Sex by Raymond Belliotti (Part Two)

This post is part of my series on the Blackwell Companion to Ethics. This entry is my second on the article about the ethics of sex by Raymond Belliotti.

In Part One, I covered Belliotti's discussion of the historical views on sexual morality. In this part I cover contractarian approaches, along with some critiques from the political left.


The Informed Consent Model
Before getting into the philosophical details, let's just set the scene by imagining a caricatured example of casual sexual congress. It's a Saturday night. Young (and not so young) men and women are gathering in gloomy pubs and nightclubs, tempted by the prospect of carnal interactions with the opposite sex.

Let's take two of these individuals (say, male and female as a bow to the heterosexual majority) for illustrative purposes. They meet, talk inanely, drink, dance and retire to one of their places of residence. To describe the remainder of their evening, I'll hand things over to Simon Blackburn:

The boy and girl back from the bar, stumbling and stripping in the hall, tongues lolling and panting for "it," know what they want. It's simple enough. They want sex.

So what are we to make of this? Is their sexual encounter morally acceptable?

For the contractarian, the answer is simple. As long as both parties know what they are about, and both consent to the activities, their sexual encounter is morally acceptable. We can call this the "informed consent model". This seems to chime well with moral intuitions. For instance, the crime of rape is defined as sexual penetration without consent.


Kantian Modification
Belliotti thinks the contractarian model just described is libertarian in form. It permits an excessive commodification of the human body. He illustrates his concern with the example of someone agreeing to sever their finger in order to please a sadist. For a real life example, I suggest you read about Armin Meiwes, the infamous German cannibal whose victim agreed to be eaten.

Belliotti suggests we cannot agree with this level of commodification. He thus argues for a Kantian modification of libertarian contractualism. This modification would force us to consider the other party to the contract as a complete moral agent and not simply as a means to your own gratification. In other words, we accept the basic merit of the contractual approach but adds a need for moral reciprocity.

Although this Kantian modification is Belliotti's preferred approach to sexual morality, he admits that it is always somewhat fictional. In the sweaty, fumbling urgency of the one night stand, no one stops to formulate a contract (oral or written) that could be morally significant.



Marxist and Feminist Critiques
Traditional heterosexual sex is often criticised by those of the political left. Most prominent among them are the Marxists and Feminists (indeed feminist critiques owe much to Marxist theory). How could they object to good clean fun between consenting adults?

Easy, by arguing that the consent is the product of indoctrination in a particular bourgeois or patriarchal ideology. For Marxists, sex within the bourgeois family is merely a form of prostitution and exploitation. Legitimate heirs are needed to perpetuate the system of private property. So, women are deliberately excluded from the public sphere and limited in their sexual freedom in order to prop up capitalism.

For Feminists, the position is similar. Catherine MacKinnon argues that women are simply socialised to meet the sexual wants and needs of their male oppressors. In doing so, MacKinnon seeks to unmask the political implications of sex. The most extreme expression of this philosophy is the lesbian separatist movement within radical feminism (e.g. Jill Johnston). They argue that lesbianism is the only way to undermine the patriarchy.

The following are some critical questions that can asked of radical feminism (they can be modified to embrace Marxism):

• Is it really true that men are capable of nothing but oppression and exploitation?
• Does radical feminism demean women by suggesting they can never be autonomous or exercise informed consent?
• Does it too readily assume that sexual activity is the core aspect of feminine identity?
• Is it impossible to argue with? If we assume people are indoctrinated into an ideology, we assume they can never be sincere if they claim to embrace this ideology. 
• How did radical feminists manage to escape indoctrination?

And with that, I call this entry to a close.

Sex by Raymond Belliotti (Part One)

I've burdened myself with the task of blogging every article in the Blackwell Companion to Ethics. Today, with the help of Raymond Belliotti, I cover everyone's favourite topic: sex.

Belliotti's essay covers a lot of ground, dealing with many historical views on sex. However, his focus is mainly on sexual activity (broadly defined) and its moral permissibility, and not on issues pertaining to sexual identity.

Part One will cover Belliotti's discussion of historical schools of thought on sex; Part Two will cover more modern approaches, along with some critiques.


When in Greece...
As with everything philosophical, we begin with the Greeks. And within the Greek tradition we focus on the Pythagoreans. They, famously, set up a duality between body and mind. The human mind was part of a great spirit, but it was corrupted by the body. Sex was bodily and thus corrupting.

This view was influential on Plato's vision of philosophy as a preparation for human assimilation with the divine. And the Stoics were likewise eager to distance us from the material and bodily.

This dualistic approach naturally supported a form of sexual asceticism and predated Christian influences.


Judaeo-Christian Thought
The Old Testament had a reasonably positive attitude toward sex. We are all familiar with the injunctions to be fruitful and multiply. Likewise, although Jesus condemned adultery and divorce, he had little else to say on the topic of sexual morality.

It was with St. Paul that Christian attitudes toward sex started to turn sour. For Paul, we were all living in the end times and so the goal in life was to achieve eternal salvation. Sex was an unnecessary distraction from this goal. That said, Paul did not think sex was inherently evil.

As Christianity began to spread, it absorbed some of the Greek dualism and asceticism. St. Augustine in his work Of Holy Virginity and On Marriage and Concupiscence was the most systematic expositor of such idea. Central to his rejection of sex was the concept of the Fall. Before the Fall, sex was uncontaminated by raging passion; after the Fall there was no way to engage in sex without being consumed with sinful passion. Sex became a necessary evil. Only permitted in marriage and then only for the purposes of reproduction.

Aquinas reiterated Augustine's views, but dropped the suspicion of bodily pleasure within marriage.


Protestants and Catholics
For the early protestant reformers, such as Luther and Calvin, sex was still a distasteful business. However, they did not accept celibacy as an ideal. Sexual activity within a marriage was acceptable if it was restrained, decorous and procreative.

The Catholic position on sex has remained consistent for a very long time: sex is only permissible within marriage, and only then if performed for procreative purposes. At this juncture it is appropriate to watch this video:




Of course, there can be some modifications of these positions. For example, it might be argued that all sexual activity within a marriage is acceptable because sexual pleasure is a legitimate aspect of the marital relationship.


Criticisms of Christian Views
For those who don't accept the metaphysics of Christianity, there will be little reason to think that sex is corrupting. But even if we leave that to one side and adopt a more secular perspective, there are problems with the Christian position.

Chief among them is that the Christian view adopts a narrow functionalistic view of human nature. Proponents simply pick out some aspect of sexual "nature" (reproduction) and argue that it is the only acceptable one. Furthermore, it is difficult to see why a marriage ceremony makes sex any more legitimate than it might otherwise have been.


The Exaltation of Sex
A more interesting and modern development, associated with Roger Scruton and Vincent Purzo, is the view that sex is legitimate only if it is accompanied by love and intimacy. In other words, it must take place between two partners who are deeply committed to and trusting of each other. This requires an ability to rationally reflect on the needs, wants and thoughts of the other.

