# Value Theory

## Metaethics

### Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:
1. Identify the meaning of the phrase “ontology of value.”
2. Identify the significance of realism and anti-realism for moral discourse.
3. Compare and contrast different theories regarding the foundations for moral theory.
4. Explain the importance of the Euthyphro problem for metaethics.
Ethics is the broad study of morality and is often divided into metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. Normative ethics and applied ethics are covered in separate chapters. Each field is distinguished by a different level of inquiry and analysis. Metaethics focuses on moral reasoning and foundational questions that explore the assumptions related to moral beliefs and practice. It attempts to understand the presuppositions connected to morality and moral deliberation. Metaethics explores, for example, where moral values originate, what it means to say something is right or good, whether there are any objective moral facts, whether morality is (culturally) relative, and whether there is a psychological basis for moral practices and value judgements.
In the previous two sections, in asking whether there is a fact-value distinction and what values are, we encountered a central question in metaethics—whether morality is grounded in objective or subjective values. We have also encountered questions about what is good or bad and right or wrong, which is the main concern of normative ethics. This section dives deeper into these questions and explores different foundations for moral values, such as God, religious faith, nature, society, politics, law, and rationality.

### Ontology of value

An important area of metaethics is the ontology of value. Ontology is the study (ology) of being (ōn). It gets at the nature of what makes something what it is. Ontology of value is the study of the being of values. What is a value? Is it a statement about reality? A subjective idea or belief? A mental state or emotion? As you will see, there are different ontological accounts of value.

### Realism and Anti-realism

Do moral values have a basis in reality, or are they purely subjective and relative to individuals or communities? Depending on your answer, your approach to ethics will look completely different. Thus, the first major distinction between different types of ethical reasoning is the difference between realism and anti-realism. Moral realists, as discussed earlier, object to the fact-value distinction. Realism asserts that ethical values have some basis in reality and that reasoning about ethical matters requires an objective framework or foundation to discover what is truly good. For a realist, values are not simply subjective opinions. Anti-realism asserts that ethical values are not based on objective facts about the world but instead rely on subjective foundations like individuals’ desires and beliefs.
This section extends moral realism beyond the fact-value distinction to examine why many argue that moral realism is an important position to take and the types of objective realities people have used to establish a moral reality.

### The Importance of Debate within Moral Realism

Moral debate poses a challenge to moral realism because it makes morality seem subjective. If people disagree on important moral issues, such as abortion, or on how to justify moral beliefs, how are we to determine who is right? Maybe no one has the right answer and moral claims are simply subjective opinions.
For a realist, moral disagreements do not mean that morality is subjective. Many fields, including the natural sciences, have vibrant debates and disagreements that do not necessarily indicate that their claims are subjective. For example, astronomers used to think that the sun and planets revolved around Earth, and the heliocentric concept of the universe was considered heretical. This disagreement does not mean that astronomy is subjective but instead that astronomy requires ongoing observation and debate to improve its understanding of reality. Along similar lines, moral debates do not necessarily prove morality is subjective and in fact can even improve one’s understanding of a moral issue. Moral realism asserts that morality has an objective framework or foundation, which means that you can make true moral claims. People do not necessarily, however, agree on which claims are true.

### The Importance of Moral Resolution

Moral relativism, discussed earlier, is an anti-realist position because it denies that there is an objective or universal justification for moral beliefs. Instead, morality is always relative to an individual or community. This means there is no way to say what is truly good or bad.
Moral relativism has taken many different shapes throughout the history of philosophy, and it is debated in popular discourses—especially politics and religion—as well as in metaethics. It is controversial because it seems to undermine the possibility of finding common ground in ethical debates that shape practical action or political policies. Thus anti-realism and moral relativism seem to create insurmountable barriers for overcoming moral disagreements.
For contemporary philosopher Michelle Moody-Adams, however, moral disagreements between different cultures—and even within cultures—do not require us to adopt an anti-realist position. She takes moral disagreements seriously but also argues for “cautious optimism” about moral objectivity (1997). For Moody-Adams, irresolvable moral disagreements are an “unavoidable feature of moral experience” and not a reason to be skeptical about moral reasoning (1997, 107).
Since anti-realism is a form of moral skepticism, it can lead not only to relativism but also to pessimism about whether we can resolve moral debates or whether moral reasoning has any legitimacy. Being able to explain what is right or wrong is important not only for ethics but also for the lives of individuals within communities because people’s actions and decisions impact each other. This is one of the critiques that moral realists employ against anti-realists. If morality is purely subjective, then values are arbitrary and people are unable to make true claims about moral values.
Moral realism requires one to find objective justifications for moral beliefs and claims. These justifications take a variety of forms—including God and nature—which the following sections will explain.

### Divine and Religious Foundations for Moral Values

One way to analyze moral reasoning is by examining its foundation—that is, how it supports claims about morality. Throughout history, many humans have relied upon a concept of the divine to justify moral claims and values.
Ethical frameworks that are based on God can function in a variety of ways depending on the concept of the divine. God can function as the highest good. In this case, God provides an exemplar for the virtues and values that should guide human action. For example, if God is a loving being, humans should develop their ability to love, and performing loving actions will be the basis for morality. The concept of God can function as an ultimate judge who decides what is right and wrong from an omnipotent and infallible position. In this case, God provides an objective standpoint for moral judgment. With this ethical framework, humans may disagree on what is right or wrong because of their limited perspectives, but morality is not relative or arbitrary because it rests on eternal truths from an all-knowing God.
Religions frequently claim knowledge about the nature and source of reality, the meaning of human existence, the foundations for morality, the purpose of suffering in the world, and what happens when people die. Many religions consider the tenets of their faith to come from a divine source, sacred revelations, or prophets. Religions also look to scripture, sacred practices and customs, images, and objects to determine moral values.

### Augustine on Faith and Knowledge

Those who challenge the divine as a source of moral authority question whether these moral beliefs are based on only faith or whether they are justified true beliefs that can be accepted as knowledge. Faith refers to beliefs that are not proven, including beliefs that cannot be proven. The medieval monk, theologian, and philosopher Augustine of Hippo (354–430) argued that there are many things in life people claim to know that are actually based on faith. His argument attempts to blur the distinction between faith and knowledge. For example, if people are not adopted, they typically claim to know who their parents are and take that as firm knowledge, not belief. Yet people are not able to remember their own births or the earliest years of their lives, so they did not confirm this belief with their own observations. For Augustine, this is how faith works. In this sense, faith and knowledge serve a similar purpose in human life and the values people hold.

### The Euthyphro problem

Using God as the basis for moral values can introduce challenging philosophical questions that are difficult to answer. The Euthyphro problem describes such a challenge in theistic ethical systems. It asks whether something is good because God commands it or if God commands it because it is good. The name comes from the Platonic dialogue Euthyphro, which features a conversation between the philosopher Socrates and a man named Euthyphro who claims to be an expert on piety. Socrates asks, “Is the pious being loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is being loved by the gods?” (Plato, Euthyphro 10a). In the former case, the gods do not determine what is good, so there must be a higher authority above the gods. In the latter case, the gods remain the ultimate authority, but there are no discernible principles for why they love what they love. That means that piety is a command from above without reason, which limits one’s ability to theorize about it. This idea is called divine command theory.
The former case, however, introduces a problem regarding God’s sovereignty and omnipotence because it places moral principles above the divine and seems to set up a situation in which there are rules not even God may violate. In other words, if God cannot act immorally, is God truly all-powerful?

### Natural and Human Foundations for Moral Values

Different ethical frameworks rest on different foundations or justifications: some appeal to a nonhuman principle like nature; others appeal to shared human institutions like culture, tradition, society, or law; and still others appeal to the individual and their resources for moral reasoning. This section examines moral reasoning based on nature, society, politics, the self, or reason.

