Reason and Professional Ethics

Reason and Professional Ethics

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Reason and Professional Ethics

Peter Davson-Galle University of Tasmania, Australia

© Peter Davson-Galle 2009 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Peter Davson-Galle has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company Wey Court East Suite 420 Union Road 101 Cherry Street Farnham Burlington Surrey, GU9 7PT VT 05401-4405 England USA www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Davson-Galle, Peter. Reason and professional ethics. 1. Professional ethics. 2. Practice (Philosophy) I. Title 174–dc22 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Davson-Galle, Peter. Reason and professional ethics / Peter Davson-Galle. p. cm. ISBN 978-0-7546-5484-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Professional ethics. I. Title. BJ1725.D39 2009 174–dc22

ISBN 9780754654841 (hbk) ISBN 9781409402466 (ebk.I)

2009011253

Contents Preface and Acknowledgements   1

Introductory Remarks and Overview  

2

Proposition Types  

vii 1 13

3 Structuring Arguments  

35

4 Subjecting Arguments to Criticism: Logic Criticism  

73

5 Subjecting Arguments to Criticism: Premise Criticism  

97

6 Extended Reasoning: the Basics  

119

7 Extended Reasoning: Some Complexities  

159

8

229

Babble and Murk  

9 Some Ethical Theory  

263

Index  

297

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Preface and Acknowledgements Many professionals confront ethical issues concerning their proper roles and the manner in which they should carry out those roles. University and College courses for the preparation of such professionals usually address some of these matters to some extent. Sometimes the treatment is cursory (little more than the inculcation of a ‘professional code of ethics’ as stipulated by some professional body). Sometimes the issues are raised and discussed but without students having the ‘tools of thought’ with which to think their way through what are quite complex issues. The book aims to provide students (and, for that matter, their instructors) with a ‘stepped’ introduction to those tools of thought. It would be best utilized in tandem with another text discussing the particular issues that arise within the profession in question. Briefly put, those tools of thought are drawn from the critical thinking, or informal logic, corpus. In particular, given that the issues being deliberated upon concern what one should do, the book belongs in the field of so-called practical reason. Three features distinguish it from other works in the field. The first is its explicit focus upon professional ethical issues and its brief portrayal of some normative and meta-ethical theory that bears upon many such issues. The second is its unusual focus upon the acceptability of an argument’s premises. The third is its concern with reasoning of an extended sort rather than merely with the features of a single argument. Concerning the first, the treatment is necessarily brief. It touches on both normative ethics and metaethics. Within normative ethics I consider just utilitarian cum consequentialist theories and deontological-rule theories. Appeal to one or other of these seems to be what mostly goes on when people engage in principled defence of a position. If people wish to supplement this with a consideration of virtue ethics, evolutionary ethics or whatnot or whether more complex treatment of varieties of the above then that it would be an easy thing to do. With respect to metaethics, I focus upon two main puzzles: ‘is there any such thing as ethical truth?’ and: ‘if there is, then how would we know it when we had it?’. Finally, threaded throughout this chapter is a consideration of how someone of some sort of religious persuasion might fit themselves into one or other of the taxonomic ‘boxes’ portrayed. Although my own view is that religious belief is one of the things that philosophy has successfully debunked, I have noticed that many students in the so-called ‘caring professions’ have some religious belief. Concerning the second, much (not all) of the critical thinking literature focuses upon getting particular individual arguments being logical. Yet an argument, however logical, is only acceptable as a case for its conclusion to the extent that its premises are acceptable. A lot of the time one’s complaint against

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an argument is that one or other of its premises are dubious and deserving of support and/or criticism. As for the third feature, extended enquiry (in soliloquy or in dialogue) is comprised of a series of arguments with some ‘connective tissue’ between them (this criticizes or supports that …) which relates them together as parts of the one enquiry. At any given point in an enquiry, working out which option of the available options is the best next move is dependent upon the particular enquiry history to date, the interests of the particular enquirer and so on. And this situation of multiple possible paths forward, to be deliberated among as an exercise in selfconscious meta-cognition, continues and becomes more complicated as an enquiry unfolds. Thoughtfully handling such extended enquiry in a metacognitively selfconscious way is, in my view, a matter that is under-done in the extant literature. Yet carrying out such a connected series of particular arguments in a metacognitively thoughtful, rigorous way is a key part of thinking in depth about an issue. A notable feature of my approach is to ‘grow the complexity’ from the ground up, starting from the issue at hand and not getting too many ‘cards on the table’ at once. A usual result of this is that the broad principles that were thought to apply to the case at hand come judged to be too simplistic and somewhat more nuanced versions of them emerge. A related result is that, as a result of criticizing the premises is pressing some underlying principles, people’s willingness and ability to be self-critical rather than defensive is enhanced. What I am concerned to resist is the tendency to simply list 15 ‘for’ arguments and 14 ‘against’ arguments and call that a balanced appraisal of the issue. This is sometimes the style of the ‘controversial issues in XYZ’ readers for professional ethics courses. Rather than such breadth without depth, I am tending more to focus upon depth and teasing out underlying conflicting issues as slowly as possible whilst keeping the number of new elements down unless very deliberately introduced for reasons that can be metacognitively warranted. The book is usable in several ways and I would not expect some of its complexities to be utilized with introductory undergraduates. Chapters 2 to 6 cover the basic skills of argumentation at the level of an individual argument, the two basic operations upon a premise (criticizing it or defending it) and the idea of metacognitively tracking the emerging features and tensions of an enquiry and deliberating upon the path forward. Given the amount of ‘junk jargon’ that seems to be in circulation in professional circles, Chapter 8 is probably also worth a read by even introductory students. Chapter 7 is rather complex and I would suggest that it would be more suitable as something to be read by advanced students or, for that matter, by tutors/instructors for their own interest. I do not know of anywhere else in the literature that some of the complexities of extended reasoning have been teased out in this manner. Much of what is in the book is just general critical thinking and ethical literature material of a sort that I would hardly know now how to attribute in any specific detail. I make no claim for originality here and acknowledge multiple diffused debts to other philosophers. The focus on metacognition is a bit more

Preface and Acknowledgements

ix

original and most of the detail of Chapter 7 is, as far as I know, largely an original contribution. Finally, I wish to acknowledge the forbearance of my family and the support of my university in the production of this book and, in particular, to thank a colleague, Rainie Douglas, who laboured through the onerous task of translating my draft into Ashgate’s house style.

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Chapter 1

Introductory Remarks and Overview Value Judgements and Professional Life What follows is intended to assist you to think as carefully as possible about various aspects of professional life that involve value judgements, that is, judgements about what is right or wrong, good or bad, worthwhile or not. Many university courses of professional preparation predominantly ignore such matters or simply take for granted a series of value stances concerning ‘professional ethics’ – sometimes these have been codified as a Code of Ethics for the profession. Or, even if various value judgemental issues are raised and discussed, students are not trained in the skills of critical thought prerequisite for a rigorous exploration of the issues. Even when courses attempt this task, little is available in the published literature to assist students to carry it out. Largely speaking, the book aims at helping you to reason in a rigorous way about such professional ethical matters. Its intent is to assist you to identify professional issues that are value judgemental and to form considered views on those issues. There are two elements here. First, identifying value judgemental issues; second, forming a considered view on them. Let us look at them in turn. Some Particular Value Judgemental Issues Concerning Professional Life I will not be able to cover all professions or all ethical issues, so these will be just a few illustrations. As we will see, however, there are a few broad themes within which most particular ethical concerns can be placed. What I will do is illustrate matters using the teaching profession as an example, identify some themes, draw some connections to some other professions and suggest that the themes are general ones governing any profession. Teaching as an Illustration Compulsory schooling is an extended exercise in forcing individuals to do what someone else wishes them to do. Apart from such school students, the only other people in society who are deprived of their liberty for such extended periods of time are criminals and the insane. Of course some students may enjoy what they learn and some of the curriculum might be what students would have chosen for themselves if given the choice but I think that it is safe to say that much of the time this is simply not so.



Reason and Professional Ethics

If people are to be subjected to loss of freedom of action (and thought) for such extended periods then there had better be a reason for doing this. And not just any old reason but good reason – a case that would justify such force. As soon as one is talking this way, matters have become value judgemental. So, presumably the general form of such a ‘good reason’ would be something like: ‘Johnny and Janie should learn such and such because it is so worthwhile for them to do so that it is worth forcing such learning on them if necessary’. That is, we (or someone or other, anyway not Johnny or Janie) have a goal as to how we wish students to be and that goal is considered to be of such importance that it outweighs our normal granting of freedom of action (and of thought) to individuals. The upshot of this is that one matter that is clearly value judgemental is setting the goals (or aims, or purposes) of schooling. We cannot avoid having someone decide such aims, for clearly teaching cannot go on in a goal-less vacuum. There had better be some direction for what is occurring in schools or schooling would be literally aimless activity, mere flailing about. What would such goals look like? For a start, the goals operate at different levels of generality. At the detailed level, the purposes governing day-to-day teaching decisions are set by teachers. A teacher values having some pupil carrying out some particular language activity because that will help her understand sentence structure. But why bother having the goal of having one’s pupils understand sentence structure? Perhaps in service of the cause of having them able to express their own ideas and understand the ideas of others. Why bother with that? Perhaps because being able to do that allows them a better chance of being gainfully employed than otherwise. But why consider that important? and so on. In short, one’s rationale for considering the activities of schooling worth bothering with is, if pursued in some depth, likely to take one beyond the immediacy of schooling to broader and more fundamental value positions about what society should be like, what sorts of citizens it should have, how we should treat each other, the rights of various individuals and groups in society and so forth. We have here a hierarchy of goals from nitty gritty ones concerning daily teaching tasks through to ‘life, the universe and everything’ goals of a very general sort. And it is the latter goals, the very general ones, which govern what are chosen as more particular goals. Look again at the chain of goals in the illustration of the last paragraph and you will see how the more general ones are appealed to in justification of earlier, less general, ones. So, who decides on goals at which levels? Generally speaking, as I have noted, individual teachers’ power in choosing the directions of what they do is limited. Other people choose the policies, the broad aims, that lay out what it is that teachers should be trying to achieve (like: ‘students being employable’) and it is the stipulated task of teachers to act in ways that serve those preset aims – they only get to choose the detail of the means to achieving ends chosen by someone else. Or, at least, that is how things are now. I will return in a moment to question whether that is how things should be. But even if the task of teachers is not seen as

