A Unied Theory of Ethics!

Ahmad 1

Rashed Ahmad

A Unied Theory of Ethics!

Ahmad 2

A Unified Theory of Ethics

Abstract: In this essay, I argue that by unifying utilitarianism, negative utilitarianism, Kants second formulation of the categorical imperative, and sentientism, we can come up with a moral theory, a unified theory of ethics, which solves the objections that these other theories have. I provide possible objections, and I show how they could be solved by this proposed theory. However, this theory does not command or oblige anyone to follow it because, as I explain, there is no free will and there are no obligations; this theory simply explains how we can know what is morally right and what is morally wrong. This theory also does not acknowledge intentions because, as I show, intentions do not matter to what the action really caused. This unified theory of ethics has a clear flowchart that makes it easy to know whether the action is morally right or morally wrong.

The following is an explanation of the questions that are on the flowchart. 1st question: Will the action use a sentient being (X) merely as a means to an end? X refers to the sentient being that is being used as a means to an end. This means that one is using a sentient being against his/her/its interests, including the interest of avoiding pain and death. By sentient being, I mean any individual that is conscious or at least can feel pain. 2nd question: Will the action save any sentient being(s) from harm? By any sentient beings, I mean other than (X). Harm includes suffering, injury, or death.

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3rd question: Is the sentient being (X) that is being used a threat to society (i.e., other sentient beings) if the action was not taken? One must first acknowledge the difference between a real threat and what one believes as a threat. Here, threat means a real threat. It does not matter what you believe or feel; what matters is what actually is a threat. In other words, the sentient being (X) will cause danger, harm (possibly including death), or injury. 4th question: Will the action that uses sentient being (X) decrease the threat level to society that is caused by (X)? The word society here includes other sentient beings. 5th question: Is there another action that could be taken that causes a lower amount of harm to that sentient being (X) than this action? 6th question: Will this action decrease overall well-being? By overall, I mean taking every sentient being into account. By well-being, I mean the state of health, happiness, pleasure, selffulllment, etc. 7th question: Will this action increase overall well-being?

The proposed unified theory of ethics combines utilitarianism, negative utilitarianism, Kants second formulation of the categorical imperative, and sentientism. This theory goes through a series of structured questions to figure out whether an action is morally right or wrong. It starts with the question, Will the action use a sentient being merely as a means to an end? It is rather obvious that this question combines Kants second formulation with sentientism. The reason sentient beings are included is because of the assumption that all sentient beings have an interest in avoiding pain and there is no sufficient reason to differentiate non-humans from

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human beings. There are two sides to these structured questions. Depending on the answer to that question, one can then go to another question. On the first side, if it were answered, Yes, the action will use a sentient being (X) merely as a means to an end, then the next question will be, Will the action save a sentient being, other than (X), from harm? The reason I mentioned Other than (X) is that if the action saves (X) from harm, then one would not be using (X) merely as a means to an end in the first place, which would take us to the other side of the flowchart. If the answer to the previous question is No, then the action is morally wrong. However, if the answer is Yes, then one should ask, If the action was not taken, will the sentient being (X), that is being used merely as a means to an end be a threat (be dangerous) to society? Again, if the answer is No, then it is morally wrong because every sentient being has an interest, and there is no sufficient reason to use the being merely as a means to an end. Nonetheless, if the answer to the previous question is Yes, then another question arises: Will this action decrease the threat level (dangerousness) to society that is caused by X? Once again, if not, then there is no good reason for using that being as merely a means, and, therefore, the action in question is morally wrong. If the answer is Yes, then it will take us to our last question on the first side. One should ask, Is there another action could be taken that causes a lower amount of harm to that sentient being (X) than this action? If the answer is Yes, there is another action that could be taken. then it would be morally wrong to take the original action because one could act to cause a lesser amount of suffering. This might show the importance of negative utilitarianism. However, if the answer is No, this is the most efficient (i.e., causing the least amount of suffering) way to do it. then it is a morally right thing to do.