### Nature and Natural Law

One approach to ethics appeals to nature or natural law to make claims about what is good or bad. An action, goal, or characteristic is good if it accords with nature or natural law and is bad if it violates it. Here, nature can refer to human nature or the observed features of the natural world.
According to the medieval philosopher Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), there are four types of laws: eternal, natural, human, and divine. Eternal laws govern the universe, natural laws govern the natural world, and human laws govern human societies. Divine laws are supernatural and allow humans to reach salvation but cannot be known through human reason alone. Instead, they must be revealed by God (e.g., the Ten Commandments, Scriptures, and other divine revelations). Humans can use reason, however, to discover natural laws and create human laws. For Aquinas, human laws must align with natural law. Human laws that violate the laws of nature are “no longer a law but a perversion of law” (Aquinas [1485] 1948, 649). Aquinas’s argument contributes to classical natural law theory, which sees laws as upholding natural order. Because nature is not subjective, natural law theory sees values as objective.

### Ethical Naturalism

As discussed earlier, some philosophers believe that an essential link between values and telos, or purpose, creates an objective moral reality. Ethical naturalism argues that performing good actions fulfills human nature, while performing evil actions distorts it. If this is the case, moral values and “what is good” are based on natural facts about the world, not individuals’ subjective feelings or beliefs. Ethical naturalism often relies on concepts of pleasure, desire, happiness, or flourishing to define what is naturally good or bad.
The 20th-century philosopher Philippa Foot (1920–2010) provides one of the most famous philosophical arguments for ethical naturalism. In Natural Goodness (2003), Foot argues that moral values like “goodness” are not about statements, as G. E. Moore suggested in Principia Ethica, or about mere emotions that individuals feel, but are instead about human flourishing. Just as bees have qualities that help them thrive and build strong colonies, so humans have virtues that help them to thrive in life and build flourishing communities. Foot’s description of flourishing is influenced by Aristotle, who based his concept of ethics on an examination of different virtues, which involve fulfilling one’s telos, or purpose. This approach to morality is called virtue ethics. In ethical naturalism and virtue ethics, discovering moral values requires understanding one’s nature, which must be based on an objective understanding of human life.
In Natural Goodness, Foot further argues that moral evaluations are similar to the types of evaluations that people make about other living things in the natural world. Moral goodness describes how one should live according to human nature. Just as you can know what is good for an animal by studying its nature, you can know what is good for humans by understanding their nature.
More importantly, Foot argues that part of understanding what an organism is involves knowing what is good for it based on its vital processes. For example, you know what is good for a duck based on knowledge of what a duck is. This knowledge would include an understanding of the duck’s nature and what helps it live a good life. A duck is an aquatic bird, so a habitat with water will be good for it. Along similar lines, you can know what is good for a human based on knowledge of human nature.
In this sense, she connects morality to biological flourishing, or achieving the goals of human life. For example, if the purpose of human life is to develop meaningful relationships and to actualize one’s potential, then morality is based on the virtues that allow someone to achieve these ends. For example, one could argue that humans, like other primates, have evolved to cooperate and care for others as a part of their survival, so actions that promote cooperation and care are good, and actions that harm others are bad.

### Reason

Some ethical theories focus exclusively on certain human capacities, like reason. Reason is a methodical way of thinking that uses evidence and logic to draw conclusions. The use of reason as the grounds for morality became particularly important in Enlightenment philosophy because philosophers wanted to assert the validity of moral principles without relying on religious beliefs or God.
The Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) argued that as rational agents, humans express general principles or maxims when they act. You always act for a reason—namely, a goal or end in mind. For Kant, an action or decision is moral if you can universalize it, which he formulates in the categorical imperative. Kant’s categorical imperative states: “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law” (Kant [1785] 1998, 31). That means you know an action is moral if can be universal for everyone. The categorical imperative works best when we note that an action contradicts it. For example, lying cannot be moral because it is not universalizable. It is impossible for everyone to lie. Even the act of lying assumes that people usually tell the truth.

### Self

Other approaches to ethical theory argue that morality originates in the self. How do people know what is right or wrong? What motivates them to be good and care for others? Some argue that the conscience, an individual’s inner sense of right and wrong, forms the basis for ethics. But where does one get this inner sense? Some argue that it comes through intuition—cognition that seems completely self-evident and impossible to deny—while others assert that individuals develop it through education or reason.
Other approaches to ethics rely upon the individual’s psychology, moral sentiments, or feelings. Multiple moral theories emphasize compassion and empathy, the ability to suffer with and share others’ feelings. For the ancient Chinese philosopher Mencius (371–289 BCE), the feeling of compassion allows benevolent actions, which are the basis for ethics and well-being. Compassion and empathy might also be considered virtues that individuals cultivate. Virtue ethics bases its moral theory on virtues as personal characteristics that an individual can develop.
Feminist care ethics bases ethics on individuals’ feelings for the people who play a significant role in their lives. In her book Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education, the American philosopher Nel Noddings (b. 1929) argues that an “ethics built on caring” is “characteristically and essentially feminine” insofar as it arises out of women’s experiences, which are traditionally defined through caregiving roles (2013, 8).
An important debate within ethical theory is the importance of altruism, which is the selfless care for others’ well-being. Some moral philosophers argue that only altruistic actions are completely moral, while others assert that self-interest can motivate the moral treatment of others. It is this issue that the next section addresses.

###

Metaethics focuses on moral reasoning and foundational questions that explore the assumptions related to our moral beliefs and practice. Realism asserts that ethical values have some basis in reality and that reasoning about ethical matters requires an objective framework or foundation to discover what is truly good. Anti-realism asserts that ethical values are not based on objective facts about the world but instead rely on subjective foundations like individuals’ desires and beliefs.
Different ethical frameworks rest on different foundations or justifications: some appeal to a non-human principles like nature, while others appeal to shared human institutions. Ethical frameworks that are based on God can function in a variety of ways depending on the concept of the divine. Augustine of Hippo argued that there are many things in life we claim to know that are actually based on faith. The Euthyphro problem asks whether something is good because God commands it or if God commands it because it is good. According to Thomas Aquinas, there are four types of laws: eternal, natural, human, and divine. Ethical naturalism argues that doing good actions fulfills human nature, while doing evil actions distorts it.

###


# Value Theory

## Well-Being

### Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:
1. Describe Epicurean hedonism and utilitarianism.
2. Analyze arguments for and against satisfactionism as a determinant of well-being.
3. Identify objective goods that contribute to well-being.
4. Outline different approaches to eudaimonism.
Well-being—or flourishing, as it is sometimes called—is a widely discussed topic in value theory because it helps us to understand what we value and why. The things people value in life—for example, a just society, good health, beautiful art, physical pleasure, and supportive friendships—contribute to their well-being. For some philosophers, well-being determines values. If you want to define whether an action is valuable, you must determine whether it promotes the well-being of a person.
Well-being focuses on what is good for a person, not simply what is good in an abstract sense. It also focuses on intrinsic goods that contribute to a flourishing life. In what follows, you will learn about different concepts of well-being and how they can help you think about what is valuable and good. There are three general ways philosophers approach the value of well-being: (1) pleasure, (2) desire, and (3) objective goods.

### Hedonism

Some philosophers describe well-being as obtaining pleasure and avoiding pain. The general term for this approach is hedonism. The term hedonism has a different meaning in philosophy than in popular usage. In everyday language, hedonism refers to extravagant indulgence in bodily pleasures. By contrast, philosophical hedonism is not about just bodily pleasure—it takes emotional and mental pleasure and pain into account as well. A philosophical hedonist will prioritize intellectual pleasures or long-lasting pleasures that contribute to a good and meaningful life, rather than momentary and fleeting pleasures.
Hedonism is based on the idea that pleasure and pain are the two most fundamental emotions or states of being. For a hedonist, pleasure is good and pain is bad, and for this reason they can serve as principles for determining well-being.

