Abstract
How can we determine whether an action is morally permissible or impermissible? This chapter explains how we can evaluate the morality and permissibility of human actions. It discusses the sources of morality, that is, the elements of an action from which its morality derives. Furthermore, it defines the terms “good” and “evil” and by doing so introduces the standard of morality, namely the nature of human beings, that is needed to assess the ethical quality of an action. The chapter then shows how the nature of human beings grounds their most fundamental duties and rights, namely their moral duties and moral rights—and along with them the moral duty to live and the moral right to life.
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Notes
- 1.
When reading this chapter, the observant reader equipped with previous knowledge of ethics will notice that it presents an ethical theory that can be described as a “natural ethics” and that stands in the tradition of the moral theory commonly known as classical (also: traditional) natural law theory. This book’s position is therefore based on a version of classical natural law theory.
As the name indicates, there is not only a classical but also a new natural law theory. The latter theory was developed by Germain Grisez in the 1960s in an interpretative article on Thomas Aquinas’ first principle of practical reason (cf. Grisez 1965). For a useful brief overview of this theory and its proponents cf. Tollefsen (2008) as well as Lee (2019). New natural law theory differs from classical natural law theory in several crucial aspects. It has been severely criticised by traditional natural law theorists and others, such as Hittinger (1987) and Long (2013); a helpful compilation of additional works criticising new natural law theory can be found in Feser & Bessette (2017: 87 (FN 120)). I agree with Feser & Bessette (2017: 87) in that these criticisms “are reason enough to reject the theory”.
- 2.
This is why the label “natural law theory” contains the term “law”.
- 3.
This chapter is a revised and condensed version of and as such draws on, and in part reproduces verbatim, material published in Erk (2019: 112–129).
- 4.
In earlier publications, I have used the term “intentionalism” to characterise this type of moral theory. This choice of term was, however, somewhat unfortunate. For when acting, the agent not only intends the end of the agent but also the end of the exterior action. Strictly speaking, the term “intentionalism” is too broad to only apply to the agent’s motive or purpose for acting. In order to remedy this inaccuracy and align the term with the content, the term “intentionalism” has been substituted with the term “motivism”.
- 5.
The English word “deontology” derives from the classical Greek word δέον (read: déon) which can be translated as “that which is binding” or simply as obligation or duty.
- 6.
An example of a combination of consequentialism and deontology is the moral theory named “rule consequentialism”. According to this theory, “an act is morally wrong if and only if it is forbidden by rules justified by their consequences” (Hooker 2015). So, rule consequentialism stipulates that there is some set of rules that bind an agent and by doing so introduces a somewhat deontological element in an otherwise consequentialist moral theory.
An example of a combination of motivism and deontology is Immanuel Kant’s moral theory. In his “Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten” (“Fundamental principles of the metaphysics of ethics”) we read:
Denn bei dem, was moralisch gut sein soll, ist es nicht genug, daß es dem sittlichen Gesetze gemäß sei, sondern es muß auch um desselben willen geschehen.
For in order that an action should be morally good, it is not enough that it conform to the moral law, but it must also be done for the sake of the law.
(Kant 1785: 390)
So, according to Kant it is not only the lawfulness of an action that makes it good; rather the agent must also act with the right purpose in mind, namely fulfilling his duty because it is his duty.
- 7.
This statement holds true for the actual accidental consequences of an exterior action, that is, those actual consequences that are not the end of the agent or the end of the exterior action. Insofar as they have been successfully realised, the end of the agent and the end of the exterior action can also be counted among the consequences. As they are already taken into consideration qua their nature as separate elements of the human action, they need not be considered a second time.
The actualised end of the exterior action specifies the ethical quality of a human action because it is the end of the exterior action, not because it is a consequence of the exterior action. In the same fashion, the actualised end of the agent specifies the ethical quality of a human action because it is the end of the agent, not because it is a consequence of the exterior action.
- 8.
The content of this chapter draws on, and in part reproduces verbatim, material published in Erk (2019: 130–159).
- 9.
As it is used here, the term “creator” is not necessarily synonymous with “God”. Rather, it is meant to give expression to the fact that every (contingent, i.e. non-necessary) being has an efficient cause. So, the creator of something is the being that has brought this something into existence by a conscious effort, as, for example, the carpenter who creates a chair.