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On the other side, if the answer to the first question, Will the action use a sentient being merely as a means to an end? is No, then we ask the two utilitarian questions. First, Will it decrease overall well-being? If yes, then it is morally wrong. If the answer is No, then one should ask one last question, Will it increase overall well-being? If the answer is Yes, then the action is morally right. If the answer is No, then the action has no effect, and as a result, it is neither morally right nor morally wrong. This theory does not command everyone to follow it. It does not oblige any being to go by the rules, but rather it explains what is morally right and what is morally wrong. This theory also does not acknowledge intentions because intentions do not matter concerning what the action really causes. If X intended to scare Y to promote laughter but that action made Y have a heart attack and die, then the action was morally wrong even if X did not intend to do such a thing. In the next paragraphs, I present some moral theories and how this theory answers the objections against them, and I also explain why the theory does not command and why intentions do not matter.

Kants Formulations of the Categorical Imperative Kants second formulation of the categorical imperative is Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means to an end (Kant, 36). There are two problems with this theory. First, it ignores sentient beings that are not humans. As Peter Singer puts it, If a being suffers, there can be no moral justication for refusing to take that suffering into

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consideration (Singer, Equality, 325). Singer goes further by explaining that preferring humans over other sentient beings would make the person who gives preference to humans over non-humans no different from racists: Pain is pain, and the extent to which it is intrinsically bad depends on factors like its duration and intensity, not on the species of the being who experiences it. Hence there is no justiable basis for drawing the boundary of value around our own species. To do so is to give preference to the interests of members of one's own species, simply because they are members of one's own species. This is speciesism, a moral failing that is parallel to racism, because it attempts to put a morally crucial divide in a place that is not justied on any basis other than a preference for us over them. To put it another way, if we are prepared to defend practices based on disregarding the interests of members of other species because they are not members of our own group, how are we to object to those who wish to disregard the interests of members of other races because they are also not members of our own group? [Singer, Environmental, 332]
There is no rational justication to prefer Homo sapiens over other sentient beings.

However, my theory acknowledges that problem and takes sentient beings into moral considerations. Does that mean we should ban eating sentient animals? While it is wrong to kill sentient animals that pose no threat to community, this theory does not claim that we should ban eating sentient animals since the word should implies obligations, and as I explain later in this paper, there cannot be any obligations.
The second problem with Kants second formulation is that it presumes that we have free

will. Although I do not think we have free will, I will assume that we do for this arguments sake.

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If we have free will, then that means we can choose what to do. However, we cannot choose our desires, since they are determined. This means we do not have an ultimate free will. In Schopenhauers words, A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants (Schopenhauer, quoted in Einstein, 9). Furthermore, every action is motivated by a desire. By using a valid form of a categorical syllogism, we can conclude that every action is determined. To clarify, I put this claim in symbolic form: T = is determined. D = comes from a desire. C = is a choice. 1. (x) (Cx > Dx) (all choices are from desires). 2. (x) (Dx > Tx) (all desires are determined). 3. Therefore: (x) (Cx > Tx) (therefore, all choices are determined. Note: this argument can also be put in the form of a chain argument). Moreover, a recent experiment in neuroscience showed that the experimenters were able to know, with an accuracy greater than 80%, what choice a subject would make before the subject becomes aware of her choice by 700 milliseconds (Fried). Since the subject can be aware only after thoughts arise, the subject cannot be said to be deliberately causing any of her thoughts to arise. Ergo, one does not freely will anything at all. In case there are doubts concerning the previous line of reasoning, I present it here in symbolic form: T = Thoughts arise before one becomes aware of them. D = One deliberately causes ones thought. F = One has free will.

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1. T 2. T > ~D 3. D <=> F 4. ~D 5. F > D 6. ~F

Premise 1 (Frieds experiment). Premise 2 (by definition). Premise 3 (by definition). 1, 2 (modus ponens). 3 equivalence. 4, 5 (modus tollens). Because there is no free will, Kants second formulation cannot be valid since it starts by

presuming that we do have free will. Moreover, even his first formulation of the categorical imperative, Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law without contradiction (Kant, 30), presumes that we have free will, and it commands people to act in such a way. On the other hand, my theory does not command anyone. It just explains what is morally right and what is morally wrong. Moreover, this is the reason why there are no obligations. If there are obligations, O, then the theory can command people to follow it, C. Also, the theory can command people to follow it if and only if there is free will, F. However, we do not have free will. As a result, the theory cannot command people to follow it. By modus tollens, there are no obligations: 1. O > C Premise 1.