This view elevates sexual activity to a quasi-spiritual level. Sex without love and intimacy is said to be psychologically disintegrating and dehumanising.

The problem with this approach is that the exaltation of sex ends up being just as irrational as the crude functionalism of Christian attitudes to sex. Furthermore, it is not clear that psychological disintegration actually does result from sexual activity without love and intimacy. And even if it did, it does not follow that it is morally impermissible for we would first have to establish that any acts that lead to existential fragmentation are morally reprehensible.

Okay, that's it for now. In Part Two the informed consent model will be discussed.

Abortion (Part 2) by Mary Ann Warren

It's been awhile, but today I will finally complete my discussion of the article on abortion by Mary Ann Warren.

Part One covered two arguments in favour of a right to access abortion. They were the disastrous consequences argument and the right to autonomous choice argument. In this part, the moral status of the foetus is addressed.


Moral Status
Warren begins this discussion by looking at the general question of moral status. All ethical theorists, be they utilitarians, Kantians or virtue ethicists, need to have some criterion for distinguishing morally relevant beings from morally irrelevant beings. What is this going to be?

Warren looks at four possible criteria:

• Life
• Genetic Humanity
• Sentience
• Personhood

Let's see what these are and how they might apply to the abortion question.

1. Life

Albert Schweitzer argued that the chief moral criterion was whatever property it is that distinguishes life from non-life. Living things are functionally organised in such a way as to ensure their own survival and reproduction. As living beings we share in this functional organisation, so we should have a moral concern for all beings with this property.

Warren suggests that a concern for life really flows from ecological and aesthetic concerns. In other words, from a desire to preserve a well-balanced ecosphere for practical (food, medicine, clothing) and aesthetic (beauty, wonder, awe) reasons.

The problem with using life as a criterion is its over-inclusiveness. While life is valuable, it is not unqualifiedly valuable. There are occasions in which it is necessary to kill another living being. The most obvious of which comes from our need to kill in order to eat (that holds for vegetarians as well since plants are most definitely "alive").


2. Genetic Humanity
The second proposed criterion is shared genetic humanity. In other words, any beings who share a sufficient amount of the human genetic code qualify for special treatment.

Warren dismisses this criterion with some alacrity. She thinks that moral criteria cannot arise simply from evolutionary accidents of birth. I would add that it is not at all clear from evolutionary biology that the idea of a shared genetic humanity makes sense.

Although humans do share a large amount of their genetic code, it is also true to say that evolutionary thinking is anti-essentialistic in its thrust. In other words, post-Darwin it doesn't make sense to see humanity as some sort of fixed, immutable essence shared by all human beings.


3. Sentience
The third proposed criterion is sentience. This is the idea that beings that are capable of experiencing pleasure and pain are worthy of moral respect; beings that are not capable of such experiences do not deserve moral respect.

This is certainly a more robust moral criterion, but it suffers from some problems. First, it is not clear which beings have sentience and which do not. Philosophers are fond of informing us that our friends and family could be zombies, who look and behave as normal humans do but have no conscious experiences.

Dismissing such philosophical concerns (as we must) we might propose that a minimum condition for sentience is the possession of a nervous system, along with some basic behavioural responsitivity. It is suggested that foetuses only develop these properties in the second trimester. Thus early-term abortions would be acceptable and late-term abortions would not.

There are two problems with this criterion. First, it too is over-inclusive as it covers a large swathe of the animal kingdom. Put it this way: a fly has a functioning nervous system, does this mean swatting a fly is morally condemnable in the same way that homicide is? Second, the criterion does not, by itself, establish any exception clauses. It cannot be that all sentient beings must be preserved irrespective of the harm it does to other sentient beings. And yet this is exactly what some women claim arises in the case of the foetus, i.e. that it does them harm.


4. Personhood
The fourth proposed criterion is personhood. This is a somewhat nebulous concept. It is usually associated with what we might call "higher" mental capacities. In particular, the capacity for developing hopes and aspirations for the future.

Warren disagrees with these traditional conceptions of personhood. She argues that what is truly distinctive about persons is their capacity for moral reciprocation. That is: their ability to recognise other people as being the possessors and holders of moral rights.

Foetuses almost certainly do not have this capacity for moral reciprocation (they cannot appreciate that their mothers, say, have moral rights). The problem is that neither do young children or mentally handicapped adults.

Thus, the personhood criterion seems over-inclusive.

Is Birth Morally Significant?
The problem in identifying a clear moral criterion leads Warren to consider a different issue: the unique biological relationship between a mother and a foetus.

The problem is this: even if the foetus is a morally significant being, its significance is only sustained by another morally significant being. So the moral question is not primarily one of significance, but one of competing significances.

Birth becomes a morally relevant demarcation because it is the point at which the child can be offered equal basic rights without violating anybody else's moral rights.


Potential Persons?
Finally, Warren addresses the potential person argument. This is the idea that a foetus has certain minimal moral rights due to its potential to develop into a full human being (with full moral rights).

The problem with this is that in no other domain would a potentiality argument work. For instance, Warren argues that every child born in America is a potential voter. But this does not mean they should be accorded a right to vote (note: I think there is a need to unpack that analogy in a bit more detail, but since Warren does not go into it, neither will I).


Furthermore, the potentiality argument goes too far. Every possible sperm-egg fusion is a potential life. Does this mean we have to expend resources ensuring that every sperm finds an egg?

Abortion (Part 1) by Mary Ann Warren

I'm blogging my way through every essay in The Blackwell Companion to Ethics. Today, I deal with the cheery topic of abortion, following the article by Mary Ann Warren.

In Part 1 I look at some background issues, consequentialist arguments in favour of abortion, and arguments based on the right to choose. In Part 2 I will look at the issue of foetal personhood.



Abortion: The Trick is to Ask the Right Question

We've all been there. One moment the dinner party is going well; the guests seem satisfied with the spread; the wine glasses are perpetually full; life is good. But then something terrible happens. The conversation switches from the superficial and light-hearted to the prickly and controversial. You are talking about abortion.

If you ever find yourself in this situation, I recommend you follow Warren's lead: structure the discussion by asking the right questions. The questions can be divided into two main groups (a) the moral group and (b) the legal group.

In the moral group we find questions like the following: should women have the right to abort unwanted pregnancies? Does the foetus have a right to life that should be protected?

In the legal group we find questions like the following: should abortion be made illegal? Should doctors or women who avail of abortion be held liable for murder or for some other offence? Should abortion be made legal? Should the state have an obligation to ensure that women have access to safe abortions?

The groups of questions certainly overlap, but there are important distinctions. Just because we find something to be morally opprobrious does not mean we should bring the full weight of the law to bear on its resolution; and just because we permit something does not mean the state should encourage it. This distinction was at the heart of one of Chris Matthews recent "interviews".


