Introductory Lecture
PHI205
Welcome to the course! There is only so much one can do in an introductory lecture of this sort so bear with me. In no way can this be complete in itself. This is due to the very nature of the subject matter we are dealing with, not only moral choices but philosophy itself. Perhaps Wittgenstein was correct when he said that philosophy leaves everything as it was. One hopes things are left with greater clarity and insights into the problems examined, and that while we might recognize that we may not have the final say in any of the issues we are to examine, it may well be that we can come to recognize answers that will not hold up to critical evaluation while other answers may seem more coherent and more readily sustainable. If there is anything that I hope you learn, as I have, it is that these are complex issues, and that any stance one takes is itself open to criticism. We can begin to learn the complexities and assumptions of each position on the difficult topics we are about to pursue from the perspective of philosophy. When we begin to recognize how open ended many of our conclusions are, we may approach our opponents on these issues with more tolerance and sympathy. While philosophy no longer deals with absolutes (I'm absolutely sure!), we nevertheless have to make decisions, many of them moral decisions, that in many cases profoundly effect our lives. In the last analysis, if we are to give the reasons for our choices, it may be that after so much effort and anguish, we arrive at a answer the way that Kierkegaard did, by a "leap of faith." But let's hope that leap is from a reasoned, self-critical ground.
What follows is divided into three parts. Part I will be a brief introduction to the meaning behind the terms 'ethics' and 'morals,' their general areas and content, their relationship to one another and how they relate to this course. Certain important distinctions in ethical theory are discussed. In Part II two very important ethical positions are examined ever so briefly: Kant vs. Mill. These two perspectives while not the only ones that you will be introduced to in Chapter I of your readings, will be central to the course, particularly our critical evaluations of some of the pressing moral questions of our day such as euthanasia, the death penalty, famine relief, gay and lesbian rights, etc. Part III will be an ever so brief introduction to what has been called the free will / determinism controversy in philosophy. Or more succinctly, the question is: Are choices, let alone moral choices, possible? Unless one makes the assumption that there is some degree of contingency in or escape from the realm of causal determinacy where human agency is involved, then choice becomes problematic and culpability a chimera unless someone could have done otherwise so that we can hold that person accountable for their actions.
The term 'ethics' is derived from the Greek ta ethika which can mean custom or habit and in the plural, character. My old Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, 1956 edition, defines ethics as "1. A treatise on morals; 2. The science of moral values and duties; the study of ideal human character, actions, and ends; 3. Moral principles, quality, or practice." Ethika is also related to the word ethos, a word I'm sure some of you have heard. The latter refers to the distinguishing character or dispositions of a community or a group. On the other hand the term 'moral' is related to the Latin term moralis, meaning manner, custom, habit. Again, turning to the dictionary of my youth, moral is defined as "1.Characterized by excellence in what pertains to practice or conduct; right and proper; 2. Dealing or concerned with establishing principles of right and wrong in behavior; ethical; as, moral philosophy."
All this is a bit confusing, largely because it would appear to be correct to use the two terms interchangeably, and many people do. Both terms overlap in their derivation by connoting custom and habit, both relate to actions and principles. In order to avoid confusion, a course entitled "Ethics" (such as the one offered here at Mercer) entails the study of the principles underlying our moral judgments. This course, "Moral Choices" indicates specific choices we make in specific situations. A simplified way of saying this is that ethics relates to theory while moral choices relates to practice.
The subject areas of ethics and morals are intimately related. For the longest time, philosophers were largely focused on ethical theory and why not since philosophy itself is somewhat abstract and theoretical. It was not until the 1960's that perhaps a change began to occur (because of the many moral issues that began to emerge, including those surrounding Viet Nam) with the introduction at many colleges of a course dealing with "situational ethics." Some philosophers believed that philosophy had something to contribute to certain issues that were being debated nationally. It was no accident that the journal, Philosophy and Public Affairs was born not too far from Mercer's campus at Princeton University.
