“Justified” and “Justification”

First, let’s consider the difference between “justified” and “justification.”

Justified – What does it mean for a belief to be justified? It means it’s adequately justified or “rationally permissible.” It’s not wrong to have a belief as long as it’s justified. The belief that “1+1=2” is justified because we know with a high degree of certainty that it’s true. Sometimes two competing beliefs are also justified, such as when scientists debated over which version of string theory is best.

Justification – What does it mean to give a justification for a belief? It means given an argument for the belief that gives us a reason to agree with it. Some arguments are better than others and sometimes we end up giving fallacious (unreasonable) arguments. However, a sufficiently good argument does give us a sufficiently good reason to agree with a belief.

A justification for a belief looks something like “A because B.” For example, I believe I have two hands because I experience that I have two hands.

No one thinks “justified” beliefs are justified merely because we can give a justification for it. Instead, justified beliefs are thought to be adequately justified because of an adequately good argument.

I agree that good justifications can give us justified beliefs. However, I don’t think all justified beliefs require arguments. We can be rationally justified to hold certain beliefs even if we can’t give good arguments for them.

Why some justified beliefs don’t require a justification

We should agree that beliefs are innocent until proven guilty. A belief is rationally permissible unless we have a sufficient reason to reject it rather than the other way around. We don’t need a justification to have a justified belief as long as there’s no reason for us to reject the belief. I reject the that view that all rational beliefs require justifications.

We can realize that all beliefs are innocent until proven guilty for at least three reasons: One, we have justified beliefs that we are unable to give justifications for. Two, it’s self-defeating to assume all justified beliefs require justifications. Three, it’s futile to assume that all justified beliefs require justifications.

Argument 1: We have justified beliefs that we are unable to give justifications for.

Consider the following two counterexamples: One, we know that “1+1=2.” Two, we know that the future will in many respects be predictable based on the past. It is possible that neither of these statements can be adequately argued for, and certainly many people are unable to prove that we should believe them through argumentation. Even so, we all know that these beliefs are justified. We know many facts about mathematics that we can’t prove should be accepted through argumentation, and we know that bread will probably be food rather than poison in the future through past experiences. Predicting the future based on past experiences is known as “inductive reasoning” but there is a “problem of induction” that shows why we can’t know that the future will be like the past in any respect without appealing to induction. We can argue that induction is true because the assumption that it was true worked out well or us in the past, but that’s like saying, “We know induction is true because it’s true.” We can’t appeal to induction to justify the fact that we know something about the future based on the past because it would require us to use circular reasoning.

My solution is that we know induction is justified by merely assuming it’s justified. We don’t need an argument for it.

Argument 2: It’s self-defeating to assume all justified beliefs require justifications.

If all justified beliefs require adequate justifications, then we can give a good justification for the belief that “all justified beliefs require adequate justifications.” However, it’s not clear that we can give an adequate justification for that belief. Anyone who rejects such a belief could consistently assert that not all beliefs require an adequate justification, but it’s not clear that anyone who believes all beliefs require an adequate justification can consistently have such a belief because it’s not clear how such a belief can be argued for.

Do we know that all justified beliefs require adequate justifications because it did so in the past? In that case we are appealing to induction, but I already discussed why we can’t give a good argument that induction is a justified.

Argument 3: It’s futile to assume that all justified beliefs require justifications.

Assume that all justified beliefs require justifications. In that case your beliefs are justified if and only if we can give adequately good arguments for them. Every argument has premises and a conclusion. Every premise is something that we must believe in order to accept the conclusion. So, every belief requires us to accept another belief (the premise) and those beliefs must also be justified. Therefore, the premises we use to justify our beliefs must either justify each other in a circle or we must have infinite arguments to justify our beliefs. However, both of these options are futile. Circular arguments are not informative and it is not possible for us to give infinite arguments to justify our beliefs.

We can show our two options as the following:

1. Belief A is justified because belief B is justified, and belief B is justified because belief C is justified, and belief C is justified because belief A is justified.
2. Belief A is justified because belief B is justified, and belief B is justified because belief C is justified, and belief C is justified because belief D is justified, etc. (This never ends.)

Once we see why we have reason to reject the view that “all justified beliefs require justifications” we have a reason to accept the negation—that “not all justified beliefs require justifications.”

Conclusion

Justifying a belief can show a belief to be justified, but not all justified beliefs require good justifications. Beliefs are innocent until proven guilty. That does not imply that it is impossible for us to justify the fact that certain justified beliefs are justified, but the burden of proof is not always on the person who has the belief.

Nonetheless, debates typically require whoever makes an assertion to give a justification for the assertion—and for good reason. If we want other people to agree with us, then they might have no reason to do so without a good argument. There’s a big difference between rationally holding a belief and thinking others should agree with us (or even take us seriously).

Update (1/23/2012): I deleted a sentence that mentioned verificationism.

Related:

• Arguments for Intuition
• Is Knowledge Impossible?

My Top 10 posts are on diverse topics that I think concern very important topics. I hope they are clear, coherent, and reasonable.

10. Considerations For & Against Capitalism

I spent a large part of this year learning about business ethics, and the ethical implications of capitalism was discussed in William Shaw’s business ethics book. Considering the unexpected economic recession, the ethical implications of capitalism are more important than ever. We need to know what our capitalistic system is doing wrong and if there is a better alternative.

9. Do We Experience That Pain is Intrinsically Bad?

I have been concerned with the question: Do intrinsic values exist? (Does anything really matter?) I think one of the most important reasons that many people believe in intrinsic values involves their experience of pain. I examine why pain could have such implications.

8. Four Argument Strategies

People are often concerned with the evidence used to support arguments, but just as important are the strategies we use when we engage in argument. I believe that understanding argument strategies can help us create arguments of our own and improve our philosophical thinking.

7. Is Knowledge Impossible?

The question, “Is knowledge impossible?” raises many important issues. For example—What does “knowledge” mean? In what sense must beliefs be justified to count as knowledge? How do we know that we know anything?

6. Why Theistic Religion Might Go Extinct

I go out on a limb and suggest that the success of religion relies on a factors that no longer seem to imply. The loss of this factor could be bad news for religion unless it is re-attained.

5. Review of The Emotional Dog and its Rational Tail

I review an essay where Jonathan Haidt discusses his hypothesis concerning moral psychology. Haidt considers the implications of empirical research, and his primary concern is how we form our actual moral beliefs rather than how we ought to form moral beliefs.

4. Writing Philosophical Arguments

Knowing how to write philosophical arguments is relevant to how to think philosophically.

3. Five Meta-Ethical Theories

I discuss five meta-ethical theories, which are theories concerning the meaning of moral concepts. What does “good,” “bad,” “right,” “wrong,” and “ought” refer to? (As opposed to normative theories, which tell us what we ought to do.)

2. Five Tips For Better Debates

Knowing how to debate well is highly related to how to think well. However, I focus on what how good thinking relates to debates in particular.

1. How Philosophy Changed My Life

What it means to apply philosophy to your life can be multifaceted, and I discuss in mostly general terms how I believe it’s changed my life. There’s still a lot more that can be said on this topic and I might say more about it in the future.

Honorable mention

In addition to the top 10, I believe the following posts discuss particularly important topics and are worth a look:

• Top 10 Posts on Ethical Realism from 2010 
• Philosophical Thought & An Illustration of a Positive Argument
• Philosophical Thought & An Illustration of An Objection
• The Debate Over Moral Realism
• What is “Morality?”
• Three Theories of Justice
• Ethical Implications of Corporations 
• Six Uncontroversial Moral Beliefs
• Ethics and Rationalization
• Being Risk-Averse, Hedging Our Bets, and Secularism in Philosophy

What is a debate? Debate, broadly construed, consists of a disagreement between people when each person’s opinion is justified and defended through argumentation (giving reasons to accept conclusions). There have been some philosophical debates spanning for thousands of years between hundreds of participants, some debates are made for spectators (often in the political arena), but most debates are found in informal conversation.

1. Charity

Debate often requires us to give objections to an “opposing” argument or belief—or to defend our own argument or belief from objections. Either way, we need to understand at least one argument, belief, or objection given by someone else. When considering the arguments and beliefs of others it’s often a good idea to make sure we understand them as well as possible, and to understand why an intelligent person could agree with the “opposing” belief or argument. To do this, it’s a good idea to try to see things from the opposing person’s point of view.

To misunderstand or fail to properly describe an opposing argument or belief is often catastrophic to our argument. This is known as the “straw man argument fallacy.” It is uncharitable, and it’s not relevant. If you change an opposing belief or argument and make it worse than it really is, then you are likely to try to object to the changed argument or belief, but such an objection can’t prove that the actual opposing argument or belief is unjustified. Additionally, such distortion is manipulative, deceptive, and dismissive.

For example, Sue might argue that “abortion is wrong because each fetus is a person.” It would then be uncharitable for Jen to respond, “Why do you think a fetus is capable of rational thought?”

To belittle or quickly dismiss the opposing point of view, argument, or belief is often insulting and it’s likely to make ourselves seem pompous. Such behavior is unlikely to advance the conversation.

I have noticed that being uncharitable is often accidental because people often try to “read between the lines” and others might assume you have the same beliefs and arguments “in mind” as countless others they imagine existing (or that they have encountered in the past). This might be inevitable to some extent because every conversation is likely to require us to have many assumptions, but it’s often something that can lead to a straw man argument.

Being charitable requires us to be minimally respectful and modest. We are unlikely to have an informative debate if we don’t consider the other person to be worthy of a debate.

2. Relevance

It’s often a good idea to make it clear how our objections are relevant to the opposing belief or argument—and we should generally make it clear how we can defend our arguments and beliefs from objections.

First, one way to make sure that our objections are relevant is to make it clear whether we object to an opposing premise or conclusion. (A premise is a reason given to accept a conclusion.) If an argument is logically sound, then the conclusion has to be true. Therefore, we would need to know that a premise of an argument is unjustified before we can know that the conclusion is unjustified. For example, consider the argument “hurting people is never wrong, kicking people hurts people, therefore kicking people is never wrong.” If this argument is logically sound, then the conclusion has to be true. However, the argument is not logically sound because it’s false that “hurting people is never wrong.”

Second, the fact that a premise is false is not sufficient to know that the conclusion is false because a better argument might be possible. For example, someone could argue that “Dogs exist because the sky is blue.” It’s false that the sky is blue, but that doesn’t prove that dogs don’t exist.

Third, it can be a good idea to keep in mind that arguments must be logically valid or the premises aren’t even relevant to the conclusion. Logically valid arguments have premises that logically imply the conclusion, but logically invalid arguments don’t. For example, “Dogs are animals because dogs are mammals” is logically invalid insofar as proving the conclusion to be true (i.e. dogs are animals) would require an additional premise—that mammals are animals. A logically valid argument would be “dogs are animals because (a) dogs are mammals and (b) mammals are animals.” To fully understand logical validity, it can be a good idea to learn formal logic.

Keep in mind that many things said during debates are irrelevant, such as the fact that the opponent is lazy, unemployed, or foolish. Saying anything negative about the opponent is not only likely to make yourself sound pompous, but it’s off-topic—totally irrelevant to the opposing beliefs and arguments.

If something is said during a debate that diverts attention away from the relevant arguments, then a red-herring fallacy has been used. To change the subject or divert attention away from arguments during a debate is unlikely to advance the conversation.

3. Clarity

It’s not always clear how many arguments and objections are relevant in a debate, and it’s not always clear what we want to say.

First, many words are vague—there’s a gray area and it’s not clear where we want to draw the line. For example, it might be clear that Socrates is a “good person” but it might not be clear if President Barack Obama is good enough to be a “good person.” We can clarify how we can draw the line or simply avoid using vague words.

Second, many words are ambiguous—there can be more than one meaning. For example, it’s not clear that Karl Marx, one of the original communists, would be unlikely to consider the Soviet Union to be a communist country. If the meanings are considered to be similar (such as an alternative to capitalism), then the ambiguity is likely to cause confusion. We can clarify how we use words like “communism” or we can simply avoid them.

Third, it’s not always clear what our conclusions are. Does someone want to conclude that everyone should agree that Obama is a good president—or that it’s rationally permissible to believe that Obama is a good president—or that the belief that Obama is a good president is a somewhat better belief than the alternative—or simply that there is some reason to believe that Obama is a good president?

Fourth, it’s not always clear how our arguments work. It’s a good idea to list every single premise that an argument requires, but hidden premises are very common. For example, we can argue that “It’s usually wrong to hurt people, so it’s usually wrong to kick people.” This argument might look perfectly reasonable, but it’s actually missing a needed premise—that kicking people is likely to hurt them.

One common mistake during debates is to try to prove too much. We can rarely prove that everyone has to agree with us about anything, but this is often what people try to prove. To make matters worse, some people even argue that other people are idiots for disagreeing with them. Although it might be true that only idiots have certain beliefs, it is not usually something that would be worth debating about. (For example, everyone should agree that 1+1=2.)

Additionally, many people seem to think it’s obvious what they want to argue, even though vagueness, ambiguity, and hidden premises plague our language. To tell someone who asks for clarification or misunderstands our arguments that she needs to “learn to read English” or that she “completely missed the point” will likely make us sound pompous and is unlikely to advance the conversation.

4. Modesty

Modesty requires that we realize what little our arguments actually prove, and that we don’t have an arrogant attitude. It’s often a good idea to be modest about our own capability to be rational or our capability to prove anything substantial using arguments. Implying that we are superior to others is likely to be insulting and is unlikely to advance the conversation.

5. Justification

It’s often a good idea to give justifications for our premises—a reason that others should accept them. For example, we should believe that Einstein’s theory of relativity based on his expertise and scientific consensus (based on evidence). An appeal to expertise, observation, and the fact that certain beliefs are “intuitive” are all common forms of evidence.

At the same time we can justify our beliefs all day. Consider that you tell someone something you know is true and that person continually asks for justifications. For example, I can say that I know Einstein’s theory of relativity is true, and Sue can ask, “How do you know that?” I can reply that scientific consensus confirms Einstein’s expertise. Sue can then ask, “How do you know that expertise counts as a form of evidence?” I can then say that we should trust the opinion of experts who are likely to have sufficient evidence for their beliefs (unless we are also experts)—such as when a math teacher tells the children that “1+1=2.” Sue can then ask, “How do you know we need to trust the opinion of experts including math teachers?” This can go on forever. So when is it a good idea to justify our opinions? My suggestion is that, at minimum, it’s a good idea to try to meet the other person halfway.

How can we meet the other person halfway during a debate? The better the justification an opponent offers, the better justification we can offer. On the one hand if an opponent offers no justification, then we need not offer any either. What can be asserted without justification can be dismissed without justification. On the other hand if we merely ask an opponent to continually justify every assertion over and over forever, then the conversation will be one-sided and get boring. Instead, it’s often better to be willing to offer objections (involving our justification) to the opponent’s assertions—when the opponent is willing to justify her assertions.

Moreover, it’s a good idea to keep in mind that the “justifications” people give for their beliefs are often rationalizations—failed attempts to reason well in an attempt to legitimize a belief. Such failures have been categorized by philosophers and are known as “informal fallacies.”

Conclusion

Many people understand debates as the silly banter between politicians or as shouting matches, but debate can be much more than that. It can be a social form of reasoning, and it’s often helpful to have other people to double-check our reasoning process because we often overestimate our own ability to reason. Simply put, debating can be educational. Of course, debates are not always educational. I hope that the five virtues mentioned here can help change that. If our arguments attain higher levels of charity, relevance, clarity, modesty, and justification; then our debates are going to be likely to be more productive.

First, I will discuss the rationalist and social intuitionist models. Second, I will discuss Haidt’s objections to the causal importance of reason. Third, I will discuss how Haidt’s social intuitionist model relates to ethical philosophy. How exactly Haidt’s social intuitionist model relates to ethical philosophy is not entirely clear. I have heard someone suggest that his hypothesis is evidence that there are no “moral facts” and morality is some sort of confusion. I am not convinced that his hypothesis is evidence of that.

1. Rationalist Models

Although Haidt wants to give us reason to question “rationalist models” he only discusses one specific rationalist model—one developed by Lawrence Kohlberg (4). Even so, he says very little about Kohlberg’s theory and its unlikely that advocates of Kohlberg would be satisfied with how little Haidt said about the hypothesis. He says Kohlberg argues that we make moral judgments because of moral reason, but whether or not Kohlberg thinks we always make moral judgments from a reasoning process is unclear (but it seems unlikely).

It should also be stressed that Kohlberg’s main interest was the development of our ability to reason about morality and he theorized about various stages of moral development. I don’t know that he had a detailed “rationalist model” about how moral judgments are formed in general. If anything, he had an optimistic assumption concerning the fact that reasoning could cause or motivate moral judgments. Haidt questions this assumption when he says, “It is undeniable that people engage in moral reasoning. But does the evidence really show that such reasoning is the cause of moral judgment, rather than the consequence” (5)? The fact that someone has a moral judgment and can justify that judgment using reasoning doesn’t mean that the reasoning was the cause of the judgment.

2. Haidt’s Social Intuitionist Model

Haidt’s social intuitionist model claims that we get moral intuitions from a combination of nature and nurture (primarily our biology and social interaction with others). Most of our moral judgments are caused by these intuitions (and emotional reactions) rather than from reasoning, and most reasoning is used to justify our moral beliefs “post hoc” to justify pre-existing conclusions rather than to reach conclusions (7). Justifications are usually used to change other people’s intuitions rather than to change our own, but Haidt admits that its possible that some people could be capable of reasoning on their own to change their own intuitions (7-8).

Haidt understands that intuitions are effortless and immediate; and that we are not consciously aware of the process that causes our intuitions when we have them (6). He contrasts intuition with “reasoning,” which he understands to be intentional, conscious, and to require steps.

Haidt hypothesizes that reasoned persuasion “works not by providing logically compelling arguments, but by triggering new affectively valenced intuitions in the listener” (7).

Five clarifications

I would like to make five clarifications:

First, Haidt’s definitions and assumptions involving reasoning and intuition are controversial. For example, philosophers have argued that intuition is a form of “noninferential reasoning” that can be conscious (require contemplation) and require effort. The fact that “37492+73618=111110” seems self-evident and intuitive, but knowing this is not immediate or effortless for everyone. At the same time it is difficult to explain how to justify the belief that “37492+73618=10000” using an argument. It is difficult to know how our consciousness could justify such a judgment or prove it’s true, even though we are certain that it’s true.

Second, intuition is an important form of justification in philosophy and philosophers are very aware of the fact that intuition is required in almost all arguments and reasoning. In philosophy perhaps the only “rationalistic model” that would deny the importance of intuition is infinitism—the view that we need to deductively argue to justify our beliefs, and every belief must be deductively justified in this way. That leads to an infinite chain of beliefs that must be justified on an on forever. I can argue that “I know drinking too much alcohol can kill people because of the scientific evidence” but then we need to justify the fact that scientific evidence is capable of justifying beliefs. We can justify the fact that scientific evidence is a form of justification by noting how well its worked in the past, but then we need to justify the fact that we know the laws of nature will stay the same. And so on.

Third, Haidt’s hypothesis concerns what causes moral judgments rather than what rationally justifies them. Haidt’s hypothesis doesn’t say it’s impossible to rationally justify moral judgments or that we can know moral facts. Haidt’s hypothesis concerns moral psychology rather than moral philosophy or moral epistemology. Haidt states that the social intuitionist model “is not a normative or prescriptive claim, about how moral judgments ought to be made.” Haidt does not discuss the difference between “good reasoning” and “bad reasoning” in detail but he seems to agree that some forms of reasoning are better than others when he discusses mechanisms of bias—“Kuhn found that most people have difficulty understanding what evidence is, and when pressed to give evidence in support of their theories they generally give anecdotes or illustrative examples instead” and “Pyszczynski and Greenberg proposed a… comprehensive ‘biased hypothesis testing’ model, in which self-serving motives bias each stage of the hypothesis testing sequence, including the selection of initial hypotheses, the generation of inferences, the search for evidence, the evaluation of evidence, and the amount of evidence needed before one is willing to make an inference” (11).

Fourth, Haidt makes it clear that intuition isn’t just an irrational emotional response and can be informative when he says, “Rather than following the ancient Greeks in worshiping reason, we should instead look for the roots of human intelligence, rationality, and virtue in what the mind does best: perception, intuition, and other mental operations that are quick, effortless, and generally quite accurate” (11-12).

Fifth, Haidt seems to agree that moral reasoning might be able create moral judgments in certain cases. He states, “People may at times reason their way to a judgment by sheer force of logic, overriding their initial intuition. In such cases reasoning truly is causal, and cannot be said to be the ‘slave of the passions’” (5) and “[t]he reasoning process in moral judgment may be capable of working objectively under very limited circumstances: when the person has adequate time and processing capacity, a motivation to be accurate, no a priori judgment to defend or justify, and when no relatedness or coherence motivations are triggered” (12).

One objection:

Haidt wants to say that reason is less important for morality than many people think, but reasoning could be an important way of creating many of our intuitions, and/or intuitions could be caused by unconscious reasoning processes. He relates intuition to perception and when I see that I have hands I believe it—and it seems foolish to think otherwise, which suggests that my perception is reasonable (and might be somehow caused by an unconscious reasoning process).

3. Four Reasons to Doubt the Causal Importance of Reason

Haidt wants to stress the fact that moral reasoning is not as causally important as many people think. He provides four kinds of evidence that seem to support (or are at least compatible with) his claim that moral reason doesn’t usually cause moral judgments.

1. The Dual Process Problem: There Is a Ubiquitous and Understudied Intuitive Process at Work.

Haidt tells us that there is strong evidence found in social and cognitive psychology that people who make judgments or solve problems often use more than two processing systems (often called “dual process models”) that can come up with different conclusions. Moreover, moral judgment and reasoning works in much the same way (8). He thinks one process—the normal one—is intuition, but another one is reason.

Haidt then tells us that the evidence suggests that “attitude formation is better described as a set of automatic processes than as a process of deliberation and reflection about the traits of a person. People form first impressions at first sight, and the impressions that they form from observing a ‘thin slice’ of behavior (as little as 5 seconds) are almost identical to the impressions they form from much longer and more leisurely observation and deliberation” (ibid.). This evidence seems to support Haidt’s claim that judgments are often reached through intuition rather than through reasoning.

Haid assures us that the evidence doesn’t conflict with his “social intuitionist model” because it takes intuition to be normal and he thinks moral reasoning is only required when we have conflicting intuitions or want to persuade others (9-10). Nonetheless, it’s not clear that the evidence conflicts with “rationalist models” of moral judgment either. I see no reason to think Kohlberg’s moral psychology would require us to reject the possibility of “dual process models” or moral intuition.

2. The Motivated Reasoning Problem: The Reasoning Process Is More like a Lawyer Defending a Client than a Judge or Scientist Seeking Truth

Haidt tells us that evidence suggests (a) that people are more likely to agree with friends than strangers who give arguments and that we have a motivation to agree with friends to get along with them better, (b) we are motivated to reason to defend certain core beliefs we hold to avoid cognitive dissonance, and (c) people are usually more interested to win arguments and persuade others than to use it to discover the truth (10-11).

Haidt assures us that this evidence doesn’t conflict with his “social intuitionist model” because he embraces the fact that we fall victim to emotions, biases, and fallacies. Again, rationalist models also seem compatible with the evidence presented because it’s quite possible that moral reasoning can often be effective despite the fact that its not always effective (because we often suffer from bias and logical fallacies).

Haidt dismisses Greek philosophy when he says, “Rather than following the ancient Greeks in worshiping reason, we should instead look for the roots of human intelligence, rationality, and virtue in what the mind does best: perception, intuition, and other mental operations that are quick, effortless, and generally quite accurate,” but I think the Greeks were mainly interested in “good reasoning” rather than knowing how people usually reason (poorly)—and the Greeks were quite aware about the importance of perception and intuition (10-11). Consider how Socrates wanted to find a better way to reason instead of the fallacious way the sophists presented arguments, and how Aristotle discussed the importance of being virtuous automatically without requiring deliberation before every action.

3. The Post-hoc Problem: the Reasoning Process Readily Constructs Justifications of Intuitive Judgments, Causing the Illusion of Objective Reasoning

Haidt tells us that there is evidence that people often create post-hoc justifications or explanations for their beliefs that have nothing to do with a reasoning process. “Additional illustrations of post-hoc causal reasoning can be found in studies in which hypnosis and subliminal presentation were used to make people perform actions. When asked to explain their actions or choices, people readily made up reasons that sounded plausible but were false” (12). He believes that such post-hoc reasoning is also used to justify and explain our moral judgments (12-13). In such cases its likely that moral judgments cause the reasoning process than the other way around (13).

Haidt assures us that the evidence doesn’t conflict with his “social intuitionist model” because he posits that moral reasoning is usually used to persuade others rather than to seek the truth (or reach reasonable conclusions for oneself). Once more, the evidence doesn’t seem to conflict with “rationalist models” either. I would be shocked if rationalists thought that reasoning was only used to find the truth rather than to be used for persuasion—a plausible motivation for the common use of logical fallacies and rationalizations.

4. The Action Problem: Moral Action Covaries with Moral Emotion More than with Moral Reasoning

Haidt tells us that the evidence suggests that there is a correlation between moral reasoning and moral action, but there is an even stronger correlation between moral action and intelligence (14). He then suggests that intelligence could be the cause of both moral reasoning and moral action by helping us attain self-control and inhibiting our emotions and impulses.

The evidence presented here clearly does not suggest that moral reasoning doesn’t cause moral beliefs or action. Instead, Haidt is merely telling us why the evidence doesn’t prove his theory wrong. The strongest evidence that moral reason causes moral judgment is a correlation, but correlations aren’t sufficient to indicate causation.

We must keep in mind that Haidt admits that moral reason might cause moral judgments in rare situations.

4. How Haidt’s Hypothesis Relates to Ethical Philosophy

I will discuss two ways Haidt’s hypothesis relates to ethical philosophy:

First, we want to know how we can know anything about morality. If we can’t know anything about morality, then we have a serious problem. Haidt suggests that intuition is good for the most part, but sometimes reasoning is important as well. Our moral reasoning is plagued by bias, but peer review and discussions with friends can help correct many of our cognitive errors. If we can learn anything about morality, then moral reasoning with others (and especially with friends) seems like the best way to do it.

Second, someone has suggested that Haidt’s hypothesis proves that moral facts don’t exist. However, (a) Haidt admits that moral reason might be causally effective and rational at least in rare occasions, (b) Haidt’s hypothesis is not proven to be true, (c) nearly every moral philosopher admits that we are often victims of various biases and fallacies, and (d) his hypotheses of moral judgment isn’t so different from how he views reasoning in general. It is true that our reasoning process is flawed no matter what topic we are discussing, but that doesn’t seem to suggest that scientific or epistemic facts don’t exist. If Haidt’s theory is taken to be proof that moral facts don’t exist, then I would expect that it would also be proof that no facts exist. That conclusion seems implausible.

Conclusion

Haidt’s hypothesis is plausible for the most part, but I do have some reservations. However, Haidt does not seem to be fair to the opposing rationalists. For example, it is unclear what the “rationalist model” consists of or if anyone even endorses it; and he is strangely dismissive of ancient Greek philosophy despite saying very little that would probably shock them.

Related:

• A PDF of Haidt’s essay, “The Emotional Dog and its Rational Tail.”
• A PDF of Aaron Zimmerman’s lecture notes for “The Emotional Dog and its Rational Tail” (with thoughtful objections).

What is ideal agency? An ideal agent is someone who has optimized the number of her successful goals, and that requires her to have perfectly coherent beliefs and goals (New 81). Our beliefs are coherent when none of our beliefs imply a contradiction. Our goals are coherent when none of them conflict (New 50). An ideal agent would succeed in accomplishing all their goals—or at least the most goals possible.

It might not be possible to ever become an ideal agent, and Becker argues that progress towards ideal agency is worthless because it is increasingly dangerous:

Inferences are either valid or not; this property is not a matter of degree. Neither is soundness. One false proposition in an argument makes the inference unsound, period. Below the level of ideal agency, invalid or otherwise unsound inferences may have merely local effects. Imperfect agency may be incompletely integrated, for example, and less than comprehensively controlling. If so, and if we do not exercise agency properly or at all in some areas, then we may not notice conflicts between our endeavors, or attempt to generalize from one to another. This has obvious disadvantages for learning, of course, but it also has the peculiar advantage that the effects of our errors are limited simply because we fail to apply those errors widely. Thus, short of achieving perfection itself, the closer we get to ideal agency with respect to integrating all our endeavors and controlling them all with practical intelligence, the more likely it is that errors in anything we do will invalidate everything we do. (New 119).

Why do many of our false beliefs remain isolated rather than “comprehensively controlling?” We are often uncertain about many things, and we don’t usually take such uncertain beliefs too seriously. Our beliefs are likely to have an impact on our goals and behavior, but we usually don’t rely on risky beliefs. For example, I might not believe in global warming, but I might not be certain about it. My uncertainty might be a good reason to try to pump less rather than more carbon dioxide into the air, even when it would be profitable.

Becker argues that people approaching ideal agency would be more coherent and their uncertain beliefs would be more “comprehensively controlling” as a result. If a nearly-ideal agent thinks global warming is false, then she will likely pump more carbon dioxide into the air (if it’s profitable).

My Objection

I disagree with Becker that virtuous people would allow potentially dangerous uncertain beliefs to become “comprehensively controlling” in this way precisely for at least one reason—because they would realize which of their beliefs could be false and dangerous, and they would not allow these beliefs to play a central role in their decision-making process. (It’s pretty much for the exact reasons that Becker gives for thinking that “moral progress” is dangerous.) We should make sure that potentially dangerous uncertain beliefs remain relatively isolated and don’t become “comprehensively controlling” because (a) that is what the virtue of modesty requires and (b) we know it’s wrong to needlessly endanger people’s well-being. To do otherwise would be arrogant and foolhardy.

Moreover, we must not reject highly plausible beliefs just for the sake of being coherent. No one should reject the highly plausible statement “murder is wrong” in favor of an implausible one like “genocide is good.” At the very least, Becker (a) misunderstands “moral progress,” (b) misunderstands virtue as “ideal agency,” or (c) misunderstands “ideal agency”—or so I argue.

Examples of how virtuous people should treat their incompatible beliefs can be found in science and philosophy. For example, utilitarians are likely to admit that certain counterexamples against utilitarianism are plausible, but they don’t always reject utilitarianism or the counterxample. It might be unreasonable to reject either. In a similar fashion almost all scientific theories are potentially falsified via anomalies (such as the strange activity in space that motivated the hypothesis known as “dark matter”). Nonetheless, scientists do not usually think anomalies disprove their theories because (a) there’s often “background assumptions” that could be falsified instead and (b) there might not be a better theory available.

Becker admits that the ideal agent will realize “that he is fallible and possibly mistaken about what virtue requires in particular cases,” but Becker doesn’t consider that the nearly-virtuous are going to be cautious for the same reason—and this undermines his understanding of moral progress towards ideal agency (New 132).

What I endorse instead of ideal agency

I find “ideal agency” to be a too abstract and impractical way to understand virtue. My solution is “A virtuous person has reasonable beliefs and goals based on appropriate justification, modesty, and caution.” Our beliefs are appropriately justified when we have more reason to accept than reject it based on our understanding of the world. We show modesty with our beliefs when we tentatively hold a belief knowing that we aren’t certain that it’s true. We show caution with our beliefs when we make sure potentially dangerous uncertain beliefs stay relatively isolated and don’t play a central role in our decision-making process. Our goals should be based on our beliefs and are based on appropriate justifications, modesty, and caution when they are based on reasonable beliefs that embody these qualities.

We know some beliefs are more certain and potentially dangerous than others. We know that some beliefs are highly plausible. We must not reject any highly plausible belief in favor of an uncertain one, and we are often unable to reasonably reject a highly plausible belief that could contradict other highly plausible beliefs. When that happens we have no choice but to risk being incoherent, and then we have a good reason to feel less confident about knowing that our beliefs are true.

Conclusion

Although I don’t agree with everything in Lawrence Becker’s A New Stoicism , I still found it to be a good read and he seems aware of the major objection that I discussed here. Becker’s book is an incredibly ambitious attempt at capturing an entire ethical worldview—and even attempts to naturalize his ethics and argue that you can get an ‘ought’ from an ‘is.’ Although I found it to be impractical, perhaps Becker does not. If not, I would like to know how exactly he applies his own theory.

Related:

• R.W. Sharples’s Review of A New Stoicism
• The Is/Ought Gap: How Do We Get an “Ought” from an “Is?”

I have created a new form of Stoicism that doesn’t require a god that I call “Neo-Aristonianism.” I will now present a second new form of Stoicism (that doesn’t require a god) that I call “Common Sense Stoicism.” Neo-Aristonianism is a skeptical form of Stoicism that requires as few assumptions as seem necessary for a potentially comprehensive virtue ethics. Nonetheless, many assumptions are very plausible and many of us will prefer a more ambitious virtue ethics that involves some of these assumptions. (In particular, the existence of certain intrinsic values.) That’s where Common Sense Stoicism comes in.

What is virtue?

Common Sense Stoicism will define virtue in the following way:

Being willing and able to (1) promote goods that are necessary for any form of virtue (survival, sufficiently high levels of consciousness, sufficient health, and sufficiently tolerable levels of pain) and (2) promote intrinsic values. Common Sense Stoicism rejects the belief that “virtue is the only good,” but it agrees that “virtue is the greatest priority and must never be compromised.” Common Sense Stoics will reject Neo-Aristonianism because they think it’s incomplete—intrinsic values can make a big difference to virtue and Neo-Aristonianism ignores intrinsic values. (At a minimum, “intrinsically good” refers to something we can rationally value for its own sake.)

Common Sense Stoicism states the following have intrinsic value at the very least (because I find it plausible that they have intrinsic value):

1. Pleasure (and happiness)
2. Pain (and suffering)
3. Consciousness (human life has value insofar as it is conscious)

I also find it plausible that the following has intrinsic value, and Common Sense Stoics is compatible with that possibility:

1. Higher levels of consciousness
2. Knowledge
3. Good will
4. Virtue

However, the following things could not have intrinsic value:

1. Food
2. Laws
3. Power

How does the belief in such intrinsic values differentiate Common Sense Stoicism from Neo-Aristonianism? A Neo-Aristonian would be willing to promote consciousness, happiness, and pain-avoidance insofar as such goals could be good-for-virtue. However, such goals are not always good-for-virtue. For example, eating chocolate and spending time joking around with friends might not be particularly “good-for-virtue” but a Common Sense Stoic would find these acts to be consistent with virtue—as long as we don’t have other more important obligations that conflict with such behavior. A Neo-Aristonian might have no reason to enjoy themselves in these ways and might think they conflict with virtue insofar as such acts might be seen as having no value whatsoever.

What are appropriate emotions?

Common Sense Stoics endorse the same moral psychology as Ancient Stoics, but it has different implications based on the new conception of virtue and the existence of intrinsic values. Since Common Sense Stoics don’t claim that virtue is the only good, it can be appropriate to be emotionally invested and to suffer in various ways.

Common Sense Stoics agree with the other Stoics that losing your wallet isn’t a good reason to suffer because it is not important in the grand scheme of things and it doesn’t have intrinsic value. However, a loved one who is lost from an untimely death can be a good reason to suffer grief because it can be appropriate for us to realize that “something horrible has happened.” Additionally, Common Sense Stoics can agree that it’s appropriate to suffer from compassion when we find out people are unjustly harmed or unjustly denied happiness.

Both Neo-Aristonians and Common Sense Stoics face a challenge in life—They must not allow their suffering to detract from their virtue. We can’t allow ourselves to suffer to the point that we are prevented from being better people. We can’t just wallow in our misery and we need to find a way to control our suffering to keep it from getting out of hand.

Final Thoughts

The importance Stoic ethics can be illustrated if we contrast it with the current popular moral theories, such as utilitarianism and Kant’s categorical imperative:

First, Stoic ethics is potentially more comprehensive than those other moral theories because these theories typically don’t tell us (a) how to behave ethically or (b) how to identify a better kind of person. The Stoics not only have an ideal to reach for, but a practical thought process to help us evaluate our thoughts, emotions, and actions.

Second, Stoic ethics is not primarily concerned with differentiating moral right and wrong. It’s not obvious that utilitarians are right that morally right actions are those that “maximize happiness”—even if happiness is the only intrinsic good. We can quibble endlessly about the semantics of the words ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ even after we agree that certain goods are worth promoting, but such quibbles don’t necessarily answer the big questions that we really want to know—What should I do with my life? How can I become a better person? How can I become motivated to help people more? Stoic ethics is less abstract and it’s primarily concerned with flesh and blood people who want to improve their lives and make the world a better place.

Third, the Stoic moral psychology is informative. We should believe something because it’s true. It’s appropriate to desire good things, and to suffer when we lose good things. We are likely to act to acquire a good when we know it is a good and desire it. A utilitarian might argue that we should believe something only if it maximizes happiness, that we should desire a good only if it maximizes happiness, and that we should only act if it will maximize happiness—but these answers are much less intuitive than the Stoic ones; and they certainly don’t seem like answers that most flesh and blood people would find as helpful.

• Two New Kinds of Stoicism (Free Ebook)

Ancient Stoicism

Ancient Stoicism can be summarized in the following words:

1. Virtue is the only unconditional good, and it is of the greatest value. Everything else is “indifferent” but some indifferent things (such as health) are “preferred.”
2. Virtue requires us to behave in accordance with “human nature”—to be rational and social.
3. Our nature is revealed by our natural impulses, which was given to us by “Universal Nature” (also known as “God” or “Zeus”) to help us know what goods are preferred over others.
4. Beliefs, thoughts, emotions, and actions are all connected. If you believe or think something is good (such as money), then you’re likely to desire it and suffer when you lose it. If you desire something, then you’re likely to seek it out. If you suffer from a loss, you are more likely to seek revenge.
5. Everything happens for a reason as part of the “divine plan.” Everything that happens is the best thing that we could hope for. Therefore, we have no reason to suffer once we realize that nothing bad ever happens in the grand scheme of things.
6. Many emotions or “passions” are forms of suffering—grief, anger, rage, hatred, fear, greed, and sadness. There is no reason to feel these emotions once we realize that everything is part of the divine plan. Virtuous people realize this (by definition) and will never suffer.

The main virtues of ancient Stoicism involve the discipline of assent (truth/knowledge), the discipline of desire (temperance), and the discipline of action (justice). If we “assent” to reality, then we have moral knowledge (or at least reasonable beliefs). If we attain moral knowledge, then we will likely have appropriate emotions (temperance). If we have appropriate emotions, then we will likely have appropriate actions (justice). A virtuous person who loses their home will accept it as part of the “divine plan;” will not be struck with grief; and will not seek revenge against those responsible. A virtuous person who sees a drowning child and can easily save the child will see the child’s survival as preferable; will feel empathy towards the child; and will act to save the child.

A deity plays a dual role in Stoic ethics: One, she determines human nature and helps teach us appropriate behavior (based on our natural impulses). Two, she assures us that everything that happens is for the best in the grand scheme of things. The deity is therefore important to knowing how to be virtuous and to knowing that suffering is inappropriate.

Can Stoic ethics exist without a deity? If so, we need to know (1) what it means to be virtuous and (2) what emotions are appropriate. Ariston of Chios, a Stoic philosopher, rejected the need for “physics” and therefore the need for understanding the deity.¹ Unfortunately we no longer have Ariston’s essays and we don’t know exactly how he understood virtue or appropriate emotions.

Neo-Aristonianism

How can a Neo-Aristonian understand virtue? One definition of virtue is “to be willing and able to do good.” The Stoics think that virtue is the only truly good thing and everything else is “indifferent.” If virtue is the only good, then we would have to accept that virtue is “to be willing and able to be virtuous”—a viciously circular definition. We can realize that some indifferent things are good insofar as they are preferred (at least in some contexts). I suggest that we follow this line of reasoning and define Neo-Aristonian virtue as “being willing and able to promote any goals that are necessary for any conception of virtue to exist.” No matter what we think virtue is, the following goods will be needed:

1. Staying alive.
2. Attaining a sufficiently high level of consciousness.
3. Maintaining a sufficient level of health.
4. Avoiding intolerable levels of suffering.

We will be virtuous if we are willing and able to achieve these goods in general—for ourselves and others. I see no reason to think that such goods only count when I enjoy them. They are important for everyone.

If everything is completely indifferent, then it would be unclear why theft or murder would be morally wrong. However, once we realize that we should help promote the above goods, then we have a good reason to help people rather than harm them. Theft and violence would usually be contrary to virtue for that reason.

Why would Neo-Aristonians agree that virtue is the greatest good? There are at least two possibilities: One, virtue is needed for us to attain anything of value. In that case virtue is good as long as something else is good (and virtue is needed promote it). Two, virtue itself could be good for its own sake.

Will Neo-Aristonians reject suffering? I think not. At the very least I suggest that we have a reason to feel grief when virtuous people have an untimely death. If virtue is the greatest good, then it seems like a bad thing when virtuous people die before their time has come because their virtue will be lost without a good reason for it.

At the same time Neo-Aristonians would remind us that a lot of our suffering is based on inappropriate beliefs and thoughts. Crimes involving violence and theft are often based on inappropriate beliefs and thoughts. A thief who steals a wallet is likely suffering from greed based on inappropriately valuing money much more than necessary. A person who kills such a thief out of anger is likely inappropriately valuing money more than necessary as well.

Neo-Aristonians can agree that knowledge, temperance, and justice are virtues; but such virtues can be understood a little differently by them. For example, the Ancient Stoics didn’t think we should feel grief when loved ones die, but a Neo-Aristonian could agree that grief is appropriate as long as the person had some virtue.

• Part 2: A Second New Kind of Stoicism: Common Sense Stoicism
• Two New Kinds of Stoicism (Free Ebook)

Note

Sometimes everyone should agree with you, but usually not. Each person has a different set of knowledge and experience that indicates that one belief is true rather than another. It can be rational for people to disagree. We don’t always know for sure who’s right and we don’t always have to agree.

I will argue that (1) sometimes we should agree, (2) sometimes we don’t have to agree, and (3) many people fail to identify the difference and suffer from an irrational form of dogmatism as a result.

1. Sometimes we should agree

We should agree that 1+1=2 because we know it’s true. Anyone who understands math at all will know it’s true. We should also agree that mathematics is reliable, science is very reliable compared to the alternatives, and the Earth is round.

We know mathematics is reliable because as long as its done correctly the correct answer never changes. If an answer can be found, then we can know it’s right.

We know science is reliable because it has consistently given is good results, and it’s self-correcting. Bad science and false scientific conclusions do exist, but errors can be discovered by repeating the experiments. If science isn’t reliable, then it is extremely coincidental that we have discovered safe drugs, we’ve figured out how to build safe cars, that we’ve built TV sets and computers, and that we’ve got to the moon. We all rely on technology precisely because we know that the science behind it is very reliable.

We know that the Earth is round (in part) because we’ve left the Earth and taken pictures of it from a distance. We can all see that it’s round.

Anyone who disagrees with any of these facts is ill-informed and should be educated. Once educated, they should agree with these facts. To disagree with these facts would be absurd.

One strong piece of evidence that we should agree about something is when the experts agree, and we often have no choice but to trust the opinion of experts. Nonetheless, when the experts agree, they should be able to prove that they are right to anyone willing to take the time to be educated.

2. Sometimes we don’t have to agree

The best evidence that “we don’t have to agree” about something is when the “experts” don’t agree. We should all agree that Einstein’s theory of physics is accurate because the scientists agree and they can educate us why. However, not all philosophers agree that God exists, not all economists agree that a libertarian “free market” economy is best, and not all religious experts agree that Christianity is the true religion. When the experts disagree that is generally good evidence that the experts can’t know something for certain. In that case we have no reason to think that we can know something for certain that the experts can’t. If anything, we know less than the experts and our sense of certainty is based on our ignorance.

We can only attain a high level of certainty when we are presented with all the relevant facts. We must consider all the pros and cons to a belief. There are often considerations for and against beliefs and all of these considerations must be accounted for before we ought decide what we should believe once and for all.

To ignore various considerations distorts our assessment of what we should believe and often exemplifies the suppressed evidence fallacy. This can lead to one-sidedness or a confirmation bias, and it is often manifested as cherry picking. When we engage in cherry picking of the worst sort, we can purposefully only consider evidence favorable to our opinion while marginalizing or ignoring the counter-evidence. Sometimes we can feel a false sense of certainty from our own ignorance.

3. Dogmatism

A false sense of certainty can encourage us to engage in confirmation bias and ignore counter-evidence because we would then figure there’s no way we’re wrong! This can make us closed-minded and closed-mindedness is also known as “being dogmatic.” If we refuse to change our mind—even when we’re proven wrong, we’re being irrational. The alternative is to struggle to be modest, open minded when presented with counter evidence, and skeptical of dubious evidence (we might have assumed to be reliable in the past).

Finally, being dogmatically irrational is dangerous. To have a false sense of certainty encourages us to behave in ways that can hurt people for no good reason. Once dogmatism has an effect on our moral decisions, we have a good chance of confusing moral right and wrong, and deciding to do something morally wrong. It seems likely that many religious terrorists fall in this category and are willing to kill others based on false beliefs.

Conclusion

No one is perfectly rational or informed. Everyone suffers from confirmation bias, a false sense of certainty, and dogmatism from now and then. Nonetheless, we should do our best to understand what “rationality” consists in, when everyone should rationally be required to agree, and when everyone shouldn’t be rationally required to agree. Moreover, we should actually put our understanding of rationality to use and actually behave rationally.

Related:

• Intellectual Virtues, Dogmatism, Fanaticism, & Terrorism
• Writing Philosophical Arguments

In particular, the existence of (a) God and (b) libertarian free will are often considered to be requirements for morality, but philosophers often prefer moral and metaphysical theories that don’t require God’s existence or the existence of libertarian free will because of the uncertainty involved. The fact that philosophers prefer theories that don’t require ambitious metaphysical or religious assumptions could be considered to be a preference for “secular” theories. This need not imply that the theories are atheistic because the theories might be compatible with multiple religions.

Risk-aversion is important because certain beliefs are controversial for a good reason—we are uncertain that they’re true. Risk-aversion can manifest itself as a form of “hedging your bets.” When we theorize in philosophy or decide what we should believe with confidence, it’s a good idea not to commit ourselves to uncertain beliefs because we would then risk having several false beliefs. We can minimize the risk of having false beliefs by making sure that our beliefs are justified without relying on uncertain beliefs (to the best of our ability).

The belief in God in isolation is less risky than believing something that would require the existence of God. For example, the belief that “killing men with red hair just because they have red hair is morally wrong”  is less risky than the belief that “killing them is morally wrong only if God exists.” In that case we risk having two beliefs debunked at the same time. If we decided that God doesn’t exist, we would risk finding out that killing men with red hair isn’t wrong after all. Therefore, it would be less risky and rationally preferable if we could justify the belief that killing these men is wrong without requiring a belief in God.

I will discuss (1) two examples of “risk-aversion” in philosophy, (2) justifications for risk-aversion, and (3) why risk-aversion is important.

Two examples of risk-aversion in philosophy

The first example is given by Seneca, who argues that being ethical is justified even if the world is guided by physical processes rather than a divinity (god). The second example is given by Fischer and Ravizza who argue that we can be morally responsible even if we don’t have free will.

Example 1

Many people assume that morality requires God. If God doesn’t exist, then nothing is morally right or wrong, good or bad and we would have no reason to be moral. Some theists have theories that explain where morality comes from, and they believe that morality comes from God one way or another. The Stoic philosophers seemed to agree, and they argued that we know right and wrong from our nature, which was given to us by a divinity called “Divine Reason” or “Universal Nature.” We have a natural impulse to care about people and help them, and this is a sign that caring about people is morally preferable in general. “[U]niversal Nature has constituted rational animals for the sake of each other, so that they might help each other in accordance with their respective merit and never harm each other.”¹ Nonetheless, in epistle 16 of Letters to Lucilius. Seneca gives an argument that a being ethical (living life as a virtuous Stoic philosopher) is justified even if Divine Reason doesn’t exist and the universe is guided by physical processes instead.²

The point Seneca wants to make is that the justification for living ethically is stronger than the justification for the belief in Divine Reason (and whatever else follows from the existence of Divine Reason). We don’t need to have risky ambitious metaphysical beliefs concerning gods or physical processes to have a good reason to live ethically. It should be added that we are uncertain whether a god exists or whether the universe is fully guided by physical processes, but we are not uncertain that we should behave ethically. That is something we should be confident about.

Seneca believed in a god—Divine Reason—and he believed that we can know about morality because a god exists. However, he is even more certain that we should behave ethically, and he admits that there could be other explanations for why we’re justified to behave ethically other than the existence of a god. This “secular” reasoning is typical of philosophers and need not imply “atheism.” Philosophers continue to reason in a similar fashion to Seneca by discussing ethics without requiring anyone to believe in the existence of a god. Morality might come from God or it might not. Either way, we should be confident that morality exists and it’s important. If we found out God doesn’t exist, we shouldn’t immediately jump to the conclusion that morality doesn’t exist and we have no reason to behave ethically.

Example 2

In Responsibility and Control by John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza, they argue that moral responsibility doesn’t require libertarian free will. “Libertarian free will” is the hypothesis that we have the power to make choices similar to a god or “prime mover”—that our decisions are uncaused except by oneself. The belief in libertarian free will is incompatible with determinism by definition. Determinism is the belief that everything has to happen exactly as it happens (perhaps because everything that happens is sufficiently caused by prior events and states of affairs). Many people believe in libertarian free will, and they believe that they are morally responsible (in part) because they have libertarian free will. However, we don’t have the technology to prove that free will exists or that determinism is true. We are uncertain about we should believe about these two metaphysical theories, and the theories are ambitious to the extent that we lack certainty about them.

Fischer and Ravizza find their theory to be preferable to theories that claim that moral responsibility requires libertarian free will insofar as it doesn’t require us to accept questionable metaphysical theories or states of affairs (i.e. free will or determinism). If moral responsibility does require libertarian free will, then we should be uncertain whether or not we have moral responsibility—but we aren’t. We should be confident that we are morally responsible. They summarize their conclusions in the following words:

Our contention is that even if causal determinism were true, there is a strong impetus to think that human beings should still be properly considered persons, morally responsible, and at least sometimes in control of their behavior. That is, even if we discovered that causal determinism is true, there is a strong tendency to think that this sort of discovery should not make us abandon our view of ourselves as persons and morally responsible agent (15).

