Frameworks and Principles behind Our Moral Disposition

Authors:

Joseph B. Sy, PhD

Raymond Romeo Q. Domingo

i
 ETHICS MADE EASY

COPYRIGHT

Copyright @2020 by Joseph B. Sy, PhD

Raymond Romeo Q. Domingo

Published by John 14-14 Book Publishing Center

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
means without the written permission of the author, except by a
reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

The information in this book was obtained from the author’s

personal experiences and insights and reference materials.
While every effort has been made to make this book as
accurate as possible, the author disclaims any liability or risk as
a direct consequence of the use of the contents of this book.

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 TABLES OF CONTENTS

Copyright Page ------------------------------------------ ii

Overview -------------------------------------------------- 11

MORAL AND NON-MORAL STANDARDS ---------------33

The need to Distinguish Moral and

Non-Moral Standards -------------------------------------- 33
a. Moral Standards and their Characteristics --------- 44
b. Non-Moral Standards ---------------------------------55

MORAL DILEMMA ----------------------------------------------77

Dilemmas and Consistency -------------------------------88

Responses to the Arguments----------------------------- 14
Moral Residue and Dilemmas --------------------------- 18
Types of Moral Dilemmas ------------------------------- 24
29
Multiple Moralities --------------------------------------- 29
The Teaching Profession as a Duty and Good Will -- 32

VIRTUE OF ETHICS ------------------------------------------- 38

What makes us Human? ------------------------------------------ 38 38

3 Types of Soul ---------------------------------------------------- 38
38
Form and TELOS -------------------------------------------------- 39
Happiness as the Human TELOS -------------------------------- 40
Happiness as a Virtue --------------------------------------------- 4040

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Virtue as the Golden Mean --------------------------------------- 41
Politics ---------------------------------------------------------------41
41
The Virtue of Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics ------------------------- 42
St. Thomas Natural Law ------------------------------------------ 49
Classical Natural Law Theory ----------------------------------- 50
The Cardinal Virtues --------------------------------------------- 55 55
PRUDENCE -------------------------------------------------------- 58 58
Temperance -------------------------------------------------------- 60 60
Courage ------------------------------------------------------------- 62
Justice -------------------------------------------------------------- 63
63

KANT AND RIGHTS THEORISTS ------------------------- 69

Kant’s Goodwill ----------------------------------------- 70

KANTS CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE ------------------73

73

73
First Version of the Categorical Imperative ---------- 73
Second Version of the Categorical Imperative ------- 75

KEY TAKEAWAY ---------------------------------------------- 77

Different Kinds of Rights ----------------------------------------- 77

77
Moral Rights ----------------------------------------------- 78
78
Legal Rights ----------------------------------------------- 78
Civil Rights --------------------------------------- 79
79
Political Rights ----------------------------------- 79
Economic Rights --------------------------------- 79 79

UTILITARIANISM ----------------------------------------------81
81

The Historical Development of Utilitarianism ----------------- 83

83
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Eighteenth Century Contributions -------------------------------84 84
Bentham’s Utilitarian Calculus ---------------------------------- 85 85
Mill’s Utilitarianism -----------------------------------------------90
90
Rule – Utilitarianism ---------------------------------------------- 92
92
Criticism of Utilitarianism ----------------------------------------9696
Gisborne’s Criticism: We Cannot Know All
of the Consequences ----------------------------------------------96 96
Bradley’s Criticism: Utilitarianism Conflicts
with Ordinary Moral Judgments ---------------------------------99 99
Grote’s Criticism: Utilitarianism Only
Perpetuates the Status Quo -------------------------------------- 101
Albee’s Criticism: Higher Pleasures are
Inconsistent with Hedonism ------------------------------------ 104 104

JUSTICE AND FAIRNESS ----------------------------------- 108

108

Promoting the Common Good ---------------------------------- 108 108

Principle of Justice ----------------------------------------------- 109
Different kinds of Justice ---------------------------------------- 110
110
Presumptive Fairness ----------------------------------- 113 113
Distributive Justice -------------------------------------- 114
Why Distributive Justice Matters --------------------- 117 117

Kinds of Distributive Justice ------------------------------------ 119

119
Egalitarian Justice --------------------------------------- 119
Capitalism --------------------------------------------------------- 124
Am I a Capitalist? ------------------------------------------------ 126
Socialism ---------------------------------------------------------- 127
Socialism vs. Communism in Marxist Thought -------------- 128

REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING ------------ 133

133

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vi
 OVERVIEW

In our present age, ethics has an important place in all

areas of life. Ethics has also become important in education
because education is a fundamental process of human life.
Therefore, ethics is very important subject in education. We
can easily reach all knowledge by technology. In education,
using technology reveals some ethical problems such as
plagiarism. In order to understand the importance of ethics,
ethics should be placed as a course in educational system.

In the Philippines today, there is a great need for

citizens to be able to listen to one another, to express their
values, to assess the reasons behind this or that political policy,
institution, and social values in general. Public, political
debates and talk show in popular media shows us (only too
often) people who are good at shouting or pronouncing why X
is good or Y is bad, but with little or no interest in listening to
and considering with patience what others think. Arguably, a
democratic republic cannot survive if its citizens neglected the
practice of shared ethical dialogue.

This module encompasses the third part of the subject

Ethics under the General Education Curriculum implemented
in tertiary schools in the Philippines.

Objectives
· Discuss Telos and Virtue Ethics of Aristotle
· Explain Aristotle’s Idea on Happiness as a Virtue
· Highlight the Importance of Virtue as a Golden mean
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· Define Immanuel Kant’s Good Will and categorical
imperative.
· Consider advantages and drawbacks of an ethics based on the
categorical imperative.
· Discuss the Natural Law Theory of St. Thomas Aquinas
· Explicate the Basic Tenets of Natural Law Theory
· Explain the four Cardinal Virtues by St. Thomas Aquinas

· Discuss the Origin and Historical Background of

Utilitarianism
· Highlight Criticisms of Utilitarianism
· Differentiate the 3 Kinds of Distributive Justice

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 MORAL AND NON-MORAL STANDARDS

The need to Distinguish Moral and Non-Moral

Standards
Societies differ from their Moral beliefs because these
are deeply influenced by their own culture and Contest. For
Example, the wearing of hijab. For sure, in traditional Muslim
communities, the wearing of hijab is the most appropriate act
that women have to do in terms of dressing up. In fact, for
some Muslims, showing parts of the woman’s body, such as
the face and legs, is despicable. However, in many parts of the
world, especially in Western societies, most people don’t mind
if women barely cover their bodies. As a matter of fact, the
Hollywood canon of beauty glorifies a sexy and slim body and
the wearing of extremely daring dress. The point here is that
people in the West may have pitied the Muslim women who
wear hijab, while some Muslims may find women who dress
up daringly despicable.

Thus, this clearly explicates that different cultures have

different moral standards. What is a matter of moral
indifference, that is, a matter of taste (hence, non-moral value)
in one culture may be a matter of moral significance to another.

The extant problem at present is that a culture may

show its dominance to another cultural standard which results
to a clank in Cultural Values and beliefs. If this worsens, this
may develop to violence and to its greater extent, death. Thus,
this presents the idea of understanding the difference between
moral standards (that is, of what is a moral issue) and non-

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moral ones (that is, of what is a non-moral issue―thus, a
matter of taste).

A. Moral Standards and their Characteristics

Moral standards are norms that individuals or

groups have about the kinds of actions believed to be
morally right or wrong, as well as the values placed on
what we believed to be morally good or morally bad.
Moral standards normally promote “the good”, that is,
the welfare and well-being of humans as well as
animals and the environment. Moral standards,
therefore, prescribe what humans ought to do in terms
of rights and obligations. (PhiloNotes, 2018)

According to some scholars, moral standards are the

sum of combined norms and values. In other words,
norms plus values equal moral standards. On the one
hand, norms are understood as general rules about our
actions or behaviors. For example, we may say “We are
always under the obligation to fulfill our promises” or
“It is always believed that killing innocent people is
absolutely wrong”. On the other hand, values are
understood as enduring beliefs or statements about what
is good and

desirable or not. For example, we may say “Helping

the poor is good” or “Cheating during exams is bad”.
(PhiloNotes, 2018)

According to many scholars, moral standards have

the following characteristics, namely: 1) moral
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standards deal with matters we think can seriously
injure or benefit humans, animals, and the environment,
such as child abuse, rape, and murder; 2) moral
standards are not established or changed by the
decisions of authoritative individuals or bodies. Indeed,
moral standards rest on the adequacy of the reasons that
are taken to support and justify them. For sure, we don’t
need a law to back up our moral conviction that killing
innocent people is absolutely wrong; 3) moral standards
are overriding, that is, they take precedence over other
standards and considerations, especially of self-interest;
4) moral standards are based on impartial
considerations. Hence, moral standards are fair and just;
and 5) moral standards are associated with special
emotions (such as guilt and shame) and vocabulary
(such as right, wrong, good, and bad). (PhiloNotes,
2018)

B. Non-moral Standards

Non-moral standards refer to standards by which we

judge what is good or bad and right or wrong in a non-
moral way. Examples of non-moral standards are
standards of etiquette by which we judge manners as
good or bad, standards we call the law by which we
judge something as legal or illegal, and standards of
aesthetics by which we judge art as good or rubbish.
Hence, we should not confuse morality with etiquette,
law, aesthetics or even with religion. (PhiloNotes,
2018)

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 As we can see, non-moral standards are matters of
taste or preference. Hence, a scrupulous observance of
these types of standards does not make one a moral
person. Violation of said standards also does not pose
any threat to human well-being. (PhiloNotes, 2018)

Finally, as a way of distinguishing moral standards

from non-moral ones, if a moral standard says “Do not
harm innocent people” or “Don’t steal”, a non-moral
standard says “Don’t text while driving” or “Don’t talk
while the mouth is full”. (PhiloNotes, 2018)

6
 MORAL DILEMMA

What is common to the two well-known cases is

conflict. In each case, an agent regards herself as having moral
reasons to do each of the two actions, but doing both actions is
not possible. Ethicists have called situations like these moral
dilemmas. The crucial features of a moral dilemma are these:
the agent is required to do each of two (or more) actions; the
agent can do each of the actions; but the agent cannot do both
(or all) of the actions. The agent thus seems condemned to
moral failure; no matter what she does, she will do something
wrong (or fail to do something that she ought to do).
The Platonic case strikes many as too easy to be
characterized as a genuine moral dilemma. For the agent’s
solution in that case is clear; it is more important to protect
people from harm than to return a borrowed weapon. And in
any case, the borrowed item can be returned later, when the
owner no longer poses a threat to others. Thus in this case we
can say that the requirement to protect others from serious
harm overrides the requirement to repay one’s debts by
returning a borrowed item when its owner so demands. When
one of the conflicting requirements overrides the other, we
have a conflict but not a genuine moral dilemma. So in addition
to the features mentioned above, in order to have
a genuine moral dilemma it must also be true that neither of the
conflicting requirements is overridden (Sinnott-Armstrong
1988).

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Dilemmas and Consistency
We shall return to the issue of whether it is possible to
preclude genuine moral dilemmas. But what about the
desirability of doing so? Why have ethicists thought that their
theories should preclude the possibility of dilemmas? At the
intuitive level, the existence of moral dilemmas suggests some
sort of inconsistency. An agent caught in a genuine dilemma is
required to do each of two acts but cannot do both. And since
he cannot do both, not doing one is a condition of doing the
other. Thus, it seems that the same act is both required and
forbidden. But exposing a logical inconsistency takes some
work; for initial inspection reveals that the inconsistency
intuitively felt is not present. Allowing OAOA to designate that
the agent in question ought to do AA (or is morally obligated to
do AA, or is morally required to do A)A),
that OAOA and OBOB are both true is not itself inconsistent,
even if one adds that it is not possible for the agent to do
both AA and BB. And even if the situation is appropriately
described as OAOA and O¬AO¬A, that is not a contradiction;
the contradictory of OAOA is ¬OA¬OA. (See Marcus 1980
and McConnell 1978, 273.)

Similarly, rules that generate moral dilemmas are not

inconsistent, at least on the usual understanding of that term.
Ruth Marcus suggests plausibly that we “define a set of rules
as consistent if there is some possible world in which they are
all obeyable in all circumstances in that world.” Thus, “rules
are consistent if there are possible circumstances in which no
conflict will emerge,” and “a set of rules is inconsistent if there
are no circumstances, no possible world, in which all the rules

8
are satisfiable” (Marcus 1980, 128 and 129). Kant, Mill, and
Ross were likely aware that a dilemma-generating theory need
not be inconsistent. Even so, they would be disturbed if their
own theories allowed for such predicaments. If this speculation
is correct, it suggests that Kant, Mill, Ross, and others thought
that there is an important theoretical feature that dilemma-
generating theories lack. And this is understandable. It is
certainly no comfort to an agent facing a reputed moral
dilemma to be told that at least the rules which generate this
predicament are consistent because there is a possible world in
which they do not conflict. For a good practical example,
consider the situation of the criminal defense attorney. She is
said to have an obligation to hold in confidence the disclosures
made by a client and to be required to conduct herself with
candor before the court (where the latter requires that the
attorney inform the court when her client commits perjury)
(Freedman 1975, Chapter 3). It is clear that in this world these
two obligations often conflict. It is equally clear that in some
possible world—for example, one in which clients do not
commit perjury—that both obligations can be satisfied.
Knowing this is of no assistance to defense attorneys who face
a conflict between these two requirements in this world.
Ethicists who are concerned that their theories not allow
for moral dilemmas have more than consistency in mind. What
is troubling is that theories that allow for dilemmas fail to
be uniquely action-guiding. A theory can fail to be uniquely
action-guiding in either of two ways: by recommending
incompatible actions in a situation or by not recommending
any action at all. Theories that generate genuine moral
dilemmas fail to be uniquely action-guiding in the former way.
Theories that have no way, even in principle, of determining
9
what an agent should do in a particular situation have what
Thomas E. Hill, Jr. calls “gaps” (Hill 1996, 179–183); they fail
to be action-guiding in the latter way. Since one of the main
points of moral theories is to provide agents with guidance, that
suggests that it is desirable for theories to eliminate dilemmas
and gaps, at least if doing so is possible.
But failing to be uniquely action-guiding is not the only
reason that the existence of moral dilemmas is thought to be
troublesome. Just as important, the existence of dilemmas does
lead to inconsistencies if certain other widely held theses are
true. Here we shall consider two different arguments, each of
which shows that one cannot consistently acknowledge the
reality of moral dilemmas while holding selected (and
seemingly plausible) principles.
The first argument shows that two standard principles of
deontic logic are, when conjoined, incompatible with the
existence of moral dilemmas. The first of these is the principle
of deontic consistency
(PC)
OA→¬O¬A.(PC)OA→¬O¬A.
Intuitively this principle just says that the same action
cannot be both obligatory and forbidden. Note that as initially
described, the existence of dilemmas does not conflict with PC.
For as described, dilemmas involve a situation in which an
agent ought to do AA, ought to do BB, but cannot do
both AA and BB. But if we add a principle of deontic logic,
then we obtain a conflict with PC:

10
 (PD)
(A→B)→(OA→OB).(PD)◻(A→B)→(OA→OB).

Intuitively, PD just says that if doing AA brings

about BB, and if AA is obligatory (morally required),
then BB is obligatory (morally required). The first
argument that generates inconsistency can now be stated.
Premises (1), (2), and (3) represent the claim that moral
dilemmas exist.

1. OAOA

2. OBOB
3. ¬C(A&B)¬C(A&B) [where ‘¬C¬C’ means
‘cannot’]
4. □(A→B)→(OA→OB)◻ [where ‘□◻’ means
(A→B)→(OA→OB) physical necessity]
5. □¬(B&A)◻¬(B&A) (from 3)
6. □(B→¬A)◻(B→¬A) (from 5)
7. □(B→¬A)→(OB→O¬A) (an instantiation of 4)
◻(B→¬A)→(OB→O¬A)
8. OB→O¬AOB→O¬A (from 6 and 7)
9. O¬AO¬A (from 2 and 8)
10. OA and O¬AOA and O¬A (from 1 and 9)

Line (10) directly conflicts with PC. And from PC and (1), we
can conclude:

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 11. ¬O¬A¬O¬A

And, of course, (9) and (11) are contradictory. So if we

assume PC and PD, then the existence of dilemmas generates
an inconsistency of the old-fashioned logical sort. (Note: In
standard deontic logic, the ‘□◻’ in PD typically designates
logical necessity. Here I take it to indicate physical necessity so
that the appropriate connection with premise (3) can be made.
And I take it that logical necessity is stronger than physical
necessity.)
Two other principles accepted in most systems of
deontic logic entail PC. So if PD holds, then one of these
additional two principles must be jettisoned too. The first says
that if an action is obligatory, it is also permissible. The second
says that an action is permissible if and only if it is not
forbidden. These principles may be stated as:
(OP) OA→PA; (OP) OA→PA;
And
(D) PA↔¬O¬A.

Principles OP and D are basic; they seem to be

conceptual truths (Brink 1994, section IV). The second
argument that generates inconsistency, like the first, has as its
first three premises a symbolic representation of a moral
dilemma.

1. OAOA

2. OBOB
3. ¬C(A&B)¬C(A&B)

12
 And like the first, this second argument shows that the
existence of dilemmas leads to a contradiction if we assume
two other commonly accepted principles. The first of these
principles is that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’. Intuitively this says that
if an agent is morally required to do an action, it must be
possible for the agent to do it. This principle seems necessary if
moral judgments are to be uniquely action-guiding. We may
represent this as

4. OA→CAOA→CA (for all AA)

The other principle, endorsed by most systems of

deontic logic, says that if an agent is required to do each of two
actions, she is required to do both. We may represent this as

5. (OA&OB)→O(A&B)(OA&OB)→O(A&B) (for
all AA and
all BB)
The argument then proceeds:

6. O(A&B)→C(A&B)O(A&B)→C(A&B) (an instance of

4)
7. OA&OBOA&OB (from 1 and 2)
8. O(A&B)O(A&B) (from 5 and 7)
9. ¬O(A&B)¬O(A&B) (from 3 and 6)

So, if one assumes that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’ and if one

assumes the principle represented in (5)—dubbed by some the
agglomeration principle (Williams 1965)—then again a
contradiction can be derived.

