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About Philosophy 9^th ed., Chapter 5
Ethical Theory

The Varieties of Ethical Theory

Kant and the Commands of Duty

• Although he was a Pietist (a Protestant Christian), Kant rejected the notion that religion could provide a foundation for morality.
• moral principles must be defensible on purely rational grounds
• not by appeals to faith & revelation
• The really crucial question of morality for Kant:
• not "How to we know what is right?"
• everyone knows this (at least in rough outline)
• but "How do we do what we know is right?"
• How to stand fast in the face of temptations
• And do your duty -- what you ought to do, not what you want
• Two central issues Kant addressed in this connection
• The conflict between science and morality
• science shows or assumes the subordination of natural events to causal laws
• morality assumes that we are free to choose what to do and therefore responsible for our actions
• How can we conceive of persons
• as free responsible beings
• and yet also acknowledge their place in the system of objects and events studied by science?
• The ultimate justification of moral commands: to show that the fundamental moral beliefs shared by all right-thinking persons are true and not just public opinion or religious imposition.
• to show that they are absolutely binding (overriding all other interests & obligations)
• on everyone

Three Reasons to Think About Ethics

1. To provide a justification for what "we" think is right & good & just
• to answer the skeptic: who denies there are any moral truths at all
• to answer the relativist:
• who denies that there are any objective and universal moral standards
• true independently of their personal convictions
• and true for all.
• who asserts instead
• what is right for someone is whatever they think is right
• who says, in effect, "Everyone's opinions are as good as anyone else's."
2. To discover what is the right thing to do -- or better, a method for deciding the right thing to do -- when faced with a "hard case" or moral dilemma -- a situation when the "moral beliefs shared by all right-thinking persons" do not straightforwardly settle things.
• Sartre's dilemma: whether to stay home & care for his aged parents or join the resistance to fight against the Nazi occupation of France.
• Whether to have an abortion when there's a 90% chance that carrying the child to the point of viability would kill the mother (of 5 other children).
3. To define the good life: the sort of life most conducive to happiness & fulfillment.
• what set of commitments
• what precepts
• what style of feelings and relationships

