JIMMA UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF LAW AND GOVERNANCE

DEPARTMENT OF CIVICS AND ETHICS STUDIES
CONTINUING AND DISTANCE EDUCATION COORDINATOR

Module for the course: Applied Ethics and Civic Virtues

Module writers: Fisseha Mulu

Yohannes Eshetu

Editor: Seyoum Adugna

July, 2018
Jimma, Ethiopia

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 CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Hello, dear distance learners, in this introductory chapter you will introduce with some of the

controversial issues in applied ethics. In this case, students will have the chance to introduce

with for-and-against of the debatable issues like abortion, preferential treatment, and

euthanasia, animal ethics etc so that students will have the opportunity to take a position

based on the arguments forwarded/given. Furthermore, students will have equip themselves

with philosophical rational arguments to relate the issues with the cases in their locality they

grow in so that they can analyze the issues from philosophical and rational perspectives than

being accepting them as they are or being told or from being accepting things blindly.

Objectives

Dear learner, upon a successful completion of the lessons in this chapter, you will be able to:

 Understanding why issues in Applied Ethics are controversial;

 Identify some sorts of controversial issues of Applied Ethics; and

 Use the philosophical arguments of controversial moral issues to analyze and

investigate their beliefs, culture and society.

 Identify the factors that contributed for the rise of applied ethics

 Understand the methods used in applied ethics

Pre-Test Questions:

 Why issues of Applied Ethics are controversial?

 Can you list some examples of controversial moral issues?

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  What is applied ethics?

 When and how applied ethics began

 What are the methods used by ethicists in applied ethics?

Section One: An Overview to Applied Ethics

[

 Overview
Dear learner, this section will briefly introduce you what is applied ethics all about, why

issues of applied ethics are controversial and what sorts of moral issues are the subject matter

of applied ethics. In this case students will be familiar with the parameters of issues in

applied ethics so that students will easily identify moral issues as if they are issues of applied

ethics or not.

Objectives

Dear student, after successful completion of the lessons in this section, you will be able to:

 Identify what sorts of moral issues are issues of applied ethics?

 Understand what is applied ethics; and

 Recognize the parameters of categorizing moral issues in to the subject matter of applied
ethics or not.

1.1 Recalling Applied Ethics

? Dear distance learners, what is applied ethics all about?

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In this introduction to applied ethics, we will address the following questions:
(1) What is applied ethics?
(2) When and why did applied ethics appear?
(3) How do we do applied ethics?
Dear distance learner, I hope that the term ethics is not new to you as you have already
learned it in the course an Introduction to Civics and Ethics. If so, please, write down any
idea that comes to your mind on the blank spaces given below inside the box.

 Answer
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Morality is a natural feature of human life. Human beings are social beings engaged in social

interactions. As human beings, we cannot avoid making judgments about what is right and

wrong, what one should do and what is valuable. We engage in ethics when we start to reflect

on our moral judgments and actions: why is this behavior right? What is the reason for this

act? Can this act be justified? Hence, ethics is reflection on morality or, one might say, the

theory of morality.

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As human beings, we act in different capacities and roles. Moral judgments are made and

moral acts performed in different social contexts, such as health care, politics, work and

school. In health care, the moral issues are related in particular to life and death and human

well-being: Are all lifesaving measures acceptable? Should we introduce screening for

genetic diseases? In politics, judgments often concern value conflicts. The decision maker,

for example, a politician or a civil servant, must choose an alternative that might promote one

value at the expense of another: economic growth at the expense of sustainability, individual

freedom at the expense of equality, etc. When we reflect on this type of decision making, we

engage in applied ethics. Hence, applied ethics is concerned with crucial aspects of human

life and social development.

Ethics is Systematic reflections on moral views and standards (values and norms) and how

one should assess actions, institutions and character traits. And, applied ethics is a part of

normative ethics that focus on particular fields. It is the philosophical examination, from a

moral standpoint, of particular issues in private and public life that are matters of moral

judgment.

Applied ethics is the art or science of reflecting on moral dilemmas and moral problems in
different social contexts. Applied ethics is a growing, interdisciplinary field dealing with
ethical problems in different areas of society. It includes for instance social and political
ethics, computer ethics, medical ethics, bioethics, environmental ethics, business ethics, and
it also relates to different forms of professional ethics. From the perspective of ethics, applied
ethics is a specialization in one area of ethics. From the perspective of social practice
applying ethics is to focus on ethical aspects and implications of that particular practice.

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 In politics judgements often concern value conflicts; the decision maker must choose an
alternative that might promote one or the other value: equality, liberty, well-fare etc. Applied
ethics is the art – or science – of reflecting on moral dilemmas and moral problems in
different social contexts. One of the most influential philosophers in the field of applied
ethics, James Childress defines applied ethics as follows:

The terms “applied ethics” and “practical ethics” are used interchangeable to indicate
the application of ethics to special arenas of human activity, such as business, politics
and medicine, and to particular problems, such as abortions. (Childress, 1986)

The number of “special arenas” has constantly increased, and, hence, applied ethics is an
expanding field. Medicine was a starting point. It was followed by politics and business. Now
more and more human activities are assessed from an ethical point of view: farming, animal
breeding, technology etc. Lately I even came across a research project in “space ethics”!
Hence, applied ethics has since the 1970th developed as a discipline with numerous sub-
disciplines: medical ethics, animal ethics, environmental ethics, business ethics, research
ethics, technology and ethics, ICT-ethics, politics and ethics, etc, each with its own
conferences, journals and academic associations.
However, one phrase in Childress’ definition should make us cautious. What does he mean
when he says that applied ethics indicates “…the application of ethics to special arenas of
human activity”? The expression mirrors perhaps a simplified, deductive view of applied eth-
ics. The view that applied ethics is just an application of ethical theory to practical problems
has been questioned by many authors. In contrast, they stress that applied ethics implies
interplay between theory and practice, between experience and reflection and between
intuitions and principles. (Winkler and Coombs, 1993, Beauchamp, 2003)

? Dear students, when and why did applied ethics

appear?
In a famous expression philosopher Stephen Toulmin said that “Medicine saved the life of
ethics”. In the 1960s ethics was in decline. Most moral philosophers worked with conceptual
and epistemological ques-tions. Not many were engaged in normative ethics and even fewer
bothered to analyze moral problems in the real world. As a conse-

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quence academic ethics was by many considered as one of those peculiar philosophical
subjects. In the beginning of the 1970s the situation changed. Medicine saved the life of
ethics; there appeared new and acute moral problems in medicine that had no ready-to-hand
answers. Ethicists were wanted!
The rise of applied ethics had many reasons. Let us mention three:
During the 20th century the Western world had experienced a period of secularization. Fewer
and fewer people attended the church services and fewer and fewer people asked for moral
advice from the Church. In the words of sociologist Max Weber there was a change from
“moral heteronomy” when moral answers were provided by an authority, often the Church, to
“moral autonomy” when the individual him/herself had to formulate an answer. And this
development took place at a time when in medicine, as well as in other social arenas, new and
difficult moral problems arose: should there be limits to pre-natal diagnostics? Should
euthanasia be allowed? How to manage new genetic possibilities like stem cell research and
human cloning?
A second, complementary explanation for the rise of applied ethics relates to new moral
problems facing the society due to new technical possibilities. For example: in neo-natal
intensive care the possibilities to save very early born babies increased continuously. But in
many cases the babies were saved to a short and handicapped life. Where should the doctor
draw a borderline? When should a baby be saved and when let die? Another example from
another area: through the development of computer technology it became possible to store
more and more information, including information about individuals. However, this
development may threaten a right to privacy. How should the need for information be
balanced against the protection of privacy?
The problems mentioned are examples of what in ICT-ethics (Information and
Communication Ethics) have been called “policy vacuums”: we do not know how to handle
the new situations and we lack moral and legal concepts and principles to deal with them.
Thus, the rise of applied ethics can be explained by a need to fill policy vacuums.

Developments in social science and humanities often mirror social change. At the end of
the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s the student movement and the New Left challenged
the established society. There were heated discussions over topics such as the Vietnam War,
social injustices, poverty in the third world, inequality between men and women and the
maltreatment of animals. Many philosophers were engaged in the discussions. From this

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perspective, the rise of applied ethics can be seen as a philosophical response to a new social
situation. Dear student, can you mention the three important books that contributed for the
rise and development of applied ethics as a discipline? Please indicate your answer in the box
below.

 Answer
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Let me illustrate the rise of applied ethics in the 1970s with three books published during
the decade. They can still be considered as the three most important works in the modern
history of applied ethics. The first book is John Rawls´s A Theory of Justice, published in
1971. A Theory of Justice is a comprehensive and theoretical investigation of the meaning
and justification of justice. Partly in opposition to utilitarianism, Rawls argues for a neo-
Kantian contract theory and ends up with two principles of justice that, according to Rawls,
incorporate the meaning of justice. Furthermore, Rawls develops a method for justification of
moral beliefs, called “reflective equilibrium”, that is still the most influential in the field.
With the publication of A Theory of Justice, the discussion of justice became a key issue in

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applied ethics and it has remained so ever since. The commentaries and critiques of Rawls’s
theory number thousands.

Here one could also have mentioned Singer’s book Animal Liberation, appearing two years
earlier, but Practical Ethics covers a wider spectrum of issues and has – I would argue -
played a greater role. Besides, a chapter in Practical Ethics deals with the questions
elaborated in Animal Liberation.
.
The second contribution to applied ethics I will refer to is Peter Singer’s book Practical
Ethics, published in 1979.1 In Practical Ethics Singer discusses a number of topical moral
issues from a utilitarian perspective. Among the issues discussed is war, poverty, abortion,
euthanasia, treatment of animals etc. Singer argues in a compelling way and he does not
hesitate to draw radical and often also contra-intuitive conclusions. Singer’s critique of the
principle of human dignity led to heated controversies and he was even banned from speaking
publicly in Germany.

The third book is a contribution to medical ethics that is considered as the modern classic in
the field. One of the authors, Tom Beauchamp is a utilitarian philosopher, while the other,
James Childress, belongs to the Kantian tradition. One aim with the book Principles of
Biomedical Ethics, first published in 1977, was to construct ethical principles at a medium
level acceptable for people belonging to different moral traditions, religious backgrounds and
philosophies. Beauchamp and Childress pro-posed the following four principles as basis for

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moral decision making in medicine: the principle of non-maleficence, the principle of
beneficence, the principle of respect for autonomy and the principle of justice. Other authors
have suggested that these four principles also might apply to other areas in applied ethics, like
research ethics, business ethics etc.
Common to these three works in applied ethics is that each of them in a profound way has
influenced the discussion in applied ethics. They can thus be labelled “the classics” in applied
ethics.

What was new?

The turn to applied ethics took place in the 1970s and 80s. The turn implied that many
philosophers changed their focus. Moral philosophers were traditionally engaged in analyzing
moral semantics and other is-sues in meta-ethics. Now, more and more philosophers worked
with moral problems in society. However, the turn to applied ethics was not a turn away from
issues in meta-ethics. The discussion about methods in applied ethics and theories of
justification has been lively and different alternatives has been suggested; “principlism”,
specificism, case-based theories (casuistics) and Rawls’s theory of reflective equilibrium.

The turn to applied ethics was a turn from descriptive ethics to normative ethics. Many mid -
20th century philosophers believed that works in ethics, as a philosophical discipline, should
be restricted to describing and analyzing doctrines and theories. It was not appropriate for
academic philosophers to engage in normative argumentation. For example, in his inaugural
lecture in 1911 the Swedish philosophers Axel Hägerström emphasized that “Moral
philosophy should not be a subject in morality but a subject about morality” (Hägerström,
1966). Both Rawls and Singer took a different position: according to their views it is for
ethicists both possible and honorable to take a stand – what is important is that one has good
arguments!

However, one may still question if the turn to applied ethics in reality was something new.
Brenda Almond argues that “…the inception of applied philosophy /including applied ethics/
coincides with that of the Western philosophical tradition as a whole” (Almond, 2000, p.13).
She mentions the pre-Socratic philosopher Thales (c.585 B.C.) as a pioneer in the field of
ethics and economics! Other examples of important contributions to the history of applied

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ethics are works of Plato and Aristotle, philosophers who among other things worked in the
area of ethics and politics (for example, Plato: The Republic, Aristotle: Politics).

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Later philosophers engaged in applied ethics include Immanuel Kant, John Locke and John
Stuart Mill, all of them inspiring authors for pre-sent-day ethicists.
Applied ethics also has its roots in theological ethics. As one classical example one can
mention Augustine’s (5th Century) and Aquinas’s (13th Century) theory of a just war. The
conditions they set up for a war to be just, for example that it must be fought with right
intentions, waged by a legitimate authority and to redress a wrong suffered are still highly
relevant in the present discussion on just war. Furthermore, ethicists in both the Catholic and
the Protestant tradition were among the first to engage in medical ethics. (See for example;
Ramsey, 1970, Häring, 1974)

How?

How, then, do we carry out applied ethics? What methods are used? These questions have
many answers and the methodological discussion in applied ethics is intense. I will illustrate
the discussion with a much-discussed issue in recent bioethics; the question how to deal with
very early born babies, so called neonates (Bermudez, 1996, Reblagiato, 2000).

Advances in perinatal medicine have dramatically improved neonatal survival in every

industrialized country. It is now possible to save babies born in the 23rd to 24th week of
pregnancy. However, a great number of the babies who survive through “aggressive”
treatment will have different kinds of persistent handicaps as a result of their early birth. Is it
anyway legitimate, or maybe even a moral duty, to save them?

When facing this kind of dilemma there are different ways to come to a decision. Let me
mention two extremes. One can in line with the traditional practices of the medical profession
let the doctor decide. He or she has earlier experience of this kind of dilemma and has
acquired a moral sensitivity and intuition that will help him or her to make a decision. The
doctor decides with reference to praxis and earlier similar cases.

Another way to come to a decision is through applying a moral principle to the case in
question. For example, a utilitarian philosopher can reason in the following way. When
making moral decisions, one should choose the alternative action that, compared with other
alternatives, will increase the amount of pleasure and/or decrease the amount of pain in

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the world. Thus, in applied ethics one shall always and only act in accordance with the
principle of utility. Let us assume that in this particular case it is obvious that the life of the
neonate will produce more pain than pleasure. Thus, the correct moral solution is to let it die.
The decision is based on an application of a - supposedly valid - moral principle.
There are good reasons for both these methods of decision-making. The first method, the one
used by the doctor, is anchored in medical practice. The doctor is here led by phronesis, to
use Aristotle’s concept. Through experience, personal as well as experience acquired through
a tradition of professional practice, the doctor has acquired a skill to find the right solution
after a careful examination of the specific case. This kind of decision is sometimes called
“intuitive”, but intuition is perhaps too vague a concept. Let us instead use the concept
“considered judgement” to emphasize the fact that this kind of judgement is not the bare
result of an accidental emotion.
However, there are problems connected with this method for ethical decision making. In the
case of perinatal treatment, the praxis between different doctors and different clinics varies.
This is a very clear result of the EURONIC –studies (European Study on Parent’s
Information and Ethical Decision Making in Neonatal Intensive Care Units). Some doctors
believe that they should use all technical means available in or-der to rescue the child. Others
think that in some cases, non-treatment and even a more active intervention through
administering drugs with the purpose of ending the neonate’s life are the better alternatives.
(Rebagliato, et al, 2000) Who is right? When questioned, for example by an ethics committee
with a commission to formulate some rules for this kind of decision, the doctor will not have
so much to say. He or she can refer to his/her own intuition and practice, but not much more.
The advantage with the second method, i.e. the philosopher’s way of coming to a decision,
is that, when questioned, he or she can point to some well-argued principles in defense of a
decision. The utilitarian principle has a firm place in Western moral thinking and is then,
presumably, well founded. However, when applied to the decision in the specific case of
saving or not saving a neonate, it is made at a distance and unrelated to the specifics of the
particular case. It is, to use Ronald Dworkin’s concept, philosophy made “from the outside
in” (Dworkin, 1993).
Now, what shall we do if the decision made by the doctor comes into conflict with the
decision formulated by the philosopher? We can not

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do both - which decision is more reasonable? When raising this question we can relate our
discussion to the method of reflective equilibrium (RE). (Rawls 1971, Daniels, 1996).
Moral problem solving has to take different aspects of a case into consideration and it often
implies work at different levels of abstraction. Thus, it is central for the method of reflective
equilibrium to relate different aspects of an ethical problem in order to achieve a fuller
understanding of a case. In this way, RE is by nature inclusive. In the case just mentioned, the
RE approach would - so to say - be to invite both the doctor and the philosopher to the
process of finding a solution. The presupposition is then that both the doctor’s considered
judgement and the moral principles referred to by the philosophers are relevant inputs!

RE is a method for applied ethics, but a method for doing what? Is it a method for structuring
argumentation in applied ethics, for decision making or perhaps a method for justification?
The answer is that it is a method used for all these tasks, although one may choose to use it
only for one or the other. When RE is used as a method for structuring argumentation the
point is to identify and relate different relevant aspects of a case. The moral intuitionist would
– in the case of the neonates - say that the intuition of the doctor is the only relevant aspect
for decision-making. The moral principlist, on the other hand, would say that application of a
principle is the only relevant procedure. From the point of view of RE, both contextual
intuitions at the particular level and moral principles are relevant.

When using RE as a method for structuring ethical debates, one asks for all the relevant
aspects of a case. What moral considerations are then relevant in the case of the neonates? So
far we have two proposals. One is the doctor’s considered judgement, the other the principle
of utility. However, we can easily identify more relevant moral considerations. The parents’
views are one. To take the parents’ views into consideration would be in line with the
principle of autonomy. There are also other moral principles than the principle of utility and
the principle of autonomy that are candidates: while one alternative action is to let the baby
die, or even actively kill it, the principle of human dignity seems – at least prima facie - to be
relevant. Of course, one also has to know the facts of the case – but not any facts. In our
example, it is important to know the prognosis for survival of the neonate, as well as the
prognosis for persistent injuries. How, then, can we decide what facts are relevant? The
relevant moral intuitions and moral principles deter

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mine this. For example, the eye color of the baby is not relevant be-cause there are no moral
implications of that fact, while the possible persistent injuries are relevant for anyone who
sees human suffering as a relevant aspect of normative ethics.
So far, we have discussed RE as a method for structuring ethical argumentation and ethical
discussions. Let us now use it as a method for decision-making. We have to decide what to
do with the neonate. When facing this moral dilemma it is obviously a difficult task to come
to a decision. The involved persons, i.e. the doctors, nurses, parents etc may have different
moral intuitions. There is also more than one moral principle that is, prima facie, relevant.
Besides the principle of utility, emphasizing the relevance of the possibility of the neonate’s
suffering, the principle of autonomy would stress the parents’ right to influence and the
principle of human dignity would, at least according to one common interpretation, say that
human life is inviolable and, thus, that there is a moral obligation to save the life of the
neonate. When using the RE-method, the task so far is to identify all the relevant aspects and
put them on the table.

The next step is to come to a decision. A possible way to proceed is the following. Let us
assume that according to the doctor’s considered judgement the neonate should be saved.
This view is presumably based on the experience of earlier similar situations when injured
patients have been treated although their future lives would contain suffering. This judgement
coheres with the principle of human dignity (at least when interpreted that human life is
inviolable). On the other hand, saving the neonate will perhaps come into conflict with the
principle of utility. Let us, then, go back to the case and look a little closer to the situation.
We assume that in this particular case, it becomes clear that the neonate will not survive more
than a couple of months. Further, she will live this short life partly unconscious, and with a
lot of suffering. Would it not then be a relief for her if we let her die? Yes, one could say, in
this particular case the doctor’s intuition led astray and should be corrected by the principle
of utility. But what about the principle of human dignity, does not that still forbid this
alternative? Well, maybe in this case, in line with Henry Richardson’s suggestion, we should
specify this principle (Richardson, 2000). The specified principle of human dignity then
reads: “Human life is inviolable (and thus there is a moral obligation to save it) except when
what remains of it is a short period of severe suffering.” And so it goes. The reflective
process goes back and forth, from the par-

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ticular intuitions to the moral principles and back again etc. Finally, a standpoint when
modified principles and considered judgements coincide, for instance in a specified principle,
is hopefully achieved. The process of reflective equilibrium has come to an end.
We have come to a decision, but is it justified? Yes, if all morally relevant aspects are
considered, all affected persons involved are listened to and their views are taken into
account, i.e the RE is inter-subjective, and no new aspect is added that would upset the
equilibrium, we consider the decision justified. (Reuzel et al, 2001) This is a kind of
provisional justification but perhaps this is the best we can achieve in a plural society.

Should the ethicist give moral guidance?

The case of the neonate raises also another important question in applied ethics. Should the
ethicist provide an answer and recommend a decision or should he or she only provide
information about, for exam-ple, methods for decision making, relevant ethical principles and
previ-ous decisions on similar cases? Different ethicists answer this question differently.
According to the above mentioned Peter Singer, there are no restrictions for the ethicist
against arguing for particular positions in applied ethics provided one has good arguments.
Hence, Singer himself argues vigorously for liberal immigration policies, for generous aid to
poor countries, against hunting etc. (Singer, 1977, 1979)

A less normative position is advocated by Ronald Dworkin. According to Dworkin, under the
methodological programme of “philosophy from the inside out”, the primary task of the
ethicist is to listen to conflicting views, to interpret and even reconstruct them in order to find
out their ethical substance and to clarify if, and in that case how, they are related. According
to Dworkin’s view, the ethicist’s role is rather one of an interpreter and moderator than a
judge. (Dworkin, 1993)

? Dear students, what do you think of the criterions for

categorizing acts as issues of applied ethics or not.

The subject matter of 'Applied Ethics' has recently expanded to cover many contemporary

problems. Applied ethics is the philosophical examination, from a moral standpoint, of

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particular issues in private and public life that are matters of moral judgment". It is thus a term

used to describe attempts to use philosophical methods to identify the morally correct course

of action in various fields of human life.

For example, applied ethics is concerned with identifying the correct approach to matters such

as euthanasia, or the allocation of scarce health resources, or the use of human embryos in

research. Environmental ethics is concerned with questions such as the duties of humans

towards landscapes or species. Business ethics concerns questions such as the limits on

managers in the pursuit of profit, or the duty of 'whistleblowers' to the general public as

opposed to their employers. As such, it is a study which is supposed to involve practitioners’

as much as professional philosophers.

