Systems of Ethics

How do you decide what is right and what is wrong?  Do you think that 'right' and 'wrong' exist as absolute, objective things that are beyond revision?  Do you think that they are given to us, perhaps by a creator, or do you think that humans define their own morals?

Tough questions.  They may not pop into your mind often, but they have increasingly been appearing in mine.

I have been giving some consideration to what I think is right and wrong, but more consideration still to how it is that I should determine what is right and wrong.  Perhaps you live your life according to a list of set in stone rules or maxims, like 'thou shall not kill/ steal', etc.

After a little consideration, any list of absolute rules soon reveals itself as insufficient.  Even common sense, fundamental rules that may seem unarguable or uncontroversial at first, soon crumble when applied to real life circumstances.  Let's take a simple premise such as 'it is wrong to kill'.  Soldiers cannot live by any such rule and yet they are not, generally, considered evil or immoral.  The rule is too general as it is in this form, think about the number of animals killed for human consumption, a good deal of people don't see this as wrong.  We may think we can strengthen the rule by adding some qualification or other, so how about 'it is wrong to kill an innocent human being'.  Now this does sound more sturdy. Don't agree too quickly, though. It may be a few moments before you can imagine an objection to this, but there are situations in which it may not apply.  What if an innocent human being is living in constant, debilitating pain?  If the person is of sound mind, but their life is devoid of any pleasure and they would prefer non-existence to perpetual agony, would our surely stated premise hold?  I don't think it would.  I don't think it would be wrong to kill an innocent human being in this circumstance.

A system of ethics where the individual relies on a set of rules may be referred to as Deontological ethics.  It is adherence to the rule or maxim that is important and determines whether one's action is right or wrong.

This isn't a system I am happy to use.  Although we may not often find ourselves in opposition to such rules as 'it is wrong to kill an innocent human being', it is clear that rules are unlikely ever to apply absolutely, in all circumstances.

So, having decided that Deontological ethics is not for us, where might we turn?  Well, what about if we consider the effect of our actions or decisions to be the important thing?  What if we judge our actions by the consequences to which they give rise?  If we think this sounds a little better, we may have some sympathy with a consequentialist approach to ethics and we may be interested in Utilitarianism.

Utilitarianism has many forms, but put in its classical form it judges actions as right or wrong by reference to the pleasure / pain or happiness / misery that they create. There are variations of Utilitarianism, just as there are versions of Deontological ethics, but the fundamental or classical form of utilitarianism is as stated above.  The first thing a Utilitarian approach does is to cut us free from the shackles of strict rules, which can never be universally applied in our grey, rather than black and white world and lives.

By considering what may be the outcome of various actions, weighing up which action will do the most good or cause the least pain/misery, we allow ourselves to me much more flexible in our judgements.  Nothing is wrong by rule, but anything may be wrong by consequence.

Various thought experiments have been used over the years to test an ethical system.  There are several variations of the following scenario:

A train is hurtling down a track, completely out of control and on a collision course with a group of 5 people, which it will reach in very short time.  As an observer of the incident some distance away, there is only 1 thing you can do to change the course of events, since you are not close enough to contact the people.  There is a switch near the train line that you could throw, which would have the effect of changing the course of the train to a side track.  On the side track 1 person is walking along, oblivious to events taking place.  What should you do?

Observing any deontology that requires you not to kill a human being would mean that you are powerless to change events and 5 people will die.  However, a utilitarian ethic would allow you to throw the switch, which would prevent the loss of 5 lives at the expense of 1.

You may not be happy about either of these outcomes and may feel that either result will be tragic.  You should.  However, I think it is possible to make a strong argument to suggest that a utilitarian approach of some kind suggests you should strongly consider throwing the switch. 

