PRIMARY SOURCE READING MATERIAL FOR PHIL 300
James Fieser
11/1/2024
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1. MORAL RELATIVISM AND OBJECTIVISM
READING 1: PLATO ON RELATIVISM AND THE FORMS
Introduction: Plato (c. 428/427 348/347 BCE) was an ancient Greek philosopher, student of Socrates, teacher of Aristotle, founder of his philosophical school called the Academy, and is best known for his theory of the Forms. The selections below are from two works. In his book Theaetetus, he criticizes Protagoras's relativist view that "man is the measure of all things". He interprets this as meaning knowledge is perception and things are as they appear to each person. For example, the same wind can feel cold to one person and not to another. He then offers two criticisms of this view. First, he argues that some people are clearly superior to others in knowledge, which contradicts the idea that everyone's perceptions are equally true. Second, he points out that if everyone's opinions are true, then the opinions of those who disagree with Protagoras must also be true, thereby creating a contradiction. In his book The Republic, he presents his theory of Forms. He argues that there are absolute, unchanging ideals (Forms) beyond the physical world we perceive, and he uses the analogy of the sun to explain the Form of the Good. Just as the sun illuminates the visible world and allows us to see, the Good illuminates the intelligible world of Forms and allows us to understand truth and knowledge. He describes the Good i as surpassing even truth and knowledge in beauty and importance.
Protagoras's View Explained: Things are as Each Person Perceives Them (Theaetetus)
Socrates: You say that knowledge is perception?
Theaetetus: Yes.
Socrates: Well, you have come up with a very unusual doctrine about knowledge. It is in fact the opinion of Protagoras, who has another way of expressing it. Man, he says, is the measure of all things, of the existence of things that are, and of the non-existence of things that are not. Have you read him?
Theaetetus: Oh yes, again and again.
Socrates: Does he not say that things are to you such as they appear to you, and to me such as they appear to me, and that you and I are men?
Theaetetus: Yes, he says so.
Socrates: A wise man is not likely to talk nonsense. Let us try to understand him. The same wind is blowing, and yet one of us may be cold and the other not, or one may be slightly and the other very cold?
Theaetetus: Quite true.
Socrates: Now is the wind cold or not cold absolutely and not in relation to us, or, should we say with Protagoras that the wind is cold to him who is cold, and not to him who is not?
Theaetetus: I suppose the second of these.
Socrates: Then it must appear that way to each of them?
Theaetetus: Yes.
Socrates: "Appears to him" means the same as "he perceives."
Theaetetus: True.
Socrates: Then appearing and perceiving coincide in the case of hot and cold, and in similar instances. For things appear, or may be supposed to be, to each one such as he perceives them?
Theaetetus: Yes.
Socrates: Then perception is always of existence, and being the same as knowledge is unerring?
Theaetetus: Clearly. . . .
Criticism 1: Man Cannot be the Measure since Some People are Obviously Superior to Others
Socrates: Are not we, Protagoras, uttering the opinion of man, or rather of all mankind, when we say that everyone thinks himself wiser than other men in some things, and their inferior in others? In the hour of danger, when they are in perils of war, or of the sea, or of sickness, do they not look up to their commanders as if they were gods, and expect salvation from them, only because they excel them in knowledge? Is not the world full of men in their various employments, who are looking for teachers and rulers of themselves and of the animals? There are plenty who think that they are able to teach and able to rule. Now, in all this is implied that ignorance and wisdom exist among them, at least in their own opinion.
Theodorus: Certainly.
Socrates: Wisdom is assumed by them to be true thought, and ignorance to be false opinion.
Theodorus: Exactly.
Socrates: How then, Protagoras, would you have us treat the argument? Will we say that the opinions of men are always true, or sometimes true and sometimes false? In either case, the result is the same, and their opinions are not always true, but sometimes true and sometimes false. For tell me, Theodorus, do you suppose that you yourself, or any other follower of Protagoras, would contend that no one considers another ignorant or mistaken in his opinion?
Theodorus: That would be ridiculous, Socrates.
Socrates: Yet that absurdity is necessarily involved in the thesis which declares man to be the measure of all things.
Theodorus: How so?
Criticism 2: The Truth of The Stronger Opinion would Outweigh that Weaker
Socrates: How about Protagoras himself? If neither he nor the multitude thought, as indeed they do not think, that man is the measure of all things, must it not follow that the truth of which Protagoras wrote would be true to no one? But if you suppose that he himself thought this, and that the multitude does not agree with him, you must begin by allowing that in whatever proportion the many are more than one, in that proportion his truth is more untrue than true.
Theodorus: That would follow if the truth is supposed to vary with individual opinion.
Socrates: The best of the joke is that he acknowledges the truth of their opinion who believe his own opinion to be false. For he admits that the opinions of all men are true.
Theodorus: Certainly.
Socrates: Does he not allow that his own opinion is false, if he admits that the opinion of those who think him false is true?
Theodorus: Of course.
Socrates: Whereas the other side do not admit that they speak falsely?
Theodorus: They do not.
Socrates: He, as may be inferred from his writings, agrees that this opinion is also true.
Theodorus: Clearly.
Socrates: Then all mankind, beginning with Protagoras, will assert (or rather, I should say that he will allow) when he concedes that his adversary has a true opinion Protagoras, I say, will himself admit that neither a dog nor any ordinary man is the measure of anything which he has not learned. Am I not right?
Theodorus: Yes.
Socrates: The truth of Protagoras being doubted by all, will be true neither to himself to anyone else?
Theodorus: I think, Socrates, that we are running my old friend too hard.
The Good Illuminates the Intelligible World just as the Sun Illuminates the Visible World (Republic, 6)
Socrates: As I have often said, there are many beautiful things and many good things, and so of other things which we describe and define. To all of them the term "many" is implied.
Glaucon: True.
Socrates: But there is also an absolute beauty and an absolute good, and of other things to which the term "many" is applied there is an absolute. For they may be brought under a single idea, which is called the essence of each.
Glaucon: Very true.
Socrates: The many, as we say, are seen but not known, and the ideas [Forms] are known but not seen.
Glaucon: Exactly.
Socrates: What is the organ with which we see the visible things?
Glaucon: The sight. . . .
Socrates: The bond that links together sight and visibility is important, and much greater than other bonds of nature. For light is their bond, and light is a crucial thing.
Glaucon: Yes, it is crucial.
Socrates: Which of the gods in heaven would you say was the lord of this element? Whose is that light which makes the eye to see perfectly and the visible to appear?
Glaucon: You mean the sun, as you and everyone say. . . .
Socrates: Then the sun is not sight, but the author of sight who is recognized by sight?
Glaucon: True.
Socrates: This is he whom I call the child of the good. It is whom the good created in his own likeness, to be in the visible world, in relation to sight and the things of sight. It is what the good is in the intellectual world in relation to mind and the things of mind.
Glaucon: Will you be a little more explicit?
Socrates: You know that when a person directs his eyes toward objects on which the light of day is no longer shining, but the moon and stars only, his eyes see dimly, and are nearly blind. They seem to have no clearness of vision in them?
Glaucon: Very true.
Socrates: But when they are directed toward objects on which the sun shines, they see clearly and there is sight in them?
Glaucon: Certainly.
Socrates: The soul is like the eye: when focusing upon that something that truth and being illuminate, the soul perceives and understands, and possesses intelligence. But when turned toward the dimness of becoming and perishing, then it has opinion only. It jumps around from one opinion and to another and seems to have no intelligence?
Glaucon: Just so.
Socrates: Now, that which conveys truth of the known and the power of knowing to the knower is what I call the Form of the good. This you will consider to be the cause of science and truth in so far as the latter becomes the subject of knowledge. The good is beautiful too, just as are both truth and knowledge, but you will be right judge that it is more beautiful than either. In the previous instance, light and sight may be truly said to be like the sun, and yet not to be the sun. So in this other realm, science and truth may be considered to be like the good, but not the good itself. The good has a place of honor yet higher.
Glaucon: What a wonder of beauty that must be, which is the author of science and truth, and yet surpasses them in beauty. For you surely cannot mean to say that pleasure is the good?
Socrates: Heaven forbid. But may I ask you to consider the image in another point of view?
Glaucon: In what point of view?
Socrates: You would say, would you not? that the sun is not only the author of visibility in all visible things, but of generation and nourishment and growth, though he himself is not generation?
Glaucon: Certainly.
Socrates: Similarly the good may be said to be not only the author of knowledge to all things known, but of their being and essence, and yet the good is not essence, but far exceeds essence in dignity and power.
Discussion Questions:
1. Can Protagoras's view that "man is the measure of all things" be reconciled with the existence of expertise in various fields?
2. How does Plato's criticism that "some people are obviously superior to others" challenge relativism, and is this a valid argument?
3. In what ways might Protagoras's relativism be appealing in modern contexts, and what are its limitations?
4. How might a relativist respond to Plato's argument that their position is self-defeating (i.e., that it must admit the truth of opposing views)?
5. If Plato's theory of Forms is rejected, does that necessarily lead us to accept Protagoras's relativism? Are there other alternatives?
6. How does Plato's analogy of the sun help explain his concept of the Form of the Good?
7. In what ways does Plato's concept of Forms being "known but not seen" relate to moral reasoning and the search for ethical truths?
READING 2: SEXTUS EMPIRICUS ON SKEPTICISM AND MORAL RELATIVISM
Introduction: Sextus Empiricus was a Greek philosopher and physician from the 2nd century AD, known for his works on skepticism. In his work, Outlines of Pyrrhonism , he argues that knowledge is unattainable on any subject whatsoever, hence we should suspend judgment, and thereby achieve tranquility. In the case of morality, he holds that customs, laws, and beliefs vary widely across cultures, making it difficult to determine what is naturally right or wrong. He makes his case by showing how codes of conduct, laws, and customs can contradict each other: what is considered acceptable in one society may be condemned in another. For instance, some cultures permit public sexual acts, while others forbid them. He concludes that because there is no universal agreement, we should suspend judgment about what is truly right or wrong by nature. In Nothing is Naturally Good, Sextus claims that nothing is inherently good because different people and philosophers disagree about what is valuable. If something were naturally good, everyone would agree on its goodness, just as they agree on the heat of fire or the coldness of snow. He extends this reasoning to what is considered evil or shameful, stating that practices like incest or tattooing are acceptable in some cultures but forbidden in others.
What is Skepticism? (1.4)
To clarify, I do not use the word "ability" in any unusual sense, but simply mean that we are able to do something. By "appearances" I mean the things that we sense, as opposed to our judgments about them. The phrase "in any way whatever" may refer either to the word "ability" in its simple sense as I have said, or it may refer to the "placing of appearances in opposition to judgments." For we place appearances in opposition to each other in a variety of ways: appearances to appearances, and judgments to judgments, or appearances to judgments. Also, the phrase "in any way whatever" may refer to "appearances and judgments," so that we need not ask how appearances appear, or how thoughts are judged; rather, we should understand these things in a simple sense. By "reasons opposed to each other," I do not in any way mean that they deny or affirm anything, but simply that they offset each other. By "balancing" I mean equally likely and equally unlikely, so that the opposing reasons do not surpass each other in likelihood. "Suspension of judgment" means holding back opinion so that we neither deny nor affirm anything. "Tranquility" is composure and calmness of mind. I will later explain how tranquility accompanies suspension of judgment when I speak about the aim of skepticism.
The Ten Methods (1.14)
Certain Methods were commonly handed down by the older Skeptics, by means of which suspension of judgment seems to take place. They are ten in number, and are synonymously called "arguments" and "points." They are these: the first is based upon the differences in animals; the second upon the differences in men; the third upon the difference in the constitution of the organs of sense; the fourth upon circumstances; the fifth upon position, distance, and place; the sixth upon mixtures; the seventh upon the quantity and constitution of objects; the eighth upon relation; the ninth upon frequency or rarity of occurrences; the tenth upon systems, customs, laws, mythical beliefs, and dogmatic opinions. I have made this order myself.
The Tenth Method: Irregularity of Custom, Laws and Conduct Limits our Judgments (1.14)
The tenth Method is one principally connected with morals, relating specifically to (1) codes of conduct, (2) customs, (3) laws, (4) mythical beliefs, and (5) dogmatic opinions. A code of conduct is a choice of a manner of life, or of something held by one or many, as for example that of Diogenes or the Spartans. A law is a written contract among citizens, the violator of which is punished. A custom or habit (for there is no difference) is a common acceptance of a certain thing by many, the violator of which is not necessarily punished. For example, it is a law not to commit adultery, and it is a custom with us to forbid having sex with a woman in public. A mythical belief is a tradition regarding things which never took place, but were invented, such as the tales about Cronus which many people believe. A dogmatic opinion is the acceptance of something that seems to be established by a course of reasoning, or by some proof. Examples are, that atoms are elements of things, and that they are either homogeneous, or infinitively small, or something else.
We sometimes place each of these things in opposition to itself, and other times in opposition to each one of the others. For example, we place a custom in opposition to another custom as follows. Some of the Ethiopians tattoo new-born children, but we do not. The Persians think it is appropriate to have a garment of many colors reaching to the feet, but we think it is inappropriate. People from India have sex with their women in public, but most of the other nations find that shameful. We place a law in opposition to another law in this way. Among the Romans a man who renounces his paternal inheritance does not pay his father's debts, but among the Rhodians he must pay them anyway. Among the Tauri in Scythia, it was a law to sacrifice strangers to Artemis, but with us it is forbidden to kill a man near a temple. We place a code of conduct in opposition to another code of conduct when, for example, we oppose the school of Diogenes to that of Aristippus, or that of the Spartans to that of the Italians. We place a mythical belief in opposition to another mythical belief, as when, according to some traditions, Jupiter is said to be the father of men and gods, and according to other traditions Oceanus is: "Oceanus, father of the gods, and Tethys the mother." We place dogmatic opinions in opposition to each other, as when we say that some declare that there is only one element, but others that elements are infinite in number. Some say that the soul is immortal, and others that it is mortal. Some say that our affairs are directed by the providence of the gods, but others hold that there is no divine providence. . . .
Nothing is Naturally Good (3.23)
Fire, which heats by nature, appears to everyone to be heating. Snow, being cool by nature, appears to everyone to be cooling. In the same way, all things that by nature have affects, will affect other things according to their nature. But none of those things that are called "good" affect all men as good, as we will show. Therefore, there is nothing good by nature. It is clear that none of those things that are called "good" affect everyone in the same way. We will ignore ordinary people, some of whom think that physical fitness is good, others sexual pleasures, others eating, others drinking, others gambling, others wealth, others something worse than these. Now, some philosophers, such as the Peripatetics, say that there are three kinds of goods, some in the soul such as virtues, some in the body such as health and the like, and some are external such as friendship wealth and the like. The Stoics also hold that there are three kinds of goods, some in the soul such as virtues, some external such as a virtuous man and a friend, and some neither inside or outside of the soul such as a virtuous man as man. But those that are in the body or external, which the Peripatetics designate as goods, they deny to be goods. There are some philosophers who hold pleasure to be a good, others on the contrary say that it is an evil. Accordingly, one of these philosophers proclaimed "I would rather be mad than pleased." Now, if all things that by nature have affects, will affect everyone the same way, then nothing is good by nature. . . .
Nothing is Naturally Evil or Shameful (3.24)
As I have proved, there is nothing naturally good. For the same reasons, neither is there anything naturally evil. For, those things that seem evil to some men are pursued by others as goods, such as lust, injustice, greed, overindulgence, and the like. Thus, if natural things affect everyone in the same way, and those that are said to be evil do not affect everyone in the same way, then nothing is naturally evil. . . .
In addition to what has been said, it may be proper to briefly consider the notions concerning things that are shameful and not shameful, unlawful and unlawful, laws and customs, piety towards the gods, reverence for the departed, and the like. By doing so we will discover a great diversity of belief concerning what ought or ought not to be done.
With us, homosexuality is considered shameful and unlawful. With the Germani, it is not shameful but permitted by custom. Neither did the ancient Thebans consider it shameful, and they say that Merione the Cretan received his name as an indication of this custom. Some also attribute this to Achilles' burning friendship with Patroclus. It is no surprise, then, that both the Cynics and [the Stoics] Zeno of Citium, Cleanthese and Chrysippus say that it is indifferent.
Again, if a man lies with his wife in public, we consider it shameful, yet some of the people of India do not, for they do so publicly with indifference. Crates the [Cynic] philosopher is also said to have done this. For us, it is shameful and disgraceful for women to prostitute themselves, but with many of the Egyptians it is praiseworthy, for they say that those who have slept with many men would wear ankle bracelets as a mark of their honor. Further, among them, girls before marriage gained a dowry by prostituting themselves. The Stoics say that it is no shame to cohabitate with a prostitute or to live off the profits of what she makes.
For us tattoos are shameful and dishonorable, but many of the Egyptians and Samaritans tattoo their children. With us it is shameful for men to wear earrings, but for some barbarians and Syrians it is a sign of nobility. Further, some, as a sign of nobility, put holes in the nostrils of their children in which they hang rings of silver or gold, which none of us do. Neither to we wear robes colored with flowers, but, while we think this is indecent, the Persians consider it respectable. When during a feast Dionysius the Tyrant of Sicily offered a robe of this kind to Plato and Aristippus the philosophers, Plato refused saying "I will not disgrace myself with a female robe since I am a man. But Aristippus [the Cynic] accepted it saying even during a feast of Bacchus, a pure woman does not become corrupt. Thus, even with these wise men, to one it seemed decent, to the other indecent.
With us it is unlawful to marry our mother or sister, but the Persians (and among them the Magi, who are famous for their wisdom), marry their mothers, and the Egyptians marry their sisters. . . . Among us it is illegal to eat human flesh, but there are whole nations of barbarians who consider this as something indifferent. But why cite the barbarians when Tydeus himself is said to have eaten the brains of his enemy? The stoics say that it is not improper to eat just the flesh of other men, but also our own. . . .
The same kind of argument we might deduce from many other things, which, for brevity, we will omit. If we cannot immediately give a contrariety to something, we may still say that it is possible that in some unknown nations there may be a different opinion. For example, if we did not know that the custom of the Egyptians is to marry their sisters, we might wrongly affirm everyone believes that we should not marry our sisters. Similarly, with those things about which we do not know of a difference, we should not affirm that there is no controversy concerning them. For, as I said, it is possible that some other unknown nations may hold the contrary. Thus, seeing so great a diversity of practices, the skeptic suspends judgment about whether anything is good or bad by nature, or generally to be done or not done.
Source: Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, 2nd cn. C.E., Books 1 and 3.
Questions for Discussion:
1. Sextus presents customs and laws as contradictory across cultures. Are there any moral principles that could not be counterbalanced by opposite ones in another culture?
2. How would Plato view Sextus's claims about morality?
3. Does the cultural relativism, as described by Sextus, undermine the possibility of universal moral principles?
4. Could modern arguments in favor of human rights or justice provide a counterpoint to Sextus's skepticism?
5. Does Sextus s suspension of judgment about moral claims encourage moral paralysis, or does it lead to a more open-minded approach to ethical issues?
READING 3: SUMNER ON CULTURAL RELATIVISM
Introduction: William Graham Sumner (1840-1910) was an American clergyman, social scientist, and neoclassical liberal who taught social sciences at Yale University, where he held the nation s first professorship in sociology and became one of the most influential teachers in the field. In his book Folkways (1906), Sumner discusses how societies establish customs called "folkways" through repeated actions driven by common needs. These folkways are considered "right" simply because they're traditional, not because they've been critically examined. When folkways evolve into more significant societal norms, they become "mores." People tend to view their own mores as inherently good. Sumner argues that human behavior is primarily shaped by inherited and acquired habits rather than by religious beliefs or philosophical convictions. He posits that practical, everyday actions have a more substantial influence on our conduct than our professed beliefs. This theory offers an explanation for the variety of moral values we find in different cultures, and it suggests that ethical norms are more a product of societal conditioning than universal truths or individual reasoning.
The Folkways are a Societal Force (Sect. 2)
The operation by which folkways [i.e., social traditions] are produced consists in the frequent repetition of petty acts, often by great numbers acting in concert or, at least, acting in the same way when face to face with the same need. The immediate motive is interest. It produces habit in the individual and custom in the group. It is, therefore, in the highest degree original and primitive. By habit and custom it exerts a strain on every individual within its range; therefore it rises to a societal force to which great classes of societal phenomena are due.
The Folkways are "Right" (Sect. 31)
The folk ways are the" right" ways to satisfy all interests, because they are traditional, and exist in fact. They extend over the whole of life. There is a right way to catch game, to win a wife, to make oneself appear, to cure disease, to honor ghosts, to treat com rades or strangers, to behave when a child is born, on the war path, in council, and so on in all cases which can arise. The ways are defined on the negative side, that is, by taboos. The "right" way is the way which the ancestors used and which has been handed down. The tradition is its own warrant. It is not held subject to verification by experience. The notion of right is in the folkways. It is not outside of them, of independent origin, and brought to them to test them. In the folkways, whatever is, is right. This is because they are traditional, and therefore con tain in themselves the authority of the ancestral ghosts. When we come to the folkways we are at the end of our analysis. The notion of right and ought is the same in regard to all the folk ways, but the degree of it varies with the importance of the interest at stake. The obligation of conformable and cooperative action is far greater under ghost fear and war than in other mat ters, and the social sanctions are severer, because group interests are supposed to be at stake. Some usages contain only a slight element of right and ought. It may well be believed that notions of right and duty, and of social welfare, were first developed in con nection with ghost fear and other-worldliness, and therefore that, in that field also, folkways were first raised to mores. "Right" are the rules of mutual give and take in the competition of life which are imposed on comrades in the in-group, in order that the peace may prevail there which is essential to the group strength. Therefore rights can never be "natural" or "God-given," or absolute in any sense. The morality of a group at a time is the sum of the taboos and prescriptions in the folkways by which right conduct is defined. Therefore morals can never be intuitive. They are historical, institutional, and empirical.
World philosophy, life policy, right, rights, and morality are all products of the folkways. They are reflections on, and general izations from, the experience of pleasure and pain which is won in efforts to carry on the struggle for existence under actual life conditions. The generalizations are very crude and vague in their germinal forms. They are all embodied in folklore, and all our philosophy and science have been developed out of them.
Definition of the Mores (Sect. 34)
When the elements of truth and right are developed into doctrines of welfare, the folkways are raised to another plane. They then become capable of producing inferences, developing into new forms, and extending their constructive influence over men and society. Then we call them the mores [i.e., values]. The mores are the folkways, including the philosoph ical and ethical generalizations as to societal welfare which are suggested by them, and inherent in them, as they grow.
What is Goodness or Badness of the Mores (Sect. 65)
It is most important to notice that, for the people of a time and place, their own mores are always good, or rather that for them there can be no question of the goodness or badness of their mores. The reason is because the standards of good and right are in the mores. If the life conditions change, the traditional folkways may produce pain and loss, or fail to produce the same good as formerly. Then the loss of comfort and ease brings doubt into the judgment of welfare (causing doubt of the pleasure of the gods, or of war power, or of health), and thus disturbs the unconscious philosophy of the mores. Then a later time will pass judgment on the mores. Another society may also pass judgment on the mores. In our literary and historical study of the mores we want to get from them their educational value, which consists in the stimulus or warning as to what is, in its effects, societally good or bad. This may lead us to reject or neglect a phenomenon like infanticide, slavery, or witchcraft, as an old "abuse" and" evil," or to pass by the crusades as a folly which cannot recur. Such a course would be a great error. Everything in the mores of a time and place must be regarded as justified with regard to that time and place. "Good" mores are those which are well adapted to the situation. "Bad" mores are those which are not so adapted.
The Relation of the Social Codes to Philosophy and Religion (Sect. 505)
Amongst the widest differences of opinion would be that on the question whether the social codes issue out of and are enthused by philosophy or religion. We are told [by Schultze-Gavernitz] that "for most men, actions stand in no necessary connection with any theoretical convictions of theirs, but are, on the contrary, independent of the same, and are dominated by inherited and acquired motives." Why is this not true? Also, [we are told by Schallmeyer that] "the antagonism between the principles of our religion and our actual behavior, even of the faithful, as well as the great difference in the ethical views of different peoples who profess the same religion, sufficiently proves that the motives of our acts, and our judgments on the acts of others, proceed primarily from practical life [i.e. from the cur rent mores], and that what we believe has comparatively little influence on our acts and judgments." Religion and philosophy are components of the mores, but not by any means sources or regulators of them.
Source: William Graham Sumner, Folkways, Boston: Ginn, 1906.
Discussion Questions:
1. How might Sumner's view of folkways and mores apply to current debates such as abortion or gun control?
2. In what ways does Sumner's perspective challenge or support contemporary ideas about universal human rights?
3. How might Sumner respond to a moral objectivist philosopher like Plato or Kant?
4. Does morality become meaningless if Sumner is correct about the relativity of mores?
5. How does Sumner's theory explain the evolution of societal attitudes towards issues like same-sex marriage or marijuana use?
