The Puzzle of Ethics

Peter Vardy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780765601636
• eBook ISBN: 9781315502953
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

First Published in 1994. Is there such a thing as right and wrong? Are some codes of behaviour more justified than others? Is it foolish to believe in moral principles? Is 'virtue' just a quaint Victorian term and does anyone care in any case? The Puzzle of Ethics tackles these formidable questions and many more in a clear and easy to understand manner without every becoming superficial. Throughout the approaches of major philosophers are explained and specific issues are addressed, including: Just War theory, situation ethics, abortion, euthanasia, as well as Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic ethics. This challenging book is of considerable relevance, dealing as it does with the central areas of ethical concern in today's world. It is the ideal introduction to the field for students.

PART I

THEORETICAL ETHICS

ONE

Truth in Ethics

‘Sex before marriage is wrong’; ‘Those who perform abortions are murderers’; ‘Homosexuality is unnatural’; ‘There is no real difference between killing a baby and killing a dolphin’; ‘Multinational companies that exploit tropical rain forests are evil’; ‘Women and men should always be treated equally’; ‘Capital punishment is right for those who rape or murder’ – we are all familiar with the bewildering variety of moral judgements which individuals and groups of people make. Often these positions are held with passion, conviction and great sincerity, yet many of those who have strong views on moral issues have not really stopped to think why they take a particular stance and, if they were challenged, they might find it difficult to justify their position.

All of us have to make moral decisions in life – from the smallest ones (whether to pay for a bus ticket if we can get away with not paying; whether to pay for using the firm or the college’s photocopier for our private purposes; whether to declare all our income to the tax authorities) to the much larger issues that sometimes dominate the headlines. This book examines the background to these issues and also looks at some suggested solutions as well as their difficulties. It may seem as though examining the approaches of Aristotle, Plato and their successors has little to do with life in the last few years of the twentieth century, yet this is not the case – in many ways the issues that the great philosophers have addressed over the last two and a half thousand years are the same as those that face us today, only their practical application has altered.

Most people do not like to think for themselves – they prefer to take the easy way and to follow the crowd or the dictates of their group. Thinking philosophically is not easy – it involves challenging our own preconceptions and this can be uncomfortable. Sometimes those things which we feel most certain about may be questioned and this can shake the very roots of our most basic beliefs. Plato recognized this would happen – he thought that philosophers would be rejected, mocked, misunderstood and despised and instead people would admire those politicians and other leaders who were skilled in rhetoric and who could flatter and persuade. The philosopher would challenge the status quo and the accepted wisdom of his society and would be considered dangerous. Plato’s teacher, Socrates, suffered exactly this fate and was condemned to death on a charge of ‘corrupting the young’ – as he got young people to think for themselves and not simply to accept the values of their parents. The situation has not changed much in two and a half thousand years. Today philosophers are more likely to be ignored than put to death, although in many countries imprisonment is often their fate. This book, therefore, deals with dangerous ideas.

The terms ‘Ethics’ and ‘Morality’ have come to be treated as almost identical in meaning, but they have different derivations. ‘Ethics’ comes from the Greek word ethikos which relates to ‘ethos’ or character. It is sometimes translated ‘custom’ or ‘usage’ so it refers to the customary way to behave in society. Ethical behaviour, therefore, is behaviour which is in accordance with a virtuous character. Aristotle used the word in this way – Aristotle maintained that virtue is happiness and he claims that the pursuit of virtue is the highest and noblest aim for a human being. In his book The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle maintains that a human being’s highest happiness comes from philosophic speculation but that this must be combined with a life of prudence and the search for virtue. Becoming virtuous involves the individual establishing a habit of virtuous behaviour and this is directly related to a virtuous character.

‘Morality’ comes from the Latin word moralis – particularly as used in Cicero’s commentaries on and translations of Aristotle. Morality is more concerned with which actions are right or wrong rather than with the character of the person who performs these actions. Today the two terms, ethics and morality, are often interchanged with particular philosophers wishing to emphasise one or another aspect.

