Major Ethical Theories

The following is a brief explanation of the major ethical theories that have influenced modern thinking in the United States. The four major theories covered are: Utilitarianism: The Greatest Good Kantian Ethics: Duties and Rights Rawlsian Ethics: Justice or Fairness Aristotelian Ethics: The Virtuous Life

Utilitarianism: The Greatest Good

Utilitarianism argues that the consequences of an action make that action either moral or immoral. An action that leads to beneficial consequences is right or moral; one that leads to harmful consequences is wrong or immoral. Utilitarianism is known as a consequentialist theory. What consequences count? Utilitarianism holds that an action is morally justified to the extent that it maximizes benefits and minimizes harms or costs. Thus, the one moral thing to do in any situation is that action that can be reasonably seen to provide the greatest net benefit, when the expected costs are subtracted from the expected benefits. To do something else is to behave unethically. The more an action maximizes net costs or net harm, the more immoral it becomes. Thus, utilitarianism calls for the greatest good for the greatest number of people. But what is the "good" that we are trying to maximize? Utilitarians usually state that the greatest good means the greatest happiness. Your moral duty is to maximize human happiness and to minimize unhappiness. They back up this claim by pointing out that everybody wants to be happyit is the one universal thing that everybody desires and agrees as good. Jeremy Bentham, an 18th century English philosopher, equated happiness with pleasure and unhappiness with pain. A life of pleasure is a happy life, and a life of pain is an unhappy one. Some have objected that the good life is more than simply a life of simple pleasures. John Stuart Mill, a 19th Century utilitarian philosopher, answered this objection by making qualitative distinctions between different types of pleasures. Most utilitarians agree with Mill, and believe that happiness means a type of fulfillment that goes beyond simple pleasure. However, they insist that the goal of morality is to maximize human happiness (or human benefits) and minimize human unhappiness (or human harms, or costs). It is important to note that utilitarianism does not say that the moral action is the one that maximizes the benefits or happiness of the person doing the action. It must be the benefits and happiness of alleach person counts equally. Any attempt to use utilitarianism to justify selfish behavior at the expense of the greatest good for the whole society would be a misuse of the doctrine. Another common misconception is the belief that utilitarianism takes into account only the immediate consequences of an action. This is wrongutilitarianism clearly states that all consequences must be counted, and this includes both shortterm and long-term consequences, to the extent that these can be foreseen.

Kantian Ethics: Duties and Rights

Immanuel Kant, an 18th Century German philosopher, argued that the consequences of an action are irrelevant to a moral evaluation of that action. Instead, it is the motivation behind an action that matters. Actions that are moral are those that are undertaken out of a sense of duty, which means you do it because you know that it is "the right thing to do." How do we know what is our duty? Kant argues that this can be derived from our unique nature as human beings. As human beings we are uniquely rational in a way that all other living creatures on earth are not. We alone can reason, and our ability to reason requires us to be logical and consistent. Logic and consistency demands that we make the basic rules by which we operate into universal rules that everyone

could and should follow. If you cannot do that, you are being illogical and inconsistent, and you are being immoral, because you are not granting to other human beings the same freedom and the same status as a rational human being that you are claiming for yourself. From this Kant derives the basic rule of morality, which he calls the categorical imperative. The categorical imperative must be followed no matter what (as a category), not only if it is convenient or only if it has a certain set of consequences. It is the rule, or command, that we all must follow at all times in all places under all circumstances if we wish to act morally. Kants first formulation of the categorical imperative suggests that for you to act morally you must act in such a way that you would want the rule you are following to be a universal one that everyone should follow. For example, if you want to cheat, you have to be able to "will it" (or want it) that everyone cheats. If you want to break a promise, you must will it that everyone breaks promises. Kant would argue that you cannot will it to be the case that such actions be universally undertaken. It would be self-contradictory and impossible to actually make these into universal practices. Universal breaking of promises would undermine the very meaning of making a promise, and thus it would destroy the entire practice of promise-making, and thus it is self-contradictory. The same is true for cheating, for deceptive practices, etc. The categorical imperative is very close to the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It is not identical, because the golden rule depends on consequences unlike the categorical imperative, but the two are so close that the difference in practice is minuscule, if it exists at all. Kants second formulation of his categorical imperative highlights another aspect of it. Remember that human beings are unique among the animals. We alone have reason and, therefore, we alone are able (and required) to act rationally, making us truly free. Animals that live according to instincts are not free in the same way that we are, because they are not rational or able to use reason. As free beings, only human beings have unconditional worth, unlike mere objects, other animals, or tools. We feel free to use tools and objects with little regard to the impact on them. A tool itself has no moral claims on me, and I have not committed an immoral act if I use the tool merely as a means to accomplish some other end or purpose, and then discard it. Kant asserts that it would be immoral to treat another human being that way. If I fail to see each human being as an end-in-himself or end-in-herself, I am denying that human being the freedom that he or she has by virtue of being a rational (and therefore free) being. I have degraded that person from the status of a human being to the status of a "thing," and I have "used" them in a manner that is both immoral and contrary to the categorical imperative, since we could not will it to be the case that all human beings degrade and use each other in this manner. Therefore, Kant comes up with a second formulation of the categorical imperative which states that you must never use a person just for your own purposes. Instead, you must treat every human being as someone of independent moral worth, with an equal claim to freely decide his or her own life choices. To deny this freedom to all is to violate a fundamental duty we have to one another. It would be immoral, and it would be a violation of the first formulation of the categorical imperative since it would be impossible to will it to be the case that everyone universally "used" each other this way. Practical life would be impossible, and it would be a self-contradictory negation to further human (free, independent) life by denying a human being a free, independent life.

