Overview of Moral Theories

 

As we study and engage in moral philosophy, we need to appreciate some of the different moral theories that people bring up as they try to persuade us what we ought to do.

Recall from my previous post (What is Morality?) that morality is what we call upon to evaluate other norms such as legal, social, and religious norms.  Whenever we make a moral judgment, such as that capital punishment is wrong, or that it is justifiable, it makes sense to ask why.  Why do you think that?  Why should I believe you?  What are your reasons or arguments for your position? 

Answers to these questions usually at least implicitly invoke moral principles, of varying levels of generality.  Moral behavior and moral policies are principled when, and because, they are supported by good reasons which explain why we ought to do one thing rather than another.  But even if we restrict our attention to the principles that serve as good reasons for action, we must consider what to do when such principles conflict.  What are we to do, for example, when one principle calls us to be beneficent and another principle alleges that that would be unfair? 

This is the role of moral theories: to adjudicate conflicts between moral principles. 

It is helpful if we distinguish moral theories by their methods of resolving controversies.  Whenever two people disagree about right or wrong, or whenever two principles conflict by giving us different directions (e.g., one says ‘Do it!’ and the other says ‘Don’t do it!), we need an arbiter to decide between them or else the controversy will remain unresolved. 

Moral theories propose fundamental explanations of the answers to moral questions, and so they purport to have the last word.  There is no further explanation for why we ought to do what we ought to do.

 

Utilitarianism is a famous example.  The utilitarians claim that any moral controversy can be resolved with certain factual information about the effects of our actions, information about how our actions affect others.  They claim that there is one fundamental moral principle: to promote the interests of everyone affected by our actions as much as possible.  This is often referred to as the ‘principle of utility.’

The utilitarian method of resolving moral controversies appeals solely to the benefits and harms that would be produced by whatever actions or policies we are to choose between.  The dispute over a policy of capital punishment, for example, would be resolved by determining whether it would bring more benefit or prevent more harm than not having that policy. 

 

Egoism is often mentioned as another moral theory.  Like utilitarianism, it appeals only to the future effects of an action or policy, but egoism is not interested in how others’ interests are affected.  Only one’s own interests matter, according to the egoist.  The dispute over capital punishment would then be resolved by predicting the effect on one’s self-interest.  

Surely, however, that is a strange method of resolving the controversy.  Egoism seems like a nonstarter if it is understood as a moral theory.  Instead, it is better understood as a skeptical position on which there is no morality – nothing to arbitrate moral controversies.  With no moral reasons applying to us, the egoist says we are to make decisions based only on our self-interest.

 

A different kind of moral theory often called contractarianism claims that the one fundamental moral principle is to honor contracts.  Essentially, this means keeping your word, doing what you say you will do.  The relevant sense of ‘contract’ is meant to be broad enough to include both formal and informal agreements, promises, covenants, and the like. 

Of course, we can ask: what is good about honoring contracts?  I take it the answer is that people ought to be free to decide for themselves what they will do and how they will relate to others.  No one obligates them unless they do so themselves.  But then I wonder if it is really the norm to respect individual freedom that contractarians want to propose as the sole fundamental moral principle.  This leads us to the influential moral theory of Immanuel Kant.

 

Kantianism is best remembered as the theory on which morality reduces to respecting the autonomy of persons.  ‘Never treat others as merely a means to your ends.  Always treat them as ends-in-themselves’ - that's the most memorable formulation of Kant’s proposed fundamental moral principle (which he called ‘the categorical imperative’).  Autonomy is the basis of human dignity and the source of moral reasons, according to Kantians.

 

Notice that every theory mentioned so far has something in common.  They all propose a single fundamental moral principle that is supposed to resolve any moral controversy, by implying the answer to any moral question once the relevant factual information is provided.  (Which factual information is relevant is itself selected for by the proposed principle.  Utilitarians claim it is information about the interests of everyone affected, contractarians claim it is information about what was agreed to, etc.)

 

A pluralist moral theory is distinguished by proposing that more than one moral principle is fundamental, so that all moral controversies are to be resolved by appeal to a plurality of principles.  The different versions of pluralism differ over which principles they claim are fundamental.  Some claim there are two such principles: Beneficence and Justice.  Others claim there are more: the Oxford philosopher W. D. Ross famously proposed seven principles to serve as the foundations of ethics.  Pluralists will agree, however, that whenever we face a controversy over what to do, or which policy to approve, we ought to resolve it by appeal to a plurality of fundamental moral principles. 

This leads to a perplexing question that haunts every pluralist theory: what are we to do when the principles proposed by a pluralist themselves give us conflicting directions?  When Beneficence says to help, but Justice says to refrain from helping, the pluralist theory on which those are the two fundamental moral principles seems unable to resolve the controversy.  Moreover, it seems impossible for pluralism to resolve the controversy in a principled way.  For if we were to say that whenever those two principles conflict it is Justice that should be followed, it seems we would thereby propose that Justice is more fundamental, and so there would be a single fundamental moral principle after all (and thus we would no longer be pluralists). 

In response to this question about conflict between their proposed principles, it seems that pluralists have to give an unprincipled answer.  They might say that we can know in particular scenarios which principle to follow, but that there is no general answer. 

 

There are also moral theories that liberate themselves from moral principles.  Implicit in every theory mentioned so far is the idea that we need to consult a moral principle if we are to resolve moral controversies.  But this can be doubted.

Particularists claim that we can intuit what we are to do in particular situations without reference to a principle that applies to other situations.

Virtue ethicists claim that we should focus more on being good people rather than on what to do or which policies to approve.  Good people know what to do, but their knowledge doesn’t consist in knowing which rules to follow or principles to apply, according to virtue ethicists. 

Some feminists see the focus on principles and rules as a mistaken presupposition embedded in a male way of thinking. 

Some thinkers would even endorse a non-theoretical approach to morality, so that it is mistaken to look for a moral theory in the first place. 

An initial challenge for this diverse group of anti-principled approaches to ethics pertains to distinguishing their preferred approaches from an unthinking, irrational or gut-reaction method of resolving moral controversies.  Someone might answer ‘yes’ to the question about whether capital punishment is wrong without having any reasons at all for choosing ‘yes’ rather than ‘no’.  But surely it makes sense to ask for good reasons there, doesn’t it?  Morality concerns serious matters of life and death, in some cases.  If we reject the need to give principled answers, are we also rejecting the need to have good reasons supporting our moral judgments?

 

Finally, there is the question of how we are to decide between these moral theories, or others, since they give us conflicting directions about which principles to follow (or whether to follow principles at all).  Each claims that it is the final arbiter.  But which one do we trust? 

The only help we have here is our own psychological powers of discernment.  We have to think critically about these theories, and their implications in particular scenarios, if we are to decide which is the correct one.