In addition to covering many standard issues such as abortion, euthanasia, animal rights, the
environment, and world hunger, the volume includes essays that discuss less familiar, but equally
important topics such as hate speech, drug-use, gun control, and political correctness. Half of the
essays have been written or revised for this anthology. Eleven essays are new to this edition, and the
sections on theory, reproductive technologies, war and terrorism, and animals have all been expanded.
The essays are philosophically rigorous yet engaging and accessible to introductory students,
enabling them to think critically about a wide range of moral issues. The supporting website
(www.hughlafollette.com/eip4/) contains extensive links to sources on the topics, ethical theories,
and guides on writing philosophical papers. Together, these features make Ethics in Practice the
ideal volume for introductory and applied ethics courses.
pb_9780470671832.indd 1
Fourth
Edition
Hugh LaFollette is Marie E. and Leslie Cole Professor in Ethics at the University of South
Florida St. Petersburg. He is editor-in-chief of The International Encyclopedia of Ethics (2013,
Wiley Blackwell), author of three books, including The Practice of Ethics (2007) and editor of six
more in ethics. Most of his published essays have been in ethics, political philosophy, and the
philosophy of law.
An Anthology
The fourth edition of the highly successful Ethics in Practice offers an impressive collection of
70 new, revised, and classic essays covering 13 key ethical issues. Through the careful selection
of essays, thoughtful organization of the sections, and helpful introductions, this book brings
together a collection that integrates ethical theory with the discussion of practical ethical issues.
Ethics in Practice
“Hugh LaFollette, a leading ethicist who is known (and valued) in particular for his contributions
to practical ethics, has done a superb job selecting papers for this important anthology.”
Christopher Heath Wellman, Washington University in St. Louis
Edited by
LaFollette
“A superb and thoughtfully edited collection of ethical writing, both theoretical and applied,
containing timeless classics (many revised) and timely contemporary essays on important
practical topics.”
David Archard, Queen’s University Belfast
Ethics in Practice
An Anthology
fourth edition
Edited by Hugh LaFollette
14/11/13 05:57:29
Ethics in Practice
BLACKWELL PHILOSOPHY ANTHOLOGIES
Each volume in this outstanding series provides an authoritative and comprehensive collection of the essential primary
readings from philosophy’s main fields of study. Designed to complement the Blackwell Companions to Philosophy series,
each volume represents an unparalleled resource in its own right, and will provide the ideal platform for course use.
1 Cottingham: Western Philosophy: An Anthology (second edition)
2 Cahoone: From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology (expanded second edition)
3 LaFollette: Ethics in Practice: An Anthology (third edition)
4 Goodin and Pettit: Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Anthology (second edition)
5 Eze: African Philosophy: An Anthology
6 McNeill and Feldman: Continental Philosophy: An Anthology
7 Kim and Sosa: Metaphysics: An Anthology
8 Lycan and Prinz: Mind and Cognition: An Anthology (third edition)
9 Kuhse and Singer: Bioethics: An Anthology (second edition)
10 Cummins and Cummins: Minds, Brains, and Computers – The Foundations of Cognitive Science: An Anthology
11 Sosa, Kim, Fantl, and McGrath: Epistemology: An Anthology (second edition)
12 Kearney and Rasmussen: Continental Aesthetics – Romanticism to Postmodernism: An Anthology
13 Martinich and Sosa: Analytic Philosophy: An Anthology
14 Jacquette: Philosophy of Logic: An Anthology
15 Jacquette: Philosophy of Mathematics: An Anthology
16 Harris, Pratt, and Waters: American Philosophies: An Anthology
17 Emmanuel and Goold: Modern Philosophy – From Descartes to Nietzsche: An Anthology
18 Scharff and Dusek: Philosophy of Technology – The Technological Condition:
An Anthology
19 Light and Rolston: Environmental Ethics: An Anthology
20 Taliaferro and Griffiths: Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology
21 Lamarque and Olsen: Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art – The Analytic Tradition: An Anthology
22 John and Lopes: Philosophy of Literature – Contemporary and Classic Readings: An Anthology
23 Cudd and Andreasen: Feminist Theory: A Philosophical Anthology
24 Carroll and Choi: Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures: An Anthology
25 Lange: Philosophy of Science: An Anthology
26 Shafer-Landau and Cuneo: Foundations of Ethics: An Anthology
27 Curren: Philosophy of Education: An Anthology
28 Shafer-Landau: Ethical Theory: An Anthology
29 Cahn and Meskin: Aesthetics: A Comprehensive Anthology
30 McGrew, Alspector-Kelly and Allhoff: The Philosophy of Science: An Historical Anthology
31 May: Philosophy of Law: Classic and Contemporary Readings
32 Rosenberg and Arp: Philosophy of Biology: An Anthology
33 Kim, Korman, and Sosa: Metaphysics: An Anthology (second edition)
34 Martinich and Sosa: Analytic Philosophy: An Anthology (second edition)
35 Shafer-Landau: Ethical Theory: An Anthology (second edition)
36 Hetherington: Metaphysics and Epistemology: A Guided Anthology
37 Scharff and Dusek: Philosophy of Technology – The Technological Condition: An Anthology (second edition)
38 LaFollette: Ethics in Practice: An Anthology (fourth edition)
Ethics in Practice
An Anthology
fourth edition
Edited by
Hugh LaFollette
University of South Florida St. Petersburg
This edition first published 2014
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
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Cover design by Nicki Averill Design and Illustration
Set in 9.5/11.5pt Ehrhardt by SPi Publishers, Pondicherry, India
1
2014
Contents
[N]: New to fourth edition; [R]: Revised for Ethics in Practice; [W]: Written for Ethics in Practice
Preface for Instructors
x
Acknowledgmentsxii
Source Acknowledgments
xiii
General Introduction
1
Theorizing about Ethics
3
Reading Philosophy
11
Writing a Philosophy Paper [N]
15
Part I Ethical Theory
23
Ethical Theory
25
1
Consequentialism [NR]
William H. Shaw
28
2
Deontology [W]
David McNaughton and Piers Rawling
37
3
Rights [NW]
George W. Rainbolt
49
4
Virtue Theory [W]
Rosalind Hursthouse
60
Part II Life and Death
71
Euthanasia
73
5
Rule-Utilitarianism and Euthanasia [W]
Brad Hooker
76
6
Justifying Physician-Assisted Deaths [W]
Tom L. Beauchamp
85
vi
contents
7 Against the Right to Die [R]
J. David Velleman
92
8 Dying at the Right Time: Reflections on (Un)Assisted Suicide [W]
John Hardwig
101
9 A Duty to Care Revisited [R]
Felicia Cohn and Joanne Lynn
112
Abortion
121
10 A Defense of Abortion
Judith Jarvis Thomson
124
11 On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion [R]
Mary Anne Warren
132
12 An Argument that Abortion is Wrong [W]
Don Marquis
141
13 The Moral Permissibility of Abortion
Margaret Olivia Little
151
14 Virtue Theory and Abortion [R]
Rosalind Hursthouse
160
Animals
169
15 All Animals are Equal
Peter Singer
172
16 Moral Standing, the Value of Lives, and Speciesism
R. G. Frey
181
17 The Case for Animal Rights
Tom Regan
192
18 The Case for the Use of Animals in Biomedical Research [N]
Carl Cohen
198
19 Why Cohen is Mistaken [NR]
Hugh LaFollette
204
Part III
215
The Personal Life
Family and Sexuality
217
20 What Do Grown Children Owe Their Parents?
Jane English
219
21 Morality, Parents, and Children
James Rachels
223
22 Missing Staircases and the Marriage Debate: Is Same-Sex Marriage Bad for Children? [NR]
John Corvino
233
23 What Is Marriage For? Children Need Mothers and Fathers [N]
Maggie Gallagher
239
contents
Biomedical Technologies
vii
245
24 Artificial Means of Reproduction and Our Understanding of the Family
Ruth Macklin
247
25 Is Women’s Labor a Commodity?
Elizabeth S. Anderson
255
26 “Goodbye Dolly?” The Ethics of Human Cloning
John Harris
265
27 The Wisdom of Repugnance: Why We Should Ban the Cloning of Humans
Leon R. Kass
274
28 Cognitive Enhancement
Allen Buchanan and David R. Crawford [NW]
283
Part IV Liberty and Equality
291
Paternalism and Risk
293
29 Freedom of Action
John Stuart Mill
295
30 On Improving People by Political Means
Lester H. Hunt
299
31 Against the Legalization of Drugs
James Q. Wilson
309
32 Why We Should Decriminalize Drug Use [R]
Douglas Husak
314
33 The Liberal Basis of the Right to Bear Arms [R]
Todd C. Hughes and Lester H. Hunt
323
34 Gun Control
Hugh LaFollette
334
Free Speech
346
35 Freedom of Thought and Discussion
John Stuart Mill
348
36 “The Price We Pay?” Pornography and Harm [R]
Susan J. Brison
352
37 The Right to Get Turned On: Pornography, Autonomy, Equality
Andrew Altman
361
38 Sticks and Stones [W]
John Arthur
370
39 Speech Codes and Expressive Harm [W]
Andrew Altman
381
viii
contents
Sexual and Racial Discrimination
389
40 Racism
Michele Moody-Adams
392
41 Servility and Self-Respect
Thomas E. Hill, Jr.