Applied ethics is distinguished from normative ethics, which concerns what people should

believe to be right and wrong, and from meta-ethics, which concerns the nature of moral

statements. Applied ethics deals with the analysis and interpretation of specific, controversial

moral issues such as animal rights, euthanasia, abortion, organ transplantation, etc. Since the

introduction of applied ethics is in philosophical stream, the role of philosophy is expanded

and the claim of the philosopher to intervene in all the problems relating to man, society and

nature is being justified. Applied ethics is one of the most influential branches of philosophy

and it has become a useful tool of decision making in society. So more than working in the

realms of academic moral philosophy, applied ethics surpasses academic moral philosophy

and achieves the status of philosophy of social purpose. This working of applied ethics as

fulfilling the demands of social purpose is regular, systematic and continuous one.

Thus, two things are important with regard to applied ethics. i.e. in saying a given act is an

issue of applied ethics, it must fulfill two important parameters:

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 A) The act must be a moral issue; and

B) The act must be controversial.

As you can understand from the above two parameters, being a moral act alone or being

controversial is not enough. Both cases must be there, first, being a moral at the same time it

has to be controversial. Every moral issue is not the subject of applied ethics. For an issue to

be treated by applied ethics, it has to be moral, specific and controversial one; such as

abortion, suicide, capital punishment, euthanasia, animal right, racism, poverty, etc.

determining the rightness or wrongness of these issues is very difficult, b/c public opinion is

always divided; some say that committing acts like abortion is right, others would say that it is

wrong. That is why these issues are said to be controversial.

The issues of murder, stealing, lying, etc. are not moral issues treated by applied ethics,

because except insignificant number of individuals, people in most general terms would agree

that they are morally wrong acts. Similarly, telling the truth, benevolence, kindness, etc. are

not controversial; people recognize that they are morally good acts. But when the moral issue

could not be easily agreed on (when they remained controversial) then it would attract the

interest of applied ethics.

Although applied ethics is concerned with controversial issues, it does not mean that all

controversial problems are treated by applied ethics. These are specifically social,

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 CHAPTER TWO
Environmental Ethics

 Introduction
Dear learner, in this chapter you are studying about environmental ethics. Specifically, in this
chapter you will learn about the meaning and nature of environmental ethics, controversies in
environmental ethics, the nexus between environmental ethics and other fields of ethics,
especially with metaehics, and the various theories that deal with what constitutes a morally
good act. Accordingly in the first part of this chapter you will learn about the meaning and
nature of environmental ethics and how it has evolved and got its current acceptance as a
distinct field of study. In the second part you will learn about controversies pertinent to the
moral standing of the environment. And finally you will learn about the various ethical
theories that intend to provide a complete argumentation about the moral status of the
environment.
Objectives:
After completing the study of this chapter, you will be able to:

 Define environmental ethics

 Explain the major controversies in environmental ethics.
 Identify the main ethical theories in environmental ethics
 Understand the meaning and nature of ecofeminism

2.1 Defining environmental ethics

Environmental ethics is one of the major branches of applied ethics which is concerned with
the study of the moral relationship between human beings and natural environment. It
emphasizes the moral responsibility of man towards conservation of plant and animal species.
From the other branches of ethics we find something unique in environmental ethics. Before
the emergence of environmental ethics moral philosophy is basically limited to the rights and
wrongs of man alone. Environmental ethics breaks this boundary of ethics and creates ethical
relationship between humans and non-humans (plants, animals, landscapes, water bodies,
atmospheric air, etc.)

? Dear students, do you think that environmental ethics has a relation

with metaethics?

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Although most of the issues of environmental ethics are treated in applied ethics, there are
also issues of environmental ethics that arose the curiosity of metaethics. Therefore
environmental ethics has the attributes of applied ethics as well as metaethics. The
fundamental metaethical question available in environmental ethics is the question of the
moral status of nature; mainly plants and animals. Is the value of nature morally considerable
in and of itself or indirectly morally considerable, because it is needed by humans? In
answering this metaethical question two answering this metaethical question two different
approaches in dealing with ethics of nature have been emerged: anthropocentrism and
biocentrism or non-anthropocentrism.
2.1.1 Controversies in environmental ethics

? Dear students, do you think that environmental ethics has a relation

with metaethics?
As a field of applied ethics, environmental ethics, has its own controversies. Most of the
controversies centers on conflict of interests, and the question is, which claim of interest is
morally right, who has the right to use natural resources: government, private organizations
(individuals or community?) who has morally acceptable right to use natural resources, if the
conflict of interest is created? Who has the responsibility to protect natural resources better
than the other?
A very fierce conflict usually occurs between those who want to protect natural environment,
such as Green Peace, and those who have economic interest (like timber industries, fishers).
There is also a day-to-day conflict between those who are working to preserve species of
animals and hunters of wild life for making a living by selling their skins, horns, etc.
The conflict of interest, one is for preserving species of animals and plants, the other is for
making animals and plants as a source of making a living; which one is morally right? These
problems are arguably more practical than philosophical, although environmental ethics
should hope to have some influence by presenting theoretical analysis towards man’s relation
to nature. Practically however, these questions demands natural resource management
including political decisions to do so.

The Challenge of Environmental Ethics

Suppose that putting out natural fires, culling feral animals or destroying some individual
members of overpopulated indigenous species is necessary for the protection of the integrity
of a certain ecosystem. Will these actions be morally permissible or even required? Is it
morally acceptable for farmers in non-industrial countries to practice slash and burn
techniques to clear areas for agriculture? Consider a mining company which has performed
open pit mining in some previously unspoiled area. Does the company have a moral
obligation to restore the landform and surface ecology? And what is the value of a humanly
restored environment compared with the originally natural environment? It is often said to be
morally wrong for human beings to pollute and destroy parts of the natural environment and
to consume a huge proportion of the planet’s natural resources. If that is wrong, is it simply

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because a sustainable environment is essential to (present and future) human well-being? Or
is such behavior also wrong because the natural environment and/or its various contents have
certain values in their own right so that these values ought to be respected and protected in
any case? These are among the questions investigated by environmental ethics. Some of them
are specific questions faced by individuals in particular circumstances, while others are more
global questions faced by groups and communities. Yet others are more abstract questions
concerning the value and moral standing of the natural environment and its nonhuman
components.

? Dear students, what is intrinsic value and instrumental value?

In the literature on environmental ethics the distinction between instrumental value and
intrinsic value (meaning “non-instrumental value”) has been of considerable importance. The
former is the value of things as means to further some other ends, whereas the latter is the
value of things as ends in themselves regardless of whether they are also useful as means to
other ends. For instance, certain fruits have instrumental value for bats who feed on them,
since feeding on the fruits is a means to survival for the bats. However, it is not widely agreed
that fruits have value as ends in themselves. We can likewise think of a person who teaches
others as having instrumental value for those who want to acquire knowledge. Yet, in
addition to any such value, it is normally said that a person, as a person, has intrinsic value,
i.e., value in his or her own right independently of his or her prospects for serving the ends of
others. For another example, a certain wild plant may have instrumental value because it
provides the ingredients for some medicine or as an aesthetic object for human observers. But
if the plant also has some value in itself independently of its prospects for furthering some
other ends such as human health, or the pleasure from aesthetic experience, then the plant
also has intrinsic value. Because the intrinsically valuable is that which is good as an end in
itself, it is commonly agreed that something’s possession of intrinsic value generates a prima
facie direct moral duty on the part of moral agents to protect it or at least refrain from
damaging it (see O’Neil 1992 and Jameson 2002 for detailed accounts of intrinsic value).
Many traditional western ethical perspectives, however, are anthropocentric or human-
centered in that either they assign intrinsic value to human beings alone (i.e., what we might
call anthropocentric in a strong sense) or they assign a significantly greater amount of
intrinsic value to human beings than to any nonhuman things such that the protection or
promotion of human interests or well-being at the expense of nonhuman things turns out to be
nearly always justified (i.e., what we might call anthropocentric in a weak sense). For
example, Aristotle (Politics, Bk. 1, Ch. 8) maintains that “nature has made all things
specifically for the sake of man” and that the value of nonhuman things in nature is merely
instrumental. Generally, anthropocentric positions find it problematic to articulate what is
wrong with the cruel treatment of nonhuman animals, except to the extent that such treatment
may lead to bad consequences for human beings. Immanuel Kant (“Duties to Animals and
Spirits”, in Lectures on Ethics), for instance, suggests that cruelty towards a dog might
encourage a person to develop a character which would be

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desensitized to cruelty towards humans. From this standpoint, cruelty towards nonhuman
animals would be instrumentally, rather than intrinsically, wrong. Likewise,
anthropocentrism often recognizes some non-intrinsic wrongness of anthropogenic (i.e.
human-caused) environmental devastation. Such destruction might damage the well-being of
human beings now and in the future, since our well-being is essentially dependent on a
sustainable environment (see Passmore 1974, Bookchin 1990, Norton, Hutchins, Stevens, and
Maple (eds.) 1995).
When environmental ethics emerged as a new sub-discipline of philosophy in the early
1970s, it did so by posing a challenge to traditional anthropocentrism. In the first place, it
questioned the assumed moral superiority of human beings to members of other species on
earth. In the second place, it investigated the possibility of rational arguments for assigning
intrinsic value to the natural environment and its nonhuman contents.

? Dear students, what is enlightened anthropocentrism?

It should be noted, however, that some theorists working in the field see no need to develop
new, non-anthropocentric theories. Instead, they advocate what may be called enlightened
anthropocentrism (or, perhaps more appropriately called, prudential anthropocentrism).
Briefly, this is the view that all the moral duties we have towards the environment are derived
from our direct duties to its human inhabitants. The practical purpose of environmental
ethics, they maintain, is to provide moral grounds for social policies aimed at protecting the
earth’s environment and remedying environmental degradation. Enlightened
anthropocentrism, they argue, is sufficient for that practical purpose, and perhaps even more
effective in delivering pragmatic outcomes, in terms of policy-making, than non-
anthropocentric theories given the theoretical burden on the latter to provide sound arguments
for its more radical view that the nonhuman environment has intrinsic value (cf. Norton 1991,
de Shalit 1994, Light and Katz 1996). Furthermore, some prudential anthropocentrists may
hold what might be called cynical anthropocentrism, which says that we have a higher-level
anthropocentric reason to be non-anthropocentric in our day-to-day thinking. Suppose that a
day-to-day non-anthropocentrist tends to act more benignly towards the nonhuman
environment on which human well-being depends. This would provide reason for
encouraging non-anthropocentric thinking, even to those who find the idea of non-
anthropocentric intrinsic value hard to swallow. In order for such a strategy to be effective
one may need to hide one’s cynical anthropocentrism from others and even from oneself.
The Early Development of Environmental Ethics

? Dear students, when was environmental ethics emerged?

Although nature was the focus of much nineteenth and twentieth century philosophy,
contemporary environmental ethics only emerged as an academic discipline in the 1970s. The
questioning and rethinking of the relationship of human beings with the natural environment
over the last thirty years reflected an already widespread perception in the 1960s that the late

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twentieth century faced a “population time bomb” and a serious environmental crisis. Among
the accessible work that drew attention to a sense of crisis was Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring
(1963), which consisted of a number of essays earlier published in the New Yorker magazine
detailing how pesticides such as DDT, aldrin and deildrin concentrated through the food web.
Commercial farming practices aimed at maximizing crop yields and profits, Carson
speculates, are capable of impacting simultaneously on environmental and public health.

On the other hand, historian Lynn White Jr., in a much-cited essay published in 1967 (White
1967) on the historical roots of the environmental crisis, argues that the main strands of
Judeo-Christian thinking had encouraged the overexploitation of nature by maintaining the
superiority of humans over all other forms of life on earth, and by depicting all of nature as
created for the use of humans. White’s thesis is widely discussed in theology, history, and has
been subject to some sociological testing as well as being regularly discussed by philosophers
(see Whitney 1993, Attfield 2001). Central to the rationale for his thesis were the works of
the Church Fathers and The Bible itself, supporting the anthropocentric perspective that
humans are the only things that matter on Earth. Consequently, they may utilize and consume
everything else to their advantage without any injustice. For example, Genesis 1:27-8 states:
“God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female
created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply,
and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over fish of the sea, and over fowl
of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” Likewise, Thomas
Aquinas (Summa Contra Gentiles, Bk. 3, Pt 2, Ch 112) argued that nonhuman animals are
“ordered to man’s use”. According to White, the Judeo-Christian idea that humans are
created in the image of the transcendent supernatural God, who is radically separate from
nature, also by extension radically separates humans themselves from nature. This ideology
further opened the way for untrammeled

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exploitation of nature. Modern Western science itself, White argues, was “cast in the matrix
of Christian theology” so that it too inherited the “orthodox Christian arrogance toward
nature” (White Jr. 1967, 1207). Clearly, without technology and science, the environmental
extremes to which we are now exposed would probably not be realized. White’s thesis,
however, is that given the modern form of science and technology, Judeo-Christianity itself
provides the original deep-seated drive to unlimited exploitation of nature. Nevertheless,
White argued that some minority traditions within Christianity (e.g., the views of St. Francis)
might provide an antidote to the “arrogance” of a mainstream tradition steeped in
anthropocentrism.
Around the same time, the Stanford ecologist, Paul Ehrlich, published The Population Bomb
(1968), warning that the growth of human population threatened the viability of planetary
life-support systems. The sense of environmental crisis stimulated by those and other popular
works was intensified by NASA’s production and wide dissemination of a particularly potent
image of earth from space taken at Christmas 1968 and featured in the Scientific American in
September 1970. Here, plain to see, was a living, shining planet voyaging through space and
shared by all of humanity, a precious vessel vulnerable to pollution and to the overuse of its
limited capacities. In 1972 a team of researchers at MIT led by Dennis Meadows published
the Limits to Growth study, a work that summed up in many ways the emerging concerns of
the previous decade and the sense of vulnerability triggered by the view of the earth from
space. In §10 of the commentary to the study, the researchers wrote:
We affirm finally that any deliberate attempt to reach a rational and enduring state of
equilibrium by planned measures, rather than by chance or catastrophe, must ultimately be
founded on a basic change of values and goals at individual, national and world levels.
The call for a “basic change of values” in connection to the environment (a call that could be
interpreted in terms of either instrumental or intrinsic values) reflected a need for the
development of environmental ethics as a new sub-discipline of philosophy.

? Dear students, can you mention the tree countries that environmental

ethics emerged first?

The new field emerged almost simultaneously in three countries—the United States,
Australia, and Norway. In the first two of these countries, direction and inspiration largely
came from the earlier twentieth century American literature of the environment. For instance,
the Scottish emigrant John Muir (founder of the Sierra Club and “father of American
conservation”) and subsequently the forester Aldo Leopold had advocated an appreciation
and conservation of things “natural, wild and free”. Their concerns were motivated by a
combination of ethical and aesthetic responses to nature as well as a rejection of crudely
economic approaches to the value of natural objects (a historical survey of the confrontation
between Muir’s reverentialism and the human-centered conservationism of Gifford Pinchot
(one of the major influences on the development of the US Forest Service) is provided in
Norton 1991; also see Cohen 1984 and Nash (ed) 1990). Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac
(1949), in particular, advocated the adoption of a “land ethic”:

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That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and
respected is an extension of ethics. (vii-ix)
A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic
community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise. (224-5)
However, Leopold himself provided no systematic ethical theory or framework to support
these ethical ideas concerning the environment. His views therefore presented a challenge
and opportunity for moral theorists: could some ethical theory be devised to justify the
injunction to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biosphere?

? Dear students, what is Routley’s last man argument?

The land ethic sketched by Leopold, attempting to extend our moral concern to cover the
natural environment and its nonhuman contents, was drawn on explicitly by the Australian
philosopher Richard Routley (later Sylvan). According to Routley (1973 (cf. Routley and
Routley 1980)), the anthropocentrism imbedded in what he called the “dominant western
view”, or “the western superethic”, is in effect “human chauvinism”. This view, he argued, is
just another form of class chauvinism, which is simply based on blind class “loyalty” or
prejudice, and unjustifiably discriminates against those outside the privileged class.
Furthermore, in his “last man” (and “last people”)

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arguments, Routley asked us to imagine the hypothetical situation in which the last person,
surviving a world catastrophe, acted to ensure the elimination of all other living things and
the destruction of all the landscapes after his demise. From the human-chauvinistic (or
absolutely anthropocentric) perspective, the last person would do nothing morally wrong,
since his or her destructive act in question would not cause any damage to the interest and
well-being of humans, who would by then have disappeared. Nevertheless, Routley points
out that there is a moral intuition that the imagined last act would be morally wrong. An
explanation for this judgment, he argued, is that those nonhuman objects in the environment,
whose destruction is ensured by the last person, have intrinsic value, a kind of value
independent of their usefulness for humans. From his critique, Routley concluded that the
main approaches in traditional western moral thinking were unable to allow the recognition
that natural things have intrinsic value, and that the tradition required overhaul of a
significant kind.
Leopold’s idea that the “land” as a whole is an object of our moral concern also stimulated
writers to argue for certain moral obligations toward ecological wholes, such as species,
communities, and ecosystems, not just their individual constituents. The U.S.-based
theologian and environmental philosopher Holmes Rolston III, for instance, argued that
species protection was a moral duty (Rolston 1975). It would be wrong, he maintained, to
eliminate a rare butterfly species simply to increase the monetary value of specimens already
held by collectors. Like Routley’s “last man” arguments, Rolston’s example is meant to draw
attention to a kind of action that seems morally dubious and yet is not clearly ruled out or
condemned by traditional anthropocentric ethical views. Species, Rolston went on to argue,
are intrinsically valuable and are usually more valuable than individual specimens, since the
loss of a species is a loss of genetic possibilities and the deliberate destruction of a species
would show disrespect for the very biological processes which make possible the emergence
of individual living things (also see Rolston 1989, Ch 10). Natural processes deserve respect,
according to Rolston’s quasi-religious perspective, because they constitute a nature (or God)
which is itself intrinsically valuable (or sacred).

? Dear students, do you think that Christopher Stone’s claim that trees

should have legal personality as that of corporations tenable?

Meanwhile, the work of Christopher Stone (a professor of law at the University of Southern
California) had become widely discussed. Stone (1972) proposed that trees and other natural
objects should have at least the same standing in law as corporations. This suggestion was
inspired by a particular case in which the Sierra Club had mounted a challenge against the
permit granted by the U.S. Forest Service to Walt Disney Enterprises for surveys preparatory
to the development of the Mineral King Valley, which was at the time a relatively remote
game refuge, but not designated as a national park or protected wilderness area. The Disney
proposal was to develop a major resort complex serving 14000 visitors daily to be accessed
by a purpose-built highway through Sequoia National Park. The Sierra Club, as a body with a

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general concern for wilderness conservation, challenged the development on the grounds that
the valley should be kept in its original state for its own sake.
Stone reasoned that if trees, forests and mountains could be given standing in law then they
could be represented in their own right in the courts by groups such as the Sierra Club.
Moreover, like any other legal person, these natural things could become beneficiaries of
compensation if it could be shown that they had suffered compensatable injury through
human activity. When the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, it was determined by a
narrow majority that the Sierra Club did not meet the condition for bringing a case to court,
for the Club was unable and unwilling to prove the likelihood of injury to the interest of the
Club or its members. In a dissenting minority judgment, however, justices Douglas,
Blackmun and Brennan mentioned Stone’s argument: his proposal to give legal standing to
natural things, they said, would allow conservation interests, community needs and business
interests to be represented, debated and settled in court.

? Dear students, do you think that Joe Feinberg’s critic of Stone’s

argument reasonable?

Reacting to Stone’s proposal, Joel Feinberg (1974) raised a serious problem. Only items that
have interests, Feinberg argued, can be regarded as having legal standing and, likewise, moral
standing. For it is interests which are capable of being represented in legal proceedings and
moral debates. This same point would also seem to apply to political debates. For instance,
the movement for “animal liberation”, which also emerged strongly in the 1970s, can be
thought of as a political movement aimed at representing the previously neglected interests of
some animals (see Regan and Singer (eds.) 1976, Clark 1977, and also the entry on the moral
status of animals). Granted that some animals have interests that can be represented in this
way, would it also make sense to speak of trees, forests, rivers, barnacles, or termites as
having interests of a morally relevant kind? This issue was hotly contested in the years that
followed. Meanwhile, John Passmore (1974) argued, like White, that the Judeo-Christian
tradition of thought about nature, despite being predominantly “despotic”, contained
resources for regarding humans as “stewards” or “perfectors” of God’s creation. Skeptical of
the prospects for any radically new ethic, Passmore cautioned that

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traditions of thought could not be abruptly overhauled. Any change in attitudes to our natural
surroundings which stood the chance of widespread acceptance, he argued, would have to
resonate and have some continuities with the very tradition which had legitimized our
destructive practices. In sum, then, Leopold’s land ethic, the historical analyses of White and
Passmore, the pioneering work of Routley, Stone and Rolston, and the warnings of scientists,
had by the late 1970s focused the attention of philosophers and political theorists firmly on
the environment.
The confluence of ethical, political and legal debates about the environment, the emergence
of philosophies to underpin animal rights activism and the puzzles over whether an
environmental ethic would be something new rather than a modification or extension of
existing ethical theories were reflected in wider social and political movements. The rise of
environmental or “green” parties in Europe in the 1980s was accompanied by almost
immediate schisms between groups known as “realists” versus “fundamentalists” (see
Dobson 1992). The “realists” stood for reform environmentalism, working with business and
government to soften the impact of pollution and resource depletion especially on fragile
ecosystems or endangered species. The “fundies” argued for radical change, the setting of
stringent new priorities, and even the overthrow of capitalism and liberal individualism,
which were taken as the major ideological causes of anthropogenic environmental
devastation. (Not that collectivist or communist countries do better in terms of their
environmental record (see Dominick 1998).)
Underlying these political disagreements was the distinction between “shallow” and “deep”
environmental movements, a distinction introduced in the early 1970s by another major
influence on contemporary environmental ethics, the Norwegian philosopher and climber
Arne Naess. Since the work of Næss has been significant in environmental politics, the
discussion of his position is given in a separate section below.
Traditional Ethical Theories and Contemporary
Environment Ethics
Although environmental ethicists often try to distance themselves from the anthropocentrism
embedded in traditional ethical views (Passmore 1974, Norton 1991 are exceptions), they
also quite often draw their theoretical resources from traditional ethical systems and theories.
Consider the following two basic moral questions: (1) what kinds of thing are intrinsically
valuable, good or bad? (2) What makes an action right or wrong?