Rawlsian Ethics: Justice or Fairness

Justice is another important ethical standard. Justice involves protecting individual rights, or preventing an injustice to an individual. Justice also requires us to compare cases to avoid discriminating or treating people differently who are alike in relevant respects. It means treating people fairly. Aristotle, an ancient Greek philosopher (384-322 BC), divided the concept of justice into three types: 1) distributive justice, 2) retributive justice, and 3) compensatory justice. Distributive justice, perhaps the most basic kind, concerns the division of benefits and burdens among individuals. These must be distributed fairly. Retributive justice concerns what form of "retribution," or punishment, should be imposed on someone who has done wrong. When we say, "The punishment must fit the crime," we are calling for retributive justice. Finally, compensatory justice refers to what kind and amount of compensation someone should receive if they have been wronged. Again, we tend to think that

compensation should in some way be proportional to the degree of damage that has been done to them. The greater the wrong or the greater the damage, the greater should be the compensation. The 20th Century American philosopher John Rawls argued that the only way to determine what is just, or fair, is to see what would be accepted as fair by rational people considering all points of view. To remedy our tendency to see things only from our own point of view, Rawls asks what people would decide if they didnt know where they would end up in a situation. He calls this the original position, with people operating behind a veil of ignorance. Each person may end up in the most favored or privileged position, but he or she may also end up in the least favored or most underprivileged position. Not knowing where they will end up, all persons would be forced to take the viewpoint of everyone, thus arriving at a just or fair arrangement. What rules would people in the original position adopt? Rawls argues that they would be extremely careful to avoid discriminatory consequences because each person would know that he or she may end up being the one discriminated against. They would assume that their worst enemy was assigning them their final place in society. Using this perspective, they would choose two basic principles. The first supreme principle that overrides all others (known as the principle of equal liberty) states that at a societal level, the liberties of every citizen have to be protected equally, and cannot be infringed upon, even for the sake of greater overall social benefits. These include such civil liberties as freedom of speech, or religion, or beliefs and conscience, freedom from arbitrary arrest, freedom to hold personal property, etc. Applied to businesses or corporations, this principle condemns force, fraud, deception, refusal to honor valid contracts, etc. It also implies that it is unjust for a business to invade the privacy of employees, use its political and economic clout to utilize bribes or privileged political access to influence legislation, try to pressure or force managers to engage in a particular kind of political activity, etc. All of these would be an unjust denial of equal personal and political freedoms to others. Rawlss second principle has two parts, known as the difference principle and the principle of fair equality of opportunity. Both concern the circumstances under which unequal treatment would be permitted. The difference principle requires that any inequality has to benefit the least advantaged as well as those who obviously benefit from the inequality. That means that everyone must benefit from the inequality, including the person being given less. In other words, an unequal distribution of the pie can only be justified if that unequal distribution makes the pie grow so much that the person getting the least still gets more than they would have under an equal distribution. If inequality does not improve the situation of the least favored, it cannot be justified. This is what people in the original position (behind the veil of ignorance) would choose, he states, because only this difference principle will protect them if they end up being at the bottom of inequalities. The second half of Rawlss second principle, the principle of fair equality of opportunity, states that everyone has to get an equal opportunity to obtain the most privileged positions and offices in society or in a just institution. This equal opportunity principle again makes sense to people in the original position operating behind the veil of ignorance, because they want to get an equal chance at the best society or the institution has to offer, and they will not want to arbitrarily deny an opportunity to a particular group because they may turn out to be a member of that group. The principle of fair equality of opportunity obviously means that all forms of racial, sexual, nationality, and other forms of discrimination are unjust. But, it also means that everyone must be provided the same opportunities to qualify for the best jobs and positions. Everybody must be given access to the training and education necessary for success in any competition for favored employment. Any differences in outcome should stem only from differences in ability or effort. This is particularly important for those who are poorest, because they frequently face numerous conditions in life that effectively deny them equal opportunities to rise to the top.