401
42 Sexual Harassment
Anita M. Superson
407
43 Date Rape
Lois Pineau
415
44 Men in Groups: Collective Responsibility for Rape [R]
Larry May and Robert Strikwerda
422
Affirmative Action
431
45 The Case against Affirmative Action [R]
Louis P. Pojman
433
46 The Rights of Allan Bakke
Ronald Dworkin
443
47 Affirmative Action as Equalizing Opportunity:
Challenging the Myth of “Preferential Treatment” [W]
Luke Charles Harris and Uma Narayan
449
Part V
461
Justice
Punishment
463
48 Punishment and Desert [W]
James Rachels
466
49 Out of Character: On the Psychology of Excuses in the Criminal Law [W]
John M. Doris
474
50 Does Punishment Work? [W]
John Paul Wright, Francis T. Cullen, and Kevin M. Beaver
484
51 In Defense of the Death Penalty
Louis P. Pojman
494
52 Against the Death Penalty
Jeffrey Reiman
503
Economic Justice
510
53 A Theory of Justice
John Rawls
513
54 The Entitlement Theory of Justice
Robert Nozick
524
55 Displacing the Distributive Paradigm
Iris Marion Young
535
contents
56 Economic Competition: Should We Care about the Losers? [W]
Jonathan Wolff
World Hunger
ix
545
552
57 Famine, Aff luence, and Morality
Peter Singer
554
58 Famine Relief and the Ideal Moral Code [W]
John Arthur
563
59 Eradicating Systemic Poverty: Brief for a Global Resources Dividend [R]
Thomas W. Pogge
571
60 Feeding People versus Saving Nature [R]
Holmes Rolston III
583
Environment
592
61 The Value of Nature [NW]
Ronald Sandler
594
62 A Place for Cost-Benefit Analysis [R]
David Schmidtz
602
63 Ideals of Human Excellence and Preserving Natural Environments
Thomas E. Hill, Jr.
611
64 A Perfect Moral Storm: Climate Change, Intergenerational Ethics, and
the Problem of Moral Corruption [NR]
Stephen M. Gardiner
War, Terrorism, and Reconciliation
620
631
65 Is the War on Terrorism a Defense of Civilization? [N]
Stephen Nathanson
634
66 Just War Doctrine and the Military Response to Terrorism [R]
Joseph Boyle
640
67 Nipping Evil in the Bud: The Questionable Ethics of Preventive Force [W]
Douglas P. Lackey
649
68 The Justifiability of Humanitarian Intervention [R]
Charles R. Beitz
658
69 Pacifism: Reclaiming the Moral Presumption [W]
William J. Hawk
666
70 Political Reconciliation [NR]
Colleen Murphy
675
Preface for Instructors
This anthology seeks to provide engagingly written,
carefully argued philosophical essays, on a wide range of
important, contemporary ethical issues. When I had
trouble finding essays that suited those purposes, I commissioned new essays – four for this edition. I also invited
a number of philosophers to revise their “classic” essays –
three for this edition, with four reprints new to this
edition. Altogether, more than half of the essays were
written or revised specifically for Ethics in Practice. This
edition also features a new introductory essay, “Writing a
Philosophy Paper.”
The result is a tasty blend of the old and the new, the
familiar and the unfamiliar. I have organized the book
into five thematic sections and fifteen topics to give you
the greatest flexibility to construct the course you want.
When feasible, I begin or end sections with essays that
bridge to preceding or following sections.
Although I have included essays I think introductory
students can read and comprehend, no one would believe
me if I claimed all the essays are easy to read. We all know
many students have trouble reading philosophical essays.
That is not surprising. Many of these essays were written
originally for other professional philosophers, not firstyear undergraduates. Moreover, even when philosophers
write expressly for introductory audiences, their ideas,
vocabularies, and styles are often foreign to the introductory student. So I have included a brief introduction on
Reading Philosophy to advise students on how to read
and understand philosophical essays.
I want this volume to be suitable for a variety of courses.
The most straightforward way to use the text is to assign
essays on six of seven of your favorite practical issues. If
you want a more topical course, you could emphasize
issues in one or more of the major thematic sections. You
could also focus on practical and theoretical issues
spanning individual topics and major divisions of the
book. If, for instance, you want to focus on gender, you
could select most essays from four sections: Abortion,
Family and Sexuality, Sexual and Racial
Discrimination, and Affirmative Action, and combine these with some specific articles scattered throughout, for example, Young’s “Displacing the Distributive
Paradigm” (Economic Justice). Finally, you can also
give your course a decided theoretical flavor by using the
section on Ethical Theory, and then selecting essays
that address, in diverse contexts, significant theoretical
issues like the act/omission distinction, the determination
of moral status, or the limits of morality, and so on. You can
also direct your students to Theorizing about Ethics
– a brief introductory essay designed to help them
understand why we should theorize, and then giving
them a snapshot of some major theories.
One distinctive feature of the anthology is the section
introductions. Some anthologies do not include them.
Those that do often use introductions simply to summarize the articles in that section. The introductions
here do indicate the main thrust of the essays. However,
that is not their primary purpose. Their purpose is (1) to
focus students’ attention on the theoretical issues at
stake, and (2) to relate those issues to the discussion of
the same or related issues in other sections. All too often
students (and philosophers) see practical ethics as a
hodgepodge of largely (or wholly) unrelated problems.
The introductions should go some way toward remedying this tendency. They show students that practical
questions are not discrete, but intricately connected
with one another. Thinking carefully about any problem
invariably illuminates (and is illuminated by) others.
Thus, the overarching aim of these introductions is to
give the book a coherence some anthologies lack.
p r e fac e f o r i n s t ru c t o r s
There are consequences of this strategy you might
mention to your students. I organized the order of the
papers within each section to maximize the students’
understanding of that practical issue – nothing more.
However, I wrote the introductions and organized the
summaries to maximize the understanding of theoretical
issues. Often the order of the discussion of essays in the
introduction matches the order of essays in that section;
occasionally it does not. Moreover, I spend more time
“summarizing” some essays to the exclusion of others.
That in no way suggests that the essays on which I focus
are more cogent, useful, or in any way better than the
others. Rather, I found it easier to use them as entrées into
the theoretical questions.
Finally, since I do not know which sections you will
use, you should be aware that the introductions will likely
refer to essays the student will not read. When that happens, they will not realize one aim of the introductions.
They may still be valuable. For even if the student does
not read the essays to which an introduction refers, she
can better appreciate the interconnections between issues.
It might even have the delicious consequence of encouraging the student to read an essay that you did not assign.
One last note about the criteria for selecting essays.
Many practical ethics anthologies include essays on
opposing sides of every issue. For most topics I think
that is a laudable aim that an editor can normally
xi
achieve. But not always. I include essays that discuss
the issue as we currently frame and understand it.
Sometimes that understanding precludes some positions that might have once been part of the debate. For
instance, early practical ethics anthologies included
essays that argued that an individual should always
choose to prolong her life, by any medical means whatever. On this view, euthanasia of any sort and for any
reason was immoral. Although that was once a viable
position, virtually no one now advocates or even discusses it. Even the author of the essay with serious
misgivings about a “right to die” would not embrace
that position. The current euthanasia debate largely
concerns when people might choose not to sustain their
lives, how they might carry out their wishes, and with
whose assistance. Those are the questions addressed by
these essays on euthanasia.
Likewise, I do not have any essays that argue that
women and Blacks ought to be relegated to the bedroom
or to manual labor. Although everyone acknowledges that
racism and sexism are still alive and well in the United
States, few people openly advocate making Blacks and
women second class citizens. No one seriously discusses
these proposals in academic circles. Instead, I include
essays that highlight current issues concerning the treatment of minorities and women (sexual harassment, date
rape, etc.).
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank three people who, through their
work, encouraged me to think about practical moral
issues, and who through their lives, encouraged me to act
on what I found: Joel Feinberg, James Rachels, and
Richard Wasserstrom.
I would like to thank Eva LaFollette for insight and her
comments on the structure and content of this volume.
I would like to thank Jeff Dean, who is everything one
could possibly want in an editor. He is knowledgeable,
thoughtful, and efficient. I will miss his presence at the
press. Finally I would like to the staff at Wiley-Blackwell
for making my job as editor easier. My copy editor, Helen
Kemp, was superb.
Source Acknowledgments
The editor and publisher gratefully acknowledge the
permission granted to reproduce the copyright material
in this book and that appear in the following chapters:
1 William H. Shaw, “Consequentialism.” This essay
is a revised and abridged version of William H.
Shaw, “The Consequentialist Perspective,” in
James Dreier, ed., Contemporary Debates in Moral
Theory (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 5–20.
Reprinted with permission of John Wiley & Sons
Ltd and the author.
7 J. David Velleman, “Against the Right to Die,”
revised version of pp. 665–681 from “Against the
Right to Die,” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy
17 (6) (1992). Reprinted with permission of Oxford
University Press and the author.
9 Felicia Cohn and Joanne Lynn, “A Duty to Care
Revisited,” from J. Hardwig, Is There a Duty to Die?
(New York: Routledge, 2000), pp. 145–154. Reprinted
with permission of Taylor & Francis USA.
10 Judith Jarvis Thomson, “A Defense of Abortion,”
pp. 47–62, 65–66 from Philosophy and Public Affairs
1 (1). Reprinted with permission of John Wiley &
Sons Ltd.
Mary Anne Warren, “On the Moral and Legal
11
Status of Abortion,” revised version of pp. 43–61
from The Monist: An International Quarterly Journal
of General Philosophical Inquiry 57 (1973), Peru,
Illinois, USA 61354. Reprinted with permission.
13 Margaret Olivia Little, “The Moral Permissibility
of Abortion,” pp. 27–39 from Christopher Heath
Wellman and Andrew Cohen (eds.), Contemporary
Debates in Applied Ethics (Oxford: Blackwell,
2004). Reprinted with permission of John Wiley &
Sons Ltd.
0002055439.INDD 13
14 Rosalind Hursthouse, “Virtue Theory and Abortion,”
revised version of pp. 223–246 from Philosophy and
Public Affairs 20. Reprinted with permission of John
Wiley & Sons Ltd.
15 Peter Singer, “All Animals are Equal,” from
Philosophical Exchange 1, 1974. © by Peter Singer.
Reprinted with kind permission of the author.
16 R. G. Frey, “Moral Standing, the Value of Lives,
and Speciesism,” pp. 191–201 from Between the
Species 4 (1988). Reprinted with permission of
author and the online journal.
17 Tom Regan, “The Case for Animal Rights,” from
Peter Singer (ed.), In Defense of Animals (Oxford:
Basil Blackwell, 1985), pp. 13–26. Reprinted with
permission of John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
18 Carl Cohen, “The Case for the Use of Animals in
Biomedical Research,” pp. 865–870 from New
England Journal of Medicine 315 © 1986 Reprinted
with permission.
