Ethics

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Contents
Introduction x
9
Chapter 1: Normative Ethics:
Eudaemonism and
Consequentialism 1
Eudaemonism 1
The Ethics of Plato 2
The Ethics of Aristotle 10
Soul 11
Stoicism 15
Logos 24
Consequentialism 27
Epicureanism 29
Utilitarianism 38
Chapter 2: Normative Ethics:

Contractualism, Deontology,
Feminism, and Egoism 51
Contractualism 51
Thomas Hobbes 52
John Locke 56
Jean-Jacques Rousseau 61 81
John Rawls 66
Deontology 69
The Ethics of Immanuel Kant 71
Natural-Rights Theory 73 93
Divine Right of Kings 75
Libertarianism 84
Feminism 89
The Nature and Scope of
Philosophical Feminism 90
Feminist Ethics 93
Moral Psychology 94
Feminist Social and Political
Philosophy 95
Ethical Egoism 98
107 Egoist Doctrines 98
Ayn Rand 99
Chapter 3: Metaethics 102

Moral Realism and Antirealism 104
Ethical Relativism 106
Arguments for Ethical
Relativism 106
Cultural Anthropology 108
Ethical Relativism and
Postmodernism 109
Criticisms of Ethical
119 Relativism 111
The Problem of Moral
Responsibility 114
Freedom and Responsibility 114
Determinism 116
Libertarianism 117
Compatibilism 120
Continuity and Change 127
Evolutionary Ethics 128
Social Darwinism 129
Chapter 4: Applied Ethics 134

136 Bioethics 135
Definition and
Development 135
Issues in Bioethics 137
Approaches 143
The Significance of Public
Attitudes 146
Policy Making 147
Global Bioethics 147
Animal Rights 148
Historical Background: 159
Vegetarianism from Antiquity to
the Present 148
Philosophical Background 153
Animals and the Law 154
The Modern Animal Rights
Movement 156
Speciesism 160
Environmental Ethics 161
Anthropocentric Schools of
Thought 163
Biocentric Schools of Thought 165
Pacifism 167 166
Early Religious and Philosophical
Movements 169
Political Influences 170
Arguments for and Against
Pacifism 172
Types of Pacifism 173
Conscientious Objector 174
Conclusion 175
Glossary 177
Bibliography 180
Index 183
Introduction
Introduction
E thics is the philosophical study of morality. For most

of its history, it has been occupied with two main
tasks: to discover what moral qualities such as right
and wrong, good and bad consist ofwhat it means to
say that an action is right, that a thing or event is bad,
and so onand to investigate certain broader questions
regarding the nature and scope of morality and moral
judgments. Such general questions have included, for
example, whether moral judgments are statements of
fact or merely expressions of feeling or attitude; how
moral facts, if they exist, can be known; whether a single
morality can be valid for all people in all societies at all
times; how to reconcile the practice of moral praise and
blame with the apparent fact that every human action is
causally determined; and whether there is a compelling
reason to behave morally at all times, even in situations in
which one has something to gainand nothing to lose
by behaving immorally. The first task is the province of
what is called normative ethics, the philosophical study
of moral norms or standards, the second that of theo-
retical ethics, or metaethics. A third and more recent
field, consisting of the application of normative ethical
theories to practical problems, is appropriately known as
applied ethics.
Among normative-ethical theories, the most influential
belong to one of four broad types: consequentialist, deonto-
logical, contractual, and eudaemonistic. Consequentialist
theories have in common the view that the rightness or
wrongness of an action depends solely on its consequences.
Typically, such theories claim that an action is right if it
Ethics pertains to animals as well as humans, particularly given the viloent

abuse of animals in modern society. Dimitri Vervitsiotis/Photographers
Choice/Getty Images
ix
7 Thinkers and Theories in Ethics 7
produces a maximum amount of good or a minimum

amount of bad, and wrong if it does otherwise. Other
varieties of consequentialism recognize gradations of
rightness and wrongness, so that one action may be mor-
ally better (or worse) than another to the extent that it
produces more (or less) good, or less (or more) bad. Some
consequentialists, such as Jeremy Bentham (17481832)
and John Stuart Mill (180673), have identified the good
with pleasure or happiness, narrowly or broadly construed,
and the bad with pain or unhappiness. Others have con-
ceived of the good more generally as the satisfaction of
desires and the bad as the frustration of desiresthe right
action then being the one that creates the most desire
satisfaction or the least desire frustration. Still other
consequentialistsnotably G.E. Moore (18731958)
have recognized a plurality of goods to be maximized or
increased, including, in addition to pleasure and happi-
ness, beauty, knowledge, freedom, and friendship.
Deontological ethical theories hold that the right-
ness or wrongness of an action is determined, primarily or
exclusively, by whether it is consistent with a given moral
rule or principle. Consequences are of secondary impor-
tance or of no importance at all. The rule in question may
apply primarily to the person who performs the action
(the agent), such as do not lie, or to the person whom
the action affects (the patient), such as no person should
be used for anothers benefit without his or her consent.
Rules of the former sort are usually understood to express
a duty or obligation of the agent, and rules of the latter
sort to express a right of the patient (in this case a right
to a certain measure of autonomy or a right not to be used
against ones will). The foremost representative of deon-
tological ethics remains Immanuel Kant (17241804).
Some philosophers treat contractualist theories as a
subspecies of deontology, insofar as such theories tend to
x
Introduction
emphasize rules or principles rather than consequences.

According to some versions of contractualismfor
example, that of Thomas Hobbes (15881679)an action
is right if it is consistent with a rule that each person would
agree to observe on the condition that everyone else does
the same. Other versionsfor example, that of John Rawls
(19212002)hold that the rule must be one that each
person would accept or prefer in an ideal set of decision-
making circumstancesone in which the person is, among
other things, rational, informed of the relevant facts, clear-
headed, and not mentally or emotionally disturbed.
Finally, eudaemonism, the most ancient type of nor-
mative ethical theory, is distinct from the other types
insofar as it is concerned with understanding the good
life, in the broadest sense of that term, and with iden-
tifying what is necessary for and constitutive of that life,
especially including good traits of character, or virtues.
Epitomized in the ethics of Plato (c. 428348 BCE) and
Aristotle (384322 BCE), eudaemonism was the dominant
form of nonreligious ethical theory until the 17th century,
when it was eclipsed by contractualism and later by con-
sequentialism. Since its revival in the mid-20th century,
it has been better known as virtue theory, a name that
justly reflects the modern versions greater emphasis on
virtue and character over the good life per se.
It is significant that since the end of the ancient period
in the history of Western philosophy (c. 500 CE) there
has never been a time during which one of these types
of theory was dominant. This is partly because each type
is general enough to admit numerous variations through
which potential objections may be overcome. Perhaps
more importantly, it is also because each type seems able
to capture moral intuitions that the others have trouble
accounting for; each reflects important aspects of moral
thinking and experience that the others seem to neglect.
xi
This fact is especially evident in the contrast between

consequentialism and deontology. In ordinary moral
decision-making, sometimes the consequences of an action
seem the most important factor to weigh, and sometimes
ones duties or anothers rights seem most important. This is
true even in cases in which the two considerations coincide
that is, they recommend the same course of action. When
the considerations do conflict, however, it may be unclear
which should take precedence. In truth, most people have
both consequentialist and deontological moral intuitions.
The greatest challenge to proponents of both types of the-
ory, therefore, is to make revisions or elaborations that are
significant enough to account for problematic moral intu-
itions but not so significant that they rob the theory of its
basic character as consequentialist or deontological.
Much of the modern history of each type of theory can
be understood as a series of refinements made in response
to objections from the other types. A conventional criti-
cism of consequentialism, for example, is that it permits
unjustly inflicting a great deal of bad upon one person (or
a few people) in cases when doing so would produce a max-
imum (or a greater) amount of good for everyone else. A
standard type of example is that of a person in a small town
who is falsely accused of murder. A judge with the power to
pronounce innocence or guilt knows that the defendant is
innocent but cannot convince the townspeople, who have
gathered in a mob to demand an execution. Surely the judge
should not declare the defendant guilty just to satisfy the
mob, but consequentialism seems to recommend that he
should. In contrast, deontology can account for this intu-
ition by positing a rule that the judges action would violate,
such as do not facilitate the killing of innocent people.
Many consequentialists have responded to this objec-
tion by claiming that it does not take into account the full
range of consequences of the judges action, among which
xii
Introduction
would be that, from then on, many people in the town

would live in constant fear of being falsely accused. Such
a response is weak, however, because it is always possible
to imagine circumstances in which whatever the good is
created for the mob far outweighs the bad created for the
fearful townspeople.
Other consequentialists have held that such cases show
the need for an innovation in their theory. They have pro-
posed that what makes an action right or wrong is whether
it accords with a moral rule, and what justifies a moral rule
is the fact that its general adoption would produce a greater
amount of good than would the general adoption of some
other rule. Presumably, this criterion would justify a rule
such as do not facilitate the killing of innocent people, so
the judge should not declare the defendant guilty.
One problem with this refinement, however, is that
it is not clear that there can be a principled distinction
between consequentialism as applied to rules and conse-
quentialism as applied to actions. As the example of the
judge and the mob illustrates, for almost any rule the
consequentialist may propose, it is possible to imagine a
case in which following it would have worse consequences
than not following it. If this were true, a rule that made
an exception for just that case would have better con-
sequences, if it were generally adopted, than a rule that
made no exceptions. But if a rule that made one exception
would have better consequences than a rule that made
none, a rule that made all possible exceptions would have
the best consequences of all. The problem is that follow-
ing such a super-qualified rule would be no different from
judging each action on the basis its own consequences.
Rule consequentialism thus collapses into act conse-
quentialism, and the original objection retains its force.
Examples of the judge-and-mob type seem to favour a
deontological approach. However, deontological theories
xiii
also face serious difficulties. Suppose, for example, that it

were possible to save the lives of several million people by
killing only one innocent person: the all-consuming love
interest of a murderous dictator, who is likely to give up
his plans of world domination if the object of his affec-
tions is removed. A deontological theory that contains the
rule do not facilitate the killing of innocent people (or,
more directly, do not kill the innocent) would thus entail
that in some cases people have a duty to bring about suf-
fering on a catastrophic scale. Many people find this kind
of commitment strongly counterintuitive.
One possible deontological response relies on dis-
tinguishing between the moral status of the act and the
moral status of the agent. Although the act of killing the
dictators love interest is wrong, the agent is praisewor-
thy because of the good consequences the killing brings
about. Some critics of deontology, however, have argued
that this response evades the issue.
A closely related problem for deontology is that, in real
life, moral rules often conflict with each other. Another
standard example is that of a person in a Nazi-occupied
country who is hiding Jews in his attic. He is arrested, and
at one point his interrogator asks him whether he is hiding
Jews. Here the rule do not facilitate the killing of innocent
people conflicts with the rule do not lie. How is one to
know which rule takes precedence? The deontologist may
choose to follow the rule that results in the best conse-
quences, but then his or her theory would begin to sound
like rule-consequentialism. The act-consequentialist, in
contrast, can easily account for the intuition that the per-
son being interrogated should lie.
How would contractualist and eudaemonistic theories
handle such cases? Consider the variety of contractualism
according to which the rule that applies is the one that each
person would accept if he or she were perfectly rational,
xiv
Introduction
informed of the relevant facts, and so on. Presumably,

people in such circumstances would accept a rule such as
do not lie. But they would also accept do not facilitate
the killing of innocent people. If they accept both, how
are cases of conflict to be resolved? Perhaps such people
would accept a meta-rule that states: a rule takes prece-
dence if following it would have the best consequences.
But then the contractualist, like the mainstream deon-
tologist, seems to be heading down the path toward
rule-consequentialism.
Because eudaemonistic theories are primarily con-
cerned with human virtue and vice, they can be applied
only indirectly to actions. Yet it has been proposed by some
eudaemonists that right actions are those that express or
cultivate or strengthen virtues such as honesty, integrity,
and beneficence (among many others). In the cases at
hand, however, it is at best unclear which action would
meet this standard. Indeed, it seems that both actions
would do so, though the virtues affected are different.
This brief survey hardly does justice to the breadth and
sophistication of these theories or to the complexity of
the moral problems they address. This book will explore
these problems in detail while introducing the reader to
the most influential ethical philosophers in history.
xv
Chapter
Normative Ethics:
11
Eudaemonism and
Consequentialism
N ormative ethics is the branch of ethics (also called

moral philosophy) that is concerned with the
moral evaluation of human actions, institutions, and
ways of life. The central task of normative ethics is
to determine how basic moral standards, or norms,
are justified and what basic norms there may be. Two
important approaches to this task, eudaemonism and
consequentialism, are discussed in this chapter. Other
approaches, namely contractualism, deontology, femi-
nism, and egoism, are treated in Chapter 2.
EUDAEMONISM
Eudaemonism derives its name from the ancient Greek
word eudaimonia, which literally means the state of
having a good indwelling spirit. The usual English
rendering of this term, happiness, is an inadequate
translation, however, because it incorrectly suggests
that eudaimonia is simply a mood or a state of mind. It
is instead the condition of living a good life, sometimes
called a life of human flourishing. According to eudae-
monistic theories, right or virtuous action is that which
enables, brings about, or is constitutive of happiness in
this sense. The best known forms of eudaemonism are
1
those of Plato (c. 428c. 348 BCE), Aristotle (384322 BCE), and
the Stoics.
The Ethics of Plato

In ancient Greek philosophy the notion of aretevirtue
or excellenceapplies to anything that has a character-
istic use, function, or activity: the excellence of that thing
is whatever disposition enables it (and things of the same
kind) to perform well. The excellence of a racehorse is
whatever enables it to run well; the excellence of a knife
is whatever enables it to cut well; and the excellence of
an eye is whatever enables it to see well. Human virtue,
accordingly, is whatever enables human beings to live the
best possible human life, in other words, to be happy.
Ancient Greek culture recognized a conventional set
of virtues, which included courage, justice, piety, mod-
esty or temperance, and wisdom. Plato and his teacher,
Socrates (c. 470399 BCE), undertook to discover what
these virtues really amount to. A truly satisfactory account
of any virtue would identify what it is, show how possess-
ing it enables one to live well, and indicate how it is best
acquired.
Because Socrates wrote nothing, almost all of what
is known about his philosophy is derived from the por-
trayal of him in several of Platos dialogues, especially the
early (or Socratic) dialogues. In these works, a charac-
ter called Socrates is represented in conversation with
various prominent figures, often in a search for a defini-
tion of a particular virtue (e.g., courage, justice, piety,
temperance, or wisdom). According to Socrates, all that
is needed to live a happy life is to be perfectly virtuous,
and all that is needed to possess a particular virtue is to
know what it is. But it is exceedingly difficult to obtain
this kind of knowledge, as the failures of his interlocutors
2
Normative Ethics: Eudaemonism
7 and Consequentialism
7
Justice is just one of a group of conventional virtues recognized by ancient

Greek culture. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
3
dramatically demonstrate. (Indeed, the historical Socrates

himself professed not to know what the virtues are.) This
is partly because the definitions Socrates searches for
are not the sort of thing one would find in a dictionary.
Rather, they are general accounts of the real nature of
the thing in question. (The real definition of water, for
example, is H2O, though this fact was unknown in most
historical eras.) In the encounters Plato portrays, the
interlocutors typically offer an example of the virtue they
are asked to define (not the right kind of answer) or give a
general account (the right kind of answer) that is inconsis-
tent with their intuitions on related matters.
Because the virtues, according to Socrates, are a kind
of knowledge, anyone who knows what a particular vir-
tue is will necessarily act in accordance with it. If one
knows, for example, what courage or piety is, one will
act courageously or piously, and similarly for all the other
virtues. It follows that anyone who fails to act virtuously
does so because he incorrectly identifies virtue (or a par-
ticular virtue) with something it is not. Socrates view
also implies that weakness of will, what the Greeks called
akrasiaknowingly acting in a way one believes to be
wrongis impossible. Aristotle, the greatest student of
Plato, rejected this view as plainly at odds with the facts.
Treatment of Virtue in the Early Dialogues

The early dialogues of Plato are generally short and enter-
taining and fairly accessible, even to readers with no
background in philosophy. Indeed, they were probably
intended by Plato to draw such readers into the subject.
In 399 BCE Socrates was brought to trial on charges of
impiety and corrupting the young. He was convicted and
sentenced to death by poison. The Apology represents the
speech that Socrates gave in his defense at his trial, and it
gives an interpretation of Socrates career: he has been a
4
7
gadfly, trying to awaken the noble horse of Athens to an

awareness of virtue, and he is wisest in the sense that he is
aware that he knows nothing.
Each of the other early dialogues represents a particu-
lar Socratic encounter. Thus in the Charmides, Socrates
discusses temperance and self-knowledge with Critias and
Charmides. The dialogue moves from an account in terms
of behaviour (temperance is a kind of quietness) to an
attempt to specify the underlying state that accounts for it;
the latter effort breaks down in puzzles over the reflexive
application of knowledge.
The Crito shows Socrates in prison, discussing why he
chooses not to escape before the death sentence is car-
ried out. The dialogue considers the source and nature of
political obligation. The Euthyphro asks, What is piety?
Euthyphro fails to maintain the successive positions that
piety is what the gods love, what the gods all love, or
some sort of service to the gods. Socrates and Euthyphro
agree that what they seek is a single form, present in all
things that are pious, that makes them so. Socrates sug-
gests that if Euthyphro could specify what part of justice
piety is, he would have an account.
The more elaborate Gorgias considers, while its name-
sake is at Athens, whether orators command a genuine art
or merely have a knack of flattery. Socrates holds that the
arts of the legislator and the judge address the health of
the soul, which orators counterfeit by taking the pleasant
instead of the good as their standard. Discussion of whether
one should envy the man who can bring about any result he
likes leads to a Socratic paradox: it is better to suffer wrong
than to do it. Callicles praises the man of natural ability
who ignores conventional justice. True justice, according
to Callicles, is this persons triumph. In the Hippias Minor,
discussion of the epic poet Homer by a visiting Sophist (a
professionaland usually cynicalteacher of rhetoric and
5
logic) leads to an examination by Socrates, which the Sophist

fails, on such questions as whether a just person who does
wrong on purpose is better than other wrongdoers.
The interlocutors in the Laches are generals. Here
the observation that the sons of great men often do not
turn out well leads to an examination of what courage is.
The trend again is from an account in terms of behaviour
(standing fast in battle) to an attempt to specify the inner
state that underlies it (knowledge of the grounds of hope
and fear), but none of the participants displays adequate
understanding of these suggestions. The Lysis is an exami-
nation of the nature of friendship. The work introduces
the notion of a primary object of love, for whose sake one
loves other things.
The Meno takes up the familiar question of whether
virtue can be taught, and, if so, why eminent men have
not been able to bring up their sons to be virtuous.
Concerned with method, the dialogue develops Menos
problem: How is it possible to search either for what one
knows (for one already knows it) or for what one does not
know (and so could not look for)? This is answered by the
recollection theory of learning. What is called learning
is really prompted recollection. One possesses all theo-
retical knowledge latently at birth, as demonstrated by
the slave boys ability to solve geometry problems when
properly prompted. The dialogue is also famous as an
early discussion of the distinction between knowledge
and true belief.
The Protagoras, another discussion with a visiting
Sophist, concerns whether virtue can be taught and
whether the different virtues are really one. The dialogue
contains yet another discussion of the phenomenon
that the sons of the great are often undistinguished.
Most famously, this dialogue develops the characteristic
6
7
Socratic suggestion that virtue is identical with wis-

dom and discusses the Socratic position that akrasia is
impossible.
The REPUBLIC
The middle dialogues of Plato have similar agendas.
Although they are primarily concerned with ethical and
other human issues, they also proclaim the importance
of metaphysical inquiry and sketch Platos doctrine of
forms, which Socrates certainly did not hold. According
to this doctrine, corresponding to every property or
feature that a particular thing may have, there is an
unchanging and eternal reality, called a form, in which
the thing participates. Thus, having a property is a
matter of participating in the corresponding form. For
example, Achilles is beautiful by virtue of the fact that
he participates in the form of Beauty, and the racehorse
War Emblem is black by virtue of his participating in the
form of Blackness. Likewise, being courageous, just, or
pious or possessing any of the other human virtues con-
sists of participating in the form of Courage, Justice, or
Piety, and so on. Such forms, according to Plato, are what
Socrates and his interlocutors were searching for in their
struggle to discover the real definitions of the virtues.
However, Plato does not fully specify how the forms are
to be understood until the later dialogues, particularly
the Parmenides.
In one of the greatest dialogues of the middle period,
the Republic, Plato develops a view of happiness and vir-
tue that departs from that of Socrates. According to
Plato, there are three parts of the soulreason, spirit,
and appetiteeach of which has its own natural object
of desire. Thus, reason desires truth and the good of the
individual as a whole, spirit desires the honour and esteem
7
obtained through competition, and appetite desires sen-

sually appealing things such as food, drink, and sex. The
happy individual, for Plato, is the one in whom the three
parts of the soul act in harmony, each desiring what it is
appropriate for it to desire and none becoming so domi-
nant that it frustrates the desires of the other two.
Although the dialogue starts from the question Why
should I be just?, Socrates proposes that this inquiry can
be advanced by examining justice writ large in an ideal
city. Thus, the political discussion is undertaken to aid the
ethical one. One early hint of the existence of the three
parts of the soul in the individual is the existence of three
classes in the well-functioning state: rulers, guardians, and
producers. The wise state is the one in which the rulers
understand the good; the courageous state is that in which
the guardians can retain in the heat of battle the judgments
handed down by the rulers about what is to be feared; the
temperate state is that in which all citizens agree about
who is to rule; and the just state is that in which each of
the three classes does its own work properly. Thus, for
the city to be fully virtuous, each citizen must contribute
appropriately.
Justice as conceived in the Republic is so comprehensive
that a person who possessed it would also possess all the
other virtues, thereby achieving happiness, or the health
of that whereby we live [the soul]. Yet, lest it be thought
that habituation and correct instruction in human affairs
alone can lead to this condition, one must keep in view that
the Republic also develops the famous doctrine according
to which reason cannot properly understand the human
good or anything else without grasping the Good itself.
Thus the original inquiry, whose starting point was a moti-
vation each individual is presumed to have (to learn how to
live well), leads to a highly ambitious educational program.
Starting with exposure only to salutary stories, poetry,
8
7
According to Platos doctrine of forms, Achilles is beautiful by virtue of the

fact that he takes part in the form of Beauty. The Bridgeman Art Library/
Getty Images
9
and music from childhood and continuing with super-

vised habituation to good action and years of training in
a series of mathematical disciplines, this programand
so virtuewould be complete only in the person who was
able to grasp the first principle, the Good, and to proceed
on that basis to secure accounts of the other realities.
The Ethics of Aristotle

The surviving works of Aristotle include three treatises on
moral philosophy: the Nicomachean Ethics in 10 books, the
Eudemian Ethics in 7 books, and the Magna moralia (Latin:
Great Ethics). The Nicomachean Ethics is generally
regarded as the most important of the three; it consists
of a series of short treatises, possibly brought together
by Aristotles son Nicomachus. It is also probable that
Aristotle used the Eudemian Ethics for a course on eth-
ics that he taught at the school he founded, the Lyceum,
during his mature period. The Magna moralia probably
consists of notes taken by an unknown student of such a
course.
Happiness
Aristotles approach to ethics is teleological. If life is to
be worth living, he argues, it must surely be for the sake
of something that is an end in itself (i.e., desirable for its
own sake). Therefore, the highest human good, which
Aristotle calls happiness, must be desirable for its own
sake, and all other goods must be desirable for the sake of
it. One popular conception of the highest human good is
pleasurethe pleasures of food, drink, and sex, combined
with aesthetic and intellectual pleasures. Other people
prefer a life of virtuous action in the political sphere. A
third possible candidate for the highest human good is
scientific or philosophical contemplation. Aristotle thus
10
7
Soul
The soul is the purported immaterial aspect or essence of a human
being, that which confers individuality and humanity. It is often iden-
tified with the mind or the self.
Many cultures have recognized some incorporeal principle cor-
responding to the soul, and many have attributed souls to all living
things. Both the ancient Egyptians and the ancient Chinese conceived
of a dual soul. The Egyptian ka (breath) survived death but remained
near the body, while the spiritual ba proceeded to the region of the
dead. The Chinese distinguished between a lower, sensitive soul,
which disappears with death, and a rational principle, the hun, which
survives the grave and is the object of ancestor worship. The ancient
Hebrews apparently had a concept of the soul but did not separate it
from the body, although later Jewish writers developed the idea of the
soul further.
Ancient Greek concepts of the soul varied considerably. For the
Platonists, the soul was an immaterial and incorporeal substance.
Aristotles conception of the soul was obscure, though he did state that
it was a form inseparable from the body. Socrates and Plato accepted
the immortality of the soul, while Aristotle considered only part of
the soul, the nos, or intellect, to have that quality. The early Christian
philosophers adopted the Greek concept of the souls immortality
and thought of the soul as being created by God and infused into the
body at conception.
Among early-modern philosophers, Ren Descartes believed
that human beings were a union of the body and the soul, each a dis-
tinct substance acting on the other, while Benedict de Spinoza held
that body and soul are but two aspects of a single reality.
In Hinduism the atman (breath, or soul) is the universal, eter-
nal self, of which each individual soul (jiva or jiva-atman) partakes.
The jiva-atman is also eternal but is imprisoned in an earthly body at
birth. At death the jiva-atman passes into a new existence determined
by karma, or the cumulative consequences of actions. Buddhism
asserts that any sense of having an individual eternal soul or of partak-
ing in a persistent universal self is illusory. The Muslim concept, like
the Christian, holds that the soul comes into existence at the same
time as the body. Thereafter, it has a life of its own, its union with the
body being a temporary condition.
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reduces the answers to the question What is the good

human life? to a short list of three: the philosophical life,
the political life, and the voluptuary life. This triad pro-
vides the key to his ethical inquiry.
According to Aristotle, human beings must have a
function, because particular types of humans (e.g., sculp-
tors) do, as do the parts and organs of individual human
beings. Because this function must be unique to humans,
it cannot consist of growth and nourishment, for this is
shared by plants, or the life of the senses, for this is shared
by animals. It must therefore involve the peculiarly human
faculty of reason. The highest human good is the same as
good human functioning, and good human functioning is
the same as the good exercise of the faculty of reasonthat
is to say, the activity of rational soul in accordance with vir-
tue. There are two kinds of virtue: moral and intellectual.
Moral virtues are exemplified by courage, temperance, and
liberality; the key intellectual virtues are wisdom, which
governs ethical behaviour, and understanding, which is
expressed in scientific endeavour and contemplation.
Virtue
Peoples virtues are a subset of their good qualities. They
are not innate, like eyesight, but are acquired by practice
and lost by disuse. They are abiding states, and they thus
differ from momentary passions such as anger and pity.
Virtues are states of character that find expression both
in purpose and in action. Moral virtue is expressed in good
purposethat is to say, in prescriptions for action in accor-
dance with a good plan of life. It is expressed also in actions
that avoid both excess and defect. A temperate person, for
example, will avoid eating or drinking too much, but he
will also avoid eating or drinking too little. Virtue chooses
the mean, or middle ground, between excess and defect.
Besides purpose and action, virtue is also concerned with
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feeling. One may, for example, be excessively concerned

with sex or insufficiently interested in it; the temperate
person will take the appropriate degree of interest and be
neither lustful nor frigid.
While all the moral virtues are means of action and
passion, it is not the case that every kind of action and pas-
sion is capable of a virtuous mean. There are some actions
of which there is no right amount, because any amount
of them is too much. Aristotle gives murder and adultery
as examples. The virtues, besides being concerned with
means of action and passion, are themselves means in the
sense that they occupy a middle ground between two con-
trary vices. Thus, the virtue of courage is flanked on one
side by foolhardiness and on the other by cowardice.
Aristotles account of virtue as a mean is no truism.
It is a distinctive ethical theory that contrasts with other
influential systems of various kinds. Although it contrasts
with deontological systems that give a central role to the
concept of a moral rule or law, it also differs from moral
systems such as utilitarianism that judge the rightness
and wrongness of actions in terms of their consequences.
Unlike the utilitarian, Aristotle believes that there are
some kinds of action that are morally wrong in principle.
The mean that is the mark of moral virtue is deter-
mined by the intellectual virtue of wisdom. Wisdom is
characteristically expressed in the formulation of pre-
scriptions for actionpractical syllogisms, as Aristotle
calls them. A practical syllogism consists of a general rec-
ipe for a good life, followed by an accurate description of
the agents actual circumstances and concluding with a
decision about the appropriate action to be carried out.
Wisdom, the intellectual virtue that is proper to prac-
tical reason, is inseparably linked with the moral virtues
of the affective part of the soul. Only if an agent possesses
moral virtue will he endorse an appropriate recipe for a
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good life. Only if he is gifted with intelligence will he make

an accurate assessment of the circumstances in which his
decision is to be made. It is impossible, Aristotle says, to
be really good without wisdom or to be really wise with-
out moral virtue. Only when correct reasoning and right
desire come together does truly virtuous action result.
Action and Contemplation

The pleasures that are the domain of temperance, intem-
perance, and incontinence are the familiar bodily pleasures
of food, drink, and sex. In treating of pleasure, however,
Aristotle explores a much wider field. There are two
classes of aesthetic pleasures: the pleasures of the inferior
senses of touch and taste, and the pleasures of the superior
senses of sight, hearing, and smell. Finally, at the top of the
scale, there are the pleasures of the mind.
Plato had posed the question of whether the best life
consists in the pursuit of pleasure or the exercise of the
intellectual virtues. Aristotles answer is that, properly
understood, the two are not in competition with each
other. The exercise of the highest form of virtue is the very
same thing as the truest form of pleasure; each is identi-
cal with the other and with happiness. The highest virtues
are the intellectual ones, and among them Aristotle dis-
tinguished between wisdom and understanding. To the
question of whether happiness is to be identified with the
pleasure of wisdom or with the pleasure of understanding,
Aristotle gives different answers in his main ethical trea-
tises. In the Nicomachean Ethics perfect happiness, though
it presupposes the moral virtues, is constituted solely by
the activity of philosophical contemplation, whereas in
the Eudemian Ethics it consists in the harmonious exercise
of all the virtues, intellectual and moral.
The Eudemian ideal of happiness, given the role it
assigns to contemplation, to the moral virtues, and to
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pleasure, can claim to combine the features of the tra-

ditional three livesthe life of the philosopher, the life
of the politician, and the life of the pleasure seeker. The
happy person will value contemplation above all, but part
of his happy life will consist in the exercise of moral virtues
in the political sphere and the enjoyment in moderation of
the natural human pleasures of body as well as of soul. But
even in the Eudemian Ethics it is the service and contem-
plation of God that sets the standard for the appropriate
exercise of the moral virtues, and in the Nicomachean Ethics
this contemplation is described as a superhuman activity
of a divine part of human nature. Aristotles final word on
ethics is that, despite being mortal, human beings must
strive to make themselves immortal as far as they can.
Stoicism
Stoicism was a school of thought that flourished in Greek
and Roman antiquity from about the 3rd century BCE. It
was one of the loftiest and most sublime philosophies
in the record of Western civilization. For the Stoics, the
goal of human beings, the greatest good to which they can
aspire, consists of living according to nature, in agreement
with the world design.
The Nature of Stoicism

For the early Stoic philosopher, as for all the post-
Aristotelian schools, knowledge and its pursuit are no
longer held to be ends in themselves. The Hellenistic Age
was a time of transition, and the Stoic philosopher was
perhaps its most influential representative. A new culture
was in the making. The heritage of an earlier period, with
Athens as its intellectual leader, was to continue, but to
undergo many changes. If, as with Socrates, to know is
to know oneself, rationality as the sole means by which
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something outside of the self might be achieved may be

said to be the hallmark of Stoic belief. As a Hellenistic
philosophy, Stoicism presented an ars vitae, a way of
accommodation for people to whom the human con-
dition no longer appeared as the mirror of a universal,
calm, and ordered existence. Reason alone could reveal
the constancy of cosmic order and the originative source
of unyielding value; thus, reason became the true model
for human existence. For the Stoic, virtue is an inher-
ent feature of the world, no less inexorable in relation to
humanity than are the laws of nature.
For the Stoics, the world is composed of material
things, with some few exceptions, and the irreducible
element in all things is right reason, which pervades the
world as divine fire. Things, such as material, or corporeal,
bodies, are governed by this reason or fate, in which virtue
is inherent. The world in its awesome entirety is so ruled
as to exhibit a grandeur of orderly arrangement that can
only serve as a standard for humankind in the regulation
and ordering of life.
Stoic moral theory is also based on the view that the
world, as one great city, is a unity. Human beings, as world
citizens, have an obligation and loyalty to all things in
that city. They must play an active role in world affairs,
remembering that the world exemplifies virtue and right
action. Thus, moral worth, duty, and justice are singularly
Stoic emphases, together with a certain sternness of mind.
For the moral person neither is merciful nor shows pity,
because each suggests a deviation from duty and from the
fated necessity that rules the world. Nonethelesswith
its loftiness of spirit and its emphasis on humanitys essen-
tial worththe themes of universal brotherhood and the
benevolence of divine nature make Stoicism one of the
most appealing of philosophies.
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Stoicism enabled the individual to better order his

own life and to avoid the excesses of human nature that
promote disquietude and anxiety. It was easily the most
influential of the schools from the time of its founding
through the first two centuries CE, and it continued to
have a marked effect on later thought. During the late
Roman and medieval periods, elements of Stoic moral
theory were known and used in the formulation of
Christian, Jewish, and Muslim theories of humanity and
nature, of the state and society, and of law and sanctions
for example, in the works of Marcus Tullius Cicero
(10643 BCE), Roman statesman and orator; in Lactantius
(240320 CE), often called the Christian Cicero; and
in Boethius (c. 470524 CE), a scholar transitional to the
Middle Ages. In the Renaissance, Stoic political and moral
theory became more popular to theorists of natural law
and political authority and of educational reformfor
example, in Hugo Grotius (15831645), a Dutch jurist and
statesman, and in Philipp Melanchthon (14971560), a
major Reformation scholar. In the 20th century, Stoicism
became popular again for its insistence on the value of
the individual and the place of value in a world of strife
and uncertaintyfor example, in existentialism and in
neo-orthodox Protestant theology.
Early Greek Stoicism

