We’ve proposed four consistency norms: logicality, ends–means, conscientious- ness, and impartiality. These norms would get very wide (but perhaps not universal) support from thinkers of different perspectives. These thinkers, however, may accept the consistency norms for quite different reasons. To dramatize this, I’ll let my Ima characters explain why they endorse consistency. Ima Relativist: “I accept all four consistency norms as social conventions. These norms are needed for a society to function and so are accepted by practically every society.”
Ima Subjectivist: “I accept the consistency norms because they fit my feelings. I’m an idealistic person and thus am emotionally attracted to being impartial, conscientious, and so forth. And I welcome these norms, since they add a rational structure to my subjectivist view.
“When I’m in my selfish mood, as I sometimes am, I can justify consistency by appealing to self-interest. I note that:
1. Inconsistency leads to confusion and the frustration of our desires. To see this, imagine how miserable our lives would be if whenever we believed (or wanted) something we also believed (or wanted) the opposite thing. We’d go crazy!
2. Inconsistency is inherently painful; psychologists speak here of cognitive dissonance. Perhaps evolution programmed our minds to avoid inconsistencies, as it programmed our bodies to spit out many poisons.
3. Inconsistency brings social penalties. It cuts us off from rational discussion, since it leads people to dismiss our ideas. Society is especially harsh on us when we violate conscientiousness or
impartiality; it trains us to feel guilt, anxiety, and the loss of self- respect in these cases.
For these reasons, self-interest supports consistency.”
Ima Emotivist: “I accept the consistency norms because they accord with my feelings. I agree fully with Ima Subjectivist.”
Ima Idealist: “I support consistency because it’s an important part of being rational. And I’d like to add that an ‘ideal observer’ must be consistent in the ways sketched in this chapter.”
Ima Supernaturalist: “Inconsistency is bad because God is against it. The Bible often condemns inconsistency. For example, Jesus (in Luke 13:14–17) criticized hypocritical Pharisees whose actions clashed with their words. The Bible says much to support conscientiousness and impartiality.”
Ima Prescriptivist: “When we violate conscientiousness or impartiality, we’re logically inconsistent since we misuse the term ‘ought.’ My view presupposes that we ought to be logically consistent. I see this not as a truth but as an imperative that we choose to live by.”
Ima Intuitionist: “Consistency is the first duty of a rational being. In any area of thought, inconsistency is a defect. The consistency duty is a self-evident truth. It’s immediately obvious, and further investigations reveal no absurd implications.
“The duty to be consistent can’t be proved by any truth that’s more basic. That consistency is socially approved (or promotes your self-interest, or what- ever) doesn’t show that it’s right. Every argument presupposes the value of consistency (since the essence of valid reasoning is that accepting the premises forces you, under pain of inconsistency, to accepting the conclusion). So if you don’t already see the value of consistency, then I’m wasting my time if I try to reason with you. So we can’t argue for the value of consistency without circularity. Thus the duty to be consistent is a basic presupposition of reason. “People object that moral principles are vague and widely disputed, and hence can’t be self-evident. But the consistency norm is precise and widely held. In fact, you can’t do science or mathematics without it. So I see no reason to doubt that it’s a basic self-evident truth.”
I’ll assume our consistency norms in the chapters that follow; but I won’t assume any particular way to defend them. I myself agree with Ima Intuitionist. For the reasons given in Chapter 4, I think that “good” is indefinable and that there are objective moral truths. I differ from classical intuitionism in that I accept only one basic self-evident moral truth—that we ought to be consistent (in the ways sketched in this chapter). The rest of ethics can be derived from this in ways that I’ll sketch in the next two chapters.
7.7 Chapter summary
How should we reason about ethics? There seems to be a permanent impasse (or stalemate) on this, since people continue to disagree on how to understand moral judgments.
I’d like to suggest a way out of the difficulty. There may be moral consis- tency principles that make sense from various perspectives and give powerful tools for moral reasoning. We’ll develop this idea in this chapter and the next two. We’ll start with four basic consistency requirements: logicality, ends– means consistency, conscientiousness, and impartiality.
Logicality says “Avoid inconsistent beliefs.” I violate this if I accept incom- patible beliefs—or if I accept a belief without also accepting its logical conse- quences.
Ends–means consistency says “Keep your means in harmony with your ends.” I violate this if I (a) have an end, (b) believe that to fulfill this end I need to carry out certain means, and (c) don’t carry out the means.
Conscientiousness says “Keep your actions, resolutions, and desires in har- mony with your moral beliefs.” This forbids inconsistencies between my moral judgments and how I live.
Consistency can be useful in arguing about ethics—for example, in arguing against a racist who says that blacks ought to be treated poorly because they’re inferior. Our strategy for criticizing racist arguments has three steps: (1) Formulate the argument. The premises must be clearly stated, and the conclu- sion must clearly follow from the premises. (2) Criticize the factual premises if necessary. (3) See if the racist applies his moral premise consistently, especially to his own race.
Impartiality says “Make similar evaluations about similar actions, regardless of the individuals involved.” I violate this if I make conflicting evaluations about actions that I regard as exactly or relevantly similar. To test my impartiali- ty, it can be useful to ask whether I’d make the same evaluation about a similar case in which the parties are in different places—in which, for example, I’m on the receiving end of the action.
We could base these consistency norms on practically any approach to ethics. For example, we might see them as based on social conventions, personal feelings, self-interest, God’s will, or self-evident truths.
7.8 Study questions
1. What is the usual approach to selecting a method for picking moral principles? Why does it lead to an impasse? (7.1)
2. What solution is suggested for arriving at ways of reasoning about ethics? How will these ways of reasoning be justified?
3. Do philosophers accept roughly the same principles of math and logic? Do they justify these principles the same way?
4. What is logicality? In what two ways could we violate it? (7.2) 5. Explain the example about Ima Relativist.
6. Does consistency guarantee truth? If not, then of what use is it?
7. What is the ends–means consistency requirement? Give a concrete example of how we might violate it. (7.3)
8. What is the conscientiousness requirement? How would a conscientious pacifist live?
10. How could we use consistency to criticize the belief that all short people ought to be beat up?
11. How could we criticize Ima Racist’s argument: “Blacks ought to be treated poorly, because they’re inferior”? Explain the three steps for criti- cizing racist arguments. (7.4)
12. How could we criticize Ima’s principle: “All blacks ought to be treated poorly, just because of their skin color”?
13. Explain the impartiality requirement. What does it mean to call two acts “exactly similar” and “relevantly similar”? (7.5)
14. Explain the Good Samaritan example and how it illustrates one way to test our impartiality.
15. Explain the example about Babe and her operation.
16. Give two misinterpretations of impartiality and explain why they are wrong.
17. How could we criticize a person who says: “It’s all right for me to kill you but wrong for you to kill me, because I have six toes and you don’t”? 18. How might one defend consistency using cultural relativism, sub-
jectivism, supernaturalism, and intuitionism? (7.6) 19. How might one defend consistency by self-interest?
7.9 For further study
To solidify your understanding, do the EthiCola exercise (see Preface) for “Ethics 07—Consistency.”
This chapter is a condensed and simplified version of Chapters 1 to 4 of Gensler’s Formal Ethics; see this for further details. Gensler’s “Ethics is based on rationality” had an earlier version of the view. Many of the ideas were inspired by Hare’s Freedom and Reason and Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. The Bibliography at the end of the book has information on how to find these works.
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