Julia Driver

__Ethics: The Fundamentals_ explores core ideas and arguments in moral theory by introducing students to different philosophical approaches to ethics, including virtue ethics, Kantian ethics, divine command theory, and feminist ethics._ The first volume in the new Fundamentals of Philosophy series. Presents lively, real-world examples and thoughtful discussion of key moral philosophers and their ideas. Constitutes an excellent resource for readers coming to the subject of ethics for the first time.

This chapter gives an account of why it is wrong for someone to consume meat from factory farms. The central concern here is the “inefficacy objection,” according to which a person’s consumption of animal products makes no difference to whether any future animal is harmed. The account offered is designed to bypass Christopher Kutz’s “Individual Difference Principle,” which seems to underwrite this objection. The chapter’s view is that to consume meat from factory farms is to wrongfully participate in the production of huge amounts of pain and suffering—that is, to be complicit in the production of that pain and suffering.

This paper argues against a popular view of forgiveness by holding that there are some cases—certain tragic dilemma cases—in which a person may be wronged by an action that is not itself wrong. Blaming a person is apt only when the person has done something that is all things considered wrong. Thus, in these tragic dilemma cases, it is not apt to blame the person who wronged by performing an all things considered right action. Yet it also seems that the person who has been wronged is in a position to forgive the wrong. But one view of forgiveness holds that forgiveness renders blame inapt. Yet, in the sorts of cases discussed, there is a point to forgiveness even when blame is already inapt.

Driver compares ethical and epistemic consequentialism in order to get clearer on the latter’s view on the relationship between the epistemic right and the epistemic good. She notes that the process reliabilist is a kind of epistemic consequentialist that is able to avoid a number of objections to consequentialism adapted from the ethical literature. It does this by evaluating beliefs indirectly with reference to processes, and then processes directly with reference to the beliefs they tend to produce. But she worries that such a picture may be unmotivated: why think that beliefs are to be evaluated in one way, while processes are to be evaluated in another? One answer lies in a sophisticated form of consequentialism on which the good of true belief is taken to be a regulative aim, and where that notion of goodness is separate from issues concerning epistemic blame.

Recently, Joshua Greene has argued that empirical moral psychology supports consequentialism. On his view, our making of moral judgments conforms to a dual-process model, analogous to a digital camera. Greene notes that empirical evidence points to the unreliability of decisions based on “automatic” processing, at least relative to using the “manual” mode, which is more consciously deliberative. This, on his view, has normative significance—pointing to the correctness of consequentialism. This chapter proposes that the only moral theories that are susceptible to Greene’s epistemic debunking argument are simpler, intuitionist moral theories, and that more robust moral theories, including robust kinds of consequentialism and deontology, are not susceptible to such debunking evidence.

This chapter explores Mill’s views on the cultivation of character in light of his commitment to certain features of moral sentimentalism. Mill, unlike Bentham, was influenced by the sentimentalists in that he believed that human beings were sympathetic, as part of their natures, and not simply motivated by narrow self-interest. Enlarging sympathy, and developing the social feelings, was important to development of social virtue. In addition, along with the sentimentalists, Mill viewed one practical way of achieving a greater development of virtue in citizens was via aesthetic education. A proper moral education will see people develop social emotions that will serve to underwrite the social virtues — people will come to realize the good of others as something which makes a legitimate claim to their attention and resources.

In “Moral Responsibilities of Bystanders,” Tom Hill considers so-called tolerance complicity – a person’s moral complicity and thus blameworthiness in cases where he or she, either though indifference or culpable ignorance, does nothing and is thus negligent in at least not standing up and confronting the wrongdoing of others. This chapter explores the advantages of a Kantian approach to tolerance complicity beyond those highlighted by Hill’s discussion, stressing in particular the manner in which engaging in such complicity poses a problem for personal integrity. By focusing on the kind of integrity that is constitutive of positive self-esteem, it is argued that tolerance complicity may be viewed from a Kantian perspective as allowing one to be used in the sense that one’s silence or inactivity can be understood as a sign that one agrees with the value that fuel oppressive practices.

