ETHICS KILLING WAR - Richard Norman
It is generally accepted that the deliberate taking of human
life is, more than any other action, utterly wrong. Insofar as
there is a moral consensus within our culture, and beyond
it, its most deeprooted feature is the recognition of the
wrongness of killing another human being. The majority of
people accept this anomaly, but not everyone does. At the
other extreme there are those who, because they see
killing as the ultimate wrong, regard war as entirely
unacceptable, as obviously and naturally so as the first
group find it inevitable. War is therefore one of the most
deeply divisive of moral problems. 'Morality' is thought to
have a positive side, this is typically identified with
behaviour which is altruistic, unselfish or even self-
sacrificing.
SUBJECTIVISM AND OBJECTIVISM
The alleged absence of any rational way of resolving
fundamental moral disagreements is, then, one reason for
thinking that moral views ultimately rest on feeling rather
than reason. A second argument which has been put
forward by some philosophers for that conclusion is that
moral views are thought to have a special connection with
action. These two arguments, then, have been put forward
in support of what is often called the 'subjectivist' position:
that our basic moral views derive from feeling rather than
reason, and are therefore essentially subjective. If I believe
that killing is in itself wrong, or that we ought not to create
unnecessary human suffering, it does indeed seem to be a
belief.
HUME, GENERAL STANDARDS AND LANGUAGE
Our shared language contains value-concepts which
provide us with shared, impersonal standards for
assessing human actions. Hume emphasises especially
our vocabulary of words for virtues and vices. We judge
not on the basis of our feelings, but on the basis of the
standards encapsulated in the language. Certainly we can
change it; that is important, as we shall see hereafter, and
it means that our evaluative vocabulary can develop over
time. Nevertheless we do not invent language, and we do
not invent the values it encapsulates.
PRIMITIVE RESPONSES
There is a great range of such 'primitive responses', which
underlie our shared vocabulary of evaluation. There are,
first, all those responses which give rise to our ways of
assessing the quality of our lives and experiences.
Sympathy is not the only primitive response which
underlies our evaluative understanding of our relations to
one. One important part of our moral vocabulary is the
vocabulary of 'guilt' and 'innocence'. We have the idea that
if someone has done wrong they 'deserve' to suffer or be
punished, and that inflicting suffering on such a person is
morally different from inflicting it on someone who is
'innocent'. Both these ideas are components of our moral
thought.
LANGUAGE, MEANING AND REASON
We assess our actions by reference to the evaluative
concepts embedded in our language.. Our understanding
of a worthwhile human life will of course include a
recognition of our need for certain kinds of relations with
others. Nevertheless the classifications may serve to
indicate the range of our evaluative concepts. To
understand an action, to make it intelligible, is not
necessarily to justify it as right. We can reject some of the
evaluative concepts in our language by appealing to
others, but we cannot stand outside our moral language
altogether and invent reasons for ourselves.
HUMAN NATURE
Our evaluative language is rooted in our nature as human
beings, in our basic human responses. The universality of
basic human responses makes for at least a potential
universality also of evaluative language.Because human
beings share the same basic human responses, they can
come to understand the ethical concepts of another
language and another culture, even if there are no obvious
exact equivalents in their own language. Our language
standards which are at least potentially employable by all
human language-users. To say that our moral thinking is
grounded in a shared human nature is not to say that it is
about human nature. Our ethical judgements are not about
our responses, but are assessments of our lives and
actions and relations to one another.
PROJECTION AND REIFICATION
The terms 'projection' and 'objectification' may be a
harmless enough way of describing the relation between
our primitive responses and what they enable us to say
about the world, but we should resist the inference that
what is involved here is some kind of error. To clarify the
relation between our primitive responses, our language
and objective features of the world, compare the example
of humour.
FORMS OF MORAL ARGUMENT
The first consists in trying to deduce moral conclusions
from some basic first principle. The theory known as
'utilitarianism'. According to the utilitarian theory, the
fundamental principle of morality is that actions are right
insofar as they promote happiness or reduce suffering, and
wrong insofar as they reduce happiness or produce
suffering. The theory tells us to produce as much
happiness as possible (where this is shorthand for 'the
maximum net balance of happiness over suffering).
Utilitarism picks out the attitude of impartial concern for the
happiness and suffering of everyone, and elevates it to a
special status. The consideration of others' well-being
would not give us reasons for performing this or that action
unless we were, in general, beings who were capable of
being moved in that way.