethical theories.)
A third feature of Deontology is that it helps to explain the idea that doing the right thing is
difficult. The theory requires that one have a very particular motivation when performing an
action in order for that action to be morally right, and our natural inclination seems to incline us
toward not having this motivation. For example, when children tell the truth, their doing so
involves respecting others' dignity. Yet children often tell the truth for the sake of doing what
their parents want them to do, or avoiding punishment, rather than for the sake of respecting
others' dignity. (Indeed, in many cases it is doubtful whether children even grasp the concept of
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dignity.) So, given children's typical motivations for telling the truth, their truth-telling is not
morally wrong; but it is not morally right, either. Similarly, although it is not morally wrong to
help someone move their house for the sake of being friends with them, to donate to charity for
the sake of a tax write-off, to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity for the sake of meeting new
people, to give spare change to panhandlers for the sake of not feeling guilty or sad or worried
later, to appear in court for the sake of avoiding perjury charges, and so on, these actions are
not morally right either. (Of course, if any of these actions have, as an additional motivation,
the desire to respect people's dignity, they qualify as morally right according to Deontology.)
A fourth feature of Deontology is that it is cosmopolitan. Like Utilitarianism, Deontology treats

everyone as having equal moral status. Unlike Utilitarianism, however, this equal moral status is
not a matter of how a person's individual expected utility figures into calculations of overall
expected utility. Rather, according to Deontology, everyone has equal moral status in virtue of
being equally valuable. For Deontology treats each person as having an immeasurable amount
of worth, and this means that no person is any more or less valuable than any other person
(because being immeasurably valuable means having the maximum possible amount of worth).
Like Utilitarianism, it is possible to modify Deontology so that it is not cosmopolitan. For

instance, a sexist version of Deontology would hold that, say, only males are immeasurably
value. (A potential secular motivation for this is the idea, prevalent in some traditional societies,
that females are valuable only insofar as males desire them.) But traditional Deontology is
cosmopolitan for the same reason that traditional Utilitarianism is, namely, that the
noncosmopolitan versions are not impartial and thereby violate the idea that everyone has an
equal moral status when it comes to morality.
One final feature. Historically, Deontology has provided strong support for the idea that men
and women should have equal rights. For, according to Deontology, all persons have the same
moral worth. In particular, women have the same moral worth as men. Hence, insofar as
denying rights to women that men have (or giving rights to men that women lack) involves
valuing men as worth more than women, laws that give unequal rights to men and women are
morally wrong. For the same reason, Deontology continues to provide strong support for the
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human rights movement, which seeks to put an end to the enslavement, oppression, and unfair
treatment of people around the world (and especially those in developing countries).
5.3 Implications
Perhaps the most interesting consequence of Deontology is the way in which it can be used to
sanction legal imprisonment of those convicted of certain crimes. At first glance, Deontology
seems to entail that all imprisonment is morally wrong. For imprisonment essentially involves
taking away or severely limiting a person's ability to do what he or she wants to do and thereby
infringes upon their power of choice. However, suppose that choosing to perform an action
involves choosing the consequences of that action. Then, provided that a person can gain
knowledge of the relevant laws using only a reasonable amount of effort (so that it is not
unreasonable to expect the person to know about the laws), choosing to commit a crime
involves choosing the consequences of being caught. If this is correct, then convicted criminals
(who are actually guilty) choose to be imprisoned. This means that, if choosing to perform an
action involves choosing the consequences of that action, imprisoning criminals is not wrong
according to Deontology, because imprisoning them involves respecting their dignity by allowing
them to obtain the fruits of their choices.
While respecting a person's dignity can involves, among other things, allowing a person to
obtain the fruits of their choices, interfering with a person's obtaining the fruits of their choices
does not mean that one fails to respect the person's dignity. Choosing to attain a goal differs
from successfully attaining that goal. Respecting a person's dignity requires that one not
manipulate or coerce the person's ability to make a free and informed choice. But it does not
require that one cooperate with the person's carrying out their choice. So, for example, if Clark
forces Mugsy to rob a bank, Clark fails to respect Mugsy's dignity. But if Mugsy freely chooses to
rob a bank and Clark has an opportunity to foil Mugsy's plan, Clark does not fail to respect
Mugsy's dignity by acting to prevent Mugsy from succeeding with the bank robbery.
Another interesting consequence of Deontology is that the ends never justify the means.
Consider, for example, a situation in which telling a lie would allow you to obtain a great benefit.
For instance, suppose that, after witnessing a crime that involves the son of the local mafia's
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leader, you receive an offer of one million dollars in exchange for perjuring yourself during your
trial testimony. Suppose that the son was at the wrong place at the wrong time, that the district
attorney is set on prosecuting severe charges against the son, and that the district attorney's
motives are to force the son to reveal sensitive information about the mafia in order to receive a
lenient plea bargain. The district attorney, of course, is wrongly prosecuting the son for crimes
he did not commit; so lying during the trial would counteract the prosecutor's immorality.
Despite this, however, Deontology entails that perjuring oneself is morally wrong. For if you lie
during your testimony, you infringe upon the power of each juror to make an informed decision
about whether the son is guilty, in virtue of trying to manipulate their behavior without their
consent; and doing this involves valuing the million dollar bribe (or the son's freedom, or the
interests of justice) as worth more than each juror's dignity. These reasons for why perjury is
wrong do not depend upon the particular circumstances of the mafioso's case. So even if lying
under oath would produce incredible benefits for you and the son, doing so is morally wrong
according to Deontology.
For another example of how Deontology forbids the ends from justifying the means, consider a
hostage situation in which the terrorists demand that you rob a bank for them and threaten to
kill your family if you refuse. (A scenario similar to this forms the plot of Firewall (2006, starring
Harrison Ford).) The terrorists, of course, are wrong in threatening to kill your family, since
doing so involves valuing your family's lives as worth less than the bank's money and, according
to Deontology, this is always wrong. Yet your robbing the bank also would be wrong, since
doing so involves valuing your family's lives as worth more than the power that the bank's
customers have over choosing how to allocate their money (and, presumably, none of the
bank's customers consent to giving their money to terrorists). Moreover, that it is wrong for the
terrorists to give you an ultimatum in which your family's lives are at stake does not alter the
fact that your robbing the bank would be wrong.
The terrorist scenario highlights a problematic implication of Deontology, namely, that the
theory sometimes entails that all of the actions available for a person to do are morally wrong.
For, in the terrorist case, robbing the bank is wrong, for the reasons given, but refusing to rob
the bank is also wrong, because the refusal involves valuing the bank customers' power of
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choice over how they allocate their money as worth more than your family's lives. What this
means is that Deontology provides no guidance on how to behave morally when genuine moral
dilemmas occur.
Another issue on which Deontology provides no moral guidance concerns how to treat non-
persons, such as (non-autonomous) animals and ecosystems. In virtue of not being persons,
these animals and ecosystems do not have dignity. So it is not possible to fail to respect their
dignity. Nor is it possible to respect their dignity. Hence, according to Deontology, actions
toward non-persons can be morally right or morally wrong only insofar as they affect persons.
However, some actions--such as skinning a stray cat or destroying a bird's nest--do not affect
persons in any significant way. These actions are neither morally right nor morally wrong,
according to Deontology. (Nor are they morally neutral in the sense of 'neutral' already defined;
if anything, they are neutral in a different sense, which for clarity we might call neutral2.)
5.4 Application
Using Deontology to determine whether an action is right or wrong involves following a three-
step process.
Step 1: Determine whether the action involves valuing a person in some way. If it does,
proceed to Step 2. If it does not, conclude that the action is morally neutral2.
Step 2: Determine whether the action involves valuing some person as worth less than
something else. If it does, conclude that the action is morally wrong. If it does
not, proceed to Step 3.
Step 3: Determine the person's motivation for doing the action. If the person's
motivation is to do the action in order to respect the dignity of persons,
conclude that the action is morally right. If the person has any other
motivation, conclude that the action is morally neutral.
Consider, for illustration, an episode from the history of breast cancer research. Prior to the
1970s, the Halstead hypothesis dominated the modern medical understanding of breast cancer.
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According to this hypothesis, in the breast cancer spread systematically from breast tissue to the
surrounding anatomical organs. Based upon this hypothesis, William Halstead proposed radical
mastectomy as the way to treat breast cancer. Surgery for a radical mastectomy involves
removing the entire breast as well as surrounding lymph nodes and the pectoralis muscles
beneath the breast. Halstead performed the first radical mastectomy in the early 1890s. It
remained the dominant treatment for breast cancer through the early twentieth century.
In the 1970s, surgeons debated whether there could be a less radical surgical procedure that
was equally effective in terms of providing disease-free recovery from breast cancer. But this
debate was not purely theoretical. Radical mastectomies left women massively disfigured (in
virtue of deforming their chest cavity and leaving hollow voids beneath their collar bone and
armpit), significantly limited their arm movement (in virtue of lacking lymph nodes to process
circulatory fluids), and often gave them significant and chronic post-operative pain. The surgery
also often failed to cure the cancer.
In the mid 1970s, Bernard Fisher developed a research study in order to test the effectiveness of
simple mastectomy, involving removal of breast tissue but not surrounding anatomy, in contrast
to radical mastectomy. He enrolled 1765 women in a ten-year study. After obtaining informed
consent, Fisher randomly assigned participants to one of two groups: one group received radical
mastectomies; the other, simple mastectomies. (Randomization helps to guarantee that the
study results are not biased due to the influence of uncontrolled factors such as differences in
diet, exercise, and family medical history.) The results of the study were promising. Women
who received the simple mastectomy were just as likely to be disease-free as women who
received the radical mastectomy. Fisher's study overthrew Halstead's hypothesis, and it
provided a less costly treatment alternative for women diagnosed with breast cancer.
Fisher's research prompted the question of whether an even more minimal surgery would
provide an effective treatment for breast cancer. Fisher proposed a follow-up study to compare
the effectiveness of lumpectomies (or segmental mastectomies), which involve removing only
the cancerous breast tissue and a small area of surrounding healthy tissue. Based upon his
hypothesis that cancer cells are not localized to particular anatomical areas but rather travel
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throughout the body via circulatory and lymphatic systems, Fisher also proposed testing the
effectiveness of radiation therapy. To accomplish this, Fisher proposed randomly assigning
participants to one of three groups: one group would be tested for the effectiveness of simple
mastectomy; the second, for the effectiveness of lumpectomy without radiation; the third, for
the effectiveness of lumpectomy with radiation. Finding that members of the third group had
better disease-free survival results than those in the other groups would confirm Fisher's
hypothesis and provide diseased women with an even less invasive treatment option.
Fisher's follow-up study failed. Women were not willing to participate in the study. The
protocol for Fisher's research involved assembling a group of participants for the study and
then, after obtaining their informed consent for participation, randomly assigning them to one
of three test groups. The hypothesized probable cause for lack of participation was that women
were loath to leave their treatment--mastectomy or lumpectomy--to chance. Most likely,
women were not willing to consent to having the decision of whether their breasts would be
amputed be decided by, in effect, a coin flip.
In 1979, the statistician Marvin Zelen suggested modifying Fisher's follow-up study by with a
prerandomization design obtaining participant consent after candidates for the study were
randomly assigned to one of the three test groups (simple mastectomy, lumpectomy without
radiation, lumpectomy with radiation). (In contrast, conventional randomization obtains
participant consent before randomly assigning them to one of the various test groups.) Zelen
hypothesized that women more readily would consent to participate in Fisher's study if he used
prerandomization, because the women would be more comfortable knowing which treatment
they would receive and their doctors would feel more comfortable asking their patients to
participate. The main potential problem with Zelen's proposal, however, is that patients might
refuse to give consent if they are assigned to the simple mastectomy treatment group.
This concern, however, turned out to be misplaced. Zelen was right. Fisher's follow-up study,
modified in accordance with Zelen's recommendation, enrolled sufficiently many women to
proceed. The results were promising. Women who received the lumpectomy were just as likely
to be disease-free as women who received the simple mastectomy. Even more importantly,
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women who received radiation therapy along with the lumpectomy were more likely to be
disease-free as women who received with the simple mastectomy or the radiation-free
lumpectomy. The practical upshot of Fisher's follow-up study is knowledge that the most
effective treatment for breast cancer requires only minimal bodily deformation. To this day,
lumpectomy with radiation therapy is the preferred treatment for early-stage breast cancer.
(This is not to say that all women with breast cancer choose to undergo a lumpectomy with
radiation treatment. Some continue to choose a radical mastectomy with radiation therapy,
judging the increased subjective confidence that their cancer has been removed as preferable to
alternatives that involve less distortion of their bodily anatomy.)
Despite its overall utility for women suffering from breast cancer, however, Fisher's follow-up
study is morally problematic from a Deontological perspective. A basic ethical precept for
research involving human subjects is that the research should not expose participants to harm
without first obtaining their freely given and fully informed consent. This is a deontologically-
based precept. A study that does not obtain such consent involves valuing the knowledge to be
gained from the study, and perhaps also the expected benefits for society, as worth more than
the participants' dignity.
Fisher's follow-up study is morally problematic because of its prerandomization design. In terms
of expected risks and benefits for participants, Fisher's follow-up study with conventional
randomization is the same as the one with prerandomization: participants have the same
chance of being assigned to one of the three groups in both randomization designs for the
study, so their chances of being benefited or harmed by a particular treatment option are the
same. The only difference is that the prerandomization design makes participants' assignment
to a treatment group seem to be more therapy-based: once a potential participant is randomly
assigned to a treatment group, their doctor can explain the benefits of their particular therapy.
Yet there is a well-known psychological tendency among patients, when presented with an
option to consent to a research study, to read them consent form, sign it, and interpret their
doctor as having recommended their participation on the basis of the treatment being in their
best interest. In Fisher's trial, however, patients were not assigned to a treatment group based
upon which treatment would be best for them. Instead, they were assigned randomly, without
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regard for their interests. So obtaining consent after patients are assigned to a treatment group
involves a kind of manipulation of the patients' choice: even if they are fully informed about the
potential risks and benefits of their participation, their consent is coerced to a degree, in virtue
of their having been told the benefits of their treatment and misinterpreting their doctors as
recommending their participation based upon what is in the patients' best interests. Hence,
Fisher's follow-up study did not obtain freely given consent from the participants. According to
Deontology, this suffices to make the research morally wrong. This is so even though the
medical knowledge and social benefits would not have been obtained without the
prerandomization design, and even though the world would have been worse off overall if
Fisher had not used the prerandomization design. (According to Utilitarianism, in contrast,
faced with a choice between using a conventional randomization design or using Zelen's
prerandomization design, the morally respectable choice is to use Zelen's design.)
Further Reading
The classic treatises on Deontology are Immanuel Kant's Fundamental Principles of the
Metaphysics of Morals and The Metaphysics of Morals. Onora O'Neill's Explorations of Reason:
Explorations of Kant's Practical Philosophy (Cambridge University Press: 1990) and Barbara
Herman's The Practice of Moral Judgment (Harvard University Press: 1993) provide excellent
modern exegeses of Kant's theory. Steven Darwall's anthology Deontology (Oxford: 2002)
collects historically influential articles on Deontology, as well as more contemporary
presentations, defenses, developments, and criticisms of the theory. The Vatican Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith's Dignitas Personae (The Dignity of the Person) (2008), assuming
that having a human genetic code suffices for being a person, applies a basic idea of
deontology--that the "human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment
of conception; and therefore from that same moment his rights as a person must be recognized,
among which in the first place is the inviolable right of every innocent human being to life"--to
contemporary issues in bioethics, including artificial fertilization, in virtro fertilization, the
treatment of embryos and oocytes, intracytoplasmic sperm injection, preimplantation diagnosis,
post-fertilization pregnancy prevention, gene therapy, human cloning, and stem cell therapies.
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Reading Excerpt from Immanuel Kant's Fundamental Principles
In the first paragraph of this excerpt from Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals
(also known as Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals), Kant argues that people are ends in
themselves rather than mere means. As ends in themselves, people have an absolute value.
That is, they are more valuable than anything else. (In contrast, mere means have only
conditional value. That is, mere means have a price, and there is always something that is more
valuable than them.) His argument, in a nutshell, is this: Objects receive their value from being
valued--that is, from being desired as part of the fulfillment of someone's wants or inclinations.
But, Kant assumes, what gives value to an object must be more valuable than the object valued.
Hence, what gives value to objects--namely, persons--must have more value than any object.
This is just to say that it is not possible for any object to have more value than a person.
In the second paragraph, Kant makes two key points. The first is that all people are ends-in-
themselves. The second point is that, since people are ends-in-themselves, it is morally wrong
to treat them as if they have less value than they do--that is, it is morally wrong to treat them as
objects or mere means. Kant calls this conclusion the practical imperative. (It is practical in
virtue of being concerned with actions; and it is an imperative in virtue of stating a command
about how one ought to act.)
The remaining paragraphs illustrate applications of this practical imperative. For example, Kant
argues that suicide is wrong, because it involves a person treating himself as less valuable than
the value attaching to not suffering. Hence, when a person commits suicide, the person treats
himself as a mere means rather than an end-in-itself, and this violates the practical imperative.
==============================================================================
Now I say: man and generally any rational being exists as an end in himself, not merely as a
means to be arbitrarily used by this or that will, [and] in all his actions, whether they concern
himself or other rational beings, [man] must always be regarded at the same time as an end. All
objects of the inclinations have only a conditional worth, for if the inclinations and the wants
founded on them did not exist, then their object would be without value. But the inclinations
themselves being sources of want, are so far from having an absolute worth for which they
should be desired, that on the contrary it must be the universal wish of every rational being to
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be wholly free from them. Thus the worth of any object which is to be acquired by our actions is
always conditional. Beings whose existence depends not on our will but on nature's, have
nevertheless, if they are irrational beings, only a relative value as a means, and are therefore
called things; rational beings on the contrary, are called persons, because their very nature
points them out as ends in themselves, that is as something which must not be used merely as a
means, and so far therefore restricts freedom of action (and is an object of respect). These,
therefore, are not merely subjective ends whose existence has a worth for us as an effect of our
action, but objective ends, that is things whose existence is an end in itself; an end moreover for
which no other can be substituted, which they should subserve merely as means, for otherwise
nothing whatever would possess absolute worth; but if all worth were conditioned and
therefore contingent, then there would be no supreme practical principle of reason whatever.
If then there is a supreme practical principle or, in respect of the human will, a categorical
imperative, it must be one which, drawn from the conception of that which is necessarily an end
for everyone because it is an end for itself, constitutes an objective principle of will, and can
therefore serve as a universal practical law. The foundation of this principle is: rational nature
exists as an end in itself. Man necessarily conceives his own existence as being so; so far then,
this is a subjective principle of human actions. But every other rational being regards its
existence similarly, just on the same rational principle that holds for me: so that it is at the same
time an objective principle, from which as a supreme practical law all laws of the will must be
capable of being deduced. Accordingly the practical imperative will be as follows: So act as to
treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end
withal, never as a means only....
We will now inquire whether this can be practically carried out....
First, under the head of necessary duty to oneself: He who contemplates suicide should ask
himself whether his action can be consistent with the idea of humanity as an end in itself. If he
destroys himself in order to escape from painful circumstances, he uses a person merely as a
means to maintain a tolerable condition up to the end of his life. But a man is not a thing, that is
to say, something which can be used merely as a means, but must in all his actions always be
considered as an end in himself. I cannot, therefore, dispose in any way of a man in my own
person so as to mutilate him, to damage or to kill him. (It belongs to ethics proper to define this
principle more precisely, so as to avoid all misunderstanding, for example, as to the amputation
of the limbs in order to preserve myself; as to exposing my life to danger with a view to preserve
it, etc. This question is therefore omitted here.)
Secondly, as regards necessary duties, or those of strict obligation, toward others. He who is
thinking of making a lying promise to others will see at once that he would be using another
man merely as a means, without the latter containing at the same time an end in himself. For
he whom I propose by such a promise to use for my own particular purposes cannot possibly
assent to my mode of acting towards him, and therefore cannot himself contain the end of his
action. This violation of the principle of humanity in other men is more obvious if we take
examples if attacks on the freedom and property of others. For then it is clear that he who
transgresses the rights of men intends to use the person of others merely as a means, without
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considering that as rational beings they ought always to be esteemed also as ends, that is, as
beings who must be capable of containing in themselves the end of the very same action.
Thirdly, as regards contingent (meritorious) duties to oneself: It is not enough that the action
does not violate humanity in our own person as an end in itself, it must also harmonize with it....
Now there are in humanity capacities of greater perfection which belong to the end that nature
has in view in regard to humanity in ourselves as the subject; to neglect these might perhaps be
consistent with the maintenance of humanity as an end in itself, but not with the advancement
of this end.
Fourthly, as regards meritorious duties towards others: The natural end which all men have is
their own happiness. Now humanity might indeed subsist although no one should contribute
anything to the happiness of others, provided he did not intentionally withdraw anything from
it; but after all, this would only harmonize negatively, not positively, with humanity as an end in
itself, if everyone does not also endeavor, as far as in him lies, to forward the ends of others.
For the ends of any subject which is an end in himself ought as far as possible to be my ends
also, if that conception is to have its full effect with me.
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Interlude: Theory Overload
…in progress…
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Chapter 6: Natural Laws

