Task summary:Dear Freelancer, please write about different ethical approaches as well as the Code of Ethics for nurses and how to apply those to a specific dilemma.
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The purpose of this assignment is to enable professional examination of various ethical dilemmas in practice. Exploration of different ethical approaches as well as the Code of Ethics for nurses need to be appraised and applied to a specific dilemma.-Identify an ethical dilemma that you have encountered in your practice. -Define the dilemma. -Determine alternative courses of action. -Identify and describe related code of ethics provisions. (include #) -Describe an ethical approach that gives a perspective on the situation. -This must be a specific ethical theory -ie virtue ethics, utilitarianism, kantianism, care ethics, etc. =What was the choice taken? What other course of action could have been taken?
Ethics for A-Level
For AQA Philosophy and OCR Religious Studies
MARK DIMMOCK AND ANDREW FISHER
ETHICS FOR A-LEVEL
Ethics for A-Level
Mark Dimmock and Andrew Fisher
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Contents
PREFACE
1
1. Exam Specification Details
1
2. Book Structure
1
References
2
INTRODUCTION
3
1. Philosophy, Ethics and Thinking
3
2. Respecting Ethics
3
3. The A-Level Student
4
4. Doing Ethics Well: Legality versus Morality
5
5. Doing Ethics Well: Prudential Reasons versus
Moral Reasons
5
6. Doing Ethics Well: Prescriptive versus Descriptive
Claims
6
7. Doing Ethics Well: Thought-Experiments
6
8. Doing Ethics Well: Understanding Disagreement
7
Summary
7
Questions and Tasks
8
References
8
PART I
NORMATIVE ETHICS
CHAPTER 1
UTILITARIANISM
11
1. Utilitarianism: An Introduction
11
2. Hedonism
11
3. Nozick’s Experience Machine
12
4. The Foundations of Bentham’s Utilitarianism
13
5. The Structure of Bentham’s Utilitarianism
14
6. Hedonic Calculus
15
7. Problems with Bentham’s Utilitarianism
16
8. Mill’s Utilitarian Proof
20
CHAPTER 2
9. Mill’s Qualitative Utilitarianism
21
10. Mill’s Rule Utilitarianism versus Bentham’s Act
Utilitarianism
22
11. Strong versus Weak Rule Utilitarianism
23
12. Comparing the Classical Utilitarians
24
13. Non-Hedonistic Contemporary Utilitarianism:
Peter Singer and Preference Utilitarianism
24
Summary
26
Common Student Mistakes
26
Issues to Consider
26
Key Terminology
27
References
28
KANTIAN ETHICS
31
1. An Introduction to Kantian Ethics
31
2. Some Key Ideas
32
3. Acting for the Sake of Duty and Acting in
Accordance with Duty
33
4. Categorical and Hypothetical Imperatives
34
5. The First Formulation of the Categorical
Imperative
36
6. Perfect and Imperfect Duties
37
7. Second Formulation of the Categorical Imperative
38
8. The Third Formulation of the Categorical
Imperative and Summary
38
9. Kant on Suicide
39
10. Problems and Responses: Conflicting Duties
42
11. Problems and Responses: The Role of Intuitions
43
12. Problem and Responses: Categorical Imperatives
and Etiquette
43
13. Problems and Responses: The Domain of Morality
44
Summary
45
Common Student Mistakes
45
Issues to Consider
45
Key Terminology
46
References
47
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
ARISTOTELIAN VIRTUE ETHICS
49
1. Aristotelian Virtue Ethics Introduction
49
2. The Function Argument
49
3. Aristotelian Goodness
50
4. Eudaimonia and Virtue
51
5. Developing the Virtues
54
6. Practical Wisdom (Phronesis)
55
7. Voluntary Actions, Involuntary Actions and Moral
Responsibility
56
8. Objection: Unclear Guidance
58
9. Objection: Clashing Virtues
59
10. Objection: Circularity
59
11. Objection: Contribution to Eudaimonia
59
12. Moral Good and Individual Good
61
Summary
62
Common Student Mistakes
62
Issues to Consider
62
Key Terminology
63
References
63
AQUINAS’S NATURAL LAW THEORY
65
1. Introduction to Aquinas
65
2. Motivating Natural Law Theory: The Euthyphro
Dilemma and Divine Command Theory
65
3. Natural Law Theory
66
4. Summary of Aquinas’s Natural Law Theory
70
5. Putting this into Practice: The Doctrine of Double
Effect (DDE)
70
6. Some Thoughts about Natural Law Theory
73
Summary
75
Common Student Mistakes
75
Issues to Consider
75
Key Terminology
76
References
77
CHAPTER 5
FLETCHER’S SITUATION ETHICS
79
1. Situation Ethics Introduction
79
2. Fletcher’s Overall Framework
80
3. The Four Working Principles of Situationism
81
4. How to Work out What to Do: Conscience as a
Verb not a Noun
83
5. The Six Propositions of Situation Ethics
83
6. Problems with Fletcher’s Situationism
86
Summary
88
Common Student Mistakes
88
Issues to Consider
88
Key Terminology
89
References
89
PART II
METAETHICS
CHAPTER 6
METAETHICAL THEORIES
93
1. Metaethics: Introduction
93
2. The Value of Metaethics
94
3. Cognitivism versus Non-Cognitivism
95
4. Realism versus Anti-Realism
98
5. The Metaethical Map
99
6. Cognitivist and Realist Theory One: Naturalism
100
7. Objections to Naturalism
102
8. Cognitivist and Realist Theory Two:
Non-Naturalism
104
9. Objections to Intuitionism
105
10. Cognitivist and Anti-Realist Theory One: Moral
Error Theory
106
11. Objections to Moral Error Theory
110
12. Non-Cognitivism
111
13. Non-Cognitivist and Anti-Realist Theory One:
Emotivism
112
14. Objections to Emotivism
113
15. Non-Cognitivist and Anti-Realist Theory Two:
Prescriptivism
115
16. Objections to Prescriptivism
115
Summary
116
Common Student Mistakes
117
Issues to Consider
117
Key Terminology
118
References
119
PART III
APPLIED ETHICS
CHAPTER 7
EUTHANASIA
123
1. Euthanasia Introduction
123
2. Key Terms
123
3. Case One: Persistent Vegetative State
125
4. Case Two: Incurable and Terminal Illness
125
5. Pro-Euthanasia: Argument One
126
6. Pro-Euthanasia: Argument Two
128
7. Pro-Euthanasia: Argument Three
130
8. Anti-Euthanasia: Argument One
132
9. Anti-Euthanasia: Argument Two
132
10. Anti-Euthanasia: Argument Three
133
11. Anti-Euthanasia: Argument Four
135
12. Allowing versus Doing
136
Summary
138
Common Student Mistakes
138
Issues to Consider
139
Key Terminology
139
References
140
BUSINESS ETHICS
143
1. Introduction to Business Ethics
143
2. Employers and Employees
145
3. Businesses and Customers
147
4. A Business and the Environment
149
5. Business and Globalization
151
Summary
152
Common Student Mistakes
153
Issues to Consider
153
Key Terminology
154
References
154
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CONSCIENCE
157
1. Introduction
157
2. The History of Conscience
158
3. Aquinas on Conscience
160
4. Freud and the Conscience
161
5. Freud’s Psychosexual Development Theory
163
Summary
165
Common Student Mistakes
165
Issues to Consider
166
Key Terminology
166
References
167
SEXUAL ETHICS
169
1. Philosophy of Sex Introduction
169
2. What Is It to “Have Sex”?
170
3. Natural Law and Sex
171
4. Kant and Sex
173
5. Sex and Utilitarianism
175
6. Sex and the Virtue Theory
176
Summary
178
Common Student Mistakes
178
Issues to Consider
179
Key Terminology
179
References
180
STEALING
183
1. Stealing: Introduction
183
2. Defining Stealing
183
3. Kantian Ethics on Stealing
184
4. Act and Preference Utilitarianism on Stealing
187
5. Rule Utilitarianism on Stealing
190
6. Virtue Ethics on Stealing
191
7. Metaethics and Stealing
193
Summary
195
Common Student Mistakes
195
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
Issues to Consider
195
Key Terminology
196
References
196
SIMULATED KILLING
199
1. Introduction
199
2. Utilitarianism and Simulated Killing
201
3. The Kantian and the Virtue Ethics Approach
203
4. Films and Plays
203
5. The Paradox of Tragedy (or More Correctly the
Paradox of “Negative Emotions”)
204
Summary
205
Common Student Mistakes
206
Issues to Consider
206
Key Terminology
207
References
207
TELLING LIES
209
1. Introduction
209
2. What Is It to Lie?
209
3. Utilitarianism
211
4. The Kantian and Lying
213
5. Some Final Thoughts about the Political Context
214
Summary
214
Common Student Mistakes
215
Issues to Consider
215
Key Terminology
216
References
216
EATING ANIMALS
219
1. Eating Animals Introduction
219
2. Justifying Meat Eating
219
3. Act Utilitarianism
221
4. Challenges to Bentham
223
5. Utilitarian Reasons for Eating Animals
224
6. Kantian Ethics and Eating Animals
226
GLOSSARY
7. Virtue Ethics and Eating Animals
227
8. Cora Diamond
229
Summary
232
Common Student Mistakes
232
Issues to Consider
233
Key Terminology
233
References
234
235
Preface
1. Exam Specification Details
This book deals with the Ethics components of AQA Philosophy and OCR
Religious Studies. It has been written in line with these specifications, covering
the material necessary in a way that, we hope, is engaging for students, teachers
and anyone interested in understanding ethical study.
Some chapters are, therefore, directly relevant only to one of these two
courses. Students studying Ethics as part of OCR Religious Studies do not
need to read about the ethics of simulated killing, while students studying
AQA Philosophy do not need to consider Natural Law or Situation Ethics. This
is not to say that there is not, we hope, some independent value in engaging
with these chapters as part of your wider reading.
However, the split is not always so clear. Both OCR and AQA require
students to engage with the theory of Utilitarianism, for example. However,
the specifications differ slightly and so not all of the content is relevant to
all students; relevance will depend on the course being sat. We suggest two
options in dealing with this:
•
Early on in your course — engage with the content in the chapter
regardless of your specification. This should give you a full and
informed context in which to evaluate the theory.