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Responses to the Arguments
Now obviously the inconsistency in the first argument
can be avoided if one denies either PC or PD. And the
inconsistency in the second argument can be averted if one
gives up either the principle that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’ or the
agglomeration principle. There is, of course, another way to
avoid these inconsistencies: deny the possibility of genuine
moral dilemmas. It is fair to say that much of the debate
concerning moral dilemmas in the last sixty years has been
about how to avoid the inconsistencies generated by the two
arguments above.
Opponents of moral dilemmas have generally held that
the crucial principles in the two arguments above are
conceptually true, and therefore we must deny the possibility of
genuine dilemmas. (, Conee 1982 and Zimmerman 1996.) Most
of the debate, from all sides, has focused on the second
argument. There is an oddity about this, however. When one
examines the pertinent principles in each argument which, in
combination with dilemmas, generates an inconsistency, there
is little doubt that those in the first argument have a greater
claim to being conceptually true than those in the second. (One
who recognizes the salience of the first argument is Brink
1994, section V.) Perhaps the focus on the second argument is
due to the impact of Bernard Williams’s influential essay
(Williams 1965). But notice that the first argument shows that
if there are genuine dilemmas, then either PC or PD must be
relinquished. Even most supporters of dilemmas acknowledge
that PC is quite basic. E.J. Lemmon, for example, notes that if
PC does not hold in a system of deontic logic, then all that
remains are truisms and paradoxes (Lemmon 1965). And
14
giving up PC also requires denying either OP or D, each of
which also seems basic. There has been much debate about
PD—in particular, questions generated by the Good Samaritan
paradox—but still it seems basic. So those who want to argue
against dilemmas purely on conceptual grounds are better off
focusing on the first of the two arguments above.
Some opponents of dilemmas also hold that the
pertinent principles in the second argument—the principle that
‘ought’ implies ‘can’ and the agglomeration principle—are
conceptually true. But foes of dilemmas need not say this. Even
if they believe that a conceptual argument against dilemmas
can be made by appealing to PC and PD, they have several
options regarding the second argument. They may defend
‘ought’ implies ‘can’, but hold that it is a substantive normative
principle, not a conceptual truth. Or they may even deny the
truth of ‘ought’ implies ‘can’ or the agglomeration principle,
though not because of moral dilemmas, of course.
Defenders of dilemmas need not deny all of the
pertinent principles. If one thinks that each of the principles at
least has some initial plausibility, then one will be inclined to
retain as many as possible. Among the earlier contributors to
this debate, some took the existence of dilemmas as a
counterexample to ‘ought’ implies ‘can’ (for example,
Lemmon 1962 and Trigg 1971); others, as a refutation of the
agglomeration principle (for example, Williams 1965 and van
Fraassen 1973). A common response to the first argument is to
deny PD. A more complicated response is to grant that the
crucial deontic principles hold, but only in ideal worlds. In the
real world, they have heuristic value, bidding agents in conflict

15
cases to look for permissible options, though none may exist
(Holbo 2002).
Friends and foes of dilemmas have a burden to bear in
responding to the two arguments above. For there is at least
a prima facie plausibility to the claim that there are moral
dilemmas and to the claim that the relevant principles in the
two arguments are true. Thus, each side must at least give
reasons for denying the pertinent claims in question.
Opponents of dilemmas must say something in response to the
positive arguments that are given for the reality of such
conflicts. One reason in support of dilemmas, as noted above,
is simply pointing to examples. The case of Sartre’s student
and that from Sophie’s Choice are good ones; and clearly these
can be multiplied indefinitely. It will be tempting for
supporters of dilemmas to say to opponents, “If this is not a
real dilemma, then tell me what the agent ought to do
and why?” It is obvious, however, that attempting to answer
such questions is fruitless, and for at least two reasons. First,
any answer given to the question is likely to be controversial,
certainly not always convincing. And second, this is a game
that will never end; example after example can be produced.
The more appropriate response on the part of foes of dilemmas
is to deny that they need to answer the question. Examples as
such cannot establish the reality of dilemmas. Surely most will
acknowledge that there are situations in which an agent does
not know what he ought to do. This may be because of factual
uncertainty, uncertainty about the consequences, uncertainty
about what principles apply, or a host of other things. So for
any given case, the mere fact that one does not know which of
two (or more) conflicting obligations prevails does not show
that none does.
16
 Another reason in support of dilemmas to which
opponents must respond is the point about symmetry. As the
cases from Plato and Sartre show, moral rules can conflict. But
opponents of dilemmas can argue that in such cases one rule
overrides the other. Most will grant this in the Platonic case,
and opponents of dilemmas will try to extend this point to all
cases. But the hardest case for opponents is the symmetrical
one, where the same precept generates the conflicting
requirements. The case from Sophie’s Choice is of this sort. It
makes no sense to say that a rule or principle overrides itself.
So, what do opponents of dilemmas say here? They are apt to
argue that the pertinent, all-things-considered requirement in
such a case is disjunctive: Sophie should act to save one or the
other of her children, since that is the best that she can do
(Zimmerman 1996). Such a move need not be ad hoc, since in
many cases it is quite natural. If an agent can afford to make a
meaningful contribution to only one charity, the fact that there
are several worthwhile candidates does not prompt many to say
that the agent will fail morally no matter what he does. Nearly
all of us think that he should give to one or the other of the
worthy candidates. Similarly, if two people are drowning and
an agent is situated so that she can save either of the two but
only one, few say that she is doing wrong no matter which
person she saves. Positing a disjunctive requirement in these
cases seems perfectly natural, and so such a move is available
to opponents of dilemmas as a response to symmetrical cases.
Supporters of dilemmas have a burden to bear too. They
need to cast doubt on the adequacy of the pertinent principles
in the two arguments that generate inconsistencies. And most
importantly, they need to provide independent reasons for
doubting whichever of the principles they reject. If they have
17
no reason other than cases of putative dilemmas for denying
the principles in question, then we have a mere standoff. Of the
principles in question, the most commonly questioned on
independent grounds are the principle that ‘ought’ implies
‘can’ and PD. Among supporters of dilemmas, Walter Sinnott-
Armstrong (Sinnott-Armstrong 1988) has gone to the greatest
lengths to provide independent reasons for questioning some of
the relevant principles.

Moral Residue and Dilemmas

One well-known argument for the reality of moral
dilemmas has not been discussed yet. This argument might be
called “phenomenological.” It appeals to the emotions that
agents facing conflicts experience and our assessment of those
emotions.
Return to the case of Sartre’s student. Suppose that he
joins the Free French forces. It is likely that he will experience
remorse or guilt for having abandoned his mother. And not
only will he experience these emotions, this moral residue, but
it is appropriate that he does. Yet, had he stayed with his
mother and not joined the Free French forces, he also would
have appropriately experienced remorse or guilt. But either
remorse or guilt is appropriate only if the agent properly
believes that he has done something wrong (or failed to do
something that he was all-things-considered required to do).
Since no matter what the agent does, he will appropriately
experience remorse or guilt, then no matter what he does he
will have done something wrong. Thus, the agent faces a
genuine moral dilemma. (The best-known proponents of
arguments for dilemmas that appeal to moral residue are
18
Williams 1965 and Marcus 1980; for a more recent
contribution, see Tessman 2015)
Many cases of moral conflict are similar to Sartre’s
example with regard to the agent’s reaction after acting.
Certainly, the case from Sophie’s Choice fits here. No matter
which of her children Sophie saves, she will experience
enormous guilt for the consequences of that choice. Indeed, if
Sophie did not experience such guilt, we would think that there
was something morally wrong with her. In these cases,
proponents of the argument (for dilemmas) from moral residue
must claim that four things are true: (1) when the agents acts,
she experiences remorse or guilt; (2) that she experiences these
emotions is appropriate and called for; (3) had the agent acted
on the other of the conflicting requirements, she would also
have experienced remorse or guilt; and (4) in the latter case
these emotions would have been equally appropriate and called
for (McConnell 1996). In these situations, then, remorse or
guilt will be appropriate no matter what the agent does and
these emotions are appropriate only when the agent has done
something wrong. Therefore, these situations are genuinely
dilemmatic and moral failure is inevitable for agents who face
them.
There is much to say about the moral emotions and
situations of moral conflict; the positions are varied and
intricate. Without pretending to resolve all of the issues here, it
will be pointed out that opponents of dilemmas have raised two
different objections to the argument from moral residue. The
first objection, in effect, suggests that the argument is question-
begging (McConnell 1978 and Conee 1982); the second

19
objection challenges the assumption that remorse and guilt are
appropriate only when the agent has done wrong.
To explain the first objection, note that it is
uncontroversial that some bad feeling or other is called for
when an agent is in a situation like that of Sartre’s student or
Sophie. But the negative moral emotions are not limited to
remorse and guilt. Among these other emotions, consider
regret. An agent can appropriately experience regret even when
she does not believe that she has done something wrong. For
example, a parent may appropriately regret that she must
punish her child even though she correctly believes that the
punishment is deserved. Her regret is appropriate because a bad
state of affairs is brought into existence (say, the child’s
discomfort), even when bringing this state of affairs into
existence is morally required. Regret can even be appropriate
when a person has no causal connection at all with the bad state
of affairs. It is appropriate for me to regret the damage that a
recent fire has caused to my neighbor’s house, the pain that
severe birth defects cause in infants, and the suffering that a
starving animal experiences in the wilderness. Not only is it
appropriate that I experience regret in these cases, but I would
probably be regarded as morally lacking if I did not. (For
accounts of moral remainders as they relate specifically to
Kantianism and virtue ethics, see, respectively, Hill 1996and
Hursthouse 1999)
With remorse or guilt, at least two components are
present: the experiential component, namely, the negative
feeling that the agent has; and the cognitive component,
namely, the belief that the agent has done something wrong
and takes responsibility for it. Although this same cognitive
20
component is not part of regret, the negative feeling is. And the
experiential component alone cannot serve as a gauge to
distinguish regret from remorse, for regret can range from mild
to intense, and so can remorse. In part, what distinguishes the
two is the cognitive component. But now when we examine the
case of an alleged dilemma, such as that of Sartre’s student, it
is question-begging to assert that it is appropriate for him to
experience remorse no matter what he does. No doubt, it is
appropriate for him to experience some negative feeling. To
say, however, that it is remorse that is called for is to assume
that the agent appropriately believes that he has done
something wrong. Since regret is warranted even in the absence
of such a belief, to assume that remorse is appropriate is
to assume, not argue, that the agent’s situation is genuinely
dilemmatic. Opponents of dilemmas can say that one of the
requirements overrides the other, or that the agent faces a
disjunctive requirement, and that regret is appropriate because
even when he does what he ought to do, some bad will ensue.
Either side, then, can account for the appropriateness of some
negative moral emotion. To get more specific, however,
requires more than is warranted by the present argument. This
appeal to moral residue, then, does not by itself establish the
reality of moral dilemmas.
Matters are even more complicated, though, as the
second objection to the argument from moral residue shows.
The residues contemplated by proponents of the argument are
diverse, ranging from guilt or remorse to a belief that the agent
ought to apologize or compensate persons who were negatively
impacted by the fact that he did not satisfy one of the
conflicting obligations. The argument assumes that
experiencing remorse or guilt or believing that one ought to
21
apologize or compensate another are appropriate responses
only if the agent believes that he has done something wrong.
But this assumption is debatable, for multiple reasons.
First, even when one obligation clearly overrides
another in a conflict case, it is often appropriate to apologize to
or to explain oneself to any disadvantaged parties. Ross
provides such a case (1930): one who breaks a relatively trivial
promise in order to assist someone in need should in some way
make it up to the promisee. Even though the agent did no
wrong, the additional actions promote important moral values
(McConnell 1996).
Second, as Simon Blackburn argues, compensation or
it’s like may be called for even when there was no moral
conflict at all (Blackburn 1996). If a coach rightly selected
Agnes for the team rather than Belinda, she still is likely to talk
to Belinda, encourage her efforts, and offer tips for improving.
This kind of “making up” is just basic decency.
Third, the consequences of what one has done may be
so horrible as to make guilt inevitable. Consider the case of a
middle-aged man, Bill, and a seven-year-old boy, Johnny. It is
set in a midwestern village on a snowy December day. Johnny
and several of his friends are riding their sleds down a narrow,
seldom used street, one that intersects with a busier, although
still not heavily traveled, street. Johnny, in his enthusiasm for
sledding, is not being very careful. During his final ride he
skidded under an automobile passing through the intersection
and was killed instantly. The car was driven by Bill. Bill was
driving safely, had the right of way, and was not exceeding the
speed limit. Moreover, given the physical arrangement, it
would have been impossible for Bill to have seen Johnny
22
coming. Bill was not at fault, legally or morally, for Johnny’s
death. Yet Bill experienced what can best be described as
remorse or guilt about his role in this horrible event
(McConnell 1996).
At one level, Bill’s feelings of remorse or guilt are not
warranted. Bill did nothing wrong. Certainly, Bill does not
deserve to feel guilt (Dahl 1996). A friend might even
recommend that Bill seek therapy. But this is not all there is to
say. Most of us understand Bill’s response. From Bill’s point of
view, the response is not inappropriate, not irrational, not
uncalled-for. To see this, imagine that Bill had had a very
different response. Suppose that Bill had said, “I regret
Johnny’s death. It is a terrible thing. But it certainly was not
my fault. I have nothing to feel guilty about and I don’t owe his
parents any apologies.” Even if Bill is correct intellectually, it
is hard to imagine someone being able to achieve this sort of
objectivity about his own behavior. When human beings have
caused great harm, it is natural for them to wonder if they are at
fault, even if to outsiders it is obvious that they bear no moral
responsibility for the damage. Human beings are not so finely
tuned emotionally that when they have
been causally responsible for harm, they can easily turn guilt
on or off depending on their degree of moral responsibility.
(See Zimmerman 1988, 134–135.)
Work in moral psychology can help to explain why
self-directed moral emotions like guilt or remorse are natural
when an agent has acted contrary to a moral norm, whether
justifiably or not. Many moral psychologists describe dual
processes in humans for arriving at moral judgments (see, for
example, Greene 2013 and Haidt 2012). Moral emotions are
23
automatic, the brain’s immediate response to a situation.
Reason is more like the brain’s manual mode, employed when
automatic settings are insufficient, such as when norms
conflict. Moral emotions are likely the product of evolution,
reinforcing conduct that promotes social harmony and
disapproving actions that thwart that end. If this is correct, then
negative moral emotions are apt to be experienced, to some
extent, any time an agent’s actions are contrary to what is
normally a moral requirement.
So both supporters and opponents of moral dilemmas
can give an account of why agents who face moral conflicts
appropriately experience negative moral emotions. But there is
a complex array of issues concerning the relationship between
ethical conflicts and moral emotions, and only book-length
discussions can do them justice. (Greenspan 1995 and Tessman
2015.)

Types of Moral Dilemmas

In the literature on moral dilemmas, it is common to
draw distinctions among various types of dilemmas. Only some
of these distinctions will be mentioned here. It is worth noting
that both supporters and opponents of dilemmas tend to draw
some, if not all, of these distinctions. And in most cases the
motivation for doing so is clear. Supporters of dilemmas may
draw a distinction between dilemmas of type VV and WW.
The upshot is typically a message to opponents of dilemmas:
“You think that all moral conflicts are resolvable. And that is
understandable, because conflicts of type VV are resolvable.
But conflicts of type WW are not resolvable. Thus, contrary to
your view, there are some genuine moral dilemmas.” By the
24
same token, opponents of dilemmas may draw a distinction
between dilemmas of type XX and YY. And their message to
supporters of dilemmas is this: “You think that there are
genuine moral dilemmas, and given certain facts, it is
understandable why this appears to be the case. But if you draw
a distinction between conflicts of types XX and YY, you can
see that appearances can be explained by the existence of
type XX alone, and type XX conflicts are not genuine
dilemmas.” With this in mind, let us note a few of the
distinctions.

One distinction is between epistemic conflicts

and ontological conflicts. (For different terminology, see
Blackburn 1996) The former involves conflicts between two
(or more) moral requirements and the agent does not know
which of the conflicting requirements takes precedence in her
situation. Everyone concedes that there can be situations where
one requirement does take priority over the other with which it
conflicts, though at the time action is called for it is difficult for
the agent to tell which requirement prevails. The latter are
conflicts between two (or more) moral requirements, and
neither is overridden. This is not simply because the agent does
not know which requirement is stronger; neither is. Genuine
moral dilemmas, if there are any, are ontological. Both
opponents and supporters of dilemmas acknowledge that there
are epistemic conflicts.
There can be genuine moral dilemmas only if neither
of the conflicting requirements is overridden. Ross (1930) held
that all moral precepts can be overridden in particular
circumstances. This provides an inviting framework for
opponents of dilemmas to adopt. But if some moral
25
requirements cannot be overridden—if they hold absolutely—
then it will be easier for supporters of dilemmas to make their
case. Lisa Tessman has distinguished between negotiable and
non-negotiable moral requirements (Tessman 2015). The
former, if not satisfied, can be adequately compensated or
counterbalanced by some other good. Non-negotiable moral
requirements, however, if violated produce a cost that no one
should have to bear; such a violation cannot be
counterbalanced by any benefits. If non-negotiable moral
requirements can conflict—and Tessman argues that the can—
then those situations will be genuine dilemmas and agents
facing them will inevitably fail morally. It might seem that if
there is more than one moral precept that holds absolutely, then
moral dilemmas must be possible. Alan Donagan, however,
argues against this. He maintains that moral rules hold
absolutely, and apparent exceptions are accounted for because
tacit conditions are built in to each moral rule (Donagan 1977).
So even if some moral requirements cannot be overridden, the
existence of dilemmas may still be an open question.

Another distinction is between self-imposed moral

dilemmas and dilemmas imposed on an agent by the world, as
it were. Conflicts of the former sort arise because of the agent’s
own wrongdoing (Aquinas; Donagan 1977, 1984; and
McConnell 1978). If an agent made two promises that he knew
conflicted, then through his own actions he created a situation
in which it is not possible for him to discharge both of his
requirements. Dilemmas imposed on the agent by the world, by
contrast, do not arise because of the agent’s wrongdoing. The
case of Sartre’s student is an example, as is the case
from Sophie’s Choice. For supporters of dilemmas, this
distinction is not all that important. But among opponents of
26
dilemmas, there is a disagreement about whether the distinction
is important. Some of these opponents hold that self-imposed
dilemmas are possible, but that their existence does not point to
any deep flaws in moral theory (Donagan 1977). Moral theory
tells agents how they ought to behave; but if agents violate
moral norms, of course things can go askew. Other opponents
deny that even self-imposed dilemmas are possible. They argue
that an adequate moral theory should tell agents what they
ought to do in their current circumstances, regardless of how
those circumstances arose. As Hill puts it, “[M]orality
acknowledges that human beings are imperfect and often
guilty, but it calls upon each at every new moment of moral
deliberation to decide conscientiously and to act rightly from
that point on” (Hill 1996). Given the prevalence of
wrongdoing, if a moral theory did not issue uniquely action-
guiding “contrary-to-duty imperatives,” its practical import
would be limited.

Yet another distinction is between obligation

dilemmas and prohibition dilemmas. The former are situations
in which more than one feasible action is obligatory. The latter
involve cases in which all feasible actions are forbidden. Some
(Valentyne 1987 and 1989) argue that plausible principles of
deontic logic may well render obligation dilemmas impossible;
but they do not preclude the possibility of prohibition
dilemmas. The case of Sartre’s student, if genuinely
dilemmatic, is an obligation dilemma; Sophie’s case is a
prohibition dilemma. There is another reason that friends of
dilemmas emphasize this distinction. Some think that the
“disjunctive solution” used by opponents of dilemmas—when
equally strong precepts conflict, the agent is required to act on

27
one or the other—is more plausible when applied to obligation
dilemmas than when applied to prohibition dilemmas.
As moral dilemmas are typically described, they
involve a single agent. The agent ought, all things considered,
to do AA, ought, all things considered, to do BB, and she
cannot do both AA and BB. But we can distinguish multi-
person dilemmas from single agent ones. The two-person case
is representative of multi-person dilemmas. The situation is
such that one agent, P1, ought to do AA, a second agent, P2,
ought to do BB, and though each agent can do what he ought to
do, it is not possible both for P1 to do AA and P2 to do BB.
(Marcus 1980 & McConnell 1988.) Multi-person dilemmas
have been called “interpersonal moral conflicts.” Such conflicts
are most theoretically worrisome if the same moral system (or
theory) generates the conflicting obligations for P1 and P2. A
theory that precludes single-agent moral dilemmas remains
uniquely action-guiding for each agent. But if that same theory
does not preclude the possibility of interpersonal moral
conflicts, not all agents will be able to succeed in discharging
their obligations, no matter how well-motivated or how hard
they try. For supporters of moral dilemmas, this distinction is
not all that important. They no doubt welcome (theoretically)
more types of dilemmas, since that may make their case more
persuasive. But if they establish the reality of single-agent
dilemmas, in one sense their work is done. For opponents of
dilemmas, however, the distinction may be important. This is
because at least some opponents believe that the conceptual
argument against dilemmas applies principally to single-agent
cases. It does so because the ought-to-do operator of deontic
logic and the accompanying principles are properly understood
to apply to entities who can make decisions. To be clear, this
28
position does not preclude that collectives (such as businesses
or nations) can have obligations. But a necessary condition for
this being the case is that there is (or should be) a central
deliberative standpoint from which decisions are made. This
condition is not satisfied when two otherwise unrelated agents
happen to have obligations both of which cannot be discharged.
Put simply, while an individual act involving one agent can be
the object of choice, a compound act involving multiple agents
is difficult so to conceive. (See Smith 1986 and Thomason
1981.) Erin Taylor (2011) has recently argued that neither
universalizability nor the principle that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’
ensure that there will be no interpersonal moral conflicts (what
she calls “irreconcilable differences”). These conflicts would
raise no difficulties if morality required trying rather than
acting, but such a view is not plausible. Still, moral theories
should minimize cases of interpersonal conflict (Taylor 2011).
To the extent that the possibility of interpersonal moral
conflicts raises an intramural dispute among opponents of
dilemmas, that dispute concerns how to understand the
principles of deontic logic and what can reasonably be
demanded of moral theories.

Multiple Moralities
Another issue raised by the topic of moral dilemmas is
the relationship among various parts of morality. Consider this
distinction. General obligations are moral requirements that
individuals have simply because they are moral agents. That
agents are required not to kill, not to steal, and not to assault
are examples of general obligations. Agency alone makes these
precepts applicable to individuals. By contrast, role-related

29
obligations are moral requirements that agents have in virtue of
their role, occupation, or position in society. That lifeguards are
required to save swimmers in distress is a role-related
obligation. Another example, mentioned earlier, is the
obligation of a defense attorney to hold in confidence the
disclosures made by a client. These categories need not be
exclusive. It is likely that anyone who is in a position to do so
ought to save a drowning person. And if a person has
particularly sensitive information about another, she should
probably not reveal it to third parties regardless of how the
information was obtained. But lifeguards have obligations to
help swimmers in distress when most others do not because of
their abilities and contractual commitments. And lawyers have
special obligations of confidentiality to their clients because of
implicit promises and the need to maintain trust.
General obligations and role-related obligations can,
and sometimes do, conflict. If a defense attorney knows the
whereabouts of a deceased body, she may have a general
obligation to reveal this information to family members of the
deceased. But if she obtained this information from her client,
the role-related obligation of confidentiality prohibits her from
sharing it with others. Supporters of dilemmas may regard
conflicts of this sort as just another confirmation of their thesis.
Opponents of dilemmas will have to hold that one of the
conflicting obligations takes priority. The latter task could be
discharged if it were shown that one these two types of
obligations always prevails over the other. But such a claim is
implausible; for it seems that in some cases of conflict general
obligations are stronger, while in other cases role-related duties
take priority. The case seems to be made even better for
supporters of dilemmas, and worse for opponents, when we
30
consider that the same agent can occupy multiple roles that
create conflicting requirements. The physician, Harvey
Kelekian, in Margaret Edson’s (1999/1993) Pulitzer Prize
winning play, Wit, is an oncologist, a medical researcher, and a
teacher of residents. The obligations generated by those roles
lead Dr. Kelekian to treat his patient, Vivian Bearing, in ways
that seem morally questionable (McConnell 2009). At first
blush, anyway, it does not seem possible for Kelekian to
discharge all of the obligations associated with these various
roles.

