Tibor R. Machan - A Primer On Ethics (1997) PDF
Tibor R. Machan - A Primer On Ethics (1997) PDF
Tibor R. Machan - A Primer On Ethics (1997) PDF
....
PRIMER
....
ON ETHICS
A
PRIMER
ON ETHICS
By Tibor R. Machan
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Machan, Tibor R.
A primer on ethics / by Tibor R. Machan.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8061-2946-8 (cloth: alk. paper)
1. Ethics. I. Title.
BJI012.M324 1997
170-dc21 96-6502
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For my wonderful children
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Kate, Thomas, and Erin '
CONTENTS
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
1. Preliminary Considerations 3
What Is Ethics? 5
Why Study Ethics? 7
How Is Ethics Possible? 10
2. Assumptions Made in Ethics 11
Free Will? 13
Moral Skepticism 23
The Best Theory Is As True As Can Be 27
3. Facts and Values 29
4. Metaethics and Criticism of Moral Theories 33
Metaethical Theories 33
Criticism of Moral Theories 36
Types of Moral Theories 37
5. What Is Morally Good and Right? 39
Ethical Positions 39
More Ethical Positions in Brief 63
Some Political Systems 65
6. Ethics as a Personal Concern 78
Ethics in Everyday Life 78
Commonsense Ethics 79
Theistic Ethics 80
7. Challenges to Ethics 90
Ethical Subjectivism 91
viii """ CONTENTS
Ethical Relativism 96
Nihilism 101
8. Rethinking the Fact/Value Dichotomy 107
A Value-Free Study of Human Life? 108
Are Ethical Judgments Bogus? 110
Facts, Values, and Reality 111
Goodness and Empiricism 112
Proving Values Knowable 115
9. Applying Ethics 118
One Convincing Moral Outlook 119
Some Ethical Quandaries 127
On Moral Challenges 158
10. Conclusion 161
Questions for Discussion 171
Notes 173
Recommended Reading 179
Index 181
PREFACE
ment about free will (for example) is one kind of ethical claim,
because it speaks to the issue of how we should use our minds
and presupposes that we can in fact decide-that we can make
the right choice in this area.
An ethical claim, however, must square with other aspects
of our lives: it must be both practical and capable of being made
operational without being mysterious. Ifit remains vague or in-
comprehensible, then it gives us an excuse to avoid considering
how we ought to behave from day to day. When we act without
thinking, we dodge taking responsibility for ourselves.
This book aims to set forth, succinctly, the basic elements
of ethical inquiry without suggesting that teachers or anyone
else can free students from the task of becoming good people.
I have tried to suggest the nature of the ongoing debate about
free will and other aspects of ethics. I do not pretend to complete
neutrality; some of the positions that I describe seem to me the
right ones. In these pages I sometimes explain where I stand
and why, and I also describe and appraise the ideas of critics.
The book is intended for use with at least one other text that
presents major ethical theories by central moral thinkers past
and present. I have listed some seminal works at the end. I have
also included questions to help students reflect on their reading,
although classroom teachers will be the most effective guides.
I should note at the outset that in philosophical stud-
ies of morality generally, how much support a given position
receives from individuals, groups, or society at large is unim-
portant. Even the most renowned philosopher may be wrong,
and the public sector as a whole is no less susceptible to error.
Respectability and popularity sometimes supplant indepen-
dent judgment, especially when there is little time to study
the various competing ethical positions. By the same token,
individuals-you and I-must often act quickly on our moral
beliefs, without taking the time and intellectual energy to ap-
praise them. And even if we found the time, what would we
PREFACE .IJIfIf xi
....
ON ETHICS
1
PRELIMINARY
CONSIDERATIONS
ASSUMPTIONS
MADE IN ETHICS
We can know of free will. Still, the notion that all knowledge
must be empirical is wrong. We know many things through
observation in combination with inference and theory construc-
tion. (We do not even know empirically that empiricism is our
sole form of knowledgeD
Let us consider some examples. Many phenomena in the
16 I!I/P A PRIMER ON ETHICS
Given that there are very many moral opinions, how can there
be one true moral standard applicable to all? Some thinkers
argue that cross-cultural and historical diversity precludes any
single objective standard governing human action. It is mostly
cultural anthropologists who advance this view-for example,
Ruth Benedict. ll
For Morality
Various counterarguments have been advanced to suggest that
moral standards do exist.
