Let’s talk about Ethics now.\u00a0 Most of us have, whether it comes from Instinct, Reason, or Culture, a strong belief that certain acts and behaviors are morally right <\/em>and therefore obligatory or commendable, while others are morally wrong<\/em> and therefore forbidden or reprehensible.\u00a0 Until we are exposed to certain philosophical questions, we tend to assume that this is just part of how the world is: that there is right and wrong and that one can persuade other people of it.\u00a0 \u201cIt’s not fair!\u201d say small children to their parents.\u00a0 There is, admittedly, some disagreement about what morality says (just as there is disagreement about everything else), but there is also a fair amount of common ground.<\/p>\n Once people get exposed to Philosophy (even if only in the form of a shallow cultural relativism common among college Freshmen), it is natural to question whether this sense of ethics is grounded in the actual objective nature of reality.\u00a0 Or is it is purely subjective?\u00a0 In the latter case, one should probably bite the bullet and say that, other than as descriptions of our own psychology, moral facts don’t really exist at all (Ethical Nihilism<\/em>), and it is a mistake to think that there is somehow a fact of the matter about e.g. whether murder or adultery are really wrong.<\/p>\n It seems to me that the belief that e.g. \u201cmurder isn’t really wrong\u201d is morally abhorrent, and that anyone who really<\/em> disbelieved in the truth of ethics (though perhaps it is not fully possible) would be leaving behind an important part of their human heritage.\u00a0 Just as a person whose left and right brain hemispheres have been severed is a defective or damaged human specimen, so the person whose heart and mind have been severed by moral relativism fails to be fully humane.\u00a0 At the very least, Ethical Nihilism hardly seems likely to inspire moral excellence.\u00a0 Even the moral duty to believe what is true would in principle be undermined by it.\u00a0 But this, however important it may be practically, is a moral<\/em> argument in favor of morality, and those who do not accept this vision of humanity may accuse me of arguing in a circle.\u00a0 Instead, let’s ask what could ground ethical truths.<\/p>\n There are many views which have been held about Meta-Ethical theory.\u00a0 For simplicity let’s consider four main ones: which we might call, with some degree of over-simplification, the Protagorean <\/em>view, the Kantian <\/em>view, the Aristotelian <\/em>view, and the Platonic <\/em>view.\u00a0 All but the first of these views attempt to ground morality in some sort of objective reality, but in different ways.<\/p>\n The Protagorean view is that Ethics is grounded in nothing more than one’s own personal subjective opinion.\u00a0 That opinion may be partly determined by cultural or biological factors, but there is nothing inherently good or bad in accepting or defying one’s heritage: whatever you want to do is best.\u00a0 If somebody sincerely believes a different sort of ethical system which permits say revenge and genocide, they aren’t really any better or worse than anyone else, just different.\u00a0 We judge them to be bad, but then again they judge us to be bad. Once you decide to pursue a particular goal, you can ask whether your means <\/em>are well-chosen to suit your ends<\/em>, but your ends are really up to you.\u00a0 Thus, the wise man who wishes to live in a peaceful city might perpetuate myths which help other people to be virtuous, but he won’t believe any of them himself.<\/p>\n The Kantian view is that Reason tells us that certain things are right and wrong; that the reasoning mind can know the truths of Ethics much as we know the truths of Mathematics, by deducing them from self-evident first principles.\u00a0 Kant himself had an argument for something called the Categorical Imperative which was roughly like the Golden Rule, and he claimed that this was equivalent to treating other people as ends rather than means.\u00a0 Nobody much accepts his specific arguments anymore, but newspaper ethics columnists still have a broadly Kantian mindset, perhaps because it takes them more or less where they want to go, given the current tendency among democracies to reformulate all ethical questions in terms of \u201cHuman Rights\u201d vested in autonomous (self-governing) individuals.<\/p>\n The Aristotelian view is that Ethics is grounded in human nature.\u00a0 That is, all living creatures have some sort of intrinsic goal, purpose or end (\u03c4\u03b5\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2<\/em>) which is what it means for that plant or animal to flourish<\/em>, fully developing its nature in the way that is good for it.\u00a0 Evil would be a perversion or corruption of a thing’s nature, not something which has an independent existence apart from the\u00a0telos <\/em>of a thing.\u00a0 For us as humans, Ethics consists of identifying the requirements of human nature and cultivating habits which help to promote that flourishing.\u00a0 Since we are sexual beings, part of our good is directed towards reproducing ourselves, and since we are \u201cpolitical animals\u201d, another part of our nature consists in promoting benevolence towards others, but the highest and noblest aim (according to Aristotle) is to develop our rational nature, which flourishes when we pursue philosophy.\u00a0 Each person has their own individual telos<\/em><\/em> (what’s good for you is not necessarily good for me)\u2014which is however objective, since it is grounded in a more-or-less universal human nature.<\/p>\n (Some people might think that this Aristotelian view that biological organisms have purposes, i.e \u201cfinal causes\u201d is undermined by Darwinian evolution, but this is contestable.\u00a0 Did Darwin eliminate<\/em> purposes from the biological world, or did he explain<\/em> their existence?\u00a0 In any case, we are not here dealing with the Design question of how organisms like us came to exist, but with the quite distinct question of what our ethical significance is, now that we do <\/em>exist.)<\/p>\n The Platonic view is that there is a transcendental principle called \u201cthe Good\u201d or \u201cgoodness itself\u201d, which acts as the standard or judge for all other things.\u00a0 Thus, as in the Aristotelian view, goodness is based on the nature of things, but now it is a property of the fundamental nature of existence.\u00a0 All things, to the extent that they exist, participate to a greater or lesser extent in goodness.\u00a0 They are thus good only in a derivative sense, by participating in goodness.\u00a0 The philosopher begins by appreciating the beauty or virtue in visible realities, but ascends from there to appreciating the primary goodness in that which is Beauty or Virtue itself.\u00a0 Thus, in this view, the fundamental nature of reality requires us to be benevolent to others; although the precise set of actions to be performed are doubtless (as in the Aristotelian view) dependent on the precise details of human nature (it is kind to give a beggar bread rather than cyanide because of the nature of human biology, but what kindness is<\/em> does not depend on that).<\/p>\n Of these four views, Platonism is particularly conducive to arguing for Ethical Monotheism, due to its ascribing all goodness to the fundamental nature of things.\u00a0 On the Aristotelian view, one can still attempt to trace the teloi<\/em> back to their ultimate goal, much as the Cosmological Argument traces causes back to their ultimate cause.\u00a0 (By rights this ought to be called the Teleological Argument<\/em>, but unfortunately that term is usually taken to be synonymous with the Argument from Design.)\u00a0 If Ethics can be deduced rationally as in the Kantian system, then one can at least deduce that if <\/em>the Universe originates from something like a mind, that mind should also be able to appreciate ethical truths.\u00a0 But on the Protagorean view, the Argument from Ethics<\/a> is dead in the water and can go nowhere.<\/p>\n Next: What’s Right is Right<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Let’s talk about Ethics now.\u00a0 Most of us have, whether it comes from Instinct, Reason, or Culture, a strong belief that certain acts and behaviors are morally right and therefore obligatory or commendable, while others are morally wrong and therefore … Continue reading