The average person (and that includes most of us) is confronted with situations in which moral decisions have to be made: Should I tell the teacher that half the class is cheating on exams? Am I obliged to tell my friend's wife that he is having an affair? Should you tell your daughter that her new bike will have to be postponed awhile because we must contribute some money to help some people in dire need? (Honestly, I heard the mother of one of my daughter's friends say this some years ago.) What duties do you owe a parent that has neglected you for the longest time? Generally speaking, as soon as we use the terms, should, ought, obliged, obligated, duty, among others, we are involved in a moral choice. If I were to ask you why you made the choice you did, I would be asking you for your justification, your reasoning behind you moral decision. Your justification, in most instances, involves the theory that underlies your choice. Needless to say, many people have no clear inkling as to what, if any, theory underlies their decision (This is not to say that many people make such decisions on religious grounds). At the opposite pole, I have listened to philosophical discussions on ethical theory and at times wondered if anything I was listening to had any practical application or had anything to do with the world in which we live (This was particularly so, one time, just after I had finished teaching a class from my course, The Holocaust).
Borrowing some terminology from the philosopher Kant, moral choices without ethical theory is blind, and ethical theory without moral choices is empty. Without any theoretical awareness underlying our moral choices, we are apt to make all sorts of blunders (or should I say that with theoretical knowledge we would hope to make less blunders). Studying only ethical theory, we are apt to loose ourselves in a bifurcated world that is divorced from reality, left with principles that have less than real application. One of the pedagogical dangers with a course in moral choices is that we pursue analysis of some controversial subject (such as abortion) without any theoretical background. When asked for rational justification of one's position, or to display the kind of critical analysis that holds up to muster, little is offered. It is for this reason that we start this course with a chapter on theory. You, as a student, should attempt to grasp as much as you can. But do recognize that this is the hardest part of the course. Indeed, the editor of your text asks too much. The first chapter is a course in itself. I hope, as perhaps the editor does, that you will be able to utilize these theoretical aspects in your analysis of some of the most perplexing social and moral issues we face today.
There are just a few important theoretical distinctions with which I would like to conclude this section. The first has to do with at least two kinds of moral judgments: (1) judgments of moral obligation, and (2) judgments of moral value. Judgments of moral obligation have to do with actions. One might say that he or she "ought" to do this or that I have a moral obligation to do that.. Of such actions, we can say that she did the right thing or he did the wrong thing. Judgments of moral obligation often refer to the terms right and wrong. Judgments of moral value relate to persons, motives, intentions and traits of character. Here, one uses the terms good or bad, virtuous or vicious, saintly or despicable. Note that not all value judgments are moral judgments. I might say that the film was a good film or that you make a good martini. These are value judgments but not judgments of moral value. If I say your intentions were good, then I have made a judgment of moral value. Judgments of value and judgments of non-moral value should not be confused. Judgments of moral obligation and judgments of moral value also should not be confused. They often are. In the film, Oh God, George Burns who plays God, says in one scene to the person He has chosen as a messenger, "You did good." Of course God can say anything He wishes, but in this course that is incorrect usage. What should have been said is that "You did the right thing." Remember, actions are right or wrong, people are good or evil.
The second theoretical distinction with which I would like to conclude is one that relates to what may be called theories of obligation (There are, of course, theories of value which I will not be discussing). There are two important theories of obligation that we must consider and that will also help us in our evaluation of the positions of Kant and Mill: there are teleological and deontological theories of obligation. In teleological theories the rightness or wrongness of actions is a function of the consequences of such an action. Thus, the rightness or wrongness of the action is determined by the non-moral value (what is judged to be good) brought into existence. What is the right thing to do? The answer from a teleological perspective is that which brings into being the greatest amount of good (non-moral) over evil (non-moral). Teleological theories vary in their definition of the good. The good may be defined as pleasure, power, self-realization, knowledge, etc. John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism is teleological, and an act is right if it leads to the greatest good for the greatest number. (Telos is from the Greek and it means goal or end).