FACTS
AND VALUES
METAETHICS
AND CRITICISM OF
MORAL THEORIES
Intuitionism
Intuitionism, a somewhat odd form of cognitivism, holds that
moral principles arise from deeply held convictions or beliefs
known to be true not because of argument or analysis but
because of gut feelings. We all have moral intuitions, and we
should trust them. Even people who have never explored ethics
have moral sentiments. These feelings furnish our best guide
to how we should conduct ourselves. The basic idea here is the
same as that in the old saw about woman's intuition: we should
base our morality on the innate wisdom that we all have and
not on the dictates of some fancy theory. Sir David Ross and
John Rawls are two intuitionists.
36 J/IJf1 A PRIMER ON ETHICS
Mysticism
Mystics regard moral principles as basically mysterious revela-
tions from God or from some other supernatural source. As the
utterances of superior beings, far beyond the reach ofour faculty
for understanding, moral principles cannot be apprehended ra-
tionally and must be accepted on faith. (I will return to this
point later.) St. Augustine's metaethics seems to fit this view,
as do some views derived from various Western and Eastern
theologies.
CRITICISM OF MORAL THEORIES
WHAT Is MORALLY
GOOD AND RIGHT?
ETHICAL POSITIONS
Hedonism
Goal and principles. Ethical hedonism, we should note at the
outset, differs from psychological hedonism, which holds that
people are always pursuing pleasure no matter what else they
40 _ A PRIMER ON ETHICS
Utilitarianism
Goal and principles. Utilitarianism, as we will see, is related
to hedonism. The doctrine's name suggests that utilitarians
emphasize what is useful. The doctrine states, however, not
that the good is what is useful but that the good is the great-
est happiness of the greatest number of whatever can be happy.
John Stuart Mill, a philosopher and political economist, is
most notably associated with ethical utilitarianism even though
quite a few notable others (such as Henry Sidgwick) also es-
poused the position. (A number of social theorists, especially
in the field of political economy, would classifY themselves as
utilitarians. They are thereby adopting an ethical viewpoint
rather than a more descriptive analytical framework involving
considerations of what people actually desire.) Happiness in
utilitarianism is not the same thing as pleasure, although it is
related to pleasure. More accurately, it is the greatest welfare
(well-being, even satisfaction) ofthe greatest number of human
beings, which is the proper goal of human activity.
Before we can examine the arguments for and against util-
itarianism, we must ask how this welfare or happiness is to be
defined. In most utilitarian theories (and several versions are
WHAT Is MORALLY GOOD AND RIGHT? IJi' 45
Altruism
Goal and principles. Altruism is undoubtedly the moral po-
sition with the largest number of advocates, defenders, and
champions in human history and within our culture. "'Altruism'
[is] assuming a duty to relieve the distress and promote the
happiness of our fellows .... Altruism is to ... maintain quite
simply that a man may and should discount altogether his own
pleasure or happiness as such when he is deciding what course
of action to pursue."2
While philosophers debate many moral positions, the altru-
istic one is unusual in having achieved prominence within the
nonphilosophical community. Most people have been told that
altruism is the moral code by which we should live our lives.
The idea is now virtually synonymous with moral goodness. Au-
gust Comte, a French philosopher and sociologist, named the
doctrine, but many philosophers (most recently Thomas Nagel)
have propounded its substance. It is probably the most widely
professed moral position.
Although the term was coined in recent times, the basic
idea of altruism is very old indeed. It is that the moral goal of
every human being should be the well-being, or good, of oth-
52 _ A PRIMER ON ETHICS
Egoism
Pseudoegoisms. Egoism comes in several versions, one of which
is that everyone always acts in his or her own interest. This
view, called psychological egoism, is not a possible ethical posi-
tion because it lacks one crucial feature: the individual is not
free to pursue or refrain from pursuing the right course of con-
duct. There is no mention of what should be done, only of what
is being done.