Justifications for risk-aversion

First, one reason to want risk-averse philosophical theories is to get a handle on what we know with confidence. Risky “ambitious” beliefs are more likely to be false. We are uncertain whether they’re true or not. If we depend on risky beliefs in a theory, then the whole theory will be uncertain. That doesn’t mean that there’s no place for risky beliefs or speculation in philosophy. Seneca found it important to speculate about Divine Reason’s place in the universe, even though he also thought it was important to justify certain beliefs apart from the existence of Divine Reason.

Many philosophers give “common sense” or “intuitive” beliefs a privileged position when they are highly plausible and denying their truth seems absurd. The fact that morality and moral responsibility exist seems to be common sense, and we generally should not be required to accept risky beliefs to justify them. Finding out that a risky belief is false shouldn’t require us to reject such common sense beliefs (in general).

Consider that we know that “it’s morally wrong to kill men with red hair just because they have red hair.” Many such moral facts are known with near certainty and they imply the existence of morality and moral responsibility. We shouldn’t say that killing men with red hair isn’t wrong if we find out determinism is true or God doesn’t exist.

Second, there can be more than one metaphysical explanation for various phenomena. For example, the existence of moral responsibility and morality could be explained by free will and God, but an atheistic physical reality might also be able to explain the existence of such phenomena. The implication of saying that “morality requires God” is that there’s only one possible explanation for morality. However, that would require us to understand and refute all other possible explanations people come up with. It is rare in philosophy that we find out a fact only has one possible explanation.

Why risk-aversion in philosophy is important

Risk-aversion is important in philosophy for at least three reasons:

One, uncertain beliefs are more likely to be false and we would like to be confident about many of our beliefs. Any theory that requires ambitious metaphysical beliefs will not warrant our confidence. Just about every “religious” explanation or theory suffers from this problem. We shouldn’t be confident that they are true or that any theory that requires such ambitious beliefs are true.

Two, beliefs that warrant our confidence are more likely to be persuasive. If you have a theory about where morality comes from involving God, then atheists probably won’t be persuaded. If you have a theory about where moral responsibility comes from involving free will, then determinists probably won’t be persuaded. For the same reason we prefer secular arguments over religious arguments when we reject the religion involved. If an argument requires us to accept Buddhism and we aren’t Buddhists, then we will probably be unpersuaded.

Three, we need to be confident in certain beliefs to try to live life the right way. Holding uncertain beliefs can be dangerous. Consider someone with the “risky belief” that moral responsibility requires free will, but then rejects free will. That person could then reject moral responsibility and decide to hurt people. Our decisions are often based on our beliefs, and unreasonable beliefs can lead to immoral behavior.

Notes

I have already discussed how we might be able to get what morally ought to be the case from what is the case (via bridging premises). These are known as “solutions to the is/ought gap.” Even after we answer (or try to answer) how to get what morally ought to be the case from what is the case, there are more troubling questions left over. In particular:

1. What does ‘ought’ mean? (What exactly does it mean for something to “ought to be the case?”)
2. Does what “ought to be the case” exist?
3. Assuming that something “ought to be the case,” what makes it that way?

I will briefly discuss each of these questions with the assumption that moral realism is true—that there are moral facts and some moral facts are true regardless of our beliefs, desires, or social conventions. I have discussed various moral realist solutions to the is/ought gap including the following: One, a Platonist solution—what “ought to be” exists as Platonic forms. Two, Tännsjö’s solution—what “ought to be” can be based on a preference to promote intrinsic value within a social contract. I will discuss these questions with these two perspectives in mind in particular.

What does ‘ought’ mean?

My main concern is with what “morally ought to be the case” but there are other ways we use the word ‘ought.’ The nonmoral (instrumental) use of the word ‘ought’ refers to effective ways to accomplish goals and satisfy desires. If we want to get money and we don’t have a job, we probably ought to get a job. However, there is also a sense that people who need money ought to steal, even though it’s usually immoral. We morally ought not to steal, even if it is an effective way to get money.

Nonmoral oughts

The nonmoral use of the world ‘ought’ seems to be about something more than merely telling us which actions are the most effective ways to achieving our goals. If we ought to get a job to get money, that doesn’t merely mean that getting a job is more effective at helping me get money than my other options (pan handling, theft, fraud, jumping up and down, etc.) There seems to be something prescriptive about saying we ought to get a job. There’s something like an endorsement.

For that reason, the following argument is logically invalid:

1. If we don’t have a job, then an effective way to get money is to get a job.
2. We want money and we don’t have a job.
3. Therefore, we ought to get a job.

The reason this is invalid is because it’s missing the premise that “if something is an effective way to accomplish a goal, then we ought to do it.” Additionally, it’s not obvious that this premise is true because it’s not entirely clear how effective a goal has to be before we “ought to do it.” Some goals are more effective than others, even though they might be ineffective. For example, robbing a bank seems like a more effective way to get money than jumping up and down, but they are both generally ineffective ways to make money—and we probably ought not do either.

Moral oughts

This is also true about what we morally ought to do. If we morally ought to get a job rather than steal, then we aren’t merely saying that it’s better (morally preferable) to get a job than steal. For example, it’s intuitive that we usually shouldn’t steal to get money, even though stealing might be better than kidnapping children and holding them for ransom. One act can be morally preferable to another, even if they are both morally wrong—and we morally ought not to do either.

What we morally ought to do relates to what’s morally right and wrong. An act is morally wrong if we ought not do it (it’s morally impermissible), and an act is morally right if it’s permissible (it’s false that we ought not do it).

Again, it’s not obvious how we can decide when an action is “good enough” to be something we “morally ought to do.” This question suffers from being vague, similar to how it’s not obvious how many hairs a bald person can have on their head. Some utilitarians, like Mill, have suggested that what we “ought to do” is whatever maximizes intrinsic value, and we “ought not” do anything else. (i.e. We ought to do whatever act is the most morally worthy, but nothing else.) However, there are at least three strong objections to this view:

One, it is conceivable that no matter how morally worthy an act is that we will always be able to discover an even worthier act in the future.

Two, it’s unintuitive and doesn’t seem to match how we actually use the words. There might be an ultimate sense that we “ought to do what’s best,” but we tend not to have any idea what that would be, and the idea that we “ought not do anything other than what’s best” violates the common sense notion that we can act beyond the call of duty. If I am poor and I give most of my money to charity, many people would believe my act to be “beyond the call of duty.” The idea that I alone did the “right thing” and millions of poor people who don’t give most of their money away are doing something morally wrong is counterintuitive.

Three, it seems too demanding. To say that everyone’s doing something wrong because they could be doing something “better” is to condemn just about everyone. There might not be a single person who lives their life perfectly. We use the words “ought,” “right,” and “wrong” to differentiate the virtuous from scoundrels, and the above utilitarian definition makes that impossible. Everyone would be equally wicked if we would accept such criteria.

One solution to the vagueness problem is to admit that there are degrees that people ought to do something (or ought not to do something), and that we ought to do whatever is sufficiently worthy. There are intuitive examples of what we ought to do and ought not do, and sometimes what we ought to do is more important than other times. For example, it’s intuitive that I ought to help feed starving people given the opportunity when no one else can help; and it’s intuitive that I ought not to kill people willie nillie. Moreover, it seems intuitive that I ought to be polite to people—but it’s more important that I help feed the starving person than be polite. What I ought to do in one situation is more important than the other.

How do the two relevant realist perspectives interpret the word ‘ought?’

A Platonist solution – What “ought to be the case” is identical to the existence of abstract entities or God. These are ideals corresponding to what “ought to be.” The Platonist can then take a look at our existence (or behavior) and see if it approximates the ideals better than the alternatives. A rude person who is willing to feed the starving people is more virtuous and closer to the ideal than a polite person who is unwilling to feed the starving people.

This Platonist solution relies on the fact that some people (or actions) are better than others. We can take a look at alternative ways of life and alternative actions and decide which of the is morally preferable based on the ideals.

This Platonist solution relies on the fact that some actions (or people) are better than others. We can take a look at alternative ways of life and alternative actions and decide which of the is morally preferable based on the ideals.

This Platonistic solution leaves us with some important questions:

1. How do we know the ideals?
2. How much do we have to approximate ideals to do what we ought to do?
3. In what sense do these ideals exist (if any)?
4. Doesn’t the word ‘ought’ refer to more than that an act sufficiently approximates an ideal? That would seem to ignore that there’s something prescriptive about the word ‘ought.’

Tännsjö’s solution – What we mean by the word ‘ought’ seems to only be morally relevant if we decide that it corresponds to promoting intrinsic values. This is a utilitarian perspective, but it doesn’t necessarily require us to maximize intrinsic value. An action is right as long as it lives up to standards that we agree to within something like a social contract, and those standards must be based on intrinsic values or it’s not relevant to morality.

Killing people tends to harm people, but giving food to starving people tends to help people. Ideally, we ought to do whatever maximizes happiness and minimizes suffering, but we can agree that what we ought to do is less demanding than that through our social contract.

Unlike the Platonist solution, Tännsjö doesn’t require that the word ‘ought’ be fully understood in terms of living up to a standard. There can be a prescriptive element to the word as long as that’s how we use the word within a social contract or language.

Tännsjö’s solution leaves us with at least two important questions:

1. Is it rational to accept a social contract involving ‘oughts?’
2. What kind of moral standards should we agree to for our use of the word ‘ought?’

Does what “ought to be the case” exist?

Many moral realists seem to think that what “morally ought to be the case,” “morally right,” and “moral;y wrong” each refer to something that actually exists. It’s not clear what exactly it could be that they are referring to, and such a suggestion seems to require that either (a) the prescriptive nature of such words be lost or (b) the prescriptive nature of the words is somehow part of the fabric of the world. It’s not entirely clear what exactly it means for something to be “prescriptive,” but this debate over the prescriptive nature of ‘oughts’ is commonly used to refute moral realism.

First, noncognitivists argue that the fact that ought-judgments are prescriptive is somehow strong evidence that they are not statements at all (i.e. they are neither true nor false). Perhaps our endorsement of ought-judgments is evidence that (a) they are something like commandments or (b) we use ought-judgments to express our emotions—and neither of which are statements.

Second, many anti-realists argue that prescriptive facts are somehow motivational, and that a person can’t sincerely agree that something ought to be done unless they have at least some motivation to do it (when in the appropriate circumstances). For example, I can’t say that we morally ought to give to charity unless I have at least some motivation to give to charity.

Third, the notion that prescriptive “facts” could exist as part of reality seems to be unique and strange—perhaps even far-fetched. What exactly these “facts” are like and how we can know about them seems pretty mysterious.

Fourth, Hume reminded us that what “ought to be the case” doesn’t always happen. People rob banks, murder, rape, and pillage. The horrible things people do is contrary to what they ought to do. Therefore, it seem like what “is the case” is often quite different from what “ought to be the case.” Nonetheless, it seems clear that what “ought to be the case” does happen from time to time. People aren’t completely evil every second of their lives. Nonetheless, anti-realists often think that what “is the case” is somehow proven to be totally different from what “ought to be the case” since there is often a gap between the two—and that seems to suggest that what “ought to be” is unreal, fictitious, or “true by convention.”

Nonmoral oughts

Moral realists often remind us that what we ought to do in the nonmoral sense (to accomplish goals) isn’t so strange or difficult to understand. We can simply look at what courses of action are open to us and decide which one would accomplish our goals well. Eating food helps accomplish our goals of feeling pleasure, staying alive, and avoiding hunger. It accomplishes those goals amazingly well and it seems clear that we ought to eat food in order to accomplish those goals. But do such nonmoral ‘oughts’ exist? Are they strange entities in reality? That isn’t obvious, even though reality itself plays a role in what we ought to do insofar as it determines how effective each course of action is. The problem is that reality doesn’t seem to determine how effective an action has to be before we “ought to do it.”

Again, it seems clear that what we ‘ought to do’ sometimes is the case because we do eat food, as we should. Some people don’t eat food, but that is unusual. Of course, when some people don’t eat food, they might be failing to do something they ought to do, so what we ought to do doesn’t happen every time. Nonetheless, we can compare our options and decide which ones are better than others, and we somehow decide when one course of action is one we “ought to do.”

Finally, the fact that nonmoral oughts aren’t so mysterious could indicate that what morally ought to be the case isn’t mysterious either—but it’s not clear that either form of ‘ought’ exists in some realist sense. Anti-realists will claim that what we ‘ought to do’ is merely based on our attitudes, interests, endorsements, and/or social contract.

A Platonist solution – We can agree that what “ought to be the case” really does exist in the realm of the forms as abstract entities. It’s not entirely clear that such entities are really prescriptive, but they might be. J.L. Mackie argued that the forms would have to be prescriptive in the sense that they somehow cause motivation to do what we ought to do. The Platonist solution is vulnerable to the four objections described above.

Tännsjö’s solution – We can argue that the anti-realists are right that what ‘ought to be the case’ doesn’t really exist. We can compare our options and decide that some actions are morally preferable to others insofar as they promote intrinsic values better.

Tännsjö’s solution seems to avoid the four anti-realist objections seen above. He can agree with everything they say without becoming an anti-realist. Why is he not an anti-realist? Because he believes in moral facts that aren’t completely based on our beliefs, desires, or a social contract. These moral facts involve intrinsic values—pleasure is intrinsically good and pain is intrinsically bad.

Assuming that something “ought to be the case,” what makes it that way?

A Platonist can agree with Tännsjö that what we ought to do is whatever is sufficiently morally worthy and we can look at alternate courses of actions to see which actions are better than others. However, it’s not obvious what would make an action something we ought to do rather than something we ought not do—what makes an action sufficiently worthy in a prescriptive sense?

A Platonist solution – It’s not clear that a Platonist can give an intuitive answer to this question. Perhaps she could just say that we ought to do something insofar as it approximates the ideals, but there might be no way to officially “draw the line” and say that something is what ought to be done once and for all (or ought not be done once and for all).

Tännsjö’s solution – We could agree that what ought to be the case should be based on whatever criteria seems to help us be moral beings the best. One intuitive way to do so that seems to match the way we use language is that what we ought to do is whatever we can do to promote intrinsic values best given that it’s sufficiently easy to do it. For example, doctors ought to help patients with their medical needs because it’s sufficiently easy for them to do so, but non-doctors usually ought not to help patients because it would be too hard for them. Some people might be more virtuous or skillful than others and what they do with their virtues and skills should be based on how they could be used to help people (and animals) compared to others. What’s too hard for one person isn’t too hard for another. What’s sufficiently easy to do for one person isn’t for another.

If there were no restrictions to what we ought to do, then someone should all cure cancer, save the whales, eliminate corruption from politics, feed all starving people, and so on. However, this is much too hard for one person to accomplish, and that’s why it’s inappropriate to make such demands on a single person. Instead, we each need to find our unique way to help people based on our unique abilities, skills, talents, and virtues.

Conclusion

Anti-realists have raised powerful objections to the Platonistic form of moral realism because it seems to ignore the prescriptive nature of ought-judgments or places the prescriptive element into the fabric of reality itself. The anti-realists seem right that there’s something perscriptiv happening when we make ought-judgments. Nonetheless, the anti-realist objections seem compatible with Tännsjö’s moral realist solution, and he makes it clear that we could base our understanding of what ought to be the case on intrinsic values to assure us that they have moral relevance. I agree that intrinsic values seem important and many people would like to help others based on an understanding of intrinsic values.

What is the is/ought gap?

The is/ought gap is a problem in moral philosophy where what is the case and what ought to be the case seem quite different, and it presents itself as the following question to David Hume: How do we know what morally ought to be the case from what is the case?

Hume posed the question in A Treatise of Human Nature Book III Part I Section I:

In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remark’d that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs, when of a sudden I am surpriz’d to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, ‘tis necessary that it shou’d be observ’d and explain’d; and at the same time that a reason shou’d be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.

It is here that Hume points out that philosophers argue about various nonmoral facts, then somehow conclude what ought to be the case (or what people ought to do) based on those facts (about what is the case). For example, we might find out that arsenic is poisonous and conclude that we ought not consume it. But we need to know how nonmoral facts can lead to moral conclusions. These two things seem unrelated.

The is/ought gap doesn’t seem like a problem for nonmoral oughts—what we ought to do to accomplish our goals, fulfill our desires, or maintain our commitments. For example, we could say, “If you want to be healthy, you ought not consume arsenic.” However, it might be morally wrong to consume arsenic. If it is, we have some more explaining to do.

Some of the things we ought to do are obligations, but not everything we ought to do is an obligation. For example, we can be obligated to meet a friend for lunch after making a promise to. The difference between what we are obligated to do and other things we ought to do isn’t entirely clear, but it’s generally considered to be morally wrong when we fail to fulfill a moral obligation. When dealing with morality, our moral obligations tend to be what we consider to be of greater importance than other things we ought to do. For example, it might be that I morally ought to give half my money to charity, but it wouldn’t be wrong if I don’t. On the other hand it’s morally wrong to steal from a charity and I’m obligated not to do that.

The is/ought gap is similar to the fact/value gap. Some people think that nonevaluative facts and values are totally different things. They think we know nonevaluative facts, but it’s not clear how we know what’s valuable—what moral values we ought to promote. For example, some people think pleasure is good and pain is bad. We ought to give ourselves and others pleasure, but we ought not to give ourselves or others pain. It’s not obvious how we know what has moral value, but values will be discussed in greater detail below.

The meta-ethical implications

First, the is/ought gap requires us to better understand the concept of a “moral ought.” Second, it might be evidence for moral anti-realism.

What is a “moral ought?”

The is/ought gap doesn’t seem like a problem unless we are dealing with what “morally ought” to be the case. For example, if you tell a person that it’s morally wrong to put arsenic in someone else’s food. There’s no consensus about what distinguishes a moral ought from a nonmoral ought, but there are many common assumptions that we seem to have about them. For example:

1. We ought not do something if it’s morally wrong.
2. It’s morally wrong to kill people indiscriminately.
3. All things equal, it’s morally right to save people’s lives.
4. If someone does something very morally wrong, like killing people indiscriminately, then that person should be blamed for the action and should be punished for it.
5. What we morally ought to do overrides our nonmoral obligations.
6. I morally ought to save the life of a small child when doing so is at little cost to myself, even if I will then fail to meet my friend for lunch on time after promising to do so.
7. What I morally ought not do isn’t changed by wanting to do it. For example, I morally ought not to kill people indiscriminately, even if I want to do it.
8. We can be wrong about what we ought to do (or ought not do). A person can think that killing people indiscriminately isn’t wrong, but that belief would be false.
9. People often argue about what we morally ought to do, and we can disagree about what we should belief regarding morality.
10. Some moral beliefs are more justified than others. It seems irrational to believe that it’s never wrong to indiscriminately kill people, and such a belief seems unjustified. In contrast, the belief that it is wrong to kill people indiscriminately seems justified.
11. Some actions are good, but they aren’t obligations. For example, it’s good to save a child from a burning building, but it’s often too dangerous to be morally required of us.
12. We should be moral, even if we aren’t motivated by external rewards or punishments. For example, dying to protect one’s friends from a grizzly bear is sometimes morally right, even though it leads to the ultimate personal sacrifice.

How is the is/ought gap evidence of moral anti-realism?

Moral anti-realists think that there are no irreducible moral facts—all moral truths can be reduced to our beliefs, desires, commitments, and so on. Anti-realists don’t think that anything is right or wrong apart from something like a social contract—it’s practical to commit ourselves to behaving ethically insofar as we will benefit when everyone else makes the same commitment as well. Three reasons that the is/ought gap is often taken to be evidence for anti-realism is because (a) the anti-realist sees no reason to think that what morally ought to be the case is a “moral fact” beyond our beliefs, desires, and commitments; (b) the anti-realist sees no reason to think that we could ever know such moral facts exist; and (c) the anti-realist solutions to the is/ought gap could be superior to the realist solutions.

Is what morally ought to be the case a moral fact? Facts are states of affairs—actual things that exist and relations between things that exist. That a cat is on the mat is a fact. It’s unclear how what morally ought to be the case can be a fact. What morally ought to be is often quite different from the actual state of affairs in the world. A thief steals, a murderer kills, and so on. People aren’t actually doing what they ought to do. How can a state of affairs that ought to exist be said to be a fact when what ought to be the case is often quite different from what actually exists or happens in the world? Anti-realists see no good answers for these questions, but they think anti-realism can solve the problem by avoiding it. If there are no moral facts, then we no longer need to answer these questions.

How can we know what morally ought to be the case? Hume was an empiricist, so he thought we could only know about reality through observation. What we observe isn’t necessarily what ought to be. The actual state of affairs in the world can be quite different that what people morally ought to do. We do know what is the case because we can observe it. Looking at what is the case—the actually obtaining nonmoral facts—doesn’t seem to tell us what ought to be the case. So, it’s not obvious how we can know what morally ought to be the case assuming that it’s a moral fact. Anti-realists think that we can avoid this problem entirely by becoming anti-realists and admitting there are no moral facts.

Solutions to the is/ought gap

There are many potential solutions to the is/ought gap, and they aren’t always mutually exclusive. Additionally, there are two main approaches to the problem: (1) Understanding the concept of what morally ought to be the case can help us know how to get what ought to be the case from what is the case, and (2) we can provide intuitive answers and compare/contrast each solution to see which is best. Most philosophers try to use a combination of these two approaches.

A Platonic Solution

Plato was a moral realist who thought that there are ideal forms (abstract objects) that exist in the world as ideal “perfect” things. There’s perfect goodness, perfect virtue, perfect courage, and so on. In some sense what ought to be the case really does exist—as the forms. We can somehow know these forms through contemplation or intuition. Perhaps we experienced the forms before we were born and can remember them throughout our lives. For Plato certain forms are “moral facts” that exist in a way similar to any other state of affairs. We ought to acquire characteristics of the forms, such as goodness, virtue, justice, wisdom, and moderation. Once we have those characteristics (perfections or virtues), we will do what we morally ought to. No one acquires virtues completely, and people who do so well are better people who don’t.

Simply put, the Platonic solution is that what ought to be the case is based primarily on actually existing abstract objects, and we are “what ought to be” insofar as we approximate these objects. What we ought to do is based on what we will do naturally once we are perfect.

There are at least two strong objections to this Platonic view. First, it seems overly-ambitious and far-fetched. We shouldn’t accept new forms of reality to exist when no such assumptions are required. Second, it’s unclear how contemplation or intuition can give us knowledge of the forms.

A Theistic Solution

Theists can have a solution similar to the Platonic solution, but they can replace the forms with God. God is perfect goodness, and we ought to be as much like God as possible. Insofar as we approximate God, we will do what we ought to naturally, and insofar as we fail to approximate God, we won’t.

Aristotle’s Solution

Aristotle developed teleology—the idea that there are goals infused in nature. He thought that each being has a natural telos (goal), which is its perfection (flourishing). A seed’s telos can be a fully developed tree, and the telos of a small child is to develop into a virtuous and political adult with a developed rational capacity. For Aristotle what ought to be the case is based on the natural tendency and potentiality to flourish. As human beings we naturally desire our telos and fulfillment of our telos rewards us with happiness.

For Aristotle what “ought to be the case” is based on a potentiality rather than what actually exists, but he thinks this potentiality is part of actually existing things. We can figure out our potentiality through our rational desires and through observation.

There are at least two important objections to Aristotle’s solution. First, it’s unclear that natural objects really do have a natural telos. Second, it’s unclear that rational desires and observation can help us discover the telos of beings, even if they do have a telos.

Torbjörn Tännsjö’s Solution

Tännsjö is a moral realist who argues that there are intrinsic values—some things are good or bad just for existing. In particular, he believes that pleasure is intrinsically good and pain is intrinsically bad. He thinks we ought to maximize pleasure and minimize pain, and everyone counts. He basically embraces utilitarianism in this regard. He thinks it’s morally right to maximize goodness, and it’s morally wrong not to. (My understanding is that Sam Harris’s Moral Landscape endorses a view much like Tännsjö’s.)

How do we know about intrinsic values? Tännsjö thinks we can observe that they exist. Pain seems to be intrinsically good when we experience it, and pain seems to be intrinsically bad when we experience it.

Why exactly is what morally ought to be the case based on intrinsic value? Tännsjö argues that this is simply what he thinks we should mean by what we morally ought to do based on something like a social contract, and this view is quite intuitive. It certainly seems like we ought not to cause ourselves excessive pain based on how it feels to us, and it also seems intuitive to think it’s wrong to cause other people excessive pain as well.

He is a moral realist because he believes in irreducible moral facts (i.e. intrinsic values), but what “morally ought to be the case” is not itself an irreducible moral fact. His view is a minimalistic moral realist view that admits that moral anti-realists can be right about many things, but he thinks the anti-realist wrongly denies that intrinsic values exist.

There are at least five objections to Tännsjö’s solution. First, many people are unconvinced that intrinsic values exist. Second, many people deny that we can experience that pleasure is intrinsically good or pain is intrinsically bad. Third, many people think there’s more intrinsic values than merely pleasure and pain. Fourth, many people think that we need more than a social contract and intrinsic values to know what “morally ought to be the case.” Perhaps murder is wrong, even if there is no social contract, and when we disagree about morality, we aren’t just disagreeing about the actual social contract that exists. Fifth, many people are unconvinced that right and wrong are determined by utilitarianism, and many counterexamples have been given against it.

David Hume’s Solution

Hume rejects that there are irreducible moral facts. Instead, what we morally ought to do is based on our sentiments. In particular, our sympathy for others. When we say that murder is wrong, we are stating our repulsion towards murder based on our sympathy for the victim.

For Hume, there’s no major difference between what morally ought to be the case or what nonmorally ought to be the case based on our goals. Both sorts of “ought” are based on our sentiments. The difference is mainly just that what morally ought to be is based on sympathy in particular. Many philosophers agree with Hume, and similar views about morality has continued though the “moral sentimentalist” and “care ethics” traditions.

The main problem with Hume’s solution is that it seems incompatible with many common assumptions regarding morality. First, it seems to contradict the assumption that desires can’t override what we morally ought to do. Second, it seems to contradict the assumption that our personal goals can’t override what we morally ought to do. Third, it seems to contradict the assumption that we can be wrong about what morally ought to be the case. Fourth, it seems to contradict our assumption that some moral goals are more reasonable than others.

A Hobbsian Solution

Thomas Hobbes also denies that there are moral facts, and he thinks we can know what morally ought to be the case based purely on practical reason through a social contract. We all have shared interests and we can agree to behave a certain way for our mutual benefit. For example, we can all agree not to kill each other indiscriminately because we all have an interest in staying alive. We can then also pass laws and agree that people who break the social contract will be punished to help “keep people in line” and be assured that people will stay faithful to the contract.

Again, Hobbes’s solution seems incompatible with many common assumptions. First, it’s unclear how Hobbes can accept that what we morally ought to do can override what we nonmorally ought to do. Second, it’s unclear how Hobbes can accept that people who do good that’s not required of them by the social contract are still doing what’s morally praiseworthy.

Lawrence Becker’s Solution

Becker argues that we can get a nonmoral ought by finding out what we ought to do based on our goals nothing-else-considered, but we ought to do what we morally ought to do based on our goals (and whatever else) all-things-considered. In other words, you ought to fulfill your desires (nonmorally), but you morally ought to fulfill your desires as long as there’s no overriding reason against it. If you want to eat chocolate and there’s no conflicting reason not to, then you should do it. He expects that people will have an overriding reason not to commit murder or become thieves.

There are at least three objections to Becker’s solution. First, it’s very abstract. It’s not yet clear what reasons we can have against behaving in certain ways. For example, what exactly is the reason against murdering people when we want to murder people? Second, it seems to lack importance. Why say you morally ought to eat chocolate? That seems too petty to be ranked as what we morally ought to do. Third, if it’s true, then it’s unclear why it’s true. Why is it that we morally ought to do whatever is necessary to achieve our goals as long as we don’t have overriding reasons not to? And what makes any reason overriding?

Conclusion

The is/ought gap doesn’t seem like a serious problem for moral realism because almost no moral realist philosopher has ever thought that “what you morally ought to do” actually exists as an irreducible moral fact. However, what you morally ought to be could be part of our nature or it could exist in the forms. Additionally, moral realists like Tännsjö don’t think that what “morally ought to be the case” needs to be irreducible moral facts at all. Instead, we can rely on intrinsic values as a basis for morality and accept anti-realist beliefs whenever they are sufficiently plausible. The problem with anti-realism (if anything) is that it’s incomplete rather than that it’s entirely false—and we are likely to have assumptions that seem incompatible with anti-realism.

Nonetheless, the anti-realist solutions (of Hume and Hobbes) could be more plausible than the realist ones, and that in itself could be a challenge to moral realism.

Related:

• An Objection to Moral Realism: The Is/Ought Gap
• The Debate Over Moral Realism
• Five Meta-Ethical Theories

For many people studying philosophy, the fact that it is meant to give us new “way of life” is still apparent. Philosophy can change your life, and there’s something strange about learning about morality or reasoning and yet refusing to be ethical or reasonable. Philosophers pride themselves in making moral progress and becoming more reasonable. That doesn’t mean philosophers are ethical or reasonable. It means that they should at least be more so than they would otherwise be. If they never studied philosophy, then they would know less about being ethical and reasonable, and they would therefore have no choice but to be less ethical and reasonable.

This is where philosophy gets personal. We don’t just want to know why murder is wrong and why other obvious moral statements are true. We want to know what decisions we should be making throughout our lives. We want to know how how a moral and reasonable person would live her life, so that we can be moral and reasonable no matter what our personal goals are, and no matter what our unique situation is in life. We therefore should take a look at ourselves and think about how being moral and reasonable applies to us as unique individuals. Some of our findings will be general and apply to many other people, but some of our findings could be completely unique due to our personal relationships, commitments, and goals.

I will discuss various ways that philosophy has changed my life that I think could apply to other people. Philosophy’s main focus concerns what it means to be reasonable. This in turn helps us attain better beliefs and actions. Our actions can not only be more ethical, but they can also be more reasonable in the sense that there can be more effective ways of achieving our goals. I will discuss how philosophy has affected my thinking, beliefs, and actions.

Thinking

Philosophy doesn’t just tell us what to believe. It also helps us improve our thinking by improving our ability to be reasonable. This isn’t just by having rules that tell us what forms of reasoning are appropriate, like we learn in logic classes. It also helps us through practice. Reading, writing, and debating philosophy helps improve our intuitive ability to understand what it means to be reasonable. This ability is a form of know-how that either can’t always be put into words or is merely very difficult to fully describe using words. By practicing philosophical thought we transform ourselves into the kind of person who tends to think more reasonably, and becoming a more reasonable sort of person can help us detect poor reasoning.

What we actually believe is influenced by how we think. Philosophy helps assure us that manipulation and poor arguments will have a lower impact on our beliefs, and good arguments and evidence will have a larger impact on our beliefs.

Advertising and political debates are full of poor reasoning and manipulation, and philosophy helps us realize when poor reasoning or manipulation is being employed. For example, statistics are often used to prove something about a group of people in manipulative ways. The fact that atheists or homosexuals might admit to doing certain “immoral” behavior in a poll doesn’t prove that being an atheist or homosexual somehow corrupts people.

Being reasonable requires that we are willing and able to be reasonable—that we have certain intellectual virtues. It means that we must be able to identify good reasoning, be able to use good reasoning, and be willing to use good reasoning. Part of being willing to be reasonable means that (1) we will be open minded enough to listen to the arguments of others and change our mind based on the good arguments and evidence presented to us, and (2) we will be skeptical enough to reject poor arguments and evidence when it’s presented to us. It could be said that these are virtues of being appropriately open minded and skeptical. Not having these virtues means that we will suffer from the vices of close-mindedness and gullibility.

Being reasonable doesn’t guarantee that we will have true beliefs, but it does help us make sure that our beliefs are better—more reasonable (or justified). Such beliefs are more likely to be accurate, but there is no way to make sure all of our beliefs are true. We have no machinery to absolutely prove any belief to be true once and for all.

How has being more reasonable effected my life? I would like to think that I have better beliefs in general and that I look to experts to help teach me the facts whenever appropriate. Additionally, I hope to have a greater amount of intellectual virtue than I did previously. One way that this manifests itself is in our willingness to listen to “constructive criticism” and to be open minded when people question our beliefs. Many people get offended when they are criticized or questioned—especially when it comes to politics, ethics, and religion. They find criticism and questions to be insulting. They might think, “How dare you suggest that I have faults!” I believe that I take much less offense to criticism and questions, but things can still get heated in a debate now and then.

Moreover, responding appropriately to criticism and questions can be quite important. First, if we aren’t willing to engage a person in conversation taking their criticism and questions into consideration, then we are likely to make mistakes in life and continue to make them. Second, if we don’t take criticism or questions seriously, then we are limiting our level of intimacy with our friends and relatives. We will have to “keep a distance” if we aren’t willing to discuss these things. Third, it is of high importance for a boss to be willing to listen to the criticism and questions of their employees because (a) otherwise important information is likely to be withheld from the boss because employees will be afraid to be the “bearer of bad news” and (b) otherwise mistakes made by the boss are likely to cause problems for the employees and the boss will be likely to continue making the same (or similar) mistakes in the future. For example, a boss who is disrespectful to their employees is being immoral and is likely to lower morale, motivate high turnover rates, motivate in-house theft, motivate employee sabotage, and so on. In some cases refusing to listen to criticism or questions could even be considered to be disrespectful and immoral in and of itself.

Beliefs

Philosophy forces us to let others question our beliefs and for us to question our own beliefs. This is likely to cause us to change our mind when we find out a belief we have is unjustified. Nothing is off limits. Our religion, political beliefs, and ethical beliefs could all be questioned. We need to be able to sort through such beliefs and figure out what (if any) beliefs we have deserve our confidence. For example, I think every perspective of ethics will require us to think that “killing people indiscriminately is morally wrong.” That’s a belief that deserves my confidence. However, controversial beliefs tend not to require such high levels of confidence. For example, whether the death penalty is appropriate (if ever) isn’t so easy to know about, and I shouldn’t be as confident that “the death penalty is always morally wrong in the USA” than the belief that “killing people indiscriminately is morally wrong.”

Perhaps the most powerful impact philosophy has on people in general is by debunking common unjustified beliefs or assumptions that can’t withstand scrutiny. For example, the belief that “all beliefs are equal” is something commonly said to quell debate and criticism, but this belief is untenable. There’s no way to think we can be reasonable if all beliefs about what it means to be reasonable are equal. The belief that we should go around killing people indiscriminately isn’t equal to the belief that we shouldn’t.

It is of great importance that we question our priorities in life. For example, the amount of time people tend to spend watching television, playing video games, shopping, and engaging in small talk is staggering. People who spend all their free time watching television, shopping, and engaging in small talk seem to have the wrong priorities, and they don’t seem to be living their lives to the fullest. Our ethical duties, family, friends, intellectual fulfillment, and personal goals should all be valued more than they generally are.

Actions

Once we have better beliefs, we will be in a better position to improve our behavior. We could make money by stealing or by getting a job, but getting a job is more ethical—and given knowledge of that fact a person will have a chance to make the right choice. Some decisions we make require a more nuanced understanding of ethics. For example, a philosopher could decide that their money would be better spent to help feed starving people than on a fancy computer, sports car, or mansion.

Improved beliefs are often insufficient to bring out improved behavior because bad habits, addiction, and a lack of motivation can make it difficult for us to do the right thing. I have found that making plans and setting deadlines to be a highly motivating force to help focus my life. This requires me to work on my time management and make long-term plans for the future. I write many of my plans and deadlines down and look them over from time to time. I think about how I am living my life and reassess the priorities that it seems to imply. I keep in mind that I often spend too much time watching television and talking on facebook, and I do what I can to change my habits when they become unproductive. I set goals each week to accomplish various tasks (such as writing philosophy posts). I find ways to do what I enjoy in life without requiring anyone to give me permission to do so (such as study philosophy). I make plans to improve myself in ways that will make it more likely to get into a career I enjoy sometime in the future. For example, some of my philosophy ebooks can be used as notes for teaching various philosophy classes.

Some students love learning about philosophy, get a BA in philosophy, then forget all about it and live the rest of their life like everyone else—shopping too much, watching too much television, and so on. Deliberate effort seems required to be a true philosopher and live a life more appropriately than the people around us. The temptations and addictions that we all face can make it even more difficult. We want to make lots of money, spend it on luxuries, and be entertained. Being around other people who live their lives in such unproductive hedonistic ways can make it even more difficult to live as a philosopher and try to live our lives to the fullest.

The Epicureans advise philosophers to stay away from non-philosophers and alienate themselves from society because it is already so difficult to stay motivated and have appropriate priorities in life. That’s one way to go, but the Stoics reject it. Instead, the Stoics agree with the Epicureans that philosophers need to have higher priorities in life than other people have, but they think a person can and should be virtuous enough to act appropriately, even while having non-philosophers as friends, having a family life, and getting involved in politics. Both groups of philosophers realize that it’s important to live our lives differently than people do in general, and both might even agree that living like a philosopher is easier when philosophers band together and alienate themselves. However, the Stoics seem to make a good point that alienating ourselves from society can be unnecessary and unproductive. Non-philosophers can use a philosopher friend, our educational system can use philosophers as teachers, our political system could use philosophers as politicians, and children could use philosophical parents.

Conclusion

Although I don’t think I’ve done justice to the importance of philosophy or all the ways it has changed my life, I have briefly discussed three ways that it has helped improve my life, and I think those are of interest to everyone—it can help improve our thinking, beliefs, and actions. I am not a perfectly ethical person and philosophers make mistakes like everyone else. Nonetheless, the difference between being a philosopher and someone else is the extent a philosopher sincerely tries to be reasonable and ethical using the best information we have available through personal experience, science, and philosophical research.

1. Pain thwarts us from achieving our goals.
2. We dislike pain.
3. Our own pain is bad within our personal experience.
4. Pain is intrinsically bad.

One reason to think that pain is intrinsically bad is if there isn’t a better alternative interpretation for our experiences. I personally don’t think that there is a better alternative interpretation of our experiences than that (some) pain is experienced as being intrinsically bad, but there could be better interpretations that I don’t know about.

I would like to make two clarifications. One, when I say “pain” the word “suffering” might be more appropriate. Emotional pain can be included. Two, I don’t know that all of our pain experiences are intrinsically bad, but I think that the idea that at least some pain experiences are intrinsically bad is plausible.

1. Pain thwarts us from achieving our goals.

One sort of value is known as “instrumental value” which is equivalent to “usefulness.” Food is a useful way to alleviate hunger and it’s therefore “instrumentally good” for helping us achieve that goal. Pain can be useful (instrumentally good) at telling us when we are wounded and alert us to our health problems. Pain can also be “instrumentally bad” insofar as it thwarts us from achieving various goals. Sometimes having an intense headache can keep us from reading a book, getting work done, or enjoying ourselves.

Nonetheless, it doesn’t seem plausible that pain is merely bad in the instrumental sense.

First, pain is (sometimes) bad, even when it is instrumentally useful. The goals pain can help us achieve aren’t always a good reason to feel (or cause) pain. For example, I could be on a television show where people beat me and such a television show can help people achieve various goals (make money, entertain thousands of viewers, etc.) Nonetheless, I wouldn’t want to be on the television show because feeling pain seems more important than the goals that would be achieved from being beaten on television. Feeling pain seems like a cost that needs to be compared with the benefits expected when we make decisions. We don’t decide to voluntarily feel intense pain unless we think there’s something more important to be gained from the experience. For example, someone might physically fight criminals despite the fact that it will likely cause her pain because it might be necessary to protect other people.

Second, I experience that pain is bad insofar as it feels bad. Instrumental disvalue has to do with having our goals thwarted, but the fact that pain feels bad doesn’t tell me anything about goals being thwarted. Instead, the fact that pain feels bad tells me that pain seems like something worthy of avoidance in general. I know that a certain goal (avoiding pain) is worthy because I’ve experienced pain and pain is not merely a something that thwarts us from achieving goals.

2. We dislike pain.

One reason to think that “pain is bad” is because we dislike it. Sometimes we say that something is bad when we dislike it (or desire to avoid it). For example, we might think homework is bad insofar as it is something we often want to avoid. It is true that we often dislike pain and want to avoid it. However, I’m not convinced that this (or pain’s instrumental disvalue) is the only reason we say that pain is bad. Instead, I think we experience that pain is bad prior to and conceptually separable from disliking it. The reason that we dislike pain (when we do) is precisely because it feels bad. We experience that intense pain is horrible and we treat pain as a cost rather than a benefit when making decisions because the experience hurts.

3. Our own pain is bad within our personal experience.

Some people think that pain is bad within our personal experience. I experience that my pain is bad, and it’s rational that I want to avoid pain because of how I experience it. I agree that pain is bad within our personal experience.

However, I don’t think that pain is only bad within our personal experience. You don’t live in a separate reality where your pain is bad, and I don’t live in a separate reality where my pain is bad. And pain isn’t an “illusion” just because it’s “only in your head” or “subjective.” Pain is subjective in the sense that it exists as a psychological phenomena, but that doesn’t mean it’s an illusion. If pain were an illusion, then I suggest that it would have to be deceptive. If I hallucinate that I have horns, then I am having a deceptive experience that could suggest that I have horns when I really don’t. The experience seems to refer to something that doesn’t exist. However, pain doesn’t refer to anything outside of itself. It is something that hurts whether anything else exists or not.

Instead, I find it more plausible that everyone’s “personal experience” is part of a single reality. What exists “only in your head” is part of reality like everything else. The idea that only atoms or solid objects exist seems like a strange view to have.

4. Pain is intrinsically bad.

One view of pain is that it’s “intrinsically bad” or “bad just for existing.” My pain is a cost rather than a benefit when I make decisions insofar as I realize that it’s intrinsically bad. Your pain can also be a cost to my decisions in the same way. This also seems to help explain why many people think it’s wrong to cause “needless” pain—everyone’s pain is intrinsically bad and it seems wrong to cause something intrinsically bad to happen without a good reason for doing so.

Additionally, the idea that pain is bad seems to help explain why we dislike pain, why we get angry at people who cause needless pain, and why we think it’s appropriate to feel empathy towards others who suffer. It seems appropriate to dislike whatever is intrinsically bad; it seems appropriate to be angry at people who needlessly cause something intrinsically bad to happen; and it seems appropriate to feel empathy and care about the pain others experience if their pain is intrinsically bad. If pain isn’t intrinsically bad, then we will want a better explanation for why we dislike pain, get angry at people who cause needless pain, and so on.

One common reason people reject that pain could be “intrinsically bad” is because they don’t see any reason to think that intrinsic values can exist. One possible explanation is that intrinsic values exist because the right material conditions exist that produces it, similar to how the living brain seems to be the material condition that produces our psychological activity. Certain psychological activity (or perhaps all psychological activity) seems to have intrinsic value, such as pain. The same material conditions that cause pain seem sufficient to cause something intrinsically bad to exist.

Conclusion

Not everyone thinks that we experience that pain is intrinsically bad, but such a position raises questions—Don’t we experience that pain is bad? If so, in what sense is it bad? I suggest here that pain isn’t merely instrumentally bad because we understand that avoiding pain is often a good idea even when it helps us achieve our goals; pain isn’t merely something we dislike because we dislike it precisely because we experience that it’s bad; and pain isn’t merely bad within our personal experience because it also seems bad within other people’s experience—and their experiences are just as real as our own. The idea that we experience that pain is intrinsically bad seems intuitive based on our belief that causing needless pain is wrong, and so on.

What is “truth?” Aristotle thought that statements are true when they correspond to reality. The statement “the cat is on the mat” is true if there is a real cat on a real mat. Aristotle’s understanding of truth might seem to work well in science. Scientists want to describe reality as it exists and they try to model reality. A model that corresponds to reality well could be said to be “true.” We think scientific theories can sometimes describe reality almost exactly as it actually exists, which helps us know how to make functional computers, safe cars, and effective medicine.

We usually use the word “true” to refer to something quite modest and there could be degrees of truth. Accurate beliefs correspond to reality well and inaccurate beliefs don’t. The belief that most people with eyes can see things seems accurate enough to be called “true.” However, the idea of “absolute truth” seems to require more than generalizations. Instead, something like theories that can model reality with absolute precision seems required. Philosophers would be thrilled to attain absolute truth, infallible certainty, and a complete understanding of reality because it would help them become more rational, ethical, and so on. However, this is probably too much to ask for and philosophy doesn’t guarantee that we will ever attain absolute truth, infallible certainty, or a complete understanding of reality. Instead, philosophy merely helps us be more reasonable and ethical because it helps us attain justified beliefs and justified beliefs are more likely to be accurate than unjustified ones.

Philosophy might be able to help give us many accurate beliefs, but there’s no guarantee that philosophy can help us model reality with absolute precision. Of course, the same thing is true of science—it attempts to model reality as well as possible, but it might never model reality with absolute precision. At the same time I want to say that science and philosophy are still important.

We can’t require that philosophy give us absolute truth or provide us with infallible methods of attaining knowledge just like we can’t require that of science. Even if science fails to provide us with infallible certainty or absolute truth, it is still accurate enough to make several successful predictions necessary to provide us with functional computers, safe cars, and effective medicine. Even if philosophy fails to provide us with infallible certainty or absolute truth, it is still effective enough to help us attain justified beliefs, avoid dogmatism, avoid fanaticism, and live better lives. It helps us become more rational, ethical, appropriately open-minded, and appropriately skeptical.

This was originally published in my ebook,”What is Philosophy?“

I have recently updated many of my free ebooks:

1. What is Philosophy? (6/27/11)
2. How to Become a Philosopher (6/26/11)
3. Contemporary meta-ethics Part 1 (6/24/11)
4. Free Introduction to Moral Philosophy (6/22/11)

Abstract

I discuss moral philosophy and many moral issues concerning business. Capitalism, corporations, job discrimination, and many other issues are discussed.

• If you like my ebook, you might want to take a look at my other free ebooks here.

Consider the following argument:

1. If dogs are mammals, then they’re animals.
2. Dogs are mammals.
3. Therefore, dogs are animals.

This argument is logically valid. If the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true because it has a valid argument form. The argument form is the following:

1. If A, then B.
2. A.
3. Therefore, B.

We can know that this argument is valid simply by knowing what “If A, then B” means. It means “If A is true, then B is true” or “B is true whenever A is true.” Since, A is true, B also has to be true because that’s what “If A, then B” means.

Nonetheless, we could construct a proof for this argument. Consider the following:

We can summarize the proof using the following words:

1. We can assume the argument form is invalid. In that case the premises can be true and the conclusion can be false at the same time. Let’s assume the premises are true and the conclusion is false.
2. If this assumption is impossible because it implies a contradiction, then we know the argument can’t be invalid (and must be valid).
3. In that case “If A, then B” is true because it’s a premise, A is true because it’s a premise, and B is false because it’s a conclusion.
4. In that case A must also be false because “if A (is true), then B (is true)” is assumed to be true, and B is assumed to be false. B is true whenever A is true, but B is false, so A must be false. (Consider the statement, “If dogs are mammals, then dogs are animals.” If we find out that dogs aren’t animals, then they can’t be animals. If the second part of a conditional statement is false, then the first part must be false.)
5. Therefore, A is true and false.
6. Therefore, the assumption that the argument form is invalid leads to a contradiction and must be false.
7. Therefore, the argument must be valid.

Conclusion

We generally demand that our arguments are logically valid and we have an intuitive grasp about what it means for an argument to be logically valid. Validity isn’t sufficient to have a good argument, but it’s generally a very important element for constructing good arguments. Knowing more about logical validity beyond the intuitive level can help us achieve clarity and improve our thinking. Knowing why an argument is valid can help us achieve these goals.

Update (6/21/2011): I updated my proof that the argument form is valid because the other proof I gave was circular and therefore unpersuasive.

Problem solving

Example 1

1. If all dogs are mammals, then all dogs are reptiles.
2. All dogs are mammals.
3. Therefore, all dogs are reptiles.

Example 2

1. If all dogs are mammals, then all dogs are animals.
2. All dogs are animals.
3. Therefore, all dogs are mammals.

Example 3

1. Either it’s wrong to indiscriminately kill people, or it’s not wrong to kill someone just because she has red hair.
2. It’s wrong to kill someone just because she has red hair.
3. Therefore, it’s wrong to indiscriminately kill people.

Example 4

1. Either disciplining people is always wrong or it’s not always wrong to discipline people for committing crimes.
2. Disciplining people hurts them.
3. Therefore, disciplining people is always wrong.

Example 5

1. It’s often good to give to charity.
2. If it’s often good to give to charity, then the Earth is round.
3. Therefore, the Earth is round.

Example 6

1. The death penalty leads to the death of innocent people.
2. Therefore, the death penalty sometimes leads to the death of innocent people.

Example 7

1. Murder is always wrong.
2. Sometimes murder isn’t wrong.
3. Therefore, the death penalty should be illegal.

Example 8

1. It’s wrong to refuse to hire the most qualified applicant due to irrelevant criteria.
2. Therefore, it’s wrong to refuse to hire the most qualified applicant due to the color of her skin.

Example 9

1. We should try to keep an open mind.
2. Therefore, either rocks exist or rocks don’t exist.

Example 10

1. All cats are mammals.
2. Therefore, some cats are mammals.

Answers

Example 1

1. If all dogs are mammals, then all dogs are reptiles.
2. All dogs are mammals.
3. Therefore, all dogs are reptiles.

The easiest way to realize that this argument form is valid is merely to realize what it means to say “If A, then B.” This statement means “If A is true, then B is true” or “B is true whenever A is true). That also implies that if B is false, then A must be false.

We can prove the argument form is valid using the following reasoning:

1. The counterexample will have true premises, and a false conclusion.
2. In that case we assume that “If A, then B” is true because it’s a premise, A is true because it’s a premise, and B is false because it’s our conclusion.
3. In that case A must also be false because “if A (is true), then B (is true)” is assumed to be true, and B is assumed to be false. (Consider the statement, “If dogs are mammals, then dogs are animals.” If we find out that dogs aren’t animals, then they can’t be mammals. If the second part of a conditional statement is false, then the first part must be false.)
4. Therefore, A is true and false.
5. We have proven that A is true and false, so the assumption that the argument is invalid led to a contradiction, and must be false.
6. Therefore, the argument must be valid.