•
Later in your course and nearer exams — use your specification to
focus on the exact content that may figure in your exam. Your teacher
is best placed to advise you on this.
2. Book Structure
In writing this book we followed Andrew Fisher’s approach of focusing on the
judgement of the student in evaluating when they are being taught effectively.1
We take the student as authoritative on this matter; we want to create an
“engaged” student. To this end we include ways that students can check their
judgements on whether the material has taught them anything or not. For
example, we include sections on “Common Student Mistakes”, “Issues to
Consider” and “Key Terminology” within every chapter.
1 This approach can also be found in: Fisher and Tallant, How to Get Philosophy Students Talking.
Following the specification requirements of AQA and OCR, the book deals
with Normative Ethics, then Metaethics and finally Applied Ethics. What is the
difference?
Consider an analogy put forward by Andrew Fisher (2011).2 Imagine that
ethics is like football.
•
The normative ethicist is like a referee interested in the rules governing
play. What interests him is the general theories that govern our moral
behaviour; how do we work out what is right and what is wrong?
•
The metaethicist is like a football commentator. What interests her is
how the very practice of ethics works. For example, the metaethicist
might discuss how people use moral language; or comment on the
psychology of immoral people; or ask whether moral properties exist.
•
The Applied Ethicists are like the players. They “get their hands [or
feet] dirty”. They take the general rules of normative ethics and “play”
under them. What interests them is how we should act in specific
areas. For example, how should we deal with issues like meat-eating,
euthanasia or stealing?
So guided by the AQA and OCR exam specifications, you will find various
normative theories explained. You will then find those theories applied to real
life examples. Sandwiched between these is the Metaethics chapter which asks:
“But what is ethical practice?”
With all three types of ethics covered we hope to provide a good grounding
in ethics, both in terms of content and a general philosophical approach. Where
possible we give as many examples as possible and avoid technical jargon,
although sometimes we need to use specific philosophical terms. With this in
mind we have included an extensive Glossary at the end of the volume. Our
hope is that you will feel able to pick up this book dip into it, or read it from
cover to cover. Whatever you choose we hope you’ll gain confidence with the
content needed for your exams, that you practice and strengthen your ability
to think with clear reasoning and with justification about the topics covered,
and get as excited and fascinated by ethics as we are.
References
Fisher, Andrew, Metaethics: An Introduction (Oxford: Routledge, 2011), https://
doi.org/10.1017/upo9781844652594
―, and Tallant, Jonathan, How to Get Students Talking: An Instructors Toolkit
(Oxford: Routledge, 2015), https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315670645
2 Fisher, Metaethics, pp. 1–4.
Introduction
1. Philosophy, Ethics and Thinking
Philosophy is hard. Part of the reason it can feel so annoying is because it seems
like it should not be hard. After all, philosophy just involves thinking, and we
all think — thinking is easy! We do it without…well, thinking. Yet philosophy
involves not just thinking, but thinking well. Of course it is true that we all think.
But thinking, like football, maths, baking and singing is something we can get
better at. Unfortunately, people rarely ask how. If you do not believe us, then
just open your eyes. Society might be a whole lot better off if we thought well,
more often.
Admittedly, doing A-Level Philosophy will not give you the ability to
solve the problems of the world; we are not that naive! But if you engage with
philosophy, then you will be developing yourself as a thinker who thinks well.
This is why A-Level Philosophy is useful not merely to would-be philosophers,
but also to any would be thinkers, perhaps heading off to make decisions in
law, medicine, structural engineering — just about anything that requires you
to think effectively and clearly.
However, if Philosophy is hard, then Ethics is really hard. This might
seem unlikely at first glance. After all, Ethics deals with issues of right and
wrong, and we have been discussing “what is right” and “what is wrong”
since we were children. Philosophy of Mind, on the other hand, deals with
topics like the nature of consciousness, while Metaphysics deals with the
nature of existence itself. Indeed, compared to understanding a lecture in
the Philosophy of Physics, arguing about the ethics of killing in video games
might seem something of a walk in the park. This is misleading, not because
other areas of philosophy are easy, but because the complexity of ethics is well
camouflaged.
2. Respecting Ethics
When you study A-Level Ethics, and you evaluate what is right and wrong, it
can be tempting and comforting to spend time simply defending your initial
views; few people would come to a debate about vegetarianism, or abortion,
without some pre-existing belief. If you are open-minded in your ethical
approach then you need not reject everything you currently believe, but you
Introduction
4
should see these beliefs as starting points, or base camps, from which your
enquiry commences.
For example, why do you think that eating animals is OK, or that abortion
is wrong? If you think that giving to charity is good, what does “good” mean?
For true success, ethics requires intellectual respect. If you might think that a
particular position is obviously false, perhaps take this reaction as a red flag, as
it may suggest that you have missed some important step of an argument — ask
yourself why someone, presumably just as intellectually proficient as yourself,
might have once accepted that position.
If you are thinking well as an ethicist, then you are likely to have good
reasons for your views, and be prepared to rethink those views where you
cannot find such good reasons. In virtue of this, you are providing justification
for the beliefs you have. It is the philosopher’s job, whatever beliefs you have,
to ask why you hold those beliefs. What reasons might you have for those
beliefs?
For example, imagine the reason that you believe it is OK to eat meat is that
it tastes nice. As philosophers we can say that this is not a particularly good
reason. Presumably it might taste nice to eat your pet cat, or your neighbour,
or your dead aunt; but in these cases the “taste justification” seems totally
unimportant! The details of this debate are not relevant here (for more on this
topic see Chapter 14). The point is that there are good and bad reasons for our
beliefs and it is the philosopher’s job to reveal and analyse them.1
3. The A-Level Student
Philosophy is more than just fact-learning, or a “history of ideas”. It is different
from chemistry, mathematics, languages, theology etc. It is unique. Sure, it is
important to learn some facts, and learn what others believed, but a successful
A-Level student needs to do more than simply regurgitate information in order
to both maneuverer past the exam hurdles and to become a better ethicist.
One aim of this book is to aid you in engaging with a living discipline.
Philosophy, and in particular Ethics, is a live and evolving subject. When
you study philosophy you are entering a dialogue with those that have gone
before you. Learning about what various philosophers think will enable you
to become clearer about what you think and add to that evolving dialogue.
You will notice that in this book we have not included “hints and tips
boxes”, or statements of biography concerning the scholars. Although these
things have their place, we did not want the reader to think that they have
learnt philosophy if they know what is in the boxes.
1 For an excellent introduction to good and bad ways of thinking we recommend John Hospers, ‘An
Introduction to Philosophical Analysis’.
In reality, university Philosophy departments often work with first year
students to lose some of their less academically successful habits. Why? Well,
one of the authors has taught ethics at university for many years. Philosophy
students often say something like this: “I thought we’d do hard stuff at
University! I did Utilitarianism at A-Level, can I have something different to
study, please?”
This statement reveals a whole host of things. Most important is the view
that to “do” ethics is to remember information. That is why a student can
say they have “done Utilitarianism”. They have learnt some key facts and
arguments. But philosophy is not like this. In order to understand philosophy
you need to be authentic with yourself and to ask what you think, using this
as a guide to critically analyse the ideas learned and lead yourself to your
own justifiable conclusion. Philosophy is a living and dynamic subject that we
cannot reduce to a few key facts, or a simplistic noting of what other people
have said.
Some people distinguish between “ethics” and “morality”. We do not. For
us, nothing hangs on the difference between them. In this book you will see us
switching between the terms, so do not get hung up on this distinction.
4. Doing Ethics Well: Legality versus Morality
Moral questions are distinct from legal questions, although, of course, moral
issues might have some implications for the law. That child labour is morally
unacceptable might mean that we have a law against it. But it is unhelpful to
answer whether something is morally right or wrong by looking to the laws of
the land. It is quite easy to see why. Imagine a country which has a set of actions
which are legally acceptable, but morally unacceptable or vice versa — the wellused example of Nazi Germany brings to mind this distinction. Therefore, in
discussions about ethics do be wary of talking about legal issues. Much more
often than not, such points will be irrelevant.
5. Doing Ethics Well: Prudential Reasons versus Moral
Reasons
Something to keep separate are moral reasons and prudential reasons.
Prudential reasons relate to our personal reasons for doing things.
Consider some examples. When defending slavery, people used to cite
the fact that it supported the economy as a reason to keep it. It is true, of
course, that this is a reason; it is a prudential reason, particularly for those who
benefited from slavery such as traders or plantation owners. Yet, such a reason
does not help us with the moral question of slavery. We would say “OK, but
so what if it helps the economy! Is it right or wrong?”
Introduction
5
Introduction
6
6. Doing Ethics Well: Prescriptive versus Descriptive Claims
Another important distinction is between descriptive and prescriptive claims.
This is sometimes referred to as the “is/ought” gap. We return to this in later
chapters, especially Chapter 6. But it is such a common mistake made in
general ethical chat that we felt the need to underline it.
Consider some examples. Imagine the headline: “Scientists discover a gene
explaining why we want to punch people wearing red trousers”. The article includes
lots of science showing the genes and the statistical proof. Yet, none of this
will tells us whether acting violently towards people wearing red trousers is
morally acceptable. The explanation of why people feel and act in certain ways
leaves it open as to how people morally ought to act.
Consider a more serious example, relating to the ethics of eating meat.
Supporters of meat-eating often point to our incisor teeth. This shows that it is
natural for us to eat meat, a fact used as a reason for thinking that it is morally
acceptable to do so. But this is a bad argument. Just because we have incisors
does not tell us how we morally ought to behave. It might explain why we
find it easy to eat meat, and it might even explain why we like eating meat.
But this is not relevant to the moral question. Don’t you believe us? Imagine
that dentists discover that our teeth are “designed” to eat other humans alive.
What does this tell us about whether it is right or wrong to eat humans alive?
Nothing.
7. Doing Ethics Well: Thought-Experiments
You will also be aware, especially in reading this book, of the philosophical
device known as a “thought experiment”. These are hypothetical, sometimes
fanciful, examples that are designed to aid our thinking about an issue.