6. Can Sumner's ideas about folkways and mores be reconciled with the concept of moral progress?
READING 4: RASHDALL ON MORAL OBJECTIVISM
Introduction: Hastings Rashdall (1858-1924) was an English philosopher, theologian, historian, and Anglican priest known for his theory of ideal utilitarianism. In his book The Theory of Good and Evil (1907), Rashdall argues for the existence of an objective moral law that exists independently of human opinions. He contends that this moral ideal can't simply exist in physical objects or in individual human minds, as people often disagree about moral issues. Instead, Rashdall proposes that objective morality must exist in the mind of God.
Objective Morality Exists Outside the Human Mind and the Material Realm
We say that the Moral Law has a real existence, that there is such a thing as an absolute Morality, that there is something absolutely true or false in ethical judgements, whether we or any number of human beings at any given time actually think so or not. Such a belief is distinctly implied in what we mean by Morality. The idea of such an unconditional, objectively valid, Moral Law or ideal undoubtedly exists as a psychological fact. The question before us is whether it is capable of theoretical justification. We must then face the question where such an ideal exists, and what manner of existence we are to attribute to it. Certainly it is to be found, wholly and completely, in no individual human consciousness. Men actually think differently about moral questions, and there is no empirical reason for supposing that they will ever do otherwise. Where then and how does the moral ideal really exist? As regards matters of fact or physical law, we have no difficulty in satisfying ourselves that there is an objective reality which is what it is irrespectively of our beliefs or disbeliefs about it. For the man who supposes that objective reality resides in the things themselves, our ideas about them are objectively true or false so far as they correspond or fail to correspond with this real and independent archetype, though he might be puzzled to give a metaphysical account of the nature of this "correspondence" between experience and a Reality whose esse [i.e. being] is something other than to be experienced. In the physical region the existence of divergent ideas does not throw doubt upon the existence of a reality independent of our ideas. But in the case of moral ideals it is otherwise. On materialistic or naturalistic assumptions the moral ideal can hardly be regarded as a real thing. Nor could it well be regarded as a property of any real thing: it can be no more than an aspiration, a product of the imagination, which may be useful to stimulate effort in directions in which we happen to want to move, but which cannot compel respect when we feel no desire to act in conformity with it.
Objective Morality Exists in the Mind of God
An absolute Moral Law or moral ideal cannot exist in material things. And it does not (we have seen) exist in the mind of this or that individual. Only if we believe in the existence of a Mind for which the true moral ideal is already in some sense real, a Mind which is the source of whatever is true in our own moral judgements, can we rationally think of the moral ideal as no less real than the world itself. Only so can we believe in an absolute standard of right and wrong, which is as independent of this or that man's actual ideas and actual desires as the facts of material nature. The belief in God, though not (like the belief in a real and an active self) a postulate of there being any such thing as Morality at all, is the logical presupposition of an "objective" or absolute Morality. A moral ideal can exist nowhere and no how but in a mind; an absolute moral ideal can exist only in a Mind from which all Reality is derived. Our moral ideal can only claim objective validity in so far as it can rationally be regarded as the revelation of a moral ideal eternally existing in the mind of God.
We may be able, perhaps, to give some meaning to Morality without the postulate of God, but not its true or full meaning. If the existence of God is not a postulate of all Morality, it is a postulate of a sound Morality; for it is essential to that belief which vaguely and implicitly underlies all moral beliefs, and which forms the very heart of Morality in its highest, more developed, more explicit forms. The truth that the moral ideal is what it is whether we like it or not is the most essential element in what the popular consciousness understands by "moral obligation". Moral obligation means moral objectivity. That at least seems to be implied in any legitimate use of the term: at least it implies the existence of an absolute, objective moral ideal. And such a belief we have seen imperatively to demand an explanation of the Universe which shall be idealistic or at least spiritualistic, which shall recognize the existence of a Mind whose thoughts are the standard of truth and falsehood alike in Morality and in respect of all other existence. In other words, objective Morality implies the belief in God. The belief in God, if not so obviously and primarily a postulate of Morality as the belief in a permanent spiritual and active self, is still a postulate of a Morality which shall be able fully to satisfy the demands of the moral consciousness. It may conveniently be called the secondary postulate of Morality.
Source: Hastings Rashdall, The Theory of Good and Evil, 1907, 2.2.1.4
Discussion questions
1. How might Rashdall explain the wide diversity of moral practices from culture to culture, such as with sexual morality?
2. How might Rashdall view Sumner's theory of folkways and mores?
3. How might Sumner respond to Rashdall's argument for objective morality?
4. Is there a way to mediate between the views of Sumner and Rashdall?
5. Can Rashdall's concept of objective morality existing in the mind of God be reconciled with an atheistic or agnostic ethical theory?
6. How might Rashdall's theory address moral progress or changes in ethical standards over time?
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2. VIRTUES
READING 1: PLATO ON THE FOUR CARDINAL VIRTUES
Introduction: In the selection below, Plato, through the voice of Socrates, explores the four cardinal virtues as they apply to both the state and the individual. They are justice, wisdom, courage, and temperance. For the state, Plato describes justice as each citizen performing their own role without meddling in others' affairs. Wisdom is consists of the watchfulness and sound judgment of the rulers, while courage is seen in soldiers maintaining proper beliefs about dangers. Temperance is restraint on the part of the working class. Shifting to the individual, Plato portrays justice as an internal harmony where each part of the soul fulfills its proper function. Wisdom resides in the rational part of the soul, which possesses knowledge and makes decisions. Courage is the spirited part following reason's dictates about what to fear, and temperance is restraint of the individual. For Plato, justice is fundamental, both preserving and enabling the other virtues in state and individual.
Socrates: Well then, tell me whether I am right or not. You remember the original principle which we were always laying down at the foundation of the State, that one man should practice one thing only, the thing to which his nature was best adapted. Now justice is this principle, or at least a part of it.
Glaucon: Yes, we often said that one man should do one thing only.
Socrates: Further, we affirmed that justice was doing one's own business, and not being a busybody. We said so again and again, and many others have said the same to us.
Glaucon: Yes, we said so.
Socrates: Then to do one's own business in a certain way may be assumed to be justice. Can you tell me from what I derive this inference?
Glaucon: I cannot, but I would like to be told.
Socrates: Because I think that this is the only virtue which remains in the State when the other virtues of temperance and courage and wisdom are abstracted. This is the ultimate cause and condition of the existence of all of them, and while remaining in them is also their preservative. We were saying that if the three were discovered by us, justice would be the fourth or remaining one.
Glaucon: That necessarily follows.
Socrates: If we are asked to determine which of these four virtues by its presence contributes most to the excellence of the State, the question is not so easily answered. That is, should the award go to the agreement of rulers and subjects [i.e., temperance]; or to the preservation in the soldiers of the opinion which the law ordains about the true nature of dangers [i.e., courage], or wisdom and watchfulness in the rulers [i.e., wisdom]; or whether this other which I am mentioning, (which is found in children and women, slave and freeman, artisan, ruler, subject), I mean the virtue of everyone doing his own work, and not being a busybody [i.e., justice]?
Glaucon: Certainly, there would be a difficulty in saying which.
Socrates: Then the power of each individual in the State to do his own work appears to compete with the other political virtues, wisdom, temperance, courage. . . .
Socrates: A person is to be considered courageous whose spirited part keeps the commands of reason about what he ought or ought not to fear, whether in pleasure or pain?
Glaucon: Yes.
Socrates: We call a person wise who has in him that little part which rules, and which proclaims these commands. That part is also supposed to have a knowledge of what is for the interest of each of the three parts and of the whole?
Glaucon: Certainly.
Socrates: A person is temperate who has these same elements in friendly harmony, in whom the one ruling principle of reason, and the two subject ones of spirit and appetite are equally agreed that reason ought to rule, and do not rebel. Would you say that?
Glaucon: Certainly, that is the true account of temperance whether in the State or individual.
Socrates: Surely, we have explained again and again how and from what quality a man will be just.
Study Questions
1. How does Plato's concept of justice in the state relate to modern ideas of social justice and division of labor?
2. In what ways might Plato's view of individual virtues align or conflict with contemporary psychological understandings of personality and behavior?
3. Plato suggests that justice is foundational to the other virtues. Do you agree? How might this idea be applied to current ethical frameworks?
4. How does Plato's description of courage in individuals and states compare to our modern understanding of bravery and moral courage?
5. Discuss the potential benefits and drawbacks of Plato's idea that each person should "practice one thing only, the thing to which his nature was best adapted."
6. How might Plato's concept of temperance as agreement between rulers and subjects be interpreted in the context of modern democratic systems?
READING 2: ARISTOTLE ON TEMPERANCE AND OVER-INDULGENCE
Introduction: Aristotle holds that virtues occupy a middle ground between vices of excess and deficiency. Regarding our desire for pleasures such as food and sexual activity, the virtue of temperance lies at a middle ground between over-indulgence (the vice of excess) and insensibility (vice of deficiency). The following is Aristotle's discussion of temperance and over-indulgence from his book Nicomachean Ethics. He focuses on bodily pleasures, particularly those of touch and taste, as these are common to both humans and animals. Temperance applies to pleasures that can be excessive, insufficient, or appropriate. Over-indulgence involves taking excessive pleasure in bodily sensations, especially eating, drinking, and sex. It's considered more voluntary than cowardice because it stems from pleasure rather than pain. Natural desires, like hunger, rarely lead to excess, but individual desires often do. The temperate person enjoys pleasures moderately, without excess or deficiency. They don't suffer when abstaining from pleasures and don't desire them inappropriately. Aristotle notes that while over-indulgence is common, a complete lack of pleasure-seeking is inhuman and doesn't exist. Aristotle compares adult and child over-indulgence, suggesting that the term originated from childish behavior. He emphasizes the need for desires to be controlled by reason, likening this to a child obeying a tutor. The temperate person's appetites should align with reason, desiring the right things in the right way at the right time.
Over-Indulgence and Bodily Pleasures
We will now consider temperance, for it seems that courage and temperance are the virtues of the irrational parts of human nature.
We have already said that temperance is a mean or middle state regarding pleasures (for it is not in the same degree or manner concerned with pains). Pleasure is also the sphere in which over-indulgence displays itself.
Let us therefore now define the character of these pleasures. We will accept the distinction which is commonly made between bodily and mental pleasures such as ambition and the love of learning. For he who is ambitious or fond of learning takes pleasure in the object of which he is fond, although it is not his body which is affected but his mind. But where pleasures of this kind are in question people are not called either temperate or over-indulgent. It is the same with all such other pleasures as are not bodily. Thus, we call people "gossips" who are fond of talking and of telling stories, and who spend their days in trivial activities, but we do not call them over-indulgent, nor do we call people over-indulgent who feel pain at the loss of money or friends.
Temperance then will apply to only bodily pleasures, but not even to all of these. For if people take pleasure in gratifications of vision, for example in colors, forms, and painting, they are not called either temperate or over-indulgent. Yet it would seem possible to take a proper pleasure or an excessive or insufficient pleasure in these things as well as in others. It is the same with gratifications of hearing. Nobody speaks of such people as taking an excessive pleasure in music or acting over-indulgently, or of people who take a proper pleasure as acting temperately. Nor again do we speak of people who enjoy gratifications of the smell as over-indulgent or temperate, except accidentally. For example, we do not call people over-indulgent if they take pleasure in the smell of apples or roses or incense, but rather if they take pleasure in the smell of sauces and relishes. For an over-indulgent person takes pleasure in these since they remind him of the objects of his desire. It is true that we may see other people, when they are hungry, taking pleasure in the smell of food. But it is only an over-indulgent person who habitually takes pleasure in these things, as they are the objects of his desire.
Again, the lower animals in general are not capable of the pleasures of these senses, except accidentally. Dogs, for example, do not take pleasure in smelling rabbit's flesh but only in eating it, although the smell gives them the sensation of eating. Also, a lion does not take pleasure in hearing an ox's lowing, but in devouring the ox, although, as it is the lowing by which he perceived that the ox is near, he appears to take pleasure in the lowing. Similarly, it is not the sight or discovery of a deer or wild goat that gives him pleasure, but the prospect of a meal.
Over-Indulgence and the Sense of Touch
Temperance and over-indulgence, then, concern pleasures of such a kind as the lower animals generally are capable of. Accordingly, these pleasures appear slavish and animalistic. They are the pleasures of touch and taste. It appears that the taste comes little, if at all, into question. For, it is the taste which judges flavors, as when people test wines or season dishes, but it is in no sense this judgment of flavors which gives pleasure, at least to such people as are over-indulgent, but rather the actual enjoyment of them, and the medium of enjoyment is invariably the sense of touch, whether in food, drink or sexual activity. This was the reason why a certain gluttonous connoisseur prayed that his throat might become longer than a crane's, showing that his pleasure was derived from the sense of touch. Thus, the sensory faculty with which over-indulgence is connected is the most universal of the senses. It would seem too that over-indulgence is justly criticized, since it is a characteristic of our animal nature, and not of our human nature. Thus, it is animalistic to take delight and great satisfaction in such things. For the most respectable of the pleasures arising from touch have been set aside, such as those which occur during gymnastic training from the rubbing and the warm bath. For, for the contact that is characteristic of the over-indulgent man does not affect the whole body but only particular parts of it.
Over-Indulgence and Natural Desires
It seems that some desires are universal and others are individual and acquired. Thus, the desire of food is a natural desire. Everybody who feels also desires food or drink or perhaps both. Also, Homer says, a young man in the prime of life desires the love of a woman. But it is not equally true that everybody desires a particular form of gratification, or the same forms. Hence particular desires are unique to ourselves and individual. Nevertheless, there is something natural in it; for although different people are pleased by different things, yet there are some things which are more pleasant to all people than others.
Now with natural desires, there are only a few people who make a mistake, and their mistake is always on one side, namely, that of excess. For to eat or drink anything to the point of excess is to exceed the natural limit of quantity, since the natural desire does not go beyond the satisfaction of our desire. Accordingly, such persons are called gluttons because they go beyond what is right in satisfying their desire. It is only excessively slavish people who behave in this way.
Regarding such pleasures as are individual, there are many people who go wrong, and they go wrong in many different ways. For if people are said to be excessively fond of particular things, either as taking pleasure in wrong things or as taking more pleasure than ordinary people or as taking pleasure in a wrong way, the excess of which the over-indulgent are guilty may assume all these forms. For they take pleasure in some things which are detestable and therefore wrong. If these are things in which it is right to take pleasure, then they take a greater pleasure in them than is right or than most people take.
Over-Indulgence and Pain
It is clear then that excess regarding pleasures is over-indulgence, and that it properly is a subject of criticism. But with pains, there is this difference between temperance and courage. A person is not called temperate if he bears pains bravely, and over-indulgent if he does not. But a person is called over-indulgent because he feels more pain than is right at not obtaining pleasures, his pleasure being the cause of his pain, and the temperate man is so called because he is not pained at the absence of pleasure and at his abstinence from it. The over-indulgent man then desires all pleasures, or the greatest pleasures, and is led by his desire to prefer these to anything else. He thus feels a double pain, namely, the pain of failing to obtain them and the pain of desiring them, since all desire is attended by pain. Yet it seems paradoxical to assert that his pleasure is the cause of his pain.
No Human is Deficient in Desire for Pleasure
We never find people whose love of pleasures is deficient and whose delight in them is less than it ought to be. Such insensibility to pleasures is not human. For even the lower animals distinguish different kinds of food, liking some and disliking others. A being who should not take pleasure in anything, nor make any difference between one thing and another, would be far from being human. But there is no name for such a being, since he never exists.
The temperate man holds a mean position regarding pleasures. He takes no pleasure in the things in which the over-indulgent man takes most pleasure; instead, he dislikes them. Nor does he take pleasure at all in wrong things, nor an excessive pleasure in anything that is pleasant, nor is he pained at the absence of such things, nor does he desire them, except perhaps in moderation, nor does he desire them more than is right, or at the wrong time, and so on. But he will be eager in a moderate and right spirit for all such things as are pleasant and at the same time conducive to health or to a sound bodily condition, and for all other pleasures, so long as they are not prejudicial to these or inconsistent with proper conduct or extravagant beyond his means. For, unless a person limits himself in this way, he pursues such pleasures more than is proper, whereas the temperate man follows the guidance of right reason.
Over-Indulgence and Voluntary Choice
Over-indulgence seems to be more the character of a voluntary action than with cowardice since over-indulgence is due to pleasure, and the cowardice to pain. Also, pleasure is something that we choose, whereas pain is something that we avoid. Further, while pain distracts and destroys the nature of one who suffers it, pleasure has no such effect, but rather leaves the will free. Hence over-indulgence deserves more severe criticism than cowardice; for it is easier to train oneself to meet its temptations as they frequently occur in life, nor does the training involve any danger, whereas the contrary is the case with cowardice and facing fearful situations.
It would also seem cowardice as a general moral state is more voluntary than particular acts of cowardice. For general cowardice in itself is painless, but particular acts of cowardice occur because people are so utterly driven out of their minds by pain that they throw away their weapons and disgrace themselves. This is the reason why such acts have the appearance of being compulsory. On the other hand, with the over-indulgent person the particular acts are voluntary since he eagerly desires them. However, over-indulgence as a whole is not so voluntary, since nobody desires to be over-indulgent.
Adult Over-Indulgence and Child Over-Indulgence
We apply the term "over-indulgence" to the faults of children as well as to those of grownups, since there is a certain similarity between them. It does not matter to my present purpose which of the two kinds of faults is named after the other; but it is clear that grownup over-indulgence is named after the earlier child over-indulgence.
The metaphor (in the word "over-indulgent") seems to be a good one. For, that which is prone to disgraceful things, and capable of rapid growth, stands in need of pruning or chastisement. But such proneness and such growth are principally characteristic of desire and of childhood. For, children, like over-indulgent people, live by desire and not by reason, and the longing for pleasure is stronger in them than anywhere else. If, then, this tendency is not obedient and subject to authority, it will greatly develop. For, the desire for pleasure which a foolish person has is insatiable and universal, and the active exercise of the desire increases its natural strength, until the desires, if they are strong or passionate, actually expel the reasoning power. They ought therefore to be moderate and few, and in no way contrary to reason. But we speak of such a disposition as "obedient" and "chastened"; for just as a child ought to live according to the direction of his tutor, so ought the appetitive element in people live according to the reason. In the temperate person, then, the appetitive element should live in harmony with the reason, since the object of them both is that which is right. The temperate person desires what is right, and desires it in the right way, and at the right time, that is, according to the law of reason. We may now bring our discussion of temperance to a close.
Source: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 3.13
Discussion Questions:
1. Aristotle focuses on bodily pleasures as the primary domain of temperance. In today's world, how might we extend his concept of temperance to non-physical pleasures like social media use or video gaming?
2. How does Aristotle's view of temperance as a mean between extremes apply to modern dietary practices, such as intermittent fasting or veganism?
3. Aristotle suggests that over-indulgence is more voluntary than cowardice. Do you agree with this assessment?
4. In what ways might Aristotle's concept of temperance conflict with or complement contemporary views on self-care and mental health?
5. Aristotle suggests that over-indulgence in adults stems from childish behavior. How does this view align or conflict with modern developmental psychology?
6. How might Aristotle's ideas about temperance inform current discussions about addiction and responsible substance use?
7. What would be another way to explain what's morally wrong with over-indulgence than Aristotle's view that it is a vice of excess?"
8. Whose fault is it if you have the vice of over-indulgence, yours, your parent's, your peer group, the media?
READING 3: LINDSAY ON ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE AND VIRTUES (Mind in the Lower Animals, 1879, 1.1.10)
There has always existed in man a tendency to overrate his own mental powers and moral qualities in relation to, or in contrast with, those of other animals. The preceding chapter has shown that the psychical distinction between man and other animals is so much less conspicuous than it is generally believed to be, that it is most difficult of determination, demonstration, definition, or proof. It is much more easy, indeed, to discover and demonstrate the points of resemblance than to define those of difference. The differences between the human and animal mind are sometimes scarcely or not at all perceptible, or they are in favour of the lower animals, not of man. Much, if not everything, depends on the character of the men and animals that are the subjects of comparison. If we compare the most intelligent, virtuous, good-tempered, best trained, or most thoroughly bred animals such as the dog with the highest types of man, it is impossible for man to excel the lower animal in the practice of many of the highest virtues, on whose possession man so prides himself. If we compare such dogs or other animals with countless thousands of degraded men, in civilised as well as in savage life, the former manifest indubitable superiority both in morals and intellect. But if, on the other hand, we contrast the highest type of man with the average, or with the lowest, type of other animals, there can be no question as to the inferiority of the latter in many points of morals and intellect, on which inferiority metaphysicians construct a defence of man's supremacy. We may sum up by saying that in certain respects, as to moral and mental endowments, certain animals are the equals of certain men, while they are the superiors or inferiors of certain others. The human infant or child, at particular stages of its growth, is psychically on a par with some of the lower animals; whole races of savage man never attain the moral or mental development of certain dogs, while man of the highest culture is facile princeps [obvious leader] of the moral and intellectual world here below.
Civilised man possesses the following elements of superiority over other animals : 1. The power of speech. 2. The use of hands. 3. Knowledge of the arts of (a) Writing. (d) Glass-making. (b) Printing. (e) Cooking. (c) Metallurgy. 4. The production and applications of fire.
It is extremely difficult for man to realise the magnitude or importance of these advantages in the development of his moral and mental nature, and to make all due allowance for the disadvantage under which other animals labour in the non-possession of these accomplishments. The influence of dumbness, for instance, in man in the non-development of mental power has been pointed out by Huxley and other writers. But be it remembered always that some at least of these advantages are possessed by only a limited number of men even of civilised men as has been fully pointed out in other chapters.
On the other hand, dogs or other animals that may be considered in their way civilised or humanised both as regards the individual and the race or breed that have been subjected to persistent and judicious training by man exhibit a manifest superiority to whole races or classes of man, both civilised and savage, in the following respects, which include the noblest of the human virtues: 1. Heroism, patriotism, self-sacrifice. 2. Compassion or sympathy, charity, benevolence, forgiveness. 3. Love and adoration of a master. 4. Fidelity to trust, duty, or friendship. 5. Disinterestedness of affection. 6. Self-control, forbearance, magnanimity, repaying evil with good. 7. Industry, frugality, foresight or providence, diligence or perseverance. 8. Honesty or integrity, and honour. 9. Ingenuity or inventiveness, including fertility of resource. 10. Presence of mind in emergency. 11. Strength or force of will, persistency of purpose and effort. 12. Submission to authority or obedience to law. 13. Moral sense and religious feeling, including good feeling and right conduct. 14. The marriage, parental, maternal, and social relationships. 15. General intelligence or intellectual capacity. 16. Sexual chastity, and modesty or decency. 17. Sobriety. 18. Personal cleanliness. 19. Power of reflection and deliberation. 20. General amiability, from goodness of disposition or character. 21. Government by leaders. 22. Power of way-finding. 23. Acuteness of the senses. 24. Administration of public affairs. 25. The artistic or aesthetic sense. 26. The construction of dwellings. 27. Knowledge of their business or professional occupation, and its due performance as to regularity, and readiness or willingness. . . .
Man's inferiority to many of the lower animals is not only illustrated, however, by the moral and mental condition of savage, primitive, and prehistoric man, but also by certain degraded or degenerate, or uncultured classes or individuals in the midst of the highest civilisation for instance, by the psychical condition of the human idiot, imbecile, lunatic, and criminal, as well as of hosts of persons who are simply illiterate, vicious, or of low intelligence and devoid of any refinement of feeling. . . .
The moral and intellectual differences, then, that separate cultured and savage man, or infantile and adult man, or the two sexes in man, are the same in kind, though not necessarily in degree, as those which separate man from lower animals. They are quantitative, not qualitative. Houzeau regards the real distinction as confined to the higher potentiality of man, his higher mental powers, as well as the actuality of their higher development; and this conclusion commends itself as a judicially fair inference from the facts. Man's claim to pre-eminence on the ground of the uniqueness of his mental constitution is as absurd and puerile, therefore, as it is fallacious. His overweening pride or vanity has led to his futile contention with the evidence of facts. He has trusted to a series of gratuitous assumptions. The supposed criteria of human supremacy, as the preceding chapter has shown, the alleged psychical distinctions between man and other animals, cannot stand examination. One after another they have proved to be fallacious, built upon unsatisfactory grounds. A careful consideration of the whole argument for and against man's psychical supremacy, a thoughtful analysis of the alleged or supposed mental differences between him and all other animals, must lead to the conclusion that these differences are superficial and apparent rather than radical and real. That man's specific designation, then Homo sapiens is far from being generally deserved or appropriate becomes obvious when we compare him in his lowest savage or primitive condition with such other animals as the dog or the ant.
