Moral Questions E-Book

Jon Nuttall

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 437

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

This new introduction to ethics is written for students who are approaching philosophy for the first time.

Das E-Book Moral Questions wird angeboten von Polity und wurde mit folgenden Begriffen kategorisiert:
students; philosophy; time; ethics; first; introduction; approaching; new; practical; range; focuses; nuttall; distinctive; analysis; reader; methods; philosophical; way; moral; starts; chapters; later; discussion; book; morality

Leseprobe

Moral Questions

An Introduction to Ethics

Jon Nuttall

Polity Press

Copyright ©Jon Nuttall 1993

The right of Jon Nuttall to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 1993 by Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishers

Editorial office:Polity Press65 Bridge StreetCambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Marketing and production:Blackwell Publishers108 Cowley RoadOxford OX4 1JF, UK

238 Main StreetSuite 501Cambridge, MA 02142, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher.

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

ISBN 0 7456 1039 0ISBN 0 7456 1040 4(pbk)

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA CIP catalogue record for this book is available fromthe British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data

Nuttall, Jon.

Moral questions: an introduction to ethics/Jon Nuttall.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 0-7456-1039-0.—ISBN 0-7456-1040-4 (pbk.)—978-0-7456-6803-1 (ebook)

1. Ethics. I. Title.

BJ1012.N88 1993170– –dc2092-19117CIP

Typeset in 11 on 13 Baskerville by TecSet Ltd, Wallington, Surrey

Printed and bound in Great Britain byMarston Lindsay Ross International Ltd,Oxfordshire

In memory of my father

Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

  1   Applying Philosophy to Moral Issues

Why bother with moral philosophy?

The changes contributing to moral doubts

The influence of philosophers on morality

Can philosophy help decide moral issues?

The limitations of philosophy

  2   Giving Reasons and Making Judgements

Discriminating the good from the bad

Making moral judgements

Can moral judgements provide reasons for action?

Do reasons have to be watertight?

Do we always do what we most want to do?

Can morality rest on the authority of God?

  3   Finding Grounds for Moral and Religious Education

The objectivity of judgements

The rationality of religious beliefs

Should we be judging others?

Implications of universalizability

Is the moral educator no more than a logician?

Can there be moral facts?

What is the job of the moral educator?

  4   Punishment and Responsibility

Can two wrongs make a right?

Just deserts or preventive measures?

Are we responsible for our actions?

Are our actions determined?

Determinism and fatalism

Are effects determined by causes?

The connection between punishment and evaluation

  5   Sex and Morality

Does sex have any special moral significance?

Nature as a guide to morality

Is sex part of our animal nature?

Sexual arousal

Sexual perversions

Sexual intercourse and other activities

Intimacy between persons

The particular nature of sex

Rape

Promiscuity, masturbation and pornography

Prostitution

Homosexuality

Sexual morality

  6   Pornography, Violence and Censorship

Should we worry only about harmful consequences?

The depiction of sex and violence

Justifying censorship

  7   Abortion

Abortion and sex

Drawing the line

The significance of conception

The significance of birth

Viability

What is important about persons?

The rights of the unborn

Other considerations

  8   Persons, Children and Embryos

Conception in a dish

Genetic engineering

The status of ‘spare’ embryos

When do children become people?

Ownership of embryos

Surrogacy

  9   Suicide and the Value of Life

Is suicide a question for morality?

What counts as suicide?

Valuing life

Can life have value other than as a benefit?

Finding value in purpose

Passing judgement on suicide

10   Euthanasia

Euthanasia as a benefit

The active/passive distinction

What weight should be given to wishes?

Voluntary euthanasia

Involuntary euthanasia

Non-voluntary euthanasia

Killing or letting die – further considerations

11   War, Terrorism and Protest

The justification of war

Is all fair in war?

Ends and means

Problems of ‘total war’

Attitudes towards terrorism

12   Animal Rights

Ways of mistreating animals

Rights and obligations

The basis of rights

The rights of persons

Do animals have rights?

