DebateLabKIT/deepa2-corpus · Datasets at Hugging Face

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then anything whatever may count as an ethical principle, for
one may take any principle whatever as overridingly important.
Thus what we gain by being able to dismiss the question:'Why
should I act morally?' we lose by being unable to use the universalisability
of ethical judgments - or any other feature of
ethics - to argue for particular conclusions about what is morally
right. Taking ethics as in some sense necessarily involving a
universal point of view seems to me a more natural and less
confusing way of discussing these issues.
Other philosophers have rejected 'Why should I act morally?'
for a different reason. They think it must be rejected for the
same reason that we must reject another question, 'Why should
I be rational?' which like 'Why should I act morally?' also
questions something - in this case rationality - normally presupposed.
'Why should I be rational?' really is logically improper
because in answering it we would be giving reasons for
being rational. Thus we would presuppose rationality in our
attempt to justify rationality. The resulting justification of rationality
would be circular - which shows, not that rationality
lacks a necessary justification, but that it needs no justification,
because it cannot intelligibly be questioned unless it is already
presupposed.
Is 'Why should I act morally?' like 'Why should I be rational?'
in that it presupposes the very point of view it questions? It
would be, if we interpreted the 'should' as a moral 'should'.
Then the question would ask for moral reasons for being moral.
This would be absurd. Once we have decided that an action is
morally obligatory, there is no further moral question to ask. It
is redundant to ask why I should, morally, do the action that I
morally should do.
There is, however, no need to interpret the question as a
request for an ethical justification of ethics. 'Should' need not
316
Why Act Morally?
mean 'should, morally'. It could simply be a way of asking for
reasons for action, without any specification about the kind of
reasons wanted. We sometimes want to ask a general practical
question, from no particular point of view. Faced with a difficult
choice, we ask a close friend for advice. Morally, he says, we
ought to do A, but B would be more in our interests, while
etiquette demands C and only D would display a real sense of
style. This answer may not satisfy us. We want advice on which
of these standpoints to adopt. If it is possible to ask such a
question we must ask it from a position of neutrality between
all these points of view, not of commitment to anyone of them.
'Why should I act morally?' is this sort of question. If it is
not possible to ask practical questions without presupposing a
point of view, we are unable to say anything intelligible about
the most ultimate practical choices. Whether to act according
to considerations of ethics, self-interest, etiquette, or aesthetics
would be a choice 'beyond reason' - in a sense, an arbitrary
choice. Before we resign ourselves to this conclusion we should
at least attempt to interpret the question so that the mere asking
of it does not commit us to any particular point of view.
We can now formulate the question more precisely. It is a
question about the ethical point of view, asked from a position
outside it. But what is 'the ethical point of view'? I have suggested
that a distinguishing feature of ethics is that ethical judgments
are universalisable. Ethics requires us to go beyond our
own personal point of view to a standpoint like that of the
impartial spectator who takes a universal point of view.
Given this conception of ethics, 'Why should I act morally?'
is a question that may properly be asked by anyone wondering
whether to act only on grounds that would be acceptable from
this universal point of view. It is, after all, possible to act - and
some people do act - without thinking of anything except one's
own interests. The question asks for reasons for going beyond
this personal basis of action and acting only on judgments one
is prepared to prescribe universally.
317
Practical Ethics
REASON AND ETHICS
There is an ancient line of philosophical thought that attempts
to demonstrate that to act rationally is to act ethically. The
argument is today associated with Kant and is mainly found in
the writings of modern Kantians, though it goes back as least
as far as the Stoics. The form in which the argument is presented
varies, but the common structure is as follows:
Some requirement of universalisability or impartiality is essential
to ethics.
2 Reason is universally or objectively valid. If, for example, itfollows
from the premises 'All humans are mortal' and 'Socrates
is human' that Socrates is mortal, then this inference
must follow universally. It cannot be valid for me and invalid
for you. This is a general point about reason, whether theoretical
or practical.
Therefore:
3 Only a judgment that satisfies the requirement described in
( 1) as a necessary condition of an ethical judgment will be an
objectively rational judgment in accordance with (2). For I
cannot expect any other rational agents to accept as valid for
them a judgment that I would not accept if I were in their
place; and iftwo rational agents could not accept each other's
judgments, they could not be rational judgments, for the reason
given in (2). To say that I would accept the judgment I
make, even if I were in someone else's position and they in
mine is, however, simply to say that my judgment is one I
can prescribe from a universal point of view. Ethics and reason
both require us to rise above our own particular point of view
and take a perspective from which our own personal identity

then anything whatever may count as an ethical principle, for

one may take any principle whatever as overridingly important.