A History Lesson: How the Debate has Changed
Warren begins her article with a brief history lesson on abortion, just to illustrate how the public debate has changed. I have not done any research to verify her historical claims so caution is recommended.

Warren says that abortion was only made into a criminal offence in the latter half of the 19th C in industrialised nations. At that time, proponents of the ban used medical arguments to support their arguments, i.e. they argued that abortion was medically unsafe.

Medical arguments against abortion dissolved in the 20th C when it was turned into a safe medical procedure. As a result, the arguments against abortion shifted away from concerns about the physical safety of women towards the moral status of the foetus.

Those in favour of a right to choose abortion have responded to this shift with three arguments:

1. Abortion should be permitted because prohibition leads to disastrous consequences (disastrous consequences argument).
2. There is a moral right to choose abortion (rights argument).
3. A foetus is not a person and so has no moral status (non-personhood argument).

Warren looks at each of these arguments in turn.


The Disastrous Consequences Argument
This argument has two main components. First, it is argued that a lack of reproductive autonomy is detrimental to women's welfare. In societies where women do not have access to contraception or abortion they are reduced to a form of chattelhood. Second, population control is essential to the future sustainability of biological and social systems.

Now you may say that we have alternative means of contraception available to us (pills, IUDs, condoms and so forth) and that these are preferable to abortion (although some Catholics would disagree). This may be true, but abortion is a fallback if these other methods fail.

The pro-lifers have an obvious riposte to these arguments. They will say that heterosexual sex is a voluntary option. If our goals are birth control and population control, then we can simply ask women to refrain from sexual activity. They can strengthen their argument by pointing out that sex may be physically harmful (cervical cancer, HIV and other STIs) or even psychologically harmful (feelings of guilt, exploitation, worthlessness).

There are obvious pro-choice responses to these arguments. Celibacy is impossible (women are always vulnerable to rape), undesirable (who would want to live a life devoid of sexual pleasure), and psychologically harmful (stunted emotional development etc.).


The Rights Argument
A right is an entitlement or power that is available to a person thanks to a legal document or, more controversially, due to some inherent natural order. The basic moral rights are the right to life, right to self-determination, right to bodily integrity, and right to ownership of property.

A prohibition on abortion infringes women's basic moral rights. First, it infringes their right to life. This is shown by the UN statistics on the number of women who seek out and die from unsafe abortions in countries where abortion is not legalised. Likewise, there are actual deaths resulting from involuntary childbirth.

Second, it infringes their right to self-determination and bodily integrity. Pregnancy is not simply an inconvenience. It is arduous, potentially risky and disrupts lifestyle choices (work, education etc). Also, as a parent, one has duties to discharge towards the child that last a lifetime. This is only partially relieved by the prospect of giving up the child for adoption.

There is of course a white elephant lurking in the room: the rights of the unborn. Could it be that the foetus has a right to life that trumps the woman's rights? I will look at this in more depth in Part 2 when I cover the whole topic of foetal personhood, but a couple of things can be said about the purported rights of the foetus.

First, there could be an equivalence between the rights of the mother and the rights of the unborn. In such a situation, it is difficult to say who should win out. Second, as pointed out by Judith Jarvis Thomson in her famous 1971 article, just because the foetus has a right to live does not mean the mother should be forced to carry it to term.

Thomsom illustrated this argument with a thought experiment. She asked you to imagine that you woke up one morning to find a famous violinist was "plugged-in" to your body. Doctors inform you that he has some kidney-related disease and is using your kidneys to clean his blood. You are told the arrangement will only last nine months, by then he will be cured.

Thomson argued that such an arrangement would be preposterous, as would be any law that forced you to maintain the surgical link. In no aspect of human life, apart from pregnancy, would we ever force someone else to sacrifice their rights simply to preserve the life of another. But then why should we treat pregnancy any differently?

Utility and the Good by Robert E. Goodin

I'm blogging my way through every article in The Blackwell Companion to Ethics. Today, the essay entitled "Utility and the Good" by Robert Goodin goes under the knife.



1. The Right, The Good and the Utilitarian
We must begin with some distinctions. Ethical theories are usually divided into two component parts: a theory of right and a theory of good. The theory of right specifies which actions help to realise or respect the good. The theory of good specifies what is valuable and worthwhile (see my post on consequentialism for more).

Now you may not know this, but utilitarianism is a theory of good, not a theory of right. As it happens, there is very little agreement among about what is good. Some Aristotelians might specify virtuous character traits and some natural lawyers might pinpoint abstractions like "knowledge", "friendship" and "play".

For utilitarians, the matter is more straightforward: ethics is about people, and the only things that are good are those things that are good for people. These things should be maximised. Goodin points out three variations on this basic utilitarian theme.



2. Three Types of Utility
The first variant of is hedonic. It was popularised by that irrepressible social reformer Jeremy Bentham. He took the view that something was good for people if it resulted in sentient pleasure. In other words, if it resulted in some conscious feeling of contentment or euphoria. Thus, the moral society was one that maximised sentient pleasure.

The hedonic version of utilitarianism is frequently caricatured. It would seem to encourage us to become a "mad assembly of pleasure hogs constantly out for a buzz" (Goodin's words). But Goodin counters this by saying Bentham's theory was simply premised on the factual accuracy of the hedonic psychology, i.e. on the assumption that it was empirically true that people acted so as to obtain pleasure. This can easily be corrected with a more accurate and sophisticated psychology.

This brings us to the second variant: preference utilitarianism. This replaces the picture of human beings as short-term pleasure hogs, with the picture of human beings as longer-term preference-satisficers. Actually, "replace" is not a good word because hedonic utilitarianism is really subsumed within preference utilitarianism: short term pleasures are a subset of preferences.

A problem for both of these versions of utilitarianism is that they are egalitarian in their treatment of pleasures/preferences. In other words, the goal is simply one of maximisation, the quality of what it being maximised is irrelvant. The sadist and the saint all count for the same or, in Bentham's famous words, "pushpin [a child's game] is as good as poetry".

This seemed unpalatable to some (John Stuart Mill and G.E. Moore), so much so that they tried to introduce some qualitative distinctions between pleasures/preferences. A certain weighting could then be given to the superior or higher pleasures/preferences.

Goodin thinks there is a more convincing answer to this worry: welfare utilitarianism. This variant does not focus on subjective pleasures or preferences. Instead, it focuses on objective welfare interests. For example: life expectancy, access to education, employment, health, access to housing and so on.

3. The Attraction of Welfare Utilitarianism
Goodin thinks welfare utilitarianism an attractive concept. It seems to solve some of the problems that confront the other variants of utilitarianism. For example, the other variants would force us to "get inside each others heads"; welfare utilitarianism does not.

Further, it would be difficult to develop an impersonal way of measuring subjective pleasures and pains; objective welfare interests (such as life expectancy, access to education and employment) are easier to quantify and compare.

