Ethics

Below are readings and essay questions for tutorials in Ethics. Many of the readings are available online, and all are easily obtained from the college or other libraries in Oxford, but if you are struggling to get hold of anything, email me, as I have PDF copies of nearly everything.

The default plan is to cover the TUTORIAL TOPICS, focusing mainly on normative ethics and some key contributions in the history of philosophy. After a week on consequentialism, the main approach to normative ethics, and its critics, we turn to the early modern roots of the contemporary debate, looking at Hume and Kant. As we will see, these first few weeks raise important questions about practical reason and the normative status of morality—questions that we take up in more detail in looking at the challenge to morality posed by psychological and rational egoism. We’ll then return to the contemporary scene, bringing together what we’ve learnt, and look at two different nonconsequentialist approaches to normative ethics, contractualism and virtue ethics, before finishing off with an introduction to contemporary metaethics. The plan is not set in stone, however. Those of you who have studied them beforehand may wish to drop either the first or last week’s topics, and either spread your study of Hume over two weeks, or look at something else altogether. To that end, I have also listed a range of OTHER TOPICS. If you would like to cover any of these—or something else—let me know, and we’ll see what we can do. Topics that you might have covered in the first year Moral Philosophy course and might want to leave for self-study in vacations are marked with a dagger (†).

The reading for each topic is divided into two parts. In writing your tutorial essay, focus on the CORE READING, using as a guide the more introductory texts marked with a star (*) and any Faculty lectures on the topic—the lectures may be available online via Canvas, and are a good indication of what might come up in the exams. You can look at the FURTHER READING, as well as anything else of relevance in the Faculty reading list, when exploring topics in more depth during later vacations and revision.

The current version of this reading list was put together in light of using previous incarnations in teaching Ethics to undergraduates in Oxford over the years. I’m grateful to various friends and colleagues for advice and discussion, especially Nadine Elzein, Edward Harcourt, Ulrike Heuer, Chris Jay, Ed Lamb, Mike Martin, Véronique Munoz-Dardé, Stefan Sienkiewicz, and Tom Sinclair. If you’d like to use the list for teaching, please feel free. Feedback and corrections are gratefully received.

Latest update: 7th January 2023.

TUTORIAL TOPICS

1. Consequentialism and Its Critics†
2. Hume’s Ethics
3. Kant on Moral Motivation
4. The Categorical Imperative
5. Egoism: Why Be Moral?
6. Contractualism
7. Virtue Ethics
8. Moral Realism: Problems†

OTHER TOPICS: METAETHICS

1. Error Theory and Fictionalism
2. Non-Cognitivism
3. Naturalism
4. Nonnaturalism
5. Moral Relativism

OTHER TOPICS: REASONS and MOTIVES

1. Practical Reasoning
2. Motivational Internalism

OTHER TOPICS: NORMATIVE ETHICS

1. Well-Being†
2. Equality
3. Rights†

OTHER TOPICS: MORAL PSYCHOLOGY

1. Free Will and Moral Responsibility†
2. Conscience, Guilt, and Shame
3. Blame and Standing to Blame

OTHER TOPICS: APPLIED ETHICS

1. Doing and Intending Harm
2. Non-Human Animals

VACATION READING and TEXTBOOKS

If you are thinking about whether to take Ethics, or have decided to do so and want to do some preliminary reading over the vacation beforehand, take a look at some of the following introductory textbooks. (Note that earlier editions of these, where applicable, are often much cheaper second-hand and usually just as good.)

For consolidation in later vacations, you might want something a little more advanced. The following are recommended. They are no substitute for working through the CORE READING and FURTHER READING, however. To do well in any philosophy paper, you have to work through the details, not just the summaries.

I also recommend that you take the opportunity to familiarise yourself beforehand, if you haven’t already, with these four classics of moral philosophy—the exam will offer you opportunities to display knowledge of them. We’ll be focusing on Hume’s Treatise and Kant’s Groundwork, but all of them are essential reading.

ANTHOLOGIES and COLLECTIONS

While most of the readings can be obtained online, it’s useful to have good anthologies and collections of papers to hand, so as to be able to read around the subject a bit more widely. The following are all recommended, containing many of the key readings and more besides, and are often referenced below.

TUTORIAL TOPICS

1. CONSEQUENTIALISM and ITS CRITICS^†

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In setting the essay question and readings for this topic, I’ve assumed you’re familiar with utilitarianism and consequentialism more generally from the Moral Philosophy component of the first year course. If not, let me know, and I will suggest a different essay question and set of readings, possibly splitting the topic into two.

ESSAY QUESTION

What are the most serious objections to consequentialism? Are any of them decisive? Can (and must) nonconsequentialists give an adequate account of how it can sometimes be right to do what’s not best?

CORE READING

If you haven’t encountered them already, focus on the following classic texts on this week’s issue. (If you have encountered them already, then you can take a look at some of the FURTHER READING instead.) Williams (1973) presents his influential integrity objection. Nozick (1974) raises and attempts to defuse a problem for nonconsequentialists, one which has come to be known as the paradox of deontology. Railton (1984) sets out and responds to the objection—related to Williams’—that consequentialism is, in an important way, alienating.