19 Hugh LaFollette, “Why Cohen Is Mistaken,” excerpted
and revised from Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics (ed.
Beauchamp and Frey) © 2011 Oxford University Press.
Reproduced with permission from Oxford University
Press.
20 Jane English, “What Do Grown Children Owe
Their Parents?,” from William Ruddick and Onora
O’Neill (eds.), Having Children, pp. 351–356. ©
Oxford University Press, 1979. Reprinted with permission of Oxford University Press.
21 James Rachels, “Morality, Parents and Children.”
Reprinted with kind permission of David Rachels,
son of James Rachels.
24 Ruth Macklin, “Artificial Means of Reproduction
and Our Understanding of the Family,” The Hastings
Center Report, Vol. 21, Issue 1, pp. 5–11,
11/27/2013 12:40:59 PM
xiv
25
26
27
30
31
32
33
34
36
37
40
s o u rc e ac k n o w l e d g m e n t s
January–February 1991. Reprinted with permission
of John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Elizabeth S. Anderson, “Is Women’s Labor a
Commodity?,” pp. 71–92 from Philosophy and Public
Affairs (1990). Reprinted with permission of John
Wiley & Sons.
John Harris, “ ‘Goodbye Dolly’: the Ethics of Human
Cloning,” pp. 353–360 from Journal of Medical
Ethics. BMJ Publishing Group, 1997. Reprinted with
permission of the BMJ.
Leon R. Kass, “The Wisdom of Repugnance,”
pp. 17–27 from The New Republic, June 2, 1997.
Reprinted with kind permission of the author.
Lester H. Hunt, “On Improving People by Political
Means,” pp. 61–76 from Reason Papers, 1985.
Reprinted with permission of Reason Papers and
the author.
James Q. Wilson, “Against the Legalization of Drugs,”
from Commentary (February 1990). Reprinted by
permission. All rights reserved.
Douglas Husak, “Why We Should Decriminalize
Drug Use,” pp. 21–29 from Criminal Justice Ethics
22 (1), Winter/Spring 2003. Reprinted with kind
permission of the author.
Todd C. Hughes and Lester H. Hunt, revised version
of “The Liberal Basis of the Right to Bear Arms,” pp.
1–25 from Public Affairs Quarterly 14, 2000. Reprinted
with permission of Public Affairs Quarterly.
Hugh LaFollette, “Gun Control.” This essay first
appeared in Ethics 110 (2000). Reprinted with permission of The University of Chicago Press © 2000.
Reprinted with permission of University of Chicago
Press.
Susan J. Brison, revised version of “The Price We
Pay?,” pp. 236–250 from Christopher Heath
Wellman and Andrew Cohen (eds.), Contemporary
Debates in Applied Ethics, 1. Malden, MA: Blackwell
2004. Reprinted with permission of John Wiley &
Sons Ltd.
Andrew Altman, “The Right to Get Turned On:
Pornography, Autonomy, Equality,” pp. 223–235
from Christopher Heath Wellman and Andrew
Cohen (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Applied
Ethics, 1. Malden, MA: Blackwell 2004.
Reprinted with permission of John Wiley &
Sons Ltd.
Michele Moody-Adams, “Racism,” pp. 89–101
from R. G. Frey and C. H. Wellman (eds.), Blackwell
Companion to Applied Ethics. Malden: Blackwell
41
42
43
44
45
46
52
53
54
55
57
2003. Reprinted with permission of John Wiley &
Sons Ltd.
Thomas E. Hill, Jr., “Servility and Self-Respect,”
pp. 87–104 from The Monist, 1974. © 1974 The
Monist: An International Quarterly Journal of
General Philosophical Inquiry, Peru, Illinois, 61354.
Reprinted by permission.
Anita M. Superson, “Sexual Harassment,” pp. 51–64
from Journal of Social Philosophy 24 (3), 1993.
Reprinted with permission of John Wiley & Sons.
Louis Pineau, “Date Rape,” pp. 217–243 from Law
and Philosophy 8. Kluwer Academic Publishers,
1989. Reprinted with permission of Springer
Verlag.
Larry May and Robert Strikwerda, revised version
of “Men in Groups: Collective Responsibility for
Rape,” pp. 134–151 from Hypatia 9, 1994. Reprinted
with permission of John Wiley & Sons.
Louis P. Pojman, revised version of “The Case
against Affirmative Action,” International Journal
of Applied Philosophy 12 (1998). Reprinted courtesy
of the late author Louis Pojman, by his wife Trudy.
Ronald Dworkin, “The Rights of Allan Bakke,”
from The New York Review of Books, 1977.
Reprinted with permission of New York Review of
Books.
Jeffrey Reiman, “Against the Death Penalty,”
pp. 553–562 from S. Luper, Living Well. Harcourt
Brace and Company, 2000. Reprinted by permission of the author.
John Rawls, “A Theory of Justice,” pp. 11–22, 60–65,
150–156 from Belknap Press of Harvard University
Press, 1971. © 1971, 1999 by the President and
Fellows of Harvard College. Reprinted with permisison of Harvard University Press.
Robert Nozick, “The Entitlement Theory of
Justice,” pp. 140–164, 167–174 from Anarchy, State,
and Utopia. Basic Books, 1974. © 1974 by Basic
Books, Inc. Reprinted with permission.
Iris Marion Young, “Displacing the Distributive
Paradigm,” pp. 15–16, 18–30, 33–34, 37–38 from
Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton
University Press, 1990. © 1990 Princeton University
Press. Reprinted by permission of Princeton
University Press.
Peter Singer, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality,”
pp. 229–243 from Philosophy and Public Affairs.
Reprinted with permission of John Wiley & Sons,
USA.
s o u rc e ac k n o w l e d g m e n t s
59 Thomas W. Pogge, revised version of “Eradicating
Systemic Poverty: Brief for a Global Resources
Dividend,” pp. 501–538 from D. Crocker and
T. Linden, Ethics of Consumption. Rowman
Littlefield Publishers, Inc, 1997. Reprinted by permission of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
60 Holmes Rolston III, revised version of “Feeding
People versus Saving Nature,” pp. 248–267 from
W. Aiken and Hugh LaFollette, World Hunger
and Morality. Prentice Hall, 1996. Reprinted with
kind permission of the author.
62 David Schmidtz, revised version of “A Place for CostBenefit Analysis,” pp. 148–171 from Philosophical
Issues 11. Supplement to Nous, 2001. Reprinted by
permission of John Wiley & Sons.
63 Thomas E. Hill, Jr., “Ideals of Human Excellence
and Preserving Natural Environments,” pp. 211–
224 from Environmental Ethics 5, 1983. Reprinted
with the kind permission of the author and
Environmental Ethics.
xv
64 Stephen Gardiner, “A Perfect Moral Storm: Climate
Change, Intergenerational Ethics, and the Problem
of Moral Corruption,” 2011. Revised from “A
Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of
Climate Change.” Oxford. First published in
Environmental Values, 15 (2006), pp. 397–413 © 2006
The White Horse Press. Reprinted with permission.
66 Joseph Boyle, revised version of “Just War
Doctrine and the Military Response to Terrorism,”
from Journal of Political Philosophy, 11 (2), 2003,
pp. 153–170.
68 Charles Beitz, “Humanitarian Intervention,” revised
version of “The Justifiability of Humanitarian
Intervention.” from Bowdoin College Bulletin, Vol. 5,
2001. Reprinted by permission of Bowdoin College.
70 Colleen Murphy, “The Justifiability of Political
Reconciliation,” from “Lon Fuller and the Moral
Value of the Rule of Law,” Law and Philosophy,
24 (3) (2005), pp. 239–262. Reprinted with permission
of Springer.
General Introduction
All of us make choices. Some of these appear to concern
only ourselves: what to wear, when to sleep, what to read,
where to live, how to decorate our homes, and what to
eat. Under most circumstances these choices are purely
personal. Purely personal concerns are beyond the scope
of morality and will not be discussed in this book. Other
choices demonstrably affect others: whether to prolong
the life of our comatose grandmother, when and with
whom to have sex, how to relate to people of different
races, and whether to support capital punishment or laws
against cloning. These choices clearly affect others and
are normally thought to be choices we should assess, at
least in part, on moral grounds.
Upon closer examination, however, we see that it is
not always obvious whether a choice affects only us. Is
choosing to view pornography personal or does it support the degradation of women? Is eating meat purely
personal or does it encourage and sustain the inhumane
treatment of animals or the depletion of resources that
we could use to feed the starving? Is choosing where to
live purely personal or does it sometimes support racist
practices that confine African Americans or Hispanics or
Asians to inadequate housing? If so, then some choices
that seem purely personal turn out to affect others in
morally significant ways.
In short, once we reflect carefully on our choices, we
discover that many might profoundly affect others and,
therefore, that we ought to evaluate them morally. By choosing to buy a new stereo rather than send money for famine
relief, children in India may starve. By choosing to support
political candidates who oppose or support abortion, tough
drug laws, affirmative action, or environmental protection,
I affect others in demonstrably significant ways. Of
course knowing that our choices affect others does not
yet tell us how we should behave. It does, however, confirm that we should evaluate those choices morally.
Unfortunately many of us are individually and collectively nearsighted: we fail to see or appreciate the moral
significance of our choices, thereby increasing the evil in
the world. Often we talk and think as if evil resulted
solely from the conscious choices of wholly evil people.
I suspect, however, that evil results more often from
ignorance and inattention: we just don’t notice or attend
to the significance of what we do. A central aim of this
book is to improve our moral vision: to help us notice
and comprehend the moral significance of what we do.
The primary means of achieving this end is to present
essays that carefully and critically discuss a range of
practical moral issues. These essays will supply information you likely do not have and perspectives you may not
have not considered. Many of you may find that your
education has ill prepared you to think carefully about
these issues. Far too many public schools in the United
States neither expect nor even permit students to think
critically. Many of them will not have expected or wanted
you to develop and defend your own views. Instead,
many will have demanded that you memorize the content
of your texts and the assertions of your teachers.
Philosophy professors, in contrast, do not standardly
expect you to memorize what they or someone else says.
Still less will they want you to parrot them or the texts.