In the context of issues raised by the possibility of

moral dilemmas, the role most frequently discussed is that of
the political actor. Michael Walzer (1973) claims that the
political ruler, qua political ruler, ought to do what is best for
the state; that is his principal role-related obligation. But he
also ought to abide by the general obligations incumbent on all.
Sometimes the political actor’s role-related obligations require
him to do evil—that is, to violate some general obligations.
Among the examples given by Walzer are making a deal with a
dishonest ward boss (necessary to get elected so that he can do
good) and authorizing the torture of a person in order to
uncover a plot to bomb a public building. Since each of these
requirements is binding, Walzer believes that the politician
faces a genuine moral dilemma, though, strangely, he also
thinks that the politician should choose the good of the
community rather than abide by the general moral norms. (The
issue here is whether supporters of dilemmas can meaningfully
talk about action-guidance in genuinely dilemmatic situations.
For one who answers this in the affirmative, see Tessman
2015) Such a situation is sometimes called “the dirty hands
problem.” The expression, “dirty hands,” is taken from the title
31
of a play by Sartre (1946). The idea is that no one can rule
without becoming morally tainted. The role itself is fraught
with moral dilemmas. This topic has received much attention
recently. John Parrish (2007) has provided a detailed history of
how philosophers from Plato to Adam Smith have dealt with
the issue. And C.A.J. Coady (2008) has suggested that this
reveals a “messy morality.”

For opponents of moral dilemmas, the problem of

dirty hands represents both a challenge and an opportunity. The
challenge is to show how conflicts between general obligations
and role-related obligations, and those among the various role-
related obligations, can be resolved in a principled way. The
opportunity for theories that purport to have the resources to
eliminate dilemmas—such as Kantianism, utilitarianism, and
intuitionism—is to show how the many moralities under which
people are governed are related.

The Teaching Profession as a duty and Good will

Using Kant's view, there is nothing it is possible to
think of anywhere in the world, or indeed anything at all
outside it that can be held to be good without limitation,
excepting only a good will, then we uphold the teaching
profession on the fact that it is founded on good will. As
Ashraf et al (2013) pointed out we find that teaching is central
to education without which we cannot have education, and
therefore, requires authority. It means that for education to
succeed, teachers must seek the highest good without limitation
in their profession, and this must be the good will. Teachers
need to have the good will to do their work and their authority
is drawn on the grounds of good will. We learn from Ashraf et
32
al (2013) that teachers have tremendous power to influence the
thinking, motivation and knowledge of their students such that
the teacher's role is very important in character building of
their students. Students follow their teacher as a role model.
Mahmood (2013) explains that teachers are the heart and soul
of any education system and quality of that education system
would be based on many factors but most crucial is quality of
teachers. Teacher's abilities play a vital role in student's
achievements and performance at all levels of education.

Teacher's performance consists of teacher's academic

qualification, quality of teacher training, teaching experiences,
pedagogical practices, professional development, structuring
the material, ask higher order questions, use student ideas, and
probe student comments, empathy, mentoring, coaching,
subject knowledge, dedication, commitment, ability to
communicate, and class management ability etc. However, as
Kant teaches, without good will, these qualities would not
obtain the goals of teaching. Kant cautions that understanding,
wit, the power of judgment, and like talents of the mind,
whatever they might be called, or courage, resoluteness,
persistence in an intention, as qualities of temperament, are
without doubt in some respects good and to be wished for; but
they can also become extremely evil and harmful, if the will
that is to make use of these gifts of nature, and whose peculiar
constitution is therefore called character, is not good. This
paper argues that professional training is not sufficient to make
good teachers. Some people could have resorted to teaching
after missing out on careers of their passion. People who take
to teaching as the last resort may/do not have the good will to
engage in the teaching profession. They may obtain high
qualifications from their training, but this may not be from
33
their passion or good will for teaching as such could have been
motivated by the need to gain employment. Those who take to
teaching must perceive the profession and the entire teaching
as good. As we learn from Kant (2002), the good will is good
not through what it effects or accomplishes, not through its
efficacy for attaining any intended end, but only through its
willing, i.e., good in itself, and considered for itself, without
comparison, it is to be estimated far higher than anything that
could be brought about by it in favor of any inclination.

From Kant's conceptualization of good will and duty,

we learn that in order to realize good will, there is need for
duty. Kant (2002) explains that in order to develop the concept
of a good will, to be esteemed in itself and without any further
aim, just as it dwells already in the naturally healthy
understanding, which does not need to be taught but rather only
to be enlightened, this concept always standing over the
estimation of the entire worth of our actions and constituting
the condition for everything else: we will put before ourselves
the concept of duty, which contains that of a good will, though
under certain subjective limitations and hindrances, which,
however, far from concealing it and making it unrecognizable,
rather elevate it by contrast and let it shine forth all the more
brightly. It becomes evident that in order for teachers to realize
good will in their profession, they must underscore their work
as duty.
According to Kant (2002) there are some souls so
sympathetically attuned that, even without any other motive of
vanity or utility to self, take an inner gratification in spreading
joy around them, and can take delight in the contentment of
others insofar as it is their own work. However, in such a case
34
the action, however it may conform to duty and however
amiable it is, nevertheless has no true moral worth, but is on
the same footing as other inclinations, e.g., The inclination to
honor, which, when it fortunately encounters something that in
fact serves the common good and is in conformity with duty,
and is thus worthy of honor, deserves praise and
encouragement, but not esteem; for the maxim lacks moral
content, namely of doing such actions not from inclination but
from duty.This implies that having passion and inclination for
teaching lacks moral basis without emphasis on duty.

Furthermore, James Stronge (n.d) discusses that

teachers have been portrayed in a variety of ways in the media,
ranging from detrimental images to beloved masters of their
craft who inspire students to excel. Effective teachers can be
seen, heard, and sensed. The effective teacher engages in
dialogue with students, colleagues, parents, and administrators
and consistently demonstrates respect, accessibility, and
expertise. Effective teachers are easily identified through their
adept use of questioning and instruction given in the classroom.
Finally, an observer who knows from all sources that this
person truly makes a difference in the classroom can sense the
presence of an effective teacher. The true teacher is a master of
teaching. However, as we learn from Kant's teachings, the
morality of these qualities of an effective teacher could be
realized when the tasks are performed with regard to duty.
According Kant (2002) an action from duty has its
moral worth not in the aim that is supposed to be attained by it,
but rather in the maxim in accordance with which it is resolved
upon; thus that worth depends not on the actuality of the object
of the action, but merely on the principle of the volition, in
35
accordance with which the action is done, without regard to
any object of the faculty of desire. The aims we may have in
actions, and their effects, as ends and incentives of the will, can
impart to the actions no unconditioned and moral worth. The
moral worth of the action thus lies not in the effect to be
expected from it; thus, also not in any principle of action which
needs to get its motive from this expected effect. For all these
effects could be brought about through other causes and for
them the will of a rational being is therefore not needed; but in
it alone the highest and unconditioned good can nevertheless
be encountered.
Duty is the necessity of an action from respect for the
law. Nothing other than the representation of the law in itself,
which obviously occurs only in the rational being insofar as it,
and not the hoped-for effect, is the determining ground of the
will, therefore constitutes that so pre-eminent good which we
call ‘moral', which is already present in the person himself who
acts in accordance with it, but must not first of all be expected
from the effect. Here it is mere lawfulness in general (without
grounding it on any law determining certain actions) that
serves the will as its principle, and also must so serve it, if duty
is not to be everywhere an empty delusion and a chimerical
concept; common human reason, indeed, agrees perfectly with
this in its practical judgment, and has the principle just cited
always before its eyes. Kant's teachings on the place of duty
and the law in defining the morality of an action implies that
the teaching profession must underscore the law as provided.
Teachers must obey the laws as well as principles governing
their duty, which is to teach. It is only when their actions,
emanating from good will as guided by duty and the law that
the teaching exercise could be perceived as moral. Once
36
teaching is perceived as moral, it becomes acceptable and such
exercise has higher chances of achieving its goals. Given that
teaching is central to education without which we cannot have
education, and therefore, requires authority (Ashraf etal, 2013),
a moral practice of teaching as discussed makes the profession
the engine of education.

37
 VIRTUE ETHICS
Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics

What makes us Human?

In Aristotle’s ontology, all things have both Form and

Matter. The Form is what makes something essentially the kind
of thing that it is. X is a Chair. X is a Horse. What is, then, the
Form of Human? What makes us essentially human? We saw
in Plato that we should try to be like our Form: the more we
resemble the perfect, ideal Form, the better we are as Humans.
Aristotle did not believe in separately existing nonmaterial
Forms, but he did believe that our Form gives us a potential to
fulfil. To be a virtuous human, we should fulfil our function as
Humans. But what is this function? In order to see this, we
must look at what it is that distinguishes humans from other
things.

3 Types of Soul

Aristotle thought that all living things have a soul

(ANIMA). This is because the soul is what gives life to things.
Without a soul, there is only a material object, like an eye
without vision. The type of soul defines one’s essence. There
are 3 kinds of soul, going from the lower primitive level to the
higher one:

1. The Vegetative Soul: the ability of self-nutrition and

growth. This is the soul of plants.
2. The Sensitive Soul: the ability of movement and
sensations, in addition to self-nutrition and growth.
38
 Animals have this soul.
3. The Rational Soul: the ability of thought and
deliberation, in addition to movement, sensation, self-
nutrition and growth. Humans have this soul.

There can be a conflict between the rational part of the

soul and the irrational ones. Unlike Plato, who said that to
know what is right is to do what is right, Aristotle thought that
one can know what is right to do, but still not do it. This is
because the rational soul is not always in charge of the
irrational part. One can have weakness of the will.

Form and TELOS

Þ The type of soul gives us different types of potentials and

TELOS. As humans, we have a number of abilities, capacities
or powers that we can actualize. What is unique for the human
Form is that we have a rational capacity for knowledge,
reasoning and truth. This is a main function of being human.

Þ When the rational soul is in control of the irrational soul, we

can become virtuous. We are not born with virtue and our
souls are not already good, as in Plato. But we carry within
us the potential for good and virtue. It takes lots of hard
work and practice to realise this potential.
Þ We saw that the Form in Aristotle is always related to a
TELOS; the final cause or aim for development.
Knowledge is an aim of Humans but not the only one. We
have different types of potentials to fulfil, since the human
soul includes many abilities: political, ethical, intellectual,
personal and biological.

39
Happiness as the Human TELOS

The ultimate aim (TELOS) of Human life is Happiness.

Happiness, unlike money and wealth, is an ultimate aim
because it is not “for” anything else. Everything we do, we do
to be happy. Happiness has intrinsic value. Money only has
instrumental value. We want it for what we can get with it. The
greatest Happiness (EUDAIMONIA) has three qualities that
make it the ultimate aim or TELOS of all our actions:
· Happiness is desirable in itself.

· Happiness is not desirable because it brings other

goods.

· All other goods are desirable because they lead to

Happiness.

Happiness as a Virtue

Aristotle thought that Happiness (EUDAIMONIA)

comes from living the good life. This is not primarily a life of
pleasure, but of virtue (ARETE). We become happy when we
fulfil our potential in a virtuous way. But we need both
intellectual and moral virtues. We must also actualize
potentials of our rational soul. To be a good and virtuous
person, it is not enough to be so now and then. The good
actions should come spontaneously. Morality should be an
integrated part of us, so that we make good choices and act
morally. How does this happen? Aristotle thought that the only
way to become virtuous is to act virtuous: To become good, we
must do good acts. Moral goodness is a result of habit and
takes a lot of practice.
40
Virtue as the Golden Mean

Aristotle thought that ethical virtues were found in the

middle of two extremes: The Golden Mean. If one has too
much of a virtue it becomes a vice, and the same if one has too
little, it becomes a different vice. A brave person is a virtuous
one, but if one is too brave, one becomes reckless, which is a
vice. To be not brave enough is to be coward, which is also a
vice. People are different and we have different strengths and
virtues. But some are more important than others. Like Plato,
Aristotle thought of Wisdom, Courage, Self-control and Justice
as cardinal virtues. In addition, he discusses virtues such as
Generosity, Mildness, Friendship, Wittiness and Modesty.

PHRONESIS – practical judgement Essential for Aristotle’s

ethics is practical wisdom or judgement (PHRONESIS). A
virtue cannot be universally defined, but must always be
considered within a situation. For instance, honesty is a virtue,
but what is the right amount of honesty will depend on the
situation, the person and the context. Too much honesty can be
a vice. There are therefore no universal moral rules. Aristotle is
thus what we call a moral particularist.

Politics

Plato’s ideal state was an attempt to develop a state that

would help its citizens to become good and virtuous. While
Aristotle did not think the ideal state was the best to do this, he
agreed with Plato that the state is important for people’s moral
lives. A good state ought to be stable and help us live good
lives. The state exists for the sake of a good life, and for us to
41
fulfil our moral and intellectual potential. He included political
activity in a virtuous life. Humans are social and ‘political
animals’, or ZOON POLITIKON. The opposite is to be an
IDIOS or idiot, someone who is not interested in politics (a
‘private’ citizen).

Aristotle thought that Happiness (EUDAIMONIA) comes from

living the good life. This is not primarily a life of pleasure, but
of virtue (ARETE). We become happy when we fulfil our
potential in a virtuous way. But we need both intellectual and
moral virtues. We must also actualize potentials of our rational
soul. To be a good and virtuous person, it is not enough to be
so now and then. The good actions should come spontaneously.
Morality should be an integrated part of us, so that we make
good choices and act morally. How does this happen? Aristotle
thought that the only way to become virtuous is to act virtuous:
To become good, we must do good acts. Moral goodness is a
result of habit and takes a lot of practice.

The Virtue of Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics

From the ancient period of philosophy to the
Enlightenment, virtue ethics stood as the dominant and
unrivalled ethical theory of the age. The theory was founded
and advanced by some of the greatest and most influential
minds of history. In the West, it was developed by Plato and
Aristotle. In the East, it can be traced back to Mencius and
Confucius. That it has been upheld by such diverse thinkers in
geographically isolated regions is a testament to its moral
insight. After all, there is something distinctly intuitive and
human about its emphasis on good character over and above
42
mere actions. Virtue ethics remained the unrivalled theory until
it was briefly eclipsed in the 19th century by utilitarianism and
deontology. Nevertheless, both theories still saw the
importance of virtue ethics and reinterpreted it under their
system. Kant wrote about it in the Doctrine of Virtue and Mill
wrote about it in Utilitarianism. It was not until Anscombe and
Macintyre that virtue ethics resurfaced as dissatisfaction with
both theories increased. Any ethical theory must take into
account virtues, consequences, and rules if it is to provide a
plausible normative account of ethics. It’s just a matter of
which feature we take to be more fundamental to the moral life.
Why Virtue Ethics is Superior

The most important reason we should accept the virtue

ethics account as superior is metaphysical: it grounds the good
in the total nature of a human being. Both Kant and Mill have
their appeal only insofar as they focus on one aspect of a
human being, whereas Aristotle has a more holistic approach in
which both pleasure and reason are relevant for happiness
because that is our natural function. Kant states that only a
priori reason determines the moral content of the law, thereby
detaching the good from the natural ends of the human being.
He does of course affirm our rational nature, and in doing so
makes the legitimate point that the moral law would apply to
any being with a rational nature, but this is only one aspect of
what we are. We also have goods that come from our animal
nature. For example, eating is part of the function of human
beings and not only must we eat, but we must eat well in order
to thrive as the kind of beings that we are. Eating well is clearly
morally good, and yet Kant cannot possibly argue that this
moral good is known via a priori reason because the rational
43
nature considered by itself does not need to eat. That eating is
good for us is an a posteriori fact. Kant could of course make it
a maxim such that “All people should eat well” and claim that
not doing so will result in the death of the species, but he
cannot do so wit out accepting the Aristotelian premise that our
natural ends as guided by reason determine what is good for us.

Kant must of course deny this premise by arguing that it

is not morally good until reason“wills” that it become a
universal law in a way that is consistent. He could attempt to
respond by noting that a priori reasoning provides the general
structure of morality (e.g, that it must be universalizeable) and
then the empirical details are inputted into the categorical
imperatives to make a determinate moral claim. So with respect
to eating, he could claim that by itself it’s just a natural good
but we would not have a moral duty to fulfil it unless we can
will it as a universal law. But this interpretation is very
implausible given that Kant explicitly states that “the basis of
obligation must not be sought in the nature of man” and cannot
in the least derive “from the knowledge of man himself
(anthropology)” but must come from a priori reason. It is very
clear that the basis for our obligation to eat well derives from
the nature of man. Even supposing the most charitable
interpretation, however, it still fails because what “eating well”
means would be relative to a human’s biological needs. There
is no universalize-able sense of eating well in which every
human must eat x amount of calories with y amount of
nutrients. We may develop a practical guideline as the food
pyramid does, but Kant explicitly rejects practical rules b cause
they cannot be moral rules unless they apply to all rational
beings in every circumstance. It seems then that Kant cannot
escape referencing our natural ends without undermining his
44
project. Virtue ethics fits with better with the fact that “eating
well” does indeed play an important role in achieving
happiness.

Utilitarianism has a very similar problem in that it

cannot possibly determine whether an act is moral or immoral
without reference to our natural ends. The virtue ethicist
affirms that pleasure is a part of happiness but denies that it is
identical happiness. To see why, suppose that eating well was
accompanied by moderate displeasure and eating badly was
accompanied by moderate pleasure. If producing pleasure
solely determined an action’s moral value, then we would be
forced to accept that eating well would be immoral. This is of
course absurd, which demonstrates that there is a distinction
between what is good for a being and what gives a being
pleasure. A utilitarian could object that in the long-run, such a
scenario is very implausible because the person would be
deficient in nutrients and thus not be fully operational in a way
that would eventually lead to death. But all we need to do is
suppose that displeasure occurs with extremely bad food (the
kind that leads to death) while affirming that pleasure still
occurs with bad food. This bad food will at worst leave
someone minimally operational such that one is relatively
lethargic and weak but pleasurably so. Even if we did not make
this qualification to the scenario, however, the utilitarian still
has no grounds unless it affirms that death is contrary to the
function of the human being. It is not then by virtue of pleasure
or pain that something is deemed moral but by virtue of its
natural end as Aristotle says. Every pleasure only has value
insofar as it results from an activity that has value. The activity
of eating is only good because it provides nutrition. Pleasure
then is at best a natural by-product of some already good
45
activity; it does not make it good. Pleasure is good only insofar
as it motivates us to perform the activity and ideally to do it
well. So, it is not immoral to be motivated by pleasure, but it is
a vice when one is excessive or deficient in their motivation for
pleasure.

It is sometimes said that while consequentialism is

strongly rejected, it is only because one cannot shake the belief
that it is in some way right. Virtue ethics can affirm our
intuition that effects have some moral import insofar as good
activity is that which has the effect of fulfilling our ends well.
Interestingly, Ben Bradley writes a paper entitled Virtue
Consequentialism (2005) that seems to suggest that it is
possible to combine the two. But as long as consequentialism
necessitates that the goodness of an action be solely determined
by its effects, it is impossible that it be compatible with virtue
ethics as such. This is because virtue must first be a state in
order for something to count as a virtuous act. Something
becomes a virtuous state through habitual action, but the state
is what makes an act virtuous, not the effect taken by itself. A
person could do something courageous once, but we could not
say that the person has the virtue of being courageous. The
intention also matters because if a person only acted
courageously in order to live another day to kill his
grandmother, then this is of course completely incompatible
with a virtuous person. The person must act virtuously for its
own sake. Lastly, any sort of consequentialism must be ruled
out because a being’s end determines its good, not the action.
The action fulfills a good (aka natural end), but it does not
determine the good. Consequentialism is a classic case of
putting the effect before the ontology. Aristotle does not make
this mistake for he recognizes the fundamental importance of
46
ontology in the determination of the good.

Virtue ethics can account for the intuitive aspects of

Kant’s deontology. First, it affirms that some laws apply
universally and necessarily. This universality is explained by
the fact that human beings share a common nature and it is
necessary insofar as a human being necessarily has the natural
ends it has if it is human. Life is essential to human beings,
therefore it is contrary to their good to murder them and
therefore always immoral. Another example: it is never the
case that one ought to seek what is false because it is the
natural end of our rational faculty that it discovers truth. To
claim otherwise requires that you use your rational faculty to
say something true about the nature of your rational faculty. It
is self-contradictory. So it is clearly always good to seek the
truth, and always bad to distort it. Second, it also affirms that if
an alien species were to exist, we would have some identical
moral obligations toward each other despite having different
Third, it affirms that someone who does their duty despite the
inclinations that pulls in the opposite direction is doing
something right because reason’s function is to direct activity
to the fulfillment of its proper end. But of course, this cannot
be the whole story as we shall see. Lastly, it affirms that a will
that does not value virtue or a person for their own sake cannot
possibly be doing something virtuous or good. Just as our well
being is an end in itself, so too is the well being of another
individual that shares the same rational nature. We are social
creatures that have it as our end to be a part of something more
than ourselves.