After the death of Alexander the Great (323 BCE) and the
partition of his empire into hereditary kingdoms, the
greatness of the life and thought of the Greek city-state
(polis) ended. With Athens no longer the political centre of
the Mediterranean world, its claim to urbanity and cultural
prominence passed on to other cities: Rome, Alexandria,
and Pergamum. The Greek polis gave way to larger politi-
cal units, and local rule was replaced by that of distant
17
Chrysippus of Soli discussed virtually every feature of Stoic doctrine and

treated each so meticulously that the schools essential features scarcely changed
after his time. The Bridgeman Art Library/Getty Images
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governors. The earlier intimacy of order, cosmic and civic,

was now replaced by social and political disorder. Traditional
mores gave way to uncertain and transient values.
Stoicism had its beginnings in a changing world, in
which earlier codes of conduct and ways of understand-
ing proved no longer suitable. But it was also influenced
by tenets of the older schools. The earliest Greek philoso-
phers, the Milesians, had called attention to cosmic order
and the beauty of nature. Later, the monist Parmenides
(born c. 515 BCE) stressed the power of reason and thought,
whereas Heracleitus (c. 540c. 480 BCE), precursor of the
philosophy of becoming, had alluded to the constancy of
change and the omnipresence of divine fire, which illumined
all things. A deeper understanding of human nature came
with Socrates, who personified sophia and sapientia (Greek
and Latin: wisdom). Of the several schools of philosophy
stemming from Socrates, the Cynic and Megarian schools
were influential in the early development of Stoic doctrine:
the Cynics for their emphasis on the simple life, unadorned
and free of emotional involvement; and the Megarians for
their study of dialectic, logical form, and paradoxes.
Stoicism takes its name from the place where its founder,
Zeno of Citium (c. 335c. 263 BCE), customarily lectured
the Stoa Poikile (Painted Colonnade). Zeno was apparently
well versed in Platonic thought, for he had studied at
Platos Academy both with Xenocrates of Chalcedon and
with Polemon of Athens, successive heads of the Academy.
Zeno established the central Stoic doctrines in logic, phys-
ics, and ethics, so that later Stoics were to expand rather
than to change radically the views of the founder.
Zeno thus provided the following themes as the essen-
tial framework of Stoic ethics: human happiness as a product
of life according to nature; physical theory as providing the
means by which right actions are to be determined; the wise
person as the model of human excellence; belief in the fated
19
causality that necessarily binds all things; cosmopolitanism,

or cultural outlook transcending narrower loyalties; and the
human obligation, or duty, to choose only those acts that
are in accord with nature, all other acts being a matter of
indifference.
Cleanthes of Assos (c. 331c. 232 BCE), who succeeded
Zeno as head of the school, is best known for his Hymn
to Zeus, which movingly describes Stoic reverence for the
cosmic order and the power of universal reason and law.
The third head of the school, Chrysippus of Soli (c. 280c.
206 BCE), was perhaps the greatest and certainly the most
productive of the early Stoics. Chrysippus was respon-
sible for the attempt to show that fate and free will are not
mutually exclusive conceptual features of Stoic doctrine.
Zenos view of the origin of human beings as providentially
generated by fiery reason out of matter was expanded by
Chrysippus to include the concept of self-preservation,
which governs all living things. Another earlier view
(Zenos), that of nature as a model for life, was amplified
first by Cleanthes and then by Chrysippus. The Zenonian
appeal to life according to nature had evidently been left
vague, because to Cleanthes it seemed necessary to speak
of life in accord with nature conceived as the world at large
(the cosmos), whereas Chrysippus distinguished between
world nature and human nature. Thus, to do good is to act
in accord with both human and universal nature.
He also established firmly that logic and (especially)
physics are necessary and are means for the differentiation
of goods and evils. Thus, a knowledge of physics (or theol-
ogy) is required before an ethics can be formulated. Indeed,
physics and logic find their value chiefly in this very purpose.
Chrysippus covered almost every feature of Stoic doctrine
and treated each so thoroughly that the essential features
of the school were to change relatively little after his time.
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Later Roman Stoicism
The Middle Stoa, which flourished in the 2nd and early 1st
centuries BCE, was dominated chiefly by Panaetius (c. 180
109 BCE), its founder, and his disciple Poseidonius (c. 135c.
51 BCE), both from the Greek island of Rhodes. Panaetius
organized a Stoic school in Rome before returning to
Athens, and Poseidonius was largely responsible for
an emphasis on the religious features of the doctrine.
Both were antagonistic to the ethical doctrines of
Chrysippus, who, they believed, had strayed too far
from the Platonic and Aristotelian roots of Stoicism.
It may have been because of the considerable time that
Panaetius and Poseidonius lived in Rome that the Stoa
there turned so much of its emphasis to the moral and
religious themes within the Stoic doctrine. Panaetius
was highly regarded by Cicero, who used him as a model
for his own work.
Poseidonius, who had been a disciple of Panaetius
in Athens, taught Cicero at his school at Rhodes and
later went to Rome and remained there for a time with
Cicero. If Poseidonius admired Plato and Aristotle, he
was particularly interestedunlike most of his school
in the study of natural and providential phenomena. In
presenting the Stoic system in the second book of De
natura deorum (45 BCE), Cicero most probably followed
Poseidonius. Because his master, Panaetius, was chiefly
concerned with concepts of duty and obligation, it was
his studies that served as a model for the De officiis (44
BCE) of Cicero. Hecaton, another of Panaetiuss students
and an active Stoic philosopher, also stressed similar
ethical themes.
Panaetius and Poseidonius were chiefly responsible
for the widespread popularity of Stoicism in Rome.
21
Bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, in the Piazza del Campidoglio,

Rome, c. 173 CE. Height 5.03 m. AlinariArt Resource/EB Inc.
22
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It was precisely their turning of doctrine to themes in

moral philosophy and natural science that appealed
to the intensely practical Romans. The times perhaps
demanded such interests, and with them Stoicism was to
become predominantly a philosophy for the individual,
showing howgiven the vicissitudes of lifeone might
be stoical. Law, world citizenship, nature, and the benev-
olent workings of Providence and the divine reason were
the principal areas of interest of Stoicism at this time.
These tendencies toward practicality are also well
illustrated in the later period of the school (in the first
two centuries CE) in the writings of Lucius Seneca (c. 4
BCE65 CE), a Roman statesman; of Epictetus (c. 55c.
135 CE), a former slave; and of Marcus Aurelius (121
180 CE), a Roman
emperor. Both style
and content in the
Libri morales (Moral
Essays) and Epistulae
morales (Moral Letters)
of Seneca reinforce
the new direction in
Stoic thought. The
Encheiridion (Manual)
of Epictetus and the
Meditations of Marcus
Aurelius furthered the
sublime and yet per-
sonal consolation of
the Stoic message and
increasingly showed
the strength of its
The discussions of nature by St. Paul
rivalry to the burgeon- the Apostle, as in I Corinthians 11:14,
ing power of the new may well have had Stoic beginnings.
Christianity. SuperStock/Getty Images
23
Logos
Logos, a concept of ancient Greek philosophy and theology, is the

divine reason that is implicit in the cosmos, giving it order, form, and
meaning. It became particularly significant in Christian writings and
doctrines to describe or define the role of Jesus Christ.
The idea of the logos harks back at least to the 6th-century-
BCE philosopher Heracleitus, who discerned in the cosmic process
a logos analogous to the reasoning power in human beings. Later,
the Stoics defined the logos as an active rational principle that
permeated all reality. Philo of Alexandria, a 1st-century-CE Jewish
philosopher, taught that the logos was the intermediary between
God and the cosmos, being both the agent of creation and the agent
through which the human mind can apprehend and comprehend
God. According to Philo and the Middle Platonists (philosophers
who interpreted in religious terms the teachings of Plato), the logos
was both immanent in the world and at the same time the transcen-
dent divine mind.
In the first chapter of The Gospel According to John, Jesus
Christ is identified as the Word (logos) made flesh. This identifica-
tion is based on concepts of revelation appearing in the Hebrew Bible
(Old Testament), as in the frequently used phrase the Word of the
Lord, which connoted ideas of Gods activity and power. The author
of The Gospel According to John used the expression the Word to
emphasize the redemptive character of the person of Christ, whom
the author also describes as the way, and the truth, and the life. Just
as the Jews had viewed the Torah (the Law) as preexistent with God,
so also the author of John viewed Jesus, but Jesus came to be regarded
as the personified source of life and illumination of humankind. The
author of John interprets the logos as inseparable from the person of
Jesus and does not imply that it is simply the revelation that Jesus
proclaims.
The identification of Jesus with the logos was further developed
on the basis of Greek philosophical ideas in support of attempts by
early Christian theologians to express the Christian faith in terms that
would be intelligible to the Hellenistic world. Thus, in their apologies
and polemical works, the early Christian Fathers stated that Christ
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as the preexistent logos (1) reveals the Father to humankind and is the
subject of the Hebrew Bible manifestations of God; (2) is the divine
reason in which the whole human race shares; and (3) is the divine will
and word by which the worlds were framed.
Jesus Before the Gates of Jerusalem, manuscript illumination by Liberale

da Verona, 147074; in the Piccolomini Library, Siena, Italy. SCALA/Art
Resource, New York
25
Stoic Elements in Early Christian Thought
There is much disagreement as to the measure of Stoic

influence on the writings of St. Paul the Apostle (c. 4 BCEc.
62 CE). At Tarsus, Paul certainly had opportunities for hear-
ing Stoic lectures on philosophy. And it may be that his
discussion of nature and the teaching of it (I Corinthians
11:14) is Stoic in origin, for it has a parallel in the Manual of
Epictetus. Although not a Stoic technical term, syneidsis,
which Paul used as conscience, was generally employed
by Stoic philosophers. In I Corinthians 13 and in the report
of Pauls speech at Athens (Acts 17), there is much that is
Hellenistic, more than a little tinged by Stoic elements
(e.g., the arguments concerning humans natural belief in
God and the belief that humans existence is in God).
The assimilation of Stoic elements by the Church
Fathers (the eminent bishops and teachers of early
Christianity) was generally better understood by the 4th
century. Stoic influence can be seen, for example, in the
relation between reason and the passions in the works of
St. Ambrose (339397), one of the great scholars of the
church, and of Marcus Minucius Felix (died c. 250), one of
the earliest Christian Apologists to write in Latin. Each
took a wealth of ideas from Stoic morality as Cicero had
interpreted it in De officiis. In general, whereas the emerg-
ing Christian morality affirmed its originality, it also
assimilated much of the pagan literature, the more con-
genial elements of which were essentially Stoic.
Earlier, in the 3rd century, Quintus Tertullian (c. 155c.
220), often called the father of Latin Christian literature,
seems to have been versed in Stoic philosophyfor
example, in his theory of the agreement between the
supernatural and the human soul, in his use of the Stoic
tenet that from a truth there follow truths, and in his
employment of the idea of universal consent. Even in his
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polemical writings, which reveal an unrelenting hostility

to pagan philosophy, Tertullian showed a fundamental
grasp and appreciation of such Stoic themes as the world
logos and the relation of body to soul. This is well illus-
trated in his argument against the Stoics, particularly on
their theme that God is a corporeal being and identified
with reason as inherent in matteralso to be found in
his polemics against Marcion (fl. 2nd century CE), father
of a heretical Christian sect, and against Hermogenes of
Tarsus (c. 160225), author of an important digest of rheto-
ric. Yet in his doctrine of the Word, he appealed directly to
Zeno and Cleanthes of the Early Stoa. Another important
polemic against the Stoics is found in the treatise Contra
Celsum, by Origen (c. 185c. 254), the most influential Greek
theologian of the 3rd century, in which he argued at some
length against Stoic doctrines linking God to matter.
Also, St. Cyprian (200258), bishop of Carthage,
revealed the currency of Stoic views (e.g., in his Ad
Demetrianum, a denunciation of an enemy to Christianity,
in which Cyprian castigates the ill treatment of slaves,
who, no less than their masters, are formed of the same
matter and endowed with the same soul and live accord-
ing to the same law). The beliefs in human brotherhood
and in the world as a great city, commonly found in
early Christian literature, were current Stoic themes.
The Christian attitude appears in what St. Paul said of
Baptism: You are all sons of God through Faith. For as
many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on
Christ (Galatians 3:2627).
CONSEQUENTIALISM
Consequentialism is a theory of morality that derives
duty or moral obligation from what is good or desirable as
an end to be achieved. Also known as teleological ethics
27
(from ancient Greek telos, end; logos, reason), it is often

contrasted with deontological ethics (deon, duty), or
deontology, which holds that the basic standards for an
actions being morally right are independent of the good
or evil generated. Modern normative ethics, especially
since the deontological theory of the German philoso-
pher Immanuel Kant (17241804), has been deeply divided
between a form of consequentialism (utilitarianism) and
various forms of deontology. Deontology will be discussed
in detail in Chapter 2.
Consequentialist theories differ on the nature of
the end that actions ought to promote. Utilitarian-type
theories hold that the end consists in an experience
or feeling produced by the action. Epicureanism, for
example, taught that this feeling is pleasure, including
especially the pleasures derived from friendship. Later
theories based on pleasure included the utilitarianism of
the English philosophers Jeremy Bentham (17481832),
John Stuart Mill (180673), and Henry Sidgwick (1838
1900), with its formula the greatest happiness [pleasure]
of the greatest number. Many other consequentialist
or utilitarian-type theories have been proposed, though
none has been as influential as classical utilitarianism.
For example, according to evolutionary ethics, which
originated with the English sociologist and philosopher
Herbert Spencer (18201903) and was revived in the late
20th century, the proper end of action is survival and
growth. According to some scholars, the Italian politi-
cal philosopher Niccol Machiavelli (14691527) and the
German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (18441900)
shared the view that right actions are directed toward
the experience of power, as in despotism. Other theo-
ries favoured satisfaction and adjustmentas in the
pragmatism of the American philosophers Ralph Barton
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Perry (18761957) and John Dewey (18591952)or free-

dom, as in the existentialism of the French philosopher
Jean-Paul Sartre (190580).
The chief problem for utilitarian theories has been to
answer the conventional objection that ends do not always
justify means. The problem arises in these theories because
they tend to separate the achieved ends from the action by
which these ends are produced. One implication of utili-
tarianism is that ones intention in performing an act may
include all of its foreseen consequences. The goodness of
the intention then reflects the balance of the good and evil
of these consequences, with no limits imposed upon it by
the nature of the act itselfeven if it be, say, the break-
ing of a promise or the execution of an innocent person.
Utilitarianism, in answering this charge, must show either
that what is apparently immoral is not really so or that, if it
really is so, then closer examination of the consequences will
bring this fact to light. Ideal utilitarianism, a view defended
by the English philosopher G.E. Moore (18731958), tried
to meet the difficulty by advocating a plurality of ends
and including among them the attainment of virtue itself,
which, as Mill affirmed, may be felt a good in itself, and
desired as such with as great intensity as any other good.
Epicureanism
In a strict sense, Epicureanism is the philosophy taught
by Epicurus (341270 BCE). In a broad sense, however, it is
a system of ethics embracing every conception or form of
life that can be traced to the principles of his philosophy.
In ancient polemics, as often since, the term was employed
with an even more generic (and clearly erroneous) mean-
ing as the equivalent of a crude hedonism, according to
which sensual pleasure is the chief good.
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The Nature of Epicureanism
Several fundamental concepts characterize the ethics of

Epicurus. The basic concepts are the identification of
good with pleasure and of the supreme good and ultimate
end with the absence of pain from the body and the soul
a limit beyond which pleasure does not grow but changes;
the reduction of every human relation to the principle of
utility, which finds its highest expression in friendship, in
which it is at the same time surmounted; and, in accor-
dance with this end, the limitation of all desire and the
practice of the virtues, from which pleasure is inseparable,
and a withdrawn and quiet life.
In principle, Epicuruss ethic of pleasure is the exact
opposite of the Stoics ethic of duty. The consequences,
however, are the same: in the end, the Epicurean is forced
to live with the same temperance and justice as the Stoic.
Of utmost importance, however, is one point of diver-
gence: the walls of the Stoics city are those of the world,
and its law is that of reason; the limits of the Epicureans
city are those of a garden, and the law is that of friend-
ship. Although this garden can also reach the boundaries
of earth, its centre is always a human being.
History of Epicureanism
Epicurus is remarkable for his systematic spirit and the
unity that he tried to give to every part of philosophy. In
this respect, he was greatly influenced by the philosophy
and teachings of Aristotletaking over the essentials of
his doctrines and pursuing the problems that he posed.
In the Middle Ages Epicurus was known through
Cicero and the polemics of the Church Fathers. To be an
Epicurean at the time of the Italian poet and philosopher
Dante (12651321) meant to be one who denied Providence
and the immortality of the soul. The first modern defense
30
7
of Epicureanism was written by the notable human-

ist Lorenzo Valla (140757). In the dialogue De voluptate
(1431; On Pleasure), he maintained that the true good is
pleasure and not virtue but concluded that the supreme
pleasure is that which awaits the individual in heaven.
In terms of attitude and direction of thought, the first
two great Epicureans of the Renaissance were Michel de
Montaigne (153392) in France and Francesco Guicciardini
(14831540) in Italy. Epicurean in everything, as man and as
poet, was the early classicist Ludovico Ariosto (14741533).
But not until the French abbot Pierre Gassendi (15921655)
was the system of Epicurus to rise again in its entirety
this time, however, by approaching truth through faith.
Gassendi in 1649 wrote a commentary on a book by the
3rd-century-CE biographer Diogenes Lartius. This com-
ment, called the Syntagma philosophiae Epicuri (Treatise
on Epicurean Philosophy), was issued posthumously at
The Hague 10 years later. At the same time, in England,
Thomas Hobbes, a friend of Gassendi, took up again the
theory of pleasure and interpreted it in a dynamic sense.
Starting from the premise that, in the natural state, man
is a wolf to man, he concluded that peace, without which
there is no happiness, cannot be guaranteed by anything
but force, and that this force must be relinquished, by
common agreement, to the power of only one.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, the European
country in which Epicureanism was most active was
France, where its representatives were called liber-
tines, among them moralists such as Franois, duc de La
Rochefoucauld (161380) and scientists such as Julien de
La Mettrie (170951), who believed that humans could
be explained as machines; Claude-Adrien Helvtius
(171571), who reduced the ethic of the useful to a form
of experimental science but who put public above private
well-being; and Paul Henri Dietrich, baron dHolbach
31
(172389), who gave particular importance to the physics

of the atoms. The purely sensistic conception of knowl-
edge had its most thoroughgoing theoretician in tienne
de Condillac (171580). In England, Adam Smith (172390),
developing the ethical concepts of David Hume (171176),
surmounted the egoism that is the basis of every act by
using the principle of the impartial observer invoked to
sympathize with one or another of the antagonists. After
him, Jeremy Bentham, eliminating sympathy, reduced eth-
ics to the pure calculus of the useful, whichin an entirely
Epicurean formulahe defined as a moral arithmetic.
In the Epicurean stream lay also the utilitarianism of the
19th century, of which the greatest representative was
John Stuart Mill.
The interpretation of pleasure as a psychic principle
of action was initiated by Gustav Fechner (180187), the
founder of psychophysics, and developed toward the end
of the century by Sigmund Freud (18561939) on the psy-
choanalytic level of the unconscious.
Epicureanism and egocentric hedonism had few faith-
ful representatives among 20th-century philosophers,
though the viewpoint remained as a residue in some
strains of popular thinking.
Epicuruss Life and Teachings

In 306 BCE, Epicurus established his school at Athens in his
garden. The school thus came to be known as the Garden.
His Works
In accordance with the goal that he assigned to philoso-
phy, Epicuruss teaching had a dogmatic character, in
substance if not in form. He called his treatises dialogismoi,
or conversations. Because the utility of the doctrines
lay in their application, he summarized them in stoicheia,
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7
or elementary propositions, to be memorized. In this

respect, Epicurus was the inventor of the catechetical
method. The number of works produced by Epicurus and
his disciples reveals an impressive theoretical activity. But
no less important was the practical action in living by the
virtues taught by him and in honouring the obligations of
reciprocal help in the name of friendship. In these endea-
vours, continuous assistance was rendered by Epicurus
himself, who, even when old and ill, was occupied in
writing letters of admonishment, guidance, and comfort
everywhere announcing his gospel of peace and, under the
name of pleasure, inviting to love.
His Ethical Doctrine

Philosophy was, for Epicurus, the art of living, and it aimed
at the same time both to assure happiness and to supply
means to achieve it. As for science, Epicurus was concerned
only with the practical end in view. If possible, he would
have done without it. If we were not troubled by our sus-
picions of the phenomena of the sky and about death, he
wrote, and also by our failure to grasp the limits of pain
and desires, we should have no need of natural science.
But this science requires a principle that guarantees
its possibilities and its certainty and a method of con-
structing it. This principle and this method are the object
of the Canon, which Epicurus substituted for Logic.
Since he made the Canon an integral introduction to the
Physics, however, his philosophy falls into two parts,
the Physics and the Ethics.
As part of his Physics, Epicuruss psychology held
that the soul must be a body. It is made of very thin atoms
of four different speciesmotile, quiescent, igneous,
and etherealthe last, thinnest and the most mobile
of all, serving to explain sensitivity and thought. Thus
33
constituted, the soul is, from another perspective, bipar-

tite: in part distributed throughout the entire body and
in part collected in the chest. The first part is the locus
of sensations and of the physical affects of pain and plea-
sure; the second (entirely dissociated from the first) is the
psych par excellencethe seat of thought, emotions, and
will. Thought is caused not by the transmission of sense
motion but by the perception of images constituted by
films that continuously issue from all bodies and, retaining
their form, arrive at the psych through the pores. The full
autonomy and freedom of the psych is assured, as, with an
act of apprehension, it seizes at every moment the images
it needs, meanwhile remaining master of its own feelings.
The object of ethics is to determine the end and the
means necessary to reach it. Taking his cue from expe-
rience, Epicurus looked to the animal kingdom for his
answer. He concluded from this cue that the chief end is
pleasure. He distinguished two kindsa kinetic plea-
sure of sense and a static pleasure, consisting in the
absence of painand taught that the pleasure of sense is
good, though it is not good merely as motion but rather as
a motion favourable to the nature of the receiving sense
organ. In essence, pleasure is the equilibrium of the being
with itself, existing wherever there is no pain.
Epicurus concluded that freedom from pain in the
body and from trouble in the mind is the ultimate aim of
a happy life. The damages and the advantages following
the realization of any desire must be measured in a calcu-
lus in which even pain must be faced with courage if the
consequent pleasure will be of longer duration.
Having thus given order to his life, however, the wise
person must also provide himself with security. This he
achieves in two ways: by reducing his needs to a minimum
and withdrawing, far from human competition and from
the noise of the world, to live hidden; and by adding the
34
7
private compact of friendship to the public compact from

which laws arise. To be sure, friendship stems from util-
ity; but, once born, it is desirable in itself. Epicurus then
added that for love of friendship one has even to put in
jeopardy love itself ; for every existence, being alone, needs
the other. To eat and drink without a friend, he wrote,
is to devour like the lion and the wolf. Thus, the utility
sublimates itself and changes into love. But as every love
is intrepid, the wise person, if his friend is put to torture,
suffers as if he himself were there and, if necessary, will
die for his friend. Thus, into the bloody world of his time,
Epicurus could launch the cry: Friendship runs dancing
through the world bringing to us all the summons to wake
and sing its praises.
If human unhappiness stemmed only from vain desires
and worldly dangers, this wisdom, founded upon prudence
alone, would suffice. But besides these sources of unhap-
piness there are two great fears, fear of death and fear of
the gods. If science, however, is effective in revealing the
bounds of desire and in quelling the fear of the gods, it can
also allay the fear of death. Regarding the soul as a body
within another body, science envisions it as dissolving when
the body dissolves. Death, then, is nothing to us, so long
as we exist, death is not with us; but when death comes,
then we do not exist. But death is feared not only for what
may be waiting in the beyond but also for itself. I am not
afraid of being dead, said the comic poet Epicharmus of
Cos (c. 530c. 440 BCE), I just do not want to die. The very
idea of not existing instills a fear that Epicurus considered
to be the cause of all the passions that pain the soul and
disorder peoples lives. Against it Epicurus argued that if
pleasure is perfect within each instant and infinite time
contains no greater pleasure than limited time, if one mea-
sures by reason the limits of pleasure, then all desire of
immortality is vain. Thus, Epicuruss most distinguished
35
pupil, Metrodorus of Lampsacus (331278 BCE), could

exclaim, bebitai (I have lived), and this would be quite
enough. He who has conquered the fear of death can also
despise pain, which if it is long lasting is light, and if it is
intense is short and brings death nearer. The wise person
has only to replace the image of pain present in the flesh
with that of blessings enjoyed, and he can be happy even
inside the bull of Phalaris. The most beautiful example
was set by Epicurus at the moment of his death:
A happy day is this on which I write to you. The pains

which I feelcould not be greater. But all of this is opposed by
the happiness which the soul experiences, remembering our
conversations of a bygone time.
The ultimate concentration of all his wisdom is the

Tetrapharmacon, preserved by Philodemus (11035 BCE):
The gods are not to be feared. Death is not a thing that one
must fear. Good is easy to obtain. Evil is easy to tolerate.
The Epicurean School

Epicuruss successor in the direction of the Garden was
Hermarchus of Mytilene, and he was succeeded in turn
by Polystratus, who was the last survivor to have heard
Epicurus. Superior to both, however, were Metrodorus and
Colotes, against whom a small work by Plutarch (46c. 120
CE) was directed. Among the Epicureans of the 2nd cen-
tury BCE, mention must be made of Demetrius of Lacon,
of whose works some fragments remain, and Apollodorus,
who wrote more than 400 books. Much was also written
by his disciple Zeno of Sidon, who was heard by Cicero in
79 BCE in Athens. After Zeno, there were Phaedrus, also a
teacher of Cicero, who was in Rome in 90 BCE, and Patro,
the head of the school until 51 BCE. Already famous as an
epigram writer was Philodemus of Gadara (born 110 BCE).
36
7
In the papyri of Herculaneum, comprising the effects of

Philodemuss library, there are sizable remains of almost
all of his numerous works.
Epicureanism had already been introduced in Rome,
in the 2nd century BCE. The first person to spread its doc-
trines in Latin prose was a certain Amafinius. At the time
of Cicero, Epicureanism was in fact the philosophy in
vogue, and according to Cicero the number of Romans
subscribing to it was considerable. Among the greatest
Epicureans was Titus Lucretius Carus (c. 9555 BCE), who,
in the poem De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things),
left an almost complete and amazingly precise exposition
of Epicuruss Physics. The extent to which Epicurus
was still popular in the 1st century after Christ is demon-
strated by Seneca, who cited and defended him. To the 2nd
century CE belongs Diogenes of Oenoanda, who carved
Epicuruss works on a portico wall. In the same century
should perhaps be mentioned Diogenianus, fragments of
whose polemic against the Stoic Chrysippus are found in
the church historian Eusebius. Also Epicurean, between
the 4th and 5th centuries, was the epigrammatist Palladas.
On account of its dogmatic character and its practi-
cal end, the philosophy of Epicurus was not subject to
development, except in the polemic and in its applica-
tion to themes that Epicurus either had treated briefly or
had never dealt with at all. To be aware of this, it is suffi-
cient to run through what remains of the representatives
of his school and particularly of the works of Philodemus
of Gadara. Epicuruss philosophy remained essentially
unchanged. Once truth has been found, it requires no
more discussion, particularly when it completely satisfies
the end toward which human nature tends. The main thing
is to see this end; all of the rest comes by itself, and there is
no longer anything to do but follow Epicurus, liberator
and saviour, and to memorize his oracular words.
37
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is an ethical theory according to which an

action is right if it tends to promote happiness and wrong
if it tends to promote unhappinessnot only for the agent
but also for everyone affected. Thus, utilitarians focus on
the consequences of an act rather than on its intrinsic
nature or the motives of the agent. Classical utilitarianism
is hedonist, but values other than, or in addition to, plea-
sure (as in ideal utilitarianism) can be employed, ormore
neutrally, and in a version popular in economicsanything
can be regarded as valuable that appears as an object of
rational or informed desire (as in preference utilitarian-
ism). The test of utility maximization can also be applied
directly to single acts (act utilitarianism), or to acts only
indirectly through some other suitable object of moral
assessment, such as rules of conduct (rule utilitarianism).
Utilitarianism is in opposition to egoism, the view that
a person should pursue his own self-interest, even at the
expense of others, and to any ethical theory that regards
some acts or types of acts as right or wrong indepen-
dently of their consequences. Utilitarianism also differs
from ethical theories that make the rightness or wrong-
ness of an act dependent upon the motive of the agent;
for, according to the utilitarian, it is possible for the right
thing to be done from a bad motive.
Basic Concepts
The utilitarian understands the consequences of an action
to include all of the good and bad produced, whether
arising after the action has been performed or during
its performance. If the difference in the consequences
of alternative actions is not great, some utilitarians do
not regard the choice between them as a moral issue.
According to John Stuart Mill, actions should be classified
38
7
Jeremy Bentham, detail of an oil painting by H.W. Pickersgill, 1829; in the

National Portrait Gallery, London. Courtesy of the National Portrait
Gallery, London
39
as morally right or wrong only if the consequences are of

such significance that a person would wish to see the agent
compelled, not merely persuaded and exhorted, to act in
the preferred manner.
In assessing the consequences of actions, utilitarian-
ism relies on some theory of intrinsic value: something
is held to be good in itself, apart from further conse-
quences, and all other values are believed to derive
their worth from their relation to this intrinsic good
as a means to an end. Jeremy Bentham and Mill were
hedonists; that is, they analyzed happiness as a balance
of pleasure over pain and believed that these feelings
alone are of intrinsic value and disvalue. Utilitarians
also assume that it is possible to compare the intrinsic
values produced by two alternative actions and to esti-
mate which would have better consequences. Bentham
believed that a hedonic calculus is theoretically pos-
sible. A moralist, he maintained, could sum up the units
of pleasure and the units of pain for everyone likely to
be affected, immediately and in the future, and could
take the balance as a measure of the overall good or evil
tendency of an action. Such precise measurement as
Bentham envisioned is perhaps not essential, but it is
nonetheless necessary for the utilitarian to make some
interpersonal comparisons of the values of the effects of
alternative courses of action.
Methodologies
As a normative system providing a standard by which an
individual ought to act and by which the existing practices
of society, including its moral code, ought to be evalu-
ated and improved, utilitarianism cannot be verified or
confirmed in the way in which a descriptive theory can.
But it is not regarded by its exponents as simply arbi-
trary. Bentham believed that only in terms of a utilitarian
40
7
interpretation do words such as ought, right, and

wrong have meaning and that whenever anyone attempts
to combat the principle of utility, he does so with reasons
drawn from the principle itself. Bentham and Mill both
believed that human actions are motivated entirely by
pleasure and pain. Mill saw that motivation as a basis for
the argument that, because happiness is the sole end of
human action, the promotion of happiness is the test by
which to judge all human conduct.
One of the leading utilitarians of the late 19th century,
Cambridge philosopher Henry Sidgwick, rejected their
theories of motivation as well as Benthams theory of the
meaning of moral terms and sought to support utilitarian-
ism by showing that it follows from systematic reflection
on the morality of common sense. Most of the require-
ments of commonsense morality, he argued, could be
based on utilitarian considerations. In addition, he rea-
soned that utilitarianism could solve the difficulties and
perplexities that arise from the vagueness and inconsis-
tencies of commonsense doctrines.
Criticisms
Most opponents of utilitarianism have held that it has
implications contrary to their moral intuitionsthat
considerations of utility, for example, might sometimes
sanction the breaking of a promise. Much of the defense
of utilitarian ethics has consisted in answering these
objections, either by showing that utilitarianism does not
have the implications that they claim it has or by arguing
against the moral intuitions of its opponents. Some utili-
tarians, however, have sought to modify the utilitarian
theory to account for the objections.
One such criticism is that, although the widespread
practice of lying and stealing would have bad conse-
quences, resulting in a loss of trustworthiness and security,
41
it is not certain that an occasional lie to avoid embarrass-

ment or an occasional theft from a rich person would
not have good consequences, and thus be permissible or
even required by utilitarianism. But the utilitarian readily
answers that the widespread practice of such acts would
result in a loss of trustworthiness and security. To meet
the objection to not permitting an occasional lie or theft,
some philosophers have defended a modification labelled
rule utilitarianism. It permits a particular act on a par-
ticular occasion to be judged right or wrong according to
whether it is in accordance with or in violation of a useful
rule. A rule is judged useful or not by the consequences of
its general practice. Mill has sometimes been interpreted
as a rule utilitarian, whereas Bentham and Sidgwick
were act utilitarians.
Another objection, often posed against the hedonistic
value theory held by Bentham, holds that the value of life
is more than a balance of pleasure over pain. Mill, in con-
trast to Bentham, discerned differences in the quality of
pleasures that made some intrinsically preferable to others
independently of intensity and duration (the quantitative
dimensions recognized by Bentham). Some philosophers
in the utilitarian tradition have recognized certain wholly
nonhedonistic values, such as beauty, without losing their
utilitarian credentials.
Even in limiting the recognition of intrinsic value and
disvalue to happiness and unhappiness, some philoso-
phers have argued that those feelings cannot adequately
be further broken down into terms of pleasure and pain
and have thus preferred to defend the theory in terms of
maximizing happiness and minimizing unhappiness. It is
important to note, however, that even for the hedonistic
utilitarians, pleasure and pain are not thought of in purely
sensual terms. Pleasure and pain for them can be compo-
nents of experiences of all sorts. Their claim is that, if an
42
7
experience is neither pleasurable nor painful, then it is a

matter of indifference and has no intrinsic value.
Another objection to utilitarianism is that the preven-
tion or elimination of suffering should take precedence
over any alternative action that would only increase the
happiness of someone already happy. Some 20th-century
utilitarians modified their theory to require this focus or
even to limit moral obligation to the prevention or elimina-
tion of sufferinga view labelled negative utilitarianism.
Historical Survey
The ingredients of utilitarianism are found in the history
of thought long before Bentham. A hedonistic theory of
the value of life is found in the early 5th century BCE in the
ethics of Aristippus of Cyrene (c. 435366 BCE), founder
of the Cyrenaic school, and 100 years later in that of
Epicurus. The seeds of ethical universalism are found in
the doctrines of the rival ethical school of Stoicism and in
Christianity.
Growth of Classical English Utilitarianism

