Chapter 4: Ethical Thinking and Theory

Outline by John Nolt

Previous chapters have dealt, not with ethics, but with the nature of animals. This is Regan's meta-ethical chapter.

4.1 SOME WAYS NOT TO ANSWER MORAL QUESTIONS

Moral Judgments and Personal Preferences

Regan argues as follows:

When P says P says that P likes something and Q says that Q doesn't, the statements do not contradict one another.

When P says something is morally wrong and Q says it isn't, the judgments do contradict one another.

 So Moral judgments are not statements of personal preferences.

 

 

When people make a moral judgment it is always appropriate to ask for their reasons for accepting what they say as correct.

When people state their preferences it is sometimes inappropriate to ask for reasons for accepting what they say as correct.

 So Moral judgments are not statements of personal preferences.

Moral Judgments and Feelings

When people make a moral judgment it is always appropriate to ask for their reasons for accepting what they say as correct.

When people express their feelings it is sometimes inappropriate to ask for reasons for accepting what they say as correct.

 So Moral judgments are not expressions of feeling.

Why Thinking It Is So Does Not Make It So

When P says that P thinks something is morally right or wrong and Q says that Q thinks it isn't, the judgments do not contradict one another.

When P says something is morally right or wrong and Q says it isn't, the judgments do contradict one another.

 So To say that one thinks something is morally right or wrong is not to

say that it is morally right or wrong.

So Our thinking that something is right or wrong does not make it so.

[The second conclusion doesn't follow]

The Irrelevance of Statistics

What all or most people think or feel is right or wrong need not be reasonable, true or appropriate. So What is right or wrong need not be what most people think or feel

is right or wrong.

Long ago most people thought that the earth is flat.

Their thinking that did not make it so.

There is no reason to think that moral judgments differ in this respect.

So What is right or wrong need not be what most people think is right

or wrong.

[The third premise is dubious]

The Appeal to a Moral Authority

Moral authority =df a being whose moral judgments are always true.

Appeal to a moral authority will not give easy answers, since there will always be questions of interpretation.

Even if there is a moral authority, we can't have reason for thinking there is unless we can check the judgments of this authority for truth or reasonableness.

It is not possible to check these judgments for truth or reasonableness unless there is a method independent of this authority for answering moral questions.

 So Even if there is a moral authority, we can't have reason for thinking

there is unless there is a method independent of this authority for

answering moral questions.

Appeal to a moral authority is unjustified if we can't have reason for thinking that one exists. (implicit)

Appeal to a moral authority is unnecessary if we have a method independent of this authority for answering moral questions (implicit).

 So Appeal to a moral authority is either unjustified or unnecessary.

(inplicit)

Upshot: appeal to moral authority is either unjustified or unnecessary—and in any case problematic—for the purpose of answering moral questions.

4.2 THE IDEAL MORAL JUDGMENT

This section concerns moral judgments, not principles or theories. Moral judgments concern specific cases, whereas principles are general statements designed to systematize moral judgments and theories are, perhaps, unified sets of principles.

The question of this section is: "Considered ideally … what are the conditions that anyone would have to satisfy to reach a moral judgment as free from fault and error as possible?"

Ideal moral judgment must be:

All but the last of these will be referred to later as the five criteria.

4.3 CRITERIA FOR EVALUATING MORAL PRINCIPLES

Here we are concerned with criteria for evaluating principles, not judgments. Hence the criteria are different.

Consistency

Consistency =df the possible conjoint truth of two or more statements.

(Questionable, since there are single statements that are self-contradictory; Regan seems not to use this definition in the argument below.)

Valid moral principles enable us rationally to decide which actions are right and which are wrong.

An inconsistent moral principle cannot enable us rationally to decide which actions are right and which are wrong.

 So Valid moral principles are consistent.

Adequacy of Scope

We must make moral judgments in many different circumstances.

The purpose of a moral principle is to provide guidance in making moral judgments

If we make moral judgments in many different circumstances, a moral principle will succeed in providing guidance in making them only if it is adequately broad in scope.

 So To succeed in its purpose a moral principle must be adequately

broad in scope.

