I. Background for Moral Arguments

A. The Subject Matter of Moral Arguments

Moral arguments are arguments that have as their conclusions statements about:

●          what is good or bad

●          what should or should not be done,                                        

●          what's moral or immoral

●          what is right or wrong.                                                                                              

There may be differences among these evaluations, but we will not emphasize those differences. However, some distinctions that are important here are mentioned below.

 

B. Distinguishing Moral Arguments from Related Factual Arguments

Usually, when discussing any realistic issue, there are a number of related factual and moral issues.

Tax cuts: one set of issues concerns what its effects will be. These are factual issues. Statistical and causal arguments will be most imp. - largely economic matters. Then, given all that, what should we do? That's the "moral" argument. (I'm using 'moral' in a broad sense.)

Student activity fees: who pays for what, what will happen if the fees are not required, what should the policy be.

What's essential to moral arguments is that there is something evaluative in the conclusion. Something about what is wrong or right, should or should not be done.

 

C. Legal and Moral Arguments

With respect to many issues one can distinguish:

 

●          What should be done?

●          What should the law be?

●          What is the law?

 

To see the difference, consider a situation in which you are considering telling a friend a lie in order to avoid saying something embarrassing or unpleasant. You might think that you shouldn't lie, perhaps because lying is wrong, or because you'll get found out and make things worse, or for some other reason. So, that answers the first question. But there is no law against lying in this case, and almost surely it is best that there isn't. So, there is and should be no legal prohibition against lying in cases like this. So, a plausible view is that you shouldn’t lie (an answer to the 1st question), the law should not prohibit lying (an answer to the 2nd question), and the law does permit lying (an answer to the third question).

 

Consider a legislator considering whether to support a proposed law prohibiting flag burning. Here, it is clear what the law is (as of now): it's legal. And you might think that people shouldn't burn the flag (or you might not). In any case, you can still think about what the law should be.

There are also cases in which you may think that you should break the law. In such a case, you think should do an act, although the law prohibits it. And you may or may not think that the law should prohibit it.

So, these questions are all independent of one another.

 

D. Our Goal in Studying Moral Arguments

A full study of this area would take us into ethics. There are entire courses on this, and we can’t cover all that such a course would cover. Our goal is not to try resolve controversial moral issues. The goal is to learn to read and understand and evaluate essays on moral topics in a reasonable way.

 

Key point (To be developed over the next several weeks):our method of argument analysis applies perfectly well to arguments about moral issues. There's no need to change the way you analyze arguments simply because they are moral arguments. More on this below.

 

E. Moral Claims

One of the things that gets in the way of dealing effectively with moral arguments is that people are imprecise in their moral claims. Thus, someone says something like:

 

            Lying is wrong (It is wrong to tell a lie)

 

This is an incomplete statement. Does it mean always wrong, usually wrong, wrong in some particular case, wrong in any realistic circumstances, wrong in any possible circumstances, wrong in current circumstances. Is the statement refuted by examples in which a person tells a lie to save a life? Maybe it means that being a lie is always a negative factor in the moral evaluation of an action, even if that factor can be outweighed by others.

So, an important element of moral reasoning is keeping clear about just what value claim is being made.

 

II. Moral Reasoning

A. We can apply our method to moral arguments.

Notice that people do argue, in a reasonable way, about difficult moral issues. Let's look at a simple example. Suppose someone says:

 

I think that we should use capital punishment. It would save innocent lives.

 

We can analyze the argument. You might think that what’s explicit gives you:

 

Premise: Using capital punishment (CP) would save innocent lives.
Conclusion: I think we should use capital punishment.

 

But this is not the conclusion. Rather, it is:

 

We should use capital punishment

 

So, a first reconstruction is:

 

1. We could save innocent lives by using CP.
2. So, we should use CP.

 

This is ill-formed.

 

1. We could save innocent lives by using CP. [EP]
2. If (1), then we should use CP. [IP]
3. So, we should use CP. (1), (2)

 

Valid, using "cheap validity". Can we identify the general principle behind (2)?

