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The Moral Aspect of Nonmoral Goods and Evils

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2009

Michael J. Zimmerman
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Abstract

The idea that immoral behaviour can sometimes be admirable, and that moral behaviour can sometimes be less than admirable, has led several of its supporters to infer that moral considerations are not always overriding, contrary to what has been traditionally maintained. In this paper I shall challenge this inference. My purpose in doing so is to expose and acknowledge something that has been inadequately appreciated, namely, the moral aspect of nonmoral goods and evils. I hope thereby to show that, even if immorality can be admirable (and morality less than admirable), this poses no threat to morality.

Type
Research Article
Information
Utilitas , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , March 1999 , pp. 1 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1999

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References

1 Williams, Bernard, Moral Luck, Cambridge, 1981, pp. 22 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Wolf, Susan, ‘Moral Saints’, Journal of Philosophy, lxxix (1982), 420 ffGoogle Scholar.

3 Slote, Michael, Goods and Virtues, Oxford, 1983, pp. 80 ffGoogle Scholar.

4 I prefer the terms ‘regrettable’ and ‘reprehensible’ to the term ‘repugnant’, which is sometimes used in this context. The suffixes ‘-able’ and ‘-ible’ indicate that what is at issue is the worthiness of a certain attitude, whether or not that attitude is in fact taken by anyone.

5 Stocker, Michael, ‘The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories’, Journal of Philosophy, lxxiii (1976), 462Google Scholar.

6 Williams, p. 18.

7 Wolf, 419 and 421.

8 Slote, p. 79.

9 Ibid., pp. 84, 79 and 80 respectively.

10 See, e.g., Slote, p. 79; Flanagan, Owen, ‘Admirable Immorality and Admirable Imperfection’, Journal of Philosophy, lxxxiii (1986), 42Google Scholar.

11 In putting matters thus, I am opposing the sort of particularism espoused by Dancy, Jonathan in Moral Reasons, Oxford, 1993Google Scholar. There is no space to elaborate on this here.

12 Not everyone will agree with this claim, of course. One recent example of someone who would apparently reject it is Thomson, Judith Jarvis in ‘The Right and the Good’, Journal of Philosophy, xciv (1997), 285Google Scholar.

13 Wolf, 421.

14 Compare the emphasis placed on the tendency to act immorally in McCarty, Richard, ‘Are There “Contra-Moral Virtues”?’, Metaphilosophy, xxv (1994), 364 fGoogle Scholar.

15 Slote, pp. 127 f.

16 Flanagan, 43 f.

17 Ibid., 44 ff.

18 Baron, Marcia, ‘On Admirable Immorality’, Ethics, xcvi (1986), 563 ffGoogle Scholar.

19 Wolf, 422.

20 Ibid.

21 That moral saints need not exhibit such behaviour has recently been forcefully argued by Isaacs, Tracy and Jeske, Diane in ‘Moral Deliberation, Nonmoral Ends, and the Virtuous Agent’, Ethics, cvii (1997)Google Scholar.

22 See Wolf, 435.

23 This having been said, there is perhaps a reason for affirming (IT2++) that, as far as I know, has not been discussed by those who have been concerned with the possibility of nonadmirable morality. This reason has to do with resisting the temptation to do evil. Such resistance seems to be morally good, and yet it cannot occur in the absence of such temptation, which itself seems reprehensible.

24 Slote, p. 79.

25 See Wolf, 422.

26 Ibid., 434.

27 See Wallace, James D., Virtues and Vices, Ithaca, 1978, ch. 2Google Scholar.

28 Such as John Balguy, John Brown, Samuel Clarke, Richard Price and Adam Smith. See the selections of their and others' works edited in two volumes by Selby-Bigge, L. A. in British Moralists, Oxford, 1897Google Scholar.

29 See Brentano, Franz, The Origin of our Knowledge of Right and Wrong, ed. Kraus, Oskar trans. Chisholm, Roderick M. and Schneewind, Elizabeth H., New York, 1969, p. 22Google Scholar; Chisholm, Roderick M., ‘The Ethics of Requirement’, American Philosophical Quarterly, i (1964)Google Scholar.

30 Chisholm, 147.

31 See Ross, W. D., Foundations of Ethics, Oxford, 1939, pp. 52 ffGoogle Scholar.; Lemos, p. 12.

32 It may be that both moral and aesthetic requirement can be analysed in terms of some concept of requirement simpliciter, but I shall not pursue this here.

33 Compare Ross, W. D. on ‘direct’ vs. ‘incidental’ prima facie duties in his The Right and the Good, Oxford, 1930, p. 46Google Scholar.

34 In saying this, I am of course not saying that it is either intrinsically or morally good that, for example, the harm (that requires reparation) or the misfortune (that requires compassion) itself occurs.

35 Slote, p. 91.

36 Compare Hurka, Thomas, ‘Virtue as Loving the Good’, Social Philosophy, ix (1992)Google Scholar, where the term ‘virtue’ is restricted to this trait.

37 Wolf rejects this move at 433 f.

38 There is some evidence that it has been recognized, but the evidence is at best inconclusive. See, e.g., Williams, p. 37 (but contrast p. 38); Wolf, 426 and 438 (but contrast 435 f); McCarty.

39 Compare Hurka, sect. 4; contrast Ross, , Foundations, p. 275Google Scholar.

40 See Slote, pp. 84 and 88. Compare Williams, p. 18; Foot, Philippa, Virtues and Vices, Berkeley, 1978, p. 185Google Scholar; Wolf, 434.

41 The view that morality always pays can be traced, in one form or another, back through Butler and Hobbes to Plato, if not beyond.

42 Note that this is not just a matter of plural goods or values being commensurable, as discussed in ch. 6 of Stacker, Michael, Plural and Conflicting Values, Oxford, 1990Google Scholar. It is a matter of plural types of goods or values being commensurable. (Stocker would rather talk of ‘comparability’ than of ‘commensurability’ in this context. I shall not discuss this issue here.)

43 Ibid., p. 39.

44 My thanks to Erik Carlson and to the Editor for comments on an earlier draft.