That said, problems undeniably remain. Two biggies concern the way in which the pie of pleasures, preferences or welfare interests is divided up. Because utilitarians advocate an impersonal summing and maximisation of utilities, they could end up with a society where one individual gets everything. Likewise, they could end up with a society where there is a radical redistribution of utilities (irrespective of merit). Both would seem to be justified on the utilitarian logic.

Goodin responds to each of these scenarios as follows:

• The phenomenon of diminishing marginal utility (e.g. getting less out of the third mars bar than the first) makes the radically inegalitarian society unlikely.
• The costs to security, stability and productive output would make the radically egalitarian society unlikely.

These responses are probably accurate but note: they are contingent upon empirical facts. There is nothing within utilitarianism itself that prevents the inegalitarian or radically communist society from maximising utility. The mere possibility of such societies is enough to make rights-theorists quake in their boots.

Nonetheless, Goodin maintains that welfare utilitarianism is the most pragmatic and effective guide for policy-makers.

Christian Ethics by Ronald Preston (Part 2)

Welcome to the second part of my summary of Ronald Preston's essay on Christian Ethics.

In part 1, I looked at the basic ethical message drawn from the gospel accounts of Jesus. The key innovation of Christian ethics was its radicalised form of love or agape. This was a completely disinterested and selfless form of love.

In this part, I look at how that message was adopted and transformed by St. Paul and other early leaders of the Christian church. I close by examining some common criticisms of Christian ethics.

1. St. Paul and the Early Church

Although there is no direct account of the teachings of Christ in Paul's various letters, Preston thinks it clear that he grasped the basic message as being one of love (Romans 13).

Unlike Jesus, Paul offered specific guidance to members of the early church. A good example of this comes in 1 Corinthians 7, when he answers questions on the subject of marriage. When giving this specific guidance, Preston argues that Paul demonstrates a failure to fully absorb the Christian message. This is particularly evident in his sexist teachings with respect to the place of women.

One notable aspect of Paul's teachings is that they were not otherworldly. He did not suggest that the followers of Christ abandon the interests worldly existence and sit about waiting for the End Times. So he did not embrace the full apocalyptic import of Jesus's teachings.

Moving beyond Paul, the later books of the New Testament (Colossians, Ephesians etc) show the early church struggling to keep to the radicalism of Jesus. This is perhaps understandable: after the apocalypse failed to come, the church leaders had to find some way to keep Jesus's message relevant. Preston argues that they did so by regressing slightly, by downplaying the centrality of agape and by adopting a patriarchal view of society.

One final development can be observed in Hebrews and Revelations: the almost complete abandonment of the message of love. For example, in Revelations there is no express desire that sinners will repent and accept Christ; rather, there is an exultation in their expected punishment. This seems contrary to Jesus's core message.

Preston closes this part of his discussion with the observation that it has always been difficult to make the Christian message relevant. This has led to innumerable distortions, mutations and revivals.

2. Common Criticisms of Christian Ethics

Preston ends his article with a brief list of the common criticisms of Christian ethics. They are:

1. Christianity is intolerant and breeds intolerance: Preston accepts the force of this criticism, pointing out the fierce factional fighting that has often overcome followers. He also makes reference to the legacy of anti-semitism.
2. Christianity offers only a morality of reward/punishment: This is the idea that people are scared into good deeds by the threat of damnation and the hope of salvation. This, it is argued, is a corruption of the true nature of agape, which encourages us to abandon these self-interested goals.
3. Christianity is repressive: This is the idea that the impossible goal of agape gives rise to a repressive and guilt-ridden psychology. It is detrimental to true personal growth and fulfillment. This is tied to a final criticism.
4. Christianity provides an ethics of immaturity: Here, the claim is that Christian teachings encourages people to abandon careful, contextual thought about ethical questions. Instead, they are encouraged to develop reactionary attitudes based on the virtue of "conscience". Preston thinks this is a mistake. The doctrine of conscience does not necessarily mean the abandonment of thought; it only means that actions should be done out of proper conviction.

Christian Ethics by Ronald Preston (Part 1)

I'm blogging my way through every article in The Blackwell Companion to Ethics. Today, it's a biggie: Christian Ethics by Ronald Preston.

Preston's essay covers quite a lot of ground. He begins with a blitzkrieg-style history of the Christian faith, noting its changing relationship with the contemporary culture. He follows with a quick introduction to the basic questions and methods of Christian ethics. He then looks at the ethical teachings from the gospels and the writings of St. Paul. He closes with some criticisms of Christian ethics.

In this part, I am going to skip the historical introduction and dive straight into the basic questions, methods and gospel teachings. In the next part, I will cover St. Paul and the criticisms.

1. Basic Questions and Methods
Obviously, the most distinctive aspect of Christian ethics is that it is based on the Christian faith. This has two basic components: God exists, and is disclosed to us in the ministry and teachings of Jesus.

Despite this religious grounding, Christian ethics is concerned with two basic questions that are shared by most schools of ethical thought:

• What is the right motive from which to act?
• What is the right action in particular circumstances?

The question of motive has held particular fascination in Christian thought. Some suggest that motive is irrelevant, that what is important is the objective consequences of the action. But for most Christians motive is crucial because it is through right motive that we engage in "spiritual formation".

This brings us to the phenomenon of moral casuistry, which is the bringing of motivation to bear on particular decisions. Casuistry got a bad name during the Counter-Reformation because it was seen to carve out ridiculous exceptions to conventional moral rules. For example, the concept of "philosophic sin" held that no action was sinful unless the agent was thinking about God at the time of commission.

Although this is clearly disreputable, Preston thinks that the flaw was with those who made use of casuistry not with the idea itself. Indeed, he maintains that casuistry is essential: it involves the careful use of thought in applying general principles to particular circumstances. Christian ethics would be an exercise in ignorance without it.

On to the gospels.



2. The Teachings of Jesus


(a) The Basic Motif
Although it's oversimplified, Preston treats the four gospels as roughly homogeneous. That is: they provide a reasonably unified vision of Jesus's ethical message. He acknowledges the difficulty with this -- in particular, he notes that John's gospel is a more philosophical reflection on Jesus's message -- nonetheless he ploughs ahead.

The first thing to note is that Jesus was a Jew. His ministry and teachings were a unique and idiosyncratic take on the central ethical message of Judaism: the imitatio dei. His teachings are made through his actions, pithy sayings and parables; they are not made through scholarly interpretations of the Jewish law.

There is a basic motif to his ethical teachings: they radicalise conventional reciprocal morality. In other words, they push us towards an extreme form of empathy, trust and fellow-feeling. Consider:

• He says there is no limit on forgiveness for injuries (Matt 7:12)
• He says we should love our enemies (Matt 6:14)
• He says there shall be no restrictions on neighbourly love (Luke 10: 29)

There are many other instances where Jesus seems to preach an ideology of extremity (e.g. his injunction against even thinking about adultery). And yet in spite of all this, he rarely gives specific advice or rulings on ethical matters (e.g. Luke 12: 14). He offers no concrete guidance on modern social or political issues. The sole exception appears to be his comments on divorce and marriage (Preston has some doubts about the authenticity of these).

