Ethics

How do we know that what is morally right and wrong is actually supposed to be right or wrong? Was there actually any intent for what is to be good or bad? -Tom Simmons (age 13)

Comments

I think there will be different answers to your question, depending upon what kinds of examples you specify. But as a general rule of thumb, I would be inclined to say that for the most part, we don't necessarily know what is right and what is wrong--we have to use our judgment about this, and human judgment, as I suppose you already realize, can be very fallible and faulty. But just because we don't know something, it doesn't mean that we should just give up or not try--questions of right and wrong are really, really important ones, and so we need to try and do our best when we make these kinds of judgments.

The way we philosophers try to do our best is to consult with the main theories and explanations of right and wrong that very smart and thoughtful people have offered and then think about how those theories apply to the cases we have to judge.

So let me give you three different sorts of theories (and these are not the only ones, but they are commonly regarded as three of the main ones), just to give you an idea of how this works:

(1) Consequentialism. In a consequentialist view, you try to figure out what sorts of consequences are desirable, and what sorts are undesirable. Then, you consider what courses of action are avilable to you, and do your best to forecast all of the foreseeable results that are relevant to the desirable and undesirable outcomes. The best decision will be the one that seems most likely to bring about the better results, and least likely to bring about the worse results, taking everything you can foresee into account.

(2) Deontology. A deontological view is one that tries to understand rightness and wrongness by some basic rule that we would be prepared to adopt just in principle. So, for example, Immanuel Kant proposed what he called the "categorical imperative": "Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." In other words, your act will be moral just in case it is a kind of act that you would have everyone follow always (even if they were acting on you!).

(3) Virtue theory. In this view, you think about what a truly excellent human being would be like, and you try to model yourself after that person in how you act--and even, to the extent that you can, in the ways you think and feel.

These different theories, however, sometimes would lead you in different directions, and when they do, you are back to trying to use your own judgment as well as you possibly can, by trying to figure out all of the relevant issues at stake. So even if you do learn these theories very well...you still can't know that what you decide to do is right or wrong, in many cases. But there are lots of things we don't know and yet have to take appropriate action. We can't always know what is going to happen when we go driving in a car, right? But some drivers are still good drivers (and some, not so good!), because they learn what they need to learn to handle a car, and then they drive alertly and cautiously at all times.

The same is true to judging right and wrong. Alert (to the alternatives and the relevant issues) and cautious (don't think you know something when you don't--awareness of your own limitations will make someone more cautious and probably more thoughtful when they do make a judgment. But we all do have to make such judgments a lot of the time. So the aim is to make them as well as we can, even when we aren't in a position to know.

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