In this book the field of ethics will be taken to cover not just those actions which are right or wrong but will also explore the fundamental principles which lie behind these actions as well as, at least at times, the issue of virtue that so preoccupied Aristotle and many of his successors. We shall see, however, that Aristotle’s approach has been subject to considerable criticism.

Before questions about morality and ethics can be addressed, there are prior issues of the nature of truth to be considered. Truth is important – in October 1993 the Vatican produced a document dealing with a wide range of moral issues entitled ‘The splendour of truth’ (‘Veritatis Splendor’). This document took a strong line on many key moral issues and did so in the name of truth. However it is not always clear what it means to talk of truth – it is a big word and, perhaps in ethics more than in any other field, it needs to be approached with considerable caution.

Take a statement like ‘Sex outside marriage is wrong’ – one can ask whether such a statement is true or false and what makes the statement true or false (if anything). In the rest of this chapter we will be looking at the question of truth – if you wish, you could go straight to chapter two if you do not feel this issue would be of immediate interest to you.

Truth

There are two main approaches to questions of truth – those taken by realists and constructivists.

a) Realism

Realists operate with a Correspondence theory of truth which maintains that a statement is true if it corresponds to a state of affairs independent of the statement. Thus ‘Crows are black’ is true if and only if (this is expressed philosophically by writing ‘iff’) crows are, in fact, The Puzzle of Ethics black. The blackness of the crows does not depend on those who look at them or on human language – it is held to be a matter of fact to which the statement ‘Crows are black’ accurately corresponds.

Supporters of the correspondence theory of truth affirm bivalence. This means that they will hold that a statement is either true or false even though we may not know whether it is true or false. If we take a statement like ‘There is no intelligent life in the universe other than on earth’, a supporter of the correspondence theory of truth will maintain that either this is true or it is false, it is simply the case that we do not know whether it is true or false at present. If one maintains a correspondence theory of truth in the sphere of morality one will be a moral realist and will hold that discussion of morality involves a search for absolute moral truths. Moral realists will also maintain that there is only one set of moral truths and that moral philosophy should be concerned with a search for what these are.

It is a feature of realism that one can make a claim to truth even though this claim may not be provable. The realist will always have to admit that he or she could be wrong – this is because truth is based on correspondence and however certain someone may be that a statement corresponds, the possibility is always open that it does not. As an example, every test to verify the claim that ‘All swans are white’ would have confirmed this statement as true – until the discovery of black swans in Australia. Realists should, therefore, be suitably modest in making claims to truth – modesty is necessary as although they may feel very sure that they have established that a statement is true, the possibility of error always exists. This is because, as we have seen, the final arbiter of truth for a realist is not what we human beings regard as true or false but what is true or false independent of human behaviour or ideas.

The Vatican in its pronouncement effectively claims a realist understanding of truth – it claims that, through the magisterium of the Catholic Church, the correct understanding of morality is to be found (the chapter on Aquinas and Natural Law examines the background to the Catholic position). There is only one absolute standard of moral truth and the magisterium of the Catholic Church has access to this (although obviously others may have as well). Such a claim may be right, but it can be challenged, particularly if a different understanding of truth is taken.

b) Constructivism

Constructivists maintain that truth is dependent on the evidence for moral statements or the verification conditions which would establish their truth. Constructivists operate with the Coherence theory of truth which maintains that a statement is true if it coheres or fits in with other true statements. There is no search for correspondence with some independent ‘fact’, instead truth is determined entirely on ‘good fit’ with other true statements. This sounds complicated, but it is not as bad as it appears! Constructivists will reject any search for some possibly unknowable ultimate lying beyond human language and human practice and will instead see truth emerging from human society or the human community. Truth, they will claim, is constructed by human beings within the societies in which they live. In morality, therefore, there is no search for any reality beyond the moral rules human beings create and live by.

Constructivists will often have a strong sense of history, seeing claims to truth as being relative to particular times and circumstances in history.