? Dear students, what is consequentialism in ethics?

Consequentialist ethical theories consider intrinsic “value” / “disvalue” or “goodness” /

“badness” to be more fundamental moral notions than “rightness” / “wrongness”, and
maintain that whether an action is right/wrong is determined by whether its consequences are
good/bad. From this perspective, answers to question (2) are informed by answers to question
(1). For instance, utilitarianism, a paradigm case of consequentialism, regards pleasure (or,

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more broadly construed, the satisfaction of interest, desire, and/or preference) as the only
intrinsic value in the world, whereas pain (or the frustration of desire, interest, and/or
preference) the only intrinsic disvalue, and maintains that right actions are those that would
produce the greatest balance of pleasure over pain.

? Dear students, what does sentient beings consist of?

As the utilitarian focus is the balance of pleasure and pain as such, the question of to whom a
pleasure or pain belongs is irrelevant to the calculation and assessment of the rightness or
wrongness of actions. Hence, the eighteenth century utilitarian Jeremy Bentham (1789), and
now Peter Singer (1993), have argued that the interests of all the sentient beings (i.e., beings
who are capable of experiencing pleasure or pain)—including nonhuman ones—affected by
an action should be taken equally into consideration in assessing the action. Furthermore,
rather like Routley (see section 2 above), Singer argues that the anthropocentric privileging of
members of the species Homo sapiens is arbitrary, and that it is a kind of “speciesism” as
unjustifiable as sexism and racism. Singer regards the animal liberation movement as
comparable to the liberation movements of women and people of colour. Unlike the
environmental philosophers who attribute intrinsic value to the natural environment and its
inhabitants, Singer and utilitarians in general attribute intrinsic value to the experience of
pleasure or interest satisfaction as such, not to the beings who have the experience. Similarly,
for the utilitarian, non-sentient objects in the environment such as plant species, rivers,
mountains, and landscapes, all of which are the objects of moral concern for
environmentalists, are of no intrinsic but at most instrumental value to the satisfaction of
sentient beings (see Singer 1993, Ch. 10). Furthermore, because right actions, for the
utilitarian, are those that maximize the overall balance of interest satisfaction over frustration,
practices such as whale-hunting and the killing of an elephant for ivory, which cause

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suffering to nonhuman animals, might turn out to be right after all: such practices might
produce considerable amounts of interest-satisfaction for human beings, which, on the
utilitarian calculation, outweigh the nonhuman interest-frustration involved. As the result of
all the above considerations, it is unclear to what extent a utilitarian ethic can also be an
environmental ethic. This point may not so readily apply to a wider consequentialist
approach, which attributes intrinsic value not only to pleasure or satisfaction, but also to
various objects and processes in the natural environment.
Deontological ethical theories, in contrast, maintain that whether an action is right or wrong
is for the most part independent of whether its consequences are good or bad. From the
deontologist perspective, there are several distinct moral rules or duties (e.g., “not to kill or
otherwise harm the innocent”, “not to lie”, “to respect the rights of others”, “to keep
promises”), the observance/violation of which is intrinsically right/wrong; i.e., right/wrong in
itself regardless of consequences. When asked to justify an alleged moral rule, duty or its
corresponding right, deontologists may appeal to the intrinsic value of those beings to whom
it applies. For instance, “animal rights” advocate Tom Regan (1983) argues that those
animals with intrinsic value (or what he calls “inherent value”) have the moral right to
respectful treatment, which then generates a general moral duty on our part not to treat them
as mere means to other ends. We have, in particular, a prima facie moral duty not to harm
them. Regan maintains that certain practices (such as sport or commercial hunting, and
experimentation on animals) violate the moral right of intrinsically valuable animals to
respectful treatment. Such practices, he argues, are intrinsically wrong regardless of whether
or not some better consequences ever flow from them. Exactly which animals have intrinsic
value and therefore the moral right to respectful treatment? Regan’s answer is: those that
meet the criterion of being the “subject-of-a-life”. To be such a subject is a sufficient (though
not necessary) condition for having intrinsic value, and to be a subject-of-a-life involves,
among other things, having sense-perceptions, beliefs, desires, motives, memory, a sense of
the future, and a psychological identity over time.

? Dear students, what do you understand Regan’s subject-to-life idea?

Some authors have extended concern for individual well-being further, arguing for the
intrinsic value of organisms achieving their own good, whether those organisms are capable
of consciousness or not. Paul Taylor’s version of this view (1981 and 1986), which we might
call biocentrism, is a deontological example. He argues that each individual living thing in
nature—whether it is an animal, a plant, or a micro-organism—is a “teleological-center-of-
life” having a good or well-being of its own which can be enhanced or damaged, and that all
individuals who are teleological-centers-of life have equal intrinsic value (or what he calls
“inherent worth”) which entitles them to moral respect. Furthermore, Taylor maintains that
the intrinsic value of wild living things generates a prima facie moral duty on our part to
preserve or promote their goods as ends in themselves, and that any practices which treat
those beings as mere means and thus display a lack of respect for them are intrinsically
wrong. A more recent and biologically detailed defense of the idea that living things have
representations and goals and hence have moral worth is found in Agar 2001. Unlike Taylor’s

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egalitarian and deontological biocentrism, Robin Attfield (1987) argues for a hierarchical
view that while all beings having a good of their own have intrinsic value, some of them
(e.g., persons) have intrinsic value to a greater extent. Attfield also endorses a form of
consequentialism which takes into consideration, and attempts to balance, the many and
possibly conflicting goods of different living things (also see Varner 1998 for a more recent
defense of biocentric individualism with affinities to both consequentialist and deontological
approaches). However, some critics have pointed out that the notion of biological good or
well-being is only descriptive not prescriptive (see Williams 1992 and O’Neill 1993, Ch. 2).
For instance, the fact that HIV has a good of its own does not mean that we ought to assign
any positive moral weight to the realization of that good.

? Dear students, do you think that assignment of intrinsic value for

individual plants or animals can answer environmental problems?

Note that the ethics of animal liberation or animal rights and biocentrism are both
individualistic in that their various moral concerns are directed towards individuals only—
not ecological wholes such as species, populations, biotic communities, and ecosystems.
None of these is sentient, a subject-of-a-life, or a teleological-center-of-life, but the
preservation of these collective entities is a major concern for many environmentalists.
Moreover, the goals of animal liberationists, such as the reduction of animal suffering and
death, may conflict with the goals of environmentalists. For example, the preservation of the
integrity of an ecosystem may require the culling of feral animals or of some indigenous
populations that threaten to destroy fragile habitats. So there are disputes about whether the
ethics of animal liberation is a proper branch of environmental ethics (see Callicott 1980,
1988, Sagoff 1984, Jamieson 1998, Crisp 1998 and Varner 2000).
Criticizing the individualistic approach in general for failing to accommodate conservation
concerns for ecological wholes, J. Baird Callicott (1980) has advocated a version of land-
ethical holism which takes Leopold’s statement “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the
integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise”
to be the supreme deontological principle. In this theory, the earth’s biotic community per se
is the sole locus of intrinsic value, whereas the value of its individual members is merely
instrumental and dependent on their contribution to the “integrity, stability, and beauty” of
the larger community. A straightforward implication of this version of the land ethic is that an
individual member of the biotic community ought to be sacrificed whenever that is needed
for the protection of the holistic good of the community. For instance, Callicott maintains that
if culling a white-tailed deer is necessary for the protection of the holistic biotic good, then it
is a land-ethical requirement to do so. But, to be consistent, the same point also applies to
human individuals because they are also members of the biotic community.

? Dear students, what is ‘environmental fascism’?

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Not surprisingly, the misanthropy implied by Callicott’s land-ethical holism has been widely
criticized and regarded as a reductio of the position (see Aiken (1984), Kheel (1985), Ferré
(1996), and Shrader-Frechette (1996)). Tom Regan (1983, p.362), for example, has
condemned the holistic land ethic’s disregard of the rights of the individual as
“environmental fascism”. Under the pressure from the charge of ecofascism and misanthropy,
Callicott (1989 Ch. 5, and 1999, Ch. 4) has later revised his position and now maintains that
the biotic community (indeed, any community to which we belong) as well as its individual
members (indeed, any individual who shares with us membership in some common
community) all have intrinsic value. The controversy surrounding Callicott’s original
position, however, has inspired efforts in environment ethics to investigate possibilities of
attributing intrinsic value to ecological wholes, not just their individual constituent parts (see
Lo 2001 for an overview and critique of Callicott’s changing position over the last two
decades; also see Ouderkirk and Hill (eds.) 2002 for debates between Callicott and others
concerning the metaethical and metaphysical foundations for the land ethic and also its
historical antecedents).

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Following in Callicott’s footsteps, and inspired by Næss’s relational account of value,
Warwick Fox in his most recent work has championed a theory of “responsive cohesion”
which apparently gives supreme moral priority to the maintenance of ecosystems and the
biophysical world (Fox 2007). It remains to be seen if this position will escape the charges of
misanthropy and totalitarianism laid against earlier holistic and relational theories of value.
Individual natural entities (whether sentient or not, living or not), Andrew Brennan (1984)
argues, are not designed by anyone to fulfill any purpose and therefore lack “intrinsic
function” (i.e., the function of a thing that constitutes part of its essence or identity
conditions). This, he proposes, is a reason for thinking that individual natural entities should
not be treated as mere instruments, and thus a reason for assigning them intrinsic value.
Furthermore, he argues that the same moral point applies to the case of natural ecosystems, to
the extent that they lack intrinsic function. In the light of Brennan’s proposal, Eric Katz (1991
and 1997) argues that all natural entities, whether individuals or wholes, have intrinsic value
in virtue of their ontological independence from human purpose, activity, and interest, and
maintains the deontological principle that nature as a whole is an “autonomous subject”
which deserves moral respect and must not be treated as a mere means to human ends.
Carrying the project of attributing intrinsic value to nature to its ultimate form, Robert Elliot
(1997) argues that naturalness itself is a property in virtue of possessing which all natural
things, events, and states of affairs, attain intrinsic value. Furthermore, Elliot argues that even
a consequentialist, who in principle allows the possibility of trading off intrinsic value from
naturalness for intrinsic value from other sources, could no longer justify such kind of trade-
off in reality. This is because the reduction of intrinsic value due to the depletion of
naturalness on earth, according to him, has reached such a level that any further reduction of
it could not be compensated by any amount of intrinsic value generated in other ways, no
matter how great it is.

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As the notion of “natural” is understood in terms of the lack of human contrivance and is
often opposed to the notion of “artifactual”, one much contested issue is about the value of
those parts of nature that have been interfered with by human artifice—for instance,
previously degraded natural environments which have been humanly restored. Based on the
premise that the properties of being naturally evolved and having a natural continuity with the
remote past are “value adding” (i.e., adding intrinsic value to those things which possess
those two properties), Elliot argues that even a perfectly restored environment would
necessarily lack those two value-adding properties and therefore be less valuable than the
originally undegraded natural environment. Katz, on the other hand, argues that a restored
nature is really just an artifact designed and created for the satisfaction of human ends, and
that the value of restored environments is merely instrumental. However, some critics have
pointed out that advocates of moral dualism between the natural and the artifactual run the
risk of diminishing the value of human life and culture, and fail to recognize that the natural
environments interfered with by humans may still have morally relevant qualities other than
pure naturalness (see Lo 1999). Two other issues central to this debate are that the key
concept “natural” seems ambiguous in many different ways (see Hume 1751, App. 3, and
Brennan 1988, Ch. 6, Elliot 1997, Ch. 4), and that those who argue that human interference
reduces the intrinsic value of nature seem to have simply assumed the crucial premise that
naturalness is a source of intrinsic value. Some thinkers maintain that the natural, or the
“wild” construed as that which “is not humanized” (Hettinger and Throop 1999, p. 12) or to
some degree “not under human control” (ibid., p. 13) is intrinsically valuable. Yet, as Bernard
Williams points out (Williams 1992), we may, paradoxically, need to use our technological
powers to retain a sense of something not being in our power. The retention of wild areas
may thus involve planetary and ecological management to maintain, or even “imprison” such
areas (Birch 1990), raising a question over the extent to which national parks and wilderness
areas are free from our control. An important message underlying the debate, perhaps, is that
even if ecological restoration is achievable, it might have been better to have left nature intact
in the first place.

? Dear students, what is virtue ethics?

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As an alternative to consequentialism and deontology both of which consider “thin” concepts
such as “goodness” and “rightness” as essential to morality, virtue ethics proposes to
understand morality—and assess the ethical quality of actions—in terms of “thick” concepts
such as “kindness”, “honesty”, “sincerity” and “justice”. As virtue ethics speaks quite a
different language from the other two kinds of ethical theory, its theoretical focus is not so
much on what kinds of things are good/bad, or what makes an action right/wrong. Indeed, the
richness of the language of virtues, and the emphasis on moral character, is sometimes cited
as a reason for exploring a virtues-based approach to the complex and always-changing
questions of sustainability and environmental care (Sandler 2007). One question central to
virtue ethics is what the moral reasons are for acting one way or another. For instance, from
the perspective of virtue ethics, kindness and loyalty would be moral reasons for helping a
friend in hardship. These are quite different from the deontologist’s reason (that the action is
demanded by a moral rule) or the consequentialist reason (that the action will lead to a better
over-all balance of good over evil in the world). From the perspective of virtue ethics, the
motivation and justification of actions are both inseparable from the character traits of the
acting agent. Furthermore, unlike deontology or consequentialism the moral focus of which is
other people or states of the world, one central issue for virtue ethics is how to live a
flourishing human life, this being a central concern of the moral agent himself or herself.
“Living virtuously” is Aristotle’s recipe for flourishing. Versions of virtue ethics advocating
virtues such as “benevolence”, “piety”, “filiality”, and “courage”, have also been held by
thinkers in the Chinese Confucian tradition. The connection between morality and
psychology is another core subject of investigation for virtue ethics. It is sometimes
suggested that human virtues, which constitute an important aspect of a flourishing human
life, must be compatible with human needs and desires, and perhaps also sensitive to
individual affection and temperaments. As its central focus is human flourishing as such,
virtue ethics may seem unavoidably anthropocentric and unable to support a genuine moral
concern for the nonhuman environment. But just as Aristotle has argued that a flourishing
human life requires friendships and one can have genuine friendships only if one genuinely
values, loves, respects, and cares for one’s friends for their own sake, not merely for the
benefits that they may bring to oneself, some have argued that a flourishing human life
requires the moral capacities to value, love, respect, and care for the nonhuman natural world
as an end in itself (see O’Neill 1992, O’Neill 1993, Barry 1999).

Wilderness, the Built Environment, Poverty and Politics

? Dear students, what is wilderness?

Despite the variety of positions in environmental ethics developed over the last thirty years,
they have focused mainly on issues concerned with wilderness and the reasons for its
preservation (see Callicott and Nelson 1998 for a collection of essays on the ideas and moral
significance of wilderness). The importance of wilderness experience to the human psyche
has been emphasized by many environmental philosophers. Næss, for instance, urges us to
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ensure we spend time dwelling in situations of intrinsic value, whereas Rolston seeks “re-
creation” of the human soul by meditating in the wilderness. Likewise, the critical theorists
believe that aesthetic appreciation of nature has the power to re-enchant human life.
By contrast, relatively little attention has been paid to the built environment, although this is
the one in which most people spend most of their time. In post-war Britain, for example,
cheaply constructed new housing developments were often poor replacements for traditional
communities. They have been associated with lower amounts of social interaction and
increased crime compared with the earlier situation. The destruction of highly functional
high-density traditional housing, indeed, might be compared with the destruction of highly
diverse ecosystems and biotic communities. Likewise, the loss of the world’s huge diversity
of natural languages has been mourned by many, not just professionals with an interest in
linguistics. Urban and linguistic environments are just two of the many “places” inhabited by
humans. Some philosophical theories about natural environments and objects have potential
to be

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extended to cover built environments and non-natural objects of several sorts (see King 2000,
Light 2001, Palmer 2003, while Fox 2007 aims to include both built and natural
environments in the scope of a single ethical theory). Certainly there are many parallels
between natural and artificial domains: for example, many of the conceptual problems
involved in discussing the restoration of natural objects also appear in the parallel context of
restoring human-made objects.
The focus on the value of wilderness and the importance of its preservation has overlooked
another important problem – namely that lifestyles in which enthusiasms for nature rambles,
woodland meditations or mountaineering can be indulged demand a standard of living that is
far beyond the dreams of most of the world’s population. Moreover, mass access to wild
places would likely destroy the very values held in high esteem by the “natural aristocrats”, a
term used by Hugh Stretton (1976) to characterize the environmentalists “driven chiefly by
love of the wilderness”. Thus, a new range of moral and political problems open up,
including the environmental cost of tourist access to wilderness areas, and ways in which
limited access could be arranged to areas of natural beauty and diversity, while maintaining
the individual freedoms central to liberal democracies.
Lovers of wilderness sometimes consider the high human populations in some developing
countries as a key problem underlying the environmental crisis. Rolston (1996), for instance,
claims that (some) humans are a kind of planetary “cancer”. He maintains that while “feeding
people always seems humane ... when we face up to what is really going on, by just feeding
people, without attention to the larger social results, we could be feeding a kind of cancer.”
This remark is meant to justify the view that saving nature should, in some circumstances,
have a higher priority than feeding people. But such a view has been criticized for seeming to
reveal a degree of misanthropy, directed at those human beings least able to protect and
defend themselves (see Attfield 1998, Brennan 1998a). The empirical basis of Rolston’s
claims has been queried by work showing that poor people are often extremely good
environmental managers (Martinez-Alier 2002). Guha’s worries about the elitist and
“missionary” tendencies of some kinds of deep green environmentalism in certain rich
western countries can be quite readily extended to theorists such as Rolston (Guha 1999).
Can such an apparently elitist sort of wilderness ethics ever be democratized? How can the
psychically-reviving power of the wild become available to those living in the slums of
Calcutta or Sao Paolo? These questions so far lack convincing answers.
Furthermore, the economic conditions which support the kind of enjoyment of wilderness by
Stretton’s “natural aristocrats”, and more generally the lifestyles of many people in the
affluent countries, seem implicated in the destruction and pollution which has provoked the
environmental turn in the first place. For those in the richer countries, for instance, engaging
in outdoor recreations usually involves the motor car. Car dependency, however, is at the
heart of many environmental problems, a key factor in urban pollution, while at the same
time central to the economic and military activities of many nations and corporations, for
example securing and exploiting oil reserves. In an increasingly crowded industrialised
world, the answers to such problems are pressing. Any adequate study of this intertwined set
of problems must involve interdisciplinary collaboration among philosophers and theorists in
the social as well as the natural sciences.

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Connections between environmental destruction, unequal resource consumption, poverty and
the global economic order have been discussed by political scientists, development theorists,
geographers and economists as well as by philosophers. Links between economics and
environmental ethics are particularly well established. Work by Mark Sagoff (1988), for
instance, has played a major part in bringing the two fields together. He argues that “as
citizens rather than consumers” people are concerned about values, which cannot plausibly be
reduced to mere ordered preferences or quantified in monetary terms (also see Shrader-
Frechette 1987, O’Neill 1993, and Brennan 1995). The potentially misleading appeal to
economic reason used to justify the expansion of the corporate sector has also come under
critical scrutiny by globalization theorists (see Korten 1999). These critiques do not aim to
eliminate economics from environmental thinking; rather, they resist any reductive, and
strongly anthropocentric, tendency to believe that all social and environmental problems are
fundamentally or essentially economic.
Other interdisciplinary approaches link environmental ethics with biology, policy studies,
public administration, political theory, cultural history, post-colonial theory, literature,
geography, and human ecology (for some examples, see Norton, Hutchins, Stevens, Maple
1995, Shrader-Frechette 1984, Gruen and Jamieson (eds.) 1994, Karliner 1997, Diesendorf
and Hamilton 1997, Schmidtz and Willott 2002). Many of the more recent assessments of
issues concerned with biodiversity, ecosystem health, poverty, environmental justice and
sustainability look at both human 10

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and environmental issues, eschewing in the process commitment either to a purely
anthropocentric or purely ecocentric perspective (see Hayward and O’Neill 1997, and
Dobson 1999 for collections of essays looking at the links between sustainability, justice,
welfare and the distribution of environmental goods). The future development of
environmental ethics depend on these, and other interdisciplinary synergies, as much as on its
anchorage within philosophy.
Pathologies of Environmental Crisis: Theories and
Empirical Research
Part of environmental philosophy’s project since its inception is the diagnosis of the origins
of our present-day environmental extremities. The best known of these is probably Lynn
White’s theory. As seen in section 2 above, White argues that Judo-Christian monotheism,
because of its essentially anthropocentric attitude towards nature, is the ideological source of
the modern environmental crisis. At the heart of his philosophical cum cultural-historical
analysis seems to be a simple structure:
W1. Christianity leads to anthropocentrism.
W2. Anthropocentrism leads to environmentally damaging behaviors.
W3. So, Christianity is the origin of environmental crisis.
The second premise of White’s argument also seems to have a central place in a number of
rival diagnoses. In fact, the structure of the major theories in the field is regularly of this sort:
(1) X leads to anthropocentrism, (2) anthropocentrism leads to environmentally damaging
behaviors; therefore (3) X is the origin of environmental crisis. Three other well-known cases
have already been discussed (section 3 above), namely: ecofeminism (which identifies X with
those patterns of thought that are characteristically patriarchal), deep ecology (which takes X
to be atomistic individualism), and the new animism (which regards the disenchantment of
nature as the X-factor).
The four theories all seem to have one view in common: that anthropocentrism is at the heart
of the problem of environmental destructiveness. If anthropocentrism is the problem, then
perhaps non-anthropocentrism is the solution. At this point, it may be helpful to separate two
theses of non-anthropocentrism, ones that are not normally distinguished in the literature:
The evaluative thesis (of non-anthropocentrism) is the claim that natural nonhuman things
have intrinsic value, i.e., value in their own right independent of any use they have for others.
The psycho-behavioral thesis (of non-anthropocentrism) is the claim that people who believe
in the evaluative thesis of non-anthropocentrism are more likely to behave environmentally
(i.e., behave in beneficial ways, or at least not in harmful ways, towards the environment)
than those who do not.
Much of the last three decades of environmental ethics has been spent analysing, clarifying
and examining the evaluative thesis of non-anthropocentrism, which has now achieved a
nearly canonical status within the discipline. By contrast, the psycho-behavioural thesis is
seldom discussed, but is part of the tacit background of environmental ethics. When it does
get explicit mention this is often in the introductions or prefaces of books, or in reference
works – for example, when it is said that deep ecology’s “greatest influence … may be
through the diverse forms of environmental activism that it inspires” (Taylor and Zimmerman
2005, compare Rolston 1988, xii, Sessions 1995, xx-xxi, and Sylvan and Bennett 1994, 4-5).