Example 2

1. If all dogs are mammals, then all dogs are animals.
2. All dogs are animals.
3. Therefore, all dogs are mammals.

Although the premises and conclusion are true, the argument form is invalid. The argument form is the following:

1. If A, then B.
2. B.
3. Therefore, A.

We can then replace the variables to create a counterexample that uses this argument form with true premises and a false conclusion. The variables will be replaced with the following statements:

A: All dogs are reptiles.
B: All dogs are mammals.

This leads to the following counterexample:

1. If all dogs are reptiles, then all dogs are animals.
2. All dogs are animals.
3. Therefore, all dogs are reptiles.

Both premises are true, but the conclusion is false. Therefore, the argument form must be invalid.

Example 3

1. Either it’s wrong to indiscriminately kill people, or it’s not wrong to kill someone just because she has red hair.
2. It’s wrong to kill someone just because she has red hair.
3. Therefore, it’s wrong to indiscriminately kill people.

This time the premises are true, the conclusion is true, and the argument form is valid. The argument form is the following:

1. Either A or “B is false.”
2. B (is true).
3. Therefore A.

Let’s try to prove this argument is valid by proving it’s impossible to provide a counterexample. We can assume it’s invalid only to find out that such an assumption will lead to a contradiction.

1. We assume the premises are true and the conclusion is false.
2. We assume A is false because it’s the conclusion.
3. We assume B is true because it’s a premise.
4. We assume “Either A or ‘B is false’” is true.
5. “Either A or ‘B is false’” requires that either A is true or “B is false” is true.
6. We know A is false, so “B is false” must be true.
7. Therefore, B is true and false.
8. Therefore, the argument form can’t be invalid (and it’s valid).

Example 4

1. Either disciplining people is always wrong or it’s not always wrong to discipline people for committing crimes.
2. Disciplining people hurts them.
3. Therefore, disciplining people is always wrong.

This argument is invalid, and it’s already a counterexample because the premises are true and the conclusion is false. The argument form is the following:

1. Either A or “B is false.”
2. C
3. Therefore, B.

Another counterexample is the following:

1. Either murder is always appropriate or it’s not always appropriate to murder people for making you angry.
2. Murdering people hurts them.
3. Therefore, murder is always appropriate.

Example 5

1. It’s often good to give to charity.
2. If it’s often good to give to charity, then the Earth is round.
3. Therefore, the Earth is round.

This argument is logically valid, even though the premises seem to lack relevance. Logical validity doesn’t guarantee relevance. The same argument form can be used to make good arguments, such as: “All mammals are animals; if all mammals are animals, then all mammals are organisms; therefore all mammals are organisms.”

The argument form is the following:

1. A.
2. If A, then B.
3. Therefore, B.

This is basically the same argument form as the first example, so no further proof of validity is required.

Example 6

1. The death penalty leads to the death of innocent people.
2. Therefore, the death penalty sometimes leads to the death of innocent people.

This argument is circular, but it’s still logically valid. The argument structure is the following:

1. A.
2. Therefore, A.

We can prove the argument is valid by proving that it’s impossible to have a counterexample. Such an argument looks like the following:

1. We assume the premise is true and the conclusion is false.
2. We assume A is false because it’s the conclusion.
3. We assume A is true because it’s the premise.
4. Therefore, A is true and false.
5. Therefore, the argument can’t be invalid (and must be valid).

Example 7

1. Murder is always wrong.
2. Sometimes murder isn’t wrong.
3. Therefore, the death penalty should be illegal.

The premises contradict each other, but the argument is still valid because it’s impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion to be false at the same time. We can tell that both premises can’t be true at the same time, so it’s impossible to make a counterexample because that would require both premises to be true. The argument form looks like the following:

1. A.
2. “A is false.”
3. Therefore, B.

We can prove this argument to be valid by showing why a counterexample can’t be given:

1. We assume the premises are true and the conclusion is false.
2. A is assumed to be true.
3. “A is false” is assumed to be true.
4. B is assumed to be false.
5. Therefore, A is true and false.
6. Therefore, it’s impossible to have a counterexample and the argument must be valid.

Example 8

1. It’s wrong to refuse to hire the most qualified applicant due to irrelevant criteria.
2. Therefore, it’s wrong to refuse to hire the most qualified applicant due to the color of her skin.

This argument might sound like it’s valid, but it’s technically invalid with the following argument form:

1. A.
2. Therefore, B.

A counterexample would be the following:

1. It’s good to help people improve themselves.
2. Therefore, it’s good to help prisoners escape from prison.

The reason why the argument might sound valid is because we have an assumption that the color of an applicant’s skin is irrelevant criteria. We could then make the argument valid using the following reasoning:

1. It’s wrong to refuse to hire the most qualified applicant due to irrelevant criteria.
2. If it’s wrong to refuse to hire the most qualified applicant due to irrelevant criteria, then it’s wrong to refuse to hire the most qualified applicant due to the color of her skin (because skin color is irrelevant criteria).
3. Therefore, it’s wrong to refuse to hire the most qualified applicant due to the color of her skin.

The argument form is now:

1. A.
2. If A, then B.
3. Therefore, B.

This argument form is the same as was used in example 1 and has already been proven to be valid.

Example 9

1. We should try to keep an open mind.
2. Therefore, either rocks exist or rocks don’t exist.

This argument has a premise that seems irrelevant to the conclusion, but it’s still logically valid because the conclusion will be true no matter what. It can’t be invalid because a counterexample requires the conclusion to be false. The argument form looks like the following:

1. A.
2. Therefore, B or “B is false.”

We can prove this argument is valid by proving that we can’t have a counterexample using the following reasoning:

1. Let’s assume that we can develop a counterexample, so the premise is assumed to be true and the conclusion is assumed to be false.
2. We assume A is true because it’s a premise.
3. We assume “B or ‘B is false’” to be false because it’s a conclusion.
4. Another way to say “a or b” is to say “it’s false that a is false and b is false.” (To say “dogs are mammals or animals” means “it’s false that dogs aren’t mammals and dogs aren’t animals.”)
5. Therefore, “B or ‘B is false’” is equivalent to “it’s false that B is false and ‘B is false’ is false.”
6. Therefore saying that “B or ‘B is false’” is false means that it’s true that B is false and “B is false” is false.
7. If “B is false” is false, then it’s true.
8. Therefore B is true and false.
9. Therefore, it’s impossible for this argument to be invalid (and it’s valid).

Example 10

1. All cats are mammals.
2. Therefore, some cats are mammals.

This argument is invalid despite the fact that it might look valid. The statement “All cats are mammals” is equivalent to “if something is a cat, then it’s a mammal” and the statement “some cats are mammals” is equivalent to “there is at least one cat and it’s a mammal.” We can then reveal the logical structure as the following:

1. If X exists then it’s a Y.
2. Therefore, an X exists right now and it’s a Y.

The problem here is that it’s the existential fallacy—we can’t assume that something exists in a conclusion when no premise claims something to exist. In this case we can’t assume a cat exists just because all cats are mammals. A counterexample could be the following:

1. If a something is a mammoth, then it’s a mammal.
2. Therefore, a mammoth exists right now, and it’s a mammal.

The main difference between these two arguments is that we know that cats exist right now. That’s the hidden premise that can be used to fix the argument:

1. If something is a cat, then it’s a mammal.
2. A cat exists right now.
3. Therefore, a cat exists right now and it’s a mammal.

Update (6/21/2011): I updated the explanation for my answer for “example 1.”

What are formal counterexamples?

Whenever someone asserts something false, we can attempt to give a counterexample. For example, someone who claims that all animals are mammals can be proven wrong when we give an example of an animal that’s a reptile rather than a mammal, such as a lizard. Formal counterexamples prove that an argument is logically invalid rather than that beliefs are false.

An argument is logically valid if it’s impossible for the argument structure to have true premises and a false conclusion at the same time. Any argument that’s not logically valid is invalid—the argument structure can have true premises and a false conclusion at the same time. A counterexample proves that a logical form is invalid because it can have true premises and a false conclusion at the same time.

Consider the following argument:

1. All dogs are mammals.
2. All cats are animals.
3. Therefore, all dogs are animals.

This argument has true premises and a true conclusion, but it’s logically invalid. The argument form is the following:

1. All A are B.
2. All C are D.
3. Therefore, all A are D.

A counterexample is the following:

1. All dogs are mammals.
2. All lizards are reptiles.
3. Therefore, all dogs are reptiles.

We kept the same argument form, replaced C and D, and the result is that both premises are still true, but the conclusion is false.

How do we create formal counterexamples?

To create a counterexample, you should (a) find the argument structure, and (b) find content for the argument form that will have true premises and a false conclusion by replacing the variables (letters).

For example, consider the following invalid argument:

1. If a human fetus is a person, then it’s wrong to have an abortion.
2. It’s wrong to have an abortion.
3. Therefore, a human fetus is a person.

The argument form can be revealed when we remove all the content until we are left with logical connectives and variables. In the case of this argument the content of the argument are statements—various truth claims. In this case the argument form is the following:

1. If A, then B.
2. B.
3. Therefore, A.

We can then replace these variables with new content (statements). A counterexample could use the following schema (content for the variables):

A: Dogs are reptiles.

B: Dogs are animals.

The counterexample using this schema is the following:

1. If dogs are reptiles, then dogs are animals.
2. Dogs are animals.
3. Therefore, dogs are reptiles.

The first two premises are true, but the conclusion is false. If dogs are reptiles, then they are animals, even though they aren’t reptiles because “all reptiles are animals.”

Conclusion

Understanding logical form and validity is important for proper argumentation. Although we have an intuitive grasp of logical form and validity, we can learn more about it and improve our understanding. Learning formal counterexamples not only helps us to improve our understanding of logical form, but it also helps us learn how to prove that certain arguments are logically invalid.

Practice problems

Example 1

1. All dogs are mammals.
2. No dogs are lizards.
3. Therefore, no mammals are lizards.

Example 2

Imagine that Erica and her friend Elizabeth have a conversation and Erica argues, “Abortion should be legal in the first trimester because the fetus doesn’t yet have a brain, and we don’t find the interests of creatures that lack brains to be of particular importance.” Elizabeth then responds, “Erica, your argument is probably flawed because you smoke marijuana and rob liquor stores.” Let’s assume that Erica really does smoke marijuana and rob liquor stores.

Example 3

Most people think homosexuality is immoral, therefore it probably is.

Example 4

The theory of evolution doesn’t yet explain all relevant phenomenon. For example, it’s not entirely clear how a life form can have a mind from having a brain or complex nervous system. Therefore, evolution is probably false.

Example 5

Stacy stole millions of dollars from her company, laughed about it, and tried to skip town. And she’s still smiling. We captured her and we ought to wipe that smile off her face. She ought to get the death penalty.

Example 6

We have faith that our wife won’t cheat on us, that gravity will still exist tomorrow, and that bread will still be a form of food rather than poison two seconds from now. It’s perfectly reasonable to have faith in many contexts and there’s nothing unusually offensive about having faith in God. Therefore, it’s perfectly reasonable to have faith in the existence of God.

Example 7

It’s wrong to kill innocent helpless people who aren’t in any pain including five-year-old children laughing and playing with their friends, and good people sleeping soundly in their beds. Fetuses are innocent and helpless. Therefore, abortion is wrong.

Example 8

Imagine that Tina and Jennifer have a discussion. Tina says, “There probably isn’t any life on the moon. We have seen no evidence of life there, and we’ve examined soil from the moon pretty closely.” Jennifer then replies, “But we have no proof that life isn’t on the moon because it could just be well hidden. We might as well assume that life is probably on the moon until we can prove there isn’t any.”

Example 9

Statistics show that countries that have low crime rates generally have more atheists than countries with higher crime rates. Therefore, atheists are probably less immoral than people who believe in gods.

Example 10

I don’t get sick very often whenever I take daily multivitamins, so multivitamins will probably help me avoid illness in the future.

Example 11

Either we should have a free market or communism. If we have communism, then people will lose the motivation to provide quality products and services for a fair price, and that’s a good reason to reject communism. If we have a good reason to reject communism, then we have a good reason to have a a free market. Therefore, we have a good reason to have a free market.

Example 12

It’s not usually wrong to kill insects. Insects and rats are analogous insofar as they are both living creatures. Therefore, it’s not usually wrong to kill rats.

Example 13

Imagine that Cathy and Amanda have a discussion, and Cathy says, “Men should be the leader in a heterosexual relationship because there’s often no way to resolve disagreements when there are no leaders.” Amanda disagrees and responds, “You want me to believe that men should be the leader of a relationship, but many leaders in the world are tyrants and do horrible things.”

Example 14

Imagine that Margaret and Eddie have a discussion and Margaret says, “Abortion should be legal when the pregnancy is a result of rape because she didn’t choose to do anything that would lead to a pregnancy, and we should only be responsible to another person when we choose to put ourselves in a situation where we might have control over the well being of the person.” Eddie disagrees and replies, “You want to argue that a woman who get pregnant from rape never wanted to get pregnant, so they aren’t responsible for the child, but what we want often has nothing to do with right and wrong. In this case I see no reason to think that the fact a woman doesn’t want a child could make it right to kill the child.”

Example 15

It’s wrong to refuse to hire the most qualified applicant who is black just because you don’t like black people because it’s wrong to discriminate against people using arbitrary criteria rather than relevant qualifications, and it’s wrong to refuse the most qualified applicant who is an atheist for the same reason.

Example 16

All lawyers must have a degree, therefore some lawyers must have a degree.

Example 17

1. Either the universe was created or always existed.
2. The universe didn’t always exist.
3. Therefore, the universe was created.

Example 18

Penny and Jill have a discussion and Penny says, “Men and women should be treated as equals because people should be rewarded and given power based on their qualifications rather than their sex, which is irrelevant to a person’s qualification.” Jill then replies, “You argue that men and women should be equals because being a woman is irrelevant to one’s qualifications, but I disagree. I think women are often more qualified to work with children than men based on my experience with women and many other people share that experience. Therefore, I don’t think men and women should be treated as equals in every situation. We should assume women are going to better at certain things than men and vice versa.”

Example 19

We have some evidence of bigfoot from footprints left in soil, and many of the footprints aren’t from any known animal. Therefore, bigfoot probably exists.

Example 20

Hansel and Gretel have a discussion and Hansel says, “I saw a ghost once, and I don’t think my experience could be explained by anything else, so I believe in them.” Gretel doesn’t believe in ghosts and responds, “But ghosts are unlikely to exist given our understanding of the universe. A being can’t have a mind unless it has a body and brain.”

Example 21

We know that all men are probably mortal because we probably would have found someone who is immortal by now if there are any. We are amazed when people live to be 100 years old or older, and we will be even more amazed to find someone who can’t die.

My answers

Example 1

1. All dogs are mammals.
2. No dogs are lizards.
3. Therefore, no mammals are lizards.

This argument is logically invalid because we can accept both premises and reject the conclusion. If the premises of an argument can both be true when the conclusion is simultaneously false, then it’s invalid. The argument form is the following:

1. All A are B.
2. No A are C.
3. Therefore, No B are C.

We can replace A, B, and C, to come up with a counterexample where the premises are true and the conclusion is false:

1. All dogs are mammals.
2. No dogs are cats.
3. Therefore, no cats are mammals.

Example 2

Imagine that Erica and her friend Elizabeth have a conversation and Erica argues, “Abortion should be legal in the first trimester because the fetus doesn’t yet have a brain, and we don’t find the interests of creatures that lack brains to be of particular importance.” Elizabeth then responds, “Erica, your argument is probably flawed because you smoke marijuana and rob liquor stores.” Let’s assume that Erica really does smoke marijuana and rob liquor stores.

Elizabeth’s argument is an ad hominem fallacy, which argues that an argument is flawed simply because the person who produced the argument is flawed. Everyone is flawed, but sometimes people are still able to make use of good reasoning.

The ad hominem fallacy is a more specific variety of the “red herring” fallacy because it is simply irrelevant to the argument and it is often used to distract people from the argument rather than engage in a genuine debate.

Example 3

Most people think homosexuality is immoral, therefore it probably is.

This is an example of the “bandwagon fallacy.” The fact that a belief is popular doesn’t mean it’s true or even likely to be true. For example, paganism was very popular in the past, but that doesn’t seem to give us any reason to think it’s true (or was true in the past). There are also many popular myths (false beliefs), such as the belief that cold weather gives people colds.

Example 4

The theory of evolution doesn’t yet explain all relevant phenomenon. For example, it’s not entirely clear how a life form can have a mind from having a brain or complex nervous system. Therefore, evolution is probably false.

It is true that the theory of evolution doesn’t yet explain all phenomenon, and it’s true that scientists strive to have comprehensive theories that can explain everything in the relevant domain. However, being comprehensive is an ideal that is rarely reached with perfection within science and the fact that a theory is incomplete and faces anomalies doesn’t prove a theory to be false.

This is an example of an “appeal to ignorance” fallacy because it’s assumed that if we don’t know something, then something else can be proven (or disproven). What we don’t know is rarely evidence in favor of any particular belief. If we don’t know everything about evolution, that doesn’t disprove evolution anymore than it disproves all competing theories, which fare no better than evolution. For example, creationism doesn’t explain everything either.

Example 5

Stacy stole millions of dollars from her company, laughed about it, and tried to skip town. And she’s still smiling. We captured her and we ought to wipe that smile off her face. She ought to get the death penalty.

This is an example of the “emotional appeal” fallacy because we are expected to agree with the conclusion just because we are expected to be angry at Stacy for her crime and remorselessness. Although emotions are not necessarily irrelevant to argumentation, the emotion of anger isn’t relevant enough to prove that the conclusion is true. Again, irrelevant facts used in arguments are examples of red herrings and are often used to distract us rather than engage in genuine debate.

Example 6

We have faith that our wife won’t cheat on us, that gravity will still exist tomorrow, and that bread will still be a form of food rather than poison two seconds from now. It’s perfectly reasonable to have faith in many contexts and there’s nothing unusually offensive about having faith in God. Therefore, it’s perfectly reasonable to have faith in the existence of God.

This is an example of the equivocation fallacy because the word “faith” is used in two different ways. It is true that faith seems perfectly rational in the sense that we often lack certainty. We aren’t entirely certain that gravity will still exist tomorrow, but it’s still reasonable to believe it will. However, it’s not clear that faith in God’s existence is rational in this sense. We have evidence that gravity will still exist tomorrow, but it’s not clear that we have evidence in God’s existence. Even if we do have evidence in God’s existence, it doesn’t seem to be based on tangible observation, like our evidence of our wife’s fidelity or the existence of gravity.

Again, equivocation could be taken to be a red herring fallacy because it’s merely a confusion of language and can distract us from a genuine debate. The two different uses of a word are treated as the same word when they are actually two different words. The word “faith” has two different definitions insofar as it really is two different words that both look the same. When we use the word “faith” early on in the argument it means one thing, and later on it means something else and we might as well change it to be “gaith” rather than “faith” to make it clear that two different concepts are being used.

Example 7

It’s wrong to kill innocent helpless people who aren’t in any pain including five-year-old children laughing and playing with their friends, and good people sleeping soundly in their beds. Fetuses are innocent and helpless. Therefore, abortion is wrong.

This argument is an example of the “begging the question” fallacy insofar as it assumes what it must prove—that fetuses are people. Even if it’s wrong to kill innocent people, that doesn’t prove that all fetuses are people.

Example 8

Imagine that Tina and Jennifer have a discussion. Tina says, “There probably isn’t any life on the moon. We have seen no evidence of life there, and we’ve examined soil from the moon pretty closely.” Jennifer then replies, “But we have no proof that life isn’t on the moon because it could just be well hidden. We might as well assume that life is probably on the moon until we can prove there isn’t any.”

This is an example of reversing the burden of proof, which is one way people can use the appeal to ignorance fallacy. We have no reason to think that life could be on the moon, so it seems reasonable to assume there isn’t any—and anyone who wants to assume such a thing has the burden of proof. Jennifer wants to say that there needs to be strong evidence that there isn’t any life on the moon or we can rationally assume that there is, so she blatantly changes the burden of proof to the other side. There is some evidence that there is no life on the moon, but she’s right that we could have missed something. Nonetheless, it seems clear that we have more reason to think there’s no life on the moon than to assume there is.

Example 9

Statistics show that countries that have low crime rates generally have more atheists than countries with higher crime rates. Therefore, atheists are probably less immoral than people who believe in gods.

This is an example of the “false cause” fallacy. In particular, it assumes that correlation indicates causation. The fact that two elements are commonly found together isn’t strong evidence that one element causes the other. There could be some factor to explain why countries with many atheists have low crime rates other than the assumption that atheism makes people behave themselves better. Perhaps those countries don’t have a war on drugs.

One example of when correlation doesn’t indicate causation is when a person wears their “lucky socks” because they got lucky in the past while wearing them, but the socks actually had nothing to do with being lucky.

Example 10

I don’t get sick very often whenever I take daily multivitamins, so multivitamins will probably help me avoid illness in the future.

This is an example of the anecdotal fallacy, which uses testimonial evidence; and it is one way to use a “hasty generalization” fallacy. Personal experience is often insufficient to reach conclusions because it would require us to draw extreme generalizations based on a small sample. We often draw appropriate generalizations from our experiences, but we should be careful to have sufficient evidence before drawing conclusions. Racism is often based on anecdotal evidence and hasty generalizations when someone has negative experiences with people of another race. We can’t just assume a group of people all share negative characteristics because of our bad experiences with people from that group.

Example 11

Either we should have a free market or communism. If we have communism, then people will lose the motivation to provide quality products and services for a fair price, and that’s a good reason to reject communism. If we have a good reason to reject communism, then we have a good reason to have a a free market. Therefore, we have a good reason to have a free market.

This is an example of a false dilemma fallacy, which is a failure to consider all viable options. A free market and communism aren’t our only options. There are versions of capitalism, socialism, and mixtures of the two that don’t necessarily have a free market (and aren’t communist economies). A problem with communism can’t prove that we have a reason to favor the free market because we need to compare the pros and cons of every viable economic option we have.

When we fail to consider every viable option, we are also engaging in a form of cherry-picking (the “suppressed evidence” fallacy), where important information contrary to our argument is ignored, and information favorable to our argument is emphasized.

Example 12

It’s not usually wrong to kill insects. Insects and rats are analogous insofar as they are both living creatures. Therefore, it’s not usually wrong to kill rats.

This is an example of a “false analogy” fallacy because the two things aren’t as analogous as would be necessary to draw the conclusion. It’s true that insects and rats are analogous insofar as they are both life forms, but the assumption here is that it’s not usually wrong to kill any life form. However, the state of mind of the organism could be relevant and rats are significantly more intelligent than insects are; and human beings are organisms, but it’s usually wrong to kill them (perhaps because of their intelligence). Therefore, we have cause for concern when we are told that insects are analogous to rats insofar as it’s usually not wrong to kill them purely based on the fact that they are both living creatures.

Example 13

Imagine that Cathy and Amanda have a discussion, and Cathy says, “Men should be the leader in a heterosexual relationship because there’s often no way to resolve disagreements when there are no leaders.” Amanda disagrees and responds, “You want me to believe that men should be the leader of a relationship, but many leaders in the world are tyrants and do horrible things.”

Although Cathy’s argument is flawed, my concern here is with Amanda’s response. Her response is flawed because the fact that many leaders do horrible things doesn’t help us know whether men should be the leader in heterosexual relationships or not. It could be taken to be a red herring fallacy because it lacks relevance and can distract us from having a genuine debate.

Example 14

Imagine that Margaret and Eddie have a discussion and Margaret says, “Abortion should be legal when the pregnancy is a result of rape because she didn’t choose to do anything that would lead to a pregnancy, and we should only be responsible to another person when we choose to put ourselves in a situation where we might have control over the well being of the person.” Eddie disagrees and replies, “You want to argue that a woman who get pregnant from rape never wanted to get pregnant, so they aren’t responsible for the child, but what we want often has nothing to do with right and wrong. In this case I see no reason to think that the fact a woman doesn’t want a child could make it right to kill the child.”

Again, my interest here is with Eddie’s objection. Eddie changes Margaret’s argument and objects to the new version of the argument. Margaret claimed that women who are raped never choose to do anything to become responsible for another person, but Eddie equated that with “women who are raped often don’t want to have a child.” That’s uncharitable to Margaret’s argument and it’s known as the “straw man” fallacy because he created a person made of straw to argue against rather than engaging in a genuine discussion with Margaret. The straw man fallacy is a type of red herring fallacy because it distracts us from the original argument with irrelevant claims.

Example 15

It’s wrong to refuse to hire the most qualified applicant who is black just because you don’t like black people because it’s wrong to discriminate against people using arbitrary criteria rather than relevant qualifications, and it’s wrong to refuse the most qualified applicant who is an atheist for the same reason.

No major errors in reasoning here. The argument is the following:

1. It’s wrong to discriminate against people using arbitrary criteria.
2. If we refuse to hire the most qualified applicant for being an atheist, then we are discriminating against her using arbitrary criteria.
3. Therefore, it’s wrong to discriminate against atheists.

This argument is valid, and some justification was given in support—we know it’s wrong to discriminate against black people and there’s no reason to think being an atheist is any more relevant for a job than being black.

Example 16

All lawyers must have a degree, therefore some lawyers must have a degree.

This is an example of the existential fallacy. This argument might be good enough in ordinary discourse, but it’s technically invalid. The premise could be taken to be equivalent to “if someone is a lawyer (right now), then she must have a degree,” and the conclusion can be taken to be equivalent to “there is at least one lawyer (right now) who has a degree.” The problem here is that the premise isn’t enough to prove the conclusion. It could be that all lawyers must have a degree, but there are no lawyers. The premise can be true and the conclusion can be false at the same time. This argument has the form “If something is X, then Y; therefore something is X and Y.” Consider the following counterexample that has a true premise but false conclusion:

1. If any pterodactyls exist right now, then they are reptiles.
2. Therefore, there’s a pterodactyl and it’s a reptile.

Of course, the argument could be good enough in ordinary discourse because we all have the assumption that there is a lawyer who exists right now. The argument is valid as long as we have that assumption.

Example 17

1. Either the universe was created or always existed.
2. The universe didn’t always exist.
3. Therefore, the universe was created.

This argument is valid, but the problem is that the premises are controversial and they lead us to a highly controversial conclusion—and the premises lack justification. Whenever we argue, we need to make sure to justify all of our premises, especially if they are controversial. Anyone who wants to reject the conclusion could easily reject one of the premises.

Example 18

Penny and Jill have a discussion and Penny says, “Men and women should be treated as equals because people should be rewarded and given power based on their qualifications rather than their sex, which is irrelevant to a person’s qualification.” Jill then replies, “You argue that men and women should be equals because being a woman is irrelevant to one’s qualifications, but I disagree. I think women are often more qualified to work with children than men based on my experience with women and many other people share that experience. Therefore, I don’t think men and women should be treated as equals in every situation. We should assume women are going to better at certain things than men and vice versa.”

My concern here is Jill’s objection to Penny’s argument. Jill’s objection is successful insofar as she argues against one of Jill’s premises—that sex is irrelevant to our qualifications—but rejecting that premise isn’t sufficient to reject the conclusion. Even if Penny’s argument fails, there might be some other reason we should conclude that men and women should be treated as equals. Perhaps treating them as equals is the only way to stop unfair power distributions.

This could be taken to be an example of an “appeal to ignorance” because the fact that someone doesn’t know how to reach a conclusion given a certain argument doesn’t prove that the conclusion is false.

Example 19

We have some evidence of bigfoot from footprints left in soil, and many of the footprints aren’t from any known animal. Therefore, bigfoot probably exists.

There is evidence of bigfoot, but that doesn’t mean bigfoot probably exists because the evidence isn’t sufficient to come to that conclusion. The evidence for bigfoot could be a case of misidentification, misinterpretation, or a hoax. We need to make sure our conclusions aren’t exaggerated or overly ambitious.

Example 20

Hansel and Gretel have a discussion and Hansel says, “I saw a ghost once, and I don’t think my experience could be explained by anything else, so I believe in them.” Gretel doesn’t believe in ghosts and responds, “But ghosts are unlikely to exist given our understanding of the universe. A being can’t have a mind unless it has a body and brain.”

My concern here is with Gretel’s objection to Hansel’s argument. Hansel gives an argument for ghosts and Gretel gives an argument against them, but we have no way to know who’s right from this conversation. The problem is that Gretel objects to Hansel’s conclusion, but if Hansel’s argument is sound, then the conclusion must be true. The only way we can reject Hansel’s argument and conclusion is to show (1) why the argument fails and (2) why the conclusion is false. Gretel failed to do the first step, so she isn’t yet in a position to prove that Hansel’s argument fails. This gives us reason to worry that Hansel’s conclusion might not be false after all.

Example 21

We know that all men are probably mortal because we probably would have found someone who is immortal by now if there are any. We are amazed when people live to be 100 years old or older, and we will be even more amazed to find someone who can’t die.

This argument is sufficiently good in most conversations, but it’s logically invalid—the premises can be true and the conclusion can be false at the same time. The argument is the following:

1. We probably would have found an immortal man by now if there are any.
2. Therefore, there probably aren’t any.

The argument structure is “A, therefore B.” The problem is that they are too unrelated. A counterexample would be, “The sky is blue, therefore Canada is a grapefruit.”

We can fix the argument by discovering our assumption—We haven’t found any immortal men. We can now rewrite the argument using the missing premise:

1. We haven’t found any immortal men.
2. We probably would have found an immortal man by now if there are any.
3. Therefore, there probably aren’t any.

It’s wrong to refuse to hire the most qualified applicant who is black just because you don’t like black people because it’s wrong to discriminate against people using arbitrary criteria rather than relevant qualifications, and it’s wrong to refuse the most qualified applicant who is an atheist for the same reason.

What’s a positive argument?

A positive argument is contrasted with a negative one—an objection. A positive argument puts forward a justification or evidence for having a belief that isn’t primarily meant to be used to challenge the justification to another argument. An example of a positive argument is “we know bread is nutritious because people who eat bread as food seem to do well compared to those who eat certain other things, such as grass or sand.” An example of a negative argument is “the argument that bread is nutritious assumes that we can know the future from what happens in the past, but such an assumption wasn’t properly justified.”

Positive arguments have a variety of different kinds of conclusions, and they aren’t all meant to “prove that something is true.” You can argue that a belief is plausible, probable, accurate, or reasonable; or you can merely provide some consideration in favor of a belief.

Additionally, positive arguments don’t have to be “for a belief.” They can be “against a belief” instead. You can use a positive argument to try to prove that a belief is implausible, improbable, inaccurate, or unreasonable; or you can merely provide some consideration against a belief.

Step 1: Initial thoughts

First, consider what belief you want to argue for and what reasons you have for having the belief. Imagine that Lisa doesn’t believe in ghosts and she wants to persuade others that ghosts don’t exist. She can’t prove that ghosts don’t exist for certain because they might be invisible, ethereal, and very difficult to find. However, she thinks rejection of ghosts is justified because the existence of ghosts seems far-fetched, just like beliefs in fairies, unicorns, and goblins. Any of these beings could exist, but they seem unlikely to exist based on a lack of tangible evidence of their existence. The existence of ghosts seems analogous to those other beings—it seems unlikely they exist for the same reason. So far Lisa’s argument looks like the following:

1. Ghosts are far-fetched.
2. Therefore, we have reason to disbelieve in ghosts.

Step 2: Find your assumptions

This argument might look good, but we are actually missing something. The argument is logically invalid because the premise isn’t enough to prove the conclusion. Even if the premise is true, the conclusion could be false. Perhaps an entity can be far-fetched, but we might have no reason to disbelieve in it—perhaps we shouldn’t believe either way. The argument requires the assumption that if an entity is far-fetched, then we have a reason to reject the existence of the entity. Lisa can add this assumption to the above argument to correct it:

1. If an entity is far-fetched, then we have a reason to disbelieve in it.
2. Ghosts are far-fetched.
3. Therefore, we have reason to disbelieve in ghosts.

Step 3: Why agree with the premises?

Philosophical arguments can be logically valid, but that’s not sufficient for them to be philosophical. An argument can be valid, but unjustified. (e.g. “All dogs are mammals, some cats are dogs, therefore some cats are mammals” is valid, but it’s unjustified because we know one of the premises is false.) We need to know why people should agree with the premises. This can be explained, in part, by why we hold a belief. Lisa should consider why she agrees with the two premises to tell others why they should agree with her. She comes up with the following justifications for her premises:

Premise 1: If an entity is far-fetched, then we have a reason to disbelieve in it.

Lisa thinks that we have a reason to disbelieve in far-fetched entities, such as goblins, fairies, and unicorns. However, why should we disbelieve in such things? What makes these beings analogous?

Lisa should examine the terminology she uses. What exactly does it mean for an entity to be “far-fetched?” Lisa decides that an entity is “far-fetched” when it’s a substantial claim about reality that is used to explain various phenomena when the phenomena could be substantially better explained without it. Goblins, fairies, and unicorns seem far-fetched; but dogs and cats aren’t far-fetched.

Consider the following illustration of something that’s not far-fetched. We know that many people live in houses and we could explain why a light is on in a house by saying, “A human being is in that house.” We are positing a substantial claim about reality—the existence of a human being—but the existence of such a being is plausible rather than far-fetched given our knowledge of houses and the humans who live in them. There isn’t a substantially better option available.

We could say that we have a reason to disbelieve in far-fetched entities because they conflict with Occam’s Razor insofar as they “multiply entities beyond necessity.” Some substantial claims about reality don’t actually violate Occam’s Razor because they might be the best explanation for the phenomena given other considerations. For example, many people thought germs seemed far-fetched, but germs were still the best explanation for various illnesses. Nonetheless, a far-fetched entity that is meant to explain something, but a different explanation is significantly better seems to violate Occam’s Razor. Germs seemed far-fetched to people who didn’t know the facts, but germs were the best explanation various phenomena. Goblins, fairies, and unicorns aren’t the best explanation for any phenomena.

Consider the following illustration of Occam’s Razor. Whenever my keys aren’t where I left them, I might blame a “keyblin,” a goblin-like creature that moves our keys when we aren’t watching. The belief in this entity violates Occam’s Razor because there are better explanations (e.g. my mind is playing tricks on me) and it seems wrong to posit the existence of an entity to be used as an explanation when better explanations are available. Instead, it’s appropriate to disbelieve in keyblins.

Occam’s razor is the reason to endorse premise 1, but it doesn’t disprove the existence of keyblins, goblins, or anything else. The best explanation for phenomena is based on our current information and ignorance, and sometimes we find out that far-fetched entities really do exist. (e.g. Gorillas used to be thought to be mythical beasts.) Instead, premise 1 merely attempts to show that we have a reason to disbelieve in certain far-fetched entities, such as goblins, fairies, and unicorns. Such a reason can be merely one consideration among others.

Premise 2: Ghosts are far-fetched.

Lisa thinks that ghosts are analogous to goblins, fairies, and unicorns; but it’s not obvious that they are analogous. Are ghosts far-fetched? Do ghosts also violate Occam’s Razor?

Lisa decided that entities are far-fetched when they are substantial claims about reality that are used as explanations when there are significantly better alternative explanations. Ghosts are a substantial claim about reality, and such a claim about reality seems like it violates Occam’s Razor because it’s not clear that ghosts are the best explanation for any phenomena. Lisa thinks an entity violates Occam’s Razor if there are better alternative explanations. There is anecdotal evidence for ghosts based on personal experience, but such experiences might not be best explained by ghosts. The experiences could be based on “misidentification” (mistaking one entity for another) or “misinterpretation” (thinking an experience means something it doesn’t). In extreme cases an experience of a ghost could be based on a hallucination or a dream.

Again, Occam’s razor seems like a reason to disbelieve in ghosts, but it doesn’t actually prove ghosts exist. Lisa merely wants to present us with a consideration to disbelieve in ghosts rather than prove that ghosts don’t exist.

Step 4: Presentation of the argument

Lisa has thought of her argument and the justification for her premises, but it still needs to be written out and explained. She writes the following:

I will present an argument against the belief in ghosts. We have reason to disbelieve in ghosts because (1) if an entity is far-fetched, then we have a reason to reject it and (2) ghosts are far-fetched. Ghosts are analogous to goblins, fairies, and unicorns; and we have reason to reject the existence of all of these things for the same reason. They all violate Occam’s Razor—we should reject far-fetched entities because better explanations are available.

What does it mean to say that an entity is “far-fetched”? Entities are “far-fetched” in the relevant sense when they are substantial claims about reality that are used to explain something, but significantly better alternative explanations are available that don’t require substantial claims about reality. Goblins, fairies, and unicorns are all possible explanations for various phenomena, such as legendary stories. It’s possible that they really do exist and that the legendary stories of these beings exist because such beings really do exist, but it seems more likely that these stories were just made up by people. We know that people make up stories involving beings that are also made up, and goblins, fairies, and unicorns are probably in legendary stories for that reason. That seems more plausible than to require that these entities really exist. There is no need to posit such substantial claims about reality when there are better alternative explanations available that don’t require substantial claims about reality.

Occam’s Razor states that we shouldn’t “multiply entities beyond necessity” and it’s not necessary to posit the existence of a far-fetched entity because plausible alternative explanations are available, so the belief in far-fetched entities is a violation of Occam’s Razor. Instead, Occam’s Razor gives us a reason to reject the existence of far-fetched entities by favoring the alternative explanations.

Why should people agree that we have a reason to reject the existence of far-fetched entities? One reason to agree that we have a reason to reject the existence of far-fetched entities is because we know that we should disbelieve in far-fetched entities, such as goblins, fairies, and unicorns because they are far-fetched. If we have no reason to disbelieve in far-fetched entities, then it’s not clear why it’s rational to disbelieve in goblins, fairies, or unicorns. None of these three entities has uniquely offensive characteristics other than being a substantial claim about reality that are used as explanations for various phenomena that could be better explained in some other way.

One possible explanation for why we should reject far-fetched entities and accept Occam’s Razor as a theoretical principal is that substantial claims about reality involve more assumptions than insubstantial claims, and fewer assumptions have a higher chance of being true than several assumptions. If I claim that a light probably turned on at a neighbor’s house because a human is in the house, then I am making a substantial claim about reality—a person exists in a house—but it’s not far-fetched because we know lights often turn on in people’s houses because people turn them on. What would be far-fetched is to claim that a goblin must have turned the light on. That claim requires more assumptions. Both claims require the assumption that an intelligent being turned a light on in a house, but only one of these claims requires us to accept that goblins exist. It’s more likely that the first option is true than the second because the assumption that goblins exist is less likely to be true than no assumption about goblins at all. Occam’s Razor doesn’t prove that goblins don’t exist, but it gives us a reason to find it unlikely that they exist, and that seems like a good enough reason to think that they don’t when it’s combined with our knowledge of people making up stories (involving beings that are also made up).

Why should we agree that ghosts far-fetched? Ghosts seem analogous to goblins, fairies, and unicorns. Ghosts are in stories and people claim to have testimonial evidence of ghosts, but such stories are likely made up, and such testimonial experiences are better explained in other ways. Such alternative explanations include misidentification (e.g. people can mistake an animal under a cloth for a ghost), misinterpretation (e.g. people can interpret their experiences in outlandish ways), hallucinations, and dreams. We know that many people have misidentified entities, misinterpreted their experiences, thought hallucinations were real, and thought dreams were real. One common and relevant form of misinterpretation is when we attribute human-like qualities to nonhuman entities. This is well documented in psychology. For example, people often attribute human-like thoughts to their pet dogs and cats. These various explanations are ordinary and to be expected, and the explanation involving the existence of ghosts adds an extra layer of assumptions that don’t seem necessary. In particular, the existence of ghosts is a substantial claim about reality positing the existence of yet another intelligent being that is less likely to be true than the absence of such a claim. When we combine that fact with the fact that we know people often make up stories involving entities they make up, it seems more likely that ghosts don’t exist, and we have a reason to think that ghosts don’t exist.

If we accept my two premises, then the conclusion follows—we have a reason to think that ghosts don’t exist. I haven’t proven that ghosts don’t exist because far fetched entities can exist, but I have proven that there’s at least one consideration against the existence of ghosts.

Step 5: Consider counterarguments

Although Lisa has explained her argument in detail, not everyone will agree with her. There are people who believe in ghosts and they might try to find fault in the argument. Perhaps ghosts aren’t analogous to goblins, fairies, and unicorns; or perhaps being far-fetched isn’t a reason to reject the existence of an entity after all. Lisa should try to put herself in the shoes of her critic and see “both sides” of the debate. She could then discuss objections to her argument and try to reply to these objections to show why they aren’t serious.

One counterargument in particular is that the belief in ghosts is culturally universal, which adds to the credibility of ghosts. This could mean that ghosts are significantly less far-fetched than goblins, fairies, or unicorns. We could have a reason to reject far-fetched things, but ghosts wouldn’t necessarily be included. Lisa will respond to this objection with the following:

First, it is unclear that ghosts are culturally universal. What each culture believes in that we equate with “ghosts” could be quite different from how we think about them.

Second, it’s not clear that there’s nothing culturally universal about the belief goblins. If we allow there to be differences in how a culture understands ghosts, then we should allow that there be differences in how they understand goblins. Monstrous people seems to be in the legends of just about every culure.

Third, culturally universal beliefs aren’t necessarily less far-fetched. The belief that what’s culturally universal is less far-fetched seems like an illegitimate appeal to popularity—a logical fallacy when we assume something is more likely true when many people believe it to be true. We know that what’s culturally universal is often false, which is evidence against the view that what’s culturally universal is more likely to be true. For example, logical fallacies are persuasive to many people found in every culture, but they are still irrational; and in the same way many wrong-headed beliefs could very well be found in every culture. One possible explanation for why people experience intelligent beings, such as ghosts, where they don’t exist is that we are fine-tuned to understand human beings and we could misapply our understanding of human psychology in the natural world where no human beings exist. We could decide that ghosts moved our keys as a practical joke much like how a human being might play a joke, that our pets have similar thoughts and feelings to human beings when they might not, and that weather is controlled by an intelligent being that rewards and punishes us with rain and drought.

Conclusion

Philosophical thought starts out small and simple, but it builds based on the various questions and answers we find relevant. Arguments have assumptions, logical implications, terminology, justifications, and strategies that should be discussed in detail. Finally, we must be careful how we we use language and what we claim to prove with our arguments.

Imagine Rose and Tina have a discussion and Rose argues the following:

It’s immoral to be an atheist because the belief in God is needed to act morally. The evidence can be found in the Bible. For example, Psalm 14 states, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.”

Step 1: What’s Tina’s argument?

Tina disagrees with Rose’s argument. She doesn’t immediately know what to say to Rose about that argument, but she spends time thinking about it and decides to write an email to Rose about why she disagrees. Before coming up with an objection to explain why she disagrees, Tina will think about what exactly Rose wants to argue. She should explain Rose’s argument to the best of her ability and make sure to be charitable to Rose’s argument rather than to distort it. She has to prove that the best formulation of the argument will fail because if Tina can prove that the most persuasive version of Rose’s argument is unconvincing or implausible, then the debate could be over. When we only refute a poor formulation of an argument, then people will not only be insulted, but they will find our objections to be irrelevant to their beliefs. Of course, this is just an ideal we can try to live up to. Tina might not live up to this ideal perfectly, even if she gives it a good try.

What exactly is Rose’s argument? It has one premise and a conclusion:

1. The belief in God is needed to act morally.
2. Therefore, it’s immoral to be an atheist.

However this argument has an invalid argument form. Perhaps the belief in God is needed to act morally, but it might still be morally permitted to be an atheist. For example, if it’s impossible to believe in God, then it might not be immoral to be an atheist, even if it is needed to act morally. To demand the impossible is inappropriate. Nonetheless, the argument can be given a valid argument form by figuring out what assumption is missing from the argument. Tina decides that the hidden premise is “if the belief in God is needed to act morally, then it’s immoral to be an atheist.” We can then re-write the argument as the following:

1. The belief in God is needed to act morally.
2. If the belief in God is needed to act morally, then it’s immoral to be an atheist.
3. Therefore, it’s immoral to be an atheist.

This is now a valid argument—if the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true. It’s impossible for the premises to be true, and the conclusion to be false at the same time.

Tina still isn’t done analyzing the argument because she needs to fully understand why Rose would agree with the premises. She needs to know—what’s the best justification for the premises? Let’s consider the justification for them:

Premise 1: The belief in God is needed to act morally.

Why is the belief in God needed to act morally? Rose thinks that the Bible says so, which would be an appeal to authority. However, arguments from authority are often fallacious and they will only succeed when the authority can provide sufficient justification for their claims. In this case the Bible doesn’t actually conduct scientific research to prove it’s claim.

Nonetheless, there might be a better justification. Rose could argue that some people might seem to behave in accordance with morality, but only people who believe in God have true “moral worth” insofar as they act because of their moral beliefs and proper moral reasoning. For example, evil people might give to charity to help improve their reputation without having any moral worth. The decision to give to charity in this example seems to be the “right thing to do” but it wasn’t done because it’s the right thing to do. The evil people would give to charity, even if it wasn’t the right thing to do as long as it seems likely to improve their reputation.

On the other hand a good person can give to charity because it’s the right thing to do, and will only give to charity when she believes it’s the right thing to do (based on her moral reasoning).

Why would anyone think atheists can’t behave morally? Why can’t they be good people? That is unclear.

Premise 2: If the belief in God is needed to act morally, then it’s immoral to be an atheist.

It’s wrong to choose to live in a state that makes it impossible to act morally. For example, it would be wrong to choose to live one’s life in a sleep, to go insane, or to permanently lose one’s responsibility through continual intoxication. The question is then to what extent one has a duty to try to believe in God. If a person is convinced that believing in God is needed to be moral, then it seems likely that such a person would at least have reason to study the most sophisticated arguments in favor of God.

Step 2: Why disagree with the premises?

Although Tina disagrees that it’s immoral to be an atheist, she must still agree with Rose as long as Rose’s argument is sound—if the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true. If the premises are rationally required, then the premises are rationally required. The question is then whether Tina can find anything wrong with the premises. She considers each premise and why she disagrees with it:

Premise 1: The belief in God is needed to act morally.

Tina will find this premise to be unconvincing for two reasons. First, atheists often do act in accordance with morality. Second, many atheists believe in right and wrong. Perhaps Tina is ultimately right that morality requires God, but many atheists disagree. Atheists can have moral worth as long as they can know enough about morality and choose to do the right thing because it’s the right thing. Atheists are not required to know the ultimate reality involving morality. Whether God actually created morality is not something anyone fully understands. Tina could say, “Assuming morality exists but God doesn’t, the atheist can still act morally and have moral worth.”

It might be impossible to know when an action has real moral worth. It’s hard to know when a person does the right thing as a result of moral reason rather than as a result of self-interest and nonmoral desires. We might deceive ourselves into thinking we are more morally virtuous than we really are. Nonetheless, this seems like no more of a problem for atheists than for theists.

Premise 2: If the belief in God is needed to act morally, then it’s immoral to be an atheist.

The main problem with this premise is that it’s not obvious that atheists can choose to be theists. First, not all atheists think the belief in God is required for morality, so they aren’t interested in finding a reason to believe in God. Second, even atheists who were at one time convinced that God was needed for morality and tried to persuade themselves that God exists might not be persuaded. It might not really be “up to us” to believe in God because we tend to believe whatever seems to be “probably true” based on the evidence available. Therefore, premise 2 is inadequately justified because we ought not do what is impossible of us. Even if God was needed to act morally, it seems plausible that atheists could still be unconvinced that God exists based on their ability to reason, and they might not have a choice to believe in God when they think it’s likely that God doesn’t exist. It can’t be morally wrong when it’s impossible for us to do otherwise.

Step 3: Presentation of the objection

Once Tina knows why one of the premises of Rose’s argument is inadequately justified, she already has an objection, and she can explain to the best of her ability why the argument is unconvincing. At this point Tina has already thought of her objection, but it still needs to be written out.

Note that Tina is prepared to explain why Rose’s argument is unjustified, even though she isn’t yet prepared to prove that being an atheist isn’t immoral. Perhaps there’s another more convincing argument that could prove that it’s morally wrong to be an atheist. Tina could eventually provide her own argument to prove that atheism isn’t immoral, but that is not the task at hand here. The task at hand here is to fully explain why Rose’s argument is unconvincing. Tina can use a variety of argument strategies, give examples, and perhaps even use a thought experiment.

Rose’s argument requires both premises to reach the conclusion, so all Tina has to do to make her point is prove a single premise of Rose’s argument to be unjustified. For this reason she decides to only discuss why premise 1 is unjustified:

I will present an objection to the argument that “being an atheist is immoral because (a) we need to believe in God to be moral, and (b) if we need to believe in God to be moral then it’s immoral to be an atheist.” I will discuss two ways to justify the premise that we need to believe in God to be moral: One, the bible says so. Two, it’s impossible for atheists to behave as a result of moral reasoning. I will argue that neither of these justifications are persuasive enough to accept the premise. First, the biblical source is a fallacious appeal to authority. Second, some atheists believe in morality.

A biblical source doesn’t prove it to be true because we don’t know for certain that the Bible is infallible or inerrant, and we might not even interpret the Bible correctly. The idea that atheists can’t possibly do anything good is unjustified insofar as there is no scientific study with that conclusion, but it also seems false based on our experience that atheists don’t go around committing crimes or hurting people. Using the Bible as a justification for an argument is inappropriate because the authority we appeal to must be able to independently justify its conclusions, but the Bible doesn’t do that in this case. Additionally, an appeal to authority is fallacious when the authority is controversial. The Bible is an authority used by many people, but it is controversial and it contradicts similar sources of religious authorities, such as the Qur’an. We can’t use the Bible as an authority in a debate for the same reason we can’t use the Qur’an as an authority in a debate, and for the same reason we can’t use the controversial opinion of a scientist as an authority in a debate when there is disagreement among the relevant scientists.

Although the Bible might not be an adequate justification, it might be claimed that atheists can’t be moral insofar as they can’t do the right thing by being motivated by moral reason. An evil person can give to charity to improve their reputation, but this action has no moral worth because it wasn’t done to help people as a result of moral reasoning. Perhaps atheists only act out of self-interest and so on rather than as a result of moral reasoning. However, we have no reason to think that atheists can’t believe in morality and be motivated as a result of their moral reasoning. In fact, many atheists say that they do believe in morality and try to use moral reasoning. A good example is Epicurus, who was an atheist philosopher who developed his own virtue ethics. Many other moral philosophers alive today are atheists, such as Noam Chomsky and Peter Singer. Their life’s work is to understand moral reason, and they don’t think God has anything to do with it. Well known atheist scientists Albert Einstein and Carl Sagan were also interested in being moral, understanding morality, and using moral reasoning. You can read some of Carl Sagan’s thoughts about morality in his essay “The Rules of the Game” (PDF).