Introductory Remarks and Overview



the setting of broad aims but merely as the achievement of broad aims set by other people, it seems to be their professional duty to enter into the debate as to what those goals should be. After all, teachers are the counterparts of prison warders or psychiatric ward staff, those other institutional enforcers of lost freedom. If they have not thought about the aims that their actions are directed towards and satisfied themselves that the directions of the institution they are part of are proper directions, indeed, ones important enough to outweigh individual freedom, then a crisis of conscience surely looms for them (or should do so). And, on pain of unprofessional superficiality, their value judgements on these issues had better be well thought out – clearly conceived of and thoroughly explored as to the arguments which could be raised in their defence or in objection to them. Part of the task of what follows in the book is providing assistance for those readers who are (or will be) teachers to think through some ideas about what they judge schooling should be trying to achieve (at that ‘broad aim’ level of decision) and to do that thinking as rigorously and deeply as possible. So, one value judgemental aspect of schooling for teachers to have a good hard think about is: What should schools be trying to achieve? What broad aims should their activities be directed at satisfying? I remarked that, at the moment, teachers do not get to decide these things. (They have individual power at the nitty gritty end of the spectrum and some power collectively in setting things like school mission statements and whatnot but broad educational policy setting is something outside the hands of practising teachers.) And this raises another value judgemental matter concerning schooling. Who on earth has the moral right (or perhaps the duty – not the same thing, an issue we will return to in a later chapter) to decide upon those broad policy directions that lay down a framework governing, ultimately, what individual students learn at school? That is, who should have the power to decide the broad aims of schooling? (Note that this is not the legal matter-of-fact question: ‘who does have the power to decide the broad aims of schooling?’.) Perhaps, you might think, this should be a decision for teachers even if it is not that at the moment – after all, are not teachers the relevant educational experts? Or perhaps it should be parents that decide – it is their children of whom we speak. Or perhaps it should be the students themselves who decide; is it not a basic moral right to be in control of the contents of one’s own mind? – and schooling aims do dictate some of what goes into a student’s mind. Or perhaps it should be someone else or some combination of various parties – and so on. The point is that once one goes beyond simply noting who does, as a matter of fact, decide the broad aims at the moment to working out who should decide them, immediate ethical controversy ensues. So, another value judgemental aspect of schooling for teachers to have a good hard think about is the following sort of ‘second level’ question: Who should have the power to decide the broad aims of schooling? So far, we have focused upon the goals, or ends, or aims of schooling. But ethical questions also arise concerning the means to be chosen in achieving those ends. You might not see there to be any ethical dimensions here; surely, you

Reason and Professional Ethics



might think, the educational research literature will simply provide matter-of-fact guidance as to what means are most efficient and effective in producing this or that learning outcome, in achieving various valued goals. Perhaps so, but sometimes the most efficient and effective method, even if known, should not be employed. As a dramatic illustration, allow me the assumption (quite plausible in my view) that the most efficient and effective way of getting children to learn arithmetic is to threaten them with amputation of finger segments if, in the teacher’s judgement, they are not working as hard as possible at their arithmetic – and to mean it and to have various students trundling around with less than a full count of fingers. One’s objection to that could not be how successful it was in getting arithmetic learnt; it is, by assumption here, more successful than anything else. Rather, despite its efficacy, the objection to it would be that it was unethical to adopt such a means to achieving the learning outcome. A less dramatic illustration, and one which involves current practice in schools, is the use of positive reinforcement as a way of shaping behaviour. Arguably this is immoral. I mention it now to emphasize that schooling involves actual, not just hypothetical, practices that are deserving of careful critical scrutiny. As another ‘real-world’ example, consider the controversy concerning the use of corporal punishment in schools or the widespread practice of incarceration (detention) of disobedient students – indeed the whole business of punishment and behaviour control is up for critical scrutiny. So, a third value judgemental aspect of schooling for teachers to have a good hard think about is: What ethical constraints should there be on how teachers achieve the broad aims of schooling? And, as you might guess, a further, second level, question is: Who should have power to decide what ethical constraints there are to be upon teachers’ choices of means to ends? That will do as illustration of the point that teaching is hardly a value-free business. To summarize, most value judgemental issues concerning teaching can be grouped into four main themes: 1. What should schools be trying to achieve? What broad aims should their activities be directed at satisfying? 2. Who should have the power to decide the broad aims of schooling? 3. What ethical constraints should there be on how teachers achieve the broad aims of schooling? 4. Who should have power to decide what ethical constraints there are to be upon teachers’ choices of means to ends? Other Professions Although it is but one profession, I have explored the case of teaching in some depth because most readers will have some familiarity with schools and because much of what is said about teaching transfers across to other professions. Consider the first theme above. Every profession has aims. Generally speaking, you might

Introductory Remarks and Overview



feel that a fairly clear-cut answer is available as to what each profession should be trying to achieve, that is, what broad aims those employed in its institutions (or self-employed) should have their professional activities directed at satisfying. I suggest, however, that when it comes to pinning things down in more than the vaguest way, things become controversial fast. For instance, what about a scientist? What should a scientist be aiming to achieve? Let us put the following as a counterpart to our above question: What should science be trying to achieve? What broad aims should scientists’ activities be directed at satisfying? Well, it might be thought that the answer is clear cut and uncontroversial: qua scientist, one should be attempting to discover what reality is like. It might be surprising to you, but even at this ‘broad brush’ level, controversy exists (for instance: should science bother to try to find out truth about reality or is it enough to merely learn how to control it? – the latter is something achievable even with false theories, as human history has demonstrated). Anyway, even if one were to be happy with the ‘pursuit of truth’ broad aim, issues arise concerning which truths one should pursue. What is more important to find out than what? Where should our priorities lie? Should we fund pure, curiosity driven, research or only research of a more applied sort that, in some fairly direct way, benefits us? (And if both, then with what priorities?) Indeed, should some research be performed at all? Some decades ago, the so-called Race and IQ controversy flared. Two psychologists, Hans Eysenck and then Carl Jensen, reported upon some research that they had (individually) carried out comparing the IQ of three racial groups in America. Roughly speaking, Asian-Americans seemed to score more highly than white Americans and black Americans scored the lowest. All sorts of ordinary scientific debate occurred as to whether the research had been carried out competently or not but one interesting element was the suggestion that even if the research were to be competent and it were to be true that IQ differs across races, then it would have been better had we never known that. Such knowledge is divisive and dangerous and thus, it was argued, the research that led to it should never have been permitted. In short, some aims that scientists might have are held to be improper because some truths should not be known. I hope that I have said enough to illustrate that genuinely controversial issues arise concerning the settling of the aims of science. How about a social worker? Again, let us try a counterpart question: What should social work be trying to achieve? What broad aims should social workers’ activities be directed at satisfying? Again, it might be thought, the answer is clear enough is it not? – Assist people in disadvantaged circumstances. Well, perhaps. It depends a bit upon what is meant by ‘assist’ and by ‘disadvantaged’. There is room for differing interpretations here and such differences might mean different social workers committed to conflicting goals. To illustrate: am I assisting someone if, as a result of my intervention, he is now better able to do what he wants? Surely so, you might think; but what if what he wants is not good for him (whatever that means)? Anyway, even if, in assisting him, one is acting for his good, what if what is for his good is not for the good of



Reason and Professional Ethics

someone else (say his spouse, or society generally)? Or, what if he emphatically rejects what one thinks is good for him? Anyway, what (or who) is to determine what is ‘good’ for someone anyway? The above bit of thinking aloud should do three things I hope. The first is persuade you that, not only is social work an activity directed towards goals that involve moral stances, it is unclear and controversial just what those valued goals should be. The second is to illustrate that some obvious-looking and attractive answers can be seen to be murky and troublesome after a little thought (yet too often things do not receive such thought but are left at a slogan-style level). The third is to illustrate some issues which not only appear in this little monologue but which tend to be recurrent issues in many discussions of professional ethics – not just in social work. One is personal autonomy – individual freedom of thought and/or action (and respect by others for that autonomy). Another is the well-being or welfare of the individual – what is good for her. Another is what is good for the group. (And note: all of the above are both murky and might conflict.) Finally, given that people will have different views on various professional issues involving moral values, is there any way of working out who is right (if it even makes sense to talk of any one view being right)? Clearly, given that controversy will exist concerning the legitimacy of various suggested aims or goals for the guidance of Social Workers’ professional practice, we are led to the question: ‘who should set those goals?’. So: Who should have the power to decide the broad aims of social work? I won’t continue down the list of professions but I trust that it is clear that each profession has to have some aims and, given controversy about what those aims should be, a further issue arises concerning the locus of legitimate power to set those aims. As you might predict, counterparts of themes 3 and 4 above (concerning teaching) exist for other professions as well. I will not laboriously work through them but will content myself with a few quick illustrations. For the sake of illustration, assume truth as an aim of science; now, is it legitimate for a scientist to cause another creature to suffer in the pursuit of truth? Assume clients’ welfare as an aim of social work; now, is it legitimate for a social worker to lie to a client even if it is for the client’s own good? Assume patients’ health as an aim of nursing; now, should a nurse ever dispute or, more seriously, subvert, the judgement of a physician, even if to do so would benefit a patient’s health? Assume assisting clients to solve their problems as an aim of counselling; now, can a counsellor ever properly breach confidentiality to serve that aim (and if so, in what sorts of circumstances)? And so on. I think it clear that issues can arise concerning the morality of the manner of one’s pursuit of one’s professional goals. And, I suggest, given that controversy will ensue as to what the right answer is on any of these issues, the last of our themes will arise. Who should decide what the moral constraints upon professional practice should be? Should it be a matter for the conscience of individual professionals or should they be governed

Introductory Remarks and Overview



somehow – morally answerable to someone else? Note that, for these ‘Who should decide?’ questions, you will not automatically have the same type of answer for each profession. Moreover, you might, even within the one profession, judge different sorts of people to appropriately have ethical control over different particular matters. But such complexities lie ahead of us. For now, all I hope to have done is suggest to you that any profession is involved in making moral value judgements in at least our four areas; put crisply: 1. What should be the profession’s aims? 2. Who should decide the profession’s aims? 3. What moral constraints should there be on the way practitioners achieve its aims? 4. Who should decide those constraints? Many practitioners are impatient with these matters and just want to get on with their jobs and students want to focus on practical stuff that will bear directly on practical everyday professional tasks. But, on pain of being a mere ‘hired hand’, a sort of mercenary, uncaring about the rightness or wrongness of what you do, you had better have some views on these matters. And, on pain of unprofessional superficiality, your views had better be something better than just the first thing that comes into your head or pops out of your mouth (and onto ‘butchers’ paper’) in a one-day professional development workshop or whatnot. As will emerge, the issues are complicated ones and having a clear, rationally supported stance on them is not easy to achieve. Almost certainly, you will come to find that your initial views on these topics will prove to be muddly and open to awkward objections. Do not worry about that; ideas cannot be easily improved without criticism. Which brings me to the next of the two points raised in the section Value Judgements and Professional Life above. What is it to have a considered view on these topics and how does one manage to build one? Values and Argument Having a considered view on these matters is a matter of having a view that is clear and well argued for. The former can take a while to achieve but is important because one can hardly argue for (or against) a proposal that one does not even clearly understand. The latter involves more than what you might be familiar with, namely rattling off a bunch of ‘for’ arguments for one’s position. It is not even just a matter of being ‘balanced’ and also having a bunch of ‘against’ arguments and then somehow or other plucking a conclusion out at the end. It is not much good advancing any such arguments without subjecting them to critical scrutiny. That such and such is an argument in favour of, or against, some proposal is not of much help in trying to come to a considered judgement unless one knows whether that argument is any good or not. So, what is involved in having a well thought



Reason and Professional Ethics

through stance is not just listing arguments but judging their worth. This is a key point and constitutes the ‘core business’ of this book. Appraising the merits of some line of reasoning in support of (or against) some value stance concerning schooling involves a collection of high-level cognitive (and metacognitive) skills. Most undergraduates do not possess those skills to any great extent but have the capacity to learn them (to differing degrees of course). However, learning them is rather hard work and will involve you in a style of thought that most of you will find unfamiliar and frustratingly difficult to improve in. For quite some time, it will involve you in building up competence in some sub-skills before you are able to link them together and engage in the sort of extended reasoning in depth that is involved in argument appraisal and forming a considered view on the topic. There is no quick and easy way of developing these capacities; it is just a matter of coaching and practice – it is worth the effort though. Layout of Remaining Chapters In this section, I wish to outline briefly the chapter plan of the rest of the book (and explain my choice of layout). I said above that extended reasoning involved a suite of sub-skills and items of knowledge concerning reasoning. Some of these skills concern the crafting of a single piece of reasoning, a discrete, or individual, argument. In discussions of an extended sort, such arguments form the building blocks, or elements, of the discussion. A basic skill, then, is being able to lay out an argument in a way that manages to say what you are trying to say in a clear and complete manner. My experience, and that of other reasoning tutors, is that those new to the task of careful statement of arguments tend to leave bits out and, moreover, when attention is drawn to this and they are asked to fill in the missing pieces, most people find it difficult to do so. In short, they have trouble portraying in a clear and complete way what they are trying to argue (or, as the other side of the same coin, unable to easily interpret, and portray, the arguments of others). For instance, say someone said that Harold did a wrong thing because he hit Horace. The argument is incompletely stated and rests upon the (unstated) moral principle that hitting people is wrong. So, put more completely, the argument might go: hitting people is wrong and Harold hit Horace so what Harold did was wrong. Or, laid out a bit more formally: Hitting people is wrong. Harold hit Horace. So, Harold did something wrong.