They require you to read what others have said, but
Ethics in Practice: An Anthology, Fourth Edition. Edited by Hugh LaFollette.
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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g e n e r a l i n t ro d u c t i o n
not because they want you to recite it. Instead, these
professors contend that critically reading the arguments
of others will help you better attain your own conclusions. For those of you who find that your high school
education, with its premium on memorization and
blind adherence to authority, did not prepare you to
read philosophical essays, I have included a brief section on Reading Philosophy.
I also include a brief introductory essay on ethical theorizing. Philosophers do not discuss practical issues in a
vacuum. They place their discussions in a larger context
that helps clarify and define the practical issues. They discuss not only the details peculiar to the issue, but more
general features that are relevant to many practical moral
quandaries. That essay will explain the purpose of
Theorizing about Ethics. The essay will also briefly
describe some prominent ethical theories that you will
encounter in these pages. You will see, as you read individual essays, that some authors provide detailed explanations of these theories.
I also include an introductory essay on Writing a
Philosophy Paper. Some of what I say will overlap
themes from several of the earlier introductions. However,
since I know not all teachers will assign, and not all stu-
dents will read, all of the introductions, I think this is
unavoidable. My aim is to briefly describe a variety of
papers you might be asked to write, and talk about what
you should do to make your papers as strong as possible.
Finally, to augment your familiarity with various theories, I will, in the introductions to each section, not
only summarize the central themes of the essays, I will
also spotlight some general theoretical questions and
explain how these are relevant to other issues discussed
in this volume. It is important to appreciate the myriad
ways in which practical moral issues are woven together
by common theoretical threads. Practical ethics is not a
random collection of unconnected issues, but a systematic exploration of how we can most responsibly act in a
variety of practical moral contexts.
Consequently, this is not a recipe book that answers
all moral questions. Rather, it is a chronicle of how a
number of philosophers have thought about these
practical moral issues. If you absorb the information
the authors supply, attend to their arguments, and
consider the diverse perspectives they offer, you will
find, when the course is over, that you are better able
to think carefully and critically about practical and
theoretical moral issues.
Theorizing about Ethics
When deciding what to do, we often face uncertainty
over, confusions about, or conflicts between, our inclinations, desires, interests, and beliefs. These can arise even
when we want to promote only our self-interests. We
may not know what is in our best interests: we may have
simply adopted some mistaken ideas of our parents, our
friends, or our culture. For instance, were our parents
Nazis we might believe that maintaining racial purity is
our most important personal aim. We may also confuse
our wants with our interests: we want to manipulate others for our own ends and therefore infer that caring for
others systematically undermines our interests. Even
when we know some of our interests, we may be unable
to determine their relative importance: we may assume
that wealth is more important than developing character
and having close relationships. Other times we may know
our interests, but be unsure of how to resolve conflicts
between them: I may need to write a paper, yet want to
hike the local mountain. Finally, even if I know the best
choice, I may not act on it: I may know that it is in my
best long-term interest to lose weight, yet inhale that
scrumptious pie instead.
These complications show why I can best pursue my
self-interests only if I rationally deliberate about them. I
must sometimes step back and think more abstractly about
(a) what it means for something to be an interest (rather
than a mere desire), (b) how to detect which behavior or
goals are most likely to advance those interests, and (c) how
to understand the interconnections between my interests
(e.g., the ways that health enhances my chance of achieving other interests). Finally, I must (d) find a procedure
for coping with conflicts between interests, and (e) learn
how to act on the outcome of my rational deliberations.
Abstraction from and theorizing about practice improves
practice and helps us act more prudently.
Of course, many actions do not concern simply
o urselves; they also affect others. Some of my actions
benefit others while others harm them. The benefit or
harm may be direct or indirect, intentional or unintentional. I might directly harm Joe by pushing him. I might
push him because I am angry with him or because I want
his place in the queue. I could indirectly harm Joe by
landing a promotion he needs to finance nursing care for
his dying mother. Or I might offend Joe by privately
engaging in what he considers kinky sex. If so, my bedroom antics affect him, although only indirectly and only
because he holds the particular moral beliefs he does.
Arguably it is inappropriate to say that I harmed Joe in
these last two cases, although I did choose to act knowing
my actions might make him unhappy or nauseated.
In choosing how to behave, I should acknowledge that
my actions may affect others, even if only indirectly. In
these circumstances, I must choose whether to pursue
my self-interest or whether to promote (or at least not set
back) the interests of others. Other times I must choose to
act in ways that may harm some while benefitting others.
If I am fortunate, I might occasionally find ways to promote everyone’s interests without harming anyone else’s.
Understanding these distinctions does not settle the
question of how I should act. It only circumscribes the arena
within which morality operates. Morality, traditionally
understood, involves primarily, and perhaps exclusively,
behavior that affects others. I say “perhaps” because some
philosophers (e.g., Kant) thought that anyone who harms
herself, for instance, by squandering her talents or abusing
her body, has done something morally wrong. For present
purposes, though, we can set this issue aside. For what everyone acknowledges is that actions that indisputably affect
others should be evaluated morally – although we might
disagree about how that should shape our action. We might
4
theorizing about ethics
also disagree about whether and to what extent actions that
affect others only indirectly should be evaluated morally. We
might further disagree about whether and how to morally
distinguish direct from indirect harm. Nonetheless, if
someone’s action directly and substantially affects others
(either benefits or harms them), then even if we do not yet
know whether the action is right or wrong, we can agree that
we should evaluate it morally.
This discussion might suggest that most, if not all,
moral decisions are complicated or confusing. Not so.
Many moral “decisions” are so easy that we never think
about them. No one seriously asks whether it is morally
permissible to drug a classmate so she can have sex with
him, whether she should steal money from her co-workers to finance a vacation on the Riviera, or whether she
should knowingly infect someone with AIDS. This is not
the stuff of which moral disagreement is made. We know
quite well that such actions are wrong. I suspect most
moral questions are so easily answered that we never ask
them. Rather than discuss questions to which there are
obvious answers, we focus on, think about, and debate
those about which there is genuine disagreement.
However, we sometimes think a decision is easy to
make, when, in fact, it is not. This is an equally (or arguably more) serious mistake. We may fail to see the conflicts, confusions, or uncertainties: the issue may be so
complicated that we overlook, fail to understand, or do
not appreciate how (and how profoundly) our actions
affect others. If we are preoccupied with our self-interest, we may not see the ways our behavior significantly
affects others or else we give inadequate weight to their
interests. Finally, our unquestioning acceptance of the
moral status quo can blind us to just how wrong some of
our behaviors and social institutions are.
The Need for Theory
We may think that an action is grossly immoral, but not
really know why. Or we may think we know why, only to
discover, upon careful examination, that we are merely
parroting the “reasons” offered by our friends, teachers,
parents, or preachers. There is nothing wrong with considering how others think and how they have decided
similar moral questions. We would be fools not to absorb
and benefit from the wisdom of others. However, anyone
even faintly aware of history will acknowledge that collective moral wisdom, like individual moral wisdom, is sometimes horribly mistaken. Our ancestors held slaves, denied
women the right to vote, practiced genocide, and burned
witches at the stake. I suspect most of our ancestors were
generally morally decent people who were firmly convinced that their actions were moral. They acted wrongly
because they failed to be sufficiently self-critical. They did
not evaluate their own beliefs; they unquestioningly
adopted the outlook of their ancestors, political leaders,
teachers, friends, and community. In these ways they are
not unique. This is a “sin” of which each of us is guilty.
The resounding lesson of history is that we must scrutinize our beliefs, our choices, and our actions to ensure that
we are informed, consistent, imaginative, unbiased, and
not mindlessly reciting the views and vices of others.
Otherwise we may perpetrate evils we could avoid, evils
for which future generations will rightly condemn us.
To critically evaluate our moral views we should theorize about ethics: we should think about moral issues
more abstractly, more coherently, and more consistently.
Theorizing is not some enterprise divorced from practice, but is simply the careful, systematic, and thoughtful
reflection on practice. Theorizing will not insulate us
from error. However, it will empower us to shed ill-conceived, uninformed, and irrelevant considerations. To
explain what I mean, let’s think briefly about a matter
dear to most students: grades. My grading of students’
work can go awry in at least three different ways.
1 I might use an inconsistent grading standard. That is,
I might use different standards for different students:
Joan gets an A because she has a pleasant smile; Ralph,
because he works hard; Rachel, because her paper was
exceptional. Of course knowing that I should use a
unified grading standard does not tell me what standards I should have employed or what grades the specific students should have received. Perhaps they all
deserved the As they received. However, it is not
enough that I accidentally gave them the grades they
deserved. I should have given them A’s because they
deserved them, not because of some irrelevant considerations. If I employed irrelevant considerations,
I will often give students the wrong grades, even if, in
some cases, I give them the correct grades.
2 I might be guided by improper grading standards. It
is not enough that I have an invariant standard. I
might have a flawed standard to which I adhere
unwaveringly. For instance, I might consistently give
students I like higher grades than students I dislike.
If so, then I grade their work inappropriately, even if
consistently.
theorizing about ethics
3 I might employ the standards inappropriately. I might
have appropriate and consistent grading standards,
yet misapply them because I am ignorant, closeminded, exhausted, preoccupied, or inattentive.
I can make parallel mistakes in ethical deliberations:
1
2
3
I might use inconsistent ethical principles.
I might have inappropriate moral standards.
I might employ moral standards inappropriately.
Let us look at each deliberative error in more detail:
1 Consistency. We should treat two creatures the
same unless they are relevantly different – different in
ways that justify treating them differently. Just as students expect teachers to grade consistently, we expect
others (and hopefully ourselves) to be morally consistent. The demand for consistency pervades moral
thinking. A common strategy for defending our moral
views is to claim that we are consistent; a common
strategy for criticizing others’ views is to charge that
they are not.
The argumentative role of consistency is evident in
the discussion of every practical moral issue. Consider its
role in the Abortion debate. Disputants spend considerable effort arguing that their own positions are consistent
while charging that their opponents’ positions are inconsistent. Each side labors to show why abortion is (or is
not) relevantly similar to standard cases of murder. Most
of those who think abortion is immoral (and likely all of
those who think it should be illegal) claim abortion is relevantly similar to murder, while those who think abortion
should be legal claim it differs relevantly from murder.
