Modern Moral Philosophy - G E M Anscombe

Modern Moral Philosophy G E M Anscombe Philosophy 33 No 124 January 1958 I will begin by stating three theses which I present in this inheritance Aristotle just doesnt seem to fit in its modern paper The first is that it is not profitable for us at present sense into an account of Aristotelian ethics Aristotle dis to do moral philosophy that should be laid aside at any tinguishes virtues as moral and intellectual Have some of rate until we have an adequate philosophy of psychology what he calls intellectual virtues what we should call a in which we are conspicuously lacking The second is that moral aspect It would seem so the criterion is presum the concepts of obligation and duty moral obligation ably that a failure in an intellectual virtue like that of and moral duty that is to say and of what is morally having good judgment in calculating how to bring about right and wrong and of the moral sense of ought ought something useful say in municipal government may be to be jettisoned if this is psychologically possible because blameworthy But it may reasonably be asked can they are survivals or derivatives from survivals from an not any failure be made a matter of blame or reproach Any earlier conception of ethics which no longer generally sur derogatory criticism say of the workmanship of a product vives and are only harmful without it My third thesis is or the design of a machine can be called blame or reproach that the differences between the wellknown English writ So we want to put in the word morally again sometimes ers on moral philosophy from Sidgwick to the present day such a failure may be morally blameworthy sometimes not are of little importance Now has Aristotle got this idea of moral blame as opposed Anyone who has read Aristotles Ethics and has also read to any other Ifhe has why isnt it more central There are modern moral philosophy must have been struck by the some mistakes he says which are causes not of involun great contrasts between them The concepts which are tariness in actions but of scoundrelism and for which aman prominent among the moderns seem to be lacking or at is blamed Does this mean that there is a moral obligation any rate buried or far in the background in Aristotle Most not to make certain intellectual mistakes Why doesnt he noticeably the term moral itself which we have by direct discuss obligation in general and this obligation in partic 1 ular If someone professes to be expounding Aristotle and that a lie could be relevantly described as anything but just talks in a modern fashion about moral suchandsuch he a lie eg as a lie in suchandsuch circumstances His must be very imperceptive if he does not constantly feel like rule about universalizable maxims is useless without stip someone whose jaws have somehow got out of alignment ulations as to what shall count as a relevant description of the teeth dont come together in a proper bite an action with a view to constructing a maxim about it We cannot then look to Aristotle for any elucidation of the Bentham and Mill do not notice the difficulty of the concept modern way of talking about moral goodness obligation pleasure They are often said to have gone wrong through etc And all the bestknown writers on ethics in modern committing the naturalistic fallacy but this charge does times from Butler to Mill appear to me to have faults as not impress me because I do not find accounts of it coher thinkers on the subject which make it impossible to hope for ent But the other point about pleasure seems to me a any direct light on it from them I will state these objections fatal objection from the very outset The ancients found this with the brevity which their character makes possible concept pretty baffling It reduced Aristotle to sheer bab ble about the bloom on the cheek of youth because for Butler exalts conscience but appears ignorant that a mans good reasons he wanted to make it out both identical with conscience may tell him to do the vilest things i and different from the pleasurable activity Generations of Hume defines truth in such a way as to exclude ethical modern philosophers found this concept quite unperplex judgments from it and professes that he has proved that ing and it reappeared in the literature as a problematic one they are so excluded He also implicitly defines passion only a year or two ago when Ryle wrote about it The reason in such a way that aiming at anything is having a passion is Simple since Locke pleasure was taken to be some sort His objection to passing from is to ought would ap of internal impression But it was superficial if that was ply equally to passing from is to owes or from is to the right account of it to make it the point of actions One needs However because of the historical situation he might adapt something Wittgenstein said about meaning has a point here which I shall return to and say Pleasure cannot be an internal impression for no Kant introduces the idea of legislating for oneself which internal impression could have the consequences of plea is as absurd as if in these days when majority votes com sure mand great respect one were to call each reflective deci Mill also like Kant fails to realize the necessity for stip sion a man made a vofe resulting in a majority which as ulation as to relevant descriptions if his theory is to have a matter of proportion is overwhelming for it is always content It did not occur to him that acts of murder and 10 The concept of legislation requires superior power in theft could be otherwise described He holds that where a the legislator His own rigoristic convictions on the sub proposed action is of such a kind as to fall under some one ject of lying were so intense that it never occurred to him principle established on grounds of utility one must go by 2 that where it falls under none or several the several sug Now if one makes this comparison it comes to light that the gesting contrary views of the action the thing to do is to relation of the facts mentioned to the description X owes calculate particular consequences But pretty well any ac Y so much money is an interesting one which I will call tion can be so described as to make it fall under a variety of that of being brute relative to that description Further principles of utility as I shall say for short if it falls under the brute facts mentioned here themselves have descrip any tions relatively to which other facts are brute as eg he had potatoes carted to my house and they were left there I will now return to Hume The features of Humes phi are brute facts relative to he supplied me