Ethical Disagreement and the Categorical Imperative

• The Problem of Seeming Moral Diversity
• Not just the problem of people doing "bad" things
• acting selfishly
• e.g., giving in greed or lust or some other temptation & doing what all agree is bad (themselves included)
• Problem of conflicting moral values or standards
• within our own society
• some people think homosexuality is extremely wicked & some there's nothing wrong with it.
• some people think abortion is murder & some think it's sometimes an acceptable alternative to continuing some pregnancies
• between cultures
• Greek v. Callatian funeral customs: story of Darius
• Eskimo practice of geriatricide.
• Acceptance of slavery in the American South.
• Acceptance of genocide in Nazi Germany
• Three possible responses
  1. deny the such variation in fundamental principles really exists: there are universal (i.e., universally acknowledged) principles
• surface differences (due to disagreements about facts) hide deeper agreements in values
  • Callatians v. Greeks agree on the principle: The dead should be honored but disagree on what, as a matter of fact does honor the dead.
  • Pro-choice & pro-life all agree it's wrong to kill an innocent person but disagree about whether the fetus, in fact, is a person.
• troubles for this line
  • factual difficulties
    • social scientific surveys of norms across cultures fail to yeild much in the way of universal principles
    • although it does appear the ban on incest is nearly so
• theoretical reservation
• would show there are universal principles: held by all human societies or individuals
• but wouldn't show there were objective principles -- things that are good & right  independently of what anyone or any society believes
  • could still be that it's believing them so that makes them so
  • just so happens that all human societies believe some of the same things
  • Even if eveone always believed the earth was flat they'd still be mistaken
2. admit the variation and conclude that there are no univerally valid moral principles: nihilism or relativism
• Ethical nihilism/skepticism
• The Difference
• skeptic denies that we can know anything is objectively right or wrong
• nihilist denies that there is any objective right or wrong
• The usual nihilist/skeptic line
• contrast ethics and values talk to science and fact talk
• nondescriptive character of moral statements (say how things ought to be not how they are in fact)
• orderly experimental approach of science v. haphazard, inutitive, unfactual character or moral disputes
• suggest that moral arguments really come down to disagreements over taste &
• de gustibus non disputandum
• "there's no disputing taste"
• Ethical Relativism
• Two tenets:
• negative assertion: there are no absolute and universal moral values: nothing is just plain good or bad (absolutely & for all): denies that "Behavior X is good (period)" is true for any X.
• positive assertion: there are relative rights & wrongs : Behavior X is good for group or individual Y.
• cultural relativism: relativizes morality to groups or cultures
• subjectivism: relativizes morality to individuals
• Ruth Benedict's Statement: "[M]orality differes in every society and is a convenient term for socially approved habits."
3. admit the variation but insist that some moral principles are true nonetheless: there are objective principles: "absolutism"
• similar disagreement about shape of the earth or evolution
• ancients believed the earth was flat
• creationists believe the human species didn't evolve from apes
• nevertheless in these cases there are objective matters of fact
•  the earth really is round and there's a matter of fact (regardless of whatever anyone may believe) about whether the the human species evolved from apes or not.
• so we shouldn't say "it was true for the ancients" that the earth was flat but false for us
  • it's just plain false
  • the ancients were just plain wrong
• and we shouldn't say "it's true for evolutionists that we evolved but false for creationists"
  • either we did or we didn't
  • and either the evolutionists or creationists are just plain wrong
• so too, in legitimate cases of fundamental moral disagreement (Socrates famously insisted)
• there is an objective truth of the matter (whether or not anyone knows it)
• its not the case that the opposing views are each right "for those who hold them": that homosexuality is wrong  for those who think so and permissible for those who think that