By way of a guide, try any of the following more introductory discussions—you needn’t read them all:

FURTHER READING

In thinking about this week’s topic in more depth, get hold of a copy of Scheffler and work through its contents, a series of classic papers that are invaluable in understanding the contemporary debate. Besides the Williams, it contains two other important criticisms of consequentialism: Rawls, in a selection from his A Theory of Justice, ‘Classical Utilitarianism,’ (also reprinted in Sher,) presents the influential objection that utilitarianism fails to respect the separateness of persons, while Nagel, in his ‘War and Massacre,’ presents a version of the objection that consequentialism is too permissive, entailing that acts that are, in fact, forbidden are permitted. In thinking about objections to consequentialism, however, the best place to start is perhaps with the dual of the last objection, the objection that it is too demanding, entailing that acts that are, in fact, at best optional are mandatory. In response, some argue that the extreme demands consequentialism is alleged to make are not unreasonable. Kagan, in the rest of his (1989), argues for this extremist response, as does Singer (1972)—a classic of applied ethics that all students doing this paper ought to read. Others deny that consequentialism makes the alleged demands, or can be reformulated in such a way as to avoid making them. Jackson (1991) is perhaps an example of the former response, denialism, while Railton’s indirect consequentialism, defended in Mason (1998), is perhaps an example of the latter, reformism. Other, more clearly reformist responses include rule consequentialism, defended by Hooker in his contribution to LaFollette and Persson (and reprinted in Shafer-Landau and Sher); satisficing consequentialism, criticised in Bradley (2006); and scalar consequentialism, defended in Norcross (2006). For critical discussion of extremism, denialism, and reformism, see Mulgan (2001). Williams’ objection is sometimes taken as a version of the demandingness objection, though you should think carefully about whether that’s the best way to understand it; Ch. 4 of Hurley (2009), raising issues about the normative status of morality that we’ll be looking at soon, is useful in this regard. Another interesting objection is the cluelessness objection, defended in Lenman (2000). After objections to consequentialism, think about the paradox of deontology. Again, Scheffler contains several classics. Besides the piece by Nozick, see Nagel’s ‘Autonomy and Deontology’, Foot’s ‘Utilitarianism and the Virtues,’ and Scheffler’s ’Agent-Centred Restrictions, Rationality, and the Virtues’. But perhaps the most important thing to look at is Kamm’s contribution to LaFollette and Persson—looking especially at her discussion of inviolability on pp. 272-6. As Foot’s article especially helps bring out, the flipside to the paradox of deontology is an argument for act consequentialism, based on the idea, roughly put, that it is always right to bring about the best. For more critical discussion of this, see Ch. 5 of Hurley (2009). For arguments for rule consequentialism, see Parfit (2011a) and Hooker’s piece in LaFollette and Persson.

PAST PAPER QUESTIONS

Can rule-consequentialists specify a compliance level at which candidate rules are to be assessed without falling prey to decisive objections to their view? (2022)

Can consequentialists make adequate sense of moral dilemmas? (2021)

‘Since just about all consequences of actions are unforeseen and unforeseeable, we are ignorant about which actions to perform if consequentialism is true.’ Is that so? What does your answer suggest about the truth of consequentialism? (2020)

EITHER
(a) ‘There exists no plausible theoretical account of how we could fail to be obligated to bring about the best available outcome whenever doing so is permissible. Therefore, the objection that consequentialism is too demanding is ineffective.’ Discuss.
OR
(b) ‘There exists no plausible theoretical account of how it could be wrong to harm others if we thereby bring about the best available outcome. Therefore, the objection that consequentialism is too permissive is ineffective.’ Discuss. (2019)

2. HUME’S ETHICS

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Hume is a key figure in the history of moral philosophy, and in the history of utilitarian thought in particular. But understanding his work is crucial to fully appreciating a range of issues concerning Kant and practical reason. Note that, if you are skipping the first or last topics, you may wish to split your study of Hume over two weeks, postponing consideration of his views on justice and artificial virtues. If so, discuss this with me beforehand.

ESSAY QUESTION

What does Hume mean when he says that moral distinctions are not derived from reason? Are his arguments for this convincing? Is his alternative, sentimentalist account of moral assessment defensible? In particular, what problem do artificial virtues, like justice, raise for his account? Is his solution to it a satisfactory one?

CORE READING

Start by reading the most important parts of Hume’s Treatise:

By way of a guide, try any of the following more introductory discussions—you needn’t read them all:

If you are only studying Hume for one week, this will be more than enough to be getting on with. If you are splitting your study of him over two weeks, look also at some of the FURTHER READING suggested below. You might, e.g., look at Sturgeon’s paper in Ainslie and Butler, eds. (2018) and Abramson’s in Radcliffe for the first week, and Ch. 7 of Snare (1991) and Magri’s paper in Ainslie and Butler, eds. (2018) for the second.

FURTHER READING

In thinking about Hume’s ethics further, you might want to look at the rest of Books II and, especially, III of the Treatise, and will certainly want to look at the later Enquiry, Hume (1751/77), where he presents things a bit differently, foregrounding his positive account of virtue and vice, and relegating his case against moral rationalism to an appendix—Appendix 1. It also criticises egoism—see especially Appendix 2—a topic you will explore in more depth later. Hume himself thought it was “incomparably the best” of his writings. (Cahn and Markie and Raphael both reprint large parts of it.) The main issues to think about are (a) Hume’s account of the relation between reason and passion, (b) his criticisms of moral rationalism, (c) his sentimentalist account of moral assessment, and (d) his account of the artificial virtues, like justice. It is mainly the first and second issues that come up in past papers, but the others do appear on occasion. (Note that, while the examination regulations for the paper state that candidates will be given the opportunity to demonstrate first-hand knowledge of Hume’s writings, that doesn’t mean there will be questions explicitly about him, never mind his account of motivation or criticisms of rationalism.) In any case, all these aspects of Hume’s views are relevant to many of the issues we’re exploring this term, as well as various of the OTHER TOPICS—especially PRACTICAL REASONING, MOTIVATIONAL INTERNALISM, and FREE WILL and MORAL RESPONSIBILITY. Mackie (1980) and Baillie (2000) are two good, accessible books on Hume’s ethics, both aimed at advanced undergraduates. Baier (1991), Snare (1991), and Cohon (2008) are more advanced treatments, but well worth the effort. Thinking ahead to future weeks, see also Korsgaard (1989) and the lectures on Hume in Rawls (2000), both listed in the FURTHER READING for KANT on MORAL MOTIVATION, and Foot (1972), a classic of contemporary moral anti-rationalism. You’ll also find good, up-to-date discussions in various handbooks and companions. See, for example, Penelhum’s paper in Norton and Taylor, as well as the papers by Abramson and Lecaldano in Part III and Radcliffe, Beauchamp, and Sturgeon in Part VI of Radcliffe, Sturgeon, Ainslie, and Magri in Ainslie and Butler, eds. (2018), and in Part III of Russell, ed. (2016).