 

1. We could save innocent lives by using CP. [EP]
2. We should do anything that would save innocent lives. [IP]
3. We should use CP. (1), (2)

 

There’s a “could”/”would” switch here. We need to tighten that up. And an alternative formulation will make the pattern more explicit:

 

1. CP is a thing that would save some innocent lives. [EP]
2. All things that would save some innocent lives are things we should do. [IP]
3. CP is a thing we should do. (1), (2)

 

Objection to (2): lots of things that would save innocent lives would be terrible things to do. E.g., lowering the speed limit to 25 miles an hour would reduce accidents and save some innocent lives. But we shouldn't do it. Other examples: eliminating all airplane flights, prohibiting sky diving, etc. So (2) is false! It’s possible to keep trying to revise (2).

 

This example illustrates the fact we can analyze in the standard way arguments about what should be done. These arguments use principles and patterns of argument of the sort we have looked at. Such arguments can be clarified and discussion made more rigorous - our methods can be applied.

 

B. Dismissive Responses

One reason it's important to emphasize that we can use the standard method is that people so often seem to think we can't. The use of argument stoppers on moral matters is frequent. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that moral arguments sometimes deal with issues about which people care deeply and they find different views threatening. But they also too often provoke a dismissive response. These are responses that tend to cut off further discussion and suggest that the topic of the argument is not one that can be rationally pursued. Here are some dismissive responses:

●          "That's just a matter of opinion."

●          "Who's to say what's right or wrong, etc?"

●          "That's a subjective judgment."

●          "That's a value judgment."

●          "There's no absolute truth about this topic. It's all relative."

●          "That's a personal judgment."

 

Notice that each of these has the effect of ending argument (even reasoned argument). These are “argument stoppers”.

 

A Rule: no argument stoppers are acceptable in this class. This is not anything new. It is a consequence of things already said, namely, that the only acceptable criticisms of an argument concern well-formedness and soundness and strength.

 

If you emphasize figuring things out for yourself, rather than proving things to others, some of the problems about moral arguments seem to disappear. Suppose you grant that morality is "just opinion." Now, what's your opinion? Does, e.g., the fact that capital punishment doesn't save lives matter?

 

Of course, decisive arguments on complex and controversial topics are rare. If there were decisive arguments, maybe the topic wouldn’t be so controversial.

 

In the end, you do have to make your own decision about these matters. Just like anything else. Cf., you want to know what time it is. Your watch says one thing, your roommate's says another, the guy on the radio says a third. You have to decide. You weigh the evidence. The same with morality. You have to weigh the information you have and come to a conclusion.

 

You can't avoid the hard issues very well, unless you choose to cop out. You have to decide who to vote for, what to do with your parents when they get old and sick, how to raise your children, whether to use products made by polluters, etc. You can try not to think about this. That leaves decisions and policies to others. Saying morality is "just opinion" doesn't help make decisions. You still have to figure out what to do.

 

C. On the “Relativity” of Morality

This is a complex and confusing topic. Here’s a start at eliminating one source of confusion.

Consider:

 

A. It is wrong for a man and a woman to shake hands when they are introduced.

 

But it would be wrong to conclude that somehow moral sentences like this one are “just opinion” or “relative” and that therefore we can’t evaluate them. Compare:

 

B. It is common for a man and a woman to shake hands when they are introduced.

 

One thing to note is that customs vary from one culture to another. It is best to see (B) as an incomplete sentence - it needs to be filled out to specify when and where it is common, e.g., the U.S. in the early 21^st century. But then perhaps the same is true of (A) - it is wrong in some places and not others. Perhaps, with respect to a thing like this, local customs prevail. Cf.

 

 

     C. It is wrong to drive on the left side of the road.

 

But this is not to say that local customs always determine right and wrong. Perhaps some practices, though common in some setting, are not right. Notice that if you think that local practice determines this, you could figure out what is right here by seeing what is commonly done. So, if you want to know whether, say, racial discrimination was wrong in this country earlier, you could answer that question by noting that it was common. Similarly, we could settle the abortion question by noting its frequency. Surely something is mistaken with that view.

In any case, perhaps the truth people have in mind when they assert that morality is “relative” is the fact that there are not simple universal moral rules like (A).