Critics of an objective standard for right action, including subjective consequentialists, view the objective standard as problematic since it (1) cannot account adequately for our views of moral responsibility and (2) cannot, they argue, have practical import, or, much worse, (3) when used to derive decision procedures would actually lead agents to perform manifestly wrong actions. In this chapter these three problems are addressed, while also clarifying how it is that different subjective theorists understand the sort of ‘subjectivity’ that their alternatives to the objective view are supposed to capture. Inadequate attention has been paid to the distinction between evidence-sensitive and psychology-sensitive subjective standards of right. The distinction is important because it enables us to diagnose the worries that subjective theorists have with respect to the objective standard. In the end it is argued that the objective standard accounts for a very useful taxonomy of moral error, one that allows us to see where actions go wrong in deviating from the objective standard.

Following Hume, this chapter argues that there is a difference between moral appraisability and moral accountability, and that in order to be morally accountable (or responsible) one needs to be a moral agent. This thesis struck many as counterintuitive because moral appraisability was thought to require a directed will. The chapter argues that this intuition about moral appraisability is compatible with the distinction between appraisability and accountability and Hume’s asymmetry thesis: a being can be morally appraisable (in some respect) without being morally accountable (in that respect). This chapter explores the implications of the asymmetry thesis and offers an updated version of the Humean claim through discussion of the example of the psychopath. A psychopath is appraisable in the “attributability” sense, though not accountable, and by lacking any capacity to recognize moral reasons lacks full moral agency.

Feminist care ethicists have been confronted with the dilemma of how to reconcile an ethics based on emotion with the need to criticize oppressive social norms. Some argue that “desire”‐based metaethics is essentially non‐cognitive, committed to the view that moral claims lack truth value. In this essay I argue for another alternative, a form of constructivism that preserves the truth value of moral claims while, nevertheless, basing morality on desire, on a sympathetic engagement with others. This approach is broadly Humean. On this view, moral claims have truth value and the truth value is not culturally relative. This is all that is necessary for the critique of accepted norms.

This chapter explores Murdoch’s views attacking principle based ethics and argues that, while her concerns point to genuine problems for some principle based approaches, particularism is the wrong lesson to take away from these concerns. When Murdoch rejects theory, she is really rejecting a kind of methodology that approaches ethical issues and problems in an antiseptic and streamlined way. For her, the antidote to this form of theorizing was ‘experience.’ However, ‘experience’ doesn’t require actually living through moral problems oneself. Rather, it simply requires the agent to carefully reflect on a variety of moral issues, but consider those moral issues in a full, rich, context rather than via stripped down implausible scenarios.

This chapter begins with the idea that we can learn a good deal about promising by examining the conditions and norms that govern promise-breaking. Sometimes promises are broken as a deliberate plan, other times they are broken because they are simply incompatible with other, more significant moral norms, or because it becomes clear that they are impossible to keep. There are cases where people make promises that are actually incompatible with each other. Politicians, for example, often give such incompatible promises, either intentionally, or by making too many commitments, some of which turn out to be incompatible. In making such promises, agents guarantee that at least one promise be broken. Is the agent who makes incompatible promises under any obligation? If ‘ought’ implies ‘can,’ and promises entail obligations, then it seems that one cannot, in fact, make promises one cannot keep. This chapter explores the problem by drawing analogies between incompatible promises and other promises that cannot be kept. It suggests that we can deny ‘ought’ implies ‘can’ strictly speaking, but recognize that there is a practical limit on what the agent can be called on to do. On this view, even promises to do the impossible commit the agent. Similarly, politicians who promise too much are still obligated to do as promised.