Simple enough in this case perhaps, but, as you might guess, rather more difficult at other times when the topics are more involved. And, as you will see when I go

Introductory Remarks and Overview



on to discuss the task of criticizing arguments, it is important to have arguments stated completely because if you leave bits out, then the bit left out might be what should be being challenged. Obviously it is hard to challenge something you do not even realize is there as a part of a given argument. So, a key task is learning how to do this sort of thing: taking an initial attempt at an argument (yours as well as those of others) and portraying it with all of its bits and pieces stated clearly and explicitly and in the right sequence. Chapter 3 – ‘Structuring Arguments’ addresses that task of portraying arguments in a clear and complete manner and introduces some simple theory concerning the elements of an argument and a way of methodically checking what you are writing down in order to avoid various errors. Note that I have skipped Chapter 2 and leapt ahead to Chapter 3, which, as we have just seen, is about portraying arguments clearly and completely. Now I wish to return to Chapter 2 – ‘Proposition Types’. As will be outlined in Chapter 3, arguments about what it is right to do, or what people should be like, introduce a complexity that is not present in arguments on some other subject matters. Some of the propositions that go to make up the argument are of a distinct type or category from the others. For instance, to say that Harold hit Horace is simply to (purport to) describe what occurred. To say that what he did was wrong is to pass moral judgement upon it – a quite different sort of proposition. Yet both sorts of proposition might occur as elements of an argument concerning Harold’s conduct (as happened in our illustration of a couple of paragraphs ago). Understanding what is happening in an argument involves being able to distinguish these (and other) different types of proposition from one another and Chapter 2 introduces and illustrates some basic theory concerning proposition types. Say that you have progressed to the stage of being able to state some argument clearly and completely and with the nature of all of its component elements understood – what next? Recall that I observed above that, for serious enquiry, it was not enough that one could stipulate a reason for some moral stance that one is taking, or some proposal as to what should be done; one wants the reason to be a good one, one that one could have confidence in as a rationale for one’s position. So, how can one tell whether an argument is any good or not? Not a bad way is to see how it stands up to persistent criticism. Chapter 4 – ‘Subjecting Arguments to Criticism: Logic Criticism’ and Chapter 5 – ‘Subjecting Arguments to Criticism: Premise Criticism’ introduce to you the two core tasks involved in argument appraisal. The idea here is that the extent to which an argument successfully withstands criticism is the extent to which you should rely (tentatively, always) on it as a ground for thinking, or doing, whatever it was an argument for, as a sound argument for its conclusion. So if, after careful investigation, you think it factually true that Harold hit Horace, and consider the principle ‘Hitting people is wrong’ to be morally correct, and judge that it really does logically follow from these two accepted propositions that Harold’s hitting of Horace was wrong, then you seem to have a sound argument in support of your value judgement that Harold did something wrong (in hitting

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Horace). But is it factually true? And is the principle morally correct? And does the conclusion of the argument really logically follow? Chapters 4 and 5 focus on such questions and are the last of the chapters of the book to introduce various basic sub-skills and associated theoretical ideas to you. Although Chapters 4 and 5 introduce you to the basics of argument criticism, the process of critically examining an argument in order to see how good it is can be quite drawn out. Think about it: just because an argument has been criticized does not mean that it is not any good; it all depends on how good the criticism is. Criticisms can themselves be criticized and on it goes. Things become complicated fast here and in Chapter 6 – ‘Extended Reasoning: the Basics’ I introduce to you some techniques for methodically working your way through the maze of criticism, possible response to criticism, response to the response and so on; in short, argument in depth. Chapter 7 – ‘Extended Reasoning: Some Complexities’ follows on from Chapters 3, 5 and 6. You will recall that Chapter 3 was concerned with the task of taking a half-formed intuitive argument and getting it laid out clearly and completely in a structured way. However some arguments are more complicated than others and so the structures capturing what is going on in them will also vary in complexity. In Chapter 3 I discuss only the simplest structures and defer consideration of more complex argument patterns until this chapter (I do this because I think it wise for you to become confident and competent walkers before trying triple somersaults). So, one task of this chapter is to introduce to you some of the more complicated forms that arguments concerning some stance or proposal might take. The other part of Chapter 7 follows on from Chapters 5 and 6. Remember that Chapter 5 introduced you to the task of mounting a certain sort of criticism against an argument (premise criticism as it happened, that is, the challenging of the assumptions an argument is starting from – things like the moral principle ‘hitting people is wrong’ of our little Harold and Horace example above). In Chapter 6 we considered (among other things) reaction to such criticism (does it succeed? can the original argument resist the criticism? and so on) – in short, reasoning in an extended way as the merits or otherwise of some line of thought are teased out. This sort of extended reasoning can be quite involved and complex and this chapter explores some of those complexities. In particular it discusses what might occur when you think that you have some issue that has emerged in such an extended enquiry sorted out: how do you close off a particular thread of dispute and work out what implications that closure has for your topic of interest? Although some of the book’s techniques and ideas apply to any exercise in critical thinking and almost all of it applies directly to thinking critically about any old moral matters, Chapter 8 – ‘Babble and Murk’ is focused directly on some concepts that seem prevalent in much thinking about moral problems that arise in professional circumstances. There are some horribly muddled and intellectually disreputable ideas concerning issues within our four themes listed above for various professions. As the name suggests, the chapter is simply an exercise in conceptual tidying up, one of attuning you to what is wrong with some common slogans,

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‘buzz words’ and obscure ideas so that you can move on to better conceptualized views concerning the ethical issues arising in, and surrounding, your professional life. I would have liked to make this an earlier chapter so that the waters could be un-muddied more swiftly but some of what I say would, I suspect, not be understood until you have some sub-skills of analysis and reason under your belt. So, I have deferred the task until we finished portraying our suite of techniques. If you want to jump ahead a bit to read this, then I recommend at least waiting until you have a fairly solid grip of Chapter 3. Chapter 9 – ‘Some Ethical Theory’ is intended to provide some background for your critical thought about your value judgements (especially those that connect with professional life, although it is not limited to that). I draw upon some standard ethical theory and I try to draw as finely judged a line as I can between overwhelming you with moral philosophy (a result of which can be that you lose sight of your professional motivations and engage with various philosophical puzzles as an end in itself – which is fine for philosophers but, for practising professionals, is losing sight of the point a bit) and underwhelming you with too cursory a treatment of what are quite complicated and abstract matters. As an illustration of the sorts of issues addressed, try this: given that different people will have different views on our topics, is there any such thing as objective moral truth on these matters, right answers if you like, or are wrongness and rightness, like beauty, subjective and ‘in the eye of beholder’, that is, merely a matter of personal commitment or preference? As you might guess, there is a considerable amount of argumentation in moral philosophy about such questions and I try to chart some of the territory. I probably err on the side of underwhelming you but, in any event, my experience with students has been that, despite the importance and clear connection of such matters to their professional ethical concerns, most students are almost totally unaware of them and resistant to wishing to engage with such abstractions. Yet it seems important to make some attempt at wrestling with these issues, despite their difficulty. Accordingly, when you get to Chapter 9 you should find the spread of theoretical positions quite a voyage of self-discovery and challenge as you try to place your own intuitions about your moral principles into some place in the network of theories that I present to you and consider some of the problems with those views. Closure So, there is a sketch of the role and layout of the book. Know in advance that most of you are probably not used to thinking about these matters in such a relentlessly rigorous and in-depth way. This means that you will have to work hard for some period of time at getting some critical thinking/reasoning skills robustly in place before you are ready to be ‘let off the leash’ to use those skills when reasoning about some morally vexing professional concerns. Expect to be frustrated at times when things are not ‘clicking’ and it all seems rather involved and complicated.

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Keep at it though, reread the section of the book relevant to whatever it is that is puzzling you, try to put things in your own words. In short, actively engage and re-engage with the subject matter and it will usually ‘click’ at some point. Understanding this sort of stuff is definitely assisted greatly by discussion with your peers (either in formal or informal settings) and, if you are not following things, then discussion with your tutor/instructor is, of course, also advised. The effort is worth it, though; to the extent that you can reason in depth you will have a potent suite of intellectual skills that you will find you will apply as (almost!) second nature in all sorts of situations (not just professional ones). One last thing: when you are out practising your profession, please try to foster clear and rigorous thought about ethical matters in those you encounter in your professional lives. Such thinking will, perhaps, not be as formally pursued as you have been introduced to in this book but quite a lot can be done short of that and still be worthwhile. As I said at the start, there is more to professional life than the practical everyday matters you have to contend with and those matters are important enough to think properly about.

Chapter 2

Proposition Types The Descriptive/Moral Distinction Think back to the Harold and Horace argument. Once I had laid it out and put in a missing piece, we had three component propositions that formed the argument. These were: Hitting people is wrong. Harold hit Horace. So, Harold did something wrong.

As I remarked at the time, these propositions are not all of the same sort. The second one is a proposition about what the world is like (or, at least, that bit of it formed by Harold and Horace). It purports to describe an event – the hitting of Horace by Harold. Put another way, it is trying to report the facts of the matter, to say what was occurring. The other two are different. They are not trying to tell you any claimed fact about the world; rather, each is a moral judgement. Have a look at the last proposition first. As with the second proposition, it is talking about Harold but it is not telling you something (supposedly) true about him in the matter-of-fact manner of the second. Rather, the author morally appraises a particular action of Harold’s as wrong, as not being what he should have done. In this third proposition, the author expresses moral disapproval of Harold hitting Horace (for it is obvious from the context that the ‘something’ in question was the hitting). The third proposition is a particular moral value judgement of a particular event. The first proposition is not. Rather, it is a general moral principle being advanced (and appealed to in guidance of the judgement of the Horace and Harold event). Although I trust that it is clear enough what the difference between the two is, what I wish to emphasize for present purposes is not this difference between the first and third propositions but their similarity as moral propositions and their difference to the fact-claiming descriptive nature of the second proposition. Getting this difference clear is the major business of the chapter – propositions of these two sorts are central to discussions of professional ethics. The distinction has a number of labels in the philosophical literature, none of them terribly satisfactory. As you might come across them, I will run quickly through a few before fixing on one for us to use. Anyway, running through them will approach the distinction from several different angles, thus, hopefully, helping to fix it in your mind.

