How ought we to live? That is the central question of ethics and arguably the most important question in life – well, perhaps the second most important, second to the question of whether we should continue to live at all. That question of suicide was for Albert Camus ‘the one truly serious philosophical problem’.
‘How ought we to live?’ We probably all face that concern at some time or other, whether explicitly or not. It was raised by Socrates in the fifth century BC as the fundamental question, not just for ethics, but for philosophy as a whole. It was, said Socrates, a question everyone should ask; it is not confined to philosophers, the intelligent or educated. How ought I to live? Perhaps correct answers differ depending upon who we are; perhaps the question arises even if I am the sole person, the sole creature on the planet.
Ethics is concerned with the good – and much more – but as Mae West’s quip above may suggest, terms such as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ can confuse, even amuse. We may wonder what is needed for ‘the good life’. Does a good life require us to be morally good? Is moral goodness enough for us to live a good life? Perhaps it invariably needs supplementation by, for example, wine, roses and chocolate – even philosophy.
Putting to one side ambiguities of ‘good’ and related terms – the varieties of goodness – we confront a medley of moral concepts, from vices to virtues, from wrongs to rights, and of moral questions raised by, for example, vast wealth inequalities, freedom of expression and military interventions on humanitarian grounds. Let us mention a few other examples.
Many people across the world are in desperate need of clean water, food and medical facilities; the better-off make occasional charitable donations, but could easily give more, relinquishing a few luxuries. Ought not they – ought not we – to be far more generous and benevolent? Some people believe sexual promiscuity immoral; others keenly embrace that promiscuity, yet judge sex for money as immoral. Is that not inconsistent? Under the slogan ‘bad things happen to good people’, the US Pasadena Police Authority permits prison-cell upgrades for a fee, an opportunity unfair and of no use to prison inmates at the bottom of the ladder. Is not the policy morally repugnant, with the Authority lacking either sensitivity or concern for justice? Is that policy so very different, though, from those of many jurisdictions? Frequently, punishments are monetary fines which the rich guilty can pay, probably affecting their lives not at all, while the poor, unable to pay, can end up in prison.
Moral problems and conflicts stir some to propound slogans such as: ethics is a matter of choice; morality is relative, relative to your society – or police authority. Others justify morality through religion: God tells us what is right and wrong, with the sinful being those who neglect God’s commands. Religions sometimes speak of evils – evils understood as satanic, malevolent forces that go beyond the simple badness of failing to do what is right.
Moral codes exist in the ancient religions of Hinduism, Zoroastrianism and Judaism. Codes were prescribed by Confucius (c. 551–479 BC) and Buddha (c. 450 BC), though not with any typical divine base. With Jesus (c. 5 BC–27 AD) and Muhammad (570–632), we again encounter morality grounded in divine presence. Later, in Catholicism, Christian morality became mingled with pre-Christian Greek thought, for example, with Aristotelian philosophy by way of the writings of St Thomas Aquinas, a major thirteenth-century philosopher.
The Socratic question of how to live is hence often answered in terms of moral laws, laws that must be followed because divine or because aiding harmonious living. Recently, some have turned to science, aiming to justify moral awareness as needed for human survival, essential to evolutionary self-interest.
With competing approaches to morality, we may feel at sea; so, let us find some dry land. Consider the following:
A man takes his vicious hound into the park; he deliberately sets the beast onto a mother and child. They are badly mauled; the man laughs. That man has acted wrongly. That judgement is an understatement. He has behaved appallingly.
A woman, dressed in her finery, hurries to an important interview. On her way, she sees a man collapse, his mouth frothing blood. She dashes to his assistance, puts her cashmere coat under his blood-seeping head, calls an ambulance, reassures him, waits with him. She has surely done the right thing; she has behaved with tenderness and fellow-feeling.
Our cameos could say more about the participants and circumstances. One thing upon which we no doubt agree is that the hound owner behaved badly; the woman behaved well. It would be troubling, to say the least, if readers doubted that. We accept the principle that, in such circumstances, it is wrong to set hounds onto people.
In saying an action is right or wrong, we are guiding or encouraging behaviour; that seems all we are doing, hence ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are sometimes termed thin concepts. Weightier concepts – thick concepts – are also morally relevant. The man’s behaviour was despicable and atrocious. The woman was kind, compassionate, admirable. Such value-laden terms frequently occur in our discourse, without particular moral reflections. Think of references to discourtesies, brashness, timidity; to composure, dignity, ‘going the extra mile’ – where we describe behaviour or characteristics, while also expressing attitudes for or against.