Vegetarianism

13   Fitting Persons into Theories

Motives for theorizing

Utilitarianism

Objections to utilitarianism

Rule utilitarianism

Moral theories compared to scientific theories

Kant’s moral theory

The different interests of people

Adopting a moral viewpoint

Further Reading

Index

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to colleagues and students of the Open University and St John’s School, Leatherhead (both past and present) for providing the stimuli and the opportunities for discussing the issues raised in this book. Thanks also to David McNaughton, for his helpful comments on an earlier draft, and to Susan Khin Zaw. Most especially I must thank Clare and Christopher, for taking an interest in the book and putting up with a distracted father, and of course Elizabeth, for reading everything I’ve written, for her constant encouragement and numerous helpful suggestions.

Preface

This book is intended as an introduction to that branch of Philosophy known as Moral Philosophy or Ethics. As one of the central branches of philosophy, ethics has a long history. However, I have deliberately avoided an historical approach; nor am I going to discuss the writings of other philosophers. There seem to me to be several good reasons for this. First, in an introductory text I wished to avoid references and footnotes. Second, I believe that philosophy is not a matter of learning the results that great philosophers have arrived at; what is important are the arguments used and the premises on which they are based and one can appreciate these only if one has worked through the problems oneself and felt their force. Thus I have thought it best to start from the issues and develop arguments in response to these, the aim being to stimulate philosophical thought rather than to provide information about philosophy. Anyone who becomes interested in the subject will, I hope, be able to move on to the work of other philosophers with a better understanding and appreciation of what they are trying to do. For this reason I have included suggestions for further reading. I certainly do not wish to claim any great originality for what I have written – those familiar with the works listed at the end of the book will recognize the debts I owe.

Moral philosophy is potentially one of the most accessible routes into philosophy. Since we cannot avoid having views on at least some contemporary moral issues, the concerns of the moral philosopher are probably closer to those of the non-philosopher than are the concerns of philosophers engaged in other branches of philosophy. None the less, I hope that the examples of philosophizing given here will also serve as a more general introduction to philosophical methods. It is, in any case, impossible to limit the scope of a philosophical discussion and inevitably discussions will stray beyond the borders of moral philosophy into those other branches of philosophy, such as logic, metaphysics, epistemology (the study of knowledge), the philosophy of mind, aesthetics, and so on. In this way we touch on some of the central problems of philosophy.

I ought to make it clear at the beginning that I am not using the term ‘philosophy’ in the sense in which it is used when people talk of ‘having a philosophy’, or of ‘a philosophy of life’. I am not, in other words, going to be putting forward my views on how one ought to live or what life is all about. Nor am I using the term ‘philosophy’ in the sense in which it is used when people talk of ‘being philosophical’, that is, in the sense of having a resigned, stoical approach to life and its pitfalls, of having a disinterested view of how people behave and of how one’s own fortunes are affected. What makes the present approach to moral issues a philosophical one is the level of abstraction and the laying bare of assumptions which might otherwise be accepted without question.

One approach to morality taken by philosophers has been to consider the meanings of moral words such as ‘good’, ‘right’ and ‘ought’ and to analyse what is distinctive about the meaning of these words when they are used in a moral sense. The approach I have adopted is certainly analytical but not in a narrow way which confines moral philosophy to a linguistic concern with meaning.

The attempt to think philosophically about moral problems is not a new enterprise. It has long been a feature of European philosophy and more recently the interests of British and American philosophers have become much more practical. As a result, philosophers have become more involved in public debates on moral issues. It has become more common for philosophers to be invited to seminars on anything from euthanasia to nuclear deterrence and to appear on more serious television programmes which want to do an ‘in-depth’ treatment of a moral issue. To take a particular example, the Warnock Committee, set up by the British government in 1982 to consider the ethical implications of research into human fertilization and embryology, was chaired by the philosopher Mary Warnock. None the less, this process is one that has not been carried far enough.

