Economics and Ethics

- Smith notes that nature “has endowed [man], not only with a desire of being approved
of, but with a desire of being what ought to be approved of; or of being what he himself
approves of in other men
- Even if we could expect generosity from those we do not have a connection with, we
still might not be able to rely on it. The less intimate another person is to us, the more
difficult it is to know that they need help and how best to help them. Stated another
way, there is an ethical knowledge problem that limits our ability to do good as we
move away from the people we know best. As Smith explains,
“The administration of the great system of the universe, however, the care of
the universal happiness of all rational and sensible beings, is the business of God
and not of man. To man is allotted a much humbler department, but one more
suitable to the weakness of his powers, and the narrowness of his
comprehension: the care of his own happiness, of that of his family, his friends,
his country.”
- In the progress of the division of labour, the employment of the far greater part of
those who live by labour ... comes to be confined to a few very simple operations... The
man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the
effects too are, perhaps, always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to
exert his understanding, or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for
removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such
exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human
creature to become. ... His dexterity at his own particular trade seems, in this manner,
to be acquired at the expence of his intellectual, social, and martial virtues.

Hello Dr. Craig! First off, I just wanted to say that you restored my faith in God and
reason itself a few years ago. I was having doubts about my faith that no one I spoke to
was able to answer and was ready to let go altogether. However, I discovered your work
and I want you to know that you, with the help of the Holy Spirit, restored my faith in
the truth of God’s existence and the Christian faith.

My question for you concerns critiques on modern day ethical theories. I am currently in
college and doing some personal research on ethical theories combined with your work
on the moral argument for God’s existence. While I believe from a Christian standpoint
Utilitarianism, Consequentialism, and ethical theories of that type are easy to critique
and strike down, it is a little more difficult with Deontology and Aristotelian Virtue
Ethics. From my own time spent thinking about this issue, here is something that I
believe works for critiquing modern ethical theories. Ethical theories that aren’t
grounded in the existence of God must answer not just one, but both of these
questions:
 1. Why do these moral facts exist? Where did they come from? (For Deontology it may
be the Categorical Imperative, for Virtue Ethics it may be Teleology)
2. Why ought we to follow these normative moral facts?

To show an example, it seems to me that Virtue Ethics can answer the second question,
but not the first. Aristotle and the gang would answer that we should be a good person
because of our very nature, that moral facts are built into nature itself through
teleology, etc. However, I have never heard anyone give an explanation for why
teleology exists in the first place. In an evolutionary/naturalistic worldview, it is impossible to
answer the question of how we can get teleology from non-teleology.

The issue arises when I apply this formal critique to Deontology. I believe that Kant could
answer question (1), but I also think he could answer (2) eventually. For Kant, we essentially all
have the ability to use the categorical imperative because we as humans can all rationalize to a
universal moral maxim. If I understand correctly, there is hardly any dispute on this. We all “lift
ourselves up by our rational bootstraps” if you will, to discover the right action in any given
situation. However, the question becomes, does Kant have an answer for the second question?
I believe the answer to this question lies in if he can accurately rationalize a position of human
worth. If I am correct, Kant would answer this question by essentially restating his answer
above: “Humans have intrinsic value because they are able to rationalize morally with the
categorical imperative”. I believe Kant would also say that we have intrinsic worth because we
can use reason and act morally while other animals cannot, therefore we have intrinsic worth
that other animals don’t have. Is this circular reasoning by Kant or is there a better critique that
I am not thinking of?

As always thanks for all you do!

Micah