Ethics Fundamentals of Philosophy Series editor: John Shand This series presents an up-to-date set of engrossing, accurate, and lively introductions to all the core areas of philosophy Each volume is written by an enthusiastic and knowledgeable teacher of the area in question Care has been taken to produce works that while evenhanded are not mere bland expositions, and as such are original pieces of philosophy in their own right The reader should not only be well informed by the series, but also experience the intellectual excitement of being engaged in philosophical debate itself The volumes serve as an essential basis for the undergraduate courses to which they relate, as well as being accessible and absorbing for the general reader Together they comprise an indispensable library of living philosophy Published: Piers Benn Ethics Colin Lyas Aesthetics Alexander Miller Philosophy of language Forthcoming: Alexander Bird Philosophy of science Stephen Burwood, Paul Gilbert, Kathleen Lennon Philosophy of mind Richard Francks Modern philosophy Dudley Knowles Political philosophy Harry Lesser Ancient philosophy Ethics Piers Benn University of Leeds © Piers Benn 1998 This book is copyright under the Berne Convention No reproduction without permission All rights reserved First published in 1998 by UCL Press UCL Press Limited Gunpowder Square London EC4A 3DE UK This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001 The name of University College London (UCL) is a registered trade mark used by UCL Press with the consent of the owner British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBNs: 1-85728-679-0 HB 1-85728-453-4 PB ISBN 0-203-00329-2 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-17483-6 (Glassbook Format) To my father and mother, David and June Benn, and my sister, Frances Benn Contents Contents vii Preface xi Authority and relativism The idea of authority Hypothetical and categorical reasons for action Authority, autonomy and reason The challenge of relativism Does relativism make any sense? An important distinction The argument from cultural diversity The Argumentum ad Nazium Relativism and the universal ethic of toleration Why tolerance does not entail relativism Relativism and chauvinism Relativism refined Some criticisms Why relativism can seem plausible Authority again Further reading 10 13 14 15 16 17 19 21 22 24 25 26 28 The objectivity of morality Why is there a problem? Facts and values The “naturalistic fallacy” Objectivity again Perceptions and projections 31 33 34 35 37 38 vii CONTENTS viii Are moral properties “queer”? Objectivist responses Values and secondary qualities Some difficulties for the analogy Interlude: theism and neo-Aristotelianism The Euthyphro dilemma Moral facts and moral reasons How are reasons generated? More on why the problem is thorny Credible and incredible moral realisms Moral discovery Further reading 40 41 42 44 45 47 50 51 54 54 56 57 Consequentialism Mill’s “Utilitarianism” Pleasure, happiness and hedonism Higher and lower pleasures Are there bad pleasures? Psychological hedonism What is wrong with psychological hedonism Whose pleasure counts? Act- and rule-consequentialism Acts and omissions Problems with the distinction Intention and foresight Advantages of the doctrine Consequentialism and maximization Agent-relative morality Subjective and objective points of view The separateness of persons Justice, ends and means Concluding remarks: utilitarianism and practical rationality Further reading 59 60 62 64 65 67 69 69 71 74 75 78 81 82 83 84 85 86 Kant’s ethics The supreme principle of morality The formula of the end in itself Freedom and morality 91 92 95 97 88 88 CONTENTS The two standpoints The good will The good will and moral luck An example: a ferry disaster Another example: the Greek junta Kant and the objectivity of moral judgement The significance of Kant’s ethics Further reading 99 101 103 104 106 108 110 111 Contractualism Hypothetical contracts and moral obligations Hobbes and the state of nature The contractualism of Gauthier The prisoners’ dilemma Kantian contractualism The “original position” For what would rational agents opt? Impartiality and “moral irrelevance” Contractualism and utilitarianism Some applications A practical example: contractualism and animals Contractualist responses Another practical example: contractualism and respect for nature Conclusion: contractualism and moral intuitions Further reading 113 114 116 118 118 120 121 123 125 127 127 132 135 Free will and the moral emotions Participant reactive attitudes The spectre of determinism The case for determinism Compatibilism Incompatibilist reservations Causality and rationality Determinism again Consequentialist justifications