A weakness of nonconsequentialists is that they try to avoid

3.1: Act Nonconsequentialist Theories

1. 3.1 Outline the major assumption of the act nonconsequentialist theories

Just as utilitarianism falls into two categories (act and rule), so too do nonconsequentialist theories. Remember, however, that the main difference between act and rule utilitarianism and act and rule nonconsequentialism is that the former are based on consequences, whereas the latter are not. Nevertheless, some of the problems and disadvantages of the theories are similar, as we shall see.

Act nonconsequentialists make the major assumption that there are no general moral rules or theories at all, but only particular actions, situations, and people about which we cannot generalize. Accordingly, one must approach each situation individually as one of a kind and somehow decide what is the right action to take in that situation. It is the “how we decide” in this theory that is most interesting. Decisions for the act nonconsequentialist are “intuitionistic.” That is, what a person decides in a particular situation, because he or she cannot use any rules or standards, is based upon what he or she believes or feels or intuits to be the right action to take. This type of theory, then, is highly individualistic—individuals must decide what they feel is the right thing to do, and then do it. They are not concerned with consequences—and certainly not with the consequences of other situations, or with people not immediately involved in this particular situation—but they must do what they feel is right given this particular situation and the people involved in it.

This theory is characterized by two popular slogans of the 1960s: If it feels good—do it and Do your own thing. It also has a more traditional basis in intuitionistic, emotive, and noncognitive theories of morality. What these theories seem to stress is that morality in thought, language, and deed is not based upon reason. Some of these theories even suggest that morality cannot be rationalized because it isn’t based upon reason in the same way as scientific experimentation and factual statements about reality are.

The “emotive theory,” for example, states that ethical words and sentences really do only two things:

1. Express people’s feelings and attitudes

2. Evoke or generate certain feelings and attitudes in others

Journal: Moral Decisions in Act Nonconsequentalist Theory

The act nonconsequentialist theory allows one greater freedom in making moral decisions than other theories because it leaves moral decisions completely up to each individual’s own feelings. How free do you think individuals should be in their moral decision-making? Do you think this theory appeals to you and to what extent?

3.1.1: Intuitionism
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In Right and Reason, Austin Fagothey (1901–1975) lists some general reasons for accepting or rejecting intuition as a basis for morality.1 The general reasons supporting moral intuitionism include the following:

1. Any well-meaning person seems to have an immediate sense of right and wrong

2. Human beings had moral ideas and convictions long before philosophers created ethics as a formal study

3. Our reasoning upon moral matters usually is used to confirm our more direct perceptions or “intuitions”

4. Our reasoning can go wrong in relation to moral issues as well as others, and then we must fall back upon our moral insights and intuitions. Thus these arguments present intuition as a higher form of reasoning indicating humans have deep moral insights which have values in themselves.

Arguments Against Intuitionism
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There are at least four strong arguments against moral intuitionism. First, some people have described intuition as “hunches,” “wild guesses,” “irrational inspirations,” and “clairvoyance,” among other meanings lacking in scientific and philosophical respectability. It is, in short, difficult to define intuition, and it is more difficult still to prove its existence. Second, there is no proof that we have any inborn, or innate, set of moral rules with which we can compare our acts to see whether or not they are moral. Third, intuition is immune to objective criticism because it applies only to its possessor and because intuitions differ from one person to the next. Fourth, human beings who do not possess moral intuitions either have no ethics or have to establish their ethics on other grounds.

Journal: Role of Emotions in a Moral System

Analyze whether emotions or feelings play an important role in a moral system. How do they relate to morality?

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3.1.2: Criticisms of Act Nonconsequentialism
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The greatest problem for act nonconsequentialism would seem to be the third argument listed in the foregoing paragraph, for if intuitions differ from person to person, how can conflicts between opposing intuitions be resolved? All we can say is that we disagree with another person’s intuitions; we have no logical basis for saying, “Your intuition is wrong, whereas mine is right.” Intuitions simply cannot be arbitrated, as reasons and judgments of evidence can; therefore, any theory of morality based upon intuitions alone, such as act nonconsequentialism, is highly questionable.

Other criticisms of act nonconsequentialism are these:

1. How do we know that what we intuit—with nothing else to guide us—will be morally correct?

2. How can we know when we have sufficient facts to make a moral decision?

3. With morality so highly individualized, how can we be sure we are doing the best thing for anyone else involved in the situation?

4. Can we really rely upon nothing more than our momentary intuitions to help us make our moral decisions?

5. How will we be able to justify our actions except by saying, “Well, I had an intuition that it was the right thing for me to do”?