Aristotelian Ethics: The Virtuous Life

Previous ethical theories dealt with principles or rules to govern our actions. In contrast, virtue ethics claims that the main task of ethics is to give us knowledge of what is the right type of person, or what is a good person, not to supply us with rules for what is the right type of action, or what is a good action. Virtue ethics asks: what kind of character must a person have to be a moral human being? The most famous proponent of virtue ethics was Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher. Aristotle stated that a morally virtuous person is one who constantly and habitually acts the way a human being

should. He or she displays the virtues and avoids the many vices by which we are so frequently tempted. A lifetime of virtuous living and avoidance of vice forms a morally virtuous character. For Aristotle, a moral virtue is the disposition or tendency to do the right thing and avoid doing wrong. We develop this disposition over time and through training. In other words, a good character is an achievement, not a natural endowment. Doing right becomes second nature to us, if we have developed our moral character properly. This is not something that is naturally bred into us; we must strive to achieve a virtuous character, and we do this by constantly practicing the virtues and thereby developing a good character. What exactly is a moral virtue? For Aristotle, moral virtues follow from our nature as human beings. Virtues enable human beings to act in accordance with our essence or human nature. The thing that distinguishes humans from all other creatures is our ability to reason. Therefore, the virtues are those traits or characteristics that enable us to act according to reason. We must act in a reasonable fashion. We act in a reasonable fashion when we choose to act in a way that neither goes to excess nor deficiency. Excess and deficiency always designate a vice. The middle ground, neither going too far or not far enough, is where virtue lies. Thus, virtue is a golden mean between the vice of deficiency and the vice of excess. A person who leads a life of moderation, avoiding deficiencies and excesses, leads a virtuous life, and therefore will be happy or fulfilled in his or her life. This is the best that human beings can be to live according to the virtuous middle path between the errors or vices of going too far or not going far enough. The four fundamental moral virtues according to Aristotle are courage, temperance, justice and prudence. Courage is the golden mean between the vices of cowardice (deficiency) and recklessness or foolhardiness (excess). A courageous person shows just the right amount of bravery and displays a virtuous character. The coward has too little bravery; a reckless individual has too much. Only reason can tell us what is exactly the right amount of bravery, and once it does, a person must practice and develop the virtue of courage so that acting courageously becomes habitual. Regarding the desire for food and other bodily pleasures, the virtue is temperance. Temperance is the golden mean between gluttony (excess) and extreme self-denial, sometimes called asceticism or austerity (deficiency). Virtuous men or women, according to Aristotle, will neither over-indulge nor deny themselves the bodily pleasures that come from things like good food and drink. Missing the mark and going to either excess or self-denial makes one a less happy, less fulfilled human being. Both lead to a less virtuous life. Justice is the virtue of giving other people exactly what they deserve, neither more nor less. It is the golden mean between two forms of injustice: either giving them less than they deserve, or giving them more than they deserve. Aristotle would say that only reason can tell us what is just, and only constant practice in treating others justly can build a virtuous character, so that we habitually treat others in a just manner. Prudence, or wisdom, is the virtue that helps us to know what is reasonable in different situations. It is an extremely important virtue, because it enables us to avoid excess and deficiency in other areas, and thus is fundamental to avoiding a life of vice and immorality. Only a prudent or wise person will know how to avoid extremes. Imprudence is the vice in opposition to prudence, and it can err in both directions. It is possible to imprudently or unwisely over-do (or under-do) virtually any action, emotion, or desire. An imprudent or unwise person then becomes a slave to his or her emotions or desires and misses the mark of moderation, thereby living a life of vice. There are numerous other virtues that could be mentioned, although the four mentioned above are the most central ones to Aristotle. Additional moral virtues include: trustworthiness, honesty, generosity, civility, sincerity, gentleness, reliability, warmth, dependability, cooperativeness, empathy, tact, kindness, tolerance, benevolence, etc. There is rather widespread agreement across many differing cultures and religions on a number of basic virtues and vices. Virtually no one, for instance, finds cruelty, arrogance, injustice, cowardice, self-centeredness, dishonesty, insensitivity, etc., to be virtues.