It would be great if the answer to your second question was 'yes'! But, despite the authority of Plato, I doubt that it is. Let us distinguish between knowing why, knowing that, andcharacter. 'Knowing why' is the moral theorist: he or she understandsthe relationship among principles, the various avenues ofjustification, the standard arguments and objections, and so forth.'Knowing that' is someone who has an accurate grasp of what is good,although he or she might not be able to explain 'why', or evenrecognise the need to do so. (I won't dwell on what 'accurate' mightmean here, for the same reason presumably as you put 'better' intoscare-quotes!) 'Character' is the capacity (the will, the strength,whatever) to turn moral knowledge into action. Clearly, neither ofthe first two is any good without the last. Moreover, I can see nogood reason why the 'knowing why' individual is any more likely tohave a virtuous character than a 'knowing that' – indeed, it mightbe the reverse. However...

It seems to me that you are defining moral relativism as something like 'what is morally correct for me may not be for you', but defining prescriptive as 'statements that demand something from us, universally '. Both seem plausible, but are incompatible, as you point out. But, if we define relativism in terms of a social/ cultural or historical framework, and likewise define what prescriptive means in the terms of that framework, then the incompatibility is not so evident. The statement 'Around here we do things like X' then becomes valid for those around here and indeed prescriptive for those around here. You would not expect it to be either valid or prescriptive for someone from elsewhere; instead, it appears descriptive of how a certain group behave. Clearly, there are plenty of other problems a moral relativist position needs to overcome!

Try this out: We cannot blame John morally for the particular behaviours he exhibits while under the spell of the lovely Joyce; after all, he is not in control of himself. Nor can we blame John morally for being the kind of person who -- because of his 'biological makeup' -- is prey for Joyces. However, we CAN blame John for being the kind of person who falls heavily for unsuitable Joyces, IF we believe that the cultivation of the kind of person we are is in some measure in our control and the object of particular trends in our choices. John should have learned from his mistakes with the last Joyce; John should understand his own weaknesses and find ways to compensate for them, perhaps seeking counselling; John should learn to trust his friends advice; John should learn to read people; John should get out more. It doesn't seem unreasonable to ask these things of John's character, in general. Although, first, we have to get rid of Joyce.

A fascinating set of questions. Let me start by distinguishing atleast two: 1. the issue of 'entwined' lives and their relation toindividual autonomy. 2. The implications of this for 'ownership' ofautobiographies. The first of these is only a problem if we start with theassumption that everything that happens (in the human world) mustbelong to one and only one agent. As the saying goes, 'it takes twoto tango'. You wouldn't have been 'free' to write about arelationship if there hadn't been another person! You were, in asense, co-authors and co-owners of the events of the relationship. The second question is more difficult. In fact, I think theexample of the joint blog is not really appropriate. A blog is in thepublic domain, and is thus not a 'secret'. Your blog has been takendown but then the real moral issue is about respecting the wishes ofsomeone who has changed their mind, and not about my 'ownership' ofmy own life. A better example would be intimate secrets that werenever made...

This is indeed the accusation thatNietzsche levels at moral philosophers: that they have culturally baseddesires (to acquire a form of power or influence over some othergroup) and that the reasoning comes afterwards. However, evenNietzsche doesn't accuse philosophers of doing this deliberately orconsciously (not surprisingly, since he doesn't hold much stock bywhat we in fact decide or become conscious of). On the other hand, a lot depends uponwhat the Reason is in your step 3. If the reason is philosophically compelling then itdoesn't matter at all whether it pre-dates the wish or not .Consider an analogy: scientist A hates scientist B. Scientist Bpublishes a paper putting forward hypothesis X. Scientist A devoutlywishes to demolish this hypothesis utterly , for no other reason thanto rub B's nose in it in front of their peers. A devises a proper experiment to test X,carries it out rigorously, finds that indeed X is false, andpublishes accordingly. Is that bad science? Well, A should...

