THE ELEMENTS OF ETHICS
We all do ethics, and we all have a general sense of what is involved. But we can still ask, What are the elements of ethics that make it the peculiar enterprise that it is? We can include at least the following factors:
The Preeminence of Reason Doing ethics typically involves grappling with our feelings, taking into account the facts of the situation (including our own observations and relevant knowledge), and trying to understand the ideas that bear on the case. But above all, it involves, even requires, critical reasoning—the consideration of reasons for whatever statements
thing as desirable? How can a moral principle be justified? Is there such a thing as moral truth? To do normative ethics, we must assume certain things about the meaning of moral terms and the logical relations among them. But the job of metaethics is to question all these assumptions, to see if they really make sense.
Finally, there is applied ethics—the applica- tion of moral norms to specific moral issues or cases, particularly those in a profession such as medicine or law. Applied ethics in these fields goes under names such as medical ethics, journalistic ethics, and business ethics. In applied ethics we study the results derived from applying a moral principle or theory to specific circumstances. The purpose of the exercise is to learn something important about either the moral characteristics of the situation or the adequacy of the moral norms. Did the doctor do right in performing that abortion? Is it morally permissible for scientists to perform experiments on people without their con- sent? Was it right for the journalist to distort her reporting to aid a particular side in the war? Ques- tions like these drive the search for answers in applied ethics.
In every division of ethics, we must be careful to distinguish between values and obligations. Sometimes we may be interested in concepts or judgments of value—that is, about what is morally good, bad, blameworthy, or praiseworthy. We prop- erly use these kinds of terms to refer mostly to per- sons, character traits, motives, and intentions. We may say “She is a good person” or “He is to blame for that tragedy.” Other times, we may be inter- ested in concepts or judgments of obligation—that is, about what is obligatory or a duty or what we should or ought to do. We use these terms to refer to actions. We may say “She has a duty to tell the truth” or “What he did was wrong.”
When we talk about value in the sense just described, we mean moral value. If she is a good person, she is good in the moral sense. But we can also talk about nonmoral value. We can say that
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’ QUICK REVIEW ethics (or moral philosophy)—The philosophical
study of morality.
morality—Beliefs concerning right and wrong, good and bad; they can include judgments, rules, principles, and theories.
descriptive ethics—The scientific study of moral beliefs and practices.
normative ethics—The study of the principles, rules, or theories that guide our actions and judgments.
metaethics—The study of the meaning and logi- cal structure of moral beliefs.
applied ethics—The application of moral norms to specific moral issues or cases, particularly those in a profession such as medicine or law.
instrumentally (or extrinsically) valuable— Valuable as a means to something else.
intrinsically valuable—Valuable in itself, for its own sake.
CHAPTER 1: ETHICS AND THE EXAMINED LIFE Á 7
moral judgment is or is not justified, that a moral principle is or is not sound, that an action is or is not morally permissible, or that a moral theory is or is not plausible.
Our use of critical reasoning and argument helps us keep our feelings about moral issues in perspective. Feelings are an important part of our moral experience. They make empathy possible, which gives us a deeper understanding of the human impact of moral norms. They also can serve as internal alarm bells, warning us of the possibility of injustice, suffering, and wrongdoing. But they are unreliable guides to moral truth. They may simply reflect our own emotional needs, prej- udices, upbringing, culture, and self-interests. Careful reasoning, however, can inform our feel- ings and help us decide moral questions on their merits.
The Universal Perspective Logic requires that moral norms and judgments follow the principle of universalizability—the idea that a moral statement (a principle, rule, or judg- ment) that applies in one situation must apply in all other situations that are relevantly similar. If you say, for example, that lying is wrong in a par- ticular situation, then you implicitly agree that lying is wrong for anyone in relevantly similar sit- uations. If you say that killing in self-defense is morally permissible, then you say in effect that killing in self-defense is permissible for everyone in relevantly similar situations. It cannot be the case that an action performed by A is wrong while the same action performed by B in relevantly sim- ilar circumstances is right. It cannot be the case that the moral judgments formed in these two sit- uations must differ just because two different peo- ple are involved.
This point about universalizability also applies to reasons used to support moral judgments. If rea- sons apply in a specific case, then those reasons also apply in all relevantly similar cases. It cannot be true that reasons that apply in a specific case do
(moral or otherwise) are in question. What- ever our view on moral issues and whatever moral outlook we subscribe to, our commonsense moral experience suggests that if a moral judg- ment is to be worthy of acceptance, it must be supported by good reasons, and our delibera- tions on the issue must include a consideration of those reasons.
The backbone of critical reasoning generally and moral reasoning in particular is logical argu- ment. This kind of argument—not the angry- exchange type—consists of a statement to be supported (the assertion to be proved, the conclu- sion) and the statements that do the supporting (the reasons for believing the statement, the prem- ises). With such arguments, we try to show that a
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8 Á PART 1: FUNDAMENTALS
sophisticated care than other patients receive. The situation is a matter of life and death—a good rea- son for not treating everyone the same and for pro- viding the heart attack patient with special consideration. This instance of discrimination is justified.
The Dominance of Moral Norms Not all norms are moral norms. There are legal norms (laws, statutes), aesthetic norms (for judg- ing artistic creations), prudential norms (practical considerations of self-interest), and others. Moral norms seem to stand out from all these in an inter- esting way: they dominate. Whenever moral princi- ples or values conflict in some way with nonmoral principles or values, the moral considerations usu- ally override the others. Moral considerations seem more important, more critical, or more weighty. A principle of prudence such as “Never help a stranger” may be well justified, but it must yield to any moral principle that contradicts it, such as “Help a stranger in an emergency if you can do so without endangering yourself.” An aesthetic norm that somehow involved violating a moral princi- ple would have to take a backseat to the moral considerations. A law that conflicted with a moral principle would be suspect, and the latter would have to prevail over the former. Ultimately the jus- tification for civil disobedience is that specific laws conflict with moral norms and are therefore invalid. If we judge a law to be bad, we usually do so on moral grounds.