For example, imagine that you could travel back in time. You are pointing
a gun at your grandfather when he was a child. Would it be possible for you
to pull the trigger? Or, imagine that there is a tram running down a track. You
could stop it, thereby saving five people, by throwing a fat man under the
tracks. Is this the morally right thing to do?
The details here are unimportant. What is important, is that it is inadequate
to respond: “yes, but that could never happen!” Thought experiments are
devices to help us to think about certain issues. Whether they are possible in
real life does not stop us doing that thinking. Indeed, it is not just philosophy
that uses thought experiments. When Einstein asked what would happen if he
looked at his watch near a black hole, this was a thought experiment. In fact,
most other subjects use thought experiments. It is just that philosophy uses
them more frequently, and they are often a bit more bizarre.
8. Doing Ethics Well: Understanding Disagreement
Finally, we want to draw your attention to a common bad argument as we
want you to be aware of the mistake it leads to. Imagine that a group of friends
are arguing about which country has won the most Olympic gold medals.
Max says China, Alastair says the US, Dinh says the UK. There is general
ignorance and disagreement; but does this mean that there is not an answer to
the question of “which country has won the most Olympic gold medals?” No!
We cannot move from the fact that people disagree to the conclusion that there
is no answer. Now consider a parallel argument that we hear far too often.
Imagine that you and your friends are discussing whether euthanasia is
morally acceptable. Some say yes, the others say no. Each of you cite how
different cultures have different views on euthanasia. Does this fact — that
there is disagreement — mean that there is no answer to the question of whether
euthanasia is morally acceptable? Again, the answer is no. That answer did not
follow in the Olympic case, and it does not follow in the moral one either. So
just because different cultures have different moral views, this does not show,
by itself, that there is no moral truth and no answer to the question.
If you are interested in the idea that there is a lack of moral truth in ethics,
then Moral Error Theorists defend exactly this position in the chapter on
Metaethics.
SUMMARY
You will not be assessed, by either AQA or OCR, on the core
content of this chapter. If any of the content is specifically relevant
to assessment, it is discussed in proper detail in the following
chapters.
Still, we hope that we have signposted some errors to avoid
when it comes to thinking about ethics, and some strategies to
consider instead. It may be worth occasionally revisiting the
ideas discussed here during your studies, to test your own lines
of argument and evaluate how “thinking well” is progressing for
you. This would not be a weakness! Both the authors, and any
honest philosopher, can reassure you — philosophy is hard! We
hope you find this textbook useful and rewarding in helping you
on your own journey through Ethics.
Introduction
7
Introduction
8
QUESTIONS AND TASKS
1.
How would you explain what philosophy is to someone?
2.
Do you think philosophy is important? If yes, why? If no, why?
3.
List some ethical questions.
4.
Can you figure out if your questions are Normative, Applied, or
Metaethical?
5.
Is there a link be between Applied, Normative and Metaethics? Which
type of ethics do you think it would be best to study first, and which
last?
6. What is the difference between prudential and moral reasons?
7.
What is meant by the “is/ought” gap? Why is it important to remember
when discussing ethical questions?
8. What role, if any, does science have in ethical arguments?
9.
What are thought experiments? Why might they be useful to
philosophers?
10. “Because there are so many different views on moral issues there cannot
be any moral truth”. What do you think of this line of argument?
References
Hospers, John, An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis, 4th ed. (New York
and London: Routledge, 1997), https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203714454
PART I
NORMATIVE ETHICS
CHAPTER 1
Utilitarianism
Music snobbery is the worst kind of snobbery. It forces people who like something a bit mainstream,
a bit of pop like Girls Aloud or Take That! or ABBA to say “It’s my guilty pleasure!” I hate that
phrase. It is an insult to top quality pop. It is also an insult to guilt.
Dara Ó Briain (comedian)
1. Utilitarianism: An Introduction
Some things appear to be straightforwardly good for people. Winning the
lottery, marrying your true love or securing a desired set of qualifications all
seem to be examples of events that improve a person’s life. As a normative
ethical theory, Utilitarianism suggests that we can decide what is morally
right or morally wrong by weighing up which of our future possible actions
promotes such goodness in our lives and the lives of people more generally.
2. Hedonism
Hedonism is a theory of well-being — a theory of how well a life is going
for the person living that life. What separates Hedonism from other theories
of well-being is that the hedonist believes that what defines a successful life
is directly related to the amount of pleasure in that life; no other factors are
relevant at all. Therefore, the more pleasure that a person experiences in their
life then the better their life goes, and vice versa. Whereas other theories might
focus on fulfilling desires people have, or an objective list of things such as
friendship and health.
The roots of Hedonism can be traced back at least as far as Epicurus (341–270
BC) and Ancient Greece. Epicurus held the hedonistic view that the primary
intrinsic good for a person is pleasure; meaning that pleasure is always good
for a person in and of itself, irrespective of the cause or context of the pleasure.
According to this theory pleasure is always intrinsically good for a person and
less pleasure is always intrinsically bad.
Hedonism is a relatively simple theory of what makes your life better. If you
feel that your life would be better if you won the lottery, married your true
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love or achieved your desired qualifications, then the hedonistic explanation of
these judgments is that these things are good for you only if they provide you
with pleasure. Many pleasures may be physical, but Fred Feldman (1941–) is a
defender of a theory known as Attitudinal Hedonism. According to this theory,
psychological pleasures can themselves count as intrinsically good for a person.
So, while reading a book would not seem to produce pleasure in a physical
way, a hedonist may value the psychological pleasure associated with that
act of reading and thus accept that it can improve a person’s well-being. This
understanding of hedonistic pleasure may help to explain why, for example,
one person can gain so much pleasure from a Lady Gaga album while another
gains nothing at all; the psychological responses to the music differ.
3. Nozick’s Experience Machine
One important problem for Hedonism is that our well-being seems to be
affected by more than just the total pleasure in our lives. It may be the case
that you enjoy gaining a new qualification, but there seems to be more to the
value of this event than merely the pleasure produced. Many people agree
that success in gaining a meaningful qualification improves your life even if
no pleasure is obtained from it. Certainly, many believe that the relationship
between what improves your life and what gives pleasure is not directly
proportional, as the hedonist would claim.
Robert Nozick (1938–2002) attacked the hedonistic idea that pleasure is
the only good by testing our intuitions via a now famous thought-experiment.
Nozick asks:
Suppose there was an experience machine that would give you any experience you desired. Superduper neuropsychologists could stimulate your brain so that you would think and feel you were
writing a great novel, or making a friend, or reading an interesting book. All the time you would
be floating in a tank, with electrodes attached to your brain. Should you plug into this machine
for life, pre-programming your life experiences? […] Of course, while in the tank you won’t know
that you’re there; you’ll think that it’s all actually happening […] would you plug in?1
Nozick’s challenge to Hedonism is based on the thought that most people who
consider this possible situation would opt not to plug in. Indeed, if you ask
yourself if you would actually choose to leave behind your real friends, family
and life in favour of a pre-programmed existence you also might conclude
that plugging into the experience machine would not be desirable. However,
if Hedonism is correct and our well-being is determined entirely by the
amount of pleasure that we experience, then Nozick wonders “what else can
matter to us, other than how our lives feel from the inside?”2 The experience
1 R. Nozick, ‘The Experience Machine’, p. 292.
2
Ibid.
machine guarantees us pleasure yet we find it unappealing compared to a real
life where pleasure is far from assured. This may suggest that our well-being
is determined by other factors in addition to how much pleasure we secure,
perhaps knowledge or friendships.
The hedonists need not give way entirely on this point, of course, as they
may feel that the experience machine is desirable just because it guarantees
experiences of pleasure. Or, you might believe that our suspicions about
the machine are misplaced. After all, once inside the machine we would not
suspect that things were not real. You may feel that the hedonist could bite-thebullet (accept the apparently awkward conclusion as a non-fatal implication
of the theory) and say that any reticence to enter the machine is irrational.
Perhaps the lives of those choosing to be plugged in to the machine would go
extraordinary well!
4. The Foundations of Bentham’s Utilitarianism
Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) was the first of the “classical utilitarians”. Driven
by a genuine desire for social reform, Bentham wanted to be as much involved
in law, politics and economics as abstract philosophising.
Bentham developed his moral theory of Utilitarianism on the foundation
of the type of hedonistic thinking described in section two. For Bentham, the
only thing that determines the value of a life, or indeed the value of an event
or action, is the amount of pleasure contained in that life, or the amount of
pleasure produced as a result of that event or action. Bentham is a hedonistic
utilitarian. This belief in Hedonism, however, was not something that Bentham
took to be unjustified or arbitrary; for him Hedonism could be empirically
justified by evidence in the world in its favour. According to Bentham:
Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure.
It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.3
Bentham moves from this empirical claim about the factors that guide our
behaviour to a normative claim about how we ought to live. He creates a moral
theory based on the bringing about of more pleasure and less pain.
When first understanding Utilitarianism, it is also crucial to understand
what is meant by the term “utility”. Bentham defined it as “[…] that property
in any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good,
or happiness […] or […] to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or
unhappiness”.4 Utility is thus promoted when pleasure is promoted and when
3 J. Bentham, ‘An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation’, in Utilitarianism and Other
Essays, p. 65.
4
Ibid., p. 66.
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unhappiness is avoided. Bentham’s commitment to Hedonism means for him
that goodness is just an increase in pleasure, and evil or unhappiness is just an
increase in pain or decrease in pleasure. With this understanding of utility in
mind, Bentham commits himself to the Principle of Utility:
By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action
whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the
happiness of the party whose interest is in question: or, what is the same thing in other words, to
promote or to oppose that happiness.5
In effect, this principle simply says that promoting utility, defined in terms of
pleasure, is to be approved of and reducing utility is to be disapproved of.
The Principle of Utility, backed by a commitment to Hedonism, underpins
the central utilitarian claim made by Bentham. Based on a phrase that he
wrongly attributed to Joseph Priestley (1733–1804), Bentham suggests that
the measure of right and wrong is the extent to which an action produces the
greatest good for the greatest number of people. Of course, what counts as
good, for Bentham, is pleasure. We can then rephrase what Bentham himself
call his fundamental axiom as a requirement to promote the greatest pleasure for
the greatest number of people, in order to act morally.