### Epicurus’s Hedonism

Hedonism has a long philosophical history. The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus (341–270 BCE) founded a school of philosophy called Epicureanism, which taught that pleasure is the highest good. Epicurus’s concept of pleasure, however, is not simply physical and is far from being extravagant, materialistic, or indulgent. He taught that a life of moderation, virtue, and philosophy would be the most pleasurable. He believed it was important to tame wild desires that are impossible to satisfy and that cause unhappiness and dissatisfaction with life. His philosophy focused on methods for achieving freedom from mental, emotional, and physical pain through ataraxia (tranquility). For Epicurus, achieving ataraxia requires confronting irrational fears, especially the fear of death.
The concept of hedonism and even the word Epicurean have very different meanings in popular usage now. Hedonism describes reveling in indulgent bodily and sensory pleasures like food, alcohol, and sex. The term Epicurean often refers to individuals who take especial pleasure in food and drink, like a wine connoisseur or someone obsessed with Michelin star restaurants. However, for Epicurus, the best thing in life was having good friends who want to discuss philosophy.

### Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is considered hedonistic because it bases moral theory on maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. For the utilitarian philosophers Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), values rest on pleasure and pain, which are psychological states of mind. Pleasure is a psychological state of mind that is intrinsically good, while pain is a psychological state of mind that is intrinsically bad. The value of an action thus rests on the psychological state it causes. Utilitarians evaluate actions based on the intensity, duration, certainty, and extent of pleasure or pain and the number of people it affects. In general, utilitarian philosophers believe that an action is moral if it leads to the greatest benefit for the greatest number of people. Thus, utilitarianism can be described as a method for maximizing well-being.

### Qualitative Distinctions in Pleasure

Pleasure can be a slippery term. It is experiential, but it can be experienced in many different ways. For this reason, philosophers often create distinctions to explain different types of pleasure. Pleasure can be sensory or bodily, affective or emotional, and mental or emotional. You can describe the pleasure of biting into a juicy apple, watching light reflect on water, and feeling soft textures. You can describe the elation of achieving a goal, the joy of receiving good news, and the comfort of spending time with a close friend. You can also describe the gratification of learning something new, the satisfaction of sharing ideas with others, and the euphoria of immersing one’s focus entirely in an activity.

### Pleasure as a State of Mind

Pleasure seems to be a feeling or sensation, but also much more. For example, savoring an apple means taking pleasure in its taste. Here the pleasure depends on the taste being good, but the pleasure we take in tasting it is not the same as simply tasting it. For this reason, some philosophers have argued that pleasure is not simply sensation but instead involves a notion of good. That is, pleasure satisfies a desire for what is good, which involves a state of mind, not just a sensation—and so involves reasoning, beliefs, or the satisfaction of a desire.
As a result, critics of hedonistic philosophies complain that pleasure is too varied, indeterminate, subjective, and conditional to be a solid basis for ethics, well-being, or any philosophical theory, and that well-being consists of more than pleasure. The experience machine illustrates this issue.

### The Experience Machine (a Thought Experiment)

The experience machine is a critique of hedonism and pleasure-based concepts of well-being. In this thought experiment created by American thinker Robert Nozick (1938 – 2002) in 1974, a person can be plugged into an “experience machine” that gives them every experience they value and enjoy. Moreover, they would be completely unaware of the machine, which means they would experience everything as real even though it would all be an illusion. The thought experiment prompts one to think about what makes life good. Is well-being simply a state of mind that a machine could replicate, or is there more to it? For Nozick, it is not a good life because it is not real. People want what is real, and they want to really do things. Pleasure alone does not satisfy that need and desire.

### Well-Being and the Satisfaction of Desire

Another way to think of well-being is the satisfaction of desire. There are multiple ways to define desire and think about its satisfaction. One approach is to describe desire as action based. A person’s desires dispose them to take certain actions—for example, you eat because you desire food. Another approach is to think of desire as related to beliefs about what is good. In this case, you would say that you eat because you believe it is good to do so. This theory of desire explains why it is relevant to philosophical concepts of well-being. Well-being is satisfying one’s desires. This concept of well-being is called satisfactionism.
In satisfactionism, if an individual is able to satisfy larger desires in their life, they live a good life. Flourishing is thus a matter of desire satisfaction that is dependent upon the individual’s preferences. However, individuals can be wrong about what is good and can make choices that they think will bring them happiness but do not. For example, a person may believe that being an astronaut will make them happy in life but then discover that they do not deal well with the loneliness of long space flights. Had they understood what being an astronaut entails, they would not have desired it. So only the satisfaction of informed desires leads to happiness, while the satisfaction of uninformed desires might not.

### Cognitivism and Non-cognitivism

Explaining well-being in terms of desire and preferences exposes specific disagreements in how philosophers think about values—more specifically, whether values have content. In other words, do values express explicit ideas and beliefs that you can put in a statement, or are values the emotional states of an individual? Cognitivism argues that values are cognitive (involve thought) and express statements about properties of things (e.g., this apple is healthy) or states of events (e.g., the sinking of the Titanic was a tragedy). Non-cognitivism argues that values are not cognitive because they do not necessarily make statements about properties of things or states of events and have more to do with a psychological state of mind.

### Emotivism

Emotivism is a branch of non-cognitivism that argues that value judgments express someone’s emotions, which unlike a belief cannot be true or false. English philosopher A. J. Ayer (1910–1989), a proponent for moral emotivism, proposed that people do not hold moral beliefs; instead, they emote moral feelings. That means that if someone says, “Killing innocent people is bad,” they are expressing how they feel about killing innocent people rather than making a statement that can be proven or disproven or that is up for debate.
Contemporary moral philosophers often argue against emotivism because it means that values are dependent on individuals’ feelings and thus are completely subjective. Moral philosophy often attempts to assert that there are objective values, particularly when it comes to well-being. The following section will explain such philosophical approaches.

### Well-Being and Objective Goods

Another approach to well-being is to create lists of objective goods that contribute to a flourishing life. Unlike desire-based concepts of well-being, objective goods can argue against personal preferences. Distinguishing between desire and objective goods can be useful in situations where personal desire conflicts with what is good for the person. As an example, consider a good that clearly contributes to well-being, like health. One could argue that a balanced diet and frequent physical activity are objective goods. Even if an individual desires to eat unhealthy food or live a sedentary lifestyle, their individual preferences do not change what is objectively good. Philosophers who propose that there are objective goods frequently focus on knowledge, virtue, and friendship as ways to evaluate and understand well-being.

### Knowledge

Aristotle began his Metaphysics with the idea that the desire to know is a universal human quality. Part of being human is to seek knowledge. People are curious. They have a sense of wonder. They value discovery. By contrast, having a lack of knowledge about the world can lead to poor decisions, confusion, anxieties, delusions, and other states of minds and activities that detract from well-being. For these reasons, knowledge can be considered an important part of well-being and flourishing in life.

### Virtue

Virtue is also considered an objective good. The ancient Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle considered virtue to be essential to a good life. In ancient Greek, the word for virtue was arête, which can also be translated as “excellence.” To determine the arête, or excellence, of something, you have to know what its purpose or function is. For example, the purpose of a knife is to cut things, so its arête is sharpness. A good knife is a sharp knife. It is easier to determine the arête of a practical object like a knife than the arête of a person. For this reason, Socrates argues that people need to “discuss virtue everyday” and continually examine their lives (Plato [399–360 BCE] 2002, 41). Virtue is not simply a characteristic or personality trait for the ancient Greeks. It is a way of living.
Aristotle’s  describes virtue as promoting human well-being. To determine what actions are virtuous, Aristotle proposes that virtue is the mean between a deficiency and excess. Vices, the opposite of virtues, are deficiencies or excesses. Aristotle uses bravery as an example (Book II, Chapter 7, §2). Bravery is virtue that involves having the right amount of fear and confidence. It is the mean between excessive fear and deficient confidence on one hand (cowardice) and deficient fear and excessive confidence (rashness) on the other hand. In this way, the virtuous action will be the golden mean, neither too much nor too little. Virtue thus describes being able to do the right thing in the right way, a quality that contributes to one’s well-being.

### Friendship

Friendship is also considered an objective good. A person’s social relations and close ties to others also allow them to flourish. For Aristotle, friendship is “necessary for our life” (1155a5). In Book VIII of Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle identifies three different types of friendships: (1) friendships of pleasure, (2) friendships of utility, and (3) friendships of character. The first two types of friendship are instrumental in the sense that these friends are not appreciated for themselves but instead are a means to another end (pleasure or usefulness). Aristotle thinks that these friendships dissolve easily. For Aristotle, friendships based on an appreciation of someone’s character are stronger and do not dissolve when circumstances change. These types of friends recognize what is good in each other as people and want what is good for each other. In these ways, friendships contribute to our well-being.