PAST PAPER QUESTIONS

‘Hume’s genealogy of morality is plausible, but it does not show that morality is binding.’ Discuss. (2022)

Can Hume explain why people should be motivated to act in accordance with ‘artificial’ virtues even when doing so is contrary to the general interest? (2021)

‘It’s true that reason is the slave of the passions, but it ought not to be.’ Discuss. (2020)

‘Rationality merely requires the efficient satisfaction of whatever it is that we ultimately want.’ Is that so? (2019)

3. KANT on MORAL MOTIVATION

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Many think morality involves, not just doing the right thing, but doing it for the right reasons. Kant is often held to have a particularly austere account of this sort. We look at his account this week, our first of two on Kant.

ESSAY QUESTION

How, in Kant’s view, must an action be motivated in order for it to have “moral worth”? Is he right?

CORE READING

Start by reading the relevant parts of Kant’s Groundwork:

Then tackle both of the following classics of the contemporary literature on the topic:

By way of a guide, try any of the following introductory discussions—you needn’t read them all:

FURTHER READING

One piece to prioritise in thinking more about Kant and moral motivation is Baron (1995), defending Kant from the objection that he places too much value on acting from duty, though warning against thinking of him as exclusively concerned with what he calls the moral worth of an action. Baron insists that he’s in fact more interested in character and virtue. Other pieces to prioritise include Markovits (2010), who takes a similar line to Arpaly in the CORE READING and argues that what matters for the moral worth of an action is that the agent act for the reasons that make the act is right—the reasons why it is right—rather than for the reason that it is right, and Sliwa (2016), who responds in defence of the view that moral motivation requires both a concern for doing what is right and knowledge that the action is right. For extended discussion of the issues, see also Stratton-Lake (2000). The background worry is that orthodox approaches in ethics, such as Kant’s, are overly austere, allowing little room for personal relationships and ordinary human motivations. For an influential discussion of Kant’s ethics, in particular, see Williams (1976), raising the objection that Kant’s account of moral motivation involves “one thought too many”. See also Langton (1992), connecting with issues we’ll come to with the topic, EGOISM: WHY BE MORAL?, and focusing on issues arising out of the correspondence between Kant and Maria von Herbert, who had written to Kant in a state of deep depression, seeking his advice. Less focused on Kant but also relevant are various of the papers reprinted in Crisp and Slote, eds. (1997). See especially Michael Stocker’s ‘The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories’ and Susan Wolf’s ‘Moral Saints’—the latter is also reprinted in Cahn and Markie, Shafer-Landau, and Sher. See also Foot’s ‘Virtues and Vices,’ offering a VIRTUE ETHICS perspective on issues of moral worth. For more on how this week’s topic connects with Kant’s wider aims in the Groundwork and later weeks’ topics, Korsgaard (1989) is very useful, as is Kerstein’s piece in Hill. Lastly, Rawls’ lectures on Kant, published in his (2000) are invaluable. The resurgence of interest in Kant’s ethics in the 70s and 80s was largely due to the influence of Rawls and his students, Barbara Herman, Christine Korsgaard, and Onora O’Neill, and his lectures are very helpful, both as a guide to Groundwork and in gaining a better understanding of Rawls’ influence on contemporary ethics. For this week’s topic, it is the first lecture on Kant that is the one that is most relevant.

PAST PAPER QUESTIONS

EITHER
(a) Can objections to Kant’s account of moral worth be addressed adequately by distinguishing between ways in which a person might be motivated by duty?
OR
(b) ‘How could exercising the freedom to choose…represent the renunciation of freedom? It could if this were analogous to the free choice of slavery. But how similar would [a] villain’s choice be to the choice of slavery?’ (DAVID WIGGINS) Do Kantians have a good response to these questions? (2022)

‘In the end, Kant’s ethics gives obligation to our loved ones only derivative value at best.’ How significant an objection to Kant’s ethics is this? (2021)

How should we account for special obligations to loved ones? (2018)

Is there a moral duty to do as one’s conscience dictates? (2017)

4. THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE

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ESSAY QUESTION

Could either of Kant’s universal law formulations of the Categorical Imperative serve as the supreme principle of morality? Would it be a decisive objection to Kant’s moral philosophy if they could not?

CORE READING

Start by reading the relevant parts of Kant’s Groundwork:

Then tackle both of the following classics of the contemporary literature on the topic:

By way of a guide, try any of the following introductory discussions—you needn’t read them all:

FURTHER READING

In thinking about this topic in more depth, focus first on the formulas of universal law (FUL) and universal law of nature (FLN). Influenced by Rawls and O’Neill—see lecture II on Kant in Rawls (2000), listed as FURTHER READING for KANT on MORAL MOTIVATION, and O’Neill (2013)—many take these to summarise a decision procedure for determining whether or not an action is permissible, the so-called CI procedure, which involves identifying the maxim of an action, “universalizing” it, and testing to see whether the result gives rise to either a contradiction in conception or a contradiction in the will. So understood, the central question is whether there is any interpretation of the CI procedure that avoids counter-examples—either false positives (intuitively immoral maxims that pass the tests) or false negatives (intuitively permissible maxims that fail). In thinking about the issue, work through the fairly exhaustive (and somewhat exhausting) catalogue of interpretations and counter-examples in Ch. 12 of Parfit (2011a), listed as FURTHER READING for CONSEQUENTIALISM and ITS CRITICS. Other good pieces on the issues include: Wiggins (1987); Ch. 5 of O’Neill (1989); Nyholm (2015) and Kleingeld (2019), responding to Parfit; and Ch. 7 of Herman (1993), listed in the CORE READING for KANT on MORAL MOTIVATION. The essay question focuses on the FUL and FLN, but think also about Kant’s other formulations of the CI. Past papers often include questions relating to the formula of humanity (FH), which enjoins us to use humanity in ourselves and others always as an end in itself and never merely as a means. Is there any way of understanding the distinction here between using humanity as an end in itself and never merely as a means so that it has moral significance? Parfit (2011a) is again very useful, criticising a range of different interpretations of the FH in Ch. 9. See also: Ch. 2 of Hill (1992); Ch. 6 of O’Neill (1989) and Ch. 4 of Korsgaard (1996), defending a possible consent approach; Pallikkathayil (2010), criticising the possible consent approach and connecting the FH to Kant’s political philosophy; lecture III on Kant in Rawls (2000); Scanlon (2008); and Ch. 4 of Wood (1999), arguing that the FH only yields conclusions about duties on the basis of intermediate premises and a faculty of judgement irreducible to general rules—part of his campaign against treating Kant’s ethics as a kind of “ethical sausage machine”. Kerstein (2019) is a good survey of the issues, as is Dean’s contribution to Hill. Lastly, have a think about the formulas of autonomy (FA) and the kingdom or realm of ends (FRE). You’ll find relevant discussion of these in Ch. 3 of Hill (1992), Ch. 5 of Korsgaard (1996), Ch. 7 of O’Neill (1989), lecture IV on Kant in Rawls (2000), and Ch. 5 of Wood (1999)—while Holtmann’s contribution to Hill provides an accessible overview.

PAST PAPER QUESTIONS

Is there a way to interpret the principle that one ought never to treat anyone as a mere means that gives it non-derivative moral force and has intuitively compelling implications? (2021)

EITHER
(a) ‘If lying to a bank employee in order to secure a loan which I cannot pay back cannot serve as a law of nature, lying to my captor in order to secure my freedom from imprisonment also cannot. Yet while the former is impermissible, the latter is permissible. So, whether something can hold as a universal law of nature is neither here nor there when it comes to its deontological status.’ Is this a good argument?
OR
(b) What is the difference between treating someone as a means and treating them as a mere means? Does that difference matter, morally speaking? (2020)

What does it mean to treat humanity always as an end in itself and never as a mere means? Is this a plausible moral requirement? (2019)

Is there any important relation between being able to will one’s maxim as a universal law and treating humanity as an end in itself? (2018)

5. EGOISM: WHY BE MORAL?

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So far, we’ve focused mainly on the content of morality. This week, we look at its normative status—an issue Kant takes up in the third section of the Groundwork—and the threat to it posed by various forms of egoism.

ESSAY QUESTION

How do psychological and rational egoism challenge morality? How, if at all, are these challenges to be met?

CORE READING

Start by reading the following classics on the topic:

By way of a guide, try any of the following introductory discussions—you needn’t read them all:

FURTHER READING

The problem posed by rational egoism goes back at least as far as c. 380 B.C.E., and Plato’s Republic. At first pass, the worry is that, if rational egoism is true, and one only ever has reason to pursue one’s self-interest, then one doesn’t have reason to be moral unless it advances one’s self-interest. Some respond by arguing that morality does advance one’s self-interest, i.e. by arguing for some form of ethical egoism. For one strategy here, see Ch. 13 to 15 of Hobbes’ Leviathan (1651). For another—Plato’s own strategy in the Republic—see discussions of perfectionism in connection with WELL-BEING. But it’s not clear that any form of ethical egoism fully addresses the problem. As Prichard (1912) emphasises, if rational egoism is true, one’s reason for being moral can only be that it is in one’s self-interest, and so doesn’t seem to be of the right sort—one cannot do the right thing for the right reasons. It may be that the better option is therefore to reject rational egoism altogether. There are various strategies here. One, associated particularly with proponents of Humean conceptions of practical rationality, rejects rational egoism for an alternative account on which some of us, some of the time, have reason to be moral, even when it goes against our self-interest—though others conceivably might not. The piece by Williams in the CORE READING is a classic example. See also, in this connection, Foot (1972), listed above as FURTHER READING for HUME’S ETHICS. Others take a harder line, and try to show that all of us, all of the time, have reason to be moral—i.e. to provide a vindication of morality. (The likes of Raz (1999), who thinks that there is something suspect about the idea of an amoralist, are harder to place.) Hills, in the CORE READING, criticises various attempts to provide an ambitious vindication—i.e. one that would convince even the amoralist—in Ch. 5 and goes on to offer her own modest vindication in Ch. 11. Think about the ambitious vindications she criticises, especially Parfit (1984). You’ll find more discussion of Parfit in the pieces by Brink and Johnston in Dancy, ed. (1997). Rounding off your work on Kant, you might also want to think about his attempt at ambitious vindication. See section III of the Groundwork as well as the discussion in Part IV of Allison (2011) and Ch. 6 of Korsgaard (1996), both listed in the CORE READING for THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE. For a recent attempt at ambitious vindication, see de Lazari-Radek and Singer (2014). Think also about Hills’ own modest vindication, which is usefully contrasted with Prichard (1912). Psychological egoism also poses problems. Insofar as ought implies can, it appears to imply rational egoism, or something much like it. But it also seems to imply, more directly, that, even where one can do the right thing, one cannot do it for the right reasons. In thinking about it more, see, in addition to Blackburn’s piece in the CORE READING, Sober’s contribution to LaFollette and Persson and Stich, Doris, and Roedder (2010). Also take a look at the early modern debate, especially Butler’s argument against psychological egoism in Sermon XI of his (1726) Fifteen Sermons at the Rolls Chapel, and Hume’s very similar treatment of the issues in Appendix 2 of his Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, listed as Hume (1751/77) in the FURTHER READING for HUME’S ETHICS. For an important later discussion, key background to many contemporary formulations of the problems hereabouts, see Sidgwick (1907), who hoped to show that rational egoism and utilitarianism can be reconciled, but couldn’t see how without appeal to God. For discussions of a range of relevant issues, contemporary and historical, see also Bloomfield, ed. (2007).