The last serious problem with Kant’s view is that it

dehumanizes us and is unnatural insofar as it requires that we
47
act only from duty and never from inclination. But to be
inclined to something just is for the will to be moved (at least
in part) toward a certain action. For example, hunger is an
inclination that moves the will to satisfy that hunger through
the act of eating. An inclination that has no effect on the will is
simply not an inclination in the first place. In order for us to
have a good will then, we must remove all inclination, but this
is impossible because it is the nature of the will to be inclined
by our desires. Furthermore, even if we could somehow act
only from duty while ignoring the influence of inclination on
our wills, it is still problematic. Suppose a soldier was strongly
inclined to murder a man for being homosexual but reluctantly
helps the homosexual out of duty. Kant must claim that
inclinations do not have moral worth because actions from
inclinations have no moral worth, but it is very obvious that
this inclination is immoral and reflects badly on this person’s
character. Conversely, if someone saved a child out of pure
duty but did not have love, this act would clearly be morally
deficient.

On the other hand, a person that saves his child out of

love clearly has a good inclination but if this person would
only save a child if he has affections toward that child then
he’d be morally deficient too because biological natures
because we share the same metaphysical nature as rational
beings. someone who values virtuous actions for its own sake
would save the child for that child’s own sake, and ideally with
the right inclinations. Aristotle does not have Kant’s problem
because his view is robust enough to accept all that has just
been said here. This is because it is natural for humans to feel
and be inclined to something, so if one is inclined to a good
activity, then inclinations clearly have moral worth as long as

48
they do this. We should therefore not seek to remove our
inclinations altogether but properly direct our inclinations in
accordance with virtue through the use of reason.

St. Thomas Natural Law

The term “natural law” is ambiguous. It refers to a type
of moral theory, as well as to a type of legal theory, but the
core claims of the two kinds of theory are logically
independent. It does not refer to the laws of nature, the laws
that science aims to describe. According to natural law moral
theory, the moral standards that govern human behavior are, in
some sense, objectively derived from the nature of human
beings and the nature of the world. While being logically
independent of natural law legal theory, the two theories
intersect. However, the majority of the article will focus on
natural law legal theory.

According to natural law legal theory, the authority of

legal standards necessarily derives, at least in part, from
considerations having to do with the moral merit of those
standards. There are a number of different kinds of natural law
legal theories, differing from each other with respect to the role
that morality plays in determining the authority of legal norms.
The conceptual jurisprudence of John Austin provides a set of
necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of law that
distinguishes law from non-law in every possible world.

Classical natural law theory such as the theory

of Thomas Aquinas focuses on the overlap between natural law
moral and legal theories. Similarly, the neo-naturalism of John
Finnis is a development of classical natural law theory. In
49
contrast, the procedural naturalism of Lon L. Fuller is a
rejection of the conceptual naturalist idea that there are
necessary substantive moral constraints on the content of law.

Lastly, Ronald Dworkin’s theory is a response and

critique of legal positivism. All of these theories subscribe to
one or more basic tenets of natural law legal theory and are
important to its development and influence.

Classical Natural Law Theory

All forms of natural law theory subscribe to the Overlap
Thesis, which asserts that there is some kind of non-
conventional relation between law and morality. According to
this view, then, the notion of law cannot be fully articulated
without some reference to moral notions. Though the Overlap
Thesis may seem unambiguous, there are a number of different
ways in which it can be interpreted.

The strongest construction of the Overlap Thesis forms

the foundation for the classical naturalism of Aquinas and
Blackstone. Aquinas distinguishes four kinds of law: (1)
eternal law; (2) natural law; (3) human law; and (4) divine law.
Eternal law is comprised of those laws that govern the nature
of an eternal universe; as Susan Dimock (1999, 22) puts it, one
can “think of eternal law as comprising all those scientific
(physical, chemical, biological, psychological, etc.) ‘laws’ by
which the universe is ordered.” Divine law is concerned with
those standards that must be satisfied by a human being to
achieve eternal salvation. One cannot discover divine law by
natural reason alone; the precepts of divine law are disclosed

50
only through divine revelation.

The natural law is comprised of those precepts of the

eternal law that govern the behavior of beings possessing
reason and free will. The first precept of the natural law,
according to Aquinas, is the somewhat vacuous imperative to
do good and avoid evil. Here it is worth noting that Aquinas
holds a natural law theory of morality: what is good and evil,
according to Aquinas, is derived from the rational nature of
human beings. Good and evil are thus both objective and
universal.

But Aquinas is also a natural law legal theorist. On his

view, a human law (that is, that which is promulgated by
human beings) is valid only insofar as its content conforms to
the content of the natural law; as Aquinas puts the point:
“[E]very human law has just so much of the nature of law as is
derived from the law of nature. But if in any point it deflects
from the law of nature, it is no longer a law but a perversion of
law” (ST I-II, Q.95, A.II). To paraphrase Augustine’s famous
remark, an unjust law is really no law at all.

The idea that a norm that does not conform to the

natural law cannot be legally valid is the defining thesis of
conceptual naturalism. As William Blackstone describes the
thesis, “This law of nature, being co-eval with mankind and
dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to
any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and
at all times: no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to
this; and such of them as are valid derive all their force, and all
their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original”
51
(1979, 41). In this passage, Blackstone articulates the two
claims that constitute the theoretical core of conceptual
naturalism: 1) there can be no legally valid standards that
conflict with the natural law; and 2) all valid laws derive what
force and authority they have from the natural law.

It should be noted that classical naturalism is consistent

with allowing a substantial role to human beings in the
manufacture of law. While the classical naturalist seems
committed to the claim that the law necessarily incorporates all
moral principles, this claim does not imply that the law is
exhausted by the set of moral principles. There will still be
coordination problems (e.g., which side of the road to drive on)
that can be resolved in any number of ways consistent with the
set of moral principles. Thus, the classical naturalist does not
deny that human beings have considerable discretion in
creating natural law. Rather she claims only that such
discretion is necessarily limited by moral norms: legal norms
that are promulgated by human beings are valid only if they are
consistent with morality.

Critics of conceptual naturalism have raised a number

of objections to this view. First, it has often been pointed out
that, contra Augustine, unjust laws are all-too- frequently
enforced against persons. As Austin petulantly put the point:

Now, to say that human laws which conflict with the

Divine law are not binding, that is to say, are not laws, is to
talk stark nonsense. The most pernicious laws, and therefore
those which are most opposed to the will of God, have been
and are continually enforced as laws by judicial tribunals.
52
Suppose an act innocuous, or positively beneficial, be
prohibited by the sovereign under the penalty of death; if I
commit this act, I shall be tried and condemned, and if I object
to the sentence, that it is contrary to the law of God, who has
commanded that human lawgivers shall not prohibit acts which
have no evil consequences, the Court of Justice will
demonstrate the inconclusiveness of my reasoning by hanging
me up, in pursuance of the law of which I have impugned the
validity (Austin 1995, 158).

Of course, as Brian Bix (1999) points out, the argument

does little work for Austin because it is always possible for a
court to enforce a law against a person that does not satisfy
Austin’s own theory of legal validity.

Another frequently expressed worry is that conceptual

naturalism undermines the possibility of moral criticism of the
law; inasmuch as conformity with natural law is a necessary
condition for legal validity, all valid law is, by definition,
morally just. Thus, on this line of reasoning, the legal validity
of a norm necessarily entails its moral justice. As Jules
Coleman and Jeffrey Murphy (1990, 18) put the point:

The important things [conceptual naturalism]

supposedly allows us to do (e.g., morally evaluate the law and
determine our moral obligations with respect to the law) are
actually rendered more difficult by its collapse of the
distinction between morality and law. If we really want to think
about the law from the moral point of view, it may obscure the
task if we see law and morality as essentially linked in some
53
way. Moral criticism and reform of law may be aided by an
initial moral skepticism about the law.

There are a couple of problems with this line of

objection. First, conceptual naturalism does not foreclose
criticism of those norms that are being enforced by a society as
law. Insofar as it can plausibly be claimed that the content of a
norm being enforced by society as law does not conform to the
natural law, this is a legitimate ground of moral criticism:
given that the norm being enforced by law is unjust, it follows,
according to conceptual naturalism, that it is not legally valid.
Thus, the state commits wrong by enforcing that norm against
private citizens.

Second, and more importantly, this line of objection

seeks to criticize a conceptual theory of law by pointing to its
practical implications ñ a strategy that seems to commit a
category mistake. Conceptual jurisprudence assumes the
existence of a core of social practices (constituting law) that
requires a conceptual explanation. The project motivating
conceptual jurisprudence, then, is to articulate the concept of
law in a way that accounts for these pre-existing social
practices. A conceptual theory of law can legitimately be
criticized for its failure to adequately account for the pre-
existing data, as it were; but it cannot legitimately be criticized
for either its normative quality or its practical implications.

A more interesting line of argument has recently been

taken up by Brian Bix (1996). Following John Finnis (1980),
Bix rejects the interpretation of Aquinas and Blackstone as

54
 conceptual naturalists, arguing instead that the claim
that an unjust law is not a law should not be taken literally:

A more reasonable interpretation of statements like “an

unjust law is no law at all” is that unjust laws are not laws “in
the fullest sense.” As we might say of some professional, who
had the necessary degrees and credentials, but seemed
nonetheless to lack the necessary ability or judgment: “she’s no
lawyer” or “he’s no doctor.” This only indicates that we do not
think that the title in this case carries with it all the implications
it usually does. Similarly, to say that an unjust law is “not
really law” may only be to point out that it does not carry the
same moral force or offer the same reasons for action as laws
consistent with “higher law” (Bix 1996, 226).

Thus, Bix construes Aquinas and Blackstone as having

views more similar to the neo- naturalism of John Finnis
discussed below in Section III. Nevertheless, while a plausible
case can be made in favor of Bix’s view, the long history of
construing Aquinas and Blackstone as conceptual naturalists,
along with its pedagogical value in developing other theories of
law, ensures that this practice is likely, for better or worse, to
continue indefinitely.

The Cardinal Virtues

Aquinas offers several definitions of virtue. According
to one very general account, a virtue is a habit that “disposes an
agent to perform its proper operation or movement”
(DVC 1; ST IaIIae 49.1). Because we know that reason is the
proper operation of human beings, it follows that a virtue is a
55
habit that disposes us to reason well. This account is too broad
for our present purposes. While all virtues contribute in some
way to our rational perfection, not every virtue disposes us to
live morally good lives. Some virtues are strictly intellectual
perfections, such as the ability to grasp universals or the causes
underlying the world’s origin and operation. For the purposes
of this essay, our concern will be with those virtues that are
related to moral decision and action. That is, we will consider
those virtues which Aquinas (following Augustine) describes
as “good [qualities] of mind whereby we live righteously”
(ST IaIIae 55.4).

A cursory glance at the second part of the Summa

Theologiae would reveal a host of virtues that are indicative of
human goodness. But there are essentially four virtues from
which Aquinas’s more extensive list flows. These virtues are
prudence, justice, temperance, and courage (ST IaIIae 61.2).
Aquinas refers to these virtues as the “cardinal” virtues. They
are the principle habits on which the rest of the virtues hinge
(cardo) (Rickaby, 2003). To put the matter another way, each
cardinal virtue refers to a general type of rectitude that has
various specifications. For example, the virtue of prudence
(which we will consider in more detail shortly) denotes a
“certain rectitude of discretion in any actions or matters
whatever” (ST IaIIae 61.4; 61.3). Any virtue the point of which
is to promote discretion with respect to action will be
considered a part of prudence. Similarly, temperance concerns
the moderation of passion, and thus will include any virtue that
seeks to restrain those desires of a more or less insatiable sort
(Ibid.).

56
 Moreover, Aquinas thinks the cardinal virtues provide
general templates for the most salient forms of moral activity:
commanding action (prudence); giving to those what is due
(justice); curbing the passions (temperance); and strengthening
the passions against fear (courage) (IaIIae 61.3). A more
detailed sketch of these virtues follows (although I will address
them in an order that is different from the one Aquinas
provides).

57
 PRUDENCE

In order to act well, we need to make good judgments

about how we should behave. This is precisely the sort of habit
associated with prudence, which Aquinas defines as “wisdom
concerning human affairs” (STIIaIIae 47.2 ad 1) or “right
reason with respect to action” (ST IIaIIae 47.4). In order to
make good moral judgments, a twofold knowledge is required:
one must know (1) the general moral principles that guide
actions and (2) the particular circumstances in which a decision
is required. For “actions are about singular matters: and so it is
necessary for the prudent man to know both the universal
principles of reason, and the singulars about which actions are
concerned” (ST IIaIIae 47.3; Cf. STIaIIae 18.3).

This passage may appear to suggest that prudence

involves a fairly simple and straightforward process of
applying moral rules to specific situations. But this is
somewhat misleading since the activity of prudence involves a
fairly developed ability to evaluate situations themselves. As
Thomas Hibbs explains: “prudence involves not simply the
subordination of particulars to appropriate universals, but the
appraisal of concrete, contingent circumstances” (Hibbs, 2001:
92). From this perspective, good decisions will always be
responsive to what our situation requires. Thus we cannot
simply consult a list of moral prescriptions in determining what
we should do. We must also “grasp what is pertinent and to
assess what ought to be done in complex circumstances” (Ibid.,
98).According to Aquinas, then, the virtue of prudence is a
kind of intellectual aptitude that enables us to make judgments
that are consonant with (and indeed ordered to) our proper end
58
(ST IaIIae 57.5). Note here that prudence does not establish the
end at which we aim. Our end is the human good, which is
predetermined by our rational nature (ST IIaIIae 47.6). Nor
does prudence desire that end; for whether we desire our
proper end depends on whether we have the rights sorts of
appetitive inclinations (as we shall see below).

According to Aquinas, prudence illuminates for us the

course of action deemed most appropriate for achieving our
antecedently established telos. It does this through three acts:
(1) counsel, whereby we inquire about the available means of
achieving the end; (2) judgment, whereby we determine the
proper means for achieving the end; and finally (3) command,
whereby we apply that judgment (ST IIaIIae 47.8). While we
need a range of appetitive excellences in order to make good
choices, we also need certain intellectual excellences as well.
That is, we must be able to deliberate and choose well with
respect to what is ultimately good for us.

As a cardinal virtue, prudence functions as a principle

virtue on which a variety of other excellences hinge. Those
excellences include: memory, intelligence, docility,
shrewdness, reason, foresight, circumspection,
and caution (ST IIaIIae 49.1-8). Without these excellences, we
may commit a number of cognitive errors that may prevent us
from acting in a morally appropriate way. For example, we
may reject the guidance of good counsel; make decisions
precipitously; or act thoughtlessly by failing “to judge rightly
through contempt or neglect of those things on which a right
judgment depends” (ST IIaIIae 53.4). We may also act for the
sake of goods that are contrary to our nature. This invariably
59
happens when the passions cloud our judgment and make
deficient objects of satisfaction look more choiceworthy than
they really are. In order to make reliable judgments about what
is really good, our passions need some measure of restraint so
that they do not corrupt good judgment. In short, prudence
depends on virtues of the appetite, and it is to these virtues we
now turn.

Temperance
Temperance has a twofold meaning. In a general sense,
the term denotes a kind of moderation common to every moral
virtue (ST IIaIIae 141.2). In its more restricted sense,
temperance concerns the moderation of physical pleasures,
especially those associated with eating, drinking, and sex
(ST IIaIIae 141.4). We display a common propensity to
sacrifice our well-being for the sake of these transient goods.
Thus we need some virtue that serves to restrain what Aquinas
calls “concupiscible passion” –the appetite whereby we desire
what is pleasing and avoid what is harmful (ST Ia 82.2).
Temperance is that virtue, as it denotes a restrained desire for
physical gratification (ST IIaIIae 141.2, 3).

Aquinas does not think that temperance eradicates our

desire for bodily pleasure. Nor does he think that temperance is
a matter of desiring physical pleasure less. Such a description
suggests that physical gratification is an innately deficient type
of enjoyment. Yet Aquinas denies this. Physical pleasure, he
says, is the result of the body’s natural operations (ST IIaIIae
141.4). According to Aquinas, the purpose of temperance is
to refine the way we enjoy bodily pleasures. Specifically, it
creates in the agent a proper sense of moderation with respect
60
to what is pleasurable. For a person can more easily
subordinate herself to reason when her passions are not
excessive or deficient. On this view, bodily enjoyment can in
fact be an integral part of a rational life. For the moderated
enjoyment of bodily pleasure safeguards the good of reason
and actually facilitates a more enduring kind of satisfaction.
Thus Aquinas insists that “sensible and bodily goods … are not
in opposition to reason, but are subject to it as instruments
which reason employs in order to attain its proper end”
(ST IIaIIae 141.3).
Like prudence, temperance is a cardinal virtue. There
are a host of subsidiary virtues that fall under temperance
because they serve to modify the most insatiable human
passions. For example, chastity, sobriety and abstinence—
which denote a retrenchment of sex, drink, and food,
respectively—are (predictably) all parts of temperance. Yet
there are other virtues associated with temperance that may
strike the reader as surprising. For example, Aquinas argues
that humility is a part of temperance. Humility aims to restrain
the immoderate desire for what one cannot achieve. While
humility is not concerned with tempering the appetites
associated with touch, it nevertheless consists in a kind of
restraint and thus bears a formal resemblance to temperance.
He says: “whatever virtues restrain or suppress, and the actions
which moderate the impetuosity of the passions, are considered
parts of temperance” (ST IIaIIae 161.4). Thus Aquinas also
thinks meekness, clemency, and studiousness are parts of
temperance. They, too, restrain certain appetitive drives:
specifically anger, the desire to punish, and the desire to pursue
vain curiosities, respectively.

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Courage
Temperance and its subsidiary virtues restrain the
strong appetite, such as the sexual appetite but courage and its
subsidiary virtues modify what Aquinas calls the irascible
appetite. By “irascible appetite” Aquinas means the desire for
that which is difficult to attain or avoid (ST IaIIae 23.1).
Occasionally, the difficulty in achieving or avoiding certain
objects can give rise to various degrees of fear and, in turn,
discourage us from adhering to reason’s instruction. In these
cases, we may refuse to endure the pain or discomfort required
for achieving our proper human good. Note here that fear is
not innately contrary to reason. After all, there are some things
that we should fear, like an untimely death or a bad reputation.
Only when fear prevents us from facing what we ought to
endure does it become inimical to reason (ST IIaIIae 125.1). In
these cases, we need a virtue that moderates those appetites
that prevent from undertaking more daunting tasks. According
to Aquinas, courage is that virtue.
We need courage to restrain our fears so that we might
endure harrowing circumstances. Yet courage not only
mollifies our fears, it also combats the unreasonable zeal to
overcome them. An excessive desire to face fearful
circumstances constitutes a kind of recklessness that can easily
hasten one’s demise. Thus, we need courage in order to both
curb excessive fear and modify unreasonable daring (ST IIaIIae
123.3). Without courage,

we will be either governed by irrational fear or a recklessness

that eschews good counsel, making us vulnerable to harm
unnecessarily.

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 Like prudence and temperance, courage is a cardinal
virtue. Those with courage will also have a considerable degree
of endurance. For one must be able to “stand immovable in the
midst of dangers,” especially those dangers that threaten bodily
harm and death (ST IIaIIae 123.6). Lack of endurance will no
doubt undermine one’s ability to bear life’s travails. The
courageous person must also be confident (which is closely
aligned with magnanimity). For he will not only have to endure
pain and suffering, he must aggressively confront the obstacles
that stand in the way of achieving his proper good. His success
in confronting those obstacles requires that he exercise a
“strength of hope” which arises from a confidence in his own
strength, the strength of others, or the promises of God. Such
hope enables him to confront threats and challenges without
reservation (ST IIaIIae 129.6). The courageous person will also
display magnificence, that is, a sense of nobility with respect to
the importance of his endeavors. Quoting Tully, Aquinas
underscores the value of what the courageous person seeks to
attain by executing his actions with a “greatness of purpose”
(ST IIaIIae 128.1). Finally, the courageous person will
havepatience and perseverance. That is, he will not be broken
by stress or sorrow, nor will he be wearied or discouraged due
to the exigencies of his endeavors (Ibid.).

Justice
The virtues we have considered thus far concern
our own state. The virtue of justice, however, governs our
relationships with others (ST IIaIIae 57.1). Specifically, it
denotes a sustained or constant willingness to extend to each
person what he or she deserves (ST IIaIIae 58.1). Beyond this,
Aquinas’s account of justice exhibits considerable breadth,
complexity, and admits of various distinctions. Constraints of
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space, however, force me to mention only two sets of
distinctions: (1) legal (or general) and particular justice, and (2)
commutative and distributive justice.
The purpose of legal justice is to govern our actions
according to the common good (ST IIaIIae 58.6). Construed
this way, justice is a general virtue which concerns not
individual benefits but community welfare. According to
Aquinas, everyone who is a member of a community stands to
that community as a part to a whole (ST IIaIIae 58.5).
Whatever affects the part also affects the whole. And so
whatever is good (or harmful) for oneself will also be good (or
harmful) for the community of which one is a part. For this
reason, we should expect the good community to enact laws
that will govern its members in ways that are beneficial to
everyone. This focus—the welfare of the community—is what
falls under the purview of legal justice.

