{"id":900,"date":"2025-03-14T17:49:12","date_gmt":"2025-03-14T17:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppscphi1012ethics\/?post_type=part&#038;p=900"},"modified":"2025-03-19T22:33:32","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T22:33:32","slug":"part-three-reasoned-morality","status":"publish","type":"part","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppscphi1012ethics\/part\/part-three-reasoned-morality\/","title":{"raw":"PART THREE: REASONED MORALITY","rendered":"PART THREE: REASONED MORALITY"},"content":{"raw":"<p class=\"import-Normal\">What separates us behaviorally from the animals? Like the higher species we use tools, establish social groups, are impressed from childhood with rules for approved and unacceptable behaviors. All higher order animals inherit such do\u2019s and don\u2019ts. What makes us different? Philosophers have long held that it is our ability to reason that separates us, to employ rational principles to justify our decisions.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"import-Normal\">We have thus far explored several sources from which we may have received moral rules: from culture (Ethical Relativism), from religion (Divine Command Theory) and from the law (Social Contract Theory). Each of these asked us to \u201creceive\u201d our behavioral rules and beliefs from an external source. Philosophical ethics, as we shall see, seeks to give us \u201cinternal\u201d rational tools to derive our moral judgments from our own reasoning. That which lifts us above mere rule abiding, above the choice making of animals, is the use of such tools to decide upon right and wrong for ourselves. The theories we shall explore in this part of the text all seek to establish rational <strong>principles<\/strong> as the basis from which we should reason towards our moral judgments. They do not give us a list of dos and don\u2019ts. Instead, with such rational principles we can think through difficult moral decisions and trust that our judgments are based upon good reasoning.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"import-Normal\">The theories we are about to explore can be loosely grouped into three categories:<\/p>\r\n\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Theories which place emphasis on the likely <strong>consequences<\/strong> or outcomes of a moral decision as the most important factor in our moral thinking (Ethical Egoism, Utilitarianism).<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Theories which focus on the rationality or irrationality of <strong>the <\/strong><strong>nature of the <\/strong><strong>moral choice itself <\/strong>as the primary rational factor (Kantian Ethics, Natural Law Ethics).<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Theories which stress the <strong>motive<\/strong> of the person making the moral choice (Virtue Ethics, Care Ethics).<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p class=\"import-Normal\">As we work through the chapters in this section of the book, we will want to see how the principles of these different theories might apply to specific case studies. Several case studies are provided in <a href=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppscphi1012ethics\/part\/appendix-b-case-studies-for-ethical-analysis\/\">Appendix B<\/a> at the end of this book. Your professor may ask you to focus on only one of these, but practicing how a specific ethical theory might address each of these case studies would strengthen your ethical reasoning.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"import-Normal\">So far, we have examined\u00a0a few different theories about the basis of ethics. Each of these theories proved inadequate for one reason or another, although each one is popular. Philosophers are kind of hard to please. The failure of these theories can, however, tell us something about what an adequate ethics might look like. The first lesson we can learn from their failure is that ethical principles cannot simply be based on <em>authority<\/em>. It does not matter whether this authority is the authority of culture, a divine creator of laws, or government \u2013 appealing to such sources of ethical principles fails to really provide a\u00a0<em>reason<\/em>\u00a0to accept those principles as legitimate. Authority may get us to act from fear of punishment or ostracism if we fail to do what the authorities want. But authority alone will never be enough to convince us that what the authorities want us to do is right. To be convinced we will need to see some convincing reasons.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"import-Normal\">Providing reasons\u00a0to back up our claims is exactly what objective ethical theories attempt to do. This will be the aim of our next six approaches to ethics: Egoism, Utilitarianism, Kantian Ethics, Natural Law, Virtue Ethics and Care. There are considerable differences among the ideas of the major thinkers of these approaches. However, all of them share a basic trust in the power of reasoning to solve human problems. For them, rationality is the bottom line and ethics, if it is to move beyond the arbitrariness and prejudice embedded in the traditional conceptions of morality we have inherited, must embrace rationality. In the next several chapters we will be examining different answers to the question, \u201cWhat would a rational ethics look like?