Avoiding Mistakes in Ethics[•]
Dr. Charles K. Fink
Miami Center for Ethical Awareness
Miami Dade College
This tutorial examines some common mistakes people make in their moral thinking. It is intended primarily as a resource for teachers, but various parts can be adapted for use in the classroom. There are footnotes throughout which suggest possible teaching strategies. At the end of this tutorial, you will find a glossary and a list of recommended resources, including books, documentary films, and websites. (All boldfaced terms are included in the glossary.) Also, this tutorial presupposes familiarity with some elementary logical concepts. A brief review of these concepts, along with exercises, is included as an appendix.
The material is divided into the following sections:
1. Ethics Survey 6. Ethical Objectivism Reconsidered
2. Does Morality Have an Objective Foundation? 7. Fallacies in Moral Reasoning
3. Is Morality Personal? 8. Speciesism
4. Is Morality Based on Social Conventions? 9. Glossary
5. Are There Moral Facts? 10. Recommended Resources
Appendix: Evaluating Arguments
1. Ethics Survey
Which of the following statements do you agree with? Which do you disagree with? After completing this tutorial, revisit this survey and see whether you still hold the same opinions.[1]
1. Morality is a personal matter. What is right for me may not be right for you.
2. You should always do whatever you believe is right.
3. Morality has to do with people’s feelings. The statement “Abortion is wrong” is no more objectively true than the statement “Okra tastes bad.”
4. It is wrong for an outsider to pass judgment on another culture.
5. Morality is entirely relative. For example, in Saudi Arabia it is right to cut off the hands of thieves, but in America this is considered barbaric.
6. Morality is entirely a matter of opinion. It is impossible to prove whether something is right or wrong.
7. If something is natural, then it is moral. For example, if human beings are by nature meat eaters, then there is nothing wrong with human beings eating meat.
8. If something is unnatural, then it is wrong. For example, bestiality is wrong because it is a perversion of nature.
9. We shouldn’t say that something is wrong if most people do it. For example, no one should criticize me for taking pencils, paper clips, or other office supplies. Who doesn’t?
10. The right thing to do is whatever most people think is right. For example, if most people approve of abortion, then it is right.
11. If something is traditional, then it should be preserved. For example, marriage has traditionally been an institution between a man and a woman. Therefore, gay marriages should not be condoned.
12. It is wrong to criticize others for their moral failures. No one is perfect, and as the saying goes, “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”
13. Religion is a reliable source of moral inspiration and guidance. If the Bible commands something, then it is right; if the Bible condemns something, then it is wrong.
14. All human lives have equal worth.
15. Human life is more valuable than any form of nonhuman life.
2. Does Morality Have an Objective Foundation?
Is there objective truth in ethics? Or is morality merely a matter of opinion? People often express skepticism about ethics. “What’s right for me may not be right for you.” “Who’s to say what’s right?” “It’s impossible to prove anything in ethics.” “What is right in one culture may not be right in another.” It is unclear, however, exactly what is meant by such skeptical comments, or whether something important is being said about the nature of morality. We will refer to the somewhat hazy idea that “morality is merely a matter of opinion” as Ethical Skepticism.
Ethical Objectivism is opposed to such skepticism. For the Objectivist, morality might be compared to mathematics. Human beings have the ability to grasp mathematical concepts, to understand numbers and relationships between numbers, but the facts of mathematics do not depend upon us. Mathematics has an objective foundation. According to the Objectivist, the same can be said about morality. Just as we have the ability to understand mathematical concepts, we also have the ability to understand moral concepts. And just as the facts of mathematics do not depend upon us, neither do the facts of morality. There are moral facts that hold independently of what people believe, or how they feel, or the conventions that people establish.
3. Is Morality Personal?
1. Morality is a personal matter. What is right for me may not be right for you.
2. You should always do whatever you believe is right.
3. Morality has to do with people’s feelings. The statement “Abortion is wrong” is no more objectively true than the statement “Okra tastes bad.”
People sometimes say “What is right for me may not be right for you.” What is meant by this? One possibility is Personal Relativism, which ties morality to people’s beliefs. For the Personal Relativist, there are no objective or independent moral standards; rather the right thing for a person to do is whatever that person believes is right. Since different people have different moral beliefs, it follows that what is right or wrong is relative and varies from one individual to another.
A similar view ties morality to people’s feelings rather than to their beliefs. According to Ethical Subjectivism, moral statements describe people’s feelings of approval or disapproval—feelings that vary from one individual to another. This is another way of understanding what is meant by “What is right for me may not be right for you.” When I say that something is right, what this means is that I approve of it. When you say that something is right, what this means is that you approve of it. On this view, moral statements are no different than statements about personal taste or preference. The statement “Abortion is wrong” is like the statement “Okra tastes bad” or “Opera is boring.” (Okra may taste bad to me, but not to you. Opera might be boring to me, but not to you. Abortion may be wrong for me, but not for you.)
The argument in support of Personal Relativism runs as follows:
(1) Different people have different beliefs about what is right.
Therefore:
(2) There are no objective moral facts. What is right for one person may not be right for another.
For example, I might believe that it is right to be a vegetarian, whereas you see nothing wrong with eating meat. For me it is right to be a vegetarian, but not for you.
The premise of the argument is true—people do have different moral beliefs—but does the conclusion follow? That people have different beliefs about the facts does not mean that there are no facts. For example, I might believe in the existence of God, whereas you are an atheist. In some sense, “for me” God exists, whereas “for you” God does not. But clearly there is an objective fact of the matter, whether or not anyone knows what this fact is. Either it is a fact that God exists, or it is a fact that God does not exist. One of us is right and the other is wrong. In the same way, I might believe that it is right to be a vegetarian, whereas you see things differently. “For me” it is right to be a vegetarian, whereas “for you” it is not. It does not follow from this, however, that there is no objective truth concerning the morality of vegetarianism. It is still possible that one of us is right and the other is wrong. The above argument, therefore, does not prove Personal Relativism.