In the history of English philosophy, some historians have
identified Bishop Richard Cumberland (16311718) as the
first to have a utilitarian philosophy. A generation later,
however, Francis Hutcheson (16941746), a Scots-Irish
moral sense theorist, more clearly held a utilitarian view.
He not only analyzed that action as best that procures
the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers but pro-
posed a form of moral arithmetic for calculating the
best consequences. The Skeptic David Hume, Scotlands
foremost philosopher and historian, attempted to analyze
the origin of the virtues in terms of their contribution
to utility. Bentham said that he discovered the principle
of utility in the 18th-century writings of various think-
ers: Joseph Priestley (17331804), a dissenting clergyman
43
famous for his discovery of oxygen; Frenchman Claude-

Adrien Helvtius (171571), author of a philosophy of mere
sensation; Cesare Beccaria (173894), an Italian legal theo-
rist; and Hume. Helvtius probably drew from Hume, and
Beccaria from Helvtius.
Another strand of utilitarian thought took the form of
a theological ethics. John Gay, a biblical scholar and phi-
losopher, held the will of God to be the criterion of virtue.
But from Gods goodness he inferred that God willed that
men promote human happiness.
Bentham, who apparently believed that an individual
in governing his own actions would always seek to maxi-
mize his own pleasure and minimize his own pain, found in
pleasure and pain both the cause of human action and the
basis for a normative criterion of action. Bentham called
the art of governing ones own actions private ethics.
The happiness of the agent is the determining factor. The
happiness of others governs only to the extent that the
agent is motivated by sympathy, benevolence, or interest
in the good will and good opinion of others. For Bentham,
the greatest happiness of the greatest number would play
a role primarily in the art of legislation, in which the legis-
lator would seek to maximize the happiness of the entire
community by creating an identity of interests between
each individual and his fellows. By laying down penalties
for mischievous acts, the legislator would make it unprof-
itable for a person to harm his neighbour. Benthams
major philosophical work, An Introduction to the Principles
of Morals and Legislation (1789), was designed as an intro-
duction to a plan of a penal code.
With Bentham, utilitarianism became the ideological
foundation of a reform movement, later known as philo-
sophical radicalism, that would test all institutions and
policies by the principle of utility. Bentham attracted as
44
Normative ethics: Eudaemonism
7 and consequentialism
7
John Stuart Mill, 1884. Library of Congres, Neg. Co. LC-USZ62-76491
45
his disciples a number of younger (earlier 19th-century)

thinkers. They included David Ricardo (17721823), who
gave classical form to the science of economics; John
Stuart Mills father, James Mill (17731836); and John
Austin (17901859), a legal theorist. James Mill argued for
representative government and universal male suffrage on
utilitarian grounds, and he and other followers of Bentham
were advocates of parliamentary reform in England in the
early 19th century. John Stuart Mill promoted womens
suffrage, state-supported education for all, and other pro-
posals that were considered radical in their day. He argued
on utilitarian grounds for freedom of speech and expres-
sion and for the noninterference of government or society
in individual behaviour that did not harm anyone else.
His essay Utilitarianism, published in Frasers Magazine
(1861), is an elegant defense of the general utilitarian doc-
trine and perhaps remains the best introduction to the
subject. In it utilitarianism is viewed as an ethics for ordi-
nary individual behaviour as well as for legislation.
Modern Varieties of Utilitarianism

By the time Sidgwick wrote, utilitarianism had become
one of the foremost ethical theories of the day. His
Methods of Ethics (1874), a comparative examination of
egoism, the ethics of common sense, and utilitarianism,
contains the most careful discussion to be found of the
implications of utilitarianism as a principle of individual
moral action.
The 20th century saw the development of various
modifications and complications of the utilitarian theory.
G.E. Moore, a pioneer of 20th-century analytic philoso-
phy, regarded many kinds of experienceincluding love,
knowledge, and the appreciation of beautyas intrin-
sically valuable independently of pleasure, a position
labelled ideal utilitarianism. He famously proposed
46
7
that one imagine two universes in which there are equal

quantities of pleasure but vastly different amounts of
beauty. He thought it obvious that the more beauti-
ful world is to be preferred. The recognition of act
utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism as explicit alterna-
tives was stimulated by the analysis of moral reasoning
in rule utilitarian terms by the English philosophers
Stephen Toulmin (19222009) and Patrick Nowell-Smith
(19152006); the interpretation of Mill as a rule utili-
tarian by another English moralist, J.O. Urmson; and the
analysis by John Rawls (19212002), an American political
and moral philosopher, of the significance for utilitari-
anism of two different conceptions of moral rules. Act
utilitarianism was defended by the Australian-born phi-
losopher J.J.C. Smart, however.
Effects of Utilitarianism in Other Fields

The influence of utilitarianism has been widespread, per-
meating the intellectual life of the last two centuries. Its
significance in law, politics, and economics is especially
notable.
The utilitarian theory of the justification of punish-
ment stands in opposition to the retributive theory,
according to which punishment is intended to make the
criminal pay for his crime. According to the utilitarian,
the rationale of punishment is entirely to prevent further
crime by either reforming the criminal or protecting soci-
ety from him and to deter others from crime through fear
of punishment.
In its political philosophy, utilitarianism bases the
authority of government and the sanctity of individual
rights upon their utility, thus providing an alternative to
theories of natural law, natural rights, or social contract.
What kind of government is best thus becomes a question
of what kind of government has the best consequencesan
47
assessment that requires factual premises regarding human

nature and behaviour.
Generally, utilitarians have supported democracy as a
way of making the interest of government coincide with
the general interest. They have argued for the greatest
individual liberty compatible with an equal liberty for oth-
ers on the ground that each individual is generally the best
judge of his own welfare. And utilitarians have believed in
the possibility and the desirability of progressive social
change through peaceful political processes.
With different factual assumptions, however, utili-
tarian arguments can lead to different conclusions. If the
inquirer assumes that a strong government is required
to check humans basically selfish interests and that any
change may threaten the stability of the political order,
he may be led by utilitarian arguments to an authoritar-
ian or conservative position. In contrast, William Godwin
(17561836), an English political philosopher, assumed
the basic goodness of human nature and argued that the
greatest happiness would follow from a radical alteration
of society in the direction of anarchistic communism.
Classical economics received some of its most impor-
tant statements from utilitarian writers, especially Ricardo
and John Stuart Mill. Ironically, its theory of economic
value was framed primarily in terms of the cost of labour
in production rather than in terms of the use value, or
utility, of commodities. Later developments more clearly
reflected the utilitarian philosophy. William Jevons (1835
82), one of the founders of the marginal utility school of
analysis, derived many of his ideas from Bentham. And
welfare economics, while substituting comparative pref-
erences for comparative utilities, reflected the basic spirit
of the utilitarian philosophy. In economic policy, the early
utilitarians had tended to oppose governmental interfer-
ence in trade and industry on the assumption that the
48
7
economy would regulate itself for the greatest welfare if

left alone. Later utilitarians lost confidence in the social
efficiency of private enterprise, however, and were will-
ing to see governmental power and administration used to
correct its abuses.
As a movement for the reform of social institutions,
19th-century utilitarianism was remarkably successful
in the long run. Most of utilitarian recommendations
have since been implemented unless abandoned by the
reformers themselves; and, equally important, utilitar-
ian arguments are now commonly employed to advocate
institutional or policy changes.
Summary and Evaluation

As an abstract ethical doctrine, utilitarianism has estab-
lished itself as one of the small number of live options that
must be taken into account and either refuted or accepted
by any philosopher taking a position in normative ethics.
In contemporary discussion it has been divorced from
adventitious involvements with the analysis of ethical
language and with the psychological theory with which
it was presented by Bentham. Utilitarianism now appears
in various modified and complicated formulations.
Benthams ideal of a hedonic calculus is usually considered
a practical if not a theoretical impossibility. Present-day
philosophers have noticed further problems in the utili-
tarian procedures. One of them, for example, is with the
process of identifying the consequences of an acta pro-
cess that raises conceptual as well as practical problems
as to what are to be counted as consequences, even with-
out precisely quantifying the value of those consequences.
The question may arise whether the outcome of an elec-
tion is a consequence of each and every vote cast for the
winning candidate if he receives more than the number
necessary for election; and in estimating the value of the
49
consequences, one may ask whether the entire value or

only a part of the value of the outcome of the election is to
be assigned to each vote. There is also difficulty in the pro-
cedure of comparing alternative acts. If one act requires
a longer period of time for its performance than another,
one may ask whether they can be considered alternatives.
Even what is to count as an act is not a matter of philo-
sophical consensus.
These problems, however, are common to almost all
normative ethical theories, since most of them recog-
nize the consequencesincluding the hedonicof an
act as being relevant ethical considerations. The central
insight of utilitarianism, that one ought to promote hap-
piness and prevent unhappiness whenever possible, seems
undeniable. The critical question, however, is whether the
whole of normative ethics can be analyzed in terms of this
simple formula.
50
Chapter
Normative Ethics:
21
Contractualism,
Deontology, Feminism,
and Egoism
S ince at least the 17th century, utilitarian ethical the-

ories have been forcefully opposed by various forms
of contractualism (also called social-contract theory)
and deontology. Egoism, which also dates from the
17th century, has lost much of its early appeal among
moral philosophers but has been defended by some
modern students of economics and politics as a natu-
ral extension of the doctrine of laissez-faire. Beginning
in the second half of the 20th century, philosophical
feminism challenged traditional concepts and meth-
ods in many areas of philosophy, especially ethics.
CONTRACTUALISM
The contractualist approach in normative ethics is
based on the notion of the social contract, which
is conceived as an actual or hypothetical compact
between the ruled and their rulers. The terms of the
supposed contract are used as the basis of a justifica-
tion of the political authority of the rulers, the rights
of the ruled, or both. The original inspiration for the
notion may derive from the biblical covenant between
God and Abraham, but it is most closely associated
51
with the writings of Thomas Hobbes (15881679), John

Locke (16321704), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (171278).
John Rawls (19212002) was an influential social-contract
theorist. The idea of the social contract influenced the
shapers of the American and French revolutions and the
constitutions that followed them.
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes presented his political philosophy in dif-
ferent forms for different audiences. His work De Cive
(1642) states his theory in what he regarded as its most
scientific form. Unlike The Elements of Law (1650), which
was composed in English for English parliamentarians
and which was written with local political challenges to
King Charles I in mindDe Cive was a Latin work for an
audience of Continental savants who were interested in
the new sciencethat is, the sort of science that did not
appeal to the authority of the ancients but approached
various problems with fresh principles of explanation.
De Cives break from the ancient authority par
excellenceAristotlecould not have been more loudly
advertised. After only a few paragraphs, Hobbes rejects
one of the most famous theses of Aristotles politics,
namely that human beings are naturally suited to life in a
polis (city-state) and do not fully realize their natures until
they exercise the role of citizen. Hobbes turns Aristotles
claim on its head: human beings, he insists, are by nature
unsuited to political life. They naturally denigrate and
compete with each other, are too easily swayed by the
rhetoric of ambitious men, and think much more highly of
themselves than of other people. In short, their passions
magnify the value they place on their own interests, espe-
cially their near-term interests. At the same time, most
people, in pursuing their own interests, do not have the
52
Normative Ethics: Contractualism,
7 Deontology, Feminism, and Egoism
7
ability to prevail over competitors. Nor can they appeal

to some natural common standard of behaviour by which
everyone will feel obliged to abide. There is no natural self-
restraint, even when human beings are moderate in their
appetites, for a ruthless and bloodthirsty few can make
even the moderate feel forced to take violent preemp-
tive action to avoid losing everything. The self-restraint
even of the moderate, then, easily turns into aggression.
In other words, no human being is above aggression and
the anarchy that goes with it.
War comes more naturally to human beings than politi-
cal order. Indeed, political order is possible only when
human beings abandon their natural condition of judging
and pursuing what seems best to each and delegate this judg-
ment to someone else. This delegation is effected when the
many form a social contract among themselves to submit to
a sovereign in return for physical safety and a modicum of
well-being. Each of the many in effect says to the other: I
transfer my right of governing myself to X (the sovereign)
if you do too. And the transfer is collectively entered into
only on the understanding that it makes one less of a tar-
get of attack or dispossession than one would be in ones
natural state. Although Hobbes did not assume that there
was ever a real historical event in which a mutual promise
was made to delegate self-government to a sovereign, he
claimed that the best way to understand the state was to
conceive of it as having resulted from such an agreement.
In Hobbess social contract, the many trade liberty for
safety. Liberty, with its standing invitation to local conflict
and finally all-out wara war of every man against every
manis overvalued in traditional political philosophy
and popular opinion, according to Hobbes. It is better for
people to transfer the right of governing themselves to the
sovereign. Once transferred, however, this right of gov-
ernment is absolute, unless the many feel that their lives
53
are threatened by submission. The sovereign determines

who owns what, who will hold which public offices, how
the economy will be regulated, what acts will be crimes,
and what punishments criminals should receive. The sov-
ereign is the supreme commander of the army, supreme
interpreter of law, and supreme interpreter of scripture,
with authority over any national church. It is unjusta
case of reneging on what one has agreedfor any sub-
ject to take issue with these arrangements, for, in the act
of creating the state or by receiving its protection, one
agrees to leave judgments about the means of collective
well-being and security to the sovereign. The sovereigns
laws and decrees and appointments to public office may be
unpopular. They may even be wrong. But unless the sover-
eign fails so utterly that subjects feel that their condition
would be no worse in the free-for-all outside the state, it is
better for the subjects to endure the sovereigns rule.
It is better both prudentially and morally. Because no
one can prudently welcome a greater risk of death, no one
can prudently prefer total liberty to submission. Total lib-
erty invites war, and submission is the best insurance against
war. Morality too supports this conclusion, for, according to
Hobbes, all the moral precepts enjoining virtuous behaviour
can be understood as derivable from the fundamental moral
precept that one should seek peacethat is to say, freedom
from warif it is safe to do so. Without peace, he observed,
man lives in continual fear, and danger of violent death, and
what life he has is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
What Hobbes calls the laws of nature, the system of moral
rules by which everyone is bound, cannot be safely com-
plied with outside the state, for the total liberty that people
have outside the state includes the liberty to flout the moral
requirements if ones survival seems to depend on it.
The sovereign is not a party to the social contract. He
receives the obedience of the many as a free gift in their
54
7
hope that he will see to their safety. The sovereign makes

no promises to the many to win their submission. Indeed,
because he does not transfer his right of self-government to
anyone, he retains the total liberty that his subjects trade for
safety. He is not bound by law, including his own laws. Nor
does he do anything unjustly if he makes decisions about his
subjectss safety and well-being that they do not like.
Although the sovereign is in a position to judge the
means of survival and well-being for the many more dis-
passionately than they are able to do themselves, he is not
immune to self-interested passions. Hobbes realizes that
the sovereign may behave iniquitously. He insists that it
is particularly imprudent for a sovereign to act so iniq-
uitously that he disappoints his subjectss expectation of
safety and makes them feel insecure. Subjects who are in
fear of their lives lose their obligations to obey and, with
that, deprive the sovereign of his power. Reduced to the
status of one among many by the defection of his subjects,
the unseated sovereign is likely to feel the wrath of those
who submitted to him in vain.
Hobbess masterpiece, Leviathan (1651), does not sig-
nificantly depart from the view of De Cive concerning the
relation between protection and obedience, but it devotes
much more attention to the civil obligations of Christian
believers and the proper and improper roles of a church
within a state. Hobbes argues that believers do not endan-
ger their prospects of salvation by obeying a sovereigns
decrees to the letter, and he maintains that churches do not
have any authority that is not granted by the civil sovereign.
Hobbess political views exerted a discernible influence
on his work in other fields, including historiography and
legal theory. His political philosophy is chiefly concerned
with the way in which government must be organized to
avoid civil war. It therefore encompasses a view of the
typical causes of civil war, all of which are represented in
55
Behemoth; or, The Long Parliament (1679), his history of the

English Civil Wars. Hobbes produced the first English
translation of Thucydides History of the Pelopponesian War,
which he thought contained important lessons for his
contemporaries regarding the excesses of democracy, the
worst kind of dilution of sovereign authority, in his view.
Hobbess works on church history and the history of
philosophy also strongly reflect his politics. He was firmly
against the separation of government powers, either
between branches of government or between church and
state. His ecclesiastical history emphasizes the way in
which power-hungry priests and popes threatened legiti-
mate civil authority. His history of philosophy is mostly
concerned with how metaphysics was used as a means of
keeping people under the sway of Roman Catholicism at
the expense of obedience to a civil authority. His theory
of law develops a similar theme regarding the threats to a
supreme civil power posed by common law and the multi-
plication of authoritative legal interpreters.
John Locke
John Lockes importance as a political philosopher lies
in the argument of the second of his Two Treatises of
Government (1690). He begins by defining political power
as a
right of making Laws with Penalties of Death, and conse-

quently all less Penalties, for the Regulating and Preserving of
Property, and of employing the force of the Community, in the
Execution of such Laws and in defence of the Common-wealth
from Foreign Injury, and all this only for the Publick Good.
Much of the remainder of the Treatise is a commentary on

this paragraph.
56
7
John Locke incorporated individualism within the structure of the law of

nature and explained the origins and limits of legitimate government author-
ity. Hulton Archive/Getty Images
57
The State of Nature and the Social Contract
Lockes definition of political power has an immediate

moral dimension. It is a right of making laws and enforcing
them for the public good. Power for Locke never simply
means capacity but always morally sanctioned capacity.
Morality pervades the whole arrangement of society, and it
is this fact, tautologically, that makes society legitimate.
Lockes account of political society is based on a hypo-
thetical consideration of the human condition before
the beginning of communal life. In this state of nature,
humans are entirely free. But this freedom is not a state
of complete license, because it is set within the bounds of
the law of nature. It is a state of equality, which is itself a
central element of Lockes account. In marked contrast to
Sir Robert Filmers world (see page 76), there is no natu-
ral hierarchy among humans. Each person is naturally free
and equal under the law of nature, subject only to the will
of the infinitely wise Maker. Each person, moreover, is
required to enforce as well as to obey this law. It is this
duty that gives to humans the right to punish offenders.
But in such a state of nature, it is obvious that placing the
right to punish in each persons hands may lead to injustice
and violence. This can be remedied if humans enter into
a contract with each other to recognize by common con-
sent a civil government with the power to enforce the law
of nature among the citizens of that state. Although any
contract is legitimate as long as it does not infringe upon
the law of nature, it often happens that a contract can
be enforced only if there is some higher human author-
ity to require compliance with it. It is a primary function
of society to set up the framework in which legitimate
contracts, freely entered into, may be enforced, a state
of affairs much more difficult to guarantee in the state of
nature and outside civil society.
58
7
Property
Before discussing the creation of political society in greater

detail, Locke provides a lengthy account of his notion of
property, which is of central importance to his political
theory. Each person, according to Locke, has property
in his own personthat is, each person literally owns his
own body. Other people may not use a persons body for
any purpose without his permission. But one can acquire
property beyond ones own body through labour. By mix-
ing ones labour with objects in the world, one acquires
a right to the fruits of that work. If ones labour turns a
barren field into crops or a pile of wood into a house, the
valuable product of that labour, the crops or the house,
becomes ones property. Lockes view was a forerunner of
the labour theory of value, which was expounded in differ-
ent forms by the 19th-century economists David Ricardo
(17721823) and Karl Marx (181883).
Clearly, each person is entitled to as much of the
product of his labour as he needs to survive. But, accord-
ing to Locke, in the state of nature one is not entitled
to hoard surplus produceone must share it with those
less fortunate. God has given the World to Men in com-
monto make use of to the best advantage of Life, and
convenience. The introduction of money, while radically
changing the economic base of society, was itself a contin-
gent development, for money has no intrinsic value but
depends for its utility only on convention.
Lockes account of property and how it comes to be
owned faces difficult problems. For example, it is far
from clear how much labour is required to turn any given
unowned object into a piece of private property. In the
case of a piece of land, for example, is it sufficient merely
to put a fence around it? Or must it be plowed as well?
There is, nevertheless, something intuitively powerful in
59
the notion that it is activity, or work, that grants one a

property right in something.
Organization of Government
Locke returns to political society in Chapter VIII of the
second treatise. In the community created by the social
contract, the will of the majority should prevail, subject to
the law of nature. The legislative body is central, but it can-
not create laws that violate the law of nature, because the
enforcement of the natural law regarding life, liberty, and
property is the rationale of the whole system. Laws must
apply equitably to all citizens and not favour particular
sectional interests, and there should be a division of legis-
lative, executive, and judicial powers. The legislature may,
with the agreement of the majority, impose such taxes as
are required to fulfill the ends of the stateincluding, of
course, its defense. If the executive power fails to provide
the conditions under which the people can enjoy their
rights under natural law, the people are entitled to remove
him, by force if necessary. Thus, revolution, in extremis, is
permissibleas Locke obviously thought it was in 1688
89, during the Glorious Revolution against King James II
of England.
The significance of Lockes vision of political society
can scarcely be exaggerated. His integration of individu-
alism within the framework of the law of nature and his
account of the origins and limits of legitimate government
authority inspired the U.S. Declaration of Independence
(1776) and the broad outlines of the system of government
adopted in the U.S. Constitution. George Washington,
the first president of the United States, once described
Locke as the greatest man who had ever lived. In France
too, Lockean principles found clear expression in the
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and
other justifications of the French Revolution of 1789.
60
7
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote two great works of politi-

cal philosophy: the Discours sur lorigine de linegalit (1755;
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality) and Du Contrat social
(1762; The Social Contract). The former was written in
response to a question posed by the Academy of Dijon,
France: What is the origin of the inequality among
men and is it justified by natural law? In response to
this challenge he produced a masterpiece of speculative
anthropology. The argument follows on that of the ear-
lier Discours sur les sciences et les arts (1750; A Discourse on the
Sciences and the Arts) by developing the proposition that
humans in their natural state are good and then tracing
the successive stages by which humans have descended
from primitive innocence to corrupt sophistication.
Rousseau begins his Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
by distinguishing two kinds of inequality, natural and
artificial, the first arising from differences in strength,
intelligence, and so forth, the second from the conventions
that govern societies. It is the inequalities of the latter
sort that he sets out to explain. Adopting what he thought
the properly scientific method of investigating origins,
he attempts to reconstruct the earliest phases of human-
itys experience of life on earth. He suggests that original
humans were not social beings but entirely solitary, and to
this extent he agrees with Hobbess account of the state
of nature. But in contrast to the English pessimists view
of human life in such a condition, Rousseau claims that
original humans, while admittedly solitary, were healthy,
happy, good, and free. Human vices, he argues, date from
the time when societies were formed.
Rousseau thus exonerates nature and blames society
for the emergence of vices. He says that passions that gen-
erate vices hardly exist in the state of nature but begin to
61
develop as soon as humans form societies. Rousseau goes

on to suggest that societies started when people built their
first huts, a development that facilitated cohabitation of
males and females, which in turn produced the habit of
living as a family and associating with neighbours. This
nascent society, as Rousseau calls it, was good while it
lasted. Indeed, it was the golden age of human history.
Only it did not endure. With the tender passion of love
there was also born the destructive passion of jealousy.
Neighbours started to compare their abilities and achieve-
ments with one another, and this marked the first step
towards inequality and at the same time towards vice.
People started to demand consideration and respect, and
their innocent self-love turned into culpable pride, as each
person wanted to be better than everyone else.
The introduction of property marked a further step
toward inequality because it necessitated instituting law
and government to protect property. Rousseau laments
the fatal concept of property in one of his more elo-
quent passages, describing the horrors that have resulted
from the departure from a condition in which the earth
belonged to no one. These passages in his second Discourse
excited later revolutionaries such as Marx and Vladimir
Ilich Lenin (18701924), but Rousseau himself did not
think that the past could be undone in any way. There was
no point in men dreaming of a return to the golden age.
Civil society, as Rousseau describes it, comes into being
to serve two purposes: to provide peace for everyone and
to ensure the right to property for anyone lucky enough
to have possessions. It is thus of some advantage to every-
one, but mostly to the advantage of the rich, because it
transforms their de facto ownership into rightful owner-
ship and keeps the poor dispossessed. It is a somewhat
fraudulent social contract that introduces government,
because the poor get so much less out of it than do the
62
7
rich. Even so, the rich are no happier in civil society than
are the poor because the social individual is never satisfied.
Society leads people to hate one another to the extent that
their interests conflict, and the best they are able to do
is to hide their hostility behind a mask of courtesy. Thus
Rousseau regards the inequality not as a separate problem
but as one of the features of the long process by which
people become alienated from nature and from innocence.
In the dedication Rousseau wrote for the Discourse,
to present it to the republic of Geneva, he nevertheless
praises that city-state for having achieved the ideal bal-
ance between the equality which nature established
among men and the inequality which they have instituted
among themselves. The arrangement he discerned in
Geneva was one in which the best persons were chosen
by the citizens and put in the highest positions of author-
ity. Like Plato (c. 428c. 348 BCE), Rousseau always believed
that a just society was one in which everyone was in his
right place. And having written the Discourse to explain
how human liberty had been lost in the past, he went on
to write another book, Du Contrat social (1762; The Social
Contract), to suggest how it might be recovered in the
future. Again Geneva was the model: not Geneva as it had
become in 1754, when Rousseau returned there to recover
his rights as a citizen, but Geneva as it had once been (i.e.,
Geneva as the Protestant Reformer John Calvin [150964]
had designed it).
The Social Contract begins with the sensational open-
ing sentence, Man is born free, and everywhere he is in
chains. Rousseau proceeds to argue that these chains
need not exist. If a civil society, or state, could be based
on a genuine social contract, as opposed to the fraudu-
lent social contract depicted in the Discourse on the Origin
of Inequality, people would receive in exchange for their
independence a better kind of freedomnamely, true
63
political, or republican, liberty. Such liberty is to be found

in obedience to a self-imposed law.
Rousseaus definition of political liberty raises an obvi-
ous problem. For while it can be readily agreed that an
individual is free if he obeys only rules he prescribes for
himself, this is so because an individual is a person with a
single will. A society, by contrast, is a set of persons with a
set of individual wills, and conflict between separate wills
is a fact of universal experience. Rousseaus response to
the problem is to define his civil society as an artificial per-
son united by a general will, or volont gnrale. The social
contract that brings society into being is a pledge, and the
society remains in being as a pledged group. Rousseaus
republic is a creation of the general willof a will that
never falters in each and every member to further the
public, common, or national interesteven though it may
conflict at times with personal interest.
Rousseau sounds very much like Hobbes when he says
that under the pact by which men enter civil society every-
one totally alienates himself and all his rights to the whole
community. Rousseau, however, represents this act as a
form of exchange of rights whereby people give up natural
rights in return for civil rights. The bargain is a good one,
because what is surrendered are rights of dubious value,
whose realization depends solely on an individuals own
might, and what is obtained in return are rights that are
both legitimate and enforced by the collective might of
the community.
There is no more haunting paragraph in The Social
Contract than that in which Rousseau speaks of forcing a
man to be free. But it would be wrong to interpret these
words in the manner of those critics who see Rousseau as
a prophet of modern totalitarianism. He does not claim
that a whole society can be forced to be free but only that
an occasional individual, who is enslaved by his passions to
64
7
the extent of disobeying the law, can be restored by force

to obedience to the voice of the general will that exists
inside of him. The person who is coerced by society for
a breach of the law is, in Rousseaus view, being brought
back to an awareness of his own true interests.
For Rousseau there is a radical dichotomy between
true law and actual law. Actual law, which he describes in
the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, simply protects the
status quo. True law, as described in The Social Contract, is
just law, and what ensures its being just is that it is made
by the people in its collective capacity as sovereign and
obeyed by the same people in their individual capacities
as subjects. Rousseau is confident that such laws could
not be unjust because it is inconceivable that any people
would make unjust laws for itself.
Rousseau is, however, troubled by the fact that the
majority of a people does not necessarily represent its
most intelligent citizens. Indeed, he agrees with Plato that
most people are stupid. Thus the general will, while always
morally sound, is sometimes mistaken. Hence Rousseau
suggests the people need a lawgivera great mind like
Solon (c. 630c. 560 BCE), Lycurgus (c. 390c. 324 BCE), or
Calvinto draw up a constitution and system of laws. He
even suggests that such lawgivers need to claim divine
inspiration in order to persuade the dim-witted multitude
to accept and endorse the laws it is offered.
This suggestion echoes a similar proposal by Niccol
Machiavelli (14691527), a political theorist Rousseau
greatly admired and whose love of republican government
he shared. An even more conspicuously Machiavellian
influence can be discerned in Rousseaus chapter on civil
religion, where he argues that Christianity, despite its
truth, is useless as a republican religion on the grounds
that it is directed to the unseen world and does nothing
to teach citizens the virtues that are needed in the service
65
of the statenamely, courage, virility, and patriotism.