PAST PAPER QUESTIONS

‘Far from being able to assess the relative value of options for an agent by their possible contribution to his well-being, we cannot judge their contribution to his well-being except by reference to their value.’ (JOSEPH RAZ) Is this the basis of a successful response to the amoralist? (2022)

EITHER
(a) ‘There is no essential conflict between morality and self-interest because a good life is one that involves attention to the interests of others.’ Discuss.
OR
(b) ‘A person’s virtues are called good with respect to their presumed effects not on him but on us and society—the praise of virtues has always been far from “selfless”, far from “unegoistic”! […] The neighbour praises selflessness because it brings him advantages! […] Hereby we hint at the fundamental contradiction in the morality that is very much honoured just now: the motives to this morality stand in opposition to its principle!’ (NIETZSCHE) Discuss. (2021)

‘The answer to the question “Why be prudent?” is neither more nor less clear than the answer to the question “Why be moral?”’ Is that true? What does your answer imply, if anything, about the plausibility of egoism as opposed to moralism? (2020)

‘The egoist believes that whether some future person will be me is crucial to whether I should care about that person’s well-being. But personal identity is not so important as all that.’ Discuss. (2019)

6. CONTRACTUALISM

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This week, building on what we’ve learnt so far, we return to contemporary normative ethics, and take a look at one of the most interesting developments in nonconsequentialist thought, T. M. Scanlon’s contractualism.

ESSAY QUESTION

Does Scanlon’s contractualism provide a compelling account of moral wrongness?

CORE READING

Start by reading the following classics on the topic:

By way of a guide, try any of the following introductory discussions—you needn’t read them all:

FURTHER READING

Scanlon first presented his contractualism in a (1982) paper, written whilst visiting Oxford. He continued a long and fruitful debate with Parfit, who was sympathetic to the position but argued we’d do better to drop aspects of Scanlon’s version of it. See, in addition to Parfit (2003), Scanlon’s reply in the same issue of Ratio, which is a special issue devoted to What We Owe To Each Other. See also Ch. 15 and 17 of Parfit (2011a), listed above as FURTHER READING for CONSEQUENTIALISM and ITS CRITICS, in which he defends a variant form of contractualism (which he thinks coincides with both a kind of consequentialism and a kind of Kantianism). Then see Scanlon’s reply to the arguments of Parfit (2011a), ‘How I Am Not a Kantian,’ in Parfit (2011b), as well as Parfit’s own Ch. 21, 22, and 23. The latest instalments of the debate are in Stepanians and Frauchiger, eds. (2021), which includes Scanlon’s latest formulation of his views, ‘Contractualism and Justification,’ a critical paper by Parfit—sadly his last on the topic, delivered a few months before he died—and a reply from Scanlon. One of the main issues concerns the place of aggregation in contractualism. Recent work often focuses on the problems posed by cases involving risk. See Frick (2015), defending an ex ante solution. A related issue concerns demandingness. See Ashford (2003) and, for a reply that discusses contractualism’s implications for non-human animals, Hills (2010). For work on contractualism and deontology, see Kamm (2007). For more on the contractualist account of why we should be moral, see Scanlon (2008), esp. Ch. 4, listed in the FURTHER READING for THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE. Also relevant here is Lenman (2006). Lastly, for discussion of so-called redundancy objections, see Southwood (2010).

PAST PAPER QUESTIONS

‘When I reflect on the reason that the wrongness of an action seems to supply not to do it, the best description of this reason I can come up with has to do with the relation to others that such acts would put me in: the sense that others could reasonably object to what I do.’ (T. M. SCANLON) How powerful an argument for contractualism is this? (2022)

Are the objections to ‘common-sense’ moral principles that can be made by those in dire straits stronger than the objections to more demanding alternative principles that can be made by the better off? Discuss the implications of your answer for contractualism. (2021)

‘Contractualists tie the wrongness of an action to whether all principles for the general regulation of behavior which permit it can be reasonably rejected. However, whatever explains why those principles can be reasonably rejected can on its own explain why the action is wrong. So, contractualists should drop the talk about reasonable rejection and just talk about what makes actions right or wrong.’ Do you agree? (2020)

Does contractualism imply that we have no obligations to beings who do not understand what it means to enter into a contract? What does your answer imply about the plausibility of contractualism? (2019)

7. VIRTUE ETHICS

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Concluding our look at contemporary normative ethics, we look at virtue ethics, which emerged out of twentieth century criticism of consequentialism and deontology, and promises an alternative to both.

ESSAY QUESTION

Are virtue ethicists right to make virtue fundamental in ethical theory?