5. The Structure of Bentham’s Utilitarianism
In addition to being hedonistic, Bentham’s Utilitarianism is also:
1.
Consequentialist/Teleological
2.
Relativist
3.
Maximising
4.
Impartial
Bentham’s Utilitarianism is consequentialist because the moral value of an action
or event is determined entirely by the consequences of that event. The theory is
also described as teleological for the same reason, based on the Greek word telos
that means “end” or “purpose”. If more pleasure follows as a consequence of
“Action A” rather than “Action B”, then according to the fundamental axiom of
Utilitarianism “Action A” should be undertaken and is morally right; choosing
“Action B” would be morally wrong.
In addition, Bentham’s Utilitarianism is Relativistic rather than Absolutist.
Absolutist moral views hold that certain actions will always be morally wrong
irrespective of context or consequences. For example, many campaigning
groups suggest that torture is always morally unacceptable whether it is
5
Ibid., p. 65.
carried out by vindictive dictators seeking to instil fear in a population or
whether it is authorised by democratically elected governments seeking to
obtain information in order to stop a terrorist attack. For absolutists then, the
act of torture is absolutely wrong in all cases and situations.
Clearly, Bentham cannot hold this type of view because sometimes the
pain involved in torture may lead to the promotion of greater pleasure (or less
intense pain) overall, such as in the case where torture stops a terrorist atrocity.
On this basis, the Benthamite utilitarian must believe that whether a certain
action is right or wrong is always relative to the situation in which the action
takes place.
Bentham’s Utilitarianism is maximising because it does not merely require
that pleasure is promoted, but that the greatest pleasure for the greatest number
is secured. This means that some actions that lead to pleasure will still not
be morally good acts if another action that could have produced even more
pleasure in that setting was rejected. Thus, for example, if you gain some
pleasure from spending money on a new book, but that money could have
produced more pleasure had it been donated to a local charity for the homeless,
then buying a new book would be morally wrong even though it led to some
pleasure because it did not maximise the total amount of pleasure that was
possible in that circumstance.
Finally, Bentham’s Utilitarianism is also impartial in the sense that what
matters is simply securing the maximum amount of pleasure for the maximum
number of people; the theory does not give special preference regarding
which people are supposed to have access to, or share in, that total pleasure.
Bentham’s utilitarian theory is associated with the idea of equal consideration of
interests; as long as total pleasure is maximised then it does not matter if that
pleasure is experienced by royalty, presidents, siblings, children, friends or
enemies. In the total calculation of pleasure, we are all equal regardless of our
status, behaviour or any other social factor.
6. Hedonic Calculus
Hopefully it is now clear that for Bentham the consequences in terms of
pleasure production of any action are what determine the morality of that
action, and that no other factors are relevant. However, it is not clear how
exactly we should go about working out what to do in specific cases. For
example:
You are a military airman flying a fighter jet that is about to intercept a passenger airliner that
seems to have been hijacked by an as yet unknown figure. The plane appears to be on a path
that could take it either to an airport or, potentially, directly to a major and highly populated
city. You are tasked with deciding how to act and must, therefore, choose whether or not to
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fire a missile at the plane. Firing at the plane would kill the passengers but save all lives on
the ground, yet not firing may save the passengers, or it may give the passengers only a few
more minutes before the plane is flown into a city full of innocents and they are killed in any
case. Suggesting that the pilot weigh up the options and choose the action that secures the
greatest pleasure for the greatest number is not obviously helpful in making such a difficult
decision with so many variables.
Bentham recognised that such Problems of Calculation relating to the pleasure
associated with future actions needed addressing in order for Utilitarianism to
be a workable moral theory. Bentham therefore created the Hedonic Calculus
(sometimes known as the Felicific Calculus) in order to help an individual
work out how much pleasure would be created by differing possible actions.
The Hedonic Calculus, as suggested by Bentham, is based on assessing possible
pleasures according to their:
1.
Intensity
2.
Duration
3.
Certainty
4.
Remoteness (i.e. how far into the future the pleasure is)
5.
Fecundity (i.e. how likely it is that pleasure will generate other related
pleasures)
6.
Purity (i.e. if any pain will be felt alongside that pleasure)
7.
Extent (i.e. how many people might be able to share in that pleasure)6
The Hedonic Calculus is therefore supposed to provide a decision-procedure
for a utilitarian who is confused as to how to act in a morally tricky situation.
Thus, our fighter-pilot might consider the intensity of the pleasure of surviving
versus the duration of the pain of death, while also needing to balance these
factors against the relative certainty of the possible pains or pleasures. No
doubt, the fighter pilot would still face an agonising moral choice but it
seems that he would at least have some methodology for working out what
Utilitarianism morally requires of him.
7. Problems with Bentham’s Utilitarianism
However, whether or not measuring possible actions in terms of “units of
pleasure” associated with them is actually plausible is very much an open
question and so the problem of calculation is not necessarily solved simply
by the existence of the Hedonic Calculus. Consider the most recent highly
pleasurable experience that you enjoyed and compare it to a highly pleasurable
experience from earlier in your life. It may be that you cannot say confidently
6
Ibid., p. 87.
that one provided more pleasure than the other, especially if the experiences
were extremely varied; perhaps winning a sporting trophy versus going on
your first holiday. Pleasures that are so fundamentally different in nature may
simply be incommensurable — they may be incapable of being measured by a
common standard such as the Hedonic Calculus.
In addition, the problem of calculation can be extended beyond the issues
raised above. Remember that Bentham’s Utilitarianism is impartial in the sense
that all individuals who gain pleasure as a result of a certain action count
towards the total amount of pleasure. However, the following case raises the
Problem of Relevant Beings:
You are considering whether or not to approve a new housing development on a piece of
unoccupied land outside the current boundary of your town. You are clear that, if approved,
the development will create a great deal of pleasure for both new residents and construction
workers without any pain being experienced by others. You are aware, however, that
the development will require the culling of several badgers and the removal of a habitat
currently supporting many birds, stray cats and rodents of various types.
On the surface, this case should be obvious for the utilitarian without any
special problem of calculation; the greatest good for the greatest number
would be secured if the development were permitted to go ahead. However,
this assumes that non-human animals are not relevant to the calculation of
pleasures and pains. Yet, if pleasure is all that matters for how well a life goes
then it is not clear why animals, that may be able to experience some form of
pleasure and can almost certainly experience pain, should be excluded from
the calculation process.
Indeed, Bentham, when referring to the moral value of animals, noted that:
“The question (for deciding moral relevance) is not ‘Can they reason?’, nor
‘Can they talk?’, but ‘Can they suffer?’”7 If the suffering and pain of humans is
relevant to moral calculations then surely it is at least plausible that so should
the suffering and pain of non-human animals. (There is more on the issue of
the moral status of animals in Chapter 14 when the morality of eating animals
is investigated.)
Being a maximising ethical theory, Utilitarianism is also open to a
Demandingness Objection. If it is not the case that pleasure needs to be merely
promoted but actually maximised at all opportunities, then the standard for
acting morally appears to be set extremely high. For example, did you buy a
doughnut at some point this year or treat yourself to a magazine? Live the life
of a high-roller and treat yourself to a taxi ride rather than walking to your
destination? While your actions certainly brought about differing degrees of
pleasure to both yourself and to those who gained economic benefit from your
7 J. Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, http://www.econlib.org/library/
Bentham/bnthPML18.html
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decision, it seems that you could have created much more pleasure by saving
up your money and ensuring it reached those suffering extreme financial
hardships or residing in poverty around the world. As a result of being a
maximising moral theory, Utilitarianism seems to make immorality very hard
to avoid as it is so utterly demanding on our behaviour.
A further problem for Utilitarianism relates to the Tyranny of the Majority.
Remember that as a relativistic moral theory, Utilitarianism does not allow for
any moral absolutes — such as the absolute right to democracy, or absolute
legal or basic human rights. Indeed, Bentham himself dismissed the idea of
“natural rights” as a nonsensical concept masqueraded as a meaningful one.
However, if we accept that absolute rights are simply “nonsense upon stilts”
as Bentham put it, then Utilitarianism seems to be open to cases where the
majority are morally required to exploit the minority for the greater good of
maximising total pleasure. For example, imagine that total pleasure would
be maximised if the resources of a small country were forcibly taken from
them to be used freely and exploited by the people of a much larger country
(this is hardly unrealistic). However, such forceful theft — only justified by
the fact that a greater majority of people would gain pleasure — does not
seem to be morally justifiable. Yet, according to Utilitarianism’s commitment
to maximising pleasure, such an action would not only be morally acceptable
but it would be morally required.
As a consequentialist/teleological moral theory Utilitarianism is also
open to the Problem of Wrong Intentions. This problem can be highlighted by
considering the cases of Dominic and Callum.
Dominic is seating in a coffee shop when a masked intruder bursts in threatening to rob the
shop. Dominic, with the intention of saving lives, attempts to stop the intruder but sadly, in
the ensuing struggle, the intruder’s gun is accidentally fired and an innocent person is killed.
Now, consider a second case where an intruder bursts in with a gun but Callum, rather
than trying to intervene, immediately ducks for cover with the intention of saving himself
and leaving the rest of the customers to fend for themselves. Luckily for Callum, when he
ducks for cover he accidentally trips into the would-be thief, knocking him unconscious
thus allowing his peaceful detention until police arrive.
According to the utilitarian calculation, Callum acted in a way that maximised
pleasure while Dominic acted wrongly because the consequence of his act was
tragic pain. However, it seems unfair and wrong to suggest that Callum acted
rightly when he had just intended to save himself, although he had a lucky
outcome, while Dominic acted wrongly when his intention was to save others
but was unlucky in his outcome. Utilitarianism, as a consequentialist theory,
ignores intentions and focuses only on consequences.