I hope that the book is more than a philosophical treatment of a number of isolated and unconnected moral issues. Not only are there obvious connections between the types of issues considered – several, for example, are concerned with the value of life, others are to do with how we view people and the nature of interpersonal relations – there are also philosophical themes running through the book, in particular the theme of what it is to be a person and the nature of the relationships between persons. While these do not add up to a moral theory which can be applied in all cases, a philosophical argument introduced in one context is encountered again and developed in other contexts.

I do not regard it as a failing of the book that the approach adopted towards different moral issues does not constitute a moral theory which can be applied to all cases; indeed, for reasons on which I elaborate in the final chapter, I am suspicious of such theories which to my mind inevitably oversimplify the complexities inherent in moral problems. I might add that I do not want to set up, in advance, too many expectations. I am not a Committee of Inquiry charged with the task of producing recommendations. My concern is limited to exploring the issues, to countering arguments which I consider mistaken, to indicating complexities which I feel are often overlooked and to drawing inferences from assumptions that people, including myself, are inclined to make. I have tried not to shy away from reaching conclusions or giving my own opinion but equally I have not felt it necessary to have an opinion on every issue – where I am unable to decide between opposing claims I remain undecided. Nor do I consider it necessary or even, in some cases, possible to justify all the claims I make – justifications are necessary only in response to an objection and I do not pretend to have considered all objections to my views. (Even if I had, it would not make a very readable book to present all my considerations).

The reader is, of course, free to take what side he or she chooses and may think that the right position is obvious when I have not thought it so, or that the position I think is correct is not clearly so, or even that the position I think is correct is clearly not so. However, I suggest that none of the issues discussed is simple and on none of these issues can I be confident that there is no more to say. On the contrary, there is lots more to think and to say about all of them and I hope that that is what readers will be inspired to do.

In dealing with the moral issues that follow, I am conscious of how limited my own experience is: for example, as yet I have not fought in a war, nor seriously contemplated suicide, nor been pregnant, nor been asked by someone I love to bring his or her life to an end. To some extent, therefore, there are many questions here that I view as an outsider. Yet I do not pretend that this disinterested position necessarily provides me with an objective viewpoint from which I can judge what is right and wrong. On the contrary, perhaps my insights would be more profound had my experience of life been broader. There are certainly dangers inherent in taking a too superficial approach to problems which one has not directly faced. I can say only that I have tried not to dismiss as irrelevant those considerations which many people see as important, simply because there appear to be arguments against them. Indeed, I have generally tried to discover what the arguments might be in favour of views that I believe are commonly held.

1

Applying Philosophy to Moral Issues

Why bother with moral philosophy?

Morality is concerned with right and wrong, good and bad, virtue and vice; with judging what we do and the consequences of what we do. Moral philosophy, or ethics, is that branch of philosophy which has morality as its subject matter. It analyses the moral terms we use and the status of our moral judgements; it considers the justifications that might be given for our moral positions.

The question ‘Why concern ourselves with moral problems?’ has an obvious answer: we cannot avoid such problems since life is continually placing them in our path. We encounter them in growing up, in our working life, in raising children, in caring for aged parents, in our relationships with colleagues, loved ones and adversaries, in the opportunities and temptations we are presented with. Newspapers, radio and television are full of accounts of people who are, correctly or otherwise, presented as wrongdoers – murderers, child abusers, terrorists, armed robbers, surrogate mothers, football hooligans – or as deserving our sympathy and help – hospital patients, victims of violent crimes, of famine, of war or of natural disasters, the infirm or disabled, orphaned children. The media also contain debate and argument concerning issues on which different opinions are possible – how to combat terrorism, what level of spending on health care is needed, how much information should be made available to the public, the desirability of immunization programmes, whether capital punishment should be reintroduced, and so on.