  • either it is wrong or its not and (depending on which)
  • either those who say "it's bad" or those who say "it's permissible" are plain wrong
• Kantian Ethics: Seeking an absolute foundation.
  • "Two things," Kant said, "fill me with wonder, the heavens above and the moral law within."
• Kant's Categorical Imperative
  • CI: Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become universal law. (201)
    • Maxim = policy on which you're acting
      • e.g., do onto others before they do unto you.
      • if it feels good, do it.
      • lie if necessary.
    • A 2nd order principle: a rule for evaluating would-be-moral rules (recall 3 questions above)
    • A philosophically more precise statement of the Golden Rule, Kant thought
      • to will your maxim as universal law would be to be willing for everyone to follow it
        • Momma said: "What if everyone did that?"
      • to be willing, in particular, that others should apply these maxims in their intercourse with you
        • Momma said: "How would you like it if your brother did that to you?"
• Three Ideas at the Heart of Kant's Ethics
  1. People are rational creatures: capable of thinking about the choices they face and selecting among them on the basis of reasons
  • reason has its own power to move us
  • not just desire as Hume & Aristotle hold
    • Hume: "reason is, and ought only to be a slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office but to serve and obey them."
    • Hume's view: desire sets the ends, reason just chooses the means.
    • Aristotle: "Intellect itself moves nothing
  2. rational creatures, as ends-in-themselves, have infinite worth & dignity
     • unlike objects or things (even living things)
       • these are only useful to some agent for some end of theirs (the agent)
       • things have only instrumental value: value as instruments (or means) to serve some agents ends
     • people have ends of their own
       • people have intrinsic value
       • as self-determining agents they are ends in themselves so it's wrong to use them merely as means . . . to use them (e.g. Linda Tripp)
     • CI': Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.
  3. and autonomy: free will.
     • we are self-moving self-determining moral agents
       • not when we're acting from desire or inclination
         • even animals do that
         • to act just from desire or inclination would be to use yourself as a means
           • On Kant's view it's not so much that Bill Clinton wrongly used Monica Lewinsky (she was willing: he was respecting her choices).
           • His root flaw on Kant's view as that he used himself to gratify his sexual appetites: he acted the slave to his desires & used himself (not to mention Monica) as the means to the end of satisfying them.
     • capable of acting absolutely freely
       • doing what we recognize as our moral duty
       • just because we recognize it as our moral duty
         • not because we want to (there's no moral value in that).
       • true freedom is not doing what you want to do or what you please
         • at least not doing what you want to just because you want to.
         • it's doing what you don't want to do
         • or doing what you do want to, not because you want to, but just because it's your duty
  • Criticism: Fails to Provide an acceptable Absolute Foundation
  • CI is too empty to abstract to give any real guidance: all form (mere consistency) no substance
    • In any attempt to apply it to legislate more particular rules will be colored by our personal preferences
      • "Kill the weak," that's my principle, says Nazi Ned
      • "But if you were weak, you wouldn't want others to kill you!" Kant replies.
      • And Nazi Ned says: "You bet I would -- better that than to live as a sniveling weakling dog."
  • Inflexiblity of absolute rules: rules are too crude an instrument to be the final arbiters of judgment
  • in legal contexts we leave room for judicial discretion -- strict application of rules bound to lead to injustice in some cases.
  • and the final authority rests with we the jury not rules which are by nature it seems inexact, unyeilding, & all-too general.
  • Values mere continence above genuine virtue (more of this when we get to personality theory)
  • continence (will-power) = doing the right thing but not wanting to
  • virtue = wholeheartedly doing right