The work of Frank Jackson has been important to at least two central debates in consequentialist ethical theory: (1) between possibilism and actualism and (2) between objective consequentialism and expectabilism (or a variety of subjective consequentialism). Suppose that we define the right action as that action which maximizes the good. Some writers, such as Michael Slote, have argued that this straightforward criterion is underdetermined. Are we to maximize ‘actual’ good or ‘expected’ good? That is the debate between the objective consequentialist and the subjective consequentialist. There is also the issue of whether or not the agent who is deliberating considers what would be best given what will happen as opposed to what could or can happen. That is the debate between the actualist and the possibilist in determining relevant options for the moral agent to consider in deliberation. This chapter explores differing answers to both of these questions, and then explores one strategy for answering both — a strategy which has been very much influenced by the work of Frank Jackson. Though the author agrees with Jackson on actualism, it disagrees with him on expectabilism. It is argued that the definition of ‘right action’ is clear and not at all underdetermined — the right action just is the action that maximizes the good, the actual good. But what is often confusing is that the semantics of right is confused with an issue in the epistemology of right — that is the issue of determining how we are to go about doing the best that we can properly.

This essay explores the role friendship played in the plot development of _The Third Man_ and the philosophical issues raised. In particular, it examines the friendship between Harry Lime and the film’s protagonist Holly Martins, and how the norms of friendship and their conflict with other moral norms led to Martins’ decision to betray his friend. In many ways Harry Lime presents the perfect test case for the view that norms of friendship, or so called ‘partial’ norms take precedence for individuals (as opposed to governments, or those engaged in public policy making). Even so, even though the norms of justice take precedence, as they should, for Martins, the friendship had an influence on how the betrayal played out.

__Ethics: The Fundamentals_ explores core ideas and arguments in moral theory by introducing students to different philosophical approaches to ethics, including virtue ethics, Kantian ethics, divine command theory, and feminist ethics._ The first volume in the new Fundamentals of Philosophy series. Presents lively, real-world examples and thoughtful discussion of key moral philosophers and their ideas. Constitutes an excellent resource for readers coming to the subject of ethics for the first time.

__Ethics: The Fundamentals_ explores core ideas and arguments in moral theory by introducing students to different philosophical approaches to ethics, including virtue ethics, Kantian ethics, divine command theory, and feminist ethics._ The first volume in the new Fundamentals of Philosophy series. Presents lively, real-world examples and thoughtful discussion of key moral philosophers and their ideas. Constitutes an excellent resource for readers coming to the subject of ethics for the first time.

David Hume provides several accounts of moral virtue, all of which tie virtue to the experience of pleasure in the spectator. Hume believed that the appropriate pleasure for determinations of virtue was pleasure corrected by “the general point of view.” I argue that common ways of spelling this out leave the account open to the charge that it cannot account adequately for mistaken judgments of virtue. I argue that we need to see Hume as offering both a metaphysics and an epistemology of virtue, and that Hume's account of virtue can adequately account for mistakes if he is understood as offering a definition of virtue tied to pleasure, but pleasure understood externally.

