Rational Way to Approach Morality - Case Study Example

Moral Philosophy Morality is a difficult concept to even define. At its heart, it is an attempt to determine the correct way to act. Of course, the difficulty in this is that we must deal with the idea that people due not agree upon what constitutes moral and immoral actions. From here the main problem is to discern if and how we are able to decide upon moral and immoral actions. There are many different approaches that various philosophers have taken. In considering moral philosophy, the philosophers Gauthier and Narveson have stated that the Contractarian outlook on morality is the only rational basis for morality. I personally feel that the Contractarian outlook supplies us with a strong basis for morality, though I would not go so far as to say that it is the only rational way to approach morality. While we might not be able to determine an empirical morality, what we can do is to accept a system of morality and act upon it. The Contractarian outlook on morality has its basis in the idea of the social contract, though as the conceptions of the social contract has changed so has the concept of the Contractarian. According to Gauthier, we need to show that whatever system of morality upon which we choose is better than not having any system of morality in place at all. As far as proving empirically if this system is absolutely correct is not the issue being considered. All that needs to be done is to have a consensus agreement upon the system in place. People are obviously able to make changes to these systems if they are inadequate, considering the changes made to systems in civil rights movements. We must not choose actions which are simply advantageous for ourselves, because if we choose to act in ways that are only advantageous to ourselves, then everyone will act in such a way, and in the long run acting advantageous for only for ourselves is not advantageous four ourselves. Everyone else acting in a way that is advantageous for themselves counteracts whatever advantage would have been initially obtained. Also, we must not act in a way that is advantageous to everyone because we are expecting something in return from other people. This is acting in such a way as to still be acting in one’s own advantage. Gauthier states that trustworthiness is the ideal quality for people under a Contractarian outlook of morality. It is not advantageous for us to take into consideration whether or not other people will be trustworthy. If people act in an untrustworthy manner to us, we must still decide to be trustworthy. Only by choosing to act in this manner will we be able to fully receive all of the advantages that the Contractarian outlook can bring. Contractarian morality takes on an aspect de facto morality, or morality as it is. De jure morality, which is morality as it should be, once again does not figure into the Contractarian outlook. We are not attempting discern if there is one absolute way to behave morally in a given situation. Attempting to discern the absolutely correct morality only will cause people to argue over what is actually ideal, and as such only causes more problems. The system cannot be devised only through ratiocination, but it must be enacted, and once it has been enacted, a decision must be made in regards to its effectiveness. Morality, in this view, becomes a perpetual work in progress. It slowly changes over time to attempt to reflect what the population which is following the contract views as the most advantageous system. Whether or not morality is rational is not the appropriate way to approach the subject. It involves both empiricism and rationality, as does most anything. We cannot come to the most advantageous system through one or the other, but we also must realize that we are unable to find the most ideal system; it is always changing as the definition of morality changes throughout the ages. In ancient Greece, older men slept with young boys, but this wasn’t considered immoral. Greece, which helped define ideas which would eventually turn into the social contract, had a social contract in which our modern society would find to be absolutely immoral. We cannot, however, simply state that their social contract was immoral; we must state that this was the system that they found to be most advantageous for themselves at the time, and in our modern society we have changed our view on this particular aspect of the social contract. What is rational about morality though is that we are choosing to follow a system which will be beneficial to us. We can be rational by following the system without having to worry about if the system itself is completely rational. If people follow the contract and it works in such a way as to be advantageous for people, then we do not need to worry about the rationality of the actual contract. If there are problems with the contract or if opinions about morality change, then the contract can simply be modified through legal means. This is the most rational way to deal with morality itself, because we cannot solely use ratiocination to determine morality. Let us consider the argument that the Contractarian outlook on morality is insufficient because of semantic reasons. The term “social contract” was perhaps not the most fitting to describe the concept. Contracts are to be entered into willingly and knowingly; a breach in a contract is such an issue because both parties to the contract agreed to it directly and knew exactly what behavior to exhibit in accordance with the contract. The social contract is not something that people have ever sat down to, signed their names, and left expecting certain behavior out of people. According to some, this leaves the Contractarian outlook unable to explain any sort of morality. A person never has the opportunity to be able to decide to not sign the social contract, though let us consider what it would mean to not sign the social contract, or if people were able to choose to sign the social contract or not. The social contract would basically be completely useless if people were able to choose to not submit to it. What would it mean for a person to declare that they were no longer under the obligations of the social contract. It would mean, of course, that any person could do whatever they wanted to the person no longer under the contract. Let us ask ourselves what sort of sane person would actually do this. While it is true that we have not explicitly signed the social contract, I don’t feel as though this completely voids the idea. If a person decides to be concerned with the social contract, then this person can go live as a hermit in the wilderness. Though we might not have agreed to the contract before we were told to follow it, this simply means that we have agreed to follow the contract in hindsight. We can’t simply discount the entire idea of the social contract because of a semantic opposition to the term contract. It does not mean any less that we have any less reason to follow it. By