Ethical Theories: Part II

The Ethics of Aristotle

The Nicomachean Ethics,  Aristotle's most important study of personal morality and the ends of
human life, has for many centuries been a widely-read and influential book. Though written
more than 2,000 years ago, it offers the modern reader many valuable insights into human needs
and conduct. Among its most outstanding features are Aristotle's insistence that there are no
known absolute moral standards and that any ethical theory must be based in part on an
understanding of psychology and firmly grounded in the realities of human nature and daily life.
In addition, the book vividly reflects Aristotle's achievements in other areas of philosophy and is
a good example of his analytical method, which must be considered the ultimate basis of all
modern scientific research.
People have not changed significantly in the many years since Aristotle first lectured on ethics at
the Lyceum in Athens. The human types and problems he discusses are familiar to everyone. The
rules of conduct and explanations of virtue and goodness that he proposes can all help modern
man to attain a fuller and more satisfying understanding of his responsibilities as a member of
society and the purpose of his existence. For this alone Aristotle's book is still worth reading.
 
Main Points of Aristotle's Ethical Philosophy

1. The highest good and the end toward which all human activity is directed is happiness,
which can be defined as continuous contemplation of eternal and universal truth.
2. One attains happiness by a virtuous life and the development of reason and the faculty of
theoretical wisdom. For this one requires sufficient external goods to ensure health, leisure, and
the opportunity for virtuous action.
3. Moral virtue is a relative mean between extremes of excess and deficiency, and in general
the moral life is one of moderation in all things except virtue. No human appetite or desire is bad
if it is controlled by reason according to a moral principle. Moral virtue is acquired by a
combination of knowledge, habituation, and self-discipline.
4. Virtuous acts require conscious choice and moral purpose or motivation. Man has
personal moral responsibility for his actions.
5. Moral virtue cannot be achieved abstractly — it requires moral action in a social
environment. Ethics and politics are closely related, for politics is the science of creating a
society in which men can live the good life and develop their full potential.

Virtue ethics
Virtue ethics looks at virtue or moral character, rather than at ethical duties and rules, or the
consequences of actions - indeed some philosophers of this school deny that there can be such
things as universal ethical rules.
Virtue ethics is particularly concerned with the way individuals live their lives, and less
concerned in assessing particular actions.
 It develops the idea of good actions by looking at the way virtuous people express their inner
goodness in the things that they do.
To put it very simply, virtue ethics teaches that an action is right if and only if it is an action that
a virtuous person would do in the same circumstances, and that a virtuous person is someone
who has a particularly good character.
 
Consequentialism
This is the ethical theory that most non-religious people think they use every day. It bases
morality on the consequences of human actions and not on the actions themselves.
 
Consequentialism teaches that people should do whatever produces the greatest amount of good
consequences.
One famous way of putting this is 'the greatest good for the greatest number of people'.
The most common forms of consequentialism are the various versions of utilitarianism, which
favor actions that produce the greatest amount of happiness.
Despite its obvious common-sense appeal, consequentialism turns out to be a complicated
theory, and doesn't provide a complete solution to all ethical problems.
Two problems with consequentialism are:
 it can lead to the conclusion that some quite dreadful acts are good
 predicting and evaluating the consequences of actions is often very difficult
 
Consequentialist Theories
It is common for us to determine our moral responsibility by weighing the consequences of our
actions. According to consequentialism, correct moral conduct is determined solely by a cost-
benefit analysis of an action's consequences:
Consequentialism:  An action is morally right if the consequences of that action are more
favorable than unfavorable.
Consequentialist normative principles require that we first tally both the good and bad
consequences of an action. Second, we then determine whether the total good consequences
outweigh the total bad consequences. If the good consequences are greater, then the action is
morally proper. If the bad consequences are greater, then the action is morally improper.
Consequentialist theories are sometimes called teleological theories, from the Greek word telos,
or end, since the end result of the action is the sole determining factor of its morality.
Consequentialist theories became popular in the 18th century by philosophers who wanted a
quick way to morally assess an action by appealing to experience, rather than by appealing to gut
intuitions or long lists of questionable duties. In fact, the most attractive feature of
consequentialism is that it appeals to publicly observable consequences of actions. Most versions
 of consequentialism are more precisely formulated than the general principle above. In
particular, competing consequentialist theories specify which consequences for affected groups
of people are relevant. Three subdivisions of consequentialism emerge:
 Ethical Egoism: an action is morally right if the consequences of that action are more
favorable than unfavorable only to the agent performing the action.
  