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If the psycho-behavioral thesis is true, then it is important in two ways: (1) it provides a
rationale for both the diagnosis and solution of environmental problems, and (2) it gives
practical justification to the discipline of environmental ethics itself (conceived as the mission
to secure converts to the evaluative thesis of non-anthropocentrism). Conversely, if the
psycho-behavioural thesis turns out to be false, then—since the thesis is the common tacit
assumption of all four theories—not only the discipline itself, but also the four major
diagnostic theories of the origin of the environmental predicament will be seriously
undermined.
Central to the psycho-behavioural thesis is a problematic assumption: that if people believe
they have a moral duty to respect nature or believe that natural things are intrinsically
valuable, then they really will act in more environmental-friendly ways. This empirical
question cannot be answered by purely a priori philosophical reasoning. In fact, the other core
premises in the four major philosophical theories on the origin of environmental

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crisis are also empirical claims about social and cultural reality. To be credible, they must be
able to stand up to empirical testing. For example, are people who think in dualistic and
hierarchical ways (as described by feminists) in fact more likely to have anthropocentric
attitudes and more likely to act harmfully towards the environment? Are people who believe
in animism (as panpsychists argue) in fact less likely to have anthropocentric attitudes and
also less likely to harm the environment? What about people who adopt some relational or
holistic view of the world, as advocated by deep ecologists? How do they act toward nature
compared to those who adopt a more individualistic and atomistic worldview? These
questions about the relations among various belief systems and behaviours look no different
in kind from the sorts of questions that social scientists regularly ask.
Of the major philosophical theories on the origin of environmental crisis, Lynn White’s is the
only one to have been empirically tested by social scientists. The net result of these studies so
far has been “inconclusive”, especially when education, sex, age and social class are also
factored in (Shaiko 1987, Greeley 1993, Woodrum and Hoban 1994, Eckberg and Blocker
1996, Boyd 1999). Moreover, like their philosophical counterparts, environmental
sociologists often take the psycho-behavioral thesis of non-anthropocentrism for granted.
Some of the best-known and most widely used survey instruments in the field are also
problematic. Riley Dunlap and collaborators developed many years ago the “New
Environmental Paradigm” (NEP) scale, to measure pro-environmental attitudes (Dunlap and
van Liere 1978). That scale, and its later revisions (see Dunlap et al. 2000), is problematic
precisely because it explicitly uses indicators of beliefs in anthropocentrism to measure the
presence of un-environmental attitudes, thus assuming in advance that anthropocentric beliefs
are harmful to the environment. But whether that is so should be settled by empirical
investigation rather than by an act of a priori stipulation in survey design.
Despite the fact that there is a striking common underlying structure between White’s theory
and the other major theories discussed above, no sociological studies so far have been done
on the other theories, nor on the common underlying psycho-behavioral thesis of non-
anthropocentrism and its effects. This presents an opportunity for interdisciplinary
collaborations among philosophers and social scientists. Many tools and methods well
established in the social sciences can justifiably be adapted for use in research on
environmental philosophy, giving the subject an empirical or even experimental turn. Such
work may stimulate new ideas about the origins of our environmental pathologies, and for
testing the extent to which belief systems and worldviews actually drive attitudes and
behaviours. As long as empirical facts are relevant to philosophical and ethical thought,
adoption of social science methods will be a means of keeping our theorizing in touch with
the motivations and behaviors of the people we are trying to describe and influence.
Similar points about the role of empirical investigations can also be made about theorizing
over a range of other problems, including drought, the preservation of biodiversity, and
climate change. While it has become commonplace to refer to the present era as “the age of
terror”, there is increasing agreement across the entire globe that the world is facing chronic
and unprecedented environmental problems, many of them of human origin. Indeed, the
United States military, responding to an albeit speculative report on abrupt climate change
prepared for the Pentagon by the Global Business Network (see Schwartz and Randall 2003,
in the Other Internet Resources section below), have declared that the problems of adjustment

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to climate change constitute a far more severe threat to national and international security
than does terrorism itself. Drought, changing weather patterns, the expected burden of caring
for environmental refugees, the effects of consumerism, and the health decline associated
with various forms of pollution are continuing and major problems for human beings
themselves (see Shue 2001, Sagoff 2001, Thompson 2001), and raise crucial issues about
environmental justice (see Shrader-Frechette 2002). At the same time, the continuing
destruction of natural environments and the widespread loss of both plant and animal species
poses increasing problems for other forms of life on the planet. In facing these problems,
there will likely be great opportunities for co-operation and synergy between philosophers
and both natural and social scientists.
Like many other important and interesting questions, no single discipline could claim sole
ownership of those just raised about the origins of modern environmental crisis and the
quandaries we now face, the relation between environmental problems and social injustice,
and the vexed question of how human beings should relate to the natural environment in their
pursuit of happiness and well-being. The move away from armchair speculation to link up
with a wider community of inquiry may be inevitable not only in environmental ethics but in
all areas of practical philosophy.
Ecofeminism

? Dear students, what is ecofeminism?

Ecofeminism, also called ecological feminism, branch of feminism that examines the
connections between women and nature. Its name was coined by French feminist Françoise
d’Eaubonne in 1974. Ecofeminism uses the basic feminist tenets of equality between genders,
a revaluing of non-patriarchal or nonlinear structures, and a view of the world that respects
organic processes, holistic connections, and the merits of intuition and collaboration. To these
notions ecofeminism adds both a commitment to the environment and an awareness of the
associations made between women and nature. Specifically, this philosophy emphasizes the
ways both nature and women are treated by patriarchal (or male-centred) society.
Ecofeminists examine the effect of gender categories in order to demonstrate the ways in
which social norms exert unjust dominance over women and nature. The philosophy also
contends that those norms lead to an incomplete view of the world, and its practitioners
advocate an alternative worldview that values the earth as sacred, recognizes humanity’s
dependency on the natural world, and embraces all life as valuable.

Oppression, hierarchy, and spiritual relationships with nature also have been central concerns
of ecofeminism. Ecofeminists assert that there is a connection between the destruction of
nature by humans and the oppression of women by men that arises from political theories and
social practices in…

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Origins of ecofeminism
The modern ecofeminist movement was born out of a series of conferences and workshops
held in the United States by a coalition of academic and professional women during the late
1970s and early 1980s. They met to discuss the ways in which feminism and
environmentalism might be combined to promote respect for women and the natural world
and were motivated by the notion that a long historical precedent of associating women with
nature had led to the oppression of both. They noted that women and nature were often
depicted as chaotic, irrational, and in need of control, while men were frequently
characterized as rational, ordered, and thus capable of directing the use and development of
women and nature. Ecofeminists contend that this arrangement results in a hierarchical
structure that grants power to men and allows for the exploitation of women and nature,
particularly insofar as the two are associated with one another. Thus, early ecofeminists
determined that solving the predicament of either constituency would require undoing the
social status of both.

Early work on ecofeminism consisted largely of first documenting historical connections

between women and the environment and then looking for ways to sever those connections.
One founder of ecofeminism, theologian Rosemary Ruether, insisted that all women must
acknowledge and work to end the domination of nature if they were to work toward their own
liberation. She urged women and environmentalists to work together to end patriarchal
systems that privilege hierarchies, control, and unequal socioeconomic relations. Ruether’s
challenge was taken up by feminist scholars and activists, who began critiquing not only
ecological theories that overlooked the effect of patriarchal systems but also feminist theories
that did not interrogate the relationship between women and nature as well.

By the late 1980s, ecofeminism had grown out of its largely academic environment and
become a popular movement. Many scholars cite the feminist theorist Ynestra King as the
cause of that popularization. In 1987 King wrote an article titled “What Is Ecofeminism?”
that appeared in The Nation. There she challenged all Americans to consider the ways in
which their belief systems allow for the exploitative use of the earth and the further
oppression of women. With the help of King’s article, the concept of ecofeminism grew both
in support and philosophical scope.

Radical ecofeminism and cultural ecofeminism

As ecofeminism continued to develop, it witnessed the first of several splinterings. By the
late 1980s ecofeminism had begun to branch out into two distinct schools of thought: radical
ecofeminism and cultural ecofeminism. Radical ecofeminists contend that the dominant
patriarchal society equates nature and women in order to degrade both. To that end, radical
ecofeminism builds on the assertion of early ecofeminists that one must study patriarchal
domination with an eye toward ending the associations between women and nature. Of
particular interest to those theorists is the ways in which both women and nature have been

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associated with negative or commodifiable attributes while men have been seen as capable of
establishing order. That division of characteristics encourages the exploitation of women and
nature for cheap labour and resources.

Cultural ecofeminists, on the other hand, encourage an association between women and the
environment. They contend that women have a more intimate relationship with nature
because of their gender roles (e.g., family nurturer and provider of food) and their biology
(e.g., menstruation, pregnancy, and lactation). As a result, cultural ecofeminists believe that
such associations allow women to be more sensitive to the sanctity and degradation of the
environment. They suggest that this sensitivity ought to be prized by society insofar as it
establishes a more direct connection to the natural world with which humans must coexist.
Cultural ecofeminism also has roots in nature-based religions and goddess and nature worship
as a way of redeeming both the spirituality of nature and women’s instrumental role in that
spirituality.

Not all feminists favoured the bifurcation of ecofeminism. Some women, for instance,
worried that cultural ecofeminism merely enforces gender stereotypes and could lead to
further exploitation. Others wanted a greater emphasis on nature-based religion, while still
others insisted that a celebration of Western organized religions could accommodate nature-
based worship. Those same groups also differed with regard to the romanticization of nature
and the roles that various practices (such as vegetarianism or organic farming) ought to play
in the application of ecofeminist principles. As a result, the movement continued to grow and
expand in order to accommodate those variations, and most self-identified ecofeminists
celebrate the myriad definitions and applications available under the general rubric of
ecofeminism.

Ecofeminism’s future
Many women remained unsatisfied with the limits of the movement. Of particular concern
was the failure of women in developed countries to acknowledge the ways in which their own
lifestyles were leading to further degradation of their counterparts in less-developed countries
and of the Earth as a whole. Women from developing countries pointed to the effects of
commercial food production, sweatshop labour, and poverty on their families and their
landscapes. They accused white ecofeminists of promoting that exploitation by purchasing
goods created as a result of inequity. They also took issue with the appropriation of
indigenous cultures and religions for the purpose of advancing a philosophical position. Thus,
contemporary ecofeminism must be developed to acknowledge the very real effects of race,
class, ethnicity, and sexuality on a woman’s social position. Women involved in
environmental justice issues and women representing minority cultures have worked to
establish their own sense of ecofeminism to include local cultures and spirituality, a
celebration of their roles as mothers and caretakers, and a recognition of the ways in which
Western colonization compromised those beliefs.

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Many ecofeminists were also concerned with what they saw as a heterosexual bias in the
movement insofar as ecofeminism appeared to privilege the experience of heterosexual
women over homosexual women. To correct that problem, an emerging school of
ecofeminism emphasized the need to incorporate the tenets of queer theory into the precepts
of ecofeminism. They contended that if ecofeminism is indeed committed to fighting against
systems of oppression and domination, then the movement must also acknowledge the ways
in which sexuality—and, more specifically, responses to that sexuality—also figure as
oppressive mechanisms. Thus, the redemption of women’s roles and opportunities must also
include a valuing of sexual differences as well as differences in race, class, and gender.

Ecofeminist scholars often contend that the great plurality of beliefs within ecofeminism is
one of the movement’s greatest strengths. They note that the myriad definitions and
applications, which sometimes complement and sometimes conflict with one another,
demonstrate the liberating and inclusive aspects of the movement. They also point to the
important commonalities shared within the various schools of ecofeminism. All ecofeminists,
they say, work toward the development of theory and action that acknowledge the problems
inherent in patriarchal and hierarchical systems. They advocate the revaluing of science to
acknowledge the role of subjectivity and intuition. They also support the creation of a new
worldview that celebrates all biological systems as inherently valuable. Finally, they insist on
solving those problems through affirming and nonviolent means.

CHAPTER THREE
ISSUES IN APPLIED ETHICS

 Introduction
Dear students, in this section, you will introduce with some controversial issues of applied

ethics, why they are so controversial, what are the arguments forwarded to substantiate the

claims so that you will take your own side rationally.

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Let us further explore some of the contemporary social issues from an applied ethics
perspective.

1. Abortion

 Pretest questions:
 Dear Learners, how do you define abortion?

 What are the conditions where abortion is acceptable?

Abortion is an “act which a woman performs in voluntarily terminating, or allowing another

person to terminate her pregnancy”. (Mary A. Warren) Is abortion morally permissible or

impermissible, right or wrong?

1.1. Two approaches to abortion:

(a) For the utilitarians, no taking of human life, be it abortion or euthanasia, is

intrinsically wrong, since actions are wrong only insofar as they cause suffering or reduce

happiness. For abortion, it is the consequence or effect on the mother, fetus (unborn baby),

and others that matter, not person’s rights or moral status of fetus. Utilitarian arguments for

abortion could employ the bad consequences that may result from a continued pregnancy

—say, the loss of job or other opportunities for the pregnant woman, the suffering of the

child, the burden of caring and nurturing upon the woman, etc. Arguments against abortion

may cite the loss of happiness and the future contributions of the being that is aborted.

(b) The second position relies on some theoretical concepts--human being, person or

rights. Is the fetus a human being or person? If it is a human being or person, then does it

have rights, especially right to life? What are the criteria for being a person? Is there any

morally relevant dividing line along the biological process of development from the

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 unicellular zygote to birth?

1.2. Conservative (pro-life) view: This anti-abortionist or pro-life view takes the fetus as

a human being. Abortion is morally wrong since the fetus is a human life, and since

abortion is the taking of human life and the taking of human life is wrong. Thus, abortion

is justifiable in only some special circumstances, say, if a pregnant woman gives birth to

the baby, the pregnant woman will die.

 Argument against abortion: The fetus continues to grow and develop during the 9-

month pregnancy, and there is no significant dividing line in fetal development separating

something is a human being from something is not. Hence the fetus is a human being

from conception onwards. Since

It is wrong to kill a human being.

A human fetus is a human being.

Abortion is killing a human fetus.

Abortion is killing a human being.

Therefore, it is wrong to have abortion.

 The fertilized egg (zygote) contains the entire genetic blue-print for the future

development of the fetus, baby, child and adult. The actual physical constitution and

appearance of the fetus, baby, and so on, is determined by the DNA of the fertilized egg.

But is it always wrong to kill a human being? There are possible situations where the first

premise could be questioned, say, killing in self-defense seems not wrong. The second

premise could also be questioned since it is not at all clear whether fetus is a human

being, though it is a member of the species of Homo sapiens.

1.3. Liberal (pro-choice) view: Abortion is an issue about women’s right and free choice.

This pro-abortionist or pro-choice view takes the fetus as a part of the pregnant woman’s

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 body. Abortion is not a morally serious matter, not a matter of taking human life, but

simply removing a bit of living tissue from the woman’s body, like an appendectomy, or

the removal of a hand. In abortion, a woman is exercising her right to choose what

happens to her body, or her right to choose not to bear a fetus. It is morally permissible

for a woman to demand an abortion at any stage for any reason because she has a right to

choose what happens to her own body, and since the fetus is only a part of her body.

1.3.1 Criticisms and objections:

Even if it is morally permissible for me to cut off a hand, or an unwanted part of my body

because I want to, it does not follow that it is morally permissible for a doctor to cut off my

hand or an unwanted part of my body at my request, just because I want him to.

Suppose a fetus is aborted and lives. This viable fetus (a fetus is said to be viable at the point

where it could survive independently of the mother) is not morally on a par with an organ of

the human body since it is itself growing and developing into a human body independently.

But it seems odd to say that something has different moral status according to where it is

living and developing. A viable fetus in an incubator counts as a baby; a viable fetus that is

not in an incubator but in a woman’s body just counts as morally on a par with one of her

organs.

Liberal abortionists see birth as a morally relevant dividing line between human and non-

human. But it is not at all clear where the morally relevant difference is between the fetus ten

minutes before birth and a just born baby. The only difference is the physical separation (the

just born baby is no longer dependent on the woman’s body) of the fetus from the mother. It

seems implausible to interpret this as the morally significant difference.

1.4. Personhood argument for abortion: The term ‘human being’ or ‘human’ can be

analyzed into two senses (Mary A. Warren):

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(i)The biological or genetic sense, a human being is just a member of the species homo

sapiens. Whether a being is a member of a given species can be determined scientifically by

an examination of the chromosomes in the cells of living organisms. A fetus conceived by

human parents is certainly a human being.

(ii) ‘Person’, a conscious and rational being, is a moral agent who possesses some traits or

qualities, like consciousness, reasoning, self-awareness, self-control, capacity to

communicate, etc. All of us are persons (moral agents) and holders of rights, but fetuses,

embryos, babies, and the extremely senile or brain-damaged are not.

 Criteria for Personhood:

i) Consciousness—the capacity to feel pain and enjoy happiness;

ii) Reasoning—the capacity to solve new and relatively complex problems;

iii) Self-motivated activity—relatively independent activity;

iv) Capacity to communicate, by whatever means, messages of an indefinitely variety

of types.

v) The presence of self-awareness.

Look at the argument against abortion (conservative view) again with these two senses. What

do you have to say? The argument is valid or invalid? The fetus is not a moral person and it

does not have the right to life since it lacks the criteria of personhood. Thus abortion is

morally justified.

A fetus is merely a human being in the biological sense.

No fetus is a person.

No fetus is a moral agent

No fetus has the right to life.

It is not wrong to kill a fetus.

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 Therefore, abortion is not wrong.

1.4.1 Criticisms and objections:

 Infanticide: Taking ‘human being’ different from ‘person’, we can further argue that a

newborn baby is not self-conscious, not rational; it cannot see itself as a being which

might or might not have a future, and so cannot have a desire to continue living. If a right

to life must be based on rationality, self-awareness, or capacity to want to go on living, a

newborn baby cannot have a right to life. The newborn baby or infant is thus on the same

footing as the fetus. If it is not wrong to kill fetus, then it is not wrong to kill new-born

babies.

Where the line is to be drawn in the case of infanticide? How old an infant that is up to the

standard of being a person, that it is wrong to kill it? The moral problem can thus only be

solved by choosing some period of time arbitrarily, say a month or two after birth, as the

interval during which infanticide is permitted. But our morality will reject that killing

newborn babies is not seriously wrong.

If it is not wrong to kill newborn babies, then it is also not wrong to kill those people who are

seriously brain-damaged or in coma, since they are not up to the standard of personhood.

Though people with severe mental handicaps who lack personhood have no rights (if rights

were tied to the notion of personhood), it is clearly prohibited or morally wrong to kill

disabled people. Any theory that leads to the permissibility of infanticide has gone wrong

very early. Common morality requires the protection of the most vulnerable members of

society, of which newborn babies are a prime example. If morality is not about this, then it is

about nothing.

The personhood view is thus in conflict with our moral idea that all human beings, at

whatever stage of development, whether they be young, old, incapacitated, ‘normal’ or not,

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have equal dignity and deserve whatever protection they need from the aggression of those

more powerful than they are. And the conception of human rights says all human beings have

rights simply they are human beings. But for Warren, only moral persons have rights, human

beings who are not up to the standard of personhood do not have rights.

1.5. Judith Thomson’s defense of abortion: Suppose the fetus is a person or human being

and has the right to life. Is it always wrong to have abortion? No. Thomson argues that

abortion is morally permissible for some cases of abortion—pregnancy results from rape and

saving the pregnant woman’s life.

1.5.1 Abortion due to rape: The ‘violinist case’ attempts to show that abortion due to rape is

permissible. A famous violinist is plugged into your kidney by some music lovers while you

are sleeping, to share your blood for 9 months in order to save the violinist’s life, without

your permission. Unplugging will result in his death. Remaining plugged to him is a

substantial burden to you—unable to move or do the things you want to do for 9 months. Is it

wrong if you unplug?

It is nothing wrong if you unplug. The right to life (of the violinist) does not amount to the

right against any other person to provide life support if doing so is burdensome. The violinist

does not have the right to your blood or to use your kidneys without your permission. Having

a right to life does not guarantee having either a right to be given the use of or a right to be

allowed continued use of another person’s body—even if one needs it for life itself. Thomson

interprets right to life as negative, not positive. Negative rights are rights to be ‘left alone’,

whereas positive rights are rights to demand assistance. “The fact that for continued life that

violinist needs the continued use of your kidneys does not establish that he has a right to be

given the continued use of your kidneys.”

Everyone has a right of how her own body is used. And the sick violinist has no right to use

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another person’s body without her permission. Hence you cannot be unjust in unplugging

him: “You surely are not being unjust to him, for you gave him no right to use your kidneys,

and no one else can give him any such right.” Unplugging him is not wrong although the

result of the action is the violinist’s death.

“The right to life consists not in the right not to be killed, but rather in the right not be killed

unjustly.” The violinist has the right to life, but “if you do not kill him unjustly, you do not

violate his right to life, and so it is no wonder you do him no injustice.” Thus the victim of

rape (pregnant woman) can have abortion since she has not given permission to the fetus to

use her body and it has no right to use her body. The woman has done no injustice to the

fetus.

