Philosophy 224
Moral Theory: Introduction
The Role of Reasons
A fundamental feature of philosophy's
contribution to our understanding of the
contested character of our moral lives is the
insistence that our responses to moral concerns
must be justified.
• That is, we must have reasons for believing what
we do about torture or any other moral issue.
• An essential element of the philosophical
attempt to provide justifying reasons is the
appeal to moral theory.
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What is a Moral Theory?
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Answering this question requires we ask
some subsidiary ones.
• What concepts do moral theories rely
on?
• What do moral theories aim to provide?
• How and why do moral theories employ
moral principles?
• How are moral theories structured?
The Right And The Good
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All moral theories employ and
deploy these two main concepts.
"Right" and it's inverse "Wrong" are
typically used to evaluate actions.
"Good" and it's inverse "Bad"
typically assess the value of agents,
experiences, things, or states of
affairs.
Right/Wrong Action
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The concept "Right" has both a
narrow and a broad meaning.
• Narrowly, right actions are those we are
morally obligated to do.
• Broadly, right actions are all actions that
are not wrong.
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The concept "Wrong" has only one
meaning.
Tripartite Deontic Schema
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Given these accounts of the rightness and
wrongness of actions, ethicists typically
divide the realm of actions for purposes
of moral evaluation into three basic
categories.
Obligatory
Actions
Permissible
Actions
Forbidden
Actions
Moral Value
When we identify something or someone as
good or bad, we are speaking to its character,
and particularly of the moral value that it has.
• Things can have or be valuable in one of two
ways.
• Intrinsic value refers to a character or feature
inherent in the thing.
• Extrinsic value refers to how a thing is related
to some other valuable thing (ultimately one
with intrinsic value.
• Intrinsic value is what philosophers are typically
concerned with.
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Tripartite Axiological Schema
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Given the dominance of intrinsic value we
can once again identify three basic value
categories.
Intrinsically
Good
Intrinsically
ValueNeutral
Intrinsically
Bad
A Theory of the Right and the Good
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Given these accounts of the Right and the
Good, we can identify three tasks that a
moral theory must accomplish.
• MT must identify the right-making features of
actions.
• MT must provide an account of intrinsic
moral value.
• MT must specify how these accounts can
serve as the basis for the justification of
specific moral conclusions.
Two Main Aims of Moral Theory
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These three tasks of moral theory provide us
with the means of distinguishing two main aims.
• The theoretical aim (corresponding to the first two
tasks) is to identify the underlying features of actions,
persons and other morally relevant elements that
make them right or wrong, good or bad. In other
words, MTs have to explain what makes something
morally relevant.
• The practical aim (corresponding to the third task) is
to be action-guiding. In other words, MTs must
provide us with resources with which to respond to
the moral issues that confront us.
Taking Aim with Moral Principles
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One tool that philosophers use to satisfy
these aims is the moral principle.
A moral principle is a general statement
of the right-making characteristics of
actions or of the specification of intrinsic
value.
• Principles that focus on actions are called "Principles
of Right Conduct."
• Principles that focus on intrinsic value are called
"Principles of Value."
What About the Second Aim?
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PRC and PV certainly seem to satisfy the
theoretical aim of MTs, but what about
the practical aim?
The operative presumption is that if the
principles are correct, then employing the
principles to evaluate proposed actions or
possible value assignments provides
justifying reasons (as well as motivation)
for moral decision making.
A Plurality of Theories
Given that different moral theories emphasize
different principles, you shouldn’t be surprised
that when we start looking at specific theories,
we will find that they highlight different features
of our moral lives.
• In many cases, these differences mask an
essential continuity in moral evaluations, but on
occasion there will be important evaluative
differences.
• We need to consider how we should evaluate
the differing claims of the moral theories we will
discuss.
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Evaluating Moral Theories
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In addition to a consideration of the adequacy of the arguments
offered in support of a particular theory, there are a number of
features which a successful ethical theory must exhibit.
The two central features correspond to the two main aims of
moral theory
Corresponding to the theoretical aim is the principle of explanatory
power: a theory should help us understand our moral evaluations. The
better the explanation, the better the theory.
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You know murder is wrong. Now ask yourself why? That's a harder question to answer
than it might at first seem, and moral theory can fill in the explanatory gap.
Corresponding to the practical aim is the principle of practical
guidance: a theory should help us make the morally correct choices.
The better the guidance, the better the theory.
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If you are faced with the challenge of having to help a friend decide whether or not to
have an abortion, you need a theory that provides determinate, consistent, and
actionable verdicts.
The Example of Ethics By Authority
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We can begin to appreciate the value of
these evaluative principles by putting
them to work in a consideration of a
popular, but not necessarily successful,
approach to moral theory.
"Ethics by Authority" refers to a family of
approaches to moral justification which
share the insistence that all the moral
explanation and guidance we need can be
located in some "authority."
Divine Command Theory
DCT is one example of an authority based moral
theory.
• The key claim of DCT is that, an action is right if
and only if [iff] (and because) God does not
command that we not do that action.
• One of the virtues of this approach is that it does
satisfy MT's practical aim.
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The 10 commandments don't leave a lot of wiggle room.
However, it does nothing to satisfy the
explanatory aim.
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Why should we honor our parents?
To say that "it pleases God" just pushes the question back a level. Why does/should it
please God? God's willing it is no explanation of why it is the right thing to will.
Insisting that God is good doesn’t help. After all, goodness is a moral quality which still
needs an explanation.
Ethical Relativism
ER is another example.
• It's key claim is that an action (performed by a
member of Group G) is right iff the moral
norms accepted by G permit the performance
of the action.
• Like with DCT, ER seems appropriately actionguiding, but it doesn’t do any better job with the
theoretical aim.
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• Why should the fact that a majority of some members of a group
believe that the death penalty is morally acceptable make it so?
• Most Europeans used to believe that the earth was flat, but that didn’t
make it so.
What have we seen?
Our consideration of DCT and ER has revealed
that these two very common "moral theories"
do not satisfy the evaluative constraints which
moral theories should satisfy.
• At the very least, this fact calls into question the
ability of these two ways of thinking about
morality to do the work we ask of moral
theories.
• When we review later in the semester a range
of specific moral theories, we will consider
whether they do a better job of satisfying these
constraints.
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