Discussion Questions
1. How does Lindsay's position on animals challenge traditional views on human exceptionalism, and what are the ethical implications of reconsidering our place in the animal kingdom?
2. Lindsay argues that certain animals can surpass humans in virtues like heroism and compassion. If true, how might this affect our ethical obligations towards animals, and would it be as relevant as claims about animal rights?
3. What are the ethical considerations of using intelligence or moral behavior as a basis for determining the value or rights of different species?
4. How does Lindsay's comparison of highly trained animals to "degraded men" reflect on issues of human dignity and equality? Is this a problematic approach?
5. Consider the "elements of superiority" Lindsay attributes to civilized humans. How do these technological and cultural achievements factor into ethical discussions about human-animal relations?
6. Lindsay suggests that the differences between humans and animals are quantitative rather than qualitative. How might this view impact animal rights?
7. How does Lindsay's critique of human supremacy relate to contemporary debates about animal cognition and consciousness in ethics?
READING 4: HURSTHOUSE ON VIRTUE THEORY AND ABORTION
Introduction Born in 1943, Rosalind Hursthouse is a British-born New Zealand philosopher best known for her work in virtue ethics. In her article Virtue Theory and Abortion (1991), Hursthouse rejects the two common starting points for the abortion debate (i.e., the status of the fetus and the rights of the mother). Instead, she argues that many of the moral issues surrounding abortion can be addressed by considering the virtuous and vicious character traits of the woman considering the procedure. First, Hursthouse argues that abortion is a serious matter because it involves ending a potential human life. Treating abortion casually or solely as a rights issue shows a callous attitude towards life, death, and family. However, the seriousness of abortion increases as the fetus develops. Early-stage abortions may be more understandable due to less awareness of the fetus. The author acknowledges that in cases of extreme hardship or health risks, seeking an abortion isn't necessarily vicious. Second, she argues that that parenthood, especially motherhood, is intrinsically valuable and contributes to a flourishing life. Choosing abortion may sometimes reflect a flawed understanding of what makes a good life. However, this isn't always the case - women who already have children or pursue other worthwhile activities can justifiably choose abortion. She criticizes those who avoid parenthood for trivial reasons or unrealistic expectations of perfect circumstances. Third, she contends that even when abortion is the right decision, it may still involve moral wrongdoing and appropriate guilt. This is because the circumstances leading to the need for abortion often reflect character flaws or poor choices. The virtuous woman possesses traits like responsibility and self-determination, which help avoid unwanted pregnancies. Thus, guilt can be appropriate even when abortion is the correct choice, if the situation arose from a lack of virtue.
Rejecting the Status of a Fetus and the Rights of a Woman as Considerations
As everyone knows, the morality of abortion is commonly discussed in relation to just two considerations: first, and predominantly, the status of the fetus and whether or not it is the sort of thing that may or may not be innocuously or justifiably killed; secondly, and less predominantly. . . women s rights. If one thinks within this familiar framework, one may well be puzzled about what virtue theory, as such, could contribute. Some people assume the discussion will be conducted solely in terms of what the virtuous agent would or would not do. . . . Others assume that only justice, or at most justice and charity, will be applied to the issue. . . .
But these are caricatures; they fail to appreciate the way in which virtue theory quite transforms the discussion of abortion by dismissing the two familiar dominating considerations as, in a way, fundamentally irrelevant. In what way or ways, I hope to make both clear and plausible. . . .
But . . . supposing only that women have such a moral right [to an abortion], nothing follows from this supposition about the morality of abortion, according to virtue theory, once it is noted . . . that in exercising a moral right I can do something cruel, or callous, or selfish, light-minded, self-righteous, stupid, inconsiderate, disloyal, dishonest that is, act viciously. . . . So whether women have a moral right to terminate their pregnancies is irrelevant within virtue theory, for it is irrelevant to the question In having an abortion in these circumstances, would the agent be acting virtuously or viciously or neither?
What about the consideration of the status of the fetus what can virtue theory say about that? One might say that this issue is not in the province of any moral theory; it is a metaphysical question, and an extremely difficult one at that. Must virtue theory then wait upon metaphysics to come up with the answer?
At first sight it might seem so. For virtue is said to involve knowledge and part of this knowledge consists in having the right attitude to things. . . . But the sort of wisdom that the fully virtuous person has is not supposed to be recondite; it does not call for fancy philosophical sophistication, and it does not depend upon, let alone wait upon, the discoveries of academic philosophers. And this entails the following, rather startling, conclusion: that the status of the fetus that issue over which so much ink has been spilt is, according to virtue theory, simply not relevant to the rightness or wrongness of abortion (within, that is, a secular morality).
Or rather, since that is clearly too radical a conclusion, it is in a sense relevant, but only in the sense that the familiar biological facts are relevant. By the familiar biological facts I mean the facts that most human societies are and have been familiar with that, standardly (but not invariably), pregnancy occurs as the result of sexual intercourse, that it lasts about nine months, during which time the fetus grows and develops, that standardly it terminates in the birth of a living baby, and that this is how we all come to be. . . .
Vicious Attitudes about Cutting-Off a New Human Life: Self-indulgence, Callousness, Irresponsibility, Lightmindedness
The fact that the premature termination of a pregnancy is, in some sense, the cutting-off of a new human life, and thereby, like the procreation of a new human life, connects with all our thoughts about human life and death, parenthood, and family relationships, must make it a serious matter. To disregard this fact about it, to think of abortion as nothing but the killing of something that does not matter, or as nothing but the exercise of some right or rights one has, or as the incidental means to some desirable state of affairs, is to do something callous and light-minded, the sort of thing that no virtuous and wise person would do. It is to have the wrong attitude not only to fetuses, but more generally to human life and death, parenthood, and family relationships.
Although I say that the facts make this obvious, I know that this is one of my tendentious points. In partial support of it I note that even the most dedicated proponents of the view that deliberate abortion is just like an appendectomy or haircut rarely hold the same view of spontaneous abortion, that is, miscarriage. It is not so tendentious of me to claim that to react to people s grief over miscarriage by saying, or even thinking, What a fuss about nothing! would be callous and light-minded, whereas to try to laugh someone out of grief over an appendectomy scar or a botched haircut would not be. . . .
To say that the cutting-off of a human life is always a matter of some seriousness, at any stage, is not to deny the relevance of gradual fetal development. Notwithstanding the well-worn point that clear boundary lines cannot be drawn, our emotions and attitudes regarding the fetus do change as it develops, and again when it is born, and indeed further as the baby grows. Abortion for shallow reasons in the later stages is much more shocking than abortion for the same reasons in the early stages in a way that matches the fact that deep grief over miscarriage in the later stages is more appropriate than it is over miscarriage in the earlier stages (when, that is, the grief is solely about the loss of this child, not about as might be the case, the loss of one s only hope of having a child or of having one s husband s child). . . . The application of tragic becomes more appropriate as the fetus grows, for the mere fact that one has lived with it for longer, conscious of its existence, makes a difference. To shrug off an early abortion is understandable just because it is very hard to be fully conscious of the fetus s existence in the early stages and hence hard to appreciate that an early abortion is the destruction of life. It is particularly hard for the young and inexperienced to appreciate this, because appreciation of it usually comes only with experience. . . .
The fact that pregnancy is not just one among many physical conditions does not mean that one can never regard it in that light without manifesting a vice. When women are in very poor physical health, or worn out from childbearing, or forced to do very physically demanding jobs, then they cannot be described as self-indulgent, callous, irresponsible, or lightminded if they seek abortions mainly with a view to avoiding pregnancy as the physical condition that it is. To go through with a pregnancy when one is utterly exhausted, or when one s job consists of crawling along tunnels hauling coal, as many women in the nineteenth century were obliged to do, is perhaps heroic, but people who do not achieve heroism are not necessarily vicious. . . .
Eudaimonia and the Intrinsic Goods of Motherhood and Childbearing
Speaking in terms of women's rights, people sometimes say things like, "Well, it's her life you're talking about too, you know; she's got a right to her own life, her own happiness." And the discussion stops there. But in the context of virtue theory, given that we are particularly concerned with what constitutes a good human life, with what true happiness or eudaimonia is, this is no place to stop. We go on to ask, "And is this life of hers a good one? Is she living well?"
If we are to go on to talk about good human lives, in the context of abortion, we have to bring in our thoughts about the value of love and family life, and our proper emotional development through a natural life cycle. The familiar facts support the view that parenthood in general, and motherhood and childbearing in particular, are intrinsically worthwhile, are among the things that can be correctly thought to be partially constitutive of a flourishing human life. If this is right, then a woman who opts for not being a mother (at all, or again, or now) by opting for abortion may thereby be manifesting a flawed grasp of what her life should be, and be about -- a grasp that is childish, or grossly materialistic, or shortsighted, or shallow.
I said "may thereby": this need not be so. Consider, for instance, a woman who has already had several children and fears that to have another will seriously affect her capacity to be a good mother to the ones she has -- she does not show a lack of appreciation of the intrinsic value of being a parent by opting for abortion. Nor does a woman who has been a good mother and is approaching the age at which she may be looking forward to being a good grandmother. Nor does a woman who discovers that her pregnancy may well kill her, and opts for abortion and adoption. Nor, necessarily, does a woman who has decided to lead a life centered around some other worthwhile activity or activities with which motherhood would compete.
But some women who choose abortion rather than having their first child, and some men who encourage their partners to choose abortion, are not avoiding parenthood for the sake of other worthwhile pursuits, but for the worthless one of having a good time, or for the pursuit of some false vision of the ideals of freedom or self-realization. And some others who say I am not ready for parenthood yet are making a mistake about the extent to which one can manipulate the circumstances of one s life so as to make it fulfil some dream that one has. Perhaps one s dream is of having two perfect children, a girl and a boy, within a perfect marriage, in financially secure circumstances, with an interesting job of one s own. But to care too much about that dream, to demand of life that it give it to one and to act accordingly, may be both greedy and foolish, and is to run the risk of missing out on happiness entirely. Not only may fate make the dream impossible, or destroy it, but one s own attachment to it may make it impossible. Good marriages, and the most promising children, can be destroyed by just one adult s excessive demand for perfection.
When a Virtuous Woman can Have an Abortion
Once again, this is not to deny that girls may quite properly say I am not ready for motherhood yet, especially in our society, and, far from manifesting irresponsibility or light-mindedness, show an appropriate modesty or humility, or a fearfulness that does not amount to cowardice. However, even when the decision to have an abortion is the right decision one that does not itself fall under a vice-related term and thereby one that the perfectly virtuous could recommend it does not follow that there is no sense in which having the abortion is wrong, or guilt appropriate. For by virtue of the fact that a human life has been cut short, some evil has probably been brought about, and that circumstances make the decision to bring about some evil the right decision will be a ground for guilt if getting into those circumstances in the first place itself manifested a flaw in character.
What gets one into those circumstances in the case of abortion is, except in the case of rape, one s sexual activity and one s choices, or the lack of them, about one s sexual partner and about contraception. The virtuous woman (which here of course does not mean simply chaste woman but woman with the virtues ) has such character traits as strength, independence, resoluteness, decisiveness, self-confidence, responsibility, serious-mindedness, and self-determination and no one, I think, could deny that many women become pregnant in circumstances in which they cannot welcome or cannot face the thought of having this child precisely because they lack one or some of these character traits. So even in the cases where the decision to have an abortion is the right one, it can still be the reflection of a moral failing not because the decision itself is weak or cowardly or irresolute or irresponsible or light-minded, but because lack of the requisite opposite of these failings landed one in the circumstances in the first place. Hence the common universalized claim that guilt and remorse are never appropriate emotions about an abortion is denied. They may be appropriate, and appropriately inculcated, even when the decision was the right one.
Source: Rosalind Hursthouse, Virtue Theory and Abortion , Philosophy and Public Affairs, 20, (1991)
Discussion Questions
1. Does Hursthouse's virtue account adequately address the issue of abortion without needing to bring in the status of the fetus or the rights of the woman?
2. What is Hursthouse's conception of a virtuous woman, and does Hursthouse go too easy on her if she chooses to have an abortion?
3. On the whole, does the virtue approach to moral controversies like abortion more superficial than other approaches, such as those that rest on justice, rights, duty, or utility?
4. Does Hursthouse's virtue ethics approach to abortion offer practical guidance for policy-making or individual decision-making, or is it primarily a theoretical model?
5. Hursthouse acknowledges that abortion can be justifiable in certain circumstances. Does this situational view strengthen or weaken her overall argument about the virtue ethics of abortion?
6. Hursthouse argues that guilt can be appropriate even when abortion is the right decision. How does this view compare with other ethical frameworks that might see the rightness of an action as absolving one of guilt?
7. How does Hursthouse's argument account for cultural variation and individual preferences on family, parenthood, and personal fulfillment?
8. How does Hursthouse's view of the intrinsic value of motherhood and parenthood impact her argument? Is this view potentially biased or culturally specific?
9. Hursthouse suggests that choosing abortion for "having a good time" or pursuing a "false vision of freedom" is morally problematic. Is this a fair judgment, or does it unfairly prioritize certain life choices over others?
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3. NATURAL LAW
READING 1: AQUINAS ON NATURAL LAW AND POLYGAMY
Introduction: Aquinas presents a case for monogamy as both natural and morally correct. He begins by comparing human behavior to animals, observing that creatures fight over mates to ensure offspring. For humans, he argues, monogamy provides certainty of parentage, which he considers a primary benefit of marriage. Aquinas distinguishes between polygyny (one man, multiple wives) and polyandry (one woman, multiple husbands), claiming that while polygyny might ensure fatherhood, it disrupts equality in relationships and leads to wives being treated as servants. He argues that polyandry is universally rejected due to paternity uncertainty. Aquinas also contends that monogamy is consistent with with good morals and family harmony, suggesting that multiple partners lead to discord. He draws on examples from nature, such as birds that pair to care for offspring, and human societies, including ancient Roman customs. Aquinas also references religious texts to support his view. Throughout his argument, he emphasizes that the one-man-one-woman structure is the ideal and most natural form of marriage, balancing procreation, certainty of offspring, and equality in partnership.
Naturalness of Marriage (SCG 3.122)
We observe that in those animals, dogs for instance, in which the female by herself suffices for the rearing of the offspring, the male and female stay no time together after the performance of the sexual act. But with all animals in which the female by herself does not suffice for the rearing of the offspring, male and female dwell together after the sexual act so long as is necessary for the rearing and training of the offspring. This appears in birds, whose young are incapable of finding their own food immediately when they are hatched: for since the bird does not suckle her young with milk, according to the provision made by nature in quadrupeds, but has to seek food abroad for her young, and therefore keep them warm in the period of feeding, the female could not do this duty all alone by herself: hence divine providence has put in the male a natural instinct or standing by the female for the rearing of the brood. Now in the human species the female is clearly insufficient of herself for the rearing of the offspring, since the need of human life makes many demands, which cannot be met by one parent alone. Hence the fitness of human life requires man to stand by woman after the sexual act is done, and not to go off at once and form connections with anyone he meets, as is the way with fornicators. Nor is this reasoning evaded by the fact of some particular woman having wealth and power enough to nourish her offspring all by herself: for in human acts the line of natural rightness is not drawn to suit the accidental variety of the individual, but the properties common to the whole species.
Against Polygamy (SCG 3.124)
Animals have a natural instinct to resist others mating with their partner, which is why they fight over mating rights. This behavior is common across species for a simple reason: every animal wants to freely enjoy the pleasures of mating and eating. This freedom is restricted if multiple males have access to one female, or vice versa, similar to how an animal loses free access to its food if another animal takes it. As a result, animals fight for both food and mating rights. For humans, there's an additional reason. Humans naturally want to be sure of their offspring's parentage, and this certainty would be impossible with promiscuous mating. Therefore, the pairing of one man with one woman stems from a natural instinct.
There's a distinction to be made here. Both arguments apply to the idea that one woman shouldn't be with multiple men, but when it comes to one man not being with multiple women, only the first argument holds. Having multiple female partners doesn't affect a man's certainty of fatherhood. However, the first argument remains relevant: just as a man's access to a woman is limited if she has another partner, a woman's access to a man is limited if he has multiple partners.
No human law or custom has allowed polyandry [i.e., a wife having more than one husband]. Even ancient Romans considered this wrong, with Maximus Valerius reporting that they believed marriage shouldn't be ended even due to infertility. In animal species where the father cares for his offspring, one male typically pairs with one female. This is seen in birds, where both parents feed their young. One male wouldn't be able to care for the offspring of multiple females. In species where the male doesn't care for the offspring, we often see one male mating with multiple females or vice versa, as with dogs and chickens. Human males are exceptional in their care for offspring. Therefore, it's natural for humans to form monogamous pairs.
Equality is crucial for friendship. If a woman can't have multiple husbands because it affects offspring certainty, then allowing a man to have multiple wives would make the wife's friendship with her husband more like servitude than a free choice. Experience confirms this: in societies where men have multiple wives, the wives are often treated like servants. In a perfect friendship, it's impossible to be close friends with many people. If a wife has one husband while the husband has multiple wives, the friendship isn't equal and becomes more like servitude than a freely given friendship.
Human marriage should involve with good morals. It's against good morals for one man to have multiple wives, as this leads to family discord, as shown by experience. Therefore, it's not right for one man to have multiple wives. This is supported by Genesis 2:24, which says, "They shall be two in one flesh." This condemns polygamy, as well as Plato's idea that wives should be shared communally an idea adopted by Nicolas, one of the seven deacons.
Discussion Questions
1. How does Aquinas's argument about animal behavior relate to human morality? Is it valid to use animal behavior as a basis for human ethical norms?
2. Aquinas argues that certainty of offspring is a primary reason for monogamy. In an age of DNA testing, does this argument still hold weight? Why or why not?
3. The text suggests that polyandry (one woman with multiple husbands) is universally rejected. Is this true across all cultures? What might be the ethical implications of polyandry versus polygyny?
4. How does the concept of equality in friendship, as presented in the text, relate to modern ideas of equality in marriage? Are there any contradictions?
5. Aquinas argues that polygamy leads to a "servile" relationship for wives. How might different marriage structures impact power dynamics in relationships?
6. How might modern reproductive technologies (such as IVF or surrogacy) challenge or support Aquinas's arguments about marriage and offspring?
READING 2: PUFENDORF ON NATURAL LAW AND POLYGAMY (Elements of Universal Jurisprudence, 2.2.5.7)
But, addressing polygamy, it is certain, indeed, that the form in which several men have one wife together, is utterly abhorrent from nature and the end of matrimony. But that one man should be united at the same time with several women, although it is now believed among Christians to have been forbidden by a divine law, is, nevertheless, in itself by no means repugnant to the law of nature. For it is not necessary that, just as a wife ought to grant the use of her body to no man but her one husband, so ought a husband to do the same to no other woman but his only wife. For the former regulation is necessary to secure certainty about offspring. But, in truth, that a man should spend upon appeasing the lust of one woman all the vigor which was sufficient to raise up offspring among a number of women, does by no means seem to be ordered by nature. But those reasons which have to do with jealousy between the wives, domestic discord, hatred on the part of stepmothers to be continued also among the offspring themselves, are valid only among those nations in whom the dispositions of women are too elevated. Such are most women today among Europeans, where he who is himself not beholden to his wife performs with vigor the duty of a man.
But, in truth, among the Asiatics and others, where women are left merely the glory of obedience, several wives no more disturb domestic peace than elsewhere the preposterous lust for commanding on the part of a single virago. And yet it must altogether be the finding that polygamy, formerly allowed for very weighty reasons, has later been prohibited by positive laws. But this feature also has been added to matrimony from the positive law of God, namely, that, on the violation through adultery of the essential condition of the contract, when the wife has granted the use of herself to a second person, it can be dissolved; for other inconveniences, however, which make cohabitation troublesome, it cannot be dissolved, even with mutual consent. Since, otherwise, the law of nature would not prevent anyone from being able to divorce his wife on the ground of sterility, or ignoble faults and intolerable habits, especially if it has been inserted in the nuptial contract that there should be a faculty of divorce, if, indeed, something of the sort should be found in the wife, and otherwise what had been established by mutual agreement could be dissolved again by a contrary agreement, where positive law does not stand in the way.
Discussion Questions
1. Who has the stronger case regarding polygamy: Aquinas who argues that it is against natural law, or Pufendorf who says that natural law is neutral on the issue?
2. Is Pufendorf's application of natural law different than Aquinas's?
READING 3: FINNIS ON NATURAL LAW AND SEXUAL ACTIVITY
Introduction: John Mitchell Finnis (born 1940) is an Australian legal philosopher and jurist specializing in jurisprudence and the philosophy of law. He is known for his contributions to "new natural law theory" and his interpretations of Aristotle and Aquinas. In his book Natural Law and Natural Rights (2011) he argues that Society should create an atmosphere where children can grow up without being overwhelmed by self-centered or depersonalized sexual impulses. This kind of environment also helps parents in raising children. Creating this environment is part of the common good and can justify laws that limit certain sexual rights. These laws would aim to protect public morality and ensure that society nurtures healthy sexual integration into personality and social life. In an affidavit that Finnis supplied in a Colorado court case (Evans v. Romer (1993), Finnis illustrates how natural law applies specifically to homosexual activity fails to achieve a higher good found only in conjugal love. Sex within marriage has the two common goods of procreation and friendship, which together makes the married couple a single unit. Homosexual acts, by contrast, involve using one s body solely for gratification, and this ultimately harms the person by making him a slave to his private enjoyment. According to Finnis, homosexual partners cannot achieve true friendship through their sexual activity since it would not be done for the purpose of procreation.
Public Morality and Legal Constraints on Sexual Activity
The fact is that human rights can only be securely enjoyed in certain sorts of milieu a context or framework of mutual respect and trust and common understanding, an environment which is physically healthy and in which the weak can go about without fear of the whims of the strong. Consider, now, the concept of public morality, in its oddly restricted, sexual sense. Apart from such special arrangements as marriage, no one s human rights include a right that other men or women should not conduct themselves sexually in certain ways [i.e., people cannot claim a human right to control the sexual behavior of others, unless it involves a marriage relationship]. But the great majority of any community that is reproducing itself will spend more than a quarter of their lives as children and then more than another quarter as parents bringing up children in all, more than half their lifetimes. If it is the case that sexuality is a powerful force which only with some difficulty, and always precariously, can be integrated with other aspects of human personality and well-being so that it enhances rather than destroys friendship and the care of children, for example; and if it is further the case that human sexual psychology has a bias towards regarding other persons as bodily objects of desire and potential sexual release and gratification, and as mere items in an erotically flavoured classification (e.g. women ), rather than as full persons with personal and individual sensitivities, restraints, and life-plans, then there is reason for fostering a milieu in which children can be brought up (and parents assisted rather than hindered in bringing them up) so that they are relatively free from inward subjection to an egoistic, impulsive, or depersonalized sexuality. Just what such a milieu concretely amounts to and requires for its maintenance is something that is matter for discussion and decision, elsewhere. But that this is an aspect of the common good, and fit matter for laws which limit the boundless exercise of certain rights, can hardly be doubted by anyone who attends to the facts of human psychology as they bear on the realization of basic human goods. And while all this could be, and sometimes has been, expressed in terms of human rights, there is no need to consider inept, still less redundant, the reference to public morality, preferred by contemporary legislators with impressive unanimity. (p. 216)
Two Ways of Deriving Governmental Laws from Moral Principles
In sum: the derivation of law from the basic principles of practical reasoning has indeed the two principal modes identified and named by Aquinas [where mode 1 is deriving laws directly from basic human goods, and mode 2 involves legislators applying those basic principles to particular circumstances]; but these are not two streams flowing in separate channels. The central principle of the law of murder, of theft, of marriage, of contract . . . may be a straightforward application of universally valid requirements of reasonableness [using mode 1], but the effort to integrate these subject-matters into the Rule of Law will require of judge and legislator countless elaborations which in most instances partake of the second mode of derivation. This second mode, the sheer determinatio by more or less free authoritative choice, is itself not only linked with the basic principles by intelligible relationship to goals (such as traffic safety. . . ) which are directly related to basic human goods, but is also controlled by wide-ranging formal and other structuring principles (in both first- and second-order form) which themselves are derived from the basic principles by the first mode of derivation (p. 289).
