Moral Theories

Through the ages, there have emerged multiple common moral theories and
traditions. We will cover each one briefly below with explanations and how
they differ from other moral theories.

Consequentialism

Consequentialist theories, unlike virtue and deontological theories, hold that

only the consequences, or outcomes, of actions matter morally. According to
this view, acts are deemed to be morally right solely on the basis of their
consequences. The most common form of consequentialism is utilitarianism.

Deontology

Deontological theories (derived from the Greek word for duty, deon) base
morality on certain duties, or obligations, and claim that certain actions are
intrinsically right or wrong, that is, right or wrong in themselves, regardless
of the consequences that may follow from those actions. What makes a choice
or an action right is its conformity with a moral norm. Thus, an agent has a
duty to act in accordance with a moral norm, irrespective of the (potentially
beneficial) effects of acting otherwise.

We might say that parents, for example, have an obligation to take care of
their children. On a deontological view, parents must fulfill this obligation,
even if breaking the obligation were to result, for the parents, in some great
benefit (increased financial savings, for example).

The deontological view holds that some actions cannot be justified by their
consequences. In short, for the deontologist, the ends do not justify the means.
Indeed, Immanuel Kant, whose formulation of deontological ethics is perhaps
the most well known, wrote that one must “act so that you treat humanity,
both in your own person and in that of another, always as an end and never
merely as a means.” As with other deontologists (Thomas Hobbes and John
Locke, for example), Kant held that the basis of our moral requirements is a
standard of rationality. In the case of Kant, the standard is a categorical
imperative. This single principle of rationality comprehensively includes all of
our particular duties.

Objections to Kantian deontology:

(1) Kant’s claim is that the moral status of our actions is determined solely
on the basis of the rightness or wrongness of the action itself. This means that
it is categorically wrong to, for example, lie, in any circumstances, regardless
of the consequences. It seems implausible, however, to hold that lying is
categorically wrong in all circumstances. Imagine, for example, a situation in
which a serial killer is on the hunt for your daughter. While searching for
her, the killer, whom you know to be the killer, encounters you and asks for
information regarding your daughter’s whereabouts. According to Kant’s
deontological theory, you would be required to tell the truth. Does this seem
reasonable?

Justice as Fairness

Justice as fairness refers to the conception of justice that John Rawls presents
in A Theory of Justice. This conception of justice concerns society’s basic
structure—that is, “society’s main political, constitutional, social, and
economic institutions and how they fit together to form a unified scheme of
social cooperation over time.”1

Rawls constructs justice as fairness in a rather narrow framework and

explicitly states, “Justice as fairness is not a complete contact theory.”2 Its
purpose is to show how we ought to allocate a cooperative surplus of resources
to individuals in society. As a result, justice as fairness relies on two implicit
assumptions about the societies in question: first, social cooperation is possible
and can work to everyone’s mutual advantage, and second, there exists a
moderate surplus of available resources to be distributed. Justice as fairness
cannot be used to determine the just distribution of sacrifices to be made by a
society’s members when resources are scarce. More generally, it cannot help
us identify just social policies in societies where background conditions (e.g.,
scarcity of natural resources, cultural barriers, war) have eliminated the
possibility of mutually advantageous social cooperation.

The process for determining how the basic structure should be arranged is
based on a thought experiment in which rational, mutually disinterested
individuals choose principles of justice from behind a veil of ignorance, a
condition that specifies they do not know specific details about themselves
(e.g., personal values, race, gender, level of income) or the society in which
they live (e.g., societal stage of development, economic circumstances).
However, when choosing these principles, the parties do possess general social,
psychological, and economic knowledge, and they also know that the
circumstances of justice obtain in the society to which they belong.
From this hypothetical initial situation, which Rawls calls the “original
position,” these individuals will presumably endorse two principles of justice.
The first, known as the equal liberty principle, is that “each person is to have
an equal right to the most extensive scheme of basic liberties compatible with
a similar scheme of liberties for others,” and the second is that “social and
economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both reasonably
expected to be to everyone’s advantage, and attached to offices and positions
open to all.”3