### Eudaimonia (Human Flourishing)

Philosophers sometimes use the word eudaimonia, the ancient Greek term for “happiness” or “human flourishing,” to describe well-being. Eudaimonia is a hard word to translate. People often associate the word happiness with a fleeting moment of elation or personal satisfaction rather than a state of overall well-being. However, eudaimonia is not a mere feeling or temporary high. It describes one’s life as a whole, not just how one feels, which is why the term flourishing is used more often. Flourishing also has the sense of thriving according to one’s nature. We add human to flourishing to specify that we mean excelling in the things that are proper to a human life.

### Ancient Greek View of Eudaimonia

Eudaimonia is derived from the words for “good” (eu) and “spirit” (daimon). A daimon was a guardian spirit that would help someone through life and guide them to the underworld. The ancient Greek philosopher Socrates claimed his daimon told him to philosophize so he could awaken the Athenian people. Eudaimonia is more than a temporary feeling of joy or elation. It is having a good spirit through life, or—to put in more modern terms—having a flourishing life, full of all the good things a life can provide.
For Plato and Aristotle, eudaimonia is related to the virtue or excellence of something (arête). Virtue or excellence is determined by the nature and purpose of something. For humans, one simply needs to determine the virtues that are proper to human nature and practice them to flourish in life. Moreover, flourishing in life gives an indication that one is acting well or virtuously. For Aristotle, virtue alone was not sufficient for flourishing. After all, someone could be very virtuous and suffer a grave misfortune. Suffering seems antithetical to flourishing. However, ancient Stoics believed that virtue was sufficient for flourishing and that tragic circumstances could not rob someone of their flourishing, because it could not take away their virtue. These debates in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy help us to think about whether an individual cultivates flourishing through their own agency alone or whether circumstances determine flourishing, or whether perhaps both are true.

### G. E. M. Anscombe and Modern Eudaimonism

The British philosopher Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe (1919–2001), known as G. E. M. Anscombe, critiqued Aristotle’s ethics and eudaimonism in her 1958 article “Modern Moral Philosophy.” For Anscombe, Aristotle’s concept of eudaimonism is too vague to be useful to moral philosophy, and many of the virtues he describes in Nicomachean Ethics do not fit within a moral framework.
At the same time that Anscombe critiqued ancient Greek eudaimonism as a principle for moral philosophy, she denied that modern philosophy had provided any better alternatives. For Anscombe, modern moral philosophies, such as Kantian ethics and utilitarianism, use “oughts” that have no firm foundation. She argues that an “ought” implies a command or law, which requires a legislator. This concept of morality works well within a theistic framework where God serves as a legislator, but modern moral philosophy presents itself as secular, not religious. Anscombe’s contemporaries took up the challenge of describing human flourishing and virtues in a more rigorous manner that could form the foundation for modern moral philosophy.

### Perfectionism

Another way to approach human flourishing is to think of the highest attainable good for an individual, human nature, or society. This approach to ethics is called perfectionism. There are a variety of ways that perfectionism can be articulated. For Thomas Aquinas, one’s goal in life is to become a perfect image of God (Aquinas [1485] 1948, 439). Enlightenment philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) argued in his Ethics ([1677] 1985) that people pursue what will increase and perfect their powers and capacities. For example, joy allows people to rise to greater perfection, while sadness leads to less perfection. There are many other philosophies of self-perfection across the history of ideas. In each of them, you can see how the concept of well-being is tied to perfecting oneself.

### Kant’s Kingdom of Ends

For Kant, values are not psychological states but instead are rational maxims. As explained previously, Kant bases his moral philosophy on the categorical imperative, which helps one recognize moral and immoral actions based on whether they can be turned into a universal maxim that applies to everyone. Kant provides other formulations of the categorical imperative, where he states that one must always treat humans as “ends in themselves” rather than “a means to an end.” This means that you cannot use other people as instruments to achieve your goals.
Kant states that another way to arrive at a universal maxim is to imagine you are creating laws for a kingdom of ends. The kingdom of ends is a hypothetical, ideal society in which every individual is treated as an end and no one is treated as a means to an end. It would be a society of equals, where everyone flourishes. In this sense, Kant’s moral philosophy uses the concept of an ideal or perfect society as a guiding principle.

### Japanese Notion of Ikigai (Reason for Being)

Japanese psychology takes up the concept of ikigai (reason for being) to describe well-being. Contemporary psychologist Michiko Kumano describes two senses of well-being in Japan: (1) shiawase, or hedonic well-being, and (2) ikigai, or reason for being. He explains that while shiawase is a state of contentment or happiness and freedom from worry, ikigai deals more with what makes life meaningful. He explains that ikigai is “less philosophical and more intuitive, irrational, and complicated in its nuances than other related terms in Western languages” (Kumano 2017, 421). How does one experience this nuanced, intuitive sense of purpose in life? For Kumano, ikigai has to do with devoting oneself to goals and activities that are aligned with one’s values.

###

Well-being focuses on what is good for a person, not simply what is good in an abstract sense.
There are three general ways philosophers approach the value of well-being: (1) pleasure, (2) desire, and (3) objective goods. Some philosophers describe well-being as obtaining pleasure and avoiding pain. The general term for this approach is hedonism. Epicurus founded a school of philosophy called Epicureanism, which taught that pleasure is the highest good. Utilitarianism is considered hedonistic because it bases moral theory on maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. Critics of hedonistic philosophies complain that pleasure is too varied, indeterminate, subjective, and conditional to be a solid basis for ethics.
Another way to think of well-being is the satisfaction of desire. There are multiple ways to define desire and think about its satisfaction. Cognitivism argues that values are cognitive and express statements about properties of things or states of events. Non-cognitivism argues that values are not cognitive because they have more to do with a psychological state of mind. Another approach to well-being is to create lists of objective goods that contribute to a flourishing life. Philosophers who propose that there are objective goods frequently focus on knowledge, virtue, friendship, and perfection as ways to evaluate and understand well-being.

###


# Value Theory

## Aesthetics

### Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:
1. Compare and contrast objective and subjective concepts of beauty.
2. Describe aesthetic judgment.
3. Explain the relation between aesthetics and environmentalism.
4. Explain the relation between aesthetics and feminism.
5. Describe everyday aesthetics.
Thus far, the chapter has touched on fairly abstract concepts related to value. However, value theory has very concrete applications. Aesthetics is an area of value theory that examines how people evaluate works of art and other aesthetic experiences in nature and their everyday lives.

### Beauty

A central concept in aesthetics is beauty. What is beauty? Is beauty an objective or subjective value? Even if you take beauty to be a subjective judgment, there are different ways to approach thinking about it. Are judgments of beauty completely “in the eye of the beholder,” as the popular phrase indicates, or are there criteria or patterns that determine individuals’ responses? Is beauty arbitrary, or can we discover some framework for explaining our experiences of it?

### Objective Concepts of Beauty

For ancient philosophers like Plato and Aristotle, beauty is a quality of an object. These thinkers asserted that there was objective criteria for explaining what is beautiful. Plato believed that beauty is a quality of an object and that there is one true “form” or essence of the beautiful that explains why individual things are beautiful. The beautiful itself has to do with harmony, proportion, and balance.
This concept of the beautiful makes sense if you look at ancient Greek art. The ancient Greeks used mathematical ratios to determine the perfect proportions for their temples and sculptures. The Greek sculptor Polykleitos (5th century BCE) developed mathematical rules for sculpting the human form so that the proportions of the body would be beautiful and lifelike.
In Plato’s philosophy, moreover, beauty is not simply a sensory or emotional response to things of this world; it is transcendent and immaterial and involves one’s soul and mind. The experience of beauty is ecstatic in the sense that it lifts one beyond this world. In the Phaedrus, Plato describes the soul sprouting and growing wings when it beholds something beautiful. As the wings grow, the soul is able to ascend to new heights.