Marital Common Good vs. Instrumentalization
In . . . . [homosexual activity] one's body is treated as instrumental for the se curing of the experiential satisfaction of the conscious self. Thus one disintegrates oneself in two ways, (1) by treating one's body as a mere instru ment of the consciously operating self, and (2) by making one's choosing self the quasi-slave of the ex periencing self which is demanding gratification. The worthlessness of the gratification, and the disinte gration of oneself, are both the result of the fact that, in these sorts of behavior, one's conduct is not the actualizing and experiencing of a real common good. Marriage, with its double blessing procreation and friendship is a real common good. Moreover, it is a common good that can be both actualized and ex perienced in the orgasmic union of the reproductive organs of a man and a woman united in commitment to that good. Conjugal sexual activity, and as Plato and Aristotle and Plutarch and Kant all argue, only conjugal activity is free from the shamefulness of instrumentalization that is found in [homosexual activity].
At the very heart of the reflections of Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, Musonius Rufus, and Plutarch on the homoerotic culture around them is the very deliberate and careful judgment that homosexual conduct (and indeed all extramarital sexual gratifi cation) is radically incapable of participating in, or actualizing, the common good of friendship. Friends who engage in such conduct are following a natural impulse and doubtless often wish their genital con duct to be an intimate expression of their mutual af fection. But they are deceiving themselves. The attempt to express affection by orgasmic nonmari tal sex is the pursuit of an illusion. The orgasmic union of the reproductive organs of husband and wife really unites them biologically (and their bio logical reality is part of, not merely an instrument of, their personal reality); that orgasmic union therefore can actualize and allow them to experience their real common good their marriage with the two goods, children and friendship, which are the parts of its wholeness as an intelligible common good. But the common good of friends who are not and can not be married (man and man, man and boy, woman and woman) has nothing to do with their having chil dren by each other, and their reproductive organs cannot make them a biological (and therefore a per sonal) unit. So their genital acts together cannot do what they may hope and imagine.
Homosexuality is a Threat to True Marriage
Societies such as classical Athens and contem porary England (and virtually every other) draw a distinction between behavior found merely (perhaps extremely) offensive (such as eating excrement) and behavior to be repudiated as destructive of human character and relationships. Copulation of humans with animals is repudiated because it treats human sexual activity and satisfaction as something appro priately sought in a manner that, like the coupling of animals, is divorced from the expressing of an in telligible common good and so treats human bod ily life, in one of its most intense activities, as merely animal. The deliberate genital coupling of persons of the same sex is repudiated for a very similar rea son. It is not simply that it is sterile and disposes the participants to an abdication of responsibility for the future of humankind. Nor is it simply that it cannot really actualize the mutual devotion that some ho mosexual persons hope to manifest and experience by it; nor merely that it harms the personalities of its participants by its disintegrative manipulation of different parts of their one personal reality. It is also that it treats human sexual capacities in a way that is deeply hostile to the self-understanding of those members of the community who are willing to commit themselves to real marriage in the understanding that its sexual joys are not mere instruments or accompaniments to, or mere compensation for, the accomplishments of marriage's responsibilities, but rather are the act ualizing and experiencing of the intelligent commit ment to share in those responsibilities. . . .
This pattern of judgment, both widespread and sound, concludes as follows. Homosexual orienta tion the deliberate willingness to promote and en gage in homosexual acts is a standing denial of the intrinsic aptness of sexual intercourse to actualize and give expression to the exclusiveness and open -ended commitment of marriage as something good in itself. All who accept that homosexual acts can be a humanly appropriate use of sexual capacities must, if consistent, regard sexual capacities, organs, and acts as instruments to be put to whatever suits the purposes of the individual "self" who has them. Such an acceptance is commonly (and in my opinion rightly) judged to be an active threat to the stability of existing and future marriages; it makes nonsense, for example, of the view that adultery is per se (and not merely because it may involve deception), and in an important way, inconsistent with conjugal love. A political community that judges that the stability and educative generosity of family life is of funda mental importance to the community's present and future can rightly judge that it has a compelling in terest in denying that homosexual conduct is a valid, humanly acceptable choice and form of life and in doing whatever it properly can, as a community with uniquely wide but still subsidiary functions, to dis courage such conduct.
Discussion questions:
1. Considering Finnis' natural law approach, how might proponents of LGBTQ+ rights respond to his arguments?
2. How does Finnis justify legal constraints on sexual activity in terms of the "common good", and is he convincing?
3. Finnis argues that sexuality needs to be "integrated with other aspects of human personality and well-being." What does he mean by this, and do you agree?
5. Finnis claims that homosexual activity involves "instrumentalization" of the body. What does he mean by this, and how does he contrast it with marital sexual activity?
6. According to Finnis, why can't homosexual partners achieve "true friendship" through their sexual activity, and Is he right?
7. How does Finnis use the concept of "common good" to distinguish between marital and non-marital sexual activities? Is this a valid distinction?
8. Finnis argues that acceptance of homosexual acts threatens the stability of existing and future marriages. Is he right?
9. Do you think Finnis is right that governments have a legitimate interest in regulating sexual behavior?
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4. MORALITY AND THE WILL OF GOD
READING 1: HUME ON SEPARATING MORALITY FROM RELIGION
Introduction: David Hume (1711-1776) was one of the first modern philosophers to argue for the separation of ethics from religion. Moral behavior, he argues, is something that we do naturally, automatically and easily, but religion is an artificial set of beliefs and behaviors that have little to do with actual morality. According to Hume, theology "bends every branch of knowledge to its own purpose, without much regard to the phenomena of nature, or to the unbiassed sentiments of the mind." Because of this, he continues, "reasoning, and even language, have been warped from their natural course, and distinctions have been endeavored to be established where the difference of the objects was, in a manner, imperceptible" (second Enquiry, Appendix 4). The selections below present two of Hume's against religiously-grounded morality.
Impossibility of Knowing the Moral Qualities of God
[Is it not presumptuous to] imagine we comprehend the Deity, and have some adequate idea of his nature and attributes? When I read a volume, I enter into the mind and intention of the author. I become him, in a manner, for the instant, and have an immediate feeling and conception of those ideas which revolved in his imagination while employed in that composition. But so near an approach we never surely can make to the Deity. His ways are not our ways. His attributes are perfect, but incomprehensible. And this volume of nature [i.e., the mind of God] contains a great and inexplicable riddle, more than any intelligible discourse or reasoning.
The ancient Platonists, you know, were the most religious and devout of all the Pagan philosophers. Yet many of them, particularly Plotinus, expressly declare, that intellect or understanding is not to be ascribed to the Deity; and that our most perfect worship of him consists, not in acts of veneration, reverence, gratitude, or love; but in a certain mysterious self-annihilation, or total extinction of all our faculties. These ideas are, perhaps, too far stretched. But still it must be acknowledged, that, by representing the Deity as so intelligible and comprehensible, and so similar to a human mind, we are guilty of the grossest and most narrow partiality, and make ourselves the model of the whole universe.
All the sentiments of the human mind gratitude, resentment, love, friendship, approbation, blame, pity, emulation, envy have a plain reference to the state and situation of man, and are calculated for preserving the existence and promoting the activity of such a being in such circumstances. It seems, therefore, unreasonable to transfer such sentiments to a supreme existence, or to suppose him actuated by them. And the phenomena besides of the universe will not support us in such a theory. All our ideas, derived from the senses, are confessedly false and illusive, and cannot therefore be supposed to have place in a supreme intelligence. And as the ideas of internal sentiment, added to those of the external senses, compose the whole furniture of human understanding, we may conclude, that none of the materials of thought are in any respect similar in the human and in the divine intelligence. Now, as to the manner of thinking; how can we make any comparison between them, or suppose them any wise resembling? Our thought is fluctuating, uncertain, fleeting, successive, and compounded. And were we to remove these circumstances, we absolutely annihilate its essence, and it would in such a case be an abuse of terms to apply to it the name of thought or reason. At least if it appear more pious and respectful (as it really is) still to retain these terms, when we mention the Supreme Being, we ought to acknowledge, that their meaning, in that case, is totally incomprehensible; and that the infirmities of our nature do not permit us to reach any ideas which in the least correspond to the ineffable sublimity of the Divine attributes.
Religions seek to Appease God through Superstition, not through Morality
It is certain, that, in every religion, however sublime the verbal definition which it gives of its divinity, many of the votaries, perhaps the greatest number, will still seek the divine favor, not by virtue and good morals, which alone can be acceptable to a perfect being, but either by frivolous observances, by intemperate zeal, by rapturous ecstasies, or by the belief of mysterious and absurd opinions. The least [or smallest] part of the [Zoroastrian] Sadder, as well as of the [Hebrew] Pentateuch, consists in precepts of morality; and we may also be assured, that that part was always the least observed and regarded. . . .
Nay, if we should suppose, what never happens, that a popular religion were found, in which it was expressly declared, that nothing but morality could gain the divine favor; if an order of priests were instituted to inculcate this opinion, in daily sermons, and with all the arts of persuasion; yet so inveterate [or ingrained] are the people's prejudices, that, for want [or lack] of some other superstition, they would make the very [ritualistic] attendance on these sermons the essentials of religion, rather than place them in [the actual content of these sermons concerning] virtue and good morals. . . .
This observation, then, holds universally. But still one may be at some loss to account for it. It is sufficient to observe, that the people, everywhere, degrade their deities into a similitude [or similarity] with themselves, and consider them merely as a species of human creatures, somewhat more potent and intelligent. This will not remove the difficulty. For there is no man so stupid, as that, judging by his natural reason, he would not esteem virtue and honesty the most valuable qualities, which any person could possess. Why not ascribe the same sentiment to his deity? Why not make all religion, or the chief part of it, to consist in these attainments?
Nor is it satisfactory to say, that the practice of morality is more difficult than that of superstition; and is therefore rejected. . . .
Perhaps, the following account may be received as a true solution of the difficulty. The duties, which a man performs as a friend or parent, seem merely owing to his benefactor or children; nor can he be wanting to these duties, without breaking through all the ties of nature and morality. A strong inclination may prompt him to the performance: A sentiment of order and moral obligation joins its force to these natural ties: And the whole man, if truly virtuous, is drawn to his duty, without any effort or endeavor. Even with regard to the virtues, which are more austere, and more founded on reflection, such as public spirit, filial duty, temperance, or integrity; the moral obligation, in our apprehension, removes all pretension to religious merit; and the virtuous conduct is deemed no more than what we owe to society and to ourselves. In all this, a superstitious man finds nothing, which he has properly performed for the sake of this deity, or which can peculiarly recommend him to the divine favor and protection. He considers not, that the most genuine method of serving the divinity is by promoting the happiness of his creatures. He still looks out for some more immediate service of the supreme Being, in order to allay those terrors, with which he is haunted. And any practice, recommended to him, which either serves to no purpose in life, or offers the strongest violence to his natural inclinations; that practice he will the more readily embrace, on account of those very circumstances, which should make him absolutely reject it. It seems the more purely religious, because it proceeds from no mixture of any other motive or consideration. And if, for its sake, he sacrifices much of his ease and quiet, his claim of merit appear still to rise upon him, in proportion to the zeal and devotion which he discovers. In restoring a loan, or paying a debt, his divinity is nowise beholden to him; because these acts of justice are what he was bound to perform, and what many would have performed, were there no god in the universe. But if he fast a day, or give himself a sound whipping; this has a direct reference, in his opinion, to the service of God. No other motive could engage him to such austerities. By these distinguished marks of devotion, he has now acquired the divine favor; and may expect, in recompense, protection and safety in this world, and eternal happiness in the next.
Hence the greatest crimes have been found, in many instances, compatible with a superstitious piety and devotion: Hence, it is justly regarded as unsafe to draw any certain inference in favor of a man's morals from the fervor or strictness of his religious exercises, even though he himself believe them sincere. Nay, it has been observed, that enormities of the blackest dye have been rather apt to produce superstitious terrors, and increase the religious passion. . . .
Source: Adapted from David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779), 3; The Natural History of Religion (1757), 13-14.
Discussion Questions:
1. How does Hume argue that human understanding of God's nature and attributes is limited? What implications does this have for basing morality on religious beliefs?
2. Discuss Hume's claim that "All our ideas, derived from the senses, are confessedly false and illusive." How does this relate to his argument about the impossibility of knowing God's moral qualities?
3. According to Hume, why do people tend to engage in "frivolous observances" and "intemperate zeal" rather than focusing on virtue and good morals in their religious practices?
4. How does Hume explain the human tendency to "degrade their deities into a similitude with themselves"? What are the ethical implications of this perspective?
5. Analyze Hume's statement: "The most genuine method of serving the divinity is by promoting the happiness of his creatures." How does this view challenge traditional religious approaches to morality?
6. Hume argues that superstitious practices are often preferred because they seem "more purely religious." What are the potential dangers of this mindset in terms of ethical behavior?
7. Discuss the paradox Hume presents regarding the compatibility of "the greatest crimes" with "superstitious piety and devotion." How might this observation inform our understanding of the relationship between religion and ethics?
8. How does Hume's view challenge the idea that religious devotion necessarily leads to moral behavior?
9. Considering Hume's arguments, discuss the potential benefits and drawbacks of separating morality from religion in contemporary society.
10. Hume suggests that people often prefer religious practices that "offer the strongest violence to natural inclinations." How might this idea relate to modern discussions about the role of self-denial or sacrifice in ethical behavior?
READING 2: PALEY ON MORALITY GROUNDED IN THE WILL OF GOD
Introduction:
William Paley (1743 1805) was an English Anglican priest and Utilitarian philosopher. He is best remembered for his teleological argument for the existence of God. In the selection here, Paley argues that grounding morality in religion is not as problematic as some maintain. For Paley, we can discover the will of God either through scripture (sometimes called "revealed religion"), or the use of our reason as we examine the divine order within the natural world (sometimes called "natural religion"). An examination of the natural world shows us that God desires human happiness. From this Paley concludes that morality is grounded in God's will that human's should be happy, and, accordingly, morally right conduct is that which has the tendency to produce human happiness.
The Will of God revealed through Scripture and through Reason
As the will of God is our rule, to inquire what is our duty, or what we are obliged to do, in any instance, is, in effect, to inquire "what is the will of God in that instance?" which consequently becomes the whole business of morality. Now there are two methods of coming at the will of God on any point: (1) by his express declarations, when they are to be had, and which must be sought for in Scripture; (2) by what we can discover of his designs and disposition from his works; or, as we usually call it, the light of nature.
And here we may observe the absurdity of separating natural and revealed religion from each other [i.e., rational theology from scripture]. The object of both is the same to discover the will of God and, provided we do but discover it, it matters nothing by what means. An ambassador, judging by what he knows of his sovereign's disposition, and arguing from what he has observed of his conduct, or is acquainted with of his designs, may take his measures in many cases with safety, and presume with great probability how his master would have him act on most occasions that arise [i.e., consulting rational religion]. But if he have his commission and instructions in his pocket, it would be strange not to look into them [i.e., consulting scripture]. He will be directed by both rules. When his instructions are clear and positive, there is an end to all further deliberation (unless indeed he suspect their authenticity). Where his instructions are silent or dubious, he will endeavor to supply or explain them, by what he has been able to collect from other quarters of his master's general inclination or intentions. . . .
The method of coming at the will of God, concerning any action, by the light of nature [i.e. rational religion], is to inquire into "the tendency of the action to promote or diminish the general happiness." This rule proceeds upon the presumption, that God Almighty wills and wishes the happiness of his creatures; and, consequently, that those actions, which promote that will and wish, must be agreeable to him; and the contrary.
As this presumption is the foundation of our whole system, it becomes necessary to explain the reasons upon which it rests.
God's Will is the Promotion of Human Happiness
When God created the human species, either he wished their happiness, or he wished their misery, or he was indifferent and unconcerned about both.
If he had wished our misery, he might have made sure of his purpose, by forming our senses to be so many sores and pains to us, as they are now instruments of gratification and enjoyment: or by placing us amidst objects so ill-suited to our perceptions, as to have continually offended us, instead of ministering to our refreshment and delight. He might have made, for example, everything we tasted, bitter; everything we saw, loathsome; everything we touched, a sting; every smell a stench; and every sound a discord.
If he had been indifferent about our happiness or misery, we must impute to our good fortune (as all design by this supposition is excluded) both the capacity of our senses to receive pleasure, and the supply of external objects fitted to produce it. But either of these (and still more both of them) being too much to be attributed to accident, nothing remains but the first supposition, that God, when he created the human species, wished their happiness; and made for them the provision which he has made, with that view, and for that purpose.
The same argument may be proposed in different terms. Thus: Contrivance proves design: and the predominant tendency of the contrivance indicates the disposition of the designer. The world abounds with contrivances: and all the contrivances which we are acquainted with, are directed to beneficial purposes. Evil, no doubt, exists; but is never, that we can perceive, the object of contrivance. Teeth are contrived to eat, not to ache; their aching now and then, is incidental to the contrivance, perhaps inseparable from it. Or even, if you will, let it be called a defect in the contrivance; but it is not the object of it. This is a distinction which well deserves to be attended to. In describing implements of husbandry, you would hardly say of the sickle, that it is made to cut the reaper's fingers, though, from the construction of the instrument, and the manner of using it, this mischief often happens. But if you had occasion to describe instruments of torture or execution. This engine, you would say, is to extend the sinews; this to dislocate the joints; this to break the bones; this to scorch the soles of the feet. Here, pain and misery are the very objects of the contrivance. Now, nothing of this sort is to be found in the works of nature. We never discover a train of contrivance to bring about an evil purpose. No anatomist ever discovered a system of organization calculated to produce pain and disease; or, in explaining the parts of the human body, ever said, This is to irritate; this to inflame; this duct is to convey the gravel to the kidneys; this gland to secrete the humor which forms the gout: if by chance he come at a part of which he knows not the use, the most he can say is, that it is useless: no one ever suspects that it is put there to incommode, to annoy, or to torment. Since then God has called forth his consummate wisdom to contrive and provide for our happiness, and the world appears to have been constituted with this design at first; so long as this constitution is upholden by him, we must in reason suppose the same design to continue.
The contemplation of universal nature rather bewilders the mind than affects it. There is always a bright spot in the prospect, upon which the eye rests; a single example, perhaps, by which each man finds himself more convinced than by all others put together. I seem, for my own part, to see the benevolence of the Deity more clearly in the pleasures of very young children, than in any thing in the world. The pleasures of grown persons may be reckoned partly of their own procuring. [This is] especially if there has been any industry, or contrivance, or pursuit, to come at them; or if they are founded, like music, painting, etc., upon any qualification of their own acquiring. But the pleasures of a healthy infant are so manifestly provided for it by another, and the benevolence of the provision is so unquestionable, that every child I see at its sport, affords to my mind a kind of sensible evidence of the finger of God, and of the disposition which directs it.
But the example, which strikes each man most strongly, is the true example for him, and hardly two minds hit upon the same; which shows the abundance of such examples about us.
We conclude, therefore, that God wills and wishes the happiness of his creatures. And this conclusion being once established, we are at liberty to go on with the rule built upon it, namely, "that the method of coming at the will of God, concerning any action, by the light of nature, is to inquire into the tendency of that action to promote or diminish the general happiness."
Source: Adapted from William Paley, The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (1785), 2.4-5.
Study Questions:
1. How does Paley argue for the compatibility of "natural" and "revealed" religion? What are the potential strengths and weaknesses of this approach to understanding God's will?
2. Discuss Paley's claim that "the method of coming at the will of God, concerning any action, by the light of nature, is to inquire into 'the tendency of the action to promote or diminish the general happiness.'" How does this view compare to other religious or secular ethical frameworks?
3. Analyze Paley's argument that God must wish for human happiness based on the nature of our sensory experiences. Is this a convincing argument? Why or why not?
4. How does Paley use the concept of "contrivance" to support his view that God intends human happiness? What are the potential limitations of this argument?
5. Discuss Paley's statement: "Evil, no doubt, exists; but is never, that we can perceive, the object of contrivance." How might this perspective be challenged or supported in light of natural disasters, diseases, or other sources of suffering?
6. Paley argues that the pleasures of young children provide clear evidence of God's benevolence. How convincing do you find this argument, and what potential counterarguments could be raised?
7. Compare and contrast Paley's view of morality grounded in God's will with Hume's argument for separating morality from religion (from the previous reading). What are the key differences and potential implications of each approach?
8. How might Paley's approach to understanding God's will through reason and observation of nature be applied to contemporary ethical issues (e.g., environmental ethics, bioethics)?
9. Discuss the potential challenges in using "the general happiness" as a criterion for determining moral rightness. How might this approach be similar to or different from utilitarianism?
10. Paley suggests that different individuals might find different examples most convincing of God's benevolence. How might this subjective aspect of his argument affect its overall strength or applicability in ethical discussions?
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5. SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORY
READING 1: HOBBES ON THE SOCIAL CONTRACT
State of War
Hereby it is manifest, that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war. And such a war as is of every man against every man. For war consists not in battle only, or the act of fighting, but [also] in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known. And, therefore, the notion of time is to be considered in the nature of war, as it is in the nature of weather. For as the nature of foul weather lies not in a shower or two of rain, but in an inclination thereto of many days together; so the nature of war consists not in actual fighting, but in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is peace.
Whatever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same is consequent to the time wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition, there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no culture of the earth, no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building, no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth, no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
Proof of the Natural Condition
It may seem strange to some man, that has not well weighed these things, that nature should thus dissociate, and render men apt to invade and destroy each other. And he may therefore (not trusting to this inference made from the passions) desire perhaps to have the same confirmed by experience. Let him therefore consider with himself [that], when taking a journey, he arms himself and seeks to go well accompanied. When going to sleep, he locks his doors. When even in his house, he locks his chests, and this when he knows there be laws and public officers armed, to revenge all injuries [which] shall be done [to] him. [Consider] what opinion he has of his fellow subjects when he rides armed; of his fellow citizens when he locks his doors; and of his children and servants when he locks his chests. Does he not there as much accuse mankind by his actions as I do by my words? But neither of us accuse man's nature in it. The desires, and other passions of man, are in themselves no sin. No more are the actions, that proceed from those passions, till they know a law that forbids them; which till laws be made they cannot know, nor can any law be made till they have agreed upon the person that shall make it.
It may perhaps be thought [that] there was never such a time nor condition of war as this, and I believe it was never generally so over all the world. But there are many places where they live so now. For the savage people in many places of America (except the government of small families the harmony whereof depends on natural lust) have no government at all and live at this day in that brutish manner, as I said before. However, it may be perceived what manner of life there would be, where there were no common power to fear; [and] by what manner of life, which men that have formerly lived under a peaceful government, . . . [would] degenerate into in a civil war.
But though there had never been anytime wherein particular men were in a condition of war one against another; yet in all times, kings and persons of sovereign authority (because of their independence) are in continual jealousies and in the state and posture of gladiators, having their weapons pointing and their eyes fixed on each other. That is, their forts, garrisons, and guns [are fixed] upon the frontiers of their kingdoms, and continual spies [are fixed] upon their neighbors, which is a posture of war. But because they uphold thereby the industry of their subjects, there does not follow from it that misery which accompanies the liberty of particular men.
Nothing is Unjust
To this war of every man against every man, this also is consequent, that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law; where no law, no injustice. Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues. Justice and injustice are none of the [instinctive] faculties, neither of the body nor mind. If they were, they might be in a man that were alone in the world, as well as his senses and passions. They are qualities that relate to men in society, not in solitude. It is consequent also to the same condition, that there be no propriety, no dominion, no mine and thine distinct. But [there is] only that to be every man's that he can get, and for so long as he can keep it. And thus much for the ill condition which man by mere nature is actually placed in; though with a possibility to come out of it consisting partly in the passions [and] partly in his reason.
The passions that incline men to peace are fear of death, desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living, and a hope by their industry to obtain them. And reason suggests convenient articles of peace, upon which men may be drawn to agreement. These articles are they which otherwise are called the laws of nature. . . .
Why People are Naturally Unsociable
It is true that certain living creatures, [such] as bees and ants, live sociably one with another (which are therefore by Aristotle numbered among political creatures), and yet have no other direction than their particular judgments and appetites; nor speech, whereby one of them can signify to another what he thinks expedient for the common benefit. And therefore some man may perhaps desire to know why mankind cannot do the same. To which I answer,
First, that men are continually in competition for honor and dignity, which these creatures are not. And consequently among men there arises on that ground, envy, and hatred, and finally war; but amongst these not so.
Secondly, that among these creatures the common good differs not from the private; and being by nature inclined to their private, they procure thereby the common benefit. But man, whose joy consists in comparing himself with other men, can relish nothing but what is eminent.
Thirdly, that these creatures, having not, as man, the use of reason, do not see, nor think they see, any fault in the administration of their common business. Whereas, among men, there are very many that think themselves wiser and abler to govern the public better than the rest, and these strive to reform and innovate, one this way, another that way; and thereby bring it into distraction and civil war.