What we do not find are people who think abortion is
murder and yet wholly moral.
Consistency likewise plays central roles in debates
over Free Speech and Paternalism and Risk. Those
opposed to censorship often argue that books, pictures,
movies, plays, or sculptures that some people want to
censor are relevantly similar to art that most people do
not want censored. They further claim that pornography
is a form of speech, and if we can prohibit it because the
majority finds it offensive, then we must censor any
speech that offends the majority. Conversely, those who
claim we can legitimately censor pornography go to some
pains to explain why pornography is relevantly different
from other forms of speech we want to protect. Both
sides want to show that their position is consistent and
that their opponent’s position is inconsistent.
5
Although consistency is generally recognized as a
requirement of morality, in specific cases it is difficult to
detect if someone is being (in)consistent. Someone may
appear to act (in)consistently, but only because we do not
appreciate the complexity of her moral reasoning or fail
to understand the morally relevant features framing her
action. Nonetheless, what everyone acknowledges is that
if someone is being inconsistent, then that is a compelling reason to reject her position.
2 Correct principles. It is not enough to be consistent.
We must also employ the appropriate guidelines, principles, standards, or make the appropriate judgments.
Theorizing about ethics is one good way to discern the
best (most defensible) standards or guidelines, to identify the morally relevant features of our actions, to
enhance our ability to make good judgments. Later I discuss how to select and defend these principles – how we
determine what is morally relevant.
3 Correct “application.” Even when we know what is
morally relevant, and even when we reason consistently,
we may still make moral mistakes. Consider the ways I
might misapply rules prohibiting (a) lying and (b) harming another’s feelings. Suppose my wife comes home
wearing a gaudy sweater. She wants to know if I like it.
Presumably I should neither lie nor intentionally hurt
her feelings. What, in these circumstances, should I do?
There are a number of ways I might act inappropriately.
1
2
3
4
5
I may not see viable alternatives: I may assume, for
example, that I must baldly lie or else substantially
hurt her feelings.
I may be insufficiently attentive to her needs and interests: I may over- or under-estimate how much she will
be hurt by my honesty (or lack of it).
I may be unduly influenced by self-interest or personal
bias: I may lie not to protect her feelings, but because
I don’t want her to be angry with me.
I may know precisely what I should do, but be insufficiently motivated to do it: I may lie because I just don’t
want the hassle.
Or, I may be motivated to act as I should, but lack the
talent or skill to do it: I may want to be honest, but lack
the verbal and personal skills to be honest in a way
that will not hurt her feelings.
These are all failings with practical moral significance.
We would all be better off if we would learn how to make
ourselves more attentive, more informed, and better
motivated. However, although these are vitally important
6
theorizing about ethics
practical concerns, they are not the primary focus of
most essays in this book. What these authors do here is
provide relevant information, careful logical analysis,
and a clear account of what they take to be the morally
relevant features of practical ethical questions.
Is It Just a Matter of Opinion?
Many of you may find talk of moral standards – and the
employment of those standards – troubling. You may
think – certainly many people talk as if they think – that
moral judgments are just “matters of opinion.” All of us
have overheard people conclude a debate about a contentious moral issue by saying: “Well, it is all just a matter of
opinion anyway!” I suspect the real function of this claim
is to signal the speaker’s desire to terminate discussion.
Unfortunately this claim implies more. It suggests that
since moral judgments are just opinions, then all moral
judgments are equally good (or equally bad). It implies
that we cannot criticize or rationally scrutinize our (or
anyone else’s) moral judgments. After all, we don’t
rationally criticize mere opinions (“I think Dominos
serves the best pizza in town” or “I prefer purple walls in
a kitchen”).
However, even if no (contentious) moral judgment
were indisputably correct, we should not infer that all
moral judgments are equally (un)reliable. Although we
have no clear way of deciding with certainty which
actions are best, we have excellent ways of showing that
some actions are morally defective. For instance, we
know that moral judgments based on misinformation,
shortsightedness, bias, lack of understanding, or wholly
bizarre moral principles are flawed. Conversely, judgments
are more plausible if they are based on full information,
careful calculation, astute perception, and if they have successfully survived the criticism of others in the marketplace
of ideas.
Consider the following analogy: No grammatical or
stylistic rules will determine precisely the way I should
phrase the next sentence. However, from that we should
not conclude that I may properly use just any string of
words. Some arrangements of words are not sentences
and some grammatically complete sentences are gibberish. Other sentences might be grammatically well formed
– even stylish – yet inappropriate because they are disconnected from the sentences that precede or follow
them. Many other sentences are grammatically well
formed, relevant, and minimally clear, yet may be vague
or imprecise. Others may be comprehensible, relevant,
and generally precise, yet still be gaudy or at least bereft
of style. Still others may be wholly adequate, sufficiently
adequate so that there is no strong reason to prefer one.
A few may be brilliant. No grammar book will enable us
to make those distinctions or identify a uniquely best
sentence. Nonetheless, we have no problem distinguishing the trashy or the unacceptably vague from the linguistically sublime. In short, we needn’t think that one
sentence is uniquely good to acknowledge that some are
better and some are worse. Likewise for ethics. We may
not always know how to act; we may find substantial disagreement about some highly contentious ethical issues.
However, that does not show that all moral views are
created equal (LaFollette, 1991).
We should also not ignore the obvious fact that
circumstances often demand that we act even if there is
no (or we cannot discern a) uniquely appropriate moral
action. Nonetheless, our uncertainty does not lead us to
think that – or act as if – all views were equal. We do not
toss a coin to decide whether to remove our parents from
life support, whether to save a small child drowning in a
pond, or whether someone charged with a felony is
guilty. We (should) strive to make an informed decision
based on the best evidence and then act accordingly, even
if the best evidence does not guarantee certainty. To
make an informed decision we should understand the
relevant issues, take a longer-term perspective, set aside
irrational biases, and inculcate a willingness to subject
our tentative conclusions to the criticisms of others.
We should not bemoan our inability to be certain that
we have found the uniquely best action; we must simply
make the best choice we can. We should, of course, acknow
ledge our uncertainty, admit our fallibility, and be prepared to consider new ideas, especially when they are
supported by strong arguments. However, we have no
need to embrace any pernicious forms of relativism. That
would be not only misguided, but a moral mistake.
The Role of Theory
Even when people agree that an issue should be evaluated by criteria of morality, they may disagree about how
to evaluate it. Using the language of the previous section,
they may disagree about the best principles or judgments, about how those are to be interpreted, or about
how they should be used. Anti-abortionists argue that
abortion should be illegal because the fetus has the same
theorizing about ethics
right to life as a normal adult, while pro-abortionists
argue that it should be legal since the woman has the
right to decide what happens in and to her body.
Supporters of capital punishment argue that executions
deter crime, while opponents argue that it is cruel and
inhumane. Those who want to censor pornography claim
it degrades women, while supporters argue that it is a
form of free speech that should be protected by law.
In giving reasons for their judgments, people cite
some features of the action they think explain or support
their evaluation. This function of reasons is not confined
to ethical disagreements. I may justify my claim that
“Fargo is a good movie” by claiming that it has welldefined characters, an interesting plot, and the appropriate dramatic tension. That is, I identify features of the
movie that I think justify my evaluation. The features I
cite, however, are not unique to this movie. In giving
these reasons I imply that “having well-defined characters” or “having an interesting plot” or “having the
appropriate dramatic tension” are important characteristics of good movies, period. That is not to say these are
the only or the most important characteristics. Nor is it
yet to decide how weighty these characteristics are. It is,
however, to say that we have a reason to think that a
movie with these characteristics is a good movie.
You can challenge my evaluation of the movie in three
ways: You can challenge my criteria, the weight I give
those criteria, or my claim that the movie satisfies them.
For instance, you could argue that having well-defined
characters is not a relevant criterion, that I have given that
criterion too much weight, or, that Fargo does not have
well-defined characters. In defense, I could explain why it
is a relevant criterion, why I have given the criterion the
appropriate weight, and why the movie’s characters are
well developed. At this point we are discussing issues are
two different levels. We are debating both the criteria of
good movies and how to evaluate a particular movie.
Likewise, when discussing a practical ethical issue, we
are discussing not only that particular issue but also
underlying theoretical perspectives. We do not want to
know only whether capital punishment deters crime, we
also want to know whether deterrence is morally important, and, if so, just how important. When theorizing
reaches a certain level or complexity, we begin to speak of
someone’s “having a theory.” Ethical theories are simply
formal and more systematic discussions of second level,
theoretical discussions. These are philosophers’ efforts
to identify the relevant moral criteria, the weight or significance of each criterion, and to offer some guidance
7
about how to determine whether an action satisfies those
criteria. In the next section, I will briefly outline the
more familiar ethical theories. But before I do, let me
first offer a warning. In thinking about ethical theories,
we may be tempted to assume that people who hold the
same theory will make the same practical ethical judgments, and that people who make the same practical
ethical judgments must embrace the same theory. Neither
is true. It is not true of any evaluative judgments. For
instance, two people with similar criteria for good movies
may differently evaluate Fargo, while two people who
loved Fargo may have (somewhat) different criteria for
good movies. Likewise for ethics. Two people with different ethical theories may nonetheless agree that abortion
is morally permitted (or grossly immoral), while
two adherents of the same moral theory may differently
evaluate abortion. Knowing someone’s theoretical commitments does not tell us precisely what actions she
thinks right and wrong. It tells us only how she thinks
about moral issues; it identifies her criteria of relevance
and the weight she gives to each.
Main Types of Theory
Two broad classes of ethical theory – consequentialist
and deontological – have shaped most people’s understanding of ethics. Consequentialists hold that we
should choose the available action with the best overall
consequences, while deontologists hold that we should
act in ways circumscribed by moral rules or rights,
and that these rules or rights are defined (at least
partly) independently of consequences. Since this book
includes a separate section on Ethical Theory, this
exposition will be brief. Nonetheless, these descriptions
should be sufficient to help you understand the broad
outlines of each theory.