There are numerous cases where we all (more or less), without theories in mind, agree whether an action merits ethical approval – or the opposite. That risks sounding as if ethical matters should be decided by majority votes, opinion polls or laboratory investigations uncovering people’s assessments of right and wrong in various imaginary cases. That is a mistake. Morality is no matter of majority opinion. There can be a right and wrong about right and wrong. Majorities sometimes get things wrong. Many people in some societies – sometimes a majority – have believed enforced slavery morally acceptable, the Earth flat and that human sacrifices appease the gods. We fall into error about the physical world; we also err about the ethical.
The hound owner gains pleasure from hurting others, but that is no good way to live, given the effect on the others. Further, such pleasures may not constitute a good way of living for him. Can the hound owner truly be respecting himself? Contrast the woman who helped the collapsed individual. She may have lost a job because she missed the interview, yet would not – in a sense, could not – have respected herself had she walked on by.
Numerous clear-cut cases of immoral and moral behaviour could be given; but there are also numerous moral dilemmas. Some argue that, in principle, there is always a definitive right answer to such dilemmas; others reply – the author is one – that that is not so.
A father is close to death. He is worried about his daughter, working for a charity in war-torn lands. You know she is having a dreadful time, but you deceive him, reassuring him all is well. Is that the right thing to do?
We feel morally uneasy at buying inexpensive clothing and foods – inexpensive because they are produced in distant lands by child labour, ‘bonded labour’, a modern version of slavery. If we do not buy, families in those distant lands may well be made even worse off. What ought we to do?
From afar, you witness a gang beating up a teenager and then running off. You could identify the ringleaders to the police, but you fear the consequences for your son and yourself. Ought you to put your family at risk?
The dilemmas remind us of the very different circumstances in which ethical questions arise. Fortunately for many of us, there are few or no occasions when we face dilemmas that require heroism, or where we are likely to collapse into spectacular wickedness. As a further point, there is a danger of seeing morality as solely arising when conscious choices are being made about what we should do; we need, though, to have a sense of how a life unfolds, often without our noticing – for good or ill.
Some scorn morality. They argue that we always act for our own sake, in our own self-interest or, more accurately, in what we perceive to be self-interest. Such psychological egoism differs from egotism, the excessive use of ‘I’ and similar. A different egoism, ethical egoism, is that we ought always to act self-interestedly. Egoisms do not automatically dismiss concern for others; they do not have to legitimize thugs who get power, wealth and sex – and get away with it. Ethical egoists may argue about what is truly in one’s self-interest, and that may be, for example, contemplation or purity of the soul; such a highly moralized gloss to self-interest can be found in Socrates and Plato. Here, we consider the more typical understanding of ‘self-interest’.
Is it our natural state always to act without any genuine concern for others? Evidence counts against it. Although we witness much self-interest, we also spy actions where self-interest appears far from the motive.
DO WE ALWAYS ACT IN OUR OWN SELF-INTEREST?
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), a highly influential political philosopher, seemed to hold that we always act from perceived self-interest. His view was not quite so crude, but John Aubrey noted:
Hobbes was very charitable (to the best of his ability) to those that were true objects of his bounty. One time, I remember, going in the Strand, a poor and infirmed old man craved his alms. He, beholding him with eyes of pity and compassion, put his hand in his pocket, and gave him 6 pence. Said a divine (Dr Jaspar Mayne): ‘Would you have done this, if it had not been Christ’s command?’ ‘Yea,’ said he. ‘Why?’ quoth the other. ‘Because I was in pain to consider the miserable condition of the old man; and now my alms, giving him some relief, doth also ease me.’
Bishop Joseph Butler (1692–1752) mocked Hobbes’s evidence for universal self-interest, for our always seeking our ease:
Suppose a man of learning writing a grave book upon Human Nature… and the following would need to be accounted for: the appearance of benevolence and good-will in men in natural relation, and in other relations. Cautious of being deceived with outward show, he retires within himself to see exactly, what is in the mind of man from whence this appearance proceeds; and upon deep reflection, asserts the principle to be only the love of power, and delight in its exercise.
Self-interest was Hobbes’s motivation, but that reflected badly on Hobbes, says Butler, not on mankind: we do not always act in our perceived self-interest; and it is not rational always so to do.