with potatoes losophy which I have mentioned like many other features And the fact X owes Y money is in turn brute relative to of it would incline me to think that Hume was a mere other descriptions eg X is solvent Now the rela brilliant sophist and his procedures are certainly so tion of relative bruteness is a complicated one To men phistical But I am forced not to reverse but to add to tion a few points if xyz is a set of facts brute relative to this judgment by a peculiarity of Humes philosophizing a description A then xyz is a set out of a range some set namely that although he reaches his conclusions with among which holds if A holds but the holding of some which he is in love by sophistical methods his consid set among these does not necessarily entail A because ex erations constantly open up very deep and important prob ceptional circumstances can always make a difference and lems It is often the case that in the act of exhibiting the what are exceptional circumstance relatively to A can gen sophistry one finds oneself noticing matters which deserve erally only be explained by giving a few diverse examples a lot of exploring the obvious stands in need of investiga and no theoretically adequate provision can be made for ex tions as a result of the points that Hume pretends to have ceptional circumstances since a further special context can made In this he is unlike say Butler It was already well theoretically always be imagined that would reinterpret any known that conscience could dictate vile actions for But special context Further though in normal circumstances ler to have written disregarding this does not open up any xyz would be a justification for A of which institution A is new topics for us But with Hume it is otherwise hence of course not itself a description Eg the statement that I he is a very profound and great philosopher in spite of his give someone a shilling is not a description of the institution sophistry For example of money or of the currency of the country Thus though it would be ludicrous to pretend that there can be no such Suppose that I say to my grocer Truth consists in either thing as a transition from eg is to owes the charac relations of ideas as that 20s1 or matters of fact as that ter of the transition is in fact rather interesting and comes I ordered potatoes you supplied them and you sent me a to light as a result of reflecting on Humes arguments bill So it doesnt apply to such a proposition as that I owe you suchandsuch a sum The above two paragraphs are an abstract of a paper On Brute Facts Analysis 3 That I owe the grocer suchandsuch a sum would be one is affected by its motive and by the intention or intentions of a set of facts which would be brute in relation to the in it and for this an account of such concepts is required description I am a bilker bilking is of course a species Th should or ousht or needs rel d of dishonesty or injustice Naturally the consideration terms shou OF 0U8 t Or heees Te ate to 800 and bad eg machinery needs oil or should or ought to will not have any effect on my actions unless I want to com 2 er be oiled in that running without oil is bad for it or it runs mit or avoid acts of injustice badly without oil According to this conception of course So far in spite of their strong associations I conceive bilk should and ought are not used in a special moral ing injustice and dishonesty in a merely factual way sense when one says that a man should not bilk In Aris That I can do this for bilking is obvious enough justice totles sense of the term moral 0tx6c they are being I have no idea how to define except that its sphere is that used in connection with a moral subjectmatter namely of actions which relate to someone else but injustice its that of human passions and nontechnical actions But defect can for the moment be offered as a generic name they have now acquired a special socalled moral sense covering various species Eg bilking theft which is ie a sense in which they imply some absolute verdict relative to whatever property institutions exist slander like one of guiltynot guilty on a man on what is described adultery punishment of the innocent in the ought sentences used in certain types of context we not merely the contexts that Aristotle would call moral In presentday philosophy an explanation is required how passions and actions but also some of the contexts an unjust man is a bad man or an unjust action a bad one nn that he would call intellectual to give such an explanation belongs to ethics but it cannot even be begun until we are equipped with a sound philos The ordinary and quite indispensable terms should ophy of psychology For the proof that an unjust man is needs ought must acquired this special sense by a bad man would require a positive account of justice as a being equated in the relevant contexts with is obliged or virtue This part of the subjectmatter of ethics is how is bound or is required to in the sense in which one can ever completely closed to us until we have an account of be obliged or bound by law or something can be required what type of characteristic a virtue is a problem not of by law ethics but of conceptual analysis and how it relates to a OO the actions in which it is instanced a matter which I think How did this come about The answer 1s 10 history be Aristotle did not succeed in really making clear For this we tween Aristotle and us came Christianity with its law con certainly need an account at least of what a human action ception of ethics For Christianity derived its ethical no is at all and how its description as doing suchandsuch tions from the Torah One might be inclined to think that a law conception of ethics could arise only among people 18 3 1958 who accepted an allegedly divine positive law that this is 4 not so is shown by the example of the Stoics who also craftsman or logician that what is needed for this is thought that whatever was involved in conformity to hu required by divine law Naturally it is not possible to have man virtues was required by divine law such a conception unless you believe in God as a lawgiver In consequence of the dominance of Christianity for many like Jews Stoics and Christians But if such a concep tion centuries the concepts of being bound permitted or is dominant for many centuries and then 1S siven up It 1S excused became deeply embedded in our language and a natural result that the concepts of obligation of being thought The Greek word Guaotévetv the aptest to be bound or required as by a law should remain though they turned to that use acquired the sense sin from having had lost their root