SOME TOOLS FOR DOING MORAL PHILOSOPHY

CONTEMPORARY MORAL PROBLEMS
PHIL 2320: SPRING (II) 2001
Bob Corbett, instructor

1. The Moral Argument. A moral argument has two parts:
   
   
   1. The moral judgment.

      This is usually a single very short sentence which simply announces the final conclusion of our investigation into a moral situation. It must not just tell us facts, but it must arrive at a conclusion of good or evil, or of should or should not.
      
      

      • For example, it might be the judgment of a moral principle like: "Never tell a lie."
        
        
      • Or it might be a specific moral judgement: "Harry should not have violated Margaret's right to her property."
        
        
      • Or even a statement of social policy: "The state must protect children from abusive parents."
        
        

      The moral judgment does not give us the reasons, none of them, for why such a conclusion would be chosen. It just announces it.
      
      

   2. Making a moral judgment is quiet easy. But giving a strong set of rational arguments for the judgement is more demanding, and that is what is required.

      The moral judgment must be supported by a at last some statement of a moral principle, and strong sets of reasons, facts and other morally relevant considerations which defend why this moral judgment is demanded by reasons.
      
      Giving moral principles, reasons and announcing facts are rather clear. But I've included a vague third category which I think is necessary: "…other morally relevant considerations…" these are quite difficult to describe in general terms. They tend to arise in the investigation of the moral question that is posed.
      
      

   3. After a moral argument has been posed and seen to appear clear and rationally persuasive and to lead to the conclusion (moral judgment) stated, then it is quite useful to spend some time in objections and replies: that is in finding or imagining objections that any reasonable thinkers might raise to your moral argument, and showing why the objections do not serious damage your argument or lessen the rational power of your moral judgment.
   
   
   
2. Distinction between popular morality and philosophical morality
   

   We often flip back and forth between talking about popular morality and philosophical morality. However, it is important to know what each is and to be aware of what we are doing.
   
   Popular morality tells us what most people seem likely to hold and what they might or might not do as best we can tell.
   
   Philosophical morality is concerned with considering moral judgments of either individuals or social morality (the state and the group) from the point of view of reason, in which facts are carefully stated and sought and in which moral principles are argued for and articulated. Moral judgments are defended by careful reasons.
   
   What "people" are likely to do or say about this or that issue is quite irrelevant to philosophical morality. It may well be interesting, and we may want to ask ourselves why they might hold this or that view, but popular morality has no real weight in believing or not believing the judgments of philosophical morality.

3. Individual morality as opposed to morality for the state.
   

   Traditional moral philosophy tended to concentrate on how individuals should behave, conceiving morality as a guide to good living.
   
   Contemporary moral philosophy tends to do much more work on the moral aspects of social policy. Part of the reason for this is that the 20th century tended to develop clearer understandings of how much the individual is caught in the larger forces of social policy and social traditions. Thus it is argued (or often simply assumed) that where one has to go to ask important moral questions is to the heart of social policy.
   
   No one denies there is still room for questions of the morality of personal behavior, but this aspect of moral philosophy is significantly diminished.
   
   It is important to realize the two approaches may not always arrive at the same positions. For example, one may decide that abortion is something one could never condone or practice, but still not be willing to argue that moral philosophy recommends a social policy in which abortion is outlawed.

4. The paternalism puzzle.

   Most people would tend to agree (that MOST people would agree is no serious argument for the truth of the claim, but it is not irrelevant either) that parents have the moral right, perhaps even the moral obligation to interfere in their child's life to protect the child from harming him or herself or from harming others.
   
   Not that this act on the part of the parent denies the MORAL AUTONOMY of the child -- that is, the presumed right that humans have to decide their own moral choices.
   
   On the other hand, the same MOST-people-argument would agree that eventually the parents must back off and children must be allowed to come into their own moral autonomy and be free (morally) to act as they decide.
   
   This notion of paternalism is extended into other areas when the state, or other groups or organizations choose to interfere in the personal life of an individual overriding his or her moral autonomy to choose for him or herself. Or for the state, especially, to make such decisions for the entire citizenry.
   
   There are relatively clear cases of both the parent case in which interference is generally seen to be rational and justifiable, and clear cases in which the interference can be seen to be neither rational or justifiable.
   
   The paternalism puzzle is: when and under what conditions, or following what moral rules can we decide the MORAL scope and limits of paternalistic acts?
   
   

5. Self-regarding acts and Other-regarding acts.

   Very closely connected with the PATERNALISM PUZZLE is the distinction between self-regarding acts and other-regarding acts.
   
   We are social beings and virtually always live in community and relatively close contact with other humans. Nonetheless, we have a loose notion that acts may be described as primarily affecting one's own self, and other acts have the greatest impact on others, or at least some very important and perhaps unchosen impact on others.
   
   Those acts where the primary external effects are on the person him or herself are called self-regarding acts. The risk one takes to ride in a car without a seat-beat is a self-regarding risk.
   