Where the consequences are not considered, we may have a deontological theory of obligation. (Deon from the Greek meaning duty). Right and wrong do not take into account (consider) consequences that are judged to be good or bad (non-moral value judgments). Rather, an action is right because it is right. Immanuel Kant's position is deontological. There are certain actions that reason demands categorically, non-consequentially.
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) first developed the philosophy called Utilitarianism. His position was hedonistic in that pleasure is regarded as the good, but he moves away from egoistic hedonism and the stress on our achieving pleasure (we are governed by the pleasure-pain principle) to a social kind of hedonism in which we are also to consider the pleasures of others. The principle of utility entails "the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people." And each person, with the help of Bentham's hedonic calculus, can quantitatively calculate which goods to choose. Philosophers were quick to point out the difficulty of any kind of quantitative analysis of pleasurable experiences. John Stuart Mill, Bentham's follower, felt the need to revise certain aspects of the position: in particular, because Utilitarianism was referred to as a "pig-philosophy" and that pleasure was viewed as purely quantitative. No doubt this led Mill to make perhaps the most often quoted statement from his work, Utilitarianism: "It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied."
Mill introduced the notion of quality into pleasure. Some pleasures are better than others (and it would appear that some discomfort, like Socrates dissatisfied, is better than pleasure), have greater value. Thus pleasures such as knowledge, freedom, well-being, love etc. also come under the label of pleasure. But what makes one pleasure "better" than another? What is the criteria for making such distinctions? And are pleasures of the intellect still within the confines of the pleasure-pain principle? Are the so-called higher pleasures still pleasures the way that bodily pleasures in the youth-oriented world of MTV are experienced as pleasure? It would seem that there is some intrinsic quality that makes intellectual and spiritual activities more than or different from physical pleasures.
There is one last distinction that relates to Utilitarianism that I would like to make: there is what is called act-utilitarianism and rule-utilitarianism. Again, all sorts of problems are raised by this distinction which I cannot hope to go into to, but it is important to note these two types of Utilitarianism to help you with the selected reading on Utilitarianism in your text. The selection, I might add, is not the most representative one the editor could have chosen for beginning students. Do the best with it that you can.
Act-utilitarianism is the early and what might be called classical form of the position. In confronting a specific situation, one must choose to bring into existence the greatest amount of happiness (pleasure) for the greatest amount of people. One particular problem encountered with this type of the position is that A may choose either X or Y and bring into existence the same amount of pleasure over pain for the greatest number of people. But X may involve lying and Y may not. On Utilitarian grounds there would be no difference in choosing X over Y, and there seems to be something intuitively wrong with saying it makes no difference which one you choose.
Rule-utilitarianism was introduced to overcome some of the problems encountered in the kind of problems cited above. If a judge could send bailiffs out to round up citizens when the need for jurors arose, then citizens could never be sure when they would be abducted and when their individual rights would be violated. Rule-utilitarianism, it is argued, resolves such a situation holding that an act is right if the rule used fits in with a body of rules that brings into existence a greater degree of utility than would otherwise be the case. Thus lying (in the former example, above) and abduction (in the latter case) will cause more unhappiness than happiness.
Utilitarianism has much to offer and, indeed, it seems to be well represented by its advocates at some prestigious American universities. It may be necessary to tell a lie to save someone who is hiding from a murderous, jealous lover. Thus we can come up with a rule that lying is wrong except in the above circumstances. Any special circumstances, no matter how devious, could then be incorporated into the rule. Could torture-murder be incorporated into the rule. There is nothing on utilitarian grounds that would exclude it. Yet many of us would feel that there is something intrinsically wrong with such an act that is not excluded by this consequentialist position. After all, an act is judged to be moral purely on the grounds of its consequences. Deontologists, like Immanuel Kant, believed that it was not the consequences that determined the rightness or wrongness of an act, but something intrinsic to the act itself, done out of a sense of duty.
