Contemporary Ethical Discourse
Ethical discourse in our society is at a point of crisis. Gone are the days when, for example, Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass engaged in a reasoned political debate for a full seven hours, and crowds stayed and listened for the whole time.[1]See Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman (New York: Penguin Books, 1985), pages 44-5. Postman’s commentary on how the television era has … Continue reading This kind of lengthy, reasoned debate between people who disagree about important moral issues has been largely replaced by sound bytes, slogans, and the protest: a form of moral discourse that seeks to drown out what the other side is saying with one’s own loud protestations, rather than seeking to convince the other side through rational discourse that their beliefs are untrue.
When we engage in ethical discourse in such a manner, we lose not only our own ability to be intellectually and morally virtuous people, but also, perhaps more importantly, our ability to understand what the other side is saying; we simply talk past one another and are unable to engage in any sort of fruitful dialogue. The result is that well-intentioned, compassionate people on either side of a social or political issue may be bewildered to find themselves labelled by people on the other side of the issue as “evil,” “immoral,” or “hateful” because of their stance. If we want to live together in a pluralistic society and engage in respectful dialogue about important moral issues, it is imperative that we be able to understand why someone might hold the position they do on a moral issue, even though it might seem so obviously wrong from our perspective.
Virtue Ethics and Utilitarianism
My contention is that many of the prominent moral disagreements about political and social issues in contemporary American society are rooted in an underlying difference of adherence to two rival ethical theories, namely, virtue ethics and utilitarianism.[2]Most people who adhere to virtue ethics or utilitarianism do not do so explicitly, but rather implicitly. This is precisely why I think it is important to comment upon this; most people have … Continue reading According to virtue ethics, the primary ethical question is, “What kind of person am I becoming?” For virtue ethicists, ethics is primarily about getting rid of morally bad character traits and habits (vices) and developing morally good character traits and habits (virtues). According to utilitarianism, the primary ethical question is, “How can we achieve the best outcome?” For utilitarians, ethics is primarily about minimizing pain and suffering and maximizing pleasure and happiness for the greatest number of people. These two different ethical theories often lead to very different understandings of what is ethical and what is not.
Aristotle, the father of virtue ethics, claimed that virtue is getting pleasure and pain from the correct things. From the standpoint of virtue ethics, therefore, maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain cannot be (as they are in utilitarianism) ends in themselves, since 1) the underlying cause of someone’s suffering might be a flaw in their own character, which is their own fault,[3]Think of a spoiled brat throwing an agonized temper tantrum because others will not cater to their every whim. and 2) sometimes it is actually good (virtuous) to suffer and bad (unvirtuous) to feel pleasure.[4]For example, a compassionate person suffers when they see others suffering, while a cruel person gets pleasure from seeing others suffer. For a virtue ethicist, proverbs such as “virtue is its own reward” and “suffering builds character” make perfect sense, but, for a utilitarian, these proverbs would most likely be viewed as distractions from what is truly ethical, or even as being positively unethical if they end up contributing to human suffering. In short, virtue ethics conceives of morality in terms of human beings conforming their character to an objective standard, while utilitarianism conceives of morality in terms of reducing suffering and increasing pleasure as much as is practically possible by any means necessary.
To make this a little more concrete, let us examine a quote from popular Christian thinker C.S. Lewis. In The Problem of Pain, Lewis writes, “It is for people whom we care nothing about that we demand happiness on any terms: with our friends, our lovers, our children, we are exacting and would rather see them suffer much than be happy in contemptible and estranging modes.”[5]Lewis, C.S. The Problem of Pain. HarperSanFrancisco, 1996. Pages 32-33. This fits perfectly within the framework of virtue ethics; what is ultimately “good” for someone is to develop a virtuous character, and so it is better for someone to act in a virtuous manner, even if it means they have to suffer, than to get pleasure from doing something that is contrary to virtue. From a utilitarian perspective, on the other hand, Lewis’s statement is hard to swallow; if we really care about someone, how can we want them to “suffer much” just to avoid doing things which we might not approve of?
We see here emerge two rival understandings of what it means to love another person. If love is a genuine concern for someone else’s ultimate wellbeing, then different understandings of what is ultimately best for someone will lead to different understandings of what it means to love them. If what is ultimately best for someone is becoming a virtuous person (a “happiness” that is an objective state of human flourishing), then exhorting someone to pursue virtue, even if it means they will have to suffer, is the most loving thing one can do for them. If what is ultimately best for someone is simply avoiding suffering and experiencing pleasure, then encouraging someone to do what makes them happy (a subjective state), as long as it does not interfere with or hurt others, is the most loving thing one can do for them. Thus, well-intentioned, compassionate people can arrive at very different understandings about what is “good” or “loving,” due to their adherence to different basic ethical theories.
Contemporary Ethical Disagreements
Now let us examine how this analysis might apply to some of the prominent contemporary ethical disagreements in our society today. Speaking generally, it is easy to see how virtue ethics aligns more easily with the conservative emphasis on individual responsibility, while utilitarianism aligns more easily with the liberal emphasis on having the government provide for people’s needs and wants. It is not uncommon to hear the argument from liberals that if a conservative does not support the government intervening in society to fix a problem (the most efficient or effective way to solve these societal problems, it is argued), then they must not care about fixing that problem. This is a possible reason, but another possibility is that the conservative is a virtue ethicist who believes it would be better to solve the problem through individuals and communities, rather than through the government, since expanding the power of the government and its intervention in people’s lives does not make people more virtuous; in fact, it may tend towards the opposite effect. From a utilitarian perspective, the liberal position that abortion is acceptable as long as the end result is an overall reduction of suffering makes perfect sense. A virtue ethicist, on the other hand, might argue that, as individuals and communities, we should be the kind of people who take responsibility for and show hospitality to other human beings, even if it means inconvenience and suffering; thus, the killing of preborn human beings should not be allowed. Finally, the recent vigorous campaign by liberals to get everyone in society to agree with and approve of LGBTQ lifestyles is baffling from the perspective of a virtue ethicist, who would argue that disagreeing with someone’s moral choices does not in any way express a lack of love for them (quite the contrary), and that we should all be the kind of people who treat each other well even if we don’t agree with someone else’s lifestyle. But from a utilitarian perspective, this campaign makes perfect sense, since it seems to be the most efficient way to achieve the end result of getting marginalized LGBTQ people to stop feeling marginalized and unloved.