### Subjective Concepts of Beauty

In contrast to Plato and Aristotle, Enlightenment philosophers argued that beauty is a subjective judgment, meaning it is a statement about what a person feels rather a quality of an object. For Hume, judgments of beauty are statements of taste. In Hume’s “Of the Standard of Taste” (1757), he points out that we witness great variety in taste, even among people who share similar cultural and educational backgrounds. He also notes the way that debates about taste frequently descend into condescension and defensiveness. Taste is very personal, and people feel passionately about their judgments of taste. Yet Hume still asserts that people can educate, develop, and refine their taste, which can then give their judgments more weight. For Hume, critics with refined taste ultimately decide what is good or bad art.

### Aesthetic Judgment

Aesthetic theory also examines how people make judgments about art. Are aesthetic judgments rational? Do they have justifications, and if so, what kind of justifications?

### Kant and Aesthetic Judgment

In the  (1790), Kant, like Hume, considers judgments of taste to be subjective—that is, a statement about the subject’s response to an object. However, he thinks that when people experience beauty, they also think that others ought to feel the same way. Moreover, Kant thinks that art and beauty are not a matter of personal preference because values and ideals are involved. If you enjoy something that is a mere personal preference, like an ice cream flavor, you will not necessarily expect others to like it and will not feel insulted if they dislike it. But the same is not necessarily true for art. For example, maybe you cannot explain why you prefer chocolate ice cream—it simply tastes better to you. However, you can explain why you love Toni Morrison’s Beloved and think that others should read it too. Kant cares about the values involved with aesthetic judgments because he believes that the beautiful prepares people to love what is good.

### Sibley and Aesthetic Judgment

How do people justify aesthetic judgments? Are there rules or a specific rationale that are needed? In “Aesthetic Concepts,” British philosopher Frank Sibley (1923 – 1996) distinguishes between two types of remarks people make about art: sensory observations—what anyone with the sense of sight or hearing can observe—and aesthetic judgments, which require sensitivity to details and discernment (1959). Sibley notes that people frequently base aesthetic judgments on sensory observations. For example, you might describe a painting as melancholic because of its blue palette. However, Sibley argues that this does not mean that a person’s sensory observations require that they arrive at a particular aesthetic judgment. Someone could disagree with your assessment of the painting and describe it as calm rather than melancholic. In this sense, aesthetic judgments have justifications but not necessary rules, conditions, or relations between what a person sees and how they interpret or judge it.

### The Intentional Fallacy

Who determines what a work of art means? Its audience? Art historians or critics? Some people assert that it is the intention of the artist that determines the meaning of the work of art. For literary theorist William Kurtz Wimsatt (1907 – 1975) and philosopher of art Monroe Beardsley (1915 – 1985), both Americans, this is a fallacy: the intentional fallacy. Wimsatt and Beardsley point out that people are able to describe, interpret, and evaluate a work of art without any reference to the artist’s intentions and, furthermore, that these intentions are often unknown and unavailable (1946).
There are other reasons not to limit the meaning of a work of art to the artist’s intentions. A work of art takes on a life of its own as it becomes known to the public and incorporated into spaces where it is discussed, compared, analyzed, and catalogued. Additionally, intentions do not always land correctly. An artist might intend to provoke a particular reaction and fail to do so, or the work of art might incite a response that the artist could not possibly anticipate. Audiences’ reactions to the work of art are meaningful and, more importantly, not always a misinterpretation if they differ from the intentions of the artist.

### Art and Values

Studying aesthetics can lay bare what societies value, how they express that value, and who gets to create values. Since aesthetic values are shaped by culture, society, class, religion, politics, ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, and ability, art intervenes in ethical and social-political issues—and vice versa.

### Feminist Aesthetics

 Feminism, as defined by American social activist bell hooks (1952 – 2021), “is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression” (hooks 2015, 1). Art provides one way to investigate the exploitation and oppression of women, particularly since women have been excluded from art. In past centuries, women were not allowed to study at art academies or exhibit their work at galleries. Additionally, the women who managed to create art were often marginalized and at times brutally punished for trying to make their way into the art world, like the 17th-century Italian artist Artemisia Gentileschi, who was sexually assaulted by a man from her father’s art circle and then dishonored and tortured in court. Women of color have been excluded from the art world to an even greater degree, particularly if their works of art do not fit within the classical “canon” of art, which focuses on “great” works of art like large-scale paintings, epic novels, and other traditionally masculine arts. Often, works of art that are tied to handicraft and domestic arts are excluded from the canon of great works of art, which means that many creations by a variety of women are ignored.
In the 1980s, a group of anonymous women artist-activists called the Guerrilla Girls—a reference to guerrilla fighters and the fact that they used gorilla masks to hide their identities—started a billboard campaign to shed light on this issue. They created a poster that pointed out the exclusion of women artists from the Metropolitan Museum. It provided the statistic that “less than 5% of the artists in the Modern Art Sections are women, but 85% of the nudes are female” (Guerrilla Girls 1989) and raised the question of whether women have to be naked to be in a museum. The Guerilla Girls are still active and continue to use playful campaigns to raise awareness about feminist issues.

### Environmental Aesthetics

People often think about art in terms of spaces like a museum or gallery, not the great outdoors. Moreover, some philosophers, like Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770 – 1831), draw a sharp distinction between natural beauty and artistic beauty to assert the superiority of human creation over the natural world. Some art, however, challenges the elevation of art over nature and uses art to immerse people in nature. There are many examples of land art in prehistoric and Indigenous cultures—for example, earthworks and mounds made by pre-Columbian Native Americans. Contemporary land art blurs the distinction between nature and art in ways that allow one to contemplate the profound effect people have had the natural world and to reorient themselves to the sublime beauty and grandeur of natural landscapes.
Land art was an art movement in the 1960s and 1970s that sought to relocate works of art from the commercialized spaces of museums and galleries to the natural world. Some examples of land art challenge the distinction between the human world and the natural world. The Cuban-American artist Ana Mendieta (1948–1985) did an “earth-body” series of works that involved pressing her body into natural landscapes and photographing the impressions, as well as still and moving film of her interacting with natural landscapes. Her intention was to develop a spiritual connection with the earth using her body. Art can help people think about their relationship to the natural world and their responsibility for the environment.
At times, works of art have also served as environmental interventions. For example, in her 2020 art project The Distant Is Imminent, American photographer Camille Seaman (b. 1969) projected images of melting icebergs from Antarctica and the Artic onto buildings in cities that will be affected by the rising sea level. The projections showed the estimated water line for 2050, which allowed spectators to envision their surroundings swallowed by the ocean due to climate change. These works of art are meant to create more than an aesthetic experience—they are calls to collective action and change.

### Everyday Aesthetics

While many approaches to aesthetics focus on works of art and artistic creations, you can find aesthetically significant objects, experiences, and practices all around you. Everyday aesthetics asserts the prevalence of aesthetically meaningful experiences in one’s ordinary day-to-day life—for example, listening to the rain fall on a roof, admiring the pattern of leaves on the ground, and even choosing what shirt to wear or how to decorate your living spaces.
Japanese aesthetics is a rich source of inspiration for everyday aesthetics. Japanese aesthetics often incorporates Zen Buddhism to encourage mindful attention to the beauty of things around us. Additionally, Japanese aesthetics focuses on the small and impermanent, such as cherry blossoms and tea ceremonies, as opposed to the large-scale grandiose “masterpieces” favored by traditional European aesthetics. As Japanese scholar Okakura Kakuzo (1863 – 1913) explains in The Book of Tea, Japanese tea ceremonies are “founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence” (Kakuzo [1906] 1956, 3). In Japanese culture, everyday aesthetic practices are a moral and religious form of self-cultivation.
Contemporary Japanese American philosopher Yuriko Saito’s approach to everyday aesthetics brings Japanese aesthetics and environmental aesthetics together to address the moral dimensions of aesthetics and its impact on the world. She explains that everyday aesthetics decenters works of art in ways that broaden people’s discussions and help them understand the way questions of taste and beauty enrich their lives and impact the environment (Saito 2007). By focusing on the many aesthetic dimensions of life, people can examine what they value.
Value theory gives people tools for identifying, formulating, and questioning the values that are important to them as individuals and as a society. Even if you never take another philosophy course, you can use these ideas to think about your choices in life, what you desire or find pleasurable and good, and how you define well-being or a just society.