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One common tag for the distinction is ‘the is/ought distinction’. I hope you can see the point of the label. That Harold hit Horace is purportedly something that is the case. Or, more precisely, was the case – but tense is beside the point here, we can hardly operate with the clumsy ‘is-was-will be/ought’ label for the distinction! Compare this second proposition with the third one – that Harold did something wrong. Here the proposition is not telling you what is (or was) happening, it is passing moral judgement upon what happened. Although the word used to express the judgement is ‘wrong’, not ‘ought’, it would be easy enough to rewrite it saying ‘Harold did what he ought not to have done’ (not quite the same in meaning but close enough for now anyway). Of course this is ‘ought not’, not ‘ought’. But, as before, we are hardly going to operate with the clumsy ‘is-is not/ought-ought not’ to cater for negatives. Given that one ignores tense, and does not fuss about negatives, and realizes that most propositions of a moral sort which are expressed using language other than ‘ought’ can be translated into that sort of language, and so on, the ‘is/ought’ tag is a useful enough one. However, it is not one I choose to use. Another common tag is ‘descriptive/normative’. ‘Descriptive’ because propositions like the second one are trying to describe what the world is like (or some aspect of it). ‘Normative’ because moral principles are taken to establish a standard for behaviour, they are taken to be action-guiding, or directing, and your moral judgements about particular actions are made by reference to their conformity or otherwise to your moral standards. Have a look at our little Harold and Horace argument above and you will see just that sort of thing going on – so, not a bad tag. Nonetheless, the tag is a little bit awkward in that some socalled descriptive propositions will not actually succeed in describing at all. Try: ‘The moon is made of green cheese’ – this is simply false; it is not succeeding in describing what the moon is like. Perhaps, if spoken by some naive person, it could be thought of as an attempt at describing the moon, as a putative description but it does not actually describe anything. I suppose we could modify the tag so that it was ‘putatively descriptive/normative’ but clumsiness is setting in fast here. Also, ‘normative’, although a word in general usage, is not all that frequently employed by undergraduates. So, I will not be using this tag for the distinction either. A third tag is ‘empirical/evaluative’. ‘Empirical’ basically means: known through the senses (either directly, as in knowing that one has a cup in one’s hand, or indirectly, as in knowing some quite general law of science on the basis of experiment and observation). One trouble is that, again, this is hardly a word robustly present in your vocabulary. Another is that I will be wanting to lump into this ‘is, descriptive, ...’ half of our distinction some propositions that are implausibly thought of as empirical, ones like: ‘Jesus loves me’, ‘There is life after death’, ‘Gertrude has extra-sensory perception’ and so on. ‘Evaluative’ is OK except that we do not just make moral evaluations, the word is used more widely than that. I might look at the clouds and say: ‘My evaluation of the cloud patterns is that it will rain before dawn’; nothing very moral/ethical about that. We also talk of aesthetic evaluations, say of a painting by an art critic. Again, I will not

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use this tag. (Sometimes you will see crossbreeding of the previous two tags to get ‘descriptive/evaluative’; I will not bother to comment upon such hybrids.) A fourth tag is ‘fact/value’. One trouble with this is similar to what has been mentioned above concerning ‘evaluative’. We tend to think of ‘values’ as covering more than just moral values. Another is that ‘fact’ has the connotation of proven truth. One tends not to use it for propositions that one is hesitant about. So, for instance, the proposition: ‘there is intelligent life somewhere else in our galaxy’ is rather speculative and it grates to put it in a basket labelled ‘fact’. Yet, in this book, I do wish to be putting into just one basket any proposition which is, however tentative, an attempt at describing the world out there, trying to say what reality is like. (This is whether such an attempt is successful or otherwise and whether it is guesswork or proven by some body of evidence.) So, I am a bit unhappy with this common tag for our distinction as well. There are other candidates in the literature but they are even more troublesome or obscurely technical and I will not bother you with them. So, if all of the labels in the literature have their problems, what will I use? What I want is a not too technical, not too misleading tag that is fairly crisp and short. Nothing is without problems and, with misgivings, I am simply going to employ the tag: ‘descriptive/ moral’. I know in advance that this will muddle some students but it’s the best I can think of. Let me flag some possible misinterpretations in the hope that, having explicitly noted them, you might avoid muddle. First, I direct you to my comments about failed descriptions above. The way I will be using the tag ‘descriptive’, even a failed description like ‘the moon is made of green cheese’ will count as descriptive. Think of ‘descriptive’ as shorthand for ‘putatively, or attempting to be, descriptive’ if you like. Second, although ‘moral’ cuts the field of misinterpretations down a bit from that present with ‘value’ or ‘evaluative’, there is one worry with it. We tend to use ‘moral’ in two ways. In one, the contrast for moral is immoral. ‘Moral’ is used as a synonym for ‘good’ as opposed to bad. Example: ‘Murgatroyd is a very moral person’. In the other, the contrast for moral is non-moral (or, as it is less commonly put, amoral). Here, the idea of ‘moral’ is that the proposition is something or other to do with goodness and badness, right and wrong and so forth – ‘morally-loaded’ if you wish. Example: ‘The discussion then moved on to moral issues’. In contrast to moral in this sense, the idea of something being non-moral is that something non-moral is morally neutral, or nothing to do with morality. So, whether I brush my teeth with a blue toothbrush or a green toothbrush is, as far as I can see, without any moral implications at all. It is not moral, but not in the sense that it is immoral, it is a non-moral activity. As I will be using the term, a moral proposition will be one that is something or other to do with morality; the contrast will be with non-moral. That means that, whether some proposition that you are analysing judges some activity in a way you agree with or not, so long as it is a morally-loaded proposition, one making a moral judgement (as opposed to one having nothing to do with morality), you will be categorizing the proposition as moral, not descriptive. So, even if you think abortion is immoral, you will be classifying the proposition: ‘abortion is ethically right’ as a moral proposition.

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Our task at this stage is merely to reliably categorize propositions into types, not to make our own moral value judgements on the issues. Wading through all of the above will have given you some feeling for the nature of the distinction that I want you to get clear here. However, I know from experience that it can take a while to get things straight so I will try to reinforce the above with some examples before moving on to other things. Key Ideas Moral Propositions express the author’s moral judgement about what is right or wrong, should or should not occur and so on. Descriptive Propositions express the author’s claim about what the world is like.

Some Examples In the following examples, the ‘D’ propositions are descriptive and the ‘M’ propositions are moral. See if you can understand explicitly why each proposition is categorized as descriptive or moral. What I am trying to foster is greater awareness of your use of language than is common for most people. D1 Most teachers think that positive reinforcement is the most ethical form of behaviour control. D2 No teachers employ positive reinforcement. D3 Positive reinforcement has no effect on behaviour. M1 No teachers should employ positive reinforcement. M2 It is only morally proper to employ positive reinforcement if the individual in question is too young to understand the worth of some activity. M3 It is usually wrong to bribe someone to do something. D4 All patients wish to be told the truth about their condition. D5 Sometimes telling a patient what is wrong with them lessens their chances of recovery. M4 Patients should always be told the truth about their condition if it is clear that that is what they want. M5 It is more important for someone to recover from illness than it is for them to know what is wrong with them. D6 All Clients expect their counsellor to treat anything they say in a counselling session as ‘in confidence’. D7 If a counsellor reveals the contents of a counselling session in response to a police request, then their client can sue. M6 Counsellors should be able to make their own professional judgements as to when it is proper for them to reveal the contents of a counselling session to a third party.

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M7 Preventing crime is not more important than respecting a client’s trust that what is said to a counsellor will not be revealed to anyone else. D8 The price of some scientific knowledge is animal suffering. D9 It is impossible to prevent some scientists carrying out stem cell research even if it is made illegal. M8 No knowledge is worth having if its price is animal suffering. M9 Stem cell research is immoral.

The ‘D’ prefixed propositions are descriptive propositions, they purport to describe what reality, or some aspect of it, is like. That some of them fail in this task (D2, for instance, is false) does not stop them being descriptive propositions, propositions of the sort that one would use to attempt to describe the way things are. The ‘M’ prefixed propositions, on the other hand, are not ones trying to describe to you some fact about the world (or, at least, they are not doing this in a straightforward way; there are some subtle theoretical issues here which I will ignore for present purposes; we will discuss them in Chapter 9). Rather than making a proposition trying to describe how something is, they propose morally how it ought (or ought not) to be, they make a moral judgement as to the rightness or wrongness of some state of affairs. The current task is be able to detect that they are moral (as opposed to non-moral) regardless of whether you agree with them or not. Sometimes, you will find it easy enough to work out what is what. But sometimes it will be more vexing and difficult. Basically, this is a matter of practice and coaching and feedback from your tutor. There are some techniques that will help you, though, and I turn to these in the next section. But before I do, it might be helpful if I ‘think aloud’ and talk my way briefly through why I categorize my examples as I do. I will also take the chance to begin attuning you to some subtleties that will be revisited in later chapters. Analysis of the Examples D1 Most teachers think that positive reinforcement is the most ethical form of behaviour control.

My guess is that many of you would have allocated this as a moral proposition. What might have caught your eye is the phrase ‘most ethical’. In deeming something to be the most ethical form of behaviour control, surely one is morally approving of it? This last point is correct; but note that it is not the speaker of D1 who’s passing that sort of judgement. All the speaker is doing is reporting the judgements of other people. The speaker is describing the thinking, in particular the moral thinking, of most teachers (or trying to, she may have things muddled). It is a descriptive proposition about the moral views of others; the speaker is expressing none of her own moral views about positive reinforcement.

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Reason and Professional Ethics D2 No teachers employ positive reinforcement.

The proposition is false but in terms of our system of categorization it counts as a descriptive proposition. The speaker is attempting to describe the behaviour of teachers, just failing to do so correctly. D3 Positive reinforcement has no effect on behaviour.

Much like the previous one: in terms of our categories, this is a descriptive claim, just one that is false (as far as I know, positive reinforcement does have an effect in many cases). M1 No teachers should employ positive reinforcement.

In this case, unlike the first one, we are getting the speaker’s own moral judgement (note the word ‘should’ of which more in a moment). The speaker is saying what, in his view, a moral duty of teachers is. M2 It is only morally proper to employ positive reinforcement if the individual in question is too young to understand the worth of some activity.

Again, the speaker’s own moral views are being expressed, it is not a report of the views of others and the views expressed are moral ones – note the words ‘morally proper’. All that is different to the previous one is that it is a slightly more complex conditional proposition (note the ‘if’). M3 It is usually wrong to bribe someone to do something.

This is fairly straightforwardly a moral proposition; the only thing to note is the mild complexity of the proposition given the word ‘usually’. Presumably the author is suggesting that there would be occasions, or circumstances, where she would morally approve of bribery. D4 All patients wish to be told the truth about their condition.

This is a straightforward descriptive proposition where what the author hopes to describe are the wishes of other people – in this case, patients. It is worth noting how sweeping and exceptionless the claim about them is (‘all ...’). Almost certainly, this proposition is false as I imagine there are exceptions. It being false does not, you will recall, stop it being categorized by us as descriptive. D5 Sometimes telling a patient what is wrong with them lessens their chances of recovery.

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Yet another fairly obviously descriptive claim. Note the ‘sometimes’: unlike its predecessor, this claim is un-sweeping and rather restricted in its claimed scope of application. One last thing: although the word ‘wrong’ is used it is not a moral use of the word. What is under consideration is telling a patient what illness, injury and so on they have, not their moral faults. M4 Patients should always be told the truth about their condition if it is clear that that is what they want.