A clarification is in order. Aquinas acknowledges that

legal justice does not appear to be altogether different from the
virtues we previously considered. After all, courage,
temperance, and prudence are just as likely to contribute to
others’ welfare as legal justice. Yet these virtues
differ logically from legal justice because they have specific
objects of their own (ST IIaIIae 58.6). Whereas legal justice
concerns the common good, prudence concerns commanding
action, temperance concerns curbing concupiscent passion, and
courage concerns strengthening irascible passion against fear.
To put the matter as baldly as possible, the purpose of the other
virtues is to make us good people; making us good citizens is
the end at which legal justice aims (Ibid., sed contra). Of
course, it would be a mistake to conclude from this account

64
that the other virtues have nothing to do with the common
good. Failure to moderate our baser appetites not only
forestalls the development of personal virtue but leads to acts
which are contrary to others’ well being. For example,
restraining impetuous sexual appetite is the province of
temperance. But as Thomas Williams insightfully points out,
“sexuality [also] has implications for the common good.” For
“there are precepts of justice that regulate our sex lives:
fornication and adultery are violations not only of chastity but
also of justice” (Williams, 2005: xvii). Thus, Aquinas insists
that temperance can do more than just modify our sexual
drives. So long as it is shaped or informed by legal justice,
temperance can direct us to preserve the common good in our
actions (ST IIaIIae 58.6). We can say the same for prudence
and courage. Legal justice must govern all acts of virtue to
ensure that they achieve their end in a way that is
commensurate with the good of others.

Now, we cannot fulfill the demands of justice only by

considering what legal (or general) justice requires. We also
need particular justice—the virtue which governs our
interactions with individual citizens. Unlike general justice,
particular justice directs us not to the good of the community
but to the good of individual neighbors, colleagues, and other
people with whom we interact regularly. Initially, it may
appear as if particular justice is a superfluous virtue. As one
objection to Aquinas’s view states, “general justice directs man
sufficiently in all his relations with other men. Therefore, there
is no need for a particular justice” (ST IIaIIae 58.7 obj. 1).
Aquinas agrees that general justice can direct us to the good of
others, but only indirectly (ST IIaIIae 58.7 ad 1). It does this by
providing us with very general precepts (do not steal, do not
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murder, etc) the point of which is to help us preserve the
common good in our actions. Yet no situation requiring justice
is the same, and thus our considerations of what is just must
extend beyond what these general precepts dictate. We must be
mindful of individual needs and judicious when applying these
precepts. This is why Aquinas insists that
the proximate concern of particular justice cannot be the
common good but the good of individuals (Ibid.). In fulfilling
its purpose, however, particular justice is a means of preserving
community welfare.

Following Aristotle, Aquinas identifies two species of

particular justice that deserve
attention:commutative and distributive justice. Both seek to
preserve equality between persons by giving to each person
what is due. Yet Aquinas notes that there are “different kinds
of due,” and this fact necessitates the current distinction
(ST IIaIIae 61.1 ad 5; ST IIaIIae 61.2 ad 2). Commutative
justice concerns the “mutual dealings” between individual
citizens (ST IIaIIae 61.1). Specifically, it seeks to ensure that
those who are buying and selling conduct their business fairly
(In NE V.928). In this context “what is due” is a kind of
equality whereby “one person should pay back to the other just
so much as he has become richer out of that which belonged to
the other” (ST IIaIIae 61.2). In other words, the value of a
product should be equal to what one pays for that product.
Similarly, a person should be paid an amount that is
comparable to the value of what he sells. In short, the kind of
equality commutative justice seeks to preserve is a matter of
quantity (Ibid; In NE V.950).
Distributive justice concerns the way in which
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collective goods and responsibilities “are [fairly] apportioned
among people who stand in a social community” (In
NE V.927). Yet with respect to distributive justice, what a
person receives is not a matter of equal quantity but “due
proportion” (STIIaIIae 61.2). After all, it would be unjust if
“laborers are paid equal wages for doing an unequal amount of
work, or are paid unequal wages for doing an equal amount of
work” (In NE V 4.935). Aquinas also thinks that a person of
higher social station will require a greater proportion of goods
(ST IIaIIae 61.2). In matters of distributive justice, then, “what
is due” will be relative to what one deserves (or needs, since
Aquinas also thinks that there is a moral obligation to provide
for the poor) depending on his efforts or station in life.

This brief account of justice may seem like a stale

precursor to more modern accounts of justice, particularly
those that depict justice in terms of equality and economic
fairness. Yet a brief survey of the virtues that hinge on justice
reveals an account that is richer than the foregoing paragraphs
may suggest. For Aquinas, justice is principally about our
relations to others, and so he thinks that “all the virtues that are
directed to another person may by reason of this common
aspect be annexed to justice” (ST IIaIIae 80.1). The virtues
Aquinas has in mind here are not simply those that regulate our
relationships with other human beings, but with God. Thus, he
insists that religion is a virtue that falls under justice, since it
involves offering God his due honor (Ibid; ST IIaIIae 81.1).
The same can be said for piety andobservance, since they seek
to render to God service and deference, respectively. Other
virtues annexed to justice include truthfulness, since the just
person will always present himself to others without pretext or
falsehood; gratitude, which involves an appreciation for others’
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kindness; and revenge, whereby we respond to or defend
ourselves against others’ injurious actions (Ibid.). Finally,
Aquinas includes bothliberality and friendship as parts of
justice. The former is a virtue whereby we benefit others by
giving or sharing with them the goods we possess (ST IIaIIae
117.1, 2, and 5). The latter involves treating those who live
among us well (ST IIaIIae 114.2).

68
 KANT AND RIGHTS THEORISTS

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) argued that the supreme

principle of morality is a standard of rationality that he dubbed
the “Categorical Imperative” (CI). Kant characterized the CI as
an objective, rationally necessary and unconditional principle
that we must always follow despite any natural desires or
inclinations we may have to the contrary. All specific moral
requirements, according to Kant, are justified by this principle,
which means that all immoral actions are irrational because
they violate the CI. Other philosophers, such as Hobbes, Locke
and Aquinas, had also argued that moral requirements are
based on standards of rationality. However, these standards
were either instrumental principles of rationality for satisfying
one’s desires, as in Hobbes, or external rational principles that
are discoverable by reason, as in Locke and Aquinas. Kant
agreed with many of his predecessors that an analysis of
practical reason reveals the requirement that rational agents
must conform to instrumental principles.
Yet he also argued that conformity to the CI (a non-
instrumental principle), and hence to moral requirements
themselves, can nevertheless be shown to be essential to
rational agency. This argument was based on his striking
doctrine that a rational will must be regarded as autonomous,
or free, in the sense of being the author of the law that binds it.
The fundamental principle of morality — the CI — is none
other than the law of an autonomous will. Thus, at the heart of
Kant’s moral philosophy is a conception of reason whose reach
in practical affairs goes well beyond that of a Humean ‘slave’
to the passions. Moreover, it is the presence of this self-
69
governing reason in each person that Kant thought offered
decisive grounds for viewing each as possessed of equal worth
and deserving of equal respect.
Kant’s most influential positions in moral philosophy
are found in The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of
Morals (hereafter, “Groundwork”) but he developed, enriched,
and in some cases modified those views in later works such
as The Critique of Practical Reason, The Metaphysics of
Morals, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of
View, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason as well
as his essays on history and related topics. Kant’s Lectures on
Ethics, which were lecture notes taken by three of his students
on the courses he gave in moral philosophy, also include
relevant material for understanding his views. We will mainly
focus on the foundational doctrines of the Groundwork, even
though in recent years some scholars have become dissatisfied
with this standard approach to Kant’s views and have turned
their attention to the later works. We find the standard
approach most illuminating, though we will highlight important
positions from the later works where needed.

Kant’s Goodwill
The will, Kant says, is the faculty of acting according to
a conception of law. When we act, whether or not we achieve
what we intend with our actions is often beyond our control, so
the morality of our actions does not depend upon their
outcome. What we can control, however, is the will behind the
action. That is, we can will to act according to one law rather
than another. The morality of an action, therefore, must be

70
assessed in terms of the motivation behind it. If two people,
Smith and Jones, perform the same act, from the same
conception of the law, but events beyond Smith’s control
prevent her from achieving her goal, Smith is not less
praiseworthy for not succeeding. We must consider them on
equal moral ground in terms of the will behind their actions.

The only thing that is good without qualification is the

good will, Kant says. All other candidates for an intrinsic good
have problems, Kant argues. Courage, health, and wealth can
all be used for ill purposes, Kant argues, and therefore cannot
be intrinsically good. Happiness is not intrinsically good
because even being worthy of happiness, Kant says, requires
that one possess a good will. The good will is the only
unconditional good despite all encroachments. Misfortune may
render someone incapable of achieving her goals, for instance,
but the goodness of her will remains.

Goodness cannot arise from acting on impulse or

natural inclination, even if impulse coincides with duty. It can
only arise from conceiving of one’s actions in a certain way. A
shopkeeper, Kant says, might do what is in accord with duty
and not overcharge a child. Kant argues, “it is not sufficient to
do that which should be morally good that it conforms to the
law; it must be done for the sake of the law.” (Foundations of
the Metaphysics of Morals, Akademie pagination 390) There is
a clear moral difference between the shopkeeper that does it for
his own advantage to keep from offending other customers and
the shopkeeper who does it from duty and the principle of
honesty.(Ibid., 398) Likewise, in another of Kant’s carefully
studied examples, the kind act of the person who overcomes a
natural lack of sympathy for other people out of respect for
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duty has moral worth, whereas the same kind act of the person
who naturally takes pleasure in spreading joy does not. A
person’s moral worth cannot be dependent upon what nature
endowed them with accidentally. The selfishly motivated
shopkeeper and the naturally kind person both act on equally
subjective and accidental grounds. What matters to morality is
that the actor thinks about their actions in the right manner.

We might be tempted to think that the motivation that

makes an action good is having a positive goal–to make people
happy, or to provide some benefit. But that is not the right sort
of motive, Kant says. No outcome, should we achieve it, can be
unconditionally good. Fortune can be misused, what we
thought would induce benefit might actually bring harm, and
happiness might be undeserved. Hoping to achieve some
particular end, no matter how beneficial it may seem, is not
purely and unconditionally good. It is not the effect or even the
intended effect that bestows moral character on an action. All
intended effects “could be brought about through other causes
and would not require the will of a rational being, while the
highest and unconditional good can be found only in such a
will.” (Ibid., 401) It is the possession of a rationally guided will
that adds a moral dimension to one’s acts. So it is the
recognition and appreciation of duty itself that must drive our
actions.

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 KANT’S CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE

First Version of the Categorical Imperative

The first version or expression of the categorical
imperative: Act in a way that the rule for your action could
be universalized. When you’re thinking about doing
something, this means you should imagine that everyone did it
all the time. Now, can this make sense? Can it happen? Is there
a world you can imagine where everyone does this thing that
you’re considering at every opportunity? Take the case of
Madoff asking himself, “Should I lie to keep investor money
flowing in?” What we need to do is imagine this act as
universalized: everyone lies all the time. Just imagine that. You
ask someone whether it’s sunny outside. It is sunny, but they
say, “No, it’s raining.” The next day you ask someone else.
Again, it’s sunny, but they say, “No, it’s snowing.” This goes
on day after day. Pretty soon, wouldn’t you just give up
listening to what people say? Here’s the larger point: if
everyone lies all the time, pretty soon people are going to stop
listening to anyone. And if no one’s listening, is it possible to
lie to them?

What Kant’s categorical imperative shows is that

lying cannot be universalized. The act of lying can’t survive in
a world where everyone’s just making stuff up all the time.
Since no one will be taking anyone else seriously, you may try
to sell a false story but no one will be buying.

Something similar happens in comic books. No one

accuses authors and illustrators of lying when Batman kicks
some bad guys into the next universe and then strips off his
73
mask and his hair is perfect. That’s not a lie; it’s fiction. And
fictional stories can’t lie because no one expects they’ll tell the
truth. No one asks whether it’s real or fake, only whether it’s
entertaining. The same would go in the real world if everyone
lied all the time. Reality would be like a comic: it might be fun,
or maybe not, but accusing someone of lying would definitely
be absurd.

Bringing this back to Madoff, as Kant sees it he has to

make a basic decision: should I lie to investors to keep my
operation afloat? The answer is no. According to the
categorical imperative, it must be no, not because lying is
directly immoral, but because lying cannot be universalized
and therefore it’s immoral.

The same goes for Sheryl Weinstein as she wonders

whether she should keep the lid on her family-wrecking affair.
The answer is no because the answer is always no when the
question is whether I should lie. You might want to respond by
insisting, “She’s already done the deed, and Bernie’s in jail so
it’s not going to happen again. The best thing at this point
would be for her to just keep her mouth shut and hold her
family together as best she can.” That’s a fair argument. But
for Kant it’s also a loser because the categorical imperative
gives the last word. There’s no appeal. There’s no lying, no
matter what.

One more point about the universalization of acts: even

if you insist that a world could exist where everyone lied all the
time, would you really want to live there? Most of us don’t
mind lying so much as long as we’re the ones getting away
with it. But if everyone’s doing it, that’s different. Most of us
might agree that if we had a choice between living in a place
74
where everyone told the truth and one where everyone lied,
we’d go for the honest reality. It just makes sense: lying will
help you only if you’re the sole liar, but if everyone’s busy
taking advantage of everyone else, then there’s nothing in it for
you, and you might just as well join everyone in telling the
truth.

Conclusion. The first expression of the categorical

imperative—act in such a way that the rule for your action
could be universalized—is a consistency principle. Like the
golden rule (treat others as you’d like to be treated), it forces
you to ask how things would work if everyone else did what
you’re considering doing.

Second Version of the Categorical Imperative

The second expression of the categorical imperative is:
Treat people as an end, and never as a means to an end. To
treat people as ends, not means is to never use anyone to get
something else. People can’t be tools or instruments; they can’t
be things you employ to get to what you really want. A simple
example of using another as a means would be striking up a
friendship with Chris because you really want to meet his wife
who happens to be a manager at the advertising company you
desperately want to work for.

It’d be hard to imagine a clearer case of this principle

being broken than that of Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. He used the
money from each new investor to pay off the last one. That
means every investor was nothing but a means to an end:
everyone was nothing more than a way to keep the old
investors happy and attract new ones.

75
 Madoff’s case of direct theft is clear cut, but others
aren’t quite so easy. If Weinstein goes ahead and writes her
tell-all about life in bed with Madoff, is she using him as a
means to her end (which is making money)? Is she using book
buyers? What about her husband and the suffering he would
endure? It can be difficult to be sure in every case exactly what
it means to “use” another person.

Another example comes from Madoff’s son, Andrew,

who donated time and money to the cause of treating cancer.
On one hand, this seems like a generous and beneficial
treatment of others. It looks like he’s valuing them as
worthwhile and good people who deserve to be saved from a
disease. On the other hand, though, when you keep in mind that
Andrew too had cancer, you wonder whether he’s just using
other peoples’ suffering to promote research so that he can be
saved.

Summarizing, where the first of the categorical

imperative’s expressions was a consistency principle (treat
others the way you want to be treated), this is a dignity
principle: treat others with respect and as holding value in
themselves. You will act ethically, according to Kant, as long
as you never accept the temptation to treat others as a way to
get something else.

76
 KEY TAKEAWAYS

· The first expression of Kant’s categorical imperative requires

that ethical decisions be universalizable.
· The second expression of Kant’s categorical imperative
requires that ethical decisions treat others as ends and not
means.
· Kant’s conception of ethical duties can provide clear
guidance but at the cost of inflexibility: it can be hard to
make the categorical imperative work in everyday life.

Different Kinds of Rights

A right is described as an entitlement or justified claim
to a certain kind of positive and negative treatment from others,
to support from others or non-interference from others. In other
words, a right is something to which every individual in the
community is morally permitted, and for which that
community is entitled to disrespect or compulsorily remove
anything that stands in the way of even a single individual
getting it. Rights belong to individuals, and no organization has
any rights not directly derived from those of its members as
individuals; and, just as an individual's rights cannot extend to
where they will intrude on another individual's rights, similarly
the rights of any organization whatever must yield to those of a
single individual, whether inside or outside the organization.
Rights are those important conditions of social life without
which no person can generally realize his best self. These are
the essential conditions for health of both the individual and his
society. It is only when people get and enjoy rights that they

77
can develop their personalities and contributes their best
services to the society.

Moral Rights
Moral Rights are based on human consciousness. They
are supported by moral force of human mind. These are based
on human sense of goodness and justice. These are not assisted
by the force of law. Sense of goodness and public opinion are
the sanctions behind moral rights.
If any person disrupts any moral right, no legal action
can be taken against him. The state does not enforce these
rights. Its courts do not recognize these rights. Moral Rights
include rules of good conduct, courtesy and of moral
behaviour. These stand for moral perfection of the people.
Moral rights were first acknowledged in France and
Germany, before they were included in the Berne Convention
for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works in 1928.
Canada recognized moral rights in its Copyright Act. The
United States became a signatory to the convention in 1989,
and incorporated a version of moral rights under its copyright
law under Title 17 of the U.S. Code. There are two major
moral rights under the U.S. Copyright Act. These are the right
of attribution, also called the right of paternity and the right of
integrity.

Legal Rights
Legal rights are those rights which are accepted and
enforced by the state. Any defilement of any legal right is
punished by law. Law courts of the state enforce legal rights.

78
These rights can be enforced against individuals and also
against the government. In this way, legal rights are different
from moral rights. Legal rights are equally available to all the
citizens. All citizens follow legal rights without any
discrimination. They can go to the courts for getting their legal
rights enforced.

Legal Rights are of three types:

1. Civil Rights:
Civil rights are those rights which provide opportunity to
each person to lead a civilized social life. These fulfil basic
needs of human life in society. Right to life, liberty and
equality are civil rights. Civil rights are protected by the
state.

2. Political Rights:
Political rights are those rights by virtue of which
inhabitants get a share in the political process. These allow
them to take an active part in the political process. These
rights include right to vote, right to get elected, right to hold
public office and right to criticise and oppose the
government. Political rights are really available to the
people in a democratic state.

3. Economic Rights:
Economic rights are those rights which provide economic
security to the people. These empower all citizens to make
proper use of their civil and political rights. The basic
needs of every person are related to his food, clothing,
79
shelter, and medical treatment. Without the fulfilment of
these no person can really enjoy his civil and political
rights. It is therefore essential, that every person must get
the right to work, right to adequate wages, right to leisure
and rest, and right to social security in case of illness,
physical disability and old age.

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 UTILITARIANISM
Background Story

Some years ago, 38-year-old Karla Faye Tucker became

the first woman executed in the State of Texas in over 130
years. A former drug addict and prostitute, Tucker and a friend
ended a three-day drug binge by attempting to steal a young
man’s motorcycle. They broke into the man’s apartment and
killed him and a visiting woman friend with a pickax.
Afterward, Tucker bragged that she got a thrill from the
murders. She and her accomplice were caught a month later
and ultimately sentenced to death. As her execution date
approached, she gained worldwide notoriety because of her
unique situation as a woman on death row, her newly found
religious conviction, and her paradoxically warm personality.
The Pope himself made a public appeal for clemency. Tucker
herself believed that her life should be spared since she had
reformed to the point that she was no longer part of society’s
crime problem but part of the cure. In an interview two weeks
before her execution, she explained:

I can witness to people who have been on drugs or into

prostitution or into all of that, and they’ll listen to me because
they know I understand and can relate to them. And I can keep
them from going down that road, because I can let them know.
I changed. You can too. [Larry King Live, January 31, 1998]

Clemency was not granted, and the execution took

place as planned.

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 Tucker argued that her life should be spared since her
remaining alive would serve the greater social good. Her
reasoning strategy was utilitarian in nature. Most generally,
utilitarianism is the moral theory that an action is morally right
if it serves the greatest happiness for the greatest number of
people. To determine whether Tucker should have been
executed, the utilitarian would have compared the total good
resulting from her execution with the total good resulting from
her remaining alive. Tucker believed that more good would
result if she remained alive. However, defenders of capital
punishment also use utilitarian reasoning and argue that the
greater social good is served by executing some criminals.
After her execution, a relative of one of Tucker’s victims said,
in utilitarian fashion, “The world’s [now] a better place.”
Presumably, executing criminals such as Tucker sends a strong
signal to other would-be criminals and deters them. It also
assists in the psychological healing process of victims and their
families.

“Utilitarian’s believe that the sole factor in determining

an action’s morality is the balance of social good versus social
evil. Appeals to moral intuitions, social traditions, or God’s
wishes are not relevant. Utilitarianism has a long history, but
the most famous versions of the theory emerged in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, particularly in the
hedonistic utilitarianism championed by Jeremy Bentham and
John Stuart Mill. Hedonism involves pleasure seeking, and
hedonistic utilitarians argue that morality is determined
according to how much pleasure or pain is produced from a
course of action. For example, on the issue of capital
punishment, hedonistic utilitarians would argue that this
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practice is justified only if it produces a greater amount of
pleasure than pain. Other nonhedonistic versions of
utilitarianism emerged in later years. In this chapter we will
examine the development of the utilitarian theory and some of
the problems that it faces.”

