PREFACE

AN ANTIMANUAL OF ETHICS

This book is a general introduction to ethics.¹

But it has neither the pretension to instruct anyone how to live, nor the mission to teach the history of moral ideas from their origins to our own time, in chronological order.

Its ambition is far more modest: to put at the disposal of those who might be interested a sort of intellectual toolbox enabling them to brave the moral debate without allowing themselves to be intimidated by the big words (“Dignity" “Virtue" “Duty" and the like) and the grand declarations of principle (“You must never treat anyone simply as a means" and so on).

If these titles had not become registered trademarks, I might have called it Antimanual of Ethics or Little Course of Intellectual Self-Defense Against Moralism.

Since we have to do with a book of philosophy and not a detective novel, I presume no one will be frustrated if I “kill the suspense" by presenting my principal ideas straightaway.

They can be summarized in the form of two propositions:

 

1.  It is not true that our moral beliefs would have absolutely no value if it were impossible to have them rest upon a single, indisputable principle (God, Nature, Pleasure, Feelings, Reason, and so on): in ethics, we can do without “foundations"

2.  Conceding a certain form of pluralism of doctrines and methods is the most reasonable option in ethics.

 

I am obviously not the only one to uphold these kinds of antifoundationalist and pluralist ideas.²

But I would venture to say that the originality of my defense of them lies in the fact of its resting almost entirely upon the critical examination of two basic ingredients of the moral “cuisine": intuitions and the rules of reasoning.

What is a moral intuition?

What is a rule of moral reasoning?

MORAL CUISINE

Certain moral arguments are extremely simple. They take the form of raw judgments as to what is good or bad, just or unjust, which no one bothers even to justify, since they appear self-evident. For example: When we see a child who is drowning, we try to save him. It would be monstrous to do nothing to help him get out of the water.³ In order to describe these direct, spontaneous, and purportedly self-evident judgments, philosophers have become accustomed to saying that they are moral intuitions.

Other moral arguments are more complicated. They bind intuitions together by means of relations of thought, elementary rules of moral reasoning.

Thus, in order to denounce the clear conscience of the rich, who do nothing or almost nothing to put an end to famine and the terrible poverty that there is in the world, Peter Singer, a philosopher whose fame rests upon his uncompromising fight against factory farming, advances the following argument: By giving nothing or almost nothing to the organizations that seek to combat famine in the world, you are letting children in many countries die. You are behaving in just as monstrous a fashion as if you were letting them drown before your very eyes in a pond and without lifting a finger to save them.⁴ It would be really very astonishing if the argument sufficed to convince the wealthy to share their wealth. But it is very interesting so far as its construction is concerned. Peter Singer puts on the same moral plane the fact of letting a child who is drowning before your very eyes die and that of letting a child in a distant country die. He asserts that the two forms of behavior are equally monstrous. It is a comparison that is certainly open to dispute. But what interests me is the fact of its appealing implicitly to one of the elementary rules of moral reasoning: like cases must be treated alike.

In reality, complex moral arguments always have roughly the same form. They rest, on the one hand, upon simple intuitions relating to what is good or bad, just or unjust, and, on the other hand, upon rules of moral reasoning that tell us how they can be applied.

Intuitions and rules of reasoning are the two basic ingredients of the moral “cuisine." How could we deepen our understanding of moral thought without undertaking a systematic analysis of them, and without trying to answer the philosophical questions they pose?

What are they?

QUESTIONS REGARDING THE RULES AND THE INTUITIONS

Three elementary rules of moral reasoning are well known: “ought implies can" (“no one is held to the impossible"); “one cannot derive an ought from an is" (“one must not confuse judgments of fact and judgments of value"); and, finally, “like cases must be treated alike" (“it is unjust to use two different measures for two different weights").

We can ask ourselves if there are others, if they are sufficiently clear and precise, if they are consistent with one another, and if they are a sort of unassailable “dogma" or propositions open to being contested.

Many questions are also raised with regard to moral intuitions. How are we to know them? Are they the same everywhere and with everyone, or do they differ from one society to the next and from one individual to the next? Are they innate, learned, or a bit of both at the same time? Are they purely emotional reactions or spontaneous judgments that do not necessarily have an affective content?

What part do moral intuitions play in the justification of grand moral theories?

In order to try to answer these questions, I make extensive use of what we call “experimental moral philosophy"

WHAT IS EXPERIMENTAL MORAL PHILOSOPHY?

Experimental moral philosophy is a discipline still in gestation, and one that mixes the scientific study of the origins of moral norms in human and animal societies with reflection upon the value of these norms, without our yet knowing exactly in what direction it will ultimately tend, or what the nature of its contribution to philosophy (if there is one) will be.⁵

For its most enthusiastic promoters, it is a revolutionary style of investigation that is turned toward the natural sciences with a view to finding the means to clarify or resolve the traditional questions of philosophy.⁶

Other promoters, who are somewhat less enthusiastic, or somewhat less deft, prefer to say that there is absolutely nothing new about this style of investigation. According to them, experimental moral philosophy simply renews the ties between the natural sciences and philosophy, which formerly were very close, and which should never have been sundered, since it is thanks to them that human knowledge has progressed.⁷

This is a dispute in the history of ideas into which I do not propose to enter. What interests me is the fact that experimental moral philosophy proposes five classes of empirical data susceptible to making a contribution to moral reflection:

 

1.  Investigations into the moral intuitions of each and every one of us.

2.  Investigations into the moral reasonings of each and every one of us.

3.  Laboratory experiments regarding human generosity or human cruelty.

4.  Psychological researches into the moral development of children.

5.  Anthropological accounts of the diversity of moral systems.

 

It would be absurd, in my opinion, to decide in advance that such works would in no way serve to clarify questions of moral philosophy, under the pretext that they have to do with facts and not values or norms, and that there is a yawning abyss between the two kinds of investigation.

For certain philosophers, the opposition between scientific research and moral reflection is no longer defensible. It is a dogma that is dead.⁸ Without going as far as that, we can inquire as to its exact meaning and see to it that it remains open to critical scrutiny.