The speaker is saying what should occur and it’s fairly obviously a moral ‘should’ (there are other, non-moral, uses of the word as we will shortly see). The only thing to note is that, as with M2, the moral proposition is conditional (note the ‘if’). M5 It is more important for people to recover from illness than it is for them to know what is wrong with them.

Again, a moral proposition expressing the author’s views as to what is more important (morally speaking) out of illness recovery and knowledge of the nature of one’s illness. D6 All Clients expect their counsellor to treat anything they say in a counselling session as ‘in confidence’.

As with some earlier ones, the author is attempting to describe the psychology of other people so, a straightforward descriptive claim. Again, note how sweeping the claim is (‘all’). D7 If a counsellor reveals the contents of a counselling session in response to a police request, then their client can sue.

A descriptive proposition claiming to tell us what the law is concerning the confidentiality of counselling sessions (even when the breach of confidence is in response to a police request). As with some earlier ones, note the conditional nature of the proposition (‘if …, then’). M6 Counsellors should be able to make their own professional judgements as to when it is proper for them to reveal the contents of a counselling session to a third party.

This is on the same general topic as the previous one but, in this case, we are not being told what the speaker’s ideas are about what the law is, we are getting the speaker’s own moral views as to what is right and what is wrong (note the moral use of the word ‘should’). Note that there is nothing inconsistent in agreeing with this proposition and with D7. One might agree that people legally can sue and

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think that this is a bad law and that a morally better situation would be allowing counsellors to exercise professional discretion in the matter. In short, what is legal is not the same idea as what is morally good. M7 Preventing crime is not more important than respecting a client’s trust that what is said to a counsellor will not be revealed to anyone else.

As with an earlier one, a comparative moral value judgement about what is more important than what. D8 The price of some scientific knowledge is animal suffering.

This is a straightforward descriptive proposition that you will simply not get some items of scientific knowledge unless there is some animal suffering. Presumably what is in mind is that the suffering of some animals (those used in experiments, say) is a necessary part of the process that leads to that knowledge. Note that it is neutrally descriptive and we simply cannot tell whether the author thinks the price is (morally) worth paying or not. D9 It is impossible to prevent some scientists carrying out stem cell research even if it is made illegal.

This is a descriptive proposition which expresses the speaker’s views as to our chances of eliminating such research by legal banning. You may agree with the proposition or you may be more optimistic (or is it pessimistic?) concerning the power of the law but your agreement or disagreement is irrelevant to the task of allocating it as a descriptive claim. M8 No knowledge is worth having if its price is animal suffering.

In this case, however, we are definitely getting the author’s own moral views; note the word ‘worth’. M9 Stem cell research is immoral.

This is pretty obviously to be categorized as a moral proposition; note the use of ‘immoral’.

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Further Detail on the Distinction and Some Clue Words Clue Words Introduced I have noted a tendency at times for my own students to radically misconstrue whether some proposition is a descriptive proposition or one issuing some sort of moral value judgement. There is no easy recipe for distinguishing these better but there are a few helpful clues in our language. Most of our ideas are expressed in language and value judgements are no different. Accordingly, we have developed a range of linguistic ways of expressing value positions. My first suggestion then is that you be very meta-cognitively deliberate and self-conscious about the language you are using or reading (if, say, it is another person’s proposition which you are trying to categorize). Look carefully at what is said, at the words used. Turns of phrase which are commonly used to express value-judgements are: ‘should’, ‘ought’, ‘right’, ‘good’, ‘a (or ‘the’) right’, ‘important’, ‘duty’, ‘proper’ and so on; and, of course, ‘should not’, ‘wrong’, and the rest of the negations. As a rough rule of thumb, you are not going to be able to express a moral proposition without this sort of terminology and you can take its presence as likely signalling the presence of a value proposition. Call such words ‘clue words’; they tip you off to the possibility that you have a moral proposition present. It is only a ‘clue’ though and you cannot just automatically assume that the presence of one of these words means that you have a moral proposition (have a look at my discussion of D5, above). Although they are not a sure-fire guide, or some sort of recipe, and they have to be employed with some thoughtfulness as all of these words can also be used to express non-moral (as opposed to immoral) propositions as well as ones to do with morality, they are, nonetheless good clues. Key Ideas Clue Words (like: ‘should’, ‘right’, ‘important’ and their negations) provide a clue, but only a clue, to the possible presence of a moral proposition; they are not to be used as a mindless recipe in place of thoughtful analysis.

Descriptive Uses of Clue Words – Some Examples Almost all of the language that we employ to express moral propositions, the clue words as I have called them, can also be used to express descriptive propositions. Consider ‘should’ as an example. One might have the proposition: M10 No child should have to live in fear of physical violence.

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What this seems to do is enjoin a moral duty upon all of us to do what we can to intervene and prevent any child from having to live in fear. This is a clear-cut moral proposition. By this I mean that, whether you agree with it or not (and it is swiftly open to serious criticism as being wildly overstated despite its superficial ‘motherhood and apple pie’ attractiveness as a value; but that’s another story), it is clearly a moral, as opposed to descriptive, proposition. Even if you come to judge it as not morally acceptable as a stance, as immoral, if you like, it is still moral as opposed to non-moral. But sometimes ‘should’ can be used in a descriptive proposition. For instance, say some piece of medical equipment was not working and the technician, after some repairs, pronounces: D10 There, it should work now.

Am I to take it that she is signalling her value stance to the effect that the equipment has a moral duty to work now? Of course not. All that is happening is a (quite morally neutral) expression of the likelihood or probability of various cause-effect chains being in place ready for activation. Similarly, say that a colleague is late for a conference and the meeting secretary phones his room and reports with: D11 He ought to be here in a few minutes.

This is probability talk, not moral appraisal talk. Contrast it with: M11 Jones really ought to be on time for meetings.

This does seem to be the issuing of a moral judgement. I will not continue but every one of our clue words can be used in a non-moral way so attend closely to this point about care in the analysis of these clue words and ensure that you understand the above. I have found confusion of the moral and non-moral uses of ‘should’ and other clue words to be a major fault in those new to this sort of careful analysis and categorization of propositions. Key Ideas Descriptive propositions, not just moral ones, might be expressed using our clue words; so watch out!

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Embedded Clue Words: More Detail Next, I would like to have a deeper look at an issue touched upon when we analysed D1. ‘Most ethical’ seemed to be being used to express a moral value judgement but I observed that it was not the author’s. So, despite appearances, I allocated the proposition as descriptive, not moral. This sort of situation occurs quite a bit. How a given sentence is to be analysed is all a matter of how the clue word occurs in whatever sentence is under scrutiny, even when it is the moral sense of the word. Consider the following, both employ ‘should’ and in both cases the word is used in the moral sense but in only the former case is the sentence being used to advance a moral proposition; the latter is a descriptive proposition. So, compare: M12 Rural medical practitioners should give discounts to families in poverty.

and: D12 Most Welsh people think that rural medical practitioners should give discounts to families in poverty.

In the former, we get the author’s, or speaker’s, own moral proposition about rural medical discounts. In the latter, we get no contribution of that sort at all. All that we get is a descriptive proposition reporting other people’s values, one about what most Welsh people would decide on that moral issue. The use of ‘should’ is embedded in the proposition and not used directly to express the author’s moral views. To note their views says nothing in itself about the rightness or wrongness of such discounts. Even if one thought the proposition about the views of most Welsh people to be true as a matter of fact (I have no idea), one could, with no hint of contradiction, go on in the next breath to morally disagree with them. That is, one could hold that no matter how many Welsh people think such discounts to be right, it is nonetheless wrong. In short, working out for yourselves what you take to be morally defensible answers to our questions is distinct from finding out what other people’s answers are. Those answers of others (and their supporting argumentation) might be useful food for your thought but it will not settle the moral question of what is right; just the descriptive one of what some group of people think is right. Moral controversies are not to be settled by doing a survey. (We will return to this issue of what is right versus what people say is right in Chapter 9.) So, look carefully at what is written: is it an expression of the author’s own moral judgement? – in which case it is a moral proposition; or is it a report by the author of the moral judgements of someone else? – in which case it is a descriptive proposition (purporting to describe the contents of their mind).

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Key Ideas Sometimes, even when it is a moral use of a clue word, the word is not used to express the moral judgement of the author and so that proposition is not a moral proposition.

I will use the tag ‘ambiguous proposition’ for propositions that, upon one interpretation of some key turn of phrase, fall into one type and upon another interpretation fall into another type. Ambiguous words are words with more than one meaning and I am just borrowing the general idea for our more specific present purposes. The label is apt because propositions like: A1 Everyone has the right to freedom of religious thought.

may mean: M13 Everyone has the moral right to freedom of religious thought.

but also may mean: D13 Everyone has the legal right to freedom of religious thought.

We cannot tell, just from looking at A1, which is meant. So, as I will use the word, an ambiguous proposition is one whose meaning is unclear in that particular way. Interpreted one way it would be a moral proposition but interpreted another way would be a descriptive proposition. It is one thing to issue one’s own moral judgement about what moral rights people should have but it is quite another thing to comment about what legal rights have been granted in some country or other. (As an aside, there is no such legal right in most western countries; parents are permitted to indoctrinate their children into various religious beliefs, thereby compromising their freedom of thought. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing you might care to think about, I merely note it as a legal fact.) So, what moral rights you think people should have and what legal rights the ‘powers that be’ have granted to them are two distinct matters; yet both use the ‘right/s’ turn of phrase and it can be unclear which is meant. It is not just the word ‘right/s’ that has this problem of ambiguous meaning: the same arises with the word ‘permissible’ (it can be legal or moral permissibility in question and they are not the same idea), with the word ‘accountable’ and with some others. What makes such propositions ambiguous is that we have no guidance from the sentence, or the context of its utterance, or writing, just which way it’s supposed to be interpreted. Be alert to this problem in trying to understand the propositions

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of others but also be alert to it as a problem others might have in understanding you. Why not make it crystal clear just what you intend and write in ‘moral right’, if that is what you mean, instead of just ‘right’ (which might be misconstrued as ‘legal right’)? And so on for other such expressions. Of course it is also the case that some propositions which would be ambiguous in isolation are not when you attend to the surrounding context. So, if A1 had been uttered in the context of a discussion of the laws of the land and what they stipulated as citizens’ legal rights and responsibilities, then there would be no ambiguity whatsoever and we would understand that D13 was what was meant. So, if you are not sure, attend carefully to the context and see if that helps you work out what is meant. Apart from the possible moral/legal confusion, another source of ambiguity in some situations is that, even with context, it is sometimes not clear if some other clue word is meant morally or not. All you can do is be as careful as you can in unpacking the ideas of others and try hard to avoid creating confusion in expressing your own ideas. Although I have introduced the idea of ambiguous propositions as ambiguous between the category ‘moral’ or the category ‘descriptive’, this is just because we have only laid out two categories so far. As we will see, there can be some confusion across other categories as well. So, in summary on clue words: some linguistic clues? – certainly; they are a big help so long as they are not taken to be relieving you of the obligation to think about what you read and write. Key Ideas Sometimes you cannot tell how a clue word is meant (it is ambiguous) but a lot of the time the surrounding context of the proposition helps resolve any such potential ambiguity.

