Reason and morality — Part 1
Questions such as “Why should I be nice to everyone?” or “Why should I treat people equally?” are questions that assume some moral framework. “Why should I act morally?” asks not within but about that framework. In other words, it asks about reasons for acting morally.
I will list below some of the answers that have been given to this question.
1. The question is meaningless because morals are those principles which we assume to be over anything else
The problem with this answer is that whatever principles a person accepts as being over anything else are that person’s morals. This means that since every person has its own sets of moral principles they are not universal. This means that universal ethical conclusions such as “We should be nice with everybody”, “We should not harm anyone unless it’s a life threatening situation” can’t be made since the requisite for making such conclusions is assuming that morals are universal. On the other hand, non-universal ethical statements such as “I should do what pleases me above anything else but my well being and happiness” become valid.
Accepting this answer implies accepting a moral anarchy where everybody literally does what they think is right for them. A state of moral anarchy would probably resemble the chaotic ages before the Mesopotamian civilisation. So we go on to the next reply.
2. The circularity response
This answer rejects the question by the same reason it rejects questions like “Why should I act rationally(see reason)?”. Any answer to the previous question would involve accepting reason (which is being questioned) as an assumption and thus it would be a justification of reason by using reason which defeats the point of the justification. The answer goes like this: “any reasons to be moral would be moral themselves therefore, the question is pointless”.
The above reply assumes that “Why should act morally?” asks formoral reasons to act moral. However, it does not necessarily have to be the case. It makes sense that rather than asking for moral reasons to act morally we would just ask for general reasons to act morally. The next reply considers such situation.
3. Attempting a neutral stance on morality
An ethical action is just one of many reasons for an action. So we ask person X for reasons to do an action. Person X would say:
- Doing A is what you would do if you chose the ethical standpoint.
- Doing B is what you would do if you chose the self-interest standpoint
- Doing C is what you would do if you chose the etiquette standpoint
It is still not enough since Person X just listed the choices. What we want is actual advice on which standpoint we should adopt. Is it possible to ask about the ethical standpoint without assuming some ethical standpoint? The question can be rephrased in the following way: is it possible to ask for reasons to adopt the ethical standpoint outside ethics?
The quest for linking reason and ethics
Since the most reliable tool we have is reason, some philosophers have attempted to prove that “acting ethically is the same as acting rationally”.
The argument goes like this:
If,
Premise(1). Universalisability* is a property of ethics.
and
Premise(2). Universalisability is a property of reason. Reason is objectively valid/true. If we assume that A is true, then ‘If A, then B. A, then B.’ is valid/true in all cases. It is a universal truth (i.e. it’s valid regardless of who utters the sentence).
Then,
Conclusion. Only something that satisfies Premise(1) will be an objectively rational assertion in accordance with Premise(2). For I can’t expect other purely rational agents to accept as valid for them an assertion that I would not accept as valid if I were in their place. If two purely rational agents can’t accept as valid each other’s assertions then they can’t be said to rational for the reasons given in Premise(2). To say that I would accept as valid the assertion I make even if I was in someone else’s position is to say that my assertion is one that can be asserted from a universal point of view. Ethics and reason require us to go beyond our personal point of view and adopt an impersonal standpoint. So, acting rationally involves adopting an ethical standpoint in the sense that it involves adopting an universal standpoint.
The first premise can’t be said to be true or false since the definition of ethics is flexible enough to provide notions of ethics that can be made universal and notions of ethics that can’t be made universal. The second premise is true. The conclusion “acting rationally involves adopting a universal standpoint which equals to the ethical standpoint” is not totally true. A rational assertion must be universally valid but it does not necessarily means that it is ethical (if we assume that **ethics involves going beyond one’s interests). Let us see an example of a statement that is universal and rational but is not ethical**.
Non-universal assertion: “Everyone should do what is best for me.” This is neither universal, neither rational, neither ethical.
Universal assertion: “Everyone should do what is best for them.” This is universal and rational but not ethical **.
Summary: the conclusion of the argument given above does not really follow from the premises. Pure egoism as seen in the universal assertion is rational (in the sense that can be applied to any rational agent) and thus any purely rational agent could accept it. The problem for ethics is that ethics** is incompatible with pure egoism because pure egoism does not go beyond one’s interests. The previous argument had an idea in mind, namely, that ethics is rational. Now let us turn that idea around and ask: is egoism rational?
The rational basis of egoism
It has been said in the earlier argument that “if two purely rational agents can’t accept as valid each other’s assertions then they can’t be said to rational”. That is not true. Two purely rational agents can disagree on matters and still be rational.
Let us think about two egoistic rational agents called Jill and Jack. They disagree about what to do. Jill wants her and Jack to do A but Jack wants him and Jill not to do A. But both Jill and Jack are rational.
This disagreement is likely to be commonplace in rational agents either (capable of )or (capable of and accepting) pure egoism. Both Jack and Jill accept pure egoism but since they start from different points (Jack from Jack’s standpoint and Jill from Jill’s standpoint) and they head to different points. Jack aims to further his interests and Jill aims to further her interests. If we assume that:
- Jill and Jack need each other’s help ( a collective action) to get closer to their goals.
- A collective action towards Jill’s goal is not necessarily a collective action towards Jack’s goal and vice versa.
- They can only carry out collective actions.
then it follows a disagreement about what to do.
However, here it comes the rational aspect of pure egoism. If we asked Jill what would be rational for Jack to do, assuming Jill is truthful, she would reply that it would be rational for Jack to do what is in Jack’s best interests rather than doing what is in her best interests.
It seems that the attempt to give a rational (see reason) justification of ethics has failed. The next article will review the implications of this failure for ethics and will look beyond to alternative universalisable justifications for ethics.
Philosophy ought to question the basic assumptions of the age. Thinking through, critically and carefully, what most of us take for granted is, I believe, the chief task of philosophy, and the task that makes philosophy a worthwhile activity.