6.1 Theory
Nowadays, Newton's laws of motion and Maxwell's laws of electromagnetism are paradigm
cases of what we call natural laws. These laws characterize regular associations among physical
quantities such as mass, acceleration, electric fields, and so on. There is, however, an older
sense of "natural law," predating the scientific revolution in the seventeenth century and dating
back to the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, which refers to the natural orientation a being
has toward its "perfection." For example, in this older sense, it is a natural law that acorns grow
into oak trees, because an oak tree is the "perfection" or "mature form" of an acorn; and acorns
that fail to grow into oak trees (due to, say, draught) violate this natural law. Similarly, in this
older sense of 'natural law,' it is a natural law that elephants travel together in herds and
protect younger members of their herds, because being part of cohesive and mutually
supporting group is part of a mature elephant's life.
There are two factors that make an orientation natural--or part of the natural law--for a
creature in this older, Aristotelian sense of "natural." First, the orientation must be one that the
creature has prior to any education, training, or exposure to other environmental or cultural
influences: it must be innate. Pavlov's dog, for example, has a tendency to salivate upon hearing
a bell; but the dog does not have this tendency in virtue of the natural law for dogs. Secondly,
the orientation must be one that tends to contribute to the creature's developing into its
mature (or "perfect") form and thereby fulfilling its nature: it must be conducive to perfection.
Some abused puppies, for example, have a tendency to attack those who are trying to feed
them or care for their wounds; this self-defeating behavior is natural in the Aristotelian sense
because it hinders a puppy's development into a healthy adult dog. (It is also not natural in
virtue of resulting from harsh treatment by humans.) Similarly, some cultures condition their
members for self-immolation, and this inclination to burn oneself to death in "appropriate"
circumstances cannot be a natural one because it prematurely ends a person's life.
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A person's natural inclinations are the innate behavioral tendencies or dispositions the person
has that contribute to having a fully developed life. For example, people seem to have a natural
inclination to breathe at least once per minute. It takes a good deal of training to be able to
hold one's breath for an extended period of time, as some Indian yogis are able to do; and
breathing certainly contributes to having fully developed life, in virtue of contributing to having
any life at all. People also seem to have a natural inclination to figure out how the world works:
consider, for example, the tendency of young children to persistently ask "Why?"
According to traditional advocates of Natural Law Theory, every person has four kinds of natural
inclinations. The first is a natural inclination to preserve one's life. This inclination is innate.
Consider, for example, the way in which people behave in burning buildings: they try to escape
the fire rather than embrace its warmth and the near-certain death that brings. Consider, also,
that much military training involves replacing a soldier's "natural" instincts (for self-
preservation, among others) with instincts more conducive to the achievement of various
mission objectives, even when that achievement requires self-sacrifice in a very literal sense.
The inclination to preserve one's life is also conducive to perfection: without it, our persisting to
a maturity would be entirely a matter of luck.
The second kind of natural inclination is an inclination to procreate. This procreative inclination
includes not only a tendency to engage in sexual intercourse but also a tendency to care for
one's offspring. Consider, for example, the behavior of a "normal" adult: he or she feels an urge,
at some point in life, to engage in sexual intercourse; and when that activity produces a new life,
he or she experiences the urge to protect and nurture the child. Consider also that we are
prone to say that parents who purposefully harm their children have "unnatural" urges, and that
we tend to view certain behaviors--like Munchausen's syndrome--as symptomatic of an
underlying disease rather than a natural development. This inclination is innate: those who are
not corrupted by experiences in their youth do not need to be instructed to engage in
intercourse or nourish their offspring. It is also conducive to perfection, insofar those who
neither engage in sex nor developing a caring relationship toward children miss out on valuable
features of human experience.
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The third kind of natural inclination is an inclination to gain and apply knowledge. This includes
the inclination to understand how the world works as well as the inclination to know whether
there is anything beyond the world (such as God), and it includes the inclination to use this
knowledge in making well-informed decisions for how to live one's life. The tendency of young
children to ask why the sky is blue or why seashells contain the sound of the ocean best
illustrates the innateness of this inclination. But some tendencies of adults illustrate this too--
for example, the tendency people have, when the night is right and the world slows down, to
wonder about whether there is life on other planets, about whether there is life after death, and
about other things people tend to ponder when in a "philosophical" mood. The inclination for
knowledge is also conducive to perfection: without correct information and the ability to plan
one's life in accordance with that information, flourishing in life would be entirely a matter of
luck.
The fourth kind of natural inclination is an inclination to be social. This involves all of those
inclinations to engage with others socially, including our inclinations to make friends with
others, to make and keep promises, to enter into contracts, to respect each other's property
rights, and generally to live with others in a civilized and harmonious way. This inclination is
conducive to perfection, because affection and cooperation allow us to improve our lives in
ways that make them superior to the lives of other animals. It also seems to be innate.
Consider, for example, the tendency of college students to befriend their dorm mates rather
than prefer loneliness, or the tendency some cashiers have to chase down a customer in order
to return a forgotten credit card. Also consider that societies tend to view people who
repeatedly harm others as in need of some sort of reform.
Less anecdotally, experimental reports from Marc Hauser suggest that humans have an innate
concern for fairness.1 Experimenters offered sweets to pairs of similarly-aged children between
four and eight years of age. Sometimes, experimenters offered one child in the pair more
sweets than the other, giving the other child the option to either accept or reject receiving a
lesser number of sweets. (For example, experimenters might offer Julie four candies and Megan
1
See John Whitfield, "Are humans cruel to be kind?", New Scientist 2708 (16 May 2009). Available online:
< http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227081.400-are-humans-cruel-to-be-kind.html >
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only one, giving Megan the option of either accepting or rejecting the one offered to her.)
Infants nearly always rejected the offer when the other child in the pair was offered more, and
older children did the same almost as often. One explanation for this behavior is that young
children have an innate sense of fairness which manifests itself as self-denying protest when
forced to choose whether to accept unfair treatment.
(You might ask: "What about our inclination to be aggressive without provocation, which
manifests itself in wars of aggression? There is probably no known period of human history
during which one group of humans has not been trying to conquer or destroy some other group
for a reason other than self-defense. Does this mean that we have a natural inclination to be
aggressive without provocation?" The answer here is "No." In order for this inclination to be
natural, it must satisfy two conditions. First, it must be innate. Evidence about our long history
of unprovoked warring provides good (although perhaps inconclusive) evidence that
unprovoked aggressiveness is innate to humans. Secondly, however, the inclination must be
"conducive to our perfection"--that is, it must contribute to our having fully developed lives.
Unprovoked aggressiveness does not seem to do this.)
If all people have only the preceding four kinds of natural inclination, then some behavioral
tendencies are not natural inclinations. For example, some people have a tendency to be
reclusive and shun human interaction. (Think of Ebenezer Scrooge from Charles Dickens' A
Christmas Tale.) But if people have a natural inclination to be social, then this reclusive
tendency must either result from some sort of cultural or environmental influence, or leave to
chance whether a person fully realizes their human potential. Perhaps, for example, it results
from some sort of trauma or other past experience. (Ebenezer Scrooge is a case in point: he was
a very sociable fellow until the tragic death of his fiancé; after that, he seems to have taken
comfort in the pursuit of wealth, and over time this pursuit twisted him into an unlikeable
penny-pincher.) Of course, some nonnatural inclinations benefit others. For instance, fire
fighters tend to rush into dangerous situations--and thereby act against the inclination to
preserve their own lives--in order to save the lives of people who are unable, on their own, to
escape burning buildings. But inclinations like these result from education.
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Some actions help the natural inclinations of life, procreation, knowledge, or sociality. Other
actions hinder these inclinations. For example, exercising and eating a healthy diet help one's
natural inclination for life, whereas suicide hinders one's inclination for life and murder hinders
others' inclination for life. Changing the diaper of one's child helps one's inclination to
procreate, whereas adultery, sterilization, and using birth control hinder that inclination. Going
to school and reading for pleasure help one's inclination for knowledge, whereas lying and
blasphemy hinder that inclination. (Technically, blasphemy--which includes arguing that God
does not exist--hinders everyone's inclination for knowledge only if God does, in fact, exist.)
Finally, getting married and honoring one's promises help one's inclination to be social (and the
inclination of others to be social), whereas stealing and treason (and any other activities that
usually destroy bonds of affection among humans) hinder that inclination.
Natural Law Theory postulates that the rightness or wrongness of an action is a matter of
whether that action helps or hinders anyone's natural inclinations. (The idea, roughly, is that
helping someone's natural inclination furthers that person on the "right" path--namely, the path
that leads to realizing their full human potential--whereas hindering someone's natural
inclination puts that person on the "wrong" path--namely, a path that leads away from realizing
their full potential.) According to this theory,
What makes an action right is the fact that it helps at least one natural inclination of at
least one person and does not hinder any natural inclinations of anyone, and what
makes an action wrong is the fact that it hinders at least one natural inclination of at
least one person and does not help any natural inclinations of anyone.
For example, suppose that a teenager steals money from his parents in order to support his drug
habit. Stealing hinders the parents' inclination to be social, because it interferes with their
ability to trust their child. Since the stealing does not help any natural inclinations of the
parents, the teenager, or others, it is wrong, according to Natural Law Theory. (Moreover, if the
drug use interferes with the teenager's performance in school, it hinders his inclination to obtain
knowledge. If this is true, and if the teenager's drug use does not help any of his other natural
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inclinations or any natural inclinations of others, then the teenager's drug habit is also wrong,
according to Natural Law Theory.)
For another example, suppose that a mother reads to her child every evening before bedtime.
This helps the mother's inclination to procreate, since it involves taking care of her child. It
helps the child's inclination for knowledge, since reading is an effective way to prepare the child
for future success in education. And it helps the social inclination of both mother and child,
since it is an activity that strengthens the bonds of affection and trust between mother and
child. Supposing that the mother's reading to her child does not hinder anyone's natural
inclination, Natural Law Theory entails that the mother's action is right.
Facts about humans' natural inclinations and facts about how various actions help or hinder
those inclinations do not depend upon people's opinions or cultural traditions. For example,
suppose that everyone has a natural inclination to be social and that adultery hinders this
inclination without helping any others. Then disagreement about whether adultery hinders our
natural inclinations and helps none of them, and even universal belief that adultery helps our
natural inclinations, does not change the facts about how adultery affects our natural
inclinations. Instead, such disagreement or belief indicates only that some people have
mistaken opinions about these facts. For facts about how various actions help or hinder our
natural inclinations do not depend in any way upon what people happen to believe about those
facts. (This is not to say that it is always easy to discover what those facts are. But the issue of
which actions help, and which actions hinder, our natural inclinations--and even the issue of
what our natural inclinations are--is separate from the issue of whether and how we can know
such things.) So Natural Law Theory helps to explain how actions can be right or wrong
independently of cultural traditions: if the theory is true, the facts that make actions right or
wrong are facts about what our natural inclinations are and how various actions either help or
hinder those inclinations.
6.2 Features
Natural Law Theory is probably the most influential ethical theory within the Christian tradition.
The theory is especially prominent within the Catholic tradition, where it continues to motivate
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many papal decrees and calls for action: among other things, the theory motivates the Catholic
opposition to suicide, artificial birth control, abortion, adultery, racism, and sexism; and it
motivates Catholic advocacy of monogamous marriage, famine relief, and socioeconomic
equality.
Natural Law Theory is attractive from a theological point of view, because it avoids the problem
of how to decipher God's attitudes toward various actions while yet allowing for a significant
connection between God and morality. (This is part of the reason for the theory's influence
within the Christian tradition: it keeps the main benefits of Divine Command Theory and avoids
the main costs.) For one explanation of why humans have the natural inclinations they do is
that God created people with these inclinations, by designating the nature of a perfect human
life and designing people to be born with the appropriate tendencies for realizing such a life. (Of
course, nothing about Natural Law Theory itself demands that this explanation be correct. Our
natural inclinations being the result of evolutionary forces not directed in any way by God also is
compatible with the theory, since the theory is not committed to any particular account of what
our natural inclinations are or where they come from.)
Indeed, most Christian philosophers and theologians who reject Divine Command Theory view
our natural inclinations as divinely designed inclinations and our nonnatural, noninnate
inclinations as the result of sinful free choices by ourselves and others (in the past or in our
current environment). These same philosophers and theologians tend to hypothesize that God's
reason for implanting into us some inclinations rather than others is that some inclinations, but
not others, allow us to achieve the kind of life that God intends for us to achieve, namely, a life
that is holy in the right ways and that ultimately results in salvation through union with God.
This kind of theistic addendum to Natural Law Theory allows theists to uphold a tight connection
between doing what is morally wrong and sinning: if sinning involves acting in ways that only
detract from the kind of life that God intends for us, and if these actions always hinder our
natural inclinations without helping any, then every sinful action is morally wrong. (A similar
argument could be given to show that every morally wrong action is sinful. I leave this as an
exercise for the reader.)
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Natural Law Theory also accommodates the ideas that the Bible is a source of moral guidance
and that religious authorities are moral authorities. For if one supposes that Biblical stories and
parables provide information about how various actions affect the natural development of our
lives toward the goals for which God designed us, then the Bible provides information about the
facts that make some actions right and other actions wrong. And if one supposes that religious
authorities are experts about these facts, in virtue of their extensive theological education (in
the same way that scientists are experts about various physical facts in virtue of their extensive
scientific training), Natural Law Theory entails that religious authorities are reliable guides to the
rightness and wrongness of various actions.
One feature that distinguishes Natural Law Theory from Divine Command Theory is that Natural
Law Theory does not connect God's existence to the existence of morality in the way that Divine
Command Theory does. If Natural Law Theory is correct, there can be a significant distinction
between right and wrong actions even if God does not exist, because the distinction between
natural and nonnatural inclinations does not depend upon the existence of a God who designs
us with some inclinations but not others. For example, the Chinese philosopher Mencius
famously argued that the inclination to preserve life is natural whereas the inclination to take
life is not. His main example is a case of a stranger who, when walking past an open well, hears
the screams of a child trapped in the well. Mencius argues that everyone is naturally inclined to
do something to help the child rather than, say, laugh at the child's unfortunate predicament or
cover the well so that no one else hears the child's pleas for help. But regardless of whether
Mencius' argument is persuasive, it illustrates that it is possible to distinguish between natural
and nonnatural inclinations without appealing to the design of a transcendent being. For this
reason, Natural Law Theory can be attractive to atheists who deny that moral facts depend upon
God's existence.
Another feature of Natural Law Theory is its ability to explain why some people view some
immoral behavior as a kind of disease. For example, some people hold that serial killers suffer
from various psychological pathologies. And lawyers sometimes argue that a person should be
excused from certain immoral acts because those acts were caused by chemical imbalances
beyond the person's control. (A recent instance of this is a lawyer who argued that a mother
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should be excused from killing her children because she was suffering from postpartum
depression, which made her temporarily insane.) If psychological diseases or chemical
imbalances are environmental factors that give people tendencies they do not "naturally" have,
then Natural Law Theory explains why one might view behaviors caused by these tendencies as
immoral: the tendencies are nonnatural (in virtue of resulting from environmental influences)
and they happen to hinder the natural inclinations of those who have them or others in such
people's communities.
A further feature of Natural Law Theory is that it makes ethics into a sort of empirical science.
For facts about what our natural inclinations are and facts about how different kinds of actions
help or hinder those inclinations are, in principle at least, accessible to empirical investigation.
For example, studying nonhuman animals provides information about the kinds of inclinations
that animals have when there are no cultural influences to perturb an animal's natural
inclinations. Studying other cultures (past and present), and the ways in which those cultures
affect people's behavioral tendencies, provides further information about the ways in which
environmental and cultural factors influence natural inclinations. So Natural Law Theory makes
the study of right and wrong something to which anthropologists, biologists, geneticists,
psychologists, sociologists, and other scientists can contribute. This is a good thing, insofar as
one expects figuring out how to live a moral life to be at least as difficult as figuring out, say,
how to send a person to the moon or how to cure cancer.
Even theists can accept that we can discover our natural inclinations through empirical
investigation. One natural lawyer, Gerald Kelley, offers this analogy:
Suppose that an inventor-mechanic would construct a new type of machine, e.g., a