Saving a theory
Look around: we see people helping others for the sake of the others – true, not often enough. Only if we already hold a theory denying altruism’s possibility, would we insist that such selfless acts are ‘really’ self-interested. For deniers, nothing is allowed to count against the theory that all actions are self-interested; ‘selfless’ actions have been defined out of existence – but that does not change the reality.
You do not want to visit your aged aunt – it is a nuisance – but she likes your company, so you make the effort to please her, and not because of possible inheritances. ‘Ah,’ is the reply, ‘you visit her for inner glows in which to wallow; other people will praise you for doing the right thing.’ Yet, even if you inwardly glow, the expected glow or praise may not have been your motivation. Sometimes people act simply for the sake of others. Parents help children for the children’s sake. Environmentalists save the beached whale for the sake of that whale beached.
Adam Smith, the eighteenth-century Scottish economist, is often cited as valuing self-interest. Self-interested actions of the wealthy, via the ‘invisible hand’ of the markets, advance the interests of society. ‘It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.’ Smith, though, also recognized that:
How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.
Egoists may insist that Smith’s comment still highlights self-interest: the interests of others are pursued purely for the pleasures of self – as Aubrey reported of Hobbes (please see insert above).
Observations of selfless acts perhaps fail to convince the sceptical because their belief in universal self-interest is closed to empirical counter-evidence, to the possibility of falsification. Hobbes, for example, insisted that ‘the object of voluntary acts is some good to himself’ the agent; yes, there is love, good will and charity, but they provide people with the delight in their own power. Anything we do must be because of something internal to us; at some level, we want to do it, hoping to reap satisfactions. We even perform moral duties to satisfy our desire to perform those duties; so those performances must also be self-interested.
A curious switch in the meaning of words has occurred in the above reasoning. Suppose we fall in line with that switch, agreeing that everything we do necessarily is from self-interest: we should then need to distinguish between people who, from self-interest, want to do things for the sake of others, and those who, from self-interest, do not. By way of quip, we should still need to distinguish between those who do things for free and those who do things only for a fee.
In dismissing self-interest as the way in which we do always live, we have not, of course, explained how we ought to live – whether there can be a justified morality that trumps ethical egoists’ claims that we ought to act self-interestedly. It is worth noting here that there can be reasons why people should act in certain ways, even though they do not recognize them. A girl is about to fall off the swing; you run to save her. Perhaps your wanting to save her explains your action; but, whether or not you want to help, whether or not you go to help, averting the tragedy is still a reason why you should. Whether it is a reason that outweighs, say, your reason for rushing on by is, of course, another question.
Before we examine some highly influential moral theories that seek to draw us away from simple self-interest, we need some fundamental distinctions, to avoid subsequent confusions.
Within a game of chess there are good and bad moves, but that has no standing with regard to the nature of the morally good and bad. Further, it says nothing about whether chess-playing is itself a good or bad activity. Laetitia may be good at tennis, a bad public speaker and someone who knows the right way to smuggle a man into college. Those are not – well, are not usually – accolades or condemnations of an ethical nature, but descriptions of how well or badly she performs things, just as a knife may be excellent for cutting and a poacher bad at poaching. The good way to commit murders without being caught involves leaving no self-incriminating evidence; but that does not present murder and evasion of detection as good. We place such uses dependent on functions to one side, though we shall see later that Aristotle modelled the good man as one excellent in functioning as a rational animal – which, sceptics may quip, rules out relevance to vast numbers of us.
There is a major distinction – the ‘is/ought’ distinction – between describing and prescribing, between saying what is the case – the factual – contrasting with what ought to be the case, the normative. Care is needed: when saying that something is right or wrong, we are on the ‘ought’ and ‘ought not’ – the normative – side of the distinction. Further, ‘ought’ is not always the ‘ought’ of morality. That you ought to wear the turquoise earrings may concern fashion; but that you ought to obey the law is likely to be a moral demand, though it could be some non-moral guidance for avoidance of fines. When Machiavelli enjoined political leaders to do what they ought to retain power, even if necessitating murder, he may have been making an amoral technical point, not addressing the morality of means or end. It could be deemed immoral, though, even to discuss certain matters, such as murder, in amoral terms, as if murder’s immorality is open to debate.
Morality differs from legality. Legally it is permissible to protect your property from someone desperate for shelter – to own second homes usually left empty, while others are homeless – yet we may doubt the morality. Something that is legal is not thereby morally acceptable. Further, something that is illegal may yet be the right thing to do; for example, opposing immoral laws that oppress racial minorities or an impoverished majority. The legal and the moral can overlap: both morality and law usually maintain that killing innocents is wrong.