A utilitarian would agree that all persons have a value. Therefore the death of 1 million people is not just quantatively different from the death of 1 person, but also qualitatively different, by virtue of the quantity of people, each of whom has a value.  This shouldn't be controversial.  Our newspapers report air crash disasters, natural disasters, etc. on the front page.  When somebody dies crossing the road, this is tragic, but it is not generally found on the front of our national newspapers.  Therefore, without taking lightly the value of any individual's life, we might agree that 1,000,000 people dying is a worse result (involving more pain / misery by accumulation) than the sad death of 1 person.  This is an objective view, one we may take if we imagine ourselves observing the world as a disconnected 3rd party.  In life, obviously, we can only see through our own eyes and our subjective preferences for family members, friends, partners, etc., obviously mean that we place a premium value on certain people, but we can agree that objectively one person has a value equal to that of another.

So, if we agree that the death of 1,000,000 people is a worse consequence than the death of 1, we should agree that the death of 5 is worse than the death of 1, albeit by a smaller margin.  5 people suffering pain/misery/death is a worse outcome than 1 suffering the same.  As a utilitarian is interested in consequences of actions, the action that increases the overall happiness/pleasure and the least pain/misery, we can see that they might decide to throw the switch. 

The argument could be stated even more strongly.  Since a utilitarian framework is interested in consequences, little distinction may be made between act and omission.  Since it is a choice to do nothing, rather than throw the switch, and this choice brings about more pain/misery - the worst outcome - then a utilitarian may charge somebody who fails to act as being responsible for the greater tragedy.

You may think that you would be incapable of throwing the switch, since you would then be positively doing something that brings about the death of a person.  Maybe you wouldn't be able to do it and maybe neither would I, but that does not mean that utilitarianism is wrong or bad.  Maybe it just means that we couldn't do the right thing.  Maybe we wouldn't have what it takes.  Maybe this is because the sanctity of human life and the wrongness of killing have always been taught to us as an absolute rule.  But we have seen that the difference between act and omission in this scenario is the difference between a tragedy and a bigger tragedy.

Let’s modify the scenario.  What if the train is full of 1,000 people, headed for another train coming in the other direction, which also holds 1,000 people.  Unless we throw the switch to divert it to a side track, where it will kill a lone person strolling obliviously, 2000 people will die.  Given a choice of 2000 lives and 1, do you find the decision comes any easier?  Extrapolate it however you want, make the numbers as big as you want.  Even if you have to imagine that millions die at the expense of 1 before you would choose to positively act to kill 1 person, you are acknowledging that more people dying is a worse outcome than fewer; each life has equal value and therefore the act that is 'right' according to the consequences it creates, is the act to positively kill somebody.

I have been at pains to describe how and why the utilitarian might decide to kill someone, since it brings about the best consequences.  The consequences in this scenario are limited to 2 outcomes and both are bad.  The scenario isn't practical and isn't likely to be something one ever faces in life, but it is a dilemma that has been used as a thought experiment in some form or other for years.

You may think it a criticism of a utilitarian system of ethics that such a thing as killing is ever allowed. The example we've seen is extreme and both outcomes are bad, needless to say if an option existed to save all, this is what the utilitarian would choose.  However, just because something may seem intuitively wrong or traditionally wrong, our inquiry shouldn't stop there.  Ethics is something to think about and something to which we should apply reason.  Judging by your gut may not be the best thing.  Maybe your intuition will normally serve you well and generally result in the best outcome.  In more everyday matters I expect it will, but never let it go unchecked- serious things deserve serious consideration. 

Why I don't Eat other Animals

Quite recently, I decided not to eat meat. I struggled with the decision for a few weeks, having been a fairly enthusiastic carnivore for all of my previous 30 years, before deciding that being a vegetarian, a term I don't like all that much, was the morally correct thing to do.

I want to summarise my thought process when coming to this decision; to outline the dissonance that I was trying to resolve. You see, I didn't want, from a purely selfish point of view, to stop eating meat. I enjoyed eating nearly all types of meat and didn't even think, at the time, that I actually liked many vegetables. The basis of my decision and my objection to eating meat was entirely moral and, although I don't want to be seen as painting myself as courageous, it is the kind of decision that I think people might be tempted to defer indefinitely, as it involved an immediate sacrifice on my part, a change to my everyday life that I was making because I felt I had to, more than I wanted to at the time.