special type of automobile; and suppose that he would then sell it to me and would
present me with a book of instructions concerning its correct and incorrect use.
Granted that the mechanic acted reasonably, these instructions would not be a merely
arbitrary afterthought without any reference to the nature of the machine. Rather, they
would be a written formulation of "dos and don'ts" based upon his own intimate
knowledge of the machine. He planned it for a certain purpose; he chose the materials
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and arranged them according to a certain design; he knows what is in it; and his
instructions express this knowledge in a practical way. Another talented mechanic
might examine this same machine and, by perceiving its materials, its arrangement, and
its purpose, he could reach substantially the same conclusions as the inventor had
expressed in his book of instructions. In other words, both the inventor and the
examining mechanic would know that the very nature of the machine requires that it be
operated in a certain way, or in certain ways, in order to accomplish its purpose
(Medico-Moral Problems (St. Louis: Catholic Hospital Association, 1958), 28-29).
Kelley imagines that our natural inclinations are divinely implanted and that God provides us
intelligence to properly decipher clues in nature about what those inclinations. Such conditions
suffice for being able to discover our natural inclinations through empirical investigation. They
suffice also, as Kelley notes, for distinguishing between correct (or "right") and incorrect (or
"wrong") ways to act without reference to a book of instructions (that is, a revealed scripture).
If Kelley's is correct, Natural Law Theory accomplishes through empirical investigation what
Divine Command Theory purports to accomplish through divining God's attitudes through
sacred revelations.
6.3 Implications
One interesting consequence of Natural Law Theory is that it allows for the possibility that an
action might be right for one person but wrong for another person. This is an artifact of Natural
Law Theory's neutrality about what our natural inclinations are. According to the traditional
view, every person has the same natural inclinations. The fact that every human has essentially
the same biology, and the idea that an entity's natural inclinations are a result of its biological
constitution, provide support for the traditional view. But there is nothing about Natural Law
Theory itself that presupposes or requires the correctness of the traditional view.
Suppose, then, if only for the sake of argument, that the traditional view is mistaken. Suppose,
that is, that different people (or different groups of people) have different natural inclinations.
For the sake of concreteness, suppose that males have different natural inclinations than
females: perhaps popular gender stereotypes are correct, so that males are naturally inclined to
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be aggressive and uncaring while females are naturally inclined to be caring and peaceful. And
suppose that war-mongering helps the inclination to be aggressive but hinders the inclination to
be caring and peaceful. Then, according to Natural Law Theory, war-mongering is right for
males but wrong for females. Accordingly, if pluralism about natural inclinations is correct--if,
that is, different people have different natural inclinations--then Natural Law Theory entails that
the very same facts that make an action right for one person might make that same action
wrong for another person. But, of course, this is only if pluralism about natural inclinations is
correct. Whether it is, is an empirical question.
A second, potentially more problematic consequence of Natural Law Theory is that it makes the
wrongness of some clearly immoral actions depend upon contingent facts about what our
natural inclinations are. Suppose, for example, that extensive empirical research discovers that
humans are innately aggressive and war-prone (as witnessed, for example, by the long history of
human violence) and that children are inherently cruel (as witnessed, for example, by their
tendencies to taunt and bully other, weaker children), and that these inclinations somehow
contribute to people realizing their full human potential. Engaging in needless wars and being
cruel for no good reason clearly seem to be morally wrong. Yet Natural Law Theory entails that
these actions are morally right if we are naturally prone to violence and cruelty. Since this is
clearly an incorrect result about morality, either war-mongering and cruelty are not natural
human inclinations or Natural Law Theory is incorrect. (Think of an analogous case of a scientific
theory that makes an incorrect prediction: the incorrect prediction shows that either the theory
is false or the other assumptions used to obtain the prediction are mistaken.) But even if the
incorrect result about the rightness of war-mongering and needless cruelty are due to mistaken
information about what our natural inclinations are, it seems that these actions would be wrong
even if that information were correct. So although its ability to incorporate empirical data about
our natural inclinations is a virtue of Natural Law Theory in some respects, it is a vice in other
respects.
One final, and worrisome, consequence of Natural Law Theory is that it says nothing about the
rightness or wrongness of an action that helps some natural inclinations but hinders others. For,
as stated so far, the theory says only that an action is right if it helps some natural inclination
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and hinders none, and that an action is wrong if it hinders some natural inclination but helps
none. But actions such as these are rare: far more common are actions that help some natural
inclinations but hinder others. For example, engaging in warfare sometimes hinders the lives of
one's enemies while at the same time helping the lives of one's fellow citizens. Similarly, killing
an intruder in one's home sometimes helps to preserve the lives of one's family members; but it
obviously hinders the life of the intruder.
The traditional solution to this problem is to add something known as the Principle of Forfeiture
to Natural Law Theory. According to this principle,
If one person (the aggressor) purposefully hinders the life of another person (the
victim), then
(a) killing the aggressor is morally permissible if doing so is the only way to
preserve the victim's life; but
(b) killing the aggressor is morally impermissible if there is some way to