   Those acts where the primary external effects are on some person other than the actor are other-regarding acts. Thus were I to steal your book that would be a other-regarding act. The greatest loss with be to you since you would lose your book.
   
   This distinction is quite related to the paternalism puzzle since people butting into other's lives to "help" them or "save" them or "protect" them may be protecting them from others or themselves. Often it is claimed that the morality of paternalism may well depend upon whether or not the acts are self-regarding or other-regarding.
   
   

6. Legality and morality

   Morality looks at the question of what we (individuals or social institutions) OUGHT to do. Legality is concerned with what we MUST do in order to avoid social sanctions or punishments from the state. There is no guarantee that all things that are legal are moral. Being legal is in no way a guarantee that something is moral, and that something is legal is no argument at all that something is moral.
   
   

7. Morality and conflicting rights

   Often we may claim that something is a right. These intuitive claims of rights are usually called "prima facie" rights, and there are many of them which people might claim. However, we often find that one prima facie right will be in conflict with other rights. I have a right to my freedom to do what I wish, but you have the right to your book which I might be taking. Thus, the hard part of moral philosophy of rights is rationally deciding and showing why ONE prima facie right should be honored in this situation and another one not taken.
   
   

8. Morality and certainty

   Moral decisions are often quite complex and tied to very unique concrete situations. Nonetheless moral philosophers try to arrive at greater clarity about such situations and to discover general moral principles which we may use to help us arrive at moral judgments. Moral judgments, however, are seldom absolute and certain. They are as good and reliable as the reasons given to support them.
   
   Newer students to moral philosophy often want, demand and expect certain and universal moral judgments, and if they can imagine some one objection to a moral judgment will believe they have shown the moral judgment to be inadequate.
   
   This is too strong. Objections to a moral judgment are extremely important tools to moral philosophy, but a strong and decent objection is not automatically a refutation of the reasonableness of a moral judgment. One must often ask not:
   
   What is good in this situation? Or what is morally unacceptable in this situation, but rather must ask: of the reasonable possibilities we have facing us, which of them has the greatest weight of reason?
   
   Often, even in well-analyzed and carefully reasoned cases moral philosophy may not be able to decide the case in a way that reasonable, intelligent and informed thinkers may agree. Moral philosophy is just not an activity which can guarantee such absolute and certain results.
   
   

9. The slippery slope argument.

   A very common problem in moral philosophy (and other arguments for that matter) comes with what we refer to as the slippery slope argument. This is an image for a slope, perhaps ice covered, that if you once start down the slope at all, then you might well slide all the way to the bottom. The conclusion of such an argument is: don't mess with the slope, stay up on top.
   
   An example would be of a person who is on a diet and should not eat any foods with heavy sugar content. The person is doing well staying on top of the slope: that is the person eats no items at all with heavy sugar content. But after a while the person decides, well, I'll allow myself one sweet item, but only after I have ridden my bicycle for two hours. The opponents of this decision may make the argument of the slippery slope. They would say: this decision is too risky for your diet. If you all this move down the slope toward sugared items it will not be long before you allow it for riding 1 1/2 hours, or when you've done some other good healthy deed, and before long you will be gobbling sugared items all the time, you will be at the bottom of the slope.
   
   Note that this is an argument for extreme caution and doesn't want to allow for any subtle distinctions, or even thinks none can be made by reason.
   
   The typical reply to the slippery slope argument is that it is not a good one, though it is an important danger to note. However, runs the response, it may well be possible to come down the slope from the absolute top of denial, to allow some distinctions and exceptions without ending up at the bottom of the slope.
   
   Suppose we believe that students entering into the university should have a score of 89 on some comprehensive examination. This is our rule; the top of our slope. It is there to protect the quality of the university and protect poorer students from being hurt by failure and wasting their time and money. But, along comes a student who scores 88, but whom we discover is a very hard worker and there is much evidence to support these especially strong work habits. Someone in the admissions office suggests accepting the student. Another official makes the slippery slope argument and says: no. The next thing you know we'll be accepting people with 75 and good intentions.
   
   Again, the reply is that since our reasons for using the 89 level are presumably quite reasonable, we should be very cautious of exceptions because of the danger of the slippery slope, but, if used with care and reason, the movement down the slope may well not be a move to the bottom.

10. The problem of subjectivism in arguments.

    Moral philosophy makes a general presupposition that reason is a very strong tool to decide how we should act. Moral philosophy is the activity of giving reasons to support moral principles, moral judgments, and using facts and other relevant moral considerations to decide issues. It is not merely a matter of opinion.
    
    One may not accept that presupposition. Fine. Then one would be choosing simply not to do moral philosophy, or one would tackle the much more demanding, but marvelously interesting task, of showing that moral philosophy can really be something a bit different from what my first paragraph suggests. There are moral philosophers who do this well.
    
    However, for the purposes of this course we are making the general assumption, and thus whether you believe the presupposition or not, it will determine the rules of the game, so to speak, for our discourse on moral issues.
    
