Abstract
The challenge before us now is to provide an account of the meaning of moral expressions which is generally acceptable. If this cannot be done, then my contention that the meaning and truth of value judgments is to be found by discovering the moral beliefs that people in general hold most deeply will fail to be substantiated. The task consists of two parts. The first and easier is to spell out a schematic account of what the term ‘ought’ means; this schema is, I think, applicable to most moral theories. The second task is much more difficult, for it will require fleshing out the meaning of ‘ought’ in ways that assert the truth of ethical principles, which — though general — have definite content capable of allowing solutions to moral questions.
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Notes
A person who simply accepts oughts that are handed down to him without reflecting on the reasons for them may not think of them as having or contributing to something of value. Yet even such people acknowledge oughts as determining what they are required to do, as standards of behavior. Such people value the behavior required by these oughts, even though they might not actually relate their beliefs to values in any way. It is perhaps better to say that oughts presuppose standards. It is also true that there are many people who may have other reasons than good evidence and arguments for holding a belief; such people, however, probably would not use epistemic oughts. Rather they might say to someone, “You ought to believe that p because God said so.” I owe these suggestions to James Forrester. But it must be remembered that I am talking about beliefs that are appealed to in argument where people are trying to defend their beliefs in a rational manner — not like the bumper sticker one sees occasionally: “God said it. I believe it. That settles it.”
James Forrester has suggested that a person might say something like “According to the law (customs, standards) of that time (place, certain premises), X ought to do A (or it ought to be that p)” when the person does not himself accept those laws, standards, or premises. Here the ought judgment is being relativized to a set of standards other than those held by the speaker; by specifying those standards the speaker makes it clear that he himself disagrees with them. He might even be trying to show someone else a consequence of her beliefs that she would be loath to accept in order to question her standards. Ought sentences based on standards with which the speaker does not agree are included in what Copp calls type-one normative propositions; they say only that the item meets a standard that has (or had) currency in some society or other. These Copp distinguishes from type two normative propositions which entail that the item meets a justified standard [See Morality, Normativity, and Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 22–24]. Unless otherwise specified, my discussion is only of type-two oughts.
It does not follow, of course, that the fact that a person values truth or an ideal world or some particular goal entails that he will value the required means to that goal or that he will not value means which will promote that goal, but are not necessary to it.
See James Forrester’s discussion in Being Good and Being Logical (Armorik, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1996), esp. Chapter 4.
See, for example, my ‘Practical Reasoning and Historical Explanation,’ History and Theory, 15 (1976): 133–140
It is not necessary that the end be valuable in any sense other than its being desired by the agent, so long as it meets the restrictions to be discussed (i.e., is neither imprudent nor immoral).
Frank Jackson has argued this in ‘Decision-Theoretic Consequentialism and the Nearest and Dearest Objection’ Ethics, 101 (1991): 461–482.
I am indebted to James Forrester for pointing out the necessity for clarification here.
I have discussed this hierarchy in Persons, Animals, and Fetuses, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1996, Chapter 2. Thomson also considers that moral oughts override other types (see Gilbert Harman & Judith Jarvis Thomson, Moral Relativism and Moral Objectivity, Blackwell, Oxford, 1996, Chapter 8).
Of course, people might (and some do) claim that it is better to follow one’s emotions, disregarding one’s best interests, or to look out for Number One and let others go hang. I shall subsequently discuss these views, which I think can be shown to be based on misunderstandings of what their proponents are actually claiming. It is much more common to find people who act imprudently or immorally, either despite believing they ought not to do so (akrasia or perversity), or having told themselves they were actually doing the right thing (self-deception), or, most commonly, because they haven’t thought at all. None of these scenarios counts against the thesis I am maintaining here.
I am indebted to an anonymous reader of this manuscript for suggesting an example of this type.
James Forrester has pointed out the need to clarify this issue more fully.
In fact, quite a lot has been written against ‘consequentialist’ moral theories in recent years. As examples, see Bernard Williams, in J. J.C. Smart and Bernard Williams, Utilitarianism: For and Against (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 108–118; Samuel Scheffler, The Rejection of Consequentialism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), esp. Chapter 2, and Jonathan Dancy, Moral Reasons (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), esp. Chapters 10–13. I will discuss these arguments in various places as the book progresses.
See Beyond Good and Evil, ed. and trans. Marianna Cowan (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1955), fifth and ninth articles.
Elsewhere I have argued that such views do not represent the position that it is morally acceptable for some persons to benefit at the expense of others, but rather that not all humans count as persons; rather, some are held to be lesser beings, rather like animals, to whom the superior humans may have some obligations but whose duties do not include treating their interests on an equal basis. See Moral Language, Chapter 8. This difference in status has actually been an extremely common phenomenon throughout human history. The names of many primitive tribes actually mean ‘the People,’ and there have been numerous demonstrations of such tribes treating members of their ‘in’ group with justice and kindness, while exhibiting dreadful cruelty to those outside that group, sometimes even to the point of considering them game for hunting. (See, for example, the discussion of the Mundurucú headhunters of Brazil by Edward O. Wilson, On Human Nature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), 111–114). The contrast between exquisite torture for enemies in war and loving relationships with family — including adopted outsiders — among many Native American tribes is frequently illustrated by the accounts in Frederick Drimmer, ed., Captured by Indians: 15 Firsthand Accounts, 1750–1870 (New York: Dover Publications, 1961). Of course, as will be discussed below, indigenous people themselves have often been considered merely animals by invading “civilized” groups.
See The Ethics, Book III, Propositions 3–5 and the Definitions of the Emotions, 1, and Book IV, Propositions 18–37 and Definitions. See the edition edited and translated by Robert H. M. Elwes, The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza, Vol 2 (New York: Dover Publications, 1951).