preserve the victim's life without killing the aggressor.
For example, if an intruder is purposefully threatening the life of one's family member, and if the
only way to protect that life is to kill the intruder, the Principle of Forfeiture entails that it is
morally permissible to kill the intruder. (Similar reasoning explains why killing in self-defense is
morally permissible.) However, the Principle of Forfeiture also entails that engaging in wartime
killing just for the sake of slaughtering the enemy, when the enemy can be stopped without
resorting to killing, is morally impermissible.
The Principle of Forfeiture introduces a distinction between morally permissible actions and
morally impermissible ones. Although every morally right action is morally permissible, not
every morally permissible action is morally right. The general idea here is that morally right
actions are both morally permissible and deserving of some sort of praise, whereas actions that
are merely morally permissible (that is, not also morally right) occur in unfortunate
circumstances and thereby do not deserve praise (even though they are not morally wrong). For
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example, being forced to kill in self-defense is not morally wrong; but it is not morally right
either, because one's self-preservation occurs in circumstances that, unfortunately, involve
someone else's death. Similarly, morally wrong actions are both morally impermissible and
deserving of some sort of reprimand, whereas actions that are merely morally impermissible
(that is, not also morally wrong) occur in trying circumstances and thereby do not deserve any
reprimand.
One limitation of the Principle of Forfeiture is that it only solves conflicts of natural inclinations
when an action creates a conflict between helping one person's inclination to life and hindering
another person's inclination to life and that conflict is the result of one person purposefully
threatening the life of someone else. Not all conflicts are like this. Consider, for example, a case
in which a mother has an ectopic pregnancy. (This means that rather than descending to the
womb, the fetus lodges and develops in one of the woman's fallopian tubes.) Sometimes such
pregnancies are dangerous to the mother, because the mother will die of excessive bleeding
unless the obstructed fallopian tube--and the fetus with it--is removed. But if the tube is
removed, the fetus dies. So although removing the tube helps the mother's inclination for life, it
hinders not only the fetus' inclination for life but also the mother's inclination to procreate.
Similarly, sometimes telling the truth involves breaking bonds of affection. For example,
sometimes telling a person the truth about how you feel about them results in their no longer
being friends with you: telling the truth furthers this person's inclination to gain knowledge
about the world (in the form of knowledge about what your opinions are), but it hinders your
inclination to be social. The Principle of Forfeiture does not extend Natural Law Theory in a way
that allows the theory to cover these kinds of conflict among natural inclinations.
The traditional solution to this problem is to append one more principle to Natural Law Theory,
known as the Doctrine of Double Effect. This principle applies only when the Principle of
Forfeiture does not. According to the Doctrine of Double Effect,
If an action helps some natural inclinations (the benefited inclinations) but hinders other
natural inclinations (the impeded inclinations), and if this conflict is not due to one
person purposefully threatening the life of someone else, then
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(a) the action is morally permissible if the person doing the action does not
intend for the action to hinder the impeded inclinations, and the hindering of
the impeded inclinations does not cause the helping of the benefited
inclinations, and the hindering of the impeded inclinations of proportionate;
(b) otherwise the action is morally impermissible.
This is a very complicated principle. Understanding it requires understanding the difference

between intending a result and merely foreseeing that result, the difference between a cause
and a side effect, and the nature of a proportionate hindrance.
Intending vs. Foreseeing. Consider a military pilot, Fred, who is given instructions to drop a
bomb on one of the enemy's ammunition warehouses. Suppose that Fred has reliable
information that usually there are no civilians in or near the warehouse between midnight and
dawn. Suppose that if Fred knew that there were any civilians in or near the warehouse, he
would wait to bomb the warehouse at some other time. Finally, suppose that Fred waits until
3:00 am to drop the bomb on the warehouse, because he has information that there is no one in
the vicinity of the warehouse. Fred knows that, despite his information, there could be civilians
in or near the warehouse when he drops the bomb (even though it is extremely unlikely). Then
although Fred foresees that his bomb could kill innocent civilians when he drops it, he does not
intend for this to happen.
Consider, in contrast, another military pilot, Ian, who is given instructions to drop a bomb on
another one of the enemy's ammunition warehouses. Suppose that Ian has reliable information
that innocent civilians tend to be near the warehouse around noon. Finally, suppose that, unlike
Fred, Ian waits to drop his bomb at noon. Then Ian not only foresees that his bomb could kill
innocent civilians; he also intends for this to happen.
Generally, a person intends for a consequence of an action to happen whenever the person
would do the action even if he knew that the consequence is guaranteed to happen. A person
foresees a consequence of an action whenever the person has some reason, however slight, to
believe that doing the action could result in that consequence happening. And a person merely
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foresees a consequence of an action whenever the person foresees that consequence but does
not intend for it to happen. Intending a consequence is a matter of sincerely desiring the
occurrence of the consequence, foreseeing a consequence is a matter having foresight about
the possible occurrence of the consequence, and merely foreseeing a consequence is a matter
of having foresight about the possible occurrence of the consequence but not desiring for that
consequence to happen. (Note that not desiring the occurrence of a consequence need not
involve desiring for the consequence to not happen: it might, instead, involve not caring either
way whether the consequence happens.)
Fred merely foresees that his bomb will kill innocent civilians, because he does not intend to kill
civilians. Ian, in contrast, not only foresees that his bomb will kill innocent civilians, but also
intends for his bomb to do this, because he wants his bomb to kill civilians. Suppose, for the
sake of illustration, that Fred and Ian's actions of dropping a bomb on their assigned targets at
their chosen times helps to preserve security (and hence sociability) of their fellow citizens--this
is the good consequence of their actions--but also hinders the lives of some civilians who
happen to be near the warehouse at the time of the bombing--this is the bad consequence of
their actions. Then the Doctrine of Double Effect entails that Ian's action is morally
impermissible, because Ian intends for the bad consequence of his action to happen. But it does
not entail that Fred's action is morally permissible: for Fred's action might be impermissible for
some other reason.
Cause vs. Side Effect. Suppose that the civilians who die when Fred's bomb destroys the
warehouse die because of the intense heat created by the bomb rather than because of, say,
flying debris from the warehouse. Fred's dropping the bomb on the enemy warehouse causes
the destruction of that warehouse. This action also causes the death of innocent civilians. But
the destruction of the warehouse does not cause the death of the civilians. The death of the
civilians is a side effect of the warehouse's destruction.
Now suppose that the innocent civilians die because of flying debris from the warehouse instead
of from the bomb's intense heat. Also suppose that the civilians would not have died if they had
been able to avoid the debris. Then the death of the civilians is caused by, rather than a side
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effect of, the warehouse's destruction. (Of course, the dropping of the bomb is also a cause of
the civilians' deaths. It just happens to be an indirect cause.)
Generally, one event is a cause of another event if the latter event would not have occurred
without the occurrence of the former event or if the occurrence of the latter event is made
significantly more likely by the occurrence of the former event. And one event is a side effect of
another event if the cause of the former event is a cause of the latter event but the former
event itself is not a cause of the latter event. For example, smoking cigarettes on a regular basis
for an extended period of time sometimes causes having clothes that smell like smoke; and it
sometimes causes having lung cancer. But having clothes that smell like cigarette smoke is not a
cause of having lung cancer; the lung cancer is merely a side effect of having smoky-smelling
clothes.
Recall Fred's action of dropping a bomb on an enemy warehouse. That action has a bad
consequence, namely, the death of innocent civilians. It also has a good consequence, namely,
the increased security of Fred's fellow citizens. If Fred's dropping the bomb would have
increased the security of his fellow citizens even if the innocent civilians survived the bomb,
then the bad consequence of Fred's action does not cause the good consequence. Hence the
Doctrine of Double Effect does not entail that Fred's action is morally impermissible. (It does
not entail that it is morally permissible, either, since it might be impermissible for some other
reason.) But if, for whatever strange reason, it were the case that the death of the innocent
civilians causes the increased security among Fred's fellow citizens, then the Doctrine of Double
Effect would entail that Fred's action is morally impermissible, because in this case the good
consequence would be caused by the bad consequence.
Proportionate Reasons. The hindering of some natural inclination is proportionate when the
action that causes the hindrance satisfies each of three conditions:
- the action also helps someone's natural inclination;
- any other available way of helping that natural inclination at the time tends to
involve at least as much hindrance to people's natural inclinations; and
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- the action does not tend to undermine the benefit a person receives from the
helping of their benefited inclination.
Consider, for example, emergency blood donation. Giving blood for an emergency helps to
preserve the life of the person who needs the blood transfusion. However, it hinders (if only
minimally) the blood donor's ability to survive by temporarily weakening their immune system,
lowering their platelet count, decreasing their oxygen-carrying capacity, and so on. This
hindering of the donor's inclination to life is proportionate, however, because: it helps the blood
recipient's inclination for life; any other way of helping the blood recipient involves at least as
much hindrance to someone's natural inclinations (if someone else donates, their inclination to
live is hindered in the same way); and the donor's giving blood does not tend to interfere with
the recipient's life in the future.
Not all hindering of a natural inclination are proportionate, however. Consider smoking. This
helps some people's inclination to be sociable, by allowing them to relax, de-stress, and thereby
be more pleasant to be around. In the long run, smoking hinders one's inclination to live, in
virtue of increasing one's risk of lung disease and premature death. This hindrance is not
proportionate, because there are other ways to relax and de-stress, such as recreation,
meditation, and gum chewing) that do not involve sacrificing one's long-term health. Moreover,
even if these other alternatives are not available to a smoker in a certain situation (such as, say,
a war), the hindrance to the smoker's health is not proportionate because smoking tends to
undermine one's ability to relax and de-stress by ultimately causing significant damage to one's
health.
In light of the preceding discussion of intentions, causes, and proportionality, the Doctrine of
Double Effect can be restated in the following way:
If an action helps some natural inclinations (the benefited inclinations) but hinders other
natural inclinations (the impeded inclinations), then
(a) the action is morally permissible if the person doing the action merely
foresees that the action to hinder the impeded inclinations, and helping
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the benefited inclinations is a side effect of hindering the impeded

