Ethical rationalism

1
Ethical rationalism

• Lecture 2 Plato as an ethical rationalist

2
Topics for today

• Review of basic ideas
• Nature of ethical rationalism
• Plato as a rationalist

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3 basic concepts of morality

• The right
• Which actions are right? Which institutions
  are just?
• The good
• Which ends, goals or states of affairs are
  morally good ones?
• Moral worth
• Which qualities make someone a morally good
  person?

4
Two questions

• Nature of moral judgment
• What are moral judgments? How do we justify
  them?
• Nature of moral motivation
• How does moral motivation work or fail to
  work? How is it possible for moral concepts to
  influence our conduct?

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Requirement of objectivity

• The account of moral judgment should make
  agreement on moral issues possible and to be
  expected among those who follow the correct
  procedures of justification.

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Three approaches

• Ethical rationalism morality as a body of
  knowledge
• Ideal spectator approach morality as expression
  of sentiment
• Contractualism morality as the content of an
  agreement

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Rationalism on moral judgment

• Moral judgments are factual claims about a
  reality independent of us
• They are knowable by human reason

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Example
For the rationalist, Inflicting suffering merely
for ones own amusement is wrong is like 2 2
4
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Rationalism on objectivity

• Objectivity of morality is the objectivity of
  knowledge
• Possibility of agreement guaranteed by
• the existence of a single reality
• common access to it through human reason

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Rationalism on motivation

• Cognition of moral truth awakens a desire in us
  to conform
• Moral motivation is thus motivation by reason
• We also have non-rational desires
• We can fail to act morally when we act on these
  in opposition to our rational desires.

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Plato tries to root morality in an independent
reality

• to connect psychic harmony with morality as
  usually understood
• to combat relativism
• to overcome deficiencies of Socratess method

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Platos theory of forms

• Forms are the essences or natures of things
• They are abstract and imperceptible, being known
  by thought
• They include values
• They form a hierarchy topped by the form of the
  good

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Plato on moral judgment

• Morality is based on the form of the good
• What is good for us depends on the form of the
  good, which gives everything its special nature
  and value
• Correct moral judgments are based on knowledge of
  the realm of forms.

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Plato on moral motivation

• A person in psychic harmony is motivated by
  reason to act morally
• Psychic disharmony is motivation in opposition to
  reason by desires stemming from non-rational
  parts of our nature, thereby leading to wrong
  behavior.
• Thus Plato is a rationalist with respect to both
  judgment and motivation.