Precision

Imprecise moral principles provide less guidance than precise ones in making moral judgments.

The purpose of a moral principle is to provide as much guidance as possible in making moral judgments

 So Moral principles should be precise.

Conformity with Our Intuitions

Prereflective intuitions =df moral judgments we make about a case before considering it in detail

Reflective intuitions =df considered beliefs; moral judgments we make about a case after we have made a conscientious effort to be cool, rational, impartial, conceptually clear and informed.

When considered beliefs conflict with moral principles, we must strive for reflective equilibrium between considered beliefs and moral principles.

Considered beliefs have these functions:

Some Criticisms

First Criticism (Singer & Hare): Appeals to intuition are appeals to prejudice.

Reply: Fails to distinguish prereflective from reflective intuitions.

Second Criticism (Singer): Intuitions have biological bases and these need not have anything to do with morality.

Reply: This might be true of the sorts of intuitions Ross claims to be self-evident moral truths, but not of reflective intuitions.

Third Criticism (Singer): Appeals to intuition foster moral conservatism because intuitions are often mere relics of our cultural history instilled in us during our youth.

Replies: (1) Singer's own preference utilitarianism embodies in its deference to preferences just such a conservatism, since many preferences are culturally determined. (2) Beliefs are conservative to the extent that they are not subject to alteration, but reflective intuitions have been examined and modified if necessary.

Fourth Criticism: Intuitions are ineradicably subjective; they differ from person to person. Hence if moral principles are supposed to apply to all agents, there can be no valid moral principles.

Reply: Fails to distinguish between a principle's being true and our knowing that it is true. When we have done our best we can claim with good reason (never certainty) that a consensus among all ideal judges could be reached. At most what follows from differences of intuition is fallibilism, not subjectivism.

Fifth Criticism (Singer): Rather than appealing to intuitions to test theory, we ought to appeal to theory to test intuition.

Reply: The burden of proof is on Singer to show that we can arrive at a correct theory without appeal to intuition. Singer has not done so, since his theory is not sound (see secs. 6.3 ff.) and is tested against intuitions.

4.4 CONSEQUENTIALIST ETHICAL THEORIES

Ethical theory is an attempt to bring maximum order to ethical thinking. [A theory, presumably, is a unified set of principles.]

Consequentialism (teleology) =df the notion that the rightness or wrongness of an action depends on and only on the value of its consequences.

Examples: ethical egoism, utilitarianism

Any consequentialist theory needs a theory of intrinsic value to evaluate consequences.

Differing theories of intrinsic value give rise to the distinction between hedonistic and preference utilitarianism.

Both forms are most reasonable when not anthropocentric.

Act v. rule utilitarianism.

4.5 NONCONSEQUENTIALIST ETHICAL THEORIES

Nonconsequentialism (deontology) =df the notion that the rightness or wrongness of an action does not depend only on the value of its consequences

Extreme deontology (Kant) =df the view that consequences of an action are never relevant to the determination of its rightness or wrongness

Moderate deontology =df the view that consequences of an action are relevant to the determination of its rightness or wrongness, but other things are relevant too.

Rights view (Regan) =df certain individuals have rights independently of the consequences of recognition of these rights. This is a moderate deontology according to which rights are more basic than utility and independent of it.

4.6 EVALUATING ETHICAL THEORIES

To be rationally preferable, a moral principle should satisfy the criteria of Sec. 4.3: consistency, adequate scope, precision.

All ethical theories must aim to formulate principles rationally preferable to all others.

 So All ethical theories must aim to be consistent, adequate in scope

and precise.

In addition a theory should be simple—i.e., make as few assumptions as possible. [Regan does not really give an argument for this; he just restates it several times.]

[It is odd that in the argument above Regan mentions only three of the four criteria discussed in Sec. 4.3, omitting the fourth, conformity with our intuitions. A clue to this omission is given in the next section, where he seems to view reflective intuition (considered belief) as the material on which these criteria operate. It is also odd that he discusses simplicity separately. Maybe this is because it is a criterion that applies only to theories, not to principles.]

4.7 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

The best moral theory is the one that best systematizes our considered beliefs, i.e.:

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