Fourthly, that these creatures, though they have some use of voice in making known to each other their desires and other affections, yet they want [i.e., lack] that art of words by which some men can represent to others that which is good in the likeness of evil; and evil, in the likeness of good; and augment or diminish the apparent greatness of good and evil, discontenting men and troubling their peace at their pleasure.
Fifthly, irrational creatures cannot distinguish between injury and damage. And therefore as long as they be at ease, they are not offended with their fellows: whereas man is then most troublesome when he is most at ease. For then it is that he loves to show his wisdom, and control the actions of them that govern the Commonwealth.
Lastly, the agreement of these creatures is natural; that of men is by covenant only, which is artificial. And therefore it is no wonder if there be somewhat else required, besides covenant, to make their agreement constant and lasting; which is a common power to keep them in awe and to direct their actions to the common benefit.
Creating Peace and a Commonwealth through a Social Contract
[There is only one] way to erect such a common power, as may be able to defend them from the invasion of foreigners, and the injuries of each other, and thereby to secure them in such sort as that by their own industry and by the fruits of the earth they may nourish themselves and live contentedly. [That way] is to confer all their power and strength upon one man, or upon one assembly of men, that may reduce all their wills, by plurality of voices, unto one will. Which is as much as to say, to appoint one man, or assembly of men, to bear their person; and everyone to own and acknowledge himself to be author of whatsoever he that so bears their person shall act, or cause to be acted, in those things which concern the common peace and safety; and therein to submit their wills, everyone to his will, and their judgments to his judgment. This is more than consent, or concord. It is a real unity of them all in one and the same person, made by covenant of every man with every man. [It is made] in such manner as if every man should say to every man: I authorize and give up my right of governing myself to this man, or to this assembly of men, on this condition; that thou give up, thy right to him, and authorize all his actions in like manner. This done, the multitude so united in one person is called a commonwealth; in Latin, civitas. This is the generation of that great Leviathan, or rather, to speak more reverently, of that mortal god to which we owe, under the immortal God, our peace and defense. For by this authority, given him by every particular man in the Commonwealth, he has the use of so much power and strength conferred on him that, by terror thereof, he is enabled to form the wills of them all, to peace at home, and mutual aid against their enemies abroad. And in him consists the essence of the Commonwealth, which, to define it, is: one person, of whose acts a great multitude, by mutual covenants one with another, have made themselves everyone the author, to the end he may use the strength and means of them all as he shall think expedient for their peace and common defense.
And he that carries this person is called sovereign, and said to have sovereign power; and everyone besides, his subject.
Source: Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651), 13, 17.
READING 2: GODWIN ON FOUR OBJECTIONS TO THE SOCIAL CONTRACT
Upon the first statement of the system of a social contract various difficulties present themselves. Who are the parties to this contract? For whom did they consent, for themselves only or for others? For how long a time is this contract to be considered as binding? If the consent of every individual be necessary, in what manner is that consent to be given? Is it to be tacit, or declared in express terms?
First Objection: Extending the Contract to Future Generations
Little will be gained for the cause of equality and justice, if our ancestors, at the first institution of government, had a right indeed of choosing the system of regulations under which they thought proper to live, but at the same time could barter away the understandings and independence of all that came after them to the latest posterity [i.e., to current generations of people]. But, if the contract must be renewed in each successive generation, what periods must be fixed on for that purpose? And if I be obliged to submit to the established government till my turn comes to assent to it, upon what principle is that obligation founded? Surely not upon the contract into which my father entered before I was born?
Second Objection: Limitations of Tacit Consent
Secondly, what is the nature of the consent, in consequence of which I am to be reckoned the subject of any particular government? It is usually said, "that acquiescence is sufficient; and that this acquiescence is to be inferred from my living quietly under the protection of the laws." But if this be true, an end is as effectually put to all political science, all discrimination of better and worse, as by any system invented by the most slavish sycophant that ever existed. Upon this hypothesis every government that is quietly submitted to is a lawful government, whether it be the usurpation of [English military leader] Cromwell or the tyranny of [Roman emperor] Caligula. Acquiescence [i.e., silent acceptance] is frequently nothing more than a choice on the part of the individual of what he deems the least evil. In many cases it is not [even] so much as this, since the peasant and the artisan, who form the bulk of a nation, however dissatisfied with the government of their country, seldom have it in their power to transport themselves to another. It is also to be observed upon the system of acquiescence, that it is in little agreement with the established opinions and practices of mankind. Thus what has been called the law of nations, lays least stress upon the allegiance of a foreigner settling among us, though his acquiescence is certainly most complete; while natives removing into an uninhabited region are claimed by the mother country, and removing into a neighboring territory are punished by municipal law, if they take arms against the country in which they were born. Now surely acquiescence can scarcely be construed into consent, while the individuals concerned are wholly unapprised of the authority intended to be rested upon it.
Mr. Locke, the great champion of the doctrine of an original contract, has been aware of this difficulty, and therefore observes, that "a tacit consent indeed obliges a man to obey the laws of any government, as long as he has any possessions, or enjoyment of any part of the dominions of that government; but nothing can make a man a member of the commonwealth, but his actually entering into it by positive engagement, and express promise and compact." A singular distinction; implying upon the face of it, that an acquiescence, such as has just been described, is sufficient to render a man amenable to the penal regulations of society; but that his own consent is necessary to entitle him to its privileges.
Third Objection: Length of the Contract
A third objection to the social contract will suggest itself, as soon as we attempt to ascertain the extent of the obligation, even supposing it to have been entered into in the most solemn manner by every member of the community. Allowing that I am called upon, at the period of my coming of age for example, to declare my assent or dissent to any system of opinions or any code of practical institutes; for how long a period does this declaration bind me? Am I precluded from better information for the whole course of my life? And, if not for my whole life, why for a year, a week or even an hour? If my deliberate judgment or my real sentiment be of no avail in the case, in what sense can it be affirmed that all lawful government is founded in my consent?
But the question of time is not the only difficulty. If you demand my assent to any proposition, it is necessary that the proposition should be stated simply and clearly. So numerous are the varieties of human understanding, in all cases where its independence and integrity are sufficiently preserved, that there is little chance of any two men coming to a precise agreement about ten successive propositions that are in their own nature open to debate. What then can be more absurd than to present to me the laws of England in fifty volumes folio, and call upon me to give an honest and uninfluenced vote upon their whole contents at once?
But the social contract, considered as the foundation of civil government, requires more of me than this. I am not only obliged to consent to all the laws that are actually upon record, but to all the laws that shall hereafter be made. It was under this view of the subject, that Rousseau, in tracing the consequences of the social contract, was led to assert, that "the great body of the people, in whom the sovereign authority resides, can neither delegate nor resign it. The essence of that authority," he adds, "is the general will; and will cannot be represented. It must either be the same or another; there is no alternative. The deputies of the people cannot be its representatives; they are merely its attorneys. The laws, that the community does not ratify in person, are no laws, are nullities."
The difficulty here stated has been endeavored to be provided against by some late advocates for liberty, in the way of addresses of adhesion; addresses, originating in the various districts and departments of a nation, and without which no regulation of constitutional importance is to be deemed valid. But this is a very inadequate and superficial remedy. The addressers of course have seldom any other remedy than that above described, of in discriminate admission or rejection. There is an infinite difference between the first deliberation, and the subsequent exercise of a negative. The former is a real power, the latter is seldom more than the shadow of a power. Not to add, that addresses are a most precarious and equivocal mode of collecting the sense of a nation. They are usually voted in a tumultuous and summary manner; they are carried along by the tide of party; and the signatures annexed to them are obtained by indirect and accidental methods, while multitudes of bystanders, unless upon some extraordinary occasion, remain ignorant of or indifferent to the transaction.
Fourth Objection: Divesting our Moral Rights
Lastly, if government be founded in the consent of the people, it can have no power over any individual by whom that consent is refused. If a tacit consent be not sufficient, still less can I be deemed to have consented to a measure upon which I put an express negative. This immediately follows from the observations of Rousseau. If the people, or the individuals of whom the people is constituted, cannot delegate their authority to a representative; neither can any individual delegate his authority to a majority, in an assembly of which he is himself a member. The rules by which my actions shall be directed are matters of a consideration entirely personal; and no man can transfer to another the keeping of his conscience and the judging of his duties. But this brings us back to the point from which we set out. No consent of ours can divest us of our moral capacity [i.e., moral rights]. This is a species of property which we can neither barter nor resign; and of consequence it is impossible for any government to derive its authority from an original contract.
Source: William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793), 3.2.
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6. MORAL DUTIES AND MORAL RIGHTS
READING 1: PUFENDORF ON DUTIES REGARDING DRUNKENNESS
Samuel von Pufendorf (1632-1694) was a German jurist, political philosopher, economist, and historian. He is best known for his contributions to natural law theory and his adaptation of the views of Thomas Hobbes and Hugo Grotius. The centerpiece of Pufendorf's philosophy is that natural law theory dictates three classes of moral duties: duties to God, to oneself, and to others. In the selection below he discusses the duty we have to ourself to avoid drunkenness. He argues that we have an obligation to cultivate our talents and contribute to society, since we are not born for ourselves alone. This includes taking care of both body and soul, choosing a suitable profession, and avoiding harmful behaviors like gluttony and drunkenness. He then considers the legal and moral implications of actions committed while drunk. Drunken offenses are not excusable, he says, and may even warrant double punishment, because the person voluntarily impaired their judgment. However, promises made while intoxicated are not considered binding, unlike criminal actions. This is because there's a difference between committing a crime and entering into an obligation.
Duties to Oneself
The love of himself is so deeply fixed in the mind of man, that it always puts him under an attentitive care of himself, and has him attempt by all means to procure his own advantage. In view of this, it would seem superfluous to uncover laws that oblige him to do the same. Yet, in other respects it is necessary that he be bound to the observation of some specific rules involving himself. For man is not born for himself alone, but being therefore furnished with so many excellent endowments that he may set forth his Creator s praise, and be rendered a fit member of human society. It follows from this that it is his duty to cultivate and improve those gifts from his creator that he finds in himself, that they answer to the end of their donor. It is also his duty to contribute all that lies in his power to the benefit of human society. Thus, though it is true the ignorance of any man is his own shame and his own loss, yet we do not accuse the master of injustice, who chastises his scholar for negligence in not learning those sciences of which he is capable.
And since man consists of two parts, a soul and a body, then the first gives us the part of a director, and the other that of an instrument or subordinate minister. So, our actions are all performed by the guidance of the mind, and by the ministration of the body. We are hence obliged to take care of both, but especially the former. And that part is, above all things, to be formed and accommodated to support an adequate part of social life, and to be instilled with a sense and love of duty and decency. Then we are to devote ourselves to learning that is somewhat proper to our capacity and our condition in the world. Otherwise, we will become a useless burden to the earth, cumbersome to ourselves, and troublesome to others. And in due time we are to make choice of some honest state of life. It should be agreeable to our natural inclinations, the abilities of our body and mind, extraction, or wealth. Or it should be according as the just authority of our parents, the commands of our superiors, occasion or necessity as required.
But since the soul is supported by and dependent on the body, it is necessary that the strength of the body be continued and confirmed by convenient nourishment and exercise. And it should not be weakened by any intemperate eating or drinking, nor deliberated by unseasonable and needless labors or otherwise. For this reason, gluttony, drunkenness, the immoderate use of women, and similar things are to be avoided. Unbridled and exorbitant passions not only frequently disturb human society, but they are very harmful even to the person himself. For this reason, we ought to try our utmost to suppress them and subject them to reason. And because many dangers may be escaped if we encounter them with courage, we reject all weakness of the mind, and to be firm against all of the terrible appearances that any event may set before us.
Responsibility while Drunk
It is true indeed, that faults committed in drunkenness are not on that account excusable. Legislators have then thought fit to punish even ignorance, when the person is the cause of his own ignorance. Therefore a double penalty is usually enacted against drunken offenders. For here the excess, and consequently the ignorance, was of the man s own procuring, it being in his power to avoid them. It was one of Solon s laws, that a governor taken in drunkenness should be put to death; and Pittacus decreed, that a fault committed under this disorder should have a twofold punishment. Because, though perhaps a person while the fit is on him does not know what he does, yet in as much as he voluntarily applied himself to the use of such things as he knew would call a cloud on his understanding, he is supposed to have yielded consent to all the effects of that disorder.
Yet it will not follow from this consideration, that the promises of drunken men are obligatory, because there is great difference between committing a crime, and contracting an obligation. For since there lies an absolute prohibition against all sin, therefore men are to avoid all occasions that may probably draw them into a violation of their duty. And how many enormities drunkenness betrays a man to, is obvious to the meanest apprehension. An Action then in itself sinful, can by no means lose that character by proceeding from another sin which led and disposed a man to it. But on the other hand, since it is left to our free pleasure, whether we will contract new obligations, or no, we are not (as in the other case) bound to avoid all occasions which may render our consent imperfect and invalid. As we are not bound to decline sleeping, out of a fear that others should interpret our nodding or winking for a token of agreement to somewhat which they proposed. To this purpose, Seuton tells us a jesting piece of Knavery in Caligula. He auctioned off his superfluous gladiators; and as the auctioneer was performing the sale, Aponius Saturninus, a gentleman of the Pretorian dignity, happening to deep upon one of the benches, the Emperor commanded the auctioneer to take notice of the worthy Chapman that nodded to the price proposed. And the business was so managed, that the poor gentleman had laid out ninety thousand sesterces before he knew a word of his bargain. Therefore if drunkenness had no other ill effect, than that it made a man seem to give some indications, which at another time would imply consent, it would not on this bare account be esteemed unlawful. And since a man cannot contract an obligation by promise or pact, without agreeing to it, and at the same time understanding the business, we cannot infer his consent to such an engagement from his first consenting to make use of a thing, which would probably hinder the exercise of his reason. Especially, if we consider, that men seldom drink merely for the sake of stupefying their brain, but their general design is to comfort and cheer up their spirits; and the former effect steals upon them almost insensibly, while they unwarily prosecute the latter.
To make the difference appear more manifestly, we may add, that since the property of a crime or offence is to bring some evil upon some man, and of a promise to bring him some good, which before was not his due, and since to be positively hurt, or injured, is more odious in the eyes of common Justice, than barely not to acquire some benefit, there is much more reason why drunkenness should invalidate a promise, than why it should cancel a transgression. As for a man s being bound to pay for that useless load of wine which he pours down, after his stomach is already overcharged, and which he would refuse, were he in his senses; this obligation arises from the contract made at the first sitting down, by which he engaged himself to give the price of whatever he should drink, though he drank it to no purpose. If during this fit of sottish extravagance he is guilty of any mischievous frolics, as throwing away the liquor, destroying the vessel or the windows, and the like, he stands bound to make satisfaction by the general law of reparation of damages.
Discussion Questions
1. How does Pufendorf's view of self-love and duty to oneself compare modern concepts of self-care and personal development?
2. Pufendorf argues that we have a duty to cultivate our talents for the benefit of society. How does this challenge or support contemporary individualistic values?
3. Discuss the ethical implications of Pufendorf's assertion that ignorance is "one's own shame and loss." How might this view impact our understanding of education and personal responsibility?
4. Analyze the ethical reasoning behind Pufendorf's argument for punishing drunken offenses more severely. Is this stance justifiable in modern society?
5. Compare Pufendorf's views on the non-binding nature of promises made while intoxicated with current legal and ethical standards regarding contracts and consent.
6. How does Pufendorf's discussion of drunkenness and responsibility relate to contemporary issues such as addiction and criminal liability?
7. Evaluate the ethical implications of Pufendorf's anecdote about Caligula and the sleeping bidder. What does this story reveal about consent and exploitation?
8. Pufendorf argues that harming someone is more ethically problematic than failing to provide a benefit. Discuss the moral reasoning behind this claim and its potential applications in modern ethical dilemmas.
9. How might Pufendorf's ideas about personal responsibility and societal contribution inform current debates on social welfare, universal basic income, or other social policies?
READING 2: HUME ON DUTIES REGARDING SUICIDE
Introduction: David Hume (1711-1776) was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known for his empiricism and skepticism. Hume was neither a natural law philosopher nor duty theories, and he is most associated with utilitarianism. However, in his essay "Of Suicide" (1757), he argues that in some cases suicide violates no duty to either God, oneself or others, and thus would be justifiable. Hume s use of duty theory here indicates its widespread acceptance at the time as an argument method separate from its natural law origins. Hume argues that suicide does not violate duties to God, because human lives are subject to the same natural laws as all other parts of the universe. Since we have control over many aspects of our lives, choosing to end one's life is not an encroachment on divine authority. Regarding duties to others, Hume suggests that suicide causes minimal harm to society, since it merely ceases potential good rather than actively causing harm. He suggests that in some cases, suicide might even benefit society by relieving it of a burden or allowing resources to be used more effectively. Concerning duties to oneself, Hume argues that suicide can be consistent with self-interest, particularly when life becomes unbearable due to age, sickness, or misfortune. He believes that people only choose suicide when life is no longer worth living, given the natural human aversion to death. In some circumstances, suicide might be seen as an act of prudence or courage rather than cowardice.
Suicide and Duties to God
One considerable advantage that arises from Philosophy, consists in the sovereign antidote which it affords to superstition and false religion. All other remedies against that pestilent distemper are vain, or at least uncertain. . . . Let us here endeavor to restore men to their native liberty by examining all the common arguments against Suicide, and showing that that action may be free from every imputation of guilt or blame, according to the sentiments of all the ancient philosophers.
If Suicide be criminal, it must be a transgression of our duty either to God, our neighbor, or ourselves. To prove that suicide is no transgression of our duty to God, the following considerations may perhaps suffice.
In order to govern the material world, the almighty Creator has established general and immutable laws by which all bodies, from the greatest planet to the smallest particle of matter, are maintained in their proper sphere and function. To govern the animal world, he has endowed all living creatures with bodily and mental powers; with senses, passions, appetites, memory and judgment, by which they are impelled or regulated in that course of life to which they are destined. These two distinct principles of the material and animal world, continually encroach upon each other, and mutually retard or forward each others operations. . . .
The providence of the Deity appears not immediately in any operation, but governs everything by those general and immutable laws, which have been established from the beginning of time. All events, in one sense, may be pronounced the action of the Almighty; they all proceed from those powers with which he has endowed his creatures. A house which falls by its own weight is not brought to ruin by his providence more than one destroyed by the hands of men; nor are the human faculties less his workmanship, than the laws of motion and gravitation. When the passions play, when the judgment dictates, when the limbs obey; this is all the operation of God, and upon these animate principles, as well as upon the inanimate, has he established the government of the universe. Every event is alike important in the eyes of that infinite being, who takes in at one glance the most distant regions of space and remotest periods of time.
There is no event, however important to us, which he has exempted from the general laws that govern the universe, or which he has peculiarly reserved for his own immediate action and operation. The revolution of states and empires depends upon the smallest caprice or passion of single men; and the lives of men are shortened or extended by the smallest accident of air or diet, sunshine or tempest. Nature still continues her progress and operation; and if general laws be ever broke by particular volitions of the Deity, it is after a manner which entirely escapes human observation. As, on the one hand, the elements and other inanimate parts of the creation carry on their action without regard to the particular interest and situation of men; so men are entrusted to their own judgment and discretion, in the various shocks of matter, and may employ every faculty with which they are endowed, in order to provide for their ease, happiness, or preservation.
What is the meaning then of that principle, that a man who, tired of life, and hunted by pain and misery, bravely overcomes all the natural terrors of death and makes his escape from this cruel scene; that such a man, I say, has incurred the indignation of his Creator by encroaching on the office of divine providence, and disturbing the order of the universe? shall we assert that the Almighty has reserved to himself in any peculiar manner the disposal of the lives of men, and has not submitted that event, in common with others, to the general laws by which the universe is governed? This is plainly false; the lives of men depend upon the same laws as the lives of all other animals; and these are subjected to the general laws of matter and motion. The fall of a tower, or the infusion of a poison, will destroy a man equally with the meanest creature; an inundation sweeps away everything without distinction that comes within the reach of its fury. Since therefore the lives of men are forever dependant on the general laws of matter and motion, is a man's disposing of his life criminal, because in every case it is criminal to encroach upon these laws, or disturb their operation? But this seems absurd; all animals are entrusted to their own prudence and skill for their conduct in the world, and have full authority, as far as their power extends, to alter all the operations of nature. Without the exercise of this authority they could not subsist a moment; every action, every motion of a man, innovates on the order of some parts of matter, and diverts from their ordinary course the general laws of motion.
Putting together, therefore, these conclusions, we find that human life depends upon the general laws of matter and motion, and that it is no encroachment on the office of providence to disturb or alter these general laws: Has not everyone, of consequence, the free disposal - of his own life? And may he not lawfully employ that power with which nature has endowed him? In order to destroy the evidence of this conclusion, we must show a reason, why this particular case is excepted; is it because human life is of so great importance, that it is a presumption for human prudence to dispose of it? But the life of a man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster. And were it of ever so great importance, the order of nature has actually submitted it to human prudence, and reduced us to a necessity in every incident of determining concerning it. Were the disposal of human life so much reserved as the peculiar province of the Almighty that it were an encroachment on his right, for men to dispose of their own lives; it would be equally criminal to act for the preservation of life as for its destruction. If I turn aside a stone which is falling upon my head, I disturb the course of nature, and I invade the peculiar province of the Almighty by lengthening out my life beyond the period which by the general laws of matter and motion he had assigned it.
A hair, a fly, an insect is able to destroy this mighty being whose life is of such importance. Is it an absurdity to suppose that human prudence may lawfully dispose of what depends on such insignificant causes? It would be no crime in me to divert the Nile or Danube from its course, were I able to effect such purposes. Where then is the crime of turning a few ounces of blood from their natural channel? . . . When I fall upon my own sword, therefore, I receive my death equally from the hands of the Deity as if it had proceeded from a lion, a precipice, or a fever. The submission which you require to providence, in every calamity that befalls me, excludes not human skill and industry, if possibly by their means I can avoid or escape the calamity: And why may I not employ one remedy as well as another? . . . It is impious, says the old Roman superstition, to divert rivers from their course, or invade the prerogatives of nature. It is impious, says the French superstition, to inoculate for the small-pox, or usurp the business of providence, by voluntarily producing distempers and maladies. It is impious, says the modern European superstition, to put a period to our own life, and thereby rebel against our creator; and why not impious, say I, to build houses, cultivate the ground, or sail upon the ocean? In all these actions we employ our powers of mind and body, to produce some innovation in the course of nature; and in none of them do we any more. They are all of them therefore equally innocent, or equally criminal. . . .
It is a kind of blasphemy to imagine that any created being can disturb the order of the world or invade the business of providence! It supposes, that that Being possesses powers and faculties, which it received not from its creator, and which are not subordinate to his government and authority. A man may disturb society no doubt, and thereby incur the displeasure of the Almighty: But the government of the world is placed far beyond his reach and violence. And how does it appear that the Almighty is displeased with those actions that disturb society? By the principles which he has implanted in human nature, and which inspire us with a sentiment of remorse if we ourselves have been guilty of such actions, and with that of blame and disapprobation, if we ever observe them in others. Let us now examine, according to the method proposed, whether Suicide be of this kind of actions, and be a breach of our duty to our neighbor and to society.
Suicide and Duties to Others
A man, who retires from life, does no harm to society: He only ceases to do good; which, if it is an injury, is of the lowest kind. All our obligations to do good to society seem to imply something reciprocal. I receive the benefits of society and therefore ought to promote its interests, but when I withdraw myself altogether from society, can I be bound any longer? But, allowing that our obligations to do good were perpetual, they have certainly some bounds; I am not obliged to do a small good to society at the expense of a great harm to myself; why then should I prolong a miserable existence, because of some frivolous advantage which the public may perhaps receive from me? If upon account of age and infirmities I may lawfully resign any office, and employ my time altogether in fencing against these calamities, and alleviating as much as possible the miseries of my future life: Why may I not cut short these miseries at once by an action which is no more prejudicial to society? But suppose that it is no longer in my power to promote the interest of society; suppose that I am a burthen to it; suppose that my life hinders some person from being much more useful to society. In such cases my resignation of life must not only be innocent but laudable. And most people who lie under any temptation to abandon existence, are in some such situation; those, who have health, or power, or authority, have commonly better reason to be in humor with the world.
A man is engaged in a conspiracy for the public interest; is seized upon suspicion; is threatened with the rack; and knows from his own weakness that the secret will be extorted from him: Could such a one consult the public interest better than by putting a quick period to a miserable life? This was the case of the famous and brave Strozi of Florence. Again, suppose a malefactor is justly condemned to a shameful death; can any reason be imagined, why he may not anticipate his punishment, and save himself all the anguish of thinking on its dreadful approaches? He invades the business of providence no more than the magistrate did, who ordered his execution; and his voluntary death is equally advantageous to society by ridding it of a pernicious member.