(b) Agape or Christian Love
The radical import of Jesus's teachings have been unified under the concept of Agape or Christian love. Agape is a type of disinterested, other-oriented love. It is to be contrasted with Eros, which is a type of self-interested or self-aggrandising love.

For example, I may love to engage in scholarly research, and I may think of the pursuit of knowledge as something noble, but my love can only ever fall within the realm of eros because I am getting something out of it.

Agape is love purged of its self-interested aspects. It enjoins us to cultivate an unselfconscious empathy with our fellow man, and a deep respect and worship for God.

One of the more extreme interpretations of Christian love arises in the Lutheran tradition. Luther famously admonished Christians to abandon the idea that doing good works would get them salvation. This was because good-works-doctrine always had an element of self-aggrandisement to it.

(c) The Impossibility of Christianity
This radical type of love is often criticised for being out of our reach. Indeed, Christian groups have often struggled to stay true to the ideal and have tended to revert to a more commonsense morality.

They have justified this move in two ways. First, they claim that Jesus's message was apocalyptic: it only made sense to follow it if one believed in the imminent destruction of the world. Indeed, many of his teachings would seem to threaten social stability (e.g. "give no thought for the morrow...").

Second, they have made a division between what is possible for members of holy orders and the laity. It may be possible for those living a cloistered monastic existence to approach the radical ideal laid down in the gospels, but it is not possible for the laity. They need to operate within the more traditional commonsense morality, particularly because agape provides no obvious concrete ethical guidelines; it is more an abstract emotion.

Preston has two responses to these charges of impossibility:

• First, having an impossible ethical standard is actually good. It brings us closer to appreciating the depth and range of God's love.
• Second, it is good that Christianity only provides an abstract motivational ground for ethical behaviour. If it provided concrete rules (like Judaism and Islam) it would need constant reinterpretation and would thereby lose its timeless relevance.

That's it for now. In part 2, I will look at St. Paul and the criticisms of Christian ethics.

Jewish Ethics by Menachem Kellner

I'm blogging every article in The Blackwell Companion to Ethics. Today, the essay on Jewish Ethics by Menachem Kellner is my muse.



1. What is Jewish Ethics?
When looking at ethical traditions such as Judaism, one is always confronted with the question: what is distinctively "Jewish" about a strand of ethical thought? There is always a tendency for particular traditions to either (a) reflect secular thought or (b) become absorbed into secular thought.

This is certainly a problem encountered when looking at modern Jewish scholarship. Modern Jewish scholarship has become predominantly secular, so it is not really worthwhile considering it as a separate branch of thought.

If we wish to locate a distinctively Jewish brand of ethics we must look, instead, to the Rabbinic and Biblical tradition. There, we find the Halakha, which is a highly ritualised set of behavioural restrictions encompassing diet, hygiene, dress, and also civil, criminal and moral laws. It is the Halakha that most clearly embodies "Jewish" ethical thinking.



2. The Biblical Roots
The Jewish Bible (roughly equivalent to the Christian Old Testament) is the foundational document for Judaism. And the ten commandments, handed-down to Moses at Mt. Sinai, are the foundation of biblical ethics.

A couple of things need to be said about these ten commandments. First, is that there are many many more commandments in the Bible. Indeed, there are many more within the book of Exodus. These tend to be overlooked. Second, of the ten commandments, six deal with what we might call "conventional moral matters", i.e. prohibitions against murder, theft, perjury and so forth. The other four commandments deal more explicitly with worship and respect, both of God and of one's parents.

It is with these worship-based commandments that Kellner thinks we find two of Judaism's major contributions to ethical thought: the Divine Command metaethics and the doctrine of Imitatio Dei.

The Divine Command metaethics makes God the source and origin of ethical truth. Kellner suggests that this follows from the idea of God creating us in his image. And it is this "creation in his image" that supports the doctrine of Imitatio Dei (imitation of God).



3. Imitatio Dei and the Golden Rule
One of the central messages in traditional Jewish thought is that the good and moral life is one in which we observe God's commands. It is through this observance that we imitate God and gain salvation.

The observance in question is not limited to what we are calling conventional morality, i.e. it is not just about killing, lying, thieving or fornicating. It involves observance of all the practical commands and edicts laid down in the Halakha. This includes the dietary prohibitions (Kosher), the restrictions on dress, the keeping of the sabbath and the guidelines for rearing livestock.

Thus, for Judaism, the imitation of God is worldly, pragmatic and quite precise. This can be contrasted with Christian and Platonic ideas of imitatio dei. For Platonists, we must try to abandon the worldly for it is impure, impermanent and imperfect. For Christians, God has become man in the body of Christ and this switches the goal from one of imitating God to one of imitating Christ.

One noteworthy development of the imitatio dei doctrine comes from the Rabbinic tradition. The story is told that Rabbi Hillel, when asked by a gentile to be taught the entire Torah, replied with admirable brevity:

What you dislike don't do to others; that is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary.

What we have here is a version of the Golden Rule. Arguably this is superior to the Christian variation because it is formulated in the negative, i.e. in terms of non-interference. It is suggested that this rule is an outgrowth of the imitatio dei doctrine: because we are all made in God's image, we all deserve equal moral respect.



Conclusion
There is, of course, much more to be said about Jewish history and the Jewish contribution to the intellectual world. However, once we move beyond the Biblical and Rabbinic foundation, we get a fractured and increasingly secularised picture.

The most important thing about traditional Jewish ethics is that it encompasses the pragmatic aspects of everyday life (diet, dress etc.) and does not separate this practical element from what we call morality.

The Social Contract Tradition by Will Kymlicka (Part 2)

Welcome to Part 2 of my discussion of Will Kymlicka's essay on social contract theories in The Blackwell Companion to Ethics.


In Part 1, I covered the history of the social contract tradition. I closed by pointing out the flaws in the initial attempts to put meat onto the bones of the social contract. In this post, I look at Kymlicka's discussion of two more contemporary approaches to the social contract.


These two approaches have different visions of the purpose of a social contract. The first approach sees the social contract as an agreement for mutual advantage. That is: as a a mechanism for placing rational constraints on self-interested behaviour. This school of thought draws on insights from Thomas Hobbes and so is known as Hobbesian Contractualism.


The second approach sees the social contract as an impartial procedure that secures some ideal of equality or justice. Writers in this school of thought often draw inspiration from Kant's third variation of the categorical imperative: that people should be respected as ends in themselves not as means to an end. Given this inspiration, this variation on the social contract is called Kantian Contractualism.


Let's look at the merits and demerits of each approach.


