Topics Ethics

Question From reading these pages I can tell all the contributing philosophers are decent and moral folk - anti-racist, feminist, compassionate, well-meaning, etc. but my question is, why should you be, especially if you hold no truck with an afterlife? Why not act immorally if you can get away with it and avoid jail and it is to your personal benefit? Does not behaving morally presuppose moral absolutes which I thought modern philosophy had done away with? I read an argument where ethical differences were described as being in the same boat only some get seasick and some don't (Alisdair MacIntyre) but again this is presupposing that philosophers all agree everyone should be "good". Why not be bad? Or is it all about tenure? (joke!)

Accepted:
December 11, 2008

Comments

Why not act immorally? How about because it would be wrong?

You seem to be asking for a selfish reason why philosophers (or anyone else) wouldn't act immorally. But it's a mark of the moral that what morality calls for doesn't always suit our selfish purposes.

Maybe we need a little more specificity. Suppose I was in a position to steal someone's wallet -- say yours -- without getting caught. Why wouldn't I do it? How about because it would cause you a lot of trouble, I wouldn't want anyone doing something like that to me, and in light of that, I can't think of any reason why it would be okay to do it to you. Why won't that do?

The phrase "moral absolutes" means both too much and too little to be a useful analytic tool. And it's really hard to make generalizations aboout "modern philosophy." In any case, moral skepticism isn't as widespread among philosophers as you seem to think. Most philosophers, I'd guess -- like most people -- think that some things are wrong, and they don't need further reasons not to do them.

If you're still inclined to moral skepticism, then this isn't likely to persuade you. But in the game of burden tennis, it's not obvious that the advantage goes to the skeptic.