Rawls’ primary argument for the two principles is that they would be chosen
over any variation of utilitarianism, which he considers the strongest
opposition to justice as fairness. Constrained by the veil of ignorance, the
parties in the original position (as mutually disinterested rational agents) try
to agree to the principles which bring about the best state of affairs for
whatever citizen they represent within society. Since the parties are all
unaware of precisely what social role they will occupy, they strive to maximize
their individual shares of primary goods. These goods are defined as “things
that every rational man is presumed to want” regardless of this person’s
rational plan of life and include (among other things) rights, liberties, social
opportunities, and income.4 Rawls argues, largely through the appeal to the
maximin rule, that the parties in the original position would favor the equal
liberty principle over variations of utilitarianism. He further argues that the
parties would support using the difference principle to regulate the
distribution of wealth and income instead of a principle of average
utility(constrained by a social minimum) because the difference principle
provides a stronger basis for enduring cooperation among citizens.
The full application of justice as fairness can be regarded as a 4-stage
sequence. The deliberations concerning the two principles occur at the first
stage. With the two principles established, the parties then progressively thin
the veil of ignorance and, as they acquire more specific knowledge about
society at the subsequent stages, determine more specific principles of justice.
At the second stage, the parties learn more about society’s political and
economic circumstances and create a constitution that is consistent with the
two principles. At the third stage, the parties agree to laws and policies which
realize the two principles within the context of the agreed-upon constitutional
framework. At the fourth stage, the parties possess all available information
about their society and apply the established laws and policies to particular
cases.

One of Rawls major tasks in presenting justice as fairness is to show that the
society it generates can endure indefinitely over time. To achieve this aim,
Rawls deploys the just savings principle, a rule of intergenerational savings
designed to assure that future generations have sufficient capital to maintain
just institutions. Additionally, Rawls argues that the society generated by the
two principles is congruent with citizens’ good and that citizens can develop
the necessary willingness to abide by these principles. As a result, the society
generated by adherence to justice as fairness is stable and can be expected to
endure indefinitely over time.

Notably, however, the arguments for the stability of justice as fairness that
Rawls presents in A Theory of Justice do not prove convincing. Rawls does
not account for reasonable pluralism, a critical aspect of any constitutional
democracy with the guaranteed liberties that Rawls specifies. Thus, Rawls
recasts his arguments for the stability of justice as fairness in Political
Liberalism and strives to demonstrate that citizens, despite reasonable
disagreement about many issues, will agree on a limited, political conception
of justice through an overlapping consensus of their individual viewpoints.

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism states that actions are morally right if and only if they
maximize the good (or, alternatively, minimizes the bad). Classical
utilitarians like Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill (as well as many
contemporary utilitarians) take ‘the good’ to be pleasure or well-being. Thus,
actions are morally right, on this view, if and only if they maximize pleasure
or well-being or minimize suffering.

This approach is sometimes called hedonistic utilitarianism. For hedonistic

utilitarians, the rightness or our actions are determined solely on the basis of
consequences of pleasure or pain.

Utilitarian theories may take other goods into consideration. Preference

utilitarianism, for example, takes into account not just pleasures, but the
satisfaction of any preference.

Utilitarianism can also be divided along other lines. Act-utilitarianism claims

that we must apply a utilitarian calculation to each and every individual
action. By making this calculation, we can thereby determine the moral
rightness or wrongness of each action we plan to take.

Rule-utilitarianism eases the burden that act-utilitarianism places on practical

reasoning by establishing moral rules that, when followed, brings about the
best consequences. Rule-utilitarianism can be illustrated by the rule “do not
kill.” As a general rule, we would be better off, that is, the best consequences,
or state of affairs, would be brought about, if we all followed the rule “do not
kill.”

Objections to Utilitarianism:

There are a number of objections to utilitarian theories, both in their act-

formulations and in their rule- formulations.