Rather than thinking atheists can’t be moral, it seems more plausible to think that such slanderous beliefs against atheists is immoral. It’s wrong to discriminate against groups of people without a very strong justification to do so. The idea that atheists can’t be moral seems like little more than a form of dehumanizing (or demonizing) prejudice. People have claimed that their “enemies” are evil, inhuman, subhuman, animalistic, and irrational throughout history. Atheists were seen as evil (they do abominable works and nothing they do is good), as subhuman (they are incapable of moral reason), animalistic (they act out of emotion instead of reason), and so on. The same has been said about women, blacks, Muslims, homosexuals, and many others. Imagine that someone claim that women, blacks, Muslims, or homosexuals are incapable of being moral or being motivated from moral reason. This seems like blatant prejudice against these minority groups, and yet people still think it’s true about atheists. Why exactly atheists deserve this sort of discrimination but no one else does is unclear. It seems analogous to the same sort of prejudice against the other groups. We all have heard about racism, sexism, and homophobia. Prejudice against Muslims is still somewhat fashionable, but we now have the term “Islamophobia.” Perhaps we should call prejudice against atheists “atheistophobia.”

I haven’t proven the premise that “we need to believe in God to be moral” to be false once and for all, but I have given us reasons to reject this premise, and to even find it to be immoral and unreasonable to have such a belief.

Step 4: Consider counterarguments

Although Tina has already explained her objection, more could still be said. It’s usually a good idea to consider why people will disagree with your argument and try to explain why such counterarguments aren’t persuasive. Why would anyone disagree with Tina’s objection? For one thing theists could equate “morality” with “obedience to God.” If morality is nothing but the requirement that we obey God’s commands, then atheists can’t be moral. Perhaps the moral theories that atheists accept are false systems that only resemble proper moral reasoning. Tina will respond to this counterargument with the following reply:

If morality is nothing but obedience to God’s commands, then it seems reasonable to agree that atheists can’t act based on moral reason because atheists don’t believe in commandments given by God. However, it’s implausible that morality is nothing other than obedience to God’s commands. Such a notion raises the question about whether or not those commandments are justified from moral reasoning. Suppose God does exist. Does God forbid murder simply because she doesn’t like it, or does she dislike murder because she knows that murder is wrong? If God only forbids whatever she doesn’t like, then her commandments are subjective demands that don’t seem to have the kind of importance we intuitively expect morality to have. Our parents can dislike our behavior (e.g. marrying someone of another race), but such demands can be immoral and we can have a good reason to be disobedient. It’s not clear why God’s desires and demands are so different than that of anyone else (unless they are based on moral knowledge beyond God’s desires).

If we can explain why murder is wrong without discussing God’s desires, then morality and God are conceptually separable for people, and we can use moral reasoning without believing in God. For example, human life might have value, and it might be wrong to destroy things with value without a sufficiently good reason to do so. Murderers don’t have sufficiently good reasons for killing people, and that could be why murder is wrong. This is a much more plausible option. God doesn’t have to be mentioned in any of this, so atheists are able to use moral reasoning without believing in God. If God exists and murder is wrong, then she could forbid murder because she knows why murder is wrong. If God doesn’t exist and murder is wrong, then we can still know why murder is wrong.

If we assume that morality is nothing other than obedience to God, it can become clear how problematic this view is. We all agree that morality must include the idea that “murder is wrong,” but if morality is nothing other than our conformity to the desires of God, then it’s not entirely clear that murder is always wrong or will always be wrong. What God commanded us in the past isn’t necessarily what God will always command because—for all we know—God’s desires could change. In fact, people have used God as an excuse to harm others claiming that God wanted them to do what we know to be immoral. Many parents have killed their children claiming that God commanded it. (Here’s a case from 2008, 2004, 1953, and 1951.) If morality is nothing other than obedience to God, then these parents might have actually done the “right thing,” but that’s counterintuitive. We know that murdering our children is wrong, and saying God told us to do so is a poor excuse.

Moreover, very few moral philosophers think morality requires God, and the view that morality is nothing other than obedience to God contradicts the opinions of just about every moral philosopher. Consequentialists and deontologists are the main groups of moral philosophers, but their moral theories can be applied without assuming the existence of God. The assumption that God exists is rarely even introduced in moral philosophy. Consequentialists, such as Peter Singer, think we should do whatever does the most good and the least amount of bad. W. D. Ross, a deontologist, thinks we have duties to keep our promises, help people, refuse to hurt people, etc.; but none of these duties mentions God.

My point is not that morality couldn’t possibly be created by God, but that (a) the belief that “real morality” is nothing but “obedience to God” is counterintuitive, and (b) that very smart people who are very interested in being morally reasonable usually don’t think moral reason requires the belief in God. The idea of proving that atheists can’t be moral be defining morality in a theistic way is unacceptable based on the tradition of moral philosophy—the closest thing we have to moral expert opinion. It’s not how the philosophical tradition currently understands morality.

I haven’t proven that morality is more than obedience to God’s commandments once and for all, but I have shown this position to be counterintuitive and given us reason to reject it based on the actual tradition of moral philosophy.

Conclusion

Each “step” discussed here requires a great deal of thought. A theoretical understanding of good reasoning and a great deal of practice can do a lot to help us improve our ability to be reasonable, and I hope that the illustration of philosophical thinking above will also help.

1. Make your argument explicit.
2. Consider the evidence for your argument.
3. Consider relevant objections and rebuttals.

1. Make your argument explicit

There are two main types of arguments—positive and negative. Positive arguments argue for a belief, and negative arguments (objections) argue against a belief. Either way, we need to make it clear what the premises and conclusion of our argument are.

Imagine that Jill wants to argue that capital punishment is wrong in our current time period. She will need to know why she personally thinks capital punishment is wrong and why anyone should agree with her. The first thought that might come to mind is that human life has value. At this point her argument is the following:

1. Human life has value.
2. Therefore, capital punishment is wrong.

This argument might look good enough, but it’s technically invalid. The argument form is “A, therefore B” and arguments using this form of reasoning can have a true premise and false conclusion. For example, “the sky is blue, therefore there is no oxygen in the air” has the same argument form, but it’s clearly a poor argument.

Find unstated assumptions

The reason why the argument might look like a good argument is because we might have unstated assumptions. For example, we might think that human life’s value makes it wrong to kill people, and capital punishment is an example of killing people. This assumption is not something everyone will agree with. Many people think we can occasionally be morally justified to kill people, such as when it’s necessary to defend our lives. Even so, we should make sure to have all the necessary assumptions to be stated as premises. The argument will then look like the following:

Argument 1

1. Human life has value.
2. If human life has value, then capital punishment is wrong.
3. Therefore, capital punishment is wrong.

This argument is now valid because it uses the valid argument form known as modus ponens (A; if A, B; therefore B).

Writing objections.

There are two main kinds of objections in philosophy—objections to arguments and objections to conclusions. When objecting to arguments, we must make the premise that we object to explicit. When we object to conclusions, it is often also necessary to object to arguments as well.

Consider that someone has the following argument for capital punishment:

Argument 2

1. Evil people deserve to die.
2. If evil people deserve to die, then capital punishment is morally justified when used to kill evil people.
3. Therefore, capital punishment is morally justified when used to kill evil people.

This argument is incompatible with Jill’s belief that capital punishment is morally wrong. She can object to both the argument and the conclusion.

Objections to arguments

If we want to object to the argument, then we can either object to the reasoning used or a premise. The reasoning used by philosophy professors tends to be pretty good, but the evidence for the premises is often lacking. In the case of the above argument for capital punishment, no obvious poor reasoning is being used and the argument is logically valid. However, we might wonder if the premises are sufficiently justified. (I didn’t actually present any evidence for any of the premises, but an actual philosophical argument would be likely to do so.)

We might object to the premise that “evil people deserve to die.” This premise might be impractical if no one is evil or if we have no way of knowing who is evil. Additionally, it’s not obvious that evil people deserve to die. It might be that even evil human life has value. Objections to premises tend to use the following reasoning:

1. A certain premise is unjustified.
2. If the premise is unjustified, then the argument can’t give us reason to accept the conclusion.
3. Therefore, the argument doesn’t give us reason to accept the conclusion.

For example, Jill can object to Argument 2 using the following objection:

Argument 3

1. The argument in question requires us to accept that “evil people deserve to die,” but that premise is unjustified (because evil people might have value like everyone else, etc.).
2. If we aren’t justified to accept that “evil people deserve to die,” then the argument doesn’t give us reason to accept the conclusion—that “capital punishment is morally justified when used to kill evil people.”
3. Therefore, the argument doesn’t provide sufficient justification to conclude that “capital punishment is morally justified when used to kill evil people.”

Notice that she didn’t claim that the conclusion is false. If a premise of an argument is unjustified (or false), that doesn’t prove that the conclusion is false. There could be a different argument that proves the conclusion to be true. For example, it might be that capital punishment is justified when we can’t throw a dangerous criminal in prison as a form of self-defense.

How do we object to forms of reasoning? Many people use poor forms of reasoning. In that case it can be helpful to identify either that the argument uses a formal fallacy (an invalid form of reasoning) or an informal fallacy (some other mistake in reasoning). Once the poor reasoning is identified, we can explain it and present a counterexample.

Consider an example of a formal fallacy and counterexample. – A person can argue that “if dogs exist, then they have four legs; dogs have four legs; therefore dogs exist.” The premises and conclusion are all true, but it’s still a poorly reasoned argument because the same reasoning could be used to prove things that are false. We can then give a counterexample that shows how we can use this form of reasoning and true premises, but a false conclusion—“If unicorns exist, then they have four legs; unicorns have four legs; therefore unicorns exist.” It is true by definition that unicorns would have four legs if they exist, and that “all unicorns have four legs” as a result, but it’s false that unicorns exist.

Consider an example of an informal fallacy and counterexample. – A person can argue that “capital punishment is wrong because it’s always wrong to kill people. Consider how it’s wrong to go around killing people who make us angry, annoy us, and so on.” This seems like an example of a “hasty generalization.” It seems like quite a leap to think it’s always wrong to kill people. We could then give a counterexample making use of hasty generalizations—“It is wrong to cut people because it’s always wrong to hurt people. Consider how it’s wrong to go cutting people with knives who make us angry, annoy us, and so on.” However, we know it’s false that it’s always wrong to cut people because surgeons cut people and hurt them as a result, but only do so because it’s necessary to heal people. This is a counterexample insofar as it shows how a hasty generalization is one context is an example of poor reasoning and it’s wrong in other contexts for the same reason.

How do we object to conclusions? In philosophy, objections are almost always expected to be against arguments rather than merely against conclusions because it’s not usually obvious how successful arguments are that only object to a conclusion. In that case one argument attempts to prove the conclusion is true, but another attempts to prove it’s false. We would then need a way to decide which argument is better. Nonetheless, it is important for strong objections to be given against both premises and conclusions because that’s the only way we can truly prove a conclusion to be implausible.

We can object to a conclusion using a reduction to absurdity and counterexamples. We can assume the conclusion is true and show that such an assumption leads to a contradiction—either from internal inconsistency or because it conflicts with our knowledge.

Consider an example of a belief that lacks internal consistency. – Someone could argue that “all opinions are equally justified.” We could object that this belief would imply that the opinion that “not all opinions are equally justified” is a viable option, but that means we have no reason to agree that “all opinions are equally justified.”

Consider an example of a belief that conflicts with our knowledge. – Someone could argue that “we don’t know anything,” but we can object that such a belief would imply that we don’t know that “1+1=2” even though we do know that. The fact that we know “1+1=2” is a counterexample to the belief that we don’t know anything.

2. Consider the evidence for your argument.

It’s not enough for a philosophical argument to state our argument explicitly because our premises could be unjustified. We need to know why anyone would agree with our premises, and consider why we think the premises are probably true. We must find a way to present our evidence to people to support our premises in order to be assured that we have a good argument, and we must make sure that the premises really do prove our conclusion to be true.

Consider Argument 1. It requires us to accept that “human life has value” and “if human life has value, then capital punishment is false.” There are people who will reject these premises, so they can’t just be assumed to be “obviously true.” We need to defend the premises and decide how plausible they are.

In this case Jill will justify her premises in the following ways:

1. Human life has value. – Jill will find this belief intuitive because she seems to experience her own life to be valuable and she realizes that other people do as well. She can defend that we share her intuition that human life has value in at least two ways. One, it would seem strange to want people to commit suicide just because they are in pain. Two, we think it’s generally wrong to kill people, and we find people who kill others without a justification to have done something morally wrong. One explanation to why it’s generally wrong to kill people is that human life has value. She can then consider alternative explanations and try to show why they are less plausible than her suggestion. For example, some people might argue that we only think it’s wrong to kill people because we care about them, but Jill could either argue (a) caring about people is merely one understanding of what it means for human life to have value or (b) that it seems inappropriate when people don’t care about others (such as strangers), and there are many cases when people harm strangers because they don’t care enough about them.
2. If human life has value, then capital punishment is wrong. – Jill will find this intuitive because she thinks the fact that something has value is a reason not to destroy it. We think happiness is valuable, so we usually shouldn’t try to make people miserable, and it would often be morally wrong to do so. The same seems to be true of the value of human life. The two cases seem analogous. We have a reason not to destroy happiness if it has value, and we have a similar reason not to destroy human life if it has value. It’s often morally wrong to destroy happiness if it has value, and it’s often morally wrong to destroy human life if it has value. This still doesn’t prove that capital punishment is wrong. Jill can then argue that there is no moral justification for capital punishment (at least in the society she lives in). It’s wrong to kill people unless we have a good reason to do so, and there’s no good reason to kill criminals who are safely in custody. She can consider various justifications for capital punishment and try to show them to be unsatisfying. For example, someone could argue that capital punishment makes the family of murder victims feel better, but Jill could argue that the good feelings people get from the death of others is never a good reason to kill anyone. Many murderers get a good feeling from killing others, but that doesn’t excuse their behavior.

We need to make sure that our conclusion is proven.

The plausibility of the conclusion depends on the plausibility of the premises. We could have premises and conclusions that are justified to the following degrees:

1. The premises can be intuitive, but we can admit that there could be alternative beliefs that are equally plausible. In that case the conclusion wouldn’t be proven to be true. Instead, it would merely be compatible with intuitive beliefs.
2. Rejecting the premises could be “counterintuitive.” In that case rejecting the conclusion would require us to accept counterintuitive beliefs.
3. There’s some reason to believe the premises, but we can admit that there could be overriding reason to reject them that haven’t been discovered yet.
4. The premises could be the most likely option. Perhaps they are the “best explanation” for our experiences. In that case the conclusion would be based on the most likely options, but it might be unclear if the conclusion is probably true.
5. The premises could be probably true. In that case the conclusion would also be probably true.
6. The premises could be a rational requirement, and everyone should agree with them. In that case the conclusion would also be a rational requirement because rejecting the conclusion would require us to reject rationally required beliefs.

I will discuss each of these possibilities:

1. Premises can be intuitive

Premises are only intuitive if we have no strong reason to reject them. Such beliefs are “initially plausible.” Many of our beliefs are merely assumptions that we find successful and coherent rather than something everyone has to accept. Also note that two incompatible beliefs could both be intuitive. It might be intuitive to think that killing people is usually wrong because human life has value, but it might be equally intuitive to think that killing people is usually wrong because it goes against a “social contract.”

In that case premise 1 (human life has value) might not even be necessary for Jill’s argument because there could be more than one reason to think that killing people is wrong unless we have a good justification for doing so. Jill could change premise 1 to be “killing people is wrong unless we have an overriding reason to do it” and explain how there’s more than one plausible explanation for this premise.

One reason to argue that a belief is intuitive is to show that it seems rational to hold the belief. If an argument uses intuitive premises, then the conclusion doesn’t require us to accept anything irrational, and that makes it more plausible that the conclusion can be rationally held. However, there might be exceptions. An argument that uses intuitive premises should not lead to a conclusion that many people will find counterintuitive or far-fetched. If initially intuitive premises lead us to a counterintuitive conclusion, then the premises will be proven to be less intuitive than we thought they were. For example, the fact that many people expect heavy objects to fall faster than less heavy ones conflicts with our observations, so such an initially intuitive belief should be rejected based on more reliable conflicting information. We can’t rationally accept the “intuitive belief” because it would require us to reject scientific observations.

2. It can be counterintuitive to reject the premises.

If it’s counterintuive to reject a belief, then the belief seems to be strongly intuitive, and the other options are not equally intuitive. We can use an argument from absurdity and “counterexamples” to reveal that rejecting a belief is counterintuitive. The argument from absurdity requires us to assume that our belief is false, and then we can show why such an assumption leads to absurd results. For example, the belief that killing people is wrong unless we have an overriding reason to do so seems intuitive and rejecting it seems counterintuitive. (There could be overriding reasons to kill people, such as when it’s necessary to survive while fighting in self-defense.) Let’s assume that killing people isn’t wrong when people lack an overriding reason to kill. In that case people could kill others indiscriminately. It would never be wrong to kill people. However, this leads to an absurdity because we know killing is often wrong, such as when a thief kills a family to steal their money out of greed.

Whenever rejecting beliefs is counterintuitive, we have found some support to the idea that it’s rational to accept the beliefs (because rejecting them seems to lead to absurdity). Such beliefs could generally be said to be strongly intuitive. However, if such “strongly intuitive” beliefs lead us to a counterintuitive or far-fetched conclusion, then the argument loses credibility because we won’t be sure if the premises should be accepted after all. If it’s inevitable for some of our beliefs to be counterintuitive, then the fact that a belief is counterintuitive isn’t necessarily a good reason to reject it. For example, much we have learned in quantum mechanics is counterintuitive and we have no choice but to accept the counterintuitive results. For example, quantum mechanics reveals that situations can occur analogous to the Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment—a cat in a closed box can be both dead and alive until we open it. Once we open the box to take a look, the cat will be either dead or alive instead (without the possibility of being both). In a similar way a photon can be both a particle and a wave when we don’t observe it, but it will either be a particle or a wave while we observe it (without the possibility of being both).

3. There can be some reason to accept the premises.

Many arguments are in favor of a belief without necessarily sufficiently proving the belief to be true. In fact, most philosophical arguments fail to convince everyone and many philosophical debates have lasted thousands of years. For this reason many philosophers merely argue that they provide some reason in favor of a belief rather than sufficient reason to accept a belief. For example, the fact that capital punishment kills a person seems like a good reason to think it’s wrong, even though there could be an overriding reasons to think capital punishment isn’t always wrong.

4. Premises can be more justified than the alternatives.

When philosophers present arguments to explain why we have some reason to believe something, they could present their evidence in isolation from other perspectives and arguments. However, that’s not usually how philosophers argue. Instead, philosophers tend to try to show how we have some reason to accept a belief as well as some reason to reject the alternatives. One of the most persuasive forms of philosophical argumentation will attempt to show why a belief is more plausible than the alternatives in an attempt to present all viable sides of a debate. This can be done by contrasting the most viable options we have and showing why one belief in particular is the best (at least when considering various objections and counterevidence).

Note that one belief that is more viable than the alternatives is not necessarily likely to be true. There could be many viable options that are all plausible. For example, at one point there were many competing versions of string theory in physics and there was no reason to find any of them to be particularly likely to be true. There could be three theories and they could all be around 33% likely of being true. In that case they are each individually more likely false than true.

Consider that Jill’s argument that capital punishment is wrong is inconclusive and only provides us some reason to agree that capital punishment is wrong. Jill could strengthen her argument by considering arguments in favor of capital punishment and try to show them to be flawed. She could then contrast her belief that capital punishment is wrong with the opposing belief that capital punishment isn’t wrong. For example, her objection to the view that capital punishment is justified to make a victim’s family feel better seems to show how it’s a poor excuse for killing a person. Jill could then argue that on the basis of various considerations, we have more reason to think capital punishment is wrong than right. At the same time she should admit that she is giving us reason to think capital punishment is wrong without providing sufficient proof. There could be relevant arguments and objections she didn’t think of.

5. Premises can be probably true.

Philosophers are rarely confident to the point of thinking they proved something to be probably true or accurate, but there many beliefs we have that we agree fits this status. For example, it’s probably true that “killing people is often morally wrong.” We might even suspect that it’s a rational requirement to agree with that statement.

6. Premises can be rational requirements.

The strongest justification for beliefs can show that we know they are true for certain, and some philosophers think some beliefs fit this description, such as our belief that “1+1=2.” However, even beliefs that are rationally required are not necessarily known for certain. It seems that we are rationally required to believe many facts concerning logic, mathematics, and the natural world. It seems plausible to say that we are rationally required to believe that “something can’t be true and false in the same respect at the same time” and that “at least one person has a mind.” Some of the best conclusions involving rational requirements in philosophy involves irrational beliefs and failures in reasoning. Philosophers have cataloged several logical fallacies (poor forms of reasoning) and have discovered many beliefs to be unjustified based on poor reasoning. For example, the beliefs that “nothing is morally wrong” and “all opinions are equal” are unjustified beliefs based on poor reasoning.

Amateurs and non-philosophers often make the mistake of asserting that they know something is true or that something is proven despite the fact that what they are saying is based on imperfect reasoning and evidence. Controversial beliefs are rarely known to be true for certain and are rarely proven to be true. These non-philosophers might think “everyone should agree” with their belief and they might even think people are rationally required to agree. However, philosophical arguments aren’t just examples of creative writing. Philosophers must be honest and aware of what their arguments prove, and they must not exaggerate their conclusions.

If you aren’t sure how strong your argument is, you can merely say that you want to prove it’s intuitive and/or that you want to present some amount of reason in favor of a position. If you are objecting to an argument, you can make it clear that you are merely challenging that argument, providing reason to find a premise to be unjustified, and that the argument seems to fail to prove the conclusion as a result.

Once Jill evaluates Argument 1 and her justification for that argument, she can rephrase her argument in the following way:

Argument 1B

1. It’s counterintuitive to deny that “it’s wrong to kill people without an overriding reason to do so” (because that would imply that indiscriminate killing isn’t wrong).
2. The belief that “if it’s wrong to kill people without an overriding reason to do so, then capital punishment is wrong in our society” is more plausible than the alternatives (because it’s unclear how we can have an overriding reason to have capital punishment in our society).
3. Therefore, we have some reason to agree that “capital punishment is wrong in our society.”

3. Consider relevant objections and rebuttals.

One way philosophers tend to strengthen their arguments and make them less one-sided is to consider objections to their arguments, and attempt to dispel the objections by replying to them. Replies to objections are usually also arguments known as “rebuttals” or “counterarguments.”

Consider Argument 1B and Jill’s justifications for her argument. Jill’s second premise should already take objections into consideration because she should argue that reasons to have capital punishment aren’t good, so there’s no overriding reason to kill our criminals in our society. She should argue that revenge, making people feel good, and the idea that evil people deserve to die are all insufficient reasons to kill criminals. However, there could still be more objections worth discussing. In particular, there could be objections given to premise 1. Some people might object that they don’t share the relevant intuitions and that we should accept that “nothing is morally wrong.” Jill could then reply that either she personally would prefer to live under a social contract that forbids people from killing each other, or she could examine more evidence that could explain how we know that killing people is usually wrong. For example, she could discuss her belief that human life has value and argue that this is the best explanation of widespread acceptance that “killing people is usually wrong.”

Conclusion

Most arguments people create are missing premises, rely on unstated assumptions, lack sufficient evidence to reach their conclusions, the conclusions are arrogantly assumed to be proven, and they fail to take objections into consideration. Most objections people create against arguments are vague and fail to disprove the conclusions of the arguments they oppose because they rarely consider the plausibility of the premises, conclusions, and form of reasoning used. Nonetheless, experience and careful thought can lead to improved reasoning. Philosophers sometimes make the same mistakes in reasoning as everyone else, but they are interested in improving their behavior and learning from their mistakes.

1. Argument from analogy
2. Thought experiment
3. Argument from absurdity
4. Inference to the best explanation

1. Argument from analogy

An analogy is when we compare two different things to emphasize a relevant similarity between those two things. For example, both kicking and punching are often morally wrong because they are intended to hurt people and often succeed in doing so. We could say that kicking and punching are “analogous” insofar as they are both similar in a certain way and are often morally wrong due to that similarity.

Not all analogies are good. Some of them are “false analogies.” Many people even argue that “all analogies fail.” Is the analogy drawn between kicking and punching a false analogy? Someone could argue that kicking and punching is a false analogy because it’s wrong to kick people in a boxing match, but it’s not wrong to punch people in a boxing match. However, this objection is unconvincing. Many people seem to assume that analogies are meant to prove that two things are “equivalent” but that isn’t the purpose. It is true that kicking and punching aren’t equivalent. They are two different things. However, I think the analogy succeeds in revealing that they are similar in at least one important respect—they are both often wrong when they are used to hurt people. Whenever it’s wrong to hurt someone in ordinary contexts, it’s wrong to punch or kick that person.

When are analogies false? When they fail to have the relevant similarity. For example, some people have suggested that legalizing same-sex marriage is analogous to legalizing marriage between a man and dog, and they are both wrong for the same reason. However, marriage to a dog is morally wrong because dogs can’t consent to the marriage. Two men can both consent to marry each other unlike a man and a dog.

An example of a philosophical analogy was given by Peter Singer in “The Drowning Child and the Expanding Circle.” He argues that a professor going to class who spots a child drowning in a shallow pool of water and can save the life of the child at minimum cost to herself has an obligation to save that child—and we have a duty to give to charities that can save lives at a minimum cost to ourselves for the same reason—because we have obligations to do a great deal of good when doing so is at very low cost to ourselves. The professor who can save the child and everyone else who can give to an effective charity are in analogous situations insofar as they can both save lives at a minimal cost. Some people have objected to Singer’s analogy by arguing that the professor doesn’t have an obligation to help the child or by citing that there’s some important difference between the two situations. It’s not obvious that Singer’s argument succeeds, but it is philosophical insofar as it’s thought provoking and has been a rich source of debate.

2. Thought experiment

Thought experiments are imagined situations that are meant to illustrate a point. Thought experiments can be used to illustrate analogies, help us realize when a belief is intuitive (or counterintuitive), or prove a theory to be inconsistent.

Not all thought experiments prove what we would like them to. An example of a misused thought experiment is Aristotle’s assumption that heavier objects fall faster than light ones, perhaps just by imagining it in his mind, and then concluding that it must be true. Such a thought experiment might prove that it’s intuitive to expect heavier objects to fall faster and many people share this intuition, but it’s false that heavier objects fall faster than less heavy ones.

Singer’s analogy used to prove that we have an obligation to give to charity was illustrated by a thought experiment. Other examples of philosophical thought experiments include the following:

1. Hilary Putnam’s “Twin Earth” – Imagine that another world doesn’t have H₂O and instead has XYZ (another chemical) that functions exactly like water, and all their experiences of XYZ are exactly like our experiences of water. It quenches thirst, it looks and feels wet, it boils at 100 degrees Celsius, people call it “water,” and so on. Putnam argues that XYZ is not water, and therefore “meanings” are not merely in our heads. Instead, the meaning of our words can have a component based on the nature of the world itself (and perhaps a causal connection or history of our words). When I say “water” I’m referring to the stuff in our world (H₂O) because of the history involving the stuff I drink and call “water” throughout my life. “Twin Earth” illuminates how intuitive it is to think that water is H₂O and no other chemical combination (no matter how such a chemical functions in our lives).
2. John Searle’s “Chinese Room Argument” – Imagine that you perform the same tasks as a computer that seems to “speak Chinese.” A woman gives you a piece of paper with Chinese letters on it, you follow a set of instructions to write something in Chinese and give it back to her. What you write back makes sense. Do you know Chinese? Searle answers, No. Computers follow instructions just like you do to “speak Chinese” without actually understanding the language. Searle argues that this reveals to us that no amount of instructions is sufficient to understand a language—the meaning of the words and sentences (the semantics of a language). Searle’s “Chinese Room Argument” emphasizes that we have little reason to think that we can understand semantics from following instructions alone because it’s intuitive to think we wouldn’t in the thought experiment he presents us with.
3. Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “Defense of Abortion” – Imagine that people kidnap you and hook you up to another person to keep that person alive, and you alone can keep that person alive by staying connected. You could keep yourself connected to the person for nine months to keep her alive, or you can disconnect yourself and let her die. Are you obligated to stay connected to her? If people’s “right to life” overrides our rights to our own bodies, then yes. However, Thomson thinks not, and she argues that women (who become pregnant from rape) aren’t obligated to stay pregnant for the same reason—the right to life doesn’t override a person’s right to their body (when we never chose to be responsible for another person’s life). Thomson’s thought experiment illustrates an analogy—between a far-fetched scenario and a women who wants an abortion (caused by rape).
4. Frank Jackson’s “Epiphenomenal Qualia” – Imagine that Mary is a scientist who studies color but never experiences color. She lives in a black and white room with a black and white television, black and white books, and so on. She knows everything involved with color involving wavelengths of light and neurobiology. However, she will still learn something if she gets a color television and sees what color looks like. Jackson argues that this thought experiment is evidence that qualia—the “what it’s like” element of our experiences—can’t be known entirely from a description of causal processes. Jackson’s thought experiment illuminates our experience of qualia and emphasizes that we have little reason to think a description of causal processes could tell us everything there is to know about experiencing qualia (because it’s intuitive to think it couldn’t within the thought experiment).

3. Argument from absurdity

The argument from absurdity or “reductio ad absurdum” is a strategy used to (a) provide evidence against a belief or argument or (b) prove that something is true when denying it leads to absurdity. This is done by assuming an argument is sound (or belief is true) and showing the absurd consequences of doing so. These absurd consequences are often “counterexamples”—states of affairs that would be impossible if the argument was sound (or belief was true).

How can we use the argument from absurdity to object to a belief? We could assume the belief is true and show that it requires us to reject another belief we can’t rationally deny. For example, someone could claim to know that nothing is morally wrong, but we might argue that “if that’s true, then there’s nothing morally wrong with torturing a small child, but we know there is something morally wrong with that.” The fact that we know that it’s wrong to torture children is a counterexample to the belief that nothing is morally wrong.

How can we use the argument from absurdity to prove an argument is invalid? We can assume that the reasoning used by an argument is valid (it can’t have true premises and a false conclusion at the same time) or effective and show that true premises can lead us to a false conclusion. If a form of reasoning can use true premises to prove something false, then we know the form of reasoning to be invalid and unreliable. Consider the following two examples:

Example 1

Someone could argue:

1. All humans are mammals.
2. All humans are animals.
3. Therefore, all mammals are animals.

This could sound like a good argument because the premises and conclusion are all true, but it’s actually an invalid form of reasoning that could be used to give us false conclusions (even when the premises are true). The argument form is: “All A are B, all A are C, therefore all B are C.” A counterexample will have to use this form of reasoning and have true premises, but A, B, and/or C will stand for something else. For example:

1. All humans are mammals.
2. All humans are primates.
3. Therefore, all mammals are primates.

We know that all mammals aren’t primates because dogs and cats are mammals, but thy aren’t primates. Merely changing the word “animals” to “primates” was enough to create this counterexample. The fact that this argument form can have true premises, but a false conclusion proves that it’s invalid and unreliable.

Example 2

1. If something is legalized, then people will probably become more tolerant and want to make more things legal.
2. Therefore, if we legalize same-sex marriage, then the next thing you know we might legalize marriage to nonhuman animals.
3. It’s wrong to legalize marriage to nonhuman animals.
4. Therefore, we shouldn’t legalize same-sex marriage.

In this case the first premise is questionable and how exactly the second premise can be derived is unclear. A good counterexample to this argument can show that it makes use of the “slippery slope” fallacy by showing an analogous argument that makes use of the slippery slope fallacy in a very similar way. For example:

1. If something is legalized, then people will probably become more tolerant and want to make more things legal.
2. Therefore, if we legalize owning guns, the next thing you know we might legalize owning tanks.
3. It’s wrong to legalize owning tanks.
4. Therefore, it’s wrong to legalize owning guns.

This counterexample reveals how absurd it is to expect certain causal effects based on legalizing various behavior. The fact that we legalize same-sex marriage or ownership of guns is unlikely to have the terrible consequences that are discussed. This analogy rests on the assumption that there’s no significant difference between the two scenarios. Some countries and civilizations have legalized same-sex marriage without legalizing marriage to nonhuman animals, and countries that legalize the ownership of guns hasn’t lead to the legalization of owning tanks. We have no reason to expect these things to happen.

Indirect proof

The reductio ad absurdum is traditionally used in logic and mathematics as an “indirect proof” to show that a form of reasoning is valid by assuming it’s invalid (the premises can be true and the conclusion can be false at the same time), then showing why it’s impossible for it to be invalid because assuming it is leads to a contradiction. For example, the following argument uses valid reasoning:

1. If Lassie is a dog, then she’s a mammal.
2. Lassie is a dog.
3. Therefore, Lassie is a mammal.

We can assume the conclusion is false in an attempt to derive a contradiction and prove that the argument is valid. For example:

1. If Lassie is a dog, then she’s a mammal.
2. Lassie is a dog.
3. Lassie is not a mammal. (Assumed premise)
4. Therefore, Lassie is not a dog. (If Lassie was a dog, then she would be a mammal, but we are assuming she’s not a mammal.)
5. Lassie is a dog and she is not a dog. (This is a contradiction.)
6. Therefore, it’s impossible for our original argument to be invalid. (The assumed premise lead to a contradiction.)

In logic the indirect proof tends to be written with placeholders (letters) to abstract away from the content and make it clear that we only want to prove that the form of reasoning is valid rather than that a certain premise is true. The argument form is “If A, then B; A; therefore B.” In order to prove this is valid, we can assume it’s invalid. Let’s assume the premises are true and the conclusion is false at the same time. We can assume the conclusion (B) is false by assuming “not B.” If that’s impossible because it leads to a contradiction, then we know it’s valid:

1. If A, then B. (Premise)
2. A (Premise)
3. Not B (Assumed Premise)
4. Not A (“If A, then B” and “not B” proves “not A” because the truth of A would prove the truth of B.)
5. A and not A (This is a contradiction.)
6. Therefore, the original argument was valid. (If the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true, and the assumed premise must be false.)

The indirect proof is not so different from the other forms of the argument from absurdity that I discussed. For example, if we wanted to prove that some things are right or wrong, we could assume that nothing morally wrong, and then we can explain how we know it’s wrong to torture children, so it’s impossible for our assumption to be true. This is the same argument as given above without technically being an objection to a belief anyone accepts.

Failed arguments from absurdity

Not all arguments from absurdity succeed. For one thing we sometimes assume two beliefs to be incompatible that aren’t actually incompatible. Someone might try to prove that evolution is false because of a “counterexample”—such as the argument that evolution must be false because evolution says we evolved from fish, but fish still exist. (Or that we evolved from monkeys, but monkeys still exist.) However, there’s nothing about evolution that guarantees that all animals of one type will simultaneously evolve into another type. It’s possible for one group of fish to evolve into something else without all fish evolving into something else. Imagine that human beings colonize Mars and end up stranded there for a million years. By the time the Earthlings meet up with the former-Earthlings again, they could both have evolved into differing creatures by then. The former-Earthlings might evolve into green people, like how we might imagine Martians to look; and the Earthlings could have evolved into furry blue people with cat-like ears.

4. Inference to the best explanation

An inference to the best explanation (also known as “abduction”) requires us to consider all the viable explanations (and contrast them) to find out which is most likely true. We can consider various strengths and weaknesses of each explanation to find out which is best. This is an important part of the scientific method—scientific hypotheses are explanations for a phenomena and scientists use the best hypothesis (or theory) that’s available. Such a hypothesis is often very plausible and many scientific theories seem to be proven to be very accurate, such as Einstein’s theory of relativity.

An inference to the best explanation isn’t enough to prove that everyone should hold a certain belief because it might not be entirely clear how likely it is that an explanation is best, it might be that rival explanations are also plausible, and it might be that the best explanation available is itself implausible. Nonetheless, an inference to the best explanation could be a helpful argument even in these situations.

Two common forms of inference to the best explanation involve (a) identifying the possible existence of various things and (b) identifying possible causes. Scientists inferred that disease was often caused by small invisible organisms (germs) before we could ever see them using microscopes. This inference included both the possible existence of an entity and the possible causal effects of that entity. The fact that doctors who sterilized their instruments and washed their hands helped prevent infection provided evidence for the hypothesis that germs exist before we could see them.

The conclusion that all men are mortal seems like a very good example of an inference to the best explanation, which is based on our expectation that if any men are immortal, we would have found out about it by now, and people would spread such a discovery to make sure it’s well known. There are alternatives—perhaps immortal men keep to themselves and don’t stay in one place for too long in order to make sure they are never discovered. We simply don’t think this is a likely possibility.

Some people argue that an inference to the best explanation is “inductive reasoning” rather than “deductive” because the conclusion isn’t guaranteed to be true by the evidence, and the conclusion is only (relatively) probable. However, this is true of almost all philosophical arguments and inductive reasoning could be taken to be one type of deductive reasoning with a premise that states that we can generalize using a sufficiently large sample. For example, the inductive argument that all men are mortal based on our reasonable expectations, can be written as the following deductive argument:

1. If we don’t know of any immortal men, then the best explanation is that there aren’t any (because we have reasonable expectations that if any men are immortal, they would probably be discovered and we would know about them, and we find alternative explanations far-fetched).
2. We don’t know about any immortal men.
3. Therefore, the best explanation of our observations is that there aren’t any immortal men.

This is a deductive argument that uses the argument form known as “modus ponens” (If A, then B; A; therefore B.)

We must be careful when we think we make an inference to the best explanation because we could misjudge the plausibility of the alternative explanations. For example, the inference that a ghost must have moved my keys because they aren’t where I remember leaving them is not an inference to the best explanation because there are alternatives that are more plausible. For example, I probably just misremembered where I left them.

An example of a philosophical argument for the best explanation is that we are justified to believe that other people have minds because it’s the best explanation for their behavior. It’s possible that (a) we are deceived by mindless bodies that behave as though they have minds, (b) that there’s an elaborate hoax involving machines that look like people, or (c) that my entire life is a dream and no one else exists. However, all of these alternative explanations for the behavior of other people seems far-fetched. Other people seem to have a very similar biology to myself and it seems reasonable to think that similar biology leads both to similar minds and behavior guided by mental activity.

Almost every philosophical argument can gain strength through an inference to the best explanation because it requires us to consider “both sides” (or all viable sides) of an issue. For example, Peter Singer’s argument that we have an obligation to assist is based on the assumption that people will share his intuition that we have an obligation to help save lives when doing so comes at a low cost to ourselves, but we might wonder if this intuition is a reliable form of evidence. It’s possible that some people can know that we have an obligation of this sort—perhaps from personal experience of some sort—but is this the best explanation of our intuition? Some people might worry that it’s more likely that we are merely prejudiced due to indoctrination to think that we are obligated to help others when doing so costs us little. More will need to be said to convince a skeptic that such an intuition is reliable.

Conclusion

It is important to have sufficient evidence to reach our conclusions, but it’s also important to present our evidence in a reasonable way that makes it clear how we reach our conclusion. Argument strategies are ways of presenting our evidence in a reasonable way. Every argument strategy can be misused. There are false analogies, misused thought experiments, failed arguments from absurdity, and failed inferences to the best explanation. That doesn’t mean that these strategies are always misused. They are all common forms of reasoning and seem to be effective a great deal of the time.

1. Observation
2. Introspective experience
3. Intuition
4. Noninferential justification

Observation

Observation or “empirical evidence” is evidence based on experience. What we perceive with the senses is observation. For example, I can see a cat on a mat, feel my hands, taste my food, and hear a barking dog. Observation is the main source of scientific evidence, but it’s also a source of much of our common knowledge. Consider the following argument:

1. Socrates is a man.
2. All men are mortal.
3. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

This argument is valid, but is it sound? Do we know that the conclusion is true because the premises are true? I think so. How do we know Socrates is a man? There were eyewitnesses who described him and his behavior. This information was recorded in texts. How do we know all men are mortal? Every man we have ever observed has died. There are no men we know of who have lived longer than 150 years. Both premises are justified using observation.

Not all observation is direct. Sometimes scientists use tools, such as microscopes, to enhance our ability to observe the world around us. In the argument above we rely on the observations of others. Additionally, we often rely on the experiences of others. I haven’t known enough men to know that they are all mortal on my own, but we figure that if there were any immortal men, then they would have been discovered by now; and such a discovery would have been shared with the rest of us.

Observation is “theory-laden” in the sense that all observation must be interpreted and such interpretations are based on assumptions. For example, my observation that I have two hands is based on the assumption that I’m not sleeping, that an external world exists other than myself, and that the experiences I have are best understood with the assumption that my two hands are causing them. Without interpretation I would have experiences of colors, movement, feelings, and so on; but I couldn’t know that I have two hands without assuming that such colors, movement, and feelings are based on an external reality containing solid objects and so on.

Introspective experience

Introspection—an examination of what it’s like to have experiences—involves observations without a concern for objects outside of ourselves. I have introspective experiences of my thoughts and feelings, and these experiences aren’t merely based on sight, sound, touch, taste, or smell. These experiences aren’t of anything outside of myself or part of an external world. We tend to assume these experiences are “within the mind” and are “psychological.”

Introspection gives us access to understand qualia—the “what it’s like” of our experiences. My experience of pain is a clear example of a qualia. One thing that’s important about pain to me is what it’s like to experience it.

Some of my introspection seems quite unlike perception. Sometimes I have thoughts that aren’t put into words and don’t seem like anything I can perceive with the five senses. However, many introspective experiences are related to perception. When I see a green frog, I think I’m experiencing something outside of myself that’s part of an external world using my eyes. However, the green color of the frog looks a certain way to me that might not be part of an external world. Each color has a qualia, a way it looks to us that’s not merely wavelengths of light reflecting off of objects. The qualia of each color is what differentiates the look of each other color and many people have a “favorite color” based on how it looks to them.

Consider the following argument that makes use of introspective experience:

1. Pain is bad.
2. We usually shouldn’t make bad things happen.
3. Kicking and punching people causes pain.
4. Therefore, we usually shouldn’t kick and punch people.

We know that “pain is bad” because we experience it that way. The second premise that “we usually shouldn’t make bad things happen” is more difficult to justify, but it’s a common assumption among people. The third premise that “kicking and punching causes people pain” is quickly discovered by people through observation after they are kicked and punched by others.

Intuition

We often say that a belief is “intuitive” (e.g. solid objects exist) or counterintuitive (e.g. solid objects don’t exist), and what’s intuitive is often taken to be justified and what’s counterintuitive is taken to be unjustified. We often call intuitive beliefs “common sense” but not all intuitive beliefs are “common knowledge.” Intuitive justification can require maturity and understanding that most people fail to attain. Prejudice, having a hunch, or “women’s intuition” is not intuition of the philosophical variety, although we might often confuse them with the philosophical variety.

What exactly it means to say something is “intuitive” isn’t entirely clear, and there are at least three different forms of intuition: (1) the justification for a belief that’s hard to articulate in words, (2) assumptions we have found successful, and (3) noninferential justification. I will discuss each of these.

1. Justification that’s difficult to articulate

It’s often impossible to fully articulate why our beliefs are justified. We think we know some of our beliefs are true with a high degree of confidence, even if we can’t fully articulate how we know the belief is true, and even if we can’t fully justify our belief to others using argumentation. For example, “1+1=2” is intuitive, but it’s hard for many of us to prove it’s true and fully explain how we know it’s true. Intuitive beliefs could be based on any form of evidence: Observation, introspection, successful assumptions, noninferential justification, etc. What we know from these sources of justification are not necessarily easy to fully understand or communicate to others.

Although intuitive beliefs are difficult to prove to be true through argumentation, many philosophers try to justify them using arguments. This might actually just prove to other people that they share our intuitions. Consider the following intuitive argument:

1. Imagine that what always happens in the past isn’t likely to happen in the future because the laws of nature will change. In that case we have no reason to think (a) the sun will rise tomorrow or (b) eating lots of fatty foods tomorrow will be unhealthy.
2. However, we know that the sun will probably rise tomorrow and that eating lots of fatty foods tomorrow will probably be unhealthy.
3. Therefore, what always happened in the past will likely happen in the future because the laws of nature will probably stay the same.

We often generalize about what happened in the past to predict the future, but it’s difficult to prove that the future will ever be like the past—even though we often think we know it will be with a high degree of confidence. The first premise emphasizes the high confidence we have that the sun will rise tomorrow and eating lots of fatty foods tomorrow will be unhealthy to show how counerintuitive it is to believe that what always happened in the past probably won’t be like the future because it requires us to reject certain beliefs we think we know are true.

2. Successful assumptions

Some intuitive beliefs could be successful assumptions similar to how scientists use provisional “working hypotheses” that seem to explain our observations until they are proven false. (e.g. Scientists assumed that the Sun revolves around the Earth at one point.) In that case it’s hard to explain how justified our intuitive belief is because it’s hard to explain to people all the ways the belief has proven to be successful. It could be that our assumption that the laws of nature will still be the same in the future is a successful assumption of this kind, and it seems highly successful. Rejecting this assumption would make living our lives impossible. We could never assume that food will be nutritious or that money could still buy goods tomorrow, but we continually find these assumptions to be successful.

If a belief is a successful assumption, then we can explain how the belief is justified based on successful risky predictions, the lack of viable alternatives, and the possibility of attaining counter-evidence. Our assumption that the future laws of nature will be the same has enabled us to make every successful risky prediction we’ve ever made, the rejection of such a belief seems absurd rather than a serious alternative, and we could imagine counterevidence against such a belief (e.g. if the law of gravity stopped functioning tomorrow).

On the other hand the assumption that I can’t find my keys because a ghost moves them lacks support from risky predictions and it fails to be as viable as alternatives (e.g. maybe I just forget where I put them).

3. Noninferential justification

Noninferential justification is evidence that we can understand without an argument. One possible source of noninferential justification is “self-evidence.” Some self-evident beliefs could be true by definition, such as “all bachelors are unmarried” and others could be justified based on the concepts involved. Perhaps anyone who understands what the concept of pain is will then understand that “pain is bad.” Many philosophers agree that what’s true by definition can be known noninferentially, but it’s much more controversial to think that conceptual knowledge can be justified using noninferential evidence beyond our definitions.

Noninferential justification is notoriously difficult to communicate to other people, but many mathematical concepts like “infinity” do seem to be plausibly understood in noninferential ways.

Conclusion

Arguments without evidence are not informative. Whenever we provide arguments, we need to consider how we know something is probably true or justified. If this is difficult, then it is likely that our conclusion is either unjustified or that we have intuitive evidence for it.

The importance of moral rationalization

Joseph Heath argues that criminology has found that one of the most common causes of immoral and illegal acts in the workplace are rationalizations rather than deviant psychology, a “lack of virtue” (such as greediness), or a lack of philosophical knowledge. He describes these rationalizations as “acts of neutralization”—thoughts and reasoning used to downplay the severity of the immoral acts or even excuse it despite the fact that people tend to know the difference between right and wrong in other contexts. A woman might think stealing is wrong, and borrowing money without permission is wrong, but when she stole money from the business she works for, she was just borrowing it and would pay it back later.

However, I would like to note that Heath seems to exaggerate the importance of rationalizations at the expense of moral philosophy. Heath argues that a business ethics class should concentrate on rationalizations, the harm done by immoral acts, and the tendency of large organizations (bureaucracies) to promote rationalizations; and he sees little reason to teach students the “right” values or philosophical theories:

If one takes this perspective seriously, then there is no particular reason for business ethics courses to focus on moral dilemmas, or to teach fundamental [moral] perspectives (Kantian, utilitarian, etc.) Students do not commit crimes because they lack expertise in the application of the categorical imperative or the felicific calculus [utilitarianism]. They are more likely to commit crimes because they have talked themselves into believing some type of excuse for their actions, and they have found a social environment is which this sort of excuse is accepted or encouraged. Thus a more useful intervention, in an ethics course, would be to attack the techniques of neutralization that students are likely to encounter, and may be tempted to employ, when they go on to their future careers. As we have seen, white collar criminals are typically conflicted about their own actions. They know what morality and the law require of them. The problem is that they have convinced themselves that no one is really injured by their actions, or that they had no choice in the matter, or that it’s permissible because everyone else is doing it, etc. Typically, the arguments they have used to convince themselves are sufficiently fragile that they can only be sustained in a supportive environment, among peers who are also inclined to view these claims as legitimate. One way to tackle this problem, ‘‘preemptively’’ so to speak, is to demonstrate the inadequacy of these rationalizations, e.g., by tracing out the harm caused by embezzlement, or expense account abuse; by articulating the logic of government regulation and the basis for its legitimacy; by explaining the concept of market failure and why unconstrained competition sometimes produces inferior results; and by exploring the tendency toward dissipation of responsibility in bureaucracies.

I agree with Heath that rationalization (acts of neutralization), the harm done by immoral behavior, and the tendency of bureaucracies to disperse responsibility should all be taught in a business ethics course. However, I disagree that teaching the right values or philosophical theories are therefore unimportant for at least two reasons:

First, there is no major difference between rationalization and “ordinary thought.” Everyday thinking is plagued by rationalization—self-deception, the confirmation bias, anecdotal evidence, the tendency to exaggerate harms to oneself and marginalize harms done to others, and fallacious reasoning. The difference between rationalization and good reasoning isn’t black and white, and learning how to avoid rationalization isn’t enough to be a reasonable person. There’s a continuum of better and worse forms of reasoning, and moral philosophy attempts to understand morality and help us think morally in the most reasonable way possible. One of the best ways to stop rationalizing is to learn to think philosophically.

It might be true that philosophy taken in the abstract isn’t helpful, but philosophy isn’t entirely abstract. Philosophy has application to everyday life and to fully learn philosophy requires us to think philosophically—to learn to think in the most reasonable way possible. There are reasons to think that moral theories are true despite the fact that we can’t yet prove that one in particular is true, and we are more likely to do the right thing when we know why it’s right. For example, it’s wrong to kick people because it tends to hurt them, and we understand that it’s usually wrong to hurt people. Knowing why it’s wrong helps us learn not to do it. Many small children don’t yet understand why kicking is wrong and we shouldn’t be surprised when these children kick people as a result.