It would seem to be very difficult to establish a morality of any social applicability here because anyone’s intuitions can justify any action he or she might take. An angry person might kill the one who made him angry and then justify the murder by saying, “I had an intuition that I should kill her.” But how do we arbitrate the conflict between the killer’s intuition and the intense feeling of the victim’s family and friends that the act was wrong? This is moral relativism of the highest degree, and absolutely no settlement is possible when the only things we have to go on are the intuitions of a given individual at a particular time.

Another criticism of act nonconsequentialism, similar to the criticism of act utilitarianism, focuses on the questionable assumption that all situations and people are completely different, with none of them having anything in common.

There are, of course, some highly unique situations for which no rules can be set up in advance, but there are many other situations containing enough similarities so that rules, perhaps with some appended exceptions or qualifications, can be stated quite effectively. For example, all situations in which someone is murdered have at least the similarity of there being a killer and a victim; because human life is considered to be essentially valuable in itself, rules governing when killing is or is not justified are not difficult to set up. Our legal system, with its different degree charges of murder and manslaughter, is a good example of rules fraught with moral import. These generally work quite satisfactorily by condemning immoral acts while at the same time recognizing extenuating circumstances, thereby attaining a significant degree of justice and fairness for all concerned.

These two criticisms—that each act’s being completely dissimilar from every other is simply a false empirical statement and the difficulty of relying solely upon one’s individual intuitions—make act nonconsequentialism a questionable ethical system. Even an active “situationist,” Joseph Fletcher (1905–1991), author of Situation Ethics, claims that in all ethical actions there should be at least one unifying factor, namely, Christian love. Because of his religious belief, he should probably be classified as an act utilitarian rather than an act nonconsequentialist.

3.2: Rule Nonconsequentialist Theories
1. 3.2 Analyze the way various rule nonconsequentialist theories differ from each other

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Rule nonconsequentialists believe that there are or can be rules that are the only basis for morality and that consequences do not matter. It is the following of the rules (which are right moral commands) that is moral, and the concept of morality cannot be applied to the consequences that ensue when one follows the rules. The main way in which the various rule nonconsequentialist theories differ is in their methods of establishing the rules.

3.3: Divine Command Theory
1. 3.3 Evaluate divine command theory with respect to morality

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As described earlier, the Divine Command Theory states that morality is based not upon the consequences of actions or rules, nor upon self-interest or other-interestedness, but rather upon something “higher” than these mere mundane events of the imperfect human or natural worlds. It is based upon the existence of an all-good being or beings who are supernatural and who have communicated to human beings what they should and should not do in a moral sense. To be moral, human beings must follow the commands and prohibitions of such a being or beings to the letter without concerning themselves with consequences, self-interest, or anything else.

3.3.1: Criticisms of Divine Command Theory
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The difficulties of the Divine Command Theory are inherent in the lack of rational foundation for the existence of some sort of supernatural being or beings and the further lack of proof that the support of such a being or beings is enough to make rational and useful the ethical system in question.

Even if one could prove conclusively the existence of the supernatural, how could one prove that any supernatural being is morally trustworthy? The rules themselves might be morally valid, but the justification for following them regardless of the consequences is weak indeed. Furthermore, of what validity are the rules if a person does not believe in any kind of supernatural existence? And even if we were to accept the existence of this supernatural being and its commandments, how could we be sure we were interpreting them correctly? Interpretations of the Ten Commandments vary and often conflict.2 Must there not be some clearer and generally more acceptable basis for rules than the existence of the supernatural?

Journal: Divine Command Theory

To what extend do you believe that Jews, Christians, and Muslims use the “Divine Command Theory” approach rather than egoism or act or rule utilitarianism as a basis for their ethical systems?

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3.4: Kant’s Duty Ethics
1. 3.4 Examine the ethical principles of Kant’s duty ethics

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Another famous rule nonconsequentialist theory, often called “ Duty Ethics ,” was formulated by Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and contains several ethical principles:

1. The Good Will

2. Establishing Morality by Reasoning Alone

3. The Categorical Imperative

4. The Practical Imperative

5. Duty Rather than Inclination

3.4.1: The Good Will
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Kant believed that nothing was good in itself except a good will, and he defined will as the unique human ability to act in accordance with moral rules, laws, or principles regardless of interests or consequences.

3.4.2: Establishing Morality by Reasoning Alone
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After establishing good will as the most important human attribute, Kant then argued that reason was the second most important human attribute. Therefore, it was possible to set up valid absolute moral rules on the basis of reason alone, not by reference to any supernatural being or by empirical evidence but by the same kind of logical reasoning that establishes such indisputable truths in mathematics and logic as 2 + 2 = 4, “No circles are squares,” and “All triangles are three-sided.”