Utilitarianism and the Calculation of Pleasures and Pains

• English Philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) commonly regarded as its founder.
• Like Kant, Bentham attempts to derive all of morality from a single principle: the principle of utility
• What's right is whatever course of action results in the greatest good (or happiness) for the greatest number.  The greatest balance of benefit over costs for all concerned
• Enjoins us to do what would result in "the greatest happiness for the greatest number"
• Question: what's a good (or what is happiness)?
• Hedonistic utilitarian answer: pleasure is the only intrinsic good
• the only goods or benefits to be considered = pleasures
• the only evils or costs to be counted = pains
• Hedonism: The only intrinsically good thing = pleasure.
• Knowledge, e.g., only instrumentally good: good insofar as it enables us to avoid pains & achieve pleasures
• Other versions of utilitarianism speak of "preference satisfactions"
• Unlike Kantianism & other Legalistic Approaches to Ethics: Emphasis on Good not Right, Values not Duty, on Outcomes not Procedures
• Utilitarianism thinks what makes actions good or bad are their consequences: Consequentialism
• not their being in line with or out of line with rules
• question arises as to what justifies the rules: who is the legislator & why do we owe them obedience
• God's authority: one traditional answer
• Their inescapable rationality: Kant's answer
• It's being productive of naturally good things (like pleasure) not being in accord with preset rules that makes actions right or wrong.
• Kantianism and other procedural ethics -- like traditional Judeo-Christian Ethics -- view moral reasoning on the model of legal reasoning
• morality is a "higher law"
• moral reasoning a matter of comparing cases to principles
• Utilitarians view moral reasoning on the model of economic calculations: morality is a kind of higher economics.
• Marx derided Utilitarianism as "the ethics of English shopkeepers."
• Like drawing up a spreadsheet.
• consider the alternative possible courses of action & for each
• tote up the good results (pleasure or happiness) that would result on one side
• tote up the bad results (pain or unhappiness) that would result on the other
• whatever produces the best balance of good (pleasure) over bad (pain): that's the right thing to do.
• example application: Clinton's Choice
• Universality or Impartiality: what makes it a "higher" economy
• tote up the intrinsic good & bad results for all concerned: each counts one, no one counts more than one (another Utilitarian saying).
• unlike ordinary economic calculation
• only concerned with monetary profit and loss
• for me (or the corporation)
• Virtues of Utilitarianism
• Like Kantianism would provide a universal foundation for ethics
• not depending on any particular religious persuasions or authority
• binding on everyone alike
• Flexibility of case by case appraisal vs. reliance on unbending rules
• Kant says never tell a lie.
• Bentham would say sometimes it's best
• not just "whenever it suits you"
• but whenever, all things considered, more overall harm would come from telling the truth than from lying, you should lie.
• More objectively applicable: not so apt to reflect the inclinations of the person applying them
• Different strokes for different folks -- sure
• But we take account of that in our utilitarian calculation
• legalizing public nudity, e.g., would please some folks
• & displease others
• & we can take account of both
• Troubles With Utilitarianism
• Unclarity
• What are the goods in question?
• Just pleasure?
• Are all pleasures equal except, as Bentham thought, in their intensity & duration
• Aren't some pleasures "higher" & more praiseworthy than others?
  • Pushkin (the Russian poet) v. pushpin (tiddley winks)
• Who are the individuals the consequences for whom we are to be concerned?
• Nonhuman animals' pleasures & pains to be regarded as on a par with humans'?
• Just actual living individuals or possible individuals too?
• do we have a moral obligation to increase the population to the point where people's lives are just barely tolerable: as long as they were on balance just a little positive
• to trade off quality of life
• for quantity
• or are we obliged, rather, only to do what, on balance, has the best consequences for living individuals
• Lizard brains in a vat scenario might be the best of all possible worlds
• if possible animals count
• & pleasure is the sole good
• & all pleasures -- except for duration & intensity -- are equal
• Concerning the "price" put on everything & the subjectivity of the assessments of "utility"
• money equates apples & oranges
• but what can equate anything with life itself; great works of art; etc.: how do you weigh a baby's life against the Mona Lisa
• Unacceptable Consequences: Concerning Rights & Justice
• Concerning Justice: Since Utilitarianism only deals with the sum total of happiness (not the distribution)
• Framing an innocent man to prevent a riot.
• The Ford Pinto case
• Concerning Rights:
• The woman & the police photos.
• Televised gladiatorial combat? Won't the middling pleasures of the many viewers (since there would be so many of them) outweigh the intense suffering of the (few) contestants.
• Deeper question: does the sadistic enjoyment of the viewers belong on the positive side of the ledger at all?
• The suffering of imprisoned criminals?
• something negative in itself, Bentham thought (pain is pain, no matter whose)
• though it's warranted on utilitarian principles, all things considered
• given social benefits of deterrence, etc
• results in the greater overall balance of happiness.
• a positive, Kant thought: it's deserved suffering
• Rule utilitarianism: Take the principle of utility to be a rule for making rules, not a rule for directly judging actions.
• defangs the counterexamples somewhat
• Seems pretty clear that adopting the rule that it's alright to frame an innocent person whenever it's  necessary to prevent social unrest would have destructive consequences for society overall in the long run: e.g., loss of faith in the "justice" system.
• but deprives Utilitarianism of some of its advantages over rule-based approaches
• greater flexibility gone: results in absolute rules like Kantianism