Rousseau does not go so far as Machiavelli in proposing a
revival of pagan cults, but he does propose a civil religion
with minimal theological content designed to fortify and
not impede (as Christianity impedes) the cultivation of
martial virtues. It is understandable that the authorities of
Geneva, profoundly convinced that the national church of
their little republic was at the same time a truly Christian
church and a nursery of patriotism, reacted angrily against
this chapter in Rousseaus Social Contract.
John Rawls
The publication of A Theory of Justice (1971), by the
American philosopher John Rawls, spurred a revival of
interest in the philosophical foundations of liberalisma
political doctrine, originating with Locke, that empha-
sizes the rights and freedoms of the individual. According
to classical liberals, the central challenge of politics is to
devise a system that gives government the power neces-
sary to protect individual liberty but also prevents those
who govern from abusing that power. Modern liberals,
in contrast, see a greater challenge in removing obstacles
that prevent individuals from living freely or from fully
realizing their potential. Such obstacles, as they conceive
them, include poverty, disease, discrimination, and igno-
rance. Because of Rawlss work, the viability of liberalism
has been a major theme of political philosophy in English-
speaking countries.
In A Theory of Justice, Rawls observed that a necessary
condition of justice in any society is that each individual
should be the equal bearer of certain rights that cannot
be disregarded under any circumstances, even if doing so
would advance the general welfare or satisfy the demands of
a majority. This condition cannot be met by utilitarianism,
66
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John Rawls. Harvard University news office
because that ethical theory would countenance forms of

government in which the greater happiness of a majority is
achieved by neglecting the rights and interests of a minor-
ity. Hence, utilitarianism is unsatisfactory as a theory of
justice, and another theory must be sought.
According to Rawls, a just society is one whose major
political, social, and economic institutions, taken together,
satisfy the following two principles:
1. Each person has an equal claim to a scheme of

basic rights and liberties that is the maximum
consistent with the same scheme for all.
2. Social and economic inequalities are permis-
sible only if: (a) they confer the greatest benefit
67
to the least-advantaged members of society, and

(b) they are attached to positions and offices
open to all under conditions of fair equality of
opportunity.
The basic rights and liberties in principle 1 include

the rights and liberties of democratic citizenship, such as
the right to vote; the right to run for office in free elec-
tions; freedom of speech, assembly, and religion; the right
to a fair trial; and, more generally, the right to the rule of
law. Principle 1 is accorded strict priority over principle 2,
which regulates social and economic inequalities.
Principle 2 combines two ideals. The first, known as
the difference principle, requires that any unequal distri-
bution of social or economic goods (e.g., wealth) must be
such that the least-advantaged members of society would
be better off under that distribution than they would be
under any other distribution consistent with principle 1,
including an equal distribution. (A slightly unequal distri-
bution might benefit the least advantaged by encouraging
greater overall productivity.) The second ideal is meri-
tocracy, understood in a very demanding way. According
to Rawls, fair equality of opportunity obtains in a soci-
ety when all persons with the same native talent (genetic
inheritance) and the same degree of ambition have the
same prospects for success in all competitions for posi-
tions that confer special economic and social advantages.
But why should one suppose with Rawls that justice
requires an approximately egalitarian redistribution of
social and economic goods? After all, a person who pros-
pers in a market economy might plausibly say, I earned
my wealth. Therefore, I am entitled to keep it. But how
one fares in a market economy depends on luck as well
as effort. There is the luck of being in the right place
at the right time and of benefiting from unpredictable
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7
shifts in supply and demand, but there is also the luck of

being born with greater or lesser intelligence and other
desirable traits, along with the luck of growing up in a nur-
turing environment. No one can take credit for this kind
of luck, but it decisively influences how one fares in the
many competitions by which social and economic goods
are distributed. Indeed, sheer brute luck is so thoroughly
intermixed with the contributions one makes to ones own
success (or failure) that it is ultimately impossible to dis-
tinguish what a person is responsible for from what he is
not. Given this fact, Rawls urged, the only plausible justi-
fication of inequality is that it serves to render everyone
better off, especially those who have the least.
Rawls tried to accommodate his theory of justice to
what he takes to be the important fact that reasonable
people disagree deeply about the nature of morality and
the good life and will continue to do so in any nontyrannical
society that respects freedom of speech. He aimed to ren-
der his theory noncommittal on these controversial matters
and to posit a set of principles of justice that all reasonable
persons can accept as valid, despite their disagreements.
In a later work, Political Liberalism (1993), Rawls revised the
argument for the two principles of justice by construing
the contracting individuals as representatives of conflict-
ing comprehensive worldviews in a pluralistic democracy.
Rawls also wrote works on international justice and human
rights and on the history of moral and political philosophy.
DEONTOLOGY
Deontological ethical theories place special emphasis on
moral rules and on the related concept of duty. In deon-
tological ethics an action is considered morally good
because it conforms to a moral law, principle, or rule, not
because the product of the action is good. Deontological
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ethics holds that at least some acts are morally obliga-

tory (i.e., one has a duty to perform such acts, regardless
of their consequences for human welfare). Descriptive of
such ethics are such expressions as Duty for dutys sake,
Virtue is its own reward, and Let justice be done though
the heavens fall. As noted in Chapter 1, deontology is
typically contrasted with consequentialist (or teleological)
ethics, which holds that the basic standard of morality is
precisely the value of what an action brings into being.
The first great philosopher to define deontological
principles was Immanuel Kant (17241804), the German
founder of critical philosophy, whose ethics were much
influenced by Christianity as well as by the Enlightenment.
Kant held that nothing is absolutely good, or good with-
out qualification, except a good willa good will being
one that wills to act in accord with the moral law and out
of respect for that law, rather than out of natural inclina-
tions. Kant saw the moral law as a categorical imperative
(i.e., an unconditional command) and believed that its con-
tent could be established by human reason alone. Reason
begins with the principle Act only on that maxim whereby
thou canst at the same time will that it should become a
universal law. Kants critics, however, questioned his
view that all duties can be derived from this purely formal
principle and have argued that, in his preoccupation with
rational consistency, he neglected the concrete content of
moral obligation.
This objection was addressed in the 20th century by
the Scottish philosopher Sir David Ross (18771971), who
held that numerous prima facie duties, rather than a
single formal principle for deriving them, are themselves
immediately self-evident. Ross distinguished these prima
facie duties (such as promise keeping, reparation, grati-
tude, and justice) from actual duties, for any possible act
has many sides to it which are relevant to its rightness
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or wrongness. These facets have to be weighed before

forming a judgment on the totality of its nature as an
actual obligation in the given circumstances.
The Ethics of Immanuel Kant

The standard source book for the ethical doctrines of
Immanuel Kant is the Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (1788,
spelled Critik and practischen; Critique of Practical
Reason). The earlier Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten
(1785; Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals) is a shorter
and, despite its title, more readily comprehensible treat-
ment of the same general topic. Both differ from Die
Metaphysik der Sitten (1797; The Metaphysics of Morals) in
that they deal with pure ethics and try to elucidate basic
principles; whereas the later work is concerned with
applying what they establish in the concrete, a process
that involved the consideration of virtues and vices and
the foundations of law and politics.
There are many points of similarity between Kants
ethics and his epistemology, or theory of knowledge, out-
lined in the Critik der reinen Vernunft (1781, 1787; Critique
of Pure Reason). He used the same scaffolding for both
a Doctrine of Elements, including an Analytic and a
Dialectic, followed by a Methodology, but the second
Critique is far shorter and much less complicated. Just
as the distinction between sense perception and intelli-
gence was fundamental for the former, so is that between
the inclinations and moral reason for the latter. And
just as the nature of the human cognitive situation was
elucidated in the first Critique by reference to the hypo-
thetical notion of an intuitive understanding, so is that of
the human moral situation clarified by reference to the
notion of a holy will. For a will of this kind there would
be no distinction between reason and inclination. A being
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possessed of a holy will would always act as it ought. It

would not, however, have the concepts of duty and moral
obligation, which enter only when reason and desire find
themselves opposed. In the case of human beings, the
opposition is continuous, for humans are at the same time
both flesh and spirit. Here the influence of Kants reli-
gious background is most prominent. Hence, the moral
life is a continuing struggle in which morality appears to
the potential delinquent in the form of a law that demands
to be obeyed for its own sakea law, however, the com-
mands of which are not issued by some alien authority but
represent the voice of reason, which the moral subject can
recognize as his own.
In the Dialectic, Kant took up again the ideas of
God, freedom, and immortality. Dismissed in the first
Critique as objects that humans can never know because
they transcend sense experience, he now argued that they
are essential postulates for the moral life. Though not
reachable in metaphysics, they are absolutely essential for
moral philosophy.
Kant is often described as an ethical rationalist, and
the description is not wholly inappropriate. He never
espoused, however, the radical rationalism of some of his
contemporaries, including those who held that reason
provides direct insight into a world of moral values or intu-
itive apprehension of the rightness of this or that moral
principle. Thus, practical, like theoretical, reason was for
Kant formal rather than materiala framework of forma-
tive principles rather than a content of actual rules. This
is why he put such stress on his first formulation of the
categorical imperative: Act only on that maxim through
which you can at the same time will that it should become
a universal law. Lacking any insight into the moral realm,
humans can only ask themselves whether what they are
proposing to do has the formal character of lawthe
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character, namely, of being the same for all persons simi-

larly circumstanced.
Natural-Rights Theory
Another important variety of deontological ethics is
natural-rights theory. Although the social-contract theo-
ries of Hobbes and Locke both presupposed and justified
the existence of some natural rights, some later political
philosophers took the notion of natural rights as absolute
and defined the scope and limits of government power on
the basis of this assumption. The leading 20th-century
representative of this line of thinking, the American phi-
losopher Robert Nozick (19382002), held that the state
should have no more than minimal powersessentially
the powers to protect citizens rights to life and property
because only a state with those powers could have come
about without violating anyones natural rights.
The History of Natural Rights

The notion of natural rights has a long history, extend-
ing to ancient Greece and Rome and particularly to the
Stoics. Since the end of World War II, however, what phi-
losophers call natural rights have usually been referred
to outside philosophical circles as human rights. This
is partly because the concept of natural law, to which
the concept of natural rights was intimately linked, was
philosophically murky and had become a matter of great
controversy in secular political debates.
Origins in Ancient Greece and Rome

The Stoics held that human conduct should be judged
according to, and brought into harmony with, the law of
nature. A classic example of this view is given in the play
Antigone, by Sophocles (c. 496406 BCE), in which the title
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character, upon being reproached by King Creon for defying

his command not to bury her slain brother, asserted that she
acted in accordance with the immutable laws of the gods.
In part because Stoicism played a key role in its for-
mation and spread, Roman law similarly allowed for the
existence of a natural law and with itpursuant to the jus
gentium (law of nations)certain universal rights that
extended beyond the rights of citizenship. According to
the Roman jurist Ulpian (died 228 CE), for example, natu-
ral law was that which nature, not the state, assures to all
human beings, Roman citizens or not.
It was not until after the Middle Ages, however, that
natural law became explicitly associated with natural
rights. In Greco-Roman and medieval times, doctrines of
natural law concerned mainly the duties, rather than the
Stoic thought is exemplified in Sophocless play Antigone, when Antigone,

chastised by King Creon for burying her brother, claims she acted in
accordance with the laws of the gods. Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP/
Getty Images
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rights, of Man. Moreover, as evidenced in the writings of

Aristotle (384322 BCE) and St. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1224
1274), these doctrines recognized the legitimacy of slavery
and serfdom and, in so doing, excluded perhaps the most
important ideas of natural or human rights as they are
understood todayfreedom (or liberty) and equality.
For the idea of natural rights to gain general recog-
nition, therefore, certain basic societal changes were
necessary, changes of the sort that took place gradu-
ally, beginning with the decline of European feudalism
from about the 13th century and continuing through the
Renaissance to the Peace of Westphalia (1648). During
this period, resistance to religious intolerance and politi-
cal and economic bondage; the evident failure of rulers to
meet their obligations under natural law; and the unprece-
dented commitment to individual expression and worldly
experience that was characteristic of the Renaissance all
combined to shift the conception of natural law from
duties to rights. The teachings of Aquinas and Hugo Grotius
(15831645) on the European continent, and the Magna
Carta (1215), the Petition of Right of 1628, and the English
Bill of Rights (1689) in England, were proof of this change.
Each testified to the increasingly popular view that human
beings are endowed with certain eternal and inalienable
rights that never were renounced when humankind con-
tracted to enter the social from the primitive state and
never diminished by the claim of the divine right of kings.
Divine Right of Kings

The divine right of kings was a political and religious doctrine
designed to justify monarchical absolutism. It asserted that kings
derived their authority from God and could not therefore be held
accountable for their actions by any earthly authority such as a parlia-
ment. Originating in Europe, the divine-right theory can be traced
75
to the medieval conception of Gods award of temporal power to the

political ruler, paralleling the award of spiritual power to the church.
By the 16th and 17th centuries, however, the new national monarchs
were asserting their authority in matters of both church and state.
King James I of England (reigned 160325) was the foremost exponent
of the divine right of kings, but the doctrine virtually disappeared
from English politics after the Glorious Revolution (168889). In the
late 17th and the 18th centuries, kings such as Louis XIV (16431715)
of France continued to profit from the divine-right theory, even
though many of them no longer had any truly religious belief in it.
The American Revolution (177583), the French Revolution (1789),
and the Napoleonic wars deprived the doctrine of most of its remain-
ing credibility.
The bishop Jacques-Bnigne Bossuet (16271704), one of the
principal French theorists of divine right, asserted that the kings per-
son and authority were sacred; his power was modeled on that of a
fathers and was absolute, deriving from God; and he was governed
by reason (i.e., custom and precedent). In the middle of the 17th cen-
tury, the English Royalist squire Sir Robert Filmer (15881653) likewise
held that the state was a family and that the king was a father, but
he claimed, in an interpretation of Scripture, that Adam was the first
king and that Charles I (reigned 162549) ruled England as Adams
eldest heir. The antiabsolutist philosopher John Locke (16321704)
wrote his First Treatise of Civil Government (1689) in order to refute
such arguments.
The doctrine of divine right can be dangerous for both church
and state. For the state it suggests that secular authority is conferred,
and can therefore be removed, by the church, and for the church it
implies that kings have a direct relationship to God and may there-
fore dictate to ecclesiastical rulers.
Natural Law Transformed into Natural Rights

The modern conception of natural law as meaning
or implying natural rights was elaborated primarily
by thinkers of the 17th and 18th centuries. The intel-
lectual and the scientific achievements of the 17th
centuryincluding the materialism of Thomas Hobbes,
the rationalism of Ren Descartes (15961650) and
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7
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (16461716), the pantheism

of Benedict de Spinoza (163277), and the empiricism of
Francis Bacon (15611626) and John Lockeencouraged
a belief in natural law and universal order. During the
18th century, the so-called Age of Enlightenment, a
growing confidence in human reason and in the perfect-
ibility of human affairs led to the more comprehensive
expression of this belief. Particularly important were
the writings of Locke, arguably the most important
natural-law theorist of modern times, and the works of
the 18th-century philosophes centred mainly in Paris,
including Montesquieu (16891755), Voltaire (16941778),
and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (171278). Locke argued in
detail, mainly in writings associated with the English
Glorious Revolution, that certain rights self-evidently
pertain to individuals as human beings (because these
rights existed in the state of nature before humankind
entered civil society); that chief among them are the
rights to life, liberty (freedom from arbitrary rule), and
property; that, upon entering civil society, humankind
surrendered to the statepursuant to a social contract
only the right to enforce these natural rights and not the
rights themselves; and that the states failure to secure
these rights gives rise to a right to responsible, popular
revolution. The philosophes, building on Locke and oth-
ers and embracing many and varied currents of thought
with a common supreme faith in reason, vigorously
attacked religious and scientific dogmatism, intolerance,
censorship, and social and economic restraints. They
sought to discover and act upon universally valid prin-
ciples governing nature, humanity, and society, including
the inalienable rights of Man, which they treated as a
fundamental ethical and social gospel.
Not surprisingly, this liberal intellectual ferment
exerted a profound influence in the Western world of
77
the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Together with the
Glorious Revolution in England and the resulting English
Bill of Rights, it provided the rationale for the wave of
revolutionary agitation that swept the West, most nota-
bly in North America and France. Thomas Jefferson
(17431826), who had studied Locke and Montesquieu,
gave poetic eloquence to the plain prose of the 17th cen-
tury in the Declaration of Independence, proclaimed by
the 13 American colonies on July 4, 1776: We hold these
truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty
and the Pursuit of Happiness. Similarly, the marquis
de Lafayette (17571834), who won the close friendship
of George Washington (173299) and who shared the
hardships of the American Revolution, imitated the pro-
nouncements of the English and American revolutions in
the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
of Aug. 26, 1789, proclaiming that men are born and
remain free and equal in rights and that the aim of every
political association is the preservation of the natural and
imprescriptible rights of man.
In sum, the idea of natural rights, though now known
by another name, played a key role in late 18th- and early
19th-century struggles against political absolutism. It
was, indeed, the failure of rulers to respect the principles
of freedom and equality that was responsible for this
development.
Nonsense Upon Stilts: The Critics of Natural Rights

The idea of natural rights was not without its detractors,
however. In the first place, because it was frequently asso-
ciated with religious orthodoxy, the doctrine of natural
rights became less attractive to philosophical and political
78
7
liberals. Additionally, because they were conceived in

essentially absolutist terms, natural rights were increas-
ingly considered to conflict with one another. Most
importantly, the doctrine of natural rights came under
powerful philosophical and political attack from both the
right and the left.
In England, for example, conservative political think-
ers such as Edmund Burke (172997) and David Hume
(171176) united with liberals such as Jeremy Bentham
(17481832) to condemn the doctrine, the former out of
fear that public affirmation of natural rights would lead
to social upheaval, the latter out of concern lest declara-
tions and proclamations of natural rights substitute for
effective legislation. In his Reflections on the Revolution in
France (1790), Burkea believer in natural law who none-
theless denied that the rights of Man could be derived
from itcriticized the drafters of the Declaration of the
Rights of Man and of the Citizen for proclaiming the
monstrous fiction of human equality, which, he argued,
serves but to inspire false ideas and vain expectations in
men destined to travel in the obscure walk of laborious
life. Bentham, one of the founders of utilitarianism, was
no less scornful. Rights, he wrote, is the child of law;
from real law come real rights; but from imaginary laws,
from law of nature, come imaginary rights.Natural
rights is simple nonsense; natural and imprescriptible
rights (an American phrase)[is] rhetorical nonsense,
nonsense upon stilts. Agreeing with Bentham, Hume
insisted that natural law and natural rights are unreal
metaphysical phenomena.
This assault upon natural law and natural rights inten-
sified and broadened during the 19th and early 20th
centuries. John Stuart Mill, despite his vigorous defense
of liberty, proclaimed that rights ultimately are founded
79
on utility. The German jurist Friedrich Karl von Savigny

(17791861), Englands Sir Henry Maine (182288), and
other historicalist legal thinkers emphasized that rights
are a function of cultural and environmental variables
unique to particular communities. The English jurist
John Austin (17901859) argued that the only law is the
command of the sovereign (a phrase of Hobbes). And
the logical positivists of the early 20th century insisted
that the only truth is that which can be established by
verifiable experience and that therefore ethical pro-
nouncements (along with religious and metaphysical
pronouncements) are not cognitively significant. By
World War I, there were scarcely any theorists who
would defend the rights of Man along the lines of
natural law. Indeed, under the influence of 19th-century
German Idealism and parallel expressions of rising
European nationalism, there were somethe Marxists,
for examplewho, though not rejecting individual
rights altogether, maintained that rights, from whatever
source derived, belong to communities or whole societ-
ies and nations preeminently.
The Persistence of the Notion

Although the heyday of natural rights proved short, the
idea of rights nonetheless endured. The abolition of
slavery, the implementation of factory legislation, the
rise of popular education and trade unionism, the uni-
versal suffrage movementthese and other examples
of 19th-century reformist impulses afford ample evi-
dence that the idea was not to be extinguished, even if
its ultimate justification had become a matter of general
skepticism. But it was not until the rise and fall of Nazi
Germany that the idea of natural rights, by then referred
to as human rights, truly came into its own. Many of the
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gruesome atrocities committed by the Nazi regime had

been officially authorized by Nazi laws and decrees, and
this fact convinced many that law and morality cannot
be grounded in any purely utilitarian or other consequen-
tialist doctrine. Certain actions, according to this view,
are absolutely wrong, no matter what the circumstances;
human beings are entitled to simple respect, at least.
Today the vast majority of legal scholars and
philosophersparticularly in the liberal Westagree that
every human being has, at least in theory, some basic rights.
Indeed, the last half of the 20th century may fairly be said to
mark the birth of the international as well as the universal
recognition of human rights. In the charter establish-
ing the United Nations, for example, all member states
When Nazi laws and decrees sanctioned the regimes atrocious crimes, many
were persuaded that some actions are unconditionally wrong, regardless of the
circumstances. FPG/Archive Photos/Getty Images
81
pledged themselves to take joint and separate action for

the achievement of universal respect for, and observance
of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all with-
out distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion. In
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, represen-
tatives from many cultures endorsed the rights therein
set forth as a common standard of achievement for all
peoples and all nations. And in 1976 the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
each approved by the UN General Assembly in 1966,
entered into force and effect.
Robert Nozick
In the 20th century the most influential philosophical
defender of natural rights was Robert Nozick. The politi-
cal philosophy he adhered to, libertarianism, is essentially
a classical form of liberalism that holds that any govern-
ment power beyond the minimum necessary to protect
life and property is unjustified. Ironically, given his subse-
quent political philosophy, Nozick was a member of the
student New Left and an enthusiastic socialist during his
high school and college years. At Columbia University
in New York City he helped to found a campus branch
of the League for Industrial Democracy, a precursor of
the leftist Students for a Democratic Society. While in
graduate school, however, he read works by libertarian
economists such as F.A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises,
and his political views began to change. His conversion
to libertarianism culminated in 1974 with the publica-
tion of Anarchy, State, and Utopia, a closely argued and
highly original defense of the libertarian minimal state
and a critique of the social-democratic liberalism of his
Harvard colleague John Rawls. Immediately hailed by
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Prominent libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick was the most influen-

tial philosophical advocate for natural rights in the 20th century. Martha
Holmes/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
conservative intellectuals, the work became a kind of

philosophical manifesto of the American New Right,
though Nozick himself was not entirely comfortable
with this association.
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Libertarianism
Libertarianism is a political philosophy that takes individual liberty
to be the primary political value. It may be understood as a form
of liberalism, the political philosophy associated with the English
philosophers John Locke and John Stuart Mill, the Scottish econo-
mist Adam Smith, and the American statesman Thomas Jefferson.
Liberalism seeks to define and justify the legitimate powers of gov-
ernment in terms of certain natural or God-given individual rights.
These rights include the rights to life, liberty, private property, free-
dom of speech and association, freedom of worship, government
by consent, equality under the law, and moral autonomy (the pur-
suit of ones own conception of happiness, or the good life). The
purpose of government, according to liberals, is to protect these
and other individual rights, and in general liberals have contended
that government power should be limited to that which is neces-
sary to accomplish this task. Libertarians are classical liberals who
strongly emphasize the individual right to liberty. They contend that
the scope and powers of government should be constrained so as
to allow each individual as much freedom of action as is consistent
with a like freedom for everyone else. Thus, they believe that indi-
viduals should be free to behave and to dispose of their property as
they see fit, provided that their actions do not infringe on the equal
freedom of others.
Justification of the Minimal State

The main purpose of Anarchy, State, and Utopia is to show
that the minimal state, and only the minimal state, is mor-
ally justified. By a minimal state Nozick means a state that
functions essentially as a night watchman, with pow-
ers limited to those necessary to protect citizens against
violence, theft, and fraud. By arguing that the minimal
state is justified, Nozick seeks to refute anarchism, which
opposes any state whatsoever. By arguing that no more
than the minimal state is justified, Nozick seeks to refute
modern forms of liberalism, as well as socialism and other
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leftist ideologies, which contend that, in addition to its

powers as a night watchman, the state should have the
powers to regulate the economic activities of citizens,
to redistribute wealth in the direction of greater equal-
ity, and to provide social services such as education and
health care.
Against anarchism, Nozick claims that a minimal
state is justified because it (or something quite like
it) would arise spontaneously among people living in
a hypothetical state of nature through transactions
that would not involve the violation of anyones natural
rights. Following Locke, Nozick assumes that everyone
possesses the natural rights to life, liberty, and prop-
erty, including the right to claim as property the fruits
or products of ones labour and the right to dispose of
ones property as one sees fit (provided that in doing so
one does not violate the rights of anyone else). Everyone
also has the natural right to punish those who violate
or attempt to violate ones own natural rights. Because
defending ones natural rights in a state of nature would
be difficult for anyone to do on his own, individuals
would band together to form protection associations,
in which members would work together to defend each
others rights and to punish rights violators. Eventually,
some of these associations would develop into private
businesses offering protection and punishment services
for a fee. The great importance that individuals would
attach to such services would give the largest protection
firms a natural competitive advantage, and eventually
only one firm, or a confederation of firms, would con-
trol all the protection and punishment business in the
community. Because this firm (or confederation of firms)
would have a monopoly of force in the territory of the
community and because it would protect the rights of
85
everyone living there, it would constitute a minimal state

in the libertarian sense. And because the minimal state
would come about without violating anyones natural
rights, a state with at least its powers is justified.
Against liberalism and ideologies farther left, Nozick
claims that no more than the minimal state is justified,
because any state with more extensive powers would vio-
late the natural rights of its citizens. Thus the state should
not have the power to control prices or to set a minimum
wage, because doing so would violate the natural right
of citizens to dispose of their property, including their
labour, as they see fit. For similar reasons, the state should
not have the power to establish public education or health
care through taxes imposed on citizens who may wish to
spend their money on private services instead. Indeed,
according to Nozick, any mandatory taxation used to fund
services or benefits other than those constitutive of the
minimal state is unjust, because such taxation amounts to
a kind of forced labour for the state by those who must
pay the tax.
The Entitlement Theory of Justice

Nozicks vision of legitimate state power thus contrasts
markedly with that of Rawls and his followers. Rawls
argues that the state should have whatever powers are nec-
essary to ensure that those citizens who are least well-off
are as well-off as they can be (though these powers must
be consistent with a variety of basic rights and freedoms).
This viewpoint is derived from Rawlss theory of justice,
one principle of which is that an unequal distribution of
wealth and income is acceptable only if those at the bot-
tom are better off than they would be under any other
distribution. Nozicks response to such arguments is to
claim that they rest on a false conception of distributive
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justice: they wrongly define a just distribution in terms of

the pattern it exhibits at a given time (e.g., an equal distri-
bution or a distribution that is unequal to a certain extent)
or in terms of the historical circumstances surrounding
its development (e.g., those who worked the hardest have
more) rather than in terms of the nature of the transac-
tions through which the distribution came about. For
Nozick, any distribution of holdings, as he calls them,
no matter how unequal, is just if (and only if) it arises
from a just distribution through legitimate means. One
legitimate means is the appropriation of something that
is unowned in circumstances where the acquisition would
not disadvantage others. A second means is the volun-
tary transfer of ownership of holdings to someone else.
A third means is the rectification of past injustices in the
acquisition or transfer of holdings. According to Nozick,
anyone who acquired what he has through these means is
morally entitled to it. Thus the entitlement theory of
justice states that the distribution of holdings in a society
is just if (and only if) everyone in that society is entitled
to what he has.
To show that theories of justice based on patterns
or historical circumstances are false, Nozick devised a
simple but ingenious objection, which came to be known
as the Wilt Chamberlain argument. Assume, he says,
that the distribution of holdings in a given society is just
according to some theory based on patterns or histori-
cal circumstancese.g., the egalitarian theory, according
to which only a strictly equal distribution of holdings is
just. In this society, Wilt Chamberlain is an excellent bas-
ketball player, and many teams compete with each other
to engage his services. Chamberlain eventually agrees to
play for a certain team on the condition that everyone
who attends a game in which he plays puts 25 cents in a
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Robert Nozick used his Wilt Chamberlain argument to refute theories

of justice based on patterns or historical circumstances. George Long/
WireImage/Getty Images
special box at the gate, the contents of which will go to

him. During the season, one million fans attend the teams
games, and so Chamberlain receives $250,000. Now, how-
ever, the supposedly just distribution of holdings is upset,
because Chamberlain has $250,000 more than anyone
else. Is the new distribution unjust? The strong intuition
that it is not unjust is accounted for by Nozicks entitle-
ment theory (because Chamberlain acquired his holdings
by legitimate means) but conflicts with the egalitarian
theory. Nozick contends that this argument generalizes to
any theory based on patterns or historical circumstances,
because any distribution dictated by such a theory could
be upset by ordinary and unobjectionable transactions like
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the one involving Chamberlain. Nozick concludes that

any society that attempted to implement such a theory
would have to intrude grossly on the liberty of its citizens
in order to enforce the distribution it considers just. The
socialist society, as he puts it, would have to forbid capi-
talist acts between consenting adults.
Nozick emphasizes that his vision of the minimal state
is inclusive and is compatible with the existence of smaller
communities based on varying theories of justice. A group
that wished to form a socialist community governed by an
egalitarian theory would be free to do so, as long as it did
not force others to join the community against their will.
Indeed, every group would enjoy the same freedom to
realize its own idea of a good society. In this way, accord-
ing to Nozick, the minimal state constitutes a framework
for utopia.
Anarchy, State, and Utopia has generated an enormous
secondary literature, much of it critical. Unlike Rawls,
however, Nozick did not attempt to defend or revise his
political views in published work. Nozicks other books
include Philosophical Explanations (1981), The Nature of
Rationality (1993), and Invariances: The Structure of the
Objective World (2001).
FEMINISM
Feminist ethics is one aspect of a much broader move-
ment known as philosophical feminism. Feminism in this
sense is a loosely related set of approaches in various fields
of philosophy that emphasizes the role of gender (ones
identity as male or female) in the formation of tra-
ditional philosophical problems and concepts. Feminist
philosophers analyze the ways in which traditional phi-
losophy reflects and perpetuates bias against women, and
89
they defend philosophical concepts and theories that pre-

sume womens equality with men.
The Nature and Scope of

Philosophical Feminism
Philosophical feminism arose during the womens move-
ment of the 1960s and 70s. During that period women
in many academic disciplines, including philosophy,
began to question why there were almost no works by
women in the canons of their disciplines and why there
were so few women in their professions. For feminist
philosophers, part of the answer lay in the generally dis-
paraging view of women that pervaded Western culture
and was consequently reflected in the thinking of most
male philosophers: compared with men, women were
seen as irrational, emotional, unintelligent, and morally
immature. Eventually, women philosophers were led to
ask more pointed questions: how has philosophy been
affected by the larger cultures attitudes toward women?
What has philosophy left out or misunderstood because
of those attitudes? The most obvious results, as women
philosophers noted, were omissions. Until the late 20th
century, womens philosophical contributions were gen-
erally dismissed (if they were noticed at all), and issues
of concern to women were ignored. In the history of
Western philosophy up to the 1970s, the topic of gender
seldom arose, and when it did it was usually in the con-
text of a rationalization of womens lower social status and
their exclusion from public life. The exceptions to this
rule, such as Platos Republic and John Stuart Mills The
Subjection of Women (1861), were few and far between.
Feminist philosophers soon came to realize, how-
ever, that the problem they had identified could not be
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7
solved by filling in a few gaps (e.g., by hiring more women

philosophers and by recognizing more philosophical
works by women). Because of the historical sexism of
Western culture and because the paradigmatic philoso-
pher was conceived of as highly rational, dispassionate,
and independent, the female philosopher was virtually
a contradiction in terms. A woman could be a philoso-
pher only if she thought like a man. Gender bias was
thus built into the qualifications for membership in the
profession.
If bias against women was not incidental to philosophy
but in fact one of its defining features, the potential rami-
fications of a feminist critique were boundless. Although
some feminist philosophers adhered to mainstream phil-
osophical traditions and pursued womens issues within
those frameworks, others were convinced that treat-
ing gender as a category of philosophical analysis would
entail major modifications in the practice of philosophy.
Different topics would be salient; different assumptions
would make sense; different methods would be appro-
priate. For these philosophers, pursuing a gender-based
critique of philosophy to its logical conclusion would
transform the discipline and give rise to a distinctively
feminist approach to philosophical problems.
There were some early attempts in the history of phi-
losophy to address issues of concern to women, including
Mills The Subjection of Women, which argued for woman
suffrage, and The Second Sex (1949), by Simone de Beauvoir
(190886), which showed how prevailing notions of femi-
ninity served male interests. Still, feminist philosophy
from the 1970s was no less indebted to the practices and
positions originally developed in womens consciousness-
raising groups (groups dedicated to raising awareness of
womens issues).
91
Feminist Ethics
Feminist ethics was initially developed by women who

were or had been full-time homemakers or mothers and
who felt excluded (and in some cases offended) by the
womens movements emphasis on dismantling barriers
to professional careers for women. These womens moral
worlds were less concerned with rights and justice and
instead revolved around caregiving and maintaining net-
works of relationships. Inspired by Carol Gilligans work
on care ethics, early projects in feminist ethics shifted the
focus of ethics from relations between citizens or strang-
ers to close relationships rooted in emotional attachments,
including friends, lovers, and mothers and children. In
those intimate relationships, the parties respond to each
other as unique individuals, not merely as typical human
beings. Although they are vulnerable to each other in many
of the same ways that strangers are, they are far more vul-
nerable to insensitivity, indifference, unkindness, and the
threat of abandonment. Moreover, personal relationships
are not always reciprocal. Because one of the individuals
may be temporarily or chronically dependent on the other
for sustenance, the other may shoulder a greater share of
the burdens of the relationship. In those contexts, then,
moral reciprocity is not reducible to equal respect or equal
contribution.
The focus on interpersonal morality showed that
general moral rules, which some traditional ethical the-
ories strove to develop, were rather crude instruments
for conducting a moral life. Consequently, feminist ethi-
cal philosophersnotably Sara Ruddick, Virginia Held,
and Annette Baiersought to explicate virtues and val-
ues suitable to everyday sociability. They questioned
the tenability of basing moral relations on an implied
social contractin which individuals promise to behave
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7
In Le Deuxime Sexe (The Second Sex), Simone de Beauvoir revealed

how male interests were served by prevailing notions of femininity. Archive
Photos/Getty Images
93
morally toward others on the condition they behave mor-

ally toward themand they demonstrated the critical
role of trust in establishing an environment conducive to
moral interaction. Although they did not repudiate the
rational calculation of consequences in evaluating actions,
they saw empathy and emotional responsiveness as vital to
moral judgment. That general approach came to be known
as the ethics of care.
Moral Psychology
Moral psychology is the study of the development of the moral sense
(i.e., the capacity for forming judgments about what is morally right
or wrong, good or bad). The U.S. psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg
hypothesized that peoples development of moral standards passes
through several levels. At the early level, that of preconventional
moral reasoning, the child uses external and physical events (such as
pleasure or pain) as the source for moral decisions. His standards are
based strictly on what will avoid punishment or bring pleasure. At the
intermediate level, that of conventional moral reasoning, the child or
adolescent views moral standards as a way of maintaining the approval
of authority figures, chiefly his parents, and acts in accordance with
their precepts. At the third level, that of postconventional moral
reasoning, the adult bases his moral standards on principles that he
himself has evaluated and accepts as inherently valid, regardless of soci-
etys opinion. Beginning in the 1970s, Kohlbergs work was criticized
by psychologists and philosophers influenced by feminism. According
to Carol Gilligan, Kohlbergs stages are inherently sexist, because they
equate moral maturity with an orientation toward moral problems
that is socially instilled in males but not in females. Whereas the male
ethic of rights and justice treats morality in terms of abstract prin-
ciples and conceives of moral agents as essentially autonomous, acting
independently of their social situations according to general rules, the
female ethic of care treats morality in terms of concrete bonds to
particular individuals based on feelings of care and responsibility and
conceives of moral agents as connected and interdependent through
their feelings of care and responsibility for each other.
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7
Because the demands of caregiving often prevented

women from pursuing other projects and goals, striking
a proper balance between caring for others and caring
for oneself became a key problem for feminist ethics.
In work since the 1990s (e.g., by Margaret Walker), the
concerns addressed by the ethics of care have been
reframed in sophisticated accounts of the social processes
through which individuals consolidate their moral iden-
tities, enter into and sustain relationships, and negotiate
responsibilities.
Feminist Social and Political Philosophy