Suicide and Duties to Oneself
That suicide may often be consistent with interest and with our duty to ourselves, no one can question, who allows that age, sickness, or misfortune may render life a burden, and make it worse even than annihilation. I believe that no man ever threw away life, while it was worth keeping. For such is our natural horror of death, that small motives will never be able to reconcile us to it; and though perhaps the situation of a man's health or fortune did not seem to require this remedy, we may at least be assured, that anyone who, without apparent reason, has had recourse to it, was cursed with such an incurable depravity or gloominess of temper as must poison all enjoyment, and render him equally miserable as if he had been loaded with the most grievous misfortunes. If suicide be supposed a crime, it is only cowardice can impel us to it. If it be no crime, both prudence and courage should engage us to rid ourselves at once of existence, when it becomes a burden. It is the only way that we can then be useful to society, by setting an example, which, if imitated, would preserve to everyone his chance for happiness in life and would effectually free him from all danger or misery.
Discussion Questions:
1. What is the weakest argument that Hume gives for the morality of suicide?
2. What is the strongest argument that Hume gives for the morality of suicide?
3. In his discussion of duties to God, Hume seems to be constructing a theory of natural law. What might that be and how would it differ from Aquinas's or Pufendorfs?
4. What are the potential implications of Hume's claim that human life is of "no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster"?
5. How does Hume's view on suicide relate to modern debates about euthanasia and assisted suicide?
6. What are the potential societal consequences if Hume's views on suicide were widely accepted?
7. How might Hume's arguments about suicide be applied to contemporary issues surrounding bodily autonomy and personal choice?
READING 3: KANT ON DUTIES TO ANIMALS (Lectures on Ethics)
Introduction: Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) among the foremost German philosophers of the modern period, and his writings in epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics greatly influenced subsequent philosophy. In the selection below, Kant argues that we do not have direct duties towards animals, but only indirect ones. Kant claims that animals are not self-conscious, and can be used for human purposes: they have only instrumental value and but no intrinsic value. We thus have no direct moral obligations to animals. However, Kant argues, the way that we treat animals has an impact on how we treat fellow humans; for example, if I torture an animal, this may desensitize me towards suffering in general, and I might then start torturing human beings. For Kant, it is wrong to torture animals because of the potential impact on human beings, not because of the suffering that this causes animals themselves. Our obligation toward animals, then, is indirect since it derives from human interests alone.
Animals are not self-conscious; they are there only as a means to an end, and man is that end. I cannot ask, "Why does man exist?" but I can ask this of animals. Accordingly, we have no duties directly towards animals, but instead our duties to them are indirect duties towards humanity. Animals bear an analogy to human nature. We then observe duties to humanity when we observe duties towards those analogies, and we indirectly carry out our duties towards humanity. If, for instance, a dog has faithfully served his master for a long time, then there is an analogy of merit, and so I have to reward the dog when he can no longer be used to obtain that end. Through this, I further my duty to humanity, especially for things that are obligatory. Thus, if the actions of animals originate from the same principle as give arise to the actions of men, and the animal bears an analogy, then we have duties towards animals that thereby transfer to humanity. So if someone shoots his dog because it can no longer earn its keep, he does not act contrary to duty to the dog, because the dog has no judgment. However, he has injured the kindness and humanity in himself, which he has a duty to exercise with respect to mankind. So that man may not obliterate this duty, he must practice kindness even to animals, because the person who exercises such cruelties against animals is also hardened against men. You may know the human heart in view of treatment towards animals.
Thus, Hogarth shows in his engravings the beginning of cruelty [i.e., The Four Stages of Cruelty ]. Children already practice it against animals, for instance, by pinching a dog or cat's tail. In another of his pieces cruelty progresses where a man runs over a child, and finally ends in a cruel act of murder. He thereby shows the awful reward of cruelty, which is good advice for children. The more one sees animals and observes their behavior, the more he loves animals, particularly when seeing how much they take care of their young. Then you cannot think of being cruel even to the wolf. Leibniz, after observing a worm, put it and its leaf back on the tree for fear that the worm might come to harm through his own fault. It makes us feel sorry to destroy such a creature for no reason. This gentleness shifts over to people. In England, no butcher, surgeon or physician can be one the 12 jurors because they are desensitized to death. It is indeed cruel for anatomists to use living animals in experiments, even though it is conducted for a good purpose. This is justified since animals are considered the instruments of people, but this is not so with sports. When a man rejects his dog or ass because it can no longer earn its keep, it always shows a very small mind in its master. The Greeks were noble in this way, which is proved by the story of the donkey, who accidentally pulled the bell of ingratitude. So our duties towards animals are indirect duties towards humanity.
Discussion questions:
1. Kant argues that humans have no direct duties to animals, but only indirect duties to humanity through their treatment of animals. Do you find this reasoning convincing?
2. How does Kant's view that cruelty to animals can lead to cruelty towards humans challenge or support modern ethical arguments for animal rights?
3. Kant uses the analogy between animals and human nature to justify treating animals humanely. Is this analogy sufficient to explain why we should not be cruel to animals, or does it fall short of a full ethical justification? Explain your reasoning.
4. Kant criticizes cruelty toward animals not because it harms animals themselves, but because it harms the kindness and humanity in the person who acts cruelly. Can this approach be extended to other ethical issues, such as environmental responsibility or interpersonal relationships?
5. Kant mentions the influence of cruelty toward animals on human behavior and refers to Hogarth's engravings depicting the stages of cruelty. How might this relate to contemporary debates about the impact of violent media on human conduct?
READING 4: UNITED NATIONS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Introduction: Just as in the eighteenth-century, rights theory today continues to have practical political applications. The most important example of this is The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, presented below, which the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted on December 10, 1948. Whereas eighteenth-century rights theorists focused on the uncreated or natural aspect of rights, thereby terming them natural rights, the Universal Declaration focuses on our particular status as humans, thereby terming them human rights. Many elements of the Universal Declaration draw on classic concepts, such as the equality of people, the inalienable nature of rights, and the fact that these rights cut across all political boundaries. However, the Universal Declaration also departs from eighteenth-century models. Unlike the eighteenth-century discussions, which articulated only a few foundational rights, the Universal Declaration lists dozens of rights. Along with rights to life, liberty and the security of person, all humans also have specific rights against enslavement, torture, arbitrary arrest, and exile. We have a cluster of rights regarding due process in prosecution, such as the presumption of innocence. We have a series of liberty rights involving the right to movement, to marry, to have a family, to divorce, to freedom of thought, and to religion practice. There are political rights to participate in genuine elections and cultural rights to develop one s personality. Economic rights include the right to work, to favorable pay, to join trade unions, and to paid holidays. We also have welfare rights to social security, to health care, to special assistance for childcare, and to free education. Although few if any countries today adequately endorse all of these rights, the Universal Declaration sees these as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations.
Preamble. Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,
Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,
Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,
Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,
Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,
Now, therefore,
The General Assembly
Proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.
Article 1. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Article 2. Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
Article 3. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of person.
Article 4. No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
Article 5. No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Article 6. Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
Article 7. All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.
Article 8. Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.
Article 9. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
Article 10. Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair, and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.
Article 11. 1. Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence. 2. No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.
Article 12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Article 13. 1. Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State. 2. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
Article 14. 1. Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution. 2. This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
Article 15. 1. Everyone has the right to a nationality. 2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
Article 16. 1. Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution. 2. Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses. 3. The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.
Article 17. 1. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. 2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
Article 18. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Article 19. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Article 20. 1. Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association. 2. No one may be compelled to belong to an association.
Article 21. 1. Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives. 2. Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country. 3. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.
Article 22. Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.
Article 23. 1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. 2. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. 3. Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. 4. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
Article 24. Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.
Article 25. 1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. 2. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
Article 26. 1. Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit. 2. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace. 3. Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.
Article 27. 1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits. 2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.
Article 28. Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.
Article 29. 1. Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible. 2. In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society. 3. These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
Article 30. Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.
Source: General Assembly of the United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948).
Discussion questions:
1. A standard distinction in political philosophy is that between natural rights and legal rights (where the former are not created by governments but the latter are). Are the rights listed in the Universal Declaration intended to be natural rights or legal rights? Discuss, with particular attention to the Preamble.
2. Are there rights included in the Universal Declaration that should be removed, and are there others that are missing and should be added?
3. Article 18 discusses freedom of thought, conscience and religion. The human rights organization Amnesty International has attempted to get the United Nations to expand article 18 to include a specific acknowledgement of pacifism as a choice, that is, the right to refuse to kill others. Should this be included?
4. Article 23 states that Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests. Do you agree that this is a universal human right? Explain.
5. Article 24 states that Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay. Do you agree that this is a universal human right? Explain.
6. Discuss the three features of education rights in article 26, and indicate whether you agree with the goal of those rights.
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9. EGOISM VS. ALTRUISM
READING 1: MANDEVILLE'S FABLE OF THE BEES
Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733) was an Anglo-Dutch philosopher, political economist, satirist, and physician, best known for his work "The Fable of the Bees." Born in Rotterdam, he spent most of his life in England, where he wrote extensively in English. Bernard Mandeville's "The Fable of the Bees" illustrates a thriving bee community that collapses when the bees decide to live virtuously and honestly. Private vices, such as greed and selfishness, inadvertently contribute to public benefits like economic prosperity. Mandeville wrote his fable in rhymed poetry; below is a paraphrase in prose.
Once upon a time, in a grand hive buzzing with bees, the inhabitants led lives of comfort and pleasure, excelling in both law and combat. The hive was a bustling center of science, craftsmanship, and industry, filled with more bees than any other hive. These bees lived much like humans, with kings and laws to guide them, but their leaders could only rule within the limits set by law, keeping them from abuse of power.
The bees did all the things humans do working, trading, governing, even scheming though their miniature actions often escaped human notice. Some bees grew wealthy with ease, while others toiled daily with little reward. But all had roles to play, whether they were laborers, warriors, artisans, or servants of the law. In fact, the hive was so well-organized that each bee depended on the work of others, even though they often worked against each other s interests.
Many bees engaged in mysterious trades requiring little training or investment but plenty of daring. Swindlers, cheats, flatterers, and fortune-tellers thrived. These bees were deemed dishonest, yet beneath the labels, even the most honest trades held their share of deceit. No job was untouched by fraud. Lawyers, for instance, made their living by crafting arguments that dragged disputes out longer than necessary, making cases even when unnecessary, purely for the fees.
Physicians in the hive valued their reputation and earnings above their patients health. They performed with solemn faces and somber words, caring more about gaining favor with midwives and nurses than genuinely treating their patients. Some bees served the gods, and among them were the learned and devoted few. But many priests, ignorant and self-indulgent, hid their vices behind religious garb and language.
The soldiers, sent into battle, gained honor if they returned. Some fought bravely, while others avoided the fight and still earned rewards. Many of those tasked with serving the king found ways to enrich themselves at the crown s expense. They talked about honesty while pocketing hidden perks. Each bee chased wealth, carefully hiding their true earnings.
Justice, though supposedly blind, often lost her impartiality when tempted with gold. Her judgments seemed harsher on the poor, while wealthier wrongdoers escaped severe punishment. Crimes that secured the comfort of the rich fell lightly, while those committed out of desperation faced harsh judgment. Thus, vice thrived at every level, but these very vices brought prosperity to the hive. Their success in both peace and war made them envied by others, and their riches seemed boundless.
Despite these moral failings, the hive continued to prosper. Envy and greed were productive forces, feeding the hive s economy, while vanity and pride fueled industry. Fickle tastes in fashion and luxury kept trade alive, constantly demanding new things. Laws and fashions changed so often that new rules and customs had to be invented, each one seemingly an improvement over the last. And by this constant change, they grew more and more ingenious, bringing greater ease and comfort to their lives, to the point that even the poorest among them lived better than the rich had in the past.
The bees might have been content with their lives, but they remained restless, quick to curse each perceived failure of their leaders, soldiers, and trades. Every bee criticized corruption, even those who profited by it, casting blame on others but overlooking their own faults. Some of the wealthiest bees, who had cheated everyone to amass fortunes, were the loudest in condemning others. Their hypocrisy seemed boundless.
Finally, the god Jupiter grew tired of their complaints and hypocrisy. He decided to rid the hive of its corruption and did so by filling every bee s heart with honesty. Suddenly, the bees began to see their own vices as ugly stains, blushing with shame. They no longer dared to cheat each other and grew mortified by their past behavior.
This change brought about an astonishing transformation. The hive, so prosperous in its dishonesty, now faced a grim reality. As prices dropped, the luxurious marketplace vanished. Every bee, freed from selfish pursuits, worked only for the bare necessities. Lawyers left in droves, as no one would engage in frivolous disputes. Justice herself retired, along with her jailers, as no crimes were left to punish. Doctors and priests, previously drawn to vanity and wealth, left only the genuinely skilled to treat the hive s few remaining needs. Without the demand for their trades, most departed, leaving the hive almost deserted.
The hive s economy collapsed. The industries that once depended on envy, greed, and pride dried up as honesty overtook every bee. No one strove for luxury, nor sought to outshine their neighbors. Without the engine of vice, the hive no longer needed the vast armies of workers it once employed. They had chased away their old sins, but with them went their wealth and power.
In the end, honesty drained the hive of its former glory. No longer a bustling metropolis, it became a quiet, modest place, stripped of its grandeur.
Discussion questions:
1. How might the fable of the bees be seen as a defense of ethical egoism, that is, the moral theory that each person ought to pursue their own self-interests?
2. In the story, vices like greed, pride, and ambition sustain the hive s success. How does this depiction challenge the traditional view of virtue as essential to a healthy society? Can vice be ethically justified if it leads to societal prosperity?
3. If vices promote societal success, should society embrace a certain level of selfishness and vice? Can vices be seen as morally neutral or even necessary in specific contexts?
4. What are some real-world examples where doing the right thing may seem to conflict with a community s prosperity?
5. In the fable, corruption among professionals sustains the hive. Should we excuse corruption if it contributes to society's overall well-being, or does this undermine a just society?
6. How would we know if such corrupt behavior indeed does contribute toe society's overall well-being?
7. Would the bees' actions be more moral if they aimed to benefit others rather than simply seeking profit?
8. The hive thrives on vices like vanity and greed. In what ways do vices play a constructive role in real-world societies? Are there ethical limits to how much vice we should tolerate, even if it s beneficial?
READING 2: BENTHAM ON CALCULATING LONG-TERM SELF-INTEREST
Introduction: Jeremy Bentham is a founder of the classic utilitarian view that morality is determined by calculating the pleasure and pain that results from an action as everyone is affected. In the selection below, he explains how our long-term egoistic interests will maximize general happiness. Using the example of drunkenness, he states that people are naturally inclined to seek immediate pleasure and avoid immediate pain. However, reason enables individuals to weigh the short-term pleasures of intoxication against its long-term consequences, such as health problems, financial losses, harm to loved ones, damaged reputation, and legal or moral punishments. By recognizing these costs, a person can see that avoiding excess is both rational and virtuous. Bentham s utilitarian aims to maximize happiness by helping individuals make informed choices. It does not reject self-interest but emphasizes prudent decisions that consider future consequences. True self-regard, he claims, requires factoring in how one s actions affect others, as harm to others often rebounds negatively. For instance, while pride or vanity might provide personal satisfaction, it can cause pain to others, which must be included in any moral calculation. According to Bentham, contends that self-interest, when properly enlightened, leads to virtuous behavior. Bentham argues that, by creating new opportunities for pleasure and reduce unnecessary suffering, we can increase overall happiness, not just redistribute the happiness that already exists.
Cost-Benefit Analysis of Drunkenness
Nature, artless and untutored nature, engages man in the pursuit of immediate pleasure, and in the avoidance of immediate pain. What reason can effect is to prevent the sacrifice of a greater distant pleasure, or the visitation of a greater distant pain in exchange for those which are present; in other words, to prevent a miscalculation in the amount of happiness. In this, too, consists the whole of virtue, which is but the sacrifice of a smaller present satisfaction, in the shape of a temptation, to a satisfaction of greater magnitude, but more remote, which is, in fact, a recompense. What can be done for morality, in the field of self-interest, is to show how much a man s own happiness depends upon himself, how much on the effects his conduct produces in the breasts of those with whom he is connected by the ties of mutual sympathy; how much the interest which others feel in his happiness, and how much the desire to promote it depend on his own doings. Suppose a man wedded to intoxication. He will be taught to consider and weigh the amount of pleasure and pain growing out of his conduct. He will view, on one side, the intensity and the duration of the pleasurable excitement. This will be the account on the side of profit, ^er contra, he will be led to estimate 1. Sickness and other effects prejudicial to health. 2. Future contingent pains, growing out of probable debility and disease. 3. The loss of time and the loss of money, and these in proportion to the value of time and money in his individual case. 4. The pain produced in the minds of those who are dear to him; as, for instance, a parent, a wife, a child. 5. The disrepute attached to the practice; the loss of reputation in the eyes of others. 6. The risk of legal punishment, and the disgrace attaching to it; as when the public exhibition of that temporary insanity, produced by intoxication, is visited by the laws. 7. The risk of punishments attached to crimes which a man is liable to commit while gratifying the propensity to inebriety. 8. The misery produced by apprehension of punishment in a future state of being.
All these will probably lead him to discover that he purchases the pleasures of intoxication at too great a cost. He will see that morality, which is virtue, and happiness, which is self-interest, counsel him to avoid excess. He has the same motive to subdue his intemperate propensities that a man has, who, in the pursuit of wealth, can choose between gaining much and gaining little. Deontology asks no ultimate sacrifice; her lessons propose a balance of enjoyment to the man with whom she reasons. He is in search of pleasure; she encourages him in the search, she allows it to be wise, honorable, and virtuous; but she entreats him not to err by an erroneous arithmetic; she represents a futurity, a probably adjacent futurity, with its pleasures and pains. She asks whether the enjoyment which is taken to-day will not have to be repaid to-morrow, or the day after, with usurious and intolerable interest. She implores that the same prudent calculation which every wise man applies to his daily concerns, may be applied to the most important of all concerns, those of felicity and misery. Deontology professes no scorn for that very selfishness to which vice itself appeals. She surrenders every point which cannot be proved to be beneficial to the individual. She consents even to set aside the code of the lawgiver and the dogmas of the divine. She takes for granted that these cannot be unfriendly to her influences, that neither legislation nor religion are hostile to morality; and she insists that morality shall not be opposed to happiness. Make out to her a case against human felicity, and she is smitten with silence and with helplessness. She acknowledges that even the drunkard is proposing to himself a proper end; but she is able to show him that his end will not be accomplished by drunkenness. She assumes nothing but that which no man will deny namely, that all men wish to be happy. She has no purpose to answer by despotic dogmatizing. Her mission is to invite to a sober reckoning of good and evil. She has no interest in this or that course of action, in one result or another, but in so far as there is to be something of happiness abstracted from the whole. All that^ she proposes is to put a bridle upon precipitancy, to prevent rashness from taking irrevocable steps, and entering upon foolish bargains. She has no quarrel with any species of pleasure which does not associate itself with a more than counterbalancing portion of pain.
Utilitarian Deontology Shows whether Selfish Pursuits Benefit or Harm one in the Long Run
In a word, she ministers to selfishness, and, like a wise and active steward, makes the most of every man s rent-roll of felicity.
But she is not blind nor thoughtless. She knows that the present will soon be the past, and that the opinions of this hour will be modified by the experience of the next. Hence she desires that the important element of that which it to be may not be left out of the calculation of that which is. The teaching is Weigh everything, weigh everything well that belongs to the bargain. Make the most of what is given you to enjoy now; but if suffering is behind, if enjoyments greater than those you are grasping are to be surrendered, as the payment for them, where is your prudence? If, for the purchase of the enjoyment you covet, you inflict pain upon others greater than your enjoyment, where is your benevolence? And if, from the infliction of that pain upon others, they retaliate on you with interest, or abstract from your enjoyments a greater sum than that of which you deprived them, where, again, is your prudence?
In fact, the self-esteem which takes not into account anything future, has as little in it of prudence as of benevolence. It is truly the killing the goose for the golden egg. Myself, is but the cry of insensibility to happiness or unhappiness from external sources; and insensibility to the pressure of evil is a clear advantage to its possessor, provided that insensibility brings with it no re-action from others.
Phocion s self-esteem lessened his sense of his own misfortune. There was no benevolence, no courtesy in his representing himself as an object of greater admiration to his fellow-sufferer than his fellow-sufferer was to himself. This was mere arrogance.
Vitellius s self-esteem led him to demand respect, because he had possessed the highest portion of prosperity. If that consoled him, so much the better for him, and nothing the worse for others.
But self-regarding prudence is not only a virtue it is a virtue on which the very existence of the race depends. If I thought more about you than I thought about myself, I should be the blind leading the blind, and we should fall into the ditch together. It is as impossible that your pleasures should be better to me than my own, as that your eyesight should be better to me than my own. My happiness and my unhappiness are as much a part of me as any of my faculties or organs, and I might as well profess to feel your toothache more keenly than you do, as to be more interested in your well-being than in my own well-being.
There are, however, many who so exaggerate the selfish principle as to think that, by swelling their notions of themselves, they are still serving their race.
But how? Does a man s pride or vanity make others happier? If so, there is double gain. We have got hold of a pleasure, and so have others. Does it not affect others, either for better or worse? Still there is a gain, for man has a pleasure in his own glorification. Does his pride or his vanity bring annoyance to the bosoms of others? There is something thrown into the other scale; the calculation must be made; all the annoyances, suffered by all those who are annoyed, must be added together, and weighed against the pleasures of the man s pride or vanity. It will be, perhaps, found that the annoyances caused to others are proportioned to the intensity of his own self-gratification. It is clear that, in such a case, the balance will be increased in proportion.
Utilitarian Deontology Solves Moral Problems
The sun of Deontology irradiates the adjacent regions of prudence and benevolence. By it light is substituted to darkness, order to chaos. It solves all intricate problems, and all perplexing difficulties vanish before it. By it alone can be traced out the affinities, from it alone can be deduced the relations between the several classes of moral qualities; through it alone can the limits between virtue and vice be discovered. All anomalies may be reduced by it, and by it alone, to harmony and regularity. By it, and by it alone, a variety of distinctions, which have stood in an unintelligible or insulated shape, may be brought into connection or contrast. It is the spear of Ithuriel [i.e., the ability to reveal truth as it really is], by which evil and good may be detected, and made to present themselves in their own true characters.
There has been among moralists a vehement disposition to shut out the influence of the self-regarding principle from the mind. Why this reluctance to admit, as a motive, that which is and must be the strongest of all motives a man s regard for himself? Why is not self-love to be brought into the field? It is from a sort of bashfulness a disposition to consider that principle to which all the actions and passions of men owe their birth, as the partie honteuse [shameful part] of our nature.
But with the recognition of the principle, that an enlightened regard to self-interest is the best guarantee for good conduct, the knowledge and the practice of morality have undoubtedly made considerable progress, and delightful it is to trace the slow but visible march of virtue. It will lose nothing of its stability, nothing of its power, when it is discovered to be founded on interest. That interest some men will not see, and others will turn away with scorn from the contemplation of it. Declaimers would ask whether, in an age like this, which they call degenerate, a man would sacrifice his life for the benefit of his country. Yes!
There is many and many a man, who, upon such calls as have formerly met with the like obedience, would, for his country, surrender his existence with pleasure. Does it follow that, in this or in any thing else, he would act without an interest? No such thing. Nothing like it: it is not in man s nature.
And precisely the same argument holds good in man s aberrations from duty. They are the miscalculations of interest.
"There is no man doth a wrong for the wrong's sake; but thereby to purchase himself profit or pleasure." This grand truism was not hidden from Lord Bacon. His was a mind to be struck with the beauty of truth wherever it met him; but his was not an age when to pursue it to the utmost was either practicable or safe.
Yet he could not fail to draw the deduction, that if vices were upon the whole account profitable, the virtuous man would be the sinner.
We must Increase Happiness, not just Redistribute it through a Zero-Sum Fallacy
The sacrifice of interests presents itself abstractedly, as something grand and virtuous, because it is taken for granted that the pleasure one man flings away must necessarily be gathered up by another. And supposing no pleasure were lost in the transfer, and no pleasure gained, it is clear that the whole sum of happiness would continue just as it was, notwithstanding a million shillings from one possessor to another. But in the commerce of happiness, as in that of wealth, the prominent question is, how to make circulation assist production. Hence, it is no more fit to call disinterestedness a virtue in moral economy, than to call expenditure a merit in political economy. Disinterestedness may exist among the rash and the reckless; but a man disinterested on ' reflection is happily seldom to be found. Show me the man who throws away more of the elements of felicity than he creates, and I will show you a fool and a prodigal. Show me the man who deprives himself of more good than he communicates to another, and I will show you a man ignorant of the elementary arithmetic of morality.