CORE READING

Start by reading the following classics on the topic:

By way of a guide, try any of the following introductory discussions—you needn’t read them all:

FURTHER READING

If you are planning on working on virtue ethics in more depth, Crisp and Slote is invaluable, collecting together various influential classics. Besides the Anscombe, see especially McIntyre’s ‘The Nature of the Virtues’, McDowell’s ‘Virtue and Reason’, and Foot’s ‘Virtues and Vices’, though Williams’ ‘Morality, the Peculiar Institution’, Stocker’s ‘The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories’, Wolf’s ‘Moral Saints’ (also reprinted in Cahn and Markie, Shafer-Landau, and Sher), and Murdoch’s ‘The Sovereignty of the Good over Other Concepts’ are also influential classics from the 70s and early 80s, and very much worth reading. Much of this early work is broadly Aristotelian in outlook—Murdoch’s more Platonic approach is a rare exception—and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics is essential reading, regardless of whether you plan on working on the topic in any depth, really. (Relevant extracts are reprinted in Cahn and Markie, Shafer-Landau, and Sher.) More recent work has developed alternative ways of thinking about virtue ethics. See, for example, the agent-based approach—influenced by Hume and other early modern sentimentalists—of Slote in his piece, ‘Agent-Based Virtue Ethics,’ in Crisp and Slote (and reprinted in Shafer-Landau,) and the pluralistic, target-centred approach presented in Swanton (2003). Many early virtue ethicists attacked the idea that moral deliberation could be understood in terms of a codifiable decision procedure—a theme that is especially prominent in McDowell and Williams, but which gave rise to the objection that virtue ethics is not action-guiding. Relatedly, it is objected that virtue ethics does not provide an adequate account of right action, failing either to correctly identify which acts are right in the first place, or to provide an adequate explanation of what makes them right. (Also related is the objection that virtue ethics entails a problematic MORAL RELATIVISM.) See Johnson (2003) and, for a reply, see Annas (2004). See also Brewer (2009), insisting such objections rest on an assumption about right, wrong, and obligation that the original virtue ethicists—especially Anscombe—were concerned to reject. Other objections to think about include the worry that virtue ethics is problematically self-effacing—see Keller (2007)—or egoistic—see Annas’s paper, ‘Virtue Ethics and the Charge of Egoism,’ in Bloomfield, ed. (2007), listed in the FURTHER READING for EGOISM: WHY BE MORAL?. For some discussion of the paradox of deontology relating to the latter worry, see LeBar (2009). Think also about the justification problem, how to justify claims about which traits are virtues, and the sceptical threat posed by results in social psychology suggesting there is no such thing as character traits—the so-called situationist critique. The latter objection is pressed by Harman (1999), among others. For a reply, try Kamtekar (2004).

PAST PAPER QUESTIONS

Must virtue ethics be objectionably self-effacing? (2022)

‘Virtue ethics is an attractive account of the value of acting virtuously, but it has nothing distinctive to say about moral obligation in particular.’ Discuss. (2021)

EITHER
(a) ‘Since virtues can conflict in difficult situations, virtue ethics cannot guide us in those circumstances in which we most need moral theory.’ Is that right? Does it tell against virtue ethics as a moral theory?
OR
(b) ‘It is virtuous to tell someone the truth because they deserve it; it is not that they deserve it because it is virtuous to tell them the truth.’ If that is true, would it be a problem for virtue ethics? (2020)

Are virtue ethicists committed to the view that those who find it easier to be good are more praiseworthy for being good? What does your answer imply about the plausibility of virtue ethics? (2019)

8. MORAL REALISM: PROBLEMS^†

TOP

We finish with an introduction to metaethics, looking at some classic problems for moral realism, the view (roughly) that first-order moral claims are truth-apt, i.e. aim to state facts, and, in some cases, succeed.

ESSAY QUESTION

What are the main arguments against moral realism? Are any of them compelling?

CORE READING

Focus on these classics of twentieth century metaethics:

By way of a guide, try any of the following introductory discussions—you needn’t read them all:

FURTHER READING

Other introductory discussions of this week’s issues include Smith’s contribution to LaFollette and Persson and Sayre-McCord’s to Copp. Frankena (1939) and Darwall, Gibbard, and Railton (1992) are two classics on the open question argument, and must reads. Other, more recent discussions include Rosati (1995) and Kalderon (2004). For more on intuitionism, see Tropman (2009) and the papers in Stratton-Lake, ed. (2003).

Note that this week’s topic is best studied in conjunction with others in metaethics. See ERROR THEORY and FICTIONALISM for more on views like Mackie’s, and NONCOGNITIVISM for more on views like Ayer’s. For more on the sort of realism attacked by Moore and Harman, see NATURALISM. For more on the sort of realism defended by Moore, and attacked by Mackie and Ayer, see NONNATURALISM—a view that has come back into fashion lately. Lastly, for Harman’s positive views in metaethics, see MORAL RELATIVISM.

PAST PAPER QUESTIONS

‘Moral properties are just a highly unusual kind of natural property.’ Do you agree? (2022)

‘If it is a fact that a certain action would be good, a fact that you might or might not apply in deliberation, then it seems to be an open question whether you should apply it. So moral realism does not correctly capture the relation between the deliberative process and the normative standards to which action is subject.’ Is this argument against moral realism any good? (2021)

‘If we deny realism about moral facts, we must by parity of reasoning deny it about mathematical and epistemological facts. That would be unacceptable. So, we should not deny realism about moral facts.’ Is this a good argument? (2020)

EITHER
(a) Does moral realism predict that there should be more agreement about ethics than there is? What does your answer imply about the plausibility of moral realism?
OR
(b) ‘Morality is a useful fiction.’ Do you agree? (2019)

OTHER TOPICS: METAETHICS

1. ERROR THEORY and FICTIONALISM

TOP

ESSAY QUESTION

Should we be error theorists about morality? If so, should we also be abolitionists about morality?

CORE READING

If you haven’t already, read the following classic exposition and defence of error theory:

If you have already read the Mackie, take a look at the following, long-unpublished classic:

Then read the following, more recent discussions of the issues:

By way of a guide, try any of the following introductory discussions—you needn’t read them all:

FURTHER READING

Coming soon.