We are morally required to be a minimally decent Samaritan, but not a Good Samaritan.

“Nobody is morally required to make large sacrifices, of health, of all other interests and

concerns, of all other duties and commitments…”

1.5.2 Abortion to save the woman’s life: Is self-defense against an innocent threat—

abortion in order to save the pregnant woman’s life morally permissible?

 Suppose you are trapped in a small house with a fast growing child. Is killing the child to

avoid being crushed to death by the child morally permissible? For self-defense, it is

nothing wrong.

 Thus the pregnant woman can have abortion in order to save her life, for she has right to

life and she has right to her body.

1.5.3 In Thomson’s arguments, two other moral aspects we have to consider:

(a) The burden involved in bringing the fetus to term.

(b) The degree of responsibility the woman carrying the fetus has to provide life support.

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Consider the following cases:

(i)A couple has unprotected sex in order to have a baby, but changes their mind.

(ii)A couple has unprotected sex without any thought of possible consequences.

(iii)A couple takes some precautions, but less than what would be reasonably sufficient.

(IV) a couple takes all reasonable precautions.

 What moral differences (if any) do these different cases make?

1.6. The potentiality view can be either anti-abortionist or pro-abortionist. The fetus, from

the moment of conception, is morally unique, not an actual but a potential human being or

person. Insofar as the fetus is not an actual but a potential human being, it is (a) unlike an

actual one, and (b) unlike any other piece of human tissue—a stomach is not a potential

human being.

1.6.1 The potentiality view can rank a potential human being very high, very close to an

actual human being; hence moving very close to the conservative position and arguing

It is wrong to kill a potential human being.

A human fetus is a potential human being.

Abortion is killing the human fetus.

Therefore, it is wrong to have abortion.

 The first premise of the argument is weak, for the wrongness of killing a potential human

being—even a potential person—is more open to challenge than the wrongness of killing

an actual human being.

 Does a potential person have rights? We might be able to derive potential rights from a

potential ability of having rights. But it is unclear how actual rights can be derived from

the bare potential ability of having such rights at a later time. However, a woman’s actual

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 rights could override a fetus’s potential rights.

1.6.2 The potentiality view can rank a potential human being very low, quite close to a bit of

human tissue; hence moving to an extreme liberal position.

1.6.3 Someone can take up a variety of positions in between. Their argument may begin from

the premise that the fertilized ovum, unlike the unfertilized ova and sperm, is a potential

human being. It then adds the gradual development premise that, working forwards from

conception through the various stages, there is no point at which we can say ‘now it is an

actual human being’ until the baby is born. Unlike the claim that the fertilized ovum is

immediately morally comparable to a human being (the conservative view) or part of the

woman’s body (the liberal view), the claim that the fertilized ovum is immediately a potential

human being seems beyond dispute. Assigning the fetus ‘potential’ status does provide a

premise for ruling out abortion on trivial grounds. Deliberately to destroy a potential human

being, thereby preventing it from realizing its potential, is a morally serious matter.

 Potentiality: To say that a fetus is a potential human being is not like saying that it has a

chance to become a human being, a chance that may be lost. It is about its natural

development which can be perverted or prevented, but it cannot be lost. The point of

describing fetuses as potential human beings is to group them all together into a natural

class, with a certain natural development.

 A thing is potentially K if it will become K of its own accord, if nothing external

intervenes. So acorns and chestnuts are potential trees. All acorns are potential oak trees,

not potential chestnut trees or apple trees.

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 2. Euthanasia

 Dear students, what do you know about euthanasia?

 Is euthanasia morally acceptable in your culture, religion,

and what is your moral standpoint about this?

Euthanasia (means ‘good death’) refers to “any action where a person is intentionally killed

or allowed to die because it is believed that the individual would be better off dead than alive

—or else, as when one is in an irreversible coma, at least no worse off.” (M. Tooley)

Euthanasia is aiming at the good of the one whose death is in question, and it is for her sake

that her death is desired. It stresses on the intentions of the one who kills. But what

distinguishes cases which are murders from those which are euthanasia or mercy-killing?

Something is an act of euthanasia only if the death brought about is for the good of the one

who dies—when life is to become a suffering or an evil for him/her. Euthanasia is now

applied specifically in the medical field to the intentional killing of a person for ending

his/her suffering or of removing some burden.

Whether or not euthanasia is morally justified typically arises with the very old and the

chronically sick, or those in great pain. If someone is in pain, with no prospect of living a

worthwhile life, is it morally acceptable to switch off life -support machine or even

administer a lethal drug?

Physician-assisted suicide is different from euthanasia that the doctor does not actually

inject a patient with a death-causing drug as in active euthanasia, but rather provides patients

with drugs or other measures that they will take themselves to end their lives. It is thus a form

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of suicide with the doctor providing the means to carry it out. Is physician-assisted suicide

less morally wrong than cases of euthanasia in which the doctor actually administers the drug

or uses other means to bring about death?

2.1. Kantian objections against Euthanasia: It is our moral duty to preserve our life. We are

acting truly morally from the motive of duty in seeking to preserve our own life, even though

we are faced with a dreadful and crippling disease which takes from us every desire for life.

Our duty, our rational motives run counter to our inclination or feeling which is what makes

our motives of unconditional moral worth. Thus every individual does have the duty and

seeks to preserve his/her own life. Suicide or asking another person to kill ourselves when we

are in severe pain is thus wrong.

Euthanasia is wrong because we are using ourselves simply as a means to remove our

sufferings or great burden. We should act in such a way that we always treat humanity,

whether in our own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means but always

at the same time as an end. We are morally required to treat all rational humans as ends, never

merely as a means to an end. Persons, because they are rational and autonomous, have

intrinsic value, independently of their value to others, and, they are ‘above all price’, that is,

they have dignity.

2.2. Utilitarian support for Euthanasia: For the utilitarians, killing a person is not itself

wrong. Right or wrong depends upon the consequence of an act. Utilitarians value happiness

and the absence of suffering or reduction of misery. A person ought to devote his/her life to

achieving the best possible balance of happiness over unhappiness. Human life has a high

though derivative value, and a person’s life may be taken for the sake of greater happiness in

other lives, or for ending of suffering in his/her own life.

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Euthanasia is nothing wrong if the fatally ill patient’s pain and suffering can be removed.

Moreover, greatest happiness for the greatest number of people could be achieved if scarce

health-care resources can be diverted to and used for other patients who are not fatally ill.

2.3. In evaluating euthanasia, the first concern is consent—whether the patient agreed to be

killed or requested it. In terms of consent, there are three types of euthanasia: voluntary,

involuntary, and non-voluntary.

2.3.1. Voluntary euthanasia is carried out at the victim’s consent or request. The patient

wishes to die and expresses this wish. Consent must be actual and explicit. There must be

express request for death. But there are problems about whether the request or consent was

entirely uncoerced and rationally made. It is the person whose life is at issue who makes the

decision about what is to be done. It is up to individuals to give up their lives and to give

consent to someone to kill them, irrespective of the consequences for other people of their

death. Consent must be free. It will not completely free if given under conditions of coercion,

ignorance, fraud or fear. The requirement of complete freedom reflects the idea that a request

for death has the form of an abandonment of the right to life, and the abandonment cannot be

partial. Voluntariness assumes a central role in euthanasia. If in the end the case for voluntary

killing cannot be morally justified, it is likely that no case can be morally justified for

euthanasia of any sort.

2.3.2. Arguments for voluntary euthanasia:

(i)All persons have a right to control what happens in and to their own body. It is up to

individual persons to give up their lives and to give consent to someone to kill them.

Continuing to treat someone suffering from a terminal illness will cause him/her more

suffering than would be caused by giving him/her a fatal injection.

Therefore, in case of terminal illness, persons have a right to be given a fatal injection if

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they request one.

Objections and criticisms:

(a)We have the right to life, but do we have a right to die (a right to be given a fatal

injection)? We have the right to life but no right to die:

1. Suppose all persons have the right to die and should be allowed to end their lives to avoid

suffering they regard as unbearable.

2. If a person has the right to K, he is morally permitted to exercise it and we must allow him

to exercise it even when we consider his choice to do so unwise.

3. If a person has the right to die, he is morally permitted to exercise it and we must allow

him to choose to die even when we consider his choice to do so unwise.

4. If all persons have the right to die, then not only when they have fatal illness or suffer

unbearable pain they choose to die, even before they experience any suffering and even when

their death is not imminent they choose to die.

5. But that is absurd.

Therefore, persons do not have a right to die and should not be allowed to terminate their

lives to avoid suffering they regard as unbearable.

Right to freedom does not include the right to giving up freedom; similarly, right to life does

not include the right to abandoning life.

A person’s right goes with another person’s duty. If we have the right to die, then others have

the corresponding duty to kill. We have moral duty to preserve and save life, but we do not

have moral duty to kill.

(b)Living a life is a good in itself. Using the concern for life that usually promotes it to make

a case for ending life is inherently contradictory and a violation of moral law.

2.3 (ii) appealing to autonomy or self-determination for voluntary euthanasia: We think of

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ourselves as masters of our own fate. We have interest in making important decisions about

our lives for ourselves according to our own values or conceptions of a good life. Autonomy

is valuable because it permits people to form and live in accordance with their own

conceptions of a good life. In exercising our autonomy we take responsibility for our lives

and for the kinds of persons we become. Human dignity lies in people’s capacity to determine

and direct their lives in their own ways. If burdens or pains in the last stage of a patient’s life

is so great that makes life no longer worth living, or if life is no longer considered a benefit

by the patient but has become a burden, then she decides to forgo life-sustaining treatment or

to seek active euthanasia. It is exercising of her self-determination, maintaining the quality of

life, avoiding great suffering, and maintaining her dignity.

Objections and criticisms:

a) There are problems in attempting to respect personal autonomy. Terminally ill patients are

more likely subject to psychologically undue influence or coercion. Often a patient’s mental

competence and thus autonomy is compromised by fear and lack of understanding. Mental

conditions, like depression, could call into question whether the patient has made a competent

decision or fully self-ruled. Some evidence shows a high correlation between suicide and

depression. For terminally ill patients, a determination of incompetence can warrant not to

honor their choice.

b) A person might fail to make a rational and sensible decision. She might be in the grip of an

abnormal, highly emotional mental state, say, anxiety or depression. While in such a state,

euthanasia or suicide might seem a desirable alternative. But if the person were to return to a

normal, calm, rational state, euthanasia or suicide no longer would seem acceptable. We have

to make sure that a person’s decision to commit suicide or euthanasia is one that that has been

given sufficient consideration and examination. To allow a fleeting desire or an unusual

emotional state to bring about such an irrevocable decision is to ignore the agent’s own

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rational plan of life and dignity.

c) If euthanasia is permissible and making it easy an alternative to obtain, then pressure may

be brought on seriously or fatally ill patients who would not otherwise do so to ask for

euthanasia. Their decision may be coerced rather than voluntary. We already allow patients to

refuse medical or life-saving treatment even though this may create pressure on some patients

to reject treatment in order to reduce health care costs for others.

d) Slavery is wrong because selling oneself into slavery is forfeiting all one’s liberty for the

rest one’s life as well as forgoing one’s humanity. The principle of freedom could not require

that a person should be free not to be free. A person who chooses to sell himself into slavery

must be incompetent, irrational, or misinformed. Similarly, in exercising her last self-

determination, the patient who decides to forgo life-sustaining treatment or to seek active

euthanasia, chooses to give up her autonomy forever. The decision is thus presumed to be

also incompetent, irrational, or misinformed.

e) Human life is a good, and indeed the fundamental good. It is the source of all human

dignity and well-being, autonomy cannot be exercised with a view to abandoning it. The

same goes for human dignity itself. A person can live in an undignified way, but she cannot

abandon her basic right to live in a dignified way.

f) Appealing to self-determination, euthanasia is mistakenly understood as personal and

private matter. Our liberal view is that if a person is doing something privately, or her actions

are only self-regarding, we should let her alone and others (even the government) should not

intervene. But euthanasia is not a private act nor only self-regarding. It is a social act, other-

regarding by calling upon the doctor to take part in it. In the past, dueling was considered as

‘private killing’, but it was rejected as socially harmful and now not accepted in civilized

society. Should we reinstate ‘private killing’ in euthanasia?

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2.4 (iii) We have a duty to prevent unnecessary suffering.

In case of terminal illness, it is morally permissible to withhold medical treatment in order to

allow the person to die of natural causes. But allowing someone to die of natural causes will

result in more suffering for that person than would result from giving that person a fatal

injection. There is no morally relevant difference between intentionally killing someone and

intentionally letting them die.

Therefore, in case of terminal illness, it would be morally permissible to give a person a

lethal injection. Is it morally permissible to bring about someone’s death by withholding or

withdrawing medical treatment from him/her? Is it morally permissible to bring about

someone’s death directly by fatal injection? Is it morally permissible to withhold medical

treatment from a patient when (a) there is little hope that continued treatment will improve

his/her condition and (b) continuing the medical treatment will cause the patient more

suffering than withholding it?

2.5. Arguments against voluntary euthanasia:

Voluntary decisions about death presuppose freedom of choice.

But freedom of choice entails the absence of freedom-limiting constraints.

Such constraints most likely are present in cases of the terminally ill.

Therefore terminally ill patients cannot genuinely make a voluntary decision about death.

 Freedom-limiting constraints are the patient’s unstable psychology, pressure or stress

from family members.

2.5.1 A person’s right to life is an inalienable right.

An inalienable right is a right that cannot be taken away nor given away.

Voluntary euthanasia is an abandonment of right to life.

Therefore, voluntary euthanasia is morally impermissible.

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 Consider the analogy with slavery. Should we allow individuals to sell themselves into

slavery?

2.5.2 Other reasons against euthanasia:

(a) Doctor should not be a healer as well as a killer. Permitting euthanasia is incompatible

with a doctor’s duty as a healer to care for patients, and save and protect life. Patients will

thus lose trust in doctors or medical service.

(b) Humans are fallible and doctors could make mistakes in diagnosis and prognosis. Also,

the advancement and development of medical technology and medicine could make

‘incurable’ illness curable.

(c) If voluntary active euthanasia is permissible, there could be a ‘slippery slope’ to other

types of euthanasia—from voluntary to non-voluntary, from non-voluntary to involuntary,

from adults to children, from terminally ill to chronically ill, from unbearable suffering to

dissatisfaction with the quality of life.

(d) Hospice service (hospital for people with incurable illness) or palliative care (to lessen the

unpleasant effects of illness, dying, suffering without removing the cause) provides

alternatives to euthanasia. These services relieve pain and anxiety, prepare the patient for

dying. Doctors, nurses and family members work together to help the patient to live with a

disability, to cope with dying, and to live the last days of a human life.

2.6. Involuntary euthanasia: Euthanasia that is not voluntary can be involuntary or non-

voluntary. If someone does not explicitly request euthanasia, this does not mean that they do

not want it. It would be reasonable to assume that they do not. It is involuntary where the

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person killed refuses or actively withholds consent, or where the person could have been

asked whether she consented, but was not. It would be obviously involuntary if someone had

clearly expressed a wish to live as long as possible, whatever the circumstances.

 Involuntary euthanasia is regarded as obviously wrong, equivalent to murder. Moral

weight is given to autonomy: just as a person’s consent to be killed is said to legitimize

the killing, so her withholding of consent makes killing illegitimate. But a utilitarian

could even justify involuntary euthanasia.

2.6.1 Non-voluntary euthanasia: Persons other than the patient whose life is at issue decide

what shall be done when the patient is unconscious or unable to express a wish. Non-

voluntary means not through the will of the patient. It does not mean against his/her will.

Newborn babies do not yet have, comatose or severely brain-damaged adults have lost, the

capacity to request or refuse euthanasia. Neither consent nor the lack of it can be said a factor

in such cases. Therefore, euthanasia could be neither voluntary nor involuntary, but non-

voluntary.

When a patient is not able to express her wishes, we may try to imagine what she would

want. We can rely on past personality/statements she has made or conversation between

relatives. Perhaps she might have left a written expression of her wishes in the form of

‘advance directives’. Supporters will appeal explicitly to quality of life in assessing whether

such a patient should be killed.

2.7. Besides the issue of consent, there is also the distinction between passive and active

euthanasia—killing by commission and killing by omission.

2.7.1 Passive euthanasia: stopping (or not starting) some medical treatment, which allows a

person to die. The person’s illness or condition causes his/her death. It involves a failure to

act that brings about death. The withholding or withdrawing of life-sustaining treatment in

the case of terminally ill patients seems an established part of medical practice. Moreover, a

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patient has the right to refuse any medical treatment, a right that could encompass the refusal

of life sustaining treatment. Thus, doctors hold and maintain the moral legitimacy of passive

euthanasia in the case of terminally ill patients.

2.7.2 Active euthanasia: doing something, such as administer a lethal drug or using other

means that cause a person’s death. It involves a positive act that brings about death. In

passive euthanasia, the doctor refrains from trying to do what saves or prolongs life; in active

euthanasia, the doctor acts to bring about the death by some cause or means. It seems that

passive euthanasia is morally permissible, but active euthanasia is not. Active euthanasia

would be the intentional giving of a drug with the purpose of bringing about a patient’s death.

2.7.3 Is there any moral difference between active and passive

euthanasia?

Many people, especially doctors, believe that passive euthanasia is morally preferable to

active euthanasia. Whereas the latter is never permissible, the former sometimes is. Just

sitting back doing nothing and letting death happen is all right, whereas actively bringing

death about is wrong.

James Rachel’s argues that it makes no moral difference whether death is caused by someone

doing something to bring it about, or someone not doing anything to prevent its coming

about. Causing death through inaction rather than action does not necessarily render you

either morally or legally innocent of responsibility for that death.

Passive euthanasia normally takes longer to bring about death than active euthanasia would

have. If the patient is in pain and if the suffering is part of the reason for choosing euthanasia,

then it is cruel and inconsistent to choose passive euthanasia which brings about more

suffering than the active one. The bare difference between killing and letting die does not

make moral difference. Passive euthanasia actually produced a worse outcome than active

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euthanasia would have. Suppose

Albert and Brian both stand to gain a lot of money when their five-year old cousin Charles

dies. They plan, separately, to kill Charles. Here are the two cases. In the first, Albert gets to

Charles first while Charles is in the bath and holds Charles’s head under the water until he

dies. In the second, Brian gets to Charles but, before Brian can drown Charles, Charles slips,

bangs his head and falls, unconscious, with his head under the water. Brian waits, ready to

hold his head under the water if Charles recovers, but this proves unnecessary. Consequently,

Albert drowns Charles; Brian simply lets Charles drown when Brian could have saved him.

Both Albert and Brian are murderers, both are equally morally culpable.

The argument in favor of a moral difference in causal responsibility for acts on the one hand

and omission on the other is invalid. It is not true that when a doctor allows a patient to die

she does nothing and hence, nothing for which she can be blamed. There is at least one thing

she does—she lets the patient die. If the patient were suffering from a curable condition and

was otherwise healthy, and the doctor declined to give treatment easily within her power to

give, then she would be responsible, both causally and morally, for that patient’s death.

 If Rachel’s arguments are sound, then the following views are refuted:

(a) Active euthanasia is wrong but passive euthanasia is morally allowable; or

(b) Killing someone amounts to euthanasia and is wrong, but letting them die is not

euthanasia and is not wrong.

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 3. Animal Rights

Pre-Test Questions:

 Do animals have moral virtue?

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  Do animals are moral subjects or

moral objects?

 Do animals have equal moral status with

human beings?

What is the moral status of animals? How ought we to treat animals? Should we treat non-

human animals in the same way as we should treat our fellow human beings? Do non-human

animals have rights?

 Animal experimentation, commercial farming, hunting, the eating of meat, the existence

of zoos and circuses, destruction of habitats: all of these and other practices involving

animals have come under intense scrutiny and moral evaluation.

 Speciesism: a prejudice for one’s own species and against other species.

 Vegetarianism: the refusal to eat the flesh of animals and the favoring of a diet of

vegetables.

3.1. Kant and anthropocentric (human-centered) ethics: Since animals are not self-

conscious rational agents capable of forming moral law, and are there merely as a means to

our end, they are not part of the moral kingdom (of ends). Strictly speaking, animals do not

merit our moral concern. But we should be kind to animals because that will help to develop

good character in us and help us to treat our fellow human beings in a humane way. Thus,

“our duties towards animals are merely indirect duties towards humanity.” (Kant)

“If a man shoots his dog because the animal is no longer capable of service, he does not fail

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in his duty to the dog, for the dog cannot judge, but his act is inhuman and damages in

himself that humanity which it is his duty to show towards mankind.” (Kant)

Our treatment of animals might affect our treatment of humans. Thus treating an animal badly

is wrong because it reflects a moral attitude that may lead a person to treat humans badly as

well. We should treat humans as ends because they are free, autonomous and rational beings;

and we could treat non-human animals as mere means since they are not autonomous and

rational. Thus, it would be legitimate to treat other living beings simply as means to our ends.

We have statues or laws, making cruelty to animals a crime. They impose duty on people not

to treat animals cruelly. But still animals do not have rights since they are not moral agents.

Actually, animals themselves are not the directly intended beneficiaries of laws prohibiting

cruelty to animals. Such laws are aimed to protect human beings by preventing the growth of

cruel habits or sentiments that could later threaten humans with harm. It is not the mistreated

dog who is the object of concern. Our concern is for the feelings of human beings.

Objection: If we could kill and torture animals without leading to habits of cruelty to people,

then would it be all right? We should not inflict pain or suffering on human beings or on

animals, “because they suffer”, as Jeremy Bentham pointed out. Peter Singer is now further

developing Bentham’s ideas in utilitarian terms.

3.2. Peter Singer’s utilitarian position: We have dismantled discrimination on the basis of

race and sex, why not expand our moral horizons and apply the moral principle of equality to

animals? Practices that were previously regarded as natural and inevitable now come to be

seen as the result of unjustifiable prejudice. Just as people once thought it incredible that

women or Blacks ought not to be treated as equal to white men, so now speciesists ridicule

the idea that all animals ought to given equal consideration.