Furthermore, we may seriously question whether the claim
of psychological egoism itself is true. The position appears to be
vacuous or plainly false. If things that everyone does count as
acting in one's own interest, then so labeling them does not help
us understand what people do. Ifthere is a stable standard for
measuring what is in one's own interest, too, then clearly not
everything people do meets it, since people (and even one person
over time) often do very different, indeed conflicting, things.
Several other versions of egoism that are often discussed
also fail to qualify as possible moral positions. The subjectivist
egoist, who claims that his or her best interest-as he or she
perceives it-alone has merit, fails because morality must be a
universalizable system rather than one that applies to only one
person or group of people as a unique guide.
Similarly, a moral position cannot provide that all people
should do what they feel like as individuals. As with hedonism,
WHAT Is MORALLY GOOD AND RIGHT? lIP 57
Critics and defenders. The critics have much to say about the
egoist's position. They fault it for its allegedly naive view of
human nature-the idea that we are born without destructive
impulses and that we should simply proceed to achieve our
natural goals. They say that egoism leads to self-centeredness,
egotism, and the ruthless pursuit of gain, wealth, and power,
prompted by the complex and often destructive motives that lie
deep within us. (In a way, altruism is the ultimate criticism of
egoism!)
On a more formal note, some critics fault egoism as a moral
theory on the ground that it cannot be implemented universally.
Suppose someone asks you what he or she should do, and sup-
pose that it would in fact be in his or her interest to marry the
person whom you also want to marry. Could you as a consistent
egoist advise this person correctly? If you do, you will under-
mine your own self-interest; if you do not, you demonstrate that
egoism cannot be universalized to everyone. In general, when
human interests conflict, egoism appears to set people on a war
path, because it lacks a coordinating principle that transcends
the competing claims. Critics therefore accuse egoism of gen-
erating contradictory plans of action: people both should and
should not do certain things. Any ethical position caught in
this dilemma must fail because it suggests that what a person
should do cannot be done.
WHAT Is MORALLY GOOD AND RIGHT? III' 61
human nature can be identified and God does not exist. It holds
that if we approach living with a feeling of love, of authentic
devotion, this spirit will steer us in the only meaningful right
course, especially in our relationship with others.
Environmentalism
Environmental ethics is sometimes derived from one or an-
other of the major ethical theories. A utilitarian may argue
for reducing automobile exhaust fume emission, for example,
to enhance the general welfare. There are, however, schools
of environmental ethics that derive an entire morality from
certain views about nature, the wilderness, or God (or Gaia)
as Nature. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) captured this
outlook: "The more we depart from the state of nature, the
more we lose our natural tastes." "All is good coming from the
hand of the Author of all things; all degenerates in the hands
of man."lO Concomitants of this moral position include frugal-
ity, restraint, moderation, and conservation rather than growth
and abundance. Personal conduct and public policy directives
stress recycling, the preservation of wilderness, restrictions on
energy consumption, and comparable measures.
Feudalism
Although feudalism has little tradition in our hemisphere,
it was once an extremely popular system in Europe, and it
remains influential in some parts of the world. In a feudal order,
vassals hold land that is worked by serfs. In return for the land,
the vassals provide overlords with military and other services.
The feudal system involves a hierarchical social structure,
usually with a monarch or other supreme ruler at the top
and various levels of nobility below, in gradually descending
order of importance, with the serfs at the bottom. Feudalism
predominated in medieval Europe and much of the rest of the
world and gave rise to many legal features of contemporary
societies. ll The feudal system of government derives largely
from historical events and from certain ideas that became
prominent in various philosophical and theological systems,
including the notion that some people are naturally or by divine
edict superior in moral and other respects to the rest and ought,
therefore, to exercise paternalistic authority over them. This
form of elitism-the entrenched superiority of the select few,
who often govern-includes aristocracy, the "rule of the best"
(but note that the meaning of "best" may change drastically
over time).
In a feudal system, also, designees of the royal family typ-
ically control major social institutions-commerce, religion,
property holdings, and professional positions. Accordingly, the
economic system of mercantilism is closely linked to feudalism,
as is the institution of a state church. (Since the prevailing
WHAT Is MORALLY GOOD AND RIGHT? .IJIi' 67
than are these others. Roughly, it stands for the view that
human beings are necessarily or essentially parts of distinct
human groups (communities) with diverse values, histories,
priorities, practices, laws, and cultures. The organizing princi-
ples of these different groups themselves vary. There is no one
true social and political order nor even any universal ethics.