A Common Student Error in Categorizing Propositions Finally, just a reminder that, so far, it is descriptive propositions that we are contrasting with moral propositions. A proposition can, I have said, be descriptive and false (e.g. ‘The earth is flat’ or our recent example: ‘Everyone has the legal right to freedom of religious thought’). A proposition might also be descriptive and highly speculative (e.g. ‘There is intelligent life somewhere else in our galaxy’). In each case, the proposition is an attempt to describe reality, to say what the world is like – that the attempt fails, or is unjustified, is beside the point of categorizing the proposition as descriptive. So far, so repetitive of earlier sections. Hopefully this is clear and needs no further elaboration for you to follow the point. However, some of your student ancestors of my experience have persisted in confusing the idea of a moral value proposition with that of a not-proven,

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or speculative, but nonetheless descriptive, proposition. So, consider the proposition: D14 On average, black, homosexual, paraplegic, left-handed, fundamentalist Hindus are less capable in those skills of abstract thought apt for thinking through ethical dilemmas than those who are not.

I have no idea whether this is true or not and surmise that we would have to rate its utterance by someone as pure speculation on their part, as guesswork, as mere opinion. Despite it being guesswork, it is a guess about that class of people’s comparative intellectual capabilities. Given this, it is a descriptive proposition, an attempt to say what reality is like. It is not a moral judgement of any sort about what should be the case. True or false, known or unknown, it is a descriptive proposition, not a moral proposition. In summary, being an unproven, or speculative, proposition about what reality is like (a guess, a mere matter of opinion), does not of itself make the proposition a moral proposition. Never mind that some proposition is just someone’s speculative opinion, ask yourself what it is an opinion about; if it is just an opinion about what the facts are, then it is still descriptive. For it to be a moral proposition it has to be the author’s view as to what is right or wrong, good or bad, and so forth. Much the same can be said about moral propositions (although I have not found students to have the same problems here). That you disagree with it, or think it to be in moral error, does not make some proposition any the less a moral proposition. For instance, ‘Lying to people is always morally permissible’ might be a view that you reject but that just means that you think it to be expressing an immoral stance; it is still a moral proposition as opposed to non-moral. Key Ideas Do not confuse expressing a moral judgement with making a speculative ‘mere opinion’ claim about what facts of the world are.

Uses of Some Clue Words in Aesthetic Propositions Sometimes when you analyse a proposition, the claim being made with the employment of one or other of these clue words is value judgemental but not morally so. Another category of values is that of aesthetic values – matters of taste – to do with beauty, ugliness and so forth. Some of our clue words can be employed to advance aesthetic value propositions, not just moral value propositions. As an illustration, were someone to say that some style of clothing was right for you, you would misunderstand if you took them to be saying that the style was one that it was morally proper, or dutiful, for you to be wearing. All that is meant is that

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they like that look on you. Having made this distinction between aesthetic and moral values, I will henceforth ignore it, as aesthetic value propositions are not our concern. A Brief Summary and a Taxonomy of Proposition Types so Far I said earlier that the main business of this chapter was to assist you get a clear conception of the distinction between descriptive and moral proposition types. So, let me first just briefly review those two types. Descriptive Propositions These propositions are those supposedly describing what reality is like. They might be tentative attempts, or even be sheer speculative guesswork or they might be proven truths. They might concern matters of particular detail or be broad sweeping generalizations. They might be true or they might be false. Whatever the detail of all of that is, we are calling them ‘descriptive propositions’ – attempts to describe what reality is like. Moral Propositions These propositions are those where the author is taking some sort of stance concerning the moral rightness or wrongness, goodness or badness of something; a stance about what morally should or should not happen, about the moral rights, duties and responsibilities of various people and so on. Again, much as with descriptive propositions, it is irrelevant to a proposition’s categorization as a moral proposition whether it is advanced tentatively or with great confidence, whether it is accepted by you or not and so on. All that matters is that the author is indeed proposing some sort of moral value judgement. Moral propositions almost always use turns of phrase such as ‘should’, ‘good’ and so on to express the moral judgement being made; such Clue Words, as I called them, are, however, not a mindless recipe for the allocation of propositions as moral ones. They are but clues and should be used in conjunction with an intelligent appraisal of the sentence and its context as every one of the clue words has a non-moral use as well. Which leads us nicely into my next category. Ambiguous Propositions Ambiguous propositions, you will recall, are those that are not clearly one proposition type or another as they stand – it all depends on how some particular clue word is taken. So, some proposition could be a moral one or could be a descriptive one; we just cannot tell. (Note that some propositions that might have been ambiguous if considered in isolation might have that potential ambiguity

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resolved by the context of their occurrence.) So far, the possible ambiguity has been between descriptive and evaluative proposition types (the only basic types that we have considered to date). As we will see in due course, although this is the most common type of ambiguity, things are a little bit more involved. Mixed Propositions So much for progress to date. I would like now to add one more proposition type to our taxonomy. I will call such propositions ‘Mixed Propositions’. The metaphor is from chemistry. Take some sand and pour it in a cup; now take some ground black pepper and pour it in the same cup. Stir well. Now remove a teaspoonful of the cup’s contents. The teaspoon will contain both sand and pepper. Each retains its own separate identity (the sand is still just sand, the pepper is still just pepper) it is just that various bits of each are present in the teaspoon. Ditto with our proposition types. Sometimes more than one proposition is present in the same sentence. And on some such occasions one of the propositions is a moral proposition and another is a descriptive proposition. So, upon examining such a sentence you would be in error to just say: ‘It is a moral proposition’ or: ‘It is a descriptive proposition’ because it is more than that, it contains both of them at once. Consider this sentence: DM1 Professionals arguing in front of a client causes the client to lose trust in their judgement and it is wrong to cause any such loss of trust.

This sentence contains both a descriptive proposition and a moral proposition bundled together. It says both that such disagreement will cause the client to lose trust in their judgement (a descriptive proposition as to what the fact of the matter is) and that such loss of trust is wrong (a moral value judgement). Such composite propositions are, for our purposes, usually most easily considered if analysed into their component bits (as just done with DM1). Once these are analysed, they break down into our two existing proposition types. So, in this case, the best way of thinking of DM1 is as these two propositions: D15 Professionals arguing in front of a client causes the client to lose trust in their judgement.

and: M14 It is wrong for anyone to cause the clients of professionals to lose trust in them.

In the case of DM1, the mixed nature of the sentence (the presence of more than one proposition, with one of them unpacking as D15 and the other as M14)

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is fairly obvious because we have a blatant conjunction with the two conjuncts joined by the word ‘and’. Sometimes, however, things can be not quite as obvious. Consider: DM2 Professionals arguing in front of a client wrongly cause the client to lose trust in their judgement.

Note the insertion of the word ‘wrongly’. With that insertion DM2 says the same thing as DM1. It is just that the sentence structure bundles the two propositions together rather than separating them out to form the two conjuncts we see on either side of the ‘and’ as we had in DM1. The same propositions are there in each of our two versions; it is just more obscure in DM2 just what is going on. It is that obscurity that can trip you if you do not attend carefully to ‘teasing out’ all of what has been said. As a variation on this theme, one can also have sentences which contain more than one proposition yet they are not of different types. That is, there might be more than one descriptive proposition advanced in the one sentence or there might be more than one moral value judgement. Instances are: ‘Joan cried at the news but also realized that what had happened was what Jeremy would have wanted’. Here we have two pieces of information, two descriptive propositions, one about her crying and one about her realization, bundled into the one sentence. Or, try: ‘Lying is wrong but so is causing people avoidable harm’. Two things are being called wrong; two moral value judgements are being made. Each of these two sentences could be broken up into its component parts and later down the track I will be talking about making sure that you do just that so that it is clear what is being said. However, for the moment, I do not want to fuss with these cases of more than one proposition but with each of them being of the same type. Our present concern is to note the possibility of propositions which are formed of a mixture of descriptive and moral propositions. It is particularly important that you be alert to these and able to unpack them into their component bits. Without a bit of care there is every chance of you simply not realizing the presence of the moral proposition element in mixed propositions and this can be a real impediment to thinking clearly about professional ethical matters when such sentences crop up in the enquiry. I will return to a particularly troublesome case of this (one rampant in educational, nursing, social work, counselling and other professional circles) in a later chapter (Chapter 7 on ‘needs’). So, our final category so far is: Mixed Propositions Mixed propositions are those where more than one proposition is present in the sentence with one of them being a moral proposition and the other being a descriptive proposition (or at least that is so within the limitations of the proposition types we have dealt with so far).

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In closing, note that what all of this amounts to is that, so far, we have two basic proposition types: moral and descriptive (ignoring aesthetic propositions). Then we have two other types that are built up from these two basic ones. Mixed propositions are ones where two distinct propositions are bundled together in the one sentence – one moral and one descriptive. Ambiguous propositions are ones where only one proposition is present but it is not clear whether it is a moral proposition or a descriptive proposition. Key Ideas Mixed Propositions are where a sentence has more than one proposition being stated and more than one type of proposition (so far, descriptive and moral).

Conceptual Propositions As just remarked, we have so far had two basic proposition types, descriptive and moral. In this section, I want to introduce the last item in our taxonomy of proposition types. The final proposition type I will portray for you I will call ‘conceptual propositions’. For some reason, my experience has been that this is the proposition type that students have most trouble understanding – perhaps because such propositions do not crop up often. Accordingly, I will try to explain it and draw the contrast between this type and our other two basic types. The major possibility for confusion about conceptual propositions is with descriptive ones and I will spend some time focusing upon that as a way of introducing the conceptual proposition type. (The distinction between conceptual propositions and descriptive propositions is controversial within philosophical theory but the detail of that goes beyond our present purposes.) Let us start with a common example. What is the concept of bachelorhood, what is it that constitutes a bachelor being a bachelor, the core idea if you like, the meaning? Say we answered: ‘being an unmarried adult male’. One can think of what has been offered here as constituting a proposition about the conceptual equivalence of ‘bachelor’ and ‘unmarried adult male’. So, we could portray things in the form of a proposition to the effect that bachelors are unmarried adult males – this would be an example of what I will call ‘a conceptual proposition’. Let us portray it in labelled form for ease of reference: C1 Bachelors are unmarried adult males.

Contrast it with the descriptive proposition: D15 Bachelors’ favourite food is beer.