(1) Act-utilitarianism, for example, seems to be impractical. To stop to

calculate the possible outcomes of every act we intend to make, as well as the
outcomes of all of the possible alternatives to that act is unrealistic. Moreover,
it may hinder one’s ability to bring about the best consequences – for
example, in cases where a quick response is vital (as in responding to a car
wreck).

(2) Others have objected to utilitarianism on the grounds that we cannot

always predict the outcomes of our actions accurately. One course of action
may seem like it will lead to the best outcome, but we may be (and often are)
mistaken. The best it seems we can do, then, is to guess at the short-term
consequences of our actions.

(3) Objections to utilitarianism have also been made on the grounds that it is
excessively demanding and places too large a burden on individuals. Since
utilitarianism says that acts are morally right if and only if they maximize
pleasure or well-being, it seems that leisure activities, such as watching
television, may be morally wrong because they do not maximize well-being.
Any person watching television could, after all, be doing something else –
something that would maximize utility, like helping others or volunteering.
(4) Finally, utilitarianism receives criticism because seemingly immoral acts
and rules can be justified using utilitarianism (this criticism is applicable both
to act- and rule- utilitarianism). Genocides, torture, and other evils may be
justified on the grounds that they, ultimately, lead to the best outcome.
Unjust rules – for example, laws that legalize slavery or apartheid – might
also be justified on utilitarian grounds.

(3) Virtue theories encounter problems with moral dilemmas in which two (or
more) virtues conflict. In other words, the requirements of one virtue may be
opposed, or contradictory, to the requirements of another. The requirements
of honesty, for example, require us to tell the truth, even if it is hurtful. The
virtues of kindness or compassion, on the other hand, point to remaining
silent, or perhaps even lying, in order to avoid harm.

Virtue Ethics

Virtue ethics takes its philosophical root in the work of the ancient Greek
philosopher Aristotle. Virtue theories claim that ethics is about agents, not
actions or consequences. Living an ethical, or good life, then, consists in the
possession of the right character traits (virtues) and having, as a result, the
appropriate moral character.

Unlike deontological accounts, which focus on learning and, subsequently,

living by moral rules, virtue accounts place emphasis on developing good
habits of character. In essence, this means developing virtuous character
traits – dispositions to act in a certain way – and avoiding bad character
traits, or vices of character.
Character traits commonly regarded as virtues include courage, temperance,
justice, wisdom, generosity, and good temper (as well as many others). This
approach to normative ethics also emphasizes moral education. Since traits of
character are developed in youth, adults are responsible for instilling in their
children the appropriate dispositions.

Objections to virtue ethics:

(1) The first difficulty, which any virtue theorist must surmount is figuring
out which characteristics count as virtues (and which count as vices). Given
that different cultures sometimes hold different traits of character to be
virtuous, it seems that virtue ethical theories are susceptible to the difficulties
involved with cultural relativism.

(2) It also seems that virtuous characteristics can be exhibited even when the
actions carried out are immoral. Courage, for example, is often regarded as a
virtue, but can there not be courageous bank robbers? It certainly seems that
a bank robber could exhibit courage while robbing a bank, yet we generally
agree that robbing is morally wrong.

This consequence is problematic because the aim of any normative theory is to

arrive at standards, or norms, of behavior for living a moral life. In the case
of the courageous bank robber, it seems that the bank robber lives according
to the standard set by virtue ethics (that is, he acts courageously) but his
behavior is nevertheless immoral.

It may be suggested in response to this objection that the courageous bank

robber, though meeting the requirements of the virtue of courage, fails to live
according to the standard set by some other virtue – for example, honesty.
This response, however, only serves to highlight another objection to virtue
ethics – competing virtues.

Summary of Moral Traditions

Consequentialism:Focuses on the consequences of an act to determine if the act is moral or immoral
Deontology:Focuses on the act. Certain acts are intrinsically right or wrong.
Virtue Ethics:Focuses on the character of the agent. A virtuous agent will act morally.