A Quick Intro to Applied Moral Reasoning

I was thinking about the way I’ve been examining moral issues and decided it looked an awful lot like the approaches advocated by Hare and Rawls. The main idea is to give radically divergent moralities equal consideration in an attempt to resolve moral dilemmas; essentially dissolving the rift between utilitarian and categorical moralities. What follows is an attempted introduction to their theories.
There are two major categories in ethical reasoning into which all rational ethical theories belong, namely categorical morality (most religions, Kantians, emotivists, moral realists etc.) and utilitarian varieties (good of the many outweighs the good of the few). Some, like Hare’s rational approach to ethics, have their foot in both camps, but no theory fails to belong to one or the other. The process of applied ethics, however, really doesn’t subscribe to any particular meta-ethical framework. An ethicist solving actual moral dilemmas might use one theory to justify her decision, but the justification is insufficient if the evidence is only of one type. For example, an ethicist espousing a utilitarian ethical theory might argue that torture should be allowed in cases where the majority stands to benefit. Maybe in the case where a terrorist who is suspected of involvement in an impending WMD plot is arrested and through torture we can hope to acquire information which could save the lives of thousands of people. However, merely arguing the pragmatic consequences of this action does not justify its implementation, because competing categorical moral theories –such as the notion of human rights—do not view consequences as legitimate moral indicators.
This raises the question “what counts as universal justification?” If operating from within an ethical framework is insufficient to insure adequate security for a particular view, then can there be any consensus? Obviously there is no theory which explains . But one of the fundamental ways in which we can measure agreement, is by checking to see if an action proscribed by a moral theory is in reflective equilibrium with our moral intuitions. We could at once be convinced that torture is horrible, yet somewhat convinced that its use is justified in situations such as the one above, so we might examine a particular case and see if our moral theory and our intuitions are in agreement. This, or course, can quickly digress into an emotivist (the technical term for “emotional”) approach to ethics, because if we practice this case by case, then our emotions become the only really important moral indicators and morality thinking becomes a fly by night affair. This need for continuity is why, despite initial impressions, meta-ethics does actually play a role in everyday moral thinking.
There are two modern theories of ethics which I think work particularly well for generating valid moral considerations. The first is Rawls’ theory of justice. The basic operating principle of this theory is the proposed “original position”. Instead of the classical social contract of Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and John Locke, Rawls advocated a hypothetical situation in which everybody is involved in picking a theory of social interaction from behind a “veil of ignorance”; i.e. without knowing what position in society in which they will find themselves. Since nobody knows whether he or she is a millionaire or a handicapped, mentally retarded single mother of three, each has a reason to ensure the wellbeing of all members of society.
While initially intended as a guide to the construction of a just society, it has become a popular tool in other moral considerations as well. Rawls personally didn’t like it to be used in international contexts, but it is easy to see how it could be used in this way. Instead of not knowing what position one might find oneself within society, one could consider not know what society to which one might belong. Certainly this does not generate moral obligations (Rawls’ contention) because members of other societies are not expected to reciprocate. We can, however, generate a certain amount of human obligations, but these will not be as involved as the duties owned to members of the same society. Personally, I like Rawls approach to moral thinking, because it emphasizes consideration of other viewpoints. There have been objections, however, on the grounds that picking moral obligations based on personal interest in the original position is not really moral and that ignorance of actual circumstance does not generate binding obligations in the actual world… which leads into the other moral theory.
Hare’s “rational approach to ethics” compares desires in terms of intensity to determine moral obligations. Therefore, it is wrong to kill someone because (chances are) their desire to live is stronger than your desire to kill. This part of his moral theory isn’t really developmental, since it relies on the feelings, desires and intuitions we already have, but it does generate a method to rationally consider morally relevant facts. Just like Rawls, Hare intends to emphasize consideration of other viewpoints, and it is this feature which I think indicates universally relevant moral factors, which, in turn can generate universal justification for a particular moral conviction.
Both theories evolved out of utilitarianism, but I think this is trivial since the important factor is not ‘the good’ itself, but what people perceive as the good. Therefore, although someone’s reason for objecting to abortion might have categorical moral justification, this plays no part in forming society’s ethical rule; rather it is the strength of their conviction which is the important factor. This can claim universality because the origins and justification of a person’s moral judgment becomes trivial. In this way, it avoids some of the inherent difficulties of any attempt at a “principled” examination of other views. Consensus (or compromise) in these conditions is perhaps not ultimately moral, but should at least be a best case alternative. Curiously, when expressed as a moral maxim, it sounds exactly like the Golden Rule.