The earliest feminist philosophers examined gender bias
in traditional social and political institutions. By asking
the question Who benefits? they showed how mostly
unspoken practices of gender-based exclusion and discrimi-
nation favoured the interests of men. Much of their analysis
concerned sexual and family relations, which were then con-
sidered private or personal matters that could not (or should
not) be addressed by political means. Accordingly, with a
fine disregard, they adopted the rallying cry the personal
is political.
Whereas the traditional political philosophies of lib-
eralism and Marxism generally ignored sexual and family
issues, feminist philosophers made them the focus of
political theory. Eventually three major schools of femi-
nist political theory arose, each emphasizing a distinctive
subset of issues: liberal feminism, socialist feminism, and
radical feminism.
Liberal feminists (e.g., Susan Moller Okin) pointed
out the many ways in which gender discrimination
defeats womens aspirations, and they defended reforms
designed to make womens equality a social and political
95
reality. Noting that differences in the ways in which girls

and boys are raised served to channel women and men
into different and unequal social roles, they advocated
gender-neutral forms of education and child rearing. They
particularly focused on protecting and extending the
rights that enabled women to pursue self-chosen goals,
such as reproductive rights (including the right to legally
obtain an abortion) and rights to full educational and eco-
nomic opportunities.
Whereas liberal feminists applied the core liberal
values of freedom and equality to address womens con-
cerns, the socialist feminists Alison Jaggar and Iris Marion
Young appropriated Marxist categories, which were based
on labour and economic structures. Criticizing tradi-
tional Marxism for exaggerating the importance of waged
labour outside the home, socialist feminists insisted that
the unpaid caregiving and homemaking that women are
expected to perform are equally indispensable forms of
labour and that the sexual division of labour that assigns
most domestic work to women is exploitative. They also
objected to the double day of work that burdens most
women who have children and who work outside the
home. Likewise, they condemned the economic depen-
dency and insecurity of stay-at-home mothers and the low
salaries of child-care workers.
Last, the school of radical feminism turned womens
attention to sexuality and to the disparities of power
that pervade heterosexual relationships in patriarchal
cultures. One interesting account of sexual equality
and the obstacles to attaining it emerged in the work
of the American feminist legal theorist Catharine A.
MacKinnon. She asserted that the struggle to overcome
male domination is faced with a deeply entrenched
adversary: sexual desire between heterosexual women
and men. The subjugation of women in society strongly
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7
influences conventional standards of femininity and

masculinity, which in turn determine what hetero-
sexual individuals find attractive in the opposite sex.
Thus, according to MacKinnon, heterosexual women
tend to find dominant men sexually attractive, while
heterosexual men tend to find submissive women sex-
ually attractive. The latter is the stronger and more
important dynamic, since men as a group are politically,
economically, and socially more powerful than women.
The upshot is that the ordinary and widespread sexual
attraction between heterosexual women and men is
corrupted by a kind of sadism. The struggle for equal
rights and equal power for women is opposed not only
by laws, institutions, and practices but also by sexual
desire itself. Given this analysis, the legal and cultural
tolerance of pornography, which makes the subordina-
tion of women sexually appealing to men, is immoral.
Pornography serves only to perpetuate a regime of sex-
based domination that any decent society should reject.
Such assertions provided the basis of Marilyn Fryes
endorsement of separatist feminist practices.
Liberal, socialist, and radical feminism continue to
challenge standard philosophical assumptions about the
scope of politics and the nature of justice. Yet, arguably,
each of them rests on a flawed conception of gender. As
Elizabeth V. Spelman, Mara Lugones, and Judith Butler
claimed, none adequately takes into account the ways in
which gender is influenced by and interacts with sexual
orientation, race, ethnicity, class, age, and ability, and
none explicitly addresses how those factors affect the
needs of diverse groups of women. Moreover, as Uma
Narayan argued, none comes to grips with the complexi-
ties of advancing womens rights internationally or with
the obstacles to coordinating feminist agendas in a glo-
balized economy. Much current work in feminist social
97
and political philosophyspecifically in black feminist

theory, queer theory, and feminist human rights theory
takes on these urgent problems. Yet, despite advances in
these fields, controversy persists between Luce Irigarays
view that gender is real and Judith Butlers contention that
it is an illusion.
ETHICAL EGOISM
Ethical egoism, whose name is derived from the Latin ego,
meaning I, is an ethical theory holding that an action
is right if and only if it promotes ones self-interest. (The
word is sometimes misused for egotism, the overstressing
of ones own worth.)
Egoist Doctrines
Egoist doctrines are less concerned with the philosophi-
cal problem of what is the self than with the common
notions of a person and his concerns. They emphasize
self-perfection sought through the furthering of ones own
welfare and profitallowing, however, that sometimes
one may not know where these lie and must be brought to
recognize them.
Many ethical theories have an egoist bias. Ancient
Greek ethics bid each person to seek his own happi-
ness (though it should be emphasized that happiness as
the Greeks conceived it entailed an appropriate con-
cern for the interests of others). In the 17th century,
Thomas Hobbes (15881679) and Benedict de Spinoza
(163277) held in different ways that self-preservation
is the good. Those who stress the tending of ones own
conscience and moral growth are likewise egoists in this
sense. In contrast with such views is an ethics that is gov-
erned more by humanitys social aspects, which stresses
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7
the importance of the community rather than that of

the individual. Under this head come such theories as
Stoic cosmopolitanism, utilitarianism, and 20th-century
communitarianisman alternative to liberalism and lib-
ertarianism. The distinction, however, cannot always be
neatly drawn.
Ayn Rand
Although few contemporary philosophers are strict ethical
egoists, some economists and political thinkers have been
attracted to the position. In the 20th century the fore-
most advocate of egoism was the Russian-born American
writer Ayn Rand. In a series of commercially successful
novels, Rand presented her philosophy of objectivism,
which essentially reversed the traditional altruistic ethics
of Judaism and Christianity.
Rand graduated from the University of Petrograd in
1924 and two years later immigrated to the United States.
She initially worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood and in
1931 became a naturalized U.S. citizen. Her first novel, We,
the Living, was published in 1936. The Fountainhead (1943),
her first best-selling novel, depicted a highly romanticized
architect-hero, a superior individual whose egoism and
genius prevail over timid traditionalism and social con-
formism. The allegorical Atlas Shrugged (1957), another
best-seller, combined science fiction and political mes-
sage in telling of an anticollectivist strike called by the
management of U.S. big industry, a company of attractive,
self-made men.
The political philosophy of objectivism shaped Rands
work. A deeply conservative doctrine, it posited indi-
vidual effort and ability as the sole source of all genuine
achievement, thereby elevating the pursuit of self-interest
to the role of first principle and scorning such notions
99
In her successful novels, Ayn Rand promoted radical egoism and laissez-faire
capitalism. New York Times Co./Archive Photos/Getty Images
100
7
as altruism and sacrifice for the common good as lib-

eral delusions and even vices. It further held laissez-faire
capitalism to be most congenial to the exercise of talent.
Rands philosophy underlay her fiction but found more
direct expression in her nonfiction, including such works
as For the New Intellectual (1961), The Virtue of Selfishness
(1965), Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966), Introduction
to Objectivist Epistemology (1967), and Philosophy: Who Needs
It? (1982). She also promoted her objectivist philosophy
in the journals The Objectivist (196271) and The Ayn Rand
Letter (197176).
Rands controversial views attracted a faithful audience
of admirers and followers, many of whom first encountered
her novels as teenagers. Although her work influenced
generations of conservative politicians and government
officials in the United States, most academic philosophers
considered it shallow or confused. Rand was working on
an adaptation of Atlas Shrugged for a television miniseries
when she died.
101
Chapter
Metaethics
3
M etaethics is the subdiscipline of ethics concerned
with determining the nature of moral concepts
and judgments. Metaethics identifies a fundamental
task of the moral philosopher, the logical analysis of
(1) moral concepts such as right and wrong, obligatory
and forbidden, and good and evil; (2) the nature and
function of moral judgments or statements; and (3)
the nature of moral reasoning. Metaethics is thus to
be contrasted with normative ethics, which explores
questions such as: What actions are right and what
are wrong?; How should one live and what things
should one value?; and Is life worth living?
Many philosophers hold that the fundamental
questions in ethical theory are metaethical. Some even
assert that they are the only questions appropriate for
a moral philosopher and that normative questions can
be dealt with by all people in their capacity as moral-
ists. The position of the moral philosopher is thus
analogous to that of the philosopher of science, who
considers only the elements of scientific reasoning and
remains neutral on the question of which scientific
statements are true and which false.
Major metaethical theories include naturalism,
nonnaturalism (or intuitionism), emotivism, and
prescriptivism. Naturalists, such as Ralph Barton
Perry (18761957), W.T. Stace (18861967), Richard
B. Brandt, and Geoffrey James Warnock (192396),
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7 Metaethics 7
and nonnaturalists, such as G.E. Moore (18731958), H.A.

Prichard (18711947), Sir David Ross (18771971), and A.C.
Ewing (18991973), agree that moral language is cognitive
(i.e., that moral claims can be known to be true or false).
They disagree, however, on how this knowing is to be
done. Naturalists hold either that these claims can be ade-
quately justified by reasoning from statements employing
only nonmoral terms or that moral terms themselves can
be defined in nonmoral (natural or factlike) terms.
Intuitionists deny both of these positions and hold
that moral terms are sui generis that moral statements are
autonomous in their logical status. According to intu-
itionism, such statements can be known to be true or
false immediately through a kind of rational intuition.
Intuitionists have differed, however, over the kinds of
moral truths that are amenable to direct apprehension.
For example, whereas Moore thought that it is self-evident
that certain things are morally valuable, Ross thought that
what is known immediately is that it is our duty to do acts
of a certain type.
Emotivists, notably Sir A.J. Ayer (191089) and Charles
Stevenson (190879), deny that moral utterances are cog-
nitive, holding that they consist in emotional expressions
of approval or disapproval and that the nature of moral
reasoning and justification must be reinterpreted to take
this essential characteristic of moral utterances into
account. R.M. Hare (19192002) and other exponents of
prescriptivism take a somewhat similar approach, arguing
that moral judgments are prescriptions or prohibitions of
action, rather than statements of fact about the world. In
The Language of Morals (1952), Hare argued that it is impos-
sible to derive any prescription from a set of descriptive
sentences, but he tried nevertheless to provide a foothold
for moral reasoning in the constraint that moral judg-
ments must be universalizable: that is, that if one judges
103
a particular action to be wrong, one must also judge any

relevantly similar action to be wrong. Universalizability is
not a substantive moral principle but a logical feature of
the moral terms: anyone who uses such terms as right
and ought is logically committed to universalizability. A
sophisticated contemporary development of emotivism
and projectivism, defended by the English philosopher
Simon Blackburn and others under the title quasireal-
ism, seeks to explain how one can properly treat ethical
propositions as true or false without presupposing a spe-
cial domain of nonnatural facts.
The remainder of this chapter discusses some funda-
mental metaethical perspectives, along with the historical
and ongoing controversies that have emerged from them.
MORAL REALISM AND ANTIREALISM

According to moral realists, statements about what actions
are morally required or permissible and statements about
what dispositions or character traits are morally virtuous
or vicious (and so on) are not mere expressions of subjec-
tive preferences but are objectively true or false depending
on whether they correspond with the facts of morality
just as historical or geographic statements are true or false
depending on whether they fit the historical or geographic
facts. As with realism in other areas, moral realism faces
challenges on two fronts.
On the metaphysical front, there is obvious scope for
skepticism about whether there is, or even could be, a
realm of distinctively moral facts, irreducible to and appar-
ently inexplicable in terms of the facts of nature. On the
epistemological front, it has seemed to be an insuperable
obstacle to moral realism to explain how, if there really
were such a realm of moral facts, human beings could pos-
sibly gain access to it. Although reason alone may seem to
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7 Metaethics 7
deliver knowledge of some kinds of nonempirical truths

(e.g., of logic and mathematics), it does not seem to deliver
the truths of morality, and there appears to be no other
special faculty by which such truths may be detected. Talk
of moral sense or moral intuition, though once popu-
lar, now seems merely to rename rather than to solve the
problem.
On the antirealist side, attempts to reduce moral
properties to natural ones (by identifying right actions
with, say, those that promote happiness) have found sup-
port, but they face difficulties of their own. Indeed, they
seem particularly vulnerable to Moores celebrated open
question argument, which points out that, because
it is always a substantive and not a tautological ques-
tion whether some naturalistically specified property is
Moral realists believe that judgments about what is right or wrong and
what is virtuous or vicious are objectively true or false, depending on what
the moral facts are. Jean-Claude Winkler/Photographers Choice/
Getty Images
105
morally goodone can always ask, for example, Is hap-

piness good?the meanings of moral terms like good
cannot simply be identified with the property in question.
Appealing to the intrinsic queerness of moral properties
as contrasted with natural ones, some theorists, notably
the Australian-born philosopher J.L. Mackie, have denied
their existence altogether, propounding an error theory of
moral discourse.
Other antirealists have sought to rescue moral
discourse by reinterpreting it along expressivist or projec-
tivist lines.
ETHICAL RELATIVISM
Ethical relativism is the doctrine that there are no absolute
truths in ethics and that what is morally right or wrong
varies from person to person or from society to society.
Arguments for Ethical Relativism

Herodotus, the Greek historian of the 5th century BCE,
advanced this view when he observed that different
societies have different customs and that each person
thinks his own societys customs are best. But no set of
social customs, Herodotus said, is really better or worse
than any other. Some contemporary sociologists and
cultural anthropologists have argued along similar lines
that morality, because it is a social product, develops dif-
ferently within different cultures. Each society develops
standards that are used by people within it to distinguish
acceptable from unacceptable behaviour, and every judg-
ment of right and wrong presupposes one or another of
these standards. Thus, according to these researchers, if
practices such as polygamy or infanticide are considered
right within a society, they are right for that society. And
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7 Metaethics 7
Statue of seated man said to be Herodotus; in the Louvre, Paris. Photos.com/

Jupiterimages
if the same practices are considered wrong within a dif-

ferent society, those practices are wrong for that society.
There is no such thing as what is really right, apart from
these social codes, for there is no culture-neutral standard
to which we can appeal to determine which societys view
is correct. The different social codes are all that exist.
A second type of argument for ethical relativism is due
to David Hume, who claimed that moral beliefs are based
107
on sentiment, or emotion, rather than on reason. This

idea was developed by the 20th-century school of logical
positivism and by later representatives of emotivism and
prescriptivism, particularly Charles Stevenson and R.M.
Hare. It follows from emotivism that right and wrong
are relative to individual preferences rather than to social
standards.
Ethical relativism is attractive to many philosophers
and social scientists because it seems to offer the best
explanation of the variability of moral belief. It also offers
a plausible way of explaining how ethics fits into the world
as it is described by modern science. Even if the natural
world ultimately consists of nothing but value-neutral
facts, say the relativists, ethics still has a foundation in
human feelings and social arrangements. Finally, ethical
relativism seems especially well suited to explain the vir-
tue of tolerance. If, from an objective point of view, ones
own values and the values of ones society have no special
Cultural Anthropology
Cultural anthropology is the branch of anthropology that deals with
the study of culture. The discipline uses the methods, concepts, and
data of archaeology, ethnography, folklore, linguistics, and related
fields in its descriptions and analyses of the diverse peoples of the
world. Called social anthropology in Britain, its field of research
was until the mid-20th century largely restricted to the small-scale
(or primitive), non-Western societies that first began to be identi-
fied during the age of discovery. Today the field extends to all forms
of human association, from village communities to corporate cul-
tures to urban gangs. Two key perspectives used are those of holism
(understanding society as a complex, interactive whole) and cultural
relativism (the appreciation of cultural phenomena within their own
context). Areas of study traditionally include social structure, law,
politics, religion, magic, art, and technology.
108
7 Metaethics 7
standing, then an attitude of live and let live toward

other peoples values seems appropriate.
Ethical Relativism and Postmodernism

Beginning in the 1960s and 70s, ethical relativism was
associated with postmodernism, a complex philosophical
movement that questioned the idea of objectivity in many
areas, including ethics. Many postmodernists regarded the
very idea of objectivity as a dubious invention of the mod-
ern (i.e., post-Enlightenment) era. From the time of the
Enlightenment, most philosophers and scientists believed
that there is an objective, universal, and unchanging truth
David Hume, oil painting by Allan Ramsay, 1766; in the Scottish National
Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh. Courtesy of the Scottish National Portrait
Gallery
109
about everythingincluding science, ethics, religion, and

politicsand that human reason is powerful enough to
discover this truth. The eventual result of rational inquiry,
therefore, was to be one science, one ethics, one reli-
gion, and one politics that would be valid for all people
in all eras. According to postmodernism, however, the
Enlightenment-inspired idea of objective truth, which has
influenced the thinking of virtually all modern scientists
and philosophers, is an illusion that has now collapsed.
This development, they contend, is due largely to the
work of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche
(18441900) and his followers. Nietzsche rejected the naive
faith that human beliefs simply mirror reality. Instead,
each of our beliefs is grounded in a perspective that is
neither correct nor incorrect. In ethics, accordingly, there
are no moral facts but only moral interpretations of phe-
nomena, which give rise to different existing moral codes.
We may try to understand these moralities by investigat-
ing their histories and the psychology of the people who
embrace them, but there is no question of proving one
or another of them to be true. Nietzsche argues, for
example, that those who accept the Judeo-Christian ethi-
cal system, which he calls a slave morality, suffer from
weak and fearful personalities. A different and stronger
sort of person, he says, would reject this ethic and create
his own values.
Postmodernists believe that Western society has
passed beyond the modern intellectual era and is now in a
postmodern period characterized partly by the realization
that human life and thought is a mosaic comprising many
perspectives. Truths, including the truths of science as
well as ethics, should be recognized as beliefs associated
with particular traditions that serve particular purposes
in particular times and places. The desire for absolutes is
seen as a misguided quest for the impossible. During the
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7 Metaethics 7
last half of the 20th century, the most prominent advo-

cates of this view were Michel Foucault (192684) and
Jacques Derrida (19302004).
Criticisms of Ethical Relativism

Ethical relativism, then, is a radical doctrine that is con-
trary to what many thoughtful people commonly assume.
As such, it should not be confused with the uncon-
troversial thought that what is right depends on the
circumstances. Everyone, absolutists and relativists alike,
agrees that circumstances make a difference. Whether
it is morally permissible to enter a house, for example,
depends on whether one is the owner, a guest, or a burglar.
Nor is ethical relativism merely the idea that different
people have different beliefs about ethics, which again no
one would deny. It is, rather, a theory about the status of
moral beliefs, according to which none of them is objec-
tively true. A consequence of the theory is that there is
no way to justify any moral principle as valid for all people
and all societies.
Critics have lodged a number of complaints against
this doctrine. They point out that if ethical relativism
is correct, it would mean that even the most outrageous
practices, such as slavery and the physical abuse of women,
are right if they are countenanced by the standards of
the relevant society. Relativism therefore deprives us of
any means of raising moral objections against horrendous
social customs, provided that those customs are approved
by the codes of the societies in which they exist.
But should we not be tolerant of other cultures? Critics
reply that it depends on what sort of social differences
are at issue. Tolerance may seem like a good policy where
benign differences between cultures are concerned, but
it does not seem so when, for example, a society engages
111
in officially approved genocide, even within its own bor-

ders. And in any case, the critics say, it is a mistake to think
that relativism implies that we should be tolerant, because
tolerance is simply another value about which people or
societies may disagree. Only an absolutist could say that
tolerance is objectively good.
Moreover, the critics continue, we sometimes want to
criticize our own societys values, and ethical relativism
deprives us of the means of doing that as well. If ethical
relativism is correct, we could not make sense of reform-
ing or improving our own societys morals, for there would
be no standard against which our societys existing prac-
tices could be judged deficient. Abandoning slavery, for
example, would not be moral progress; it would only be
replacing one set of standards with another.
Critics also point out that disagreement about eth-
ics does not mean that there can be no objective truth.
After all, people disagree even about scientific matters.
Some people believe that disease is caused by evil spirits,
while others believe it is caused by microbes, but we do
not on that account conclude that disease has no real
cause. The same might be true of ethicsdisagreement
might only mean that some people are more enlightened
than others.
But there is actually far less disagreement than the rela-
tivists imply. Anthropologists have observed that, while
there is some variation from culture to culture, there are also
some values that all societies have in common. Some values
are, in fact, necessary for society to exist. Without rules
requiring truthfulness, for example, there could be no com-
munication, and without rules against murder and assault,
people could not live together. These are, not surprisingly,
among the values that anthropologists find wherever they
look. Such disagreements as do exist take place against a
background of agreement on these large matters.
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Lastly, to the claim that there is no legitimate way to

judge a societys practices from the outside, critics may
reply that we can always ask whether a particular cultural
practice works to the advantage or disadvantage of the
people within the culture. If, for example, female genital
Critics argue that ethical relativism makes it impossible to criticize our

societys values. For example, abolishing slavery would not represent moral
progress but only the substitution of one set of values with another. Hulton
Archive/Getty Images
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mutilation does more harm than good for the members of

the societies that practice it, that fact may be an objective
reason for judging the practice to be bad. Thus the appeal
to what is helpful or harmful appears to be a standard that
transcends local disagreements and variations.
THE PROBLEM OF MORAL

RESPONSIBILITY
The problem of moral responsibility is that of reconcil-
ing the belief that people are morally responsible for what
they do with the apparent fact that humans do not have
free will because their actions are causally determined. It
is an ancient and enduring philosophical puzzle.
Freedom and Responsibility

Historically, most proposed solutions to the problem of
moral responsibility have attempted to establish that
humans do have free will. But what does free will consist
of? When people make decisions or perform actions, they
usually feel as though they are choosing or acting freely.
A person may decide, for example, to buy apples instead
of oranges, to vacation in France rather than in Italy, or
to call a sister in Nebraska instead of a brother in Florida.
Nevertheless, there are at least some situations in which
people seem not to act freely, as when they are physically
coerced or mentally or emotionally manipulated. One way
to formalize the intuitive idea of free action is to say that a
person acts freely if it is true that he could have acted oth-
erwise. Buying apples is ordinarily a free action because
in ordinary circumstances one can buy oranges instead.
Nothing forces one to buy apples or prevents one from
buying oranges.
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Choosing what fruit to buy seems to be an act of free will, given that in ordi-
nary cases nothing forces a person to buy one kind of fruit rather than another.
Keren Su/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Yet the decisions a person makes are the result of his

desires, and his desires are determined by his circum-
stances, his past experiences, and his psychological and
personality traitshis dispositions, tastes, temperament,
intelligence, and so on. Circumstances, experiences, and
traits in this sense are obviously the result of many factors
outside the individuals control, including his upbringing
and perhaps even his genetic makeup. If this is correct, a
persons actions may ultimately be no more the result of
free will than his eye colour.
The existence of free will seems to be presupposed
by the notion of moral responsibility. Most people would
agree that a person cannot be morally responsible for
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actions that he could not help but perform. Moreover,

moral praise and blame, or reward and punishment, seem
to make sense only on the assumption that the agent in
question is morally responsible. These considerations
seem to imply a choice between two implausible alter-
natives: either (1) people have free will, in which case a
persons actions are not determined by his circumstances,
past experiences, and psychological and personality traits,
or (2) people do not have free will, in which case no one is
ever morally responsible for what he does. This dilemma
is the problem of moral responsibility.
Determinism
Determinism is the view that, given the state of the uni-
verse (the complete physical properties of all its parts)
at a certain time and the laws of nature operative in the
universe at that time, the state of the universe at any sub-
sequent time is completely determined. No subsequent
state of the universe can be other than what it is. Because
human actions, at an appropriate level of description,
are part of the universe, it follows that humans cannot
act otherwise than they do. Free will is impossible. (It is
important to distinguish determinism from mere causa-
tion. Determinism is not the thesis that every event has a
cause, since causes do not always necessitate their effects.
It is, rather, the thesis that every event is causally inevi-
table. If an event has occurred, then it is impossible that
it could not have occurred, given the previous state of the
universe and the laws of nature.)
Philosophers and scientists who believe that the
universe is deterministic and that determinism is
incompatible with free will are called hard determin-
ists. Because moral responsibility seems to require free
will, hard determinism implies that no one is morally
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responsible for his actions. Although the conclusion

is strongly counterintuitive, some hard determinists
have insisted that the weight of philosophical argument
requires that it be accepted. There is no alternative but
to reform the intuitive beliefs in freedom and moral
responsibility. Other hard determinists, acknowledging
that such reform is scarcely feasible, hold that there may
be social benefits to feeling and exhibiting moral emo-
tions, even though the emotions themselves are based
on a fiction. Such benefits are reason enough for holding
fast to prephilosophical beliefs about free will and moral
responsibility, according to these thinkers.
The extreme alternative to determinism is inde-
terminism, the view that at least some events have no
deterministic cause but occur randomly, or by chance.
Indeterminism is supported to some extent by research
in quantum mechanics, which suggests that some events
at the quantum level are in principle unpredictable (and
therefore random).
Libertarianism
Philosophers and scientists who believe that the universe
is indeterministic and that humans possess free will are
known as libertarians (libertarianism in this sense is not
to be confused with the school of political philosophy
called libertarianism). Although it is possible to hold that
the universe is indeterministic and that human actions are
nevertheless determined, few contemporary philosophers
defend this view.
Libertarianism is vulnerable to what is called the
intelligibility objection. This objection points out that
a person can have no more control over a purely random
action than he has over an action that is deterministically
inevitable; in neither case does free will enter the picture.
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Immanuel Kant, print published in London, 1812. Photos.com/

Jupiterimages
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Hence, if human actions are indeterministic, free will does

not exist.
The German enlightenment philosopher Immanuel
Kant (17241804), one of the earliest supporters of lib-
ertarianism, attempted to overcome the intelligibility
objection, and thereby to make room for moral respon-
sibility, by proposing a kind of dualism in human nature.
In his Critique of Practical Reason (1788), Kant claimed that
humans are free when their actions are governed by rea-
son. Reason (what he sometimes called the noumenal
self ) is in some sense independent of the rest of the agent,
allowing him to choose morally. Kants theory requires
that reason be disconnected from the causal order in such
a way as to be capable of choosing or acting on its own
and, at the same time, that it be connected to the causal
order in such a way as to be an integral determinant of
human actions. The details of Kants view have been the
subject of much debate, and it remains unclear whether it
is coherent.
Although libertarianism was not popular among
19th-century philosophers, it enjoyed a revival in the mid-
20th century. The most influential of the new libertarian
accounts were the so-called agent-causation theories.
First proposed by the American philosopher Roderick
Chisholm (191699) in his seminal paper Human
Freedom and the Self (1964), these theories hold that
free actions are caused by the agent himself rather than by
some prior event or state of affairs. Although Chisholms
theory preserves the intuition that the ultimate origin
of an actionand thus the ultimate moral responsibility
for itlies with the agent, it does not explain the details
or mechanism of agent-causation. Agent-causation is a
primitive, unanalyzable notion; it cannot be reduced to
anything more basic. Not surprisingly, many philosophers
found Chisholms theory unsatisfactory. What is wanted,
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they objected, is a theory that explains what freedom is

and how it is possible, not one that simply posits freedom.
Agent-causation theories, they maintained, leave a blank
space where an explanation ought to be.
Compatibilism
Compatibilism, as the name suggests, is the view that
the existence of free will and moral responsibility is com-
patible with the truth of determinism. In most cases
compatibilists (also called soft determinists) attempt to
achieve this reconciliation by subtly revising or weakening
the commonsense notion of free will.
Ancient and Medieval Compatibilism

Compatibilism has an ancient history, and many philoso-
phers have endorsed it in one form or another. In Book
III of the Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle (384322 BCE)
wrote that humans are responsible for the actions they
freely choose to do (i.e., for their voluntary actions).
While acknowledging that our dispositions are not vol-
untary in the same sense that our actions are, Aristotle
believed that humans have free will because they are free to
choose their actions within the confines of their natures.
In other words, humans are free to choose between the
(limited) alternatives presented to them by their disposi-
tions. Moreover, humans also have the special ability to
mold their dispositions and to develop their moral char-
acters. Thus, humans have freedom in two senses: they
can choose between the alternatives that result from their
dispositions, and they can change or develop the dispo-
sitions that present them with these alternatives. One
might object that the capacity for self-examination and
reflection presupposed by this kind of freedom implies
the existence of something in humans that is outside the
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causal order. If this is so, then Aristotles compatibilism is

really a disguised form of libertarianism.
For medieval Scholastic philosophers, free will was
a theological problem. If God is the prime moverthe
first cause of all things and events in the universe, includ-
ing human actionsand if the universe is deterministic,
then it seems to follow that humans never act freely. How
can humans do other than what God has caused them to
do? How then can they be morally responsible for their
actions? An analogous problem obtains regarding Gods
omniscience: if God, being omniscient, has foreknowl-
edge of every choice that humans make, how can humans
choose other than what God knows they will choose?
If there is a device in Johns brain that will force him to vote for candidate
B if he is inclined to vote for candidate A, but he votes for candidate B on
his own, has he acted freely? Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
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In late antiquity, St. Augustine (354430) played a key

role in combining Greek philosophy with Christianity, and
his attempts to reconcile human freedom with Christian
notions such as divine foreknowledge are still cited by
theologians. According to Augustine, Goda perfect,
omnipotent, and omniscient beingexists outside the
realm of time. Temporal directionality does not exist for
God, as it does for humans. Hence, it makes no sense to
attribute foreknowledge of human choices to God.
Nearly a millennium later, St. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1224
74) grappled with the same problems. Like Augustine, he
lived during a major turning point in Western intellec-
tual history, when the relationship between philosophy
and religion was being freshly examined and recast. In
his Summa theologiae (1265/6673), Aquinas wrote that, if
humans do not have free will, all counsels, exhortations,
commands, prohibitions, rewards, and punishments would
be in vain, a conclusion that is simply inconceivable. In
response to the apparent conflict between freedom and
Gods role as the prime mover of human wills, Aquinas
claimed that God is in fact the source of human freedom.
This is because God moves humans in accordance with
our voluntary natures.
Just as by moving natural causes God does not prevent their

acts being natural, so by moving voluntary causes He does not
deprive their actions of being voluntary.
Because humans are created by God, their wills are

naturally in harmony with his. Thus, Gods role as prime
mover need not get in the way of free agency.
Modern Compatibilism
Following the rediscovery of Classical learning during the
Renaissance, philosophers sympathetic to compatibilism
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shifted their focus from the divine back to the individual.