inclinations, and the action neither undermines the benefited
inclinations nor causes more harm than necessary to help those
inclinations;
(b) otherwise the action is morally impermissible.
It is important to notice that an action must satisfy three separate conditions in order to be
morally permissible: the condition about the intention behind the action, the condition about
the causal relation between the benefited inclinations and the impeded ones, and the condition
about proportionality. If an action fails to satisfy one or more of these conditions, it is morally
impermissible. But satisfying one of these conditions is not enough for the action to be morally
permissible: the action must satisfy all three.
6.4 Application
Using Natural Law Theory to determine whether an action is right or wrong involves following a
four-step process.
Step 1: Determine the natural inclinations of the person performing the action and the
people affected by the action.
Step 2: Determine whether the action helps any of those inclinations.
Step 3: Determine whether the action hinders any of those inclinations.
Step 4: If the action helps at least one of those inclinations and does not hinder any,
conclude that the action is right; if the action hinders at least one of those inclinations
and does not help any, conclude that the action is wrong.
Natural Law Theory itself does not provide any information about which inclinations are natural.
(That is, the theory does not provide any guidance on how to complete Step 1 for the
application of the theory.) But according to tradition, every person has natural inclinations to
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preserve life, to procreate, to obtain and use knowledge, and to be social. Natural Law Theory
also does not provide any information about whether, and when, various actions help or hinder
these inclinations: this is a matter for empirical research, and common sense often serves as a
reliable guide.
Moreover, many actions help some natural inclinations but hinder others. Natural Law Theory
itself does not say whether such actions are right or wrong. This is why natural law theorists
often supplement their theory with the Principle of Forfeiture and the Doctrine of Double Effect.
So supplemented, there are potentially two further steps to follow in determining the moral
status of an action.
Step 5: If the action helps some natural inclinations but hinders others, and if this
conflict is the result of one person purposefully threatening the life of someone else,
then use the Principle of Forfeiture to determine whether the action is permissible or
impermissible.
Step 6: If the action helps some natural inclinations but hinders others, and if this
conflict is not the result of one person purposefully threatening the life of someone else,
then use the Doctrine of Double Effect to determine whether the action is permissible or
impermissible.
It is important to note that if one uses either the Principle of Forfeiture or the Doctrine of
Double Effect in order to determine the moral status of an action, one can conclude only that
the action is permissible or impermissible: one cannot conclude that the action is right or wrong.
These further principles do not concern what makes actions right or wrong; they concern only
what makes actions permissible or impermissible.
For the sake of illustration, suppose that every human has natural inclinations to preserve life,
to procreate, to obtain knowledge, and to be social. Supplement Natural Law Theory with the
Principle of Forfeiture and the Doctrine of Double Effect. Consider a situation in which a
pregnant woman is diagnosed with a fast-growing cancerous tumor during the second month of
her pregnancy, and in which the only treatment available that can cure the cancer is a
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chemotherapy that is likely to cause the fetus to die. Suppose that if the mother does not take
the chemotherapy, she is extremely likely to die within, say, two months. Suppose that if the
mother dies within two months, the fetus also will die in virtue of not being viable outside of the
womb. Suppose that the woman takes the chemotherapy, but that she does not take it as a way
to have an abortion, that she would readily and gladly accept some other treatment if it were
available (which it is not), and that her chemotherapy does not prevent her from being able to
have other children in the future.
The woman's action seems to help her inclination to preserve her life as well as her husband's
and family's inclinations to maintain bonds of affection with the woman. The woman's action
also seems to hinder the fetus' inclination to preserve its life and the parents' inclination to care
for their children. Since the woman's taking the chemotherapy helps some natural inclinations
but hinders others, Natural Law Theory itself does not yield a verdict about the moral status of
the woman's action. The Principle of Forfeiture does not apply, because the mother's situation
is not the result of the fetus' purposefully threatening her life: the fetus did not purposefully
cause the mother to develop a cancerous tumor. So the Doctrine of Double Effect is the
relevant principle to use in determining the moral status of the woman's action.
Intention: Although the woman foresees that her child will die if she takes the chemotherapy,
she does not intend for this to happen: she would gladly not take the chemotherapy if there
were a treatment available that is not likely to kill her baby.
Cause: The fetus' death is not a cause of the woman's recovery from the cancer (if she recovers).
For if, by some miracle, the fetus were to survive the chemotherapy treatment, the woman is
just as likely to recover from the cancer as she is if the chemotherapy kills the fetus. So the
fetus' death is a side effect of the woman's recovery from the cancer. (Incidentally, if the fetus'
dying were required in order to preserve the woman's life, then the woman's action would be
impermissible, since the fetus' death would be a cause of the woman's recovery.)
Proportionality: The death of the fetus is proportionate. The cause of this death, the
chemotherapy, helps the woman to preserve her life (as well as her husband's and family's
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inclinations to maintain bonds of affection with her). There is no way at the time to obtain
these benefits without causing the fetus to die, because chemotherapy is the woman's only
available option. And undergoing chemotherapy does not tend to ultimately undermine the
woman's ability to survive and maintain relationships with her family. The hindrance to the
parents' inclination to care for their children is also proportionate. As noted, the cause of this
hindrance helps other natural inclinations, and there is no better way at the time to obtain
these benefits without causing grief to the parents. Finally, undergoing chemotherapy does not
tend to ultimate undermine the parents' ability to procreate, because the chemotherapy does
not prevent the woman from being able to have other children in the future, and it does not at
all tend to affect the ability of either the woman or her husband to care for any future children.
For one more illustration of how to apply Natural Law Theory, suppose again that every human
has natural inclinations to preserve life, to procreate, to obtain knowledge, and to be social.
Supplement Natural Law Theory with the Principle of Forfeiture and the Doctrine of Double
Effect. Consider a situation in which a grass-roots political movement perceives the policies of
another country as oppressive and detrimental to their own country's well-being. Suppose that
the members of this movement decide to strategically bomb various cities--populated mainly by
civilians--in this other country, in order to force that country's government to change its policies.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the bombers' actions help the social inclinations of their
fellow citizens, in virtue of promoting resistance to oppression and national unity against a
common enemy. The bombers' actions also hinder the inclination to preserve life had by the
citizens who die in the explosions; and the actions hinder the social inclinations of others in the
bombed country, in virtue of decreasing their general feeling of security. Since the bombers'
actions help some natural inclinations but hinder others, Natural Law Theory itself does not
yield a verdict about the moral status of the bombings. The Principle of Forfeiture does not
apply, since the civilians in the bombed country are not purposefully threatening the lives of
those in the bombers' country. So the Doctrine of Double Effect is the relevant principle to use
in determining the moral status of the bombers' actions.
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Intention: The bombers foresee that their actions will cause the deaths of innocent civilians. But
it is not clear whether the bombers intend to cause these deaths, or intend only to cause
increased security among their fellow citizens. If they intend to cause the deaths, then their
actions are impermissible. If they intend only to cause increased security among their fellow
citizens, then whether their actions are permissible depends upon whether their actions satisfy
the other conditions in the Doctrine of Double Effect. (Incidentally, natural law theorists tend to
condemn terrorism as immoral for the reason that terrorists usually perform their actions with
the intention of hindering the natural inclinations of the people they terrorize.)
Cause: The good consequences of the bombers' actions include the increased sociability of the
bombers' fellow citizens. The bad consequences include the death of innocent civilians and the
decreased sociability of those in the bombed country. These bad consequences seem to be a
cause of the good consequences. For harm coming to those in the bombed country seems to be
necessary to benefits coming to those in the bombers' country: if the bombs exploded and
caused no damage, it seems that the bombings would not enhance the security and unity of
those in the bombers' country. If this is correct, the bombers' actions are impermissible.
Proportionality: Since the bombers' actions fail to satisfy the second condition of the Doctrine of
Double Effect, it does not matter whether there is a proportionate reason for their actions.
Those actions are impermissible. (The bombers' intentions also do not matter, for the same
reason.)
Further Reading
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Reading Excerpt from Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica
This excerpt comes from Aquinas' Treatise on Law, which forms a small portion of the much
larger Summa Theologica (Summary of Theology) (1265-1274). (The larger work is a sustained
and systematic attempt to reconcile Christian theology with Aristotelian philosophy, structured
as a series of answers to theological questions.) In this excerpt from Question 94, Aquinas
presents one of the earliest versions of Natural Law Theory, a version that remains influential
among Catholic and other Christian ethicists to this day. In Article 2, Aquinas makes the
connection between morality and natural inclinations, and he provides the canonical list of four
kinds of natural inclinations. In Article 4, Aquinas argues that there is a sense in which right and
wrong are the same for everyone, but also a sense in which right and wrong can vary from
person-to-person.
Article 2: Practical reason is any reasoning concerned with human actions; in this context, it is
any reasoning concerned with how we ought to act in a moral sense. Aquinas' basic idea is that
all practical reasoning conforms to the fundamental rule: Do what is good, and do not do what is
evil. His plan is to show how Natural Law Theory can turn this rather vague rule into more useful
guidance for how we ought to act.
He does this by assuming that we are naturally inclined to do what is good and to not do what is
evil. (This assumption follows from some of his prior theological conclusions, according to which
God created each human with such inclinations.) This assumption is the fundamental idea of
Natural Law Theory, because it treats our natural inclinations as guides to what is right (or good)
and wrong (or evil). And if the assumption is true, it follows that the fundamental rule of
practical reason is: Do what helps natural inclinations, and do not do what hinders natural
inclinations. This, in effect, substitutes the question "What helps our natural inclinations?" for
the question "What is good?" And this allows Aquinas to give some substantial guidance to
practical reasoning. (He does this by listing four kinds of natural inclinations, namely, the
inclinations to preserve life, to procreate, to attain knowledge, and to be social. His justification
for this list involves his observations of how animals behave and how humans behave when they
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use their God-given capacity that makes them unique, namely, rationality: in this Aquinas is very
much acting like an empirical scientist.)
Article 4: There are three main results from Article 2: (1) We ought to do what is good. (2) To do
what is good is to do what helps our natural inclinations. (3) We have four kinds of natural
inclinations: life, procreation, knowledge, sociability. To complete the answer to the question
"How should one act?", then, Aquinas needs to provide information about which actions help
these natural inclinations (and which hinder them). He does not exactly do this in Article 4. (In
any case, since it is an empirical question, he has already done the hard part of making the rule
"Do what is good" into something usable.) Instead, Aquinas makes an astute observation:
whether an action helps or hinders a natural inclination often depends upon the circumstances
in which the action occurs. He hints at a very suggestive analogy: whether water helps a plant
to grow often depends upon other circumstances, such as whether the plant receives enough
sunlight or gets eaten by rabbits or grows in soil that contains the proper nutrients.
The moral he draws from this is that although general moral truths are easy to know (such as
the truth that one ought to preserve life), it is often difficult to know of particular actions
whether they are right or wrong (because it is hard to know whether they help or hinder natural
inclinations). His idea is this: there is very little uncertainty about moral rules that do not
mention particular actions, because those rules say, in effect, to do what helps natural
inclinations and avoid doing what hinders natural inclinations. This is the sense in which
morality (rightness and wrongness) is the same for all people.
But, at the same time, there can be variation in whether a particular kind of action is right or
wrong, because there can be variation in whether that kind of action helps or hinders natural
inclinations. (For example, usually keeping a promise helps natural inclinations; but there are
some situations in which keeping a promise would hinder natural inclinations--such as when you
promise to return your friend's gun to him when he asks for it and he asks for it when enraged
and clearly intending to use the gun to kill many other people.) This is the sense in which
morality can be different for different people: keeping a promise might be right for one person
but wrong for another person, because of the different circumstances in which they find
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themselves. And this is why there is uncertainty about the rightness or wrongness of particular
actions: it is hard to know all of the circumstances in which an action would help or hinder our
natural inclinations.
==============================================================================
Question 94: Of the Natural Law
Article 2: Whether Natural Law Contains Many Precepts or Only One
... Every agent acts for an end [i.e., a goal], which is understood as a good. Accordingly, the first
principle of practical reason [i.e., of morality] is the one based on the concept of the good: Good
is what everything desires. This, accordingly, is the first principle of [natural] law: Good is to be
done and evil avoided. All the other precepts of natural law are based on this....
Good has the nature of an end while evil has a contrary nature. Accordingly, every thing for
which a man has a natural inclination is naturally apprehended as good and consequently
something to be pursued, while anything contrary to this is to be avoided as evil. Therefore the
ordering of the precepts of natural law stems from the order of natural inclinations. In the first
place, there is the inclination of man toward natural good, an inclination shared by all
substances inasmuch as they naturally desire self-preservation. The consequence of this is that
whatever preserves human life and avoids obstacles is a matter of natural law. Secondly, there
is in man a more specialized inclination following the natural bent he shares with other animals.
Accordingly these things are said to pertain to natural law that "nature has taught to all
animals," such as the mating of male and female, education of children, and similar things.
Thirdly, there is in man an inclination toward good based on reason, something proper only to
man. [According to Aquinas, rationality is unique to humans.] Thus man has a natural
inclination to know the truth about God, and that he should live in society. On this ground,
those things that stem from this inclination are also a matter of natural law. Thus, man should
overcome ignorance and should not offend fellow members of society, and similar
considerations.
Article 4: Whether There is One Natural Law for All
As was said previously, those things toward which man is naturally inclined pertain to natural
law. Among such things it is distinctively human for a man to act in accord with reason. Reason
inclines us to proceed from the common to the particular.... In this regard there is a difference
between speculative and practical reason. Speculative reason is concerned in the first instance
with things that are necessary, or could not be otherwise. Thus truth is easily found in proper
conclusions just as in common principles. But practical reason is concerned with contingent
matters involving human activity. Therefore, if there is some necessity in common principles,
there is increasing error the further we descend to particular conclusions. In speculative reason,
there is the same degree of truth in principles and conclusions, although the truth of the
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conclusion may not be as well known to many as the principles are, for they are common
conceptions. In activities, however, there is not the same degree of truth or practical rectitude
among all people concerning conclusions, but only concerning principles. ... With regard to the
proper conclusions of practical reason, all do not share the same truth or rectitude. Even those
that do share equal truth are not equally known. For everyone, it is right and true to act in
accord with reason. From this principle follows a quasi-proper conclusion, that debts should be
paid. This is true as a general rule. However, it may happen to be harmful in a particular case,
and consequently unreasonable to give goods back, if for example someone is intending to
attack the homeland. Thus, uncertainty increases the more we descend to particulars. Thus if it
is claimed that goods are to be restored with certain precautions, or under certain conditions,
then the more detailed the conditions are, the more uncertainty increases, even to the degree
that it is not clear whether or not they [i.e., the goods] should be restored.
Accordingly, we claim that first principles of natural law are the same for all ... in rectitude and
knowledge. However, the quasi conclusions from these principles are for the most part the
same for all both in rectitude and knowledge, though in a few cases there can be a deficit with
respect to rectitude because of some particular impediments (just as things naturally generated
and corrupted [e.g., plants] are deficient in a few cases because of obstacles [e.g., not enough
water to grow] and there can also be a deficit of knowledge. The reason for this is that some
people have their reason perverted by passion, which may be due to bad customs or to a
defective natural disposition....
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Chapter 7: Theoretical Pluralism