 Ethical Altruism: an action is morally right if the consequences of that action are more
favorable than unfavorable to everyone except the agent.
  
 Utilitarianism: an action is morally right if the consequences of that action are more
favorable than unfavorable to everyone.
All three of these theories focus on the consequences of actions for different groups of people.
But, like all normative theories, the above three theories are rivals of each other. They also yield
different conclusions. Consider the following example. A woman was traveling through a
developing country when she witnessed a car in front of her run off the road and roll over several
times. She asked the hired driver to pull over to assist, but, to her surprise, the driver accelerated
nervously past the scene. A few miles down the road the driver explained that in his country if
someone assists an accident victim, then the police often hold the assisting person responsible for
the accident itself. If the victim dies, then the assisting person could be held responsible for the
death. The driver continued explaining that road accident victims are therefore usually left
unattended and often die from exposure to the country's harsh desert conditions. On the principle
of ethical egoism, the woman in this illustration would only be concerned with the consequences
of her attempted assistance as she would be affected. Clearly, the decision to drive on would be
the morally proper choice. On the principle of ethical altruism, she would be concerned only
with the consequences of her action as others are affected, particularly the accident victim.
Tallying only those consequences reveals that assisting the victim would be the morally correct
choice, irrespective of the negative consequences that result for her. On the principle of
utilitarianism, she must consider the consequences for both herself and the victim. The outcome
here is less clear, and the woman would need to precisely calculate the overall benefit versus
disbenefit of her action.
 

Types of Utilitarianism
Jeremy Bentham presented one of the earliest fully developed systems of utilitarianism. Two
features of his theory are noteworty. First, Bentham proposed that we tally the consequences of
each action we perform and thereby determine on a case by case basis whether an action is
morally right or wrong. This aspect of Bentham's theory is known as act-utilitiarianism. Second,
Bentham also proposed that we tally the pleasure and pain which results from our actions. For
Bentham, pleasure and pain are the only consequences that matter in determining whether our
conduct is moral. This aspect of Bentham's theory is known as hedonistic utilitarianism. Critics
point out limitations in both of these aspects.
 
First, according to act-utilitarianism, it would be morally wrong to waste time on leisure
activities such as watching television, since our time could be spent in ways that produced a
greater social benefit, such as charity work. But prohibiting leisure activities doesn't seem
reasonable. More significantly, according to act-utilitarianism, specific acts of torture or slavery
would be morally permissible if the social benefit of these actions outweighed the disbenefit. A
revised version of utilitarianism called rule-utilitarianism addresses these problems. According
to rule-utilitarianism, a behavioral code or rule is morally right if the consequences of adopting
that rule are more favorable than unfavorable to everyone. Unlike act utilitarianism, which
weighs the consequences of each particular action, rule-utilitarianism offers a litmus test only for
the morality of moral rules, such as "stealing is wrong." Adopting a rule against theft clearly has
more favorable consequences than unfavorable consequences for everyone. The same is true for
moral rules against lying or murdering. Rule-utilitarianism, then, offers a three-tiered method for
judging conduct. A particular action, such as stealing my neighbor's car, is judged wrong since it
violates a moral rule against theft. In turn, the rule against theft is morally binding because
adopting this rule produces favorable consequences for everyone. John Stuart Mill's version of
utilitarianism is rule-oriented.
 
Second, according to hedonistic utilitarianism, pleasurable consequences are the only factors that
matter, morally speaking. This, though, seems too restrictive since it ignores other morally
significant consequences that are not necessarily pleasing or painful. For example, acts which
foster loyalty and friendship are valued, yet they are not always pleasing. In response to this
problem, G.E. Moore proposed ideal utilitarianism, which involves tallying any consequence
that we intuitively recognize as good or bad (and not simply as pleasurable or painful). Also,
R.M. Hare proposed preference utilitarianism, which involves tallying any consequence that
fulfills our preferences.
 