The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (15881679)
argued that the only condition necessary for free will and
moral responsibility is that there be a connection between
ones choices and ones actions. In his Leviathan (1651), he
asserted that free will is the liberty of the man [to do]
what he has the will, desire, or inclination to do. If a per-
son is able to do the thing he chooses, he is free.
David Hume, another staunch compatibilist, main-
tained that the apparent incompatibility between
determinism and free will rests on a confusion about the
nature of causation. Causation is a phenomenon that
humans project onto the world, he believed. To say that
one thing (A) is the cause of another thing (B) is nothing
more than to say that things like A have been constantly
conjoined with things like B in experience, and that an
observation of a thing like A inevitably brings to mind
the idea or expectation of a thing like B. There is noth-
ing in nature itself that corresponds to the necessary
connection thought to exist between two things that are
causally related. Because there is just this kind of regular-
ity between human choices on the one hand and human
actions on the other, it follows that human actions are
caused by human choices, and this is all that is needed
for free will. As Hume claimed in his Enquiry Concerning
Human Understanding (1748), By liberty we can only mean
a power of acting or not acting, according to the determi-
nations of the will.
The English philosopher John Stuart Mill (180673)
was the major champion of compatibilism in the 19th
century. He proposed that a person is free when his hab-
its or his temptations are not his masters, but he theirs,
while an unfree person is one who obeys his desires even
when he has good reason not to. Mills position is situated
at an interesting turning point in compatibilist thinking.
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It echoes Kant in its reliance on reason as the vehicle of

freedom, but it also anticipates contemporary compatibil-
ism in its notion that a free person is one whose internal
desires are not at odds with his reason.
In his Ethical Studies (1876), Mills countryman F.H.
Bradley (18461924) argued that neither compatibilism
nor libertarianism comes close to justifying what he called
the vulgar notion of moral responsibility. Determinism
does not allow for free will because it implies that humans
are never the ultimate originators of their actions.
Indeterminism does no better, for it can imply only that
human decisions are completely random. Yet it is intui-
tively obvious, according to Bradley, that humans have
free will, and no philosophical argument in the world will
convince anyone otherwise. He thus advocated a return
to common sense. Given that the philosophical theory
of determinism necessarily conflicts with peoples deep-
rooted moral intuitions, it is better to abandon the former
rather than the latter.
Contemporary Compatibilism
Notwithstanding Bradleys argument, compatibilism
remained popular among 20th-century thinkers. G.E.
Moore attempted to reconcile determinism and free will
through a conditional analysis of freedom. When one
says that a person acted freely, according to Moore, one
simply means that, if he had chosen to do otherwise, he
would have done otherwise. The fact that the person may
not have been in a position to choose otherwise does not
undermine his free agency. But what does it mean to say
that one could have done otherwise? In Freedom and
Necessity (1946), A.J. Ayer maintained that to say that
I could have acted otherwise is to say that I should have
acted otherwise if I had so chosen. The ability to do oth-
erwise means only that, if the past had been different,
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one might have chosen differently. This is obviously a

particularly weak notion of freedom, for it implies that a
choice or action can be free even though it is completely
determined by the past. It is an open question whether
Ayers account provides a satisfactory explanation of the
intuitive notion of free will. Supporters maintain that this
is the only type of freedom worth wanting, while detrac-
tors believe it does not come close to providing the kind
of free agency that humans desire, in part because it does
not imply that humans are morally responsible for their
free actions.
Other contemporary compatibilists have attacked
the hard determinists argument at a different juncture.
In an influential paper, Alternate Possibilities and Moral
Responsibility (1969), the American philosopher Harry
Frankfurt questioned whether the ability to do otherwise
is truly necessary for freedom. Suppose that John is on
his way to a voting booth and is undecided about whether
to vote for candidate A or candidate B. Unbeknownst to
him, an evil neuroscientist has implanted in Johns brain
a device that will, if required, fire a signal that forces
John to vote for candidate B. But John decides to vote
for candidate B on his own, so the device turns out to be
unnecessary. The device does not fire, so John acts freely.
But John could not have acted otherwise: if he had shown
the slightest inclination toward candidate A, the neuro-
scientists device would have made him change his mind.
This Frankfurt-style counterexample has proved to be
quite powerful in contemporary debates about free will. It
demonstrates that being able to do otherwise is not neces-
sary for free agency.
If the ability to do otherwise is not necessary, what is?
Like Hobbes and Hume, Frankfurt locates freedom solely
within the self. In Freedom of the Will and the Concept
of a Person (1971), he proposed that having free will is a
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matter of identifying with ones desires in a certain sense.

Suppose that Jack is a drug addict who wants to reform.
He has a first-order desire for a certain drug, but he also
has a second-order desire not to desire the drug. Although
Jack does not want his first-order desire to be effective,
he acts on it all the same. Because of this inner conflict,
Jack is not a free agent. Now consider Jacks friend Jill,
who is also a drug addict. Unlike Jack, Jill has no desire
to reform. She has a first-order desire for a certain drug
and a second-order desire that her first-order desire be
effective. She feels no ambivalence at all about her drug
addiction. Not only does she want the drug, but she also
wants to want the drug. Jill identifies with her first-order
desire in a way that Jack does not, and therein lies her
freedom.
In Freedom and Resentment (1962), the English
philosopher P.F. Strawson (19192006) introduced an
influential version of compatibilism grounded in human
psychology. Strawson observed that people display emo-
tions such as resentment, anger, gratitude, and so on in
response to the actions of others. He argued that holding
an agent morally responsible for an action is nothing more
than having such feelings, or reactive attitudes, toward
him. The question of whether the agent acts freely matters
only insofar as it affects the feelings toward him that oth-
ers may have. Apart from this, freedom is beside the point.
Moreover, because people cannot help but feel reactive
attitudes, no matter how much they may try not to, they
are justified in having them, whatever the truth or falsity
of determinism. (This is not to say that the specific reac-
tive attitude a person may have on a given occasionof
blind rage as opposed to mere annoyance, for exampleis
always justified.)
Yet it is far from clear that people are always justi-
fied in having reactive attitudes. Pertinent information
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can drastically change ones feelings toward an agent. For

example, a person might become less angry with a man
who ran over his cat if he discovers that the man was rush-
ing to the hospital with a desperately ill child. He may even
lose his anger altogether. Given the enormous influence
that everyday factual information has over what reactive
attitudes people have and whether they even have them,
it seems unwise to treat them as accurate barometers of
moral responsibility.
Continuity and Change

Although the central issues involved in the problem
of moral responsibility have remained the same since
ancient times, the emphasis of the debate has changed
greatly. Contemporary compatibilists such as Frankfurt
and Strawson tend to argue that moral responsibility has
little if anything to do with determinism, because it arises
from peoples desires and attitudes rather than from the
causal origins of their actions. Humans may not be free to
as great an extent as the intuitive notion of free will sug-
gests, but there is no other freedom to be had. Addressing
the problem of moral responsibility requires establishing
guidelines for holding people accountable, not lunging
after some impossible notion of free will.
Contemporary libertarians such as Chisholm, how-
ever, continue to maintain that moral responsibility
requires a certain kind of robust free will for which
compatibilism does not allow. Their prime concern is to
untangle the metaphysical issues underlying the intelli-
gibility objection and to make room for free will in an
indeterministic world.
How much of human behaviour is determined by
past events, and how much does this matterif it does
matterfor free will and moral responsibility? In the end,
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the important question may be not whether the universe

is deterministic or indeterministic but whether one is will-
ing to accept a definition of free will that is much weaker
than intuition demands.
EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS
The best known traditional form of evolutionary eth-
ics is social Darwinism, though this view owes far more
to Herbert Spencer (18201903) than it does to Charles
Darwin (180982), the English naturalist who formulated
the theory of evolution through natural selection. It begins
with the assumption that in the natural world the struggle
for existence is good, because it leads to the evolution of
animals that are better adapted to their environments.
From this premise it concludes that in the social world a
similar struggle for existence should take place, for simi-
lar reasons. Some social Darwinists have thought that the
social struggle also should be physicaltaking the form
of warfare, for example. More commonly, however, they
assumed that the struggle should be economic, involving
competition between individuals and private businesses
in a legal environment of laissez faire. This was Spencers
own position.
As might be expected, not all evolutionary theorists
have agreed that natural selection implies the justice of
laissez-faire capitalism. Alfred Russel Wallace (18231913),
who advocated a group-selection analysis, believed in the
justice of actions that promote the welfare of the state,
even at the expense of the individual, especially in cases
in which the individual is already well-favoured. The
Russian theorist of anarchism Peter Kropotkin (1842
1921) argued that selection proceeds through cooperation
within groups (mutual aid) rather than through struggle
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Social Darwinism
Social Darwinism is the theory that persons, groups, and races are
subject to the same laws of natural selection as Charles Darwin had
perceived in plants and animals in nature. According to the theory,
which was popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the weak
were diminished and their cultures delimited, while the strong grew in
power and in cultural influence over the weak. Social Darwinists held
that the life of humans in society is a struggle for existence ruled by
survival of the fittest, a phrase proposed by Herbert Spencer.
The social Darwinistsnotably Spencer and Walter Bagehot
in England and William Graham Sumner in the United States
believed that the process of natural selection acting on variations in
the population would result in the survival of the best competitors
and in continuing improvement in the population. Societies, like
individuals, were viewed as organisms that evolve in this manner.
The theory was used to support laissez-faire capitalism and polit-
ical conservatism. Class stratification was justified on the basis of
natural inequalities among individuals, for the control of property
was said to be a correlate of superior and inherent moral attributes
such as industriousness, temperance, and frugality. Attempts to
reform society through state intervention or other means would,
therefore, interfere with natural processes. Unrestricted competition
and defense of the status quo were in accord with biological selec-
tion. The poor were the unfit and should not be aided, whereas in
the struggle for existence, wealth was a sign of success. At the societal
level, social Darwinism was used as a philosophical rationalization for
imperialist, colonialist, and racist policies, sustaining belief in Anglo-
Saxon or Aryan cultural and biological superiority.
Social Darwinism declined during the 20th century as an expanded
knowledge of biological, social, and cultural phenomena undermined,
rather than supported, its basic tenets.
between individuals. In the 20th century, the English

biologist Julian Huxley (18871975)the grandson of T.H.
Huxley (182595), who coined the term agnosticism
thought that the future survival of humankind, especially
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as the number of humans increases dramatically, would

require the application of science and the undertaking
of large-scale public works, such as the Tennessee Valley
Authority. More recently, the biologist Edward O. Wilson
has argued that, because human beings have evolved in
symbiotic relationship with the rest of the living world,
the supreme moral imperative is biodiversity.
From a metaethical perspective, social Darwinism
was famously criticized by G.E. Moore. Invoking a line
of argument first mooted by Hume, who pointed out the
fallaciousness of reasoning from statements of fact to
statements of moral obligation (from an is to an ought),
Moore accused the social Darwinists of committing what
he called the naturalistic fallacy, the mistake of attempting
to infer nonnatural properties (being morally good or right)
from natural ones (the fact and processes of evolution).
Evolutionary ethicists, however, were generally unmoved
by this criticism, for they simply disagreed that deriv-
ing moral from nonmoral properties is always fallacious.
Their confidence lay in their commitment to progress,
to the belief that the products of evolution increase in
moral value as the evolutionary process proceedsfrom
the simple to the complex, from the monad to the man,
to use the traditional phrase. Another avenue of criticism
of social Darwinism, therefore, was to deny that evolution
is progressive in this way. T.H. Huxley pursued this line
of attack, arguing that humans are imperfect in many of
their biological properties and that what is morally right
often contradicts humans animal nature. In the late 20th
century, the American paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould
(19412002) made similar criticisms of attempts to derive
moral precepts from the course of evolution.
The chief metaethical project in evolutionary ethics
is that of understanding morality, or the moral impulse
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in human beings, as an evolutionary adaptation. For all

the intraspecific violence that human beings commit,
they are a remarkably social species, and sociality, or the
capacity for cooperation, is surely adaptively valuable,
even on the assumption that selection takes place solely
on the level of the individual. Unlike the social insects,
human beings have too variable an environment and
too few offspring (requiring too much parental care) to
be hard-wired for specific cooperative tasks. However,
the kind of cooperative behaviour that has contrib-
uted to the survival of the species would be difficult
and time-consuming to achieve through self-interested
calculation by each individual. Hence, something like
morality is necessary to provide a natural impulse among
all individuals to cooperation and respect for the inter-
ests of others.
Although this perspective does not predict specific
moral rules or values, it does suggest that some general
concept of distributive justice (i.e., justice as fairness and
equity) could have resulted from natural selection. This
view, in fact, was endorsed by John Rawls (19212002). It is
important to note, however, that demonstrating the evo-
lutionary origins of any aspect of human morality does not
by itself establish that the aspect is rational or correct.
An important issue in metaethicsperhaps the most
important issue of allis expressed in the question, Why
should I be moral? What, if anything, makes it rational
for an individual to behave morally (by cooperating with
others) rather than purely selfishly? The present perspec-
tive suggests that moral behaviour did have an adaptive
value for individuals or groups (or both) at some stages
of human evolutionary history. Again, however, this fact
does not imply a satisfactory answer to the moral skep-
tic, who claims that morality has no rational foundation
131
Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould and other scientists have criticized

attempts to derive moral principles from evolution. Ulf Andersen/
Getty Images
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whatsoever. From the premise that morality is natural

or even adaptive, it does not follow that it is rational.
Nevertheless, evolutionary ethics can help to explain the
persistence and near-universality of the belief that there
is more to morality than mere opinion, emotion, or habit.
Hume pointed out that morality would not work unless
people thought of it as real in some sense. In the same
vein, many evolutionary ethicists have argued that the
belief that morality is real, though rationally unjustified,
serves to make morality work. Therefore, it is adaptive.
In this sense, morality may be an illusion that human
beings are biologically compelled to embrace.
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Chapter
Applied Ethics
4
A pplied ethics, as the name implies, is the branch
of ethics consisting of the application of norma-
tive ethical theories to practical problems. Some of
the most compelling issues in contemporary applied
ethics have arisen in the fields of medicine and the life
sciences, where continual technological advances have
created new ethical dilemmas for doctors, patients,
and researchers. Another set of problems has been
raised by the concern among growing numbers of
people in the West about the morality of traditional
ways in which humans use animals (e.g., for food,
clothing, entertainment, and scientific research). The
environmental movement since the 1970s, especially
the emergence of global environmental issues such as
ozone depletion and climate change in the late 20th
century, has led to renewed speculation among philos-
ophers about whether nonsentient living things, or the
natural environment as a whole, have moral value, and
if so whether inherently or by virtue of their close rela-
tion to other morally valuable things (such as future
generations of humans). Finally, traditional questions
regarding the morality of war and the value of peace
have been especially prominent in general political dis-
course since the 1960s, when the morality and legality
of the Vietnam War were questioned by a new genera-
tion of college students, activists, and intellectuals.
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BIOETHICS
Bioethics is the branch of applied ethics that studies the
philosophical, social, and legal issues arising in medicine
and the life sciences. It is chiefly concerned with human
life and well-being, though it sometimes also treats
ethical questions relating to the nonhuman biological
environment. (Such questions are studied primarily in
the independent fields of environmental ethics and ani-
mal rights.)
Definition and Development

The range of issues considered to fall within the purview
of bioethics varies depending on how broadly the field is
defined. In one common usage, bioethics is more or less
equivalent to medical ethics, or biomedical ethics. The
term medical ethics itself has been challenged, however, in
light of the growing interest in issues dealing with health
care professions other than medicine, in particular nurs-
ing. The professionalization of nursing and the perception
of nurses as ethically accountable in their own right have
led to the development of a distinct field known as nursing
ethics. Accordingly, health care ethics has come into use as
a more inclusive term. Bioethics, however, is broader than
this, because some of the issues it encompasses concern
not so much the practice of health care as the conduct and
results of research in the life sciences, especially in areas
such as cloning and gene therapy, stem cell research, xeno-
transplantation (animal-to-human transplantation), and
human longevity.
Although bioethicsand indeed the whole field of
applied ethics as currently understoodis a fairly recent
phenomenon, there have been discussions of moral issues
135
in medicine since ancient times. Examples include the

corpus of the Greek physician Hippocrates (c. 460c. 377
BCE), after whom the Hippocratic oath is named (though
Hippocrates himself was not its author); the Republic of
Plato (c. 428c. 348 BCE), which advocates selective human
breeding in anticipation of later programs of eugenics; the
Summa contra gentiles of St. Thomas Aquinas (c. 12241274),
which briefly discusses the permissibility of abortion; and
the Lectures on Ethics of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), which
contains arguments against the sale of human body parts.
Bioethics emerged as a distinct field of study in the
early 1960s. It was influenced not only by advances in the
life sciences, particularly medicine, but also by the signifi-
cant cultural and societal changes taking place at the time,
Costly and difficult procedures like organ transplantation raise the question
of who should and should not receive lifesaving treatment. Christopher
Furlong/Getty Images
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primarily in the West. The perfection of certain lifesaving

procedures and technologies, such as organ transplanta-
tion and kidney dialysis, required medical officials to
make difficult decisions about which patients would
receive treatment and which would be allowed to die. At
the same time, the increasing importance placed on indi-
vidual well-being contributed to changes in conventional
attitudes toward marriage and sexuality, reproduction
and child rearing, and civil rights. The ultimate result was
widespread dissatisfaction with traditional medical pater-
nalism and the gradual recognition of a patients right to
be fully informed about his condition and to retain some
measure of control over what happens to his body.
Issues in Bioethics
The issues studied in bioethics can be grouped into sev-
eral categories.
The Health Care Context

One category concerns the relationship between doc-
tor and patient, including issues that arise from conflicts
between a doctors duty to promote the health of his
patient and the patients right to self-determination or
autonomy, a right that in the medical context is usually
taken to encompass a right to be fully informed about ones
condition and a right to be consulted about the course of
ones treatment. Is a doctor obliged to tell a patient that he
is terminally ill if there is good reason to believe that doing
so would hasten the patients death? If a patient with a life-
threatening illness refuses treatment, should his wishes be
respected? Should patients always be permitted to refuse
the use of extraordinary life-support measures? These
questions become more complicated when the patient is
incapable of making rational decisions in his own interest,
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as in the case of infants and children, patients suffering

from disabling psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia
or degenerative brain diseases such as Alzheimer disease,
and patients who are in a vegetative state.
Traditional Philosophical Questions

Another category of issues concerns a host of philosophi-
cal questions about the definition and significance of life
and death, the nature of personhood and identity, and the
extent of human freedom and individual responsibility. At
what point should a fatally injured or terminally ill patient
be considered dead? When his vital functions (e.g., heart-
beat and breathing) have ceased? When the brain stem has
ceased to function? Should the presence of deep coma be
sufficient to establish death? These and similar questions
were given new urgency in the 1960s, when the increased
demand for human organs and tissues for use in transplant
operations forced medical ethicists to establish guidelines
for determining when it is permissible to remove organs
from a potential donor.
At about the same time, the development of safer
techniques of surgical abortion and the growing accept-
ability of abortion as a method of birth control prompted
increasing debate about the moral status of the human
fetus. In philosophical discussion, this debate was framed
in terms of the notion of a person, understood as any
being whose interests are deserving of special moral con-
cern. The central issue was whetherand, if so, at what
stagethe fetus is a person in the moral sense. In slightly
different terms, the issue was whether the class of persons
is coextensive with the class of human beingswhether
all and only human beings are persons, or whether instead
there can be human beings who are not persons or persons
who are not human beings (the latter category, accord-
ing to some, includes some of the higher animals and
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hypothetical creatures such as intelligent Martians). These

questions were raised anew in later decades in response to
the development of drugs, such as RU-486 (mifepristone),
that induce abortion up to several weeks after conception
and to the use of stem cells taken from human embryos
in research on the treatment of conditions such as par-
kinsonism (Parkinson disease) and injuries of the central
nervous system.
A closely related set of issues concerns the nature of
personal identity. Recent advances in techniques of clon-
ing, which enabled the successful cloning of animals such
as sheep and rabbits, have renewed discussion of the
traditional philosophical question of what, if anything,
makes a particular human being the unique person he is.
Is a person just the sum of the information encoded in his
genes? If so, is the patient who has undergone gene ther-
apy a different person from the one he was before (i.e., has
he become someone else)? If a human being were to be
cloned, in what sense would he be a copy of his parent?
Would he and his parent be the same person? If multiple
human beings were cloned from the same parent, would
they and their parent all be the same person?
The attempt to understand personal identity in terms
of genetic information also raised anew the philosophical
problems of free will and determinism. To what extent, if
any, is human personality or character genetically rather
than environmentally determined? Are there genetic bases
for certain types of behaviour, as there seem to be for cer-
tain types of diseases (e.g., Tay-Sachs disease)? If so, what
kinds of behaviour are so influenced, and to what extent are
they also influenced by environmental factors? If behaviour
is at least partly genetically determined, should individuals
always be held fully responsible for what they do?
Finally, the possibility of developing technologies that
would extend the human life span far beyond its current
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natural length, if not indefinitely, has led to speculation

about the value of life, the significance of death, and the
desirability of immortality. Is life intrinsically valuable?
In cases in which one is not suffering physically or emo-
tionally, is it always better to be alive than dead? If so,
is it rational to desire immortality? What would be the
significance of death in a world in which dying was not
biologically inevitable?
Social and Legal Issues

Many of these philosophical questions, however they are
answered, have significant social and legal dimensions.
For example, advances in medical technology have the
potential to create disproportionate disadvantages for
some social groups, either by being applied in ways that
harm members of the groups directly or by encouraging
the adoption of social policies that discriminate unfairly
against them. Accordingly, questions of discrimination
in bioethics have arisen in a number of areas. In one such
area, reproductive medicine, recently developed tech-
niques have enabled parents to choose the sex of their
child. Should this new power be considered liberating or
oppressive? Would it be viewed positively if the vast major-
ity of the parents who use it choose to have a boy rather
than a girl? Similar concerns have been raised about the
increasing use of abortion as a method of birth control in
overpopulated countries such as India and China, where
there is considerable social and legal pressure to limit fam-
ily size and where male children are valued more highly
than female children.
In the field of genetics, the use of relatively simple tests
for determining a patients susceptibility to certain geneti-
cally transmitted diseases has led to concerns in the United
States and other countries that the results of such tests, if
not properly safeguarded, could be used in unfair ways by
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health-insurance companies, employers, and government

agencies. In addition, the advent of so-called genetic
counselingin which prospective parents receive advice
about the chances that their offspring will inherit a certain
genetic disease or disorderhas allowed couples to make
more informed decisions about reproduction but also has
contributed, in the view of some bioethicists, to a social
atmosphere considerably less tolerant of disability than it
ought to be. The same criticism has been leveled against
the practice of diagnosing, and in some cases treating,
congenital defects in unborn children.
Research on the genetic bases of behaviour, though
still in its infancy, is controversial, and it has even been
criticized as scientifically invalid. Whatever its scientific
merits, however, it has the potential, according to some
bioethicists, to encourage the adoption of crude mod-
els of genetic determinism in the development of social
policies, especially in the areas of education and crime
prevention. Such policies, it is claimed, could result in
unfair discrimination against large numbers of people
judged to be genetically disposed to undesirable forms
of behaviour, such as aggression or violence.
This last point suggests a related set of issues concern-
ing the moral status of scientific inquiry itself. The notion
that there is a clear line between, on the one hand, the
discovery and presentation of scientific facts and, on the
other, the discussion of moral issuesthe idea that moral
issues arise only after scientific research is concludedis
now widely regarded as mistaken. Science is not value-
neutral. Indeed, there have been ethical debates about
whether certain kinds of research should be undertaken
at all, irrespective of their possible applications. It has
been argued, for example, that research on the pos-
sible genetic basis of homosexuality is immoral, because
even the assumption that such a basis exists implicitly
141
characterizes homosexuality as a kind of genetic abnor-

mality. In any case, it is plausible to suggest that scientific
research should always be informed by philosophyin
particular by ethics but also, arguably, by the philosophy
of mind. Consideration of the moral issues related to one
particular branch of medicine, namely psychiatry, makes it
clear that such issues arise not only in areas of treatment
but also in matters of diagnosis and classification, where
the application of labels indicating illness or abnormal-
ity may create serious disadvantages for the individuals so
designated.
Many of the moral issues that have arisen in the
health care context and in the wake of advances in medi-
cal technology have been addressed, in whole or in part,
in legislation. It is important to realize, however, that the
content of such legislation is seldom, if ever, dictated by
the positions one takes on particular moral issues. For
example, the view that voluntary euthanasia is morally
permissible in certain circumstances does not by itself
settle the question of whether euthanasia should be legal-
ized. The possibility of legalization carries with it another
set of issues, such as the potential for abuse. Some bioethi-
cists have expressed the concern that the legalization of
euthanasia would create a perception among some elderly
patients that society expects them to request euthanasia,
even if they do not desire it, in order not to be a burden
to others. Similarly, even those who believe that abor-
tion is morally permissible in certain circumstances may
consistently object to proposals to relax or eliminate laws
against it.
A final class of social and legal questions concerns the
allocation of health care resources. The issue of whether
health care should be primarily an individual or a public
responsibility remains deeply controversial. Although
systems of health care allocation differ widely, they all
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face the problem that resources are scarce and conse-

quently expensive. Debate has focused not only on the
relative cost-effectiveness of different systems but also on
the different conceptions of justice that underlie them.
The global allocation of health care resources, including
generic forms of drugs for life-threatening illnesses such
as HIV/AIDS, is an important topic in the field of devel-
oping world bioethics.
Approaches
Bioethics is a branch of applied ethics. To say that it is
applied, however, does not imply that it presupposes
any particular ethical theory. Contemporary bioethicists
make use of a variety of different views, including primar-
ily utilitarianism and Kantianism but also more recently
developed perspectives such as virtue theory and perspec-
tives drawn from philosophical feminism, particularly the
school of thought known as the ethics of care.
Traditional and Contemporary

Ethical Theories
Utilitarianism is a normative-ethical theory that holds
that the moral rightness or wrongness of an action should
be ascertained in terms of the actions consequences.
According to one common formulation, an action is right
if it would promote a greater amount of happiness for a
greater number of people than would any other action
performable in the same circumstances. The Kantian tra-
dition, in contrast, eschews the notion of consequences
and urges instead that an action is right only if it is uni-
versalizable (i.e., only if the moral rule it embodies could
become a universal law applicable to all moral agents). The
Kantian approach emphasizes respect for the individual,
autonomy, dignity, and human rights.
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Unlike these traditional approaches, both virtue ethics

and the ethics of care focus on dimensions of moral theo-
rizing other than determining the rightness or wrongness
of particular actions. Virtue ethics is concerned with the
nature of moral character and with the traits, capacities, or
dispositions that moral agents ought to cultivate in them-
selves and others. Thus, the virtue ethicist may consider
what character traits, such as compassion and courage, are
desirable in a doctor, nurse, or biomedical researcher and
how they would (or should) be manifested in various set-
tings. The basic aim of the ethics of care is to replaceor at
least augmentthe supposedly masculine moral values
of rationality, abstraction, impartiality, and independence
with ostensibly more feminine values, such as emotion
(particularly compassion and benevolence), particularity,
partiality, and interdependence. From this perspective,
reflection on abortion would begin not with abstract prin-
ciples such as the right to autonomy or the right to life but
with considerations of the needs of women who face the
choice of whether to have an abortion and the particular
ways in which their decisions may affect their lives and the
lives of their families. This approach also would address
social and legal aspects of the abortion debate, such as
the fact that, though abortion affects the lives of women
much more directly than it does the lives of men, women
as a group are significantly underrepresented in the insti-
tutions that create abortion-related laws and regulations.
The Four-Principles Approach

Whereas some approaches in bioethics proceed by apply-
ing principles derived from independent ethical theories to
individual cases (a top-down approach), others proceed
by examining individual cases to elucidate the principles
that seem to guide most peoples thinking about bioethi-
cal issues in actual practice (a bottom-up approach).
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One influential approach along these lines, known as

the four principles of bioethics, attempts to describe
a set of minimum moral conditions on the behaviour of
health care professionals. The first principle, autonomy,
entails that health care professionals should respect the
autonomous decisions of competent adults. The second
principle, beneficence, holds that they should aim to do
good (i.e., to promote the interests of their patients). The
third principle, nonmaleficence, requires that they should
do no harm. Finally, the fourth principle, justice, holds
that they should act fairly when the interests of different
individuals or groups are in competition (e.g., by promot-
ing the fair allocation of health care resources).
According to proponents of the four-principles
approach, one of its advantages is that, because the prin-
ciples are independent of any particular ethical theory,
they can be used by theorists working in a variety of dif-
ferent traditions. Both the utilitarian and the Kantian, it
is argued, can support the principle of autonomy, though
they would do so for different reasons. Nevertheless, this
adaptability may also be construed as a disadvantage.
Critics have contended that the principles are so general
that whatever agreement on them there may be is unlikely
to be very meaningful. Thus, although the utilitarian and
the Kantian may both accept the principle of autonomy,
the principle as it is formulated allows them to understand
the notion of autonomy in very different ways. Another
criticism of the approach is that it does not offer any clear
way of prioritizing between the principles in cases where
they conflictas they are often liable to do. The principle
of autonomy, for example, might conflict with the prin-
ciple of beneficence in cases where a competent adult
patient refuses to accept life-saving treatment.
Despite these problems, the principles remain useful
as a framework in which to think about moral issues in
145
medicine and the life sciences. This is not an inconsiderable

contribution, for, on at least one conception of the field, the
main task of bioethics is not so much to provide answers to
moral problems as to identify where the problems lie.
The Significance of Public Attitudes

Since its inception the field of bioethics has been popu-
lated by specialists from a number of different disciplines,
including primarily philosophers, lawyers, and theolo-
gians. In the last decade of the 20th century, however, the
contributions of social scientists to bioethical research
became particularly important. Work of this type involved
surveys of public attitudes to advances in the life sciences,
including xenotransplantation and genetic modification.
Programs for facilitating public understanding of these
advances were developed, leading to the establishment of
public understanding and later public engagement, or
participation, as distinct topics of study in bioethics and
the social sciences.
These topics have been important from both a practi-
cal and a theoretical point of view. In order to formulate
sound public policies on issues such as human cloning, for
example, it is important to be able to predict how such
technology, were it to become widely available, would
affect the publics decision making about reproduction. At
the same time, research on public attitudes may reveal that
some bioethical principles, such as the principle of auton-
omy, may not be suitable for some societies, particularly
those with cultures that are not particularly individual-
istic. For these societies, something like a principle of
solidarity may have greater relevance. Nevertheless, it
would be a mistake to assume that one of these principles
must apply to the exclusion of the otherit is possible for
a society to value both autonomy and solidarity.
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Policy Making
The importance of the social and legal issues addressed in

bioethics is reflected in the large number of national and
international bodies established to advise governments
on appropriate public policy. At the national level, several
countries have set up bioethics councils or commissions.
Elsewhere, as in the United Kingdom, there are a variety
of different bodies that consider bioethical issues as well
as national bodies that deal with specific fields.
Several international organizations also are involved
in policy making on bioethical issues. The United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO), for example, has an International Bioethics
Committee; the Human Genome Organisation has an
Ethics Committee; and the Council of Europe has issued
the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine.
The proliferation of such committees is evidence of the
increasing political influence of the work performed by
bioethicists. Indeed, acquaintance with developments
in bioethics arguably is becoming an important aspect
of national and global citizenship. At the same time,
however, the role of bioethical experts on advisory or
decision-making bodies has itself become a topic of study
in bioethics.
Global Bioethics
The field of bioethics has grown most rapidly in North
America, Australia and New Zealand, and Europe. Cross-
cultural discussion also has expanded and in 1992 led to
the establishment of the International Association of
Bioethics. A significant discussion under way since the
start of the 21st century has concerned the possibility of a
global bioethics that would be capable of encompassing
147
the values and cultural traditions of non-Western societ-

ies. Some bioethicists maintain that a global bioethics
could be founded on the four-principles approach, in view
of its apparent compatibility with widely differing ethical
theories and worldviews. Others argue to the contrary that
the four principles are not an appropriate basis for a global
bioethics because at least some of themin particular the
principle of autonomyreflect peculiarly Western values.
Although the issue remains unresolved, the field as a whole
continues to grow in sophistication. At the same time, the
increasing pace of technological advances in medicine
and the life sciences demands that bioethicists continu-
ally rethink the basic assumptions of their field and reflect
carefully on their own methodologies.
ANIMAL RIGHTS
Animal rights are moral or legal entitlements that are
attributed to some nonhuman animals, usually because of
the complexity of their cognitive, emotional, and social
lives or their capacity to experience physical or emotional
pain and pleasure. Historically, different views of the
scope of animal rights have reflected philosophical and
legal developments, scientific conceptions of animal and
human nature, and religious and ethical conceptions of the
proper relationship between animals and human beings.
Historical Background: Vegetarianism

from Antiquity to the Present
Philosophical and religious speculation about the moral
status of nonhuman animals is certainly not unique to the
present day. In many cultures and in many eras since ancient
times, doctrines about the divine creation of animal and
human life, the nature of the human soul, the moral value
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of pleasure and pain, and the obligations of sympathy and

benevolence toward other beings have motivated people
to advocate more humane ways of treating animals. The
practical consequences of these doctrines are no better
illustrated than in the ancient and widespread practice of
vegetarianism.
Vegetarianism is the theory or practice of living solely
upon vegetables, fruits, grains, and nutswith or with-
out the addition of milk products and eggsgenerally for
ethical, ascetic, environmental, or nutritional reasons. All
forms of flesh (meat, fowl, and seafood) are excluded from
all vegetarian diets, but many vegetarians use milk and
milk products. Westerner vegetarians usually eat eggs also,
but most vegetarians in India exclude them, as did those
in the Mediterranean lands in Classical times. Vegetarians
who exclude animal products altogether (and likewise
avoid animal-derived products such as leather, silk, and
wool) are known as vegans. Those who use milk products
are sometimes called lacto-vegetarians, and those who use
eggs as well are called lacto-ovo vegetarians. Among some
agricultural peoples, flesh eating has been infrequent
except among the privileged classes. Such people have
rather misleadingly been called vegetarians.
Ancient Origins
Deliberate avoidance of flesh eating probably first
appeared sporadically in ritual connections, either as a
temporary purification or as qualification for a priestly
function. Advocacy of a regular fleshless diet began about
the middle of the 1st millennium BCE in India and the east-
ern Mediterranean as part of the philosophical awakening
of the time. In the Mediterranean, avoidance of flesh
eating is first recorded as a teaching of the philosopher
Pythagoras of Samos (c. 580c. 500 BCE), who alleged the
kinship of all animals as one basis for human benevolence
149
toward other creatures. From Plato onward many pagan