2. C <=> F Premise 2. 3. ~F 4. C > F 5. ~C 6. ~O Premise 3. 2 equivalence. 3, 4 (modus tollens). 1, 5 (modus tollens).

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Also, as a result from assuming that we have free will, Kant believes that we should

punish wrongdoers for the sake of retribution. Since my theory does not include free will, it asks only for rehabilitation with the least amount of suffering. For example, we put someone in prison for killing another person until we make sure he is socially corrected. According to my theory, giving that person a death penalty would be morally wrong because there is another action that can be done that causes less suffering. Furthermore, for instance, assume that we nd a pill that can make that person to be socially corrected; then even putting that person in prison would be morally wrong. The question might be raised, Why am I even trying to explain morality when there is no free will or obligation? As Francis Bacon once said, Scientia potentia est (Bacon, quoted in Stern, 283), or Knowledge is power. I am explaining what a socially healthy society could be like. Even though there are no obligations, I hope this theory becomes a bigger part of a causal chain. Knowing what is right and what is wrong can in fact change our actions. Changing ones beliefs can change ones behaviors.

Objections to Utilitarianism The first objection to utilitarianism is an objection that shows how we can violate someones rights in order to increase overall well-being. The example goes as following: Suppose that a surgeon is presented with a poor, homeless, unemployed person with no relatives, someone whose existence produces little if any benefit for anyone, but who is a perfect tissue match for four brilliant, productive individuals who produce great good for society and have large families that depend on them, and are all going to die soon unless they receive four different organ transplants.

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According to utilitarianism, the surgeon would be morally obligated to murder the poor person and harvest his organs to save the other four: there is no question that humanity as a whole would be better off if she were to do that than if the poor person were allowed to live and the other four condemned to die. But there must be something seriously wrong with a theory that says it is our duty to violate an innocent person's right to life. [Anderson] Utilitarianism will have problems with this objection. However, this theory has nothing to do with duty. Also, since this situation will require using a sentient being as a means to an end and that person is not a threat on society, it is morally wrong to do such thing. Furthermore, suppose the one who is being used as a means to an end is, in fact, a threat to society. Would it then be justified in killing that person for the sake of saving other patients? Even though it will decrease the threat level caused by that person, it is still not justified. The reason it is not justified is that there is another action that could lower the threat level and cause a lesser harm towards the one being used. Another objection or criticism is the trolly dilemma, which was developed by Philippa Foot. The dilemma goes as follows: Suppose there is a trolly heading towards 5 people. However, you can flip a switch, and the trolly will head towards one person. all the people are too far to be alerted. Would you flip the switch? Alternatively, in another scenario, you can push a person who is sufficiently overweight to stop the trolly from killing 5 people in front of the runaway trolley. Would you push the overweight person to his death? To utilitarianism, it might be a dilemma because if one decided to flip the switch or, in the other scenario, push the overweight person, then one would have committed murder and