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It is a fact that humans are not equal. “Humans come in different shapes and sizes; they come

with differing moral capacities, differing intellectual abilities, differing amounts of

benevolent feeling and sensitivity to the needs of others, differing abilities to communicate

effectively, and differing capacities to experience pleasure and pain.” If the demand for

equality were based on the actual equality of human beings, we would have to stop

demanding equality among humans.

The claim to equality (equal consideration of interests) does not depend on intelligence,

moral capacity, physical strength, or similar facts. Equality is a moral ideal. There is no

morally compelling reason for assuming that a factual difference in ability between two

persons justifies any difference in the amount of consideration we give to satisfying their

needs and interests. The principle of the equality of human beings is not a description, but a

prescription of how we ought to treat humans.

Speciesism is wrong: It is equality that the cases against racism and sexism must ultimately

rest. And with principle of equality, speciesism is also to be condemned. If possessing a

higher degree of intelligence does not entitle one human being to use another for her own

ends, how can it entitle human beings to exploit non-human animals?

 Principle of equality is equal consideration of interests. The capacity for suffering and

enjoying things is a prerequisite for having interests at all, a condition that must be

satisfied before we can speak of interests in any meaningful way. It is meaningless to say

that it was not in the interests of a stone to be kicked along the road by a boy. A stone

does not have interests because it cannot suffer. But a cat does have an interest in not

being tortured, because it will suffer.

 Sentience is necessary for having interests. An object without sentience cannot be said to

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 have interests. Sentience is also sufficient for having interests. A being that is sentient has

at least minimal interests—the interest in not suffering.

 To speak of A’s interest in x might mean either (a) A is interested in (wants, desires, cares

about) x, or (b) that x is in A’s interest (that x will contribute to A’s well-being).

 Sentience (the capacity to suffer or experience enjoyment) is the defensible boundary of

concern for the interests of others. If a sentient being suffers, there is no moral

justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration. No matter what the

nature of the being, the principle of equality requires that its suffering be counted equally

with the like suffering of any other sentient beings.

 Racists/sexists violate the principle of equality by giving greater weight to the interests of

members of their own race/sex, when there is clash between their interests and the

interests of those of another race/sex. Similarly, the speciesists allow the interests of their

own species to override the greater interests of members of other species.

 What makes all sentient beings morally considerable is not their rationality or moral

capacity but their ability to suffer. All sentient beings have interests, and the frustration of

interests leads to suffering. Utilitarianism seeks to maximize the satisfaction of interests

or to minimize sufferings whether they be those of humans or animals. Therefore it is

morally wrong to inflict sufferings upon animals in ‘factory (or commercial) farm’,

hunting, and experiment.

3.3 Rearing and killing animals is wrong: Our practice of rearing and killing other animals

in order to eat them is a clear case of the sacrifice of the important interests of other animals

in order to satisfy our trivial interests, our pleasure of taste. To avoid speciesism we must stop

this practice, since we could satisfy our need for protein and other essential nutrients far more

efficiently with a diet that replaced animal flesh by soy beans and other high-protein

vegetable products.

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3.3 Using animals for experiment is wrong: Discrimination is again observed in animal

experimentation in order to see if certain substances are safe for human beings. “Would

the experimenter be prepared to perform his/her experiment on an orphaned human

infant, if that were the only way to save many human lives?” The experimenter shows a

bias in favor of his own species whenever he carries out an experiment on a nonhuman

animal for a purpose that he would not think justified him in using a human being at an

equal or lower level of sentience, awareness, etc.

3.4 Speciesism in contemporary philosophy: Philosophy as being practiced in the

universities today does not challenge anyone’s preconceptions about our relation with

other species. A philosopher said: “all men are to be treated as equals, not because they

are equal, in any respect, but simply because they are human. They are human because

they have emotions and desires, and are able to think, and hence are capable of enjoying a

good life in a sense in which other animals are not.” (W. Frankena) What is this capacity

to enjoy the good life which all humans have, but no other animals? Other animals have

emotions and desires, and appear to be capable of enjoying a good life.

3.5. Criticisms and objections to Singer:

i) A criticism directed against utilitarianism is the measurement problems. Singer’s equal-

consideration-of-interests principle confronts enormous complexity in application. Humans

are different from animals and thus equal consideration does not entail equal or identical

treatment. Further, interests and suffering admit of degrees. Not all interests deserve to be

treated equally and not all suffering is created equal.

 Do you really want to give the interests of a mouse equal consideration when they

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 conflict with the interests of a poor boy it might bite? How do human’s interests in timber

compare with birds’ interests in building their nests at tree-tops?

ii) It is a consistent position that instead of abolishing factory farming, we improve factory

farms or seek alternative methods, in order that animals no longer lead miserable lives, if

people’s interest in rearing and eating animal meat is far greater than animals’ sufferings.

Killing animals for food may be justified if the farming conditions are not detrimental to

animal welfare and killing is humanely performed.

iii) Furthermore, Singer’s utilitarian theory even fails to show that it is wrong to treat

nonhuman animals as they are now being treated in modern farming and using animals for

scientific research, so long as the present treatment of animals might produce greatest

interests of the greatest number of sentient beings. Some animal research may be justified by

its vital importance, as it may enable us to find cures for alleviate painful diseases. Activities

which have an adverse impact on the well-being of animals may be justified if, all things

considered, they lead to a net increase in welfare for humans or animals.

iv) Singer uses principle of equality as well as principle of utility. But there is no necessary

connection, no established harmony between respect for the equality of interests and

promoting the utilitarian maximization of interests.

 The principle of utility might be used to justify the radical kinds of different treatments

between individuals or groups of individuals, and thus it might justify racism and sexism,

as well as speciesism.

 Racism, sexism and speciesism, which seem to be eliminated by the principle of equality

of interests could be resurrected and justified by the principle of utility.

3.6. Deontological rights position (Tom Regan): This equal rights position contends that

animals and humans share some essential psychological properties, like desires, memory,

feeling, etc, and thereby give us all equal intrinsic value upon which equal rights are founded.

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All rights are inalienable and cannot be forfeited. Animals, like humans, are ends in

themselves. The maximization of happiness or utility is not sufficient to override these rights.

The fundamental wrong we are doing to animals is not the pain, nor the suffering, but that we

use animals as our resources or means, as having instrumental value.

 Regan’s radical position thus calls for:

(i) total abolition of the use of animals in science;

(ii) Total dissolution of commercial animal agriculture;

(iii) Total elimination of commercial and sport hunting and trapping.

3.6.1 Regan’s argument for animal rights:

(a) Normal and mature animals are not only sentient but have other mental capacities as well,

like the capacities for emotion, belief, desire, memory, and some degree of self-awareness.

They are not only alive in the biological sense but have some psychological properties.

Creatures with such capacities are said to be subjects-of-a-life, and thus can be harmed or

benefited.

(b) All subjects-of-a-life have inherent value, a value independent of other things or values.

My value as an individual is independent of my usefulness to you. Yours is not dependent on

your usefulness to me. In opposition to utilitarianism, harm to an individual cannot be

justified by the production of a greater net benefit to other individuals.

(c) To have inherent value is to have value independent of interests, needs, or uses of anyone

else. Inherent value is to have value in and of oneself. In contrast, a thing’s instrumental

value is a function of how it might be used by, or a means to others.

(d) Beings or objects with inherent value are ends in themselves, not merely means to some
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other end. It is wrong to beings with inherent value as mere means to other ends—because to

do so is to deny the inherent value these beings possess.

(e) Inherent value does not come in degrees, but equal for all subjects-of-a-life. All who have

inherent value have it equally, whether they are humans or animals. All those who have

inherent value should be treated with equal respect.

(f) It is morally wrong to treat creatures which have inherent value as mere means, especially

mere means to the production of the greatest overall good. We thus have moral duty not to

harm creatures which have inherent value. Egalitarian justice demands that individuals with

inherent value should be treated with equal respect. All individuals with inherent value thus

have the right to be treated with the same respect.

(g)Therefore, all subjects-of-a-life, including animals, have rights. Moral rights generate

duties not only to refrain from inflicting harm upon living creatures with inherent value but

also to help them when they are endangered by others.

3.6.2. Criticisms and objections to Tom Regan:

i) We only have limited moral concern to some animals which are subjects-of-a-life.

Although Regan speaks of animals generally, the subject-of-a-life criteria apply to normal

mammals only. Most non-human animals are not up to standard of being subjects-of-a-life

and thus they do not have rights.

ii) Only humans possess will and autonomy. Humans confront choices that are moral, and

humans lay down moral laws, for others and for themselves. People are self-legislative,

autonomous. Nonhuman animals lack this capacity for moral judgment. They are not capable

of exercising or responding to moral claims, of recognizing just claims against other moral

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agents. Between species of animals, say, between humans on the one hand and dogs on the

other, the morally relevant differences are enormous. Therefore, nonhuman animals do not

have rights.

iii) Animals cannot have rights, since they cannot have duties, and since animals are not

moral agents. They cannot be reasoned with or instructed in their responsibilities. They are

subject to and act according to their brute instincts which they are unable to control. Animals

cannot make agreements, promises or claims, cannot be blamed for what would be called

‘moral failures’ in a person. Animals are therefore incapable of acting rightly or wrongly, of

having obligations.

iv) Argument against vegetarianism: One way of ensuring animal rights is to avoid using

animals for food at all and to eat only vegetables. But, even though animals have interests and

rights, those interests and rights are less important than human’s rights and interests. And our

interests and rights can override their interests and rights. Therefore it is nothing wrong for us

to use them for food, just as animals in nature use other animals and vegetables for food.

 A moderate view says that we have duty or responsibility to not make animals suffer, or

not to slaughter whole species and make extinct. Human beings still are entitled within

these moral limitations to kill animals for food.

v) Regan’s and Singer’s theories are individualistic, not holistic. Their ethics is concerned

with protecting and promoting the interest or well-being of individuals, not whole species or

communities. An animal that is a member of an endangered species, say a panda, has no

special moral status. That is, we have no greater duty to a panda than to a stray dog. We

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 certainly have no direct moral obligation to the millions of species of plants and animals that

are not subjects-of-a-life.

 Individualistic theories are inadequate for environmental ethics because they fail to offer

direct reasons for the moral consideration of ecosystems, wilderness and endangered

species.

Dear learner, write down the Regan’s animal ethics in the space provided below

 Answer
_______________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________

4. Distributive Justice

 What is justice?

 What is the difference between justice and fairness?

 What is John Rawls’ Liberal Equality about?

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  What is Robert Nozick’s Theory of private property?

4.1. Equality, Liberty, and Social Justice: John Rawls’

Liberal Equality

Social justice: Society is conceived as “a cooperative venture for mutual advantage”. Its

members share some common interests, but there are also conflicts of interests among them.

“Persons are not indifferent as to how the greater benefits produced by their collaboration are

distributed, for in order to pursue their ends they each prefer a larger to a lesser share.”

Conflicting interests and claims among individuals give rise to the problem of social justice.

How benefits and burdens are distributed in a just society will depend on what principles of

justice are reflected in the society. Can we have some principle(s) of distribution that could be

agreed and accepted by all members of a society?

Most modern states are morally now to implement policies to bring about justice in the

distribution of wealth and income held by its citizens. Governments can impose higher taxes

on the rich and provide resources for the poor. If this is a proper function of the state, then we

would have made the state more than minimal: it would be doing more than protecting rights

against assault, theft and fraud, for it would also redistribute resources in the name of justice.

The fundamental division or conflict between the individual and the collective provision of

goods has been harmonized and institutionalized in the welfare state. What John Rawls calls a

guaranteed social minimum (difference principle) is a form of social insurance. Its function is

to answer to the human desire for insurance against the inherent insecurity of the market

economy.

All persons have equal right to liberties, and social and economic inequalities are to be

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arranged so as to maximally benefit the poor people. Social and economic inequalities are

just because the advantages of the better off also advantage the poor. The fortunes of both

rich and poor could be improved by moving to the distribution prescribed by the difference

principle. Welfare is thus a kind of redistribution from the rich to the poor, for which moral

reasons must be given.

Rawls tries to develop a procedure that would yield principles of justice. These principles of

justice would then serve as guides in the construction and evaluation of social and political

institutions.

A. Justice as Desert: A desert is a just reward or punishment, reflecting what a person is

‘due’ or ‘deserves’. Justice is nothing more than giving each person what he/she is ‘due’.

What people deserve depends upon what they do or produce. Whether a distributive

system is just depends entirely on whether it leaves people with what they deserve;

whereas a utilitarian distributive system is to maximize utility.

 The wrong-doer deserves punishment, the productive should get more than the

unproductive, the worker is ‘due’ a wage, or the hungry ‘deserve’ food.

 But a worker is often paid less than he deserves. Who deserves more than the other, the

hardworking person or the intelligent person? A person was born with some natural

talents and he now earns much more than the others. Does he deserve his earnings?

B. Utilitarian principle: The just distribution of social resources and wealth is whatever

distribution maximizes aggregate well-being. Well-being could be happiness, satisfaction of

preferences or desires, or interests. And we all share the intuition of what things count as

benefits or harms, as increases or decreases to well-being.

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 What particular distribution of goods will result in the greatest aggregate well-being? It

could be a socialist economy that produces a roughly equal distribution of wealth, or a

capitalist economy with a very unequal distribution of social resources.

 While agreeing on the utilitarian account of distributive justice, utilitarians may disagree

about economics in ways that lead them to disagree about what particular distribution

utilitarianism endorses. It is not implausible that utilitarians could justify slavery (if the

greatest aggregate well-being were achieved).

C. Rawls’ liberal equality: Rawls’ general conception of social justice: “all social primary

goods—liberty and opportunity, income and wealth, and the bases of self-respect—are to be

distributed equally unless an unequal distribution of these goods is to the advantage of the

least advantaged people.”

Equality is always equality in certain respects, not in every respect. Equality used in the

political context is meaningless unless there is some explanation of what it is that should be

more equally shared and by whom. For egalitarians, some of the things should be equally or

more equally distributed are money and wealth, access to employment, and political power.

Even though people’s wants and tastes differ considerably, all these things can contribute

significantly to a worthwhile and satisfying life. Distributing these goods more equally is a

way of respecting all people equally.

What Rawls’ Difference Principle enables us to do is to take maximum advantage of

economic efficiency, consistent with distributive justice. Rawls’ two principles of justice

stipulate that everyone starts equal, then, seeks to show how far away from equality we may

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move without injustice.

Rawls used hypothetical consent to justify political institutions. Instead of demanding that

citizens actually express their acceptance of the political authority under which they live, one

could justify state authority if such citizens would accept that authority under conditions of

fair choice, and consequently they are thereby bound by its principles. In so far as such

hypothetical consent can be secured, such a state is just.

Justice is a matter of what rational agents would choose when not swayed by factors that

would bias their choices, such as their race, gender, position and class in society, natural

endowments, and their particular conception of good. Justice is that set of principles chosen

by those who will live according to them from a perspective insensitive to these personal

factors. And it is an outcome of a hypothetical agreement.

4.1.1. Rawls’ two principles of justice:

1. Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of equal

basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all.

2. Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both:

(a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged, and

(b) Attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of

opportunity.

 The 1st principle is called Principle of Equal Liberty. Basic liberties are freedoms to

participate in political process, of speech, of conscience, of person, from arbitrary arrest

and seizure, and the right to hold personal property. They are political and civil rights

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 embraced by a liberal democracy. Rights of citizenship are required to be equal by the 1 st

principle. No loss or no less-than-equal enjoyment of these basic liberties or rights can be

adequately compensated by gains of wealth or other primary goods.

 The 2nd principle applies to “the distribution of income and wealth, and to the design of

organizations that make use of differences in authority and responsibility, or chains of

command” 2a-principle is called the Difference Principle, 2b-principle is the Principle of

fair equality of opportunity. The 1st principle distributes the basic liberties; the 2 nd

principle distributes the primary goods of wealth, income, power, and authority.

The least advantaged are those people who are least advantaged in their prospects of

obtaining wealth, income, power, authority, etc. Difference Principle requires that the basic

structure be arranged in such a way that any inequalities in prospects of obtaining the primary

goods must work to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged people.

The Difference principle expresses a specific attitude towards the productive skills and

abilities of individuals, and of the material productive assets they are able to create—they

should be considered a common asset, rather then private property of individuals. It is

because ‘no one deserves his greater natural capacity’. To be abler than another person is

simply good fortune and thus undeserved. So it is just that the abler benefit from their greater

ability only if they also thereby benefit the less fortunate.

Fair equality of opportunity should go beyond formal equality of opportunity to insure that

persons with similar skills, abilities, and motivation enjoy equal opportunity. A person’s

family background, race, sex, religion, or social background should not act as an impediment

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to success.

Equal opportunity means that “assuming that there is a distribution of natural assets, those

who are at the same level of talent and ability, and have the same willingness to use them,

should have the same prospects of success regardless of the income class into which they are

born.” To achieve equal opportunity for the poor and rich, government must subsidize the

poor to accomplish their ambition. Society should impose heavy inheritance taxes, offer

public education, and pass anti-discrimination laws.

 Priority: The 1st principle is lexically prior to the 2nd as a whole, and (2b) is prior to (2a).

One principle is lexically prior to another principle if and only if we are first to satisfy the

first principle before going on to satisfy the second.

 The priority requires that maximizing the wealth of the poor holds only given the

securing of maximum equal basic liberties and fair equality of opportunity. If the wealth

of the least advantaged could be increased by diminution of liberties, justice does not

require that this be done. Basic liberties of citizenship are not understood as the outcome

of political bargaining nor are they subject to the calculus of social interests.

4.1.1.1. Choosing Rawls’ principles of justice: “The principles to which social

arrangements must conform, and in particular the principles of justice, are those which free

and rational men would agree to in an original position of equal liberty; and similarly, the

principles which govern men’s relations to institutions and define their natural duties and

obligations are the principles to which they would consent when so situated…the principles

of justice are understood as the outcome of a hypothetical agreement.” (Rawls)

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J. Rawls’ task is to design and provide a procedure that would enable the members of a

society to adopt principles for resolving conflicting claims and interests and for putting in

place just practices and institutions. That is, by what procedure can individuals primarily

concerned with their own interests and the interest of their family members adopt principles

of just institutions and practices?

i) Original position is a hypothetical situation of choice from which the principles of justice

originated or derived. The parties to the contract are rational and mutually disinterested, and

each party thinks of herself/himself as an independent agent with a worthwhile life plan to

pursue. Each party is concerned solely to advance her/his own interest and is uninterested in

the welfare of others.

ii) Veil of ignorance: The parties are deprived of particular facts about themselves or others.

Each party does not know whether he/she is rich or poor, black or white, intelligent or stupid,

weak or strong, skilled or handicapped, nor his/her position in society. Each party knows that

he/she has goals to advance, but he/she is ignorant of what his/her goals are. Thus the parties

do not know how to be biased in their own favour, and they apparently act and choose

impartially. Every party under the veil of ignorance is morally equal. The parties choose

principles of justice in a fair situation (justice as fairness).

 “What the parties do know is that Hume’s circumstances of justice obtain: namely, that

the bounty of nature is not so generous as to render cooperative schemes superfluous nor

so harsh as to make them impossible.” (Rawls)

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 The idea of veil of ignorance is that the choice of principles of justice should not be

influenced by factors that are arbitrary from a moral point of view. No one deserves to be

born handicapped or intelligent, any more than they deserve to be born into a certain class

or sex or race. Natural and social inequalities are undeserved, and they are considered a

social asset. It is unfair for one’s fate to be made worse by these undeserved inequalities.

 Natural talents and social circumstances are matters of brute luck, and people’s moral

claims should not depend on brute luck. People’s fate should be determined by their

choices and efforts. No one deserves to benefit from their natural talents, but it is not

unfair to allow such benefits when they work to the advantage of those who were less

fortunate in the ‘natural lottery’.

 Rawls says, “Undeserved inequalities call for redress; and since inequalities of birth and

natural endowment are undeserved, these inequalities are to be somehow compensated

for…Those who have been favoured by nature, whoever they are, may gain from their

good fortune only on terms that improve the situation of those who have lost out.”

iii) Competing principles of justice: There is a list of competing principles of justice for the

parties to choose in the original position. But the main competitors are utilitarian principle

and Rawls’ principles of justice.

iv) The maximin rule: With the informational constraints imposed by the veil of ignorance,

choosing principles of justice in original position is what decision theorists call a problem of

rational choice under uncertainty. The appropriate decision rule for the parties is the maximin

rule which states that the party is to choose that alternative which has the best worst outcome.

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v) Choosing Rawls’ principles: If the parties employed the maximin rule, they would

choose Rawls’ principles which insure the best worst outcome of any of the sets of principles

on the list. The worst possible outcome under utilitarianism would be worse than the worst

possible outcome under his principles. The enslavement of a minority is made right if it could

produce a maximum amount of utility for a maximum number of people. Hence utilitarianism

is compatible with unjust institution of slavery. The parties thus choose Rawls’ 1 st principle

since it guarantees equal liberties for all.

Since utilitarianism may sacrifice the interests of a minority to produce the greatest interests

for the greatest number of people, the worst-off may be very badly off indeed. A party in the

original position is to consider the possibility that she/he might turn out to be a member of the

worst-off group in society. But Rawls’ Difference Principle requires that inequalities in

wealth, income, power and authority must work to the greatest benefit of the worst-off

people. So, the parties would choose Rawls’ principles. The Difference Principle guarantees a

social minimum or social insurance for the least advantaged people (the poor), and provides

justification for a welfare state.

4.1.1.2. Rejecting desert: Natural endowments and social circumstances are undeserved, but

a matter of luck. If you end up with more wealth and income than I do because you had rich

parents and inherited more money, or because your parents provided you with advantageous

social positions, or because you naturally inherited more brains or beauty than I did, then you

do not deserve to have more wealth and income than I.

 “Once we are troubled by the influence of either social contingencies or natural chance on

the determination of distributive shares, we are bound, on reflection, to be bothered by the

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 influence of the other. From a moral standpoint the two seem equally arbitrary.” Natural

talents and social contingencies are things beyond our control that cannot provide a basis

for desert, but things within our control—choices and effort, can.

 “The assertion that a man deserves the superior character that enables him to make the

effort to cultivate his abilities is equally problematic: for his character depends in large

part on fortunate family and social circumstances for which he can claim no credit. The

notion of desert seems not to apply to these cases.”