###

Aesthetics is an area of value theory that examines how we evaluate works of art and other aesthetic experiences in nature and our everyday lives. For ancient philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus, beauty is a quality of an object. In contrast, Enlightenment philosophers argue that beauty is a subjective judgment. Aesthetic theory also examines how we make judgments about art. Studying aesthetics can lay bare what societies value, how they express that value, and who gets to create values.

###

### Suggested Reading

Freeland, Cynthia. 2001. But Is It Art? An Introduction to Art Theory. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Mason, Elinor. 2018. “Value Pluralism.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta, Spring 2018 ed. Stanford, CA: Metaphysics Research Lab, Philosophy Department, Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2018/entries/value-pluralism
Mills, Charles. 1997. The Racial Contract. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Schroeder, Mark. 2021. “Value Theory.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta, Fall 2021 ed. Stanford, CA: Metaphysics Research Lab, Philosophy Department, Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2021/entries/value-theory/
Zimmerman, Michael J., and Ben Bradley. 2019. “Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Value.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta, Spring 2019 ed. Stanford, CA: Metaphysics Research Lab, Philosophy Department, Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2019/entries/value-intrinsic-extrinsic

###

Anscombe, G. E. M. 1958. “Modern Moral Philosophy.” Philosophy 33 (124): 1–19.
Aquinas, Thomas. (1485) 1948. Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas. New York: Modern Library.
Aristotle. (350 BCE) 1999. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by Terence Irwin. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company.
Augustine. 1909–14. The Confessions of St. Augustine. Vol. 7. New York: P. F. Collier & Son.
Ayer, Alfred Jules. 1946. Language, Truth, and Logic. 2nd edition. London: Victor Gollancz Ltd.
Chang, Ruth. 2015. “Value Incomparability and Incommensurability.” In The Oxford Handbook of Value Theory, edited by Iwao Hirose and Jonas Olson. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Durkheim, Emile. 1995. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. Translated by Karen Fields. New York: Free Press.
Foot, Philippa. 2003. Natural Goodness. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.
Guerrilla Girls. 1989. Do Women Have to Be Naked to Get into the Met. Museum? Screenprint on paper. 280 × 710 mm.
Hobbes, Thomas. 1904. Leviathan. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
hooks, bell. 2015. Feminism Is for Everybody. London and New York: Routledge.
Hume, David. (1739–1740) 2003. A Treatise of Human Nature. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications.
Hume, David. 1757. Four Dissertations. London: A. Millar, in the Strand.
Hume, David. 1874–75. The Philosophical Works of David Hume. 4 vols. edited by T. H. Green and T. H. Grose. London: Longman, Green.
Kant, Immanuel. (1785) 1998. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by Mary Gregor. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Kant, Immanuel. (1790) 2000. Critique of the Power of Judgment. Translated by Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
King, Martin L., Jr. (1963) 1994. Letter from Birmingham Jail. San Francisco, CA: Harper.
Kumano, Michiko. 2017. “On the Concept of Well-Being in Japan: Feeling Ahiawase as Hedonic Well-Being and Feeling Ikigai as Eudaimonic Well-Being.” Applied Research in Quality of Life 13 (2–3): 419–433.
Locke, John. [1689] 1967. Two Treatises of Government. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Long, A. A., and David Sedley. 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Mencius. 1970. The Works of Mencius. Translated by James Legge. New York: Dover Books.
Mill, John Stuart, and Jeremy Bentham. 1987. Utilitarianism and Other Essays. Edited by Alan Ryan. New York: Penguin Books.
Moody-Adams, Michele. 1997. Fieldwork in Familiar Places: Morality, Culture, & Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Moore, George Edward. 1993. Principia Ethica. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Noddings, Nel. 2013. Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education. 2nd edition. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Nozick, Robert. 1974/ Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell.
Nussbaum, Martha. 1999. Sex and Social Justice. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Nussbaum, Martha. 2000. Women and Human Development. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Okakura, Kakuzo. (1906) 1956. The Book of Tea. Rutland, VT: C. E. Tuttle Co.
Plato. (399–360 BCE) 2002. Five Dialogues. Translated by G. M. A. Grube. Revised by John M. Cooper. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company.
Putnam, Hilary. 1982. “Beyond the Fact-Value Dichotomy.” Crítica: Revista Hispanoamericana de Filosofía 14 (41): 3–12.
Saito, Yuriko. 2007. Everyday Aesthetics. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Sibley, Frank. 1959. “Aesthetic Concepts.” The Philosophical Review 68 (4): 421–450.
Spinoza, Benedictus de. 1985. The Collected Writings of Spinoza. Vol. 1. Edited and translated by Edwin Curley. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Wimsatt, William Kurtz, and Monroe Curtis Beardsley. 1946. “The Intentional Fallacy.” The Sewanee Review 54 (3): 468–488.


# Normative Moral Theory

## Introduction

How do you decide what to do when you face a difficult moral dilemma? When you are unsure what is right in a situation, what do you rely on, if anything, to guide you so you can do the right thing? Say, for example, you have borrowed a friend’s car. You want to fill the gas tank before returning the car, but you don’t know what fuel the car uses. You are in a hurry and can’t reach your friend on the phone. What do you do? Do you return the car without filling it up? Do you take a wild guess or ask a person at the gas station and hope the fuel you pick doesn’t damage the engine?
What you might need is a good normative moral theory. Normative ethics focuses on establishing norms and standards of moral conduct for effectively guiding our behavior. A normative moral theory is a systematized account of morality that addresses important questions related to effectively guiding moral conduct. By the end of this chapter, you will be able to apply different types of normative moral theories to help guide your decisions at gas stations and elsewhere.


# Normative Moral Theory

## Requirements of a Normative Moral Theory

### Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:
1. Identify the meaning and purpose of normative moral theory.
2. Distinguish between the three areas of ethics.
This section focuses on the how normative moral theories relate to other branches of ethics, examines the requirements of normative moral theories, and introduces three major types of moral theories.

### Three Areas of Ethics

Ethics is the field of philosophy that investigates morality and engages in “systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior” (Fieser 1995). It is divided into three main areas—metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics—each of which is distinguished by a different level of inquiry and analysis.
Metaethics focuses on moral reasoning and “whether morality exists” (Dittmer 1995). It is concerned with questions that are more abstract, ones that explore the foundations and assumptions related to our moral beliefs and practice. It attempts to understand the beliefs and presuppositions connected to morality and moral deliberation. Metaethics explores, for example, where moral values originate, what it means to say something is right or good, whether there are any objective moral facts, whether morality is (culturally) relative, and the psychological basis for moral practices and values.
Normative ethics focuses on moral behavior, on what we should do. It thus deals with questions concerning human agency, responsibility, and moral evaluation. Normative ethics attempts to establish criteria or principles for identifying norms and standards to guide correct behavior. Philosophers offer systematized accounts of morality that provide standards and norms of right conduct. There are three main approaches to normative moral theory: consequentialist, deontological, and virtue ethics. Each approach differs based on the criterion (consequences, duty, or character) used for determining moral conduct.
Applied ethics focuses on the application of moral norms and principles to controversial issues to determine the rightness of specific actions. Issues like abortion, euthanasia, the use of humans in biomedical research, and artificial intelligence are just a few of the controversial moral issues explored in applied ethics, which is covered in the next chapter.
A normative moral theory provides a framework for understanding our actions and determining what’s right. A fully worked out moral theory often addresses all three areas of ethics (metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics), but its aim will be establishing and defending the norms of conduct it recommends.

