have difficulty in determining how one judges whether a given situation is sufficient to generate a proportionate reason for performing what would otherwise be an evil act. It would appear that what is needed is something like the Utilitarian hedonistic calculus to try to calculate proportionality – yet proportionalists reject this. Nevertheless it seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that the choice lies between a form of calculus and individual intuition as to the ranking of various goods. Neither position seems satisfactory. Bernard Hoose maintains that the judgement is made taking the consequences into account but without any formal method of calculation; however, this approaches a form of intuitionism which can seem very individualistic. Generally we will know that there is no proportionate reason that will justify lying, theft, etc. and the proportionalist accepts this. However the proportionalist maintains that there may be such reasons and that the individual will recognise the situation when it occurs. He or she weighs up the intrinsic evil of lying, theft, etc. and balances this against the consequences.
Proportionalism has for long been in use in Catholic moral thinking in the issue of Just War, but as long as it remains condemned by the Vatican (as was re-confirmed in the document ‘Veritatis Splendor’ issued in October 1993) it is unlikely to make significant progress within the Church in other areas. However, as has been seen earlier in this chapter, it is clear that Aquinas does allow exceptions to the secondary precepts which are the basis for moral rules in the Catholic tradition, so it may be argued that proportionalism is closer to the mainstream Catholic tradition than the rather more conservative and restrictive view supported by this Church’s Magisterium at the present time.
Questions for discussion
1 What do you understand by the theory of a natural moral law?
2 Can the basis of natural law be located other than in social convention?
3 What are the strengths and weaknesses of basing ethics on natural law?
4 How might natural law be used to deal with the following ethical issues: (a) contraception, (b) abortion or (c) homosexuality?
5 On a natural law approach, how might it be argued that it would be wrong for a woman to make love after she had a hysterectomy or after her ovaries were removed?
6 Would Aquinas support the Divine Command theory of ethics?
7 ‘In the absence of any agreed view of human nature, natural law theory is useless.’ Do you agree with this statement and, if so, why?
8 Would the natural law approach maintain that if one uses reason then one is acting morally? What would be the arguments for or against such a view?
9 Can an action be wrong yet good? How?
10 What philosophic arguments might be used to reject proportionalism?
In the history of moral philosophy, few names deserve greater prominence than that of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). He lived a totally uneventful life in Königsberg, yet his small book Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) is of central importance for any serious student of ethics as is the Critique of Practical Reason. Kant says that his aim in The Groundwork was to establish
a completely isolated metaphysic of morals which is not mixed with any theology or physics or metaphysics.
First, some definitions are needed: A statement is analytic if the predicate is included within the subject – thus ‘all spinsters are female’ is analytic as the meaning of the subject (spinster) includes the predicate (female). Analytic statements are necessarily true – they must be true because their truth depends on the way words are used and it simply would not make sense to say they were not true. The statement is also a priori which means that its truth is known independent of experience – we do not have to undertake a survey to determine that ‘all spinsters are female’ is true.
A statement is synthetic if the predicate is not included in the subject and therefore it firstly tells us something about the subject which we would not otherwise know and secondly it may or may not be true – for instance ‘All bachelors are happy’. This statement is also a posteriori because it is based on experience, in other words we would have to undertake a survey of bachelors to decide whether it is true.
Kant maintained that all moral concepts have their origin a priori. Almost every statement is either a priori analytic or a posteriori synthetic, but Kant considered that statements about the moral law were very unusual in that they were a priori synthetic – in other words they were a priori (independent of experience) but they were synthetic (not analytically or necessarily true). Kant’s task in The Groundwork is partly to explore how this unusual situation can arise – Kant seeks to establish the a priori principles by which we make moral judgements, he wishes to establish the fundamental principle of action which underpins all moral decision-making. Kant thought these principles were inherent in the universe. Unlike Plato, Aristotle or Aquinas he is not concerned with some ‘good for human beings’. Kant is concerned with the fundamental principles of morals which form the basis for our moral choices. It might be thought that if Kant considered that the principles of morals were inherent within us, he would discuss psychology or human nature, but this is not the case. He considered moral principles to be an a priori given and therefore to be arrived at independent of experience.
Unlike Aquinas, Kant did not believe that morality should be founded on natural theology. He shared with Aquinas a commitment to reason as a guide to right action, although unlike Aquinas he did not bring in any assumptions which depended on belief in God as part of his approach to morality (Aquinas, as we have seen, was strongly influenced by his belief that human beings survive death and their destiny lies in God). Kant did not consider that God’s existence could be proved – he rejected the cosmological and ontological arguments – however he thought that God’s existence was a postulate of practical reason. Effectively Kant thought that, on the basis of morality, God’s existence could be arrived at as a necessary postulate of a just universe, however this is not to say that Kant thought that God’s existence could be proved. Part of Kant’s approach to morality was that individuals should act as if there was a God – but this is not the same as saying that there is a God.
Kant’s theory is deontological – that is it stresses duty or obligation (this comes from the Greek deon meaning duty). The opening words of the Groundwork provide a ringing declaration of Kant’s fundamental position:
It is impossible to conceive anything at all in the world, or even out of it, which can be taken as good without qualification, except a good will. Intelligence, wit, judgement, and any other talents of the mind we care to name, or courage, resolution, and constancy of purpose, as qualities of temperament, are without doubt good and desirable in many respects; but they can also be extremely bad and hurtful when the will is not good which has to make use of these gifts …
The goodness of a human being’s will does not depend on the results it produces since so many factors outside our control may determine the results:
A good will is not good because of what it effects or accomplishes … it is good through its willing alone – that is, good in itself.
In fact, the more human reason ‘concerns itself with the aim of enjoying life and happiness, the farther does man get from true contentment’ (5). A good will is fostered by a human being acting rationally and eliminating