Again, for the consequentialist, an act is right in so far as it brings into existence the greatest amount of non-moral value. The ends can be taken to justify the means (although rule utilitarianism sought to overcome this). For deontologists such as Kant, considering the consequences makes the act a hypothetical imperative and not a moral choice at all. Instead there is something inherent in the act itself or reflective of the rule that determines our choice. A hypothetical imperative in Kantian philosophy is one that is conditional. If you do not want Y to come about, then you ought to do X. The ought in this case can be rejected if you reject the hypothesis. Thus, you ought not to hurt others because it causes pain. The retort could be that I really enjoy pain so that it is OK for me to hurt others. The consequences brought about are determined by what is desirable. For Kant, morality entails categorical imperatives that are without exception (both a strong point and a weak point as will be seen). Morality cannot be built on contingent and changing grounds. Instead, reason (the pure practical reason as opposed to the kind of reason that helps us structure the empirical realm) demands of us the we universalize any choice so that it can become a universal law. Kant's categorical imperative states that one should "act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." Kant, following the Stoic philosophers, saw reason (logos for the Stoics) as uniquely human, a faculty that makes rational demands upon us in which we act out of a sense of duty.
A moral action, for Kant, is done not for the consequences but because it is the right thing to do. We act out of a sense of duty in respect for the moral law that we ourselves can accept or reject as an aspect of our rationality. There is much that is that is reflective of common sense in Kant's position. If your intentions were good (a contradictory aspect as part of the empirical realm?), then it doesn't really matter that you were unable to bring about what you were seeking; you still did the right thing. A person's moral worth is measured by his or her's good will. The categorical imperative is reflective of the golden rule, again a common sense aspect of his position. Isn't doing onto to others as you would have them do unto you like the golden rule? The notions or rationality, consistency and equal treatment all come into play.
It is beyond the limits of this introductory lecture to go much further into Kant's deontological, duty-oriented ethical theory. It has its strengths and weaknesses. A strength is that acting out of moral duty and respect for the moral law can be seen to be different from somebody acting out some desire to enhance their ego or simply without any recognition of what one is doing. For example, two soldier's acts of bravery may be viewed externally as equivalent acts of bravery, but soldier X did it out of a sense of duty while soldier Y did it for the need to be recognized and rewarded (or was completely "out of his mind" when he did the act). From a utilitarian point of view, both actions are meritorious. From a Kantian point of view, only soldier X's action was courageous.
A group of criticisms sometimes made of Kant's position is the result of its formal nature. For example, a person may feel someone's pain, empathize and feel overwhelmed by another's situation. As a result, she may go to that persons aid. Another person encountering the same situation, a Kantian, may rejected these feelings -- they do not determine the moral worth of the action. Instead she may feel that she really doesn't want to help but must out of a sense of duty. While I'm not sure that the person of good will that Kant speaks of could not be reflective of the feeling person, it turns out that the person who really doesn't want to help but forces herself to help is the real moral agent. I will let you sort this out, but I must admit there are many times I don't want to do something, but feel I must out of a sense of duty (like right at this moment, visiting some one in the hospital instead of sitting here typing this lecture). This last point indicates another problem with Kant's ethical theory: Here I have two conflicting moral duties: to finish this introductory lecture or to visit some one who in the past has been dear to me. Kant's formal position offers no criteria for determining what to do in conflicting situations. Is it then necessary to mix ethical positions and appeal to utilitarianism to make my decision. I ought to continue with this lecture because it entails the greatest good (an arguable assumption on my part?) for the greatest number.