The Historical Development of Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is not the invention of any single
philosopher, and the general theory is as old as ancient Greece.
The Greek philosopher Epicurus (341–270 BCE) gives a clear
statement of the role of pleasure in moral judgments:
We affirm that pleasure is the beginning and end of the
good life. We recognize pleasure as the first good, being
natural to us, and it is from pleasure that we begin every choice
and avoidance. It is also to pleasure that we return, using it as
the standard by which we judge every good. [Letter to
Menoeceus]

Pleasure is clearly an important motivator in our lives, and

most moral philosophers find at least some place for pleasure
within their theories. What is distinct about Epicurus’s theory
of hedonism, though, is that the gaining of pleasure and the
avoidance of pain is the single standard by which we determine
happiness and thereby judge our actions. Ultimately,
Epicurus’s theory did not take hold, and in the centuries
following Epicurus, moral philosophers emphasized the roles
of virtue, natural law, and the will of God. But humanist
philosophers of the Renaissance revived Epicurus’s theory, and
by the eighteenth century, several philosophers were defending
the pleasure criterion of morality.

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Eighteenth Century Contributions
Scotch-Irish philosopher Francis Hutcheson (1694–1747)
offered this systematic formula linking morality with
happiness:

That action is best, which procures the greatest happiness

for the greatest numbers; and that worst, which, in like manner,
occasions misery. [An Inquiry Concerning Moral Good and
Evil (1725), 3.8]

Here and in his other ethical writings, we find most of the

key elements of utilitarianism. First, in Hutcheson’s words, we
are to compute the consequences of our actions. Second,
Hutcheson identifies the standard of moral evaluation as the
greatest amount of happiness or pleasure that results for all
people affected. Third, he provides details about the range of
consequences that count; long-term, short-term, direct, and
indirect consequences all enter into the computation. Finally,
he provides details about what counts as happiness or pleasure:
Higher intellectual pleasures and lower bodily pleasures are
relevant, but with varying degrees of intensity and duration.

Influenced by Hutcheson, David Hume (1711–1776)

further developed this theory. Hume argues that, when we
survey what people commonly consider to be moral conduct,
we must conclude that morally right actions are those that
produce useful or immediately pleasing consequences for
ourselves or others. Hume uses the term utility in reference to
the useful consequences, and it is from Hume’s expression that
later commentators coined the term utilitarianism. Two features

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are unique to Hume’s theory. First, as criteria of moral
evaluation, the useful longer-term consequences of actions are
as important as the immediately pleasing consequences of
actions. Sexual chastity, for example, is morally proper
primarily because it has useful long-term consequences in
holding together the family unit. The second unique feature of
Hume’s theory is that some actions are useful only when
followed as a rule. Again, with sexual chastity, isolated
instances of sexual fidelity will not have the consequence of
holding together family units. Hume believes that, to have
useful consequences, chastity needs to be followed as a rule,
even by single women who are past childbearing age. In
Hume’s words:

A single act of justice [or chastity], considered in itself,

may often be contrary to the public good; and it is only the
concurrence of mankind, in a general scheme or system of
action, which is advantageous. [A Treatise of Human
Nature (1739-1740), 3.3.1]

Hume’s reasoning here is the foundation of what was later

called rule-utilitarianism, that is, morality involves examining
the pleasurable and painful consequences of the
moral rules that we adopt. By the end of the eighteenth century,
dozens of prominent moral theorists, influenced by Hume’s
theory of utility, proposed similar views. The most important
of these theorists was British philosopher Jeremy Bentham
(1748–1832), who acknowledged Hume as his immediate
source of inspiration.

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Bentham’s Utilitarian Calculus
Bentham presents his theory of utility in his Introduction to
the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), which he
wrote as a kind of moral guidebook for legislators as they make
public policy. Although the bulk of this work focuses on issues
of criminal conduct, the opening chapters systematically
describe how utility is the ultimate moral standard for all
actions. Bentham states his principle of utility here:

By the principle of utility is meant that principle which

approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according
to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or
diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in
question: or, what is the same thing in other words, to promote
or to oppose that happiness. I say of every action whatsoever;
and therefore not only of every action of a private individual,
but of every measure of government. [Principles of Morals and
Legislation (1789), 1.2]

Two features of Bentham’s theory make it especially

unique. First, Bentham offers a bare-bones moral theory
consisting of only one factor: the pleasing or painful
consequences of actions. Although earlier theorists put forward
the basic elements of utilitarianism, they also incorporated non-
utilitarian doctrines into their moral theories. Some of these
extraneous doctrines are that morality is ultimately founded on
the will of God, that sympathy is needed to counterbalance
human selfishness, that virtues underlie our moral actions, that
we rationally intuit our duty, and that we judge conduct
through a moral sense. For Bentham, some of these doctrines

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are nonsensical, and the rest are irrelevant. His rejection of
these more traditional elements of moral theory gave
utilitarianism the reputation of being Godless, impersonal,
skeptical, and relativistic.

The second and most important feature of Bentham’s

theory is his method for precisely quantifying pleasures and
pains, better known as the utilitarian calculus. He argues that
the complete range of pleasing and painful consequences of
actions can be quantified according to seven criteria: (1)
intensity; (2) duration; (3) certainty; (4) remoteness, that is, the
immediacy of the pleasure or pain; (5) fecundity, that is,
whether similar pleasures or pains will follow; (6) purity, that
is, whether the pleasure is mixed with pain; and (7) extent, that
is, the number of people affected. In a footnote to a later
edition of the Principles, Bentham summarizes these criteria in
a rhyme, which he says might assist us in “lodging more
effectually, in the memory, these points”:

Intense, long, certain, speedy, fruitful, pure --

Such marks in pleasures and in pains endure.
Such pleasures seek if private by thy end:
If it be public, wide let them extend.
Such pains avoid, whichever by they view:
If pains must come, let them extend to few.
[Principles of Morals and Legislation, 4:2]

Bentham is very explicit about how the calculus works. For

example, if we wanted to determine the morality of executing
Karla Faye Tucker, we would first calculate, one at a time, all
of the pleasure and pain that she personally would receive from
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the execution. One specific pleasure/pain that she would
experience would involve her contemplating her own death. As
she sat in her cell and thought about the fact that she would
soon die, she undoubtedly had a strong painful experience of
dread. According to Bentham’s calculus, we need to construct
a pleasure/pain chart that takes into account the first four
criteria listed previously. We also need to assign numerical
values to these factors, perhaps on a scale of 1 to 10. In
Tucker’s case, we might get these figures:

Concerning the intensity of her pleasure/pain, we may

presume that Tucker derived no pleasure from the events
immediately surrounding her death, and she experienced very
intense emotional pain at the prospect of losing her life. The
duration of the emotional pain would have been relatively
brief, but also certain and immediate.

After we chart out the first four factors, we then

consider the other three factors separately. Bentham’s purity
factor involves whether an act produces both pain and pleasure.
We’ve already taken this into account in our chart by noting
that Tucker experienced only pain and no pleasure. The
fecundity factor involves any similar long-term residual
pleasures and pains that might result from an action. Since
Tucker’s execution was carried out successfully, there were no
residual pleasures and pains for her. However, if her execution
had been botched on its first attempt and she had to go through
the process again a month later, then we would need to devise
another pleasure/pain chart for the new execution. Our chart
quantifies only the psychological anguish that Tucker
experienced when contemplating her own death. However,
there were other distinct pleasures and pains that she
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experienced regarding her execution. For example, she would
have been distressed at being permanently separated from her
family and frustrated with the criminal justice system. For each
of these additional pains or pleasures, we need additional
pleasure/pain charts.

Finally, Bentham’s extent factor involves all the

pleasures and pains experienced by other people. So, once we
fully account for Tucker’s pleasures and pains, we then
construct similar pleasure/pain charts for each pleasure and
pain experienced by each person affected by Tucker’s
execution. This includes the pleasures experienced by people
who wanted Tucker dead, such as the victim’s relatives and
those who commiserated with the relatives. But it also includes
the pains experienced by those who wanted her alive, such as
Tucker’s own relatives, and even those like the Pope who
oppose capital punishment and are pained by another
execution. At this stage, thousands and perhaps millions of
pleasure/pain charts would be involved. We then take the
combined pleasure score from all charts and compare it to the
combined pain score from all charts. If the pleasure column has
the higher score, then executing Tucker is moral. But if the
pain column has the higher score, then the execution is
immoral.

When Bentham’s Principles first appeared, two book

reviewers attacked the work for the excessive detail throughout
his entire discussion. The Analytical Review charged that
“perhaps the love of discrimination has been sometimes carried
too far, and been productive of divisions and subdivisions of
little use to a legislator” (Vol. 5, 1789). The Critical
Review commented more strongly that “long and intricate
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discussions end in trifling conclusions; affected refinement
sometimes stands in the place of useful distinctions, and the
parade of system is so highly labored as frequently to disgust”
(Vol. 68,1789). Bentham was well aware of this overall
problem with the Principles, and for that reason he delayed its
publication for nine years. The problem with his utilitarian
calculus in particular is that it imposes a precision on a subject
that does not allow for it. Working through even a single
example shows that it is virtually impossible to do a complete
utilitarian calculus, and this constitutes the strongest argument
against it.
In spite of the problems with Bentham’s theory, his
view of utilitarianism gained a following. By the mid-
nineteenth century, his name was so strongly linked with
utilitarianism that one commentator felt compelled to remind
people that Bentham did not invent the doctrine (Simon
Laurie, On the Philosophy of Ethics, 1866). The next great step
in the development of utilitarianism came with British
philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806–1873).

Mill’s Utilitarianism
Bentham was John Stuart Mill’s godfather and teacher, and
the young Mill was strongly influenced by his mentor’s
account of utilitarianism. In early adulthood, Mill suffered an
emotional breakdown, which he attributed to his heavily
analytic education. When Bentham died shortly thereafter, Mill
felt free to reevaluate the ideas of his upbringing. Mill’s early
writings show a growing disenchantment with Bentham’s
overly technical utilitarian calculus. In his 50s, Mill finally
took the opportunity to write a popular defense of utilitarianism
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to counter the excessively scientific reputation the doctrine had
obtained through Bentham. This appeared in three installments
in Fraser’s Magazine in 1861 and was published in book form
in 1863 under the title Utilitarianism. Because
Mill’s Utilitarianism was written in a brief and popular format,
one early commentator noted that he expected Mill to follow
up with a “longer and more elaborate” book on the subject. But
Mill never did. Within a decade, several studies appeared
analyzing virtually every aspect of Mill’s theory, and by the
turn of the century, Mill’s book became, as one commentator
said, “more universally familiar than any other book in the
whole literature of English Utilitarianism.”

Commentators argue that there is little in Mill’s

theory that is completely original. In fact, we can outline many
features of Mill’s theory simply by listing their similarities to
those in previous theories. First, like Bentham, Mill presents a
bare-bones account of utilitarianism by not incorporating
traditional moral concepts such as the will of God, virtues, a
moral sense, or rational intuition. Mill does, though, find a
place in his theory for socially oriented moral feelings such as
sympathy, which give people the motivation to pursue general
happiness. Without such motivation, utilitarianism would be a
sterile principle without any practical value.
Second, like Bentham, Mill believes that the sole criterion
of morality is general happiness— that is, the maximum
pleasures and the minimum pains that a society of people can
experience. Third, like Bentham, Mill believes that this
criterion can be expressed somewhat scientifically in the form
of a single principle:

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 Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote
happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of
happiness. [Utilitarianism, 2]

Fourth, like Hutcheson, Mill argues that happiness consists

of both higher intellectual pleasures, and lower bodily
pleasures. Fifth, like Hume, Mill focuses on the good or bad
consequences that emerge from rules of conduct, and as such,
Mill is classified as a rule-utilitarian. The two features of his
theory that distinguish him most from Bentham are and his
views of higher pleasure and his rule-utilitarianism, which we
will look at in more detail.

Rule-Utilitarianism
The second feature of Mill’s theory that is distinct from
Bentham’s concerns the place of moral rules in moral decision
making. Bentham is what scholars today call an act-utilitarian,
whereas Mill is a rule-utilitarian. The two approaches may be
defined this way:

• Act-utilitarianism: morality involves examining the

pleasurable and painful consequences of our individual actions.
• Rule-utilitarianism: morality involves examining the
pleasurable and painful consequences of the moral rules that
we adopt.

Act-utilitarianism involves a two-tiered system of moral

evaluation: (1) selecting a particular action, and (2) evaluating
that action by appealing to the criterion of general happiness.
For example, according to act-utilitarianism, it would be wrong

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for me to steal my neighbor’s car since this particular act
would produce more general unhappiness. Rule-utilitarianism,
though, involves an intermediary step and so is a three-tiered
system of moral evaluation: (1) selecting a particular action, (2)
evaluating that action by appealing to moral rules, and (3)
evaluating moral rules by appealing to the criterion of general
happiness. For example, according to rule-utilitarianism, it
would be wrong to steal my neighbor’s car since this act would
violate the rule against stealing, and we endorse the rule
against stealing since it promotes general happiness.

Mill develops his view of rule-utilitarianism in reaction

to two distinct issues. The first concerns whether we have
enough time to calculate the consequences of our actions
before performing them. Throughout the day there are
countless actions that we perform, and it would be completely
impractical to perform a utilitarian cost-benefit analysis
beforehand on each one. Some of these actions are urgent and
require quick decisions. Should we help rescue someone from
drowning? Should we call the police when witnessing an
assault? But even with less urgent actions, they are so
numerous that it would become a bureaucratic nightmare to
evaluate the general happiness of each one. A simple act such
as selecting toothpaste may involve a pleasure-pain calculus of
purchasing one toothpaste brand versus another. Also, could I
justify spending my time watching TV, which benefits no one
but me, rather than doing volunteer work for a charity group
which will benefit many other people? It seems that virtually
every action that we perform might require some pleasure-pain
analysis, which would be humanly impossible to carry out.

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 According to Mill, the above problem arises only for
act-utilitarians who attempt to evaluate the general happiness
of each action. For rule-utilitarians, though, the problem
disappears. With each choice that we face throughout the day,
we simply follow the moral rules that society has already
established for us. For Mill, “the whole past duration of the
human species” has consisted of efforts to learn through
experience which types of actions bring about general
happiness. Those well-established rules, then, are the guides
for our behavior. Society has already determined that as a rule
we should help others in need. Thus, we instantly know that we
should try to rescue someone from drowning and call the police
when we see an assault. Society has also determined that not
every decision in our lives rises to the level of moral urgency,
and some are matters of personal preference. There are no
established moral rules that regulate what toothpaste we
purchase or the leisure activities that we engage in, such as
watching TV. We would not be promoting general happiness
by making hard-and-fast rules about these decisions. Instead,
general happiness would be better served if we endorsed a rule
that allows each of us a range of free activity.

The second issue behind Mill’s rule-utilitarianism

involves how we resolve moral dilemmas. As noted, according
to Mill we appeal to the utilitarian principle only to establish
moral rules, but not to judge the morality of individual actions.
However, on rare occasions we may be caught in a moral
dilemma between two conflicting rules. Suppose I borrow your
gun and promise to return it when you ask for it. The next day,
you have a dispute with your boss and, in a fit of rage, ask for
the gun back. I am now caught in a dilemma between two
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conflicting moral rules: I should keep my promises, yet I
should not contribute to the harm of others. In such rare cases, I
can determine the proper course of action by
appealing directly to the utilitarian principle to see which rule
has priority. Mill explains this point here:

We must remember that only in these cases of conflict

between secondary principles [that is, rules] is it requisite that
first principles [of general happiness] should be appealed to.
There is no case of moral obligation in which some secondary
principle is not involved . . . [Utilitarianism, 2]

In this case, I bring about more happiness by following

the rule to avoid harming others, and so I should hold onto
your gun. Thus, the only time we should directly examine the
consequences of an individual action is settle a conflict
between conflicting rules.
To summarize, these are the main points of Mill’s
utilitarianism:

• General happiness is the sole criterion of morality, and

“happiness” is defined as pleasure.
• Higher intellectual pleasures are more valuable than lower
bodily pleasures.
• We cannot quantifiably calculate which rules produce the
greatest pleasure, although we can objectively determine
whether one pleasure is higher than another.
• We appeal to the principle of greatest happiness only when
evaluating rules of conduct, and not individual actions.

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Criticisms of Utilitarianism
Early defenders of utilitarianism offered their theories
as radical alternatives to the more conventional approaches to
morality that emphasized God, natural law, and instinctive
duties. From the start, utilitarian theories were challenged by
more conventional theorists. We will look at four important
criticisms of utilitarianism.

Gisborne’s Criticism: We Cannot Know All of the

Consequences
One of the first criticisms of the utilitarian theory was
presented by English clergyman Thomas Gisborne (1758–
1846). According to Gisborne, we are incapable of knowing all
of the consequences of our actions. As we attempt to hunt
down the various consequences, we will never be in a position
to discover all of the relevant effects and form a conclusion
about the overall happiness or unhappiness that results. He
offers a picturesque analogy for this point:
As well might a fisherman infer, that his line, which has
reached the bottom of the creek in which he exercises his trade,
is therefore capable of fathoming the depths of the Atlantic.
He, who has had sufficient humility to become convinced. . .
how few are the consequences which he can foresee, compared
with those which are wrapped in obscurity, will be the most
ready to confess his ignorance of the universal effects of his
actions. [The Principles of Moral Philosophy
Investigated (1789)]

Imagine that I use a 15 foot line to fish in a local creek,

and with that I can reach its bottom. I then conclude that this
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same 15 foot line would be sufficient for me to fish in the
depths of the Atlantic Ocean, which, obviously, it is not. By
analogy, in our ordinary lives we are good at figuring out some
of the immediate consequences of our actions. If I break a cup,
it will cost me $5 to replace. If I set my alarm clock to the
wrong time, then I’ll be late for work the next day. However,
this skill in discovering immediate consequences of ordinary
actions does not equip us to discover all the long term effects
of many of our other actions. If I steal my neighbor’s car, can I
really say with certainty that the consequences, when all
tallied, will produce more unhappiness than happiness? It may
well be that my neighbor did not like his car and would prefer
the insurance money that he’d get when reporting it stolen. It
may well be that the police catch me and send me to jail, which
in turn reforms me and makes me a more productive and
responsible citizen. I just do not know what all the remote
consequences will be. In Gisborne’s words, “the limited
knowledge of expediency attainable by the wisest of men is
unfit to be adopted as the basis of moral rectitude” (ibid).

How might the utilitarian respond to Gisborne’s

criticism? Rule-utilitarians like Mill have the easiest answer.
When determining the rightness or wrongness of moral rules,
like “do not steal,” it is never up to a single individual to
calculate all the consequences. Through trial and error over
many generations, our ancestors have experienced and
evaluated the long term results of all sorts of actions. They kept
records of these in stories and histories, and constructed laws to
minimize the unhappy consequences that some courses of
actions bring about. We are the beneficiaries of these efforts,
and we can safely say that adopting a rule like “do not steal”
will bring about more long term happiness than unhappiness. It
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makes no difference whether we as individuals lack the mental
vision to detect all the remote consequences of our actions.
Like so many other areas of our lives, we rely on cultural
tradition to teach us lessons that we could not individually
discover.

But even the act-utilitarian has some response to

Gisborne. Let’s grant that I as an individual have a limited
ability to envision all the long term consequences of a given
action, like stealing my neighbor’s car. Nevertheless, nature
has provided me with enough foresight to assist me in planning
my life and my community. The ability to project the
consequences of actions is a critical survival skill. While I
cannot literally see into the future to evaluate all the remote
consequences of my actions, I can set up scenarios that are
more likely than others. If I steal my neighbor’s car, it is not
really likely that he’ll be happy about it and prefer the
insurance money. I can also project that I’ll likely get caught
and go to jail. And, even if I reform in prison, that experience
is not likely to improve my life when I get out, but will instead
permanently restrict my career options. I also know my act of
theft will place a burden on my family, the insurance industry
and the criminal justice system. In the end, I can make a good
best guess that my act of theft will produce more unhappiness
than happiness. This is not a 100% foolproof assessment, but
it’s good enough for me to make a reasonable assessment of
how I should morally behave. It is also not that much different
than other critical decisions that I make in my life that are not
strictly speaking moral ones. When choosing to accept a job
offer, I try to make a reasonable cost-benefit analysis based on
the limited knowledge that I have. So too with decisions about
marrying someone, buying a home, and having children.
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Whether my actions are morally significant or morally

neutral, nature has not left me helpless when it comes to

projecting their most likely long term consequences.

Bradley’s Criticism: Utilitarianism Conflicts with

Ordinary Moral Judgments
A second criticism of utilitarianism, presented by
British philosopher F. H. Bradley (1846–1924), is that
utilitarian moral judgments often conflict with our ordinary
conceptions of moral obligation. For example, it is theoretically
possible that you cheating on your spouse will maximize
general happiness. It may make you and your lover happy, and
as long as you keep it a secret, your spouse will not be
unhappy. But even in this situation our ordinary moral
judgment is that adultery is wrong:

Let us take the precept, do not commit adultery. How

are we to prove that no possible adultery can increase the
overplus of pleasurable feeling? . . . To put the whole matter in
to words; the precepts of Hedonism are only rules, and rules
may always have exceptions: they are not, and, so far as I see,
they cannot be made out to be laws. [Ethical Studies (1876), 3]

According to Bradley, there are morally proper

behaviors that “we should choose even if no pleasure came
from them,” such as being faithful to one’s spouse. Thus,
utilitarianism fails as a guideline of proper conduct.