### Three Coherent Frameworks for Understanding Morality

A moral theory should make it possible to effectively guide behavior by providing a framework for determining what is morally right and arguments justifying its recommendations. Such a framework must be based on a logical foundation for its principles and provide consistent recommendations. It should, in short, make sense.
This chapter examines three distinct moral framework approaches to normative ethics: consequentialist, deontological, and virtue. Consequentialism looks at an action’s outcome or consequences to determine whether it is morally right. Consequentialists think an action is right when it produces the greatest good (e.g., happiness or general welfare). Deontology focuses on duties or rules to determine the rightness of an action. Deontologists argue that an action is right when it conforms to the correct rule or duty (e.g., it is always wrong to lie). Virtue ethics focuses on character and the development of the right habits or traits. Virtue ethicists argue that right action flows from right character. These three main approaches are distinguished by the criterion (i.e., consequences, duty, or character) used for determining moral conduct.

###

Ethics is the philosophical study of morality. It is commonly divided into three main areas: metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics, each of which is distinguished by a different level of inquiry. A normative moral theory is a systematized account of morality that addresses important questions related to effectively guiding moral conduct. This chapter reviews three main approaches (consequentialist, deontological, and virtue) to normative ethics distinguished by the criterion (consequences, duty, or character) used for determining moral conduct.

###

###

Cochrane, Alasdair. 1995. “Environmental Ethics.” In Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by James Fieser and Bradley Dowden. https://iep.utm.edu/envi-eth/
Dittmer, Joel. 1995. “Applied Ethics.” In Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by James Fieser and Bradley Dowden. https://iep.utm.edu/ap-ethic/
Fieser, James. 1995. “Ethics.” In Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by James Fieser and Bradley Dowden. https://iep.utm.edu/ethics/
Foot, Philippa. 2002. Virtues and Vices and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy. 2nd ed. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Miller, David. 2017. “Justice.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta. Fall 2017 ed. Stanford, CA: Metaphysics Research Lab, Philosophy Department, Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2017/entries/justice/
Sayre-McCord, Geoff. 2014. “Metaethics.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta. Summer 2014 ed. Stanford, CA: Metaphysics Research Lab, Philosophy Department, Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2014/entries/metaethics/


# Normative Moral Theory

## Consequentialism

### Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:
1. Identify the meaning and purpose of the consequentialist approach.
2. Summarize Mohist and utilitarian interpretations of consequentialism.
Most people make at least some decisions based on the likely consequences of their actions. You might, for example, appeal to costs and benefits to justify a decision. For example, you might consider the happiness your friend will feel when discovering that you’ve filled the gas tank (a benefit) and weigh that against the price of a tank of gas (cost). In doing so, you are analyzing consequences to yourself and to your friend. Consequentialists, however, ask you to take a wider view. In consequentialism, an action is right when it produces the greatest good for everyone. An agent is tasked with assessing possible consequences to determine which action will maximize good for all those who might be impacted. This section looks at two consequentialist approaches, Mohism and utilitarianism.

### Mohism

The Warring States period in ancient China (ca. 475–221 BCE) was a period of widespread social unrest and discord, one characterized by warfare, suffering, and a fractured society. Thinkers in ancient China responded by exploring ways to unite people and discover (or rediscover) moral norms and standards that would promote a better life and social harmony. Philosophies like Mohism, Confucianism, and Daoism were developed, making it a period marked by intellectual and cultural expansion. These philosophies, while different in important respects, are similar in that each is born as a response to the social disharmony and widespread suffering experienced during the Warring States period. Each one shows a desire to facilitate and foster change in order to overcome social challenges and improve the lives of the people.
Very little is known about the founder of Mohism, Mo Di or Mozi (ca. 430 BCE). He lived around the time of Confucius (ca. 479 BCE), the founder of Confucianism, and Laozi, the founder of Daoism. Mozi, like Confucius and Laozi, was considered a great teacher. He and early Mohists sought to establish rational, objective standards for evaluating actions and establishing ethical norms.

### Four Concepts of Mohist Ethical Theory

Four interrelated concepts are at the heart of Mohist ethical theory: morality, benefit, benevolence, and care. Morality ( is determined by benefit ( which shapes how we understand our duties and define what is right. Benefit (li) is defined loosely as a set of material and social goods, including virtues and practices that strengthen social order. Benefit, in turn, rested on the concept of benevolence or kindness ( which requires that we look outside our own interests and treat others with care (. Practicing kindness is crucial for promoting social order and fair treatment. Mohists believed that we are more likely to achieve social stability and general welfare when we focus not simply on ourselves, but the betterment of others and the community.
Mohists thought ethical norms should be established by looking at what increases overall benefit. To this end, Mozi argued that we should promote the immediate welfare of individuals and consider the welfare of all when acting. If people are suffering or in need now, it makes sense, Mozi thought, to address those issues first.
As the theory developed, Mohists also came to associate benefit with happiness or delight (xǐ). However, most essential to Mohism is the value of impartial care of all, or universal love. They thought we should treat everyone impartially and that we shouldn’t give preference to some people’s welfare over others. Mohists opposed the rulers and elites during the Warring States period who had focused only on their own pleasure and gain to the detriment of everyone else.

### Normative Practices: The Ten Doctrines

There are ten doctrines that form the core of early Mohism. These ten doctrines correspond to Mozi’s original work, and they were treated as central even by later Mohists who developed and expanded upon early Mohist thinking. The ten doctrines are normally split into five pairs as follows:
1. “Promoting the Worthy” and “Identifying Upward”
2. “Inclusive Care” and “Condemning Aggression”
3. “Moderation in Use” and “Moderation in Burial”
4. “Heaven’s Intent” and “Understanding Ghosts”
5. “Condemning Music” and “Condemning Fatalism”
The “Promoting the Worthy” and “Identifying Upward” doctrines highlight the Mohists’ concern for a meritocratic system. They believed that an individual should be appointed to a position based on their performance and moral goodness. These officials should serve as models to all. Mohists assumed that people are motivated to act in ways that conform to their beliefs about what is right. They therefore believed that people needed proper moral education informed by rational, objective moral standards. Once people possess the proper knowledge, they conform their behavior accordingly. This, in turn, would address the social upheaval and disharmony that plagued their world. Mozi realized that if people adopt the same morality, they will use the same standards to judge their own actions and the actions of others, which will improve social order and harmony.
The “Inclusive Care” and “Condemning Aggression” doctrines affirm the importance of considering and caring for everyone equally. They reinforce the idea that it is not just the individual’s own benefit that matters, but the benefit of all people. Mohists therefore condemn aggression because others are harmed in the pursuit of personal benefit. During a period in which warlord battled against warlord, Mohists condemned these attempts at military conquest as selfishly immoral.
Mohists promoted the practices of “Moderation in Use” and “Moderation in Burial.” They rejected lavish funerals, customs, and practices that were wasteful. Resources should be used to the benefit of individuals and society. They viewed excessive displays of wealth that only benefit the few as selfish.
Mohists use the ideas of “Heaven’s Intent” and “Understanding Ghosts” to argue that there is an objective moral world order that individuals and society should hasten to emulate. Heaven acts as their principal standard for evaluating and understanding our moral responsibilities.
Early Mohists, in particular, also saw heaven as way to motivate individuals to act selflessly, as moral deeds would be rewarded, whereas immoral ones would be punished. Later, however, Mohists seemed to abandon or at least put less emphasis on this appeal to heaven to justify ethical norms and principles, favoring a greater emphasis on rational argumentation.
Finally, Mohists promoted the norms of “Condemning Music” and “Condemning Fatalism.” The Mohist views on music stemmed from their condemnation of the powerful for being wasteful when they enjoyed lavish displays and luxuries. They felt those with wealth had a responsibility to others and should behave morally.
Mohists also believed in social mobility, such that capable, moral individuals should rise. Their support of meritocracy further underscores a belief that the individual has the power to change, to direct their own life, and to determine their own path. The Mohists condemn fatalism because it suggests that human effort is futile and undermines Mohist goals of achieving social order and a large and economically thriving population. Mohists believed that our lot in life is not set in stone, nor does fate determine our path (Fraser 2020).

