DO MORALS MATTER?
Summary SumSam [2018]
Do morals matter?..................................................................................................................................1
1 Thinking about ethics..........................................................................................................................2
2 Why not do wrong?.............................................................................................................................2
3 Is the ethical a human construct or factual realm?...............................................................................3
4 Do you just do what is right or do you try to predict the outcomes?....................................................4
5 Natural law and virtue ethics...............................................................................................................6
6 Ethics and the Bible.............................................................................................................................7
7 Learning from the wisdom of the world..............................................................................................8
8 Humanism: do we need God to realize that people just matter?........................................................10
9 Dilemmas in bed................................................................................................................................11
10 Dilemmas in business......................................................................................................................13
11 Dilemmas in medicine.....................................................................................................................14
12 Dilemmas involving violence and power.........................................................................................17
13 Dilemmas in government and leadership.........................................................................................18
14 Dilemmas and the future: the environment, animals, and plants......................................................19
1
,1 Thinking about ethics
Thinking about ethics is dangerous, but needed
In this introduction chapter the author firstly warns the reader: ‘Thinking about ethics can damage
your ethical health’, because the trouble with ethical reflection as an adult is that you can unpack all
the good work that your parents did when bringing you up, starting questions like: What is wrong with
selfishness? However, the author explains that a new map of the ethical territory is needed, because of
contemporary developments, for example cloning in the medical discourse. The goal of his book is to
cultivate an MSP (see glossary).
GLOSSARY
Descriptive ethics Descriptive ethics describes the major ethical traditions both historically
and today. The task is understanding.
Ethics Rational reflection upon human behaviour to gain understanding, rather
than to decide whether it is wrong or not.
Morals The actual practical problems that we face in a particular situation or
circumstance.
MSP Morally Serious Person: a person who takes ethical discourse seriously
and strives to live in a positive and constructive way.
Normative ethics Normative ethics will try to adjudicate between positions: what is right,
rather than describing the ways that others believe are right.
2 Why not do wrong?
The link between ethical vocabulary and religion
The thought exercise at the start of this chapter challenges us to decide whether an ostensibly
“immoral act” can be justified by an enormous potential personal gain. At the heart of that thought
exercise is the question about the nature of ethics, which is an extremely difficult question because of
the ethical vocabulary (“ought”, “right”, “wrong”). One can immediately see why one doesn’t go very
far in the ethical discussion before one encounters religion: the “ought” makes sense because God had
built into the universe certain moral truths that are then binding upon us. This book will not assume
that to be ethical one need to be religious, but it says that it does look at first sight as if the religious
people have an advantage.
Nietzsche’s answer to the main questions of this chapter
What is wrong with selfishness? Why not do wrong? are the main questions of this chapter. One
answer (given by the nineteenth-century genius Friedrich Nietzsche) to this questions is ‘nothing’.
Nietzsche anticipated both naturalism and certain forms of postmodernism, and his views are a radical
challenge to truth and morality as traditionally understood. Part of his message is: knowledge is
difficult, truth is fiction, and morality now must be invented.
Moral terminology, as things stand, is dependent on religion. Religion is no longer a cultural option in
the West because of the rise of the physical and social sciences. Therefore traditional morality must go
and moral words need new meanings.
2
, GLOSSARY
Naturalism The view that asserts there is nothing beyond the natural world.
Postmodernism The challenge to the belief of (pre)modernity that there is an explanation
for reality that we can identify as true.
3 Is the ethical a human construct or factual realm?
In this chapter we shall explore the fundamental nature of ethical discourse, and we find two main
options. You can see the ethical as:
1. Relative to culture, a human construct that frees individuals to pick and choose their own
ethical system.
2. Factual realm: something that has been built into the nature of the universe in some way.
The ethical as human construct
Arguments for this view are as formulated by J.L. Mackie:
1. Disagreement about moral codes exists between different groups and classes, so it is more a
matter of cultural invention than discovery. (Embedded in this argument is a further one: there
are anthropological explanations for the diverse moral codes in the world).
Refutation: Every viewpoint and discovery will have a psychological motivation or
aspect, but this fact cannot determine whether the matter involves issues of truth.
2. Queerness: the objectivist needs to explain exactly where these moral values are located and
how we discover them, and since the different sources of different cultures for ethical rules
(e.g. Bible, Qu’ran) are all different, no one can be sure which one is the ‘real’ authorative
guide to human behavior.
Refutation: The source of ethical rules is God, according to theists. Mackie’s
confidence that there are no good arguments for the existence of God (who provides
the ethical rules) is not shared by everyone.
In this view both religion and morality arose at a point in human evolution when the mystery of the
universe needed a God or gods to make sense of it all.
Ethical objectivity / factual realm
Arguments for this view are:
1. Moral language: Close examination of the nature of moral language seems to imply an
obligation from beyond us that often conflict with our self-interest. Clearly, the language of
moral assertions is intended to be objective.
Refutation: Moral language has its roots in religion and it therefore sounds as if it
were ‘objective’. However, to think of the ethical in these ways today is impossible
for our modern culture.
2. Nature of justice: Justice presupposes the objectivity of value. One defense that is never
permitted in our courts is the argument that, given moral relativity, my morality is different
from yours and you have no basis on which to judge my action.
Refutation: It is possible to see that most basic ethical injunctions are in one’s self-
interest: one does not kill because one does not want to be killed.
3. Areas of agreement in the ethical code advocated by many cultures.
Refutation: It is easy to overstate the argument: there are many differences between
ethical rules of different cultures.