Rather, the particular character of the communities tells mem-
bers how to live, what laws to enact, and what aesthetic and
religious values to embrace.
Some communities may be Spartan, others Stoic, yet oth-
ers bohemian, and so forth. Each may have its peculiar way of
life without condemning a different way. Yet despite popular
opinion to the contrary, individuals do not consent to partici-
pate in the community's form of life. Such an idea derives from
a mistake: a transcendent or general principle of human na-
ture requires every community to adhere to certain minimal
standards of justice. No such transcendent principle exists, ac-
cording to many communitarians, and so communities that, say,
grant individuals certain rights are simply different from, and
not superior to, those that do not. 15
Actually, little else can be said here about communitarian-
ism, because there are simply too many types, each with its own
framework and priorities. The main point is that rules, laws,
and ideals all result from the evolving consensus or collective
practices of the community's membership. Just as socialism
considers humanity the whole to which individuals belong,
communitarianism identifies different ethnic, national, racial,
gender, cultural, and professional groups as the whole to which
the individual member belongs. We might consider, for exam-
ple, that languages developed in part to fit the circumstances
of different linguistic communities, with no language superior
to (or even fully translatable into) any other.
Communitarians often unite in criticizing bourgeois soci-
ety and liberal capitalism, which stress individuality, privacy,
WHAT Is MORALLY GOOD AND RIGHT? "'" 77
ETHICS AS
A PERSONAL CONCERN
CHALLENGES
TO ETHICS
is that the theory itself rejects any such denial. After all, when
we say that humans are the sort of beings who must create
themselves and that they are free to become what they want
to be, we say exactly what human nature is. (The theory may
attempt to argue that each person's character must be of his or
her own choosing-that none of us is made into a certain quality
of person. But the argument for individual character does not
deny that we are all human by virtue of some features that all
humans share.)
In objection to the subjectivists we could go on to claim
that the theory in fact proposes a standard of right and wrong,
however much this is denied. Because we human beings are
self-moved, free, and undetermined, it is our task to carry out
the activities we can freely engage in, to be creative as only
human beings can be. To be individuals true to the require-
ments of our human nature is to be creative, ever-growing,
ever-developing, never-stagnant beings coping with our own cir-
cumstances. Whatever our freedom consists in, whatever it is
that we are ultimately free to do, is just what we ought to do
and do well.
Even without leaving the theory itself, then, we can chal-
lenge some of the conclusions of subjectivism. Noting that this
standard applies to us all is not to say that we are all com-
pelled to live by it, that we have no other choice. It is a simple
matter for us to defeat our unique freedom to be creative. We
need only to refrain from exercising our minds so as to learn
and from implementing the general standard acquired in our
individual situation. The standard does not supply the means
of implementation. We ourselves are responsible for devising
it. Consequently the failure of people in various cultures to ad-
here to particular moral principles does not prove that these
principles are inapplicable to them.
The subjectivist would probably respond that the reference
to human nature in the objection is misleading. Even if we are
96 IfIIi' A PRIMER ON ETHICS
RETHINKING
THE F ACT/V AL DE
DICHOTOMY
The idea we are here discussing is, then, the prominent notion
in some philosophical systems: beliefs about right and wrong,
about what we ought' or ought not to do, are not really judg-
ments but convey feelings. The reason for voicing such feelings
may be to persuade others to feel as we do about something or
to articulate community norms. Values, however, have no ob-
jective, independent merit. Only within a certain community of
persons could they be defended on the basis of the attitude or
the form oflife practiced within the community. But such value
judgments or moral claims do not demonstrably hold for people
anywhere, anytime.