Virtue Ethics

• Three Analogies
  • Kantian & traditional Judeo-Christian ethics view morality on the model of (a higher) law
    • rule-based
    • too inflexible? neglectful of consequences?
  • Utilitarianism views ethics on the model of (a higher) economics:
    • outcome based
    • too vulgar & philistine? neglectful of rights & justice?
  • Yet another approach -- virtue or character ethics -- views morality on the model of a higher (spiritual) medicine or art (of living)
    • style based
    • too artsy? neglectful of conduct?
• Overview
• virtue or good character a kind of spiritual/psychological health (or aptness): "it appears, then, that virtue is as it were the heath and comeliness [beauty] and well-being of the soul"
• vice or bad character a kind of spiritual/psychological disease (or ineptness): "as wickedness is disease, deformity [ugliness]
• Advocates
• Classical thinkers: Plato, Aristotle, Stoics & Epicureans
• Religious mystics (even some western ones) & eastern religions generally
• Karl Marx & (some?) Marxists
• Contemporarily
• Psychologists & analysts
• Bohemians & artistes: Henry Miller, Anais Nin, et al.
• Bill Bennett?!  (Wrote something called "The Book of Virtues" though he seems more of a "gotcha!" kind of a guy.)
• The nature of virtue: Aristotle v. Kant
• Aristotle's heirarchy of states of character
• virtue: knows what's best and does it wholeheartedly (isn't even tempted)
• continence: knows what's best and does it reluctantly (resists temptation)
• incontinence: knows what's best and fails to do it (succumbs to temptation)
• vice: doesn't know what's right: does wrong without compunction or regret
• On Kant's view it seems that continence is better that virtue
• the continent act acting from duty & obligation & against your true desires.
• the virtuous act in accordance with their desires: "Love & do as you will."
• Issues
• Whether inner peace & harmony (spiritual health) can be achieved regardless of the character on one's society
• Pro:
• Stoics, e.g. Marcus Aurelius
• Epicureans
• Mystics
• Some psychologists: Freud?
• Con:
• Plato
• Aristotle
• Marx
• Other Psychologists: Eric Fromm, Erik Erikson
• What is spiritual/psychological health or beauty?
• Capacity to Love & Work (Freud)
• Exercise of natural capacities (Aristotle)
• to live & be healthy: vegetative fulfillment (as the sine qua non of all else)
• the enjoyments of the senses: animal fulfillment
• to think & know: intellectual fulfullment
• What Spiritual/Psychological Health is depends on what the spirit or psyche is.
• Plato: psychological health is having a well-integrated soul or psyche in which each part performs its proper function
• Three parts of the soul
• appetite: pleasure seeking
• spirit or "the spirited element": aggressive & courageous: seeks revenge, adventure, etc.
• reason or intellect: knowledge seeking
• Argument from contrary movements
• reason can move us contrary to appetite & spirit
• contrary to appetite: when we resist (sexual temptation or food)
• contrary to spirit: when we control our anger
• spirit v. reason & appetite
• v. reason: when we fly off the handle: anger "gets the best of us"
• v. appetite: when we endure unpleasant things for pride's or anger's sake
• the soldier wanted to see his enemies mangled bodies
• but had to overcome his disgust & aversion (Plato's example)
• appetite v. reason & spirit
• v. reason: when we give in to temptation
• v. spirit: when we forgo what pride or anger would have us do due to unpleasantness or just plain laziness.
• Social analogs
• the working classes: produce & consume
• the police & military:
• the administrators
• The soul or psyche is in good order -- one is mentally healthy -- when each element does it's own job & doesn't encroach on the jobs of the others.  Virtue is to the spirit as justice is to the state.
• when reason administers: plans & directs
• when spirit enforces reason's directives
• when appetite lets the spirit move it in obedience to reasons directives
• guilt or shame is the spirit's stick
• pride is the spirit's carrot
• One mentally flourishes -- beyond health -- to the extent that each element (& most espeically the ruling element) -- does its job well.
• heroes have unusually courageous spirits
• sages have unusually keen intellects
• saints have unusually obedient appetites
• So, obviously virtue is its own reward
• not better to appear virtuous be really be vicious (as Thrasymachus contended)
• to be vicious is to be mentally disordered
• Aristotle: virtues as means between vices of excess and defect
  • This account reconciles our intuitions about what states of character are admirable & desirable with the theoretical account of virtue as self-actualization or functional excellence
    • recognize virtues are exercises of reason which determines which course of action is intermediate and best
    • reason is our most distinctively human function
  • Examples: Courage & Generosity
    • Facing danger: Cowardice (insufficiently) | Courage (appropriately) | Rashness (excessively)
    • Sharing goods: Stinginess (insufficiently) | Generosity (appropriately) | Spendthriftiness (excessively)
• Criticisms & Replies
• Criticism: Doesn't give sufficient moral guidance procedure.
• Utilitarianism & Kantianism give us would-be rigorous procedures for evaluating the morality or immorality of (contemplated) acts
• Virtue ethics just tells us, in effect
• do as good (morally admirable people) will
• compare St. Augustine's"Love & do as you will."
• not under authority of the Jewish Law
• didn't work so well -- too anarchic -- so the church needed to fall back on commandments
• Criticism: absence of a good scientific understanding of personality robs talk of "psychological health" of any objective validity.
• so the artistic analogy more appropriate
• but then what's a good person or a good life is just a matter of taste
• and there's no disputing taste: de gustibus non disputandum
• Replies
• On failure to provide a moral decision procedure
• Wanna-be is more like it than "would-be": Kantian & Utilitarian Procedures are so sufficient either
• Maybe the desire for a decision procedure is misguided: making a life (like making a work of art, can't be ruduced to a formula)
• living & doing well just is flying by the seat of your pants
• it's a defect of Kantianism & Utilitarianism that they pretend otherwise
• On the lack of objectivity and lack of scientific understanding of personality and consequently of what psychological health amounts to
• Despite rather serious disagreements (e.g., on Ken Starr & Bill Clinton) we do agree on some cases.
• The Unibomber is deranged: his state of mind is not a healthy or admirable one
• John Hinckley is deranged
• Maybe even some level of agreement about B.C. and K.S.: that they both are flawed
• Starr too priggish and puritanical
• Clinton too sexually loose & untrustworthy
• What's so bad about life as art
• artistic merit is not just a matter of taste either: whether you (or even most people) prefer Keanne to Picasso, Picasso's paintings are better.
• There's nothing but disputing taste: Morality is like that, fractious& contentious