Consequentialism
Consequentialists claim that we are morally obligated to
act in ways that produce the best consequences. It is not
difficult to see why this is an appealing theory. It employs
the same style of reasoning we use in purely prudential
(self-interested) decisions. If you are trying to select a
major, you will consider the available options, predict
which one will likely lead to the best overall outcome,
and then choose that major. If you are trying to decide
whether to keep your present job or take a new one, you
8
theorizing about ethics
will consider the consequences of taking each (working
conditions, location, salary, chance of advancement, how
the change might alter your personal and family relations, etc.), and then choose the one with the best overall
consequences.
Despite these similarities, prudence and morality are
importantly different. Whereas prudence requires that we
wisely advance only our own personal interests, consequentialism requires us to consider the interests of all affected.
When facing a moral decision, we should consider available
alternative actions, trace the likely consequences of each
alternative for all affected, and then select the one with the
best overall consequences.
Of course, a consequentialist need not consider every
consequence of an action, nor must she consider them all
equally. Two consequences of my typing this introduction are that I am strengthening the muscles in my hands
and increasing my eye–hand coordination. However,
barring unusual circumstances, these are not morally relevant: they are neither a means to nor a constituent of my
or anyone else’s welfare, happiness, or well-being. That is
why they play no role in moral deliberation. However,
different consequentialists profoundly disagree about
whether or how much some consequence is morally relevant. That is why any adequate consequentialist theory
must specify (a) which consequences are morally relevant (i.e., which we should consider when morally deliberating), and (b) how much weight we should give them.
Utilitarians, for instance, claim we should choose the
option that maximizes “the greatest happiness of the
greatest number.” They also advocate complete equality:
“each to count as one and no more than one.” Of course
we might disagree about exactly what it means to maximize the greatest happiness of greatest number; still
more we might be unsure about how this is to be achieved.
Act utilitarians claim that we determine the rightness of
an action if we can decide which action, in those circumstances, would be most likely to promote the greatest
happiness of the greatest number. Rule utilitarians reject
the idea that moral decisions should be case-by-case (see
Hooker, in Euthanasia). On their view, we should
decide not whether a particular action is likely to promote the greatest happiness of the greatest number, but
whether a particular type of action would, if done by everyone (or most people), promote the greatest happiness
of the greatest number.
This theory is discussed in more detail by Shaw
(Ethical Theory).
Deontology
Deontological theories are most easily understood in
contrast to consequentialist theories. Whereas consequentialists claim we should always strive to promote the
best consequences, deontologists claim that our moral
obligations – whatever they are – are in some ways independent of consequences. Thus, if I have obligations not
to kill or steal or lie, those obligations are not justified
simply on the ground that following such rules will
always produce the best consequences.
That is why many people find deontological theories
so attractive. For example, most of us would be offended
if someone lied to us, even if the lie produced the greatest happiness for the greatest number. I would certainly
be offended if someone killed me, even if my death might
produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number
(you use my kidneys to save two people’s lives, my heart
to save someone else’s life, etc.) The rightness or wrongness of lying or killing cannot be wholly explained, the
deontologist claims, by its consequences. Of course
deontologists disagree about which rules are true and
about how to determine them. Some claim abstract reason shows us how we should act (Kant, 2002). Others
talk about discovering principles that are justified in
reflective equilibrium (e.g., Rawls, in Economic Justice),
while some claim we should seek principles that might be
adopted by an ideal observer (Arthur, in World
Hunger).
These theories are discussed in more detail by
McNaughton and Rawling (Ethical Theory).
Alternatives
There are numerous alternatives to these theories. To call
them “alternatives” does not imply that they are inferior,
only that they have not played the same role in shaping
contemporary ethical thought. Two are especially worth
mention since they have become highly influential in the
past two decades; they also play pivotal roles in several
essays in this book.
Virtue theory
Virtue theory predates both consequentialism and
deontology as a formal theory. It was the dominant
theory of the ancient Greeks, reaching its clearest
expression in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. For many
centuries it was neither discussed nor advocated as a
theorizing about ethics
serious competitor. But by the late 1950s, it was starting to reappear in the philosophical literature (the history of this re-emergence is traced in the essays
reprinted in Crisp and Slote (1997).
Much of the appeal of virtue theory arises from
the perceived failings of the standard alternatives.
Deontology and consequentialism, virtue theorists
claim, put inadequate (or no) emphasis on the agent –
on the ways she should be, or the kinds of character she
should develop. Relatedly, they fail to give appropriate
scope to personal judgment and put too much emphasis on following rules, whether deontological or
consequentialistic.
Certainly, on some readings of deontology and utilitarianism, it sounds as if advocates of these theories
believed that a moral decision was the mindless application of a moral rule. The rule says: “Be honest,” then
we should be honest. The rule says: “Always act to promote the greatest happiness of the greatest number,”
then we need only figure that out which action has the
most desirable consequences, and then do it. Ethics
thus seems to resemble math. The calculations may
require patience and care, but they do not depend on
judgment.
Many advocates of the standard theories find these
objections by virtue theorists telling and, over the past
two decades, have modified their respective theories to
(partially) accommodate them. The result, says Rosalind
Hursthouse, is “that the lines of demarcation between
these three approaches have become blurred . . . . Deonto
logy and utilitarianism are no longer perspicuously identified by describing them as emphasizing rules or
consequences in contrast to character” (1999, p.4).
Both put more emphasis on judgment and character.
For instance, Hill, who is a deontologist, describes the
proper attitude toward the Environment in a way that
emphasizes excellence or character, while May and
Strikwerda (Sexual and Racial Discrimination),
who do not generally embrace virtue theory, emphasize
the need for men to feel shame for their complicity in
the rape of women. However, although judgment and
character may play increasingly important roles in contemporary versions of deontology or consequentialism,
neither plays the central role it does in virtue theory.
This is evident, for instance, in Hursthouse’s discussion of Abortion and in her essay on virtue theory
(Ethical Theory). However, some critics think virtue
theory is irreparably flawed, for example, Doris
9
(Punishment). He claims that any robust virtue theory
rests on a defective moral psychology.
Feminist theory
Historically most philosophers were men; most embraced
the sexism of their respective cultures. Thus, it is not
surprising that women’s interests and perspectives
played no role in the development of standard ethical
theories. Does that mean these theories are useless? Or
can they be salvaged? Can we merely prune Aristotle’s
explicit sexism from his theory and still have an
Aristotelian theory that is adequate for a less sexist age?
Can we remove Kant’s sexism and have a non-sexist
deontology?
In the early years of feminism, many thinkers thought
so. They claimed that the standard ethical theories’
emphasis on justice, equality, and fairness offer all the
argumentative ammunition women need to claim their
rightful place in the public world. Others were not so
sure. Carol Gilligan (1982) argued that women have different moral experiences and different moral reasoning,
and that these differences must be incorporated into our
understanding of morality. She advocated an “Ethics of
Care,” which she claimed best exemplified women’s
experience and thinking. However, other feminists
claimed this view too closely resembles old-fashioned
views of women. What we need instead, they claim, are
theories that have a keen awareness of gender and a concern to develop all people’s unique human capacities
(Jaggar, 2000).
Observe the ways that issues concerning women are
discussed (Sexual and Racial Discrimination,
Affirmative Action, and Abortion, Free Speech,
and Family and Sexuality). See whether the reasons
used differ from those employed in other essays. If
so, how?
Conclusion
As you read the following essays, you will see how
these different ways of thinking about ethics shape
our deliberations about particular moral issues. Be
alert to these theoretical differences. They will help
you better understand the essays. Also pay close attention to the section introductions. These highlight the
theoretical issues that play a central role within that
section.
10
theorizing about ethics
References
Crisp, R. and Slote, M. A. (eds.) (1997) Virtue Ethics. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Gilligan, C. (1982) In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory
and Women’s Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Hursthouse, R. (1999) On Virtue Ethics. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Jaggar, A. M. (2000) “Feminist Ethics.” In H. LaFollette (ed.)
The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory. Oxford: Blackwell,
pp. 348–374.
Reading Philosophy
Reading philosophy differs from reading science fiction
or the daily newspaper. The subjects are different; the
purposes are different; the styles are different. Science
fiction attempts to transport us imaginatively to distant
worlds of larger-than-life heroes and villains. It aims to
entertain us, to divert us from the doldrums of our daily
lives, and perhaps even to empower us: having seen the
glories or evils of worlds not yet experienced, we may be
better equipped to live in our everyday world. Science
fiction achieves these aims by spinning a convincing
narrative of creatures living in previously unknown
worlds; it evokes our imaginative powers through
expressive language.
Newspapers inform us of significant political, social,
cultural, economic, and climatic events. Once we are
informed, we can presumably make better decisions
about our leaders, our finances, and our social lives. The
media typically achieves these aims by giving us the
facts, just the facts. They usually present these facts in a
pithy writing style.
Philosophers have neither the direct aims of the journalist nor the airy aims of the science fiction novelist.
Their primary function is not to inform or to inspire, but
to help us explore competing ideas and the reasons for
them. The philosopher achieves these aims by employing a writing style that tends to be neither pithy nor
expressive. The style likely differs from any to which you
are accustomed.
Philosophical Language
While the reporter and the novelist write for the public,
philosophers usually write for one other. Thus, while
most newspapers and some science fiction are written for
an eighth grade audience, philosophical essays are written
for people with university training. That is why you will
need a more robust vocabulary to understand a philosophical essay than you will to understand the latest novel
or a column in the local paper. So keep a dictionary handy
to look up “ordinary” words you may not yet know. You
will also face an additional problem with these essays’
vocabularies. Philosophy, like all academic disciplines,
employs specialized terms. Some of these are familiar
words with specialized meanings; others are words
unique to the discipline. To fully grasp philosophical
writing, you will need to understand both. Do not despair.
Often you can roughly determine the term’s meaning
from its context. If, after doing your best, you still cannot
understand its meaning, ask your instructor. Most of
these words can be explained in a clear, non-technical
way. You can also consult the online philosophical dictionary (see the link on this book’s supporting web page:
www.hughlafollette.com/eip3/).