1. Hobbesian Contractualism
Hobbesians embrace the supposed moral neutrality of the natural world (in which we are embedded). They claim that scientific inquiry proves there are no natural or innate moral rights or duties. Instead, there is a natural psychology of preference satisfaction, with all preferences being of equal worth.


This implies that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with a preference to kill another person. However, if preferences like this were to be generally satisfied, it would be detrimental to my interests and to the interests of others. Thus, it is mutually advantageous to place some constraints upon our ability to satisfy our preferences. The role of social contract is to work out what these constraints should be. The contract is what emerges when self-interested people bargain in the interests of mutual advantage.


This results in the construction or artifice of a moral order. We can only really talk about "right" and "wrong" once this order has been constructed. In other words, we cannot speak of natural rights: rights are created in the contract.


Hobbesianism is predicated on an assumption of factual equality. It is believed that people are roughly equal in their capacity to harm and be harmed. It is this rough equality that allows for the contract in the interests of mutual advantage to be made.


However, there are some problems with this concept of equality. First, it is not necessarily true that all people are roughly equal: the elderly, the young, the diseased and the disabled may not have the ability to harm others in equal measure. It would seem that they could be ignored in the Hobbesian compact.


Second, technology affects equality. It may do so in a positive or negative way. On the positive side, it may help to level the playing field between the able-bodied adults and the disabled. This may force us to bring these seemingly disadvantaged people within the terms of the social contract. On the negative side, unequal access to technology may perpetuate or accentuate innate differences.


Kymlicka thinks Hobbesianism is fatally counter-intuitive, that it overturns too many basic intuitions that we have about morality. For example, in the fact that it sees rights as the product of the social contract, not the foundation for a social contract. He thus thinks Hobbesianism should be viewed as an alternative to morality, not a variant thereof.


This conclusion seems unwarranted. Hobbesianism is deliberately counter-intuitive (albeit "rational" according to its proponents). And it is not a form of nihilism. It allows for genuine right and wrong to emerge from the compact.

2. Kantian Contractualism
The second, and perhaps more popular, version of contemporary social contract theory looks to the contract as a device for ensuring equality. The most famous invocation of this comes in the shape of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice. And I will focus on it here.


Unlike the Hobbesian, the Kantian thinks individual human beings have an innate or natural moral worth ("ends not means"). This innate worth validates a substantive moral equality. This is very different from the factual equality used by Hobbesians.


For Rawls, the social contract is a hypothetical, but useful, device for making determinate the basic intuitions of justice that are shared by equally worthy human beings. The key to a legitimate social contract is that it must be made in a situation that respects this equal moral worth.


The problem for Rawls is that we are not now, nor were we ever, in such a state. Society is often profoundly unequal: accident of birth can lead to privilege or privation. What we need is some thought experiment that abstracts us away from the present state of inequality.


This is where Rawls invokes the "original position" and the "veil of ignorance". The original position is an artificial and hypothetical situation that guarantees impartial bargaining over the contents of the social contract. In this original position, each person is placed behind a veil of ignorance. This veil prevents them from knowing where they will end up in the new social order: they could be a pauper or a prince.


Because they do not know where they will end up, the people will try to ensure that the contract "raises the floor" as much as possible. In other words, they will try to ensure that wealth is distributed as equally as possible, with any surplus going to the poor.


The problem for Rawls and other Kantians arise from the presumptions they make about people's intuitions of justice. For example, Rawls assumes that people in the original position will be prudential, i.e. they will try limit the risk to themselves that might stem from the new social order. But it may be that people are willing to gamble because they prefer a system that rewards effort and risk-taking.


Rawlsianism has proved popular among moral psychologists, who often try to manufacture an "original position" and explore how people might really bargain in such a scenario. This can help determine whether Rawls's intuition of prudence was correct. This theme is explored in some depth in Marc Hauser's book Moral Minds.

The Social Contract Tradition by Will Kymlicka (Part 1)

I'm blogging my way through every essay in the The Blackwell Companion to Ethics. On this occasion, the essay on The Social Contract Tradition by Will Kymlicka gets the once-over.



The Attraction of Social Contract Theories
Kymlicka commences by noting that two questions must be answered by any moral theory: (i) what demands are placed on our behaviour? and (ii) why should we follow those demands?

The attraction of social contract theory lies in its ability to give easy answers to these two questions. It states that, through free and reasonable agreement, people stipulate the demands to be placed on their behaviour. It adds that we should follow those demands because they are the ones we have agreed to follow.

The problem facing all such theories is that they must clarify and determine what is meant by "free and reasonable agreement". If one can agree to any demands, in any circumstances, the theory loses its acceptability.

Kymlicka's essay looks first at the history of social contract theory, and then at two more modern variations (still drawing their influence from historical figures).



The History of the Social Contract Theory
The social contract tradition began in the heady days of the Enlightenment. Pre-enlightenment moral theories saw God or some other pre-supposed teleology as the source of moral authority. This informed all the moral rules adopted by a society. A classic example is the divine right of kings doctrine.

When the philosophes of the Enlightenment shook and then cracked the foundations of religious thought, social rules suddenly seemed to lack any source of justification. This is where social contract theories came in. They filled the moral void left by the corpse of religious tradition.



Agreeing to be Governed
The most obvious question playing upon the Enlightenment mind was: why would people agree to a civil government? What could possibly force them to accept a system of behavioural constraints?

The answer was easily forthcoming. A system of government was artificial and non-natural. In the pre-political (natural) age, everyone was free and equal. But this freedom and equality was a double-edged sword: it meant they were all equally vulnerable to the attacks of others.

The state-of-nature was a state of paranoia and insecurity. People were thus willing to give up some of their natural freedom in the interests of personal security. Assuming government to have originated in contract-for-protection gave it an air of legitimacy. But note, this legitimacy was thought to stem from the natural rights of human beings.

This is what we might call the Basic Social Contract theory (BSC) and it may be thought to underlie most constitutional democracies.



Two Fatal Objections
The popularity of the BSC waned in the 19th Century, mainly due to the raising of two seemingly fatal objections:

1. The contract was a pious fiction: people never actually sat down and agreed a system of government. Most governments arose through historical accident (usually involving the liberal use of violence). And it is no good to argue that the contract is hypothetical because a hypothetical agreement is equivalent to no agreement at all.
2. Even if a hypothetical agreement was acceptable, there was the further question "why should we do what we agreed to do?". It seemed that the BSC was founded on a presupposed morality of promising.

That's enough for this post. In part 2, I will outline the modern resurrections of social contract theory discussed by Kymlicka. These modern approaches draw their basic insights from two enlightenment figures: Thomas Hobbes and Immanuel Kant.

Egoism by Kurt Baier (Part 2)

This is the second of my posts on Kurt Baier's essay on Egoism in The Blackwell Companion to Ethics. 