Second, even if rationalization is the most common cause of immoral behavior in the business world, that doesn’t mean it’s the only cause. The fact that people know a lot about right and wrong certainly does not imply that they know everything about right and wrong. There are difficult decisions to be made and philosophy can help us make these decisions. For example, many people don’t think there’s anything wrong with hurting nonhuman animals, but it could be that hurting animals is wrong unless we have an overriding reason to do so. This has serious implications in the business world ranging from farming to pollution. Many people at one point thought the slave trade was moral, but we now know it was egregiously immoral. People in the future could find out that how we treat animals now is often also egregiously immoral.

Rationalization techniques in the workplace

Heath argues that we should expect rationalizations in the workplace because it’s an environment that often impairs our ability to reason objectively, and he offers the following examples of rationalization techniques and discusses how the workplace often encourages poor reasoning:

1. Denial of responsibility

Whenever someone is guilty of doing something immoral (or illegal) in a business, it’s often unclear who exactly (if anyone in particular) is responsible. This encourages people to “pass the buck” to someone else and there is often no one willing to accept responsibility for immoral behavior. “Due to the organizational hierarchy of the firm, individuals can always try to pass the blame up to their superiors. These superiors can, in turn, try to pass the blame back down, by insisting that their subordinates acted independently” (605). Heath also lets us know that ethical codes are often used to help management and executives to blame those lower down. “By imposing upon each employee the obligation to resist any ‘unethical’ orders, they in turn make it more difficult for these employees to shift the blame up” (ibid.).

We need people to take responsibility for their own behavior and stop passing the buck to others. A corporate culture could emphasize the importance of personal responsibility and have a process to help employees dispute the immoral decisions made by management, and it is possible for people to learn to take personal responsibility and stop rationalizing even when they find themselves in a corporate environment that encourages rationalizations.

The adversarial nature of competition between businesses promotes selfishness – Competition encourages selfishness and rationalizations that justify behavior that harms others, and many people already have a tendency to exaggerate moral importance of harms they can experience and simultaneously marginalize the importance of harms others experience. Many people rationalize that immoral behavior is justified whenever necessary to maximize profit for a corporation’s investors; and many companies use the language of life and death in the workplace that can sometimes lead to rationalizations that could be appropriate in real life and death situations, but not the actual situation of the company. “For example, Geis quotes one defendant in the heavy electrical antitrust case excusing his actions in the following terms: ‘I thought that we were more or less working on a survival basis in order to try to make enough to keep our plant and our employees’” (605).

The competitive nature of corporations also often gives employees the impression that their professional life rests on their willingness to do immoral things, such as bribe officials, in order to make more profit for the firm (606). This can help employees rationalize their immoral acts because doing illegal acts is seen as (a) normal (i.e. everyone does it), (b) inevitable (i.e. if you don’t do it someone else will), and (c) necessary to keep one’s job. Heath explains that many people take inevitable immoral acts to exempt responsibility because they can’t cause something to happen if it would happen no matter what they do (ibid.). Of course, one could be a whistle blower and alert to public to stop immoral acts if necessary rather than join in.

2. Denial of injury

Heath argues that “In general, people have more permissive attitudes toward crime when the victim is unknown… Most white collar criminals never meet or interact with those who are harmed by their actions (and in many cases they wouldn’t even know how to find their victims should they choose to). This makes it more plausible to claim that no injury has occurred” (606). It’s not always clear who gets harmed by our decisions or to what extent they get harmed, and the consequences of our decisions are often difficult to know about without scientific research. For example, “Geis quotes a Westinghouse executive, for instance, acknowledging that price-fixing arrangements were illegal, but denying that they were criminal: ‘I assumed that criminal action meant damaging someone, and we did not do that’” (ibid.). In this case it was assumed that price fixing didn’t hurt anyone simply because they didn’t know the people who got hurt personally and perhaps spent very little time thinking about how price fixing could hurt people. Who does price fixing hurt? When prices are kept higher than it would be otherwise, then the customers can lose more money than they should have to.

Another example is that pollution can make some people sick or even cause fatal illness, but not everyone who encounters pollution has the same reaction. There’s often no obvious harm caused by pollution to be seen by people who make the decisions to pollute more rather than less. We get sick and we tend to assume it’s because of a virus or germ, but we rarely realize when we get sick because of pollution.

Additionally, sometimes people rationalize that harming people is justified, such as stealing from a large corporation, because the harm done is spread out to many people (ibid.). If I hacked into a bank and stole a penny from millions of people, I could make for myself a sizable amount of money without causing anyone significant harm. At the same time this crime is clearly unfair and could quickly because significantly harmful if many people started to do it. In fact, many employees steal from the corporations they work for and this is one of the leading causes of corporate bankruptcy. The harmless actions of many people end up being very harmful.

Finally, some people rationalize that business transactions require consent, so there are no unwilling victims. This is a way to blame the victim. “[I]t is relatively easy for people to convince themselves that shareholders who are exploited by management could have invested their money elsewhere, consumers who purchase inferior goods ignored the ‘buyer beware’ rule, workers who are injured ‘knew the risks when they took the job,’ and so on” (ibid.). Why is this faulty reasoning? Consider whether we should agree with the “buyer beware” idea or not. In actuality, people are often scammed but we rely on companies to be honest with us. When a doctor scams you into getting a surgical procedure you don’t need when she wants to make a few extra bucks, I think it’s clear why “buyer beware” isn’t a good excuse to scam people. We often pay companies or professionals for goods and services, and we are often unqualified to assess the quality or necessity of the goods or service. We depend on the expert opinions of others to live our lives.

3. Denial of the victim

Those who harm others often argue that the others “started it” or deserve punishment. For example, some workers could steal from the company they work for because they feel underpaid (607). “Among less skilled workers, people often confuse the fact that their role is invaluable to the organization with the belief that they are essential to the organization. Thus they feel undercompensated, ignoring the fact that it is the ease with which they can be replaced that determines their wage rate, not the value that they contribute to the firm on a day-to-day basis” (ibid.). In some cases employees are underpaid or abused by their employers and legal action should be taken, but one immoral act doesn’t usually warrant revenge (vigilantism) except perhaps in the most egregious cases when the law and nonviolent protest is incapable of bringing about justice.

4. Condemnation of the condemners

Sometimes people say that the law is unjust. This could be right in some cases, but it seems absurd to think the law is always unjust. We have to be careful when we decide the law is unjust, and there’s ideological commitments that often encourage people to be dismissive of the law and the role of the government, such as a commitment to laissez-faire economics that states that we should have a “free market” with no government regulation:

[C]orporate criminals will often contest the very legitimacy of regulation, by suggesting that the government, when it imposes constraints upon the marketplace, is actually beholden to “special interests,” while the corporation represents the broader interests of the public. Since the latter is taken to be a larger constituency than the former, the suggestion is that the corporation enjoys stronger democratic legitimacy than the government. Another common strategy is to pick out one overzealous or odd regulation and use it as grounds for dismissing the need for all regulation. (ibid.)

We might need to make it clear to people why regulation is important and how the free market often leads to immoral behavior. Regulation almost always exists precisely because of the abuse done in the past, and the “democratic” idea of the free market could be based on the unreasonable expectation that consumers will know how buy the best products and services from the most ethical companies when they often have no way to reasonably assess the quality of products and services they buy.

In extreme cases “white collar crime” is dismissed as a socialist fiction even though many white collar crimes harm capitalists, such as when businesses lie about their profits to sell more stock. “For example, when Robert Lane interviewed a group of business executives in the early 1950s, asking them how to reduce the level of corporate crime, the most common recommendation was to ‘stop the drift to socialism and the restriction of freedom’” (608). It might be true that the law restricts freedom, but we generally ought not have the freedom to hurt people.

6. Appeal to higher loyalties

Many people excuse their immoral acts because they are done to help people they are loyal to—such as their family, corporation, or friends. Loyalty to businesses isn’t always shocking because some businesses work very hard at cultivating loyalty. This is important for some corporations that benefit from keeping the same employees for several years. “Considerable effort on the part of management is aimed toward cultivation of these loyalties, from dramatic initiation rituals for new employees, on-site recreational and sports facilities, personal counseling services, to the ubiquitous ‘team building’ seminars and weekend retreats” (ibid.). This loyalty can become a source for rationalization when people decide that it excuses their immoral acts. “For example, it is quite plausible to suppose that neither Kenneth Lay nor Jeffrey Skilling were motivated by any personal pecuniary incentive when they misled investors about Enron’s financial condition. They did it for the sake of Enron – an organization that they both continued to insist was a ‘‘great company’’ even after its collapse” (ibid.).

Evidence of widespread loyalty to the point of rationalization can be found in a 1983 study of retired Fortune 500 managers by Marshall Clinard that “showed a widespread condemnation of whistleblowing, on the grounds that it conflicted with the ‘loyalty’ owed by employees to the firm. Many believed that (with certain exceptions, such as safety violations) individuals who were unwilling to participate in illegal activities should simply quit their jobs and keep quiet, rather than ‘go to the government’” (ibid.). In other words the retired employees thought loyalty to a corrupt company was more important than the law or morality at large.

7. Everyone else is doing it

In the business world the corrupt business practices conducted by other companies, such as bribery, often creates an unfair advantage for one company and against the competition (608-609). One corrupt company can therefore create an incentive to every competing business to start conducting the same corrupt business. This makes it plausible enough to encourage people to rationalize that they can do something immoral for the sake of profit and fairness. Heath notes that many managers don’t see “everyone is doing it” as a good excuse for immoral conduct because there are better ways to deal with immoral competitive practices, such as giving the competition bad press (610).

Conclusion

One way to understand ethics is to take a look at bad moral reasoning, and one of the leading causes of immoral business practice is “rationalization” (poor moral reasoning). We have examined rationalization so that we can know how to avoid engaging in it ourselves. However, examining rationalizations isn’t the only way to learn how to reason well about morality. For one thing we can learn more about what good moral reasoning consists in.

Heath argues that criminology suggests that rationalizations should be taught instead of philosophical moral theories, but criminology doesn’t tell us all the moral differences between people. Everyone reasons about morality to varying degrees and in various ways, so we shouldn’t just assume “normal” people are all equally virtuous or reasoning. It might be enlightening to study the characteristics of our moral heroes in addition to our criminals.

Moral naturalism

Moral naturalism states that moral facts are ordinary facts of the same physical reality described by scientists (biology, psychology, and physics), and we know about these facts through observation. Many naturalists think that we can observe moral facts because they are identical to other natural facts. For example, pain and intrinsic badness could be identical—two ways to see the same thing. Philosophers argue that scientists discovered that water and H₂O are identical and we can discover that pain and intrinsic badness are the same thing in a similar way.

Many philosophers think that morality supervenes on the natural world in the sense that moral facts depend on natural facts, so our observations about the natural world are relevant to morality. Two identical physical states of affairs will have identical moral implications. Two different situations of children torturing cats for fun will both be examples of something morally wrong because the natural facts are sufficiently analogous.

Many moral naturalists equate “natural” with “nonmoral,” but it’s also possible that moral facts are a subclass of natural facts, just like most philosophers now think that psychological facts are natural facts rather than “over and above” natural facts. Many moral naturalists who agree that moral facts can be a subclass of natural facts think we can observe that pain is intrinsically bad just like we can observe our beliefs and desires. Pain is not necessarily identical to intrinsic badness because pain could have a property of being intrinsically bad instead.

Objections

1. The open question argument. – How do we know when two facts are identical? It’s not obvious that pain and “intrinsic badness” are identical because they seem so different. The open question argument makes it clear that no matter what identity relation is offered, we can ask, “But are they identical?” For example, we can say intrinsic badness and pain are identical, and I can feel pain and ask, “But is this pain intrinsically bad?” If no good answer is offered, then such questions imply that moral identity relations are hypotheses at best and have not been proven true.
2. Moral observation is unreliable. – Many people question our ability to observe moral facts. First, many such observations seem presumptuous, such as the observation that torturing a cat is wrong from seeing it occur. It might merely be our moral assumptions that are needed to explain such an observation. Additionally, moral observations are subjective because not everyone has the same moral observations.

Moral Intuitionism

Moral intuitionists (also known as “moral non-naturalists”) think that observation is insufficient to explain all of our moral knowledge and at least some of our moral knowledge is based on intuition or contemplation that enables us to know self-evident facts. Once we fully understand a moral statement, that can be enough to know if it’s true. For example, it might be self-evident that all pain is intrinsically bad to anyone who fully understands what “pain” and “intrinsically bad” refer to. This is much like our knowledge of mathematics and logic. We can know that “2+2=4” just by understanding what the statement is saying.

Moral intuitionists don’t necessarily think moral facts are natural because they don’t think we can know all moral facts through observation of the natural world. They tend to disagree that moral facts are identical to natural facts.

Objections

1. Intuition is unreliable. – Many people have different intuitions and declare different moral beliefs to be “self-evident.” It’s not obvious that we can resolve this disagreement or that intuition is anything other than prejudice.
2. Non-natural facts are far fetched. – Philosophers would prefer for all facts to be part of the natural world and it seems mysterious to say that some facts aren’t. Additionally, it’s not obvious that there are “non-natural moral facts” in the first place.

Emotivism

Emotivism is a form of “non-cognitivism” because it claims that moral judgments aren’t ultimately meant to be true or false. Instead, moral judgments are expressions of our emotions and moral arguments are meant to change someone’s emotional attitudes towards certain moral judgments. Not everything we say is true or false, such as “Wow!” or “Do your job!” Emotivists admit that moral judgments often sound like they are assertions, but that is deceptive. They are actually just emotional displays. Saying “Killing indiscriminately is wrong” is actually expressing something like, “Killing indiscriminately, boo!”

Emotivists don’t believe in moral facts or true moral statements, but some emotivists do believe that we can have a conversation involving “fictional” moral ideas that we treat as true for practical purposes. Saying what’s right or wrong might help us agree upon what laws to pass and what social contract would best satisfy our interests. Some people call this “fictionalism” or “constructivism.”

Objections

1. Emotivism is counterintuitive. – It seems highly counterintuitive to tell me that when I engage in arguments concerning morality that I was doing something totally different than I thought. Emotivism is very dismissive of our moral experiences and conscious intentions.
2. Emotivism ignores rational moral arguments. – If moral arguments were merely meant to change our emotions, then why do so many moral arguments seem rational? It’s not obvious that an emotivist can fully explain why rational moral arguments are so important to so many people.

Moral Relativism

Moral relativism is the view that moral statements can be true or false, but the truth of a moral statement depends on the moral tradition of the person uttering it. Why? Because morality is based on a culture, social contract, or constructed tradition. All moral statements are made within a tradition and the statements are true if they correspond to the tradition. One culture could say that lying is always wrong and another could say it’s only wrong some times.

Moral relativists reduce morality to empirically verifiable customs and traditions that can be studied by anthropologists. If you want to know what’s right or wrong, just study the culture you live in.

Moral relativists do not need to prove that all cultures disagree about morality because we could all find it most convenient to agree about certain things. For example, we all have an interest to have our life and property protected, so every culture agrees that stealing and killing willy nilly is wrong.

Objections

1. Some cultures experience moral progress. – For example, slavery was once considered to be perfectly moral in the US, but now we know it was wrong. If moral realism is true, then we can experience moral progress by discovering new moral facts and finding out that our previous moral beliefs were false. It’s not obvious that moral relativists can explain how a culture can improve and correct their false moral beliefs because it’s impossible for a culture to have false moral beliefs in the first place.
2. Relativism fails to account for rational moral arguments. – We often argue about what’s true about morality, but it’s not clear that such arguments could amount to more than an appeal to popular opinion for a relativist. However, popular opinion can fail to account for moral truths because people are often wrong (such as when they thought slavery wasn’t wrong) and because a culture couldn’t have an opinion concerning every possible moral issue. There’s new moral issues that crop up every day and the situations we find ourselves in are often very unique.

Error theory

Error theory states that all ordinary moral judgments are false. Both “murder is wrong” and “murder is not wrong” are false because nothing is morally wrong. “Moral wrongness” is non-existent just like unicorns and all statements about things being morally wrong are false for the same reason they are false about unicorns—to say, “Unicorns have four legs” and “unicorns have a tail” are both false because there are no unicorns.

(There might be statements about morality that are true, but we would have to be careful. For example, an error theorist could say it’s true that “’murder is wrong’ is false.”)

Error theorists agree that when we speak about morality we often intend to say something true or false and refer to moral facts, but they think all moral concepts fail to refer to anything because there are no moral facts. There is no such thing as right or wrong, good or bad, virtue, or intrinsic value.

However, error theorists don’t necessarily want to do away with morality or moral arguments. Error theorists agree that we could personally find it beneficial to agree to a social contract and it can be convenient for us to speak as if morality is real. This is basically the same position I mentioned earlier called “fictionalism” or “constructivism.” This is also true when we speak of unicorns. There’s a sense that it’s true that unicorns have four legs and a tail when we are speaking within the fictional framework where unicorns exist.

Objections

1. Morality and self-interest aren’t identical – What’s good for me isn’t always right. What’s in our self-interest and what’s moral are often at odds. For example, a cautious and successful thief can steal to help themselves while hurting others, and doing so is wrong. However, the error-theorist argues that we only have a reason to be moral and accept morality when it’s in our self-interest. This is contrary to the spirit of morality.
2. Error theory requires us to reject uncontroversial moral truths – Every meta-ethical theory I’ve discussed is sensitive to the fact that we can successfully make moral judgments without doing something wrong except the error theorist. It is uncontroversial that we can appropriately make moral judgments, such as the judgment that killing people indiscriminately is wrong. The error theorist requires us to admit that our understanding of morality is almost entirely wrong, but we think we do know quite a bit about morality. Given the choice between saying that “killing people indiscriminately is wrong” is an appropriate moral judgment and saying error theory is true, most people will side with our uncontroversial moral judgments. We can argue that we more confident that certain moral judgents are appropriate than that error theory is true.

Conclusion

We make moral judgments in everyday life quite often. We tend to think such judgments can be true or false, but emotivism states otherwise. We tend to think that such judgments are at least sometimes true, but both emotivism and error theory state otherwise. We tend to think that our moral judgments can be appropriate, but error theory seems to imply otherwise. Nonetheless, even if our moral judgments can be true or appropriate, it’s not obvious to everyone why. Each of these meta-ethical theories have a different answer concerning the reality that corresponds to morality, and they all face various objections that must be appropriately dealt with before we can commit to one of them. Additionally, I’ve previously given two arguments for and against moral realism that should also be dealt with.

What is Moral realism?

There is no precise definition of moral realism that all philosophers agree to, but the general spirit of moral realism is that the anti-realists are giving incomplete meta-ethical theories. The most important element of moral realism is that moral realists believe in at least one “moral fact.” Other than that moral realists tend to be more optimistic about attaining moral knowledge, identifying true moral statements, and often believe in intrinsic values.

Moral facts

The difference between “truth” and “facts” is that statements are true, but facts are the (parts of) reality that at least sometimes make statements true (by corresponding to them). For example, when I say that I have a foot, what I say is true because there’s a real foot in the world that’s part of my body. However, not all facts are objects like feet. Examples of moral facts could be the following:

1. Pain is intrinsically bad.
2. We ought not cause pain without an overriding reason to do so.
3. It’s rational to try to avoid causing unnecessary pain to people.
4. It’s wrong to torture people without an overriding reason to do so.
5. Socrates was a good person.
6. Socrates had courage.

Facts can be any part of reality, such as objects, properties, relations between things, states of affairs, and events.

Parts of reality – We assume that things exist in space and time, but not everything is an object. For example, parts of reality can be thoughts or feelings, but thoughts and feelings aren’t necessarily objects.

Objects – Objects are unities that are taken to exist apart from other unities. A foot can be taken to be an object unified and somewhat distinct from our other body parts even though it’s technically unified with the rest of our body. It’s not entirely clear if any object is truly unified in any meaningful sense because the universe is made up of fields and particles, but it’s convenient to talk about objects and we often understand what people say who discuss them.

Properties – Properties are elements of things, such as length, color, strength, and courage. It’s not clear that all properties are really the same kinds of things. Length is a comparison between things, color is how light reflects off of objects; strength is what a body can do; and courage is a relationship between morality, body, and mind that involves bodies doing what is morally praiseworthy because the mind is motivated to do so.

Relations between things – Objects and things are often interrelated and those relationships can be important to us. The fact that one object in conjunction with the laws of nature can cause something to happen is often very important. For example, we eat food to survive and this involves a complex interrelationship between our bodies, the food, and the laws of nature.

States of affairs – States of affairs are all the facts—the total reality—that’s relevant to us. One reason we think we should eat food is because the states of affairs including our bodies and the food will undergo a causal process and lead to greater health and longevity.

Events – States of affairs exist in time and the reality that exists changes from one moment to the next. We often conveniently discuss “events” to pinpoint the parts of reality that change that interests us. For example, we can speak of the event of a gun being fired or the events that lead to high oil prices.

Are moral facts irreducible?

Moral facts of the moral realist variety can’t be eliminated through reduction. We often find out that one thing is actually something else. We often eliminate the existence of something through a reduction. For example, we might say that human beings are nothing but particles and energy. We could then stop talking about human beings and just talk about certain configurations of particles and energy. Some people also suggest that the mind is nothing but the brain.

Some people have suggested that morality is nothing but cultural customs, preferences, or a social contract. This is a paradigmatic sort of moral anti-realism. Moral realists require that moral facts are more than just cultural customs, preferences, or a social contract.

However, some sorts of reduction are not eliminative. For example, some philosophers think that pain is identical to badness, but they don’t think we can eliminate pain. They think that pain and badness are two different ways to see the same thing. This is much like people who claim that H₂O is identical to water, but they don’t claim that “water doesn’t really exist.”

Intrinsic value

One good candidate for being a “moral fact” that seems to explain other moral facts is “intrinsic value”—the idea that something could be good or bad just for existing. For example, it can be a fact that (some) pain is intrinsically bad. As a result we might also decide that the following are moral facts:

1. It’s wrong to cause people pain indiscriminately.
2. It’s appropriate for people to dislike pain and to desire to avoid pain.
3. It’s appropriate to be angry at people who cause others pain indiscriminately.
4. It’s appropriate to feel guilt, regret, or shame when we wrongly cause other people pain.
5. We ought to consider the pain our actions can cause people before deciding on a course of action.
6. It’s courageous to be willing to undergo pain (e.g. jump in a burning building) to help many other people avoid pain (e.g. help them out of a burning building).

The relationship between these ideas and intrinsic value involves instrumental facts. It’s a fact that a person ought to take a gymnastics class to learn to do cartwheels even though there is no object called “rightness” in the world. What makes it right is merely that it’s a good means to an end—it’s a good way for us to accomplish our goals. Similarly, there are better ways than others to promote intrinsic value (or to avoid intrinsically bad consequences).

Moral knowledge

Knowledge implies (at the very least) justified true belief. Moral knowledge of the most controversial kind for a moral realist will include the ability to have justified true beliefs concerning moral facts. Most moral realist philosophers think we can know at least one moral fact, and that’s not surprising considering how strange it would be to insist that there’s at least one moral fact despite the fact that we can’t know about it.

It’s almost impossible to be absolutely certain when we have knowledge, but the requirement of having a “justified belief” isn’t so difficult. The idea of “justification” is that some beliefs are more rational than others. Justified beliefs are sufficiently rational, and unjustified beliefs are irrational. Moral knowledge requires us to have rational moral beliefs, so moral realists agree that morality contains an element of rationality.

How could we have justified beliefs concerning morality? There are at least three ways:

1. We can assume certain beliefs to be true and use those beliefs to create arguments. – We might not need an argument for all our beliefs to be justified. We could assume that certain moral beliefs are true until they are proven false or problematic counter-evidence is attained. This is much like the scientific method that offers hypotheses and successful hypotheses are taken to be true until proven otherwise. However, we must have a way to have counter-evidence against our moral assumptions or it will be impossible to know which moral assumptions are better justified than others.

2. Through observation. – Many people think that we can observe moral facts just like scientific facts. It seems likely that we can observe various mental facts, such as our thoughts and feelings, and many people also think we can observe that our pleasure is (often) intrinsically good (good just for existing) and pain is (often) intrinsically bad (bad just for existing).

3. Through self-evidence. – Many people think certain facts are self-evident and sufficiently mature people can know they are true through contemplation. Many people agree that “2+2=4” could be known through self-evidence, and perhaps the belief that “torturing people indiscriminately is wrong” can also be known once a person understands what “torturing people indiscriminately” and “wrong” consist of.

Finally, many philosophers who believe in “moral knowledge” don’t necessarily think we can perfectly model moral facts, have perfectly accurate moral beliefs, or attain certainty. Our language doesn’t necessarily correlate with reality perfectly and we generally use words that are convenient and easy to communicate rather than try to model reality perfectly. Scientists try very hard to model reality and have incredibly in-depth knowledge of reality as a result, but even scientists fail to perfectly model reality and their theories gain greater precision quite often. A theory is often taken by scientists to be false when a new one with greater precision is successfully tested. In other words knowledge might not quite require true beliefs insofar as the word “true” is often taken to refer to perfect precision, but such precision might rarely be possible. (It might be possible in logic and mathematics.)

Is moral realism true?

I will briefly discuss some reasons to accept or reject moral realism.

Why agree with moral realism?

There are at least two main reasons to agree with moral realism:

One, we tend to think we know a lot about morality, moral realism can help explain how we can know so much about morality, and moral realism might be needed to explain the actual “moral knowledge” we have. Many make this point by saying that moral realism is intuitive or is supported by common sense. For example, a moral realist can argue that it’s rational to nurture our empathy to care more for others and that might make sense if other people (or their experiences) have intrinsic value, but it’s not clear how it can make sense for an anti-realist.

Two, moral realists are convinced that anti-realism—the rejection of moral facts—couldn’t possibly cover all that there is to morality. They think that anti-realists are missing something. For example, we might think we know that pain is intrinsically bad from personal experience, but facts about intrinsic value imply moral realism. Without intrinsic value it’s not clear how any moral belief could be justified, and we regularly engage in moral debate about which moral beliefs are more justified.

Why reject moral realism?

Moral anti-realists often reject moral realism for at least two reasons:

First, they think that the moral facts that moral realists believe in are far-fetched and probably don’t exist. They might not be convinced that such moral facts are supported by intuition or common sense or they might simply dismiss our intuitions and common sense. For example, some philosophers think that there is no evidence of moral facts, and such facts would be too strange to hypothesize about. Our intuition and common sense is often dismissed for being prejudice and unwarranted popular opinion, but almost all anti-realists agree we do know quite a bit about morality, such as the fact that it often makes sense for us to argue about morality.

Second, they think that morality can be adequately explained without referring to moral facts. Anti-realists can admit that we make certain moral judgments, but they could explain why we make those judgments without appealing to moral facts. For example, they could argue that people agree that torturing people indiscriminately is wrong because we have empathy for each other and/or we implicitly agree to a social contract that will serve everyone’s interests.

Conclusion

There are many different moral realist and anti-realist philosophers who all have somewhat different beliefs concerning the nature of morality. Nonetheless, the debate over moral realism highlights at least two main elements of the nature of morality—moral facts and moral knowledge. We want to know if moral statements can be true because of moral facts, if we can know those facts, if those facts ever refer to intrinsic value, and if any of our moral beliefs are rationally justified.

What does “morality” mean?

Morality involves what we ought to do, right and wrong, good and bad, values, justice, and virtues. Morality is taken to be important, moral actions are often taken to merit praise and rewards, and immoral actions are often taken to merit blame and punishment.

What we ought to do

What we morally ought to do is what’s morally preferable. It’s morally preferable to give to certain charities and to refrain from hurting people who make us angry; so we morally ought to do these things.

Sometimes what we ought to do isn’t seen as “optional.” Instead, we often think we have moral duties (obligations). It might not be a moral duty to give to any charities, but it seems likely that we often have a duty not to hurt people.

Nonetheless, what we ought to do doesn’t just cover our obligations. It’s possible to do something morally preferable that’s not wrong. For example, we can act “above the call of duty.” Some actions are heroic, such as when we risk our life to run into a burning building to save a child. Some philosophers call actions that are above the call of duty “supererogatory” rather than “obligatory.”

Right and wrong

Something is morally right if it’s morally permissible, and morally wrong if it’s morally impermissible. For example, it’s morally right to help people and give to certain charities, but morally wrong to kill people indiscriminately.

Good and bad

“Good” and “bad” refer to positive and negative value. Something is morally good if it helps people attain something of positive value, avoid something of negative vale, or has a positive value that merits being a goal. For example, food is good because it is necessary to attain something of positive value because it helps us survive; and our survival could have positive value that merits being a goal. Something is morally bad if it makes it difficult to attain something of positive value, could lead to something of negative value, or has a negative value that merits avoidance. For example, starvation is bad because it could lead to suffering; and suffering could have negative value that warrants its avoidance.

Something has “instrumental moral value” if it is relevant to achieving moral goals. Food is instrumentally good because it helps us achieve our goal to survive; and starvation is instrumentally bad when we have a goal to avoid suffering, and starvation makes it more difficult for us to achieve this goal.

We take some of our goals to be worthy as “moral goals” for their own sake rather than being instrumental for the sake of something else. These goals could be taken to be worthy for having positive value (or help us avoid something of negative value)—what Aristotle calls “final ends” or what other philosophers call “intrinsic values.”

Imagine that someone asks you why you have a job and you say it’s to make money. We can then ask why you want to make money and you can reply that it’s to buy food. We can then ask why you want to buy food, and you can reply that it’s to survive. At this point you might not have a reason to want to survive other than valuing your existence for its own sake. If not, then we will wonder if you are wasting your time with a job. All of our goals must be justified at some point by something taken to be worthy as a goal for its own sake, or its not clear that any of our goals are really justified.

Final ends – Final ends are goals that we think are worthy. Pleasure, survival, and knowledge are possible examples of goods that should be taken to be promoted as final ends. Some final ends are also meant to help us avoid something of negative value, such as our goals to avoid pain and death. The goals of attaining these goods are “final ends.” It is possible that final ends are merely things we desire “for their own sake” but some final ends could be better and of greater importance than others. Aristotle thought that our “most final end” or “ultimate end” is happiness and no other good could override the importance of happiness.

Final ends seem relevant to right and wrong. It seems morally right to try to achieve our final ends because they are worthy. All things equal, it seems morally right to try to attain happiness and survive.

Intrinsic values – Intrinsic values are things of positive or negative value that have that value just for existing, and some philosophers think Aristotle’s truly worthy final ends have intrinsic value. The main difference here is that final ends could merely be psychological—what we take to be worthy goals, but a goal has intrinsic value only if it really is worthy. Some people might have “final ends” but actually be wrong about what goals are worthy of being final ends.

We can desire intrinsic values “for their own sake,” many think it’s rational to often try to attain things that are intrinsically good, and whatever is intrinsically good is good no matter who attains it. For example, if human life is intrinsically good, then survival is good for every person.

Intrinsic value plays the same role as final ends—we think it’s often morally right to try to achieve goals that help people attain intrinsic goods and we morally ought to do so. However, intrinsic values can conflict. If pain is intrinsically bad, that doesn’t mean we should never allow ourselves or others to experience pain because there might be intrinsic goods that can be attained as a result of our pain. For example, homework and learning is often painful, but the knowledge attained can help us live better lives and could even be intrinsically good.

Justice

Justice refers to our interest in certain ethical issues such as equality, fairness, and merit. It is unjust to have slavery or to have different laws for different racial groups because people should be equal before the law, it’s unfair, and racial groups don’t merit unequal treatment before the law. It is just to punish all people who break the law equally rather than let certain people—such as the wealthy—break certain laws that other people aren’t allowed to break. Additionally, it’s unjust to punish the innocent and to find the innocent guilty in a court of law.

Virtues

Some people are better at being moral than others. It’s important that we know the difference between right and wrong, attain the skills necessary to reach demanding moral goals, and find the motivation to do what is morally preferable. For example, courage is a virtue that involves knowledge of right and wrong, skills, and motivation. Courage requires us to endanger our personal well being when doing so is morally preferable, to have skills that make it possible to endanger our personal well being in many situations, and the motivation to be willing to endanger our well being when we ought to do so.

Praise and blame

We often think that moral behavior merits praise and immoral behavior merits blame. It often seems appropriate to tell people who have done good, such as saving lives, that we appreciate it and that what they are doing is good; and it often seems appropriate to tell people who have done something immoral that we don’t appreciate it and that they did something morally wrong. Additionally, it generally seems appropriate to hold people responsible for their actions and let them know that their actions could have been different.

Reward and punishment

One way to hold people responsible for their actions is to reward and punish them for their behavior, and this often seems appropriate. We could give gifts or return favors to people who help us, and break our friendship or ignore those who do something immoral. For example, a company that scams people should be held responsible and punished by consumers who decide to no longer do business with that company.

Sometimes punishments could be severe and could seem immoral in any other context. For example, it might be morally justified to throw murderers in prison even though it would be an immoral example of kidnapping and imprisonment in many other contexts. We can’t just throw anyone in prison that we want.

Moral and nonmoral standards

Not everything is morally right or wrong. Sometimes something is entirely nonmoral and irrelevant to morality—such as standing on your head or counting blades of grass. One way to clarify what “morality” refers to is to compare and contrast it to nonmoral things that are sometimes confused with it.

What we morally or nonmorally ought to do

We don’t just talk about right and wrong, good or bad, or what we ought to do in moral contexts. This is because there is both moral and nonmoral instrumental value.

Moral instrumental value – We ought to do what is necessary to attain moral goals. For example, we morally ought to get a job and buy food to stay alive. It’s morally right to get a job and buy food, and food has moral instrumental value insofar as it helps us attain our moral goal of survival.

Nonmoral instrumental value – Not all instrumental value helps us achieve moral goals. We can also have personal goals that have (almost) nothing to do with morality. For example, I might have a goal of standing on my head and taking gymnastics classes could be what I ought to do to achieve this goal. The right thing to do to be able to stand on your head is to take gymnastics classes, even though it has nothing to do with morality. Additionally, some instrumental values could even be immoral. For example, I might have a goal to murder someone and I could say I ought to use a gun if that’s the best way to murder someone. That’s not to say that I morally ought to murder anyone.

Etiquette

Etiquette tells us how to be polite and show respect within a culture. Etiquette tells us not to chew our food with our mouths open, to open doors for people, and not to interrupt people who are talking. Sometimes being rude and impolite can be morally wrong, but the fact that etiquette and morality sometimes overlap doesn’t mean they are identical or that etiquette is always relevant to morality. First, etiquette tends not to be serious enough to be morally relevant. Burping in the US is considered rude, but it would be strange to say it’s ever morally wrong. Second, it’s often morally right to be rude. Many people think that questioning someone’s moral qualifications and moral opinions is rude, but it’s often the morally preferable thing to do because it’s essential that we have the best moral opinions possible and sometimes it’s a good idea to help people improve their moral opinions. The importance of helping people be moral can override the importance of showing the superficial signs of respect assigned within a culture. Such signs of respect are often arbitrary and can conflict with more important ways of showing respect—such as the respect we show people when we assume that people have a concern to morally improve themselves.

Law

The law tells us what we are or are not allowed to do, and breaking the law often leads to punishment. What’s legal is often based on what’s moral, but not always. For example, it’s illegal and immoral to murder people. However, the fact that legality and morality can overlap doesn’t mean they are identical. It was once illegal to free slaves, but that doesn’t mean it was morally wrong; and it can be legal for a company to pollute or dump toxic waste, but that doesn’t mean it’s morally right to do so.

Conclusion

It’s hard to pinpoint what morality is about, but we often discuss morality with ease anyway. There are many related ideas concerning morality, such as what we ought to do, right and wrong, and justice; but these ideas often have a nonmoral counterpart. This seems clear when we compare moral and nonmoral instrumental value. Moreover, etiquette and law are often confused with morality, but they are not identical to morality. What’s polite or legal is often moral, but not always. What’s bad etiquette or illegal can be moral as well.

Why should we agree that a profession can have unique responsibilities other than the making a profit? I have two suggestions:

First, people and other animals could have intrinsic value, it could be morally preferable to look out for their interests, and those in the best position to look out for their interests in various ways have the strongest obligation to do so. This seems to include a responsibility to conduct business without harming people, and each business has unique ways that it could harm people and should do what it can to avoid harming people. Additionally, we might also have responsibilities to help others. We need at least some people to grow food for us and it’s not possible for everyone to grow their own food. Those who own farmland might have an obligation to grow food to help feed people rather than waste their resources because they are in the best position to do so.

Second, even if we have no obligations based on intrinsic value, we could still have obligations to others based on our relationships and abilities. Our dependence on companies seems to give companies unique responsibilities beyond profit because we often need their products to survive and we often lack the expertise and resources required to assess the quality and safety of the products. Companies have the resources and expertise we depend on for our survival and we need them to look out for our interests because we can’t know if we are being cheated or not. I think this reasoning implies a sort of professional ethics—certain professions are of the utmost importance and have unique responsibilities towards the public beyond the profit motive. Professionals have the expertise that we depend on for our well being much like companies.

Farmers

We need food and we can’t all have the expertise or resources needed to grow our own food, and we depend on the expertise and resources of farmers to live. For this reason farmers have strongest duty to use their resources for food rather than squander them as well as a duty to sell quality produce that passes strict safety standards. Farmers can cheat us by using dangerous levels of pesticide and we generally have no way of knowing when this happens.

Additionally, farmers often care for animals and they have a duty to look out for the interests of these animals. Although we already have laws against animal cruelty, that does very little to protect farm animals. Factory farming might be legal, but it makes animals miserable by keeping animals in incredibly cramped and unhealthy environments, and it seems clearly immoral. Factory farming not only harms animals, but it creates distrust between the public and farmers that often leads to ethical veganism. The public is now more likely to see farmers as immoral profiteers.

Farmers not only have a responsibility beyond the profit motive because we depend on farms to live, but also because the government gives farmers lots of free money in the form of subsidies. This means that farms are trusted by the public at large to use that money to look out for our interests. It is possible that farmers will lose subsidies in the future, but until then they have one more reason to look out for our interests.

Doctors

We need doctors to live and stay healthy, so they are essential for our well being. We hire doctors for their services rather than products, and it’s extremely difficult to know when doctors cheat us out of our money. Doctors have a duty to give our needs appropriate attention and help us do what is necessary to improve our health. It’s always possible for a surgeon to do a procedure to make money rather than because we really need it, and it’s possible for a dentist to remove non-existent cavities for the wrong reason as well. We often lack the expertise and resources to know when doctors lie despite having a dire need to the services doctors provide, so doctors have a duty to look out for our interests rather than merely their own.

Teachers

Many teachers are not motivated by profit because they work for the state. In that case teachers have an even stronger reason to look out for our interests because we are trusting them with non-optional tax dollars to help people.

We depend on teachers to attain an education, which is a vital part of our well being, but the quality of work varies greatly. Teachers have a duty to us because they have the expertise that many of us lack, and they are the best people around at helping us fulfill one of our needs. Additionally, teachers have a duty to maintain their expertise and provide a high quality service whether they find it personally rewarding or not because we don’t always have the expertise to know when we’re being cheated and it can be very difficult to prove that teachers are providing an inadequate service to get them fired.

Journalists

Journalists are important educators who keep us informed about what’s going on in the world. This is vital information for both consumers and voters. Journalists not only have a duty to make profit, but also a duty to us because we don’t have the knowledge or expertise to know when journalists cheat us. For example, journalists might no longer engage in important research and instead just tell us what our celebrities are up to. We are cheated by journalists when they fail to investigate the most important issues and inform us about their findings.

The success of our democracy depends on people being informed by journalists. The success of our political system depends on informed and rational decision-making by voters and politicians based on ethical and non-ethical journalistic discoveries. We need to know what our politicians can do for us and what they ought to do based on understanding the impact of the possible decisions they can make. For example, journalistic reporting can help us find out how much money politicians are taking from corporate sponsors and figure out how much of an impact corporations have on politics. We can then decide if something should be done when things get out of hand.

The success of the free market also depends on consumers being informed by journalists. The success of our economic system depends on rational and informed decision-making by consumers. We need to know what companies engage in scams or have unsafe products, and we need to know when companies engage in other immoral activities. Without investigative reporting involving business practice, we would often have no reliable way of knowing which companies are best and deserve our business. When that happens companies have less incentive to compete by being ethical, or improving their products or services.

Conclusion

If professionals only want to make a profit, then we could often be cheated by them; but we often have little to know way of knowing when we are being cheated so we depend on their good intentions. Additionally, we have little to no choice but to do business with professionals, so we could be greatly harmed by them unless they have our best interests in mind. It seems reasonable to think that at least some professionals have a duty to look out for our interests and provide a quality service even when doing so doesn’t make them more money. Farmers, doctors, teachers, and journalists in particular seem to have responsibilities to their customers.

Introduction

I want to discuss ethical egoism of the sort I want to object to in addition to what might be the best argument for ethical egoism—the invisible hand argument.

Ethical egoism

Ethical egoism doesn’t say that we have no choice but to act in our self interest like “psychological egoism.” Instead, it says that we ought to only do what is in our personal rational self-interest. This self-interest should be long term. For example, an ethical egoist realizes that I ought to go to the dentist to get a cavity removed even though it causes me pain because it can prevent even more pain in the future.

Ethical egoism is not a stranger to philosophy. Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Epicurus, and perhaps even the Stoics all seemed to endorse a sort of ethical egoism. They thought that we ought to be ethical precisely because it was in our rational self-interest and was necessary to be a happy person. Perhaps it’s our natural empathy or care for others that makes it so important for our self-interest to care for others. However, they thought that one’s personal self-interest was intimately tied to the interests of others. We ought to help other people and look out for their interests because we are interdependent.

The ethical egoism of the ancient philosophers was not pure ethical egoism because they all stressed the importance of helping other people, and my main dispute is not against that sort of egoism. I mainly want to provide evidence against a more pure form of ethical egoism that requires us to only look out for our personal self-interest rather than the interests of others. Even these egoists will advocate helping other people when we can expect reciprocity and financial benefits from doing so, but this form of egoism can’t require us to care for others for their own sake, out of empathy, or to avoid guilt. We could assume that no one at all should be motivated in such “altruistic” ways. We could call this more pure form of ethical egoism “profit motivated ethical egoism.”

I want to make it clear that Robert Nozick‘s libertarian theory of justice does not necessarily support ethical egoism. Nozick says we have property rights and a right to noninjury—no one can take our legitimately attained property or harm us without an overriding reason to do so. (Perhaps some criminals will have to be punished and they could be injured in various ways.) Property rights and a right to noninjury are not necessarily compatible with ethical egoism because it might not be in our self-interest to respect other people’s rights. Most thieves agree that violating a person’s property rights can potentially be in someone’s rational self-interest.

The invisible hand

The invisible hand is an economic theory that might be the best argument for capitalism, libertarian justice, and ethical egoism. The invisible hand claims that we should expect a prosperous society from rationally self-interested individuals motivated by profit who compete for business. The most efficient and productive businesses will make the most profit while simultaneously providing consumers with affordable goods.

The invisible hand is an argument for capitalism (a free market economy) because it claims that we should expect prosperity from capitalism assuming that people are rational egoists, and we expect people to be somewhat rational and selfish.

The invisible hand is an argument for a libertarian theory of justice insofar as it requires a free market with minimal government interference.

The invisible hand is an argument for ethical egoism because if the invisible hand argument is sound, ethical egoism within a capitalistic economy leads to prosperity. Ethical egoism is endorsed by the invisible hand argument insofar as it requires people to act on the profit motive, have rational self-interest, and has absolutely no need for empathy. The invisible hand argument for ethical egoism is actually a utilitarian justification for a non-utilitarian way of life. It could be that utilitarianism or some other moral theory is ultimately true, but ethical egoism could be used for pragmatic reasons because everyday decision making is not necessarily compatible with a complected moral theory.

The invisible hand does have some plausibility, but it’s not necessarily infallible. The invisible hand explains why it’s likely that many good things can emerge out of ethical egoism, libertarian justice, and capitalism but it can’t guarantee that bad things will never emerge. It’s not even clear that the invisible hand even guarantees that a free market (capitalistic economy) will lead to better results than the alternatives. I will explain why we have good reason to doubt that ethical egoism (and the invisible hand) will always lead to good results rather than bad ones.

Objections to ethical egoism & the invisible hand argument

One problem with “profit-motivated ethical egoism” is that it doesn’t properly identify right and wrong behavior, and one problem with the invisible hand is that it doesn’t guarantee that people behave ethically. Even Adam Smith, the person who invented the invisible hand argument, didn’t think it was infallible and agreed that some government institutions (and regulations) should exist. I will discuss three different reasons to reject both ethical egoism and the invisible hand. These reasons are not necessarily sufficient to prove either false, but they are important considerations against them both.

1. People who do wrong do it because they think it’s in their self-interest.

This objection is a practical one. People who actually hurt others often do so because they think it’s in their self-interest. Thieves expect that they can gain from stealing from others. CEO’s that decide to dump their company’s toxic waste in a community and endanger people’s lives often do it to make the company more profit and reap the rewards as a result.

It’s true that people don’t always know what’s in their rational self-interest, so sometimes selfish decisions actually hurt the person making the decision. For example, a company might refuse to hire a black person for a job out of prejudice when the black person could be the most qualified and do the best job as a result.

However, our ignorance still makes it impractical to expect people to behave ethically when we encourage them to be selfish by advocating ethical egoism or to make profit in a free market without any consideration about others.

2. What is in our rational self-interest isn’t always ethical.

Rational self-interest not only can be unethical, but rational self-interest within a free market can also be unethical. Consider the following:

1. It seems plausible to think a successful thief really would benefit themselves at the expense of others. Smart criminals can make sure to only break the law when they are very unlikely to get caught. A wealthy thief who steals jewelry from a poor person’s home is doing something morally wrong, even if she knows she won’t be caught.
2. It might make sense from the self-interest of a company to be discriminatory when the public is racist and it will hurt businesses to show racial tolerance. A company could refuse to hire the most qualified black waiter because they could lose customers as a result, but such a decision is still morally wrong.
3. It is often more profitable for a company to pollute more rather than less, but it can be nearly impossible to prove that the pollution is responsible for any injuries in particular. Such pollution could harm people just to save the company a negligible amount of money, but such a decision would be morally wrong.
4. Our self-interest often conflicts with the interests of nonhuman animals, but it seems plausible that the lives and interests of animals are worthy of consideration. A company that severely harms dogs to test new cosmetics products seems to be doing something immoral because something of very little value is being used as a justification to cause severe harm to dogs.

The above are paradigmatic cases of immoral behavior because they all involve people hurting others to help themselves without a compatible benefit being attained. The fact that it can be in our rational self-interest to hurt others without a good justification implies that ethical egoism is false because every serious moral theory and theory of justice will agree that it’s usually wrong to hurt other people (and probably dogs as well). Additionally, it proves that the invisible hand argument is flawed because we should expect it to lead to immoral behavior, such as the examples above. In each case the immoral act was motivated by self-interest.

Some people will defend ethical egoism and the free market from the above counterexamples in the following two ways:

First, some people think we can force people to behave themselves by punishing those who hurt others, but it seems unlikely that this will prevent all immoral acts. Surely punishment can rationally deter crime from the point of view of rational self-interests some of the time, but (a) sometimes we know we will probably get away with our crimes and (b) laws will never be able to stop people from harming or risking the well being of others because there is an unlimited number of ways we can hurt people and we can’t have a law for every single way. Additionally, even if we could have a law to make it illegal to hurt people in every single way possible, it’s often impossible to prove that someone breaks the law. For example, it’s nearly impossible to prove in a court of law that a company’s pollution harms you; and even if you could prove it, there might be hundreds of companies that added to the pollution and contributed to your injury.

Second, some people insist that we can “take our business elsewhere” based on people’s immoral acts and their poor reputation. I agree that we should often do this when possible. However, we have no way of knowing when sneaky people do immoral acts and it’s often impossible to know when people do something immoral for the same reasons given above— (a) we simply don’t know all the ways people can hurt each other and (b) sometimes it’s nearly impossible to prove that an action hurts anyone. Moreover, a person’s reputation is a notoriously bad way to know if they are ethical or not. Reputation is not based on scientific criteria and relies on highly flawed reasoning (such as anecdotal evidence).

3. People live in an interdependent relationship.

The relationships we have seem to produce obligations that wouldn’t exist otherwise. For example, raising a child implies that you have accepted the obligations involved in caring for the child—providing food and shelter and so on—because the child is so dependent on their caregivers.

However, it’s not merely personal relationships that can bring about obligations. We have a relationship with others in our society—mutual dependency—that seems to plausibly provide us with certain obligations towards others beyond the profit motive and rational self-interest:

First, few people now live on farms where they can provide for themselves. Most of us now depend on the products and services of others to survive. Second, we must often rely on the honesty and good intentions of others when we do business with them because (a) few of us are capable of assessing the quality and safety of products and services and (b) it often requires tremendous resources to test products for quality and safety. Such judgment can require expertise and resources beyond what many of us can attain. For example, some scientists might know if food is poisoned by pesticides through proper experimentation, but most of us lack that expertise and such experimentation requires a lot of time and resources. Both of these facts imply that the people we buy from have a responsibility to give us what we pay for—products and services of sufficient quality and safety standards. Companies can often get away with giving us less than what we pay for and we often never know when we are cheated, so we depend on the good intentions of others rather than merely their profit motive or rational self-interest.

The fact that we have obligations to each other implies that we ought to act in other people’s interests some of the time rather than merely our own self-interest—even when it would be less profitable to do so. That implies (a) that ethical egoism is false because it would say we should never act in such a way and (b) that the invisible hand is flawed insofar as we should expect people to harm each other in a free market even when they act in their rational self-interest.

Conclusion

There might be some sort of ethical egoism that encourages us to have empathy, help others, and look out for the interests of others, but the egoism endorsed by the “invisible hand” is not that sort of egoism. Instead, it requires a more selfish and pure form of egoism. This kind of egoism is impractical because we generally hurt others precisely when we think it’s in our self-interest to do so, and it seems false because it seems unlikely that hurting others would never be in our personal self-interest (even if we live in a free market as the invisible hand argument requires). Finally,ethical egoism and the invisible hand assumes that profit motivated self-interest is enough to bring about ethical behavior, but the interdependent relationships that exist between producer and consumer implies that companies have responsibilities beyond self-interest; they have obligations to their customers beyond making a profit.

My point is not that ethical egoism and the invisible hand are completely false. There might be some truth to these theories. However, we do have reasons to reject these theories as they are often presented.

Ross proposes that (a) we have self-evident prima facie moral duties, and (b) some things have intrinsic value.