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violated human right in order to promote overall well-being. Nevertheless, my theory will find no problems with this so-called dilemma. Any action that will be taken will be morally wrong. Therefore, the best thing to do is not to be wrong and refrain from taking action. In other words, one cannot do something morally wrong if one has done nothing. Similarly, assume there is child drowning. If one just stands there and does nothing, then can we say that what the bystander has done is morally wrong? I do not think so. It would definitely be morally right to save the child, but it will not be morally wrong to do nothing about it. Emotionally, one would want to conclude that it is wrong to leave the child drowning. It is certainly not good to let the child drown but not wrong as well. Rationally, the one who was standing by did not use a sentient being as a means to an end and did not cause a decrease in the overall well-being. Ergo, unless one is obligated or has free will, we cannot say one did something morally wrong. To clarify, I will give an example that might evoke fewer emotions than the previous one. Assume there were two persons fighting to the death and a third person who had nothing to do with the fight was standing there and watching. Can we then say that the person who is watching the fight is doing something morally wrong? One would be doing the right thing if one stops the fight, but since that person cause of the fight, then that person did not do anything wrong. Our intuitions sometimes mislead us and make us want to assert fault when there is none. Another objection to utilitarianism is that it is hard to predict the consequences of an action. In some cases, it would be hard to calculate the consequences, but that does not mean right and wrong do not exist. The proposed theory can help people make better decisions depending on how good someones predictions. Even though the proposed theory gives guidance on how one could act, this is not the purpose of the theory. The purpose of the theory is to give

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an explanation of what is morally right and what is morally wrong regardless of intentions and the ability to calculate whether the outcome of an action is right or wrong. However, if one honestly said that she will go to the mall later today, but something happened and she could not go, then would it be morally wrong? Does intention matter here? The thing is, she was not lying but saying what she was expecting to do later. The action still matters. Nonetheless, the difference between lying and this action is that one is using a sentient being as merely a means to an end, and the other is not. Also, because it is something happening in the future, she was telling the truth about her anticipated actions, and that is what she was expecting. Even though she did not mention the word expecting, it was rather implied. In a conversation about this proposed theory with one of my professors, he asked me what if there was a sniper who was trying to shoot a president of a poor country. However, the sniper accidentally shot somewhere near the president, and oil came out from that place, and this enriched the general population. Was it morally wrong? I would say, No, it was not. and the reason is that, first, the sniper did not use the president as merely a means to an end, even though he tried. Second, he increased overall well-being. However, arresting the sniper might be justified as a morally right thing to do because he might be a threat to society, according to my theory. Intentions do matter in a sense that every single cause and effect matters. In that sense, every particle since the big bang and whatever was before that matters. Just as we should not consider a cause that happened a thousand years ago, we should also not take intentions into considerations when we want to know whether the action was morally wrong or right. Intention and previous conditions are all parts of the effect or the action, but what really matters is the

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action itself. Nonetheless, intentions do matter when we have to apply rehabilitation to a person. This means that if one was intentionally using innocent sentient beings as merely means to an end and increasing overall suffering, then this person is a threat to society. It would be morally right to rehabilitate that person. On the other hand, if the same action was done but the person did not intend it, then it would still be a morally wrong action but that person might not need rehabilitating because she might not be a threat to society. Moreover, no one can know the intentions of anyone else besides oneself. Even then, one cannot always be sure about ones intentions. Furthermore, having intentions implies that we can deliberately choose them, and this presupposes that we have free will, and that brings us to a bigger problem.

Objection to Negative Utilitarianism One of the most famous criticism to negative utilitarianism was presented by R. N. Smart. His argument goes as follows: Suppose that a ruler controls a weapon capable of instantly and painlessly destroying the human race. Now it is empirically certain that there would be some suffering before all those alive on any proposed destruction day were to die in the natural course of events. Consequently the use of the weapon is bound to diminish suffering, and would be the rulers duty on NU [negative utilitarianism] grounds. [542]. If one destroyed the world, then one would have used sentient beings merely as means. Since he used innocent sentient beings that are not dangerous, this action would be considered morally wrong according to the proposed theory. However, for the sake of the argument, let us

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assume that everyone is a threat to another if threat is used loosely and everyone is competing with others for resources. Even if threat were used loosely, it would still be morally wrong to destroy the world since there are other actions that could be taken to lower the threat level and be less harmful to all sentient beings, for example, lowering the reproduction rate (not forcibly), or increasing agriculture (without using sentient being as a means to an end). There are many ways to decrease the threat level dramatically without causing any harm towards sentient beings. Furthermore, when I used the word threat in my flowchart, I mean direct threats conducted by sentient beings such as killing, torturing, causing injury, inflicting unwanted pain, etc.

