DebateLabKIT/deepa2-corpus · Datasets at Hugging Face

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to do what we think right; or, as Wolff puts it, make ourselves
the authors of our decisions. Faced with a choice between doing
what we think right and what we think wrong, of course we
ought to do what we think right. But this, though true, is not
much help. What we need to know is not whether we should
do what we decide to be right, but how we should decide what
is right.
293
Practical Ethics
Think about the difference of opinion between members of
groups like the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and more lawabiding
members of an organization like Britain's Royal Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA): ALF members
think inflicting pain on animals is, unless justified by extraordinary
circumstances, wrong, and if the best way to stop
it is by breaking the law then they think that breaking the law
is right. RSPCA members - let us assume - also think that
inflicting pain on animals is normally wrong, but they think
breaking the law is wrong, too, and they think that the wrongness
of breaking the law cannot be justified by the goal of stopping
the unjustifiable infliction of pain on animals. Now suppose
there are people opposed to inflicting pain on animals who are
uncertain whether they should join the militant lawbreakers or
the more orthodox animal welfare group. How does telling these
people to do what they think right, or to be the author of their
own decisions, resolve their uncertainty? The uncertainty is an
uncertainty about what is the right thing to do, not about
whether to do what one has decided to be right.
This point can be obscured by talk of 'following one's conscience'
irrespective of what the law commands. Some who talk
of 'following conscience' mean no more than doing what, on
reflection, one thinks right - and this may, as in the case of our
imagined RSPCA members, depend on what the law commands.
Others mean by 'conscience' not something dependent
on critical reflective judgment, but a kind of internal voice that
tells us that something is wrong and may continue to tell us
this despite our careful reflective decision, based on all the relevant
ethical considerations, that the action is not wrong. In
this sense of 'conscience' an unmarried woman brought up as
a strict Roman Catholic to believe that sex outside marriage is
always wrong may abandon her religion and come to hold that
there is no sound basis for restricting sex to marriage - yet
continue to feel guilty when she has sex. She may refer to these
294
Ends and Means
guilt feelings as her 'conscience' but if that is her conscience,
should she follow it?
To say that we should follow our conscience is unobjectionable
- and unhelpful - when 'following conscience' means
doing what, on reflection, one thinks right. When 'following
conscience' means doing as one's 'internal voice' prompts one
to do, however, to follow one's conscience is to abdicate one's
responsibility as a rational agent, to fail to take all the relevant
factors into account and act on one's best judgment of the rights
and wrongs of the situation. The 'internal voice' is more likely
to be a product of one's upbringing and education than a source
of genuine ethical insight.
Presumably neither Thoreau nor Wolff wish to suggest that
we should always follow our conscience in the 'internal voice'
sense. They must mean, if their views are to be at all plausible,
that we should follow our judgment about what we ought to
do. In this case the most that can be said for their recommendations
is that they remind us that decisions about obeying the
law are'ethical decisions that the law itself cannot settle for us.
We should not assume, without reflection, that if the law prohibits,
say, stealing videotapes from laboratories, it is always
wrong to do so - any more than we should assume that if the
law prohibits hiding Jews from the Nazis, it is wrong to do so.
Law and ethics are distinct. At the same time, this does not
mean that the law carries no moral weight. It does not mean
that any action that would have been right if it had been legal
must be right although it is in fact illegal. That an action is illegal
may be of ethicaL as well as legaL significance. Whether it really
is ethically significant is a separate question.
LA W AND ORDER
If we think that a practice is seriously wrong, and if we have
the courage and ability to disrupt this practice by breaking the
295
Practical Ethics
law, how could the illegality of this action provide an ethical
reason against it? To answer a question as specific as this, we
should first ask a more general one: why have laws at all?
Human beings are social in nature, but not so social that we
do not need to protect ourselves against the risk of being assaulted
or killed by our fellow humans. We might try to do this
by forming vigilante organizations to prevent assaults and punish
those who commit them; but the results would be haphazard
and liable to grow into gang warfare. Thus it is desirable to
have, as John Locke said long ago, 'an established, settled,
known law', interpreted by an authoritative judge and backed
with sufficient power to carry out the judge's decisions.
If people voluntarily refrained from assaulting others, or acting
in other ways inimical to a harmonious and happy social existence,
we might manage without judges and sanctions. We
would still need law-like conventions about such matters as
which side of the road one drives on. Even an anarchist utopia
would have some settled principles of cooperation. So we would
have something rather like law. In reality, not everyone is going
to voluntarily refrain from behaviour, like assaults, that others
cannot tolerate. Nor is it only the danger of individual acts like

to do what we think right; or, as Wolff puts it, make ourselves

the authors of our decisions. Faced with a choice between doing

what we think right and what we think wrong, of course we

ought to do what we think right. But this, though true, is not

much help. What we need to know is not whether we should

do what we decide to be right, but how we should decide what

is right.