There can be two main types of ethical constructivist:

1 Constructivist Relativists maintain that truth is relative. Relativists will hold either that there can be a variety of frameworks within which truth claims can be judged and/or that, within a particular framework, moral truths may vary over time. Thus, within the Christian framework, it was true a thousand years ago that lending money at interest was wrong, yet today this is considered unexceptional. To take another example, within the Muslim world today a man may be allowed up to four wives whereas within Judaism only one is permitted. Relativists would maintain that there are no absolute moral truths and that truth is relative to the society or form of life in which one lives.

As an example, a constructivist who is a relativist would claim that for a Muslim to ask whether ‘Adultery is wrong’ is true is to ask whether this statement is consistent or fits in with other true moral statements within the Islamic form of life. If a coherence theory of truth is adopted as a final test of truth, then it should be obvious that there is no way of getting back to any ultimate true moral statements – any moral statement can be tested against other statements that are known to be true but one has to have these other statements that are accepted as true as a starting point.

Those who adhere to the coherence theory and who are relativists are sometimes referred to as non-realists or anti-realists (cf. The Puzzle of God by Peter Vardy p. 15). Philosophers who support this understanding of truth will maintain that different moral systems may be radically different from each other and may, indeed, contradict each other but that the issue of truth should be determined within a particular system. There is no neutral place from which to validate a whole ethical scheme – no place that is not some place.

2 Constructivists need not be relativists – they would then maintain that although the truth of moral statements is dependent on the evidence for these statements (i.e. on coherence), this evidence should not be confined within the views held within a particular time or a particular society – instead there is or should be a single set of true moral statements but these statements would only be true if they fitted into a perfect set of coherent moral statements embracing all human societies. This perfect state of moral knowledge may be one to which philosophers aspire but any particular claim, no matter how well supported and tested, may still be false because it would not cohere with all other true moral statements in the perfect set of such statements once (if ever!) these become known.

It may be worth summarizing these positions as they can be confusing:

1 Moral realists maintain that moral statements are true if and only if they correspond to a state of affairs that is independent of human language, the human psyche or the human community. They maintain bivalence and consider that morality is objective. Since truth depends on correspondence, the possibility of error is always, at least in principle, possible as no matter how thorough the tests we may apply to determine whether a moral statement is true, the possibility always exists that the statement fails to correspond and is therefore false.

2 Constructivist relativists maintain that moral statements are true if they cohere with other true moral statements made within a particular society or a particular form of life. Different societies may have different moral truths or there may be different moral truths at different times in the same society. Such people may consider moral statements to be subjective because they depend on the views of a particular group of people.

3 Constructivist non-relativists maintain that moral statements are true if they cohere with other true moral statements. However they consider moral statements to be objective because they maintain that there is a single set of true moral statements which can only be arrived at when perfect coherence has been reached. Any moral statement we make now may be held to be wrong as perfect coherence amongst such statements will only be achieved in the future and until this point is reached error is always possible.

It is important to note that both the moral realist and the constructivist non-relativist maintain that moral truths are objective. The term ‘objective’ is, therefore, not a very precise or helpful way of describing moral truth claims and is best avoided.

Moral realists are likely to be concerned with some form of metaphysics as they will be anxious to establish a transcendent ground of some form for moral statements. Constructivists reject such metaphysical enquiry as they consider that moral truth depends on human language and how it is used.

At this stage it is important to differentiate between coherence as a test for truth and as an arbiter of truth. A moral realist (who works with a correspondence theory of truth) may well maintain that coherence or ‘good fit’ with other true statements is a good test as to whether a statement corresponds and is therefore true. However this is not the same as saying that coherence determines truth which is the position of the constructivist. For instance, it may be a good test as to whether murder is wrong that all the best text books and prominent authorities agree that this is the case, but realists will say that whether the statement ‘murder is wrong’ is true depends on whether this statement corresponds to some absolute moral ideal.

Naturalist theories of truth treat truth claims in ethics in just the same way as truth claims in other areas – in particular they maintain that it is possible to arrive at true moral statements from premises which are not about morality. If, for the sake of argument, we assume that what is morally good is what makes people happy, then ‘adultery is wrong’ would be false i...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• PART ONE - THEORETICAL ETHICS
• PART TWO - APPLIED ETHICS
• Further Reading
• Index