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Is it wrong to kill a person in self- defense? Is Premise 1 true? It is at least dubious, because counterexamples abound in which the principle seems false. Is it wrong to kill one person to save a hundred? Is it wrong to kill a person in self- defense? Is it wrong to kill a […]

Is it wrong to kill one person to save a hundred? Is Premise 1 true? It is at least dubious, because counterexamples abound in which the principle seems false. Is it wrong to kill one person to save a hundred? Is it wrong to kill a person in self- defense? Is it wrong to kill

TESTING MORAL PREMISES But how can we evaluate moral premises? After all, we cannot check them by consulting a scientific study or opinion poll as we might when examin- ing nonmoral premises. Usually the best approach is to use counterexamples. If we want to test a universal generalization such as “All dogs have tails,” we

What premise can we add that will be plausible and fitting and make the argu- ment valid? This premise will do: “Administering a punishment to criminals that does not deter crime is immoral.” The argument then becomes: 1. Administering a punishment to criminals that does not deter crime is immoral. 2. The use of capital

A nonmoral premise is also necessary in a moral argument. Why exactly? A nonmoral premise is also necessary in a moral argument. Why exactly? Recall that the conclusion of a typical moral argument is a moral judgment, or claim, about a particular kind of action. The moral premise is a general moral principle, or standard,

What if our self-defense argument contained no moral premise? Why must we have at least one premise that is a moral statement? Without a moral premise, the argument would not get off the ground. We can- not infer a moral statement (conclusion) from a nonmoral statement (premise). That is, we cannot reason that a moral

Why must we have at least one premise that is a moral statement? Why must we have at least one premise that is a moral statement? Without a moral premise, the argument would not get off the ground. We can- not infer a moral statement (conclusion) from a nonmoral statement (premise). That is, we cannot

Nonmoral statements are very different. They do not affirm that an action is right or wrong or that a person is good or bad. They assert that a state of affairs is actual (true or false) but do not assign a moral value to it. Most of the statements that we encounter every day are

MORAL STATEMENTS AND ARGUMENTS When we deliberate about the rightness of our actions, make careful moral judgments about the character or behavior of others, or strive to resolve complex ethical issues, we are usually making or critiquing moral arguments—or trying to. And rightly so. To a remarkable degree, moral arguments are the vehicles that move

But how are these statements related? To find out, we draw a diagram. Using the numbers to rep- resent the premises and conclusion, we write down the number for the conclusion and place the num- bers for the premises above it. Then to show how the premises support the conclusion, we draw arrows from the