7.1 Incomplete Theories
For a time, Newtonian mechanics was the best, most magnificently successful theory in the
history of science. It unified a remarkable range of phenomena under a few laws of nature, and
it led to the successful prediction of new entities such as the planet Uranus. Indeed, Lord
William Thomson Kelvin, in 1900, declared to Britain's Royal Institute that, after scientists
applied Newtonian mechanics to a few anomalous phenomena, the entire world would be
understood: "There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more
and more precise measurement."
Kelvin, as we now know, was wrong. Newtonian mechanics fails to correctly predict those
anomalous phenomena. In fact, the theory's predictions turn out to be just plain wrong. But
scientists do not take this to warrant the wholesale abandonment of Newtonian mechanics.
Instead, they take the theory's failures to indicate that the theory has only a limited range of
application. So, rather than taking Newtonian mechanics to be a theory that applies to all of
nature, scientists infer that Newtonian mechanics applies only to slow-moving, medium-sized
objects. Outside of these ranges, the theory is unreliable; but within these ranges, the theory's
predictions are effectively as successful as our current best theories. (This justifies continuing to
teach Newtonian mechanics in introductory physics courses.)
A similar situation obtains as regards ethical theories. Natural Law Theory, Utilitarianism,
Deontology, and Virtue Ethics each have a limited range of application. The evidence for this is
that, for each theory, there are certain kinds of cases in which the theory yields an incorrect
judgment about the moral status of actions. But it would be precipitate to infer from this that
each ethical theory is false. For scientific practice provides precedent for a more modest
conclusion, namely, that each theory has a range within which it is reliable and outside of which
it is unreliable.
Deontology does not apply when the moral status of non-humans such as animals or
ecosystems is important. For instance, according to Deontology, there is nothing morally
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untoward with slaughtering massive amounts of animals in excruciatingly painful ways in order
to obtain fur coats, insofar as doing so does not involve failing to respect any person's dignity.
Intuitively, however, these kinds of slaughter are morally repugnant, especially when there are
other, equally effective ways to socialize that do not involve killing animals and alternative,
relatively painless ways to kill animals.
Utilitarianism does not apply to cases in which considerations of fairness are important. For
instance, if sacrificing an innocent bystander for the sake of restoring law and order has more
overall expected utility than enduring temporary disorder for the sake of finding the guilty party,
Utilitarianism entails that sacrificing the innocent bystander is worthy of respect. Intuitively,
however, sacrificing the innocent bystander is morally repugnant in virtue of being unfair.
Neither Utilitarianism nor Deontology apply when our obligations to our special interests are
important. For instance, if a stranger and your father are trapped in a burning and you can save
only one person, then if saving the stranger and saving your father produce the same amount of
overall expected utility, Utilitarianism entails that it does not matter which person you save.
Similarly, Deontology entails that it would be morally wrong to save your father rather than the
stranger, because doing so would involve valuing your father as worth more than the stranger
and thereby fail to respect the stranger's dignity. Intuitively, however, when there is such a tie,
the morally respectable decision is to save your father rather than the stranger—saving the
stranger rather than your father would be morally repugnant, indicating a lack of filial piety.
Virtue Ethics does not apply when virtues interfere with being able to make exceptions in
extreme circumstances. Consider this example:
Adolph is in a sealed room where he is preparing to set off a device that will kill millions
of people on the other side of the world. The room is in a building in which hundreds of
innocent people live and work. The only way to stop Adolph is to blow up the building,
killing the innocent people in addition to the guilty Adolph. In this case, we should hope
that the secret agent who has been sent to stop Adolph is not a virtuous person, but
rather someone who is callous enough to kill hundreds of innocent people in order to
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kill the one person who is a guilty threat. A virtuous person would not do such a thing,
even in extreme circumstances. (Dale Jamieson, Ethics and the Environment: An
Introduction (Cambridge University Press: 2008): 88)
Virtue Ethics also seems to not apply in certain political situations. Suppose, for example, that
you are asked to choose the next leader of a small country, that this is a coveted position, and
that you can choose either your wise aunt or a wise stranger. Suppose also that each candidate
is equally qualified, that you know this, and indeed that the only relevant difference between
the candidates is that one is related to you and the other is not. In such a case, it seems that the
perfectly virtuous person would choose the wise aunt rather than the stranger, because the only
virtue that merits giving different treatment to the candidates is loyalty to one's family.
Intuitively, however, a candidate's relation to you is irrelevant to whether she should be chosen
as the country's next leader.
That the various ethical theories have only limited ranges of application should not be
surprising. Many of the ethical ideas we naturally adopt as a child--listen to your parents, listen
to your religious leaders, follow the Golden Rule, obey your country's laws--turn out to have
limited ranges of application upon further reflection. For example, obeying your parents is
morally right, provided they do not command you to act immorally; and following the Golden
Rule is morally right, provided it does not command you to treat others wrongly. We learn
about the limited scope of these ethical ideas as we grow up, by being exposed to more
complicated situations and more diverse environments. Ethical theories such as Virtue Ethics,
Utilitarianism, and Deontology, of course, are more sophisticated than the ethical ideas we
naturally adopt as children. But, for all that, they are not substantially different in the fact that
they are motivated by values that are not always the most important values.
Consider also that, even after centuries of sustained research and massive quantities of time
and money, we currently have no theory in the natural sciences that applies to every natural
phenomenon. Moreover, natural phenomena, unlike ethical phenomena, are more likely to be
amenable to quantitative measurement. We have field-tested experimental techniques for
understanding natural phenomena but not ethical phenomena. Ethical phenomena are
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exceedingly more complex than natural phenomena. Finally, the amount of resources we
devote to the stud of natural science far exceeds the amount we devote to the study of
morality. When understanding the natural world shows itself to require such extensive effort,
and when we devote far less effort to understanding morality, we should expect that ethical
science is extremely primitive as compared to, say, chemistry or physics.
7.2 Moral Psychology2
The difficulty of ethics as a subject matter, and the comparatively little effort we, as a society,
devote to the study of ethics, explains why there are a plurality of ethical theories, none of
which correctly captures all the facts of the moral universe. But there is a deeper, less
pragmatic explanation of this situation, which suggests that we might be unable to develop a
universally applicable ethical theory. For recent scientific research seems to show that our
moral judgments depend upon competing psychological propensities.
Consider, for example, data obtained from manipulations of the Trolley Case. In the basic
Trolley Case, a runaway trolley is heading toward five people who happen to be trapped on the
trolley tracks. There is no way to move the people from the tracks. The five people are sure to
die if you do not intervene, somehow, to save them. There is no information give about the
identities of these people: they might be relatives, but they equally well might be strangers.
In the Switch Version of the Trolley Case, you have the opportunity to redirect the trolley onto a
different track, on which only one person is stranded. No information is given about this
person's identity. If you redirect the trolley, this other person is certain to die; if you don't, five
others will die. Studies show that most people (about 90%) consider redirecting the trolley to
be morally permissible.
In the Bridge Version of the Trolley Case, you have the opportunity to push an innocent
bystander onto the trolley tracks from a bridge that passes over the tracks, thereby halting the
trolley and saving the other five people. No information is given about this person's identity. If
2
I am indebted in this section to Fiery Cushman and Liane Young, "The Psychology of Dilemmas and the
Philosophy of Morality."
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you push the bystander onto the tracks, she will die; if you don't, the others will die. Studies
show that most people (70 to 90%) consider pushing the bystander onto the tracks to be morally
impermissible. These results are robust among different cultures and age groups.
Neuropsychological research shows that cases like the Switch Version--cases that involve not
personally causing harm to another--correlate with enhanced brain activity in areas associated
with deliberative, rational reasoning, and this enhanced activity makes people more likely to
favor choices that maximize overall benefit. The same research shows, in contrast, that cases
like the Bridge Case--cases that involve personally causing harm to another--correlate with
enhanced activity of brain areas associated with emotion and sociality, and this enhanced
activity makes people more likely to favor choices that do not directly harm individuals.
(Interestingly, patients with damage to brain areas that process social emotions tend to judge
pushing the bystander onto the tracks to be morally permissible--they take a more deliberative
rational approach and favor the choice that should produce the most overall benefit.)
There are two possible conclusions to draw from these experiments. The first is that people are
fundamentally inconsistent in their moral judgments, for no good reason sometimes valuing one
life as worth less than five lives and using a kind of Utilitarian reasoning (Switch Version), and for
no good reason sometimes valuing one life as worth the same as five lives and using a kind of
Deontological reasoning (Bridge Version). This is not a very flattering conclusion to make about
people's moral sensibilities: it construes our moral sensibility as fundamentally irrational. It also
violates the principle that, when possible, one ought to interpret human behaviors in a
charitable manner. This principle dictates that one ought to prefer an explanation of human
behavior that does not attribute to people systematic flaws in reasoning and judgment to an
explanation of that same behavior that does attribute such flaws to people. This first way of
interpreting the results of the trolley experiments turns out to be uncharitable, because there is
a second way to interpret the results, according to which people have good reason for
sometimes valuing one life as worth less than five lives (Switch Version) and sometimes valuing
one life as worth the same as five lives (Bridge Version).
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The alternative conclusion to draw from the trolley experiments involves pluralism about ethical
theories, according to which each ethical theory has only a limited range of application. The
experiments suggest that Utilitarianism tracks the moral judgments we tend to make for cases
that do not involve causing direct harm to individuals but not for those that involve causing
direct harm to individuals, whereas Deontology tracks the moral judgments we tend to make for
cases that do cause direct harm to individuals but not to cases that cause only indirect harm.
For example, the Switch Version involves causing indirect harm to the person on the adjacent
track: the action one performs is pulling the switch on the track, and this causes the person's
death indirectly, through diverting the train toward the person. If Utilitarianism tracks the
moral judgments we tend to make for all and only cases that do not involve causing direct harm
to individuals, we should expect people to tend to prefer to pull the switch. And this is, in fact,
what people tend to prefer. The Bridge Version, however, involves causing direct harm to the
bystander: the action one performs is putting the bystander directly in harm's way. So we
should expect that people do not use Utilitarian reasoning in this case. And, in fact, they do not.
(Similar considerations apply for Deontology.)
If this is the conclusion to draw from the trolley experiments, then it entails that both
Utilitarianism and Deontology have limited ranges of application. For if we suppose that the
evidence in favor of an ethical theory is the extent to which the theory agrees with our moral
judgments, then neither Utilitarianism alone nor Deontology alone can agree with all of our
moral judgments, because each theory fails to track the different ways that our brains make
moral decisions. Moreover, insofar as an ethical theory's range of application correlates with
the range of cases that provide supporting evidence for the theory, the supporting evidence for
Utilitarianism and Deontology, respectively, is limited to certain kinds of cases.
We have, then, a competing explanation of the results of the trolley experiment: people tend to
use Utilitarian reasoning in the Switch Case because that case involves causing only indirect
harm to a person, and people tend to use Deontological reasoning in the Bridge Case because
that case involves causing direct harm to a person. People's apparently inconsistent ways of
thinking about the two cases is, accordingly, not actually inconsistent. And the judgments
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people tend to make about the cases are not fundamentally irrational, because the theories that
drive the reasoning in the two cases have only limited domains of application.
This raises an interesting question: what about Virtue Ethics? There are, to the best of my
knowledge, no systematic studies of a variant on the basic trolley experiment showing that
people tend to reason in accordance with Virtue Ethics when making moral judgments.
<further discussion forthcoming: this is a work in progress>
7.3 Cooperation, not Confrontation
Cases in which an ethical theory gives an incorrect assessment of an action's moral status show,
not that the theory is false, but rather that the theory has a limited range of application. There
are such cases for each ethical theory--Utilitarianism, Deontology, and Virtue Ethics.
Psychological research suggests that it is possible to construe these ranges of application as
nonoverlapping: Utilitarianism applies for cases that do not involve direct physical harm to
individuals; Deontology, for cases that do; Virtue Ethics, to cases that involve our special
interests. The possibility of construing the theories in this way, each restricted in scope to its
own magisterium, indicates that, despite their different accounts of what makes actions right or
wrong, the theories do not necessarily conflict with each other. That each theory takes different
facts to determine the moral status of actions can indicate, not that some theory is incorrect
about which facts determine the moral status of actions, but that whether a certain fact
determines such status depends upon the kind of action. If, for example, the action involves
direct physical harm to individuals, perhaps facts about people's dignity determine the action's
morality. If, however, the action does not involve such harm, perhaps facts about overall
expected utility determine the action's morality.
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Reading Excerpt: Joshua Greene, "From Neural 'Is' to Moral 'Ought'
In this excerpt of "From Neural 'Is' to Moral 'Ought': What Are the Moral Implications of
Neuroscientific Moral Psychology?" (Nature Reviews Neuroscience 4 (2003), 847-850), Joshua D.
Greene summarizes some of his recent work on the neural basis of our judgments about moral
rightness and moral wrongness, and proposes an evolutionary explanation for why those
judgments seem to invoke different moral principles in different circumstances.
==============================================================================
Neuroscience and normative ethics
There is a growing consensus that moral judgements are based largely on intuition — ‘gut
feelings’ about what is right or wrong in particular cases. Sometimes these intuitions conflict,
both within and between individuals. Are all moral intuitions equally worthy of our allegiance,
or are some more reliable than others? Our answers to this question will probably be affected
by an improved understanding of where our intuitions come from, both in terms of their
proximate psychological/neural bases and their evolutionary histories.
Consider the following moral dilemma …. You are driving along a country road when you hear a
plea for help coming from some roadside bushes. You pull over and encounter a man whose
legs are covered with blood. The man explains that he has had an accident while hiking and asks
you to take him to a nearby hospital. Your initial inclination is to help this man, who will
probably lose his leg if he does not get to the hospital soon. However, if you give this man a lift,
his blood will ruin the leather upholstery of your car. Is it appropriate for you to leave this man
by the side of the road in order to preserve your leather upholstery …?
Most people say that it would be seriously wrong to abandon this man out of concern for one’s
car seats. Now consider a different case …, which nearly all of us have faced. You are at home
one day when the mail arrives. You receive a letter from a reputable international aid
organization. The letter asks you to make a donation of two hundred dollars to their
organization. The letter explains that a two-hundred-dollar donation will allow this organization
to provide needed medical attention to some poor people in another part of the world. Is it
appropriate for you to not make a donation to this organization in order to save money…?
Most people say that it would not be wrong to refrain from making a donation in this case. And
yet this case and the previous one are similar. In both cases, one has the option to give
someone much needed medical attention at a relatively modest financial cost. And yet, the
person who fails to help in the first case is a moral monster, whereas the person who fails to