4.1.2. Criticisms and objections to Rawls:

a) Why the parties in the original position employed the maximin rule? The maximin rule

tells the parties to choose the safest alternative, not to take risk. But some of them may take

risk and employ the maximax rule instead. If some parties choose the maximax rule, then not

all parties choose Rawls’ principles. And thus a general agreement cannot be reached.

b) Are the parties under the veil of ignorance different individuals? Can they make decision

or choice without knowing who they are? But political goods or individuals’ conception of

goods cannot be determined by abstract reasoning, nor are they freely chosen by individual

moral agents, but rather arise out of and are implicit in the ways of life of particular

communities.

c) Rawls’ principles of justice do not allow people to profit from their natural endowments in

ways that do not benefit the worst off people. This is reflected in the fact that knowledge of

our natural talents is forbidden in the hypothetical original position. And our natural talents

are undeserved and they are counted as social asset. In so doing, does Rawls respect

individual’s autonomy, respect separateness of persons, and respect individual’s self-respect?

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It is because one’s natural talent is a constituent of one’s identity. It is her/his own natural

talent, not yours or others’.

d) Moreover, something that is the product of one’s choice and effort is deserved. But

apparently that product is the consequence of one’s natural talents as well as choice and

effort. So, how much is deserved, and how much is undeserved?

e) It seems that people unwilling to do any work cannot be blamed for their laziness or

idleness, and are entitled to benefit by the abilities and efforts of others under the terms of

Difference Principle. Would the poorest class whose advantages must be maximized be the

class of idlers or lazy persons who do not work at all throughout their lives and are provided

for by society?

f) The hypothetically chosen principles of justice should apply to actual society— makes a

difficulty against Rawls’ system. For what ground is provided for an obligation in the real

world by a contract agreed to in a hypothetical one. Even if justice can be defined as the

outcome of fair bargaining of this sort, what foundation is really provided for citizens of an

actual society by a hypothetical bargaining that would have been struck in alternative

circumstances?

4.2. Property, Liberty, Rights and Social Justice: Robert Nozick’s

Libertarianism

Theory of private property is to examine proposed explanations and justifications for

holding private property. The notion of self-ownership brings together liberty and property in

the premises of a justificatory argument. It focuses on issues about an individual’s control of

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her own body, labor, talents and skills, and hence the extent of society’s legitimate claims

over the individuals.

For J. J. Rousseau, the creation of private property is very foundation of civil society: “The

first man who, having enclosed a piece of land, thought of saying ‘This is mine’ and found

people simple enough to believe him was the true founder of civil society.” ‘Property’ does

not mean only real estate or land; it includes anything of your own—your computer, house,

car, mobile phone, books, pens, money, etc.

4.2.1. What is it to have a right to property?

The full rights a property owner may have over an object include the rights to possess, to use,

and to manage; the right to receive income, to modify, destroy, waste, or consume; to give it

away, bequeath, or sell, and so on. The term ‘full liberal ownership’ is used to refer to the

conjunction of these rights, and to grant someone such ownership is to grant them all these

rights.

However, right to property is possible and indeed common, to enjoy some the rights but not

others. A person who rents a flat has the right to possess and to use it, but not the right to sell

or modify it. Owners of historic buildings may have the right to sell and enjoy income, but

not right to destroy their property. If someone has one of the rights, it does not necessarily

follow that they have them all.

The right of property is not the right to just take it from others, because this would interfere

with their property rights. It is the right to work for it, to obtain non-coercively, the money or

services which you can present in voluntary transactions. Property rights are what make

future planning possible.

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4.2.2. Locke’s Labour Theory of Property: How could someone acquire a right to exclude

others from the use of an object which was originally common to all? Locke answered the

question and justified property rights with the following argument:

“Though the earth and all inferior creatures be common to all men, yet every man has a

property in his own person; this nobody has any right to but himself. The labour of his body

and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Therefore, whatsoever he removes

out of the state that nature has provided and left it in, he has mixed with his labour with, and

joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him

removed from the common state nature has placed it in, it has by this labour something

annexed to it that excludes the common right of other men. For this labour being the

unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once

joined to, at least where there is enough and as good left in common for others.” (J. Locke,

Second Treatise)

 A person has a right to his body, his labour as an activity is performance of the body, and

thus he also has a right to his labour. And if he ‘mixed’ his labour with an unowned

object, he thus has the right to that object.

 “Mixed labour with” is interpreted to mean that whatever has been deliberately

transformed by labour becomes the property of the labourer.

 Locke’s reasons for appropriation: (a) Right of self-preservation. If we need to ask

everyone’s consent in order to consume for sustaining life, we all die. (b) God gave the

world to the industrious and rational people to use. (c) Performing useful labour upon an

unowned object added much more value to it. “Labour puts the difference of value on

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 everything.” The usefulness of cultivated land is one thousand times as much as that of

uncultivated land.

4.2.2.1. Locke’s provisos:

a) No wastage: Everyone can enjoy all things given to him by God as “much as anyone can

make use of to any advantage of life before it spoils, so much he may by his labour fix a

property in”.

b) Enough and as good left in common for others.

 The first proviso can be satisfied by the invention of currency (money), but the second

proviso is now very unlikely to be satisfied.

4.2.2.2. Objections and criticisms:

(i) If I were the first man to land and walk on the Moon, and clear up the plot of land I

walked with my labour, then could I make a claim to the whole world that the Moon is mine,

or could I only claim for the small piece of land I have put labour? This raises the question of

the extent of the object with which one mixes one’s labour.

(ii) It is difficult to see how full rights of ownership in land can be vindicated by reference to

a person’s labour. By performing labour and cultivating it, it seems reasonable that a person

deserves the right to use the land and the right to the product. But why should she claim a

right to own the land permanently?

(iii) If you pour a bucket of tomato juice that you own into an unowned lake, and mix your

tomato juice with the lake, we may infer that you have wasted your labour and lost your juice

rather than acquired a claim to the lake. Your right to the juice is alienable. Say, you have

given up your right if you give your bucket of tomato juice to your girl-friend as a gift. It

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seems plausible that you should lose the right (to the juice and your labour) as that you

should acquire a new one (the right to the lake). It is not self-evident that if you own P, and

mix P with Q (which is unowned), you thereby come to own Q.

4.2.2.3. Nozick’s entitlement theory of justice is based on fundamental

property rights and freedom of individuals. No one has the right to interfere with your person

or your possessions unless either you have consented, or you have forfeited your rights by

violating the rights of others. The state is to safeguard the personal and property rights of

individuals.

 The central core of Nozickian libertarianism is to establish the right to private property of

every person; firstly, in his own body, and secondly, in the previously unowned or unused

natural resources which he first transforms by his labour. The right of self-ownership and

the right to the things one worked upon, establish the principles of the libertarian system.

 And if a person owns anything, then he has the right to give away or exchange his

property titles to someone else, and the other person then has the property title. A person

may exchange not only the tangible objects he owns but also his own labour. From the

right to private property stems the justification for free contract and for the free-market

economy.

4.2.3. Principles of justice in holdings:

(1)A person who acquires a holding in accordance with the principle of justice in

acquisition is entitled to that holding.

(2)A person who acquires a holding in accordance with the principle of justice in transfer,

from someone else entitled to the holding, is entitled to the holding.

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(3)A person who acquires a holding in accordance with the principle of rectification (as

specified by the first two principles) is entitled to that holding.

Nozick claims his theory is historical and unpatterned. It concentrates on ways of coming

to hold property, rather than specifies a pattern to which distributions must conform. His three

principles specify a set of procedures which must be followed if an acquisition of property is

to be justified. Anyone’s holding of property is justified if and only if she came to hold it by

the correct procedures.

 Historical theories of justice take account of past actions or circumstances. ‘Each

according to his/her contribution’ is one such historical view. Non-historical is to treat as

irrelevant to the justice of a distribution how it came about, how people acquired their

holdings.

 Patterned theories are those according to which the just distribution is to be determined

by some ‘natural dimension’: each according to his/her labour, effort, need, etc. Any

theory of distributive justice which is to fill in the blank in “to each according to

his/her____” is predisposed to aim for a pattern.

 Since “a distribution is just if it arises from another just distribution by legitimate means.”

So, Nozick’s theory is historical, and it is a theory which puts procedures prior to any

pattern. It appears unpatterned.

The first principle indicates how things can change status from the unowned to the private

property of someone. It prescribes how a person may become the owner of a previously

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unowned thing. Nozick adopts Locke’s theory that an unowned object can be owned by

someone as his private property by mixing his labour with that object, provided that no one’s

condition is thereby worsened by his appropriation.

 A person is entitled to appropriate unowned resources in order make things. If he uses

unowned resources to make something, then he becomes the rightful owner of what he

makes.

 Nozickean proviso: No one’s condition is thereby worsened by someone’s appropriation.

 A person’s appropriation must not worsen the situation of others. But compared with

what? What is the baseline for comparison? Nozick takes the baseline as a situation of no

property ownership, where everyone is free to use everything, because “a system allowing

appropriation and permanent property” could “increase the social product”.

The second principle tells us how things already justly owned can be transferred to others—

a transfer is just if and only if it is voluntary. A person becomes the new legitimate owner of

something already legitimately owned if and only if the previous owner freely transfers it to

her—whether by a gift, a bequest, a market exchange, or whatever.

Everyone is entitled to their holdings if and only if everyone has acquired what they own in

accordance with the principles of just acquisition and just transfer.

Given that people sometimes acquired goods by force or theft, and so on, the third principle

is to repair the effects of past injustices. The present distribution in every country is

commonly unjust. What should we do then? We should use the third principle of rectification

of injustices to bring about the distribution that would exist if acts of unjust appropriation had

not occurred.

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All property is justly acquired unless it has actually been taken from someone else by force or

theft. If no such theft has been perpetrated either by the current owners or their ancestors, any

attempt to relieve them of their property is an interference with their right to freedom. Tax on

earnings, for Nozick, is no different from forced labour. Governments that tax rich people to

help the poor violate the rights of some citizens.

Nozick’s theory allows that a minimal state be established, which helps people to hold

property right from an unowned object with their labour, protect their rights and regain their

property , if someone steals from them. Rational individuals can agree to an arrangement

where the police protect the individuals’ right to physical integrity, where courts of law

ensure that contracts are upheld, and so forth. However, there is no room for a system where

the state uses taxation to oblige individuals to give up their property, only because social

welfare, education or health care is needed (by the poor) in society. The modern welfare state

is thus rejected as illegitimate.

4.2.4. Objections and criticisms:

(i) Nozickean proviso says that an appropriation is illegitimate if it worsens someone’s

condition. But when we say ‘worsen’ the condition of others, we mean worsen in comparison

to what? How are we to set the baseline for comparison?

Suppose that in using the unowned land Joe achieves a livelihood of m, and Doe of n. Then

Joe appropriates all the land and offers Doe a job at a wage of n+p, and Joe retains m+q

(where p and q are positive). It would appear that this appropriation satisfies the Nozickean

proviso, for Doe’s position is improved. But suppose that if Doe had appropriated the land

she could have done better. Perhaps she could have offered Joe a wage of m+q, while

keeping n+2p for herself. In that case Joe’s actual appropriation makes Doe worse off than

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she would have been under some other possible and feasible arrangement. Why this

possibility or socialist ownership should, be ignored in assessing the justice of Joe’s

appropriation?

(ii) The second principle says a transfer is just if and only if it is voluntary. A fraudulent

contract is voluntary, but unjust. Thus voluntariness is not sufficient for justice of transfer.

(Unless Nozick admits that under conditions of fraud no transaction is voluntary, for someone

has false beliefs makes consent involuntary.)

(iii) Are workers forced to work for capitalists? Nozick answers ‘No’. If a worker is faced

with the choice of working or starving, the choice to work is made voluntarily, if no one’s

rights have been violated. We may disagree. Suppose you are drowning and cannot swim. I

pass by in my boat and offer to save you for one million dollars. Do I thereby force you to

pay me $1m? Yes, such exploitative contract—where I take great advantage of your need—is

forced, or morally illegitimate.

(iv)The third principle is to rectify and repair past injustices. After a long period of injustice,

and in the absence of detailed historical information, it is quite impossible to clear up all past

injustices. Should much of the United States be returned to the American Indians? How

should the descendants of Black slaves be compensated?

4.2.5. Liberty and pattern: Nozick claims that liberty upsets pattern. He uses the ‘Wilt

Chamberlain’ example to demonstrate that freedom of transfer rules out not only equality but

all patterned and end-state theories of distributive justice.

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 Suppose D1 is your favorite distributive pattern, say, equality. Wilt Chamberlain is an

excellent basketball player and is greatly in demand by basketball teams. Suppose he

signs a contract with a team that in each game, 25 cents from the price of each ticket of

admission goes to him. People are willing to buy the tickets and see him play. Say, in one

season one million people attend his games and Chamberlain ends up with $250000, a

much larger sum than the average income and larger than anyone else has. Is this new

distribution D2 just? Is Chamberlain entitled to his income? Nozick answers yes to the

two questions.

 Nozick claims firstly that voluntary exchange upsets patterns. Secondly, if D1 was just,

and people voluntarily moved from D1 to D2, then D2 is also just. Thirdly, if voluntary

actions will disrupt a distributive pattern, then the only way of maintaining that pattern

will involve preventing or prohibiting people’s voluntary actions, and this will be to

interfere with their freedom. To maintain D1 we might either prohibit voluntary transfer

which threatens the pattern, or we might periodically redistribute resources so as to

reinstate the pattern. But this constitutes a continuous interference with individuals’ lives,

and hence an infringement of liberty.

 If a patterned distribution is established at any moment, it will be destroyed if individuals

freely transfer some of their holdings to others by means of purchases, gifts, loans, etc.

The two values, liberty and equality are incompatible, and Nozick chooses liberty.

 “Any favoured pattern would be transformed into one unfavoured by the principle, by

people choosing to act in various ways…to maintain a pattern one must continually

interfere to stop people from transferring resources as they wish to.”

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4.2.6. Taxation and forced labour: Nozick claims that “taxation of earning is on a par with

forced labour.” Taxation is a way of forcing people to work for others unwillingly, as he puts

it: “taking the earnings of n hours labour is like taking n hours from the person.” It forces that

person to devote some of her hours of labour to ends not her own. Thus, state redistribution

by taxation is on a par with enslavement.

 Suppose you work hard for years, and earn a high salary or save some money. Mr. Lazy

prefers not to work at all, and spends all money he has. He has been ill for some time, and

now he has no money to pay the medical bills. Mr. Lazy demands that the medical bills be

paid by government, that is, by the taxpayers. Should you be taxed to pay for Mr. Lazy’s

expenses?

 The taxation by the state to provide welfare services is a forced transfer, thus unjust. Such

forced redistribution violates the Kantian imperative: it uses some people as a mere

means, for the benefit of others.

4.2.6.1 Objections and criticisms:

 We might object to Nozick’s claim that it is not difficult to spot some differences between

taxation and forced labour. With progressive taxation, you will be taxed if you earn more

then a certain amount of money. How much you will be taxed depends in part on how

much work you decided to do. But forced labour rarely includes the option of deciding

how much work to do.

 Further, most people have their own choice as to the nature of their work, and to whom

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 they will work with. But forced labour has no such characteristics. Thus, a more sensible

claim for Nozick would be that although income taxation does limit liberty in some ways,

and has some resemblance to forced labour, it is by no means as serious an infringement

of liberty as forced labour.

Dear learner, write down the objections posed on Nozick’s idea of taxation in the space

provided below

 Answer
_______________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________

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 5. Racism, Sexism & Affirmative
Action

Modern societies have to deal with sexism and racism, including their institutions, practices,

and attitudes. The moral issue concerns this ideal: How should a good and decent society

treat sex and race? How individuals ought to regard and respond to matters relating to sex or

race? Equality is often valued by most people as a political goal, an ideal worth aiming at—

equality between men and women, equality between people of different races. But we are

now still quite far away from such ideal. And we urge our government be striving to make the

move from recognizing moral equality to providing some kind of equality in the lives of

those it governs.

The sex or race of a person is not only a fact of superficial physiology, but the dominant

characteristics that affect both the way that person looks at the world and the way the world

looks at that person.

 “Racism and sexism consists in taking race and sex into account in a certain way, in the

context of specific set of institutional arrangements and a specific ideology which

together create and maintain a specific institutions, role assignments, beliefs and attitudes.

That system is one, and has been one, in which political, economic, and social power and

advantage is concentrated in the hands of those who are white and male.” (Wasserstrom)

The ideal of equal treatment and equal respect for all people regardless of race and sex has

not been fully realized. Race and sex discrimination continues to be a social or moral

problem, though the civil rights movement or feminist campaign have lessened racial or

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sexual injustice and promoted equal treatment for all citizens.

If a particular race or sex has been disadvantaged and discriminated against in the past, in

order to compensate them or correct past injustice, is affirmative action or preferential

treatment as a means to remedy the lingering effects of past discrimination morally

acceptable? Is preferential affirmative action for the black or women reverse

discrimination? ‘Reverse discrimination’ means actively, in employment, recruiting people

from previously discriminated or underprivileged groups. We deliberately treat job applicants

unequally in that we are biased towards black or female applicants since they have been

discriminated in the past or for a long time.

A) Principle of equality requires us to treat and respect all people (of all sexes and races)

equally. It is wrong to treat people unequally or differently in ways that deny to some of them

significant social benefits unless we can show that there is a difference between them that is

relevant to the differential treatment. We are required to prove that certain differences exist

that justify treating people unequally.

The claim to equality does not depend on intelligence, moral capacity, physical strength, or

similar facts. Equality is a moral ideal. There is no morally compelling reason for taking a

factual difference in skin colour or sex between two persons justifies any difference in the

amount of consideration we give to satisfying their needs and interests. Principle of equality

is a prescription of how we ought to treat humans, that is, we should treat and respect all

people equally. Equality of opportunity in employment requires equal opportunity for all

those with relevant skills and abilities to do the job in question. Anyone with relevant

qualifications and skills should be given equal consideration when seeking employment. No

one should be discriminated against on racial or sexual grounds.

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 Opportunities offered to women/black and men/white should be based on equality of

opportunity—there should be nothing that is offered to men/white that is denied to

women/black simply because they are women/black. All people should be allowed to win

their social positions through fair and appropriate competition.

B) Principle of justice requires that treatment of persons be according to what is due them on

some grounds. Justice as desert consists in one’s receiving what one merits or deserves,

determined by what one has done or refrained from doing. Thus a hard-working female (or

black) employee deserves to be promoted, not a lazy male (or white) employee.

 Another sense of justice consists of treating equals equally and unequals unequally.

Actions or practices that treat people unequally are unjust simply because all people

deserve equal respect. Justice is blind—it is unbiased. It does not favour one person over

another on the basis of irrelevant characteristics. Justice may involve not strict equality

but proportionality.

 Racism and sexism is wrong because it is unjust—men and women, black and white, are

not treated with equal respect. Racists/sexists treat people of a particular race/sex

differently and discriminatingly simply because of their race/ sex.

C) Racism means unjust discrimination on the basis of race. It involves not only making

distinctions and grouping people, but also denigrating and degrading people of a certain race.

Racism is wrong because racists make false judgments about or look down people of certain

race. Say, to be black is to be member of a despised minority, to be disadvantaged, disliked

and oppressed. In USA, the African Americans have been and are discriminated by the White.

Racists violate the principle of equality.

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In physiological sense, race is a natural occurrence rather than a socially created feature of

the world. There are diverse skin colours and related physiological features distributed among

human beings, like appearance, blood group, and gene. Classifying people on the

physiological variations or race is not in itself racism. The concept of race could include the

idea of ethnicity—a set of cultures, traditions, religions, beliefs, attitudes, etc., which the

community has created part of what it means to be of a race. Although humans differ as

individuals in various ways, from the mere fact that a person is black, we cannot infer

anything else about that person. What is wrong with racism is that whites are superior to

blacks, though some blacks are superior to some whites in capacities and abilities that could

conceivably be relevant.

D) Sexism is unjust discrimination simply on the basis of sex. It involves having false beliefs

about people because of their sex, or devaluing them because of their sex. It also involves

power and oppression. Women are oppressed or disadvantaged both individually and as a

group by the socially constructed patterns of beliefs, attitudes and practices. Sexism is wrong

because it is unjust, or harmful to people. Sexism pervades politics and economy. It is part of

what feminists oppose and hope to eliminate. Feminism is a movement to achieve equality

between men and women.

 Sexual difference appears to be a natural occurrence, and there are biological and physical

differences between men and women. Men cannot bear babies but women can.

 Sexual difference could be a social construct—sex-role (gender) differentiation that

makes men and women different from each other. It is sex-role acculturation and

socialization that mistakenly leads many people to believe that women are both naturally

and necessarily better suited than men to be assigned the responsibilities of child rearing.

 Sex is not a factor to lead different treatment since sex is innate to everyone that we have

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 no control. A person’s sex is no guide to his or her abilities, and that’s why it is

unjustifiable to discriminate on the basis of sex. Principle of equality requires us to treat

men and women equally, though some women are superior to some men in capacities and

abilities.

 Different treatments should not be based on sex. Qualification, experience and ability are

most relevant and important indicators for job prospects, hiring, school application and

competition etc.

E) What’s wrong with sexism and racism?

i) In racism or sexism, a person is singled out and treated discriminatingly simply because

he/she is a member of a particular race or sex—as when denied college admission or

employment just because of this characteristic. A person’s sex or race is no guide to his/her

abilities. Both racism and sexism violate the moral principle of equality and thus wrong.

ii) In fact, women and men are different in some attributes—physical strength, size,

metabolic rate, sensitivity, etc. But these differences are morally irrelevant for any differential

social treatment. What differences are relevant? The relevance of a talent or characteristic or

skill to a job might not be an easy matter to determine. For job promotion or admitting to

university, being male or female, being black or white, is definitely neither a relevant nor

significant factor to consider.

iii) Justice requires that treatment of persons be according to what is due them on some

grounds. It does not favour one person over another on the basis of irrelevant considerations.