Utilitarianism also faces the Problem of Partiality. This is clear if we consider
the familiar moral dilemma of being stuck on a life raft with three other people
but with only enough supplies for two people. On the raft with you is a doctor
who is confident that he can pass on a cure for cancer if he survives, a world
class violinist who brings pleasure to millions each year, and one of your
parents or siblings. I am afraid to report that, for the purposes of this example,
your parent or sibling is nothing special in comparison to other individuals
on the raft. In this circumstance, Utilitarianism would seem to require you
not only to give up your own space on the raft but ensure that your parent or
sibling joins you in the freezing water with no hope of survival; this is the way
of maximising total pleasure in such a scenario. Yet, even if you believe that the
morality might call for your own self-sacrifice, it seems extremely unfair not to
allow you to give extra moral weight to the life of a loved one. Unfortunately for
the utilitarian, perhaps, the status as a beloved family member should make
no special difference to your judgment regarding how to act. This seems to be
not only over-demanding but also overly cold and calculating. Utilitarianism
requires Agent-Neutrality — you must look at the situation as any neutral
observer would and not give special preference to anyone irrespective of your
emotional attachments, because each individual must count for one and no
more than one.
Finally, Bentham’s Utilitarianism also comes under attack from the related
Integrity Objection, framed most prominently by Bernard Williams (1929–
2003). As an agent-neutral theory, no person can give up impartiality when it
comes to judgements about the impact of a potential action upon their family
or loved ones. In addition, no person can give up impartiality when it comes
to the impact of an action upon their own feelings, character and general sense
of integrity. In order to make clear the potential worry associated with this,
Williams describes the fictional case of Jim and the Indians.8
Jim is an explorer who stumbles upon an Indian leader who is about to execute twenty
people. Jim knows nothing of their possible crimes or any other factors involved, but he is
offered a difficult choice by the Indian chief who is eager to impress his foreign traveller.
Jim can either shoot one of the prisoners himself and then the rest will be set free as a mark
of celebration, or he can refuse the offer in which case all twenty prisoners will be executed
as was planned. It is key to note that Jim does not have control of the situation in the sense
that he is powerless to bargain or negotiate with anyone, and nor can he use a weapon to
successfully free any prisoners. He has only the two options laid out.
The point of this example is not to establish what the right action is. You may
find yourself in agreement with utilitarians who suggest Jim must shoot
one prisoner in order to save the lives of the rest. Rather, the purpose of the
example is to show that Utilitarianism forces us to reach this conclusion too
quickly. Given the commitment to Agent-Neutrality, Jim must treat himself as
a neutral observer working out which action will produce the greatest good
8 B. Williams, ‘Jim and the Indians’, https://www.unc.edu/courses/2009spring/plcy/240/001/Jim_and_
Indians.pdf
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for the greatest number. Morally, he is not entitled to give more weight to his
own feelings than he would give to the feelings of any other and therefore
it does not matter whether Jim is a pacifist and has been a lifelong advocate
for prisoner reform and rehabilitation. If the utilitarian calculation suggests
that he must shoot one of the prisoners then he must shoot with no regard to
any compromising of his integrity and self-identity. You may accept this as an
unfortunate consequence of a terrible situation, but it may be a problem for
a moral theory if it fails to recognise or respect a person’s most sincere and
deepest convictions.
8. Mill’s Utilitarian Proof
John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) was concerned by many of the problems
facing the utilitarian theory put forward by Bentham, but as a hedonist he
did not wish to see the theory rejected. Mill sought to refine and improve
the Benthamite utilitarian theory in order to create a successful version of
Hedonistic Utilitarianism.
Mill was so confident about the prospects for a version of Hedonistic
Utilitarianism because he believed that there was an empirically backed proof
available to support the principle that the greatest happiness/pleasure should
always be secured for the greatest number.9 Mill’s proof, much like Bentham’s
empirical defence of Hedonism, relies on the evidence from observation that
people desire their own happiness. This observation of fact supports Mill’s
claim that since people desire their own happiness, this is evidence that such
happiness is desirable. Mill says “…each person’s happiness is a good to that
person, and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all
persons”.10 Since our happiness is good for us, and general happiness is just
the total of the happiness of all persons, then general happiness is also good.
To put it another way, if individual happiness is a good worth pursuing then
happiness in general must be worth pursuing.
In order to justify Hedonism, Mill sought to justify the claim that the good
of happiness is the only thing that makes our lives go better. Mill defends this
claim by suggesting that knowledge, health and freedom etc. (as other plausible
goods that might make a life go better) are only valuable in so far as they bring
about happiness. Knowledge is desired only because it provides happiness when
acquired, not because it, by itself and in isolation, makes life go better.
Mill’s proof of Utilitarianism in terms of the general desirability of
maximising total happiness is, however, open to criticism. For one thing,
9 This slippage from talk of “pleasure” to talk of “happiness” is explained in section eight of this
chapter.
10 J. S. Mill, ‘Utilitarianism’, in Utilitarianism and Other Essays, p. 308.
the fact that something is desired does not seem to justify the claim that it is
desirable. G. E. Moore (1873–1958) points out that Mill moves from the factual
sense that something is desirable if it is desired to the normative sense that it
should be desired without any justification. It is possible, for example, to desire
to kill another person. This is desirable in the sense people could and do desire
it (it is possible to do so — it is an action that is desire-able), but not in the sense
that we would want them to desire it.
In addition, the idea that other apparent goods, such as knowledge and
health, are only valuable in so far as they promote happiness/pleasure is
extremely controversial; can you imagine a situation in which you gained
value from knowledge without any associated pleasure or happiness? If so,
you may have a counter example to Mill’s claim.
9. Mill’s Qualitative Utilitarianism
In attempting to redraw Bentham’s Utilitarianism, Mill’s most substantial
thought was to move away from Bentham’s idea that all that mattered was
the quantity of total pleasure. Instead, Mill thought that quality of pleasure was
also crucial to deciding what is moral.
Bentham’s Utilitarianism is quantitative in the sense that all Bentham
focusses on is the maximisation of hedonically calculated quantities of total
pleasure. Thus, he says that “Prejudice apart, the game of push-pin is of equal
value with the arts and sciences of music and poetry”.11 All that matters for
Bentham is producing pleasure and the way this is achieved is unimportant.
If playing on a console affords you more pleasure than reading Shakespeare,
then Bentham would view your life as going better if you play the console.
However, Mill introduces a quality criterion for pleasure. Mill says that:
It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied
than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is only because they only
know their own side of the question.12
Bentham could not admit that the unhappy Socrates would be living a life
with more value than the happier fool. Mill, on the other hand, believes that
quality, not merely quantity, of pleasure matters and can therefore defend the
claim that Socrates has the better life even by hedonistic standards.
According to Mill, higher pleasures are worth more than lower pleasures.
Higher pleasures are those pleasures of the intellect brought about via
activities like poetry, reading or attending the theatre. Lower pleasures are
animalistic and base; pleasures associated with drinking beer, having sex or
11 J. Bentham, The Rationale of Reward, p. 206, https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6igN9srLgg8C
12 J. S. Mill, ‘Utilitarianism’, p. 281.
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lazing on a sun-lounger. What we should seek to maximise are the higher
quality pleasures even if the total pleasure (hedonically calculated via
Bentham’s calculus) turns out to be quantitatively lower as a result. Justifying
this distinction between higher and lower quality pleasures as non-arbitrary
and not just an expression of his own tastes, Mill says that competent judges,
those people who have experienced both types of pleasure, are best placed
to select which pleasures are higher and lower. Such competent judges, says
Mill, would and do favour pleasures of the intellect over the base pleasures
of the body. On this basis, Mill is open to the criticism that many people have
both read books and drunk beer and that if given the choice would choose
the latter. Whether or not Mill’s defence of his supposedly non-prejudiced
distinction of higher and lower pleasures is successful is an open question for
your evaluation and analysis.
10. Mill’s Rule Utilitarianism versus Bentham’s Act
Utilitarianism
In addition to a difference in views regarding the importance of the quality of
a pleasure, Mill and Bentham are also separated by reference to Act and Rule
Utilitarianism and although such terms emerged only after Mill’s death, Mill
is typically considered a rule utilitarian and Bentham an act utilitarian.
An act utilitarian, such as Bentham, focuses only on the consequences of
individual actions when making moral judgments. However, this focus on
the outcome of individual acts can sometimes lead to odd and objectionraising examples. Judith Jarvis Thomson (1929–) raised the problem of the
“transplant surgeon”.13
Imagine a case where a doctor had five patients requiring new organs to stop their death
and one healthy patient undergoing a routine check. In this case, it would seem that total
pleasure is best promoted by killing the one healthy patient, harvesting his organs and
saving the other five lives; their pleasure outweighs the cost to the formerly healthy patient.
While Bentham does suggest that we should have “rules of thumb” against
such actions, for typically they will lead to unforeseen painful consequences,
in the case as simply described the act utilitarian appears powerless to deny
that such a killing is required in order to maximise total pleasure (just add
your own details to secure this conclusion for the act utilitarian).
Rule utilitarians, in whose camp we can place Mill, adopt a different moral
decision-procedure. Their view is that we should create a set of rules that,
if followed, would produce the greatest amount of total happiness. In the
transplant case, killing the healthy man would not seem to be part of the best set
13 J. J. Thomson, ‘The Trolley Problem’, p. 1396.
of utilitarian-justified rules since a rule allowing the killing of healthy patients
would not seem to promote total happiness; one outcome, for example, would
be that people would very likely stop coming to hospitals for fear for their life!
Therefore, if a rule permitting killing was allowed then the maximisation of
total happiness would not be promoted overall.
It is through Rule Utilitarianism that we can make sense of Mill’s “harm
principle”. According to Mill, there is:
…one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the
individual in the way of compulsion and control.14
That principle is:
The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized
community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral,
is not a sufficient warrant.15
Even if a particular act of harming another person might bring about an
increase in total pleasure on a single occasion, that act may not be condoned
by the set of rules that best promotes total pleasure overall. As such, the action
would not be morally permitted.
11. Strong versus Weak Rule Utilitarianism
Rule utilitarians may seem to avoid troubling cases like the transplant surgeon
and be able to support and uphold individual human and legal rights based on
rules that reflect the harm principle. This fact would also help rule utilitarians
overcome objections based on the treatment of minorities because exploitation
of minority groups would, perhaps, fail to be supported by the best utilitarianjustified set of rules. Yet, rule utilitarians face a troubling dilemma:
1.