Some thinkers have claimed, similarly, that ethics, politics,
and other normative areas such as aesthetics are ineffable,
not open to meaningful rational examination. According to
many such philosophers, moral and political differences are
unresolvable except, perhaps, within groups that have already
agreed on certain basic norms that are, however, neither right
nor wrong. As Professor Richard Rorty noted, we "cannot say
that [e.g.] democratic institutions reflect a moral reality and
that tyrannical regimes do not refl.ect one, that tyrannies get
something wrong that democracies get right."l
No doubt many people disagree with this proposition. Or-
dinary human beings who do not concern themselves profes-
sionally with exploring the matter tend, also, to be divided
RETHINKING THE FACTNALUE DICHOTOMY JIJIil' 111
ApPLYING
ETHICS
what unites us with all past, present, and future members of the
human race. On many other counts-concerning matters that
are more specialized-we differ tremendously. Our age, physi-
cal constitution, sexual identity, economic background, national
origin, natural environment, and so forth sort us human beings
into many different groups. Our humanity unites us, however,
and also confronts us with some very basic common tasks.
Now, Aristotle's definition of a "human being" as a rational
animal-a biological entity that is able to and needs to think
with ideas-still works best. It does not require a human to
be an intellectual who does a lot of deliberate, theoretical
thinking and verbalizing, as Aristotle felt inclined to do. Only
some people will share this inclination. If we take "rational
animal" to mean needing to guide oneself in life by the use of
ideas, thoughts, theories, principles, notions, conceptions, and
so forth, we have a description that every human being fits.
We are all of us beings of this sort unless we are crucially
incapacitated and thus essentially defective as people, so that
others must care for us.
It is not possible to defend this view extensively here. We
may nonetheless note, in its support, that we pronounce some-
one dead when his or her brain-the seat of reasoning or the
soul-has permanently ceased to function. The part of the brain
at issue is the cerebral cortex, where thinking is performed.
Lower mental functions may remain. Breathing, for example,
may continue under the guidance of automatic brain processes,
but a p~rson stops being human because he or she cannot think
and will never be able to do so again. At the other end of the
life span, at the start, the human being emerges with the devel-
opment in the fetus of a capacity to form some minimal ideas,
a development that probably occurs in about the twenty-fifth
week of life.
Some thinkers contend that a human being begins at con-
ception, but this assertion rests not on evidence from natural
126 # A PRIMER ON ETHICS
Abortion
Most of us see the abortion controversy in terms of the prolife
and the prochoice positions. The central issue dividing the two
sides is disagreement about the point at which a human being
comes into existence, whether at conception or later, sometime
between birth and about the twenty-fourth week of pregnancy.
Ifthe being that emerges at conception is a human infant, then
aborting it would in most cases be homicide.
Some people argue about the moment at which life begins
during pregnancy. But this cannot be the real question, since
most prolife advocates are perfectly willing to end life-for ex-
ample, they accept killing animals for food-and some prochoice
advocates support animal rights.
So the problem with abortion is not whether something that
has a heartbeat or even feels pain may be killed with impunity.
The problem is, rather, the point at which a human being comes
into existence. Human beings ordinarily have a right to their
lives, and so homicide or killing them, except in extraordinary
circumstances, should be prohibited and severely punished.
Thus-according to most prolifers-most abortions should also
be prohibited, since they involve "murdering unborn babies."
Those who take the prochoice side in this debate tend to
believe that a potential human being, not an infant, emerges
at conception or shortly thereafter. Only later does this being
qualify as an infant, either when the fetus has developed consid-
erably (for example, by acquiring its cerebral cortex or higher
brain capacity, or when it is born and is recognized as a young
person) or when the fetus becomes viable, or capable of living
outside the uterus. Prochoice advocates generally argue that
early abortions amount to the killing of a potential human be-
ing, not of an actual one-as killing a caterpillar would not be
killing a butterfly.
The terms "prolife" and "prochoice" are obviously shorthand.
APPLYING ETHICS IIfi' 131
Some feminists who are prochoice hold this view. Even when
women consent to such treatment, they tend to do so because
they lack political and economic power.
As the discussion so far makes clear, one difficulty with
the abortion debate is that the various sides approach it from
drastically different philosophical or theological viewpoints.
They have already committed themselves to very controversial
ideas about the nature of God, human sexuality, and the nature
of personhood. These more basic views largely inform their
ideas about abortion and many other matters.
