DebateLabKIT/deepa2-corpus · Datasets at Hugging Face

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means a great deal to some people, and one would need to
have strong reasons to justify destroying it. But such reasons
may exist. The justification might not be anything so epochmaking
as transforming society. As in the case of the raid on
Gennarelli's laboratory, it might be the specific and short-term
goal of saving a number of animals from a painful experiment,
performed on animals only because of society's speciesist bias.
Again, whether such an action would really be justifiable from
a consequentialist point of view would depend on the details
of the actual situation. Someone lacking expertise could easily
be mistaken about the value of an experiment or the degree of
suffering it involved. And will not the result of damaging equipment
and liberating one lot of animals simply be that more
equipment is bought and more animals are bred? What is to be
done with the liberated animals? Will illegal acts mean that the
government will resist moves to reform the law relating to animal
experiments, arguing that it must not appear to be yielding
to violence? All these questions would need to be answered
satisfactorily before one could come to a decision in favour of,
say, damaging a laboratory. A related set of questions must also
be answered before one can justify damaging a bulldozer that
is being used to clear an old-growth forest.
Violence is not easy to justify, even if it is violence against
property rather than against sentient beings, or violence against
a dictator rather than indiscriminate violence against the general
public. Nevertheless, the differences between kinds of violence
are important, because only by observing them can we condemn
one kind of violence - the terrorist kind - in virtually absolute
terms. The differences are blurred by sweeping condemnations
of everything that falls under the general heading 'violence'.
313
12
WHY ACT MORALLY?
PREVIOUS chapters of this book have discussed what we
ought, morally, to do about several practical issues and what
means we are justified in adopting to achieve our ethical goals.
The nature of our conclusions about these issues - the demands
they make upon us - raises a further, more fundamental question:
why should we act morally?
Take our conclusions about the use of animals for food, or
the aid the rich should give the poor. Some readers may accept
these conclusions, become vegetarians, and do what they can
to reduce absolute poverty. Others may disagree with our conclusions,
maintaining that there is nothing wrong with eating
animals and that they are under no moral obligation to do
anything about reducing absolute poverty. There is also, however,
likely to be a third group, consisting of readers who find
no fault with the ethical arguments of these chapters, yet do
not change their diets or their contributions to overseas aid. Of
this third group, some will just be weak-willed, but others may
want an answer to a further practical question. If the conclusions
of ethics require so much of us, they may ask, should we bother
about ethics at all?
UNDERSTANDING THE QUESTION
'Why should I act morally?' is a different type of question from
those that we have been discussing up to now. Questions like
'Why should I treat people of different ethnic groups equally?'
or 'Why is abortion justifiable?' seek ethical reasons for acting
314
Why Act Morally?
in a certain way. These are questions within ethics. They presuppose
the ethical point of view. 'Why should I act morally?'
is on another level. It is not a question within ethics, but a
question about ethics.
'Why should I act morally?' is therefore a question aboutsomething
normally presupposed. Such questions are perplexing.
Some philosophers have found this particular question so
perplexing that they have rejected it as logically improper, as
an attempt to ask something that cannot properly be asked.
One ground for this rejection is the claim that our ethical
principles are, by definition, the principles we take as overridingly
important. This means that whatever principles are
overriding for a particular person are necessarily that person's
ethical principles, and a person who accepts as an ethical principle
that she ought to give her wealth to help the poor must,
by definition, have actually decided to give away her wealth.
On this definition of ethics once a person has made an ethical
decision no further practical question can arise. Hence it is impossible
to make sense of the question: 'Why should I act
morally?'
It might be thought a good reason for accepting the definition
of ethics as overriding that it allows us to dismiss as meaningless
an otherwise troublesome question. Adopting this definition
cannot solve real problems, however, for it leads to correspondingly
greater difficulties in establishing any ethical conclusion.
Take, for example, the conclusion that the rich ought to aid the
poor. We were able to argue for this in Chapter 8 only because
we assumed that, as suggested in the first two chapters of this
book, the universalisability of ethical judgments requires us to
go beyond thinking only about our own interests, and leads us
to take a point of view from which we must give equal consideration
to the interests of all affected by our actions. We cannot
hold that ethical judgments must be universalisable and at the
same time define a person's ethical principles as whatever principles
that person takes as overridingly important - for what if
315
Practical Ethics
I take as overridingly important some non-universalisable principle
like 'I ought to do whatever benefits me'? If we define
ethical principles as whatever principles one takes as overriding,

means a great deal to some people, and one would need to

have strong reasons to justify destroying it. But such reasons

may exist. The justification might not be anything so epochmaking

as transforming society. As in the case of the raid on

Gennarelli's laboratory, it might be the specific and short-term

goal of saving a number of animals from a painful experiment,

performed on animals only because of society's speciesist bias.