Prima facie duties

We have various prima facie duties, such as the duty of non-injury (the duty to not harm people) and the duty of beneficence (to help people). These duties are “prima facie” because they can be overriden. Duties can determine what we ought to do “nothing else considered” but they don’t determine what we ought to do all things considered. Whatever we ought to do all things considered will override any other conflicting duties. For example, the promise to kill someone would give us a prima facie duty to fulfill our promise, but it would be overridden by our duty not to injure others.

Ross argues that we have (at the very least) the following duties:

1. Duty of fidelity – The duty to keep our promises.
2. Duty of reparation – The duty to try to pay for the harm we do to others.
3. Duty of gratitude – The duty to return favors and services given to us by others.
4. Duty of beneficence – The duty to maximize the good (things of intrinsic value).
5. Duty of noninjury – The duty to refuse to harm others.

Is this list complete? That is not obvious. We might have a duty to respect people beyond these duties, and we might have a duty to justice, equality, and/or fairness to praise, blame, reward, punish, and distribute goods according to merit. For example, it’s unfair to blame innocent people because they don’t merit blame—they weren’t responsible for the immoral act.

Self-evidence and intuition

Ross thinks we can know moral facts through intuition. What does it mean for these duties to be self-evident? It means that we can contemplate the duties and know they are true based on that contemplation—but only if we contemplate them in the right way. Ross compares moral self-evidence to the self-evidence of mathematical axioms. A mathematical axiom that seems to fit the bill is the law of non-contradiction—We know that something can’t be true and false at the same time.

Intuition is the way contemplation can lead to knowledge of self-evidence. We often use the word “intuition” to refer to things we consider “common sense” or things we know that are difficult to prove using argumentation. Ross thinks we can know things without arguing for them, and he thinks that anything “truly intuitive” is self-evident. Keep in mind that intuition doesn’t necessarily let us know that something is self-evident immediately nor that intuitive contemplation is infallible. Consider that “123+321=444” could be self-evident. We might need to reach a certain maturity to know that this mathematical statement is true, and recognition of its truth is not necessarily immediate. It requires familiarity with addition and some people will need to spend more time contemplating than others.

Intrinsic value

Many utilitarians agree with Ross that pleasure is intrinsically good and pain is intrinsically bad. Pleasure is “good just for existing” and is worthy of being a goal. The decision to eat candy to attain pleasure “makes sense” if it has intrinsic value, and we all seem to think that eating candy to attain pleasure is at least sometimes a good enough reason to justify such an act. We have prima facie duties not to harm people at least to the extent that it causes something intrinsically bad (pain) and to help people at least to the extent that it produces something intrinsically good, like pleasure.

What’s intrinsically good? Ross suggests that justice, knowledge, virtue, and “innocent pleasure” are all intrinsically good. However, minds, human life, and certain animal life could also have intrinsic value.

How do we use Ross’s intuitionism?

First, we need to determine our duties and what has intrinsic value. Second, we need to determine if any of these duties or values conflict in our current situation. If so, we need to find a way to decide which duty is overriding. For example, I can decide to go to the dentist and get a cavity removed and this will cause me pain, but it is likely that it will help me avoid even more pain in the future. Therefore, it seems clear that I ought to get the cavity removed. However, if I have two friends who both want to borrow my car at the same time and I won’t be needing it for a while, I might have to choose between them and decide which friend needs the car the most or randomly decide between them if that’s impossible.

Examples

Killing people – It is generally wrong to kill people because it (a) causes people pain, (b) prevents them from feeling future pleasure, and (c) destroys their knowledge. If and when killing people isn’t wrong, we will need an overriding reason to do it. Perhaps it can be right to kill someone if it’s necessary to save many other lives.

Stealing – It is wrong to steal insofar as it causes people pain, but it might be morally preferable to steal than to die. Our duties to our children could also justify stealing when it’s the only option to feed them.

Courage – Virtue has intrinsic value, and courage is one specific kind of virtue. Courage is our ability to be motivated to do whatever it is we ought to do all things considered, even when we might risk our own well being in the process.

Education – Knowledge has intrinsic value, so we have a prima facie duty to educate people and seek education for ourselves.

Promising – Keeping a promise is already a prima facie duty, but it can be easily overriden when more important duties conflict with it. For example, you could promise to meet a friend for lunch, but your prima facie duty to help others might override your promise when a stranger is injured and you can help out.

Polluting – Polluting violates people’s prima facie duty to noninjury, but polluting might be necessary for people to attain certain goods they need to live. In that case pollution could be appropriate.

Homosexual behavior – Homosexual behavior can be justified because it can help people attain pleasure, but we also have a prima facie duty to try not to endanger our own life or the life of others, so it’s better to take certain precautions rather than have homosexual sex indiscriminately. This is no different than the morality of heterosexual sex.

Atheism – Being an atheist doesn’t violate any of our prima facie duties, so it’s not wrong. Telling one’s parents that one is an atheist could cause momentary pain, but one’s prima facie duties to be open and honest seems to override that concern in most situations. Additionally, being open and honest in public about one’s atheism could risk one’s own well being, but it could also help create acceptance for atheists in general and help other atheists as a consequence.

Conclusion

Ross is less ambitious as other philosophers who thought they could prove that all right and wrong is based on a single moral principle and is sensitive to the difficulty of balancing our duties and values in everyday life. However, he also seems to be overly ambitious in much of his philosophical theorizing. Even if he’s right that there are multiple moral duties and intuition is the most reliable form of moral reasoning, it’s not obvious that intuition can tell us what’s self-evident. Instead, intuition might be our way of hypothesizing and maintaining logical consistency. Even so, Ross’s return to “common sense” is a welcome contribution because it seems likely that people tend to already know quite a bit about morality. If no one knows anything about morality except philosophers, then it seems rather convenient that almost everyone shares such a strong interest in it and have continued moral traditions despite knowing so little about ethics.

Ross’s moral theory has continued to have an impact and has been greatly developed by Robert Audi. I reviewed Audi’s The Good in the Right here.

Update (5/20/11): I added more information about prima facie duties including a list of duties provided by Ross.

What is the categorical imperative?

Kant’s first formulation of the categorical imperative is an understanding about how to determine if an action is right or wrong, and it states, “Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.” I take this to mean “act only in accordance with reasons that would apply to all similar situations.” A universal law can take the situation into account. For example, “Pay back your debts unless it would be more respectful to not do so,” is an example of a universal maxim. For example, Socrates discusses a situation when you are borrowing a weapon from a friend, and your friend wants the weapon back while in a rage and wants to use it to murder someone. In this case it seems more respectful to your friend to keep the weapon until he or she calms down:

Suppose that a friend when in his right mind has deposited arms with me and he asks for them when he is not in his right mind, ought I to give them back to him? No one would say that I ought or that I should be right in doing so, any more than they would say that I ought always to speak the truth to one who is in his condition.1

My interpretation of Kant is supported by Robert Johnson who makes it clear that the categorical imperative can take into consideration the situation and consequences when he lays out his understanding of the categorical imperative:

First, formulate a maxim that enshrines your reason for acting as you propose. Second, recast that maxim as a universal law of nature governing all rational agents, and so as holding that all must, by natural law, act as you yourself propose to act in these circumstances. Third, consider whether your maxim is even conceivable in a world governed by this law of nature. If it is, then, fourth, ask yourself whether you would, or could, rationally will to act on your maxim in such a world. If you could, then your action is morally permissible.2

It is clear from above that Johnson thinks “circumstances” can make a difference.

It’s not obvious how to apply the categorical in various situations. Ermanno Bencivenga argues that Kant’s categorical imperative was developed in an attempt to understand and describe moral rationality on the conceptual level rather than a comprehensive moral theory to be used in practical everyday moral reasoning.3 Kant’s theory is incomplete in the sense that it’s not obvious how the imperative can our ought to be applied because we don’t fully understand rationality and we need to know what a rational person can will. Different conceptions of rationality could effect the answers the categorical imperative give us:

Depending on how the concept of a rational agent is articulated, some forms of behavior will be required (or ruled out) by the kind of logical argument indicated above; that is, this kind of argument will prove them (or the avoiding of them) to be a duty. For example, if we expect a rational agent to be constitutionally concerned with maintaining the freedom that defines her as an agent, it will follow that it is contradictory (and hence ruled out) for her to sell herself into slavery, and (in most cases) to commit suicide (possible exceptions might include situations in which the only options are death and slavery.)4

Why do people think Kant rejects the moral relevance of the situation?

1. Moral rules must be universal.

As was mentioned by R. M. Hare, when people insist that there can be no situational considerations of universal laws, we must point out that universality and generality are two different things. Moral laws are morally universal whenever they apply to everyone in the same way—but situational requirements can apply to everyone in the same way. However, moral laws are general when they are simple and apply in many (or all) situations. For example, “never lie” would be a general and simple moral rule. Hare thought that Kant confused universality with generality, but that is not obvious. What is obvious is that many people do seem to confuse the two.

2. Hypothetical imperatives aren’t situational

Categorical imperatives are overriding because they apply to people no matter what their interests or desires are; but hypothetical imperatives depend on our goals. If I’m hungry and I have a goal to eat, then I have a hypothetical imperative to eat. We might say I should eat, even though the “should” here is not a moral obligation—I wouldn’t be doing something morally wrong if I don’t eat for a while longer. The point is that the difference between categorical and hypothetical imperatives aren’t based on our situation. Hypothetical imperatives aren’t Kant’s word for “situational ethics,” it’s Kant’s word for nonmoral normativity—right and wrong that doesn’t refer to morality at all.

3. He said we should be obvious, no matter what.

The strongest evidence that Kant dismissed the importance of the situation and consequences was his essay, “On a Supposed Right to Lie because of Philanthropic Concerns” (also known as “On a Supposed Right to Tell Lies from Benevolent Motives.”)5 It is here that Kant famously declares that it’s wrong to lie to a murderer who is looking for your friend to kill her when the murder asks if she is hiding in your house. However, it’s not obvious that this essay proves that Kant’s moral theory requires us to ignore the situation for at least two reasons:

First, Kant could have a strange devolution to honesty, perhaps out of prejudice. Such a devotion does not indicate that the situation makes no difference to morality because there might simply be some actions that are wrong in every situation, and they might always harm people more than the alternatives.

Second, it’s not obvious that Kant’s reasoning used in this essay dismisses the situation or consequences. Kant argues that “a lie always harms another; if not some other human being, then it nevertheless does harm to humanity in general” (1). Lies might harm everyone by causing general distrust.

Why think Kant doesn’t reject the importance of the situation?

1. It’s almost impossible to understand morality without considering the situation.

I personally don’t understand how morality could function without considering the situation, and I see reason to reject such an idea. First, consider the simple action of cutting someone. Is that always wrong? No, surgeons have to cut people sometimes to heal them, and surgeons can’t know when or how they ought to cut people without understanding a person’s health problems and how cutting the person is necessary to heal them. It’s wrong to cut people in general, but there are circumstances that override the importance of the harms caused by cutting people, such as when a surgeon is given permission by the patient to do what’s necessary to be healed.

Many people have thought that Kant’s theory is false because it requires us to accept absurd implications, such as the idea that the situation is irrelevant to morality. If we could use the categorical imperative to prove that surgeons shouldn’t cut people to heal them, then we could think the categorical imperative was proven false. Some people use Kant’s “fanatical” devotion to honesty as evidence that Kant’s categorical imperative requires us to accept such absurdities. However, Bencivenga thinks this is often misguided. We think we can use reason to understand the world through natural science and it would be wrong to use past assumptions of the natural world to debunk current scientific findings. We found out that the world is round, and previous assumptions that it’s flat are irrelevant. In the same way a proper use of the categorical imperative can’t be disproven by previous assumptions about morality. We often find out our past assumptions are wrong—or at least less justified than new findings:

Kant’s position on freedom (or duty) does not stand or fall with the ‘derivation’ he has provided of some particular duty; what is crucial to it is rather the (controversial) claim that there is an independent register of conversation based on the rationality of behavior, and that this register, much like the one based on natural explanation, presupposes the existence of a single, coherent, correct account (in this case, of what is rational) that the participants in the relevant conversations are trying to capture.6

2. Kant discusses the importance of harming people and humanity.

Kant doesn’t say that hurting people has nothing to do with morality. In fact, he suggest that lying harms both individual people and humanity. However, what harms people often depends on the situation. I can move my arm in a jerking motion in a forward direction and punch the air. Punching and moving my arm in that motion won’t harm anyone unless they get in the way. Punching isn’t wrong, but punching people can be wrong. Once Kant admits that harming people is relevant to morality, it’s clear that the situation will make a difference to morality.

Conclusion

I don’t know of any Kant scholars think the categorical imperative requires us to ignore the situation we are in, the reasons I have heard in favor of this view are based on misunderstandings, and we have at least two good reasons to think Kant realizes the importance that the situation is applicable to right and wrong. Moreover, I know of no philosopher who actually thinks that the situation is totally irrelevant to ethics and I think it’s clear that it is.

Notes

1 See Book I of Plato’s Republic.

2 Johnson, Robert. “Kant’s Moral Philosophy.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 17 May 2011. (Section 5, The Formula of the Universal Law of Nature.) <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/#ForUniLawNat>. Last updated 2008.

3 This is supported in Kant’s “On a Supposed Right to Lie because of Philanthropic Concerns,” where he makes it clear that applying the categorical imperative to everyday life requires us to “go from a metaphysics of right (which abstracts from all empirical determinations) to a principle of politics (which applies these [metaphysical] concepts [of right] to instances provided by experience)” (3).

4 Bencivenga, Ermanno. Ethics Vindicated. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. (37)

5 Kant, Immanuel. “On a Supposed Right to Lie because of Philanthropic Concerns” 17 May 2011. Brandon Gillette’s webpage. <http://bgillette.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/KANTsupposedRightToLie.pdf>. Originally pubished 1799.

6 Ethics Vindicated. 38

To make the grave importance of the environment clear, Shaw briefly discusses many of the environmental issues we face today:

1. Pesticides often harm or kill fish and birds (394), and can cause illness in children (395). Too much pesticide is dangerous to adults, so only safe levels are allowed keeping adults in mind, but such levels are still probably too dangerous for children. A 2011 study by UC Berkeley has shown that prenatal exposure of pesticides in pregnant women can also lower the IQ of their children.
2. Air pollution contaminates the air, despoils vegetation and crops, corrodes construction materials, and threatens our lives and health (ibid.). A 2011 study by the EPA claims that the Clean Air Act saved over 160,000 lives in 2010, but many people still suffer illness and die from air pollution and more lives can be saved by stricter standards. We generally assume we get sick from allergies, bacteria, or viruses; but pollution is a very common cause of illness as well.
3. The ozone layer was damaged from chloroflourocarbons (ibid.).
4. Carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gasses) are causing global warming (ibid.)
5. Toxic chemicals in our environment cause many health issues (ibid.).
6. Nuclear power plants require minding, processing, and transporting of nuclear materials that causes cancer in many people, and it’s unclear that our methods of disposing of nuclear waste are entirely safe (ibid.).

In addition to the examples given by Shaw, a 2007 study by David Primentel concludes that pollution could cause 40% of all death worldwide.

The importance of environmental destruction is recognized by every theory of justice and every moral theory. Destroying the environment often violates our right to non-injury and endangers our health. Additionally, some people also think that it’s morally preferable to protect rather than harm nonhuman animals. Any moral system that is unable to admit that animals should be protected could be flawed.

Business and ecology

Businesses damage the environment when they take natural resources from the Earth and dispose of waste. All of this is done within the natural environment, a kind of ecological system or “ecosystem.” “Ecology refers to the science of the interrelationships among organisms and their environments. The operative term is ‘interrelationships,’ implying that an interdependence exists all entities in the environment” (397). For example, a pond is an ecosystem that contains a large number of living organisms that exist in a complex web of dependence and interdependence.

Many companies discharge waste into bodies of water, like ponds. Sometimes this is relatively harmless to the ecosystem, but increasing the amount of waste could become too toxic for some of the organisms. If the toxins kill certain plants in a pond, then many fish could die. This in turn could frustrate fishermen who make a living by catching fish in the pond (397-398). All of the damage done to the pond, fish, and fishermen are “externalities” or “spillover”—costs to third parties. Business transactions aren’t always just transactions between two people during trade. Sometimes other people and nonhuman animals are also harmed by business transactions.

Imagine that a company dumps twice as much pollution into a pond to save $9,000 a year, but it kills the fish in the pond. The fishermen lose $10,000 a year from the pollution because their primary source of income is lost. In that case the company’s decision to dump more waste into the pond actually causes more harm than good, and it’s unfair to save money to pollute when other people have to pay for those savings.

Additionally, financial harm isn’t the only kind of harm we are dealing with. I want to point out that the fish and other animals that eat the fish are also harmed. It’s not obvious that we have a right to harm animals indiscriminately to save money or make money. However, whenever we take the Earth’s resources or pollute, animals are often harmed. Animals can die from toxins, such as air pollution; and they can die when they lose their habitat.

Is it always immoral to intrude into ecosystems and harm living organisms? That seems unlikely to me given how impractical it is. It’s almost impossible to do no harm to ecosystems in business because we need the Earth’s resources to conduct business and sell products, and many companies have no choice but to dispose of waste and pollute one way or another.

It’s not obvious to me when damage done to the environment is warranted, nor is it obvious to what extent people are warranted to harm the environment. Nonetheless, it’s morally preferable to do so as little as possible while conducting business and attempting to make a reasonable profit. It’s possible for a company to lose all profit in an attempt to protect the environment, but it seems unreasonable to think that all companies should lose their profits to environmental protection. There might be some companies that are so inefficient or harmful that they shouldn’t exist in the first place, but many companies that harm the environment only do so because it’s necessary to satisfy our needs.

Business’s traditional attitudes towards the environment

Businesses have traditionally shown egregious indifference towards the environment. Environmental protection was rarely seen as an issue. A company would harm the environment to whatever extent was profitable, and they often harmed the environment despite the fact that it was unwarranted to do so. Shaw discusses the attitudes of businesses that lead to unwarranted environmental damage. In particular, people saw the “natural world as a ‘free and unlimited good’” (398). People at one point thought that the world’s resources could be taken without end and without any morally significant harm done. Pollution could damage the environment, but the damage done was considered to be insignificant because the world was seen as such a large place.

However, resources aren’t unlimited and many people and animals are harmed from environmental damage. In Garrett Hardin’s parable, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” he describes the importance of the environment to human interests based on the fact that it’s limited (399). He describes villages who share a pasture and let farm animals graze indiscriminately. The meadow eventually loses all its grass and the villagers are left with a serious problem of having no way to feed their animals.

Hardin’s parable is often relevant to real life issues, such as overfishing (ibid.). If the fish population is depleted by fishermen, then the fishing industry will go out of business.

The ethics of environmental protection

How is the environment relevant to business ethics? First, it’s in our interest to protect the environment insofar as we are human beings and we are often harmed by environmental damage and measures to protect the environment can benefit us all (400). Second, many people don’t feel responsible for harming the environment because they don’t personally do much harm to it (ibid.). Third, companies that harm the environment have externalities (and harm others) that they unfairly benefit from, which can violate our right to non-injury (ibid.). I would like to add that externalities can also be in the formfo harm done to nonhuman animals.

The costs of pollution control

We can protect the environment by implementing stricter standards on companies and limit the amount of pollution allowed, and we can try to heal the environment and do what is necessary to restore it back to a balanced state. Of course, the costs of protecting and helping the environment can be expensive, and people don’t want to pay those costs. How do we decide when we must pay greater costs to help the environment?

One possibility is a cost-benefit analysis (401). We can assess the harm and benefits done to people by harming or benefiting the environment. Consider a company that pollutes twice as much to save $10,000 in production costs. If the harm done to society by doubling the pollution is worth $20,000 from health costs and sick days, then it would seem immoral for the company to double its level of pollution. Although it’s hard to link pollution to specific sick days and medical costs, imagine that we could. In that case it would be just to charge the company with the $20,000 worth of sick days and medical costs, so the company would actually lose money by increasing pollution.

However, the cost-benefit approach is often an impractical approach and it might be impossible to know how much harm a company’s environmental damage is worth (402). Additionally, the cost-benefit approach isn’t just about money. We might need to consider the pain, suffering, and death that can be caused by pollution; and that might be impossible to measure. That’s especially true if we have to consider the damage done to nonhuman animals from environmental damage.

Who should pay the costs?

No one wants to have to personally pay the costs to protect and restore the environment. Most people think that either those who are responsible for environmental damage or those who benefit from it should pay the costs. Consider each possibility:

1. Those responsible – The problem with this answer is it’s not entirely clear who’s responsible for harming the environment (403). Even if we all agree that big business harms the environment the most, they don’t all harm it equally and it’s hard to assess the actual damage each business does. Some people have argued that consumers are to blame for harming the environment because they demand products at a reduced cost and buy products from companies that disproportionally harm the environment. However, Shaw claims that urbanization, consumerism, and a growing population is to blame; so we are all somehow responsible for harming the environment. That might be true, but I don’t see how that excuses companies from harming the environment more than is necessary just to raise profits and make others suffer from their decision; nor do I see how it excuses consumers from buying indiscriminately from companies known for abusing the environment or buying unnecessary goods that cause harm to the environment.
2. Those who would benefit – Companies that harm the environment indiscriminately can benefit the most and it’s often others who are harmed the most from environmental damage, so it might be most appropriate for them to pay the most to protect and restore the environment (404). However, Shaw argues that this is not a good position because we all benefit from harming the environment “albeit, not to the same degree” (ibid.). Again, I don’t see how this objection can be taken seriously given how much more some people benefit from pollution than others and Shaw even mentions that “flagrant polluters” benefit from polluting much more than others (405). Additionally, Shaw argues that this position ignores the importance of responsibility, and I agree that there is something strange about making people pay costs for something they aren’t responsible for (404). Imagine that I steal $20 from a stranger to give to a friend. Should I have to pay the stranger $20 back, or should my friend? It seems most appropriate for me to pay the $20 because I’m responsible for the theft.

Cost allocation

After we decide who should pay for protecting and restoring the environment, it’s still not clear how it should be paid: Through regulations, incentives, pricing mechanisms, and/or pollution permits (405). I will discuss these ways to allocate the costs to protect and restore the environment.

Regulations

“[A]gencies such as the EPA, set environmental standards, which are then applied and enforced by those agencies, other regulatory bodies, and the courts” (ibid.). Sometimes a company is limited in how much it’s allowed to pollute and a company might have to install machines that help reduce the pollution. The main advantage is that such regulations are legally enforceable and companies that are caught cheating can be fined. However, there are also disadvantages:

One, regulators have to know how much pollution to expect from companies and whether or not it’s possible for them to reduce pollution, but this requires extraordinary amounts of research and expertise. There are several different kinds of manufacturers and it can be difficult to know so much about them all (406).

Two, regulations often ignore differences between industries and manufacturers and require them all to be regulated in exactly the same way, even when it might not make sense to do so. For example, “the courts required two paper mills on the West Coast to install expensive pollution-control equipment, even though their emissions were diluted effectively by the Pacific Ocean [and it] took a special act of Congress to rescue the mills” (ibid.).

Three, regulation can cause displacement (ibid.). First, companies can go out of business if the regulations will cost too much. Second, a company might move somewhere else where regulations are less severe. Either way, it can suddenly leave many employees without a job. Sometimes a town can greatly rely on a company for employment and everyone will have to find another place to live after the company moves on.

Four, companies might be able to reduce pollution below the regulated requirements, but have no incentive to do so (ibid.).

Incentives

The government can reward companies in various ways for reducing the harm they do to the environment. For example, the government can offer tax breaks for buying equipment to reduce pollution or offer grants to companies to install the devices (407). At one point the EPA offered good publicity and trophy-like rewards to companies that voluntarily reduces pollution. Incentive programs require minimal government interference and they don’t harm companies or cause displacement. However, there are disadvantages to incentive programs:

One, progress will likely be slow and environmental problems that need quick solutions will probably continue (ibid.).

Two, many incentives are subsidies for polluters and rewards companies that were already doing something harmful rather than benefiting those who are harmed (ibid.).

Three, it seems unjust to pay a company not to pollute just like it’s wrong to pay people to be moral for any other reason (ibid.). It could be a form of coercion to be forced to pay a company money to stop polluting, and offering a company money to stop polluting doesn’t seem a whole lot better.

Pricing mechanisms

We can charge a company for the amount they pollute (ibid.). Such pricing could be based on the area and time. Places that already have too much pollution could raise the price of pollution because the total pollution we encounter can reach dangerous levels, and places with very little pollution could lower the cost because the pollution done there might do very little harm.

Pricing mechanisms encourage companies to find ways to pollute less, they don’t put a company out of business unless it is likely causing the world more harm than good, and it allows companies to pay the public for certain externalities (408).

Pollution permits

Companies could be charged money to get a license or “permit” to pollute. This can be done in different ways such as (ibid.):

1. Every company could buy permits to get the right to pollute.
2. There could be a limited number of permits auctioned off.
3. Every company could get a permit to have to right to pollute a certain amount, and they could sell permits to other companies that need to pollute more than the amount allowed from a single permit.

Permits have been successful in the past, but their success depends on certain criteria (ibid.). First, the pollution should be easy to monitor. Second, the number of firms involved should be manageable. Third, the environmental goals should be clear and widely accepted.

Economists tend to favor pricing mechanisms and pollution permits, but it’s not obvious that those are the most moral solutions (ibid.). One, the pollution costs might be arbitrary. Two, areas with strict environmental controls could put companies out of business or require the company to relocate. Three, areas with strict environmental controls could give certain businesses an unfair disadvantage. Four, these forms of pollution control legalize pollution and might imply that polluting isn’t immoral—even when the polluting is egregious and entirely unnecessary (408-409).

Shaw argues that all of these solutions have strengths and weak points and other possible solutions aren’t taken very seriously at this point in time (such as banning pollution entirely), so we have little choice but to use one or more of them (409).

Delving deeper into environmental ethics

Environmental ethics has implications to foreign nations, future generations, and animals. Right now the United States uses the world’s resources at a disproportionally high rate and depends on the resources of other nations to maintain its standard of living (410). This can lead to at least two main problems:

One, we might not always have access to the resources of other countries. Sometimes a country runs out of resources and has no way to attain them, so they decide to seize the resources from other countries and that often leads to war. It’s not clear that any nation in particular has a right to the world’s resources just because the surrounding territory has been dominated by a group of people, but harming others to take resources is morally questionable.

Two, it’s not clear that we have a right to consume the world’s resources at such a reckless and destructive rate. I want to point out that it’s not only harmful to our future generations, but also to animals.

Obligations to future generations

It seems unfair to people from the future that we are using the world’s resources now and leaving little to them; and that we’re leaving the world polluted and less livable than it once was (411). Do future generations have rights? Does leaving the world uninhabitable harm people of the future?

First, consider our duties to others based on our rights. “Professor of philosophy Joel Feinberg argues… that whatever future human beings turn out to be like, they will have interests that we can affect, for better or worse, right now” (411). We don’t have to know all about people from the future to realize that they will be in need of clean water and so on.

Shaw points out that even if people of the future have rights, it’s not obvious what those rights are or how we should balance our interests against theirs (ibid.).

Second, consider the utilitarian perspective. It has been argued that the people who actually exist in the far off future will only exist if we treat the Earth exactly as we do, so we can’t have duties to treat anyone differently. If we did, they wouldn’t even exist. However, Anette Baier argues that our duties to people aren’t just to specific individuals (412). Instead, our obligations are to communities of people. I agree that it’s important for people to do well and their unique individuality is not always relevant to the importance of their interests.

Another issue is whether we have a duty to prevent overpopulation to future generations. From a utilitarian standpoint an overpopulated world could have less average happiness, but still greater happiness overall, but some utilitarians now prefer to say that average happiness is more important than total happiness to avoid this position (ibid.).

I personally don’t see why it’s so horrible to have larger populations that are less happy. If every human life has value, then why not admit that larger populations are a good thing? If overpopulation causes suffering to people and animals, then there might not be “greater happiness” overall in the world. All things equal, it certainly seems better to exist than not exist. Perhaps some people are merely selfish and would rather that certain other people don’t exist if necessary to live a better life for themselves.

Third, consider a deontological perspective—Rawls’s perspective. John Rawls suggests that we should consider what duties we have to people from the future based on the original position under the “veil of ignorance” without knowing what generation or time period we are born in (412-413). It seems likely that the natural resources can be distributed among generations. In fact, I find it plausible that the perspective of the original position would demand that we use few enough resources that can be replenished as quickly as they are depleted. For example, trees shouldn’t be chopped down faster than they grow. However, there might be exceptions if people from one generation can use up extra resources to make the world a better place in the future.

The value of nature

A common assumption in business is that businesses only have obligations towards people and that nonhuman entities aren’t worth moral consideration. However, some philosophers challenge this notion. William F. Baxter agrees that only humans are worthy of consideration, but Holmes Rolston III believes that nature can have intrinsic value—be good just for existing and worthy of protection for its own sake (413). He calls his position a “naturalistic ethic” and denies that things only have value insofar as they are used for human purposes. Shaw states that a naturalistic ethic would (or could) find even mountains to have value beyond human interests, such as hiking and skiing.

Some defenders of a naturalistic ethic think that we have a special obligation to protect each species from extinction to help protect the diversity of life. I don’t know that each species has value in isolation, but the concrete existence of animals could have intrinsic value and species often play unique and irreplaceable roles in ecosystems.

Many philosophers doubt that nature has intrinsic value or that nature has rights because they think something must have interests to have rights, but nature has no interests (414). Of course, animals are part of nature and many animals seem like they have interests. However, Shaw’s discussion of the value of nature seems to be based on non-animal organisms and objects.

Our treatment of animals

I will use the term “animal” to refer to “nonhuman animal.” Animals have interests, so it might make sense to say that they have rights insofar as we can have duties towards them. However, even if animals don’t have rights, it still seems like animals have implications to morality and that it’s morally preferable to help animals rather than hurt them. The value of animals seems intuitive given utilitarianism because they can be happy and suffer, similar to people (415). If we are supposed to maximize happiness, then why shouldn’t the happiness of animals be part of our moral concerns? It seems like they should.

Shaw discusses the relevance of business ethics to animals insofar as (a) we do animal testing and (b) raise and kill animals for food. However, his discussion is extremely limited. We should also consider (c) animal ownership, (d) animal abuse, and (e) the effects of environmental destruction on animals.

Animal testing – We tend to assume that we are more important than nonhuman animals and it’s better to test on animals rather than humans because it’s disrespectful and harmful to treat people as guinea pigs. However, animal testing is only morally warranted when (a) it doesn’t harm the animals or (b) we have no choice but to test on either animals or humans. Peter Singer argues that animal testing is often unjustified and causes needless harm to animals. Cosmetics testing on animals seems like an obvious example given that we already have plenty of safe cosmetics on the market, it causes harm to animals, and we don’t really need cosmetics in the first place.

Farming – Farming might have once been humane when animals could live their lives safely protected by people until they are killed for human consumption, but now most farm animal lives tend to be miserable in cramped spaces on “factory farms” (415-416). First, this treatment of animals seems unjustified insofar as animals have interests and it seems important that we don’t hurt them for no good reason. Second, it’s not obvious that it’s morally justified to kill any animals we want for food considering that we could be vegetarians or just eat less intelligent animals (416). Cows and pigs are fairly intelligent and it might be wrong to kill them when it’s not necessary for our health or survival.

Animal ownership – It’s not obvious that we have a right to own all other animals. It might be that we have a right to own lower organisms of sufficiently low intelligence, but not higher life forms. Elephants, dolphins, whales, and great apes are all very intelligent, but even dogs and cats can be pretty smart. Many people have pets and perhaps it’s better that we care for these animals than send them out into the wild. However, we could care for animals without technically owning them. Perhaps we could be their “guardians” rather than owners, much as parents should be understood as the guardians of their young children rather than owners. The idea of owning animals suggests that the animals are objects and such an idea could be inappropriately disrespectful to them. We could try to refuse to “dehumanize” animals despite the fact that they aren’t humans—by being respectful of them and valuing them as ends in themselves.

Animal abuse – According to the law, people who own and sell animals have responsibilities towards those animals, whether the animal is a pet, farmed for food, or used in experimentation. It seems plausible that such laws are based on our moral duties, and there’s almost no reason for these laws to exist for human benefit. It seems likely that the laws exist precisely because many people agree that animals have intrinsic value. Shaw has already discussed how farming and experimentation often harms animals, and the law often allows such harm. It seems likely that it’s wrong to harm animals beyond what the law allows. What Shaw said about factory farming and experimentation also applies to animals in the wild and pets. It generally seems morally preferable to protect the interests of animals rather than harm them.

Environmental destruction – Shaw rarely or never mentioned the effects environmental destruction has on animals. Animals are harmed and destroyed when we take the world’s resources, strip forests to make farmland, and pollute. The environment has at least two important moral considerations for animals:

First, the pollution that makes people sick is the same pollution that makes other animals sick. Just recently high amounts of toxins—the highest ever recorded—was found in dolphins and whales, such as polychlorinated biphenyls and insecticides.

Second, it’s not obvious that we have a right to resources that are used by animals. As humans we see the natural world as being our property. Just about every piece of land is now the property of a country or individual. However, many animals are also territorial and it’s not obvious that we can legitimately own land being used by other animals—especially when they were here first. We might have a right to protect our interests and take the world’s resources as needed, but that doesn’t mean that the interests of animals shouldn’t be taken into account as well. There could be immoral cases of seizing land from animals. Consider how the Malaysian forests are being destroyed to make farms, which destroys the habitat of Orangutans, one of the most intelligent animals in the world (and an endangered species). Aren’t animal interests worth consideration when we destroy the environment? It seems like they are, and the interests of intelligent animals like the Orangutan seem especially important.

Conclusion

The environment is one of the most important moral issues not only because harming the environment often violates our right to noninjury, but also because environmental damage has been incredibly harmful to both people and other animals. Not to mention that many environmental issues can create even more devastation in the future, such as the possible depletion of the world’s resources to future generations.

The importance of the environment not only shows traditional failures of business ethics of the past and present, but it also helps clarify the importance of externalities and animals. Businesses traditionally saw no need to pay for externalities, but we now know that externalities are of grave importance and are often a matter of life and death. Businesses traditionally saw no need to respect animals, but many moral philosophers no longer see any reason to value ourselves over other animals at any cost.

The responsibilities of business to consumers

Businesses have at least the following two general ethical duties to consumers, according to any theory of justice or morality that recognizes (a) that contractual relationships give us obligations and (b) that we have a right to non-injury:

1. Businesses must give us what we pay for. Whenever we trade, we are exchanging goods and services within an implicit or explicit contract. One person is obligated to give one thing in exchange for another. People should not be deceived about what they are buying. For example, when we buy a TV set we expect (i) to get the TV set, (ii) that the TV set will function, (iii) that the TV set has minimally sufficient quality, and (iv) that the TV set will not harm us when used in ordinary ways.
2. Businesses must not harm anyone, including consumers.

Additionally, businesses can make moral decisions that are not necessarily “ethical duties.” Some moral decisions are morally favorable and some are morally unfavorable. For example, utilitarians will argue that a business ought to help people flourish and live better lives, even though it’s not necessarily obligated to do so. One popular argument for a free market that allows trade unrestricted by a government is the “invisible hand argument”—that free trade between rational self-interested and profit-seeking individuals leads to competition, and a productive and flourishing society. However, this implies that consumers are rational and informed and yet consumers tend to know very little about the products they buy despite requiring them. For that reason it seems preferable for companies to be open and honest about the products and services they sell. Consumers need ways to be informed about the products and services they buy without becoming experts, or we have no reason to expect free trade to lead to a prosperous society.

The facts that (1) consumers are no longer well-informed and (2) consumers are no longer self-sufficient both have bearing on the importance of business ethics regarding consumers:

First, at one point in time consumers might have been able to assess the quality of products and services they bought on their own, but that is no longer the case (354). Products and services are now often created by experts who have spent years within a specialized field. This makes it very important for companies to be honest with consumers who can no longer know on their own if the product or service they buy is of sufficient quality or even has the function they consider buying it for.

Second, at one point in time consumers might have been able to refuse to buy products and services without penalty (353-354). Such people could be self-sufficient and farm all the food they need to survive on their own. However, that is no longer the case. People are increasingly dependent on the goods and services that require the machines, resources, and expertise of others. This gives consumers little choice but to trust the honesty and good intentions of companies, and makes it all the more important that companies look out for the best interest of their customers.

Product safety

Product safety is an ethical obligation insofar as companies have a duty to provide consumers with whatever it is they pay for and products are assumed to be safe for ordinary use. Nonetheless, “statistics indicate that the faith consumers must place in manufacturers is often misplaced. Every year millions of Americans require medical treatment from product-related accidents” (354). For example, drugs often have harmful side effects (including death) and many children’s toys contain harmful chemicals such as lead.

The legal liability of manufacturers

We originally had a legal doctrine of “caveat emptor”—let the buyer beware” because consumers were expected to know if the products they purchased were of sufficient quality (355). This doctrine was eventually phased out, which was clearly seen after the 1916 landmark court case MacPherson v. Buick Motor Car embraced the view that manufacturers could be sued rather than merely sellers, and it marked a change in law where manufacturers were seen as having a duty towards customers despite not always having a direct contractual relationship with them (ibid.). This duty is what can be described as being based on “due care,” the view that “consumer’s interests are particularly vulnerable to being harmed by the manufacturer, who has knowledge and expertise the consumer does not have” (354-355).

In 1916 the doctrine of “due care” at the time assumed that (a) companies were innocent until proven guilty and (b) that manufacturers aren’t responsible for harming consumers after taking sufficient precautions (355). It was the customer’s job to prove that the manufacturer had been negligent, but it can be very difficult to prove that a company is negligent and products could be very dangerous even when many precautions are taken.

However, we now use the legal doctrine of “strict liability” and companies are now liable even when they take precautions, so consumers no longer have to prove negligence. Companies have a duty to have safe products and taking precautions can no longer get them off the hook (ibid.). Strict liability isn’t absolute liability because the product must be “defective” and consumers must use caution.

The justification for strict liability is utilitarian. It’s a good source of motivation for companies to take every precaution possible because any harm a defective product causes can cost them a lot of money from legal battles (356). Taking some precautions is no excuse for a defective product because more precautions can often still be taken.

Protecting the public

The government regulates product safety of manufacturing industries using various agencies, such as the Consumer Product Safety Commission. “The five-member commission sets standards for products, bans products presenting undue risk of injury, and in general polices the entire consumer-product marketing process from manufacture to final sale” (ibid.).

Although it might sound like a good idea for the government to protect consumers, it comes at a cost. First, we have to expand the government and hire more government officials. Second, high safety standards are often expensive for both manufacturers and consumers (ibid.). For example, “[t]he cost to Panasonic to recall and repair 280,000 television sets, as ordered by the commission because of harmful radiation emission, was probably equal to the company’s profits in the United States for several years” (ibid.). Safety regulations can raise prices for consumers because it can prevent consumers from buying less safe goods at a reduced price (357). There might be less people who can afford to buy cars because they can only afford cars without the added cost of high safety standards.

Government regulation over manufacturing safety standards is often a form of legal paternalism—treating the government as a protective parent (357). Cars need to be safe enough to prevent car accidents because we don’t have the right to harm (or endanger) other people. However, some safety standards only protect consumers who own the products. For example, cars are now legally required to be made with safety belts, but such a legal requirement is paternalistic because it is trying to protect people from themselves by disallowing them to risk their own safety. Many people assume that paternalism is totally unjustified because people have a right to live their own lives and know how to protect their own interests better than anyone else (ibid.) However, Shaw argues that (a) consumers are not fully rational and informed, and (b) we have to balance the value of freedom against the value of safety (ibid.). Knowledge of safety often requires expertise that most of us lack, so it seems plausible that people don’t understand when a product is sufficiently safe. Paternalism could be justified on the grounds that (i) companies would be disrespectful to exploit our ignorance, (ii) companies would be respectful to give us products that are safe to use when possible, and (iii) it will lead to the “greatest good” insofar as safety is a vital part of our well being.

How effective is regulation?

Government regulation is often effective, but not always. For example, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned cyclamate, a sweetener perhaps because of questionable reasons. Abbott Laboratories, the maker of cyclamate, found “compelling evidence of the FDA’s abuse of both regulatory process and scientific method, as well as a massive attempt at a cover up” that lead to the ban despite the fact that cyclamate was proven to be safe (358). Nonetheless the FDA “commissioner conceded that cyclamate was safe but would remain banned for political reasons” (ibid.).

Although some people have argued that the government should let companies regulate themselves, there’s evidence that there’s often a good reason for the government to step in because companies often refuse to accept sufficient safety standards on their own (359). For example, the auto industry preferred to have low safety and pollution regulation for cars and fought against legislation for stricter standards. The lower standards enjoyed by car companies might have saved the them money, but they cost the public lives, suffering, and high medical bills. “[T]he federal government delayed the requirement to equip cars with air bags or automatic seat belts. Each year of the delay saved the industry $30 million. But the price paid by consumers has been high: Passive restraints reduce highway deaths by 3,000 a year and injuries by tens of thousands” (ibid.)

The responsibilities of business

As noted earlier, businesses are required to give us sufficiently safe products whether they are regulated or not. The following six steps should be taken by manufacturers to assure consumers that safety standards are sufficiently high:

1. “Business should give safety the priority warranted by the product” (360) – Companies shouldn’t dismiss safety standards whenever they would cost the company money. Safety standards are a requirement other than profit. The seriousness and frequency that a product causes harm determines how important safety standards are. Products that cause serious injuries often are the products that need the highest safety standards.
2. “Businesses should abandon the misconception that accidents occur exclusively as a result of product misuse and that it is thereby absolved of all responsibility” (360-361) – First, consumers should be educated about the proper use of products that can cause harm. Second, some consumers are harmed even when they use products appropriately. Third, if products are continually being misused, there might be ways to make misuse less dangerous.
3. “Business must monitor the manufacturing process itself” (361) – There are often product defects from mismanaged manufacturing processes, and companies must oversee that people making the products are qualified and predict possible problems in the manufacturing process and ways to identify when such problems occur. Additionally, products should be rigorously tested to make sure they are adequately safe. Sometimes other companies should be hired to assure that the testing process is unbiased.
4. “When a product is ready to be marketed, companies should have their product-safety staff review their market strategy and advertising for potential safety problems” (361-62) – Advertisements and product images can have an impact on how a product is used and irresponsible advertising and product images can encourage people to use the product in unsafe ways. For example, advertisers shouldn’t show people driving cars while using their phones to send text messages.
5. “When a product reaches the marketplace, firms should make available to consumers written information about the product’s performance” (362) – To prevent the misuse of products, information about proper and improper use of a product should be clearly explained and available to the public. This is why many products have a warning label.
6. “Companies should investigate consumer complaints” (ibid.) – Consumers are a good source of product safety testing that can go beyond a company’s expectations, and complaints can be a good source of information concerning safety standards and misuse of products.

Other areas of business responsibility

Product safety might be the most important concern of consumers considering that it’s often a matter of life and death, but it’s not the only concern of consumers. In this section Shaw discusses product quality, pricing, and packaging and labeling.

Product quality

When a product is purchased, customers aren’t usually just buying an unknown object—they are usually buying an item of sufficient quality that performs a certain expected function (363). A broken TV set shouldn’t be sold as a “regular TV set.” It should be clear that it’s broken. Products must either conform to reasonable customer expectations or to the explicit claims made about it. This is especially important now that the quality of many products can’t be assessed quickly or without adequate expertise. We tend not to have adequate time to test an item before buying it, and we tend to lack the expertise required to know its quality.

Many products are sold with a guaranteed level of quality, which is known as a warranty. For example, the manufacturer can promise that a TV set will last for two years without needing any repairs.

There are express and implied warranties. Express warranties are explicitly given, but implied warranties aren’t. Any sale without an express warranty has an implied one, which is that the product will have the adequate quality needed to be used for ordinary use.

Prices

Pricing practices are often meant to “manipulate people” Consider the following:

1. Price tags often have 99 cents included because many people don’t think of it as a dollar. For example, something could be sold for $19.99 instead of $20 (365).
2. Prices can be raised in the hopes to sell more products because sometimes people will be willing to buy something if the price is high—perhaps with the assumption that it has a higher quality (ibid.).
3. Sometimes similar products sell more often if they are available at different prices. This can give the illusion that the products are of varying qualities, when they might have nearly identical quality (ibid.).
4. Prices are often higher than they appear due to “hidden fees” (ibid.)
5. Prices are often raised by reducing quality or quantity (ibid.). For example, a container of peanuts can stay the same size but contain less.
6. Sometimes products aren’t labeled with a price tag to make it more difficult for customers to compare prices (ibid.).
7. Electronic scanners used to charge customers often have errors and charge customers more money than the item was supposed to cost (ibid.).
8. Prices can start at artificially high values so that they can be “on sale” and appear to be a better deal than they really are (366). Sometimes these originally high values are the retail prices suggested by the manufacturer (365).
9. Companies often have promotions for sales, but only one or two products are marked for sale and the promotion was just a lure to get customers into the store.

It is certainly more respectful to customers to do business without psychological manipulation, but it’s not clear if businesses are obligated to do business without such manipulation. Either way, it seems to be morally preferable considering that psychological manipulation can harm people and encourage irrational choices to be made. When dealing with the well being of people, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Price fixing – Sometimes stores engage in price fixing and sell products for inflated prices by refusing to do business with manufacturers who sell the same products to competing stores that are willing to sell the same product for less. Other times manufacturers require stores to sell their products for the retail value or they will refuse to do business with the stores in the future. Either way, price fixing is illegal and probably immoral given that the “free market” requires supply and demand to determine the value of products (366). In fact, price fixing is usually only used by monopolies—companies that lack competition. If the product was being sold for too much, then a competitor could sell the same product for less; but there is no concern for such competition when there isn’t any.

However, it’s not always monopolies that engage in price fixing. Sometimes an entire industry can refuse to be competitive and can keep prices high (367). Such industries are still more likely to be run by large businesses rather than several small ones.

Price gouging – Price fixing is often a sort of price gouging—charging too much for a product, but there could be other reasons for price gouging and it’s not entirely clear when high prices are examples of price gouging. For example, it’s not obvious if it’s immoral to raise the price of umbrellas during a rainy season or the price of snow shovels after it starts snowing (ibid.).

Price gouging raises the question, “What’s a fair price?” This is not an easy question to answer and seems related to the costs of producing a product and the profits being made for it (ibid.). If a price is so high that it seems disrespectful, then we have a reason to find it immoral on deontological grounds. If a price is so high that it ends up hurting people that wouldn’t be harmed if prices were lower, then it’s morally preferable that the price should be lower on utilitarian grounds.

Predatory pricing – Shaw doesn’t discuss predatory pricing, but it’s something worth thinking about. Although we like low prices, predatory pricing is the use of such low prices that little to no profit is made. It is suggested that large companies can engage in predatory pricing to harm the competition because large companies can afford not to make any profit for quite some time while other companies can’t. Predatory pricing is an unfair tactic that undermines the free market.

To identify predatory pricing, consider the following:

1. Is the company selling something for little to no profit? If not, it’s not predatory pricing. Sometimes low prices are still profitable enough for a large company when it wouldn’t be sufficiently profitable for small businesses.
2. Is it an unusual promotion? If it’s a promotion, then the company might just be trying to get some customers into the store.

If a company is selling something for little to no profit and it’s not a promotion, then it could be a form of predatory pricing.

Some people have argued that predatory pricing never happens and/or is irrational, but there is game-theoretic evidence that it is rational, James A. Dalton and Louis Esposito argue that there was considerable evidence that Standard Oil engaged in predatory pricing from 1892 to 1894 (2006, PDF), and in 2003 Germany found Wal-Mart guilty of predatory pricing (due to the simple fact that Wal-Mart was engaging in “below cost pricing.)”

“Below cost pricing” is the practice of charging less for a product than the cost. Germany forbids all “below cost pricing” as a form of predatory pricing. Even if below cost pricing isn’t meant to destroy the competition, it could still do so. As noted above, many small businesses can’t afford to compete with extremely low prices and “below cost pricing” would certainly be included in that. It’s not entirely clear that below cost pricing is always immoral, but there could be utilitarian considerations against it that could be used to justify legislation against it.

Extremely low prices are generally not seen as being immoral, but highly efficient and powerful corporations can end up putting small companies out of business when they can keep prices low, and some people think there’s value to be found in small businesses that can’t be found in large corporations. Sometimes corporate efficiency is little more than being large enough to get discounts based on volume—companies that can afford to buy enough from manufacturers can buy them for cheaper. It seems a bit unfair to give wealthy and powerful corporations a huge discount just because they can afford to buy more goods. It’s a form of rewarding the wealthy for being wealthy.

Labeling and packaging

Customers have a right to know what the products are that they purchase, and labels and packaging are the customer’s “primary source of product information” (368). I already mentioned that safety information and warnings should be included with a product, and in many cases such information should be on the package. The most important moral issue involving packaging is misleading packaging. Packaging must not be misleading because (a) it’s important for consumers to know what they are buying for the transaction to be legitimate and (b) it’s disrespectful to try to manipulate people. Customers might not want a product if they find out it’s unsafe or unhealthy, such as tobacco.

Despite a customer’s right to know what they are buying, companies often lie or prefer for their products to remain a mystery. In egregious cases, labels can be used as false advertising. For example, in 2008 Purely Juice sold juice labeled as “100% pomegranate juice” that contained mostly water and high fructose corn syrup (sugar). Another example is Taco Bell, which has been charged with misleading customers by advertising the use of “100% beef” when the meat substance is only partially beef.

Vague or ambiguous words, like “all natural” and “99% fat free” are often misleading. Arsenic is all natural, and 2% milk contains 35% fat in terms of calories. (It’s 2% fat by weight.)

Packaging can also be misleading by using large packages full of air or optical illusions (369). Cereal boxes look larger when they are tall and narrow rather than box-shaped, and shampoo bottles often have a pinched waist to look larger than they really are.

Deception and unfairness in advertising

The goal of advertising tends to be to persuade people to buy a product rather than to convey information (370). False advertising is only one form of morally questionable advertising. There’s also the question of manipulative and uninformative advertising.

Advertising is morally relevant not only because some companies advertise, but also because we are saturated by it. Back in 1999 William Shaw stated that companies spend so much on advertising that around $500 is spent for each person annually in the US (369). In 2010 around $425 was spent on each person for advertising in the US.1

Deceptive techniques

False advertising is the most egregious form of deceptive advertising, and not all deceptive advertising is blatant. Deceptive advertising usually makes use of ambiguity and vagueness, concealed facts, exaggeration, and psychological appeals.