    Given this there are a number of phrases that I would strongly recommend you avoid since they are likely to lead you to violate the presuppositions.
    
    Moral philosophy on this account is not much concerned with opinions, feelings, "thoughts" (as opposed to reasons) which are prefaced with the pronoun "I" Thus such sentences that begin:
    
    I feel….. I believe……I think…… My opinion is….. and so on are generally quite irrelevant. Moral philosophy is not about YOU. It is about what independent reasons and considerations amount to a serious and convincing argument for a position.
    
    Something of the form: I believe capital punishment is morally unacceptable because it is too easy for the state to make a mistake and kill an innocent person.
    
    Perhaps the sentence is quite a decent one since it has a moral judgement (capital punishment is morally unacceptable) and at least the BEGINNINGS of an argument -- it is too easy for the state to err (but we don't know what supports such a belief, we'd need deeper reasons). However, the "I THINK" part is quite irrelevant and adds nothing of value to the moral argument. You're thinking it (or believing it, or feeling it, and so on) adds nothing to the truth of the argument, it is just a useless piece of personal biography from the point of view of moral philosophy. Since students so often confuse personal announcements with arguments I would urge you to simply avoid the "I" pronouncements altogether. I can assume that if you simply say: Capital punishment is bad because it is too easy for the state to make a mistake…. that you do indeed believe it, think it, feel it and all that, otherwise you wouldn't say it. But, again, I would challenge you to complete the argument with some reasons to believe it is too easy to make a mistake. It's not an obvious truth.

11. Motives and morality

    Students are often confused about what moral philosophy does and what the role of motives are.
    
    Basically in regard to PERSONAL morality motives are nearly (but not fully) irrelevant. Since I am trying to see what reasons there are for ME to hold or assert a particular view, I already can know my motives, thus they play little role.
    
    This is not to suggest that I may NOT be aware of my motives, or might lie to myself and so on. But mainly the task of moral philosophy is much less about personal psychology than about giving external reasons for moral behavior.
    
    However, the case is not so clear with the morality of public policy. Often OTHERS are making claims that they want a social policy for this or that reason. If they want it for the reason they say, then we might find the argument quite acceptable. But, if they have a hidden motive, then we might not find the argument acceptable. And, we are in the hard position that the other's motives are not directly assessable to us as our own motives are. Thus in case of the morality of public policy motives play a much greater role than they do in personal morality where we can inspect our own motives by introspection -- again, allowing for difficulties here too in the ability we have to deceive ourselves and sometime the laziness of bothering to examine our motives with any care.

12. A tactic to learn to think in terms of reason giving.

    One tactic to help you get used to thinking and writing in terms of arguments is to give each argument you use a very short name of one to four or five words. This may work to help you focus and to realize more consciously and exactly what the structure of your argument is.
    
    Suppose you were arguing that it is morally wrong to subject others to second hand smoke, and that you were basically using two arguments in your paper. Name them. One might be the "non-consenting child argument" and the other the "contributing to dangerous diseases argument."
    
    The first would focus on children in the home who have virtually no freedom to move away from the harmful influences of the parents' second-hand smoke, the second is the familiar argument of second-hand smoking causing or significantly contributing to diseases. Were you to have named the arguments in this manner it might well help you to focus more carefully on the fact that your paper should have two main sections and that the argument whose name each section carries is what should be discussed in that section and nothing other.
    
    This is merely a learning device to use while you are learning to think within the notion of papers which are arguments and follow a rather careful logic of the argument. Once you get fully used to this procedure you might well want to loosen up and write with a bit more style that such a rigid structure would allow. However, I would recommend this structure in the period of coming to internalize just what an argument looks like.

13. Arguments by analogy and by "paradigm cases": both for an against an argument.

    One of the fundamental assumptions of the logic of arguments is that like matter should be treated in like fashion. Thus an important manner of giving arguments (or at least "considerations") for and against an argument is by giving an analogy to another area of thought, or by giving a very clear concrete example to illustrate a point that is in doubt.
    
    

    1. An argument by analogy is to show that in some other area we know of cases which are quite clearly decided (or should be), and the puzzling case we are looking at is so much like the obvious case that by analogy -- by this closeness and by the principle that like things should be treated in like fashion -- we can arrive at a conclusion in this more difficult or disputed case.
       
       
    2. A "paradigm case" (and useful case where the outcome is quite clear) is shown to enough like the case under question that, using the principle that like cases should be treated in like fashion.
       
       
    3. Some general notes about both the analogous cases and the paradigm cases.
       
       
       1. they must really be quite LIKE the question under investigation, enough so that it makes sense to invoke the principle that like cases should be treated in like fashion.
          
          
       2. the analogous case and the paradigm case must be very clear and obvious in its own outcome. If it too is debatable, then its being analogous doesn't help and it would not be a paradigm case, since the definition of a paradigm case is one whose outcome is quite obvious to all; a case that is clearly decided by reason or intuition.