\u201d<\/p>","rendered":"<p class=\"import-Normal\">What separates us behaviorally from the animals? Like the higher species we use tools, establish social groups, are impressed from childhood with rules for approved and unacceptable behaviors. All higher order animals inherit such do\u2019s and don\u2019ts. What makes us different? Philosophers have long held that it is our ability to reason that separates us, to employ rational principles to justify our decisions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"import-Normal\">We have thus far explored several sources from which we may have received moral rules: from culture (Ethical Relativism), from religion (Divine Command Theory) and from the law (Social Contract Theory). Each of these asked us to \u201creceive\u201d our behavioral rules and beliefs from an external source. Philosophical ethics, as we shall see, seeks to give us \u201cinternal\u201d rational tools to derive our moral judgments from our own reasoning. That which lifts us above mere rule abiding, above the choice making of animals, is the use of such tools to decide upon right and wrong for ourselves. The theories we shall explore in this part of the text all seek to establish rational <strong>principles<\/strong> as the basis from which we should reason towards our moral judgments. They do not give us a list of dos and don\u2019ts. Instead, with such rational principles we can think through difficult moral decisions and trust that our judgments are based upon good reasoning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"import-Normal\">The theories we are about to explore can be loosely grouped into three categories:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Theories which place emphasis on the likely <strong>consequences<\/strong> or outcomes of a moral decision as the most important factor in our moral thinking (Ethical Egoism, Utilitarianism).<\/li>\n<li>Theories which focus on the rationality or irrationality of <strong>the <\/strong><strong>nature of the <\/strong><strong>moral choice itself <\/strong>as the primary rational factor (Kantian Ethics, Natural Law Ethics).<\/li>\n<li>Theories which stress the <strong>motive<\/strong> of the person making the moral choice (Virtue Ethics, Care Ethics).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"import-Normal\">As we work through the chapters in this section of the book, we will want to see how the principles of these different theories might apply to specific case studies. Several case studies are provided in <a href=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppscphi1012ethics\/part\/appendix-b-case-studies-for-ethical-analysis\/\">Appendix B<\/a> at the end of this book. Your professor may ask you to focus on only one of these, but practicing how a specific ethical theory might address each of these case studies would strengthen your ethical reasoning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"import-Normal\">So far, we have examined\u00a0a few different theories about the basis of ethics. Each of these theories proved inadequate for one reason or another, although each one is popular. Philosophers are kind of hard to please. The failure of these theories can, however, tell us something about what an adequate ethics might look like. The first lesson we can learn from their failure is that ethical principles cannot simply be based on <em>authority<\/em>. It does not matter whether this authority is the authority of culture, a divine creator of laws, or government \u2013 appealing to such sources of ethical principles fails to really provide a\u00a0<em>reason<\/em>\u00a0to accept those principles as legitimate. Authority may get us to act from fear of punishment or ostracism if we fail to do what the authorities want. But authority alone will never be enough to convince us that what the authorities want us to do is right. To be convinced we will need to see some convincing reasons.<\/p>\n<p class=\"import-Normal\">Providing reasons\u00a0to back up our claims is exactly what objective ethical theories attempt to do. This will be the aim of our next six approaches to ethics: Egoism, Utilitarianism, Kantian Ethics, Natural Law, Virtue Ethics and Care. There are considerable differences among the ideas of the major thinkers of these approaches. However, all of them share a basic trust in the power of reasoning to solve human problems. For them, rationality is the bottom line and ethics, if it is to move beyond the arbitrariness and prejudice embedded in the traditional conceptions of morality we have inherited, must embrace rationality. In the next several chapters we will be examining different answers to the question, \u201cWhat would a rational ethics look like?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"parent":0,"menu_order":3,"template":"","meta":{"pb_part_invisible":false,"pb_part_invisible_string":""},"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-900","part","type-part","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppscphi1012ethics\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppscphi1012ethics\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppscphi1012ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/part"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppscphi1012ethics\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1135,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppscphi1012ethics\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/900\/revisions\/1135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppscphi1012ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppscphi1012ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=900"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppscphi1012ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}