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What is the difference? I said that C1 was a way of expressing the conceptual equivalence of ‘bachelor’ and ‘unmarried adult male’. Another way of thinking about this is that C1 seems to have its truth and falsity dependent not on facts about the world, things true of the people who happened to be bachelors. Rather, its truth or falsity is dependent upon the meaning of the word ‘bachelor’, the nature of the concept, what is essential to the very notion of being a bachelor, or something of that sort. If it is true, then its truth lies in meaning relationships among ‘bachelor’ and ‘unmarried’, ‘male’ and ‘adult’. If you think it is true and I think it is false then the nature of our dispute is that we are operating with different meanings of the word ‘bachelor’. In contrast, D15 is true or false dependant upon the facts of the matter about the food preferences of bachelors, and whether it is true or false would not affect what we understood ‘bachelor’ to mean, as opposed to what the facts about bachelors are. There seems, then, on the face of it, to be a distinction to be drawn between conceptual propositions, like C1 and descriptive propositions, like D15. Another way of grasping this distinction better is to think about how we might go about trying to establish each of the two proposition types as true or false. So, how might these propositions be tested? On the face of it (and again philosophical controversy abounds but is bypassed here) the way that we might go about trying to work out whether or not we agree with a descriptive proposition is different to what we would look for in testing a conceptual proposition. For instance, we might expect some sort of survey of bachelors to be of help in seeing whether most (was it ‘most’, was it ‘all’? – as an aside, note how vague the proposition was; we will talk about vagueness and clarity in the next chapter) bachelors liked beer more than any other food. But we would not test the conceptual proposition by picking out a sample of bachelors and then seeing how many of them are unmarried adult males. If that were what we understood the concept of bachelorhood to amount to, then we would already and automatically have judged our sample as comprising unmarried adult males in virtue of judging them as bachelors. If one knows that someone is a bachelor then there is nothing further to find out as to whether they are an unmarried adult male or not. To check this sort of claim is not a matter of seeing if the bachelors have some further property as a matter of descriptive fact (like preferring beer) but a matter of seeing if the understanding of ‘bachelor’ is right in the first place. So, one might check the conceptual proposition by reflecting upon the relationship among the ideas ‘bachelor’, ‘unmarried’, ‘male’ and ‘adult’. When I do that, it seems to me that C1 is true, true by definition if you like. ‘Unmarried adult male’ is indeed contained within the idea ‘bachelor’. All I had to do to decide upon the truth or falsity of C1 was reflect upon word meanings and the syntax, or grammatical structure, of the sentence. I say the syntax of the sentence because, were our sentence to have been: C2 Bachelors are not unmarried adult males.

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then the presence of that all-important word ‘not’, together with the very same meaning relationships just discussed, would make C2 false. Mind you, one has to be a little bit cautious. What if we made the ‘meaning relationships’ nature of conceptual propositions quite explicit in a ‘“this” means “that”’ sort of way. Try the following: C3 ‘Bachelor’ means ‘unmarried adult male’.

As I remarked in an aside earlier, we will focus upon issues of clarity of expression in the next chapter but the problem arises here so we will have to get a little bit ahead of ourselves. As it stands, C3 is unclear. Is the suggestion that this is the total meaning of ‘bachelor’? If so, it should be rewritten more clearly as follows: C3a ‘Bachelor’ means ‘unmarried adult male’ and nothing more.

So viewed, C3a is false; it is too inclusive because it is only unmarried adult male humans that are to be thought of as bachelors. However, perhaps it just meant: C3b ‘Bachelor’ at least means ‘unmarried adult male’.

If so, then it seems to be true. I hope to have given you some feeling for the distinction between conceptual propositions and descriptive ones and also some appreciation of the importance of precision and clarity in the expression of conceptual relationships. It might be thought that all that is needed is a dictionary, for does not it act as the authoritative lexical record of how we use words, of the conceptual connections in our language? Up to a point this is so; certainly it would sort out the concept of ‘bachelor’ well enough. But many of the conceptual connections in our language are not tracked in dictionaries and, indeed, not explicitly, or consciously, understood by the native speakers whose usage the dictionary tries to summarize. Remember that the dictionary can be no more precise than the linguistic practice it is trying to report and sometimes that practice is pretty murky. Much philosophical work involves thinking about subtle meaning relationships and conceptual connections. In particular, many issues in professional ethics require thinking about conceptual connections that are more complex and subtler than what are captured in dictionaries. I will illustrate this point when considering our next comparison. So far, we have spoken only of the difference between conceptual and descriptive propositions. I now want to spend a moment discussing the difference between conceptual propositions and moral propositions. Consider this proposition: M15 Everyone has the moral right to life.

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You might agree with this or you might disagree with this; but clearly the author of this proposition is issuing a moral judgement and so it is, in terms of our proposition types, a moral proposition. Contrast with this the proposition: C4 To say that someone has the moral right to life is to say that, when it comes to living or dying, it should be their decision, not someone else’s.

This proposition certainly has some moral clue words present (‘moral right’, ‘should’) but we are getting no moral judgement by the author at all, so it is not a moral proposition. Rather, what is going on is that we are having someone outline what they take the allocation of a moral right to someone to amount to, what the very idea of a moral right is. It is, if you like, presenting an answer to some such question as: ‘What do you mean when you say that someone has a moral right to life?’. You should realize that some of the concepts which you will be wielding (in thinking through value judgemental topics concerning your professional lives) are not going to be as clear cut in their meaning as ‘bachelor’ is (try: ‘equality’ as a glaring case in point or ‘moral right’ as just used). As to whether conceptual propositions concerning such concepts are true or not, it is not part of what I am trying to achieve here for you to be generally attempting to adjudicate these conceptual propositions in their own right. To make such judgements involves rather sophisticated conceptual analysis and that requires a fair amount of philosophical training which you will likely not get. Rather, all that can be reasonably asked is that you just recognize that one possible source of controversy in ethical discussions concerns what various concepts amount to and thus which conceptual propositions we endorse and which not. Discussions can get ‘at cross purposes’ when meanings are unclear and different participants mean different things concerning central ideas. All you can do is be alert to this possible problem and try to make it as clear as you can as you go just what your concept is of this, that or the other key idea in your discussion and spend some time making other participants clarify their own concepts. As you will see in the next chapter, my suggestion about this is that you explicitly set up what I will call your own ‘working definitions’ of these key, but possibly murky, concepts. This is so that everyone involved understands each other as much as possible. So, you might say: ‘When I say that schools should provide an equal education for all, I mean that they should treat students in whatever way will result in them exiting school with as close to an identical set of competencies as possible’. That might not be how someone else would understand ‘equal education’ but rather than divert into challenges to your understanding of the concept, they can at least see what your idea is (mislabelled though they might judge it to be) and get on to the substantive moral issue of whether or not they think that your schooling aim is morally appropriate – so, as you mean ‘equal education’, is this what schools should be aiming to provide or not? Generally speaking, conceptual propositions will not loom as large in your enquiries as descriptive propositions and, especially, moral propositions – which is

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a blessing given how hard they can be to cope with without thorough philosophical training. So, although I include them as our last basic type of proposition, the main ones to focus on are moral and descriptive propositions. Finally, for completeness, a given sentence might contain a mixture of a conceptual proposition and some other basic type or it might be ambiguous as to whether what is present is a conceptual proposition or some other basic type. Key Ideas Conceptual propositions neither tell us what the world is like nor pass moral judgement upon it; rather, they make claims about the relationships among concepts.

Summary Remarks What you should have clear from this chapter is a number of distinctions. The most important distinction to have straight is that between a descriptive proposition and a moral proposition. Although you should understand what conceptual propositions and aesthetic value propositions are, the most important thing for now is distinguishing descriptive from moral propositions and noting where both are present (mixed propositions) and where it’s not clear which is present (ambiguous propositions). Moral propositions and descriptive propositions are the major constituent elements of the arguments that make up a rigorous enquiry into ethical problems and it is to that matter of argumentation that I turn in the next chapter.

Chapter 3

Structuring Arguments The Problem of Justifying Moral Propositions In the last chapter, I stated that a crucial distinction for our purposes was that between a descriptive proposition and a moral proposition. Obviously any of the propositions that you or others advance in taking some sort of ethical stance on a professional matter are moral propositions. You are now more attuned to this distinction and should be able to see that propositions of the following sort are to be so classified: ‘Children should be educated, not trained, at school’. ‘It is totally improper for a medical practitioner to have sexual relationships with one of her patients’. ‘It is sometimes right for police officers to use their discretion in deciding whether to enforce the law’. ‘It is more important that social workers act as advocates for their clients than that they enforce petty bureaucratic rules’.

And so on. At this stage, you should be attuned to the presence of the clue words that suggest that you have moral propositions here. And, having noted that that is what they are, you will perhaps find that some such propositions of an ethical sort concerning professional life you agree with, that you disagree with others, are ‘in two minds’ concerning the merits of some others and find some too vague to know what to say unless they are clarified a bit. In short, you will already have some views on these matters, especially issues to do with your own chosen profession. But, for all you know, your views might be rubbish; they might be ill thought through, the result of shallow minded thinking ‘off the top of your head’. The only way you would know that they were not rubbish would be to have thought out some reasons for your views, to have a rationale in their support. In what follows, we begin to explore the sort of thing that might provide such a rationale. I will begin that exploration by contrasting the present problem with that facing the support of a descriptive proposition. If a descriptive proposition is advanced, then, as most of you would realize, the issue is whether it is true or false, that is, succeeds in describing reality or not. And, suffice it for now to note, one’s hope would be that some process of, mostly, empirical enquiry would result in it being established if, say, it is true that most police take bribes, or if it is true that some undergraduate courses demand a higher level of literacy than 30 per cent of current students are capable of, or if it is true that 20 per cent of deaths in

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hospitals are due to staff incompetence, or if most retirements of social workers are stress-related, or not. Not that empirical enquiry is guaranteed of settling all descriptive propositions’ truth-status. Some such propositions might be true, and some false, without anyone being able to establish them one way or the other. (Try: ‘Ten minutes before the battle of Waterloo, Napoleon briefly thought of Josephine’.) In short, not all truths are capable of being known. Despite that, if such propositions are amenable to having their truth or falsity established at all, then, for most of them at least, we seem to have a halfway decent procedure for such investigation: empirical research – that is, observation, experiment and the like. (Actually it is not clear that some descriptive propositions are, even in principle, amenable to empirical research; try: ‘God exists’. I will ignore this complication for now.) But what of moral propositions? How on earth are they to be established (or rejected)? First, note from the outset that such propositions do not seem to be able to be proved one way or the other by means of the sort of empirical research that one might usually undertake to investigate the truth/falsity status of descriptive propositions. This is not a mere matter of it being too difficult. As just pointed out, plenty of descriptive propositions that are presumably either true or false are nonetheless just too difficult to check out; and we will all go to our graves never having been able to find out which it was. (E.g. ‘The historical person now called “Jesus Christ” had a particular liking for fig cakes’.) Nonetheless we feel that, even if it is impossible find out which it is, they are nonetheless either true or false. (Either he liked fig cakes or he didn’t; and that would be so whether we knew about it or not.) But, flawed though it is, and though it is not guaranteed of success, empirical research is a generally available and appropriate way of going about investigating the truth or falsity of the vast bulk of descriptive propositions. With moral propositions though, such enquiry seems to be just inappropriate; that is, in principle inappropriate, not just difficult – it is just the wrong sort of way to go about establishing such propositions. You might not see this, so let’s ask what sort of empirical research (as done by natural or social scientists) could be thought suitable to the task of settling whether something was right or wrong, good or bad, should or should not be done? To illustrate, let’s look at an example from the previous chapter. Consider: ‘It is wrong to bribe someone to do something’. What sort of research could establish that? Well, I suppose that one could do a survey of citizens in our society and let us suppose that the survey question asked: ‘Is bribery right or wrong?’ Suppose further that we found that three-quarters of respondents said that it was wrong. Would that settle things? Not obviously. If done competently, such a survey tells you whether or not our society’s citizens morally condemn or condone bribery but that is not to learn whether it is right so much as to learn what fellow citizens’ views on the matter are, whether they think it right. (We touched upon this sort of thing in the last chapter, you will recall.) You are getting descriptive information