Ambiguity and vagueness – A statement is ambiguous when it can be taken two different ways, but a vague statement is when it’s not clear where to draw the line. Shaw’s main point is merely that advertisers use manipulative language and he treats ambiguity and vagueness as equivalent, but they aren’t. To say that 2% milk contains 2% fat is ambiguous because it could be 2% by weight, volume, or calories; and the company will use whatever criteria is most convenient. To say that a product is “healthy” is vague because it might be healthy in moderation or merely healthier than some other product on the market.

Shaw argues that Sara Lee’s “Light Classic” deserts is preying on ambiguity because people tend to think that the word “light” refers to the calories, but it actually refers to “the texture of the product” (370).

Shaw gives examples of “weasel words” that are intentionally ambiguous or vague that can easily be used to deceive consumers. For example, “like,” “virtual” or “virtually,” “can be,” and “up to,” and “as much as.” The statement “up to 50% fat free” is almost meaningless because it might not be fat free at all.

Concealed facts – Advertisers suppress information that customers should know about. For example, alcoholic products advertised on television don’t mention that alcohol is addictive. Sometimes the suppressed information is merely used to play on the manipulative language used. For example, “American Home Products was advertising its Anacin-3 by claiming that ‘hospitals recommended acetaminophen, the aspirin-free pain reliever in Anacin-3, more than any other pain reliever’—without telling consumers that the acetaminophen hospitals recommend is, in fact, Tylenol” (ibid.).

Exaggeration – Exaggeration can be nothing less than false information, but it can also be a form of puffery. When Nabisco claimed that it’s bran cereal was “flavored with two naturally sweet fruit juices” it exaggerated its use of healthy sweeteners because it failed to mention that it mostly uses sugar and only trace amounts of fruit juice (373). Puffery is the use of “harmless superlatives,” like when a company describes their product as the “king of beers” (ibid.). The main purpose of puffery is to appeal to our emotions rather than reason, and it could be considered to be an inappropriate “psychological appeal” despite being relatively harmless rather than deceitful.

Psychological appeals – Attempts to deceive people through poor reasoning or emotional appeals are deceitful forms of psychological appeals. Many advertisements seem to promise or imply a possible connection between a product and a good family, a good sex life, intimate friendships, and happiness. Usually this is implied by showing family, friends, and lovers enjoying their intimate time together with the product. Also, consider a blatant example of advertising by Coca-Cola on youtube that promises happiness. It says, “A Coca-Cola vending machine is transformed into a happiness machine delivering ‘doses’ of happiness. Where will happiness strike next?” The video shows a Coca-Cola machine that provides free bottles of Coca-Cola and a large subway sandwich to high school students.

Some psychological appeals could be at the subconscious level and we might not even be aware of the effects subliminal advertising has on our decision making (374-375).

The Federal Trade Commission’s Role

The FTC was originally created in 1914 to combat monopolies and unfair business practices that harm competition, but it has been expanded to “regulate deceptive advertising and [fraudulent] commercial practices” (375). However, many people don’t think it does enough to protect consumers, so many people have sued companies for false advertising and the punishments for false advertising have been more harmful to companies than the fines that would be required by the FTC if it took a more active role (376). Historically when suing companies for false advertising, it must be shown that a reasonable person could be deceived by the advertisement (ibid.). However, the courts now often try to protect less than reasonable consumers (and adopt an ignorant-consumer standard) because half the population has a less-than-average ability to reason and it doesn’t seem fair to let companies manipulate large numbers of people (377). If large numbers of people are deceived, that’s enough to show that the advertising is deceitful.

Ads directed at children

Children are especially vulnerable to deceptive advertising because they can’t be expected to be very reasonable. Some companies advertise to children despite not wanting to sell to children. They want to foster “brand loyalty” because they think their commercials can persuade children to prefer their brand at an early age that will continue into adulthood (378).

The debate over advertising

It’s not just deceptive advertising that people dislike. Many people find some advertising to be immoral based on other factors, and some people even think advertising should be banned entirely. This debate relates to consumer needs, market economics, and free speech.

Consumer needs

Theodore Levitt argued that advertising helps fulfill consumer needs by seeing products as more than mere products—as part of being a happy person. Levitt says, “Without distortion, embellishment, and elaboration… life would be drab, dull, anguished, and at its existential worst” (379). Advertising can make us feel more satisfied with life (perhaps because we bought many products that guarantee it).

However, others argue that products rarely live up to their promises of making us live better lives, and I personally think it is warped to value one’s life more based on owning products. That seems like a blatant distortion of the sorts of values that are appropriate. Advertising shouldn’t convince people that being happy is about buying lot of stuff, nor should it convince people to feel unsatisfied with life when they refuse to buy products they don’t need. (See George Carlin’s skit on stuff.)

I find that advertisements that manipulate us to buy products isn’t just disrespectful, but it could cause materialism or consumerism—a superficial emphasis of the importance of owning products at the expense of more important values. First, this in itself can cause irrational behavior, such as spending too much time shopping rather than doing something more important. Second, consumerism is wasteful because it encourages us to waste our money better used on something else. Third, consumerism encourages us to buy products that use the world’s resources that can harm the environment and cause pollution (which harms both people and nonhuman animals).

John Kenneth Galbraith argues in The Affluent Society and The New Industrial State that advertising can create new desires in people (380). For example, an advertisement for a product that can reduce dandruff can also show people get upset about dandruff and it might manipulate people to dislike dandruff who care little about it beforehand.

Advertising often attempts to make people feel inadequate and in need of something that might have little to nothing to do with living a better life. Many people think advertising often attempts to make us feel inadequate with our appearance in an attempt to motivate us to buy more products that can help us look better. Research by Regan Gurung and Jennifer Otto seems to indicate that advertising is successful at making men feel inadequate with their appearance, even if that’s not the intention.

I personally don’t think it matters whether advertising creates new desires or merely deceives people. Consider the following explanations for why advertising showing intimate relationships can be successful:

1. The advertisement implies that the product can satisfy our desires for close relationships with others, and tricks us into believing it. It’s simply a form of false advertising meant to deceive the gullible.
2. The advertisement can create a subconscious association between something we desire (close relationships) and the product, causing many people to desire the product even if they don’t consciously believe the association is real. Perhaps the advertisement arouses positive emotions in many people that we they confuse with the product, and the advertisement can create a new desire in them that didn’t exist before.

I think there is at least some evidence that the second option is right at least some of the time—that advertising can create desires that didn’t exist before. For example, we might all desire physical beauty, but giving beauty attention and praising it could completely change a person’s priorities. Additionally, many cultures see beauty differently and attempt to satisfy their desire for beauty in different ways as a result. For example, the US has a problem with anorexia because it values thinness and many other places do not suffer from this problem. The desire to lose weight can be harmful, irrational, and “created” by a culture.

Market Economics

Many people think that advertising is part of having a “free market” and defend advertising using the same arguments used to argue for capitalism and a libertarian theory of justice (381). However, it’s not obvious that advertising is really part of having a free market. First, the “free market” could be justified on utilitarian grounds with the assumption that buyers are informed and rational, but advertising rarely has anything to do with rational thought or objects that really make our lives better. Second, as it’s unclear that advertising is necessary for economic growth or benefits people in general. As I mentioned earlier, some people argue that “advertising in general reinforces mindless consumerism. It corrupts our civilization and misdirects our society’s economic effort towards private consumption and away from the public realm” (382).

Free speech and the media

Some businesses argue that advertising is a form of free speech, and the Supreme Court has upheld this argument. However, it’s not obvious that advertising should be part of free speech. The law could be changed in the future. And even if it should be, free speech is not unlimited—we don’t have the right to use free speech to significantly harm other people, and advertising might significantly harm people in general (or perhaps just specific forms of manipulative advertising are harmful) (382). Although advertising subsidizes television to keep it free, it’s not clear that it’s good for us in the long run. “[T]he very fact that it’s free results in far more consumption than would otherwise be the case and probably, as many think, far more than is good for us” or animals due to distorted values, pollution, damage to the environment, time wasted, and so on (ibid.).

Conclusion

Businesses are responsible to their consumers based on the contract implied by trade and potential harm that can be done to the public. Advertising and product labeling are both very important because it is the potential customer’s primary source of information, and companies have responsibilities to everyone that could be harmed by their advertising. Although Shaw’s book is highly comprehensive, he neglects to discuss pollution and environmental considerations in detail here even though such issues are relevant to how companies treat their customers insofar as environmental damage can harm them. However, environmental issues are saved for Shaw’s final chapter and are discussed in more detail there.

It’s not entirely clear what all the moral obligations companies have towards their customers and potential customers. Companies must be honest with customers and sell products that are adequately safe or people will be cheated. Every theory of justice will forbid coercive and deceptive trade. However, there’s a lot of gray area. It’s not entirely clear when advertising is overly deceptive or how much harm manipulative advertising does to people. However, it seems reasonable to think that it is morally preferable for companies to be honest and reject manipulative practices whenever it’s unclear how much harm it could cause. It’s better to be safe than sorry when we are dealing with the well being of people.

Notes

1 According to Kantar Media, $131 billion was spent on advertising in 2010, and the US population was 308 million, according to the US Census Bureau.

The meaning of job discrimination

We all discriminate for and against people. It’s perfectly rational to discriminate between applicants for a job and to only hire those who are the most qualified based on merit. However, there are irrational and illegitimate forms of discrimination, such as racism and sexism. There is rarely (or never) reason to discriminate against people purely on the basis of religious or political views, sexual orientation, age, or ethnicity. I will use the word “discrimination” as equivalent to the illegitimate sort of discrimination and prejudice. Job discrimination is when business decisions, policies, or procedures are at least partially based on illegitimate forms of discrimination that benefit or harm certain groups of people. Refusing to hire black people, paying women less than men for comparable work, and refusing to give homosexuals promotions are all egregious forms of job discrimination. Shaw only discusses discrimination against blacks, Hispanics, and women because “most discrimination in the American workplace has traditionally been aimed” at these groups (317). Discrimination is usually based on prejudice. (e.g. The belief that men don’t respect women bosses, that whites are harder working than other groups, or that customers won’t like to have Asian waiters.)

Not all discrimination is intentional or conscious. Sometimes people favor some groups of people over others as a matter of personal preference, or unconsciously accept stereotypes (317). Sometimes no one in particular is prejudiced, but the policies or procedures of an organization are prejudiced. A blatant example would be a policy that states that women can’t get “supervisory positions because ‘the boys in the company don’t like to take orders from females’” (ibid.). Not all examples are this obvious. For example, some states required a literacy test for voters and many blacks were given a poor education and couldn’t pass the literacy tests. Literacy tests (and similar academic tests) used for job applications could be discriminatory for similar reasons when it doesn’t directly measure the relevant qualifications concerning the job.

Why is job discrimination immoral? I’ve already made it clear that we are only dealing with irrational “non-merit-based” forms of discrimination here. That in itself doesn’t sound productive. Additionally, there’s a good reason that such discrimination is wrong. First, it unfairly harms people of a group (ibid.). Second, it’s disrespectful and doesn’t treat people as “ends in themselves” (317-318). Third, we wouldn’t be willing to accept such irrational discrimination practices that target groups we would personally suffer from (318) Fourth, discrimination violates the ideals of equal moral equality, violates people’s moral rights, and violates the ideal of equal opportunity (ibid.). Shaw doesn’t mention a fith reason, but discrimination often harms companies because companies do best with the most qualified employees and discrimination often prevents qualified people from attaining the jobs they would best serve. As a result it also harms customers and investors who depend on the company to hire and reward the most qualified employees who can provide us with the best products and services in the most efficient way available.

Evidence of discrimination

Although it is clear that job discrimination exists, it’s not clear how widespread it is. “However, when (1) statistics indicate that women and minorities play an unequal role in the work world and (2) endemic attitudes, practices, and policies are biased in ways that seem to account for the skewed statistics, then there is good reason to believe that job discrimination is a pervasive problem” (ibid.).

Statistical evidence

First, many statistics show advantages given to whites and disadvantages facing blacks and Hispanics. This can be seen in household net worth, poverty rates, and unemployment rates.

Household net worth – Studies have consistently found that white households tend to have about ten times the net worth of black households. The Panel Study of Income Dynamics found that in 2007 the median white household’s net income was worth $116,500 but the median black household’s net income was worth $9,500. More information can be found in the PDF here.

Median Household Net Worth

Poverty rates – According to statehealthfacts.org, 13% of white Americans, 35% of black Americans, and 34% of Hispanic Americans lived in poverty from 2008-2009.

Unemployment rates – According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in April 2011, 8% of whites, 16.1% of blacks, and 11.8% of Hispanics were unemployed

Second, many statistics show advantages given to men and disadvantages given to women. This is illustrated by the income gap between men and women, and the low number of women in high paid positions.

The income gap – According to Robert Drago, the ratio of women’s and men’s median annual earnings, was 77.0 for full-time, year-round workers in 2009, essentially unchanged from 77.1 in 2008

High paid positions – Relatively few women are in management positions. According to the Government Accountability Office, women accounted for 40% of the management positions in 2007 despite being 49% of the non-management work force. Additionally, very few women are corporate executives. According to CNN, in may 2010 only 15 of the 500 “Fortune 500” companies were run by women.

Attitudinal evidence

Statistics don’t conclusively prove that discrimination exists because there could be causes of various advantages and disadvantages accorded to various groups based on legitimate factors other than prejudice or discrimination. To assume that “correlation always indicates causation” is to commit an error in reasoning. Shaw helps establish that discrimination exists by appealing to concrete examples of job discrimination and surveys.

For example, in 1990 Price Waterhouse, an accounting firm, was sued by Ann Hopkins and found guilty of sex discrimination for refusing to treat women as equals when deciding when to promote women into partners (320).

Price Waterhouse denied her the position because she was allegedly an abrasive and overbearing manager. Coworkers referred to her as ‘macho,’ advised her to go to charm school, and intimated that she was overcompensating for being a woman. One partner in the firm even told her that she should ‘walk more femininely, talk more femininely, dress more femininely, wear makeup, have her hair styled, and wear jewelry.’ Hopkins argued, and the Court agreed, that the comments like these revealed an underlying sexism at the firm and that her strident manner and occasional cursing would have been overlooked if she had been a man. (321)

Shaw adds that several surveys confirm the prevalence of discrimination, prejudice, and stereotyping against women and other minorities (321-322). I will discuss the findings of new surveys and studies instead of the older ones that Shaw discussed.

One study from 2007 found that (a) customers who viewed videos featuring various employees were significantly more satisfied with the employees who were white men than from a minority even when the performance of the employees were indistinguishable, and (b) that white male doctors are often believed to be more competent and approachable than doctors of a minority even when their performance is indistinguishable. Such a study suggests not only that prejudice is widespread, but that “customer satisfaction surveys” are biased and should not be taken seriously when making administrative decisions that can help or harm employees. You can download a PDF of the study here.

Additionally, in 2005 Catalyst published findings concerning American stereotypes about women that can often be harmful to their careers. In particular, stereotypes tend to bias people against women taking leadership positions. Woman are often seen as affectionate, appreciative, emotional, friendly, sympathetic, sensitive, and sentimental; but men are seen as dominant, achievement-oriented, active, ambitious, self-confident and rational.¹ It seems likely that many people think our leaders should be dominant, achievement-oriented, ambitious, self-confident, and rational; rather than affectionate, emotional, or sensitive. You can download a PDF of the findings here.

Finally, we can also consider other evidence that people are prejudiced in various ways. For example:

1. There is evidence that many people are prejudiced against atheists. A 2006 study by the University of Minnesota found that 47.6% of Americans disapprove of a marriage between their child and an atheist, and a 2007 poll revealed that 57% of Americans don’t think atheists can be moral. The word “godless” has been used as an insult for quite some time, and it still is. I argue that atheism is not immoral here.
2. There is evidence that many people are prejudiced against Muslims. A 2010 poll showed that 43% of Americans admit being at least a little prejudiced against Muslims, which is more than twice the number of people who admit that concerning other religions (18% admit it concerning Christians, 15% admit it concerning Jews, and 14% admit it concerning Buddhists.) I argue that Muslims are not immoral here.
3. There is evidence that many people are prejudiced against homosexuals. A 2007 poll found that 43% of Americans wouldn’t vote for a qualified homosexual to be president, and a 2006 poll found that 22.6% of Americans don’t think that homosexuals “share their vision of of American society.” I argue that homosexuality isn’t immoral here.

Additionally, there’s evidence of prejudice and discrimination against…

1. People with disabilities, which lead to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and successful lawsuits.
2. Unattractive people based on a 1994 study and a 2010 study.
3. People who are overweight based on a 2001 study (PDF).
4. Older people, which lead to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 and successful lawsuits.

Affirmative action: a legal context

Affirmative action originated in the form of somewhat recent civil rights legislation. It started in 1961 “President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10925, which decreed that federal contractors should ‘take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin,’” the 1963 Equal Pay Act that “guaranteed the right to equal pay for equal work,” and the 1964 Civil Rights Act that “prohibits all forms of discrimination based on race, color, sex, religion, or national origin” (323). Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination in the work place regarding hiring employees, dismissing employees, wages, benefits, and discipline. The Civil Rights Act applies to all organizations with fifteen or more employees.

Civil rights legislation continued with the 1967 Age Discrimination in Employment Act and the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act.

Civil rights law is enforced by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commision (EEOC). Starting in the 1960s “companies contracting with the federal government were required to develop affirmative action programs, designed to correct imbalances in employment that exist directly as a result of past discrimination” (324). The EEOC gives the following guidelines to affirmative action: (1) Organizations must have a written equal employment policy, (2) they must appoint someone in charge of the equal employment policy, and they must report information regarding employees of various minorities (ibid.).

The Supreme Court’s position

Shaw lists many Supreme Court cases relevant to affirmative action to give us an idea about the legality involving it.

The first case concerning affirmative action was Bakke v. Regents of the University of California from 1978 and ruled that strict quotas meant to help minorities were a form of reverse discrimination against non-minorities (325). A white student sued because he would have been admitted to UC Davis if it weren’t for the quotas, and he won the case.

Perhaps the latest affirmative action case in the Supreme Court was the 2009 case, Ricci v. DeStefano, which ruled that an organization can’t dismiss test results that seem discriminatory unless they can be sufficiently proven to be discriminatory. A test was given to firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut to determine which workers would get promotions and none of the black workers passed. Nineteen workers believed they were passed up on the promotions because the test result was thrown out, and they won the case. The Supreme Court decided that throwing the test results out was a form of discrimination and violated our civil rights.

Recent supreme court cases involving affirmative action have confirmed that minorities can be given extra points when making administrative decisions, but unqualified people should not be given special treatment on the basis of affirmative action (328).

Affirmative action: the moral issues

Legislators and the Supreme Court can decide when affirmative action is legal, but they can’t determine when (or if) it’s moral. Shaw discusses arguments for and against affirmative action that include “programs taking race or sex of employees or job candidates into account as part of an effort to correct imbalances in employment that exist as a result of past discrimination, either in the company itself or in the larger society… Excluded are programs that establish rigid, permanent quotas or that hire and promote unqualified persons” (ibid.).

I don’t know why Shaw states that affirmative action is meant to only counter “past discrimination.” Discrimination still exists. People and institutions often give preference to non-minorities over minorities, as was already made clear above. Affirmative action could be used to counter discrimination that still exists to make sure prejudice has a smaller impact on administrative decisions that can benefit and harm workers.

Arguments for affirmative action

1. “Compensatory justice demands affirmative action programs” (329) – Past discrimination has harmed minorities and we should try to compensate for that damage. (However, (a) it’s not clear that employers have a duty to compensate for the wrongs done by others and (b) affirmative action doesn’t compensate to the actual people who were harmed by past discrimination.)
2. “Affirmative action is necessary to permit fairer competition” (329-330) – Blacks, Hispanics, and other minority groups are still disadvantaged because of past discrimination, and affirmative action can help them rise above disadvantages that they still suffer from. (However, its prejudiced to assume that only minorities suffer from unfair hardships when many whites have also had to do so.)
3. “Affirmative action is necessary to break the cycle that keeps minorities and women locked into low-paying, low-prestige jobs” (330) – It’s unfair that certain minorities are trapped into worse jobs than white men and it would take hundreds of years to change that situation without affirmative action. (However, affirmative action can make people racially conscious and white men can resent minorities who get good jobs by assuming that it was because of a form of reverse-racism.)

Arguments against affirmative action

1. “Affirmative action injures white men and violates their rights” (ibid.) – The group you belong to is irrelevant to your qualifications and people should be treated as individuals with unique qualifications instead. Affirmative action doesn’t treat people as individuals and can harm white men who might not enjoy advantages that are enjoyed by minorities just because they are minorities. (However, white men have more advantages than other groups and affirmative action can help provide a better balance of advantages by taking minority groups into consideration.)
2. “Affirmative action itself violates the principle of equality” (330-331) – If it’s wrong to treat people unequally, then it’s also wrong to treat them unequally to give minorities an advantage over whites. (However, being in a minority group already prevents people from being equals and affirmative action helps counterbalance the advantages enjoyed by white men.)
3. “Nondiscrimination will achieve our social goals; stronger affirmative action is unnecessary” (331) – Civil rights legislation already requires nondiscrimination and strict enforcement of the law is all that we need to stop discrimination. (However, lawsuits are not always successful, not everyone wants to sue their (potential) employer, and it’s extremely difficult to prove non-egregious and non-blatant forms of discrimination.)

I believe that the opposition to affirmative action tends to rely on the assumption that affirmative action doesn’t help prevent actual discrimination that exists right now despite evidence that discrimination is widespread. So far affirmative action seems to be the only solution to that issue, but certainly more research could help us decide on whether or not it is effective. This argument is utilitarian. It is possible that there are deontological reasons to oppose affirmative action. Perhaps it illegitimately restricts freedom, disrespects people by assuming there are prejudiced, and so on.

Comparable worth

We think equal work and merit deserves equal pay, but many women don’t always get equal pay as men—even for the same job (ibid.). For example, Louise Peterson, a female nurse, sued Western State Hospital because she was paid $192 a month less than male nurses who had similar work and pay. A federal judge found the hospital guilty of sex discrimination (331-332).

Additionally, many women get paid less than men because they work in a job that was traditionally given to men. Such women dominated professions (called “pink collar” occupations) often pay significantly less than jobs traditionally dominated by men despite requiring comparable work and qualifications. “For example, studies have shown that legal secretaries and instrument-repair technicians hold jobs with the same relative value for a company in terms of accountability, know-how, and problem-solving skill. Yet legal secretaries, who are almost all women, earn an average of $9,432 less than instrument-repair technicians, who are generally men” (332).

Advocates of the “comparable worth principle” argue that people should be paid the same amount for the same sort of work and qualifications—“even if discriminatory job markets would otherwise put them on different pay scales” (ibid.). Moreover, I would like to point out that some jobs with such “discriminatory pay” could be for the government rather than in the free market. It seems like a blatant example of discrimination when the government pays women less than men despite doing comparable work and having comparable qualifications.

Opponents of the comparable worth principle often favor the free market and don’t think the government should regulate the amount companies pay for a job. After all, it might be that women freely chose to work in professions that pay less knowing full well that better paying jobs are available. One opponent points out that “[f]or two decades at least women have been free to go into any occupation… But most women continue to choose traditional, rather than non-traditional jobs. This is their own free choice. Nobody makes them do it” (332).

It seems reasonable to demand that the comparable worth principle should be used by organizations to make sure that white men and minorities are paid equally for the same jobs, equal work, and equal qualifications. It seems like blatant discrimination not to do so. Minorities might “freely choose” to work for a discriminatory company only because almost every company is discriminatory and few to no better opportunities exist. This certainly seems disrespectful to minorities.

It also seems reasonable to demand that government jobs pay women equally to men for comparable work and qualifications across professions because there is no reason for the government to favor white male dominated professions over professions dominated by minorities other than blatant and disrespectful discrimination. Government jobs don’t revolve around the “free market,” so it can’t account for governmental discrimination.

Sexual harassment

Sexual harassment—unwelcome sexual behavior in the workplace—is merely one illegal form of harassment, and workers should not be harassed on the job. Sexual harassment, however, is often discriminatory in that it mainly targets women because they are women (334). Perhaps the most obvious example of sexual harassment is when a manager tells an employee to “sleep with me or else you’re fired.” Other examples of sexual harassment can include unwelcome sexual requests, unwelcome touching, and unwelcome sexual comments. For example, “[s]exual innuedos; leering or ogling at a woman; sexist remarks about women’s bodies, clothing, or sexual activities; the posting of pictures of nude women; and unnecessary touching, patting, or other physical conduct can all constitute harassment” (335). Sexual harassment can involve potential punishments and rewards for the victim. However, “[e]ven sexual offers without hint of retaliation [can] change the employee’s work environment in an undesirable way” (ibid.).

The difference between harmless sexual behavior (flirting, sexual advances, and sex-related humor) and sexual harassment is not always clear, and it might be impossible or even undesirable to ban all sexuality found in the workplace (336).

It is advisable for people to try to make it clear that unwanted sexual behavior is unwanted, and if the unwanted sexual behavior becomes distressing, to even take steps to stop the sexual harassment. The following steps can be taken (ibid.):

1. It can be made explicitly clear that the sexual behavior is unwanted.
2. The behavior can be documented with every case of it being specifically noted.
3. If the behavior continues or is serious, then a supervisor should be notified and any other official policy of the company can be followed.
4. If the company refuses to stop the sexual harassment, then it can be sued.

A 2007 study said that there’s strong evidence that women who defy gender stereotypes and have “masculine” qualities are more likely to face sexual harassment. Men are not necessarily sexual attracted to women they sexually harass and often feel that their masculinity is threatened.

Sexual harassment is wrong for the same reason as discrimination and because it’s a harmful form of harassment. Sexual harassment is often harmful to both the (a) victim and (b) organization:

1. Sexual harassment is not only disrespectful and not only coercive, but it has measurable effects. The psychological distress caused by sexual harassment is very real. Two 1998 studies conducted by the European Union (PDF) found that sexual harassment could lead to “severe distress” and cause negative effects on the victim’s health. For example, victims reported feeling fear, insecurity, and mistrust; as well as physical symptoms, such as headaches, stomach aches, and sleep deprivation.
2. A 2005 study by the Queen’s School of Business found that unwanted sexual attention makes entire work teams less efficient and can lead to team conflict.

Sexual harassment is widespread. A 2011 study by Michigan State University found that over 50% of women and almost 20% of men had at least one incident of sexual harassment within a year. The study found that many people experience sexual harassment as bothersome or frighting. Women were found to find sexual harassment distressing when it was frighting rather than bothersome; but men found it distressing either way.

Conclusion

Job discrimination is illegal, it’s often against the company’s best interest, and it’s immoral. Not all forms of irrational discrimination are illegal and companies should do whatever is necessary to be impartial when making decisions that can harm or benefit employees and applicants. Moreover, discrimination is widespread. Legal action is often but not always available against companies that discriminate. Affirmative action can help minorities by preventing discrimination against them or to attempt to help them overcome obstacles that they face due to past discrimination, but it’s not clear that affirmative action is a morally preferable option.

One form of discrimination seems to be unfair wage differences and the “principle of comparable worth” might be necessary to combat such discriminatory practices.

Finally, sexual harassment in particular violates the right to noninjury accepted by all theories of justice and causes measurable harm.

Notes

Obligations to the firm

Employees are hired to do something for the company (282). They obligate themselves to work for that company for financial gain. The employer often sets various conditions to employment, such as a dress code and respectful behavior.

Loyalty to the company

Most people assume that employees have a moral obligation to be loyal to the company they work for (ibid.). It is plausible that we are obligated to do our jobs in order to get our paychecks, but do we have an obligation to help the company in any way beyond strictly doing our job? Many employers seem to think so. “They may expect employees to defend the company if it is maligned, to work overtime when the company needs it, to accept a transfer if necessary for the good of the organization, or to demonstrate their loyalty in countless other ways” (283). Shaw does not tell us if we are obligated to have any loyalty to our employers, but we certainly think loyalty to the company is often a good thing and we hope that our loyalty will be rewarded through raises, promotions, good letters of recommendation, and so on.

Conflicts of interest

An employee’s interests can conflict with the company’s. Some of these conflicts of interest are minor and involve the fact that we might be doing something at work we would rather not. However, other conflicts of interest are serious and can tempt employees to behave disloyalty. “For example, Bart Williams, sales manager for Leisure Sports World, gives all his firm’s promotional work to Impact Advertising because its chief officer is Bart’s brother-in-law. As a result, Leisure Sports World pays about 15 percent more in advertising costs than it would if its work went to another agency” (ibid.). Even if Bart doesn’t act against his company’s interest, he could still be tempted to do so and the conflict of interest will still exist (283-284).

Employees should try to avoid significant conflicts of interest by staying away from situations that could tempt them from being disloyal, but it is difficult to decide when a conflict of interest is significant and it’s not always clear what employees should do when they are faced with a conflict of interest besides trying to resist the temptation to be disloyal.

Abuse of official position

The use of one’s official position for personal gain is often an abuse of power. This abuse can exist when a conflict of interest leads to disloyalty, such as Bart William’s use of his job to help his brother-in-law. Examples of abuse “range from using subordinates for non-organizational-related work to using a position of trust within an organization to enhance one’s own financial leverage and holdings” (285). Common abuses of power include insider trading and stealing proprietary data. I will discuss both in more detail.

Insider trading

Insider trading is when one person has access to information that’s unavailable to the public and will likely have an impact on stock prices (ibid.). For example, employees might know that their company is going bankrupt before the general public and sell all their stock before it becomes worthless. People who buy the stock will be deceived into thinking its worth more than it really is. In fact, it’s also insider trading for the employees to encourage family and friends to sell their stock using such “inside information.”

Insider trading involves difficult moral issues. It’s not clear exactly when employees can buy or sell stock from their own companies; it’s not entirely clear how much information a company should “disclose to stockholders about the firms plans, outlooks, and prospects;” it’s not entirely clear when such information should be disclosed; and its not entirely clear when a person is an “insider” (286).

Shaw does not tell us how we can try to resolve these issues.

Proprietary data

Companies often have secret information called “trade secrets” that they don’t want to be leaked outside the organization, and employees would be disloyal to use such information to advance the interests of competing organizations (287-288). Patents and copyrights are publicly available and protected by the law, but there’s still a chance that many people can get away with breaking copyright or patent laws. Companies have trade secrets to assure that the information isn’t used by competitors, but it is possible for others to discover the trade secret on their own and use it. For example, the formula for Coca-Cola is a trade secret, but anyone who discovers the formula can use it for their own soda company (288).

There are at least three arguments given for why some people think trade secrets should be protected by the law (ibid.):

1. They are intellectual property.
2. The theft of trade secrets is wrong.
3. Employees can steal trade secrets from their companies, but that would violate the confidentiality owed to the company.

Additionally, employees often get jobs working for the competition and can be tempted to use trade secrets to benefit the competitor (288-289). This is a difficult moral issue because people have a right to seek employment and we can’t always separate proprietary information from a worker’s acquired skills and technical knowledge (289). “[T]rade secrets that companies seek to protect have often become an integral part of the departing employee’s total capabilities” (ibid.).

Bribes and kickbacks

A bribe is a payment made with the expectation that someone will act against their work duties, and bribes can be very serious when it leads to neglect or reckless behavior that can injure people (289). For example, a judge is supposed to rule impartially based on what good judgment and the law requires in order to decide what punishment to give to criminals. A judge who takes a bribe from a private prison to give people guilty of crimes long sentences and send them to that private prison have compromised their impartiality and good judgment. Moreover, the people guilty of crimes would be harmed from the bribery because their punishment would be unfairly severe as a result.

Kickbacks are a form of bribery that are attained after a person uses their work position to benefit someone (290). If the judge gets paid after sending a person to the private prison, then the bribe is a kickback.

The foreign corrupt practices act

US companies have often bribed foreign officials for favors, and such favors could harm people. For example, Lockheed Aircraft Corporation was commonly bribing foreign officials and paid $22 million to get aircraft contracts with foreign governments (ibid.). Such bribes can harm governments by getting them to pay too much for goods and services (aircrafts in this case), and the harm can then be done to citizens who have to pay the bill in taxes. In this case knowledge of the bribes caused a crisis in the Japanese government.

The FCPA forbids US companies from bribing foreign officials and the punishment for bribes includes fines and imprisonment (ibid.). It also requires that companies adhere to accounting and auditing controls to help assure that bribes aren’t being made. However, the FCPA doesn’t forbid “grease payments” that are made to assure that government officials do their jobs because companies are often benefited when government officials do their jobs properly.

Finally, the FCPA treats extortion as bribery, so companies are not allowed to pay extortion money. Extortion is when a foreign official attempts to coerce a company to pay money (290-291). For example, sometimes “the official threatens to violate the company’s rights, perhaps by closing down a plant on some legal pretext, unless the official is paid off” (291).

The case against overseas bribery

We have done very little about foreign bribery, and not everyone thinks foreign bribery should even be illegal. “[F]ew companies have recently been charged with violating the law” (ibid.). Although companies have accepted punishment for bribery in the past, executives of an American company, Lindsey Manufacturing Co., were found guilty of foreign bribery in a court of law for the first time since the FCPA was created 34 years ago (5/10/11).

Some people argue that overseas bribery should be legal because (a) forbidding it gives American companies a disadvantage to foreign competing companies that are allowed to bribe and (b) the FCPA illegitimately “imposes US standards on foreign countries and payoffs are common business practices in foreign countries” (ibid.).

Does forbidding bribery give American companies a significant disadvantage? It’s a highly contentious assertion with little evidence to back it up. First, competition is often against other American companies rather than foreign ones (ibid.). Second, studies show that the FCPA has done little to damage American export expansion. Third, there’s little evidence that the FCPA really does give US companies a disadvantage. “Even in nations where the FCPA is alleged to have hurt American business, there has been no statistically discernible effect on US market share” and “since passage of the FCPA, US trade with bribe-prone countries has outpaced its trade with other countries” (ibid.). Fourth, there’s no longer very many competitive countries that allow bribery. “In 1997, the world’s industrialized nations—the 29 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development—formally agreed for the first time to a treaty that outlaws the bribing of foreign officials” (ibid.).

Does the FCPA illegitimately impose US standards on other countries? That is an implausible assertion. First, even if bribery is common practice, that in no way proves that it’s accepted by a country (292). Shaw reminds us that illegal drug dealing is common practice in the US, but that doesn’t prove it’s socially acceptable. Second, foreign officials tend not to want their bribery to be publicized, but if it was acceptable, then we would expect that they wouldn’t mind their bribery to be publicized—but there’s pretty much no such example (ibid.). Third, although the FCPA reflects our moral standards, it’s not clear that such standards only apply here in the US. “[T]hose standards are not just a matter of taste (like clothing styles) or completely arbitrary (like our decision to drive on the right, whereas the British drive on the left). Good objective arguments can be given against bribery and related corrupt practices, whether overseas or at home” (ibid.).

What good objective arguments can be given against bribery? Bribery can harm people, and it’s not clear that there’s any good excuse available to allow companies to harm people through bribery. “For example, by encouraging on nonmarket grounds the purchase of inferior goods or the payment of an exorbitant price, bribery can clearly injure a variety of legitimate interests—from stockholders to customers, from taxpayers to other businesses” (ibid.).

Gifts and entertainment

Gifts and entertainment can be used to reward and encourage certain behavior from employees, and can cause a conflict of interest as a result. Entertainment is often provided as a gift, but entertainment isn’t as likely to be morally wrong because “it usually occurs within the context of doing business in a social situation” (294). In extreme cases gifts and entertainment can be equivalent to bribes. For example, there was a “former General Services Administration (GSA) official who pleaded guilty to a criminal charge of accepting free lunches from a subsidiary of the BellSouth Corporation, which was seeking a telephone contract with the GSA” (ibid.).

When deciding whether gifts and entertainment are appropriate, the following considerations are relevant (293-294):

1. The value of the gift. Gifts worth thousands of dollars or more are likely to be taken as bribes. Most companies define infrequent gifts worth $25 or less to be “nominal” but anything more to cross the line.
2. The purpose of the gift. It could be meant to be used for palm-greasing to encourage someone to do their job, used for advertising, or used as a bribe.
3. The circumstances under which the gift was given or received. A gift given at a celebration, store opening, or during a holiday season is different than a gift not attached to a special occasion, and a gift given openly is less suspicious than a gift given in secret.
4. The position and sensitivity to influence of the person receiving the gift. A person in a position to reciprocate the gift in the form of business decisions more likely to be taking a bribe.
5. The accepted business practice in the industry. Gifts in the form of “tips” are part of our custom of having a waiter or waitress, but not part of being a CEO of a company. Gifts that are part of a cultural custom are much less suspicious than gifts that aren’t.
6. The company’s policy. Some companies have stricter rules concerning gifts than others, and we have some reason to refuse gifts when our company forbids it.
7. The law. Gifts that violate the law are almost always morally unacceptable, but the law doesn’t always forbid immoral forms of bribery or gift giving.

Obligations to third parties

Sometimes an employee has obligations to the general public that can conflict with their loyalty to the company. For example, a dishwasher can find out “that the restaurant’s chef typically reheats three- or four-day-old food and serves it as fresh” and she might have a duty to alert the public, and a consulting engineer could find “a defect in a structure that is about to be sold” and she might have a duty to tell the customer about the defect (294). In some cases an employee could find out about negligent and reckless behavior of a company that puts the public in eminent danger, such as when a company dumps toxic waste without taking proper precautions.

How should employees behave when their job duties, personal obligations, and personal interests conflicts with the interests of others? When a person is morally obligated to alert others about dangerous and deceptive business practice is not obvious, but employees should consider the importance of their job duties and personal interest compared the importance of the interests of others who are involved. Additionally, it can be morally preferable to alert the relevant third parties about immoral and illegal business practices, even if it’s not a moral obligation to do so.

The fact that business decisions can harm some people isn’t enough to prove the decision to be morally wrong. Decisions made by companies often harm the interest of competitors, and some people might argue that pollution violates our right to noninjury when it is likely to hurt people, but both of these business practices are often considered to be morally permissible. There are unfair trade practices that can illegitimately harm the competition, and there are illegal levels of pollution, but such practices aren’t always considered to be “significantly wrong.” That’s not to say that harming people is never significant. Businesses aren’t allowed to deceive their customers or do anything that would violate a person’s right to noninjury, and its often morally preferable to alert the relevant third parties about such violations.

Shaw suggests two ways to try to help us avoid rationalizations when engaging in moral reasoning to decide what to do when we face moral dilemmas:

First, we can ask ourselves whether we would be willing to read an account of our actions in the newspaper… are the contemplated actions ones that we would be willing to defend publicly? …Second, discussing a moral dilemma or ethical problem with a fiend can often help us avoid bias and get a better perspective. People by themselves, and especially when emotionally involved in a situation, sometimes focus unduly on one or two points, ignoring other relevant factors. Input from others can keep us from overlooking pertinent considerations. (296)

Whistle blowing

Whistle blowing is the act of going public with what one has reason to believe to be significantly immoral or illegal acts of an organization one is part of. Someone is not a whistle blower for telling the public about embarrassing or rude behavior (297), and being a whistle blower doesn’t involve sabotage or violence (298).

Many employees refuse to be whistle blowers because it is likely to damage their relationships at work, lead to dismissal, and even lead to being blacklisted from an industry. In fact, some whistle blowers have faced illegal forms of retaliation such as harassment, and sometimes they’ve even been murdered.

Whistle blowers must often have courage to be willing to endanger their own well being, and many of our unsung heroes are whistle blowers. However, it’s not always the right thing to do. Whistle blowing can be reckless and endanger the well being of an innocent company when its done from a “hunch” of wrongdoing rather than from a reliable method. Normal Bowie, a professor of civil disobedience, argues that whistle blowing isn’t justified unless the following criteria is met (298-299):

1. The motive must be appropriate. The employee must want justice because the organization committed a significant immoral or illegal act. The motive must not be to get revenge or to attain fame. However, this criteria is controversial. An inappropriate motive might still help cause appropriate forms of whistle blowing. As long as the company has done something significantly wrong or illegal, it’s morally preferable for the public to find out about it one way or the other.
2. The employee should usually seek less harmful ways to resolve the issue first. Employees should usually alert management and executives of wrongdoing before making the wrongdoing known to the public. Management or executives should usually be given a chance to rectify the situation, and alerting the public should usually be a last resort. The reason that this rule isn’t absolute is because there are situations when it’s impractical. For example, if people’s lives are in immediate danger, then there might be no better option than to go public with the information right away.
3. The whistle blower needs compelling evidence of wrongdoing. Its reckless to accuse a company of wrongdoing when there’s a good possibility that the company is innocent. Additionally, accusations against a company are likely to harm the whistle blower rather than the company when the public doesn’t have good reason to agree that the company did something wrong. An employee could be dismissed or sued for defamation.
4. The organization’s wrongdoing must be specific and significantly wrong. To accuse a corporation of wrongdoing involving rude behavior can be a violation of employee privacy, and the whistle blower must have specific examples of wrongdoing by the company.
5. The whistle blowing has a chance of being successful. If whistle blowing has no chance of success, then the whistle blower is going to be likely harmed by the act without a worthwhile payoff. However, Shaw objects that whistle blowing can occasionally bring attention to a practice that will eventually lead to reforms sometime in the future even if it won’t be a solution to the specific wrongdoing done.

The question of self-interest

Whistle blowing and complaints can be dangerous for whistle blowers because they are “exposing themselves to charges of disloyalty, disciplinary action, freezes in job status, forced relocation, and even dismissal” (299). Again, whistle blowing is often also met with illegal forms of retaliation ranging from harassment to murder. It seems reasonable to ask ourselves if we should be whistle blowers or complain about business practices on the job when doing so can require us to endanger our own well being. I will discuss the relevance of self-interest to our moral decisions and obligations.

Are we obligated to protect the interests of others by reporting misconduct to management or alerting the public of significant immoral acts committed by companies we work for when doing so significantly endangers our own well being? There are two common responses to this concern. One, some people argue that “prudential reason” (rational self interest) can override our moral obligations (300). It’s possible that we are justified to neglect our moral obligations when doing so would likely harm us. Two, some people argue that prudential reasons are relevant to morality and that we are not morally obligated to help others when doing so is likely to significantly cause us harm (ibid.). In that case we wouldn’t be morally required to be whistle blowers, but it could still be morally preferable and supererogatory (above the call of duty) to be a whistle blower.

If employees have an excuse to refuse to be whistle blowers, then we have a serious problem—many people will get hurt when no one is willing to take a stand (301-302). It’s not enough just to hope that some heroic individuals will try to protect our interests. Shaw suggests that it might be a good idea to “restructure business and social institutions so such acts no longer carry such severe penalties. Just as laws currently exist to protect whistle blowers in the public sector from reprisals, so comparable legislation is needed in the private sector” (302). Although the laws protecting federal whistle blowers is actually inadequate and Obama has promised to strengthen the protection, improved legislation is a solution worth considering.

We should not use self-interest to rationalize the wrongs we or our companies do. “Each of us has a tendency to magnify potential threats to our livelihood or career. Exaggerating the costs to ourselves of acting otherwise makes it easier to rationalize away the damage we are doing to others. In the business world, for instance, people talk about the survival of the firm as if it were literally a matter of life and death” (301). Additionally, we have a tendency to over-value obedience and many people will obey leaders to the point of harming others.

We should think rationally and impartially regarding morality, but that can require changes in our personality—an attempt to be morally virtuous. One way to improve ourselves is to “perform a kind of character or personality audit” (ibid.). We can think about our life and ask ourselves questions, such as the following (ibid.):

1. Do we follow authority blindly?
2. Do we suffer from moral tunnel vision on the job?
3. Do we mindlessly do what is demanded of us, oblivious to the impact of our cooperation and actions on outside parties?
4. Have we given enough attention to our possible roles as accomplices in the immoral undoing of other individuals, businesses, and social institutions?
5. Do we have a balanced view of our own interests versus those of others?
6. Do we have substantial evidence for believing that our livelihoods are really threatened, or is that belief based more on an exaggeration of the facts?

Conclusion

Morality demands that we consider the interests of everyone who can be effected by our decisions, and that we consider the situation we are in. Our job and position in society can give us unique obligations and what we should do depends on all these factors. When considering our moral duties, the most commonly cited moral principle is the right to noninjury. No matter what moral theory we agree to, everyone seems to agree that noninjury is relevant to morality and employees have a duty not to cause significant harm to innocent people. This is why it’s often morally preferable to be a whistle blower when a company is causing significant danger or harm to the public.

Privacy

We have a right to privacy, and a lack of privacy can endanger our livelyhood. We don’t want people to see us during our sexual encounters, we don’t want people to get our credit card or social security numbers, and we don’t want embarrassing facts of our past to ruin our lives. A lack of privacy doesn’t always harm us directly, but privacy is needed to protect us from various dangers.

Corporations have a duty to protect our privacy at least insofar as the privacy is part of our well being, but corporations often disrespect privacy (241). “The data banks and personnel files of business and nonbusiness organizations contain an immense amount of private information, the disclosure of which can seriously violate employees’ rights” and this information is often used to harm employees. Consider the following examples:

1. “[A] wide range of snoops still manage, legitimately or illegitimately, to get their hands on it” (ibid.).
2. Many former bosses are “passing on damaging information to prospective employers” (ibid.).
3. “Some companies routinely eavesdrop on their employees’ phone calls, and many of them read their employees’ email” (242).
4. Some companies use private investigators to investigate employees to call in sick (ibid.).

Legitimate and illegitimate influence in private lives

Corporations sometimes try to influence the behavior of employees both in or out of the workplace, and this can be taken as an invasion of privacy. Controlling the lives of employees is usually illegitimate when it has nothing to do with job performance or the reputation of the company, such as forbidding black employees from wearing their hair in corn rows (243). Corporations often want to restrict the behavior of employees based on their interest to “protect the company image,” and could be tempted to fire an employee for being a stripper in their free time (243-244). However, corporations must respect their employees (and unique characteristics of their employees), even when the public is prejudiced and could lash out against a company for associating with unpopular characteristics or showing tolerance.

Companies can have grounds to try to control the behavior employees when the behavior violates the following principles:

1. The employee’s behavior must be compatible with good job performance. Employees that show a significant “lack of judgment” outside the workplace through highly reckless, immoral, or illegal behavior could be legitimately dismissed if their job requires good judgment. For example, a security guard was fired for drawing his gun against an antagonist and the court system agreed that he showed reckless behavior that was incompatible with the good judgment required for the job (244).
2. Employees must be be minimally loyal to their companies and are not supposed to illegitimately damage the reputation of the business. It is appropriate for employees to be whistle blowers when the company refuses to rectify illegal or immoral behavior, but employees shouldn’t set out to damage to reputation of their company unless there is a good reason to do so. The public has a right to know of illegal and immoral behavior companies are engaged in, so that we have a sufficiently “free market” based on informed rational self-interest that allows the public to refuse to do business companies that don’t meet relevant criteria.

To further assess the moral implications of a company influence over the lives of employees, consider the following three common forms of influence:

Involvement in civic activities – Companies often pressure employees to get involved in civic activities, such as “running for the local school board or heading up a commission in the arts,” but such pressure must not constitute coercion (ibid.). Employees must not be disciplined or dismissed for a lack of participation, and even public embarrassment could be considered to be a form of coercion. For example, “[m]embers of the Army Band… won a suit claiming that the posting of names of soldiers who had not contributed to the United Way constituted coercion” (245).

Health programs – Some companies try to pressure employees to live healthier lives. This is at least somewhat relevant when healthier employees are more productive and medical insurance can be more expensive for unhealthy employees. There’s nothing wrong with educating employees about how to be healthier, but some companies want to make “employees pay more for their health care benefits if they are overweight, have high blood pressure, or don’t exercise. And employees have been fired for smoking or taking a drink at home” (ibid.). This is legal in some states, but it’s not clear that it’s moral considering that punishing and firing employees for being unhealthy invites discrimination against people who are unhealthy—such as people who are overweight or have AIDS.

Intensive group experience – Some businesses pressure employees to undergo “personal growth” to help people “realize their potential for perceiving, thinking, feeling, creating, and experiencing” (ibid.). There are many different kinds of intensive groups and companies often use “team-building groups to facilitate the attainment of production and related goals as well as to provide opportunities for improved human relations and personal growth” (ibid.). Again, intensive group experience can improve productivity, so it is relevant to job performance. However, employees should not be punished for refusing to participate.

Obtaining information

Companies not only store private information, but they can sometimes attain private information without the consent of their employees. Issues concerning employee’s privacy rights can involve (a) informed consent, (b) polygraph tests, (c) personality tests, (d) monitoring employees on the job, and (e) drug testing. I will discuss each of these topics.

Informed consent – Although attempts to attain private information from employees (and other people) is coerced for the person at gunpoint, there are more subtle forms of coercion (246). Companies can punish employees for refusing to give private information, and all applicants can be required to give private information. Additionally, informed consent requires that employees and applicants “understand what they are agreeing to, including its full ramifications, and must voluntarily choose it” (247).

Polygraph tests – Polygraph tests, also known as “lie detector tests,” can not only be an invasion of privacy, but it’s not clear that they are ever appropriate ways for a company to gather information. Polygraph tests are used for many reasons. For example:

1. To verify the information provided by a job applicant (ibid.).
2. To make sure a job applicant is honest (ibid.). This is often a measure taken in an attempt to stop hiring employees who steal from the company.

Polygraph tests are only justified given three contentious assumptions, and these assumptions are not necessarily warranted:

1. The test only detects lying. However, the test only tells us that a person is disturbed by a question rather than why they were disturbed (ibid.).
2. The test is reliable. However, that is highly disputed. David T Lykken argues that three credible scientific studies found the test was only accurate by 63%, 39%, and 55% (248).
3. The test can’t be beaten. However, this is disputed. For example, Lykken has argued that “covet self-stimulation, like biting your tongue” during the control questions would destroy the test’s credibility (ibid.).

