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 ethical thinking and discourse along. The rest of this chapter should give you a demonstration of how far skill in devis- ing and evaluating moral arguments can take you.
Recall that arguments are made up of state- ments (premises and conclusions), and thus moral arguments are too. What makes an argument a moral argument is that its conclusion is always a moral statement. A moral statement is a state- ment affirming that an action is right or wrong or that a person (or one’s motive or character) is good or bad. These are moral statements:
• Capital punishment is wrong.
• Jena should not have lied.
• You ought to treat him as he treated you.
• Tania is a good person.
• Cruelty to animals is immoral.
Notice the use of the terms wrong, should, ought, good, and immoral. Such words are the main- stays of moral discourse, though some of them (for example, good and wrong) are also used in non- moral senses.