When evaluating an individual’s – a company’s, a nation’s – morality, we may be searching for underlying principles, their consistency and consequences of adherence. Some individuals insist that the taking of life is morally wrong: we may ask, then, why they kill animals for dinner, execute murderers and do nothing to prevent people elsewhere from dying? They may have excellent answers, revealing that their principle needs caveats – or they may change their behaviour and stick with the principle. Of course, some simply do not care, content to live with hypocrisy and inconsistency.
Another evaluation aims directly at the moral principles themselves. Here confusion can arise. A people may promote a particular morality, with no contradiction between its principles, yet the ‘morality’ is immoral. One morality may judge another – may morally judge another. That is readily seen when confronted by people with a religious-based morality. Witness how one religion often condemns another as containing immoralities. Within a single religion, condemnations can arise: some Christians understand homosexual relations as morally corrupt; others do not.
When philosophers seek to establish which actions are right, which are wrong, which states are good, which are bad, they are engaged in ‘normative ethics’, determining norms or values by which we should live. Normative theories provide a platform for applied ethics, for the application of theory to practical situations – for example, those of redistributive taxation, factory farming and wars in which civilians will be harmed. Can morality be shown to permit or even demand such activities? We could become nuanced, distinguishing between the normative (telling us our duties) and the evaluative. We may evaluate some people as good people without thinking it our duty, or the norm, to imitate them; we may praise those devoted to saving the whale, yet not think it our duty to maintain such devotion.
Normative ethics is a splendid discipline, but philosophers sometimes retreat from providing moral instruction books or enjoining moral sensitivities. Stepping back, they focus on the nature of moral talk, on meta-ethics (sometimes known as ‘analytic ethics’). There is the semantic meta-ethical task of establishing the meaning of terms such as ‘good’ and ‘bad’, leading to metaphysical questions of whether objects possess moral properties ‘out there’ and, if so, the epistemological or ‘knowledge’ question arises of how we gain acquaintance of those properties. The distinction between the normative and the meta-ethical is not as sharp as some suggest. In the next chapter, the normative theory of utilitarianism may be telling us what we really mean when we speak of the morally right and the morally wrong.
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Time to step into theory – and how theory touches the practice of everyday living. Let us, then, give way to the utilitarians – to see the colours in which they paint morality and the extent, if any, to which their concerns strike moral chords. Whether the metaphor is colour or sound, utilitarianism sets off with the tremendous appeal of happiness. Now, what can go wrong with that?
ETHICS FROM THE ANCIENT GREEKS
How should we live? ‘Well and happy’, is the typical answer of Greek philosophers. That sounds self-interested, conflicting with morality’s regard for others. Greek philosophers thought otherwise.
Socrates (469–399 BC): The truly virtuous person cannot be harmed. That is the astonishing Socratic view. Socrates identifies the person not with the body, but with the soul. To live well is to possess the goods of the soul, the virtues: courage, justice, piety, wisdom. They form a unity. Being essentially of the soul, not the body, a person’s goodness is immune to material misfortunes.
Plato (428–347 BC): As with Socrates, the self is the non-physical soul – now seen as tripartite, with a spirited part, a pleasure-seeking part and reason. The soul flourishes when reason rules, bringing inner harmony or justice – as the flourishing city is one that is just, with its citizens in harmony. Philosophical reasoning aims at acquaintance with Goodness, an abstract Form transcending individual human lives, which may yet inspire us in its perfection.
Aristotle (384–322 BC): The soul is the form of the body, a distinctive functioning of the human organism. Hence, worldly elements come into play for the good life, the happy life (see Chapter Four). The virtues are personal excellences of human character; they do not guarantee a flourishing life, but they increase its likelihood.
Epicurus (341–270 BC): For Epicureans, pleasure is the sole good. We must learn how to live without anxiety and pain. Living well requires risk avoidance. We should value simple pleasures, friendships, refraining from harmful activities and superstitions about gods and afterlives. Being dead is to be nothing; it is nothing to be feared.
Stoicism (founder Zeno of Citrium 344–262 BC): Happiness is living in accord with nature, our rational nature. Marcus Aurelius argued that distresses arise from judging events as damaging, when we need not. Rational control, right judgement, can free us from enslavement to lusts, envy and greed, guarding us from misfortunes. Stoics sought tranquillity – and were much mocked by Nietzsche.