Kant’s first requirement for an absolute moral truth is that it must be logically consistent ; that is, it cannot be self-contradictory as the statement “A circle is a square” would be. Second, the truth must be universalizable; that is, it must be able to be stated so as to apply to everything without exception, not just to some or perhaps even most things. This is exemplified by the statement “All triangles are three-sided,” for which there are no exceptions. Triangles may be of different sizes and shapes, but they are by definition indisputably and universally three-sided. If moral rules could indeed be established in this same manner, as Kant thought, then they too would be indisputable and therefore logically and morally binding upon all human beings. Of course, some people might disobey these rules, but we could clearly brand such people as immoral.

In some ways, Kant’s ideas were brilliant. For example, he could establish the fact that living parasitically would be immoral because it would also be illogical. He could say that the commandment “Always be a parasite, living off of someone else” is illogical because if all people lived like parasites, then off whom could they live? It is easy to see that it is in conflict with the principle of universalizability that causes the inconsistency here. Obviously some people can be parasites, but not all. Now, if one could find such moral absolutes, then a completely irrefutable system of ethics could be established, and the obeying of the rules of this system would be what is moral, regardless of the consequences to self or others. The major way that Kant gave us to discover these moral absolutes was by means of his Categorical Imperative.

3.4.3: The Categorical Imperative
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The Categorical Imperative may be stated in several ways, but basically it asserts that an act is immoral if the rule that would authorize it cannot be made into a rule for all human beings to follow.3 This means that whenever someone is about to make a moral decision, he or she must, according to Kant, ask first, “What is the rule authorizing this act I am about to perform?” and, second, “Can it become a universal rule for all human beings to follow?” For example, if a lazy person is thinking, “Why should I work hard in order to live; why don’t I just steal from everyone else?” and if this person is aware of Kant’s requirement, he or she will have to ask himself or herself what the rule is for this contemplated action. The rule would have to be, “I shall never work, but steal what I need from other human beings.” If the person attempts to universalize this statement, then it will read: “No human being should ever work, but all human beings should steal what they need from each other.” But if no one worked, there would be nothing to steal. How then would human beings live? Who would there be to steal from? It is obvious that some human beings can steal from others, but that not all human beings can do so. According to Kant, stealing must therefore be immoral because it cannot be applied to all human beings.

Another, more crucial, example of Kant’s Categorical Imperative concerns killing another human being. Kant argued that one could not kill another human being without violating a moral absolute because in order to do so one would have to establish a rule that would be self-contradictory : “Everyone must kill everyone else.” Because the meaning of life is to live, everyone killing everyone else would contradict that meaning and would therefore violate the Categorical Imperative and fail to universalize. Killing, then, is immoral, and one should not kill.

3.4.4: The Practical Imperative
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Another important principle in Kant’s ethical system is that no human being should be thought of or used merely as a means for someone else’s end, that each human being is a unique end in himself or herself, morally speaking at least. This principle sometimes is referred to as Kant’s “ Practical Imperative .” It certainly seems to be an important principle if we consider fairness and equal treatment to be necessary attributes of any moral system. Incidentally, this principle also can operate as an antidote to the “cost–benefit analysis,” or “end-justifies-the-means,” problem found in connection with both forms of utilitarianism.

Let’s take an example of how this Practical Imperative might work in practice from the field of medical ethics in the area of human experimentation. Kant would oppose using a human being for experimental purposes “for the good of humanity” or for any other reason that would lead us to look upon a human being as merely a “means” to an “end.” Thus, in the case of experimentation on 100 babies now to save 10 million children’s lives in the future, Kant definitely would brand such experimentation as immoral. On the other hand, if an experimental procedure were the only way to save a child’s life and it also would furnish doctors with information that might well save lives in the future, Kant probably would allow it because in this case a human being would not merely be used as a means to an end but considered an end in himself or herself. That is, the experimental procedure would be therapeutic for the human being involved—in this case, the child.

3.4.5: Duty Rather Than Inclination
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Kant next spoke about obeying such rules out of a sense of duty. He said that each human being is inclined to act in certain ways. That is, each of us is inclined to do a variety of things such as give to the poor, stay in bed rather than go to work, rape someone, or be gentle to children. Because inclinations , according to Kant, are irrational and emotional and because we seem to be operating upon a basis of whim rather than reason when we follow them, people must force themselves to do what is moral out of a sense of duty. In other words, we have many inclinations of various sorts, some of which are moral and others immoral. If we are to act morally, however, we must rely on our reason and our will and act out of a sense of duty.