and if the word ought has become im meant mistake missing the mark going wrong The vested in certain contexts with the sense of obligation it Latin peccatum which roughly corresponded to Gpaotywc too will remain to be spoken with a special emphasis and was even apter for the sense sin because it was already special feeling in these contexts associated with culpa guilt a juridical notion It is as if the notion criminal were to remain when crim The blanket term illicit unlawful meaning much the inal law and criminal courts had been abolished and for same as our blanket term wrong explains itself It is in gotten A Hume discovering this situation might conclude teresting that Aristotle did not have such a blanket term He that there was a special sentiment expressed by criminal has blanket terms for wickedness villain scoundrel which alone gave the word its sense So Hume discovered but of course a man is not a villain or a scoundrel by the per the situation which the notion obligation survived and formance of one bad action or a few bad actions And he the notion ought was invested with that peculiar for hav has terms like disgraceful impious and specific terms ing which it is said to be used in a moral sense but in signifying defect of the relevant virtue like unjust but which the belief in divine law had long since been aban no term corresponding to illicit The extension of this doned for it was substantially given up among Protestants term ie the range of its application could be indicated at the time of the ReformationThe situation if I am right in his terminology only by a quite lengthy sentence that was the interesting one of the survival of a concept outside is illicit which whether it is a thought or a consentedto the framework of thought that made it a really intelligible passion or an action or an omission in thought or action is one something contrary to one of the virtues the lack of which When Hume produced his famous remarks about the tran shows a man to be bad gua man That formulation would yield a concept coextensive with the concept aNhicit They did not deny the existence of divine law but their most characteristic doc trine was that it was given not to be obeyed but to show mans incapacity to obey it To have a law conception of ethics is to hold that what is even by grace and this applied not merely to the ramified prescriptions of the Torah needed for conformity with the virtues failure in which is RIC Trent a i et the mark of being bad gua man and not merely say gua as legislator 5 sition from is to ought he was then bringing together a truth several quite different points One I have tried to bring out oy b 4 P me cor 99 E66 Certainly in the case of what the plant needs the thought y my remarks on the transition from is to owes and a 6 of a need will only affect action if you want the plant to on the relative bruteness of facts It would be possible to os ws flourish Here then there is no necessary connection be bring out a different point by enquiring about the transition h idee the plant needs and what from is to needs from the characteristics of an organ tween what you can Judge the plant needs and w rat you want But there is some sort of necessary connection be ism to the environment that it needs for example To say tween what you think you need and what you want The that it needs that environment is not to say eg that you connection is a complicated one it is possible not to want want it to have that environment but that it wont flourish hine th ud d But 3 unless it has it Certainly it all depends whether you want something that you ju SE YOUNCEE DUE TIS NOL POSSI ble never to want anything that you judge you need This it to flourish as Hume would say But what all depends Te however is not a fact about the meaning of the word to on whether you want it to flourish is whether the fact that need but about the phenomenon of wanting Humes rea it needs that environment or wont flourish without it has soning we might say in effect leads one to think it must the slightest influence on your actions Now that suchand be about th at d or to b d for such ought to be or is needed is supposed to have an about the word to need or to be good Tor influence on your actions from which it seemed natural to Thus we find two problems already wrapped up in the re infer that to judge that it ought to be was in fact to grant mark about a transition from is to ought now suppos what you judged ought to be influence on your actions ing that we had clarified the relative bruteness of facts on And no amount of truth as to what is the case could possibly the one hand and the notions involved in needing and have a logical claim to have influence on your actions It flourishing on the otherthere would still remain a third is not judgment as such that sets us in motion but our judg point For following Hume someone might say Perhaps ment on how to get or do something we want Hence it you have made out your point about a transition from is must be impossible to infer needs or ought to be from to owes and from is to needs but only at the cost of is But in the case of a plant let us say the inference showing owes and needs sentences to express a kind of from is to needs is certainly not in the least dubious truths a kind of facts And it remains impossible to infer It is interesting and worth examining but not at all fishy morally ought from is sentences Its interest is similar to the interest of the relation between brute and less brute facts these relations have been very lit This comment it seems to me would be correct This word tle considered And while you can contrast what it needs ought having become a word of mere mesmMeric force with what its got like contrasting de facto and de iure could not in the character of having that force be inferred that does not make its needing this environment less of from anything whatever It may be objected that it could be inferred from other morally ought sentences but that 6 cannot be true The appearance that this is so is produced by The greatest happiness principle ought to be employed in the fact that we say All men are and Socrates is aman all decisions implies Socrates is But here is a dummy predi cate We mean that if you substitute a real predicate for I should judge that Hume and our presentday ethicists the implication is valid A real predicate is required had done a considerable service by showing that no con not just a word containing no intelligible thought a word tent could be found in the notion morally ought if it retaining the suggestion of force and apt to have a strong were not that the latter