PAST PAPER QUESTIONS

‘There are no objective moral values, but we should nevertheless pretend that they exist.’ Do you agree? (2022)

Can evolutionary debunking arguments in ethics be answered by appealing to evolutionary pressures that favour the capacity to make accurate moral judgments? (2021)

Do facts about evolution matter for an account of the nature of moral facts? (2020)

EITHER
(a) Does moral realism predict that there should be more agreement about ethics than there is? What does your answer imply about the plausibility of moral realism?
OR
(b) ‘Morality is a useful fiction.’ Do you agree? (2019)

2. NON-COGNITIVISM and QUASI-REALISM

TOP

ESSAY QUESTION

What is the Frege-Geach problem for noncognitivism? How, if at all, should it be solved?

CORE READING

Read the following contemporary classics on noncognitivism:

If you have the time, reading the following as well:

By way of a guide, try any of the following introductory discussions—you needn’t read them all:

FURTHER READING

Coming soon.

PAST PAPER QUESTIONS

‘Arguments for non-cognitivism rely on a distinction between beliefs and non-cognitive attitudes, which any satisfactory solution to the Frege-Geach problem will undermine.’ Is this a decisive objection to non-cognitivism? (2022)

EITHER
(a) Compare ‘Hirst has produced some bad art’ with ‘Hirst has done some bad things’. Can the non-cognitivist plausibly account for the fact that these express different kinds of normative judgment?
OR
(b) Should we analyse moral sentences on the model of pejoratives, as essentially involving both beliefs and non-cognitive attitudes? (2021)

Can a non-cognitivist think that she herself might be wrong about her most basic values? (2020)

Has the non-cognitivist anything plausible to say about what mental state is expressed by utterances of ‘If lying is wrong, then liars will be punished’? (2019)

3. NATURALISM

TOP

ESSAY QUESTION

Is any form of moral naturalism defensible?

CORE READING

Start with the following classic readings on the topic:

By way of a guide, try any of the following introductory discussions—you needn’t read them all:

FURTHER READING

Coming soon.

PAST PAPER QUESTIONS

‘Moral properties are just a highly unusual kind of natural property.’ Do you agree? (2022)

‘If it is a fact that a certain action would be good, a fact that you might or might not apply in deliberation, then it seems to be an open question whether you should apply it. So moral realism does not correctly capture the relation between the deliberative process and the normative standards to which action is subject.’ Is this argument against moral realism any good? (2021)

‘If we deny realism about moral facts, we must by parity of reasoning deny it about mathematical and epistemological facts. That would be unacceptable. So, we should not deny realism about moral facts.’ Is this a good argument? (2020)

EITHER
(a) Does moral realism predict that there should be more agreement about ethics than there is? What does your answer imply about the plausibility of moral realism?
OR
(b) ‘Morality is a useful fiction.’ Do you agree? (2019)

4. NONNATURALISM

TOP

ESSAY QUESTION

Is there any compelling argument for moral nonnaturalism? How, if at all, can moral nonnaturalists explain the supervenience of moral properties on natural properties?

CORE READING

Start with the following classic readings on the topic:

By way of a guide, try any of the following introductory discussions—you needn’t read them all:

FURTHER READING

Coming soon.

PAST PAPER QUESTIONS

‘Moral properties are just a highly unusual kind of natural property.’ Do you agree? (2022)

‘If it is a fact that a certain action would be good, a fact that you might or might not apply in deliberation, then it seems to be an open question whether you should apply it. So moral realism does not correctly capture the relation between the deliberative process and the normative standards to which action is subject.’ Is this argument against moral realism any good? (2021)

‘If we deny realism about moral facts, we must by parity of reasoning deny it about mathematical and epistemological facts. That would be unacceptable. So, we should not deny realism about moral facts.’ Is this a good argument? (2020)

EITHER
(a) Does moral realism predict that there should be more agreement about ethics than there is? What does your answer imply about the plausibility of moral realism?
OR
(b) ‘Morality is a useful fiction.’ Do you agree? (2019)

5. MORAL RELATIVISM

TOP

ESSAY QUESTION

CORE READING

Start with the following classic readings on the topic:

By way of a guide, try any of the following introductory discussions—you needn’t read them all:

FURTHER READING

Coming soon.

PAST PAPER QUESTIONS

Is moral relativism a good explanation of the existence of widespread moral disagreement? (2022)

Can a moral relativist give a compelling account of cross-cultural moral criticism? (2021)

EITHER
(a) If morality is relative to something, what is it relative to?
OR
(b) ‘If we’re cognitivists about ethics, we’ll have to be either realists or relativists.’ Do you agree? (2020)

What is the best objection to meta-ethical relativism? Does it succeed? (2019)

OTHER TOPICS: REASONS and MOTIVES

1. PRACTICAL REASONING

TOP

Coming soon.

PAST PAPER QUESTIONS

Can internalism about practical reasons makes sense of the critical dimension of claims about what reasons an agent has? (2022)

‘If there are only internal reasons for action, then there is no external reason to want to know all the salient non-moral facts. But in that case, in failing to take account of one of those facts in practical deliberation one needn’t be making a mistake.’ Is this a good objection to internalism about normative reasons for action? (2021)

EITHER
(a) ‘As experience can reveal reasons to believe something for which I previously had absolutely no evidence, so it can reveal reasons to do something which I previously was utterly unmotivated to do.’ Is that true? If not, why not? If so, what does it imply about the internalism/externalism debate about reasons?
OR
(b) If an act is morally obligatory, does it follow that it would be irrational not to perform it? (2020)

EITHER
(a) Is motivational externalism committed to viewing good and strong-willed people as in the grip of moral fetishism? OR
(b) Could moral beliefs be intrinsically motivating? (2019)

2. MOTIVATIONAL INTERNALISM

TOP

Coming soon.

