(LE) Some Brief Thoughts on Moral Theory

Aristotle is surely correct that individual habituation and character are crucial to happiness and worthiness to be happy, but (as Aristotle himself says in book five, discussing justice) this can hardly be the whole story – one can for example be kind and gentle with friends and family and still be a moral monster -- take Hitler, for example.

Kant is of course right that a theory of morality must posit both the freedom of moral agents and their inherent dignity. Normative ethics itself is a non-starter unless we grant this. His apriorism, however, and austere insistence on purity of intention for an act to count as moral, present some serious difficulties in applying the Categorical Imperative as such to messy, real-world moral challenges.

We must grant Mill’s insistence that consequences matter morally, and this serves as a corrective to Kant. But to present utility as what makes actions moral is reductive and circular.

So an adequate moral theory and practice must attend, at the least, to all three: character, dignity, and results.