choosing to stay within society, and by choosing to not break the contract, we are agreeing to the contract, and agreeing to the contract that is already in place is not any less binding than agreeing to a contract before it is enacted. In the end the contract is kept intact, and people who choose to stay within the confines of society are retroactively agreeing to the contract. Hume questions the idea that the social contract is valid because governments tend to in origins be brought about through violence: “The face of the earth is continually changing, by the increase of small kingdoms into great empires…Is there anything discoverable in all these events, but for force and violence?” (768). However, it is less important to consider a contract’s origins than what it accomplishes. According to Hume, it is necessary for a country to instate it’s contract through consent, and because countries tend to have violent histories, consent would not have been given. This is not important, though, because the social contract is not something that people actively agree to; it is already in place. As such, what we need to keep in mind is that, while the term “contract” might be less than ideal, we cannot discount its efficiency for its origins. If the contract is effective and advantageous, then it matters less how it was formulated. Freedom is generally held up in the highest esteem in our language. There are few words which, simply from a semantic viewpoint, holds as much sway. However, there is another word which, though it does not contain quite as much esteem, is perhaps a more important word, and that is rights. We do not have absolute freedom, because absolute freedom would entail anyone doing whatever they wanted to other people. Even without a government to enforce laws, we would not want to feel as though people had the freedom to do anything at all to other people. Governments are not the reason that we have the social contract; they are simply there to enforce them. Whether or not they do so is not the point. Basically, we can consider ourselves to be sacrificing certain freedoms in return for rights, such as the right to not be harmed by others. Saying that we have the freedom not to be harmed does not semantically make sense; we say that we have the right to not be harmed. While some arguments against what would generally be referred to as social, which in part is what Rawls advocates, state that we it seems to be taking away some of our freedom to seek our own ends if we are forced to pay into a system in order to ensure that disadvantaged people do not go hungry or have to live on the streets, that might be true to an extent. People who are in an advantaged situation might not understand what it is like to be in danger of going without food or shelter. Since this is not something that they have to worry about, they value their own freedoms over the rights of other people. But there is no reason why in the type of civilization that we purport to have why people should have to go without basic necessities. Just as we have given up a certain amount of freedom in order to ensure that people do not directly harm us through our actions, so too should we give up a certain amount of our freedoms in order to make sure that people do not go without basic necessities. This is not saying that all personal assets should be redistributed to the extent that all people have a completely equal share, just that people shouldn’t have to worry about not having basic necessities in the same way that we shouldn’t have to worry about people doing harm to us. Some people, who have never had to worry about having harm done to them, might take this for granted, but that does not mean that these people think that personal freedom should be valued over the right to not be harmed. In the same way we can compare this to the right to not go without basic necessities. Just as people should not devalue the right to not be harmed even if they have not personally had to worry about it, people should not devalue the right to not go without necessities because they have not had to worry about going without necessities. To what extent do we actually sacrifice liberty for equality? In a completely communist state, we are sacrificing most of our liberties for equality, but this is not the sort of system that we are actually talking about in our own country. What we need to consider is that one person being at an advantage does not simply and automatically put another person at disadvantage. We need to consider incentives in this process. A person is less likely to be entirely willing to put the maximum amount of effort that his person can commit to an action if they would be completely unable to make a better situation for themselves. If all the effort that a person were to put into an action would simply better other people, this is less of an incentive for people to put the maximum amount of effort into actions. What we aren’t trying to do is to put a television in every room of every single person’s house. This in the end is the less advantageous situation because it does not provide people with the incentive to put the maximum amount of effort into their actions. If people feel that they can improve their own situation, then people are willing to maximize their efforts. Making sure that people have food and shelter does not mean that people cannot improve their own situation. It is also not advantageous for people to not feel secure in their lives. If they feel as though they are in danger of losing their food and shelter, then they might feel as though turning to actions which break the social contract might be the better alternative. As such, we can still allow for people to attain their maximum work efforts and still ensure that people feel secure enough to not encourage the breaking of the social contract. To maximize the social contract, we must allow for people to maximize their own status will still ensuring the basic necessities for everyone without the same advantage. Morality should concern itself less with the absolute best possible system and concern itself with the most advantageous system. While we do not need to concern ourselves with the absolute rationality of the system, we can rest assured that we are being rational in following the system. there is no need to assume that we are ever needing to sacrifice liberty for equality by ensuring people’s security. But people’s security is necessary to ensure the social contract itself, and as such it is more important for a person to sacrifice the liberty to completely consume themselves in being able to keep every last advantage gained through their actions and to ensure other’s security. In such a way we can maximize the social contract. Works Cited Hume, David, “Of the Original Contract.” Philosophical Problems, eds. Laurence Bonjour and Ann Baker. New York, Pearson Longman, 2005. Rawls, John, “Justice as Fairness.” Philosophical Problems, eds. Laurence Bonjour and Ann Baker. New York, Pearson Longman, 2005. Read More