Thank you. has moral beliefs. I'm not thinking
of this in some abstract way. I'm thinking of
just the everyday judgments that we make about
what is good or bad or right or wrong, permissible
or not, and so on. Stealing and murdering is
wrong. Helping others in general is generally
good to do. Lying, well, maybe that depends on
what you're lying about or who you're lying to.
But everyone has some moral beliefs. Have you
ever asked why something is right or wrong? Is
it because of some concern over fairness? Is
it because of the harm that's done? Is it because
it's against the law? If you've ever watched
Animaniacs, I'm dating myself here, but there
was this character named Mindy, and I think that
was her name. She would go around and ask all
these adults, right, the question why to the
point of absurdity, right? But that's a line
of question. I'm thinking of here, right? Like
murder is wrong. Well, why? Because it hurts
others. Well, why is it wrong to hurt others?
Because we should care about others' well -being.
Well, why should I care about others' well -being?
And so on, right? This is a central question
that is being addressed in ethical theories,
right? Or what I want to call, what's often called
theoretical ethics, right? It's the attempt to
get at the heart of what makes something right
or wrong, right? The nature of rightness and
wrongness, good and bad. Now, you might think
this line of inquiry is a fascinating abstract
exercise, but that it has no import for what
you do on your day -to -day lives. Because let's
be honest, before you even explore ethical theories,
you have your own moral beliefs. As I just said,
you have moral beliefs. You make moral judgments
for all kinds of reasons in the way that you
do. I think it would be a mistake to just set
aside ethical theories wholesale, right? The
truth is that humans are great at making up justifications
for what they do, right? We create justifications
out of thin air, right? And those justifications
are rarely consistent. They're not. We say whatever
we need to ourselves in order to justify whatever
it is that we want to justify in that moment.
We could care less if we're being hypocritical.
Some people care more than others, but in general,
I mean, again, like a lot of this is, without
even knowing it, we create these justifications
to, in some sense, protect ourselves, right?
We say that lying is wrong when we are negatively
impacted by it, but justify our own lying if
it serves our needs, appealing to maybe some
exception to the rule or something like that.
We say others should follow all these seemingly
pointless rules. but are quick to find a way
to justify our own breaking of the rules by either
diminishing the impact or the authority that
the rule has. You know, I do this, honestly,
I do this every time I'm speeding on the roads,
right? I justify it to myself. It's like, yeah,
everyone else is speeding. This is perfectly
fine. And then when it's like when a cop pulls
me over for speeding, then I'm abhorred by the
fact that they like. they would even pull me
over. I was like, how dare you, like for speeding,
right? As long as it was safe, right? It doesn't
matter whether or not I was speeding, right?
Okay, look, sidetracked. Given that we have this
bias in our own favor, it is even more important,
I think, for us to reflect on the ways our biases
infect our moral judgments. And theories here,
I think, serve as a wonderful guiding light.
It's a way of practicing consistency in our beliefs.
Regardless of which ethical theory you hold to
be true, whichever one you're drawn to or have
a leaning towards, it doesn't matter to me. One
of the things I think is really helpful about
at least exploring these theories and talking
about what kind of reasons we have for adopting
the theory versus not. The reason I think these
theories are so helpful is that one of the things
that theories do is it enforces a degree of certainty
in how you justify your moral beliefs, because
they need to be justified in the way that the
theory dictates, right? Should be justified.
And so your actions then should be a reflection
of this sort of consistency, right? For instance,
it's hard for me to eat meat from a grocery store
if the moral theory I hold claims that any sort
of unnecessary harm to any sentient being is
wrong. Let's say utilitarianism is an example
of this. Knowing that most, if not all, of the
meat at the grocery store involves some degree
of unnecessary harm to animals in the process
of meat production, I would be a hypocrite. I
would be violating this theory and, in some sense,
my own moral judgment then, right? I would have
some degree of inconsistency here if I were to
then eat meat from grocery stores, right? And
so this is just a simple way of kind of saying,
look. What are these theories kind of trying
to do? Well, one thing it's trying to do is trying
to get at the nature of rightness and wrongness,
but the other thing that it actually ends up
doing is that it forces us to at least have consistent
justification for the moral beliefs that we come
to hold. And then what that at least helps us
do is to keep ourselves in check, right? It helps
us keep ourselves in check. It prevents us from
just making up whatever reason that we want to
to justify whatever we feel like in the given
moment. In fact, not only do we have to justify
it to ourselves and be consistent internally,
right, but other people can now then point to
that sort of inconsistency. Other people can
see, you know, like, hey, you hold these sets
of, you know, principles based off of this theory.