Ethical Egoism and Social Contract Theory
Thomas Hobbes developed a normative theory known as social contract theory, which is a type
of rule-ethical-egoism. According to Hobbes, for purely selfish reasons, the agent is better off
living in a world with moral rules than one without moral rules. For without moral rules, we are
subject to the whims of other people's selfish interests. Our property, our families, and even our
lives are at continual risk. Selfishness alone will therefore motivate each agent to adopt a basic
set of rules which will allow for a civilized community. Not surprisingly, these rules would
include prohibitions against lying, stealing and killing. However, these rules will ensure safety
for each agent only if the rules are enforced. As selfish creatures, each of us would plunder our
neighbors' property once their guards were down. Each agent would then be at risk from his
neighbor. Therefore, for selfish reasons alone, we devise a means of enforcing these rules: we
create a policing agency which punishes us if we violate these rules.
 
Non-consequentialism or Deontological ethics
Non-consequentialism is concerned with the actions themselves and not with the consequences.
It's the theory that people are using when they refer to "the principle of the thing".
It teaches that some acts are right or wrong in themselves, whatever the consequences, and
people should act accordingly.
                                               
Kantian Ethics
General Introduction to Kant
–       Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is one of the most influential of all philosophers. Equal in
influence to Plato and Aristotle. Immediately influenced, for example, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel,
and Schopenhauer.
–       Popular adage: “You can philosophise with Kant, or philosophise against him, but you
cannot philosophise without him.”
–     Born in Königsberg, east Prussia. This is now in Russia (and called Kaliningrad), but was
once part of what is now Germany – he is considered a German philosopher.
–       Kant famously brought Rationalism and Empiricism together; and thus is credited with the
‘Copernican Revolution in Philosophy’.
–       As we shall find, Kant argues that morality is deontological. ‘Deon’ is Greek for duty. This
states that we do moral acts because they are good-in-themselves – not because they cause good
consequences, nor because of emotions (either prior to or after the act).
 
     For example, we ought to avoid murdering someone, not because we may end up in
prison, nor because we may feel regret or remorse, but because it is a wrong thing to do per
se (in itself). This even applies to murdering a person who may go on to kill hundreds
thereafter. 

     Consequentialism, usually as utilitarianism (but also as ethical egoism, hedonism),

states that an action is good if it causes the most pleasure and the least pain. So, in some
cases, murder would  be morally acceptable. Its main proponents are Jeremy
Bentham and John Stuart Mill.
Duty
–       Some believe that the motivation of our actions is merely the seeking of pleasure (and
avoidance of pain).
–       Against this belief, Kant argues that if pleasure were the only thing that motivated our
actions, then we would only have instinct to guide us, as instinct suffices for obtaining pleasure
(such as animals). (From Kant’s ‘Groundwork of a Metaphysics of Morals’)
–       However, humans have reason above instinct, and this means that our motivations go
beyond mere pleasure.
–       So the function of reason is not pleasure or happiness, but to produce a will that is good in
itself (not good for something else, such as happiness).
–       A good will is manifested in acting for the sake of duty.
–      One’s duty is to follow the Categorical Imperative as not doing so would mean that one
acted for one’s own pleasure. This would mean that one is misusing reason –       being irrational.
–      One should therefore follow one’s duty even if it goes against one’s (pleasurable) desires
and certainly not for the sake of desires (this includes ‘feel-good’                        emotions like
sympathy or compassion).
–      If a person does a good deed at a time when he is fully occupied with his own troubles, it
shows that he does it out of duty, not natural inclinations.

 Categorical Imperative and Maxims

–       A maxim is a principle upon which we act.
–       A maxim may be good or bad. It is usually not put into words, but this can be done. For
example, “I will always try to work hard when I have little money”.
–       A subjective maxim is one that is good for the person. (~a ‘hypothetical imperative’)
     “I ought to practice the guitar if I want to become a professional player.”
–     An objective maxim is one which every rational person would act upon if reason had full
control of his or her actions (not just desire, greed, etc.–subjective) (‘categorical imperative’).
–       Duty is an objective maxim ‘irrespective of all objects of desire’.
–       A good person adopts or rejects a subjective maxim for any action according to whether or
not it harmonizes with an objective maxim of doing duty for duty’s sake (not for a personal
sake).
–       Kant goes on to say that duty is the necessity to act out of reverence for a universal law.
–       An objective maxim is a universal law – our reverence for it comes from our general
reverence for rationality.
–       Kant calls the objective maxim, the Categorical Imperative:
     ought never to act except in such a way that I can also will that my maxim should
become a universal law’.
o     This is the 1st formulation:
The Formula of Universalizability (or, The Formula of Universal Law).
The Formula of the End in Itself: This other important formulation (derived from the first) is:
–       Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the
person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end. 
    People are ends-in-themselves(as their goodwill is unconditioned – all other ends are
conditioned/hypothetical, and thus cannot be the basis for morality). I.e. without objective
ends, there can be no morality.
     We have a duty not to use ourselves or others as means to satisfy our inclinations.
     We have a lesser duty seek our own perfection and the happiness of others.
     This is especially opposed to consequentialism.