philosophers try to find an alter psychological effect but which no longer signifies a real native very fishy content and to retain the psychologi concept at all cal force of the term It would be most reasonable to drop oo it It has no reasonable sense outside a law conception of For Its suggestion 1S one of a ver dict on my action ac ethics they are not going to maintain such a conception cording as it agrees or disagrees with the description in the and you can do ethics without it as is shown by the ex ought sentence And where one does not think there is a ample of Aristotle It would be a great improvement if judge or a law the notion of a verdict may retain its psy instead of morally wrong one always named a genus chological effect but not its meaning Now imagine that such as untruthful unchaste unjust We should no just this word verdict were So used with a characteris longer ask whether doing something was wrong passing tically solemn emphasis as to retain its atmosphere but directly from some description of an action to this notion not its meaning and someone were to say For a verdict we should ask whether eg it was unjust and the answer after all you need a law and a judge The reply might be would sometimes be clear at once made Not at all for if there were a law and a judge who gave a verdict the question for us would be whether ac I now come to the epoch in modern English moral philos cepting that verdict is something that there is a Verdict on ophy marked by Sidgwick There is a startling change that This is an analogue of an argument which is so frequently seems to have taken place between Mill and Moore Mill referred to as decisive If someone does have a divine law assumes as we saw that there is no question of calculat conception of ethics all the same he has to agree that he has ing the particular consequences of an action such as mur to have a judgment that he ought morally ought to obey der or theft and we saw too that his position was stupid the divine law so his ethic is in exactly the same position as because it is not at all clear how an action can fall under any other he merely has a practical major premise Di just one principle of utility In Moore and in subsequent vine law ought to be obeyed where someone else has eg academic moralists of England we find it taken to be pretty obvious that the right action is the action which produces As it is absurdly called Since major premise premise containing the term the best possible consequences reckoning among conse which is predicate in the conclusion it is a solecism to speak of it in the connection with practical reasoning quences the intrinsic values ascribed to certain kinds of act 7 by some Objectivists Now it follows from this that glish academic moral philosophers has put out a philoso a man does well subjectively speaking if he acts for the phy according to which eg it is not possible to hold that best in the particular circumstances according to his judg it cannot be right to kill the innocent as a means to any end ment of the total consequences of this particular action whatsoever and that someone who thinks otherwise is in I say that this follows not that any philosopher has said error I have to mention both points because Mr Hare precisely that For discussion of these questions can of for example while teaching a philosophy which would en course get extremely complicated eg it can be doubted courage a person to judge that killing the innocent would be whether suchandsuch is the right action is a satisfac what he ought to choose for overriding purposes would tory formulation on the grounds that things have to ex also teach I think that if a man chooses to make avoiding ist to have predicatesso perhaps the best formulation is I killing the innocent for any purpose his supreme practi am obliged or again a philosopher may deny that right cal principle he cannot be impugned for error that just is a descriptive term and then take a roundabout route is his principle But with that qualification I think it can through linguistic analysis to reach a view which comes to be seen that the point I have mentioned holds good of ev the same thing as the right action is the one productive ery single English academic moral philosopher since Sidg of the best consequences eg the view that you frame wick Now this is a significant thing for it means that all your principles to effect the end you choose to pursue these philosophies are quite incompatible with the Hebrew the connection between choice and best being suppos Christian ethic For it has been characteristic of that ethic to edly such that choosing reflectively means that you choose teach that there are certain things forbidden whatever con how to act so as to produce the best consequences further sequences threaten such as choosing to kill the innocent for the roles of what are called moral principles and of the any purpose however good vicarious punishment treach motive of duty have to be described the differences be ery by which I mean obtaining a mans confidence in a tween good and morally good and right need to be grave matter by promises of trustworthy friendship and then explored the special characteristics of ought sentences betraying him to his enemies idolatry sodomy adultery investigated Such discussions generate an appearance of making a false profession of faith The prohibition of cer significant diversity of views where what is really signifi tain things simply in virtue of their description as suchand cant is an overall similarity The overall similarity is made such identifiable kinds of action regardless of any further clear if you consider that every one of the best known En consequences is certainly not the whole of the Hebrew Christian ethic but it is a noteworthy feature of it and if 4Oxford Objectivists of course distinguish between consequences and intrinsic every academic philosopher since Sidgwick has written in values and so produce a misleading appearance of not being consequentialists But such a way as to exclude this ethic it would argue a cer they do not holdand Ross explicitly deniesthat the gravity of eg procuring the toa oo ws ae condemnation of the innocent is such that it cannot be outweighed by eg national tain provinciality of mind not to see this incompatibility as interest Hence their distinction is of no importance 8 the most important fact about these philosophers and the not realizing differences between them as somewhat trifling by compar ison From the point of view of the present enquiry the most important thing about Sidgwick was his definition of in It is noticeable that none of these