- 10.
- 11.
A natural inclination (also: natural tendency, natural disposition, natural appetite; Latin: inclinatio naturalis, appetitus naturalis) is an intrinsic behavioural disposition towards activity and operation that aids in the realisation of a being’s nature. As “the tendency to achieve its end which is imparted to a thing in virtue of its having a nature” (Pakaluk 2018: 19), a natural inclination inclines a being to pursue its own good, that is, the realisation of its nature, in its own way. For a more detailed description of this concept cf. Erk (2019: 167 (FN 17)).
- 12.
For an overview of different compilations of basic human goods cf. Erk (2019: 313–315).
- 13.
One of the objects of knowledge is the good itself: “Without knowledge of the good, the good life as a whole could not even begin to be lived. […] In short, just as life and health are what perfect our bodies (and fulfil us thereby), so knowledge and understanding perfect our minds” (Oderberg 2000: 42).
- 14.
Because here Thomas Aquinas cites Dionysius Areopagita as the source of this principle, it is also called the “Dionysian Principle”. In Dionysius Areopagita’s original words the principle reads as follows:
Τὸ ἀγαθὸν ἐκ μιᾶς καὶ τῆς ὅλης αἰτίας, τὸ δὲ κακὸν ἐκ πολλῶν καὶ μερικῶν ἐλλείψεων.
The good comes from the one and whole cause, but the evil is from many and partial defects.
(Dionysius Areopagita, De Divinis Nominibus, Chapter IV, § 30)
As Rickaby (1918: 31) points out, “whoever knows this principle, does not thereby know the right and wrong of every action, but he knows how to go about the enquiry. It is a rule of diagnosis”.
- 15.
The content of this chapter draws on, and in part reproduces verbatim, material published in Erk (2019: 188–192).
- 16.
The content of this chapter draws on, and in part reproduces verbatim, material published in Erk (2019: 192–200).
- 17.
To be more precise: Because the will is the kind of thing it is (i.e. as it is its very nature) the will cannot but will the highest good which is beatitudo (English: beatitude, happiness; German: (Glück-)Seligkeit) and what is included in it: “ex necessitate volumus esse beati” (Iª q. 82 a. 2 co.; also cf. Iª q. 82 a. 1 co.; De Veritate, q. 22 a. 5 co.; De Malo, q. 6).
- 18.
For an overview of philosophical proofs of the freedom of the will cf. Lehmen (1911: 484ff).
- 19.
This is why Thomas Aquinas can state that the object of the will is the good and the end: “Obiectum autem voluntatis est bonum et finis” (Iª-IIae q. 1 a. 3 co.).
Fagothey (1963: 79f) expresses this as follows: “Every end is a good and every good is an end. An end would not be sought unless it were somehow good for the seeker, and the good by being sought is the end or purpose of the seeker’s striving”.
- 20.
De Wulf (1922: 108f) expresses this duty as follows: “In the first place we are bound to will our end, i.e., our well-being, and to seek it where it is to be found […] and not to look for it exclusively in those secondary goods which cease to be good when not controlled by reason. In the second place we are morally bound to will whatever is indispensable in order to reach this end, and to avoid that which must of necessity turn us away from it. […] Moral obligation consists in the necessity of willing our supreme good, combined with the liberty of choosing the concrete objects wherein it is in fact realized”.
When it comes to human persons the moral duty DGood is compulsory in a moral sense. This means that the human person is morally bound to realise DGood but is physically free to not do so: “The main difference between the law of nature as it applies to the life of man and to the actions of the rest of the universe is not a difference in the nature or degree of goodness, but simply a difference in the manner of subjection to the same law: both are bound by the same law, but in man its fulfillment must proceed from self-determination and its course must be self-directed, i.e. it is the moral law of his nature; whereas, in the rest of the universe, its fulfillment is by intrinsic necessity, i.e., it is the physical law of its nature. One of the consequences of this difference is that man may fail to attain his natural end, whereas the rest of the universe cannot fail” (Baschab 1937: 256).
- 21.
The content of this chapter draws on, and in part reproduces verbatim, material published in Erk (2019: 200–203).
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Erk, C. (2022). III: The General Ethics of Human Actions. In: The Ethics of Killing. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07183-6_3
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