### Utilitarianism

The term utility means “useful” or “a useful thing.” Utilitarians argue that what is right is whatever produces the most utility, the most usefulness. The question, then, is how do we define usefulness? The utilitarian’s answer is that something is useful when it promotes happiness (or pleasure). According to utilitarians, we have a moral obligation or responsibility to choose the action that produces the most happiness.

### Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill

Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) was the first philosopher to articulate the principle of utility. James Mill (1773–1836), an economist, political philosopher, and historian, was Bentham’s friend and a follower of utilitarianism. James Mill naturally raised his son to be a utilitarian as well. John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) received a rigorous homeschooling under his father’s tutelage. Scholars in the fields of philosophy, political science, and economics continue to apply the insights of Bentham and Mill to this day.

### The Principle of Utility

The principle of utility states that “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness” (Mill [1861] 2001, 7). Utilitarians argue that moral conduct is conduct that maximizes the good (or produces the most value). In economics, for example, utility is defined as the amount of enjoyment a consumer receives from a good or a service. You might, for example, choose between buying an oatmeal raisin cookie and a chocolate chip cookie. If you like them both equally, the right action would be to compare the prices and buy the cheaper one. Utility, however, is not always so easy to determine, particularly in more complex situations.

### The Trolley Problem

Trolley problems are classic thought experiments first invented by Philippa Foot and widely employed by ethicists to explore moral reasoning (Foot 2002). Consider one such trolley problem, referred to as the bystander case. Imagine you are standing by trolley tracks observing the trolley cars in action. To your horror, you realize that one of the trolley cars is out of control. If nothing is done, the trolley will continue down the track, killing five workers who are performing track maintenance. You happen to be standing near a lever you can pull that will divert the trolley. If you divert the trolley, you will change its path so that it takes a different track where only one worker is performing maintenance. Is it morally permissible to pull the lever?
The simplest utilitarian response would be “yes.” You would save the lives of four workers. The right decision involves making a simple quantitative calculation: five workers minus one worker is four workers. So the right, moral decision is to divert the trolley. Yet, John Stuart Mill recognized that not all questions of utility can be answered quantitatively.

### Higher and Lower Pleasures

Raised to continue in the footsteps of Bentham and his father, John Stuart Mill had a nervous breakdown as a young man. Mill emerged from the crisis with new ideas about utilitarianism, including the realization that Bentham’s characterization of pleasure could be improved upon (Durham 1963). He realized that pleasures differ both quantitatively and qualitatively. Mill identified what he calls higher and lower pleasures to distinguish between different qualities of pleasure. With his revised and more nuanced account of pleasure, Mill set out to develop Bentham’s earlier formulation of utilitarianism. He refined the calculus and assigned a greater significance or preference to higher-quality pleasures (e.g., mental pleasures).
Mill distinguished between different (higher and lower) qualities of pleasure in his formulation of utilitarianism. What he called higher pleasures are those pleasures associated with the exercise of our higher faculties. For example, higher pleasures are often associated with the use of our higher cognitive faculties and/or participation in social/cultural life. Lower pleasures, in contrast, are those pleasures associated with the exercise of our lower faculties. For example, lower pleasures are (basic) sensory pleasures like those experienced when we satisfy our hunger or relax after difficult physical activity. As Mill saw it, we have higher cognitive faculties (e.g., reason, imagination, moral sense) that distinguish us from other living things. Our higher cognitive faculties give us access to higher pleasures, and these pleasures are a defining feature of human life.
Mill’s claim that “it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied” suggests that it is better to be dissatisfied and aware that you are capable of experiencing different qualities of pleasure than to forfeit the higher pleasures merely for the sake of basic satisfaction.
Some Mill scholars have even suggested that our dissatisfaction is a potential source of higher pleasures. In Mill and Edward on Higher Pleasures, Susan Feagin (1983) points out that dissatisfaction stems from a recognition that our situation could be improved. Feagin argues that our ability to formulate plans to improve our situation is a source of higher pleasure. Dissatisfaction motivates us to improve things and pursue a better world and life.

### The Greatest Happiness Principle

To apply the principle of utility in broad social and political contexts, Mill formulated the greatest happiness principle, which stipulates that those actions are right that produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. When agents (individual decision makers) approach a decision, they review and evaluate their possible actions and should choose the action that will promote the most happiness for the most people. It is not simply the agent’s own happiness that matters, but the happiness of all individuals involved or affected by the consequences produced. The “happiness which forms the utilitarian standard of what is right in conduct is not the agent’s own happiness but that of all concerned” (Mill [1861] 2001, 17). Mill argued that the right action is the one that maximizes happiness or produces the most net happiness.
Mill emphasizes the importance of putting personal interests aside. Mill writes that if an individual is faced with a decision “between his own happiness and that of others, utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator” (Mill [1861] 2001, 17). Impartiality makes us able to assess possible consequences without giving preference to how they might impact us or those we are biased toward (e.g., friends, family, or institutions we are affiliated with). Utilitarians, therefore, strive to apply the principle in an informed, rational, and unbiased way.

### Act vs. Rule Utilitarianism

Within this moral theory, there is a major division between act and rule utilitarianism. Act utilitarians argue that we should apply the greatest happiness principle on a case-by-case basis. Factors may vary from one situation to the next making it possible that different actions are morally right even in two seemingly similar situations. Act utilitarians believe morality requires us to maximize the good every time we act.
Some have argued that act utilitarianism is problematic because it seems to justify doing actions that go well beyond ordinary moral standards. For instance, act utilitarianism could justify a vigilante killing a person, an action that is contrary to our normal sense of right conduct, if it saves lives and so maximizes happiness. However, if many people were to take the law into their own hands, the long-term consequence would be to undermine the security of all individuals within society. Consider also the case in which a jury or a judge were to find an innocent person guilty and sentence them to prison in order to avoid widespread riots. In this particular case, such an act would increase happiness but reduce the overall level of trust in the judicial system.
To avoid such problems, rule utilitarians argue that we should apply the greatest happiness principle not to each act, but instead as a means of establishing a set of moral rules. We can test possible moral rules to determine whether a given rule would produce greater happiness if it were followed. Assuming the rules pass the test, they argue that following such rules will maximize happiness and should be followed. Rule utilitarians think this list of rules can be modified as needed by reexamining each one through application of the greatest happiness principle. However, it is not easy and may not be possible to formulate all the exceptions to each rule.

### Character and Intent in Utilitarianism

For utilitarians, the only intrinsic value is happiness. Utilitarians believe that no action in itself is right or wrong, nor is it right or wrong based on an agent’s character or intent. Only the scope of consequences should be considered when assessing the rightness of an action. An agent might intend to produce certain consequences when they act, but what they intend may not come about or their action might produce other unintended consequences. If an action produces consequences a person didn’t intend or foresee and so does harm, they are still morally at fault, even if at the time it seemed reasonable to assume those outcomes wouldn’t happen. For utilitarians, an agent’s intent and character are not morally relevant factors. In this, utilitarianism differs from the other normative ethical theories that will be considered in the remainder of this chapter.

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Consequentialism is the view that the rightness of an action is determined by its consequences. Mohism is a consequentialist theory founded by Mozi. It was created as a response to widespread social unrest and suffering characteristic of ancient China’s Warring States period. Mohists thought ethical norms could be established by looking at what increases overall welfare. They thought everyone should be treated impartially or equally and that preference shouldn’t be given to some people’s welfare over others. A key virtue in Mohism is benevolence, or kindness (rèn). The concept of benevolence is important because it requires one to look outside one’s own interests and treat others with care (ài). Mozi realized that if people adopt the same morality, they will use the same standards to judge their own actions and the actions of others, which will improve social order and harmony.
Utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory developed by Jeremy Bentham and later modified by John Stuart Mill. Utilitarians argue that what is right is whatever produces the most utility, the most usefulness. They identify happiness with utility. The principle of utility states that “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness” (Mill [1861] 2001, 7). Classic utilitarians like Bentham and Mill believed that pleasure and pain are basic, primary means by which people navigate the world and find motivation. The greatest happiness principle (or principle of utility) tells us that actions are right that produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number. When an agent evaluates the moral rightness of an action, they consider the happiness of all affected by the consequences.

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