philosophers displays any tention He defines intention in such a way that one must consciousness that there is such an ethic which he is con be said to intend any foreseen consequences of ones vol tradicting it is pretty well taken for obvious among them untary action This definition is obviously incorrect and I all that a prohibition such as that on murder does not oper dare say that no one would be found to defend it now He ate in face of some consequences But of course the strict uses it to put forward an ethical thesis which would now be ness of the prohibition has as its point that you are not to accepted by many people the thesis that it does not make be tempted by fear or hope of consequences any difference to a mans responsibility for something that If you notice the transition from Mill to Moore you will he foresaw that he felt no desire for it either as an end or suspect that it was made somewhere by someone Sidg as a means to an end Using the language of intention more wick will come to mind as a likely name and you will correctly and avoiding Sidgwicks faulty conception we in fact find it going on almost casually in him He is may state the thesis thus it does not make any difference rather a dull author and the important things in him occur in to a mans responsibility for an effect of his action which asides and footnotes and small bits of argument which are he can foresee that he does not intend it Now this sounds not concerned with his grand classification of the meth rather edifying it is I think quite characteristic of very bad ods of ethics A divine law theory of ethics is reduced degenerations of thought on such questions that they sound to an insignificant variety by a footnote telling us that the edifying We can see what it amounts to by considering an best theologians God knows whom he meant tell us that example Let us suppose that a man has a responsibility for God is to be obeyed in his capacity of a moral being y the maintenance of some child Therefore deliberately to POETLXOG O EALVOS One seems to hear Aristotle saying withdraw support from it is a bad sort of thing for him to Isnt the praise vulgar But Sidgwick is vulgar in that do It would be bad for him to withdraw its maintenance be kind of way he thinks for example that humility consists cause he didnt want to maintain it any longer and also bad in underestimating your own merits ie in a species of for him to withdraw it because by doing so he would let us untruthfulness and that the ground for having laws against say compel someone else to do something We may sup blasphemy was that it was offensive to believers and that pose for the sake of argument that compelling that person to to go accurately into the virtue of purity is to offend against do that thing is in itself quite admirable But now he has to its canons a thing he reproves medieval theologians for choose between doing something disgraceful and going to prison if he goes to prison it will follow that he withdraws 5Nicomachean Ethics 1178 b16 support from the child By Sidgwicks doctrine there is no 9 difference in his responsibility for ceasing to maintain the the good ones and contrariwise is not responsible for the child between the case where he does it for its own sake bad consequences of good actions or as a means to some other purpose and when it happens The denial of any distinction between foreseen and in as a foreseen and unavoidable consequence of his going to tended consequences as far as responsibility is concerned prison rather than do something disgraceful It follows that was not made by Sidgwick in developing any one method he must weigh up the relative badness of withdrawing sup of ethics he made this important move on behalf of ev port from the child and of doing the disgraceful thing and erybody and just on its own account and I think it plausi it may easily be that the disgraceful thing is in fact a less ble to suggest that this move on the part of Sidgwick ex se die ineentionaly vee SUPP ort rom plains the difference between oldfashioned Utilitarianism COVE WOU THEME ME TACT MAL WINTCTAWINE SUPPOF and that consequentialism as I name it which marks him from the child is a side effect of his going to prison does not and every English academic moral philosopher since him make any difference to his responsibility this consideration By it the kind of consideration which would formerly have ae incline pam fo othe ausgracetul tins whieh can stil been regarded as a temptation the kind of consideration e pretty bad And of course once he has started to loo at the matter in this light the only reasonable thing for him a sts by moral chilosephers in their theories was given to consider will be the consequences and not the intrinsic badness of this or that action So that given that he judges It is anecessary feature of consequentialism that it is a shal reasonably that no great harm will come of it he can do a low philosophy For there are always borderline cases in much more disgraceful thing than deliberately withdrawing ethics Now if you are either an Aristotelian or a believer in support from the child And if his calculations turn out in divine law you will deal with a borderline case by consid fact wrong it will appear that he was not responsible for ering whether doing suchandsuch in suchandsuch cir the consequences because he did not foresee them For in cumstances is say murder or is an act of injustice and fact Sidgwicks thesis leads to its being quite impossible to according as you decide it is or it isnt you judge it to be estimate the badness of an action except in the light of ex a thing to do or not This would be the method of casu pected consequences But if so then you must estimate the istry and while it may lead you to stretch a point on the badness in the light of the consequences you expect and so circumference it will not permit you to destroy the center it will follow that you can exculpate yourself from the ac But if you are a consequentialist the question What is it tual consequences of the most disgraceful actions so long right to do in suchandsuch circumstances is a stupid as you can make out a case for not having foreseen them one to raise The casuist raises such a question only to ask Whereas I should contend that a man is responsible for the Would it be permissible to do soandso or Would it be bad consequences of his bad actions but gets no credit for permissible not to do soandso Only if it would not be permissible not to do soandso could he say This would be 10 the thing to do Otherwise though he may speak against made hypothetical choices to consent to similar bad