and you seem to be violating it, not just in
terms of beliefs that you hold, but in terms
of the actual practices that you engage in, you
seem to be violating it. And that sort of inconsistency
should keep us in check and prevent us from just
making up justifications for whatever we feel
like justifying. There is, however, also... An
additional reason, I think, for valuing ethical
theories. Look, many times people come to disagree
on what is the right thing to do, right? I mean,
I don't have to tell you. You've probably had
moral disagreements with other people for all
kinds of reasons, right? Sometimes disagreement
is grounded in some difference in belief about
what is the case, right? Like sometimes we disagree
on, let's say, whether or not, you know, I don't
know. animals can feel pain to a certain degree
based off of the neuroscience. You might hold
a belief that's true. I might maybe hold a false
belief because I misunderstood the neurology
of animals or something like that, right? Okay,
so sometimes the disagreement is just because
somebody holds false, maybe both people hold
false beliefs, right? And so as a result, you
might disagree about what's the best course of
action to take. Other times, though, there's
a much deeper and a moral disagreement in the
works, right? Something much more fundamental,
like a difference in principle, right? About
what we believe is right or wrong, about what
makes something right or wrong, right? And here's
the thing. If we don't have explicit discussions
in identifying not only what we believe to be
right or wrong and why it is that it's right
or wrong, And other people share what they believe
and their justification for believing something
is right or wrong. If we don't actually have
that exchange, we might not ever get to realize
that sometimes there's just a much more fundamental
disagreement about what we value or what we take
to be the guiding principle for what makes something
right or wrong. Some of us value consequences
over anything else. And so... As a result, it
makes sense then from that perspective that you'd
be willing to do certain heinous, sometimes what
people might call unjust or unfair acts in order
to create the best possible outcome, right? But
others don't value consequences in that way.
In fact, others might value integrity far more,
even at the cost of horrific consequences, right?
Some value individual rights even to the cost
of collective needs. But others might value collective
needs much more than they do individual rights,
and so they're willing to violate some individual
rights in order to protect the collective. These
types of differences are genuine moral disagreements,
and rooted in them are disagreements about which
moral principles should take precedent over others.
These are theoretical, in many ways, theoretical
differences. These are differences in beliefs
about what makes something right or wrong. So
one of the benefits of actually talking about
ethical theories is that not only does it give
you some consistency internally, but it also
gives us the language and a way of making sense
of disagreements so that we at least have the
starting point of a meaningful discussion. where
we can actually know what it is that we're actually
disagreeing about. And if we have different core
values, that's going to say a lot about what
we can or maybe cannot do to bridge the gap that
exists between us. Like some of this, unfortunately,
might just be a non -starter, but at least if
we acknowledge that there's some core difference
in value that is leading us in different directions
in our moral judgments, and that these are not
differences in values that we can resolve in
any way, at least not through rational arguments,
then one of the benefits then would be that you
would stop trying to do some rational arguing
for or against certain positions. It would just
be a waste of time and energy. Now, there are
other ways of convincing people. These are ways
that we go about convincing people through relationships,
through rhetoric, through... I don't know, through
something else, but it's not going to be through
rational discourse, right? But at least you know
that it's not going to be resolved in such a
simple way that you can't convince the other
person otherwise if there's a much more fundamental
disagreement in value. So at the end of the day,
these theories are going to do a lot to help
us bring to light some of the differences that
we have, some of the inconsistencies we... in
our own beliefs and our own actions. And it's
going to provide us with helpful language that
allows us to make better sense of our own moral
views and the views of others and to be able
to engage in meaningful discourse between, you
know, amongst ourselves, right? And hold ourselves
and other people accountable for violating the
very principles that we claim to live by. And
I think all of these things would be a great
thing for all of us to be able to do. In the
least, at least, I think we would, you know,
face less frustration trying to, you know, trying
to do something that will bear no fruit and instead
focusing our attention on, you know, the kind
of discourse that will actually bring about some
enlightenment, bring about real change, again,
in ourselves or in others.