Other Possible Objections One of the possible objections could be that the proposed theory cannot be proven to be a correct theory by using logic. However, this is not true. It might be hard to prove it logically, but it is not impossible. Just as we can prove that morality is objective, we can do the same within objective moral theories. The argument goes as the following: Either subjectivism or relativism is correct, or moral objectivity must be correct. Neither subjectivism nor relativism can be correct. Therefore, moral objectivity must be correct. (Anderson) The reason that subjectivism and relativism cannot be correct is because both of these theories are self-contradicting theories. An example of how subjectivism can be a selfcontradictory concept is the following: assume Jack says he believes that abortion is wrong. The previous statement is equivalent to saying that he thinks that the statement Abortion is wrong. is more likely to be true than Abortion is not wrong. If Jack is a subjectivist, he would say that Abortion is wrong. and Abortion is not wrong. are equally correct. However, according to

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logic, either P or not-P can be true but not both. Subjectivism would break that rule by saying both are true, which is logically impossible. The same thing is true for relativism; it argues that there is no universal law, but it commands tolerance towards other cultures, which is a universal law (Anderson). There are other problems with subjectivist or relativistic theories, but my point is that we can argue the same way by saying that either the proposed objective moral theory presented here is correct or one of the other objective moral theories is correct. It cannot be one of the other objective moral theories because they have some flaws in them. Therefore, the proposed theory must be the correct theory. However, if this theory is found to have a serious flaw in it, then we should look for another theory. If we cannot find any flaws in it, then there is a high possibility that this theory is the correct moral theory or the most accurate theory. Another possible objection is stated as the follows: A theory that requires us to calculate all the consequences of an action for all the people who might eventually be affected by it, and then to do the same for every alternative action, would paralyze us with indecision. We would have to do so much research and calculation in order to do the right thing that we would never be able to act at all (Anderson). This so-called objection could be argued against all moral theories, not just consequential theories. In any moral theory, if you really care about doing the right thing, then you will have to think before taking an action. Nevertheless, since this theory is presented in a flowchart, it will be easily memorized and applied. With little practice, one will be able to take action with just a few seconds of thinking. Also, how we want reality to be has nothing to do with how it really is. It might be true that it is difficult to calculate, but that does not mean it does not give us the right

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answers. Physics is hard for many people and requires a lot of calculating; however, it tells us how the world works. Just as the physical world will not change because someone does not understand physics, there is an objective morality whether anyone understands it and can make use of it or not. In conclusion, by unifying utilitarianism, negative utilitarianism, Kants second formulation of the categorical imperative, and sentientism, we can come up with a moral theory that solves the objections that these others theories have. The unified theory of ethics does not command or oblige anyone to follow it since there is no free will, but it simply explains how we can know what is right and what is wrong. Even though it does not command anyone to follow it, it still can affect peoples choices by being part of causal chain of their actions. This theory could be easily explained through logic and it has a clear flowchart that makes it easy to know whether the action is right or wrong.

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Works Cited Anderson, James. "Jim Andersons Home Page" 24 Dec. 2011. Web. 31 Jan. 2012. <http:// www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~janderso>.

Einstein, Albert, and Carl Seelig. Ideas and Opinions. New York: Crown Trade Paperbacks, 1995.

Fried, Itzhak, Roy Mukamel, and Gabriel Kreiman. "Nternally Generated Preactivation of Single Neurons in Human Medial Frontal Cortex Predicts Volition." Neuron 69.3 (2011): 548-62

Kant, Immanuel. Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, 3rd ed., translated by James W. Ellington. Indianapolis: Hackett, [1785] 1993.

Singer, Peter. Equality for Animals? In Environmental Ethics: Divergence and Convergence. ed. Susan J Armstrong. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2004. Print. Pages 323-330.

Singer, Peter. Environmental Values In Environmental Ethics: Divergence and Convergence. ed. Susan J Armstrong. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2004. Print. Pages 330-336.

Smart, R. "Negative Utilitarianism."Mind, New Series, 67.268 (1958): 542-543.

Stern, Alfred. "Science and the Philosopher." American Scientist, 44.3 (1956): 281-295.