Understanding why a well-intentioned, compassionate person might disagree with us about an important moral issue can allow us to take what the other side is saying more seriously. It can enable us to better work together with and compromise with people on the other side of the issue. And, when significant conflicts between the two sides do occur (as they inevitably will), it can enable us to handle those conflicts with more civility and less vitriol. This is what is required if we are going to live together well in a pluralistic society.
Notes
| ↑1 | See Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman (New York: Penguin Books, 1985), pages 44-5. Postman’s commentary on how the television era has negatively impacted American society and politics is still as relevant today as it was when he wrote it in the 80s. |
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| ↑2 | Most people who adhere to virtue ethics or utilitarianism do not do so explicitly, but rather implicitly. This is precisely why I think it is important to comment upon this; most people have not critically reflected upon the implicit assumptions underlying their own moral beliefs, and thus cannot understanding why other well-intentioned, reasonable people might disagree with them. |
| ↑3 | Think of a spoiled brat throwing an agonized temper tantrum because others will not cater to their every whim. |
| ↑4 | For example, a compassionate person suffers when they see others suffering, while a cruel person gets pleasure from seeing others suffer. |
| ↑5 | Lewis, C.S. The Problem of Pain. HarperSanFrancisco, 1996. Pages 32-33. |
Hi Jed, Love the blog and the ideas you’re covering in this post!
Here’s what I’m wondering — How significant at bottom is this distinction between virtue ethics and utilitarian ethics? Would you agree there’s some overlap between these two, especially as it plays out in the thoughts and lives of most people in our society? Couldn’t we say that virtue ethicists are just utilitarians with a particular idea about what the greatest good or pleasure looks like? Or, from the other side, aren’t utilitarians also virtue ethicists in the sense that they view certain activities as virtuous because those activities bring about the greatest good for the greatest number of people?
I once had an argument with a friend in college who claimed that Christians are really self-interested Hedonists (to say nothing of Utilitarianism). His idea was that Christians desire and pursue pleasure as a chief end, but the only difference between a Christian and an Atheist, for example, is that they have different beliefs about what will be the most pleasurable for them in the long run. As much as it didn’t sit well with me, I ended up admitting that my friend had a good point. Of course, there’s a huge difference between a Christian and an Atheist; it just isn’t as simple as one valuing pleasure and the other not.
As I think about it, if our goal is to better understand and navigate ethical disagreements, I would worry that labeling someone else a virtue ethicist or a utilitarian could potentially obscure something about their perspective — and our own — rather than help clarify those perspectives and their points of disagreement. What do you think?
Thanks for commenting, Joel.
My purpose in this post was to give an introduction to understanding why well-intentioned people might disagree about important moral issues in our society, not to give a thorough analysis of those moral disagreements. In the real world, people rarely align simply and purely with either virtue ethics or utilitarianism (or the other major ethical theory, deontological ethics), and often their moral beliefs are expressions of various intuitions that do not form a coherent ethical framework at all. So, yes, simplistically labeling someone as a virtue ethicist or a utilitarian could potentially obscure things. But I believe that my thesis that many (not all) major moral disagreements in our society at root reflect the differing ethical theories (usually held implicitly) of virtue ethics and utilitarianism largely holds.
There are certainly similarities between virtue ethics and utilitarianism, but there are also key differences. A virtue ethicist would choose to act virtuously and “do the honorable thing” even if there seems to be no practical benefit for themselves or others; this is unthinkable from a utilitarian perspective. A virtue ethicist would never agree with or encourage someone else acting in a way that is contrary to virtue, even if, practically speaking, that seems to be the only way to make that person happy; a utilitarian is perfectly willing to make whatever compromises that seem necessary to make people, overall, as happy as seems practicable.
I do not agree with the idea of “Christian hedonism.” Christians do God’s will because they love God; if you love someone, you want to do what is in their best interests, even if it is not what is best for you. The Apostle Paul wrote that he would be willing to be damned if it could mean the salvation of his fellow Israelites (Romans 9:3). Christian discipleship means denying oneself or dying to oneself. In any case, even if “Christian hedonism” is true, Christian ethics is still quite distinct from utilitarianism because it holds that we objectively ought to get pleasure from certain things and not get pleasure from other things.
So, what are deontological ethics?
Deontological ethics conceives of morality in terms of right and wrong actions, in other words, following the rules. According to deontological ethics, the primary ethical question is “what should I do?” It thus contrasts both with virtue ethics (which asks, “what kind of person should I become?”) and utilitarianism (which asks, “what results should I bring about (by any means necessary)?”). Moral rules, moral character, or moral results? Arguably, these are different emphases or perspectives regarding morality, rather than sharply distinct conceptions of morality. However, these different perspectives can, and often do, lead to very different moral judgments at the practical level, and we can see this play out in many different areas of moral disagreement (And of course, there are many different permutations of each of these theories. For example, different societies, religions, and worldviews have different conceptions of what it means to be a virtuous person).