‘Ethical Egoism is Inconsistent,’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 35 (1957): 111–118.
See, for example, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, passim.
Personal communication.
That people act without considering the interests of others or may attempt to justify their selfish actions by insincerely citing moral reasons does not go against what I have argued here. I am not discussing what people’s real motives are, but rather what sorts of considerations people appeal to in moral argument. That the self-centered use moral considerations to justify their beliefs and actions shows all the more that they recognize the necessity of doing so if they are to convince others that they are justified. That they recognize this necessity shows how widespread is the belief in the crucial importance of moral standards.
In ‘Be Ye Therefore Perfect, or the Inevitability of Sin,’ Religious Studies, 21 (1985):1–19.
Indeed, if Dostoevsky is right, mankind is in love with suffering and depravity, and is right to be so, as this shows that he is free and not tied to canons of rationality like some automaton. [See Notes from Underground, ed. & trans. by Ralph E. Matlaw (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1960), Part I, Sects VII- X]. But here too, we have a conception of human good which contrasts with what is rational and prudent: the good being exercise of free will.
See, for example, Hector- Neri Castañeda, The Structure ofMorality, (Springfield, IL: Charles Thomas, Pub., 1974).
See Fear and Trembling, ed. and trans. Howard V. And Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press), esp. 52–82.
Kierkegaard does speak of a person’s performing an act of faith which goes against the ethical as putting the individual above the universal. This might be read in (at least) two ways. If he is suggesting that an individual should put himself or his particular concerns — including his personal relationship with God — ahead of what is morally right, then Kierkegaard is surely wrong. History has been littered with catastrophes resulting from the acts of those who believed that they had a special relationship with God which permitted them to destroy others. On the other hand, I think it more likely that the primacy of the individual could be taken as an expression of the importance of individual persons — a central notion of Christianity (and other modern religions). It is, I shall argue subsequently, a centerpiece of any defensible moral theory that individuals take precedence over rules because individuals are those for the sake of whom rules exist. This does not mean that individuals have the right to break rules whenever they wish, but only when doing so will be more consistent with what morality requires. And this, I think, is consonant with the spirit of what Kierkegaard is saying: that since God is good and cares for all individuals, He may ask of a person that she do something which violates an ethical rule that should normally be followed, but His purpose in making such a demand is righteous. If the command really comes from God (as opposed to being dreamed up by the person herself) it will not be ultimately wrong.
There might be individuals who think that one ought to follow the demands of etiquette or the law regardless of whether they conflict with any other considerations. But if such people are forced to try to justify these views, they would be unlikely to convince others.
See The Structure of Morality (Springfield, IL: Charles Thomas, Publisher, 1974), Chapter 8.
Similarly Darwall argues (Impartial Reason, Cornell University Press, Ithaca & London, 1983, Chapter 14) that what one ought to do is what is unconditionally rational — i.e., what the person would want everyone to do in the same circumstances — is the overall standard by which moral standards, as well as others, are judged.
Not all of these objections apply to Darwall’s version of the ought-all-things-considered, for he brings in the requirement of universality. No one could rationally want states of the world similar to what Hitler wanted because, in Darwall’s view, rationality entails looking at actions impartially, so that we would want that action done to us just as we would want to do it to someone else. On the other hand, what X might want impartially could be in conflict with what Y wants impartially. If X judges that Y ought to do A, is he using his own standards or Y’s? The same objection applies here as applies to Castaneda’s view.
See R.M. Hare, Freedom and Reason (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), Chapter 5.
For a fuller discussion of moral weakness and perversity, and why it shows that moral judgments are not essentially action guiding in the sense that the belief that one ought to do A will result in one’s doing A (unless one somehow cannot do A), see my Moral Language, 109 – 122.
There is moral value in pursuing personal goals and one’s own interest. We have seen that it is morally, as well as prudentially, right for agents to act in their own best interests, so long as there is no conflict with the interests of others and sometimes even when there is such a conflict. And it is usually right, morally and prudentially, to pursue one’s own individual goals, for, as I shall argue later, what is best for us is closely related to what will enable us to achieve our goals. There is nothing morally good in itself in finding a special stamp for one’s collection, or in winning a marathon. But if you are an avid stamp collector or runner, these things are very important to you. To the extent that you attain these goals, you are more likely to be happy, and your happiness has moral value equal to the happiness of all persons. While your finding the stamp is something you value and which you care about, those of us who do not share this interest will, of course, not care about either our finding stamps or your finding them, except to the extent we care about you. But this does not imply that the moral value of your finding the stamp is greater for you than your finding it would be for others, as Jonathan Dancy maintains [see Moral Reasons (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), 12 – 209]. That Joe values something and cares about it lends objective value to his having it, just because that would contribute to his happiness. And for Sue who doesn’t care about it, her having it would not have the same objective value. This is not, however, a limitation on moral realism or objectivity; it is simply a recognition of the facts that people have different interests and that their happiness depends on different things. And what is objectively valuable is happiness, and the happiness of one individual is just as important from the moral point of view as that of any other.
This is often what people mean by this question, equating morality with existing social mores. See also Copp’s discussion, Morality, Normativity, and Society, 242–245.
Seethe classic paper by H. A. Prichard, ‘Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?’ Mind 21 (1912): 12–37.
See The Sources of Normativity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), especially Lecture 3.
G. A. Cohen, ‘Reason, Humanity, and the Moral Law,’ in The Sources of Normativity, 167–188.
The Sources of Normativity, 227–232.
In Why you Should, (Providence, R.I.: University Press of New England, 1989).
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Forrester, M.G. (2002). The Meaning of ‘Ought’ — A Formal Scheme. In: Moral Beliefs and Moral Theory. Library of Ethics and Applied Philosophy, vol 10. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9994-8_2
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