A remaining disquieting thought 137 138 139 141 142 144 145 150 151 153 128 130 131 ix CONCLUSION obligations or prohibitions in question Or as Scruton puts it, “ while it is supremely rational to possess them [i.e many moral attitudes and feelings], they are not themselves amenable to reason, and the attempt to make them so produces the kind of ludicrous caricature of morality that we witness in utilitarianism”.12 This is an Aristotelian thought, which I have discussed in Chapter Mention of Aristotle brings us back to virtue theory, and what it may be able to tell us about the proper role of reason in ethics As the extract from Foot at the beginning of this chapter suggested, good moral reasoning is not the same thing as logical acumen or cleverness Impeccable logical reasoning will lead to false conclusions if the premises it starts from are false But if you already know the correct conclusion, it need not matter much if you cannot follow the reasoning from the premises It is this knowing the conclusion to which Foot seems to be referring when she mentions good, though intellectually unremarkable, people who know “what’s what” What they have is a rational capacity, but one best expressed in words like imagination, discernment, or judgement This, as we saw in Chapter 7, is close to Aristotle’s account of practical wisdom Such people are good judges of the quality of actions, and especially of character Judgement is something broader than deduction or calculation, but is rational none the less It does not involve random feelings, or sudden flashes of insight It has a cognitive basis, whether or not it is easy to articulate that basis When this basis is articulated, it is best expressed in terms of virtue concepts, rather than primarily in terms of theories of right action The discernment of kindness, self-deception, vanity, selfishness, hypocrisy, loyalty, justice and tolerance – among the other virtues and vices – is, I suspect, the main function of this rational faculty If we understand the project of reasoning about ethics in this way, at least in part, then we can accommodate some of the insights of the moral conservative For his ultimate enemy is the radical who seeks to reject principles that he cannot see an immediate reason to preserve The imagination and discernment needed to be a good moral judge take time and experience to acquire It is perhaps this fact that will incline good judges to be cautious before revising their moral judgements in the light of philosophical theories 209 REASONING ABOUT ETHICS Further reading Ayer, A.J Language, truth and logic (London: Gollancz, 1936) (Reprinted many times) See Chapter It may be worth asking whether Ayer’s emotivism reduces all moral persuasion to mere propaganda Gellner, E Postmodernism, Reason and Religion (London: Routledge, 1992) An entertaining account of postmodernist subterfuges concerning reason and objectivity The book contrasts postmodernism with both the Enlightenment, and Islam Gilligan, C In a different voice: psychological theory and women’s development (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982) A feminist attempt to show that a feminine ethic of care is at least as important for ethics as a masculine ethic of justice Hare, R.M Freedom and reason (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963) Sets out very lucidly the prescriptivist account of how moral reasoning is possible and develops an intriguing argument for utilitarianism on the basis of universal prescriptivism Hare, R.M Moral thinking (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981) This book develops the theory defended earlier, but adds an explanation and defence of “two-level utilitarianism”, which allows us to stand by conventional moral principles at the intuitive level, while being able if necessary to switch to the critical level if basic principles conflict, or if we encounter hard cases As I have not developed a discussion of this in my Chapter 3, it is useful to read it and see whether utilitarianism is made any more plausible by it Scruton, R Man’s second disobedience, in The philosopher on Dover Beach, R Scruton (Manchester: Carcanet Press Limited, 1990) A suggestive piece which helps clarify what conservatives, like the author, find wrong with a certain kind of rationalism in ethics and politics Scruton, R Animal rights and wrongs (London: Demos, 1996) Williams, B Ethics and the limits of philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985) Among other things, an attack on moral theory 210 Notes Chapter 1 This theory is the emotivist theory, defended in the 1930s and 1940s by the American philosopher C.L Stevenson and the British philosopher A.J Ayer, among others It regarded