philosophers, especially the Neoplatonists, recommended
a fleshless diet; the idea carried with it condemnation
of bloody sacrifices in worship and was often associated
with belief in the reincarnation of souls and, more gen-
erally, with a search for principles of cosmic harmony in
accord with which human beings could live. In India, fol-
lowers of Buddhism and Jainism refused on ethical and
ascetic grounds to kill animals for food. Human beings,
they believed, should not inflict harm on any sentient
creature. This principle was soon taken up in Brahmanism
and, later, Hinduism and was applied especially to the cow.
As in Mediterranean thought, the idea carried with it con-
demnation of bloody sacrifices and was often associated
with principles of cosmic harmony.
In later centuries the history of vegetarianism in the
Indic and Mediterranean regions diverged significantly. In
India itself, though Buddhism gradually declined, the ideal
of harmlessness (ahimsa), with its corollary of a fleshless
diet, spread steadily in the 1st millennium CE until many of
the upper castes, and even some of the lower, had adopted
it. Beyond India it was carried, with Buddhism, northward
and eastward as far as China and Japan. In some countries,
fish were included in an otherwise fleshless diet.
West of the Indus the great monotheistic traditions
were less favourable to vegetarianism. The Hebrew Bible,
however, records the belief that in paradise the earliest
human beings had not eaten flesh. Ascetic Jewish groups
and some early Christian leaders disapproved of flesh eat-
ing as gluttonous, cruel, and expensive. Some Christian
monastic orders ruled out flesh eating, and its avoidance
has been a penance and a spiritual exercise even for layper-
sons. Many Muslims have been hostile to vegetarianism,
yet some Muslim Sufi mystics recommended a meatless
diet for spiritual seekers.
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The 17th Through 19th Centuries
The 17th and 18th centuries in Europe were characterized

by a greater interest in humanitarianism and the idea of
moral progress, and sensitivity to animal suffering was
accordingly revived. Certain Protestant groups came to
adopt a fleshless diet as part of the goal of leading a per-
fectly sinless life. Persons of diverse philosophical views
advocated vegetarianism. For example, Voltaire (1694
1778) praised it, and Percy Bysshe Shelley (17921822) and
Henry David Thoreau (181762) practiced the diet. In the
late 18th century Jeremy Bentham (17481832) asserted
that the suffering of animals, like the suffering of humans,
was worthy of moral consideration, and he regarded cru-
elty to animals as analogous to racism.
Vegetarians of the early 19th century usually con-
demned the use of alcohol as well as flesh and appealed
as much to nutritional advantages as to ethical sensibili-
ties. As before, vegetarianism tended to be combined with
other efforts toward a humane and cosmically harmonious
way of life. Although the vegetarian movement as a whole
was always carried forward by ethically inclined individu-
als, special institutions grew up to express vegetarian
concerns as such. The first vegetarian society was formed
in England in 1847 by the Bible Christian sect, and the
International Vegetarian Union was founded tentatively
in 1889 and more enduringly in 1908.
Modern Developments
By the early 20th century vegetarianism in the West was
contributing substantially to the drive to vary and lighten
the nonvegetarian diet. In some places a fleshless diet was
regarded as a regimen for specific disorders. Elsewhere,
notably in Germany, it was considered as one element
in a wider conception of vegetarianism, which involved
151
a comprehensive reform of life habits in the direction of

simplicity and healthfulness.
In the second half of the 20th century, the work of
the Australian ethical philosopher Peter Singer inspired
a revival of philosophical interest in the practice of veg-
etarianism and the larger topic of animal rights. Singer
offered utilitarian arguments to support his contention
that modern methods of raising and slaughtering animals
for human food (factory farming) are morally unjusti-
fied. His arguments also applied to other traditional ways
in which humans use animals, including as experimental
subjects in medical research and as sources of entertain-
ment. Singers work provoked much vexed discussion
of the question of whether the traditional treatment of
animals is justified by any morally relevant differences
between animals and humans.
Meanwhile, other debates centred on the question
of whether a fleshless diet, and specifically a vegan one,
provides all the nutrients necessary for human health. In
the West, for example, it was long a common belief that
humans cannot obtain enough protein from a diet based
solely on plant foods. However, nutritional studies con-
ducted in the 1970s cast doubt on this claim, and it is
seldom advanced today. A more recent issue is whether a
vegan diet can provide enough vitamin B12, which humans
need in tiny amounts (1 to 3 micrograms per day) to produce
red blood cells and to maintain proper nerve functioning.
Popular vegan sources of B12 include nutritional yeast, cer-
tain fortified foods made without animal products (such
as cereals and soy milk), and vitamin supplements.
By the early 21st century vegetarian restaurants were
commonplace in many Western countries, and large indus-
tries were devoted to producing special vegetarian and
vegan foods (some of which were designed to simulate var-
ious kinds of flesh and dairy products in form and flavour).
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Today many vegetarian societies and animal rights groups

publish vegetarian recipes and other information on what
they consider to be the health and environmental benefits,
as well as the moral virtues, of a fleshless diet.
Philosophical Background
The proper treatment of animals is a very old question in
the West. Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers debated
the place of animals in human morality. As noted earlier,
the Pythagoreans and the Neoplatonists urged respect
for animals interests, primarily because they believed in
the transmigration of souls between human and animal
bodies. In his biological writings, Aristotle (384322 BCE)
repeatedly suggested that animals lived for their own sake,
but his claim in the Politics that nature made all animals for
the sake of humans was unfortunately destined to become
his most influential statement on the subject.
Aristotle, and later the Stoics, believed the world was
populated by an infinity of beings arranged hierarchically
according to their complexity and perfection, from the
barely living to the merely sentient, the rational, and the
wholly spiritual. In this Great Chain of Being, as it came
to be known, all forms of life were represented as existing
for the sake of those forms higher in the chain. Among
corporeal beings, humans, by dint of their rationality,
occupied the highest position. The Great Chain of Being
became one of the most persistent and powerful, if utterly
erroneous, ways of conceiving the universe, dominating
scientific, philosophical, and religious thinking until the
middle of the 19th century.
The Stoics, insisting on the irrationality of all non-
human animals, regarded them as slaves and accordingly
treated them as contemptible and beneath notice.
Aggressively advocated by St. Augustine (354430), these
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Stoic ideas became embedded in Christian theology. They

were absorbed wholesale into Roman lawas reflected
in the treatises and codifications of Gaius (fl. 130180)
and Justinian (483565)taken up by the legal glossa-
tors of Europe in the 11th century, and eventually pressed
into English (and, much later, American) common law.
Meanwhile, arguments that urged respect for the inter-
ests of animals nearly disappeared, and animal welfare
remained a relative backwater of philosophical inquiry and
legal regulation until the final decades of the 20th century.
Animals and the Law

In the 3rd or 4th century CE, the Roman jurist
Hermogenianus wrote, Hominum causa omne jus consti-
tum (All law was established for mens sake). Repeating
the phrase, P.A. Fitzgeralds 1966 treatise Salmond on
Jurisprudence declared, The law is made for men and
allows no fellowship or bonds of obligation between them
and the lower animals. The most important consequence
of this view is that animals have long been categorized as
legal things, not as legal persons. Whereas legal per-
sons have rights of their own, legal things do not. They
exist in the law solely as the objects of the rights of legal
persons (e.g., as things over which legal persons may exer-
cise property rights). This status, however, often affords
animals the indirect protection of laws intended to pre-
serve social morality or the rights of animal owners, such
as criminal anticruelty statutes or civil statutes that per-
mit owners to obtain compensation for damages inflicted
on their animals. Indeed, this sort of law presently defines
the field of animal law, which is much broader than ani-
mal rights because it encompasses all law that addresses
the interests of nonhuman animalsor, more commonly,
the interests of the people who own them.
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A legal thing can become a legal person; this happened

whenever human slaves were freed. The former legal thing
then possesses his own legal rights and remedies. Parallels
have frequently been drawn between the legal status of
animals and that of human slaves. The truly striking fact
about slavery, the American historian David Brion Davis
has written, is the
antiquity and almost universal acceptance of the concept of

the slave as a human being who is legally owned, used, sold, or
otherwise disposed of as if he or she were a domestic animal.
This parallel persisted in the similarity of naming slaves,
branding them, and even pricing them according to their
equivalent in cows, camels, pigs, and chickens.
The American jurist Roscoe Pound (18701964) wrote

that in ancient Rome a slave was a thing, and as such, like
animals could be the object of rights of property. In the
late 18th and early 19th centuries, humanitarian reformers
in Britain and the United States campaigned on behalf of
the weak and defenseless, protesting against child labour,
debtors prisons, abusive punishment in public schools,
and, inevitably, the cruel treatment of animals. In 1800
the most renowned abolitionist of the period, William
Wilberforce (17591833), supported a bill to abolish bull-
and bearbaiting, which was defeated in the House of
Commons. In 1809 Baron Erskine (17501823), former
lord chancellor of England, who had long been troubled
by cruelty to animals, introduced a bill to prohibit cruelty
to all domestic animals. Erskine declared that the bill was
intended to consecrate, perhaps, in all nations, and in all
ages, that just and eternal principle which binds the whole
living world in one harmonious chain, under the domin-
ion of enlightened man, the lord and governor of all.
Although the bill passed the House of Lords, it failed in
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the House of Commons. Then, in 1821, a bill to prevent

cruel and improper treatment of Cattle was introduced
in the House of Commons, sponsored by Wilberforce and
Thomas Fowell Buxton (17861845) and championed by
Irish member of Parliament Richard Martin. The version
enacted in 1822, known as Martins Act, made it a crime
to treat a handful of domesticated animalscattle, oxen,
horses, and sheepcruelly or to inflict unnecessary suf-
fering upon them. However, it did not protect the general
welfare of even these animals, much less give them legal
rights, and the worst punishment available for any breach
was a modest fine. Similar statutes were enacted in all
the states of the United States, where there now exists a
patchwork of anticruelty and animal-welfare laws. Most
states today make at least some abuses of animals a felony.
Laws such as the federal Animal Welfare Act (1966), for
example, regulate what humans may do to animals in agri-
culture, biomedical research, entertainment, and other
areas. But neither Martins Act nor many subsequent
animal-protection statutes altered the traditional legal
status of animals as legal things.
This situation changed in 2008, when the Spanish
national parliament adopted resolutions urging the govern-
ment to grant orangutans, chimpanzees, and gorillas some
statutory rights previously afforded only to humans. The
resolutions also called for banning the use of apes in per-
formances, harmful research, and trading as well as in other
practices that involve profiting from the animals. Although
zoos would still be allowed to hold apes, they would be
required to provide them with optimal living conditions.
The Modern Animal Rights Movement

The fundamental principle of the modern animal rights
movement is that many nonhuman animals have basic
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interests that deserve recognition, consideration, and pro-

tection. In the view of animal rights advocates, these basic
interests give the animals that have them both moral and
legal rights.
It has been said that the modern animal rights move-
ment is the first social reform movement initiated by
philosophers. Peter Singer and the American philosopher
Tom Regan deserve special mention, not just because
their work has been influential but because they represent
two major currents of philosophical thought regarding
the moral rights of animals. Singer, whose book Animal
Liberation (1972) is considered one of the movements foun-
dational documents, argues that the interests of humans
and the interests of animals should be given equal consid-
eration. A utilitarian, Singer holds that actions are morally
right to the extent that they maximize pleasure or minimize
pain. The key consideration is whether an animal is sentient
and can therefore suffer pain or experience pleasure. This
point was emphasized by Bentham, who wrote of animals,
The question is not, Can they reason?, nor, Can they talk?
but, Can they suffer? Given that animals can suffer, Singer
argues, humans have a moral obligation to minimize or
avoid causing such suffering, just as they have an obligation
to minimize or avoid causing the suffering of other humans.
Regan, who is not a utilitarian, argues that at least some ani-
mals have basic moral rights because they possess the same
advanced cognitive abilities that justify the attribution of
basic moral rights to humans. By virtue of these abilities,
these animals have not just instrumental but inherent value.
In Regans words, they are the subject of a life.
Regan, Singer, and other philosophical proponents
of animal rights have encountered resistance. Some reli-
gious authors argue that animals are not as deserving of
moral consideration as humans are because only humans
possess an immortal soul. Others claim, as did the Stoics,
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that because animals are irrational, humans have no duties

toward them. Still others locate the morally relevant dif-
ference between humans and animals in the ability to
talk, the possession of free will, or membership in a moral
community (a community whose members are capable
of acting morally or immorally). The problem with these
counterarguments is that, with the exception of the theo-
logical argumentwhich cannot be demonstratednone
differentiates all humans from all animals.
While philosophers catalyzed the modern animal
rights movement, they were soon joined by physicians,
writers, scientists, academics, lawyers, theologians, psy-
chologists, nurses, veterinarians, and other professionals,
who worked within their own fields to promote animal
rights. Many professional organizations were established
to educate colleagues and the general public regarding the
exploitation of animals.
At the beginning of the 21st century, lawsuits in the
interests of nonhuman animals, sometimes with nonhu-
man animals named as plaintiffs, became common. Given
the key positions that lawyers hold in the creation of pub-
lic policy and the protection of rights, their increasing
interest in animal rights and animal-protection issues was
significant. Dozens of law schools in Europe, the United
States, and elsewhere offered courses in animal law and
animal rights; the Animal Legal Defense Fund had created
an even greater number of law-student chapters in the
United States; and at least three legal journalsAnimal
Law, Journal of Animal Law, and Journal of Animal Law and
Ethicshad been established. Legal scholars were devis-
ing and evaluating theories by which nonhuman animals
would possess basic legal rights, often for the same reasons
as humans do and on the basis of the same legal principles
and values. These arguments were powerfully assisted by
increasingly sophisticated scientific investigations into
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the cognitive, emotional, and social capacities of animals

and by advances in genetics, neuroscience, physiology,
linguistics, psychology, evolution, and ethology, many
of which have demonstrated that humans and animals
share a broad range of behaviours, capacities, and genetic
material.
Meanwhile, the increasingly systemic and brutal
abuses of animals in modern societyby the billions on
factory farms and by the tens of millions in biomedical-
research laboratoriesspawned thousands of animal
rights groups. Some consisted of a mere handful of people
interested in local, and more traditional, animal-
protection issues, such as animal shelters that care for
stray dogs and cats. Others became large national and
international organizations, such as PETA (People for the
Individuals as well as larger organizations such as the Humane Society of the

United States, are demanding that government do more to protect animals.
Kris Connor/Getty Images
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Ethical Treatment of Animals) and the Humane Society

of the United States, which in the early 21st century had
millions of members and a multimillion-dollar annual
budget. In all their manifestations, animal rights groups
began to inundate legislatures with demands for regula-
tion and reform.
Slaves, human and nonhuman, may be indirectly pro-
tected through laws intended to protect others. But they
remain invisible to civil law, for they have no rights to pro-
tect directly until their legal personhood is recognized.
This recognition can occur in a variety of ways. British slav-
ery was abolished by judicial decision in the 18th century,
and slavery in the British colonies was ended by statute
early in the 19th century. By constitutional amendment,
the United States ended slavery three decades later. Legal
personhood for some animals may be obtained through
any of these routes. The first serious direct judicial chal-
lenges to the legal thinghood of nonhuman animals may
be just a few years away.
Speciesism
Speciesism is a term that some advocates of animal rights have
applied to the practice of favouring the interests of humans over the
similar interests of other species. It is also used to refer to the belief
that this practice is justified. The inventor of the notion, the English
philosopher Richard Ryder, and others, notably Peter Singer, have
claimed that speciesism is exactly analogous to racism, sexism, and all
other forms of discrimination and prejudice.
An influential argument against the legitimacy of speciesism,
due to Singer, rests on the principle of equal consideration of inter-
ests (PEC). This is the claim that one should give equal weight in ones
moral decision making to the similar interests of all those affected
by ones actions. According to Singer, the PEC expresses what most
people since the 20th century would understand (upon reflection) by
the idea of human equality. The PEC implies, among other things,
that one should not give greater weight to the interests of whites or
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males than one does to the similar interests of blacks or females. Race
and sex, in other words, are morally irrelevant characteristics when it
comes to evaluating the similar interests of different persons.
According to Singer, anyone who accepts the PEC must agree
that a broader version of the principle applies to animals as well as to
humans. If the PEC were restricted to humans, species would count
as a morally relevant characteristic on the basis of which one could
treat the interests of one kind of being as more important than the
similar interests of another. But it is unclear why species should have
this special status. There is no good reason to suppose that it is any
more relevant than race or sex. If this is correct, speciesism is just as
immoral as racism and sexism, and for the same reasons.
Most philosophers who reject this line of thinking have tried
to show that species is a morally relevant characteristic because it is
uniquely associated with one or more capabilities (e.g., rationality) that
are themselves morally relevant. Because, according to speciesists, all
humans and no animals have these capabilities, the PEC applies only
to humans, and speciesism is not equivalent to racism and sexism.
One difficulty with this response is that it is not obvious why ratio-
nality or any other proposed capability should be considered morally
relevant (i.e., why it should count as a reason for favouring the inter-
ests of any being). The main objection, however, is that for each of the
proposed capabilities there are counterexamples based on so-called
marginal cases. It is clear, for example, that some humansincluding
infants and the profoundly mentally retardedare not rational. It is
also clear that some animals are rational, if by rationality one under-
stands the ability to adapt means to ends in novel ways. The defender of
speciesism thus faces a dilemma: either the interests of humans are no
more important than the similar interests of animals, or the interests of
some animals are just as important as the similar interests of humans.
Speciesists have replied to marginal-case objections in various ways,
none of which has won general acceptance.
ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS
Environmental ethics is the field of applied ethics that
considers questions concerning human moral obligations
to the natural environment. Two schools of thought, cor-
responding to two broad intellectual camps within the
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environmental movement, emerged in the second half of

the 20th century: anthropocentric, or human-centred,
ethics and biocentric, or life-centred, ethics. This divi-
sion has been described in other terminology as shallow
ecology versus deep ecology and as technocentrism
versus ecocentrism. Anthropocentric approaches focus
mainly on the negative effects that environmental degrada-
tion has on human beings and their interests, including their
interests in health, recreation, and quality of life. It is often
characterized by a mechanistic approach to nonhuman
nature in which individual creatures and species have only
an instrumental value for humans. The defining feature of
anthropocentrism is that it considers the moral obligations
humans have to the environment to derive from obligations
that humans have to each otherand, less crucially, to future
generations of humansrather than from any obligation to
other living things or to the environment as a whole. Human
obligations to the environment are thus indirect.
Critics of anthropocentrism have charged that it
amounts to a form of human chauvinism. They argue
that anthropocentric approaches presuppose the histori-
cally Western view of nature as merely a resource to be
managed or exploited for human purposesa view that
they claim is responsible for centuries of environmental
destruction. In contrast to anthropocentrism, biocen-
trism claims that nature has an intrinsic moral worth that
does not depend on its usefulness to human beings, and it
is this intrinsic worth that gives rise directly to obligations
to the environment. Humans are therefore morally bound
to protect the environment, as well as individual creatures
and species, for their own sake. In this sense, biocentrics
view human beings and other elements of the natural envi-
ronment, both living and often nonliving, as members of a
single moral and ecological community.
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By the 1960s and 70s, as scientific knowledge of the

causes and consequences of environmental degradation
was becoming more extensive and sophisticated, there
was increasing concern among some scientists, intel-
lectuals, and activists about the Earths ability to absorb
the detritus of human economic activity and, indeed,
to sustain human life. This concern contributed to the
growth of grassroots environmental activism in a num-
ber of countries, the establishment of new environmental
nongovernmental organizations, and the formation of
environmental (green) political parties in a number of
Western democracies. As political leaders gradually came
to appreciate the seriousness of environmental problems,
governments entered into negotiations in the early 1970s
that led to the adoption of a growing number of interna-
tional environmental agreements.
The division between anthropocentric and biocentric
approaches played a central role in the development of
environmental thought in the late 20th century. Whereas
some earlier schools, such as apocalyptic (survivalist) envi-
ronmentalism and emancipatory environmentalismas
well as its offshoot, human-welfare ecologywere ani-
mated primarily by a concern for human well-being, later
movements, including social ecology, deep ecology, the
animal-rights and animal-liberation movements, and eco-
feminism, were centrally concerned with the moral worth
of nonhuman nature.
Anthropocentric Schools of Thought

The vision of the environmental movement of the 1960s
and early 70s was generally pessimistic, reflecting a per-
vasive sense of civilization malaise and a conviction that
the Earths long-term prospects were bleak. Works such
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as Rachel Carsons Silent Spring (1962), Garrett Hardins

The Tragedy of the Commons (1968), Paul Ehrlichs
The Population Bomb (1968), Donella H. Meadowss The
Limits to Growth (1972), and Edward Goldsmiths Blueprint
for Survival (1972) suggested that the planetary ecosys-
tem was reaching the limits of what it could sustain. This
so-called apocalyptic, or survivalist, literature encouraged
reluctant calls from some environmentalists for increas-
ing the powers of centralized governments over human
activities deemed environmentally harmful, a viewpoint
expressed most vividly in Robert Heilbroners An Inquiry
into the Human Prospect (1974), which argued that human
survival ultimately required the sacrifice of human freedom.
Counterarguments, such as those presented in Julian Simon
and Herman Kahns The Resourceful Earth (1984), empha-
sized humanitys ability to find or to invent substitutes for
resources that were scarce and in danger of being exhausted.
Beginning in the 1970s, many environmentalists
attempted to develop strategies for limiting environmental
degradation through recycling, the use of alternative-energy
technologies, the decentralization and democratization of
economic and social planning and, for some, a reorganiza-
tion of major industrial sectors, including the agriculture
and energy industries. In contrast to apocalyptic environ-
mentalism, so-called emancipatory environmentalism
took a more positive and practical approach, one aspect of
which was the effort to promote an ecological conscious-
ness and an ethic of stewardship of the environment.
One form of emancipatory environmentalism, human-
welfare ecologywhich aims to enhance human life by
creating a safe and clean environmentwas part of a
broader concern with distributive justice and reflected
the tendency, later characterized as postmaterialist, of
citizens in advanced industrial societies to place more
importance on quality-of-life issues than on traditional
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economic concerns. Emancipatory environmentalism

also was distinguished for some of its advocates by an
emphasis on developing small-scale systems of economic
production that would be more closely integrated with the
natural processes of surrounding ecosystems. This more
environmentally holistic approach to economic planning
was promoted in work by the American ecologist Barry
Commoner and by the German economist Ernst Friedrich
Schumacher. In contrast to earlier thinkers who had
downplayed the interconnectedness of natural systems,
Commoner and Schumacher emphasized productive pro-
cesses that worked with nature, not against it, encouraged
the use of organic and renewable resources rather than
synthetic products (e.g., plastics and chemical fertilizers),
and advocated renewable and small-scale energy resources
(e.g., wind and solar power) and government policies that
supported effective public transportation and energy effi-
ciency. The emancipatory approach was evoked through
the 1990s in the popular slogan, think globally, act locally.
Its small-scale, decentralized planning and production has
been criticized, however, as unrealistic in highly urbanized
and industrialized societies.
Biocentric Schools of Thought

An emphasis on small-scale economic structures and the
social dimensions of the ecological crisis also is a feature
of the school of thought known as social ecology, whose
major proponent was the American environmental anar-
chist Murray Bookchin. Social ecologists trace the causes
of environmental degradation to the existence of unjust,
hierarchical relationships in human society, which they
see as endemic to the large-scale social structures of mod-
ern capitalist states. Accordingly, they argue, the most
environmentally sympathetic form of political and social
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Emancipatory environmentalism emphasized environmentally responsible

economic planning, including the use of solar energy. Shutterstock.com
organization is one based on decentralized small-scale

communities and systems of production.
A more radical doctrine, known as deep ecology, builds
on preservationist themes from the early environmental
movement. Its main originators, the Norwegian philoso-
pher Arne Nss, the American sociologist Bill Devall, and
the American philosopher George Sessions, share with
social ecologists a distrust of capitalism and industrial
technology and favour decentralized forms of social orga-
nization. Deep ecologists also claim that humans need to
regain a spiritual relationship with nonhuman nature. By
understanding the interconnectedness of all organisms
including humansin the ecosphere and empathizing with
nonhuman nature, they argue, humans would develop an
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ecological consciousness and a sense of ecological solidar-

ity. The biocentric principle of interconnectedness was
extensively developed by British environmentalist James
Lovelock, who postulated in Gaia: A New Look at Life on
Earth (1979) that the planet is a single living, self-regulating
entity capable of reestablishing an ecological equilibrium,
even without the existence of human life. Despite their
emphasis on spirituality, some more extreme forms of deep
ecology have been strongly criticized as antihumanist, on
the ground that they entail opposition to famine relief and
immigration and acceptance of large-scale losses of life
caused by AIDS and other pandemics.
Oppression, hierarchy, and spiritual relationships with
nature also have been central concerns of ecofeminism.
Ecofeminists assert that there is a connection between
the destruction of nature by humans and the oppres-
sion of women by men that arises from political theories
and social practices in which both women and nature are
treated as objects to be owned or controlled. Ecofeminists
aim to establish a central role for women in the pursuit of
an environmentally sound and socially just society. They
have been divided, however, over how to conceive of the
relationship between nature and women, which they hold
is more intimate and more spiritual than the relationship
between nature and men. Whereas cultural ecofeminists
argue that the relationship is inherent in womens repro-
ductive and nurturing roles, social ecofeminists, while
acknowledging the relationships immediacy, claim that
it arises from social and cultural hierarchies that confine
women primarily to the private sphere.
PACIFISM
Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence as a means
of settling disputes. It may entail the belief that the waging
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Norwegian philosopher Arne Nss was a key architect of deep ecology, a radi-
cal doctrine that develops preservationist ideas from the early environmental
movement. Erlend Aas/AFP/Getty Images
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of war by a state and the participation in war by an indi-

vidual are absolutely wrong, under any circumstances.
Early Religious and

Philosophical Movements
In the ancient world, war was taken for granted as a nec-
essary evil by some societies, while in others it was not
even regarded as an evil. Individual voices in various lands
decried the evils of war, but the first genuinely pacifist
movement known came from Buddhism, whose founder
demanded from his followers absolute abstention from
any act of violence against their fellow creatures. In India
the great Buddhist-influenced king Ashoka in the 3rd
century BCE definitely renounced war, but he was think-
ing primarily of wars of conquest. In succeeding ages
Buddhism does not seem to have been very successful in
restraining the rulers of countries in which it was adopted
from making war. This may be because the Buddhist rule
of life, as generally understood, served as a counsel of per-
fection which comparatively few could be expected to
follow in its entirety.
In classical antiquity, pacifism remained largely an
ideal in the minds of a few intellectuals. The Greek con-
ceptions of peaceincluding Stoicismwere centred
on the peaceful conduct of the individual rather than on
the conduct of whole peoples or kingdoms. In Rome the
achievement of pax, or peace, was defined as a covenant
between states or kingdoms that creates a just situation
and that rests upon bilateral recognition. This judicial
approach was applicable only to the civilized world,
however. Thus, the Pax Romana of the 1st and 2nd cen-
turies CE was not really universal, because it was always
regarded as a peace for the civilized world alone and
excluded the barbarians. And since the barbarian threat
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never ended, neither did the wars Rome waged to protect

its frontiers against this threat.
Christianity, with its evangelical message, offered con-
siderations in support of individual nonviolence as well as
of collective peacefulness. Jesus spoken words as recorded
in the New Testament could be interpreted as a kind of pac-
ifism and in fact were so interpreted by many of Jesus early
radical followers. As a rule, however, the peace that Jesus
spoke of was only open to minorities or to sects that prac-
ticed a rigorous ethics, while the Christian church itself had
to compromise with worldly necessities. The question of
soldiersthe inconsistency between the pursuit of peace
and fighting in warswas disturbing to Christians from
the time of Jesus. However, in the early 3rd century, certain
passages in the Gospels were interpreted to indicate that
armies were not only acceptable but necessary in order to
fight against demons. In the early 5th century, St. Augustine
wrote De civitate Dei (The City of God), which presented a
distinction between worldly and supraworldly peace. He
felt that worldly peace was acceptable only if it was in
accord with Christian law, and it was the duty of the worldly
state to serve the church and to defend itself against those
who wished to undermine the churchs authority. These
ideas prevailed throughout the Middle Ages and were often
tied with the myth of an eschatological emperor who would
suppress nonbelievers and lead the world to peaceful times.
Like the Roman pax, Christian peace needed to be perpetu-
ally defended. There was a never-ending threat posed by
non-Christians, who were viewed as demonic.
Political Influences
Since the Renaissance, concepts of pacifism have been
developed with varying degrees of political influence. A
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great deal of pacifist thought in the 17th and 18th cen-

turies was based on the idea that a transfer of political
power from the sovereigns to the public was a crucial step
toward world peace, since wars were thought of as arising
from the dynastic ambitions and power politics of kings
and princes. Thus was propagated the illusion that monar-
chies tended toward wars because the sovereigns regarded
their states as their personal property and that compared
to this, a republic would be peaceful. The offshoot of
these theories was the creation of pacifist organizations
in 19th-century Europe in which such ideas as general
disarmament and the instigation of special courts to hear
international conflicts were entertained. The theme of
pacifism thereby caught the public interest and inspired
an extensive literature. Some of these ideas were later
realized in the Court of Arbitration in The Hague, the
League of Nations, the United Nations, and temporary
disarmament conferences, but their overall effect was
limited. In the 19th century, for instance, the real mainte-
nance of a relative peace resulted from the statesmanlike
political establishment of a balance of power among the
five great European states. The succeeding century, with
its two world wars, its nuclear stalemate, and its unending
succession of conflicts among developed and developing
nations, has been notable chiefly for the utter irrelevance
of pacifist principles and practices.
Pacifism is not a part of communist ideology. Lenin
rejected it outright, and in the work of Karl Marx rev-
olution and war are synonymous. Their theories
and those of Friedrich Engels advocate the necessity
of just war against the capitalistic classes, with the
goals of a classless society and universal peace follow-
ing the world-revolutionary victory of the international
proletariat.
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Arguments for and Against Pacifism
There are two general approaches or varieties of pacifist

behaviour and aspirations. The one rests on the advocacy
of pacifism and the complete renunciation of war as a pol-
icy to be adopted by a nation. The other stems from the
conviction of an individual that his personal conscience
forbids him to participate in any act of war and perhaps in
any act of violence whatsoever.
The arguments for pacifism as a possible national pol-
icy run on familiar lines. The obvious and admitted evils
of war are stressedthe human suffering and loss of life,
the economic damage, and, perhaps above all, the moral
and spiritual degradation war brings. Since World War
II increasing emphasis has also been laid on the terrible
powers of destruction latent in nuclear weapons. Pacifist
advocates often assume that the abandonment of war as
an instrument of national policy will not be possible until
the world community has become so organized that it
can enforce justice among its members. The nonpacifist
would, in general, accept what the pacifist says about the
evils of war and the need for international organization.
But he would claim that the pacifist has not faced squarely
the possible evils that would result from the alternative
policy of a nations nonresistance in the face of external
aggression: the possible mass deportations and even mass
exterminations and the subjection of conquered peoples
to totalitarian regimes that would suppress just those val-
ues which the pacifist stands for.
Pacifists may claim that these evils can be met by
nonviolence (i.e., the principle and practice of abstaining
from violence in all circumstances). Nonviolence could
also mean nonviolent resistance, which relies on the dif-
ficulties and inconvenience that can be caused to the
conqueror or oppressor by a general refusal of the public
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to cooperate. But recent history shows a striking number

of occasions on which nonviolent tactics such as these
entirely failed to disarm the enemy or even to preserve
the communities practicing them. Pacifist Christian
sects were often the objects of the most ruthless per-
secution in a time period stretching from the Middle
Ages to the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler. The story of the
persecution of the Jews over many centuries is only too
familiar, though for generations they practiced nonvio-
lence toward their persecutors. It seems that pacifist or
nonviolent methods can only be effective against a power
that has no strong motives for going to extremes of sup-
pression or one that is governed at least in part by the
same moral scruples that actuate the pacifists themselves.
It seems clear to most nonpacifists that complete nonre-
sistance to external aggression would sooner or later lead
to foreign domination of ones country, perhaps by the
most fanatical and ruthless powers.
Types of Pacifism
Personal pacifism is a relatively common phenomenon
compared with national pacifism. Members of several small
Christian sects who try to literally follow the precepts of
Jesus Christ have refused to participate in military service
in many nations and have been willing to suffer the crimi-
nal or civil penalties that followed. Not all of these and
other conscientious objectors are pacifists, but the great
majority of conscientious objectors base their refusal to
serve on their pacifist convictions. There are, moreover,
wide differences of opinion among pacifists themselves
about their attitude toward a community at war, ranging
from the very small minority who would refuse to do any-
thing that could help the national effort to those prepared
to offer any kind of service short of actual fighting.
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Conscientious Objector
A conscientious objector is one who opposes bearing arms or who
objects to any type of military training and service. Some conscien-
tious objectors refuse to submit to any of the procedures of compulsory
conscription. Although all objectors take their position on the basis of
conscience, they may have varying religious, philosophical, or political
reasons for their beliefs.
Conscientious objection to military service has existed in some
form since the beginning of the Common Era and has, for the most
part, been associated with religious scruples against military activi-
ties. It developed as a doctrine of the Mennonites in various parts of
Europe in the 16th century, of the Society of Friends in England in the
17th century, and of the Church of the Brethren and of the Dukhobors
in Russia in the 18th century.
Throughout history, governments have been generally unsym-
pathetic toward individual conscientious objectors; their refusal to
undertake military service has been treated like any other breach of
law. There have, however, been times when certain pacifistic religious
sects have been exempted.
The relatively liberal policy of the United States began in colonial
Pennsylvania, whose government was controlled until 1756 by Quaker
pacifists.
Under the conscript laws of 1940, conscientious objector status,
including some form of service unrelated to and not controlled by the
military, was granted, but solely on the basis of membership in a rec-
ognized pacifistic religious sect.
In Great Britain a noncombatant corps was established during
World War I, but many conscientious objectors refused to belong to
it. During World War II, three types of exemption could be granted:
(1) unconditional; (2) conditional on the undertaking of specified civil
work; (3) exemption only from combatant duties. Conscription in
Great Britain ended in 1960, and in 1968 recruits were allowed dis-
charge as conscientious objectors within six months from the date of
their entry into the military.
Scandinavian countries recognize all types of objectors and
provide both noncombatant and civilian service. In Norway and
Sweden civil defense is compulsory, with no legal recognition
174
7 Applied Ethics 7
of objection to that type of service. A Swedish law of 1966 pro-