Not to promote a hard-working and better-qualified woman but to promote a lazy man is

unjust because the lazy man does not deserve promotion and being male is not relevant for

consideration. Similarly, not to promote an industrious and well-qualified black employee but

to promote a mediocre and lazy white employee is unjust because skin colour is irrelevant for

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promotion. The hard-working and well-qualified woman and black employee deserve to be

promoted, but the lazy man and white do not.

iv) Any society has some institutions and practices that distinguish between individuals by

their sex, and such society will teach the desirability of doing so and make one’s sexual

identity an important characteristic. So there are psychological, role, and status differences

between males and females. Gender-role differentiation is morally objectionable because it

could impair an individual’s ability to develop his/her own traits, talents and capacities to the

fullest extent to which he/she might desire. Sex roles, and the social practice accompany

them, necessarily impose limits on what one can do or become. All role-differentiated living

is restrictive in this sense, and thus objectionable.

v) We could criticize such sex-role system of reward for socially developed skills as unfair

because it causes certain traits in people and then penalizes them for having them. Moreover,

the sex-role differentiated societies have tended to concentrate power in the hands of males,

have developed institutions and inculcated ideologies that have perpetuated that power

dominance and concentration. Such societies thus have restricted and prevented women from

living the kinds of lives that people ought to be able to live for themselves. What may be

wrong is that a kind of individual autonomy is deprived for women.

vi) Are we ever justified in treating someone differently because of his/her membership in a

group and because of that group’s typical characteristics—even if that person does not

possess them? Group differences that are both real and relevant to differential treatment are

often average differences. A characteristic may be typical of a group of people, but it may not

belong to some members of the group. Men are generally taller than women, but some

women are taller than some men. Some men are more nurturing and caring than some

women. Justice requires us to consider what characteristics a person has, rather than what is

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typical of the group to which he/she belongs.

vii) Many people recognize that racist/sexual discrimination is wrong, but prejudice against

blacks/women is still widespread. A disproportionate number of blacks are still poor and hold

only menial jobs, while prestigious jobs are occupied by whites or men. So long as the

unequal situation perpetuates, the whites will continue their stereotyped ideas about the

blacks and entrench their racist discrimination.

5.2. Affirmative Action or Reverse Discrimination? The idea of affirmative action is that to

remedy certain injustices we need to do more than merely “Don’t discriminate” or “Stop

discriminating”. More immediate positive actions or measures are required in order to restore

equality and justice. Preference or special favouring could be given to women (or blacks) or

minority group members who were equally well with the others to give them some edge.

 Some types of affirmative action:

(i) Enlarging the pool of applicants, then hiring or admitting on the basis of competence

or qualification.

(ii) Giving preferences among equally qualified applicants.

(iii) Giving preferences for less-qualified applicants.

(iv) Setting goals or ideal numbers for which to aim; they need not involve preferences.

(v) Setting quotas or fixed numbers to actually attain; these usually involve preferences.

 Affirmative action is a way to break the vicious circle of discrimination, disadvantage,

and inequality. Without affirmative action programmers, things are not likely to change.

Discrimination is so entrenched that drastic measures are needed to overcome it.

 Those who object preferential affirmative action take it as reverse discrimination—it

reverses past practices so that those have been discriminated against are now given

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 preferential treatment.

5.2.1. Justifications for preferential affirmative action:

i) In terms of justice, affirmative action programs are making compensation for past wrongs

done to members of certain groups. Females and people of a certain race have been harmed

and wronged by past discrimination, and we now need to make up for that by benefiting

them, by giving them preferential treatment. Past discrimination has put women and some

minority group members at a continuing disadvantage. Unless something is done, they will

never be able to compete on an equal basis or have an equal opportunity.

ii) Black people and women have been, and are the victims of racial and sexual

discrimination. One result is that they are poorly represented in some professions. In order to

remedy this, it is not enough that we simply stop discriminating against them.

 Say, in legal profession, while there are relatively few black or female lawyers, relatively

few young black people or young women will take seriously the possibility of becoming

lawyers, and so they will not be prepared for law school. If relatively few young black

people or young women are well-prepared for law school, and admission committees hold

them to the same high standards as the white and male applicants, there will be relatively

few black or female lawyers. It is a vicious circle. To break the circle and set things right

abruptly, law school admission committees may give preferential treatment to black or

female applicants.

iii) The aim of treating people unequally by giving preferential treatment to black or women

is that it is intended not only to speed up the process of society becoming more equal, but

also to provide role models for young black people or young women to imitate and look up

to. And the final goal is to achieve equality between men and women, between black and

white.

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iv) In utilitarian consideration, affirmative action programs benefit everyone. The programs

do more good than harm. We live in a multiracial and plural society and benefit from mutual

respect and harmony. We all bring diverse backgrounds to our employment and educational

institutions, and we all benefit from the contributions of people who have a variety of diverse

interests and perspectives.

v) Past discrimination is a relevant difference between groups of people and we would thus

be justified in treating people differently. Preferential treatments are designed to benefit those

who are members of groups that have been discriminated against in the past.

5.2.2. Criticisms and objections against preferential affirmative

action:

(a) Affirmative action can be argued against of its injustice by appealing to the principle of

equality. Race and sex are irrelevant characteristics for different treatment. It is a reverse

discrimination. Just as it was wrong in the past to use these characteristics to deny people

equal opportunities, so it is also wrong in the present, even if it is now used this to give them

preferences. Race and sex are not differences that should count in treating people differently

to deny benefits to some and grant them to others. Preferences for some mean denial to

others. Preferential treatment is reverse discrimination and discrimination is wrong.

(b) In compensatory justice, only those wronged ought to be compensated, and only those

responsible for the wrong ought to be made to pay. But some affirmative actions have

compensated people regardless of whether they themselves have been harmed in the past, and

some affirmative actions have also required that some people pay who have not been

responsible for the past discrimination. It is wrong or unjust to punish someone (who is

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 disadvantaged in reverse discrimination) who has not wronged anyone in the past.

(c) In utilitarian consideration, the affirmative action programs do not work or do more harm

than good. The programs benefited not the lower class of the minority, but the middle-class.

Most disadvantaged black people are not to benefit preferential treatment. Unless affirmative

action, say, admission, is accompanied by financial and tutorial aid, it is useless or wasted.

There is the likelihood of stigma attached to those have been admitted or hired through

affirmative action programs. This can be debilitating to those who are chosen on this ground.

Moreover, racial tension could increase and result from these preferential treatments.

 Answer
_______________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________

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 6. The Death Penalty

Capital Punishment is a term which indicates muddled thinking. The dilemma of kill or be

killed, which confronts civilized society daily and inexorably, is bedeviled by the jumble of

panic, superstition, and angry resentment we call punishment, expiation, propitiatory blood

sacrifice, justice, and many other imposing names. The dilemma is a hard fact which must be

faced and organized. The jumble should be unraveled and its superstitions utterly discarded.

Death penalty advocates argue that the execution of convicted murderers deter others from

committing murder for fear that they will also be executed, and also that murderers will be

incapacitated: once dead, they will have no opportunity to commit additional murders. Death

penalty opponents dispute the deterrent effect of capital punishment, arguing that few

murderers rationally weigh the possibility that they might face the death penalty before

committing a murder. Also, some research suggests that the death penalty increases the

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number of homicides through a "brutalization" effect. Finally, death penalty opponents do not

dispute that execution incapacitates executed murders, but argue that life imprisonment

without possibility of parole is equally incapacitating.

The basic idea behind punishment is to prevent crime by creating fear in the minds of people.

The rigor of penalty creates a sort of anxiety in the minds of people, and it makes them realize

the consequences of criminal actions. The state regulates the social behavior of its citizens and

in the absence of a well-defined legal system individuals behave worse than animals.

Since 1960’s, public awareness of problems with the death penalty and prevailing

international legal standards has evolved significantly. In dozens of countries, democratic

governments in the course of conducting a major review of their national constitutions have

decided to curtail, if not abolish, the death penalty. In national systems (about 140 countries)

and as a matter of international law, it is increasingly recognized that the death penalty has no

place in a democratic and civilized society. According to the United Nations Special

Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, "While capital punishment

has not yet been prohibited under international law, various United Nations human rights

organs and bodies have, on several occasions, reaffirmed the growing international consensus

in favor of the abolition of the death penalty."

Similarly, the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights has commented: "While

the death penalty is yet to be banned under international law, the trend towards this goal is

obvious. The adoption in 1989 of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant

on Civil and Political Rights aiming at the abolition of the death penalty was a clear

recognition by the international community of the need to eliminate the use of capital

punishment, totally and globally. The desirability of the total abolition of the capital

punishment has also been reaffirmed on repeated occasions by various United Nation bodies

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and organs." In accordance with these international developments, the National Commission

to review the working of the constitutions in member nations (about 25 countries, including

India) should propose abolishing the death penalty, and, in the alternative, adopting strict and

explicit standards which comply with the emergent international consensus towards

minimization of the death penalties, is pending at this point, however with overall objective to

eventually accomplish full abolition.

Summary Questions

Part I. True/False Items

1. For utilitarians abortion is morally right in whatever circumstances.

2. For Tom Reagan, some subjects of life have higher moral value than others.

3. The primary beneficiaries of the one who died from Euthanasia is the family of the patient.

4. Racism is good in some circumstances.

5. Sexism means unjust discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity.

Part II. Multiple Choice Items

1. For anti-abortionist or pro-life thinkers, one is nor right:

A. Abortion is morally wrong since the fetus is a human life.

B. Abortion is morally justifiable in only some special circumstances, say, if a pregnant woman

gives birth to the baby, the pregnant woman will die.

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 C. Abortion is an issue about women’s right and free choice.

D. A and B are correct answers.

2. For Judith Thomson, abortion is not morally permissible for some cases of:

A. Pregnancy results from rape

B. Saving the pregnant woman’s life.

C. Save the woman from societal discrimination if she get pregnant out of marriage.

D. B and C are correct answers.

3. ___________ is the refusal to eat the flesh of animals and the favoring of a diet of vegetables.

A. Veganism

B. Animalism

C. Vegetarianism

D. Biocentrism

4. For Emanuel Kant:

A. Human beings are one of the members of moral agents.

B. Human beings have direct responsibility with regard to animals.

C. Man is the only being of the kingdom of ends.

D. Animals are equally morally worthy to humans.

5. For Peter Singer, one is not valid:

A. Speciesism is wrong.

B. All sentient beings, whether a human or an animal, are equal.

C. Animals could be used for experimentation in some circumstances.

D. Rearing and killing animals is wrong.

6. The value that is independent of others, and an end in itself is called:

A. Instrumental value

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 B. Extrinsic Value

C. Intrinsic Value

D. Moral Value

7. Euthanasia is not:

A. It is a medical service to kill someone who wants to die in whatever circumstances.

B. Is an act that a doctor provides a patient with drugs or other measures that they will take

themselves to end their lives?

C. Aims at the good of the one whose death is in question, and it is for her sake that her death is

desired.

D. For Kant, it is moral to kill the one who is in a chronic situation.

8. The type of Euthanasia where the patient wishes to die and expresses this wish, and his Consent is

actual and explicit.

A. Involuntary Euthanasia

B. Non-voluntary Euthanasia

C. Voluntary Euthanasia

D. Active Euthanasia

9. ____________________ is a kind of Euthanasia where a Doctor refrains from providing some

medical treatment that sustains his life.

A. Forced Euthanasia

B. Active Euthanasia

C. Passive Euthanasia

D. Physically assisted suicide

10. For J. J. Rousseau, ______________________ is very foundation of civil society.

A. Community

B. Government

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 C. Private property

D. Citizenship

Part III. Miscellaneous

1. ___________________________ is an “act which a woman performs in voluntarily terminating, or

allowing another person to terminate her pregnancy”.

2. ____________________ is a prejudice for one’s own species and against other species.

3. The principle of justice that stated that Justice is nothing more than giving each person what he/she

is ‘due’: _______________________________________________.

4. The two ways through which someone can own a property of his own according to Robert Nozick:

_________________________________ and ____________________________.

5. The principle of compensating through historically disadvantaged race or sex is called

______________________________________.

6. What is the difference between Sex and Gender?

__________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________.

7. Write down at least 4 major criticism usually forwarded against affirmative action?

__________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________.

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 CHAPTER FIVE
CIVIC VIRTUES

 Introduction
Dear students, in this chapter, we will define the concept of civic virtue as it is employed in

the chapters to come. An account of civic virtue, however, cannot do without explaining the

nature of virtue itself.

Objectives

Dear learner, upon a successful completion of the lessons in this chapter, you will be able to:

 define the concept of civic virtue, and

 understand the nature of civic virtue

Pre-Test Questions:

 Dear students, what is virtue?

 What is the relation between civic virtue and moral excellence?

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5.1. What is Virtue?

Virtue is a conduct that reflects universal principles of moral and ethical excellence essential

to leading a worthwhile life and to effective self-government. For many leading Founders,

attributes of character such as justice, responsibility, perseverance, etc., were thought to flow

from an understanding of the rights and obligations of men. Virtue is compatible with, but

does not require, religious belief.

A) Virtue is a “golden mean.”

Aristotle understood virtue as a “mean” (or middle) between two extremes. The same

character trait, when expressed to the extreme, ceases to be virtue and becomes vice. For

example, too little courage is cowardice, while too much makes one foolhardy. A healthy

respect for authority becomes blind obedience to power when expressed too strongly, or it

descends into unprincipled recalcitrance when completely lacking.

B) Virtue is action.

Thoughts may be about virtuous things, but do not themselves merit the name of virtue.

Similarly, words can describe virtuous acts or traits, but can never themselves be virtuous.

One’s thoughts and words alone don’t make a person virtuous—one must act on them.

C) Virtue is a habit.

Aristotle also believed that virtue is a habit. Virtuous behavior is not the result of numerous,

individual calculations about which course of action would be most advantageous. For

example, a person who finds a piece of jewelry, intends to keep it, but later returns it to the

owner to collect a reward helps bring about a just outcome (property was returned to its

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rightful owner); however he falls short the title “virtuous” because of the calculation he went

through to arrive at his course of action. While all virtues must be habits, not all habits are

virtuous.

D) Virtue requires a just end.

Behavior can be virtuous only when done in the pursuit of justice. For example, though

courage is a virtue, a Nazi who proceeded in killing thousands of people despite his own

feelings of fear cannot be called courageous. Though respect is a virtue, a junior police officer

who stood by while his captain brutalized a suspect cannot be called respectful. A

complication can come when we either “zoom in” or enlarge the sphere within which action

takes place. Could an officer on the wrong side of a war display virtue in the form of courage

by taking care of the younger men in his charge and shielding them from harm? Is the “end”

of his action the responsibility towards his men, or the continued strength of his army, which

is working toward an evil cause?

5.2. Understanding Civic Virtue and its nature

 What is arete?

The concept of virtue is derived from the classic Greek word for excellence, arete. Any

person who excels in a certain activity, or who performs exceptionally well in some

occupation or craft, can be said to possess some form of excellence. Someone who runs a

marathon in record time, for example, would be showing the ‘excellence of his legs’. Or a

capable mathematician might be said to exercise some form of excellence of the mind. The

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classic definition of arete is ‘doing best what it is supposed to do’, it is excellence of any

kind. This original concept of excellence should not be confused with that of virtue which we

use today.

Under the influence of translations of the work of Aristotle, the word arete and the word

‘virtue’ have often been used as synonyms. Virtue, however, is a more specific form of arete:

not just any excellence but moral excellence. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle describes

those forms of arete which are excellences of character or of intellect. These specific

excellences are what we now call ‘virtues’.

Virtues are those qualities in a person’s character and mind which are good to possess. Virtue

is ethical correctness; it is shown in acts and thoughts that satisfy the demands of morality. An

individual who shows virtue in his actions, is acting in a way that is considered ‘good’.

As a quality of character, virtue is not found in a single action or thought. It is a constant

influence of one’s character on their thoughts and feelings. Virtue is a disposition of character

or intellect to think, act and feel in a certain manner. The virtue is a ‘blueprint’ for an

individual for what to do in given situations: the good action or thought is always the

preferred option for the possessor of virtue. A courageous person, for instance, is inclined to

act bravely in most situations that would make other men run in fear. Most situations, since a

disposition does not mean that the courageous person will always show courage. Even the

bravest man can eventually be overwhelmed by fear, just like the wisest man can sometimes

be mistaken. But in the end, success matters for virtue: one cannot argue that the man who

wants to share his possessions with others but almost always fails to do so is a generous man.

Success in doing virtuous acts is a kind of ‘measure’ for virtue; we can only speak of a

virtuous man when he has shown virtue in his life. The only way one shows virtue is by not

only being disposed to, but also actually doing the virtuous act.

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Possessing virtue means being motivated by our character to perform a certain action or to

think in a certain way. How strongly we are motivated can say something about the amount of

virtue we have. Rosalind Hursthouse provides an excellent overview of the differences and

similarities between two sides of a discussion on this subject; the ideas of Aristotle and Kant.8

According to Aristotle, the man who performs a virtuous action contrary to his desires does

not show full virtue. The fully virtuous person is the one whose reason and desires are in

harmony, who knows and desires to act virtuous. The usual reading of Kant leads us to a

similar distinction with the contrary conclusion: the person who finds it easy to do the right

thing, because it was what he wanted to do anyway, has less moral worth than the other

person for whom it is difficult, but succeeds with effort.9 Both Aristotle and Kant seem to

present valid points from our common sense-morality: the charitable giver who gives happily

to others presents more moral worth in the Aristotelian sense, and Kant’s view seems to apply

more to the courageous man “who wants to run away but does not”.

The answer to the motivation dilemma is in the origin of what makes it easy or difficult for a

person to do virtuous acts. Philippa Foot argues that whether or not that origin lies in our

character is key. When a person finds it difficult to do what virtue requires because there is

something in his character that tells him otherwise (e.g. self-interest), he is showing less than

full virtue. But if a man is hindered by difficulties outside of his character and still manages to

do what is virtuous, that man is tested and has succeeded, showing more virtue.11 Someone

who is clouded by troubles of his own, for example, and still manages to act charitably

towards others, cannot be said to be showing any defect regarding the virtue of charity. What

makes us possess a virtue to the fullest extent lies completely in our character.

To summarize, the concept of virtue I employ is the following: virtue is a disposition of

character or mind to think or act in the morally right way, towards the right things, at the right

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time, while feeling the right feelings. Having established the nature of virtue, what makes

virtue civic? Civic virtue is that part of virtue that relates to the connection between citizen

and state, or maybe less formal, between citizens and (national/local) community. As virtue,

civic virtue is the way that good citizens should behave, the appropriate role for a citizen in

society. According to Shelley Burtt, civic virtue is characterized by the “disposition to further

public over private good in action and deliberation”.16 Civic virtue, thus, is that part of virtue

that makes one forgo one’s own and other people’s interest on behalf of his community. The

emphasis is on public interest, the value of civic virtue is in the fact that it benefits or intends

to benefit the wider community.

Civic virtue has traditionally been a subject covered by republican authors. In the traditional

republican conception of civic virtue there is an addition to the ‘furthering public good’-

element discussed above. For republicans, citizens are independent and under the rule of law.

Being a citizen means to rule and to be ruled in turn. An individual completely dependent

upon another person is not capable of making genuine decisions and therefore not capable to

rule. A society that aims for good citizens creates a set of laws that are binding for rulers and

the ruled alike, to avoid personal dependence and to foster liberty in its citizens.

Civic virtue, to conclude, is a set of virtues aimed at a specific object: the common good. The

common good, however, is an ambiguous term more often used in politics than in science. It

can refer to the good of all the citizens of the political community, of the institutions in it or

maybe even to the fulfillment of some predefined goal.

Below are several civic virtues, along with definitions.

Contribution: To discover your passions and talents, and use them to create what is beautiful

and needed. To work hard to take care of yourself and those who depend on you.

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Courage: To stand firm in being a person of character and doing what is right, especially

when it is unpopular or puts you at risk.

Humility: To remember that your ignorance is far greater than your knowledge. To give

praise to those who earn it.

Integrity: To tell the truth, expose untruths, and keep your promises.

Justice: To stand for equally applied rules that respect the rights and dignity of all, and make

sure everyone obeys them.

Perseverance: To remember how many before you chose the easy path rather than the right

one, and to stay the course.

Respect: To protect your mind and body as precious aspects of your identity. To extend that

protection to every other person you encounter.

Responsibility: To strive to know and do what is best, not what is most popular. To be

trustworthy for making decisions in the best long-term interests of the people and tasks of

which they are in charge.

Self-Governance: To be self-controlled, avoiding extremes, and to not be excessively

influenced or controlled by others.

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 Summary Questions

1. What are the four cardinal virtues for Socrates, Plato and Aristotle:

____________________,______________________,__________________________,

and _____________________.

2. What is Virtue?

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

_________________________________.

3. What is civic virtue?

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________.

4. Why virtue is useful?

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 _____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________.

Bibliography
Bentham, Jermy. Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, ed. W. Harrison.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1948
Feinberg, Joel. “Psychological Egoism.” In Reason & Responsibility: Readings in Some
Basic Problems in Philosophy, eds. Feinberg, Joel and Shafer-Landau, Russ. Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth Group, 2002
Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan, ed. Gaskin, J.C. A. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
John, Gaskin, ed. The Epicurean Philosophers. Rutland: Charles Tuffle Co., 1995.
Kant, Immanuel. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, ed. Wolff, R.P. Indianapolis:
Boob-Merrill, 1959.
Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, ed. Gregor, Mary. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Mill, J.S. Utilitarianism, ed. Crisp, Roger. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Pojman, L.P. Philosophy: The quest for Truth. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006
Rand, Ayn. The Virtue of Selfishness. New York: Signet Books, 1964.
Rachels, James. “Ethical Egoism.” In Reason & Responsibility: Readings in Some Basic
Problems in Philosophy, eds. Feinberg, Joel and Shafer-Landau, Russ. Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth Group, 2002

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Rachels, James. “The Challenges of Cultural Relativism.” In Reason & Responsibility:
Readings in Some Basic Problems in Philosophy, eds. Feinberg, Joel and Shafer-Landau,
Russ. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Group, 2002.
Shafer-Landau, Russ. “Ethical Subjectivism.” In Reason & Responsibility: Readings in Some
Basic Problems in Philosophy, eds. Feinberg, Joel and Shafer-Landau, Russ. Belmont, CA:
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