moral judgements as neither true nor false, but just expressions of attitude Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) is one of the most important philosophers of the modern period, and he wrote seminal works on ethics, among many other things We shall examine Kant’s moral theory in detail in Chapter It should, however, be noted that many philosophers, whether relativists or not, deny that the concept of truth can be applied to moral judgements at all More will be said about this in Chapter I shall return to this approach to morality and moral reasoning in Chapter I leave on one side the disputed supposition that different people who make exactly the same discriminations between colour patches might still privately experience different colour sensations But it is clear that this idea could also 211 NOTES form an analogy for moral relativism: for could there be such a thing as the way red “really” looks, as opposed to “looks to me or you”? The debate about the relationship of law and morality came to prominence in the late 1950s, with the publication (in Britain) of the Wolfenden committee’s recommendation that consensual homosexual activity should be decriminalized At that time, most of those who advocated a change in the law thought that such activity was morally wrong, but they thought the law should not always enforce morality See G Harman, “Moral relativism defended”, Philosophical Review, 84 (1975), and The nature of morality, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977) Aristotle was a Greek philosopher who lived from 384–322 BC His moral theory and the theory of virtue it inspires are discussed in more detail in Chapter The Greek philosopher Plato (429–347 BC) invented an ideal state (the Republic), run on strictly hierarchical lines, and argued that justice in such a state would consist in rulers, auxiliaries and producers performing only their own proper role Chapter See G.E Moore, Principia ethica (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1959) First published 1903 The best known moral theories that take the view that moral judgements not state facts are emotivism and prescriptivism – though there may be some disagreement about what is meant by “facts” The emotivist A.J Ayer argued that moral utterances were just expressions (not even statements) of attitude, and could not be true or false He could not see what could be meant by a moral property, since there would be no way of verifying its existence (At least, that was his view in his first book Language, truth and logic (London: Gollancz, 1936), Chapter 6.) See for example, S Blackburn, Spreading the word, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984) Chapter 212 NOTES Hume is the inspirational figure lurking behind much discussion of “nonrealist” approaches to moral reality See his Treatise of human nature, Book III (ed L.A Selby-Bigge, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978) See J.L Mackie, Ethics: inventing right and wrong (Harmondsworth: Penguin books, 1977), Chapter Although hardly anyone seems to agree with Mackie’s view that moral judgements contain an inbuilt error, and although there have been mountains of literature on the subject since his book, his argument is still discussed In the Republic, Plato elaborates his notorious theory that ultimate reality consists of forms or abstract universals (such as beauty and goodness) and that this reality is inaccessible to sensory experience For Plato, the Form of the Good is, in a way, the most real thing there is – in contrast to Mackie, who thinks there is no objective goodness See Plato, Republic, translated by H.D.P Lee (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1955) Strictly speaking, a moral objectivist could also be a relativist If moral truths are truths about what is accepted in particular societies, then a statement like “infanticide is morally acceptable” could be objectively true for those societies that actually accept infanticide This way of rescuing objectivity, however, will not appeal to those objectivists who reject relativism – i.e the majority See Plato, Euthyphro, in The last days of Socrates, translated by H Tredennick B Russell, Human society in ethics and politics, in The central questions of (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1955) philosophy, A.J Ayer (Harmondsworth: Pelican Books, 1976), p 226 10 Aristotle’s ethical theory can be found in his Nicomachean ethics, translated by D Ross (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1935, reprinted in paperback 1980) 11 Blackburn’s position is explained in Spreading the word, Chapter (see Note 3) He coins the term quasi-realism to refer to his own view, which is that although