For example, one position on abortion arises from the more
basic view that a human being is most fundamentally a rational
animal, an ethical primate, to use Mary Midgley's term. 4 As
such, a zygote, embryo, or fetus is but a potential human being,
at least until its higher brain functions develop. Until that time
abortion may be morally objectionable on many grounds, but it
is not homicide. This view rests on a secular approach to dealing
with ethical and, especially, public policy or legal problems.
In a multicultural country in particular, the secular approach
ensures that all citizens have some common ground on which
to judge a case. Ensoulment, being too closely tied to religious
faith, cannot be discussed across religious and cultural groups,
as legal policies should be. Law needs to be based on factors
and principles that are accessible to all persons not crucially
incapacitated (for example, mentally retarded).
The slippery slope argument is possibly too cautious. We
differentiate between adolescents and adults all the time, for
example in deciding when people may sign contracts, vote,
and buy cigarettes. We are therefore clearly able to make
crucial distinctions even when they are murky rather than
sharp. In many other spheres we deal with gray areas. We
feel comfortable distinguishing mules from donkeys, mountains
from hills, lakes from oceans, and planets from meteors. At
the end of life, moreover, people pronounced brain dead often
ApPLYING ETHICS" 133
that no one may kill it. The foundation of such a basic right is
itself a major source of dispute in ethics and political philosophy.
Still, in the abortion debate it does not occasion disagreement
among most participants. Most people in the debate accept that
if something is a human being, it has the (negative) right to
life-that is, the right not to be killed.
Advertising
A frequent object of scorn in our culture is advertising. Indeed,
business in general is not held in very high esteem. One reason
is that people engaged in trade are often looking for profit-
seeking to satisfy personal economic goals. The idea of trying
to increase benefits for oneself, in turn, has often been morally
suspect. Certainly some ethical systems treat such a goal as
morally undignified or base if not downright evil. For instance,
altruism teaches that we ought to help other people. In business
this is hardly the first goal that most people pursue.
Advertising, in particular, is an important means of attract-
ing customers. Business owners often use all sorts of gimmickry,
polemics, and jingles or whatever to improve their chances of
making a sale. This is so clearly self-promoting that it earns
moral respect only from an ethical egoist perspective. Yet even
if egoism is questionable, most moral theories recognize the
virtue of prudence. Aristotle stressed it, and it is listed as the
first of the cardinal virtues. Advertising could be seen as a form
of prudence, at least when we consider this virtue in relation to
economics.
Yet advertising has been criticized by some prominent in-
tellectuals, including the economist John Kenneth Galbraith. 6
His objection is that advertising helps companies create new
desires in us for things that we could easily do without. The
acquisitive impulse permits companies to continue to produce
their wares in the belief that we will continue to purchase them.
As a result society's resources are wasted on trivial pursuits,
while important social endeavors are underfunded.
ApPLYING ETHICS.I!/1f 135
who are in extreme physical pain, who want to die but do not feel
competent to end their lives decisively and relatively peacefully.
Such persons want help in committing suicide. Many believe
that they have the right to seek out such help without exposing
would-be assistants to possible criminal charges. Opponents of
assisted suicide tend to believe that no one has the right to
help another person hasten death, either because suicide itself,
being morally wrong, should be legally wrong, or because the
assistance is itself a form of homicide, the killing of another,
and no law ought to sanction it.
The reasons given in support of the right to seek assistance
may be summarized as follows: everyone has the right to decide
whether to live or die. Having any right amounts to having
exclusive authority to choose-for example, a person who has
the right to speak may decide whether or not to do so, and no
one may command this right on behalf of this person. The right
to life, accordingly, means that we may each decide whether or
not to continue to live. We also have the right to free association.
And we have the right to mutual terms-that is, if I want
to associate with another person in some endeavor who also
wants to assciate with me in it, and no third party's rights are
in jeopardy, no one is justified in coming between us. Indeed,
the right of free association is simply a special right derived
from the basic rights to life and liberty. To seek assistance in
committing suicide, therefore, is the exercise of (a) the right to
life and (b) the right to freedom of association among consenting
adults.