Out of self-regarding prudence, as a primary virtue, grow temperance and continence, as secondary virtues. The breach of them brings the actor into the regions of pain; the habitual breach of them leaves a result of unhappiness, upon which the eye of prudence cannot turn without discerning the balance of suffering that is left behind.
Source: "Self-Interest, or Self-Regarding Prudence", Deontology (1834), Ch. 11.
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9. THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE
READING 1: KANT ON ABSOLUTE DUTIES
Introduction: Kant is often classified as a "moral absolutist", meaning that, for him, there are some moral obligations that should never be violated under any circumstances whatever. He calls these "unconditional duties" and contrasts them with "conditional duties" which are weaker and can be broken when they conflict with those that are unconditional and absolute. In the selections below, he mentions three such absolute duties: truth-telling, protecting the State, and not taking an innocent life. In his explanation of truth-telling, Kant discusses a famous thought experiment by French philosopher Benjamin Constant, now called the case of the inquiring murderer. Suppose a murderer was chasing a friend of mine, who I hid in my house, and the murderer asked me directly if my friend was inside. Would it be wrong for me to lie to the murderer? Kant says that it would be wrong.
The Absolute Duty to Tell the Truth
In . . . Political Reactions, by Benjamin Constant, the following passage occurs:
The moral principle that it is one's duty to speak the truth, if it were taken singly and unconditionally, would make all society impossible. We have the proof of this in the very direct consequences which have been drawn from this principle by a German philosopher [i.e., Kant himself], who goes so far as to affirm that to tell a falsehood to a murderer who asked us whether our friend, of whom he was in pursuit, had not taken refuge in our house, would be a crime.
I hereby admit that I have really said this in some place which I cannot now recollect. The French philosopher [i.e., Benjamin Constant] opposes this principle in the following manner:
It is a duty to tell the truth. The notion of duty is inseparable from the notion of right. A duty is what in one being corresponds to the right of another. Where there are no rights there are no duties. To tell the truth then is a duty, but only towards him who has a right to the truth. But no man has a right to a truth that injures others.
The primary error here lies in the statement [by Constant] that "To tell the truth is a duty, but only towards him who has a right to the truth."
It is to be remarked, first, that the expression "to have a right to the truth" is without meaning. We should rather say, a man has a right to his own truthfulness, that is, to subjective truth in his own person. For to have a right objectively to truth would mean that (as in the mine and thine generally) it depends on his will whether a given statement will be true or false, which would produce a strange logic.
Now, the first question is whether a man in cases where he cannot avoid answering Yes or No has the right to be untruthful. The second question is whether, in order to prevent a misdeed that threatens him or someone else, he is not actually bound to be untruthful in a certain statement to which an unjust compulsion forces him.
Truth in utterances that cannot be avoided is the formal duty of a man to everyone, however great the disadvantage that may arise from it to him or any other; and although by making a false statement I do no wrong to him who unjustly compels me to speak, yet I do wrong to men in general in the most essential point of duty, so that it may be called a lie (though not in the legal sense). That is, I do all in my power to bring about a state of things wherein. no statement whatever any longer finds belief, hence wherein all rights based upon agreements crumble away and lose their power, which is a wrong committed upon mankind in general.
If then we define a lie merely as an intentionally false declaration towards another man, we need not add that it must injure another; as lawyers think proper to put in their definition ("a false statement to the disadvantage of another"). For it always injures another; if not another individual, yet mankind generally, since it makes the source of justice useless.
This benevolent lie may, however, by accident become punishable even by civil laws; for, that which escapes liability to punishment only by accident may be condemned as a wrong even by external laws. For instance, if you have by a lie prevented a man who is even now planning a murder, you are legally responsible for all the consequences. But if you have strictly adhered to the truth, public justice can find no fault with you, be the unforeseen consequence what it may. It is possible that while you have honestly answered "yes" to the murderer's question, whether his intended victim is in the house, the victim may have escaped unobserved, and thus avoided the murderer, and the deed therefore have not been done. However, if you lied and said he was not in the house, and he had really escaped (though un known to you) so that the murderer met and killed him as he went, then you could be justly charged with the victim's death. For, if you had spoken the truth to the best of your knowledge, perhaps the murderer, while searching for his enemy in the house, might have been caught by the arrival of neighbors and the deed been prevented. Whoever then tells a lie, however good his intentions may be, must answer for the consequences of it, even before the civil tribunal, and must pay the penalty for them, however unforeseen they may have been. For, truthfulness is a duty that must be regarded as the basis of all duties founded on contract, and the laws of contracts would be rendered uncertain and useless if even the least exception to them were admitted.
To be truthful and honest in all statements is therefore a sacred unconditional command of reason and not to be limited by any convenience.
The Absolute Duties to Protect the State and to Not Take an Innocent Life
There is no case of [moral] necessity except in the case where an unconditional duty conflicts with a duty which though perhaps great is only conditional. For example, the question may be about preserving the State from disaster by betraying a person who stands towards another in a relation, such as that of father and son [i.e., saving the state by betraying your relative]. To save the State from harm is an unconditional duty, to save an individual is only a conditional duty, namely, provided he has not been guilty of a crime against the State. The information given to the authorities may be given with the greatest reluctance, but it is given under pressure of necessity, namely, moral necessity.
But if a shipwrecked man thrusts another from his plank to save his own life, and it is said that he had the right of necessity (that is, physical necessity) to do so, this is wholly false. For to maintain my own life is only a conditional duty (that is, if it can be done without crime), but it is an unconditional duty to not take the life of another who does not injure me, nay, does not even bring me into danger of losing it.
Source: Immanuel Kant, "On a Supposed Right to Tell Lies from Benevolent Motives" (1797), and "On the Saying "Necessity has no Law," tr. Abbott, adapted.
Discussion questions:
1. Kant argues that truth-telling is an unconditional duty. Do you find his reasoning persuasive, especially in the case of the inquiring murderer?
2. Kant criticizes Constant's claim that "to tell the truth is a duty, but only towards him who has a right to the truth." What does Kant mean when he says this concept is meaningless? Do you agree?
3. Kant suggests that even a benevolent lie undermines trust and justice for humanity as a whole. Is this potential societal harm sufficient to justify his prohibition on lying?
4. Kant states that if you lie to the murderer, you are legally responsible for any unforeseen consequences. How might this view differ from modern legal systems? Is it fair to hold someone accountable in this way?
5. How does Kant differentiate between unconditional duties (e.g., maintaining my own life) and conditional duties (e.g., saving an individual)? Do you think his prioritization is morally defensible?
READING 2: STUCKENBERG ON KANT'S EMOTIONLESS MORALITY
Introduction: In the selection below, John Henry Stuckenberg, one of Kant's early biographers, criticizes Kant's approach to morality for placing value solely in the rational choices of our free will with no regard to our emotions.
Kant declares that there is nothing good in the world, except the good will. Not only does he emphasize this, but he also gives it a strictly literal application to morality. The good will is one which acts purely from regard for the moral law; and this will alone, and not culture, nor endowments, nor emotions of any kind, makes a man good. An act may conform to the [moral] law without being moral; it is moral only when it is done for the sake of the [moral] law. If a man is honest from [legal] policy, not from regard for the [moral] law, his honesty is legal, not moral. Neither is that benevolence moral which springs from pity for the suffering, not from regard for the [moral] law, and he says in his Foundations for the Metaphysics of Morality:
It is a duty to be charitable when one can; and many souls are so sympathetic that, without any other motive of vanity or selfishness, they find an inward joy in spreading joy, and they take pleasure in the satisfaction of others as far as it is their work. But I declare that in such a case these acts, however dutiful, however lovely they may be, have no real moral worth; but they are to be classed with other inclinations, as, for instance, with the desire for honor when it agrees with what is generally beneficial and dutiful, and therefore is also honorable and deserving of praise and encouragement, but not of esteem; for the maxim lacks moral worth, which does not do such deeds from inclination, but because it is a duty to do them.
Kant supposes the case of a man who is so much absorbed in his own grief that the calamities of others do not touch him. If now he relieves others solely from duty, without any inclination, [according to Kant] "only then has the deed genuine moral worth." He seems to describe himself in the following:
Suppose nature had put but little sympathy into the heart of a person. Suppose he, an honest man, were from temperament indifferent and cold toward the sufferings of others, perhaps because he is furnished with the special gift of patience and persevering endurance with respect to his own, and also expects and even demands the same of others. Suppose nature had formed such a man (who would truly not be her worst product) not specially for a philanthropist. Would not he, nevertheless, find in himself a source of much greater worth than that which springs from a kind temperament? Certainly. Just there the worth of that character begins which is moral and without comparison the highest, namely, the character which does good from duty, not from inch nation.
Not only does he want to banish all emotions, even the higher ones, from morality, but he also fails to mediate between duty and feeling; the two are separated by a gulf which he leaves fixed and impassable. Disciples and great admirers of Kant have regarded his system as defective in this respect, and could not agree with him that the noblest feelings are a hindrance to morality. and some of the Kantian moralists, especially Schiller, have attempted to mediate between the emotions and morals, and to introduce soul as well as conscience into his cold and stern and heartless morality.
[Friedrich] Bouterwek says, "Let it be remembered that no so called "feeling-philosophy" found an entrance into Kant's cold understanding, and that all sentimentality, even the noblest, was disagreeable to him." [Friedrich] Rink says that a physician wrote to Kant in 1794: "My dear Professor! Mr. Kant's rational faith is a faith entirely free from all hope. Mr. Kant's morality is a morality entirely free from all love. The question now arises, Wherein does Mr. Kant's faith differ from the faith of devils? And in what respect does Mr. Kant's morality differ from the morality of devils?" In other letters the same [i.e., Rink] twitted him on the lack of the emotional element, and in one he says, " Animals have no reason. The absence of reason is the cause why animals cannot rejoice that there is a God, and that God is so gracious as He is. But it is a mystery to me what the cause can be that my rational brother, Immanuel Kant cannot, or will not, rejoice, just as well as I do, that God is as gracious as He is."
Source: John Henry Stuckenberg, The life of Immanuel Kant (1882).
Discussion questions
1. Kant claims that an action is only moral when done specifically for the sake of the moral law, not from personal inclination. Does this standard set an impossibly high bar for moral behavior, or does it represent a more pure form of ethical action?
2. Stuckenberg suggests that Kant creates an "impassable gulf" between duty and feeling. What are the potential strengths and weaknesses of completely separating rational moral decision-making from emotional experience?
3. Answer the physician's question: "in what respect does Mr. Kant's morality differ from the morality of devils?"
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8. UTILITARIANISM
READING 1: MILL ON HIGHER PLEASURES
Introduction: The unique feature of Mill's version of utilitarianism is his distinction between higher and lower pleasures, where higher mental pleasures are more important than lower bodily ones. He explains his position in the following selections. It may not always be easy to recognize when a pleasure that we pursue is a higher or lower one, but he offers a procedure for distinguishing between the two, and explains further that the underlying source of higher pleasures is our human sense of dignity. He also discusses why people often reject higher mental pleasures in favor of lower bodily ones.
Higher and Lower Pleasures
The creed which accepts, as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure. To give a clear view of the moral standard set up by the theory, much more requires to be said; in particular, what things it includes in the ideas of pain and pleasure, and to what extent this is left an open question. But these supplementary explanations do not affect the theory of life on which this theory of morality is grounded namely, that pleasure and freedom from pain are the only things desirable as ends; and that all desirable things (which are as numerous in the utilitarian as in any other scheme) are desirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain.
Now, such a theory of life excites in many minds (and among them in some of the most estimable in feeling and purpose) inveterate dislike. To suppose that life has (as they express it) no higher end than pleasure no better and nobler object of desire and pursuit they designate as utterly mean and groveling; as a doctrine worthy only of swine, to whom the followers of Epicurus were, at a very early period, contemptuously likened. And modern holders of the doctrine are occasionally made the subject of equally polite comparisons by its German, French, and English assailants.
When thus attacked, the Epicureans have always answered, that it is not they, but their accusers, who represent human nature in a degrading light, since the accusation supposes human beings to be capable of no pleasures except those of which swine are capable. If this supposition were true, the charge could not be gainsaid, but would then be no longer an imputation; for, if the sources of pleasure were precisely the same to human beings and to swine, the rule of life which is good enough for the one would be good enough for the other. The comparison of the Epicurean life to that of beasts is felt as degrading, precisely because a beast's pleasures do not satisfy a human being's conceptions of happiness. Human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites; and, when once made conscious of them, do not regard anything as happiness which does not include their gratification. I do not indeed consider the Epicureans to have been by any means faultless in drawing out their scheme of consequences from the utilitarian principle. To do this in any sufficient manner, many Stoic as well as Christian elements require to be included. But there is no known Epicurean theory of life which does not assign to the pleasures of the intellect, of the feelings and imagination, and of the moral sentiments, a much higher value as pleasures than to those of mere sensation. It must be admitted, however, that utilitarian writers in general have placed the superiority of mental over bodily pleasures chiefly in the greater permanency, safety, uncostliness, etc., of the former that is, in their circumstantial advantages rather than in their intrinsic nature. And, on all these points, utilitarians have fully proved their case; but they might have taken the other, and, as it may be called, higher ground, with entire consistency. It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognize the fact that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others. It would be absurd that (while in estimating all other things, quality is considered as well as quantity) the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to depend on quantity alone.
The Test for Higher Pleasures and the Sense of Dignity
If I am asked, what I mean by difference of quality in pleasures, or what makes one pleasure more valuable than another (merely as a pleasure, except its being greater in amount) there is but one possible answer. Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure. If one of the two is, by those who are competently acquainted with both, placed so far above the other that they prefer it, even though knowing it to be attended with a greater amount of discontent, and would not resign it for any quantity of the other pleasure which their nature is capable of, we are justified in ascribing to the preferred enjoyment a superiority in quality, so far outweighing quantity as to render it, in comparison, of small account.
Now it is an unquestionable fact that those who are equally acquainted with, and equally capable of appreciating and enjoying both, do give a most marked preference to the manner of existence which employs their higher faculties. Few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals, for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's pleasures. No intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base, even though they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs. They would not resign what they possess more than he for the most complete satisfaction of all the desires which they have in common with him. If they ever fancy they would, it is only in cases of unhappiness so extreme, that to escape from it they would exchange their lot for almost any other, however undesirable in their own eyes. A being of higher faculties requires more to make him happy, is capable probably of more acute suffering, and certainly accessible to it at more points, than one of an inferior type. But in spite of these liabilities, he can never really wish to sink into what he feels to be a lower grade of existence.
We may give what explanation we please of this unwillingness. We may attribute it to pride, a name which is given indiscriminately to some of the most and to some of the least estimable feelings of which mankind are capable. We may refer it to the love of liberty and personal independence, an appeal to which was with the Stoics one of the most effective means for the inculcation of it; to the love of power, or to the love of excitement, both of which do really enter into and contribute to it. But its most appropriate appellation is a sense of dignity, which all human beings possess in one form or other, and in some (though by no means in exact) proportion to their higher faculties, and which is so essential a part of the happiness of those in whom it is strong, that nothing which conflicts with it could be, otherwise than momentarily, an object of desire to them. Whoever supposes that this preference takes place at a sacrifice of happiness that the superior being, in anything like equal circumstances, is not happier than the inferior confounds the two very different ideas of happiness and content. It is indisputable, that the being whose capacities of enjoyment are low has the greatest chance of having them fully satisfied. And a highly endowed being will always feel that any happiness which he can look for, as the world is constituted, is imperfect. But he can learn to bear its imperfections, if they are at all bearable; and they will not make him envy the being who is indeed unconscious of the imperfections, but only because he feels not at all the good which those imperfections qualify. 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 are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.
Why People Reject Higher Pleasures
It may be objected that many who are capable of the higher pleasures, occasionally (under the influence of temptation) postpone them to the lower. But this is quite compatible with a full appreciation of the intrinsic superiority of the higher. Men often, from infirmity of character, make their election for the nearer good, though they know it to be the less valuable, and this no less when the choice is between two bodily pleasures than when it is between bodily and mental. They pursue sensual indulgences to the injury of health, though perfectly aware that health is the greater good. It may be further objected, that many who begin with youthful enthusiasm for everything noble, as they advance in years sink into indolence and selfishness. But I do not believe that those who undergo this very common change voluntarily choose the lower description of pleasures in preference to the higher. I believe that before they devote themselves exclusively to the one, they have already become incapable of the other. Capacity for the nobler feelings is in most natures a very tender plant, easily killed, not only by hostile influences, but by mere want of sustenance; and, in the majority of young persons, it speedily dies away if the occupations to which their position in life has devoted them, and the society into which it has thrown them, are not favorable to keeping that higher capacity in exercise. Men lose their high aspirations as they lose their intellectual tastes, because they have not time or opportunity for indulging them; and they addict themselves to inferior pleasures, not because they deliberately prefer them, but because they are either the only ones to which they have access, or the only ones which they are any longer capable of enjoying. It may be questioned, whether any one, who has remained equally susceptible to both classes of pleasures, ever knowingly and calmly preferred the lower; though many in all ages have broken down in an ineffectual attempt to combine both. . . .
READING 2: LESLIE ON UTILITARIANISM
Introduction: The following selection by Irish economist Thomas Edward Cliffe Leslie (1825-1882) discusses objections to Mill's version of utilitarianism. Leslie first maintains that the common objections to utilitarianism fail, and he shows how utilitarians might respond to various counter-examples. Second, however, he argues that utilitarianism ultimately fails because it cannot successfully function as a one-size-fits all formula for determining moral value. Rather, increasing happiness or usefulness is only one of many things that are valuable. Moral progress, he maintains, is one of our most cherished values, and is even more valuable to us than utilitarian happiness.
Failure of Common Objections to Utilitarianism
The common objections to the doctrine [of Utilitarianism] must, in fairness, be admitted to be weak.
For example: when [French philosopher] M. Victor Cousin says that the ideas of justice and expediency [i.e., benefit] if they often go together are sometimes opposed, he instances the answer of Aristides to the proposal of Themistocles, to burn the ships of the allies in the port of Athens to secure supremacy to the Athenian State. "The project would be expedient [i.e., beneficial for Athens]," said Aristides; "but it is unjust." The Utilitarian denies that it would have been expedient, even for the interests of the Athenians themselves, [since it would serve] to establish a precedent for treachery toward confiding neighbors and friends, and to make the citizen of Athens, wheresoever he went, the object of suspicion, retaliation, and cunning and cruel surprises.
Or, again, when it is argued that a piece of furniture, or any other inanimate object, may be useful, yet that no one ascribes to it moral rectitude or virtue, and that it follows, that intention and not utility is the criterion of morality, the Utilitarian fairly replies that things without feeling are not fit objects, however useful, for gratitude or indignation, for reward or punishment, because they cannot feel either, and neither is therefore expedient; because such things tend to do harm as well as good, to hurt or inconvenience as well as to do service; and because no praise or censure bestowed upon senseless matter tends to make the class to which it belongs contribute to the happiness of life. In the Utilitarian estimate intention is of great importance, because of its consequences or tendencies.
The Utilitarian blames a small act of malignity [i.e., cruelty], not in proportion only to the actual pain it causes, but to the general mischiefs to which malignity tends. He does not, on the other hand, blame a person who sets fire to a house by reading in bed, as he does an incendiary [i.e., an arsonist]; because the general tendency of midnight study is wholly different from that of vindictiveness and treachery; and because, again, the reader in bed is not so likely to burn the house by accident as the person who tries to do so of malice intent. Yet the former is blamed according to the doctrine of utility, and blamed just in proportion to the probability that his negligence will do harm: if he reads by a perfectly safe light, he is not blamed at all.
Or take a higher example. "At the cavalry combat at El Bodon, a French officer raised his sword to strike Sir Felton Harvey, of the 14th Light Dragoons; but, perceiving that his antagonist had only one arm, he stopped, brought down his sword before Sir Felton in the usual salute, and rode on." Was this proceeding right or wrong? The first duty of a citizen is to his country, and of an officer to his army. War, too, is not a duel, and the combat ants do not measure their swords. Sir Felton Harvey had not lost his head, and the head of an officer is more dangerous to an enemy in battle than his arm. The Frenchman, therefore, ought, it seems, to have cut him down. Yet the Utilitarian would admit that the magnanimous [i.e., generous] intention alters the character of the act, because it is of supreme importance to human happiness that a spirit should exist among the strong to spare the weak, and that even enemies should show mercy and courtesy to each other.
Take yet another case. It has been argued that the negroes in America are happier as slaves than as free laborers, and, therefore, upon Utilitarian principles, slavery is not a crime. [Let's set aside the obvious fact] . . . that a view of slavery which looks only at the slave at play instead of at work (that is, in his moments of liberty, so far as it goes), supplies evidence only [i.e., entirely] in favor of liberty. . . . [Nevertheless, a] just Utilitarian estimate of slavery includes not only the consequences of oppression and debasement to the slave, but also the consequences to his master of the possession of tyrannical power and ill-gotten gain, and the consequences to the world at large of an empire being founded on the principle that the strong may lawfully trample on the weak.
Moral Progress more Valuable than Utility
Every step in the progress of civilization has by no means been attended by an increase of human happiness; yet the step was a thing desirable in itself, irrespective of ultimate ends. . . . If the good man would not choose the lower and more animal life, however pleasant, either for himself or for mankind, does it not seem that the summum bonum [i.e., highest moral good] and the aim and end of virtue is what disciplines and ennobles humanity, and elevates it more and more above the condition of the brute, rather than what may serve to annihilate most pains and provide most pleasures? Is not the progressive improvement of living creatures the best purpose the world seems to contain or disclose?
The chief quality in the character of virtue is, in truth, not usefulness, but excellence, rarity, nobleness. If all men were benevolent, and equally so, benevolence would not be thought of as a virtue. The pecuniary value of things in the market depends, not on their utility, but on their comparative scarcity, difficulty of attainment, and superiority; and so the moral worth of actions and qualities is estimated by their rare and peculiar merit and extraordinary dignity and sublimity, rather than their pleasure-giving effects. What we most admire in man is what sets him above the brute; and what we most' admire and approve in men is ascent above their fellow-men in. intellectual and moral rank; and these sentiments of admiration and esteem supply ample motives to sacrifice pleasure to improvement, and tend to make the standard or criterion of virtue the tendency to elevate and ennoble human nature rather than to promote the happiness of human life. . .
But different theories of life must, in this world of mystery and doubt, present themselves to different minds, and the just weight to be attached to earthly happiness can be determined by no human measure. It is in itself a good, but not the sole good. And, in truth, it seems that, as on the one hand the moral sense is not a single sentiment, but a plurality of affections, emotions, and ideas, of different complexion in different ages and different men, so there is no sole and universal criterion either of virtuous actions or of human good. We love, approve, admire, respect, and venerate different qualities respectively; and virtue is, in short, not an abstract name of a single attribute, but a noun of multitude, which includes not only the useful and the loveable, but the exalted, the excellent, the noble, and the sublime, and the beautiful to the eye of the soul. All virtue aims, indeed, at human good; but human good seems manifold. It is innocent pleasure and innocent escape from pain, but it is also improvement; it is enjoyment, but it is also discipline, energy, and action. And, if a conflict should arise between the two, if the progressive should become less happy than the stationary state, the virtuous man may be expected to make the choice of Hercules both for himself and for others.
The great changes which have taken place, however, in the moral sentiments of successive generations of mankind, and in their estimates of the worth of qualities and actions, might in reason warn us from attempting to fix forever the standard and ideal of virtue, or to determine the aims of life for all future generations. It was held in ancient Rome, "that valor is the chiefest virtue," and humanity would then have been held nearly akin to vice. So it seems not for us to make certain that our present theories of the right and good are not dwarfed by the imperfection of our sentiments and our knowledge. For this reason alone the claims of Utilitarianism to be received as "a comprehensive formula, including all things which are in themselves good," would seem open to question. The moral progress of mankind is in itself a good, which makes the final determination of the summum bonum improbable; and it is too in itself a good which is probably better than happiness.
Source: Thomas Edward Cliffe Leslie, "Utilitarianism and the Summum Bonum" (1863).
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8. BIOLOGY AND ETHICS
READING 1: DARWIN ON THE ORIGIN OF ETHICS FROM EVOLUTION
Common Traits between Humans and Animals (Chapter 3)
It has, I think, now been shown that man and the higher animals, especially the Primates, have some few instincts in common. All have the same senses, intuitions, and sensations similar passions, affections, and emotions, even the more complex ones, such as jealousy, suspicion, emulation, gratitude, and magnanimity; they practice deceit and are revengeful; they are sometimes susceptible to ridicule, and even have a sense of humor; they feel wonder and curiosity; they possess the same faculties of imitation, attention, deliberation, choice, memory, imagination, the association of ideas, and reason, though in very different degrees. The individuals of the same species graduate in intellect from absolute imbecility to high excellence. They are also liable to insanity, though far less often than in the case of man. . . .