The Formula of the Law of Nature:

    Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a universal law of
nature.
   We must ask whether, if our subjective maxim (i.e. thought for an action) were
universally adopted, would it further a systematic harmony of purposes in the individual and
in the human race. If not, the action would be immoral.
o    This formulation depends on a teleological view of nature – i.e. that everything
has a purpose/telos. This is rejected by,say, post-Darwinists, for a mechanistic view
of nature.
o     This formulation is used by Kant as an argument as to why suicide is immoral:
one would will that self-preservationwere a law of nature (a purpose of life), not
therefore its opposite, suicide.
o     (This Law was later merged into the first.)

The Formula of Autonomy:

    So act that your will can regard itself at the same time as making universal law
through its maxim.
o    This is merely  a combination of the formulae of Universalizability and End-in-
Itself, highlighting the fact that ‘it is precisely the fitness of his maxims to make
universal law that marks him out as an end-in-himself’ 
o
o     Man is both the creator (as a rational being) and an essential ground (as an end)
of morality: this emphasises man’s supreme value.
     e. this is a formulation for self-respect and respect for mankind.
     (It also emphasizes the fact that categorical imperatives exclude interest
(subjective desires).)

The Formula of Kingdom-of-Ends:

     So act as if you were through your maxims a law-making member of a kingdom of
ends.
o    ‘Kingdom of ends’ =  a commonwealth of people subject to universal laws with
all members constituted as having intrinsic worth/dignity as ends-in-themselves.
o     Consider yourself both law-maker and law-abider so to become moral.
Imperatives
–       There are Hypothetical Imperatives and the Categorical Imperative
 –       Hypothetical Imperatives are conditioned by an end.
–       Hypothetical Imperatives’ good is the means to the end.
     “I ought to study hard, if I want to pass my exams.”
     End: wanting to pass. Means: studying hard. Good: studying hard, thus as well.
o     therefore studying hard is good.
–       Categorical Imperatives are not conditioned – they have no if-clause.
      “I ought to be honest.” (no “if”)
      They are not conditioned (unconditional) because if they did have a condition they
would not be performed from a good will but from a subjective desire and would thus not be
moral (but selfish).
o    for morality to be possible we must presume that the maxim (C.I.) upon which
they are performed be unconditional.
o    If there were a condition, an end, the action would not be moral but selfish.
E.g. “I ought to save his life, if I wish not to feel guilty forever after” is not a moral
maxim but a hypothetical imperative.
o    Most ‘oughts’ (if not all) in language are hypothetical (e.g. “I ought to diet.”).
 
 Free Will
–       For Kant, morality is only possible if free will exists.
–       If free will did not exist, then we would not be free to choose which action to take. In
which case we could not be held responsible (in a positive or negative way) for our actions (we
would be like programmed robots).
–       Free will is free intention.
     This is one aspect of what decides whether an action is moral:
o     A shopkeeper gives back the right change because he thinks that is his duty. He
is moral
o     A shopkeeper gives back the right change because he thinks the person will
complain if he doesn’t. This is not moral.
 o     This shows that mere consequences (as in utilitarianism) cannot really explain
the morality of an action.
–       But how can free will exist if everything is caused by previous events (determinism)?
     Kant divides the universe into phenomena and noumena.
     Phenomena are the everyday physical things we perceive.
o     We actually create the phenomenal world by imposing concepts like space,
time and causality onto the world in order to understand it.
–       Noumena are the world behind appearances and our concepts (things-in-themselves); how
things are beyond our perception (i.e. beyond even time, space and causality).
–       Free will, Kant writes, actually lies in the noumenal world and is therefore not affected by
prior causes, as causes only exist in the phenomenal world.
–       So free will can exist and thus can morality.