vided complete exemption from compulsory service for Jehovahs
Witnesses. In the Netherlands, religious and moral objectors are
recognized.
CONCLUSION
As this volume attests, the history of ethical theorizing
in the West is both enormously varied and deeply con-
tinuous. Although the eudaemonism of Aristotle and
the evolutionary ethics of E.O. Wilson are conceptually
as well as temporally very remote, both identify what is
morally good for human beings with the unimpeded oper-
ation of certain natural (or naturally selected) capacities.
Epicuruss noble ethics of refined pleasure and friendship
has distinct affinities with G.E. Moores ideal utilitari-
anism, which aims at friendship and beauty as well as
pleasure. The political liberalism of John Rawls is a far cry
from that of John Locke (in fact, Lockes view is better
described as libertarianism), but they are defended with
strikingly similar conceptual constructs and methods of
argument. In the area of metaethics, the sophisticated
contemporary debates regarding the truth and objectiv-
ity of moral judgments can be dizzying in their technical
sophistication, but they are essentially just elaborations
of ancient positions. And while the practical problems
addressed by contemporary applied ethics are in some
cases completely new, almost all of the ethical perspec-
tives from which they are examined would seem familiar
to philosophers of the Enlightenment, if not also to those
of ancient Greece.
In this respect the history of ethics is perhaps no dif-
ferent from most other branches of philosophy: progress
175
is more often made by exploring and introducing varia-

tions on established themes than by replacing, lock, stock,
and barrel, an old view with a new one. But Western ethics
possesses another kind of continuity that may distinguish
it among other philosophical endeavours, and that is the
particular immediacyindeed, urgencyof the ques-
tions it attempts to answer. The basic problems of ethics,
in other words, seem to be a part of the human condi-
tion: to be confronted with them is part of what it means
to be a human being. And the ways in which we resolve, or
at least struggle with, these problems helps to define the
kind of human beings we are.
176
Glossary
anarchism Political theory holding all forms of gov-
ernment authority to be unnecessary and
undesirable and advocating a society based on vol-
untary cooperation and free association of
individuals and groups.
bioethics Study of the philosophical, social, and legal
issues arising in medicine and the life sciences; chiefly
concerned with human life and well-being.
chauvinism Undue partiality or attachment to a group
or place to which one belongs or has belonged.
compatibilism Thesis that free will, in the sense
required for moral responsibility, is consistent with
universal causal determinism.
conscientious objector One who opposes participation
in military service, on the basis of religious, philo-
sophical, or political belief.
corporeal Taking bodily form; tangible.
determinism In philosophy, the doctrine that all events,
including human decisions, are completely deter-
mined by previously existing causes.
egoism In ethics, the principle that each person should
act so as to promote his or her own interests.
Enlightenment European intellectual movement of the
17th and 18th centuries that emphasized the use of
reason and science to combat injustice and oppres-
sion and to promote the material and moral progress
of human society.
eudaemonism In ethics, the view that virtuous activity
is a means toward and partly constitutive of human
happiness, or flourishing.
euthanasia Act of painlessly killing or allowing to die
persons with diseases, disorders, or injuries that will
inevitably result in death.
177
feminism ,philosophical Loosely related set of

approaches in various fields of philosophy that
emphasizes the role of gender in the formation of
traditional philosophical problems and concepts
and the ways in which traditional philosophy
reflects and perpetuates bias against women.
libertarianism Political philosophy that stresses per-
sonal liberty and that views governments with more
than minimal powers as unjust.
logos (Greek: word, reason, plan) In Greek philoso-
phy and theology, the divine reason that orders the
cosmos and gives it form and meaning.
metaethics Field of ethics concerned with ascertaining
the nature of moral concepts and judgments primarily
by examining the logical characteristics of moral
concepts.
naturalism In metaethics, the view that moral values
and judgments can be explained or assessed in terms
of facts about the natural world.
pacifism The doctrine that war and violence as a
means of settling disputes is morally wrong.
philosophes The philosophical, political, and social
writers of 18th-century France.
polemical Aimed at attacking or refuting the views of
another.
polis A city-state of ancient Greece.
postmaterialism Value orientation that accentuates
self-expression and quality of life over economic and
physical security.
speciesism Term used by some animal rights advocates
to characterize the practice of favouring the interests
of humans over the similar interests of other species.
stoicism Inspired by the teaching of Socrates and
Diogenes of Sinope, Stoicism was founded at Athens
178
7 Glossary 7
by Zeno of Citium c. 300 BCE and was influential

throughout the Greco-Roman world until at least 200
CE. It stressed duty and held that, through reason,
humankind can come to regard the universe as gov-
erned by fate and, despite appearances, as
fundamentally rational. It maintained that, in regulat-
ing ones life, one can emulate the calm and order of
the universe by learning to accept events with a stern
and tranquil mind.
syllogism A deductive argument consisting of two cate-
gorical premises and a categorical conclusion.
teleological Concerning explanation by appeal to pur-
pose, goal, design, or function.
totalitarianism Form of government that subordinates
all aspects of its citizens lives to the authority of the
state, with a single charismatic leader as the ultimate
authority.
utilitarianism The doctrine that the moral rightness of
an action is determined by the amount or extent of
happiness it produces.
vegetarianism Theory or practice of abstaining from
eating flesh.
virtue ethics Approach to ethics that takes the notion
of virtue (often conceived as excellence) as
fundamental.
179
Bibliography
Eudaemonism and Consequentialism
Terence Irwin, Platos Ethics (1995), is a broad treatment. Also

of interest is Mary Margaret Mackenzie, Plato on Punishment
(1981). Amlie Oksenberg Rorty (ed.), Essays on Aristotles
Ethics (1980, reissued 1996), is a valuable collection. Also of
interest is Sarah Broadie, Ethics with Aristotle (1991).
Ludwig Edelstein, The Meaning of Stoicism (1966);
and Josiah B. Gould, The Philosophy of Chrysippus (1970),
are among the best of modern studies of Greco-Roman
Stoicism.
A perceptive study of Epicuruss religiosity and ethics
is Benjamin Farrington, The Faith of Epicurus (1967).
Secondary, historical, and contemporary studies of
utilitarianism include David Lyons, Forms and Limits
of Utilitarianism (1965); and Jan Narveson, Morality and
Utility (1967).
Contractualism and Deontology

A good general introduction to Hobbes is Tom Sorell,
Hobbes (1986, reissued 1999). Useful studies of Locke
include John Colman, John Lockes Moral Philosophy
(1983); and Ruth W. Grant, John Lockes Liberalism
(1987). Ronald Grimsley, The Philosophy of Rousseau
(1973), provides a clear scholarly introduction to
Rousseaus philosophical ideas.
Early critical responses to Rawls are collected in
Norman Daniels (ed.), Reading Rawls (1974, reissued 1989).
Kants critical ethics is discussed in Jeffirie G.
Murphy, Kant: The Philosophy of Right (1970); and Viggo
Rossvaer, Kants Moral Philosophy: An Interpretation of the
Categorical Imperative (1979).
180
7 Bibliography 7
Richard A. Epstein, Simple Rules for a Complex World

(1995), argues for a system of law close to libertarianism
on broadly utilitarian grounds.
Feminism and Egoism

Catharine A. MacKinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory of the
State (1989), is the best presentation of her views. More
mainstream perspectives are offered in Alison M. Jaggar,
Feminist Politics and Human Nature (1983).
Egoism as a theory of rationality is discussed in David
P. Gauthier (ed.), Morality and Rational Self-Interest (1970);
and Ronald D. Milo (ed.), Egoism and Altruism (1973).
Metaethics
Stephen Darwall, Allan Gibbard, and Peter Railton,
Moral Discourse and Practice: Some Philosophical
Approaches (1997), is an anthology that contains several
important contributions to the modern debate over
moral realism.
A philosophical defense of ethical relativism is
Gilbert Harman, Explaining Value and Other Esssays in
Moral Philosophy (2000). Thomas Nagel, The Last Word
(1997), is a philosophical critique of relativism of all
kinds, including ethical relativism.
Treatments of evolutionary ethics include Edward
O. Wilson, On Human Nature (1978, reissued with a new
preface, 2004); and Michael Bradie, The Secret Chain:
Evolution and Ethics (1994).
Applied Ethics
Helga Kuhse and Peter Singer (eds.), A Companion to
Bioethics (1998), features reviews of key topics in the field.
181
Philosophical arguments for and against animal rights

are explored in Andrew Linzey and P.B. Clarke (eds.),
Animal Rights: A Historic Anthology, rev. ed. (2004). Cass
R. Sunstein and Martha Craven Nussbaum (eds.), Animal
Rights: Current Debates and New Directions (2004), is a
collection of thought-provoking essays by philosophers,
legal scholars, and scientists.
Michael E. Zimmerman (ed.), Environmental
Philosophy: From Animal Rights to Radical Ecology, 3rd ed.
(2001), includes discussion about key ideas in social ecol-
ogy, deep ecology, and ecofeminism.
Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral
Argument with Historical Illustrations, 3rd ed. (2000), is a
fine study of the morality of war.
182
Index
A Aristippus, 43
Aristotle, 2, 4, 10, 1115, 21, 30,
abortion, 96, 136, 138139, 140, 52, 75, 120, 121, 153, 175
142, 144 artificial inequalities, 61
Academy, the, 18 Ashoka, 169
actual law, 65 Atlas Shrugged, 99, 101
act utilitarianism, 38, 47 Augustine, St., 122, 153154, 170
aesthetic pleasures, 14 Austin, John, 46, 80
afterlife, 10, 31, 35 autonomy, 84, 137, 143, 144, 145,
agent-causation, 118, 120 146, 148
akrasia, 4, 7 autonomy principle, 145, 146, 148
Alexander the Great, 17 Ayer, Sir A.J., 103, 124125
Alternate Possibilities and Ayn Rand Letter, The, 101
Moral Responsibility, 125
Amafinius, 37
B
Ambrose, St., 26
American New Right, 83 Bacon, Francis, 77
American Revolution, 76, 78 Bagehot, Walter, 129
anarchism, 53, 8283, 8486 Baier, Annette, 93
Anarchy, State and Utopia, beauty, 18, 42, 4647, 175
8283, 8486 Beauvoir, Simone de, 91
animal law, 154156, 158159 Behemoth; or, The Long
Animal Law, 158 Parliament, 56
Animal Legal Defense Fund, 158 beliefs, moral, 107108, 111
Animal Liberation, 157 beneficence principle, 145
animal rights, 148161 Bentham, Jeremy, 28, 32, 40,
Animal Welfare Act, 156 4041, 42, 43, 44, 46, 48,
animals, legal status of, 154156, 49, 79, 151, 157
158, 160 Bible, 24, 25, 76, 150, 170
anthropocentrism, 162, 163165 biocentrism, 162, 163,
Antigone, 7374 165166, 167
antirealism, 105106 bioethics, 135148
Apollodorus, 36 biomedical ethics, 135
Apology, 45 Blackburn, Simon, 104
Aquinas, St. Thomas, 75, 122, 136 Blueprint for Survival, 164
arete, 2 body-soul relationship, 10, 15,
Ariosto, Ludovico, 31 27, 3334, 35
183
Boethius, 17 Cleanthes, 20, 27

Bookchin, Murray, 165 cloning, 135, 139, 146
Bossuet, Jacques-Bnigne, 76 cloning, human, 139, 146
Bradley, F.H., 124 Colotes, 36
Brahmanism, 150 Commoner, Barry, 165
Brandt, Richard B., 102 communism, 48, 171
Buddhism, 10, 150, 169 communitarianism, 99
Burke, Edmund, 79 compatibilism, 120127
Butler, Judith, 97, 98 Condillac, tienne de, 32
Buxton, Thomas Fowell, 156 conscience, 26, 98, 172, 174, 175
conscientious objector, 173175
consequentialism, 2750, 70, 81
C
conservatism, political, 129
Calvin, John, 63, 65 contemplation, 11, 12, 1415
Canon, 33 Contra Celsum, 27
capitalism, 51, 101, 128, 129, 166 Contrat social, Du, 61, 63
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 101 contractualism, 5169
Carson, Rachel, 164 Convention on Human Rights
catechetical method, 33 and Biomedicine, 147
causation, 116, 118, 120, 123 Council of Europe, 147
Charles I, 52, 76 courage, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 12, 13, 34, 66
Charmides, 5 Court of Arbitration, 31, 171
chauvinism, 162 Critik der reinen Vernunft, 7172
Chisholm, Roderick, 118, 120, 127 Crito, 5
Christian Cicero, 17 cruelty to animals, 150, 151, 152,
Christianity, 23, 24, 2627, 43, 155156, 158
55, 6566, 70, 99, 110, 122, cultural anthropology, 108
150, 151, 154, 170, 173 cultural relativism, 108
Chrysippus, 20, 21, 37 Cumberland, Richard, 43
church and state, 54, 55, 56, 66, Cynic school, 18
76, 170 Cyprian, St., 27
Church of the Brethren, 174 Cyrenaic school, 43
Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 17, 21,
26, 30, 36, 37
D
citizenship, 16, 23, 68, 74, 147
civil religion, 65, 66 Darwin, Charles, 128, 129
civil society, 58, 6264, 77 Darwinism, social, 128, 129, 130
civil war, 5556 Davis, David Brion, 155
classical English utilitarianism, death, 10, 13, 33, 35, 36, 138, 140
4346 De Cive, 5255
184
7 Index 7
De civitate Dei, 170 economics, 38, 46, 47, 4849

Declaration of Independence, egalitarian theory of justice, 87,
60, 78 88, 89
Declaration of the Rights of egoism, 28, 38, 46, 51, 98101
Man and of the Citizen, 60, Ehrlich, Paul, 164
78, 79 Elements of Law, The, 52
deep ecology, 162, 163, 166, 167 emotivism, 102103, 104, 108
Deitrich, Paul Henri, baron Encheiridion, 23
dHolbach, 31 Engels, Friedrich, 171
Demetrius, 36 English Bill of Rights, 75, 78
democracy, 48, 56, 69, 82 English utilitarianism, 4344, 46
De natura deorum, 21 Enlightenment, the, 70, 77, 109,
De officiis, 21, 26 110, 155, 175
deontology, 13, 28, 51, 6889 Enquiry Concerning Human
De rerum natura, 37 Understanding, 123
Derrida, Jacques, 111 entitlement theory of justice,
Descartes, Ren, 10, 76 8689
determinism, 116117, 120, environmental ethics, 161167
123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, environmentalism, apocalyptic,
139, 141 163, 164, 165
De Voluptate, 31 environmentalism, emancipa-
Dewey, John, 29 tory, 163, 164165
dialogismoi, 3233 environmentalism, survivalist, 163
dialogues, Socratic, 2, 47, 9, 11 Epicharmus, 35
difference principle, 68 Epictetus, 23, 26
Diogenes of Oenoanda, 37 Epicureanism, 28, 2937
Diogenianus, 37 Epicurus, 29, 31, 3236, 37, 43, 175
Discourse on the Origin of Epistulae morales, 23
Inequality, 6163, 65 equal consideration of inter-
Discours sur les sciences et les art, 61 ests, principle of (PEC),
Discours sur lorigine de 157, 160161
linegaliti, 61 Erskine, Baron, 155
divine reason, 23, 24, 25 ethical egoism, 98101
divine right of kings, 7576 ethical relativism, 106114
Dukhobors, 174 Ethical Studies, 124
ethical universalism, 43
Ethics, 33
E
ethics of care, 93, 9495, 143, 144
ecofeminism, 163, 167 eudaemonism, 127, 175
ecology, 163, 164165 Eudemian Ethics, 11, 1415
185
eugenics, 136 genetic determinism, 141

Eusebius, 37 genetic testing, 140141
euthanasia, 142 Gilligan, Carol, 93, 94
Euthyphro, 5 global bioethics, 147148
evolutionary ethics, 28, 128133, 175 Glorious Revolution, 60, 76, 78
Ewing, A.C., 103 God, 15, 24, 25, 26, 44, 59, 72,
7576, 84, 121, 122, 170
gods, 5, 35, 36, 74
F
Godwin, William, 48
Fechner, Gustav, 32 Goldsmith, Edward, 164
feminism, 51, 8998, 143, 163, 167 Gorgias, 5
Filmer, Sir Robert, 58, 76 Gould, Stephen Jay, 130
First Treatise of Civil Great Chain of Being, 153
Government, 76 Grotius, Hugo, 16, 75
Fitzgerald, P.A., 154 Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der
For the New Intellectual, 101 Sitten, 71
Foucault, Michel, 111 Guicciardini, Francesco, 31
Fountainhead, The, 99
four-principles approach,
H
144146, 148
Frankfurt, Harry, 125126, 127 happiness, 1, 7, 9, 1112, 1415,
Freedom and Necessity, 124 31, 33, 40, 41, 44, 48, 67,
Freedom and Resentment, 126 98, 143
Freedom of the Will and the Hardin, Garrett, 164
Concept of a Person, 125126 Hare, R.M., 103, 108
free will, 114116, 117118, 120, Hayek, F.A., 82
122123, 124, 125, 127128, 139 health care ethics, 135
French Revolution, 60, 76 health care resources, allocation
Freud, Sigmund, 32 of, 142143
friendships, 6, 28, 30, 33, 35, 175 Hecaton, 21
Frye, Marilyn, 97 hedonism, 38, 40, 42, 43
Heilbroner, Robert, 164
Held, Virginia, 83, 93
G
Hellenistic Age, 15, 16, 24, 26
Gaia: A New Look at Life on Helvtius, Claude-Adrien, 31, 44
Earth, 167 Heracleitus, 18, 24
Gaius, 154 Hermarchus, 36
Garden, 32 Hermogenes, 27
Gay, John, 44 Hermogenianus, 154
gene therapy, 139 Herodotus, 106
186
7 Index 7
Hinduism, 10, 150 Bioethics, 147

Hippias Minor, 56 International Bioethics
Hippocrates, 136 Committee, 147
History of the Pelopponesian War, 56 International Covenant on Civil
Hitler, Adolf, 173 and Political Rights, 83
Hobbes, Thomas, 28, 31, 5256, International Covenant on
61, 64, 73, 76, 80, 98, 123, 125 Economic, Social and
holism, 108 Cultural Rights, 82
holy will, 7172 International Vegetarian
Homer, 56 Union, 151
Humane Society of the United interpersonal morality, 9394
States, 160 Introduction to Objectivist
Human Freedom and the Self, Epistemology, 99
118, 120 Introduction to the Principles
Human Genome of Morals and Legislation,
Organisation, 147 An, 44
human rights, 69, 73, 75, 8082, intuitionism, 102103
98, 143 intuition, moral, 41, 105, 124
human-welfare ecology, 163, Invariances: The Structure of the
164165 Objective World, 89
Hume, David, 32, 43, 44, 79, Irigaray, Luce, 98
107108, 123, 125, 130, 133
Hutcheson, Francis, 43
J
Huxley, Julian, 129130
Huxley, T.H., 129, 130 Jaggar, Alison, 96
Hymn to Zeus, 20 Jainism, 150
James I, 76
James II, 60
I
Jefferson, Thomas, 78, 84
idealism, 80 Jesus Christ, 2425, 27, 37, 170, 173
ideal utilitarianism, 29, 38, Jevons, William, 48
4647, 175 Journal of Animal Law, 158
immortality, 30, 35, 72, 110, 140 Journal of Animal Law and
indeterminism, 117118, 124, Ethics, 158
127, 128 Judaism, 99, 150
individual rights, 47, 80, 84 justice, 2, 56, 8, 16, 30, 6669,
Inquiry into the Human Prospect, 70, 8689, 93, 94, 97, 128,
An, 164 131, 143, 145, 164
intellectual virtues, 12, 1314 justice, two principles of, 69, 145
International Association of Justinian, 154
187
K logic, 20, 33, 105

logical positivism, 108
Kahn, Herman, 164 logos, 2425, 27, 28
Kant, Immanuel, 28, 70, 7173, Louis XIV, 76
118, 124, 136, 180 Lovelock, James, 167
Kantianism, 143, 145, 146 Lugones, Mara, 97
knowledge, 4, 5, 6, 15, 32, 46, Lyceum, 11
71, 104105 Lycurgus, 65
Kohlberg, Lawrence, 94 Lysis, 6
Kritik der prakitschen Vernunft,
7172
M
Kropotkin, Peter, 128129
Machiavelli, Niccol, 28, 65, 66
Mackie, J.L., 106
L
MacKinnon, Catharine A.,
Laches, 6 9697
Lactantius, 17 Magna Carta, 75
Lafayette, marquis de, 78 Magna moralia, 11
laissez-faire capitalism, 51, 101, Maine, Henry, 80
128, 129 Manual, 23, 26
Language of Morals, The, 103 Marcion, 27
laws of nature, 54, 58, 60, 7374, Marcus Aurelius, 23
76, 79, 116 Martin, Richard, 156
League for Industrial Martins Act, 156
Democracy, 82 Marx, Karl, 59, 171
League of Nations, 171 Marxism, 59, 80, 95, 96
Lectures on Ethics, 136 Meadows, Donella H., 164
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 77 medical ethics, 135
Lenin, Vladimir Ilich, 62, 171 Meditations, 23
Leviathan, 55, 123 Megarian school, 18
liberalism, political, 66, 82, Melanchthon, Philipp, 15
8485, 86, 95, 99, 175 Mennonites, 174
libertarianism, 82, 84, 99, Meno, 6
117120, 121, 124, 175 meritocracy, 68
libertines, 31 Metaphysik der Sitten, Die, 71
liberty, political/republican, 63-64 Methods of Ethics, 46
Libri morales, 23 Metrodorus, 36
Limits to Growth, The, 164 Middle Platonists, 24
Locke, John, 52, 5661, 66, 73, Milesians, 18
76, 77, 78, 84, 85, 175 Mill, James, 46
188
7 Index 7
Mill, John Stuart, 28, 32, 3840, natural selection, 128, 129, 131
41, 42, 46, 47, 48, 7980, 84, Nature of Rationality, The, 89
90, 91, 123124 Nazism, 8081, 173
minimal state, 82, 8486, 89 Neoplatonism, 150, 153
Minucius Felix, Marcus, 26 New Left, 82
Mises, Ludwig von, 82 Nicomachean Ethics, 11, 14, 15, 120
monarchical absolutism, 7576 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 28, 110
Montaigne, Michel de, 31 nonmaleficence principle, 145
Montesquieu, 77, 78 nonnaturalism, 102
Moore, G.E., 29, 46, 103, 105, normative ethics, definition of, 1
124, 130, 175 Nowell-Smith, Patrick, 47
moral action, 46, 6970, 104 Nozick, Robert, 73, 8289
moral beliefs, 107108, 111
moral intuition, 41, 105, 124
O
moralists, 31, 102
morality of scientific inquiries, objective truth, 110, 112
141142 objectivism, 99101
moral language, 103104, 106 Objectivist, The, 101
moral laws, 69, 70 Okin, Susan Moller, 95
moral philosopy, 1, 11, 23, 72 Origen, 27
moral psychology, 94
moral realism, 104105
P
moral reasoning, 47, 94, 102, 103
moral responsibility, 71, pacifism, 167, 169175
114128 pain, 30, 33, 34, 36, 40, 41,
moral rights, 157 4243, 44, 148, 149, 157
moral virtues, 1215, 153 Palladas, 37
moral worth, 16, 163 Panaetius, 2122
motivation, 41 Parmenides (philosopher), 18
Parmenides (Socratic dialogue), 7
patient rights, 137138
N
Patro, 36
Narayan, Uma, 97 Paul, St., 26, 27
natural inequalities, 61 Pax Romana, 169170
naturalism, 102103 peace, 31, 33, 54, 169170, 171
naturalistic fallacy, 130 PEC (principle of equal
natural laws, 17, 47, 60, 61, 63, consideration of interests),
73, 7480 157, 160161
natural rights, 47, 64, 7382, 76, Perry, Ralph Barton, 2829,
85, 86 102103
189
persecution, religious, 173 property, 6, 7, 5960, 62, 73, 77,

personal identity, 139 82, 84, 85, 86, 105106, 129,
personhood, 138139, 160 154, 155, 171
personhood, legal, 160 Protagoras, 67
PETA (People for the Ethical psych, 34
Treatment of Animals), punishment, 47, 58, 85, 94, 116,
159160 122, 156
Petition of Right, 75 Pythagoras, 149150
Phaedrus, 36 Pythagoreanism, 153
Philo, 24
Philodemus, 3637
R
Philosophical Explanations, 89
Philosophy: Who Needs It?, 101 radicalism, philosophical, 44
physics, 20, 32, 3334 Rand, Ayn, 99101
Physics, 3334, 37 Rawls, John, 47, 52, 6669, 82,
piety, 2, 4, 5, 7 86, 89, 131, 175
Plato, 2, 47, 911, 14, 18, 21, reason, 7, 9, 12, 16, 23, 24, 60,
24, 32, 33, 41, 44, 63, 65, 76, 118
90, 94, 136, 148, 149, 150, recollection theory, 6
157, 175 Reflections on the Revolution in
Polemon, 18 France, 79
Political Liberalism, 69 Regan, Tom, 157
political order, 53 relativism, ethical, 106114
political power, 56, 58, 171 religion, 55, 6566, 68, 82, 108,
political society, 5859, 60 110, 122, 150
Politics, 153 Republic, 7, 9, 11, 90, 136
Polystratus, 36 Resourceful Earth, The, 164
Population Bomb, The, 164 retributive theory of punish-
pornography, 97 ment, 47
Poseidonius, 2122 Ricardo, David, 46, 48, 59
postmodernism, 109111 right actions, 1, 11, 12, 16, 18, 28,
Pound, Roscoe, 155 38, 40, 98, 102, 105, 143, 144,
preference utilitarianism, 38 157, 160
prescriptivism, 102, 103, 108 rights, natural, 47, 64, 7382,
Prichard, H.A., 103 85, 86
Priestley, Joseph, 4344 Roman Catholicism, 56
prima facie duties, 7071 Ross, Sir David, 7071, 103
private ethics, 44 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 52,
projectivism, 104 6166, 77
190
7 Index 7
Ruddick, Sara, 93 Solon, 65

rule utilitarianism, 38, 42, 47 sophia, 18
Ryder, Richard, 160 Sophocles, 7374
soul, 5, 7, 10, 12, 13, 15, 26, 27, 30,
3334, 35, 36, 148, 153, 157
S
sovereign authority, 5355, 56
Salmond on Jurisprudence, 154 speciesism, 160161
sapientia, 18 Spelman, Elizabeth V., 97
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 29 Spencer, Herbert, 28, 127, 129
Savigny, Friedrich Karl von, 80 Spinoza, Benedict de, 10, 77, 98
Schumacher, Ernst Friedrich, 165 Stace, W.T., 102
scientific inquiry, morality of, static pleasures, 34
141142 stem cell research, 139
Second Sex, The, 91 Stevenson, Charles, 103, 108
selective breeding, 136 Stoa Poikile, 18
self-determination, 137 Stoic cosmopolitanism, 99
self-knowledge, 5, 1516 stoicheia, 3233
self-preservation, 20, 98 Stoicism, 1518, 2021, 23, 2627,
Seneca, Lucius, 23, 37 43, 7374, 153154, 169
sexual equality, 9698 Stoicism, Greek, 1718, 20
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 151 Stoicism, Roman, 21, 23, 2627
Sidgwick, Henry, 28, 41, 42, 46 Strawson, P.F., 126, 127
Silent Spring, 164 Students for a Democratic
Simon, Julian, 164 Society, 82
Singer, Peter, 152, 157, 161 Subjection of Women, The, 90, 91
slavery, 75, 80, 111, 112, 155, 160 Summa contra gentiles, 136
Smart, J.J.C., 47 Summa theologiae, 122
Smith, Adam, 32, 84 Sumner, William Graham, 129
social anthropology, 108 Syntagma philosophiae Epicuri, 31
social codes, 106107
Social Contract, The, 6365
T
social contract, 47, 51, 52, 53, 58,
6263, 64, 77, 9394 teleology, 11, 2728, 70
social Darwinism, 128, 129, 130 temperance, 2, 5, 1213, 14, 30, 129
social ecology, 163, 165 Tertullian, Quintus 2627
socialism, 8485 Tetrapharmacon, 36
Society of Friends, 174 theological ethics, 44
Socrates, 2, 47, 910, 1516, 18 Theory of Justice, A, 6669
Socratic dialogues, 2, 47, 9, 11 Thoreau, Henry David, 151
191
tolerance, 108, 111112 W

Torah, 24
totalitarianism, 6466 Walker, Margaret, 95
Toulmin, Stephen, 47 Wallace, Alfred Russel,
Tragedy of the Commons, 128129
The, 164 war, 54, 5556, 167, 169, 171, 173
true law, 65 Warnock, Geoffrey James, 102
Two Treatises of Government, 56 Washington, George, 60, 78
welfare economics, 4849
We, the Living, 99
U
Wilberforce, William, 155, 156
Ulpian, 74 will, 4, 13, 7172
UNESCO (United Nations Wilson, Edward O., 130, 175
Educational, Scientific and Wilt Chamberlain argument,
Cultural Organization), 147 8789
United Nations, 8182, 171 wisdom, 2, 7, 12, 1314, 18
Universal Declaration of women, subjugation of, 9697
Human Rights, 82 world citizenship, 16, 23
universalizability, 103104, 143
utilitarianism, 13, 28, 38, 40, 42,
X
46, 47, 6667, 79, 99, 143,
145, 152, 157 Xenocrates, 18
Utilitarianism, 46
Y
V
Young, Iris Marion, 96
Valla, Lorenzo, 31
vegetarianism, 148153
Z
virtue ethics, 146
Virtue of Selfishness, The, 101 Zeno of Citium, 1819, 20, 27
Voltaire, 77, 151 Zeno of Sidon, 36
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Ethics

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Published in 2011 by Britannica Educational Publishing

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Copyright 2011 Encyclopdia Britannica, Inc. Britannica, Encyclopdia Britannica,

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Chapter 2: Normative Ethics:

Chapter 3: Metaethics 102

Chapter 4: Applied Ethics 134

E thics is the philosophical study of morality. For most

Ethics pertains to animals as well as humans, particularly given the viloent

produces a maximum amount of good or a minimum

emphasize rules or principles rather than consequences.

This fact is especially evident in the contrast between

would be that, from then on, many people in the town

also face serious difficulties. Suppose, for example, that it

informed of the relevant facts, and so on. Presumably,

N ormative ethics is the branch of ethics (also called

The Ethics of Plato

Justice is just one of a group of conventional virtues recognized by ancient

dramatically demonstrate. (Indeed, the historical Socrates

Treatment of Virtue in the Early Dialogues

gadfly, trying to awaken the noble horse of Athens to an

logic) leads to an examination by Socrates, which the Sophist

Socratic suggestion that virtue is identical with wis-

obtained through competition, and appetite desires sen-

According to Platos doctrine of forms, Achilles is beautiful by virtue of the

and music from childhood and continuing with super-

The Ethics of Aristotle

reduces the answers to the question What is the good

feeling. One may, for example, be excessively concerned

good life. Only if he is gifted with intelligence will he make

Action and Contemplation

pleasure, can claim to combine the features of the tra-

The Nature of Stoicism

something outside of the self might be achieved may be

Stoicism enabled the individual to better order his

Early Greek Stoicism

Chrysippus of Soli discussed virtually every feature of Stoic doctrine and

governors. The earlier intimacy of order, cosmic and civic,

causality that necessarily binds all things; cosmopolitanism,

Later Roman Stoicism

Bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, in the Piazza del Campidoglio,

It was precisely their turning of doctrine to themes in

Logos, a concept of ancient Greek philosophy and theology, is the

Jesus Before the Gates of Jerusalem, manuscript illumination by Liberale

Stoic Elements in Early Christian Thought

There is much disagreement as to the measure of Stoic

polemical writings, which reveal an unrelenting hostility

(from ancient Greek telos, end; logos, reason), it is often

Perry (18761957) and John Dewey (18591952)or free-

The Nature of Epicureanism

Several fundamental concepts characterize the ethics of

of Epicureanism was written by the notable human-

(172389), who gave particular importance to the physics

Epicuruss Life and Teachings

or elementary propositions, to be memorized. In this

His Ethical Doctrine