Thus what we gain by being able to dismiss the question:'Why

should I act morally?' we lose by being unable to use the universalisability

of ethical judgments - or any other feature of

ethics - to argue for particular conclusions about what is morally

right. Taking ethics as in some sense necessarily involving a

universal point of view seems to me a more natural and less

confusing way of discussing these issues.

Other philosophers have rejected 'Why should I act morally?'

for a different reason. They think it must be rejected for the

same reason that we must reject another question, 'Why should

I be rational?' which like 'Why should I act morally?' also

questions something - in this case rationality - normally presupposed.

'Why should I be rational?' really is logically improper

because in answering it we would be giving reasons for

being rational. Thus we would presuppose rationality in our

attempt to justify rationality. The resulting justification of rationality

would be circular - which shows, not that rationality

lacks a necessary justification, but that it needs no justification,

because it cannot intelligibly be questioned unless it is already

presupposed.

Is 'Why should I act morally?' like 'Why should I be rational?'

in that it presupposes the very point of view it questions? It

would be, if we interpreted the 'should' as a moral 'should'.

Then the question would ask for moral reasons for being moral.

This would be absurd. Once we have decided that an action is

morally obligatory, there is no further moral question to ask. It

is redundant to ask why I should, morally, do the action that I

morally should do.

There is, however, no need to interpret the question as a

request for an ethical justification of ethics. 'Should' need not

316

Why Act Morally?

mean 'should, morally'. It could simply be a way of asking for

reasons for action, without any specification about the kind of

reasons wanted. We sometimes want to ask a general practical

question, from no particular point of view. Faced with a difficult

choice, we ask a close friend for advice. Morally, he says, we

ought to do A, but B would be more in our interests, while

etiquette demands C and only D would display a real sense of

style. This answer may not satisfy us. We want advice on which

of these standpoints to adopt. If it is possible to ask such a

question we must ask it from a position of neutrality between

all these points of view, not of commitment to anyone of them.

'Why should I act morally?' is this sort of question. If it is

not possible to ask practical questions without presupposing a

point of view, we are unable to say anything intelligible about

the most ultimate practical choices. Whether to act according

to considerations of ethics, self-interest, etiquette, or aesthetics

would be a choice 'beyond reason' - in a sense, an arbitrary

choice. Before we resign ourselves to this conclusion we should

at least attempt to interpret the question so that the mere asking

of it does not commit us to any particular point of view.

We can now formulate the question more precisely. It is a

question about the ethical point of view, asked from a position

outside it. But what is 'the ethical point of view'? I have suggested

that a distinguishing feature of ethics is that ethical judgments

are universalisable. Ethics requires us to go beyond our

own personal point of view to a standpoint like that of the

impartial spectator who takes a universal point of view.

Given this conception of ethics, 'Why should I act morally?'

is a question that may properly be asked by anyone wondering

whether to act only on grounds that would be acceptable from

this universal point of view. It is, after all, possible to act - and

some people do act - without thinking of anything except one's

own interests. The question asks for reasons for going beyond

this personal basis of action and acting only on judgments one

is prepared to prescribe universally.

317

Practical Ethics

REASON AND ETHICS

There is an ancient line of philosophical thought that attempts

to demonstrate that to act rationally is to act ethically. The

argument is today associated with Kant and is mainly found in

the writings of modern Kantians, though it goes back as least

as far as the Stoics. The form in which the argument is presented

varies, but the common structure is as follows:

Some requirement of universalisability or impartiality is essential

to ethics.

2 Reason is universally or objectively valid. If, for example, itfollows

from the premises 'All humans are mortal' and 'Socrates

is human' that Socrates is mortal, then this inference

must follow universally. It cannot be valid for me and invalid

for you. This is a general point about reason, whether theoretical

or practical.

Therefore:

3 Only a judgment that satisfies the requirement described in

( 1) as a necessary condition of an ethical judgment will be an

objectively rational judgment in accordance with (2). For I

cannot expect any other rational agents to accept as valid for

them a judgment that I would not accept if I were in their

place; and iftwo rational agents could not accept each other's

judgments, they could not be rational judgments, for the reason

given in (2). To say that I would accept the judgment I

make, even if I were in someone else's position and they in

mine is, however, simply to say that my judgment is one I

can prescribe from a universal point of view. Ethics and reason

both require us to rise above our own particular point of view

and take a perspective from which our own personal identity