Whether the editor of your text should have included a chapter on the philosophical problem of free will and determinism is open to debate. The argument that is often presented is that freedom of choice is a necessary assumption if one is to hold someone morally responsible for their actions (the notion of legal responsibility makes a similar assumption). That the agent could have done otherwise, that there were options to one's choice, that one indeed has choices is a necessary presupposition of moral choices. Freedom and determinism as a philosophic area of inquiry can stand by itself. But it itself may also be the topic of a philosophy course or part of an introductory course in philosophy as it was in the one that I taught here at the college. There are enough areas to be concerned with if one is a beginning student in ethics or moral choices. Should a beginning student have to cope with an important philosophic assumption underlying moral responsibility? Maybe.
There are a host of positions that you can study on this topic, but here we will point out three prominent ones. The first one we can look at is often called hard determinism which has had a long history going back to Greek atomism and more recently represented by the position of B.F. Skinner. You may think that you chose to take this course, that you freely selected the last movie you saw, or that you freely chose your current boyfriend of husband but none of these are the way things happen. You had, of necessity, to choose this course (and I to give it), the movie you went to, your lover. If this is the case, then can anyone be held responsible for what they do, whether it is for murder or a series of sordid affairs in the White House? Every event has a cause, nothing in nature happens gratuitously and human behavior is no exception. Has anyone ever argued this in a court of law? Yes, Clarence Darrow did in defending Leopold and Loeb in what has become a classic case of American jurisprudence. But whether the individual is held morally or legally culpable, the assumption made is that the individual could have done otherwise in making a choice. Exceptions can be made for the insane of very young children. The determinist denies that anyone can be held responsible for their actions.
A second position to focus upon is soft determinism. In recent times it has been defended by William James and Patrick Nowell-Smith. In most texts, soft determinism is given short shrift, but I myself believe it deserves more consideration and development. James argued that it is not determinism and freedom that are incompatible but rather determinism and indeterminism. There are a bunch of problems involved and , again, it is beyond this lecture to begin to examine them. For example, is it merely that we are determined by a variety of causes that would result in our achieving a certain outcome if it were not for a variety of contingencies that come in the way of our achieving such an end or is it that besides all this, the agent herself still has, given this point in history, a variety of choices (of necessity limited) open to them?
Some years ago (actually more than some) as a graduate student, I heard the sociologist Talcott Parsons deliver a lecture at my university. The model behind the problem he was dealing with was a sociological one, but I believe it can be applied here as a philosophical one. Parsons was arguing that a social structure is essential if we wish to carry out our activities. In his example, a person tries to get across town in order to attend an important meeting (In latter years, I have made the meeting into one in which a lover is trying to meet their now separated partner in order to save their relation and reconcile their differences). The traffic lights suddenly go out because of a power failure. Is there any chance that our lover can get to his appointment on time? Whether it is the traffic light system, the social structure or a determined world, we need determinism in order to exercise our desires and achieve our ends. Without a determined universe, I could not begin to count on the letters I am typing from my keyboard at this very moment will appear on the screen of my computer in the logical order I intend. And when I press send, I anticipate that you will be able to read all this and not some being in the furthest reaches of our universe eons from now. I need a determined order, whether it is social or physical, to exercise my freedom.
The last view to consider here is the libertarian view, presented by, among others, Robert Chisholm. This view holds that determinism is false and freedom, for us humans, does indeed exist. The libertarian, siding with the hard determinist, would argue against the soft determinist that if determinism is true, freedom is impossible. One argument of the libertarian is that when one appeals to experience, there seems to be a prima facie case for freedom of choice. I do indeed feel that I have an option of choices. It is only through a theoretical construction (counter argument: but an extremely fruitful one) that one argues for determinism, and until some exact proof is presented, the argument is that I will continue to believe that I am free. We all hope we are free to choose and are moral agents. If I am a moral agent, then I can argue that a Mother Teresa or an Eli Wiesel command my respect as moral agents while a Bill Clinton does not. While a common sense view at times lacks truth, there is always something disconcerting about a philosophic position that violates our good common sense. The libertarian view does not.