293

Practical Ethics

Think about the difference of opinion between members of

groups like the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and more lawabiding

members of an organization like Britain's Royal Society

for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA): ALF members

think inflicting pain on animals is, unless justified by extraordinary

circumstances, wrong, and if the best way to stop

it is by breaking the law then they think that breaking the law

is right. RSPCA members - let us assume - also think that

inflicting pain on animals is normally wrong, but they think

breaking the law is wrong, too, and they think that the wrongness

of breaking the law cannot be justified by the goal of stopping

the unjustifiable infliction of pain on animals. Now suppose

there are people opposed to inflicting pain on animals who are

uncertain whether they should join the militant lawbreakers or

the more orthodox animal welfare group. How does telling these

people to do what they think right, or to be the author of their

own decisions, resolve their uncertainty? The uncertainty is an

uncertainty about what is the right thing to do, not about

whether to do what one has decided to be right.

This point can be obscured by talk of 'following one's conscience'

irrespective of what the law commands. Some who talk

of 'following conscience' mean no more than doing what, on

reflection, one thinks right - and this may, as in the case of our

imagined RSPCA members, depend on what the law commands.

Others mean by 'conscience' not something dependent

on critical reflective judgment, but a kind of internal voice that

tells us that something is wrong and may continue to tell us

this despite our careful reflective decision, based on all the relevant

ethical considerations, that the action is not wrong. In

this sense of 'conscience' an unmarried woman brought up as

a strict Roman Catholic to believe that sex outside marriage is

always wrong may abandon her religion and come to hold that

there is no sound basis for restricting sex to marriage - yet

continue to feel guilty when she has sex. She may refer to these

294

Ends and Means

guilt feelings as her 'conscience' but if that is her conscience,

should she follow it?

To say that we should follow our conscience is unobjectionable

- and unhelpful - when 'following conscience' means

doing what, on reflection, one thinks right. When 'following

conscience' means doing as one's 'internal voice' prompts one

to do, however, to follow one's conscience is to abdicate one's

responsibility as a rational agent, to fail to take all the relevant

factors into account and act on one's best judgment of the rights

and wrongs of the situation. The 'internal voice' is more likely

to be a product of one's upbringing and education than a source

of genuine ethical insight.

Presumably neither Thoreau nor Wolff wish to suggest that

we should always follow our conscience in the 'internal voice'

sense. They must mean, if their views are to be at all plausible,

that we should follow our judgment about what we ought to

do. In this case the most that can be said for their recommendations

is that they remind us that decisions about obeying the

law are'ethical decisions that the law itself cannot settle for us.

We should not assume, without reflection, that if the law prohibits,

say, stealing videotapes from laboratories, it is always

wrong to do so - any more than we should assume that if the

law prohibits hiding Jews from the Nazis, it is wrong to do so.

Law and ethics are distinct. At the same time, this does not

mean that the law carries no moral weight. It does not mean

that any action that would have been right if it had been legal

must be right although it is in fact illegal. That an action is illegal

may be of ethicaL as well as legaL significance. Whether it really

is ethically significant is a separate question.

LA W AND ORDER

If we think that a practice is seriously wrong, and if we have

the courage and ability to disrupt this practice by breaking the

295

Practical Ethics

law, how could the illegality of this action provide an ethical

reason against it? To answer a question as specific as this, we

should first ask a more general one: why have laws at all?

Human beings are social in nature, but not so social that we

do not need to protect ourselves against the risk of being assaulted

or killed by our fellow humans. We might try to do this

by forming vigilante organizations to prevent assaults and punish

those who commit them; but the results would be haphazard

and liable to grow into gang warfare. Thus it is desirable to

have, as John Locke said long ago, 'an established, settled,

known law', interpreted by an authoritative judge and backed

with sufficient power to carry out the judge's decisions.

If people voluntarily refrained from assaulting others, or acting

in other ways inimical to a harmonious and happy social existence,

we might manage without judges and sanctions. We

would still need law-like conventions about such matters as

which side of the road one drives on. Even an anarchist utopia

would have some settled principles of cooperation. So we would

have something rather like law. In reality, not everyone is going

to voluntarily refrain from behaviour, like assaults, that others

cannot tolerate. Nor is it only the danger of individual acts like