Strong Rule Utilitarianism: Guidance from the set of rules that, if
followed, would promote the greatest amount of total happiness must
always be followed.
2.
Weak Rule Utilitarianism: Guidance from the set of rules that, if followed,
would promote the greatest amount of total happiness can be ignored
in circumstances where more happiness would be produced by
breaking the rule.
The strong rule utilitarian appears to suffer from what J. J. C. Smart (1920–
2012) described as “Rule Worship”. No longer focussing on the consequences
of the action before them, the strong rule utilitarian appears to ignore the
14 J. S. Mill, On Liberty, http://www.econlib.org/library/Mill/mlLbty1.html
15
Ibid.
Utilitarianism
23
NORMATIVE ETHICS
24
option to maximise total happiness in favour of following a general and nonrelative rule regarding how to act. The strong rule utilitarian may be able to
avoid problems based on treatment of minorities or a lack of absolute legal
and human rights, but it is not clear that they survive these problems holding
on to a teleological, relativistic utilitarian theory. Utilitarianism seems to be
saved from troubling implications only by denying core features.
On the other hand, while Weak Rule Utilitarianism retains a teleological
nature it appears to collapse into Act Utilitarianism. The rules provide
guidelines that can be broken, and given that the act utilitarian can also offer
“rules of thumb” against actions that tend not to produce maximum goodness
or utility in general, such as killing healthy patients, it is not clear where this
version of Rule Utilitarianism gains a unique identity. In what cases would
Act Utilitarianism and Weak Rule Utilitarianism actually provide different
moral guidance? This is something you should consider in the light of your
own examples or previous examples in this chapter.
12. Comparing the Classical Utilitarians
Bentham
•
Hedonist
•
All pleasure equally valuable
•
Act Utilitarian
•
Teleological, impartial, relativistic, maximising
Mill
•
Hedonist
•
Quality of pleasure matters: intellectual versus animalistic
•
Viewed as rule utilitarian
•
If strong rule utilitarian, not clear if teleological or relativistic
•
Impartial, maximising theory
13. Non-Hedonistic Contemporary Utilitarianism:
Peter Singer and Preference Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is not a dead theory and it did not end with Mill. Henry
Sidgwick (1838–1900) is considered to have taken over the baton after Mill,
and R. M. Hare (1919–2002) was perhaps chief advocate in the mid twentieth
century. However, few contemporary philosophers can claim as much
influence in public life outside philosophy as can the preference utilitarian,
Peter Singer (1946–).
Singer advocates a non-hedonistic version of Utilitarianism. His utilitarian
theory is teleological, maximising, impartial and relativistic but he does not
claim that the greatest good for the greatest number can be reduced to pleasure
in either raw or higher forms. Instead, Singer believes that what improves
a person’s life is entirely determined by the satisfaction of their preferences.
If you satisfy your preference to achieve a good qualification your life goes
better in virtue of satisfying that preference. If someone else desires to get a job
rather than continue in education, their life goes better for them if they secure
their preference and gain employment. Individuals, according to Singer, must
be at the core of moral thinking:
There would be something incoherent about living a life where the conclusions you came to in
ethics did not make any difference to your life. It would make it an academic exercise. The whole
point about doing ethics is to think about the way to live. My life has a kind of harmony between
my ideas and the way I live. It would be highly discordant if that was not the case.16
On this basis, when making moral decisions we should consider how best to
ensure the maximisation of total preference satisfaction — it does not matter
if our preference satisfaction fails to provide pleasure for us. Continuing to
follow Bentham’s commitment to impartiality, Singer also supports equal
weighing of preferences when deciding which action better promotes greater
preference satisfaction; all preferences are to weigh equally. This potentially
leaves Singer open to the same issues that plagued Bentham. Namely,
regarding circumstances where partiality seems desirable, or when the
preferences of the majority seem to threaten a minority group, or require us
to sacrifice our integrity. Further, the problem of calculation also seems to be
relevant, because it is not obvious how you could work out the preferences
of others in at least some difficult moral cases (let alone the preferences of
animals, if they are also relevant).
In response to a concern regarding the moral relevance of satisfying
bloodthirsty or apparently immoral preferences, and counting such satisfaction
as a moral achievement (consider the preferences of a nation of paedophiles,
for example), we might look to the ideas of Richard Brandt (1910–1997).
Brandt, writing about the rationality of certain preferences, suggested that
rational preferences were those that might survive cognitive psychotherapy.17
However, there is a question as to how arbitrary this requirement is and
whether or not some unnerving preferences might form the core of certain
individual characters therefore being sustained even after such therapy.
16 K. Toolis, ‘The Most Dangerous Man in the World’, https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/1999/
nov/06/weekend.kevintoolis
17 R. Brandt, Ethical Theory.
Utilitarianism
25
NORMATIVE ETHICS
26
SUMMARY
Utilitarianism remains a living theory and retains hedonistic and
non-hedonistic advocates, as well as supporters of both act and
rule formulations. The core insight that consequences matter
gives the theory some intuitive support even in the light of
hypothetical cases that pose serious problems for utilitarians. The
extent to which the different versions of Utilitarianism survive
their objections is very much up to you as a critically-minded
philosopher to decide.
COMMON STUDENT MISTAKES
•
Not reflecting the attitudinal aspect of pleasure that Bentham’s theory
may account for.
•
Minimising the long-term impact of actions when it comes to pleasure/
pain production.
•
Imprecise understanding of the hedonic/non-hedonic split in
Utilitarianism.
•
Imprecision in use of examples to defend/challenge Utilitarianism.
•
Suggesting that “Jim and the Indians” is not a counterexample to
Utilitarianism simply because you judge killing the fewer number of
people is ultimately the morally right thing to do.
ISSUES TO CONSIDER
1.
Is there anything that would improve your life that cannot be reduced
to either pleasure or preference satisfaction?
2.
Would you enter Nozick’s experience machine if you knew you
would not come out? Would you put someone you care about into the
machine while they were asleep, so that they never had to make the
decision?
3.
Can pleasure be measured? Does Bentham go about this task correctly?
4.
Which is the most serious problem facing Bentham’s Act
Utilitarianism? Can it be overcome?
5.
Does Mill successfully improve Bentham’s Act Utilitarianism in any
way?
6. Are you ever told to stop watching television and do something else? Is
this good for you? Why?
7.
Look at the quote at the start of the chapter by Dara Ó Briain — is it
possible that some pleasures are inferior in value to others?
8.
Do you have convictions or beliefs you would not want to sacrifice for
the greater good, should you ever be forced to?
9.
Why do utilitarians not give up on the idea of maximising pleasure and
just talk in terms of promoting sufficient pleasure? Would this solve or
raise problems?
10. Is Weak Rule Utilitarianism merely Act Utilitarianism by another
name?
11. Does Strong Rule Utilitarianism deserve to be labelled as a utilitarian
theory?
12. If your preferences change after psychotherapy, did the original
preferences ever matter?
KEY TERMINOLOGY
Normative
Agent-Neutrality
Relativistic
Hedonic Calculus
Teleological
Utility
Consequentialist
Intrinsic
Principle of Utility
Utilitarianism
27
NORMATIVE ETHICS
28
References
Bentham, Jeremy, The Rationale of Reward (London: Robert Heward, 1830),
freely available at https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6igN9srLgg8C
―, ‘An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation’, in
Utilitarianism and Other Essays, ed. by Alan Ryan (London: Penguin Books,
2004).
―, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, freely available at
http://www.econlib.org/library/Bentham/bnthPML18.html
Brandt, Richard, Ethical Theory: The Problems of Normative and Critical Ethics
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1959).
Mill, John Stuart, On Liberty (London: Longman, Roberts, Green & Co., 1869),
freely available at http://www.econlib.org/library/Mill/mlLbty1.html
―, ‘Utilitarianism’, in Utilitarianism and Other Essays, ed. by Alan Ryan
(London: Penguin Books, 2004).
―, Utilitarianism, freely available at https://www.utilitarianism.com/mill1.htm
Nozick, Robert, ‘The Experience Machine’, in Ethical Theory, ed. by Russ
Shafer-Landau (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007).
Thomson, Judith Jarvis, ‘The Trolley Problem’, The Yale Law Journal, 94.6
(1985): 1395–415, https://doi.org/10.2307/796133
Toolis, Kevin, ‘The Most Dangerous Man in the World’, the Guardian (6
November 1999), freely available at https://www.theguardian.com/
lifeandstyle/1999/nov/06/weekend.kevintoolis
Williams, Bernard, ‘Jim and the Indians’, in his A Critique of Utilitarianism,
freely available at https://www.unc.edu/courses/2009spring/plcy/240/001/
Jim_and_Indians.pdf
CHAPTER 2
Kantian Ethics
In spite of its horrifying title Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals is one of
the small books which are truly great; it has exercised on human thought an influence almost
ludicrously disproportionate to its size.1
1. An Introduction to Kantian Ethics
Immanuel Kant was born in 1724 in Königsberg in East Prussia, where he
died in 1804. Kant is famous for revolutionising how we think about just about
every aspect of the world — including science, art, ethics, religion, the self
and reality. He is one of the most important thinkers of all time, which is even
more remarkable by the fact that Kant is a truly awful writer. His sentences are
full of technical language, are very long, and are incredibly dense. You have
been warned!
Kant is a rationalist writing during the Enlightenment (1685–1815). He
thinks that we can gain knowledge from our senses and through our rational
capacities. This means his general philosophical approach starts by asking
what we can know a priori.
This is key to understanding his work but also makes his writing on ethics
seem a bit odd. We think the study of ethics — unlike say maths — ought to
direct our eye to what is going on around us in the world. Yet Kant starts by
turning his eyes “inward” to thinking about ethical ideas.