I can't tell you exactly what was the trigger, the thing that made me question my meat-eating and ask myself whether it was 'right'. I can tell you that I have always loved nature and animals and abhorred cruelty to them. I started to mull over the fact that I love the two dog members of our family as much as could be imagined, but that I would happily tuck in to a roasted piece of animal at the weekend, an animal that shared at least some characteristics with our 'pets' and probably a similar level of sentience; an animal that almost certainly experiences physical pain in a very similar way to us and whose instinct would ensure that it would fight to the very end in order to cling on to its life.

During the couple of weeks after first considering this, I avoided meat products and thought things through. I wanted to make sure that this was the right thing to do and was something that I thought was unavoidable, such was the difference I felt it would make to my everyday life. I began by tackling what I thought were all the common pro-meat arguments, the arguments I had all too easily assumed reasonable if the topic of vegetarianism came up previous to my serious consideration of my position, some of which, I am now ashamed to say, I have probably even uttered in my defence. Although I feel differently now, at the time I think part of me was hoping that I would find an argument reasonable enough to allow me to continue eating meat, but, as you will see, that proved harder than I thought.

Argument number 1: We are Designed to Eat Meat. This sounds quite attractive at first. Humans have been designed to eat meat with sharp incisor teeth for cutting, a digestion that will cope with flesh and so on. Of course, we have already discussed the illusion of design in other posts. Assuming you accept Evolution by Natural Selection as the 'designer', rather than a supernatural creator (and you should), the argument must be stated quite differently: we haven't been designed to eat meat, but our bodies have become adapted to eating meat since it has proved a successful strategy for our ancestors to be carnivorous. In other words, those ancestors of ours that ate meat were at a competitive advantage and it was their genes that became disproportionately represented in the gene pool, hence adaptations such as sharp teeth.

Darwinian Selection has nothing to say on morals. It tells us only what was successful previously and has no preference about 'right' and 'wrong'; it simply selects what works. It may have been a successful strategy for example, earlier on in our ancestry, for men to pounce on women and force them to copulate. It is not hard to imagine, since it was only from the beginning of the nineteenth century that women's rights movements began to argue that it was possible for a man to rape his wife. This was seen as legally impossible at the time, such were a man's conjugal rights. With abortion being a relatively recent process, it seems hard to imagine that there wasn't a time where this would have happened as I imagine it would have been a successful strategy, although something we would obviously now condemn.

So, because we have done something in the past, because our bodies have become adapted to allow us to eat meat, has no contribution to the argument of whether we should eat meat.

Argument number 2: Other Animals Eat Meat, Why Shouldn't We? I consider this argument less appealing than the one we have just discussed. It is true, lots of animals are carnivorous and seek their nutrition through the killing and devouring of other animals. We are part of a food chain and we have the physical tools that allow us to eat meat. But, and this is a big but, we set different moral standards for ourselves than we do other animals. It might be said that humans have a higher level of sentience than other animals, even than other higher mammals such as apes. Maybe we have a higher developed consciousness and sense of self. We could discuss these things at some length, but it's the consequence of this line of reasoning that I wish to use as my point. When a dog bites another dog, we don't charge it with assault. We don't put non-human animals to trial. We don't expect other animals to behave as we do.

The human animal is capable of a range of faculty not open to other animals, whether this makes us special or not is another argument, I would however argue that it places on us an altogether higher level of responsibility and accountability. If we can contrive such things as morals, principles, laws and so on, then it is our duty to follow them.

So, while I may not relish the fact that a lion is at this moment squeezing the neck of an antelope so as to crush it's windpipe, before tearing it's flesh to pieces, I wouldn't subject the lion to the same moral standards as I would myself. For the lion, this way of life is essential to its survival, for me it is not.

Argument number 3: We Must Eat Meat in order to be Healthy. I'm not even sure how wide spread this myth is anymore, but it is something that was suggested to me when I revealed my decision to some people. Meat is convenient in that it contains a full range of amino acids and may be considered a complete protein. Certain vegetables that are high in protein will be deficient as far as a couple of these amino acids are concerned and therefore might not be considered as complete a protein. All that it is necessary for the non-meat eater to do, is combine certain complementary food groups, so that by overlapping certain food items throughout the course of a day, the full range of amino acids are ingested. This is all that is required.