We can illustrate Bradley’s point further by considering

cases in which we might exploit someone if doing so would
produce general happiness. For example, suppose that I capture
and enslave an unimportant person who has no relatives, and
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force him to perform all the menial tasks that I and my family
hate. We have him clean the house, do the laundry, mow the
yard, change the cat litter box, fix broken appliances, and so
on. The slave surely suffers, but, overall, this results in more
happiness with me and my family through the slaves’ labor.
However, we commonly feel that it is simply wrong to enslave
someone, in spite of the overall happiness that this might
produce. According to Bradley’s reasoning, then, utilitarianism
is an inadequate moral theory since it can be used to justify this
kind of exploitation in the name of general happiness.

In response to Bradley’s criticism, again, rule-

utiltarians have the easiest job of providing an answer.
According to rule-utilitarians such as Mill, we do not calculate
the consequences of each action, such as whether general
happiness is maximized when Jones in particular cheats on his
wife. Instead, we calculate the consequences of each rule we
adopt, such as “adultery is wrong.” As Hume argued, it is only
through the adoption of this general rule against adultery that
we maximize social utility by better preserving the family unit.
So too with exploitive acts like slavery. We do not calculate the
benefit of enslaving Jones in particular, but, instead, the benefit
of rules like “Slavery is wrong.” When we focus on these rules,
it becomes clear that adopting them will produce more
happiness than unhappiness. Further, rule-utilitarians can
safeguard against all isolated acts of exploitation, and not just
slavery, by adopting a rule like “We may never exploit
individuals, even for an alleged greater good.” Even if some
instances of exploitation do serve the general happiness, most
exploitation will result in unhappiness. So, a rule prohibiting
all exploitation will be one that, on balance, serves the general
happiness.
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 Act-utilitarians also have a response to Bradley’s
criticism. When utilitarian reasoning conflicts with ordinary
moral judgments, it is often because we focus only on the
short-term benefits of one’s conduct, neglecting the long-term
ones. In the situation of adultery, there is the realistic
possibility that one’s spouse will eventually find out, or that
one’s lover may feel taken advantage of and take revenge.
With slavery there is the long term problem of slave rebellions,
and creating an underclass of people that society may never
fully recover from even after slavery is outlawed. In fact, the
long-term negative consequences of slavery in the United
States are still unfolding. The problem that Bradley exposes is
not so much with act-utilitarianism itself, but with human
nature and our tendency to prefer short term benefits over long
term ones. It was much easier for slave owners to focus on the
immediate economic benefits of slavery than the long term
social and economic devastation that it would create. While the
focus on long term consequences may not resolve all of
utilitarianism’s conflicts with ordinary moral judgments, it
goes a long way in reducing the force of Bradley’s criticism.

Grote’s Criticism: Utilitarianism Only Perpetuates

the Status Quo
Suppose we wanted to determine whether an action like
the execution of Karla Faye Tucker is morally permissible.
According to utiltarians, we find this out by looking at how
much pleasure and pain result from actually putting people to
death. This involves an experiential inspection of the various
consequences—an approach that, in essence, grounds morality
in our factual observations. In his posthumously published An
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Examination of the Utilitarian Philosophy (1870), John Grote
(1813–1866) criticizes this purely experiential approach to
determining our moral obligations. For Grote, appeals to
experience will only perpetuate the status quo, and it will not
include an ideal moral goal toward which we should aim.
There is no room for anyone with special moral vision to
expose the flaws with our current moral standards and put us
on the path to moral reform. In Grote’s words, utilitarianism
bases morality only on what is the case, not on what ought to
be the case. Morality should include guidelines for moral
improvement, but we will never get such guidelines by
appealing only to what is the case. Grote makes this point here:

Man has improved as he has, because certain portions

of his race have had in them the spirit of self-improvement, or,
as I have called it, the ideal element; have been unsatisfied with
what to them at the time has been the positive, the matter of
fact, the immediately utilitarian; have risen above the cares of
the day. . . [An Examination of the Utilitarian
Philosophy (1870), 13]

According to Grote, to obtain ideal guidelines, we need

an intuitive knowledge of morality, which goes beyond mere
experience and a utilitarian analysis.
There are two distinct aspects of Grote’s criticism: (1)
whether utilitarianism would ever allow standards of morality
to shift beyond the status quo, and (2) whether utilitarianism
has any room for people with special moral vision. Utilitarians
have a response to both of these aspects. Regarding the first,
imagine an isolated village where nothing ever changes. The
population is stable and they have consistent growing seasons
with no unpredictable droughts or insect infestations. There
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have been no technological advances in hundreds of years, and
work routines are firmly established. Their political structure is
stable, with no conflicts between social groups. There is no
contact with outsiders who might introduce foreign customs or
pose threats of war. In this situation, there would be no
utilitarian grounds to move morality beyond the status quo. The
village’s customs and moral values evolved around a fixed and
unchanging social environment, and no additional experience
would require a new assessment of what will bring about the
greatest happiness for the greatest number. For this particular
village, Grote is correct: utilitarianism would only perpetuate
the status quo. However, very few societies are like this today,
and probably have not been since the dawn of human
civilization. Within most societies, there are continual changes
as a result of population fluctuations, natural disasters,
epidemics, clashes with foreigners, new technologies, social
inequalities, political factions, and differing religions. Where
there is constant change within societies, there will always be a
need to reexamine which actions and policies bring about the
greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Some
tried and true moral rules will never change, such as “do not
kill” and “do not steal.” But others may shift with the times
such as with capital punishment, abortion, euthanasia, cloning,
church and state relations, universal health care, internet
neutrality and a host of other hot button issues that divide
society. Where there is heated debate, the status quo is not
fixed, and there is a need to draw on utilitarianism to make
society a happier place.

The second aspect of Grote’s criticism—whether

utilitarianism has any room for people with special moral
vision—can be answered with a similar response. Within the
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isolated village described above, moral visionaries seeking to
reform the status quo would only be troublemakers who would
risk disrupting the efficient traditions of that past. In spite of
their good intentions, their efforts at reform might produce
more unhappiness than happiness. Again, in this village Grote
is correct: utilitarianism has no room for the moral visionary.
However, when we turn to societies that are ever-changing
with constant social clashes, there is an important role for
utilitarian moral visionaries. They are the ones who propose
new ideas for mediating social conflict and bringing about the
greatest happiness for the greatest number. A key theme
throughout Mill’s Utilitarianism is that, over time, the status
quo of general happiness will improve through education and
science. The moral visionary is the one who brings these new
social ideas to the public and attempts to gain consensus with
them. The visionary will not seek guidance from an inner and
intuitive sense of morality, as Grote suggests. Instead, the
visionary will seek out areas of discontent within society and
propose ways of remedying it. Some discontent will be so
overwhelming that it may call for radical changes to set society
on a long-term path of general happiness. The abolition of
slavery and the civil rights movement are cases in point, and
the leaders of these movements could fully justify their
reforming efforts with utilitarian reasoning.

Albee’s Criticism: Higher Pleasures are Inconsistent

with Hedonism
A final criticism focuses specifically on Mill’s version
of utilitarianism. We saw that the most distinctive feature of his
theory is that happiness consists of both higher and lower
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pleasures, and that higher pleasures are qualitatively superior to
lower ones. The problem is that Mill appears to offer two
separate standards of general happiness: (1) pleasure and (2)
dignity. If we see pleasure as the sole criterion, then we must
deemphasize dignity; if we see dignity as the principal
criterion, then we must deemphasize pleasure. American
philosopher Ernest Albee (1865–1929) concisely states the
central issue here:

The inconsistency, in truth, may be expressed in a

word: If all good things are good in proportion as they bring
pleasure to oneself or others, one cannot add to this statement
that pleasure itself, the assumed criterion, is more or less
desirable in terms of something else (e.g., human dignity)
which is not pleasure. [A History of English
Utilitarianism (1902), 12]

The problem here is a serious one, and it appears that

Mill simply cannot hold up both pleasure and dignity as the
principal standard of happiness.
One option is to set aside the notion of dignity, and
simply to see pleasure as the standard of happiness. This
solution brings Mill closer to Bentham, since any difference
between pleasures would then have to be quantitative. This
even allows for the possibility of a utilitarian calculus of
differing quantities of pleasure. However, this resurrects the
problem that Mill hoped to avoid—namely, that utilitarianism
is a doctrine worthy only of swine since swine also pursue
pleasure. Thus, this is not the best option for Mill. The very
uniqueness of his version of utilitarianism rests on the concept
of higher pleasure, and, so, we must try to answer Albee’s
criticism while preserving that concept.
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 A second option is to redefine the notion of human
pleasure to make it inseparable from the notion of human
dignity. That is precisely what Mill tried to do when
distinguishing between higher and lower pleasures. The lower
ones are bodily in nature, which even animals can experience.
By contrast, the higher ones are uniquely human and involve
human dignity. The challenge for Mill is to explain how a
pleasure can be a dignifying one, and still be an actual
“pleasure” in any meaningful sense of the word. His slogan “It
is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied”
does not help his case since it looks like the human being is not
experiencing any real pleasure at all. It is here that Mill needs
help.

To assist Mill with this problem, let’s start by

considering a common distinction between pain and suffering.
Suppose that both I and my pet hamster break a leg as a result
of an accident. We both will experience physical pain from our
respective injuries. However, I, with my more complex brain,
will reflect on my pain in ways that the hamster cannot. I’ll
worry how long the pain will last, how long it will take to heal,
whether I’ll be able to function normally when it does heal, and
whether I’ll be treated differently by my peers throughout the
healing process. What I am experiencing now is not just pain,
but suffering. The specific formula is pain plus reflection
produces suffering. While suffering of this sort may not be a
uniquely human experience, it would at best be restricted to
higher animals sophisticated thought processes.

Consider now how I and my hamster would react to a

pleasurable experience of, say, eating our favorite meal. The
hamster eats its food pellets and I eat a pizza. We both
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experience gastronomic pleasure, but, because of my more
sophisticated thought process, I reflect on it in different ways. I
think about the subtle interplay of ingredients, the manner in
which it was cooked, its visual appearance, how it compares to
other pizzas I’ve had, and what beverage would go well with it.
I also think about how many calories I’m eating, whether the
ingredients are processed or whole foods, and how it fits into a
balanced diet for the day. While my gastronomic pleasure is
similar to that of the hamster, my overall enjoyment of the
experience is entirely different since it is filtered through my
higher thought processes. At least some of this thought process
involves a sense of dignity. I’m not simply shoveling food into
my mouth to satisfy a craving, but by reflecting on these
additional elements I am elevating the experience to a level that
fits into my sense of human worth. The formula here is
ordinary pleasure plus reflection produces higher pleasure.
Now I do not always do this when I eat pizza, and sometimes
my experience is no better than a hamster’s. But, on the
occasions that my eating enjoyment is connected with my
higher functions, my experience is more valuable. With a sense
of human adventure, I might expand beyond my usual eating
routine and try different foreign foods and enjoy them.
Similarly, I might expand beyond the action-adventure movies
that I watch and try foreign films and documentaries, and enjoy
them as well. In all of these cases, the higher pleasure that I’m
experiencing is a genuine pleasure that is rooted in an ordinary
pleasure, such as good eating, drama, suspense, intrigue,
romantic passion. But as it becomes elevated to a higher
pleasure, it cannot be separated from my human dignity. In this
way, contrary to Albee, higher pleasures are not inconsistent
with hedonism.
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 JUSTICE AND FAIRNESS
Promoting the Common Good

Arguments about justice or fairness have a long

tradition in Western civilization. In fact, no idea in Western
civilization has been more consistently linked to ethics and
morality than the idea of justice. From the Republic, written by
the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, to A Theory of Justice,
written by the late Harvard philosopher John Rawls, every
major work on ethics has held that justice is part of the central
core of morality.
Justice means giving each person what he or she
deserves or, in more traditional terms, giving each person his or
her due. Justice and fairness are closely related terms that are
often today used interchangeably. There have, however, also
been more distinct understandings of the two terms. While
justice usually has been used with reference to a standard of
rightness, fairness often has been used with regard to an ability
to judge without reference to one's feelings or interests;
fairness has also been used to refer to the ability to make
judgments that are not overly general but that are concrete and
specific to a particular case. In any case, a notion of being
treated as one deserves is crucial to both justice and fairness.
When people differ over what they believe should be
given, or when decisions have to be made about how benefits
and burdens should be distributed among a group of people,
questions of justice or fairness inevitably arise. In fact, most
ethicists today hold the view that there would be no point of
talking about justice or fairness if it were not for the conflicts
of interest that are created when goods and services are scarce
and people differ over who should get what. When such
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conflicts arise in our society, we need principles of justice that
we can all accept as reasonable and fair standards for
determining what people deserve.
But saying that justice is giving each person what he or
she deserves does not take us very far. How do we determine
what people deserve? What criteria and what principles should
we use to determine what is due to this or that person?

Principles of Justice
The most fundamental principle of justice—one that has
been widely accepted since it was first defined by Aristotle
more than two thousand years ago—is the principle that
"equals should be treated equally and unequals unequally." In
its contemporary form, this principle is sometimes expressed as
follows: "Individuals should be treated the same, unless they
differ in ways that are relevant to the situation in which they
are involved." For example, if Jack and Jill both do the same
work, and there are no relevant differences between them or
the work they are doing, then in justice they should be paid the
same
wages. And if Jack is paid more than Jill simply because he is a
man, or because he is white,

then we have an injustice—a form of discrimination—because

race and sex are not relevant to normal work situations.

There are, however, many differences that we deem as

justifiable criteria for treating people differently. For example,
we think it is fair and just when a parent gives his own children
more attention and care in his private affairs than he gives the

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children of others; we think it is fair when the person who is
first in a line at a theater is given first choice of theater tickets;
we think it is just when the government gives benefits to the
needy that it does not provide to more affluent citizens; we
think it is just when some who have done wrong are given
punishments that are not meted out to others who have done
nothing wrong; and we think it is fair when those who exert
more efforts or who make a greater contribution to a project
receive more benefits from the project than others. These
criteria—need, desert, contribution, and effort—we
acknowledge as justifying differential treatment, then, are
numerous.
On the other hand, there are also criteria that we believe are
not justifiable grounds for giving people different treatment. In
the world of work, for example, we generally hold that it is
unjust to give individuals special treatment on the basis of age,
sex, race, or their religious preferences. If the judge's nephew
receives a suspended sentence for armed robbery when another
offender unrelated to the judge goes to jail for the same crime,
or the brother of the Director of Public Works gets the million
dollar contract to install sprinklers on the municipal golf course
despite lower bids from other contractors, we say that it's
unfair. We also believe it isn't fair when a person is punished
for something over which he or she had no control, or isn't
compensated for a harm he or she suffered.

Different Kinds of Justice

There are different kinds of justice. Distributive justice
refers to the extent to which society's institutions ensure that
benefits and burdens are distributed among society's members
in ways that are fair and just. When the institutions of a society
110
distribute benefits or burdens in unjust ways, there is a strong
presumption that those institutions should be changed. For
example, the American institution of slavery in the pre-civil
war South was condemned as unjust because it was a glaring
case of treating people differently on the basis of race.

A second important kind of justice is retributive or

corrective justice. Retributive justice refers to the extent to
which punishments are fair and just. In general, punishments
are held to be just to the extent that they take into account
relevant criteria such as the seriousness of the crime and the
intent of the criminal, and discount irrelevant criteria such as
race. It would be barbarously unjust, for example, to chop off a
person's hand for stealing a dime, or to impose the death
penalty on a person who by accident and without negligence
injured another party. Studies have frequently shown that when
blacks murder whites, they are much more likely to receive
death sentences than when whites murder whites or blacks
murder blacks. These studies suggest that injustice still exists
in the criminal justice system in the United States.

Yet a third important kind of justice is compensatory

justice. Compensatory justice refers to the extent to which
people are fairly compensated for their injuries by those who
have injured them; just compensation is proportional to the loss
inflicted on a person. This is precisely the kind of justice that is
at stake in debates over damage to workers' health in coal
mines. Some argue that mine owners should compensate the
workers whose health has been ruined. Others argue
that workers voluntarily took on this risk when they chose
employment in the mines.
The foundations of justice can be traced to the notions of
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social stability, interdependence, and equal dignity. As the
ethicist John Rawls has pointed out, the stability of a society—
or any group, for that matter—depends upon the extent to
which the members of that society feel that they are being
treated justly. When some of society's members come to feel
that they are subject to unequal treatment, the foundations have
been laid for social unrest, disturbances, and strife. The
members of a community, Rawls holds, depend on each other,
and they will retain their social unity only to the extent that
their institutions are just. Moreover, as the philosopher
Immanuel Kant and others have pointed out, human beings are
all equal in this respect: they all have the same dignity, and in
virtue of this dignity they deserve to be treated as equals.
Whenever individuals are treated unequally on the basis of
characteristics that are arbitrary and irrelevant, their
fundamental human dignity is violated.

Justice, then, is a central part of ethics and should be given

due consideration in our moral lives. In evaluating any moral
decision, we must ask whether our actions treat all persons
equally. If not, we must determine whether the difference in
treatment is justified: are the criteria we are using relevant to
the situation at hand? But justice is not the only principle to
consider in making ethical decisions. Sometimes principles of
justice may need to be overridden in favor of other kinds of
moral claims such as rights or society's welfare. Nevertheless,
justice is an expression of our mutual recognition of each
other's basic dignity, and an acknowledgement that if we are to
live together in an interdependent community we must treat
each other as equals.

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Presumptive Fairness
Fairness is the default position in organizations. That is not
the case regarding all values. For example, while typically
respect for a position is presumed, respect for the individual
holding that position must be earned.

In organizations, however, fairness is the presumptive

starting point and is expected to be a “steady-state”. While in
our discussion of respect we note that there can be varying
level of respect in an organization and it can still function well,
there is no such latitude regarding fairness. As hard as I have
tried I cannot identify and organizational situation where
fairness is optional, inappropriate or unnecessary.

Fairness is a given. There can be no exceptions. That is a

baseline assumption. But there is a complication with fairness
that other values may not share. Interestingly, fairness, unlike
some of the other values we discuss in this series, is not an
“absolute”. Honesty can be evaluated. If I telling you the truth
or if I am lying can be objectively tested against some standard.
Fairness, in nearly every case, is a judgment call. It is measured
against a variable scale that each of us calibrates according to a
unique, internal standard. There is no “fairness” scale in the
Bureau of Weights and Measures against which we can
evaluate the fairness of one’s decisions or actions. Yet we
presume that fairness is in play.

We are expected to be fair and we should be able to expect

that those we are dealing with will be fair as well. The problem
is that, lacking any objective measure of what is or isn’t fair,
disagreements abound. “That’s not fair” is a common plea
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when your scale and mine disagree. From a leadership
perspective, the best we can hope for may be “consistency”.
For example, as your supervisor I may be more harsh or more
lenient in my dealings with you and others that your previous
supervisor. Either position can be accepted IF I apply the same
standard to everyone I deal with – similar degrees of harshness
or leniency in similar situations for all.

Consistency of behavior is one example of a reasonable

standard of fairness. I am playing by an internally consistent
set of rules – internally consistent in that I apply the same
standard to all cases – even when it is different from the
standards applied by others in similar cases. It is not unlike the
teachers we had in school - some were “easy” graders and
some were “hard” graders. Once we knew the standards, we
knew what to expect and so long as the rule didn’t change
unexpectedly, the standards was deemed fair. Perhaps not the
same standard as my predecessor applied, or the same standard
my successor will apply, but the same standard that I
consistently apply.

This is unlike other values, such as “honesty”. Honesty can

be objectively measured. A truth is a truth and a lie is a lie. In
fairness, the measure is subjective - is the action “within
bounds” and is the actor consistent, from case to case?

Distributive Justice
Distributive justice is concerned with the fair allocation of
resources among diverse members of a community. Fair
allocation typically takes into account the total amount of
goods to be distributed, the distributing procedure, and the
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pattern of distribution that results.

In Global Distributive Justice, Armstrong distinguishes

between distributive justice generally and principles of
distributive justice.[1]. Armstrong defines distributive justice
as the ways that the benefits and burdens of our lives are shared
between members of a society or community. Principles of
distributive justice tell us how these benefits and
burdens ought to be shared or distributed.[2].

Because societies have a limited amount of wealth and

resources, the question of how those benefits ought to be
distributed frequently arises. The common answer is that public
assets should be distributed in a reasonable manner so that each
individual receives a "fair share." But this leaves open the
question of what constitutes a "fair share."

Various principles might determine of how goods are

distributed. Equality, equity, and need are among the most
common criteria.[3] If equality is regarded as the ultimate
criterion determining who gets what, goods will be distributed
equally among all persons. (In other words each person will get
the same amount.) However, due to differences in levels of
need, this will not result in an equal outcome. (For example,
every incoming freshman to a local college with a grade point
above 3.0 might be offered a $500 scholarship. This is a nice
reward for students and parents who can afford the remaining
tuition, but is of no help to families that cannot afford the
additional $6000/year fee to attend the school.)
Another possibility is to proceed according to a principle of
equity, and distribute benefits in proportion to the individuals'
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contribution. Thus, those who make a greater productive
contribution to their group deserve to receive more benefits.
(Thus, in theory, people who work harder in more valuable
jobs should earn more money.) This sort of distribution is
typically associated with an economic system where there is
equal opportunity to compete. In competitive systems, wealth
or goods might also be distributed according to effort or ability.

