Who should decide?

What does it mean to be ‘moral’? What does it mean to be ‘immoral’? Many philosophies and religions have offered answers throughout history. Since the 18th century, however, we could characterize the bulk of Western moral theory by placing Jeremy Bentham in one corner, and Immanuel Kant in the other.

A mob surrounds each philosopher, slinging mud at the other side.

“Morality means maximizing happiness!” yell Bentham’s utilitarians. “Being moral means securing the greatest good for the greatest number!”

“Nein nein nein,” respond Kant’s disciples. “Morality is not about seeking some happy outcome. Being moral means doing the right thing: it’s about respecting rational agency, and adhering to the universal principles of reason.”

Bentham’s approach is a form of what philosophers today call consequentialism: that morality means maximizing good outcomes. If our actions have good consequences, they are moral.

By contrast, Kant’s ethics is a form of what’s known as deontology: that morality means following moral rules and fulfilling duties. The consequences of our actions don’t matter; their moral worth is intrinsic.

For example, Kant argues it’s always wrong to lie. Telling the truth takes precedence over any and all ‘good’ consequences a lie might produce.

But for Bentham’s utilitarians, this rigidity is ridiculous - and dangerous. Is Kant seriously saying that, if the world was about to end, and the only way to save it was to lie to someone, he’d still deem that lie immoral? Clearly the moral thing to do in such circumstances would be whatever it takes to save the world: the ends justify the means…

While many philosophers have been developing these opposing frameworks for the last few centuries, and some have made attempts to unify them, others have expressed frustration with the state of the debate.

Isn’t ethics meant to, you know, help us live a good life? Do we just offer everyone Bentham and Kant, and hope for the best?

20th-century thinker Philippa Foot offers a pithy line that might summarize the complaint here:

"If the Martians take the writings of moral philosophers as a guide to what goes on on this planet they will get a shock when they arrive."

What do we actually want from moral philosophy? An increasingly narrow technical debate centered around the binary of ‘morally right’ and ‘morally wrong’? Or might we broaden our horizons a little to better capture the richness, nuance, and variety of living a good life?

Maybe dropping the obsession with ‘morality’ might help us provide a more holistic account of what it means to live a good life in a complicated world…

In her famous 1958 article Modern Moral Philosophy, the English philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe channels such frustrations into a blistering critique about the language used by moral philosophers.

Elizabeth Anscombe: stop spouting rubbish about ‘morality’

While the words ‘moral’ and ‘immoral’ might carry psychological force, Anscombe observes, they don’t actually give us much guidance. In fact, detached from their original theoretical and religious contexts, invoking such terms simply causes confusion.

Philosophers can and do debate the definitions of ‘morality’ endlessly; meanwhile, we have a whole host of virtue and vice terms at our disposal, the definitions of which are already clear.

What offers more information, for example: ‘your actions were immoral’, or: ‘your actions were dishonest’?

Perhaps moral philosophy would be in less disastrous shape if, for now, we dropped the concept of ‘morality’ altogether.

That doesn’t mean giving up on ethical judgment, or thinking that anything goes; it means questioning whether the abstract language of ‘morality’ actually hinders more than it clarifies our thinking.

To see what Anscombe is getting at, suppose someone is sentenced for a crime it’s widely known they haven’t committed.

Utilitarians may debate whether this is ‘moral’ or ‘immoral’ depending on all sorts of contextual and consequential details. Maybe the person is guilty of other heinous crimes, but can only be pinned for this one. Maybe it would prevent a war.

No matter how we switch up the details, however, someone being sentenced for a crime they didn’t commit is the very definition of the term unjust.

“And here we see the superiority of the term ‘unjust’ over the terms ‘morally right’ and ‘morally wrong’,” Anscombe comments:

"For in the context of English moral philosophy… it appears legitimate to discuss whether it might be ‘morally right’ in some circumstances to adopt that procedure; but it cannot be argued that the procedure would in any circumstances be just."

When thinking about the good life, then, rather than relatively empty or ‘thin’ concepts like ‘morality’, Anscombe recommends we use ‘thick’, action-guiding concepts like ‘truthful’ and ‘untruthful’, ‘just’ and ‘unjust’, ‘loyal’ and ‘disloyal’, ‘courageous’ and ‘cowardly’.

To see why, consider which of these two approaches offers a clearer prescription for living well:

• To live a good life, try not to act in ways that are morally wrong

• To live a good life, try not to act in ways that are selfish, dishonest, disloyal, ungrateful, unsympathetic, thoughtless, rude, arrogant, materialistic, cowardly, jealous, inconsiderate, intolerant, ignorant, irresponsible, etc…

Anscombe’s point is that it’s difficult to ask whether something is intrinsically or morally ‘wrong’ without invoking lots of other philosophical baggage. It is far simpler - and more precise - to ask if something is unjust, or thoughtless, or disrespectful…

The revival of virtue ethics

Following her paper, many thinkers saw the wisdom in Anscombe’s view. Rather than argue endlessly about what constitutes a singular ‘morality’, rather than invoking a moral version of ‘ought’ (a hangover from law conceptions of ethics and religion), ethicists could come back down to earth. They could better describe and account for the challenging complexity of our lived experience by using the rich, specific moral vocabulary already at their disposal.

After all, ancient philosophers like Aristotle wrote wonderful works on ethics by harnessing such terms, without tripping up on or perpetually returning to the definition or ‘grounding’ of morality.

Anscombe herself thought we needed to build out a philosophy of psychology before proceeding further: until we have a more coherent picture of intention, obligation, and action, we should set moral theory aside.

But Anscombe’s arguments proved pivotal in influencing the revival of virtue ethics, which has established itself in moral theory as a major rival to consequentialism and deontology.

Some virtue ethicists suggest we can reclaim the word ‘ought’ from the grand esotericism of morality, and simply use it in the same way we might say a plant ‘ought’ to get water and sunshine. To flourish, a human ‘ought’ to be wise, temperate, honest, and so on…

Aristotelianism, Confucianism, Stoicism: none of these moral philosophies needed complicated conceptions of ‘morality’ in order to inform us about living well.

Rather than ‘morally right’ and ‘morally wrong’, it is action-guiding concepts like courage, wisdom, temperance, kindness, compassion, justice, and integrity - long championed by ancient philosophers from East and West - that show us what it means to develop good character and, accordingly, live a good life.