Preface | Moral Philosophy Through the Ages

PREFACE

From Moral Philosophy through the Ages (2nd edition), by James Fieser

The single purpose of moral philosophy is to make sense of the diverse ethical claims we make. For example, I might claim that someone shouldn’t cut in line, or lie to a friend, or cheat on their taxes. In more urgent situations I might claim that someone shouldn't drive drunk, or bribe a public official, or commit assault. In the most urgent situations, I might claim that human trafficking, torture, and genocide are gross violations of human rights. For more than 2,000 years, philosophers have offered theories to clarify the source and content of our moral obligations. This book traces some of the major themes that have emerged in the history of Western moral philosophy.

Moral philosophers offer a range of theories to explain the nature and content of our moral obligations. Some theories, commonly called metaethical theories, try to explain where morality comes from and what psychologically takes place when we make moral judgments. Does society create morality? Is morality a fixed and objective feature of the cosmos? Am I doing anything more than expressing my feelings when I make moral judgments? Metaethical theories attempt to address these questions. Other theories, commonly called normative theories, try to tell us exactly what our moral obligations are. According to some of these theories, there is a specific list of foundational duties that we need to follow. Other theories maintain that a single principle encapsulates our obligations, such as that we should maximize the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Still others maintain that our obligations are grounded in a group of virtuous habits that we develop, such as temperance, courage, justice, and wisdom.

The variety and complexity of both metaethical and normative ethical theories is sometimes daunting. If we come to understand one theory, we are likely to find that the very next theory criticizes the prior theory. And this new theory, in turn, is attacked by the next theory. So, not only are the theories themselves challenging, but we face a new challenge in trying to see how these competing theories illuminate the nature and content of our moral obligations. In writing this book, I've taken measures to make the reader's philosophical exploration of ethics easier, or at least less overwhelming, than it otherwise might be. I've minimized the use of technical vocabulary. I've also tied each of the chapters to matters of practical moral concern, where the opening of each chapter discusses some concrete ethical issue.

When discussing the various ethical theories, I did not attempt to evaluate them all from the vantage point of a single tradition, such as the utilitarian tradition. To do so would be cumbersome and risk forcing theories into molds they don't fit. Instead, I present the various theories in a positive light, defend them against criticisms if possible, revise them if necessary, and find some central feature of the theory that illuminates the nature of morality. In the final chapter, I attempt to explain how all these theories might fit into a single coherent system.

There are many possible topics and figures that an ethics book might cover, and it's impossible for any single text to adequately touch upon everything of interest. The issues selected here are restricted to the Western philosophical tradition that began in ancient Greece and developed in the countries of western Europe and, later, in America. They are also the issues that philosophers today commonly find interesting. Although scholars of moral philosophy today will certainly have their own lists of favorite issues, the ones presented here should have a common appeal.

Textbooks in ethics are typically structured in one of two ways. Some are arranged topically and focus on major themes and issues, such as cultural relativism, virtue, or duty. Although it is interesting to discuss morality from a topical standpoint, the drawback to this approach is that writers often sacrifice historical context and sometimes even present theories that no traditional philosopher actually ever proposed. Other ethics textbooks are structured historically and present a continuous chronological sequence of theories, beginning in ancient Greece and ending in present times. Although this approach preserves historical context, many historically-oriented ethics books are tedious to read and give us too many details about a philosopher's theory.

This book takes a middle ground between the topical and historical approaches. The chapters are topically arranged, but they preserve the flow of history in two ways. First, each chapter explains the historical development of the topic under consideration. Many ethical topics have ancient origins, and by highlighting their history we can better grasp how moral philosophers fall into specific traditions. Second, most chapters focus on a specific famous philosopher who championed a particular tradition, such as Aristotle, Hobbes, or Kant, and the chapters are chronologically ordered based on when these key philosophers lived. Although chronologically arranged, the chapters in this book are conceptually self-contained, which allows them to be read in any order. To achieve the full benefit of their historical sequence, though, they should be read in the order presented. Many of the sections and subsections in the chapters are also conceptually self-contained discussions. So, a reader who skips some sections will not necessarily be at a loss to understand the remaining sections.

A Note on the Second Edition

The first edition of this book appeared in 2001 by Mayfield Publishing Company, later acquired by McGraw Hill. After the book went out of print in 2009, the copyright reverted back to me. I subsequently made a PDF file of the original book freely available on the internet under the creative commons license BY-NC-ND (that is, others may share a work with credit, for noncommercial use, and without making derivative versions). In the years since, I have revised all the chapters of the book for my classroom use, and wrote an additional chapter on "Egoism vs. Altruism". All these I have made available as a second edition, initially on my university website, and later on other digital platforms including jfieser.com and utm.academia.edu/jamesfieser.

Contents

The following contents list indicates in parentheses the main expositor of the theory discussed, and also the selected critics of that theory.

Chapter 1: Moral Relativism vs Moral Objectivism (Sextus Empiricus and Plato; criticisms by Aristotle, Balfour, Rachels, Mackie)

Chapter 2: Virtues (Aristotle and Gilligan; criticisms by Grotius, Kant, Mill, Nietzsche)

Chapter 3: Natural Law (Aquinas and Grotius; criticisms by Hume, Bentham, Mill, Nielsen)

Chapter 4: Morality and the Will of God (Scotus and Ockham; criticisms by Cudworth, Leibniz, Betham, Hume)

Chapter 5: Egoism vs. Altruism (Hobbes and Rawls; criticisms by Butler, Hume, Gert, Feinberg)

Chapter 6: The Social Contract (Hobbes; criticisms by Hyde, Clarke, Hume, Regan)

Chapter 7: Moral Duties (Pufendorf and Ross; criticisms by Kant, Mill, Sidgwick, Williams)

Chapter 8: Moral Rights (Locke; criticisms by Burke, Bentham, Marx, Pateman)

Chapter 9: Moral Reason vs. Moral Feelings (Clarke and Hume; criticisms by Smith, Reid, Bentham)

Chapter 10: The Categorical Imperative (Kant; criticisms by Schopenhauer, Hegel, Mill, Anscombe)

Chapter 11: Utilitarianism (Bentham and Mill; criticisms by Gisborne, Bradley, Grote, Albee)

Chapter 12: Evolution and Ethics (Darwin and Spencer; criticisms by Cobbe, Huxley, Dewey, Moore)

Chapter 13: Emotivism (Ayer; criticisms by Ross, Moore, Stevenson, Baier)

Chapter 14: Pragmatism and Ethics (Dewey and Kitcher; criticisms by Salter, Santayana, Stuart, Stevenson)

Chapter 15: How Moral Theories Fit Together