moral realism is false, there is no error built into ordinary moral talk, as Mackie thought there was We are still able to judge individual moral utterances as true or false, in the light of our best (projected) moral sensibilities Blackburn’s view is open to the charge that it is an unstable compromise between moral realism and moral nihilism 12 See in particular T Nagel, The view from nowhere, (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), Chapter VIII 213 NOTES Chapter See J.S Mill, Utilitarianism, (London: 1863) in A Ryan (ed.), J.S Mill and J Bentham, Utilitarianism and other essays (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987) See Aristotle, Nicomachean ethics, translated by D Ross (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1935, reprinted 1980), Book This is an important issue, which I not treat in detail in this chapter We may distinguish between direct and indirect consequentialism Both theories agree that only consequences ultimately matter, but indirect consequentialists say that better consequences accrue in the long run if we not always think about consequences when we act, but are guided by other considerations such as our projects and special relationships Compare pleasure: we might get more pleasure from an activity if we concentrate on something other than the pleasure it brings For a good discussion of this, see P Railton, Consequentialism, alienation and the demands of morality, in Consequentialism and its critics S Scheffler (ed.) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988) You might ask what the difference is between motives and intentions Motives spring from character, and include loyalty, compassion and envy, whereas intentions concern the objectives that a person with a certain motive tries to bring about For example, jealousy (a motive) might be behind the causing of a rival’s death (an intentional action) See B Williams, A critique of utilitarianism, in Utilitarianism: For and against, J.J.C Smart and B Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973) See T Nagel, The view from nowhere, (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), Chapter IX See J Rawls, A theory of justice, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971) pp 22–7 It is in his brief section on classical utilitarianism that he makes his criticisms Chapter I Kant, Groundwork of the metaphysic of morals, trans H.J Paton (London: Harper and Row, 1964), Chapter II, Section 421 Kant, ibid., Chapter I, section 402–3 214 NOTES Kant, ibid., Chapter II, section 428 Kant, ibid., Chapter I, section 394 To make the point clearer, we should distinguish between (i) a foolish course of action that just happens to turn out well, and (ii) a rationally calculated risk Clearly there can be rationally calculated risks that turn out badly, and in such cases it seems unreasonable to blame the agent But it seems reasonable to blame the agent in the former case Both these things, however, may be denied by the advocate of moral luck Chapter T Hobbes, Leviathan (1651) J.C.A Gaskin (ed.) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) See J-J Rousseau, The social contract (originally published 1762), transl C Betts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994) In the Protagoras, 320D–328D, the sophist Protagoras outlines a mythical account of the origins of human society, stressing that justice and respect for others is essential for society to survive See W.K Guthrie, trans., Plato, Protagoras and Meno (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1956) D Gauthier, Morals by agreement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986) For a useful summary of his theory, see D Gauthier, Why contractarianism?, in Contractarianism and rational choice, P Vallentyne (ed.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) See J.L Mackie, Ethics, (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977), p 115 To forestall an objection many of you are now making – namely, that some animals may be rational – it should be noted that even if this is true (which I doubt), it isn’t an objection to contractualism as such For despite appearances, contractualism is not “speciesist”: it is quite prepared to admit any type of creature able to make agreements into the moral realm It is just that most contractualists think that only humans can make agreements See, for example, the lucid defence of a contractualist view of animals offered by P Carruthers, The animals issue, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992) Better still, see R Scruton, Animal rights and wrongs, (London: Demos, 1996) for a comprehensive and, I think, largely persuasive account of the issues 215 NOTES which sidesteps some of