The Feminist Critique of Ethical Theory

• Feminist critique: major philosophical approaches are one-sided and incomplete due to their overly masculine slant
• Kantian emphasis on duty (a military virtue)
• Untiliarian emphasis on results: on profit & loss & coming out ahead (a business virtue)
• Aristotelian emphasis on masculine virtues: values the pursuit of abstract theoretical understanding -- intelligence -- above all
• Two reasons for thinking women have a different approach to offer:
• Nurture: Because of social conditioning women grow up experiencing the world differently than men.
• Nature: Women are innately different and consequently relate to the world differently.
• A history of exclusion
  • Near-property status: a wife "will serve more assiduously that if she had been a slave bought and taken home." (Aristotle)
  • Women in Bentham's England (similarly in the U.S.)
    • could not vote
    • could not (if married) own property: any property she might inherit became her husbands
  • "A woman's place is in the home" or, more precisely, "bare foot, pregnant, and in the kitchen."
  • Enduring remants
    • differences in socialization
    • differences in expectations
    • differences in pay
    • "the glass ceiling" (echoes of Aristotle)
• Feminism Ho!
  • Mary Wollenstonecraft: argued in A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1798) that if women were given the same educational opportunities they would prove the equals of men.
  • John Stuart Mill argued in The Subjugation of Women (1869), "That the principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes -- the subordination of one to the other -- is wrong itself, and one of the chief impediments to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on one side, nor disability on the other."
  • Frederick Engels claims in The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884) that "the first class oppression coincides with that of the female sex by the male."
  • Simon de Beauvoir, in The Second Sex (1949) says, "when we abolish the slavery of half of humanity to the other, together with the whole system of hypocrisy that it implies, then the 'division' of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form."
• Feminist Ethics
  • Carol Gilligan's work in moral psychology claims to show a strong correlation between gender and response to moral situations
    • men: more concerned with rights, justice, and autonomy
    • women: more concerned with personal relations and compassion
  • Alison Jaggar: five main criticisms of traditional ethical theory
    1. lack of concern for women's interests
    2. downplaying women's issues and contributions
    3. denying the moral agency of women
    4. favoring masculine (warlike & businesslike) values over feminine (familial & amatory) values
    5. devaluing the moral experience of women (e.g., their reliance on feelings rather than principles)
  • Jaggar's proposals
    1. diversify perspectives: stop assuming the perspective of a Western white male head of household to be universal
    2. question the values of universality, individuality, and disinteresteness
    3. replace the model of moral agent as individual before the private bar of his conscience with the model of moral agents engaged in communal discourse
    4. abandon the notion of a "moral point of view"
  • Jaggar's moderation:
    • moral conclusions, she says, can "be rationally justified when they are reached by rational people through discursive processes that are open, inclusive and egalitarian."
    • pace Socrates ... but aren't they then universal
  • Practical application: McKinnon's stinging feminist critique of pornography:
    • "What pornography does goes beyond its content: it eroticizes heirarchy, it sexualizes inequality ..."
    • "Pornography is integral to attitudes and behaviors of violence and discrimination that define the treatment of half the population."
• Wolff Cries
  • Kantianism, the principle target of the feminist critique is an ethic of
    • rules
    • rationality {equally Utilitarianism}
    • autonomy
    • obligation
    • individualism
  • Not the only possibility: Virtue Ethics easily accomodates feminist emphasis on
    • the integration of feeling with thought
    • "the importance of the particular context of action"
    • the special importance of relationships
  • "In my judgment, the feminists are right that the practice of ethical theory ... has reflected an ingrained ... bias against women."
    • "The very same criticism can be made of philosophy's treatment of the nonwhite portion of the human species."
  • The further issue: "Whether correcting those biases requires a change in the fundamental conception of philosophy as well as its practice."
    • Is the problem with the Kantian (never-a-means-only) principle? Or with its flawed application (not applying it, equally, to women)?
    • Is the problem with Bentham's ("each counts one, none counts more") principle? Or with its flawed application (failing to count women equally)