Philosophical writing also tends to be more complex
than the writings of reporters and novelists. Occasionally
it is more complex than it needs to be: the author may not
know how to write clearly. Sometimes the essay seems
more complex than it is since the author wrote decades
or even centuries ago when most writers penned long,
intricate sentences. You can often break down these long
sentences into their component parts, for example, by
treating a semicolon as a period. You may also need to
reread the essay several times to get a sense of the
author’s rhythm, much in the way that you may need to
listen to a musician several times before you find it easy
to appreciate her music and understand the lyrics.
Often, though, the writing is complex simply because
the ideas expressed are complex. We cannot always render profound thoughts into intellectual pabulum. The
12
reading philosophy
only way to grasp such essays is to generally improve
one’s reading skills, in large part by reading and rereading essays until you understand them.
The Centrality of Argument
Philosophical writing is complex also because it contains
and evaluates arguments. Philosophers forward their own
arguments and critique the arguments of others.
“Arguments,” in this context, have a particular philosophical sense: An argument is a connected series of
statements with some central claim the writer is trying to
defend (the conclusion), supported by evidence (the
premises) the author offers on behalf of the conclusion.
The evidence philosophers use varies. They may proffer
empirical data, forward imaginative examples, pose suggestions, and critique alternatives. Make certain you have
identified the author’s conclusion and her premises
before you evaluate her work. Do not fall into the trap of
judging that an argument is bad simply because you dislike the conclusion.
This tendency to dismiss views we dislike helps
explain philosophers’ concern with arguments. Each of
us is constantly bombarded with claims. Some of these
claims are true, some false. Some offer sage wisdom;
some, dreadful advice. How do we distinguish the true
from the false, the wise from the stupid – especially
when the topic is a controversial moral, political, and
social issue? How do we know the proper moral response
to abortion, world hunger, same-sex marriage, and
affirmative action? Do we just pick the one we like? The
one our parents, preachers, teachers, friends, or society
advocate? Often that is exactly what we do. But we
shouldn’t. Even a cursory glance at history reveals that
many horrendous evils were committed by those who
embraced their views steadfastly and uncritically. Most
Nazis, slave holders, and commanders of Russian gulags
did not think they were immoral; they assumed they
were doing the right thing. They simply accepted their
society’s views without subjecting them to rational scrutiny. That we should not do. At least not if we are
responsible individuals. After all, people’s lives, welfare,
and happiness may depend on our decisions, and the
decisions of people like us.
What is our option? We should seek conclusions
supported by the best evidence. We should examine the
reasons offered for alternative beliefs. Doing so will not
insure that we make the best decision, but it will increase
the odds that we do. It will lessen the possibility that we
make highly objectionable decisions, decisions we will
later come to regret. Philosophers offer arguments for
their views to help themselves and others make better
decisions.
Most people are unaccustomed to scrutinizing arguments. Since most of us were taught to believe what our
parents, our priests, our teachers, and our pals told us,
we are disinclined to consider the arguments of others
seriously, or to rationally criticize our own views.
Moreover, although all of us have offered some arguments for our views, we have rarely done so with the
care and depth that are the staples of good philosophy.
Philosophers strive to offer a clear, unambiguous conclusion supported by reasons that even those disinclined
to believe her conclusions are likely to find persuasive.
That is not to say that philosophers never make bad
arguments or say stupid things. Of course we do.
However, it is to say that the explicit aim of philosophy
is a clear, careful, assessment of the reasons for and against
ours and others’ views. That is why a key to understanding philosophy is being able to spot arguments, and then
to critique them. That is something you will learn, at
least in part, by practice.
Looking at Others’ Views
Since part of the task of defending one’s view is to show
that it is rationally superior to alternatives, a philosopher
usually not only (a) provides arguments for her view, she
will also (b) respond to criticisms of that view, and
(c) consider alternative perspectives. Sometimes those
other views and criticisms are advocated by a specific
philosopher whose work the author cites. Often, though,
the view the author discusses is not that of any particular
philosopher, but rather the view of some hypothetical
advocate of a position (e.g., conservatism or theism or
pro-life). This is often double trouble for a student. You
may be unfamiliar with the view being discussed. Since
you do not know if the view has been accurately represented, you cannot judge if the criticisms (and responses
to them) are telling. Worse, you may have trouble distinguishing the author’s view from the views of those she
discusses.
If you read quickly, and without concentrating, you
may be confused. However, usually you can distinguish
one view from the other if you read the essay carefully.
Most authors give argumentative road signs indicating
reading philosophy
when they are defending a view and when they are s tating
or discussing another’s view. Of course the student may
miss these signs if she does not know what to look for.
But simply knowing that this is a common strategy
should make it easier. You can also look for specific cues.
For instance, philosophers discussing another’s views
may use the third person to indicate that someone else is
speaking (or arguing). At other times the author may
explicitly say something like “others may disagree . . .”
and then go on to discuss that person’s view. In other
cases the signs may be more subtle. In the end there is no
single or simple way to distinguish the author’s view
from other views the author is discussing. However, if
you read the essays carefully, using the strategy just outlined, you will increase the likelihood that you will not be
confused.
The Rational Consequences
of What We Say
The philosopher’s discussion of examples or cases –
especially fictional cases – sometimes confuses students.
The use of such cases, though, builds upon a central pillar of philosophical argument, namely, that we should
consider the implications or rational consequences of
our beliefs and actions. The following example explains
what I mean. Suppose a teacher gives you an “A” because
she likes you, and gives Robert – your worst enemy – an
“F” because she dislikes him. You might be ecstatic that
you received an “A”; you may also be thrilled to know
that your worst enemy failed. However, would you say
that what the teacher did was morally acceptable? No.
There are implications of saying that, implications you
are loath to accept.
If you said that the teacher’s reason for giving those
grades was legitimate, you would be saying that teachers should be able to give students they like good grades
and students they dislike bad grades. Thus, you would be
rationally committed to holding that if you had a teacher
disliked you she could legitimately fail you. That, of
course, is a consequence you are unwilling to accept.
Therefore, you (and we) we have reason to suspect that
your original acceptance of the teacher’s grading scheme
was inappropriate. This is a common argumentative
strategy. Trace the implications – the rational consequences – of a person’s reasons for action. and then see
if you (or others) would be willing to accept those
consequences.
13
A Final Word
These suggestions will not make reading philosophical
essays easy. My hope, though, is that they will make it
easier. In the end the key to success is practice. If you
have never read philosophical arguments before, you are
unlikely to be able to glance at the essay and understand
it: you will likely miss the central idea, its relation to
alternatives, and you will almost certain fail to comprehend the author’s argument. To fully understand the
essay, you must read the assignment carefully and more
than once. Most essays are too difficult in style and content for you to grasp in a single reading. Not even most
professional philosophers can do that.
Here is a good strategy: Read the essay once. Identify
confusing or unusual terms. Try to get a general sense
of the argument: What is the point the author wants to
establish, what reason does she offer for this claim?
What arguments does she discuss? Identify the points
about which you are still unclear. After you have a
general sense of the essay, reread it more again, more
carefully. Strive for a thorough understanding of the
argument. Come to class prepared to ask the teacher to
clarify your confusions about the author’s views. If you
are accustomed to reading an assignment once – and
then only quickly – this expectation will seem overly
demanding. Yet, it is important that you learn to read
carefully and critically.
Herein lies the key to success: persistence and practice. There may be times you find the reading so difficult
that you will be tempted to stop, to wait for the instructor to explain it. Yield not to temptation. Press on. It is
better and more rewarding to understand the reading
for yourself. Think, for a moment, about what happens
when someone “explains” a joke that you could (with
time and effort) have understood on your own. It spoils
the joke.
Learning to read more complex essays is a skill, and,
like any skill, it is not acquired all at once or without
effort. Little in life that is valuable is acquired effortlessly.
Getting in physical shape requires vigorous e xercise and
more than a little perspiration. Establishing and maintaining a vibrant relationship requires effort, understanding, and sacrifice. Learning to play a musical instrument
does not come quickly, and is, at times, exceedingly frustrating. Learning to read sophisticated essays is no different. If you persist, however, you will find that with time it
becomes easier to read and understand philosophical
14
reading philosophy
essays. The payoff is substantial and enduring. You will
better understand the day’s reading assignment, which
will most assuredly improve your grade. But more important, you will also expand your vocabulary and hone your
reading skills. You will increase your ability to understand
more complex and important writing. Most of the world’s
great books are inaccessible to those with minimal reading
and argumentative skills. Learning to read methodically,
critically, and in depth will expand your mental horizons.
It will increase your understanding of others’ views. And
it will enhance your ability to refine and defend your own
views.
Writing a Philosophy Paper
Having read the introductory section, Reading
Philosophy, and the first assigned readings, you have
doubtless inferred that although writing a philosophy
paper somewhat resembles writing papers for other
classes, they also differ in significant ways. They are similar inasmuch as all require you to have mastered basic
writing skills. You need a robust yet subtle vocabulary;
you should have mastered important grammatical rules
and the basics of punctuation; you need to write clear
and precise sentences; you should organize sentences
into a coherent paragraph; finally you must arrange paragraphs so that the reader can follow your exposition or
argument.
Yet they differ inasmuch as their aims, style, and
vocabulary typically differ. Philosophy papers are not
standardly research papers: you will not merely
catalogue what this or that philosopher said about a
particular topic. Nor are philosophy papers opinion
pieces in which you merely state your view. Most professors require you to evaluate texts or the author’s
ideas, or to defend your own view. Finally, philosophers may use unfamiliar words or use familiar words
in unfamiliar ways.
Of course not all papers required by all philosophy
professors are identical. They will usually vary between
an introductory or upper division course; they sometimes vary between early or late in the course. To have
a shot at writing a good essay, you must be attuned to
your professor’s specific requirements. Despite this
variation, there are common forms of philosophical
essays; I offer some guidance on how to write the most
familiar ones.
The Most Common Types
Expository papers
Sometimes, especially early in a course, your professor may
ask you to write an expository paper. In it you will identify
the author’s central claim or thesis in the essay or book
chapter (hereafter, just “essay”) – the bottom line that the
author wants you to believe. Then you must identify her
reasons for that thesis. Finally, you should explain how the
author thinks the reasons support her thesis.