Argument number 4: Why Should We Care about Animals? Some people don't share my opinion and, although I wish that they did, I have to accept that not everybody feels the same towards non-human (or even human) animals as I do. I have a simple way of looking at this that might not be persuasive to everybody, but it helps me put things into context. Consider which animals you may be prepared to eat. Most people wouldn't be happy to eat another human, although, of course, there are exceptions in some parts of the world. However, the consensus in the 'civilised' world seems to be that cannibalism is taboo. Would you eat an ape? An animal that shares 99. whatever % of our genome. Apes have been seen to display a range of emotions, including bereavement emotions of yearning and mourning. They experience pain in a very similar way to us. You soon realise, as you go through any list of animals, all of which are related to every other animal on the planet including us, that there is a continuum of sentience. I'm not going to try and argue that eating a pig is like eating a human family member, but it is possible to draw a line of relation from you to that pig, although the line would be much longer and would take a less linear path than would the line to a human family member.

The arbitrary lines we draw, which are often cultural, between our love of domestic animals such as dogs, and our factory farming and mass slaughter of other animals of similar intelligence, such as pigs, seems to reveal a hypocritical, non-thinking and non-caring attitude towards non-human animals on the whole.

As a 'higher' mammal, I feel a level of relatedness to other animals and I feel my position is a privileged one. I have no natural predators (although humans do a good enough job of predating each other) and I can choose how I act towards other animals with no other immediate consequences, in the main, than the effect on my conscience. I do feel a sense of duty to all fellow animals.

Another thought exercise worth considering is this: imagine if a super intelligent alien life form, one that considered us just a stupid animal and entirely separate from them, came to earth. Imagine that we were the equivalent of a pig or a sheep to this uber-intelligent life form. What if they decided that they would eat us? What if we were in the position of the pig, unable to communicate with the aliens, but just as able to feel pain, fear and a sense of self-preservation? Well, our fate would be the same as the pig, we could only hope that the aliens would feel a moral obligation towards us and would not be happy simply to farm us for food and produce.

There are of course many arguments one can consider, but these are the major ones that spring to my mind. When deciding exactly what I felt that I could eat, my main considerations were a life form's ability to feel pain and level of self-awareness. I have decided that I will not eat fish, which I know is something that some vegetarians are happy to do. I’m not sure why, probably they reason that fish are the equivalent of swimming vegetables, with small brains and little or no ability to feel pain.

So, getting to the point of my stance and why I have taken it. I resolved that because I am able to satisfy my nutrition and my hunger without eating meat, then the only reasons that I would continue to eat meat are due to matters of convenience or palate. I decided that these were not good enough reasons to eat other animals. My vegetarianism is emphatically about choice; because I live at a time and in a place where I have a choice of whether I eat meat, and because I will suffer no ill effects that may be considered serious in not eating meat, morally, this leaves me with little choice!

There are some differences between my position and what may be considered the ‘mainstream’ position. For example, if animals lived free lives and died natural deaths, I would have no quarrel with then eating them. Of course, this would not satisfy the demand of the human consumer and the meat would be old and probably not considered good. Likewise, if, or maybe when would be putting it better, scientists are able to culture animal meat in the lab, meat with no sentience or mind attached to it, I would have no objection to eating it.

I don’t want to be an evangelist in my vegetarianism, but I did want to put my thoughts down in writing and see how reasonable my position sounded. I can’t honestly say that I would be disappointed if this piece prompted others to consider theirs.

Morality Without God

Do you believe that you need to be commanded to be good? Do you believe in 'good' and 'evil' as absolute, objective concepts defined by a supernatural entity? I don't.

I believe that our notion of good and bad can be explained rationally, without reference to the supernatural. I also believe that the atheist can be seen to have the moral advantage when compared to the religious believer.