A Philosophy of Beauty: Shaftesbury on Nature, Virtue, and Art is an expert and deeply interesting exploration of the third Earl of Shaftesbury’s theory of beauty. Shaftesbury was an impressive figure, highly influential in his day, though eclipsed by later writers such as David Hume. Gill has done an excellent job of drawing out Shaftesbury’s views—looking not only at his publications but also at other manuscript materials such as Shaftesbury’s correspondence and diaries. I found Gill’s book informative and engaging, and I strongly recommend it to scholars who are interested in the sentimentalist project. One will come away not simply with a better understanding of Shaftesbury’s own views but with an appreciation of his influence and the way in which later scholarship was shaped by his work.Gill’s approach is semibiographical. He draws upon facts about Shaftesbury’s life to account for various features of his philosophical writings. This feature of the book contributed to the enjoyment I had in reading it. It was interesting to be able to see how Shaftesbury’s philosophy developed out of questions he was asking himself about how he ought to live. Shaftesbury had a strong sense of duty. He made many decisions over the course of his life that were centered on a desire to live up to family obligations and obligations to his country. He also had a more general sense that he should be doing what he could to improve the lives of other people. One might describe this as beneficence felt as a duty. For these reasons, Gill notes that it is very likely due to Shaftesbury’s ill-health that he decided to pursue philosophy. Otherwise, his strong sense of duty would have led him to take on more public-facing roles as a means of improving the lives of others.He felt that this task could only be accomplished if people actually read and took notice of his work. Gill argues that this is at least in part what led Shaftesbury to develop such a distinctive and flamboyant writing style. Shaftesbury’s major work in ethical theory was Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, published in 1711, and anyone taking a course on the British moralists would have read parts of the Characteristicks, particularly the sections on virtue, as those sections are the ones that quite obviously fit into the sentimentalist narrative on the nature of virtue and make for interesting comparisons with later writers on the same topic, Frances Hutcheson as well as Hume. But Shaftesbury’s other works which are important sources regarding his thoughts on beauty and virtue include The Moralists and An Inquiry concerning Virtue, both of which Gill makes extensive use of in his discussion of Shaftesbury’s considered views.Gill notes the many complaints about Shaftesbury’s writing style. Gill notes that Adam Smith, for example, viewed Shaftesbury as someone whose writing is a paradigm of stylistic failure, leading him “frequently into a dungeon of metaphorical obscurity” (Smith, quoted by Gill on p. 14). However, Shaftesbury had very well-considered views on aesthetics and on aesthetically valuable writing. I especially liked how Gill’s careful reading of both Shaftesbury and his critics is further illuminated by considering some of these works that are often ignored by philosophers working on the British moralists, such as Soliloquy; or, Advice to an Author, which Gill discusses in the fifth chapter.What do beauty, nature, and virtue have to do with each other? Those familiar with the sentimentalist projects of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries know that, for the sentimentalist, morality and aesthetics are closely connected if not identical. At bottom the idea is that virtue is a kind of moral beauty, analogous to the positive aesthetic characteristics we associate with natural objects and works of art. In the case of Shaftesbury himself, one of his more famous claims is that beauty and good are identical, “one and the same.” What Shaftesbury meant in this claim, as Gill notes, is that it is a life in pursuit of beauty that is the good life for human beings. Beauty comes in many forms, and in the first chapter of his book, Gill focuses on natural beauty. Some writers viewed nature as ugly and deformed. Some, like Locke, seemed to think that the value of the wilderness was entirely instrumental. One of Gill’s claims is that Shaftesbury was responsible for changing these attitudes toward nature. Shaftesbury saw beauty in wilderness landscapes. Gill argues that Shaftesbury was to some extent interested in natural beauty because it helped solve a problem that concerned him: there is a deeply emotional aspect to worship of God, and yet it is also the case that we ought to maintain our rationality—to the extent that even scripture should be subject to critical scrutiny. Our love of God is not threatened by rational inquiry. Nature and wilderness were created by God, and by using our rational capacities we can come to appreciate the beauty in even the most disgusting aspects of nature, such as excrement. Excrement is evidence of God’s beautiful design.There is also moral beauty. Moral beauty is extensively discussed in chapter 2 of Gill’s book. Moral beauty applies to our “mental children”—and by this Shaftesbury means features of our agency, such as our feelings, emotions, principles of action, determinations of the will, and so forth. These can be beautiful as well. We perceive this beauty via our moral sense, our sense of right and wrong, which arises out of our feeling of second-order sentiments about our first-order mental states or inclinations. Virtue involves being guided by these second-order sentiments.The second chapter lays out very quickly Shaftesbury’s views on virtue, but here Gill is mainly concerned with