Or, we might distribute goods according to need, so that an

equal outcome result. Those who need more of a benefit or
resource will receive more, as occurs when colleges offer
needs-based scholarships, or states provide welfare payments
to the poor.
Some suggest a system of competition that includes safety
nets for those who cannot compete. This sort of system
combines the principle of equity with that of need. It attempts
to reward people for their productivity at the same time that it
ensures their basic needs are met.
Finally, we might distribute resources according to social
utility, or what is in the best interests of society as a
whole. This is the argument that is frequently made by high-
paid executives, who not only argue that they deserve their
high salaries because of their contributions to their businesses,
but they also argue that they are the "job creators," thus paying
them highly benefits society as a whole. Others, however, think
taxing them highly and using the income to provide services to
the less fortunate would be of greater overall benefit to the
society.

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Why Distributive Justice Matters
According to the theory of relative deprivation, a sense
of injustice is aroused when individuals come to believe that
their outcome is not in balance with the outcomes received by
people like them in similar situations.[5] When people have a
sense that they are at an unfair disadvantage relative to others,
or that they have not received their "fair share," they may wish
to challenge the system that has given rise to this state of
affairs. This is especially likely to happen if a person or groups'
fundamental needs are not being met, or if there are large
discrepancies between the "haves" and the "have-nots." This is
particularly apparent in both Europe and the Middle East in
2013, but is also going on, to a lesser extent (and much less
violently) in the U.S. where the distribution of wealth is getting
more and more unequal. (See Rich/Poor Conflicts)

While it is clear to most people (at least in the US) that

skin color or religion should not be valid criteria of
distribution, real-life experience suggests that such factors
often turn out to be quite significant. In the United States, as
elsewhere, issues of distributive justice are connected to
concerns about systemic poverty and racism, and questions
about the fairness of affirmative action -- policies that grant
preferential treatment to particular racial or gender groups.

Societies in which resources are distributed unfairly can

become quite prone to social unrest. For example, "since the
colonial period, unfair land distribution and the prevailing
agricultural economic system have been the prime causes of
armed and civil resistance in Guatemala ."[6] While national
and international elites enjoy largely unrestricted access to
117
communal lands expropriated from the Maya, the majority of
Guatemalans live in poverty, on farms smaller than those
required to feed the average family. This sort of land
distribution violates principles of equality, equity, and need,
and therefore generates conflict.

Redistribution of benefits can sometimes help to relieve

tensions and allow for a more stable society. However,
redistribution always has losers, and they often initiate a
conflict of their own. This is apparent in the US, where
opposition to affirmative action has always been
strong. Similar policies preferentially treating Maylays and
indigenous people in Malaysia is currently (2013) leading to
tension and conflict--though not violence, at least as of
yet. Although always challenging, to the extent that re-
distribution can be enacted by the government through what is
widely perceived to be a legitimate decision making process,
success is more likely to be achieved. If the redistribution
process is seen as illegitimate, renewed conflict is a more likely
outcome.

Balancing out gross inequalities of wealth might also be

part of compensatory justice after periods of war. During
periods of postwar adjustment and peacebuilding efforts, long-
term economic policy must aim to achieve equity, or balance in
the distribution of income and wealth. Issues of distributive
justice are in this way central to
any peacebuilding or reconstruction program. Such efforts to
ensure a just distribution of benefits following conflict are
typically accompanied by democratization efforts to ensure a
more balanced distribution of power as well.
118
Kinds of Distributive Justice
Egalitarian Justice
Consider three different claims about equality:
All persons have equal moral and legal standing.

In some contexts, it is unjust for people to be treated

unequally on the basis of irrelevant traits.

When persons’ opportunities or life outcomes are unequal

in some important respect, we have a reason to lessen that
inequality. (This reason is not necessarily decisive.)

All of these claims express a commitment to equality.

They are each progressively more egalitarian. Understanding
the difference between these claims, their normative
implications, and the various ways the content of the third
claim can be further specified, are crucial to understanding the
disparate collection of philosophical views that compose
egalitarianism.

Claim (1) entails claim (2), and therefore captures part of

contemporary egalitarianism. If all persons are equal, then
there are political constraints on how they can be treated
unequally. Disenfranchisement and differential rights violate
the equality affirmed in (1). (3) is even stronger than (2),
because it is not only committed to treating people equally, but
ensuring that people have equal amounts of some important
good. There is controversy whether (1) entails, is merely
compatible with, or is incompatible with (3).

119
 The descriptive thesis found in claim (1) affirms the
equality of all persons. This must not be the plainly false
assertion that for any given trait, all persons are equal. We
differ in our abilities, resources, opportunities, preferences, and
temperaments. The claim must be about something more
specific. All persons have equal moral worth or equal standing.
The United States Declaration of Independence famously states
that “all men are created equal.” Jeremy Bentham’s dictum
“each to count for one, none to count for more than one,” is
another expression of the descriptive thesis. While the
conditions in which people live, their wealth and income, their
abilities, their satisfaction, and their life prospects may
radically differ, they are all morally equal. In moral and
political deliberation, each person deserves equal concern. All
should have equal moral and legal standing.

If all persons are equal in this way, then some forms of

unequal treatment must be unjust. The descriptive thesis,
applied within a particular state, at least entails equal rights and
equal standing. Therefore (1) constrains how a just political
society can be structured because it entails some degree of
support for claim (2). The degree is debatable in terms of
which contexts require equal treatment, what types of
institutions must treat people equally, and so on. At least in
terms of basic political rights, discrimination on the basis of
gender, ethnicity, and caste is prohibited. Many would also
extend these to commerce and the wider public sphere:
businesses should not be able to refuse service on the basis of
race, gender, or sexual orientation. The descriptive thesis must
entail some commitment to equal treatment, but the scope of
that commitment is disputed.
120
 Claim (3) (let us call it the egalitarian thesis) is closely
related to the descriptive thesis. (1) is taken by some as ground
for affirming (3). Denying (1) is grounds for rejecting the
imperative in (3). Yet the two theses are distinct. A
commitment to (1) does not obviously entail a commitment to
(3), because (3) is more robust and has wider scope. (1) may
entail (3), but establishing this requires a substantive argument.
The descriptive thesis’ extension into the social standing, well-
being, wealth, income, and life outcomes of citizens is
controversial. Unlike (3), (1) is not on its face opposed to
radical inequalities in income, wealth, capabilities, welfare, life
prospects, or social standing. If those inequalities arise within
legitimate political institutions that respect the equal standing
of all persons, they may be just.

The egalitarian thesis addresses more than the moral worth

of persons. It expresses an obligation to pursue distributive
equality. Deviations from equality are prima facie unjust. But
along which dimension ought we pursue greater equality?
Candidate metrics include resources, income, wealth, welfare,
or capabilities to perform certain functions. The obligation to
pursue equality along some such dimension makes (3) fully
egalitarian in the contemporary sense of the term. (1) does not
necessarily prohibit dramatic inequalities, whether they are
deserved or undeserved, due to hard work or luck, recent or
hereditary. Absent further argument, the content of (1) is only
concerned with such inequalities conditionally, when they
violate the equal moral status of persons. Of course if social
exclusion, caste discrimination, and unequal rights are
prohibited in light of the fact that (1) entails some level of
commitment to (2), this will influence the distribution those
121
metrics. This is not the same as a direct obligation to pursue
distributive equality of one of those metrics.

(1) is descriptive in content but has normative implications.

Egalitarianism is essentially prescriptive and normative. (3)
directly states what ought to be done with regard to the
inequalities among persons. It is an imperative to reduce
distributive inequality along some dimension. The normative
commitments that follow from (1) set minimal standards: states
must not violate the equal standing of persons. The normative
commitments of (3) are stronger and more aspirational: we
continually pursue equality by reducing inequality. This is a
pursuit of substantive distributive justice—equality of some
sort of condition or opportunities. It is not mere formal equality
of rights, or of economic notions such as considering everyone
equal as long as their income is determined by their marginal
product.

Egalitarians are thus committed to distributive justice in a

way that (1) need not be. (1) may entail a certain conception of
distributive justice having to do with equality of opportunity
and individual rights, especially property rights. For example,
John Locke argued that all persons are equal and have the same
rights. The equal standing and equal rights of all persons, even
in the pre-civilized state of nature, is a crucial component of his
theory of just government. This is a commitment to equality,
but it is not egalitarian in the contemporary sense. It does deal
with distributive justice, but only in terms of respecting
property rights and the right to free exchange of property. A
commitment to equality is not yet a commitment to substantive
distributive justice (a commitment to have a fair and equitable
122
distribution of goods), and is compatible with merely formal or
historical distributive justice (defining a just distribution as one
that respects standing property rights and the right of people to
trade without theft or coercion).

What is an egalitarian commitment to substantive

distributive justice? In the most literal sense, it requires
equalizing the distribution of some quantifiable thing among
persons, such as income or wealth. An egalitarian may see
distributive justice as an end in itself. This would mean it is
constitutive of a just society. It can also mean that we choose a
metric of equality that is intrinsically good, such as welfare or
well-being. Those things are desirable in themselves, not
because they are instrumental in acquiring other goods.
Alternatively, egalitarianism can be seen as merely
instrumental. For example, distributive justice can be seen as a
means to achieving some other social end, such as creating
social relationships among citizens that are equal and non-
oppressive, and allowing them to flourish and function as
citizens. An example of an instrumental metric of equality is
resources, because resources can be used to generate welfare.

Strictly speaking, all non-equalizing views of substantive

distributive justice are alternatives to egalitarianism. This
would exclude Rawls’ difference principle, which allows for
inequalities when they are required to raise the absolute
condition of the worst off. It would also exclude views that
prioritize aid to the worst off or argue in favor of redistribution
to guarantee a sufficient minimum for all. The contemporary
usage of the term is not restricted to equalizing views. While
there are contemporary debates between egalitarianism
123
narrowly defined and non-equalizing views such as Rawls’, the
most illuminating contemporary definition of the term is that it
is a commitment to substantive distributive justice as opposed
to merely formal or historical distributive justice.

Egalitarianism therefore comprises divergent views about

equality that go beyond the merely descriptive thesis and
affirm at least one of the following theses: first, some
important type of thing should be distributed equally among
persons; second, distributive inequality (along some relevant
dimension) is prima facie unjust and should be reduced.

Both principles further specify the normativity contained in

(3), yet still give little concrete guidance. Consider a different
normative principle with similar form: the current level of
infant mortality is unjust and should be reduced. While this
thesis does not tell us how to achieve our end, it clearly
specifies the end. We know what counts as success because we
know what infant mortality is and how to measure it. These
two distributive principles, while clearly egalitarian, do not
articulate any specific end. They give no guidance on what
quantifiable thing matters to distributive justice. What form
must a just distribution take? Is it about wealth? Income? Well-
being? Preference satisfaction? Something else?

Capitalism
Laissez faire capitalism means the complete separation of
economy and state, just like the separation of church and state.
Capitalism is the social system based upon private ownership
of the means of production which entails a completely

124
uncontrolled and unregulated economy where all land is
privately owned. But the separation of the state and the
economy is not a primary, it is only an aspect of the premise
that capitalism is based upon: individual rights. Capitalism is
the only politico-economic system based on the doctrine of
individual rights. This means that capitalism recognizes that
each and every person is the owner of his own life, and has the
right to live his life in any manner he chooses as long as he
does not violate the rights of others.

The essential nature of capitalism is social harmony

through the pursuit of self-interest. Under capitalism, the
individual's pursuit of his own economic self-interest
simultaneously benefits the economic self-interests of all
others. In allowing each individual to act unhampered by
government regulations, capitalism causes wealth to be created
in the most efficient manner possible which ultimately raises
the standard of living, increases the economic opportunities,
and makes available an ever growing supply of products for
everyone. The free-market operates in such a way so that as
one man creates more wealth for himself, he simultaneously
creates more wealth and opportunities for everyone else, which
means that as the rich become richer, the poor become richer. It
must be understood that capitalism serves the economic self-
interests of all, including the non-capitalists.

Contrary to widely held beliefs, capitalism is not a system

which exploits a large portion of society for the sake of a small
minority of wealthy capitalists. Ironically, it is actually
socialism that causes the systematic exploitation of labor. Since
the socialist state holds a universal monopoly on labor and
production, no economic incentive exists for the socialist state
125
to provide anything more than minimum physical subsistence
for the workers except to perhaps prevent riots or revolutions.
Exploitation is inherent to the nature of socialism because
individuals cannot live for their own sake, rather, they exist
merely as means to whatever ends the socialist rulers -- the
self-proclaimed spokesman of "society," may have in mind.

Am I a Capitalist?
From a purely economic point of view, a capitalist is a
person who buys in order to sell for profit. However, the
productive role that capitalists and businessman serve cannot
be overstated.

Far from being exploiters, the true function of capitalists

and businessmen "... is to raise the productivity, and thus the
real wages, of manual labor by means of creating, coordinating,
and improving the efficiency of the division of labor."2 By
continuously improving the efficiency of labor, capitalists and
businessmen are responsible for raising wages and creating
employment which serve to raise the standard of living of
everyone. Furthermore, by funding research and capital
investments, corporations and capitalists make possible all of
the modern day conveniences, from laser surgery to orchestra
halls, that most people take for granted every day. In fact, since
capitalists make available so much life-saving and labor-saving
technology to so many people, they should be regarded as
some of mankind's greatest benefactors. A few capitalists and
businessmen have done more to help mankind live a more
enjoyable life (indeed, most people would not even be alive
today if it weren't for capitalists) than all of the humanitarians,
social workers, and clergy men combined. If one considers

126
human life a value, then they should regard capitalists as one of
its greatest promoters. (If Mother Theresa really wanted to help
people, she should try and accumulate enough capital to start a
factory in a poor nation and employ thousands of people who
would not have jobs without her.)

In a more fundamental sense, a capitalist is anyone (from a

janitor to a millionaire) who lives solely by his own effort and
who respects the rights of others. The best symbol of a
capitalist is the trader. That is, the man or woman who only
deals with other people on a voluntary basis. A capitalist is not
an "exploiter" nor necessarily a "greedy"
Individual.
[

Socialism
Socialism is both an economic system and an ideology (in
the non-pejorative sense of that term). A
socialist economy features social rather than private ownership
of the means of production. It also typically organizes
economic activity through planning rather than market forces,
and gears production towards needs satisfaction rather than
profit accumulation. Socialist ideology asserts the moral and
economic superiority of an economy with these features,
especially as compared with capitalism. More specifically,
socialists typically argue that capitalism undermines
democracy, facilitates exploitation, distributes opportunities
and resources unfairly, and vitiates community, stunting self-
realization and human development. Socialism, by
democratizing, humanizing, and rationalizing economic
relations, largely eliminates these problems.

127
 Socialist ideology thus has both critical and constructive
aspects. Critically, it provides an account of what’s
wrong with capitalism; constructively, it provides a theory of
how to transcend capitalism’s flaws, namely, by transcending
capitalism itself, replacing capitalism’s central features
(private property, markets, profits) with socialist alternatives
(at a minimum social property, but typically planning and
production for use as well).

How, precisely, socialist concepts like social ownership and

planning should be realized in practice is a matter of
dispute among socialists. One major split concern the proper
role of markets in a socialist economy. Some socialists argue
that extensive reliance on markets is perfectly compatible with
core socialist values. Others disagree, arguing that to be a
socialist is (among other things) to reject the ‘anarchy of the
market’ in favor of a planned economy. But what form of
planning should socialists advocate? This is a second major
area of dispute, with some socialists endorsing central planning
and others proposing a radically decentralized, participatory
alternative.
[

Socialism vs. Communism in Marxist Thought

Although this article focuses on socialism rather than
Marxism per se, there is an important distinction within
Marxist thought that warrants mention here. This is the
distinction between socialism and communism.

Both socialism and communism are forms of post-

capitalism. Both feature social rather than private ownership of
the means of production. Both, within Marxist orthodoxy,

128
reject market production for profit in favor of planned
production for use. But beyond these important similarities lie
significant differences. In the Critique of the Gotha
Progam, Marx’s fullest discussion of these matters, he divides
post-capitalism into two parts, a “lower phase” (later called
“socialism” by followers of Marx) and a “higher phase”
(communism). The lower phase follows immediately on the
heels of capitalism, and so resembles it in certain ways. As
Marx memorably puts this point, socialism is “in every respect,
economically, morally and intellectually still stamped with the
birth marks of the old society from whose womb it emerges”
(Critique of the Gotha Program 614). These capitalist “birth
marks” include:

Material scarcity. Like capitalism, socialism does not

overcome scarcity. Under socialism, the social surplus
increases, but it is not yet sufficiently large to cover all
competing claims.

The state. Socialism transforms the state but does not

do away with it. What was a “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie”
under capitalism becomes a “dictatorship of the proletariat”
under socialism: a state controlled by and for the working
class. (Since workers make up the vast majority, this is less
authoritarian than it sounds.) Workers must seize the state and
use it to implement, deepen, and secure the socialist
transformation of society. Only after this transformation is
complete can the state “wither away”, and the “government of
people” be replaced by the “administration of things”.

The division of labor. Socialism, like capitalism, will

feature occupational specialization. Having developed under
capitalist educational and cultural institutions, most people
129
were socialized to fit narrow, undemanding productive roles.
They are not, therefore, “all around individuals” capable of
performing a wide variety of complex productive tasks.
Accordingly, socialism must feature a broadly inegalitarian
occupational structure. As under capitalism, there will be
janitors and engineers, nurses’ aides and surgeons, factory
workers and planners.

Finally, under socialism (many) people will retain

certain capitalist attitudes about production and distribution.
For example, they expect compensation to vary with
contribution. Since contributions will differ, so too will
rewards, leading to unequal standards of living. Turning from
distribution to production, many socialist producers will, like
their capitalist predecessors, regard work as merely a “means to
life” rather than “life’s prime want”. They work, in short, to get
paid, rather than to develop and apply their capacities or to
benefit their comrades.

So in all of these ways, the “lower phase” of post-

capitalism resembles its capitalist predecessor. Over time,
however, these capitalist “birth marks” fade, all traces of
bourgeois attitudes and institutions vanish, and humanity
finally achieves the “higher phase” of post-capitalist society,
full communism.

What would “full communism” be like? Marx never

answered this question in detail—and indeed, he disparaged as
utopian those socialists who focused excessively on “drawing
up recipes for the kitchens of the future”—but from his brief
remarks about communist society certain broad outlines can be
discerned. Perhaps his most famous description of communism
comes in the following passage from the Critique of the Gotha
130
Program:

In a higher phase of communist society, after the

enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of
labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and
physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a
means of life but also life’s prime want; after the productive
forces have also increased with the all-round development of
the individual, and all the springs of cooperative wealth flow
more abundantly—only then can the narrow horizon of
bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on
its banner: from each according to his ability, to each according
to his needs (615):

Unpacking this passage, we see that Marx makes all of

the following claims about communism:

It has done away with the division of labor, especially

that between mental and physical labor;

Attitudes towards work have changed (perhaps in part

because work itself has changed). Communist producers regard
work as both instrumentally and intrinsically valuable: they see
work not merely as a means to life, but also as “life’s prime
want”;

Human beings themselves have changed under

communism, becoming “all-around”, highly developed
individuals (rather than the stunted, one-sided creatures that so
many of them were under capitalism and perhaps even under
socialism);

Material scarcity has been eliminated or at least greatly

attenuated, as “the productive forces have increased” and thus
131
“all the springs of cooperative wealth flow more abundantly”;

As a result of all these changes, communist society is

able to conform to the famous principle: from each according
to his ability, to each according to his needs—thus severing the
link (found in communism’s “lower phase”)
between contribution and reward.

Not only will communism (unlike socialism) do away

with class, material scarcity, and occupational specialization, it
will also do away with the state. As noted above, the state
begins to wither away under socialism. But this process is not
completed until the “higher phase” of full communism, for it is
only in that phase that lingering class antagonisms are finally
eradicated. With these antagonisms cleared away, the state has
nothing to do—no class conflict to manage, no further function
to perform—and so, like a vestigial limb, it gradually atrophies
from disuse. Or, as Engels famously puts this point
in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific,
State interference in social relations becomes, in one
domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself;
the government of persons is replaced by the administration of
things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The state
is not “abolished”. It withers away (91).

In sum, within Marxist theory socialism and

communism are very different indeed. Although both eradicate
private property and profits, only the latter also eliminates the
division of labor, the state, material scarcity, and perhaps even
conflict itself. It is only under communism that mankind
completes its ascendance from the “kingdom of necessity” into
the “kingdom of freedom” (Engels 95).
132
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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
In the groundwork of this book, the authors are deeply indebted
to Dr. Marites U. Sy, who has been a constant support system
to them mentally and financially. Her role as a manager is
deeply appreciated, for without her, the realization of this book
would be far from reality. Secondly, the authors are also
greatly gratified to their families for boosting their morale
throughout the process of writing the book. Their presence
made a tremendous impact in accomplishing this book. Lastly,
the authors are immensely grateful to a number of writers,
experts, and scholars from the fields of intellectual inquiry,
moral philosophy, moral psychology, descriptive ethics, and
value theory. Their concepts, ideas, and works have been
helpful in the completion of this text. Recognition is given to
them by honorably including their names in the bibliography.

151