ac some action he cannot prescribe anyfor in an actual case tions or to praise and flatter those who do them so long as the circumstances beyond the ones imagined might sug their crowd does so too when the desperate circumstances gest all sorts of possibilities and you cant know in advance imagined dont hold at all what the possibilities are going to be Now the consequen tialist has no footing on which to say This would be per Those who recognize the origins of the notions of obliga missible this not because by his own hypothesis it is the tion and of the emphatic moral ought in the divine law consequences that are to decide and he has no business to conception of ethics but who reject the notion of a divine pretend that he can lay it down what possible twists a man legislator sometimes look about for the possibility of re could give doing this or that the most he can say is a man taining a law conception without a divine legislator This must not bring about this or that he has no right to say search I think has some interest in it Perhaps the first he will in an actual case bring about suchandsuch un thing that suggests itself is the norms of a society But less he does soandso Further the consequentialist in or just as one cannot be impressed by Butler when one re der to be imagining borderline cases at all has of course flects what conscience can tell people to do so I think to assume some sort of law or standard according to which one cannot be impressed by this idea if one reflects what this is a borderline case Where then does he get the stan the norms of a society can be like That legislation can dard from In practice the answer invariably is from the be for oneself I reject as absurd whatever you do for standards current in his society or his circle And it has in yourself may be admirable but is not legislating Once fact been the mark of all these philosophers that they have one sees this one may say I have to frame my own rules been extremely conventional they have nothing in them and these are the best I can frame and I shall go by them by which to revolt against the conventional standards of until I know something better as a man might say I shall their sort of people it is impossible that they should be pro go by the customs of my ancestors Whether this leads found But the chance that a whole range of conventional to good or evil will depend on the content of the rules or standards will be decent is small Finally the point of of the customs of ones ancestors If one is lucky it will considering hypothetical situations perhaps very improb lead to good Such an attitude would be hopeful in this at able ones seems to be to elicit from yourself or someone any rate it seems to have in it some Socratic doubt where else a hypothetical decision to do something of a bad kind from having to fall back on such expedients it should be I dont doubt this has the effect of predisposing people clear that Socratic doubt is good in fact rather generally it who will never get into the situations for which they have must be good for anyone to think Perhaps in some way I cant see I may be on a bad path perhaps I am hopelessly Necessarily a rare case for the positive precepts eg Honor your parents wrong in some essential way The search for norms hardly ever prescribe and seldom even necessitate any particular action might lead someone to look for laws of nature as if the 11 universe were a legislator but in the present day this is not and have not thought of as law it does not seem reasonable likely to lead to good results it might lead one to eat the to say that you can enter upon a contract without knowing weaker according to the laws of nature but would hardly that you are doing so such ignorance is usually held to be lead anyone nowadays to notions of justice the preSocratic destructive of the nature of a contract feeling about justice as comp arable to the balance or har It might remain to look for norms in human virtues just mony which kept things going is very remote to us as man has so many teeth which is certainly not the aver There is another possibility here obligation may be con age number of teeth men have but is the number of teeth tractual Just as we look at the law to find out what a man for the species so perhaps the species man regarded not subject to it is required by it to do so we look at a con just biologically but from the point of view of the activity tract to find out what the man who has made it is required of thought and choice in regard to the varlous departments by it to do Thinkers admittedly remote from us might of life Powers and faculties and use of things needed have the idea of a foedus rerum of the universe not as a has suchandsuch virtues and this man with the com legislator but as the embodiment of a contract Then if you plete set of virtues is the norm 48 man with eg a could find out what the contract was you would learn your complete set of teeth is a nonm But m this sense non obligations under it Now you cannot be under a law un has ceased to be roughly equivalent to law In this Sense less it has been promulgated to you and the thinkers who the notion of a norm brings us nearer to an Aristotelian believed in natural divine law held that it was promul than a law conception of ethics There 1s 1 think no harm m gated to every grown man in his knowledge of good and that but if someone looked in this direction to give norm evil Similarly you cannot be in a contract without having a Sense then he ought to recognize what has hap P ened to contracted ie given signs of entering upon the contract the notion OTM which he wanted to mean law os with Just possibly it might be argued that the use of language out bringing God m it has ceased to mean law at all which one makes in the ordinary conduct of life amounts and so the notions of moral obligation the moral ought in some sense to giving the signs of entering into various and duty are best put on the Index if he can manage it contracts If anyone had this theory we should want to see But meanwhile is it not clear that there are several con it worked out I suspect that it would be largely formal cepts that need investigating simply as part of the philos it might be possible to construct a system embodying the ophy of psychology and as I should recommend ban law whose status might be compared to that of laws of ishing ethics totally from our minds Namely to begin logic whats sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander with action intention pleasure wanting More but hardly one descending to such particularities as the pro will probably turn up if we start with