the more repellent aspects of contractualism while retaining its core insights Chapter See P.P Strawson, Freedom and resentment, Proceedings of the British Academy, xlviii, 1962, pp 1–25 Reprinted in G Watson (ed.), Free will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982) This article is the basis for all my references to Strawson in this chapter D Hume, An enquiry concerning human understanding, L.A Selby-Bigge (ed.) 3rd edn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), Section VIII One of the most thorough defences of incompatibilism is by P van Inwagen, in An essay on free will, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983) See also his article, The incompatibility of free will and determinism, in Watson (ed.), Free will The matter is a bit more complicated than this, since there are arguably plenty of beliefs, such as the belief that the future will resemble the past, that are induced in us by non-rational causes and which are not overturned by our recognition of this fact These tend to be very general beliefs which must be presupposed by the more specific beliefs we have It could be said that there are different issues here One is that of whether freedom is compatible with determinism, the other is that of whether moral responsibility is compatible with determinism Someone could believe in free will but doubt that this is strong enough to sustain moral responsibility However, I am treating these two questions as substantially the same for the purpose of this discussion Strawson, Freedom and resentment, in Watson (ed.), Free will, p 70 Chapter 216 Modern Aristotelians would accept that most or all of what Aristotle says about the good life for “men” applies to women as well However, Aristotle himself is referring to a life that he thinks is appropriate mainly for males of high standing I therefore shall often use the masculine pronoun in my discussion of Aristotelian ethics NOTES See Aristotle, Nicomachean ethics, trans W.D Ross (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980) Aristotle, ibid., I.7, p 12 Aristotle, ibid., I.7, p 14 Aristotle, ibid., I.7, p 13 Aristotle, ibid., II.7, p 41 Aristotle, ibid., II.5, p 35 Plato, Meno, in W.K Guthrie, trans., Plato, Protagoras and Meno (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1956) See P Foot, Virtues and vices, in P Foot, Virtues and vices (Oxford: Blackwell, 1978) This succinct and seminal article should be studied carefully by anyone wishing to pursue virtue theory 10 See for example P Foot, Goodness and choice, in P Foot, Virtues and Vices (Oxford: Blackwell 1978) See many other articles in that book as well 11 See a landmark article of G.E.M Anscombe, Modern moral philosophy, Philosophy 33 (1958), pp 1–19 12 Aristotle did in fact think there was such a thing as being a good woman, that is, good as a woman but it was not his concern to elaborate this in his Nicomachean ethics Chapter P Foot, Virtues and vices (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978), p See A.J Ayer, Language, truth and logic (London: Gollancz, 1936, reprinted many times), Chapter Emotivism was an influential metaethical theory, which held that moral judgements stated nothing, but only gave vent to the attitudes of the speaker and could not be true or false Although not mentioned specifically in my Chapter 2, it is clearly an approach that denies the objectivity of moral value, and fits well with a “projectivist” account of morality See R.M Hare, The language of morals (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952), Part I, section 2, paragraph The phrase “makes him good” should not be understood in a causal sense: it is not the man’s helpfulness that causes him to be good The point is that it is in virtue of his helpfulness that the judgement that he is good is true In explaining 217 NOTES supervenience, it is unfortunately quite difficult to avoid language that can be misconstrued as referring to causes Hare has developed his theory in many books and articles since Freedom and reason, and I have not had space to go into them Readers should pay particular attention to Moral thinking (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981) This develops his universal prescriptivism, and also – importantly for his normative ethics – his “two-level” utilitarianism (see under Further reading) See Plato, Republic, trans and ed H.D.P Lee (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1955), Book 1, 338c The quotation marks around the phrases “enlightenment” and “age of reason” should not be interpreted as expressing scepticism as to whether modern thinking about science, religion and so on really was enlightened – they are only to acknowledge that such claims are