Again, whether such an action would really be justifiable from

a consequentialist point of view would depend on the details

of the actual situation. Someone lacking expertise could easily

be mistaken about the value of an experiment or the degree of

suffering it involved. And will not the result of damaging equipment

and liberating one lot of animals simply be that more

equipment is bought and more animals are bred? What is to be

done with the liberated animals? Will illegal acts mean that the

government will resist moves to reform the law relating to animal

experiments, arguing that it must not appear to be yielding

to violence? All these questions would need to be answered

satisfactorily before one could come to a decision in favour of,

say, damaging a laboratory. A related set of questions must also

be answered before one can justify damaging a bulldozer that

is being used to clear an old-growth forest.

Violence is not easy to justify, even if it is violence against

property rather than against sentient beings, or violence against

a dictator rather than indiscriminate violence against the general

public. Nevertheless, the differences between kinds of violence

are important, because only by observing them can we condemn

one kind of violence - the terrorist kind - in virtually absolute

terms. The differences are blurred by sweeping condemnations

of everything that falls under the general heading 'violence'.

313

12

WHY ACT MORALLY?

PREVIOUS chapters of this book have discussed what we

ought, morally, to do about several practical issues and what

means we are justified in adopting to achieve our ethical goals.

The nature of our conclusions about these issues - the demands

they make upon us - raises a further, more fundamental question:

why should we act morally?

Take our conclusions about the use of animals for food, or

the aid the rich should give the poor. Some readers may accept

these conclusions, become vegetarians, and do what they can

to reduce absolute poverty. Others may disagree with our conclusions,

maintaining that there is nothing wrong with eating

animals and that they are under no moral obligation to do

anything about reducing absolute poverty. There is also, however,

likely to be a third group, consisting of readers who find

no fault with the ethical arguments of these chapters, yet do

not change their diets or their contributions to overseas aid. Of

this third group, some will just be weak-willed, but others may

want an answer to a further practical question. If the conclusions

of ethics require so much of us, they may ask, should we bother

about ethics at all?

UNDERSTANDING THE QUESTION

'Why should I act morally?' is a different type of question from

those that we have been discussing up to now. Questions like

'Why should I treat people of different ethnic groups equally?'

or 'Why is abortion justifiable?' seek ethical reasons for acting

314

Why Act Morally?

in a certain way. These are questions within ethics. They presuppose

the ethical point of view. 'Why should I act morally?'

is on another level. It is not a question within ethics, but a

question about ethics.

'Why should I act morally?' is therefore a question aboutsomething

normally presupposed. Such questions are perplexing.

Some philosophers have found this particular question so

perplexing that they have rejected it as logically improper, as

an attempt to ask something that cannot properly be asked.

One ground for this rejection is the claim that our ethical

principles are, by definition, the principles we take as overridingly

important. This means that whatever principles are

overriding for a particular person are necessarily that person's

ethical principles, and a person who accepts as an ethical principle

that she ought to give her wealth to help the poor must,

by definition, have actually decided to give away her wealth.

On this definition of ethics once a person has made an ethical

decision no further practical question can arise. Hence it is impossible

to make sense of the question: 'Why should I act

morally?'

It might be thought a good reason for accepting the definition

of ethics as overriding that it allows us to dismiss as meaningless

an otherwise troublesome question. Adopting this definition

cannot solve real problems, however, for it leads to correspondingly

greater difficulties in establishing any ethical conclusion.

Take, for example, the conclusion that the rich ought to aid the

poor. We were able to argue for this in Chapter 8 only because

we assumed that, as suggested in the first two chapters of this

book, the universalisability of ethical judgments requires us to

go beyond thinking only about our own interests, and leads us

to take a point of view from which we must give equal consideration

to the interests of all affected by our actions. We cannot

hold that ethical judgments must be universalisable and at the

same time define a person's ethical principles as whatever principles

that person takes as overridingly important - for what if

315

Practical Ethics

I take as overridingly important some non-universalisable principle

like 'I ought to do whatever benefits me'? If we define

ethical principles as whatever principles one takes as overriding,