PAST PAPER QUESTIONS

EITHER
(a) Is motivational externalism committed to viewing good and strong-willed people as in the grip of moral fetishism?
OR
(b) Could moral beliefs be intrinsically motivating? (2019)

‘It’s a happy accident that, if I come to believe that some act is wrong, a corresponding desire not to do that act invariably follows. And most people are like me in this respect.’ Is this an adequate account of moral motivation? (2017)

‘Evil, be thou my good’. Can motivational internalism make sense of this? (2016)

Is a desire to do the right thing, simply because it is right, fetishistic in any objectionable sense? (2015)

OTHER TOPICS: NORMATIVE ETHICS

1. WELL-BEING^†

TOP

Coming soon.

PAST PAPER QUESTIONS

‘Hedonism is merely an arbitrarily short version of the objective list theory of wellbeing, and moreover one that can’t avail itself of a perfectionist rationale.’ Is this a compelling reason to favour the objective list theory over hedonism? (2022)

‘As a theory of which things make a person’s life go well, the objective list account is attractive. But, unlike its competitors, this account does not adequately explain what makes them good.’ Assess. (2021)

Does wanting something suffice to make it good for you to get it? (2020)

Does welfare consist in desire satisfaction? (2019)

2. EQUALITY

TOP

ESSAY QUESTION

Coming soon.

PAST PAPER QUESTIONS

Do egalitarians have any compelling answer to the Levelling Down Objection? (2022)

‘Unlike prioritarianism and sufficientarianism, egalitarianism can explain what’s bad about inequality.’ Is this a powerful argument for egalitarianism? (2021)

‘The important thing is not whether I have as much of some good as you but whether I have enough of it. Hence, equality is not in itself significant.’ Discuss. (2020)

‘Just as resources have diminishing marginal utility, so utility has diminishing marginal moral importance.’ (DEREK PARFIT) Does it? (2019)

3. RIGHTS^†

TOP

Coming soon.

PAST PAPER QUESTIONS

Is it possible to wrong someone without violating any of their moral rights? (2022)

In what way are the duties imposed by rights distinctive? (2021)

Can there be a right to do wrong? (2020)

‘There is no need to postulate rights in addition to obligations.’ Is that correct? (2019)

OTHER TOPICS: MORAL PSYCHOLOGY

1. FREE WILL and MORAL RESPONSIBILITY^†

TOP

Coming soon.

PAST PAPER QUESTIONS

‘Incompatibilists are fundamentally concerned about the fairness of holding people responsible, but the fairness of holding someone responsible has nothing to do with whether they were free in any strong sense.’ Is this a good argument for compatibilism? (2022)

‘We hold parents responsible for the behaviour of their children and leaders responsible for the behaviour of their followers. So we have no problem in principle with holding people responsible for what they do not control. Determinism is therefore no threat to the possibility of moral responsibility.’ Is this argument sound? (2021)

‘What matters for determining moral responsibility is why she did what she did, not whether she could have done something else.’ Is that right? (2020)

‘If a neuroscientist implanted electrodes in my brain and thereby induced in me attitudes that deterministically led me to wholeheartedly perform a certain crime, then she, and not I, would be morally responsible for the crime.’ Do you agree? What does your answer imply about the plausibility of compatibilism? (2019)

2. CONSCIENCE, GUILT, and SHAME

TOP

Coming soon.

PAST PAPER QUESTIONS

What, if anything, is wrong with being shameless? (2022)

Is guilt merely a subspecies of shame? (2021)

‘I’ll feel guilty whatever I do.’ Assume that there are situations where this can be true: does it follow that guilt is irrelevant to morality? (2020)

Is there any truth in Nietzsche’s suggestion that bad conscience is ‘cruelty turned back on itself’? (2018)

OTHER TOPICS: APPLIED ETHICS

1. DOING and INTENDING HARM

TOP

Coming soon.

PAST PAPER QUESTIONS

‘If the Doctrine of Double Effect were true, I could make a terror bombing permissible just by finding someone nice to do it for me.’ How compelling an objection to the Doctrine of Double Effect is this? (2022)

EITHER
(a) Can the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing be plausibly justified as a protection against morality’s problematically imposing upon agents?
OR
(b) Can the Trolley Problem be solved? (2018; SECTION B)

EITHER
(a) Is it ever permissible to kill an innocent bystander in self-defence?
OR
(b) Is it ever the case that an agent intends a harm if she views that harm as at best a regrettable necessity? What are the ethical implications of your answer? (2017)

‘The distinction between intended and foreseen but unintended consequences is real enough, but it cannot bear any moral weight.’ Discuss. (2012)

2. NON-HUMAN ANIMALS

TOP

Coming soon.

PAST PAPER QUESTIONS

Do animal rights stand in the way of our re-introducing predator species to ecosystems from which they have vanished in recent centuries? (2022)

‘The charge of speciesism depends for its power on a prior assumption of moral equality based on the capacity for suffering. But that capacity gets its distinctively moral significance from within an outlook that is essentially concerned with the attitudes humans bear to each other, and so cannot furnish the needed basis.’ Is this a compelling argument? (2021)

If you cannot save both, ought you to save a healthy adult pig loved by all or a healthy infant human being for whom no one feels any affection? (2020)

‘If animal suffering mattered in the way that animal rights theorists believe it does, then we would be obligated to alleviate wild animal suffering.’ Discuss. (2019)

• Home

Reading Lists

• Early Modern Philosophy
• Knowledge and Reality
• Ethics
• Mind
• Logic and Language
• Mathematics
• Cognitive Science
• Philosophical Logic

Lectures

• Frege and Tarski, HT 2018
• Philosophy of Logic, HT 2017
• General Philosophy, HT 2016