In Part 1, I looked at psychological egoism and Adam Smith's argument for egoism. It was argued that psychological egoism is not true: humans do not always act so as to further their own interests. It was further argued that Smith's egoism does not truly embrace the ethical virtues of egoism.

In this part, I consider the arguments in favour of a true ethical egoism, i.e. a theory that argues that egoism is an ethical ideal.

From Rational Egoism to Ethical Egoism
Rational Egoism is the position that one always has a reason to act so as to further one's interests. This is different from psychological egoism. Rational egoists are not claiming that we always do act in our interests; rather, they are saying it is always reasonable to act in one's own interests.

This seems plausible. After all, whenever we are told to do something that is contrary to our interests (e.g. giving money to charity or paying taxation), we often need to convinced that it is ultimately in our interest to do so (e.g. "imagine if you were in the same position" or "taxes pay for public services that we all use").

Ethical Rationalism is the position that moral requirements must play-up to our rationality. In other words, that a moral theory must give us reasons-for-action.

If we combine rational egoism with ethical rationalism we get Ethical Egoism. This is the position that a moral theory that advocates egoism is, if not the only available theory, certainly an acceptable moral theory.

The Problem of Ethical Conflict-Regulation
The main difficulty facing ethical egoism is a competing intuition we have concerning the nature of morality. This is the "conflict-regulation" intuition. According to this intuition, one of the distinguishing marks of morality is that it gives us reasons for action that are independent of our own interests.

So consider the following question: is it morally wrong for me to kill my grandfather in order to protect my inheritance rights (I may be afraid that he has plans to change his will)? According to the conflict regulation intuition, it is morally wrong because we should protect both my interests and the interests of my grandfather.

There is, it seems, a direct clash between ethical egoism and ethical conflict-regulation.

Conclusion
After noting the clash between the two visions of morality, Baier's essay runs into several dead-ends. He simply notes different strategies for resolving the clash.

A classic "resolution" is that of Henry Sidgwick. I put resolution in scare-quotes because Sidgwick actually reaches the unsatisfactory conclusion that both egoism and conflict-regulation are acceptable bases for morality.

Perhaps a better resolution is out there?

Egoism by Kurt Baier (Part 1)

I'm blogging my way through every chapter of The Blackwell Companion to Ethics. Today, I take a look at the essay on Egoism by Kurt Baier.

Greed is Good?

Greed, for want of a better word, is good. (Gordon Gekko) 

To be an egoist is to put one's own interests ahead of the interests of other people. In everyday conversation, to describe someone as an egoist is to describe a moral flaw. It conjures up the image of Michael Douglas's character (Gordon Gekko) in the 1987 film Wall Street: a ruthless, inconsiderate, unprincipled, megalomaniacal, self-aggrandiser. Nobody wants to be that guy.

It may then come as a surprise to find moral philosophers extolling the virtues of egoism. And yet they do. To understand why, we need to distinguish between two types of discussion of egoism one can find in the philosophical literature. The first talks about egoism as a psychological fact; the second about egoism as an ethical ideal.

Baier discusses each in turn.


Egoism as a Psychological Fact
Some people claim that egoism is simply a psychological fact about human beings. In other words, they argue that, despite the sentimental gloop foisted upon us by the media, we are, at our core, selfish beings: we always act so as to maximise our own interests. This is a basic assumption of classical economics (behavioural economics is a different beast).

The problem for this thesis is that it seems quite clear that people often act against their own interests. To take a contentious example, consider the extra-marital affairs of Tiger Woods. It seems clear that their discovery will be damaging to his interests, both in his personal relationships and, potentially, in his business relationships. No doubt this is a situation that is replicated daily. It seems short-term lust is enough to overcome long-term self-interest.

Similarly, people often act in an altruistic manner. Consider, here, the example of the (still living) organ donor.

The proponent of psychological egoism will respond to these scenarios in one of two ways:

• They may claim that behind the superficial gloss of altruism there lurks the dark heart of egoism. But this is silly: to say that behind every non-egoist action there must lie an egoist motive, is to assume what needs to proved.
• They may reduce their claim to the following "Egoism merely states that everyone acts as they most want to act at the time of acting". But this is equally silly: it reduces egoism to a banal platitude. What is distinctive about egoism is its prioritising of one's own interests.

So egoism does not appear to be a psychological fact. Can it possibly be an ethical ideal?

Adam Smith and the Common Good
Perhaps the most famous advocation of egoism is that of Adam Smith. In his classic work The Wealth of Nations, Smith argued that entrepreneurs should be allowed to act in their own self-interest, free from legal or moral constraint. Such permission should be granted because the "invisible hand" of the market (i.e. the profit/loss sorting-principle) would co-ordinate these egoistical actions in a manner that promoted the common good. This is still a very popular idea.

There are two things to note about Smith's argument.

First, it does not truly embrace egoism as an ethical ideal. Instead, it embraces egoism as a means towards a more desirable end, namely: the common good.

Second, the removal of legal and moral constraints on self-interested behaviour only works to promote the common good if: (a) interests do not conflict; and (ii) there is some alternative constraint on behaviour (such as the "invisible hand"). When these conditions are not met, egoism could be detrimental to the common good. Baier gives the example of trying to coordinate the evacuation from a burning theatre. Getting everyone to act in their self-interests could be damaging because the interests may clash (there may not be enough time to save everyone) and there is no external constraint (apart from death).

Thus, Smith does not show that egoism is an ethical ideal.

In Part 2 I will examine the thesis of ethical egoism which really does try to embrace egoism as an ethical ideal.

Subjectivism by James Rachels

I'm blogging every essay in The Blackwell Companion to Ethics. In this post, I cover the essay on Subjectivism by James Rachels.

Let me kick things off by saying that Rachels's book The Elements of Moral Philosophy is an excellent place to begin your relationship with moral philosophy.

Subjectivism is...?
Suppose I say "Human cloning is good". What kind of a statement am I making? Am I saying something that is equivalent to "rocks are hard" or "circles are round"? Or am I just expressing an opinion? It is the essence of Subjectivism that moral statements are expressions of personal opinion, not claims about objective reality.

Subjectivism has appealed to those of an empiricist frame of mind. This is because they would otherwise struggle to account for morality. For example, the arch-empiricist David Hume argued that you could examine a 'wilful murder' from as many angles as you like, but try as you might you will never be able to pinpoint the "wrongness" of the act. The "wrongness" comes from within us. It is not out there in the world.

Subjectivism is often promoted in the name of tolerance: if morality is just a matter of opinion, it seems plausible to think we can tolerate a plurality of opinions. However, this would be an inconsistent claim for a subjectivist to make. After all, the supposed virtue of tolerance is just yet another opinion.


Subjectivism not Nihilism
Subjectivism should not be confused with nihilism. The latter position holds that moral statements are pointless or meaningless; the former position holds that moral statements are genuine expressions of approval. A subjectivist can say "Cloning is good" without being disingenuous; a nihilist cannot.