Finally, polygraph tests must meet the following moral requirements to have a chance of being a warranted invasion of privacy:

1. The information attained from the polygraph test must be sufficiently relevant to the job (ibid.)
2. There can’t be significantly better options to accomplish the company’s goals other than the polygraph test. “Some persons contend that among the reasons must be the fact that the polygraph is the only way the organization can get information about significant job-related matters” (249.). Invasion of a person’s privacy can lead to abuse and often threatens a person’s livelihood, so it should only be done as a last resort. Whenever we do something that can harm or threaten the well being of others, we should choose the least harmful option.
3. We should consider if the information gathered is too embarrassing or personal, if the people who have access to the polygraph results will violate the person’s privacy rights, and if the polygraph test results will be disposed of in a way that doesn’t violate a person’s right to privacy.

Personality tests – Personality tests are used to help screen job applicants. Companies use personality tests to know if applicants are trustworthy or have the right personality traits for the job. Some employers screen employees based on their emotional maturity and sociability (ibid.). Personality tests can reveal personal and embarrassing information, so they can be a violation of an applicant’s privacy rights. Additionally, it’s not entirely clear when using personality tests is morally justified.

The use of personality tests can’t be justified without at least one assumption—“all individuals can usefully and validly be placed into a relatively small number of categories in terms of personality types and character traits” (ibid.). However, this is not obvious. Shaw insists that “people rarely represent pure personality types, such as the classic introvert or extrovert. Nor is the possession of a character trait an all-or-nothing thing. Most of us possess a variety of personality traits in various degrees, and social circumstances often influence the characteristics we display and talents we develop” (ibid.). A company can decide not to hire someone thinking she’s an introvert when she could perform perfectly well on a job requiring human interaction.

Perhaps one of the most questionable common practices using personality traits is when it’s used to test “organizational compatibility.” Organizations often pressure employees to obey and conform to the organization’s rules and traditions, and that’s a threat to the employee’s individuality (250). Tests used to reject applicants for failing to live up to an organization’s ideals threatens our individuality even further.

Personality tests can be morally justified in much the same way as polygraph tests. Such potential violations of someone’s privacy can’t be justified if the information provided is unreliable, insufficiently relevant to the job, or a better alternative is available.

Monitoring employees on the job – Many employers monitor the performance of their employees through video surveillance and the employee’s use of computers or telephones (251). Monitoring employees should not be done without the employee’s consent, and many employers “confuse notification of such practices with employee consent” (ibid.). Monitoring should generally be avoided even when consent is attainable because sensitive and personal information can often be attained, threatened, and violated; and employees could feel coerced to agree to being monitored to keep their job.

Again, justifying monitoring requires the same kinds of justification as polygraph tests. Monitoring employees must be relevant to job performance and the best interests of the company, and there must not be a better alternative available.

Drug testing – Drug testing tends to be used to check if employees are using illegal drugs (ibid.). This is often done because it is widely believed that employees taking illegal drugs have worse job performance, greater absenteeism, and higher rates of theft. Drug testing is unjustified without informed consent or sufficient relevance to job performance. Additionally, it’s not always clear when drug testing is relevant to job performance (251-252). Steroids could be relevant to to performance of football players, but it’s probably not relevant to the performance of accountants. Finally, the proper response to drug addiction is not obvious. Shaw suggests that addiction warrants “medical and psychological assistance rather than punitive action” (252).

Working Conditions

Working conditions involve health and safety concerns on the job, styles of management, maternity policies, and day-care.

Health and safety

Health and safety precautions must be taken by businesses (ibid.). There are already laws protecting employees from working in dangerous work conditions, and businesses must take those laws seriously even when it would be profitable to ignore them. Companies should also keep an eye out for dangerous working conditions that are not yet covered by the law. Safety laws tend to only be passed after people are injured or killed. Finally, workers have a right to be informed about dangers on the job and workers should give informed consent before they are assigned dangerous work.

OSHA

The 1970 Occupational Safety and Health Act has given the federal government the responsibility to regulate businesses to “ensure so far as possible every working man and woman in this nation safe and healthful working conditions” and resulted in OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (254). The federal government has fined companies for reckless and negligent working conditions that violate the law, but it has been criticized for been too soft on companies with very low fines and negligence. Companies now try to use OSHA as a shield by arguing that being punished by the federal government “legally preempts state criminal prosecutions,” and this argument “has met with success in some state courts” (ibid.). Companies that succeed with this argument could refuse to pay the full amount of the actual damage done by their recklessly or negligent unsafe working conditions.

New health challenges

Shaw argued that businesses and OSHA will need to find ways to address various health and safety issues, such as repetitive strain injury and work shifts that cause fatigue.

Repetitive strain injury “results from the constant repetition of awkward hand and arm movements” and can cause a great deal of pain from doing menial tasks (255). Since then president Bush repealed a law that would require employers to report stress related injuries and OSHA has given voluntary guidelines to help companies avoid stress related injuries.

Many injuries on the job are caused by fatigue, which can be caused by improper work hours. “[A] team of scientists from Harvard and Stanford universities believes that the health and productivity of 25 million Americans whose work hours change regularly can be measurably improved if employers schedule shift changes to conform with the body’s natural and adjustable sleep cycles,” and Shaw informs us that “fatigue is a leading cause of industrial accidents” (ibid.). Little to nothing has been done about this issue.

Management styles

Morality requires that bosses respect their workers, but a study found that “millions of workers suffer from bosses who are abusive, dictatorial, devious, dishonest, manipulative, and inhumane” (256). Additionally, almost no contemporary management theorists agree that bosses should try to bully workers to maximize productivity. Instead, they advocate more respectful management styles. Finally, no single management style should be rigidly adhered to because employees all have unique personalities and needs that should be taken into consideration.

Day care and maternity leave

The number of women in the workforce has dramatically increased despite that they continue to usually bear the primary responsibility over their children, so the need for day care and maternity leave is increasingly important (257). Additionally, “[m]any families are unable to make satisfactory child-care arrangements, either because the services are unavailable or for the simple reason that the parents cannot afford them” (258). Many people think that it would be morally preferable for businesses to do what they can to make sure that children aren’t neglected, even if it’s not morally required; but “very few companies do much to help with employee child care” (ibid.). Moreover, companies can do much to help with child care, such as set up child care facilities, and it’s cost-effective large businesses to do so.

Although a company could provide child care facilities with the assumption that it’s the moral thing to do, employers who offer child care can be benefited from doing so because it can decrease absenteeism, boost morale, and increase loyalty.

Job Satisfaction & Redesigning Work

Many people are dissatisfied with their job. They might feel that the work is unfulfilling, they might feel alienated, and they might feel exploited or unappreciated. It is possible for companies to try to make jobs more satisfying, and many people think it is morally good to do so.

Job satisfaction is not just a moral issue, but also a pragmatic one. Workers who are more satisfied are likely to be more productive. “As early as the 1920s, researchers began to realize that workers would be more productive if management met those needs that money can’t buy” (260).

Dissatisfaction on the job

A study conducted in the 1970s by the federal government had illuminating findings that are still relevant now (259). For example, consider the following three common sources of job dissatisfaction mentioned by the study (260):

1. Many workers are assigned to simple, monotonous tasks in an attempt to increase production. (At the very least, companies can try to rotate such simple tasks between employees.)
2. Many people lack opportunities to become their own boss. (Some jobs have better advancement opportunities than others, and they can provide more opportunities for employees to have unique oversight, responsibilities, or leadership roles involving various projects.)
3. Many people work for large corporations and the enormity and depersonalization of the business makes them feel “powerless, meaninglessness, isolation, and self-estrangement.” (Such companies can make an effort to be more personal and show appreciation to their employees. For example, companies can set aside some funds to spend on food and parties for employees.)

Quality of work life

Solutions to job dissatisfaction generally involve an attempt to improve the quality of work life, and QWL programs are attempts to do so (261-262). QWL programs often attempt to increase worker participation in the production process by seeking their ideas. For example, companies can use “quality-control circles” where workers meet with supervisors to discuss quality improvement (262). Such circles made suggestions that saved Westinghouse millions of dollars. QEL programs could be morally preferable, and they are believed to be able to “improve attendance, motivation, and performance” (ibid.). There is no guarantee that QEL improvements will increase productivity, but it does at least some of the time (263).

Conclusion

The importance of privacy rights can be justified by any theory of justice insofar as a violation of privacy can be harmful to a person and every theory of justice grants us a right to noninjury. Improving work conditions and increasing job satisfaction can also be justified by any theory of justice that recognizes property rights, such as Nozick’s libertarianism, insofar as doing so can increase productivity and profits. Additionally, improving working conditions and job satisfaction can be justified by any moral theory that recognizes the importance of helping people live better lives and increasing happiness, and almost every moral theory recognizes that helping people is a good thing.

The nature of moral rights and responsibilities in the workplace

Workers want to be paid well, have safe work conditions, be rewarded for their productive work, have a chance to get promotions, have free speech, privacy, and so on. There was a time when workers had almost no legal rights in the workplace, but an employer must now treat minorities as equals, pay employees the minimum wage, pay employees more for overtime, and provide relatively safe work conditions. For more information, go here. However, the law doesn’t guarantee that employees will be treated with respect. Employers could have a moral responsibility to their employees beyond what the law requires.

Our actual moral rights and responsibilities are a matter of debate. Mill’s utilitarian theory of justice might be used to justify our responsibility to help people, and employees might have a right to have a workplace that can help them live better lives. However, Nozick’s libertarian theory can’t justify a responsibility to help others. Even so, Nozick’s theory can justify the fact that we have a right to noninjury and employers have a responsibility not to harm their employees. That means that employers have a responsibility to provide employees with safe working conditions and managers have a responsibility not to be abusive to their employees. This could include an employee right not to be verbally abused assuming that verbal abuse is harmful.

No matter what theory of justice we agree to, we have reason to think that employees have certain rights that can’t be taken away. For example, any theory of justice can deny the right to own human beings. If that’s true, then what exactly does it mean to own a person or to sell oneself? It might be immoral to sell oneself to a company, even for limited periods of time (from 9 to 5). Stripping a person of their liberties could be considered to be a form of slavery.

Although there’s an American tradition that assumes that “corporate efficiency requires employees to sacrifice their civil liberties and other rights between 9 and 5,” there’s reason to think otherwise (208). For example, Ewing points out that “the companies that lead in encouraging rights—organizations such as Polaroid, IBM, Donnelly Mirrors, and Delta Airlines—have healthier-looking bottom lines than the average corporation does” (ibid.).

Employers can also be tempted to be disrespectful of employees because it can cost money to pay more for wages, to create safer working conditions, and so on. However, employers have a moral reason to be respectful of employees, and it can be in the best interest of the company. Being respectful of employees can increase productivity by raising morale, help a company hire better employees by making a business more attractive to applicants, and keep productive employees from looking for better jobs elsewhere.

Our moral rights and responsibilities are merely minimal moral standards and only reflect a minimal level of respect. It’s possible for a work environment to respect employees beyond moral requirements. What is moral isn’t necessarily a duty. Sometimes we can treat people in ways that are beyond the call of duty. For example, rewarding employees with a bonus could be a good thing to do, and it could be more respectful than is morally required of a business. Additionally, employers can show appreciation, compliment, and encourage their employees.

Personnel policies and procedures

Personnel policies and procedures determine how a company handles hiring, firing, promoting etc. I will discuss the moral implications of various personnel policies and procedures.

Hiring

Hiring often involves, screening, testing, and interviewing—and each of these steps of a hiring process have unique moral implications (210).

Screening – Sometimes a great deal of people apply for a job and screening helps a company reduce the list of eligible applicants to be more manageable. People should be screened on the basis of their qualifications rather than discriminate on the basis of race, gender, and so on (ibid.).

Screening includes the job description and job specification. The job description should disclose the relevant details of a job, such as “its duties, responsibilities, working conditions, and physical requirements” (ibid.). The job specification should list all the requirements needed to be hired, “such as skills, educational experience, appearance, and physical attributes” (ibid.). How does this relate to morality? First, if a job description or specification is inadequate, “candidates can waste time and money pursuing jobs they aren’t suited for” (ibid.). Second, jobs must not screen out qualified people on the basis of irrelevant characteristics—and disabilities, race, age, religion (or lack of religion), and gender are often irrelevant to qualification. Even job descriptions that are for “mailmen” could end up screening out women. Instead, gender neutral job titles like “mail carrier” are better (211).

Sometimes discrimination is warranted and sometimes it isn’t. Requiring applicants to have certain educational or physical capacities isn’t always warranted, and discrimination against people with disabilities and other minorities is occasionally justified because the job might have a good reason for doing so (211-212). For example, it can make sense to hire women for modeling positions or to be the attendant in a womens’ bathroom (211).

Sometimes illegal forms of discrimination are motivated by the actual profitability of an employee (ibid.). For example, racist customers might prefer a white salesperson over a black one, and a white salesperson could make more money for the company as a result. Nonetheless, companies cannot discriminate based on the irrational prejudice of customers.

Tests – Tests can measure an applicant’s skills in an attempt to make the applicant pool smaller and efficiently decide which applicants are most qualified for a job (213). Employers have a duty to make sure that tests are valid, reliable, and fair:

• Valid – Valid tests are relevant to the job. It would usually be unfair to require computer programmers to be sociable or to require diplomats to be good at computer programming.
• Reliable – Reliable tests make sure that the scores properly assess the applicant’s abilities and that “a subject’s score will remain constant from test to test” (ibid.).
• Fair – Fair tests must be relevant to job performance and must not discriminate against anyone who is qualified for the job (ibid.). For example, tests can be culturally biased.

Assuring that tests are valid and reliable can be expensive, but it’s morally necessary to protect the rights of applicants, to hire the most qualified employees, and to protect the interests of stockholders.

Interviews

Interviews allow employers to assess the qualifications of an employee through personal communication, but they can also involve unjust discrimination. An interviewer’s negative attitude around minorities can cause minorities to decide they don’t want to be hired. “Interviewers must exercise care to avoid thoughtless comments that may hurt or insult the person being interviewed—for instance, a passing remark about a person’s physical disability or personal situation (a single parent, for instance)” (214).

Promotions

Deciding who gets promotions is a decision with moral implications quite similar as hiring new employees. Additionally, seniority, inbreeding, and nepotism are tempting reasons to give people promotions despite not always being good reasons to give a promotion (215). These three factors must compete with the actual qualifications of an employee who is likely to do the best job.

Seniority – Seniority determines how long someone has worked for a company. A qualified person can be insulted if they are passed up for promotion time and time again, but not everyone with seniority are most qualified for a job. It is important that jobs can reward loyalty, but seniority doesn’t always indicate loyalty either (ibid.). Nonetheless, seniority is a morally relevant factor in determining promotions because (a) it’s important that workers have opportunities for job advancement, (b) the actual prolonged contributions an employee makes to a company should count for something, and (c) refusing to give promotions based on seniority has a chance to lower morale (216).

Inbreeding – Inbreeding is when people who work for a company tend to be considered for promotions rather than hiring people from outside of the company. Inbreeding is a relevant consideration to giving promotions to the same extent as seniority.

Nepotism – Nepotism is showing favoritism towards family and friends. Nepotism can be a legitimate factor in justifying a promotion when a company exists primarily for the interests of a family, but it must not disregard the actual qualifications, loyalty, and prolonged contributions of other employees.

Discipline and discharge

Discipline and discharge are necessary measures to make sure that employees stay productive. Discipline involves punishment and discharge involves a separation between an employee and the company, such as being fired. Moral implications to discipline and discharge include the following:

1. Employees should be notified of infractions privately rather than publicly or not at all (217). Chastising employee in public can be humiliating and is disrespectful, but employees must be notified at some point so they can correct their behavior.
2. Employees should have chances to correct their behavior rather than being fired for the first minor infraction (ibid.). Infractions can give employees an incentive to be productive and improve their performance, so firing employees too quickly will destroy this incentive.
3. Discipline and discharge should be given for “just cause,” meaning they should be relevant to job performance (ibid.). Employees should not be punished or fired for having various illnesses, being a minority, smoking cigarettes at home, etc.
4. How a person behaves outside of work is generally not relevant to job performance, but it can occasionally have a relevant impact on the business (217-218). Our rights to privacy and freedom of speech outside the workplace should be assumed to override the business’s interest to control their workers while they’re off the clock unless we are given good reason to think otherwise.
5. The job should provide workers with due process—fair and consistent sanctions (218). Discipline and discharge should be administered to everyone equally without favoritism. Those who allegedly violate the rules should be given a “fair and impartial hearing” and there should be “a step-by-step procedure by which an employee can appeal a managerial decision” (ibid.).
6. Employers must carefully analyze the reasons for dismissing an employee, and “wrongful termination” is a common cause of lawsuits (ibid.). The reasons for discharge should be outlined in an “employee handbook, collective bargaining agreement, or corporate policy agreement” (ibid.). Even if an employer dismisses an employee legally, they might not have done so morally. Employees should not be dismissed without a good reason.
7. Employers should be careful how they dismiss employees (ibid.). Employees should be dismissed privately, and they usually shouldn’t be dismissed after funerals, “on Fridays, birthdays, wedding anniversaries, or the day before a holiday” (ibid.).

Wages

When deciding how much workers should be paid, the following criteria seems relevant (220-221):

1. The law. Workers should not be paid less than the minimum wage.
2. The prevailing wage in the industry. Knowing how much other companies are paying workers can help us get a ball park figure for the appropriate amount.
3. The cost of living in the area. It’s more expensive to live in some places than others, and their wage should be higher as a result.
4. The nature of the job. The required education, skill level, stress level, and danger level of a job can all be relevant to the amount people should be paid.
5. The security and advancement opportunities. Jobs with high security—a high chance of keeping employees—and good opportunities for advancement require less pay than jobs with low security and low prospects for advancement.
6. The employer’s financial capabilities. A company that has a great deal of profit can afford to pay employees more than those that don’t.
7. How much other employees make for comparable work. A company shouldn’t be unfair or discriminatory in how much an employee is paid. The same work and qualifications should determine that two people get equal pay. Moreover, there shouldn’t be huge pay disparities between management and everyone else.
8. Job performance. Productive employees can be rewarded for their hard work and talent through higher wages.
9. How the wage agreement was arrived at. There might be a unique contract between an employee and employer that requires higher than usual pay.

Unions

Large companies not only have control over the world’s resources, but they have the machines required to make goods. This all makes companies much more powerful than individuals. Workers have little choice but to get jobs at companies to get enough money to buy food and other goods, they are often willing to work for very little money in unsafe working conditions when there is no better alternative available to them, and no better alternative is guaranteed to be available. Workers are supposed to be grateful to get jobs, no matter how poor the pay. Unions exist to help empower workers and help eliminate the disparity in power between large companies and workers. Unions allow workers to team up to help them demand more from companies. If all workers refuse to work for low pay and in unsafe working conditions, then companies will have no choice but to comply.

“In an attempt… to redress the balance of power in their dealings with employers, workers band together. In acting as a single body, a union, workers in effect make employers dependent on them in a way that no individual worker can” (225). Unions allow workers to use “collective bargaining” to negotiate with businesses as a larger and more powerful group.

Even Adam Smith, one of the founders of Capitalism, agreed that there is an unfair disparity in power between workers and companies. Consider that he says,

The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily… We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work; but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes the masters can hold out much longer… Though they did not employ a single workman, [employers] could generally live a year or two upon the stocks which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year without employment. In the long-run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him, but the necessity is not immediate. (ibid.).

Unions are not always the enemy of businesses. Instead, they can be beneficial to them. For example, using thousands of studies concerning the effects of labor unions the World Bank found that worker unions could “improve productivity and efficiency, promote stability in the workplace, and make government less likely to meddle in the labor market” (225).

Union tactics

Unions are a part of a worker’s right to association and can benefit many people, but there are many moral issues concerning union tactics, and not everything unions do are ethical. I will discuss some of these issues.

Direct strikes – Unions can refuse to work unless an employer meets their demands. Strikes are a powerful tool, but can be harmful to a company and should not be used unless certain criteria is met. First, there must be “just cause,” a legitimate reason to strike, such as inadequate pay or unsafe working conditions (226). Second, there should be proper authorization. Workers should (a) agree to strike on their own without being coerced and (b) strikers must attempt to attain union backing (227). Third, strikes should be a last resort. Workers should try to negotiate and communicate their grievances before having a strike because “we should always use the least injurious means available to accomplish the good we desire” (ibid.). Four, strikes should be nonviolent, noncoercive, and nondestructive.

Sympathetic strikes – Employees can strike at a grievance experienced by other workers—who don’t necessarily even work for the same company (227). Sympathetic strikes can be justified in the same way as direct strikes when the workers who are wrong work for the same employer, but it is much more difficult to justify a sympathetic strike against another employer because the strike can harm innocent people who have no connection to the people who are wronged (227-228). However, a separate company could implicitly endorse the workers who are wronged by doing business with the “enemy.” In that case workers can refuse to do business with the abusive company as part of a sympathetic strike.

Boycotts and corporate campaigns – Union workers can refuse to buy products from companies who refuse to give into the demands of unions. A primary boycott is when union workers and their supporters refuse to do business with a company, and a secondary boycott when union workers and their supporters refuse to do business with any companies doing business with the abusive company (228). Secondary boycotts were made illegal from the Taft-Hartley Act. Boycotts can be justified in much the same way as strikes and it’s not clear that secondary strikes are always immoral, even though they are illegal.

Corporate campaigns are tactics unions use to put pressure on a company by enlisting the help of the company’s creditors in an attempt to get their demands met (ibid.). Financial institutions could in turn be pressured with the threat of mass withdrawals and cancellations of policies” (229). Some critics have called corporate campaigns “corporate blackmail,” but supporters insist that it is sometimes needed to get companies to be willing to behave ethically—especially when considering that corporations have “been so successful at exploiting labor laws and regulations to undermine unions and thwart their recruitment efforts” (229).

Conclusion

The law and unions can both fight to protect workers from abuse, but companies should treat employees with respect whether that is required by the law or not. In fact, it’s quite possible that we can treat people with greater respect than morality demands. It might be immoral to outright hurt an employee, but risking their well being in unsafe working conditions, treating them with disrespect, and unjustly showing preferential treatment could also be forms of harm. Employers and union members make many decisions with moral implications, and I have briefly touched upon them here. However, this is not a conclusive discussion of moral implications and the workplace and there’s much more to be said.

Introduction

What are corporations?

Corporations are “limited liability companies” created by “incorporators” and owned by investors called “stockholders” or “shareholders” who have certain rights and responsibilities. Stockholders “may sue and be sued as a unit and… are able to consign part of their property to the corporation for ventures of limited liability” (160). The investors enjoy “limited liability” meaning that investors can’t be sued for all their worth. They aren’t liable to the amount of damage they can do to society and customers. Instead, they can only be sued for the amount equal to their investment.

Limited liability extends to investors who have little influence on the corporation they (partially) own, but limited liability doesn’t extend to anyone who has an active role when making illegal decisions. These people can face legal action for the crimes they commit. The investors often have little to no idea what is going on in their corporation, and the illegal actions of the employees are often dealt with separately.

The term “limited liability” is a bit deceptive because I think we can all agree that investors who know little about what the corporation they invest in is doing should have less liability than is humanly possible, and “limited liability” is actually “limited immunity.” A person can invest in a horrible corporation that does an incredible amount of damage and that person is immune from being responsible for any damage beyond the investment made.

Moral justifications for corporations

I will discuss two moral justifications for corporations. These are considerations in favor of having corporations, but they don’t sufficiently prove that corporations are morally justified. There are many considerations for and against corporations and we would have to assess them all to know for sure whether or not corporations are morally justified.

Corporations were originally considered to be morally justified because they were created to advance public interests. However, that’s no longer the case. Corporations no longer need to serve the public good and can just try to make a profit. This change was caused (in part) due to the arguments of Adam Smith and Alexander Hamilton, who concluded that corporations shouldn’t be required to serve the public good for at least two reasons:

One, they thought that the “invisible hand” of a free market would assure us that corporations would serve the public interest without doing so intentionally (161). Due to the invisible hand, corporations offer the best goods and services at the lowest prices to remain competitive and profitable. Corporations are often very good at being productive, and the existence of corporations can lead to greater prosperity.

Two, they thought that people should have the right to create corporations due to a “right of association” (ibid.).

It should also be noted that limited liability can encourage investment. People might not want to invest their money in companies if they have to take an active role to make sure the company is behaving morally, legally, and responsibly; and risk their entire fortune from each financial investment in companies. Without limited liability there would probably be a lot less investment in companies and a lot less productive companies as a result.

Objections to corporations

It’s not obvious that corporations are morally justified. I will discuss seven objections to corporations. These objections don’t prove that corporations shouldn’t exist, but they are considerations against using corporations, and we might be able to find solutions to these problems.

First, corporations are a violation of the free market. The fact that investors don’t have to pay for the actual amount of damage they are (partially) responsible for can encourage risky behavior by allowing investors to risk other people’s well being rather than their own. A free market demands that people provide the best goods and services because of the financial ruin involved with harming others and breaking the law.

Second, the idea of a business doing a great deal of damage and no one being liable to pay for the entire amount of damage sounds like a violation of a person’s actual rights and responsibilities. We have a right to be compensated to the harm done to us, and companies have a responsibility to compensate for that harm.

Third, giving investors limited liability and protecting ignorant investors from criminal charges encourages people to be irresponsible. It encourages investors to be ignorant because it validates claims that ignorance can excuse their involvement in a crime. It might be a better idea to encourage people to be responsible and take an active role in their business investments to make sure that nothing illegal or immoral is happening there. We don’t want ignorance to be a free “get out of jail free card.”

Fourth, corporations don’t seem conducive to the responsibility of the employees. Managers and executives in particular can be encouraged to make a profit at the expense of moral and legal considerations. These managers and executives can be fired for not making enough profit and it can be that the only managers or executives who can keep their jobs are ones who are willing to break the law. Additionally, corporate employees often think that obedience is an excuse to breaking the law or committing immoral acts because they can lose their jobs for insubordination. Moreover, when large amounts of people work together, it’s not always clear who should be blamed for immoral or illegal behavior. Sometimes we think everyone shares blame, but we don’t always think we should send everyone to prison.

Fifth, it’s not obvious that the “invisible hand” has worked out so well. Corporations haven’t always acted in the public interest. BP decided to risk the environment to rake in the dough and lead to a horrific oil spill that devastated our ocean waters, several banking corporations were involved in fraud that lead to the financial crisis, and Goldman Sachs has been involved in several scandals over the years.

Sixth, consumers have not done a good job at punishing corporations for their immoral actions. BP and banking corporations involved in immoral acts are still highly profitable. The invisible hand argument assumes that consumers act in their rational best interest, but they often don’t.

Seventh, we don’t really have a free market, in part because corporations are allowed to lobby the government and give donations to politicians in the hope for favorable legislation and subsidies. This has further protected corporations from the need to act responsibly. Banks that took risks and committed fraud got a bailout from the government and federal reserve, and has faced little to no punishment for their crimes.

Are corporations morally responsible?

In many ways corporations are treated as “legal persons” with rights and responsibilities. Corporations now have a highly unrestricted freedom of speech, and they are allowed to offer their opinion in the form of political donations, lobbying, advertising, and so on (162). The Supreme Court ruled that corporations have a constitutionally protected right to free speech in the 1978 decision “First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti,” which included the right to donate to politicians (ibid.). The 2010 a Supreme Court decision “Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission” ruled that it’s a constitutional right for corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence political campaigns.

Freedom of speech involves moral opinions and can have a harmful impact on people—especially when it involves political funding and lobbying, which is one of the most cherished corporate activities. If corporations have the right to make moral decisions that can hurt people, then perhaps they should also be morally responsible for the benefits and harms caused by their actions.

If corporations are in some sense legal persons with constitutionally protected rights, then perhaps they also have moral or social responsibilities. It seems a bit unfair to give corporations all the rights of being a person without any of the responsibilities—all the benefits and none of the costs. The wealthy could then use corporations as a haven to be irresponsible and destructive without any significant moral responsibilities, and with the only risk being the loss of a financial investment.

What is moral responsibility?

There are at least four types of moral responsibility:

1. People are morally responsible if they can be appropriately praised or blamed for their behavior (163). If people choose to give to a charity that saves lives of their own free choice, then we think they are appropriate praised. However, if people are forced to give to a charity that saves lives at gunpoint, then we don’t think they deserve praise for doing so.
2. People are morally responsible insofar as they are accountable to the welfare of others, and have duties to help other people (ibid.). Parents are responsible for their children and have to provide food for their children, the news has a duty inform us of political misconduct, accounting auditors have a duty to keep an eye out for fraud, and so on.
3. People are morally responsible insofar as they are capable of making moral and rational decisions (ibid.). Children, certain people who are insane, and most nonhuman animals seem to lack this kind of moral responsibility. We don’t think they fully deserve praise or blame for their actions because they aren’t fully capable of thinking morally or rationally.
4. Finally, people are morally responsible insofar as they are good at acting and thinking in a rational and moral manner. Such people can not only think rationally, but they choose to do so. Our moral heroes who display moral virtue, such as Socrates and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, seem like they are highly morally responsible insofar as they are exceptional people with an unusually high degree of moral virtue.

Can corporations think and behave morally?

Can corporations think and act morally or rationally? If so, then it is possible for corporations to be appropriately praised and blamed, accountable for the welfare of others, and virtuous. I will consider a case for and against the idea that corporations can think and act morally.

Corporations have various goals (related to making profit) and they have procedures to decide how to best achieve these goals (164). Some philosophers argue that corporate decision making is like a machine and is incapable of making moral or rational decisions because the profit motive will override all moral considerations (ibid.). Individuals within corporations can be morally responsible, but that doesn’t mean a corporation, an abstract social construct, can be morally responsible.

On the other hand some people, such as Kenneth E. Goodpastor, have argued that corporate decision making is analogous to human deliberation because many conflicting goals can be relevant other than profit (165).

What is the nature of personal moral responsibility within corporations?

Many people share responsibility within a corporation and they often refuse to accept personal responsibility—to be whistleblowers, to disobey orders to break the law, and so on (165). Perhaps we cannot consider corporate employees to be responsible in the sense of being capable of thinking rationally and morally for themselves. For example, National Semiconductor sold products to the Defense Department without conducting the promised tests on the products and were fined over a million dollars as a result (ibid.). The corporation then refused to tell the Defense Department which individuals made the decision to have incomplete testing because such a decision was “an industry pattern beyond any one individual’s responsibility” (166).

A corporation that blames a few individuals for breaking the law when several people actually share responsibility could even be form of scapegoating—blaming a few so that many others can get away scott free. Consider how many low-ranking soldiers in the military are found guilty of war crimes, but almost no high-ranking ones are blamed. It seems plausible to think that high ranking officers are at least partially responsible as well. Additionally, it seems plausible that corrupt corporate culture can make immoral acts almost inevitable. Consider how it seems plausible to think that CEOs can occasionally face being fired if they aren’t willing to pollute or break the law to increase profits.

If we find out that corporations and corporate employees both lack moral responsibility, that would be a serious problem. If no one is responsible, then who is going to pay for the damage done to people by corporations? There are at least two possible solutions to this problem. One, we can attribute responsibility to corporations just like we do people in general. Unfortunately, if corporations are punished, then the individuals who are morally responsible could get off scott free. Two, we can assign responsibility to corporate employees and dismiss the claim that they lack responsibility. Unfortunately, if individuals are punished, then the corporation could continue to encourage or demand immoral behavior. Of course, we could decide that both corporations and corporate employees are both responsible and we could punish both corporations and individuals.

What’s the extent of corporate responsibility?

There are at least two major ideas of corporate responsibility other than to abide by the law (and refuse to hurt people).

1. To maximize profits.

Some people think that corporations only have a duty to maximize profits. Some people think it’s the duty of the government to look out for the public interest, not corporations. A corporation that sacrifices profit to look out of the public interest is committing themselves to the wrong role. Milton Friedman even suggested that corporations should feel free to pollute to whatever extent is legal:

[Business people who] believe that they are defending free enterprise when they declaim that business is not concerned “merely” with profit but also with promoting desirable “social” ends, that business has a “social conscience” and takes seriously its responsibilities for providing employment, eliminating discrimination, avoiding pollution and whatever else may be the catchwords of the contemporary crop of reformers… [are] unwitting puppets of the intellectual forces that have been undermining the basis of a free society these past decades. (168-169)

Of course, pollution can hurt people, and could be taken to be a violation of our rights. Pollution destroys the environment, makes us sick, and can even cause fatal illness. People might be willing to pay $50 a year to a corporation if it would agree not to pollute, but that would be a form of coercion. The corporation would be paid to stop hurting people, but it wouldn’t be “free trade” because free trade can’t allow people to be coerced into conducting business transactions.

There are at least five arguments that corporations only have a duty to make profit:

1. Some argue that it’s because the investors agree to invest their money in corporations precisely because they want to make profit. It would be a violation of an implicit contract or promissory agreement involved with such investments (171). Of course, even if this is true, we can wonder if this contract is morally binding given that it requires us to abandon certain moral considerations (172).
2. Some argue that corporate social responsibility will harm our economy by going against the “invisible hand” (169, 173-174). We need corporations to be as profit making as possible to help our civilization prosper. Some people object that the “invisible hand” has not been guiding corporations—perhaps because they are too monopolistic or massive (174). Our “free market” hasn’t been stopping the immoral behavior of corporations or our social ills (such as pollution and poverty).
3. Some argue that we can’t trust corporations to be moral on their own, so we should rely on government regulation rather than demand corporations to self-regulate (ibid). Perhaps people are too selfish or unethical to make sure corporations can act in the public interest on their own (without government incentives). Some people reject this idea because (i) it requires an “intrusive government,” (ii) the government is greatly influence by corporations that can prevent government regulation through lobbying, or (iii) laws and regulations can’t stop every single possible immoral act that corporations will engage in (175).
4. Some people argue that corporations are too inept to be ethical (ibid.). Of course, lots of people aren’t particularly informed about moral philosophy and we still demand that they are ethical. We demand everyone behave morally whether they are moral experts or not. Being ignorant about ethics isn’t a get out of jail free card.
5. Some people think that corporations are evil or corrupt. They are full of greed and selfish people who don’t know what is truly important if life, so their corrupt idea of behaving ethically will spread their “values” to the rest of our culture (176). However, corporations have already been doing everything they can to spread corrupt values and even use such values to influence politics (177). Perhaps their corrupt values are partially caused more from being told to be self-interested profit seekers rather than to also care for other people in our society. Additionally, it’s unclear that corporate charity is really infused with corrupt values.

To make profits and help people

Some people think that corporations have a duty to make profits in addition to helping people. Corporations have some sort of responsibility to make people’s lives better either through quality products and services or some sort of charity. There are at least four arguments to support this view:

1. Some argue that with power comes responsibility (ibid.). Corporations have the power to do great amount of good and evil to society at large (170). Those in the position to do the most good have the responsibility to help people. For example, scientists who are best equipped to cure cancer might have a responsibility to do so.
2. There is an implicit social contract between society and corporations that demand that corporations benefit society rather than harm it. If corporations harm us, then we have no reason to allow them to exist (ibid.). This argument is supported by the fact that most Americans believe that a corporation’s highest priority is to the employees and “[o]nly 17 percent think stockholders deserve the highest priority” (171).
3. Corporations don’t just make decisions that effects them and those who engage in agreements with them. Their decisions and business deals can harm people and cause hidden costs to others, which are called “externalities.” For example, pollution or harm done to nonhuman animals. Corporations must somehow try to pay for these externalities—the hidden costs they force on others—or the business can cause more harm than good. A company that makes computers can sell each computer for $300, but creating each computer might cause $400 of damage to others through pollution. It would be unfair of that corporation to reap all the rewards of their business without paying for any of the damage it does. It might be more appropriate for the corporation to charge $700 for each computer and to use $400 to clean up the pollution the business causes.
4. Some people could argue that insofar as we allow corporations to enjoy the rights of being legal persons, we must demand corporations to accept responsibilities of being persons as well. Allowing corporations to have the rights of people without the responsibilities could turn corporations into havens that allow the wealthy to escape their moral responsibilities.

Institutionalizing ethics within corporations

We need to know how corporations can best live up to their moral responsibilities (177-178). Even if corporations don’t have a duty to help people, they still have a duty to obey the law and encourage trust with the public. It is plausible to think that one way this can be done is by improving the corporate culture and make sure employees are taking morality seriously. At least four steps can be taken (178):

1. Corporations should admit that they have moral responsibilities and make their moral commitments visible.
2. Corporations should encourage their employees to take moral responsibilities seriously. Employees can be rewarded for being ethical rather than punished. There should be a way for employees to voice moral concerns or be whistleblowers without fear of retaliation.
3. Corporations should seek rather than try to avoid criticism.
4. Corporations need to respect the individuality of people and the diversity of groups.

Corporate moral codes

Corporations can make their commitment to being ethical explicit and educate their employees about the moral code in an attempt to improve the importance of ethics within the culture of the corporation and foster trust with the public as a result (180). Top management can do the following:

1. Articulate the corporation’s moral values and goals.
2. Articulate an ethical code applicable to all employees.
3. Set up an ethics committee that has the power to enforce the moral code and oversee ethical issues within the business.
4. Add ethical training to other forms of job training.

Conclusion

Although corporations are an entrenched force in our civilization that probably aren’t going anywhere soon, it’s not obvious that corporations are morally justified or supported by any system of justice. Libertarian justice don’t necessarily support limited liability considering that it allows companies to disrespect human rights and refuse to pay the full damages done. Utilitarian justice doesn’t necessarily support corporations because it’s not clear that limited liability is really best for the “greater good.” Rawls’s theory of justice doesn’t necessarily support corporations because limited liability can give the wealthy more rights and less responsibilities than are enjoyed by the poor, and it’s not clear that the poor will benefit from it.

We have little choice but to live in a world with corporations, and the arguments here offer a greater support to the view that corporations have a moral responsibility beyond merely making a profit. Even if we only demand that corporations make a profit, we still need to demand that corporations obey the law and encourage trust with the public. This can require an improved corporate culture that takes ethics seriously, and it is plausible to think that corporate moral codes enforced by ethics committees can do a lot to help improve corporate cultures.

What is capitalism?

Capitalism is a type of economic system that emphasizes the importance private property including at least some private ownership of the “means of production” (resources and machines). There is no precise definition of capitalism, but a libertarian laissez-faire system (a free market with no government regulation, taxation, or tax-funded public services) is a clear-cut extreme sort of capitalism at one end of the spectrum. The United States has one of the most capitalistic systems insofar as it has relatively little government intervention and regulation. The opposite extreme of laissez-faire is an extreme form of communism where none of the means of production are privately owned (and are instead shared by communities). Most governments are somewhere in the middle of having an extreme form of capitalism and communism because almost all governments have a somewhat free market with some taxation, regulation, and tax-funded public services (such as public education).

There are many key features of capitalism, such as the following:

1. Companies – Capitalism has companies, business organizations “that exist separately from the people associated with them” (129). The capitalism of the United States is now greatly influenced by powerful companies, corporations, that can fight for their own interests though lobbying, public relations, and political donations.
2. The profit motive – Capitalists assume that people will be motivated to make a profit—more money than is necessary to run a business—in part because it really is possible for people to do so. The desire to attain riches might have always existed, but attaining profit is now one of the main goals (if not the central goal) in many people’s lives (ibid.). One of the assumptions of capitalism is that being productive will lead to profit, so the profit motive will also motivate people to be productive.
3. Competition – Capitalism expects and encourages competition because of the assumption that people will have better products and services at a lower cost due to competition (ibid.). Without competition one business can dominate civilization by selling a product everyone needs (such as food) and inflate prices to make more profit. It is assumed that competition will eliminate inflated prices and shoddy products because you can just buy from the company that gives you the best deal. A company with artificially high prices will suffer the consequences. Similarly, a company that tries to exploit their workers can lose employees who find better jobs elsewhere (130).
4. Private property – Private property is a bundle of rights and rules that assure us that we can own objects (such as food) and abstract entities (such as companies) (ibid.). If you own something, then you have a great deal of control over it, you can give it to someone else, and others can’t take it from you without permission. Capitalism not only requires that many people have private property, but it requires that a great deal of the means of productions are privately owned; such as farmland, factories, and crude oil. Some private property, including the means of production, is capital—investments used to make more money (131).

Moral justifications for capitalism

To decide if capitalism is a morally justified economic system, we would have to compare and contrast capitalism with every other kind of economic system. That is a huge undertaking, but we can certainly consider possible benefits capitalism has over other systems. These are arguments for capitalism that don’t sufficiently prove that capitalism is morally justified once and for all, but they are considerations in favor of capitalism. I will discuss two such arguments: (1) The natural right to property and (2) the invisible hand.

The natural right to property.

John Locke argued that people are entitled to the fruits of their labor. “When individuals mix their labor with the natural world, they are entitled to the results” (121). All things equal, it would certainly seem immoral for someone to seize all your crops after you worked all year to create them. Property rights can keep that from happening, and Nozick’s theory of justice supports our natural right to property.

However, many object to the idea of having any natural rights. Perhaps there is an ideal set of rights that we can discover once we know which theory of justice is correct, but we can’t just assume that property rights as understood by capitalists is that ideal. Consider that everyone agrees that there are limits to property rights. We can’t just claim to own anything unclaimed by others just by calling dibs, and we can’t own other human beings. It might be unethical to own an unfair share of the earth’s resources; or to own intelligent animals, such as great apes, dolphins, or elephants.

Even if every philosopher agrees that some property rights are part of the ideal system of justice, they won’t all agree in the specifics to having property rights. For example, Karl Marx argued that the means of production should not be owned as private property because it would give the owners an unfair amount of power. Those who own the means of production could end up being the rulers who oppress everyone else.

The invisible hand.

Adam Smith, one of the founders of capitalism, argued that a free market could be guided by an “invisible hand” in the sense that property rights, a profit motive, a free market, and competition can lead to a productive and abundant society; even if the government doesn’t intervene or regulate business—as long as people are rational and informed (133). This is one way that selfishness in the form of the profit motive can end up being beneficial to everyone in a society.

The “invisible hand” is caused by the “law of supply and demand.” If there is a demand for a product or service, people will compete to provide it, and we will buy from the person giving the best deal (133-134). The law of supply and demand can prevent price gouging (inflated prices), shoddy work, and perhaps even inadequate worker compensation (134). Businesses can hire the best workers, fire inefficient workers, and compete to hire the best workers through high compensation.

If the invisible hand argument succeeds, then we will have a good reason to endorse capitalism on utilitarian grounds. However, it’s not obvious that the invisible hand functions as well as we would like, even though it’s plausible that it does function to some extent. Competition and free markets might not always provide a fair, just, productive, or prosperous system. Even Adam Smith seemed to agree that at least some government regulation is a good idea. He didn’t seem to think the invisible hand to be infallible. Of course, capitalism doesn’t require a completely free market.

Challenges to capitalism

Challenges to capitalism don’t prove that capitalism is immoral; they are merely considerations for improvement and can be part of a greater discussion about the overall moral justification of capitalism. I will discuss four challenges to capitalism:

Capitalism leads to severe economic inequality.

There is a great deal of income inequality in our capitalistic system. “The disparity in personal incomes is enormous; a tiny minority of the population owns the vast majority of the country’s productive assets; and in the final years of the twentieth century, our society continues to be marred by poverty and homelessness” (134). Inequality has not only lead to poverty, but also oppression, inadequate education, and unequal opportunities. A child born in a wealthy family will probably have better opportunities, a better education, and better medical insurance than a child born into poverty.

Some defend capitalism from this objection in the following ways:

1. The free market doesn’t cause poverty; it’s caused by government interference. However, “neither theoretical economics nor the study of history supports this reply” (135). Most economists and social theorists agree that redistribution of wealth through taxation and tax-funded public services have reduced poverty and perhaps even economic inequality (ibid.).
2. Poverty and extreme income inequality can be reduced (or eliminated) in capitalistic systems through political action. For example, we can reduce poverty through taxation and public services (i.e. redistribution of wealth).
3. Even if capitalism leads to poverty, the benefits of capitalism could outweigh the harms (ibid.).

Capitalism is based on a false conception of human nature.

First, capitalism depends on a conception of people as well-informed rational profit seekers who know how to make decisions to benefit themselves. However, we can’t always be well informed. Many of the products and services we pay for require a high level of expertise and specialization that we are unable to judge appropriately (135). We don’t have the time or resources to be as “well informed” and rational as the capitalistic system demands. Additionally, to make maximally rational and well-informed economic decisions requires us to eliminate our confirmation bias and fallacious forms of reasoning through scientific experimentation and peer review. We don’t always have the resources to have scientific experiments to determine which decisions are best, so we have little choice but to rely on reviews and testimonials (anecdotal evidence) and we will inevitably have a great deal of confirmation bias.

Second, capitalism can effect our personality and values by encouraging us to be “well-informed rational profit seekers,” but that’s a bad thing. In particular, capitalism encourages people to have the wrong priorities insofar as it makes us “materialistic” and greedy (obsess over attaining money and possessions), and insofar as it makes us selfish (and marginalize the importance of other people) (136).

Three problems with competition.

First, capitalism requires there to be competition, but it’s possible and desirable for self-interested profit seekers to eliminate the competition and seize as much power over society as possible. Capitalism has an insufficient defense against monopolies and the elimination of competition, and actually encourages these things. Additionally, capitalism greatly favors the wealthy over everyone else because the most productive businesses require expensive equipment for large-scale production (ibid.). It’s not possible for everyone to compete on a level playing field when the wealthy have so much more power and resources than everyone else.

The challenge to capitalism concerning a lack of competition has been widely accepted and “antitrust actions have sometimes fostered competition and broken up monopolies, as in the cases of such corporate behemoths as Standard Oils and AT&T” (137). However, “such actions have proved ineffectual in halting the concentration of economic power in large oligopolistic firms… Today more than a quarter of the world’s economic activity comes from the 200 largest corporations” (ibid.).

Two, our capitalistic political system favors corporations and the wealthy. Wealthy corporations lobby the government and donate to politicians in the hope to get favors in the form of legislation, tax loopholes, and other subsidies (government funding). Many call this “corporate welfare” (ibid.). For example, “[a]nnual taxpayer subsidies to agriculture alone run between $10 billion and $20 billion (and a total of $35 billion, if the higher prices consumers pay are included)” (138).

Some have estimated that there are around $85 billion worth of direct subsidy programs funded by the US government every year, the Federal Reserve recently gave out $9 trillion in “emergency loans” to powerful corporations, and banks have the right to spend money they don’t have due to our fractional reserve banking system.

Three, competition might not always be a good thing. There are “empirical studies establishing that in business environments there is frequently a negative correlation between performance and individual competitiveness” (ibid.). Sometimes cooperation is much more productive than competition. Additionally, rather than being motivated to attain external rewards (profits) or other external goals (defeating the competition), we are often more productive when we do what we enjoy or value for its own sake.

Moreover, cooperation is often more productive than competition.

When people work together, coordination of effort and an efficient division of labor are possible. By contrast, competition can inhibit economic coordination, cause needless duplication of services, retard the exchange of information, foster copious litigation, and lead to socially detrimental or counterproductive results such as business failures, mediocre products, unsafe working conditions, and environmental neglect. (138-139).

Capitalism leads to exploitation and alienation.

The wealthy sometimes “hold all the cards” and can refuse to hire workers unless the workers agree to work in disrespectful, unsafe, and/or underpaid conditions. Workers have occasionally worked in conditions comparable to slavery, such as many of the sharecroppers.

The wealthy can not only choose to treat workers as poorly as is legally possible in order to maximize profit, but the wealthy often feel morally justified in doing so. The power difference between the wealthy and workers often causes a rift in social status, where the wealthy think they deserve their wealth, and disrespect the workers because they are of a lower social class.

Moreover, workers often compete for jobs, promotions, and raises. This can cause dehumanization between workers who no longer see each other as people who deserve dignity and respect, but rather as the enemy. Workers who are more productive or hard working can be a threat to the livelihood of the other workers. A worker willing to work overtime without pay to get a promotion can end up forcing all other competitive workers to do the same to compete for that promotion; but such hard work can encourage workers to be exploited rather than respected.

Alienation is the psychological separation between two things. Two people are alienated even if they are in the same room when they see each other as external and separate. Rather than an enjoyable and fulfilling life, a life with alienation can be more depressing and oppressive. Employers alienated from their workers see their workers as a means to an end—a way to make profit, rather than as friends and fellow human beings. Workers alienated from workers can see other workers as a means to an end (a way to get products) or as the enemy rather than as friends or fellow human beings. Workers alienated from their own labor see their labor as a separate thing sacrificed for the necessities of life rather than as part of a fulfilling life or a reflection of oneself.

New problems capitalism is facing

I will discuss three problems the United States capitalistic system is facing.

The United States faces slow growth in productivity.

The United States is experiencing less economic growth than it did for a hundred years prior to 1973, and many experts believe it “reflects a declining rate of growth in productivity” (141-142). This can be, in part, because we haven’t been investing as much in factories and equipment. It’s not entirely clear why the United States has this problem and it’s not a universal problem found around the world. The lack of productivity is lowering our standard of living and could lead to lower share of international business.

Some people have suggested that the reduction in productivity could be caused by a preoccupation “with short-term performance at the expense of long-term strategies” (142-143). For example, we should be more willing to lose short term profits for long term benefits, and invest in long-term research and development (143).

The United States has a declining interest in production.

There are a declining number of companies focused on producing goods, and some companies have stopped producing goods (ibid.). Many of these companies are focused on marketing rather than production, and others are now middlemen who do little more than package and distribute goods made by someone else.

The United States faces changing attitudes towards work.

First, some have argued that the work ethic—seeing hard work as part of living a fulfilling life and enabling us to attain the American dream—is being lost (145). Only one out of three people accept the American dream, “down from 60 percent in a 1960 survey” (ibid.). Many no longer think productive work will necessarily “pay off,” and there is evidence that “Americans place work eighth in importance behind values such as their children’s education and a satisfactory love life” and have consequently allowed their professional lives to suffer in order to spend more time with their families (ibid.)

In addition, there are other changes in our values and interests that have an impact on business. One, people are no longer interested in factory work and want more fulfilling and less monotonous work (ibid.). Two, loyalty to employers is declining and loyalty to other employees is increasing (ibid.). Three, people’s jobs are often taking a back seat to their “personal needs” (ibid.). Four, employee sabotage and violence are on the rise. Five, theft, absenteeism, and low productivity is increasing as drug use at the office is increasing (ibid.).

Conclusion

We often take it for granted that capitalism is morally justified, but there are philosophers who prefer some kind of socialism after considering the arguments for and against capitalism. I have discussed many of those arguments here in addition to some specific problems the United States capitalistic system is facing today.

Update (9/28/2011): I added more information about the invisible hand argument concerning the assumptions the argument makes.