It is tempting to think that an expository paper is merely
a summary of what the author said. It is not. You cannot just
go through the essay, listing ideas the author discusses or
evaluates. Not every element of an essay is equally important to isolating the author’s thesis or supporting argument.
To write a good expository paper you must distinguish what
is central from what is peripheral in the essay.
Moreover, sometimes your paper should not present
the author’s points in the same order in which she did. In
some essays, the thesis is stated at the beginning and the
reasons for that thesis come later. In others, it may be
stated at the end and be preceded by the premises;
though not as commonly, the thesis may be somewhere in
the middle of the essay, with some premises before the
conclusion and some after it – in particular if the author
expressly considers some likely objections to her view.
You must extract the essay’s essence and explain it so that
someone who has not read the original essay can, by
reading your paper, broadly grasp what the author said.
You cannot do that after reading the essay once. You will
have to read it multiple times, underline key ideas, and
16
w r i t i n g a p h i l o s o p h y pa p e r
make notes. Then you should present her thesis and
evidence in ways that are as charitable as possible, in
ways that make author’s thesis and supporting argument
as appealing as can be.
There are two principal reasons your professor may
ask you to write an expository paper. One, she wants you
to understand the ideas and reasoning of important
thinkers, the structure of influential arguments. Two, a
careful exposition of the author’s views is a prerequisite
for evaluating those views. All too often we quickly read
and may dismiss an author’s thesis simply because we do
not like it. That is never a good reason to reject a thesis.
We must look at the reasons she offers for the thesis, and
decide if her evidence is true, or at least plausible, and
whether its truth gives us reason to embrace that thesis.
Critical papers
More commonly, your professor will ask you to write
a critical paper. Many people assume that a criticism
is some form of condemnation of the author’s (or
speaker’s) views. However, the term “critical” here
simply means “evaluative.” Evaluations can be positive
as well as negative.
The precise nature of these papers varies. So heed the
express directions of your professor. Generally, there are
three main types of critical papers.
Compare and contrast
Some professors may ask you to “compare and contrast”
the ideas of two or more authors. In so doing, the professor is not asking you for a research paper, nor is she
asking for an expository paper. You cannot fulfill your
professor’s requirement by submitting essentially two
expository papers combined into one. The task is more
critical (evaluative). To compare and contrast two views
you must first understand each. Having understood
them, you must then identify the ways in which the
authors’ views are similar and different. They may vary
in numerous ways. Perhaps the most common are the
following: they might reach different conclusions, either
because their premises are different (e.g., Marquis;
Little, Abortion) or because they evaluate more or less
the same evidence differently (e.g., LaFollette; Hughes
and Hunt on gun control, Paternalism and Risk). Or
they may reach the same conclusion in different ways.
One might be a consequentialist and the other a deontologist (see the introduction Theorizing about
Ethics). Their theoretical differences lead Singer and
Pogge to reach similar views about world hunger in very
different ways, while leading Warren and Little to reach
roughly similar views on Abortion in different ways.
Criticizing a view
Some professors will ask (or permit) you to evaluate a
single author’s views. This is a two-step process. First,
you must do what you would do in an expository paper:
You must identify the author’s thesis (conclusion) and
her premises and then show how she thinks these
premises support the conclusion. Second, you must
evaluate her view. Whether positive or negative, this
can take one or more of the following forms: (a) you
can explain why you find the premises false (or true) or
at least not obviously true (obviously false); (b) you can
explain why the premises are (or are not) relevant to
the conclusion (something you will find, upon reading
many of the essays, is more common that you might
suppose); or (c) you will explain why the premises, if
true, are sufficient (insufficient) to guarantee the truth
of the conclusion. I will say more about each of these
steps in the following section.
Defending your own view
In a critical paper where you defend your own view, you
first need a clear thesis, a succinct statement (standardly a
single sentence) of your view. It should be simple, clear,
and unambiguous: “I support the legalization of physician
assisted suicide”; “I contend that the recreational use of
marijuana, but no other currently banned drugs, should
be decriminalized”; “I oppose the legalization of gay
marriage”; “Like Hardin, I think we have no obligation to
feed starving people in the world; indeed, doing so is
positively immoral.” I often encourage a student to
underline her thesis. In doing so you inform your readers
of the view that you hold; thus, the readers know better
how to interpret your other claims. It also reminds you,
while you are writing your paper, what your thesis is.
Every sentence in your paper should either elucidate or
defend that thesis. If it does not, you should discard that
sentence.
To defend your thesis, you should employ the principles mentioned in the previous section, as well as in the
introduction READING PHILOSOPHY. First, the evidence you offer for your thesis should be true or highly
plausible. If the evidence is questionable, then offer a
secondary argument supporting the truth of the main
premises. Second, show how the truth of these premises
would support the truth of the conclusion. If there is
w r i t i n g a p h i l o s o p h y pa p e r
uncertainty about the relevance of the premises, offer a
secondary argument showing that they are relevant. This
might seem to be a rare concern. It is actually quite common. Many practical issues – for example, abortion (does
it morally matter that the zygote is genetically human?)
and capital punishment (does it matter morally if executing some criminals saves money?) – hinge on disagreements about proffered premises’ relevance. Third, you
should show that the premises are sufficient to support the
conclusion. For example, most mammals feel pain and
have rudimentary emotions. This seems relevant to questions about how we should treat them (few people think it
is legitimate to peel off a conscious dog’s skin for fun).
Nonetheless, people dispute whether this evidence is sufficient to show that animal experimentation or eating animals is morally impermissible in ordinary circumstances.
So you may need secondary arguments showing that your
evidence is sufficient.
It is not enough, however, to just provide a positive
argument for your view; you must also show why it is
superior to plausible alternatives. To do that, you must
first explain these alternatives much as you would in an
expository paper. As in those papers, you must be fair to
these positions. Do not find the wackiest proponent of
opposing views or describe the views in ways that no sane
person would embrace. If you do, you commit the Straw
Man Fallacy. Even a weakling can whip a straw man; that
is not a significant accomplishment. It is a significant
achievement to best an attractive statement of the opposing
position.
This way of describing the process might suggest that
philosophical thinking and writing are highfalutin rhetorical debates where the aim of each side is to win. It is
not. The aim is to seek truth (Mill, 1985, ch. 1). To do
that we must find the view that is the most rationally
defensible. It may be that after careful deliberation that
our view is, in fact, superior to alternatives. But often we
discover that our view is flawed either in whole or in part.
Writing
We cannot write a good expository or critical paper
without significant writing skills: a robust vocabulary,
the ability to use proper grammar and punctuation, the
talent to compose clear, precise, and engaging sentences,
the craft to organize sentences into a coherent paragraph,
and the knowledge of how to organize those paragraphs
into a clear expository or critical paper. I find that is not
17
obvious to a number of students, since, unfortunately,
some of their previous teachers did not explain the
importance of each skill, nor did they help students learn
how to improve their writing. So let me say a bit about
each element, suggest what the key to improving your
writing is, and recommend a short text.
Vocabulary
Most of us were not asked or expected to systematically
expand our vocabularies once we left middle (and
perhaps even elementary) school. Still, most of us continued to learn new words, even if less systematically. We
found we could often discern the meaning of a new word
by its context. Then some teachers would occasionally
introduce the meanings of words in their classes, either
in a lecture or in response to students’ questions. They
encouraged us to look up the meaning of words we did
not know. Unfortunately, I suspect that most of us
ignored that prudent advice; hence, our vocabularies are
less rich than they could and should be.
This dampens our understanding of the views
forwarded by others, and limits our ability to clearly and
persuasively forward our own views. If we read an essay
where we do not know the meaning of key terms, then we
will not understand or, even worse, incorrectly think we
do understand, what she says. To communicate effectively
with others, we must choose our words carefully.
Unfortunately, we are often insufficiently attentive to
words’ precise meanings; hence, we use the wrong word.
This happens in three ways. One, having heard others
use a word, we surmise what it means from the context;
it is just that we infer badly. So we use the word in the
wrong way or in the wrong context. Two, sometimes we
go further and commit a category mistake. We use a word
in a way that is not merely inappropriate; in context it
does not make sense. If I said “The octagon dances,” or
“The table believes,” I am uttering gibberish. Octagons
are not the kinds of things than can dance (or not dance);
tables are not the kinds of things that can hold (or fail to
hold) beliefs. These are paradigm examples of category
mistakes. These examples are obvious, so obvious that
we might assume that people rarely (or never) commit a
category mistake. Unfortunately, that is not so. We are
especially prone to this error when we are acquiring a
new vocabulary. If someone is not familiar with the technical use of words like “arguments” or “premises” or “evidence,” she might mistakenly use them in inappropriate
ways (“the argument is true” or “the evidence is valid”).
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w r i t i n g a p h i l o s o p h y pa p e r
Three, we sometimes think that since our thesaurus
identifies two words as synonyms, then we can use the
words interchangeably. Not so. The differences between
them may seem minor, yet are often sufficiently significant that using one word rather than the other distorts
what we try to say. For instance, there is a variety of
adjectives we can use to describe objectionable behavior:
unkind, insensitive, untoward, inappropriate, tacky,
short-sighted, uncouth, or mean-spirited. Although
these words each identify some flawed behavior, they are
not identical. It might be appropriate to describe some
morally objectionable behavior as “tacky” but not “shortsighted” or “insensitive” but not “mean-spirited.” We
need to say what we mean.
Vagueness and ambiguity
Sometimes we use words that are inexact in context, and
thus fail to express ourselves clearly. That is, our writing
can be vague or ambiguous. Sometimes we treat these as
synonyms; they are not. They are two wholly different
forms of imprecision, and thus, the ways to resolve this
imprecision differ.
Vagueness
A word or phrase is vague in context if there is a range of
related possible meanings, and, in that context, we need a
more precise word. Most words are potentially inexact: tall,
smart, close, long, ignorant, risky, challenging, and so on.
In many contexts these words are precise enough to communicate. If I describe myself to someone who will be
meeting at the a...
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