controversial E Gellner, Postmodernism, reason and religion (London: Routledge, 1992), p 26 An influential approach of this kind is adopted by C Gilligan, In a different voice: psychological theory and women’s development, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982) 10 See E Burke, Reflections on the revolution in France, (1790) C.C O’Brien, (ed.) (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968) 11 A clear exposition and defence of the importance of piety in moral thinking is presented by R Scruton, Animal rights and wrongs (London: Demos, 1996), pp 55–8 12 Roger Scruton, ibid., p 56 218 Index action-based theory 160, 169–70, 172–5 see also virtue theory acts and omissions 74–8 agent-relativity 83–5 animals, see contractualism Anscombe, G.E.M 179, 184 argument from queerness 40–2 see also Mackie J.L anti-realism, see moral realism applied ethics xi, 59–60 Aristotelian ethics xii, 25, 49–50, 178–84, 209, 212n8 and desire 167–9 and happiness 160–5 and the mean 165–7 and utilitarianism 169–73 see also virtue theory Aristotle, see Aristotelian ethics authority idea of 6–8 moral 1–9 and autonomy 9–10 and moral relativism 11, 26–8 and reasons for action 7–9 autonomy 9–10, 87, 96, 98, 110 Ayer, A.J 57, 59, 157, 195, 210, 211n1 see also emotivism Benedict, R 28 Bentham, J 61, 86, 88–9, 129 Blackburn, S 38, 53, 57, 58, 213n11 Brink, D 58 Burke, E 205 Carruthers, P 135, 215n7 Casey, J 184 categorical imperative, the 92–6, 109, 113 see also imperatives, hypothetical and categorical causal determinism, see determinism causal laws, see determinism compatibilism 142–9 see also free will; determinism consequentialism 60–1, 70–1, 95, 96 act- and rule71–4, 173 and acts and omissions 74–8 and agent-relativity 83–5 direct and indirect 71 and doctrine of double effect 78–83 and justice 86–8 and Kant’s ethics 91–3 and punishment 151 and separateness of persons 85–6 conservatism, moral, see moral reasoning contractualism 113–15 and animals 128–31 Hobbesian 116–20 Kantian 120–8, 132 and moral intuition 132–4 and respect for nature 131–2 219 INDEX and virtue theory 172 deontological ethics 73, 77, 80, 83–4, 87, 96 desire, see virtue determinism 139–42, 150–1 and compatibilism 142–7 and participant reactive attitudes 153–7 see also free will difference principle 122–3 divine command theory 45–9 see also God doctrine of double effect 78–83 Dostoevsky, F 46 duty 94–5 emotivism 195, 210, 211n1, 212n2 ends in themselves 87, 96, 113, 120, 197 see also Formula of the End in Itself Enlightenment, the 97, 110, 201 eudaimonia 25, 63, 161–5, 178 Euthyphro dilemma 47–9 see also divine command theory; God fact-value distinction 34–7 and virtue theory 183 feminism 122, 198, 210 and reason 202–4 Foot, P 176–7, 179, 184, 185, 209 Formula of the End in Itself 95–6, 98, 110, 132 see also ends in themselves; categorical imperative, the Formula of Universal Law, see categorical imperative, the Frankfurt, H 157 free will 220 and compatibilism 142–4 and Kant’s ethics 98–101, 109, 110 and moral luck 106–7 and rational explanation 144–7 and reasons and causes 147–9 see also determinism function of man 25, 50, 162–5, 180–2 see also Aristotelian ethics Gauthier, D 118–20, 134, 135 see also contractualism, Hobbesian Gellner, E 202, 210 Gilligan, C 210 God 9, 45–9, 116, 123, 132, 166 and reasoning about religion 187–9 good for man, the, see eudaimonia; human flourishing good will, the 101–5 happiness, see eudaimonia Hare, R.M 58, 89, 194–7, 210, 218n5 see also universal prescriptivism Harman, Gilbert 23–5, 29 hedonism ethical 61–4, 67, 70 psychological 67–70 Hitler, Adolf 23–4, 172 Hobbes, T 114, 135 see also contractualism, Hobbesian Honderich, T 58, 157 human flourishing 162, 164, 182–3 see also Aristotelian ethics; eudaimonia Hume, D 38, 45, 53, 58, 92, 157 and free will 143 and moral reasoning 189, 190, 197 and naturalism 97–8 Hume’s Fork 145, 147 hypothetical rational contractor 127–30 ideology 11, 197–201 see also moral reasoning INDEX legal moralism 20, 212n6 libertarianism 145, 146 see also free will Locke, J 42–3, 55 Lyons, D 89 maximization 82–6 McDowell, J.H 58 Mackie, J.L 40–2, 53, 114, 213n5 mean, the, see virtue metaethics xi, 12–13, 59–60 Midgley, M 135 Mill, J.S 60–4, 67, 69–71, 89 see also consequentialism; utilitarianism Moore, G.E 35–6, 49, 195 moral conflict 82–3 moral facts 32–4, 38 see also moral realism moral intuition, see contractualism moral luck 103–8 moral realism 38–42, 50–7, 59, 108–9 see also objectivity of morality moral reasoning 185–6 and feminism 202–4 and Hume 189–90 and ideology 197–201 and logical reasoning 191–4 and moral conservatism 204–7, 208–9 and postmodernism 201–2 and reasoning about religion 187–9 and universal prescriptivism 194–7, 210 see also