Contemporary Application: Same-Sex Marriage

• Same sex marriage is one of those "subjects that seem to get people all worked up all our of proportion to their larger importance in the overall scheme of things." (Wolff, p. 245)
• Why gay and lesbian Americans want the right to enter into legal marriages
  • the emotional, moral, and spiritual significance of it
  • many legal and economic benefits of marriage denied to gay partners impacting
    • medical benefits for spouses
    • child custody
    • tax exemptions
    • hospital visitation and medical power of attorney rights

Pew Forum: Andrew Sullivan v. Gerard Bradley

• Andrew Sullivan's argument for same-sex marriage
  • It's, in the first place, a question of community: the taboo against homosexuality tears apart families and communities.
    • "Unlike any other minority, [homosexuals] are absolutely integrated into the broader society from the minute they are born.
  • It's also a matter of equality:
    • no to "institutions that require different standards for different people"'
    • no to "fake or euphemistic institutions like civil unions or domestic partnerships"
  • The "they can't procreate" argument is a joke
    • "in our culture, at this time, procreation is not understood to be an essential part of what is it to be married"
    • states "give marriage licenses willy-nilly to people who cannot procreate, do not wish to procreate, have never procreated, and are not interested in procreating."
• Gerard V. Bradley's argument against
  • It's, in the first place, a spiritual & religious question: "religious believers ... think of religion and marriage as a a matter of ... transcendent value added."
  • Secondly, "traditional religious people are more or less committed to an objective morality and ... reject subjecitvism" {see my Remarks below (LH)}
  • Implicit conclusion (LH): society should not put a seal of approval on what's objectively wrong and anathema to "traditional religious people."
  • Remarks (LH): "traditional religious" views in question
    • Natural Law Theory (which is GB's theory & Catholic orthodoxy) deems homosexuality to be morally wrong because it's contrary to the procreative purpose of sexual relations.
    • Protestant Divine Command Theorists (and others) cite scripture such as,
      • "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination." (Lev. 18:22)
      • "If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death." (Lev. 20:13)
      • "For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error." (Rom. 1:26-27)
      • Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders... will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Cor. 6:9, NIV)

categorical imperative duty end ethics ethical relativism hedonism maxim means nihilism utilitarianism utility virtue LH's Mostly Modern Philosophical Glossary

Chapter 5: Ethical Theory Key Concepts

Above: Kant & Duty | 3 Reasons to Think About Ethics? | Ethical Disagreement & Categorical Imperatives | Utilitarianism | Virtue Ethics | Feminist Critique | Same Sex Marriage | Key Concepts
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