Before I outline what I believe, let me explain what I mean when I refer to the concepts of good and evil within a religious context. As far as I have seen, although there may be rare exceptions, religion considers good and evil to be the whim of god. They are not defined by humans, we must accept them as outside of us, as absolutes that escape our revision. Good is good, not because it is - because of any characteristics we naturally associate with goodness, or because we think it is, by reasoning or instinct, but because god says that it is. Good doesn't have to be that which we think is good, it may even be that which we think is evil, its only qualifier is that god says it is good. For instance, I don't think it is good, as detailed in a bible story, that Abraham was willing to kill his son, so to prove his loyalty and obedience to god. As far as the religious position goes, I am wrong and god is right. What Abraham did, moreover what he was prepared to do, was 'good'.

It is interesting to consider what might happen if god were to reconsider what is good and what is bad. Imagine if god decided that indiscriminate murder was good. The religious couldn't argue; they accept good and evil as absolutes outside of human revision. But surely god could re-define good and evil, any omnipotent god surely has it within his, her or it's power, only a divine change of opinion is needed.

If religious people believe good and evil are defined by god, then they must concede that they are not absolute terms, but merely that which god likes or abhors. This surely could change. This seems to me to make the definitions of good and evil to be no less arbitrary than if they were decided by humans. In fact it makes them more so, because they are not set by those to whom they apply.

What is wrong with humans deciding for themselves what they consider good and evil? The religious believer may say that this would leave us all drowning in a sea of moral relativism, with no compass by which discern true good and evil. This is another way of saying: we do not know that which is truly good or evil, without being told. This is simply another argument from authority.

Let's get one stumbling block out of the way. I don't care if good and evil are absolute. I don't care if good and evil exist. All that matters, is that humankind, as a whole, define what we mean by 'good' and 'evil' and set our laws accordingly. I don't see any problems on the horizon using this approach. Does this mean that anything may be permitted? No, it doesn't. I suspect that evolution has had a significant part to play in instilling in us all a set of shared morals. It is easy to see, for instance, how evolution may have favoured those who displayed altruism towards kin or close neighbours, so that this became an inherent characteristic within us all.

Good and evil according to the will of god, surely renders the concepts arbitrary, less intrinsic and less satisfying than if they were evolved characteristics that had emerged as a result of social exchange between our ancestors. I believe that good and evil, as concepts, need only mean things that humans agree as broadly beneficial or hurtful to themselves and others, in specific contexts.

The definition of good and evil may shift over time, according to the contemporary cultural zeitgeist, but I don't imagine that what we consider extremely good or extremely evil will ever switch categories. This may not sit easy with some, they may say that certain things are, by their very nature, evil and must be absolutely so. I don't personally find this a big problem, practically, as I find it hard to countenance a world in which the majority of humankind has decided that something such as indiscriminate murder may be considered good. However, even in the extreme examples, it is the context and the consensus which are important. If all humans, or at least a very large majority, consider something to be good or evil - this is what is important. Whether this something is absolutely, objectively good or evil is not significant, particularly if this simply means that which god likes or abhors.

Ask yourself, do you think that something is good because you think that a supernatural authority has told us so, or because you can see that it has a benefit for humankind? Keep in mind that whatever good you are picturing may not fit into both categories.

Needless to say, I don't accept good or evil as absolutes or as divine concepts; I think these are things that we can define for ourselves. I don't worry about the semantics of the words and I don't mind that the definitions are changeable, in fact, I think that this is a good thing. Without revision, the morality of the bible may struggle to deal with things that the modern world has come to accept or come to abhor, such as homosexuality or slavery, for example. A dogmatic and unrevised concept of good and evil does not leave any room for the reconsideration or reshuffling according to social change.

I think the moral atheist, who considers good and evil, broadly speaking, on a benefit vs pain basis in respect of his or her fellow humans; who is good, not as avoidance of hell, or as an aspiration to heaven, but in deepest sincerity and agreement with the wider population, with whom an evolved, fundamental moral base is shared, may make a greater claim to morality than many who act only as a result of commandment from their god.