these Eventually it hibition on murder or sodomy Also while it is clear that might be possible to advance to considering the concept you can be subject to a law that you do not acknowledge virtue with which I suppose we should be beginning 12 some sort of a study of ethics of injustice but is not intrinsically unjust can always be I will end by describing the advantages of using the word rendered just by a reasonable calculation of better conse ought in a nonemphatic fashion and not in a special quences far from it but the problems that would be raised ee in an attempt to draw a boundary line or boundary area moral sense of discarding the term wrong in a moral sense and using such notions as unjust here are obviously complicated And while there are cer tainly some general remarks which ought to be made here It is possible if one is allowed to proceed just by giving and some boundaries that can be drawn the decision on par examples to distinguish between the intrinsically unjust ticular cases would for the most part be determined kata ton and what is unjust given the circumstances To arrange to orthon logon according to whats reasonable Eg that get a man judicially punished for something which it can suchandsuch a delay of payment of a suchandsuch debt be clearly seen he has not done is intrinsically unjust This to a person so circumstanced on the part of a person so cir might be done of course and often has been done in all cumstanced would or would not be unjust is really only to sorts of ways by suborning false witnesses by a rule of be decided according to whats reasonable and for this law by which something is deemed to be the case which there can in principle be no canon other than giving a few is admittedly not the case as a matter of fact and by open examples That is to say while it is because of a big gap insolence on the part of the judges and powerful people in philosophy that we can give no general account of the when they more or less openly say A fig for the fact that concept of virtue and of the concept of justice but have to you did not do it we mean to sentence you for it all the proceed using the concepts only by giving examples still same What is unjust given eg normal circumstances there is an area where it is not because of any gap but is in is to deprive people of their ostensible property without le principle the case that there is no account except by way gal procedure not to pay debts not to keep contracts and of examples and that is where the canon is whats reason a host of other things of the kind Now the circumstances able which of course is not a canon can clearly make a great deal of difference in estimating the justice or injustice of such procedures as these and That is all I wish to say about what is just in some circum these circumstances may sometimes include expected con stances unjust in others and about the way in which ex sequences for example a mans claim to a bit of property pected consequences can play a part in determining what is can become a nullity when its seizure and use can avert just Returning to my example of the intrinsically unjust if some obvious disaster as eg if you could use a machine a procedure is one of judicially punishing a man for what he of his to produce an explosion in which it would be de is clearly understood not to have done there can be abso stroyed but by means of which you could divert a flood lutely no argument about the description of this as unjust or make a gap which a fire could not jump Now this cer No circumstances and no expected consequences which tainly does not mean that what would ordinarily be an act do not modify the description of the procedure as one of ju 13 dicially punishing a man for what he is known not to have open to question whether such an action as procuring the done can modify the description of it as unjust Someone judicial execution of the innocent should be quite excluded who attempted to dispute this would only be pretending not from consideration I do not want to argue with him he to know what unjust means for this is a paradigm case shows a corrupt mind of injustice In such cases our moral philosophers seek to impose a And here we see the superiority or the term unjust over dilemma upon us If we have a case where the term un the terms morally right and morally wrong For in the just applies purely in virtue of a factual description cant context of English moral philosophy since Sidgwick it ap one raise the question whether one sometimes conceivably pears legitimate to discuss whether it might be morally ought to do injustice If what is unjust is determined by right in some circumstances to adopt that procedure but consideration of whether it is right to do soandso in such it cannot be argued that that the procedure would in any andsuch circumstances then the question whether it is circumstances be just right to commit injustice cant arise just because wrong ha n built into th finition of injustice But if w Now I am not able to do the philosophy involved and I s been built into the de 10 Just ce ut e ee ae have a case where the description unjust applies purely in think that no one in the present situation of English phi Lo virtue of the facts without bringing wrong in then the losophy can do the philosophy involved but it is clear question can arise whether one ought perhaps to com that a good man is a just man and a just man is a man eer aa ae mit an injustice whether it might not be right to And who habitually refuses to commit or participate in any un Ce of course ought and right are being used in their moral just actions for fear of any consequences or to obtain any senses here Now either you must decide what is morally advantage for himself or anyone else Perhaps no one will or cos oe oo right in the light of certain other principles or you make disagree But it will be said what is unjust is sometimes Dg rar a principle about this and decide that an injustice is never determined by expected consequences and certainly that is ae Le right but even if you do the latter you are going beyond true But there are cases where it is not now if someone cc a the facts you are making a decision that you will not or that says I agree but all this wants a lot of explaining then one gs i or it is wrong to commit injustice But in either case if the he is right and what is more the situation at present 1s that Co ge Le term unjust is determined simply by the facts it is not the we cant do the explaining we lack the philosophic equip Coes 7 1 term unjust that determines that the term wrong applies ment But if someone really thinks in advance that