The Evolutionary Development of Animal Social Instincts (Chapter 4)
I fully subscribe to the judgment of those writers who maintain that of all the differences between man and the lower animals, the moral sense or conscience is by far the most important. . . . This great question has been discussed by many writers of consummate ability; and my sole excuse or touching on it, is the impossibility of here passing it over; and because, as far as I know, no one has approached it exclusively from the side of natural history. The investigation possesses, also, some independent interest, as an attempt to see how far the study of the lower animals throws light on one of the highest psychical faculties of man.
The following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable namely, that any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts (the parental and filial affections being here included) would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well, or nearly as well developed, as in man. For, firstly, the social instincts lead an animal to take pleasure in the society of its fellows, to feel a certain amount of sympathy with them, and to perform various services for them. . . .
It may be well first to premise that I do not wish to maintain that any strictly social animal, if its intellectual faculties were to become as active and as highly developed as in man, would acquire exactly the same moral sense as ours. In the same manner as various animals have some sense of beauty, though they admire widely different objects, so they might have a sense of right and wrong, though led by it to follow widely different lines of conduct. . . . A moral being is one who is capable of comparing his past and future actions or motives, and of approving or disapproving of them. We have no reason to suppose that any of the lower animals have this capacity. Therefore, when a Newfoundland dog drags a child out of the water, or a monkey faces danger to rescue its comrade, or takes charge of an orphan monkey, we do not call its conduct moral. But in the case of man, who alone can with certainty be ranked as a moral being, actions of a certain class are called moral, whether performed deliberately, after a struggle with opposing motives, or impulsively through instinct, or from the effects of slowly-gained habit. . . .
At the moment of action, man will no doubt be apt to follow the stronger impulse; and though this may occasionally prompt him to the noblest deeds, it will more commonly lead him to gratify his own desires at the expense of other men. But after their gratification when past and weaker impressions are judged by the ever-enduring social instinct, and by his deep regard for the good opinion of his fellows, retribution will surely come. He will then feel remorse, repentance, regret, or shame; this latter feeling, however, relates almost exclusively to the judgment of others. He will consequently resolve more or less firmly to act differently for the future; and this is conscience; for conscience looks backwards, and serves as a guide for the future. . . .
The above view of the origin and nature of the moral sense, which tells us what we ought to do, and of the conscience which reproves us if we disobey it, accords well with what we see of the early and undeveloped condition of this faculty in mankind. The virtues which must be practised, at least generally, by rude men, so that they may associate in a body, are those which are still recognised as the most important. But they are practised almost exclusively in relation to the men of the same tribe; and their opposites are not regarded as crimes in relation to the men of other tribes. No tribe could hold together if murder, robbery, treachery, etc., were common; consequently such crimes within the limits of the same tribe "are branded with everlasting infamy"
Utilitarian "Greatest Happiness" a Convenient Standard of Ethics
It was assumed formerly by philosophers of the derivative [i.e., consequentialist] school of morals that the foundation of morality lay in a form of Selfishness [i.e., egoism]; but more recently the "Greatest happiness principle" has been brought prominently forward [i.e., utilitarianism]. It is, however, more correct to speak of the latter principle as the standard, and not as the motive of conduct. . . . In the case of the lower animals it seems much more appropriate to speak of their social instincts, as having been developed for the general good rather than for the general happiness of the species. The term, general good, may be defined as the rearing of the greatest number of individuals in full vigour and health, with all their faculties perfect, under the conditions to which they are subjected. As the social instincts both of man and the lower animals have no doubt been developed by nearly the same steps, it would be advisable, if found practicable, to use the same definition in both cases, and to take as the standard of morality, the general good or welfare of the community, rather than the general happiness; but this definition would perhaps require some limitation on account of political ethics.
When a man risks his life to save that of a fellow-creature, it seems also more correct to say that he acts for the general good, rather than for the general happiness of mankind. No doubt the welfare [i.e., general good] and the happiness of the individual usually coincide; and a contented, happy tribe will flourish better than one that is discontented and unhappy. We have seen that even at an early period in the history of man, the expressed wishes of the community will have naturally influenced to a large extent the conduct of each member; and as all wish for happiness, the "greatest happiness principle" will have become a most important secondary guide and object; the social instinct, however, together with sympathy (which leads to our regarding the approbation and disapprobation of others), having served as the primary impulse and guide. Thus the reproach is removed of laying the foundation of the noblest part of our nature in the base principle of selfishness; unless, indeed, the satisfaction which every animal feels, when it follows its proper instincts, and the dissatisfaction felt when prevented, be called selfish.
Similarities between Human and Animal Mental Capacities (Chapter 4)
There can be no doubt that the difference between the mind of the lowest man and that of the highest animal is immense. . . . Nevertheless the difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. We have seen that the senses and intuitions, the various emotions and faculties, such as love, memory, attention, curiosity, imitation, reason, etc., of which man boasts, may be found in an incipient, or even sometimes in a well-developed condition, in the lower animals. They are also capable of some inherited improvement, as we see in the domestic dog compared with the wolf or jackal. If it could be proved that certain high mental powers, such as the formation of general concepts, self-consciousness, etc., were absolutely peculiar to man, which seems extremely doubtful, it is not improbable that these qualities are merely the incidental results of other highly-advanced intellectual faculties; and these again mainly the result of the continued use of a perfect language. At what age does the new-born infant possess the power of abstraction, or become self-conscious, and reflect on its own existence? We cannot answer; nor can we answer in regard to the ascending organic scale. The half-art, half-instinct of language still bears the stamp of its gradual evolution. The ennobling belief in God is not universal with man; and the belief in spiritual agencies naturally follows from other mental powers. The moral sense perhaps affords the best and highest distinction between man and the lower animals . . . .
Human Moral Qualities give a Survival Advantage to Tribes but not to Individuals (Chapter 5)
Turning now to the social and moral faculties. In order that primeval men, or the ape-like progenitors of man, should become social, they must have acquired the same instinctive feelings, which impel other animals to live in a body; and they no doubt exhibited the same general disposition. They would have felt uneasy when separated from their comrades, for whom they would have felt some degree of love; they would have warned each other of danger, and have given mutual aid in attack or defense. All this implies some degree of sympathy, fidelity, and courage. Such social qualities, the paramount importance of which to the lower animals is disputed by no one, were no doubt acquired by the progenitors of man in a similar manner, namely, through natural selection, aided by inherited habit. When two tribes of primeval man, living in the same country, came into competition, if (other circumstances being equal) the one tribe included a great number of courageous, sympathetic and faithful members, who were always ready to warn each other of danger, to aid and defend each other, this tribe would succeed better and conquer the other. Let it be borne in mind how all- important in the never-ceasing wars of savages, fidelity and courage must be. The advantage which disciplined soldiers have over undisciplined hordes follows chiefly from the confidence which each man feels in his comrades. Obedience, as Mr. Bagehot has well shown, is of the highest value, for any form of government is better than none. Selfish and contentious people will not cohere, and without coherence nothing can be effected. A tribe rich in the above qualities would spread and be victorious over other tribes: but in the course of time it would, judging from all past history, be in its turn overcome by some other tribe still more highly endowed. Thus the social and moral qualities would tend slowly to advance and be diffused throughout the world.
But it may be asked, how within the limits of the same tribe did a large number of members first become endowed with these social and moral qualities, and how was the standard of excellence raised? It is extremely doubtful whether the offspring of the more sympathetic and benevolent parents, or of those who were the most faithful to their comrades, would be reared in greater numbers than the children of selfish and treacherous parents belonging to the same tribe. He who was ready to sacrifice his life, as many a savage has been, rather than betray his comrades, would often leave no offspring to inherit his noble nature. The bravest men, who were always willing to come to the front in war, and who freely risked their lives for others, would on an average perish in larger numbers than other men. Therefore, it hardly seems probable, that the number of men gifted with such virtues, or that the standard of their excellence, could be increased through natural selection, that is, by the survival of the fittest; for we are not here speaking of one tribe being victorious over another. . . .
It must not be forgotten that although a high standard of morality gives but a slight or no advantage to each individual man and his children over the other men of the same tribe, yet that an increase in the number of well-endowed men and an advancement in the standard of morality will certainly give an immense advantage to one tribe over another. A tribe including many members who, from possessing in a high degree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage, and sympathy, were always ready to aid one another, and to sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes; and this would be natural selection. At all times throughout the world tribes have supplanted other tribes; and as morality is one important element in their success, the standard of morality and the number of well-endowed men will thus everywhere tend to rise and increase.
Source: Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, 1874, Chapters 1.3, 5. Adapted.
READING 2: HUXLEY ON ETHICS DISTINCT FROM EVOLUTION
Cosmic Evolution does not Prefer Moral sentiments over Immoral Sentiments
The propounders of what are called the "ethics of evolution" (when the "evolution of ethics" would usually better express the object of their speculations), adduce a number of more or less interesting facts and more or less sound arguments in favor of the origin of the moral sentiments, in the same way as other natural phenomena, by a process of evolution. I have little doubt, for my own part, that they are on the right track; but as the immoral sentiments have no less been evolved, there is, so far, as much natural sanction for the one as the other. The thief and the murderer follow nature just as much as the philanthropist. Cosmic evolution may teach us how the good and the evil tendencies of man may have come about; but, in itself, it is incompetent to furnish any better reason why what we call good is preferable to what we call evil than we had before. Some day, I doubt not, we shall arrive at an understanding of the evolution of the Aesthetic faculty; but all the understanding in the world will neither increase nor diminish the force of the intuition that this is beautiful and that is ugly.
There is another fallacy which appears to me to pervade the so-called "ethics of evolution." It is the notion that because, on the whole, animals and plants have advanced in perfection of organization by means of the struggle for existence and the consequent "survival of the fittest;" therefore men in society, men as ethical beings, must look to the same process to help them towards perfection. I suspect that this fallacy has arisen out of the unfortunate ambiguity of the phrase "survival of the fittest." "Fittest" has a connotation of "best;" and about "best" there hangs a moral flavor. In cosmic nature, however, what is "fittest" depends upon the conditions. Long since, I ventured to point out that if our hemisphere were to cool again, the survival of the fittest might bring about, in the vegetable kingdom, a population of more and more stunted and humbler and humbler organisms, until the "fittest" that survived might be nothing but lichens, diatoms, and such microscopic organisms as those which give red snow its color; while, if it became hotter, the pleasant valleys of the Thames and Isis might, be uninhabitable by any animated beings save those that flourish in a tropical jungle. They, as the fittest, the best adapted to the changed conditions, would survive.
Social Progress requires Combatting the Cosmic Evolutionary Process
Men in society are undoubtedly subject to the cosmic process. As among other animals, [reproductive] multiplication goes on without cessation, and involves severe competition for the means of support. The struggle for existence tends to eliminate those less fitted to adapt themselves to the circumstances of their existence. The strongest, the most self-assertive, tend to tread down the weaker. But the influence of the cosmic process on the evolution of society is the greater the more rudimentary its civilization. Social progress means a checking of the cosmic, process at every step and the substitution for it of another, which may be called the ethical process; the end of which is not the survival of those who may happen to be the fittest, in respect of the whole of the conditions which obtain, but of those who are ethically the best.
As I have already urged, the practice of that which is ethically best what we call goodness or virtue involves a course of conduct which, in all respects, is opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle for existence. In place of ruthless self-assertion it demands self-restraint; in place of thrusting aside, or treading down, all competitors, it requires that the individual shall not merely respect, but shall help his fellows. Its influence is directed, not so much to the survival of the fittest, as to the fitting of as many as possible to survive. It repudiates the gladiatorial theory of existence. It demands that each man who enters into the enjoyment of the advantages of a polity shall be mindful of his debt to those who have laboriously constructed it; and shall take heed that no act of his weakens the fabric in which he has been permitted to live. Laws and moral precepts are directed to the end of curbing the cosmic process and reminding the individual of his duty to the community, to the protection and influence of which he owes, if not existence itself, at least the life of something better than a brutal savage. . . .
Let us understand, once for all, that the ethical progress of society depends, not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running away from it, but in combating it. It may seem an audacious proposal thus to pit the microcosm against the macrocosm and to set man to subdue nature to his higher ends. But I venture to think that the great intellectual difference between the ancient times with which we have been occupied and our day, lies in the solid foundation we have acquired for the hope that such an enterprise may meet with a certain measure of success.
Human Civilization requires Continually Modifying the Cosmic Process
The history of civilization details the steps by which men have succeeded in building up an artificial world within the cosmos. Fragile reed as he may be, man, as Pascal says, is a thinking reed: there lies within him a fund of energy operating intelligently and so far akin to that which pervades the universe, that it is competent to influence and modify the cosmic process. In virtue of his intelligence, the dwarf bends the Titan to his will. In every family, in every polity that has been established, the cosmic process in man has been restrained and otherwise modified by law and custom. In surrounding nature, it has been similarly influenced by the art of the shepherd, the agriculturist, the artisan. As civilization has advanced, so has the extent of this interference increased; until the organized and highly developed sciences and arts of the present day have endowed man with a command over the course of non-human nature greater than that once attributed to the magicians. The most impressive, I might say startling, of these changes have been brought about in the course of the last two centuries; while a right comprehension of the process of life and of the means of influencing its manifestations is only just dawning upon us. We do not yet see our way beyond generalities; and we are befogged by the obtrusion of false analogies and crude anticipations. But Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, have all had to pass through similar phases, before they reached the stage at which their influence became an important factor in human affairs. Physiology, Psychology, Ethics, Political Science, must submit to the same ordeal. Yet it seems to me irrational to doubt that, at no distant period, they will work as great a revolution in the sphere of practice.
The theory of evolution encourages no millennial [i.e. utopian] anticipations. If, for millions of years, our globe has taken the upward road [towards peace], yet, some time, the summit will be reached and the downward route [towards anarchy] will be commenced. The most daring imagination will hardly venture upon the suggestion that the power and the intelligence of man can ever arrest the procession of the great year [i.e., inevitable cosmic cycle].
Moreover, the cosmic nature born with us and, to a large extent, necessary for our maintenance, is the outcome of millions of years of severe training, and it would be folly to imagine that a few centuries will suffice to subdue its masterfulness to purely ethical ends. Ethical nature may count upon having to reckon with a tenacious and powerful enemy as long as the world lasts. But, on the other hand, I see no limit to the extent to which intelligence and will, guided by sound principles of investigation, and organized in common effort, may modify the conditions of existence, for a period longer than that now covered by history. And much may be done to change the nature of man himself. The intelligence which has converted the brother of the wolf into the faithful guardian of the flock ought to be able to do something towards curbing the instincts of savagery in civilized men.
Source: Thomas Huxley, "Evolution and Ethics" (1893), adapted.
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9. GENDER AND ETHICS
READING 1: MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT ON WOMEN AND MORALITY
Changes in Social Attitude Needed regarding Women
. . . Contending for the rights of women, my main argument is built on this simple principle, that if she be not prepared by education to become the companion of man, she will stop the progress of knowledge, for truth must be common to all, or it will be inefficacious with respect to its influence on general practice. And how can woman be expected to co-operate, unless she know why she ought to be virtuous? Unless freedom strengthen her reason till she comprehend her duty, and see in what manner it is connected with her real good? If children are to be educated to understand the true principle of patriotism, their mother must be a patriot; and the love of mankind, from which an orderly train of virtues spring, can only be produced by considering the moral and civil interest of mankind; but the education and situation of woman, at present, shuts her out from such investigations.
In this work I have produced many arguments, which to me were conclusive, to prove, that the prevailing notion respecting a sexual character was subversive of morality, and I have contended, that to render the human body and mind more perfect, chastity must more universally prevail, and that chastity will never be respected in the male world till the person of a woman is not, as it were, idolized when little virtue or sense embellish it with the grand traces of mental beauty, or the interesting simplicity of affection. . . .
Consider, I address you as a legislator, whether, when men contend for their freedom, and to be allowed to judge for themselves, respecting their own happiness, it be not inconsistent and unjust to subjugate women, even though you firmly believe that you are acting in the manner best calculated to promote their happiness? Who made man the exclusive judge, if woman partake with him the gift of reason?
In this style, argue tyrants of every denomination from the weak king to the weak father of a family; they are all eager to crush reason; yet always assert that they usurp its throne only to be useful. Do you not act a similar part, when you force all women, by denying them civil and political rights, to remain immured in their families groping in the dark? For surely, sir, you will not assert, that a duty can be binding which is not founded on reason? If, indeed, this be their destination, arguments may be drawn from reason; and thus augustly supported, the more understanding women acquire, the more they will be attached to their duty, comprehending it, for unless they comprehend it, unless their morals be fixed on the same immutable principles as those of man, no authority can make them discharge it in a virtuous manner. They may be convenient slaves, but slavery will have its constant effect, degrading the master and the abject dependent.
Against Rousseau's view of Female Coquetry
Let us examine this question. Rousseau declares, that a woman should never, for a moment feel herself independent, that she should be governed by fear to exercise her natural cunning, and made a coquettish [i.e., flirty] slave in order to render her a more alluring object of desire, a sweeter companion to man, whenever he chooses to relax himself. He carries the arguments, which he pretends to draw from the indications of nature, still further, and insinuates that truth and fortitude the corner stones of all human virtue, shall be cultivated with certain restrictions, because with respect to the female character, obedience is the grand lesson which ought to be impressed with unrelenting rigor.
What nonsense! When will a great man arise with sufficient strength of mind to puff away the fumes which pride and sensuality have thus spread over the subject! If women are by nature inferior to men, their virtues must be the same in quality, if not in degree, or virtue is a relative idea; consequently, their conduct should be founded on the same principles, and have the same aim.
Connected with man as daughters, wives, and mothers, their moral character may be estimated by their manner of fulfilling those simple duties; but the end, the grand end of their exertions should be to unfold their own faculties, and acquire the dignity of conscious virtue. They may try to render their road pleasant; but ought never to forget, in common with man, that life yields not the felicity which can satisfy an immortal soul. I do not mean to insinuate, that either sex should be so lost, in abstract reflections or distant views, as to forget the affections and duties that lie before them, and are, in truth, the means appointed to produce the fruit of life; on the contrary, I would warmly recommend them, even while I assert, that they afford most satisfaction when they are considered in their true subordinate light.
Probably the prevailing opinion, that woman was created for man, may have taken its rise from Moses's poetical story; yet, as very few it is presumed, who have bestowed any serious thought on the subject, ever supposed that Eve was, literally speaking, one of Adam's ribs, the deduction must be allowed to fall to the ground; or, only be so far admitted as it proves that man, from the remotest antiquity, found it convenient to exert his strength to subjugate his companion, and his invention to show that she ought to have her neck bent under the yoke; because she as well as the brute creation, was created to do his pleasure. . . .
To speak disrespectfully of love is, I know, high treason against sentiment and fine feelings; but I wish to speak the simple language of truth, and rather to address the head than the heart. . . . Youth is the season for love in both sexes; but in those days of thoughtless enjoyment, provision should be made for the more important years of life, when reflection takes place of sensation. But Rousseau, and most of the male writers who have followed his steps, have warmly inculcated that the whole tendency of female education ought to be directed to one point to render them pleasing.
Playing with Dolls no proof of Natural Coquettishness
As for Rousseau's remarks, which have since been echoed by several writers, that they have naturally, that is from their birth, independent of education, a fondness for dolls, dressing, and talking, they are so puerile as not to merit a serious refutation. That a girl, condemned to sit for hours together listening to the idle chat of weak nurses or to attend at her mother's toilet, will endeavor to join the conversation, is, indeed very natural; and that she will imitate her mother or aunts, and amuse herself by adorning her lifeless doll, as they do in dressing her, poor innocent babe! is undoubtedly a most natural consequence. For men of the greatest abilities have seldom had sufficient strength to rise above the surrounding atmosphere; and, if the page of genius has always been blurred by the prejudices of the age, some allowance should be made for a sex, who, like kings, always see things through a false medium.
In this manner may the fondness for dress, conspicuous in women, be easily accounted for, without supposing it the result of a desire to please the sex on which they are dependent. The absurdity, in short, of supposing that a girl is naturally a coquette, and that a desire connected with the impulse of nature to propagate the species, should appear even before an improper education has, by heating the imagination, called it forth prematurely, is so unphilosophical, that such a sagacious observer as Rousseau would not have adopted it, if he had not been accustomed to make reason give way to his desire of singularity, and truth to a favorite paradox. . . .
I have, probably, had an opportunity of observing more girls in their infancy than J. J. Rousseau. I can recollect my own feelings, and I have looked steadily around me; yet, so far from coinciding with him in opinion respecting the first dawn of the female character, I will venture to affirm, that a girl, whose spirits have not been damped by inactivity, or innocence tainted by false shame, will always be a romp, and the doll will never excite attention unless confinement allows her no alternative. Girls and boys, in short, would play harmless together, if the distinction of sex was not inculcated long before nature makes any difference. I will, go further, and affirm, as an indisputable fact, that most of the women, in the circle of my observation, who have acted like rational creatures, or shown any vigor of intellect, have accidentally been allowed to run wild, as some of the elegant formers of the fair sex would insinuate.
The baneful consequences which flow from inattention to health during infancy, and youth, extend further than is supposed, dependence of body naturally produces dependence of mind; and how can she be a good wife or mother, the greater part of whose time is employed to guard against or endure sickness; nor can it be expected, that a woman will resolutely endeavor to strengthen her constitution and abstain from enervating indulgences, if artificial notions of beauty, and false descriptions of sensibility, have been early entangled with her motives of action. Most men are sometimes obliged to bear with bodily inconveniences, and to endure, occasionally, the inclemency of the elements; but genteel women are, literally speaking, slaves to their bodies, and glory in their subjection. . . .
Women are everywhere in this deplorable state; for, in order to preserve their innocence, as ignorance is courteously termed, truth is hidden from them, and they are made to assume an artificial character before their faculties have acquired any strength. Taught from their infancy, that beauty is woman's scepter, the mind shapes itself to the body, and, roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison. Men have various employments and pursuits which engage their attention, and give a character to the opening mind; but women, confined to one, and having their thoughts constantly directed to the most insignificant part of themselves, seldom extend their views beyond the triumph of the hour. But was their understanding once emancipated from the slavery to which the pride and sensuality of man and their short sighted desire, like that of dominion in tyrants, of present sway, has subjected them, we should probably read of their weaknesses with surprise. . . .
Moral Virtues and Duties the Same for Men and Women
I wish to sum up what I have said in a few words, for I here throw down my gauntlet, and deny the existence of sexual virtues, not excepting modesty. For man and woman, truth, if I understand the meaning of the word, must be the same; yet the fanciful female character, so prettily drawn by poets and novelists, demanding the sacrifice of truth and sincerity, virtue becomes a relative idea, having no other foundation than utility, and of that utility men pretend arbitrarily to judge, shaping it to their own convenience.
Women, I allow, may have different duties to fulfill; but they are human duties, and the principles that should regulate the discharge of them, I sturdily maintain, must be the same.
To become respectable, the exercise of their understanding is necessary, there is no other foundation for independence of character; I mean explicitly to say, that they must only bow to the authority of reason, instead of being the modest slaves of opinion.
Early Association of Ideas Negatively Impacts Female Character
Educated in the enervating [i.e., exhausting] style recommended by the writers on whom I have been animadverting; and not having a chance, from their subordinate state in society, to recover their lost ground, is it surprising that women everywhere appear a defect in nature? Is it surprising, when we consider what a determinate effect an early association of ideas has on the character, that they neglect their understandings, and turn all their attention to their persons? . . .
Everything that they see or hear serves to fix impressions, call forth emotions, and associate ideas, that give a sexual character to the mind. False notions of beauty and delicacy stop the growth of their limbs and produce a sickly soreness, rather than delicacy of organs; and thus weakened by being employed in unfolding instead of examining the first associations, forced on them by every surrounding object, how can they attain the vigor necessary to enable them to throw off their factitious character? where find strength to recur to reason and rise superior to a system of oppression, that blasts the fair promises of spring? This cruel association of ideas, which everything conspires to twist into all their habits of thinking, or, to speak with more precision, of feeling, receives new force when they begin to act a little for themselves; for they then perceive, that it is only through their address to excite emotions in men, that pleasure and power are to be obtained. Besides, all the books professedly written for their instruction, which make the first impression on their minds, all inculcate the same opinions. Educated in worse than Egyptian bondage, it is unreasonable, as well as cruel, to upbraid them with faults that can scarcely be avoided, unless a degree of native vigor be supposed, that falls to the lot of very few amongst mankind.
Source: Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), Dedication, Chapters 2, 3, 6.