Thought experiments of just this kindhave led many philosophers to reject consequentialism as the primarydetermination of ethical action, as I'm sure you are aware. However, even a die-hard consequentialist would likely conclude thatyour would-be assassin's action was reprehensible and had no othermoral value. Why? Because it only makes sense to talk about theconsequences of an action having moral value (or not) if they couldhave been predicted at the time. Without predictability (though ofcourse never rock solid), consequentialism would be useless as amoral compass. Therefore, unpredicted consequences are fortuitous ,but it's not meaningful to call them 'moral'. Thus also we condemnsomeone who causes harm through carelessness, claiming that he couldand should have foreseen the consequences; but we also leave room forpure accidents. Notice, however, that this is quitedifferent from saying that 'bad' intentions might have 'good'consequences. Suppose, for example, in my role as emperor of theworld,...

What a fine question! A few responses suggest themselves. 1. It is not just a case of justifying ethics, as if ethics is standing around waiting for someone to justify it. Rather, it's a case of asking what ethics is in the first place. Thus Plato's famous insistence that he's not after an example but rather the Idea. There are of course many rules we hold ourselves to, or virtues we pursue, that we call 'ethical'. The philosopher will ask 'Is this really what is meant by ethics?' Or is it just a cultural mannerism, an arbitrary law, a convention? 2. Now, in reasoning to an answer to the 'what is ethics?' question, it might be (and often is) that the answer includes a universality criterion. That is to say, part of the meaning of the ethical is that any other way of thinking about the ethical is nonsensical, or is even unethical. This might be the uniqueness of the form of the Good in Plato, the essential characterisation of human beings as rational in Aristotle, or the universalisation of the...

An excellent set of questions. What needs to be clarified first is what does it mean for a person to be an 'end' in themselves? The most common way of defining this, coming from Kant, is roughly as follows. (I am paraphrasing pp. 63ff in the Groundwork.) All actions have ends (sometime translated as ‘purposes’) – that is, all actions have something they are trying to achieve. This end is, in Kant’s language, the ground of the determination of the law of the action. Or, in other words, the end I have in mind makes my action meaningful and indeed tells me what to do in order to reach it. What is merely on the way to the end is a means. Where the end is entirely conditioned by (that is, has worth only through) incentives that may be individual to me, then Kant calls the principle of action ‘material’. Where the end is, however, of such a type that it is posited as valuable independently of any incentive I may have – where it is universality and objectively worthy – then he says the principle of...

The answer (which you won't like at all) is this: morality can be defined roughly as 'what I should do'. So, asking the question 'why should I be moral?' is equivalent to asking 'why should I do what I should do?' It answers itself, in much the same way as 'what colour is that red thing?'. Well, that's not very interesting. Much more interesting is the second version of your question: why is there moral obligation at all? That is the question which, in a hundred variations, has been worrying philosophers for thousands of years. Surprisingly, perhaps, very few philosophers have concluded by saying that there are no moral obligations whatsoever, nor any obligations remotely akin to them. (Even Nietzsche, who is often misunderstood on this point, speaks about virtues and duties as well as concepts like gift-giving and friendship.) You'll find several more satisfying answers among the responses to 'ethics' questions on this site: http://www.amherst.edu/askphilosophers/topic/Ethics

Just adding one point. A case could be built, I imagine, for saying that doing wrong in the present makes it more likely that one will do wrong in the future. Or, similarly, one will be less able to resist the temptatation to do wrong in the future. (It might even be the case that suffering a wrong in the present makes it less likely that one will commit a wrong in the future.) These claims will be very similar to Socrates' harm argument: here, doing wrong harms one's character. So, a consequentialist would reason that not only the present act, but the increased or decreased likelihood of future acts, should be taken into account. Therefore, from the point of view of my decision whether to suffer or commit a wrong, suffering would generally be preferable on the consequentialist analysis. I can see many possible holes in this argument, but it's a start.