it is ee but a decision that injustice is wrong together with the diag 7If he thinks it in the concrete situation he is of course merely a normally tempted nosis of the factual description as entailing injustice But human being In discussion when this paper was read as was perhaps to be expected SSS this case was produced a government is required to have an innocent man tried sen invented in discussions is the assumption that only two courses are open here com tenced and executed under threat of a hydrogen bomb war It would seem strange pliance and open defiance No one can say in advance of such a situation what the to me to have much hope of so averting a war threatened by such men as made this possibilities are going to be eg that there is none of stalling by a feigned willing demand But the most important thing about the way in which cases like this are ness to comply Accompanied by a skillfully arranged escape of the victim 14 the man who makes an absolute decision that injustice is detestable desire to retain the atmosphere of the term wrong has no footing on which to criticize someone who does not make that decision as judging falsely It may be possible if we are resolute to discard the notion morally ought and simply return to the ordinary ought In this argument wrong of course is explained as mean which we ought to notice is such an extremely frequent ing morally wrong and all the atmosphere of the term is term of human language that it is difficult to imagine getting retained while its substance is guaranteed quite null Now on without it Now if we do return to it cant it reasonably let us remember that morally wrong is the term which is be asked whether one might ever need to commit injustice the heir of the notion illicit or what there is an obliga or whether it wont be the best thing to do Of course it can tion not to do which belongs in a divine law theory or And the answers will be various One man a philosopher ethics Here it really does add something to the description may say that since justice is a virtue and injustice a vice unjust to say there is an obligation not to do it for what and virtues and vices are built up by the performances of obliges is the divine lawas rules oblige in a game So if the action in which they are instanced an act of injustice the divine law obliges not to commit injustice by forbid will tend to make a man bad and essentially the flourish ding injustice it really does add something to the descrip ing of a man qua man consists in his being good eg in tion unjust to say there is an obligation not to do it And virtues but for any X to which such terms apply X needs it is because morally wrong is the heir of this concept what makes it flourish so a man needs or ought to perform but an heir that is cut off from the family of concepts from only virtuous actions and even if as it must be admitted which it sprang that morally wrong both goes beyond the may happen he flourishes less or not at all in inessen mere factual description unjust and seems to have no dis tials by avoiding injustice his life is spoiled in essentials cernible content except a certain compelling force which by not avoiding injusticeso he still needs to perform only I should call purely psychological And such is the force just actions That is roughly how Plato and Aristotle talk of the term that philosophers actually suppose that the di but it can be seen that philosophically there is a huge gap at vine law notion can be dismissed as making no essential present unfillable as far as we are concerned which needs difference even if it is heldbecause they think that a prac to be filled by an account of human nature human action tical principle running I ought ie am morally obliged the type of characteristic a virtue is and above all of hu to obey divine laws is required for the man who believes man flourishing And it is the last concept that appears in divine laws But actually this notion of obligation is a the most doubtful For it is a bit much to swallow that a man notion which only operates in the context of law And I in pain and hunger and poor and friendless is flourishing should be inclined to congratulate the presentday moral as Aristotle himself admitted Further someone might say philosophers on depriving morally ought of its now delu that one at least needed to stay alive to flourish Another sive appearance of content if only they did not manifest a man unimpressed by all that will say in a hard case What 15 we need is suchandsuch which we wont get without do to frame a moral principle under which he managed to ing this which is unjustso this is what we ought to do use Mr NowellSmiths phrases to bring the action or Another man who does not follow the rather elaborate rea it might be a new decision of principle making which soning of the philosophers simply says I know it is in any was an advance in the formation of his moral thinking to case a disgraceful thing to say that one had better commit adopt Mr Hares conception to decide in suchandsuch this unjust action The man who believes in divine laws circumstances one ought to procure the judicial condemna will say perhaps It is forbidden and however it looks it tion of the innocent And that is my complaint cannot be to anyones profit to commit injustice he like the Greek philosophers can think in terms of flourishing If he is a Stoic he is apt to have a decidedly strained notion of what flourishing consists in if he is a Jew or Chris tian he need not have any very distinct notion the way it will profit him to abstain from injustice is something that he leaves it to God to determine him self only saying It cant do me any good to go against his law But he also hopes for a great reward in a new life later on eg at the coming of Messiah but in this he is relying on special promises It is left to modern moral philosophythe moral philosophy of all the wellknown English ethicists since Sidgwick to construct systems according to which the man who says We need suchandsuch and will only get it this way may be a virtuous character that is to say it is left open to de bate whether such a procedure as the judicial punishment of the innocent may not in some circumstances be the right one to adopt and though the present Oxford moral philoso phers would accord a man permission to make it his princi ple not to do such a thing they teach a philosophy accord ing to which the particular consequences of such an action could morally be taken into account by a man who was debating what to do and if they were such as to conflict with his ends it might be a step in his moral education 8Ethics p 308 16