Seven Pillars Institute » Moral Terms

Lockean Proviso

Kara — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 07:36:39 +0000

This proviso is an ‘enough and as good’ clause on original acquisition, stating that we can only appropriate unowned property if we leave enough and as good for others.

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Veil of Ignorance

Kara — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 07:36:05 +0000

A hypothetical mental state, in John Rawls version of Social Contract Theory, in which we imagine ourselves as being situated behind a “veil of ignorance” in which we are ignorant of our particular characteristics such as sex, race, IQ, financial status, family background, religious ideology, personal philosophy, etc. The “veil of ignorance” forces us to imagine ourselves in a position, free of bias, and one in which we are unaware of any particular skills or abilities we may have. According to Rawls, valid principles of justice are those we would agree to if we could freely, impartially, and rationally consider the social situation, from an original position of such ignorance

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Exploitation

Kara — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 07:35:35 +0000

Utilization of others with the motive of self-interest. One person taking an unfair advantage of another, for selfish reasons.

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Caveat Emptor

Kara — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 07:35:10 +0000

Latin term meaning “Let the Buyer beware”. This term adheres to the basic premise that when it comes to a transaction, the buyer is the one held entirely responsible for the transaction, as well as the product(s) that come with it. In other words, it is the buyer’s responsibility to choose well when making a transaction, and this can be done in the form of testing a product, making sure that the product being purchased has no defects, etc. Currently, the United States rejects such a philosophy as ‘Caveat emptor’, and does so by way of implied warranties and consumer protection laws.

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Double (Moral) Standard

Kara — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 07:34:44 +0000

An ethical or moral code which allows for greater freedom to one person or group than to another. In other words, a double standard is a set of principles which apply more strictly to one group than to another.

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Moral Standard

Kara — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 07:34:05 +0000

A moral standard refers to the norms which we have about the types of actions which we believe to be morally acceptable and morally unacceptable. Specifically, moral standards deal with matters which can either seriously harm or seriously benefit human beings. The validity of moral standards comes from the line of reasoning that was taken to back or support them, and thus are not able to be formed or changed by particular bodies of authority.

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Political Pluralism

Kara — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 07:30:17 +0000

Political pluralism begins with the basic claim that there exists a variety of differing value systems in the world today and thus a variety of positions regarding this claim. The overall concern of political pluralism is what sort of limits are governments able to put on people’s freedoms in order to act within their specific value system.

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Moral Absolutism

Kara — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 07:29:13 +0000

Moral absolutism is an ethical view claiming essentially that all forms of human conduct can be classified as either being right or wrong in any context. Regardless of intention or purpose, committing bad actions are always going to be bad, and they cannot be justified. In other words, certain actions are always right and certain actions are always wrong, no matter how one tries to rationalize it.

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Supererogation

Kara — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 02:18:36 +0000

Moral actions were once thought to be of only three types: required, forbidden, or permissible (i.e., neither required nor forbidden). Required acts are good to do, forbidden acts are bad to do, and permissible acts are morally neutral. This trinity seemed well-established until J.O. Urmson challenged this classification system by arguing for the existence of a fourth category of acts.¹ Urmson posited actions performed by saints and heroes as paradigm examples of supererogatory acts—those which are morally praiseworthy but not morally required. Gregory Mellema later posited a more specific definition: a moral act may be described as supererogatory if (1) performing the act fulfills no moral duty, (2) performing the act is morally praiseworthy, and (3) omitting the act is not morally blameworthy.²

Urmson had many critics, but as debate has progressed, the existence of supererogatory acts has become more difficult to deny. Roughly thirty years after Urmson’s “Saints and Heroes” was published, Susan Hale described the new fourfold categorization of moral acts (required, forbidden, permissible, and supererogatory) as “near dogma.”³ Perhaps the reason for this trend is that certain paradigm examples of supererogatory actions seem impossible to properly describe under the tripartite classification system. Consider a poignant example offered by M.W. Jackson:

“In January of 1982 an Air Florida plane crashed into the Potomac River. In the ensuing crisis, a man in the water passed the life-line on to the others four times. When the rescue helicopter came back a fifth time, he had gone under never to be seen again. He was as anonymous as he was selfless.”⁴

It would be ludicrous to claim that this action was morally forbidden: we react to this man’s sacrifice by commending his action, not condemning it. Simultaneously, it would be absurd to claim that this person was morally required to make such a sacrifice. We do not condemn the others involved in the crash for not passing their life-lines along to others. Moreover, the plane crash was an unfortunate accident, and this man deserved to survive as much as anyone else in the water. We are left to conclude that the action must be considered morally permissible, but unlike standard (merely) permissible actions in the tripartite scheme, this action has moral worth. Hence, a fourth category of moral actions seems necessary to fill this conceptual gap.

J.O. Urmson, “Saints and Heroes,” in Essays in Moral Philosophy, ed. A.I. Melden (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1958), 198-216.
Gregory Mellema, Beyond the Call of Duty: Supererogation, Obligation, and Offence (Albany: SUNY Press, 1991), 3.
Susan Hale, “Against Supererogation,” American Philosophical Quarterly 28, no. 4 (1991): 273.
M. W. Jackson, “Above and Beyond the Call of Duty,” Journal of Social Philosophy 19, no. 2 (1988): 3.

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Demandingness Objection

Kara — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 02:12:44 +0000

The demandingness objection refers to an argument against varieties of consequentialism. Tim Mulgan presents the argument in the following form:

Consequentialism makes demand D.
D is an unreasonable demand for a moral theory to make.
Therefore, consequentialism makes unreasonable demands.¹

The demandingness objection derives much of its strength from cases in which adherence to consequentialism appears to require extraordinary sacrifices of moral agents, sacrifices which plausibly appear supererogatory. When confronted with a form of the demandingness objection, consequentialists must either deny that consequentialism requires the specified demand or deny that the demand made upon moral agents is unreasonable.

Tim Mulgan, The Demands of Consequentialism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 25.