help in the second case is morally unexceptional. Why is there this difference?
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About thirty years ago, the utilitarian philosopher Singer argued that there is no real moral
difference between cases such as these two, and that we in the affluent world ought to be
giving far more than we do to help the world’s most unfortunate people. (Singer currently gives
about 20% of his annual income to charity.) Many people, when confronted with this issue,
assume or insist that there must be ‘some good reason’ for why it is alright to ignore the severe
needs of unfortunate people in far off countries, but deeply wrong to ignore the needs of
someone like the unfortunate hiker in the first story. (Indeed, you might be coming up with
reasons of your own right now.)
Maybe there is ‘some good reason’ for why it is okay to spend money on sushi and power
windows while millions who could be saved die of hunger and treatable illnesses. But maybe
this pair of moral intuitions has nothing to do with ‘some good reason’ and everything to do
with the way our brains happen to be built.
To explore this and related issues, my colleagues and I conducted a brain imaging study in which
participants responded to the above moral dilemmas as well as many others. The dilemma with
the bleeding hiker is a ‘personal’ moral dilemma, in which the moral violation in question occurs
in an ‘up-close-and-personal’ manner. The donation dilemma is an ‘impersonal’ moral dilemma,
in which the moral violation in question does not have this feature. To make a long story short,
we found that judgements in response to ‘personal’ moral dilemmas, compared with
‘impersonal’ ones, involved greater activity in brain areas that are associated with emotion and
social cognition. Why should this be?
An evolutionary perspective is useful here. Over the last four decades, it has become clear that
natural selection can favour altruistic instincts under the right conditions, and many believe that
this is how human altruism came to be. If that is right, then our altruistic instincts will reflect
the environment in which they evolved rather than our present environment. With this in mind,
consider that our ancestors did not evolve in an environment in which total strangers on
opposite sides of the world could save each others’ lives by making relatively modest material
sacrifices. Consider also that our ancestors did evolve in an environment in which individuals
standing face-to-face could save each others’ lives, sometimes only through considerable
personal sacrifice. Given all of this, it makes sense that we would have evolved altruistic
instincts that direct us to help others in dire need, but mostly when the ones in need are
presented in an ‘up-close-and-personal’ way.
What does this mean for ethics? Again, we are tempted to assume that there must be ‘some
good reason’ why it is monstrous to ignore the needs of someone like the bleeding hiker, but
perfectly acceptable to spend our money on unnecessary luxuries while millions starve and die
of preventable diseases. Maybe there is ‘some good reason’ for this pair of attitudes, but the
evolutionary account given above suggests otherwise: we ignore the plight of the world’s
poorest people not because we implicitly appreciate the nuanced structure of moral obligation,
but because, the way our brains are wired up, needy people who are ‘up close and personal’
push our emotional buttons, whereas those who are out of sight languish out of mind.
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This is just a hypothesis. I do not wish to pretend that this case is closed or, more generally, that
science has all the moral answers. Nor do I believe that normative ethics is on its way to
becoming a branch of the natural sciences, with the ‘is’ of science and the ‘ought’ of morality
gradually melding together. Instead, I think that we can respect the distinction between how
things are and how things ought to be while acknowledging, as the preceding discussion
illustrates, that scientific facts have the potential to influence our moral thinking in a deep way.
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Epilogue
After completing a course that is required for one's major, a common experience is to feel as
though the past fifteen weeks of one's life have been sacrificed for no reason other than the
requirement that one satisfy requirements for graduation. After completing the study of a
textbook from a discipline that one does not intend to pursue further, a common experience is
to feel confusion about what to take from one's study other than a familiarity with some
esoteric body of knowledge.
When I was a student, I disliked these experiences. I wanted to know what relevance the
material I had been studying would have for my everyday life. I wanted to know what life lesson
I ought to take away from my studies as the fruit of my labors.
Often I was left at a loss.
To conclude this book, then, I offer some brief suggestions about how you can use the material
in this textbook as a foundation for intellectual—and perhaps personal—growth. I intend this
epilogue to answer the question, "Why was studying the theories in this textbook not a waste of
my time, in the grand scheme of things?"
Polarization
I begin with an observation about how we treat moral issues in our everyday lives: we tend to
polarize them. Regarding gun control, abortion, the legalization of drugs, assisted suicide, stem
cell research, global warming, and so on, we tend to be either for or against the issue. We do
not entertain middle ground. For example, during one of the Democratic Presidential Debates
for the 2008 election, the moderator for CNN asked Governor Richardson of New Mexico to
explain his stance on giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. Gov. Richardson answered
that he favored the idea in some circumstances (if the immigrants registered properly with the
state) but opposed it in others (if they did not properly register with the state). The moderator
proceeded to chastise the Governor for his answer, accusing the Governor of waffling and
dodging the issue. The moderator wanted to know: was the Governor for giving licenses to
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illegal immigrant or against doing so? When the Governor responded, again attempting to give
a nuanced position, the moderator accused him of being political and trying to please everyone.
The moderator could not understand that the issue of whether to give driver's licenses to illegal
immigrants is not a black-and-white issue. To the moderator, a person is either for it or against
it, full-stop.
I am not sure why we tend to polarize moral issues in this way. So far as I know, there are no
psychological studies of this phenomenon. But here are two conjectures that might explain our
tendency. (I first learned these conjectures from Anthony Weston. I forget the reference; it
might have been his A 21st Century Ethical Toolbox.) First, polarizing moral issues makes for
good headlines: when the only two positions are for or against, there is a sharp and dramatic
divide that the media can capture in short stories and that people can repeat to their
acquaintances over short conversations at the water cooler or the check-out line. Polarizing
moral issues saves us from thinking too hard about the issues and helps us to be social by
simplifying the information we need to know in order to communicate with others about the
issues.
Second, polarizing moral issues protects us from self-doubt. If we see ourselves as taking, say,
the for stance, then it is easy to criticize those who take the against stance, since that stance
ignores many truths. For instance, if we are pro-life with regard to abortion, and if we polarize
the issue so that the only other position is anti-life (masquerading under the name "pro-
choice"), it is easy to criticize those who disagree with us for holding the ridiculous position that
unborn fetuses have no value at all. (Of course, this is not what pro-choice advocates believe.
But it is what pro-life advocates attribute to them after making the issue of the fetus' value an
all-or-nothing affair.) When it is easy to show that anyone who disagrees with us holds absurd
beliefs, we can feel totally and completely correct about our own moral stance, convinced
beyond all doubt that any opposition is based upon stupidity or moral corruption (or both).
Connection
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Treating moral issues as if they are polarized, then, has two beneficial consequences: it makes
for good headlines and conversation, and it helps us to feel secure and confident in our moral
beliefs. The only downside to our inclination to polarize moral issues is that it fails to get the
facts right about what's happening with the moral disagreements in our society.
The fact is this: when we disagree with someone from our culture about some moral issue, we
tend to share many of our values with that person. Not just a few values: many. For example,
pro-life and pro-choice advocates disagree about whether non-medically-necessary abortions
are morally permissible. But they agree about many of their values: both value creating,
preserving, and honoring human life; both value a woman's ability to control her body and act in
a free, self-determining manner. What both sides disagree about is how to prioritize all of these
values. Pro-life advocates value fetal life more than adult self-determination; pro-choice
advocates value adult self-determination more than fetal life.
If the preceding claims seems dubious to you, consider the following historical fact: In 1996,
welfare laws were up for revision. There was a proposal to deny welfare assistance to children
of mothers who are under 18 years of age or on welfare or who cannot identify their child's
father. The motivation for this proposal was to discourage teenage pregnancy. Surprisingly,
both pro-choice and pro-life advocates objected to the proposal. Both sides feared that the
proposal, if enacted, would result in more abortions among poor young women. Both sides
valued fetal life more than penalizing teenagers for being pregnant. Note well: both sides
valued fetal life. So it is simply a mistake to conceptualize pro-choice advocates as unresponsive
to the value of fetal life.
Consider this also: many pro-life advocates hold—or are at least sympathetic to—the position
that abortion in the case of rape is permissible. This makes no sense, of course, if the abortion
debate is polarized: if one is for fetal life, and if the only other possible position is always being
against fetal life, then allowing abortion in the case of rape means that one must be against
fetal life, and so allowing abortion in the case of rape is not an option for a pro-life advocate. If,
however, one if for fetal life and the abortion debate is not polarized, then thinking that
abortion is permissible in the case of rape is perfectly consistent with being pro-life: the
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nuanced position is that fetal life is more important than adult self-determination in non-rape
cases, but less important in cases of rape. This nuanced position is pro-life and pro-choice. It is
indefensible and seems to be political waffling if one treats the abortion debate as polarized; if,
however, one does not treat the debate as polarized, the position is at least defensible.
I intend this extended example about the abortion debate to do two things: first, to illustrate
the fact that moral debates in our society usually are not polarized and instead rest upon a
foundation of common ground; and second, to show an important corollary to this fact, namely,
that those who adopt moral stances that disagree with ours tend to be right about something.
For example, if you are pro-choice, admitting that the abortion debate is not polarized allows
you to discover that pro-life advocates are right about fetal life having value: where they are
mistaken (so says the pro-choice advocate) is in the amount of value they give fetal life.
Similarly, if you are pro-life, admitting that the abortion debate is not polarized allows you to
discover that pro-choice advocates are right about adult self-determination having value: where
they are mistaken (so says the pro-life advocate) is in the amount of value they give adult self-
determination.
This corollary—that opposing sides to the moral debates in our society each tend to be right
about something—returns us to our initial question: "Why was studying the theories in this
textbook not a waste of my time, in the grand scheme of things?" The short answer is this: The
theories help to reveal what each side in a moral debate is right about. Each theory, after all, is
based upon a kernel of truth. Granted, each theory exaggerates this kernel of truth. (This was
one of the themes of the previous chapter.) But, for purposes of understanding the source of
moral disagreement in our society, each theory highlights a particular moral insight and thereby
sensitizes us to how that insight might function in our everyday moral lives. For instance,
Deontology highlights that there is something distinctive about the moral worth of humans as
opposed to nonhumans. Utilitarianism highlights that there are situations in which the moral
worth of a human life can be over-ridden by other values. Virtue Ethics highlights that there are
situations in which a person's value depends upon their relationship to others. All of these
elements appear in, say, the abortion debate: we value fetal life more than we value a random
clump of cells; we sometimes value self-determination, or a mother's life, more than fetal life;
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we oppose using abortion as birth control (that is, we oppose valuing mere convenience more
than the mother-child bond); and so on. When we view moral disagreements through the lens
of ethical theory, we enhance the visibility of these common values. This helps us to understand
what our opponents are right about, and it helps us to figure out how our ways of ranking
shared values differ from our opponents' ways. Applying the ethical theories from this book to
debated moral issues helps us to focus our attention on the true source of moral disagreement.
Going Ahead
Applying the ethical theories from this book to debated moral issues helps us to focus our
attention on the true source of moral disagreement. But so what? If, say, pro-life and pro-
choice advocates both make valid points, in virtue of both being right about something; and if
we know what it is that each side is right about, what do we do next? How do we go forward?
(Not knowing how to answer these questions is, I suspect, a third cause of our tendency to
polarize moral issues: it's hard to acknowledge that opposing sides are each right about
something, because it is hard to know what to do with that information.)
We can be systematic about how to answer these questions. Broadly speaking, there are two
ways to approach a conflict: be adversarial, or be cooperative. Let's consider the adversarial
approach first.
According to the adversarial approach to conflict resolution, the way to resolve a disagreement
over an issue is to convince everyone that all but one stance on the issue is incorrect. This can
involve arguing, bullying, protesting, spreading propaganda, and so on. For example, according
to this approach, the way to resolve the disagreement over whether abortion is permissible is to
convince everyone that, say, the pro-choice position is mistaken and the pro-life choice is
correct. This approach views moral disagreements like wars: just as a war ends when only one
nation remains standing, a moral debate ends when only one position remains standing.
I do not want to consider the adversarial approach much further, except to say this: there is
every reason to suspect that it never will succeed in the case of moral disagreement. Here's
why: each side is right about something. Try as one side might, it never will convince its
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opposition that they are just wrong, for the simple fact that the opposition is not entirely wrong.
I suspect that this is why the abortion debate (among others) has such endurance.
We're left, then, with the cooperative approach to conflict resolution. This approach views
moral disagreement as a debate among friends rather than a war between enemies. Its basic
idea is that the way to resolve disagreement over an issue is to find a solution that honors what
each side to the debate is right about. The cooperative approach resolves moral disagreements
through comprehensiveness and inclusion rather than force and exclusion.
There are two ways to resolve a conflict cooperatively. The first is to find the cause of the
conflict and remove it. This is the principle that doctors follow: when someone is sick, the best
doctors remove the cause of the patient's ailment—no cause, no sickness. For example, rather
than debating whether fetal life is always more important to adult self-determination (this is
only a symptom), a cooperative resolution to the disagreement over abortion's permissibility
might be to discover what causes the demand for abortion in the first place. If, say, there were
a way to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies or to prevent unintended pregnancies
from being unwanted, then the issue of how much value to assign a fetal life becomes
irrelevant. And surely neither pro-life nor pro-choice advocates would oppose removing the
cause of what makes abortion attractive to some and a last resort to others.
Removing the cause of a moral disagreement is not always possible. Usually this is for practical
reasons, such as limits of imagination or resources. There is, fortunately, a second way to
resolve conflicts in a cooperative way: find the cause of the conflict and redirect efforts from the
conflict to an integrated solution. Here's an example to illustrate this method: Suppose that
your relationship partner wants to go to a movie with you. You decline the offer. Your partner
becomes upset. If the issue is polarized, then it is an issue of whether being for going to the
movies or against it. You and your partner have a disagreement. Rather than arguing with each
other over which stance (for or against) is correct, however, you might try the following: find out
what's causing the disagreement. Suppose it's this: your partner wants to spend time with you;
you don't want to be bored. This explains the disagreement: your partner wants to go to the
movies, because that's a way to spend time with you; you don't want to go, because you find
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movies boring. Luckily, there is a cooperative way to resolve your disagreement: do something
together that you don't find boring. This is an integrated solution: it satisfies what each side in
the disagreement values rather than excluding one side's values in favor of the other's.
Hopefully this has you thinking, "This cooperative approach to conflict resolution sounds good—
or, at least, it sounds more promising than the adversarial approach. How's it work?"
That's a good question.
It's also a topic for a different book.
148