Although there is no necessary connection between nihilism and subjectivism, that's not to say that subjectivism and nihilism are inconsistent. Indeed, the subjectivist seed may grow into the bitter fruit of nihilism. This is likely to happen when one grows weary of constantly asserting one's opinion (more on this in a moment).


Three Varieties of Subjectivism
One of the more rewarding aspects of Rachels's essay is the categorisation of three types of ethical subjectivism, ranging from the simple to the more sophisticated. Rachels's main argument is that as subjectivism has passed through several iterations, it has become less subjective and more objective.

(a) Simple Subjectivism
The most straightforward version of subjectivism maintains that statements like "cloning is wrong", should be rewritten as "I, the speaker, disapprove of cloning".

There are a couple of problems with this simple incarnation of subjectivism. First, it implies that moral judgements are infallible because they are reports of attitudes. But surely we do not have perfect knowledge of our own approvals and disapprovals?

Second, it implies that there can be no real moral disagreement. There can only be the endless exchange of opinions. So, I cannot hope to win a moral argument, I can only hope to shout louder than my opponent.

(b) Emotivism
Simple subjectivism is unsatisfying. As a result, a mutated form sprung up from the early 20th century fascination with language. This mutated form of subjectivism is known as emotivism.

Emotivists will point out that there are really three different ways in which to use language: (i) to state a fact; (ii) to issue a command; or (iii) to express an emotion. They will further point out that ethics is not in the business of stating facts; it is only in the business of expressing emotions or issuing commands.

Crucially, emotivists argue that there is a difference between saying "cloning is icky" and saying "I disapprove of cloning". The former is an emotional expression; the latter is a report of an attitude. A report is a statement of fact, not an expression.

Simple subjectivism goes wrong because it thought of ethical statements as reports of attitudes not as expressions of emotions attitudes. Once we appreciate the distinction, we can see that the issue concerning the truth and falsity of ethics is a red herring. Ethics simply isn't in the truth business.

Still, there remains something unsatisfying about emotivism. This is particularly obvious when it comes to ethical disagreement. Emotivists say that such disagreements are about attitudes or emotions and not about facts. This would suggest that if you want to 'win' a moral debate you can use any sly, despicable emotion-tweaking rhetoric you wish. For example, if you know someone is anti-semitic, and you know that some prominent Jew agrees with their opinion, you can point this out to them in the hope that it will encourage them to change their views.

This seems to make a mockery of ethical debate.

(c) Reflective Emotivism
This brings us to the final version of subjectivism: reflective emotivism. Here, the idea is that not all attitudes count in ethical debates (e.g. the attitudes of the reactionary anti-semite). Only those attitudes that emerge after a certain period of critical reflection.

And indeed we can go further: we can say that only those attitudes that emerge in certain idealised conditions of reasoning count in moral debates. This change of tack brings subjectivism out of the pan of personal opinion and into the fire of ethical realism.

Naturalism by Charles R. Pidgen

I am blogging every essay in The Blackwell Companion to Ethics. In this post, I cover the essay on ethical naturalism by Charles R. Pidgen.


What is Ethical Naturalism?
Naturalism is a sub-branch of ethical realism. It maintains that moral propositions are objectively true, that they are not simply expressions of opinion, and that morality is not a fiction.

What separates Naturalism from other species of realism is its support for the reducibility-thesis. This is the idea that moral facts are not sui generis; that they can actually be reduced to other types of fact such as psychological, biological, sociological or, even, theological facts.

Is Ethics Autonomous?
The greatest hurdle faced by naturalists is the claimed autonomy of ethics. This claim dates back, famously, to the writings of David Hume. Hume maintained that descriptions ('is' statements) are wholly distinct from prescriptions ('ought' statements). Thus it was impossible to move from a description to a prescription. A similar argument was put forward by G.E. Moore.

Pidgen's primary task in this essay is to show that these challenges to naturalism are unsuccessful. To do so, he distinguishes between three varieties of autonomy:

1. Logical Autonomy, which shows that you cannot logically derive one type of statement from another.
2. Semantic Autonomy, which shows that one type of statement does not mean the same thing as another.
3. Ontological Autonomy, which shows that two types of fact are distinct.

Only if the thesis of ontological autonomy is established does Naturalism fail. Pidgen's strategy in this essay is to show how Hume and Moore's arguments only prove logical and semantic autonomy, not ontological autonomy.

Hume and Logical Autonomy
Hume's argument is often paraphrased as follows: you cannot derive an 'ought' from an 'is'. But this is really only a general statement about the conservatism of logic. It says nothing interesting about the nature of moral facts. So Hume's challenge is limp. Why?

In any logical deduction, you deduce or infer a conclusion from a set of premises. Classically, the premisses will consist of one general principle (All X are Y) and one factual statement (Something is X), from which you can infer an unchallengeable conclusion (Something is Y). The problem is that you never get out of a logical deduction more than is in the original premisses.

Hume's argument merely demonstrates that you need to have an 'ought' in the premisses before you can get an 'ought' in the conclusion. That this is a limp argument is proven with a reductio. Pidgen suggests that you cannot get a hedgehog-based conclusion from a premise that says nothing about hedgehogs.

Hume's argument also says nothing about semantic autonomy. This is where Moore's argument enters the fray.

Moore and Semantic Autonomy
G.E. Moore was an ethical realist, but a non-naturalist realist. He maintained that ethical properties were sui generis. He did so by arguing that naturalists always confused the sui generis property of 'goodness' with objects that share that property.

For example, a classical utilitarian might say that sentient pleasure was good. This implies that pleasure and goodness are equivalent. But this would further imply that the question "Is pleasure good?" was unintelligible. Moore argued that such a question was intelligible ("the open question argument") and so naturalism failed.

Pidgen responds to this by showing that Moore has, at best, demonstrated that goodness and pleasurableness are not semantically equivalent. However, he has said nothing about their potential ontological equivalence.

An example helps to illustrate this counterargument. Pidgen suggests that 'water' and 'H2O' are not semantically equivalent. The former is a prescientific term based on perceptual qualities (odourless, colourless liquid); the latter is a scientific and theoretical term (molecule consisting of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom). Now although they are semantically distinct, it just so happens that water and H2O are ontologically equivalent.

It could just as easily be the case that pleasure and good are ontologically equivalent.

Conclusion
Pidgen's goal was to show how the standard objections to naturalism fail. He thinks he has achieved this by showing how there is a confusion between the three varieties (logical, semantic, and ontological) of autonomy. He closes the essay by considering three potential reductions of moral facts:

• There is Hume's own attempt to reduce 'good' to simply 'whatever an impartial and informed spectator would approve of'.
• There is the attempt to reduce 'good' to 'statements about the institutional constraints on human behaviour'.
• There is the Neo-Aristotelian attempt to reduce 'good' to 'statements about the proper functions of human beings'.

Whether any of these attempts succeed is another matter.