Kant believes that in doing this people will come to recognise that certain
actions are right and wrong irrespective of how we might feel and irrespective
of any consequences. For Kant, actions are right if they respect what he
calls the Categorical Imperative. For example, because lying fails to respect
the Categorical Imperative it is wrong and is wrong irrespective of how we
might feel about lying or what might happen if we did lie; it is actions that are
right and wrong rather than consequences. This means that Kant’s theory is
deontological rather than teleological. It focuses on our duties rather than our
ends/goals/consequences.
1 H. J. Paton, ‘Preface’ in I. Kant, Moral Law, p. 7.
NORMATIVE ETHICS
32
There is, however, something intuitive about the idea that morality is based
on reason rather than feelings or consequences. Consider my pet cat Spartan.
He performs certain actions like scrabbling under bed covers, meowing at
birds and chasing his tail. Now consider my daughter Beth, she performs
certain actions like caring for her sister and helping the homeless.
Spartan’s actions are not moral whereas Beth’s actions are. Spartan’s
thinking and actions are driven by his desires and inclination. He eats and
plays and sleeps when he desires to do so, there is no reasoning on his part.
Beth, in contrast, can reflect on the various reasons she has, reasons to care for
her sister and the homeless.
We might think then that humans are moral beings not because we have
certain desires but precisely because we are rational. We have an ability to
“stand back” and consider what we are doing and why. Kant certainly thought
so and he takes this insight as his starting point.
2. Some Key Ideas
Duty
Kant’s main works in ethics are his Metaphysics of Morals (1797) and the
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785). Neither give practical advice
about particular situations but rather through rational reflection, Kant seeks
to establish the supreme principle of morality.
He starts from the notion of “duty” and although this is a rather oldfashioned term, the idea behind it should sound familiar. Imagine, your friend
has told you that she is pregnant but asks you to promise to keep her secret.
Through the coming weeks this juicy bit of gossip is on the tip of your tongue
but you do not tell anyone because of your promise. There are things we
recognise as being required of us irrespective of what we (really) desire to do.
This is what Kant means by duty.
But this raises the question. If it is not desires that move us to do what is
right (even really strong desires), what does? In our example, why is it that we
keep our promise despite the strong desire to gossip? Kant’s answer is “the
good will”.
Good Will
Kant gives the following characterization of the good will. It is something that
is good irrespective of effects:
A good will is good not because of what it effects or accomplishes — because of its fitness for
attaining some proposed end: it is good through its willing alone — that is, good in itself.2
2 I. Kant, Moral Law, p. 40.
33
It is impossible to conceive anything at all in the world, or even out of it, which can be taken as
good without qualification, except a good will.3
What does Kant mean? Well, pick anything you like which you think might
make an action good — for example, happiness, pleasure, courage, and then
ask yourself if there are any situations you can think of where an action having
those features makes those actions worse?
It seems there are. Imagine someone who is happy when kicking a cat; or
someone taking pleasure in torture; or a serial killer whose courage allows her
to abduct children in broad daylight. In such cases the happiness, pleasure
and courage make the actions worse. Kant thinks we can repeat this line of
thinking for anything and everything, except one thing — the good will.
The good will unlike anything else is good unconditionally and what makes
a good will good is willing alone; not other attitudes, or consequences, or
characteristics of the agent. Even Kant thinks this sounds like a rather strange
idea. So how can he (and we) be confident that the good will even exists?
Consider Mahatma Gandhi’s (1869–1948) non-violent protest for Indian
independence. He stood peacefully whilst the British police beat him. Here
is a case where there must have been an overwhelming desire to fight back.
But he did not. In this type of action Kant would claim that we “see” the good
will — as he says — “shining like a jewel”.4 Seeing such resilience in the face
of such awful violence we are humbled and can recognize, what Kant calls, its
moral worth. Obviously not all actions are as significant as Gandhi’s! However,
Kant thinks that any acts like this, which are performed despite conflicting desires,
are due to the good will. Considering such actions (can you think of any?)
means we can recognize that the good will exists.
3. Acting for the Sake of Duty and Acting in Accordance
with Duty
From what we have said above about the nature of duty and good will we can
see why Kant says that to act from good will is acting for the sake of duty. We
act despite our desires to do otherwise. For Kant this means that acting for the
sake of duty is the only way that an action can have moral worth. We will see
below what we have to do for our actions to be carried out for the sake of duty.
However, before we do this, we need to be really clear on this point about
moral worth.
3
Ibid., p. 39.
4
Ibid., p. 40.
Kantian Ethics
It is also good without qualification.
NORMATIVE ETHICS
34
Imagine that you are walking with a friend. You pass someone begging
on the street. Your friend starts to weep, fumbles in his wallet and gives the
beggar some money and tells you that he feels such an empathy with the poor
man that he just has to help him.
For Kant, your friend’s action has no moral worth because what is moving
him to give money is empathy rather than duty! He is acting in accordance with
duty. However, Kant does think your friend should be applauded as such an
action is something that is of value although it wouldn’t be correct to call it a
moral action.
To make this point clearer, Kant asks us to consider someone who has no
sympathy for the suffering of others and no inclination to help them. But
despite this:
…he nevertheless tears himself from his deadly insensibility and performs the action without any
inclination at all, but solely from duty then for the first time his action has genuine moral worth.5
In contrast to our friend, this person is acting for the sake of duty and hence
their action is moral. We must be careful though. Kant is not telling us to become
emotionally barren robots! He is not saying that before we can act morally we
need to get rid of sympathy, empathy, desires, love, and inclinations. This
would make Kant’s moral philosophy an absurd non-starter.
Let us see why Kant is not saying this. Consider an action such as giving to
others. We should ask whether an action of giving to others would have been
performed even if the agent lacked the desire to do so. If the answer is “yes”
then the act has moral worth. This though is consistent with the agent actually
having those desires. The question for Kant is not whether an agent has desires but
what moved the agent to act. If they acted because of those desires they acted in
accordance with duty and their action had no moral worth. If they acted for
the sake of duty, and just happened to have those desires, then their action has
moral worth.
4. Categorical and Hypothetical Imperatives
If we agree with Kant and want to act for the sake of duty what should we
do? His answer is that we have to act out of respect for the moral law. He has
two examples of how this works in practice: lying and suicide. We look at the
former in Chapter 13, we will consider Kant’s example of suicide at the end of
this chapter. However, before doing this we need to get a sense of what Kant
has in mind when he talks about acting out of respect for the moral law.
The moral law is what he calls the “Categorical Imperative”. He thinks
there are three formulations of this.
5
Ibid., p. 43.
CI-1: …act only according to that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it
become a universal law.6
CI-2: So act that you use humanity, in your own person as well as in the person of any other,
always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.7
CI-3: …every rational being must so act as if he were through his maxim always a lawmaking
member in the universal kingdom of ends.8
We will consider these in turn, showing how they are linked. Consider then,
CI-1.
Kant’s idea is that we use this “test” to see what maxims are morally
permissible. If we act in accordance with those then we are acting from duty
and our actions have moral worth. Let us look at what this means.
Initially it is worth considering what “categorical” and “imperative” mean.
An imperative is just a command. “Clean your room!” is an imperative I
give my daughter every Saturday. “Do not park in front of these gates!” is a
command on my neighbour’s gate. “Love your God with all your heart, mind
and soul” is a command from the Bible.
What about the “categorical” part? If a command is categorical then people
ought to follow it irrespective of how they feel about following it, irrespective
of what consequences might follow, or who may or may not have told them
to follow it. For example, the command “do not peel the skin of babies” is
categorical. You ought not to do this and the fact that this might be your life’s
ambition, or that you really want to do it, or that your teacher has told you to
do it, is completely irrelevant.
Contrast this with Hypothetical Imperatives. If I tell my daughter to clean
her room, this is hypothetical. This is because whether she ought to clean her
room is dependent on conditions about her and me. If she does not care about
a clean room and about what her dad thinks, then it is not true that she ought
to clean her room. Most commands are hypothetical. For example, “study!”
You ought to study only if certain things are true about you; for example, that
you care about doing well, that you want to succeed in the test etc.
Kant thinks that moral “oughts” — for example, “you ought not lie” — are
categorical. They apply to people irrespective of how they feel about them.
The next thing we need is the idea of a “maxim”. This is relatively simple
and is best seen through the following examples. Imagine I’m considering
whether to make a false promise. Perhaps I think that by falsely promising
you that l will pay you back I will be more likely to get a loan from you. In
6
Ibid., p. 15.
7
Ibid., p. 66.
8
Ibid., p. 21.
Kantian Ethics
35
NORMATIVE ETHICS
36
that case my maxim is something like “whenever I can benefit from making a false
promise I should do so”.
Imagine I decide to exercise because I feel depressed, then I may be said
to be acting on the maxim “Whenever I feel depressed I will exercise”. A maxim
is a general principle or rule upon which we act. We do not decide on a set of
maxims, perhaps writing them down, and then try to live by them but rather a
maxim is the principle or rule that can make sense of an action whether or not we have
thought about it in these terms.
5. The First Formulation of the Categorical Imperative
Let’s put these bits together in relation to CI-1
…act only according to that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a
universal law.9
The “test” that CI-1 prescribes is the following. Consider the maxim on which
you are thinking about acting, and ask whether you can either (i) conceive
that it become a universal law, or (ii) will that it become a universal law. If a
maxim fails on either (i) or (ii) then there is no good reason for you to act on
that maxim and it is morally impermissible to do so. If it passes the CI test,
then it is morally permissible.
Kant is not saying that the CI-1 test is a way of working out what is and
what is not moral. Presumably we can think of lots of maxims, which are
non-moral, which pass the test, for example, “whenever I am bored I will
watch TV”.
Equally he is not saying that if a maxim cannot be universalized then it
is morally impermissible. Some maxims are just mathematically impossible.
For example, “whenever I am going to exercise I will do it for an above the
average amount of time”. This maxim cannot be universalized because we
cannot conceive that everyone does something above “average”.
Finally, it is worth remembering that the maxim must be able to be willed as
a universal law. This is important because maxims such as “if your name is Jill
and you are 5ft 11, you can lie” will fail to be universalized because you cannot
will that your name is Jill or that your height is 5ft11. It has to be possible to
will as a universal law and for this to be true it must be at least possible for
it actually to come about. This shows that the common concern that we can
get any maxim to pass the CI-1 test by simply adding more and more specific
details, such as names, heights or locations, fails. This is very abstract (what
did we tell you about Kant’s work!). Let us consider an example.