Like Personal Relativism, Ethical Subjectivism connects morality to people’s subjective states. But whereas Personal Relativism is a theory about the nature of moral standards, Subjectivism is a theory about the meaning of moral language. (The Subjectivist does not tell us what is right or wrong, but rather what it means to say that something is right or wrong.) In critically evaluating these views, consider the following two questions. First, is it possible for you to be mistaken about something in morality? Or are you morally infallible? Is it, for example, possible for you to do something wrong even though you believe that it is right? Second, can you know whether to judge an action right or wrong simply by exploring your feelings? Or should your moral judgments be based upon objective considerations?
Consider the first question. According to Personal Relativism, what makes it right for you to do something is simply that you believe it is right. Therefore, you can’t believe that it is right to do something and yet be mistaken in this belief. In this sense, you are morally infallible. Suppose, for example, you believe that it is right to bomb abortion clinics or to engage in other terrorist acts. Then, according to the Relativist, this would be the right thing for you to do. The mere fact that you believe that it is right makes it right. On the other hand, if it is possible for people to be mistaken in their moral beliefs, then Relativism is wrong. There must be facts, independently of what people believe, to be mistaken about.
The argument against Personal Relativism can be summarized as follows:
(1) If Personal Relativism is true, then people cannot be mistaken in their moral beliefs.
(2) People can be mistaken in their moral beliefs.
Therefore:
(3) Personal Relativism is false.
Unlike the argument in support of Personal Relativism, this argument is sound. The premises are true and the conclusion logically follows from them. This proves that Personal Relativism is false.
Now consider the second question. Can you know whether to judge an action right or wrong simply by examining your feelings? (Couldn’t an unfeeling person make correct moral judgments? If so, then moral judgments cannot simply be descriptions of our feelings.) Suppose you learn that I took my neighbor’s ladder from his backyard. Can you know, just by inspecting your feelings, what to say about this incident? Or do you need to have additional information? Suppose you learn that I snuck into my neighbor’s yard late one night and took his ladder because I needed it to paint my ceiling. Then you would probably say that what I did was wrong. But suppose my house was on fire and I needed the ladder to rescue my child from a second-story balcony. Then you would probably say what I did was right. For the Subjectivist, however, such considerations are essentially irrelevant; the facts relevant to making moral judgments are facts about our feelings, not about the objective world. If you approve of an action, then you can truthfully say that the action is right. If you disapprove of it, then you can truthfully say that it is wrong.
We might summarize this objection to Subjectivism as follows:
(1) If Subjectivism is true, then people can know whether an action is right or wrong simply by exploring their feelings.
(2) People cannot know whether an action is right or wrong in this way.
Therefore:
(3) Subjectivism is false.
Like the argument against Personal Relativism, this argument is sound. The premises are true and the reasoning is valid.
4. Is Morality Based on Social Conventions?
4. It is wrong for an outsider to pass judgment on another culture.
5. Morality is entirely relative and varies from one culture to another. For example, in Saudi Arabia it is right to cut off the hands of thieves, but in America this is considered barbaric.
Different cultures adopt different standards of etiquette and there are no independent, absolute standards by which we might judge the behavior of all people. In America, people eat with forks and knives, whereas in India it is appropriate to eat with one’s bare fingers. There are no “correct” standards concerning what eating utensils people should use; there are just “different” standards. According to Cultural Relativism, the same can be said about the standards of morality. In America, it is acceptable to use cows for food, whereas in India this practice is considered an abomination. In some parts of Asia, people commonly eat dogs and cats, but in America and India this is considered wrong. According to the Cultural Relativist, it is not the case that one culture is right about the morality of people’s food choices, whereas other cultures are wrong. Rather what is right or wrong in morality is entirely conventional and varies from one culture to another. If this is correct, then the right thing for an individual to do is whatever that individual’s culture believes is right. Thus, it is wrong for an Indian to eat beef, but it is not wrong for an American to do so. And it is wrong for an American to eat dogs and cats, but it is not wrong for a Korean or a Vietnamese to do so.[2]
The most common argument for Cultural Relativism is based upon the observation that people in different cultures adopt different moral conventions:
(1) Different cultures have different beliefs about what is right.
Therefore:
(2) There are no objective moral facts. What is right in one culture may not be right in another.
The view expressed in the first premise is sometimes called “Descriptive” Cultural Relativism to distinguish it from “Normative” Cultural Relativism, which is the view we have been examining. There is an important difference between the two that is often overlooked or obscured. Descriptive Cultural Relativism is a theory about what people believe is right or wrong, whereas Normative Cultural Relativism is a theory about what really is right or wrong. The first is a theory about moral beliefs, whereas the second is a theory about moral standards themselves. The argument for Cultural Relativism, therefore, encounters the same logical problems as the argument for Personal Relativism, discussed earlier. For example, during the Middle-Ages, it was commonly believed that the sun (and all other heavenly bodies) revolved around the earth. We now know that the earth gravitates around the sun. Does it follow that people in the Middle-Ages lived in a different universe, one in which the sun revolved around the earth? The fact that people in the past have had different beliefs about the nature of the universe does not affect the nature of the universe itself. Why should we think that people’s beliefs about the facts of morality alter or influence what these facts are? People in the Middle-Ages may have believed that it was right to burn heretics at the stake, but from this it does not follow that it was right.