WJEC/Eduqas RS for A2/Yr2: Religion and Ethics (DRAFT)

T1 Ethical Thought

Key quotes Prichard is not suggesting that nothing can get us to feel an obligation – for example, seeing something or hearing something or learning about something. What he is denying is that any description of such facts, no matter how complete, entails or otherwise implies any particular obligation. (Kaufman) The sense that we ought to do certain things arises in our unreflective consciousness, being an activity of moral thinking occasioned by the various situations in which we find ourselves. (Prichard) Moral reasoning subsumes general reasoning. The danger in this relationship between the two types of reasoning is that general reasoning will not take a subordinate role. Indeed, to focus on the complexity of a moral issue is in itself an appeal to the consequentialist position. However, to be guided by this alone would be tantamount to surrendering moral intuition. Prichard was fearful of the consequential nature of general thinking and pointed out that it is here where the potential for distortion of duty can be found. For example, although he agreed that a moral duty must always mention its explanatory ground; however, in trying to derive the obligation to keep promises from a duty to promote the good, consequentialism could turn the obligation to keep promises into a quite different obligation that promote other values, i.e. discretion, honesty and trust. We have the same problem here as with the open question argument because we can then ask, ‘but is honesty good?’ In effect consequentialism turns the duty to keep promises into something it is not, and thereby distorts the moral phenomena. As Thomas Hurka writes, ‘in trying to explain the duty to keep promises, consequentialism destroys it’. Moral thinking must not work like that because it is intuitive and self-evident. Prichard does acknowledge that whilst issues can appear complex, we must not let general reasoning distort moral phenomena and turn it into consequentialism. Prichard refers to another example from Aristotle to demonstrate how identification of an intuitive ultimate good such as eudaimonia (well-being) can be distorted in a different way when duties are derived from it. For instance, concerning the duty to relieve pain if it is for someone else, is it that doing so will make our own lives better? Or, is it that doing so will make the other person’s life better? If the answer is that it will make our own lives better, by contributing, given the right motives, to our own eudaimonia, we can object that this is not the right explanation. This is because the obvious and right explanation is that relieving another’s pain will make his or her life better, so the duty is fundamentally other- regarding and not directed towards our own well-being. Key quotes Even when consequentialism yields the right verdict about which act is right, he held, it oversimplifies the explanation of the act’s rightness … and in ignoring it consequentialism distorts the moral phenomena. (Hurka) Even when consequentialism yields the right conclusion about how we ought to act, it gives the wrong reason for it … According to Prichard, we ought to pay our debt because we incurred it, and not because (or only because) of any good that will result. (Hurka) Ross also argued that ‘even when consequentialism is right about which acts are right, it is wrong about why they are right. If we think we ought to keep a promise, he insisted, the reason is not that this will have good consequences; it is simply that we promised.’ (Hurka)

Key quote This idea of distorting the moral phenomena was central to Prichard’s argument that moral duty in general is underivative. (Hurka)

DRAFT

Key term Eudaimonia: Aristotle’s term for happiness of well-being

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