9
Ibid.
6. Perfect and Imperfect Duties
Recall the example of making a false promise to secure a loan. The maxim is
“whenever I can benefit from doing so, I should make a false promise”. The question
is whether I could conceive or will that this become a universal law.
I could not. If everyone followed this maxim then we would all believe
everyone else could make a false promise if it would benefit them to do
so. Kant thinks such a situation is not conceivable because the very idea of
making a promise relies on trust. But if “whenever it is of benefit to you, you
can make false promises” was to become a universal law then there would
be no trust and hence no promising. So by simply thinking about the idea
of promising and lying we see the maxim will fail the test and, because we
cannot universalize the maxim, then making a false promise becomes morally
impermissible. This is true universally for all people in all circumstances for
anyone can, in principle, go through the same line of reasoning.
A maxim failing at (i) is what Kant calls a contradiction in conception, and
failing at (i) means we are dealing with what Kant calls a perfect duty. In our
example we have shown we have a perfect duty not to make false promises.
Consider another example. Imagine that someone in need asks us for
money but we decide not to help them. In this case our maxim is “whenever
someone is in need and asks for money do not give them money”. Does this
pass the CI-1 test?
No it fails the CI-1 test. Although it is true that the maxim passes (i) not
giving to the needy does not threaten the very idea of giving money away. Kant
thinks that anyone thinking about this will see that that maxim will fail at (ii)
and hence it is morally impermissible. Here is why.
You cannot know if you will be in need in the future and presumably you
would want to be helped if you were in need. In which case you are being
inconsistent if you willed that “people should not help those in need” should
become a universal law. For you might want people to help those in need in
the future, namely, you.
So we cannot will the maxim “whenever someone is in need do not help
them” to become a universal moral law. Again this is a thought process that
anyone can go through and it means that this moral claim is true universally for
all people in all circumstances. Failing at (ii) is what Kant calls a contradiction in
will, and failing at (ii) means we are dealing with what Kant calls an imperfect
duty.
It is absolutely key to recognize that CI-1 is not simply asking “what if
everyone did that?” CI-1 is not a form of Utilitarianism (see Chapter 1). Kant is
not saying that it is wrong to make false promises because if people did then
the world would be a horrible place. Rather Kant is asking about whether we
can conceive or will the maxim to become a universal law.
Kantian Ethics
37
NORMATIVE ETHICS
38
7. Second Formulation of the Categorical Imperative
The second formulation (CI-2) is the following:
So act that you use humanity, in your own person as well as in the person of any other, always at
the same time as an end, never merely as a means.10
Kant thinks that CI-1 and CI-2 are two sides of the same coin, though precisely
how they are related is a matter of scholarly debate. Put very simply CI-2 says
you should not use people, because if you do, you are failing to treat them as
a rational agent and this is morally wrong.
For example, if I use your essay without your knowledge then I have not
treated you as a rational agent. I would have done had I asked you for your
essay and you had freely chosen to let me have it. But given that I did not ask
you, I was in a sense making choices on your behalf and thus did not treat you as
a rational agent. So according to Kant I should always treat you as an end not
a means. I should always treat you as a free rational agent.
Kant’s theory then has a way of respecting the dignity of people. We should
treat people with respect and with dignity purely on the basis that they are
rational agents, and not because of their race, gender, education, upbringing
etc. From this you can also see that Kant’s theory allows us to speak about
“rights”. If someone has a right then they have this right irrespective of gender,
education, upbringing etc. For example, Jill has a right to free speech because
she is a person, consequently that right will not disappear if she changes her
location, personal circumstances, relationship status, political viewpoint etc.
After all she does not stop being a person.
Importantly, CI-2 does not say that you either treat someone as a means or
an end. I could treat someone as an end by treating them as a means. Suppose
that you have freely decided to become a taxi driver. If I use you as a means
by asking you to take me to the airport I am also treating you as an end. But
Kant does not believe this to be morally wrong because I am respecting you as
a rational agent; after all, you chose to be a taxi driver. Of course, if I get into
your car and point a gun at your head and ask to be taken to the airport then
I am not treating you as an end but rather solely as a means, which is wrong.
8. The Third Formulation of the Categorical Imperative
and Summary
The final formulation of the Categorical Imperative is a combination of CI-1
and CI-2. It asks us to imagine a kingdom which consists of only those people
who act on CI-1. They never act on a maxim which cannot become a universal
10
Ibid., p. 66.
law. In such a kingdom people would treat people as ends, because CI-2 passes
CI-1. This is why CI-3 is often called the “Kingdom of Ends” formulation:
…every rational being must so act as if he were through his maxim always a lawmaking member
in the universal kingdom of ends.11
In summary, we have seen that Kant thinks that acts have moral worth only
if they are carried out for the sake of duty. Agents act for the sake of duty
if they act out of respect for the moral law, which they do by following the
Categorical Imperative in one of its formulations.
Consequently, Kant thinks that acts are wrong and right universally,
irrespective of consequences and desires. If lying is wrong then it is wrong in
all instances. From all this, it follows that we cannot be taught a set of moral
rules for each and every situation and Kant believes that it is up to us to work
it out for ourselves by thinking rationally.
There have been, and continue to be, many books and journal articles
written about Kant’s ethics. He has a profound and deep insight into the
nature of morality and he raises some fundamental questions about what it is
to be human. Kant’s moral theory is radically Egalitarian as his theory is blind
to individual personal circumstances, race, gender and ethnicity. Everyone is
equal before the moral law!
Related to this, his theory respects the rights of individuals and, relatedly,
their dignity. Any theory that is to have a hope of capturing our notion of
rights needs to be able to respect the thought that a right is not something that
disappears if circumstances change. Jill has a right to life, period; we do not say
Jill has a right to life “if…” and then have to fill in the blanks. This is precisely
something that Kant’s theory can give us. CI-1 generates maxims which do not
have exceptions and CI-2 tells us that we should always treat everyone as an
end in themselves and never solely as a means to an end. It tells us, for example,
that we ought not to kill Jill, and this holds true in all circumstances.
There are, though, a number of tough questions that Kant’s work raises.
We consider some of these below. However, as with all the philosophical
ideas we discuss in this book, Kant’s work is still very much alive and has
defenders across the world. Before we turn to these worries, we work through
an example that Kant gives regarding suicide.
9. Kant on Suicide
Kant is notoriously stingy with examples. One he does mention is suicide
(another is lying see Chapter 13). This is an emotive topic and linked to
questions about mental health and religion. An attraction of Kant’s view is
11
Ibid., p. 21.
Kantian Ethics
39
NORMATIVE ETHICS
40
the ability to apply his Categorical Imperatives in a dispassionate way. His
framework should allow us to “plug in” the issue and “get out” an answer.
Let’s see how this might work.
Kant thinks that suicide is always wrong and has very harsh words for
someone who attempts suicide
He who so behaves, who has no respect for human nature and makes a thing of himself, becomes
for everyone an Object of freewill. We are free to treat him as a beast, as a thing, and to use him
for our sport as we do a horse or a dog, for he is no longer a human being; he has made a thing of
himself, and, having himself discarded his humanity, he cannot expect that others should respect
humanity in him.12
But why does he think this? How does this fit with Kant’s Categorical
Imperatives? We will look at the first two formulations.
Fundamental to remember is that for Kant the motive that drives all suicide
is “avoid evil”. By which he means avoiding suffering, pain, and other negative
outcomes in one’s life. All suicide attempts are due to the fact that we love
ourselves and thus want to “avoid evils” that may befall us.
Imagine then that I decide to commit suicide. Given what we have just said
about my motives this means I will be acting on this maxim: “From self‐love I
make as my principle to shorten my life when its continued duration threatens
more evil than it promises satisfaction”.13
Following CI-1 the question then is whether it is possible to universalise
this maxim? Kant thinks not. For him it is unclear how we could will it that
all rational agents as the result of self-love can destroy themselves when their
continued existence threatens more evil than it promises satisfaction. For
Kant self-love leading to the destruction of the self is a contradiction. Thus he
thinks that we have a perfect (rather than an imperfect) duty to ourselves not to
commit suicide. To do so is morally wrong. This is how Kant puts it:
One sees at once a contradiction in a system of nature whose law would destroy life [suicide] by
means of the very same feeling that acts so as to stimulate the furtherance of life [self-love], and
hence there could be no existence as a system of nature. Therefore, such a maxim cannot possibly
hold as a universal law of nature and is, consequently, wholly opposed to the supreme principle
of all duty.
Notice a few odd things here in relation to CI-1. The point about universalisation
seems irrelevant. Kant could have just said it is a contradiction to will from
self-love the destruction of oneself. It seems that there is nothing added by
asking us to consider this point universalised. It does not add weight to the
claim that it is a contradiction.
12 I. Kant, Lectures on Ethics, 27; 373.
13 I. Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, Ak IV, 422
Second, it is not really a “contradiction” at all! It is different to the lying
promise example. In this it seems that the very concept of a promise relies
on trust, which lying would destroy. In contrast in the suicide case the
“contradiction” seems more like a by-product of Kant’s assumption regarding
the motivation of suicidal people. So we can avoid the “contradiction” if we
allow for the possibility that suicide need not be driven by self-love. If this
were true then there would be no “contradiction”. Hence, it seems wrong to
call the duty not to kill oneself — if such a duty exists — a “perfect” duty. So
the first formulation does not give Kant the conclusion that suicide is morally
wrong.
Moving to the second formulation. This helps us understand Kant’s harsh
assessment of people attempting suicide. Remember he calls such people
“objects” or “beasts” or “things”. So, what is the difference between beasts or
objects or things, and humans? The answer is that we are rational. Recall, that
for Kant our rationality is of fundamental value. If anyone’s actions do not
recognize someone else’s rationality then they have done something morally
wrong. This amounts to treating them as merely means to our own end. Given
all this you can see what Kant is getting at. For him committing suicide is
treating yourself as a mere means to some end — namely the end of avoiding
pain and suffering etc. — and …
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