3
Summary SumSam [2018]
Do morals matter?..................................................................................................................................1
1 Thinking about ethics..........................................................................................................................2
2 Why not do wrong?.............................................................................................................................2
3 Is the ethical a human construct or factual realm?...............................................................................3
4 Do you just do what is right or do you try to predict the outcomes?....................................................4
5 Natural law and virtue ethics...............................................................................................................6
6 Ethics and the Bible.............................................................................................................................7
7 Learning from the wisdom of the world..............................................................................................8
8 Humanism: do we need God to realize that people just matter?........................................................10
9 Dilemmas in bed................................................................................................................................11
10 Dilemmas in business......................................................................................................................13
11 Dilemmas in medicine.....................................................................................................................14
12 Dilemmas involving violence and power.........................................................................................17
13 Dilemmas in government and leadership.........................................................................................18
14 Dilemmas and the future: the environment, animals, and plants......................................................19
1
,1 Thinking about ethics
Thinking about ethics is dangerous, but needed
In this introduction chapter the author firstly warns the reader: ‘Thinking about ethics can damage
your ethical health’, because the trouble with ethical reflection as an adult is that you can unpack all
the good work that your parents did when bringing you up, starting questions like: What is wrong with
selfishness? However, the author explains that a new map of the ethical territory is needed, because of
contemporary developments, for example cloning in the medical discourse. The goal of his book is to
cultivate an MSP (see glossary).
GLOSSARY
Descriptive ethics Descriptive ethics describes the major ethical traditions both historically
and today. The task is understanding.
Ethics Rational reflection upon human behaviour to gain understanding, rather
than to decide whether it is wrong or not.
Morals The actual practical problems that we face in a particular situation or
circumstance.
MSP Morally Serious Person: a person who takes ethical discourse seriously
and strives to live in a positive and constructive way.
Normative ethics Normative ethics will try to adjudicate between positions: what is right,
rather than describing the ways that others believe are right.
2 Why not do wrong?
The link between ethical vocabulary and religion
The thought exercise at the start of this chapter challenges us to decide whether an ostensibly
“immoral act” can be justified by an enormous potential personal gain. At the heart of that thought
exercise is the question about the nature of ethics, which is an extremely difficult question because of
the ethical vocabulary (“ought”, “right”, “wrong”). One can immediately see why one doesn’t go very
far in the ethical discussion before one encounters religion: the “ought” makes sense because God had
built into the universe certain moral truths that are then binding upon us. This book will not assume
that to be ethical one need to be religious, but it says that it does look at first sight as if the religious
people have an advantage.
Nietzsche’s answer to the main questions of this chapter
What is wrong with selfishness? Why not do wrong? are the main questions of this chapter. One
answer (given by the nineteenth-century genius Friedrich Nietzsche) to this questions is ‘nothing’.
Nietzsche anticipated both naturalism and certain forms of postmodernism, and his views are a radical
challenge to truth and morality as traditionally understood. Part of his message is: knowledge is
difficult, truth is fiction, and morality now must be invented.
Moral terminology, as things stand, is dependent on religion. Religion is no longer a cultural option in
the West because of the rise of the physical and social sciences. Therefore traditional morality must go
and moral words need new meanings.
2
, GLOSSARY
Naturalism The view that asserts there is nothing beyond the natural world.
Postmodernism The challenge to the belief of (pre)modernity that there is an explanation
for reality that we can identify as true.
3 Is the ethical a human construct or factual realm?
In this chapter we shall explore the fundamental nature of ethical discourse, and we find two main
options. You can see the ethical as:
1. Relative to culture, a human construct that frees individuals to pick and choose their own
ethical system.
2. Factual realm: something that has been built into the nature of the universe in some way.
The ethical as human construct
Arguments for this view are as formulated by J.L. Mackie:
1. Disagreement about moral codes exists between different groups and classes, so it is more a
matter of cultural invention than discovery. (Embedded in this argument is a further one: there
are anthropological explanations for the diverse moral codes in the world).
Refutation: Every viewpoint and discovery will have a psychological motivation or
aspect, but this fact cannot determine whether the matter involves issues of truth.
2. Queerness: the objectivist needs to explain exactly where these moral values are located and
how we discover them, and since the different sources of different cultures for ethical rules
(e.g. Bible, Qu’ran) are all different, no one can be sure which one is the ‘real’ authorative
guide to human behavior.
Refutation: The source of ethical rules is God, according to theists. Mackie’s
confidence that there are no good arguments for the existence of God (who provides
the ethical rules) is not shared by everyone.
In this view both religion and morality arose at a point in human evolution when the mystery of the
universe needed a God or gods to make sense of it all.
Ethical objectivity / factual realm
Arguments for this view are:
1. Moral language: Close examination of the nature of moral language seems to imply an
obligation from beyond us that often conflict with our self-interest. Clearly, the language of
moral assertions is intended to be objective.
Refutation: Moral language has its roots in religion and it therefore sounds as if it
were ‘objective’. However, to think of the ethical in these ways today is impossible
for our modern culture.
2. Nature of justice: Justice presupposes the objectivity of value. One defense that is never
permitted in our courts is the argument that, given moral relativity, my morality is different
from yours and you have no basis on which to judge my action.
Refutation: It is possible to see that most basic ethical injunctions are in one’s self-
interest: one does not kill because one does not want to be killed.
3. Areas of agreement in the ethical code advocated by many cultures.
Refutation: It is easy to overstate the argument: there are many differences between
ethical rules of different cultures.
3