Usually, however, the right to assisted suicides is defended
on somewhat narrower grounds, with the extreme nature of
the situation as an added premise of the argument. In other
words, defenders do not usually argue that just anyone has
the right to commit suicide. (Suicide is, indeed, banned in most
societies, even in the United States, where the law is supposed
to secure everyone's right to life. The Constitution does not
APPLYING ETHICS LI!IfI 137
"have the right to gamble and are prohibited from doing so. It
is fair to say, furthermore, that society's overall stance is not
clear: is gambling recreation or an immoral indulgence?
Opponents of gambling argue that it is generally corrupting.
To gamble is to pursue unearned income and thereby to flout
the time-honored connection between work and wealth. Gam-
blers learn to trust not the effort to produce but the throw of the
dice, something that is random, a function of chance. Since such
trust is often disappointed, gamblers are emotionally volatile
and swing from euphoria to deep depression. Furthermore,
gambling tends to make a person dependent on worldly plea-
sures, which great wealth can achieve, rather than on sensible
moderation, which stresses life's spiritual dimensions.
Supporters maintain that gambling now and then is enter-
tainment, recreation, toying with risk, rather like going to an
amusement park. According to the argument, gambling affords
a sense of risk and adventure without requiring the gambler to
take big chances. That some people suffer harm from gambling
merely demonstrates a given of ethics, namely that a person
can choose to live well or badly, approaching life with decency
and good sense or with deviousness and recklessness.
From a utilitarian perspective we could defend gambling as
a source of state funds in this country and abroad. Gambling, at
least in limited measure, can also improve a community's well-
being, without the need for coercive taxation, by bringing more
business into the area.
People who travel to Monte Carlo or Vegas may not always
be levelheaded about gambling, but people who travel to work
or eat out are not always careful and cautious either. Work and
play alike are subject to abuse. Gambling is play, and abusers
should be told that they are going overboard, not that they are
doing something inherently wrong. Moreover, the fact that some
people are immoderate does not prove that everyone is out of
control.
APPLYING ETHICS _ 149
CONCLUSION
PREFACE
the theory being examined fails because it does not accommodate this
assumption. This approach is highly debatable, however, since it as-
sumes that we "know intuitively" which moral principles are primary.
Although we may know, from our ordinary experiences and learning,
that certain principles are morally important, it is not possible, without
further systematic reflection, to determine which of these principles is
primary, which secondary, and so forth. Moral dilemmas arise from sit-
uations that appear to pit our moral principles against one another, so
we need to rank the principles. Philosophical ethics becomes important
in this area.
2. See W. G. Maclagan, "Self and Others: A Defense of Altruism,"
Philosophical Quarterly 4 (1954): 109-10.
3. "To explain" can be used narrowly, to mean "to provide exter-
nal or prior causes for," or more broadly, "to render understandable,
meaningful." The former excludes ethics, and the latter does not.
4. Most altruists subscribe to the religious doctrine of original sin as
well as to the more secular view that we are all naturally inclined to be
callous toward others. One good place to find a statement on original
sin is in Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind (Chicago: Regnery,
1953), while Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan (Baltimore: Penguin Books,
1968) includes a statement on callousness.
5. For more on this point, see Tibor R. Machan, "Egoism, Psychologi-
cal Egoism, and Ethical Egoism," in P. H. Werhane and R. F. Freedman,
eds., The Blackwell Companion to Business Ethics (London: Basil
Blackwell, 1996). I am also a proponent of what I call "classical ego-
ism or individualism." See, for example, Tibor R. Machan, Capitalism
and Individualism (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990).
6. If an ethical system provided an individual with step-by-step
instructions for living-a blueprint, as it were, rather than a general
set of guidelines-ethical behavior would in a sense be passive, not the
result ofthe individual's initiative.
7. Ethical egoism is a view that has been developed by several
philosophers, including (some would argue) Aristotle, Bishop Butler,
Ayn Rand, Jesse Kalin, Eric Mack, and myself. See Tibor R. Machan,
"Recent Work on Ethical Egoism," in K. J. Lucey and T. R. Machan,
eds., Recent Work in Philosophy (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Allenheld,
1983). See also W. D. Falk, "Morality, Self, and Others," in Ought,
176 , NOTES TO PAGES 58-86
9. APPLYING ETHICS
10. CONCLUSION
1. See, for example, Barbara Darling-Smith, Can Virtue Be Taught?
(South Bend, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993).
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