exploring a problem that bothered Shaftesbury on a personal level. Drawing on evidence from Shaftesbury’s diaries, as well his published works, Gill argues that we can see that he was very troubled by his failure to love humanity in general. He believed this to be a flaw. However, the failure to love humanity in general arose out of an understanding of the terrible things people do to each other. How can it be a flaw in one’s character to fail to love what is not worthy of love? Shaftesbury wants to show that we do possess fine qualities that warrant love. One prong of his argument is his criticism of Hobbesian egoism as bad moral psychology. Another prong appeals to our inherent sociality. Human beings have a strong desire to be with other human beings (this is an illustration of what Gill calls ‘the herding principle’). This desire underlies much prosocial behavior and demonstrates that moral beauty, or virtue, is certainly achievable by humans. However, if not properly cultivated it can lead to partiality; that is, it can lead to tribalism or caring more about some people than others. The underlying psychology appeals to the fact that we prefer to associate with those we are more in sympathy with. This leads us to exclude others, and even try to harm them. But our capacity to display moral beauty, to be virtuous, renders us the apt objects of love.In the third chapter Gill discusses art and artistic beauty, and this chapter serves as a prelude to the final two, which consider two different forms of artistic expression: painting and writing. Art is another way in which beauty is manifested in the world. Shaftesbury argued that art was an important part of the good human life, though as Gill notes he gave varying reasons for why this was the case. Sometimes he focused on the purely instrumental: appreciating a work of art can cause one to develop dispositions important to living a good human life, those dispositions properly instances of moral beauty. On this view, art would in principle be disposable at some point in a person’s development into a good human being. Once moral beauty is attained, one no longer needs to be spurred on through artistic appreciation. However, he sometimes argues that art is important in itself—that artistic beauty is an important component of the good life for its own sake, and not simply as a spur to moral development. Gill doesn’t believe that Shaftesbury can be made fully consistent on this issue, but he offers the following as the best charitable interpretation: appreciation of beauty is a final good, but moral beauty is a final good as well and is more significant. Thus, appreciation of beauty, while still a final good, should be sacrificed if it interferes with moral beauty.In the penultimate chapter, on painting, Gill focuses on Shaftesbury’s views regarding the category of art that is morally representational—that is, art that represents morally significant content. In this category he focuses on the genre of history painting—a prominent genre at the time Shaftesbury was writing, though not well represented in Britain at that time. Here he discusses an essay Shaftesbury wrote, A Notion of the Tablature, or Judgment of Hercules, in which Shaftesbury provides a description of a painting that he would later have painted by an Italian artist, Paolo de Matteis. Here, in going over the process of conceptualizing the painting that he would commission de Matteis to produce, various important features of composition are highlighted. But the important point of such painting is to convey a moral message. The choices that the artist makes should be guided by this norm. Gill writes that Shaftesbury believed that a well-executed history painting would be able to rouse virtue in its audience and discourage vice. Gill is doubtful. He also points out that Shaftesbury’s discussion of history painting highlights Shaftesbury’s “morally archaic” view of women. It is women who are often presented as spurs to vice in men.Writing, on Shaftesbury’s view, should also inspire one to virtue. Among those writers who fail in this task are the super speculative philosophers who mistakenly believe that abstruse philosophical speculations improve the lives of people. What they need to engage in, Shaftesbury writes, is soliloquy. Here we get an analogy with the exercise of moral agency. As a writer, one needs some critical distance, some critical “self-dissection,” to improve. The same for moral agents, who must subject their first-order mental states to critical scrutiny.In this book Gill has made a very powerful case for taking Shaftesbury’s work seriously beyond the standard topics of interest to the moral sentimentalists. Shaftesbury had a tremendous influence on many areas in philosophy—metaethics, virtue theory, aesthetics, and natural religion. Gill’s book does an excellent job of showing us how Shaftesbury’s philosophical thought permeated aspects of his day-to-day life and influenced more than the work of other, subsequent, philosophers. After reading this book I came away with a better understanding of Shaftesbury the human being, as well as Shaftesbury the philosopher.

In this remarkably accessible, concise, and engaging introduction to moral philosophy, Steven M. Cahn brings together a rich, balanced, and wide-ranging collection of fifty-two readings on ethical theory and contemporary moral issues. He has carefully edited all the articles to ensure that they will be exceptionally clear and understandable to undergraduate students. The selections are organized into three parts--Challenges to Morality, Moral Theories, and Moral Problems--providing instructors with flexibility in designing and teaching a variety of ethics courses. Each reading is followed by study questions." -- from Amazon.