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A PRACTICAL AND COOPERATIVE

INTRODUCTION TO ETHICAL THEORY

The University of Alabama in Huntsville

Do not act as if you were going to live ten

- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book IV

For the Student

If Baier's psychologizing is correct, this book is a corrupter of youth.

In addition to imitating role models (including, sometimes unfortunately, other children),

An interesting--albeit obvious--empirical fact is that children in different cultures learn different

1.2 Ethical Theories

Chapter 2: Divine Commands

Step 1: Determine God's attitude toward the action.

Reading Excerpt from Robert C. Mortimer's Christian Ethics

- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book II, Paragraph 7

Different traditions, distilled from generations of personal experiences and observations,

Faith, which consists in belief in God and revelation,

models--grandfather, mother, great-grandfather, several teachers and friends, brother, and

Step H1: Determine the main alternatives to the action.

Reading Excerpt from Marcus Aurelius' Meditations

Among the Quadi at the Granua.

Interlude 1: Moral Disagreement and Moral Realism

I1.2 Moral Relativism

According to Moral Relativism, sometimes a persistent moral disagreement is not a genuine

Custom is the king of all.

I1.3 Moral Emotivism

According to Moral Emotivism, moral disagreements are disagreements of attitude toward

A similar explanation is available to Moral Realism. But it is more complicated. According to

1 - Tormenting the cat is wrong.

3 - Therefore, getting your little brother to torment the cat is wrong.

4 - Boo for tormenting the cat!

7 - Tormenting the cat is wrong.

I1.4 Explaining Persistent Moral Disagreement

Utilitarianism, following our common-sense model of practical deliberation, takes comparisons

(-5)*1 + (+3)*20 = -5 + 60 = +54.

A second feature of Utilitarianism is that it is cosmopolitan. That is, Utilitarianism treats

Of course, it is possible to modify Utilitarianism so that it is not cosmopolitan. For instance, if

This consequence of Utilitarianism is a result of its being a cosmopolitan theory, according to

Reading Excerpt from Jeremy Bentham's Principles of Morals and Legislation

Chapter I: Of the Principle of Utility

Chapter IV: Value of a Lot of Pleasure or Pain, How to be Measured

3. Its certainty or uncertainty.

4. Its propinquity [nearness in time] or remoteness.

3. Its certainty or uncertainty.

4. Its propinquity [nearness in time] or remoteness.

And one other one; to wit:

1. Of the value of each distinguishable pleasure which appears to be produced by it in

6. Take an account of the number of persons whose interests appear to be concerned;

Chapter V: Pleasures and Pains, Their Kinds

III. The several simple pains seem to be as follows:

3. The pains of awkwardness.

Reading Excerpt from John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism

- denying that the person has any moral worth;

- valuing a person's life as worth less than something else;

Unlike Utilitarianism, Deontology is not a theory according to which rightness or wrongness

An interesting feature of Deontology is its ability to capture a platitude of common sense

A fourth feature of Deontology is that it is cosmopolitan. Like Utilitarianism, Deontology treats

Like Utilitarianism, it is possible to modify Deontology so that it is not cosmopolitan. For

Reading Excerpt from Immanuel Kant's Fundamental Principles

We will now inquire whether this can be practically carried out....

Interlude: Theory Overload

Chapter 6: Natural Laws

Suppose that an inventor-mechanic would construct a new type of machine, e.g., a

(-5)1 + (+3)20 = -5 + 60 = +54.