pure practical reason moral relativism xiii, 1, 11–15, 31–2, 44, 59 and cultural diversity 16 and Harman’s argument 23–5 and moral authority 26–8 and the Nazis 17 and postmodernism 202–4 and tolerance 17–22 moral theory 59–60, 210 and moral conservatism 206–8 and virtue concepts 209 MacIntyre, A 184 Marxism 198, 201 materialism, see physicalism maximin 123–5 Nagel, T 53–4, 84–5, 111 naturalistic fallacy 35, 49, 195 nature, respect for, see contractualism Nazis 17 imperatives categorical 7–9, 22, 40, 51 hypothetical 7–8, 22, 40, 51 see also reasons for action; categorical imperative, the impartial benevolent spectator 86, 127–8, 171 impartiality 125 incompatibilism, see compatibilism; free will; determinism integrity 81–2 intention 78–82 Inwagen, P van 157 Just War theory 79 justice 26, 86–8, 121–3, 174, 176–7 Kantian ethics, see Kant’s ethics; contractualism, Kantian Kant, I., see Kant’s ethics Kant’s ethics 8–9, 50–1, 87, 91, 113, 120 and Aristotelian ethics 161, 168–9, 172 and consequentialism 91–3 and Formula of the End in Itself 95–6, 98 and Formula of Universal Law 92–4 and free will 98–101 and the good will 101–2 and moral luck 103–8 and naturalism 97 and objectivity of morality 108–10 and Strawson, P.F 156–7 and universal prescriptivism 197 221 INDEX Nietzsche, F 46, 110 nihilism 32 normative judgements 12 noumenal world 99–101, 103, 109 see also phenomenal world objectivity of morality 40–5, 50–2 and Aristotelian ethics 180–1, 183–4 and Kant’s ethics 108–9 and reasons for action 52–7 see also moral realism O’Neill, O 111 open question argument 35–6 see also naturalistic fallacy original position, the 121–3, 125–8, 130 participant reactive attitudes 138–40, 142, 149–50 and determinism 153–7 and punishment 151–3 see also Strawson, P.F persons 98, 110, 120, 137, 150–2 see also ends in themselves phenomenal world 99–101 see also noumenal world physicalism 141–2, 148 Plato 2, 27, 212n9 and ideology 199 and social contract 114 theory of Forms 42, 213n6 and unity of virtues 175–6 pleasure, higher and lower 64–6 postmodernism, see moral reasoning pure practical reason 50, 95–7 see also reasons for action prescriptivism, see moral reasoning; universal prescriptivism prescriptivity 51, 195–6 see also universal prescriptivism principle of utility 61 see also utilitarianism; Mill, J.S prisoner’s dilemma 118–9 projectivism 38–40, 45, 55, 97 222 see also moral realism; objectivity of morality Protagoras 11 punishment 151–3 quasi-realism 58, 213n11 see also Blackburn, S.; projectivism Rawls, J 85–6, 121–7, 135, 208 reasons and causes 144–9 reasons for action 22, 40–1, 51–5, 57, 118 see also categorical imperative, the; imperatives resentment, see participant reactive attitudes responsibility 81–2, 151–4, 157 right to life 205 Rousseau, J-J 114, 135 Russell, B 48 sacred, the 206–7 Sayre-McCord, G, 58 Scheffler, S 89 Scruton, R 111, 135, 209, 210, 215n7 secondary qualities and values 42–5 separateness of persons 85–6, 91, 127 sexual morality 193, 205–6 Smart, J.J.C 89 social contract, see contractualism Socrates 47 Spinoza, B 111 state of nature 116–8, 120 Strawson, P.F 138, 151, 153–5, 157 see also participant reactive attitudes subjectivism 3, 189 supererogation 75 supervenience 196, 218n4 Ten Commandments, the 123 theism, see God tolerance xiii, 17–22 toleration, see tolerance INDEX universal prescriptivism 212n2 see also moral reasoning universalizability 196–7 see also Formula of Universal Law utilitarianism xii, 60–7, 69–71, 86–7, 91–2, 96 and animals 129 and Aristotelian ethics 161, 169–73 and contractualism 127–8 and naturalistic fallacy 36 two-level 210, 218n5 and universal prescriptivism 210 see also consequentialism veil of ignorance, see original position view from nowhere 85, 128 see also Nagel, T virtue 160, 169, 170–4 and desire 167–9 and human flourishing 178–81 and the mean 165–7 non-moral virtue 181–2 and its rewards 182–4 unity of 175–7 see also virtue theory virtue theory xii, 160, 168–74, 178–9, 209 and objectivity of morality 183–4 see also Aristotelian ethics well-being, see eudaimonia; human flourishing Williams, B 29, 58, 81, 89, 111, 210 Wong, D 29 223 ... heralded considerable interest in ethics Traditionally, there is a distinction between philosophical reflection on the nature of moral judgement (sometimes called metaethics) and the promulgation... promulgation of moral views about such things as abortion or warfare Only three decades ago, most philosophers considered that metaethics alone was of interest to them as philosophers Although they might... than as professional philosophers Nowadays, however, although the division between metaethics and applied ethics still remains, philosophy has widened its realm of concern to include many contemporary