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about their views not moral guidance concerning the wrongness of bribery. You could disagree with others and judge society to be in moral error on this without being automatically wrong in your view simply because it is a minority view. (One might also note that the answer from the survey would presumably vary with time and place depending upon the society that one surveys.) Alternatively, one might do research to find out what the usual consequences of bribery are for various people involved. But that wouldn’t help decide about the rightness or wrongness of bribery unless we already had some values in terms of which to appraise such consequences as good ones or bad ones! In short, it is not clear that either of these particular sorts of empirical research settles moral questions; if anything, it seems clear that they don’t. So, what else could one do by way of empirical enquiry in order to find out whether or not the proposition that it is wrong to bribe someone to do something was one to be endorsed? Another common suggestion is to find out whether or not bribery is legal. But this looks to be confused; the question was not whether bribery is legal but the distinct issue of whether it is morally right. Unless you reject the very possibility of bad laws, rightness and legality are not to be conflated; they are different things – what is legal is a descriptive matter and what is right is a moral matter. If one is lucky enough to live in a good society then the law might happen to reflect what is right but, even so, the two concepts are distinct (we touched upon this in the last chapter and will consider things further in Chapter 9). So, we are still left with the problem: what is one to do in appraising value propositions, can they be shown to be correct or not and if so, how could one do that? The issue is hugely controversial within that domain of philosophy that concerns itself with thinking about the nature of ethics; but we simply do not have time to address these matters here in their own right (again, some further treatment will occur in Chapter 9). For present purposes, it will have to suffice to say that it is not at all clear that there is any way of showing a moral proposition to be true or to be false. Indeed, it is not at all clear if there is any objective or absolute right answer to be had at all concerning value propositions. This is even worse than the situation, touched on above, for the minority of descriptive propositions that are also not able to have their truth/falsity checked by empirical means (even in principle). Such claims as: ‘God exists’ might not be empirically checkable but, despite that, it is either true that God exists or false. There is some sort of fact of the matter that makes the claim true or false, even if we can’t tell which it is. With moral propositions, it is not even clear that there is any sort of fact of the matter to be had. So, what can be done by a thinker concerned to have well supported ethical views on various professional matters? Pending further immersion in moral philosophy, the best thing for now is not to worry about whether one’s answers are right or wrong in any absolute, or objective, sense. For now, focus on getting your own views straight and as well supported as possible. This can be done while accepting that it may not be possible to further decide in any non-personalized way between two competing views, say those of

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yours and those of a colleague of yours as to whether, say, bribery is sometimes legitimate or not. The best that we can hope for is having both of you having thought through your judgements on the issue as thoroughly and fair-mindedly as possible. That you differ in your final assessment is a matter that we will not be able to further arbitrate on. What we can arbitrate upon, however, is the clarity and argumentative rigour with which each of you come to your conclusions. So, the upshot of what I am suggesting above is that, in the absence of anything like as obvious a way for settling moral questions as empirical enquiry is for settling most descriptive questions, the best that can be managed is a carefully worked out, critically appraised, personal judgement on the matter. Even if not objectively establishable as the truth, your judgement will hopefully be at least satisfactory in a subjective sense. That is your task. But how to do that? – with difficulty; but once you have some skills further developed, your capacity to think through complex issues will be considerably sharpened. The key skills are being able to craft and appraise arguments. In this chapter, we focus upon the former task and in subsequent chapters upon the latter. Key Ideas Empirical enquiry can’t establish moral propositions. We assume for the moment that no moral proposition can be established as true in any objective sense. Our current focus is therefore on having your moral judgements as carefully thought out as possible with a view to them being satisfactory in a subjective sense. Doing this involves skill in argumentation.

Arguing about Values My suggestion is that you think of the moral values that you have, and the value judgements that you make when employing them, as forming a network or web. The web is comprised of two sorts of things: first, more or less general moral principles; and second, particular judgements on particular topics, acts or situations. To illustrate the former, try: ‘All stealing is wrong’. To illustrate the latter, try: ‘Jenny should not have stolen Jane’s wallet’. As this pair will indicate, particular value judgements can generally be seen as being an application of, or as being motivated by, the former, more general, principles (although you might not be self-consciously doing that at the time). So, if asked to defend one’s condemnation of Jenny, one might appeal to the principle that all stealing is wrong (a rather simple and sweeping principle in this particular case and, as we will see later down the book, principles might be more hedged about than that; at the moment, we will keep things deliberately simple while key elements of argumentation are explained). Anyway, laid out a little more completely and formally as a structured argument in justification of that judgement, we get something roughly like this:

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All stealing is wrong. Jenny stole Jane’s wallet. So, Jenny should not have stolen Jane’s wallet.

I will pursue the mechanics of argumentation in a moment but, for now, I merely point out that there are two distinct sorts of role for the constituent propositions of the argument – supporting propositions and those being supported. Some, the premises, are acting as reasons in support of another, the conclusion. In this case, what we have is a general moral principle (that all stealing is wrong) being shown relevant to Jenny’s action by way of a linking (or bridging, or connecting) descriptive premise (that Jenny stole Jane’s wallet) and these are offered in support of the conclusion (that Jenny should not have stolen Jane’s wallet). We have two premises with the first being a moral proposition and the second a descriptive proposition leading (hopefully) to our conclusion which is also a moral proposition. Simple, even simplistic? – Yes, but little arguments like this form the elements of the complicated intermeshing dialogue that constitutes an in-depth discussion of our topics and justification of our stances upon them. When you are giving reasons for some moral proposition you are arguing. And when you respond in objection to some presented argument, then your response will itself be another argument. A dialogue of discussion of, and enquiry into, our professional ethical issues can be seen as an extended exercise in argumentation back and forth as the worth of some proposal is thoroughly probed. That whole enquiry is basically made up a web of linked arguments each of which is not a lot different in general layout to the little three-liner above. In Chapter 6, we will move on to the task of going beyond single arguments to crafting such a more extended web of reasoning. Mind you, any such web has to start somewhere and my suggestion is that you take some intuitively attractive stance on the topic that concerns you and then begin to craft that web by starting off with a single argument that, in your view, advances a line of thinking that is a central or key line of support for that stance. Get it straight and you have the starting point for further development of your thinking. But, as I said earlier, before you can get it straight a number of sub-skills have to be in place and one of those skills is being able to lay out (or structure, as I will call it) an argument in the manner of the three-liner above. Much as with the last chapter’s task of being able to reliably distinguish a descriptive proposition from a moral proposition, I have been surprised at how difficult some students seem to find this business of structuring an argument, so read carefully.

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Key Ideas Having a well thought-out ethical stance involves argumentation in which reasons are advanced for a view. Arguments are most clearly laid out in a structured form with supporting propositions (the premises) leading to the proposition being argued for (the conclusion).

Assertion and Argument Before proceeding much further, it is probably worth pausing briefly to just spend a few moments confirming that you understand the distinction between (merely) asserting some view and arguing for it. Let us again use the subject matter of the little three-liner from above. Say that one said: Jenny should not have stolen Jane’s wallet.

As it stands, this is a mere assertion; one knows what the author thinks about Jenny’s action’s rightness but one doesn’t know why. Contrast with this the following: Jenny should not have stolen Jane’s wallet because any stealing is wrong.

In this case we do have an argument; a (somewhat sketchily worded) rationale has been offered for judging that Jenny should not have stolen Jane’s wallet. The support for the judgement follows the word ‘because’. Contrast this with the threeliner of the previous section. Basically that three-liner is the same rationale; it was just laid out more carefully, clearly and completely. Most of the arguments that you will naturally come up with yourselves, and come across from others, will tend to be of the sketchy sort rather than the clearly laid out sort of our above three-liner. Your next task is being able to progress from such sketchiness and portray your and others’ reasoning into such a clear structure (I will call it: ‘structuring’ such initial ‘feral’ arguments; I call such initial arguments ‘feral’ to underline the point that these are wild, ‘untamed’ arguments that need some work).

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Key Ideas Arguing for a position is more than merely asserting it, it is reasoning in its support – providing an argument with the reasons constituting premises of such an argument. The position in question thus forms the conclusion of such an argument and has an explicit rationale rather than being merely stated without one. A key skill is taking a feral initial go at an argument and structuring it.

Structuring Arguments As you will have realized by now, one of the skills which is central to the book’s objectives is that of having you be able to argue in as explicit and transparent a way as possible. It is not much use congratulating yourself on having various views if they are unsupported. Yet it is not much use congratulating yourself on having reasons for believing, or doing, something if those ‘reasons’ are an obscure mess. Why? – because if they are a mess, then they are not in a form where you, or anyone else, can judge whether they are good reasons or not. And you should care about the quality of your reasoning if the topic is an important one. And surely, as noted earlier, any professionals worth their ‘salt’ would consider the sorts of questions raised in Chapter 1 to be important ones. (For what it is worth, which is quite a bit actually, the skills of reasoning transfer across to other issues as well; not just your professional life will benefit from you being able to reason well – although you may irritate sloppy-minded friends.) To help you build up your reasoning skills, I suggest that you lay out your arguments in the rather artificially structured way of the above three-liner (it is not always three, but it is commonly two premises and a conclusion). I don’t suggest that you are likely to do this sort of formal structuring in future, but doing it now as a training exercise assists you to get a more reliable intuitive ‘feel’ for argumentative clarity and quality. In effect, your future feral arguments will be less feral as a result of the training in structuring them that you are about to undergo. The argumentation we will be focusing on will always (initially) concern moral matters like whether a proposed course of action is the right one or whether some proposition as to the correctness of some moral view is to be accepted. (I say ‘initially’ because, as you will later see, as the enquiry unfolds you might divert to be pursuing some matter of fact, or even a conceptual issue, as a sub-task; ignore this complication for now.) So, any argument directly on your moral problem will always involve moral conclusions that you are arguing for. And, there is no way that one can have an argument with a moral conclusion based on reasons, or supporting premises, that don’t themselves contain a moral proposition. One can’t extract a moral judgement as conclusion from premises that are merely morally-neutral descriptive propositions. So, for all of the arguments that you will be initially offering directly in moral judgement concerning our topics, the set of premises,

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or reasons, advanced as support for your conclusions have to contain some sort of moral propositions as moral premises. So, a key task to be kept in mind when structuring a feral argument is to make sure that the resultant structure contains at least one moral premise. Let’s try walking through this process of structuring a feral argument. The first thing to get clear in a feral argument is where the conclusion is. Sometimes it is obvious but sometimes it isn’t – even when the argument is your own! If the conclusion is not obvious then there are techniques that may help you to work out which part of a feral argument is expressing the conclusion and which parts are premises. The next sub-section introduces the first of these techniques, hunting for, and understanding, what I will call ‘inference words’. Key Ideas Arguments directly supporting some stance on a professional ethical issue will always have a moral conclusion. Any such argument with a moral conclusion has to have a least one moral premise. A key skill in trying to understand any feral argument is to be able to identify what it is trying to prove – its conclusion.

Use of ‘Inference’ Words to find the Conclusion Say that you have tried to go beyond some intuitive (or ‘feral’, as I will continue to dub it) line of reasoning and lay it out as a formal structure. As an illustration, let’s make the abortion debate the topic of enquiry. Say that your initial feral argument was: F1 Abortion is wrong because it is the killing of people.

This is an argument and not a mere assertion (note the bit after the word: ‘because’ – it starts to give supporting reasons). Much as we had clue words when we were discussing the moral-descriptive distinction in the last chapter, there is another bunch of words that it is worth remembering as giving a tip-off that, in this case, a move of reasoning, an inference, is present – I’ll call them ‘inference words’. As with the last chapter’s clue words, they are to be used with caution and intelligence, not blindly and automatically as a recipe. All of them have uses in our language apart from that of expressing a move of reasoning but they’re still worth noting. We have one here, namely, ‘because’. ‘Because’ usually signals that we have just had a conclusion and that a premise is about to follow. It sometimes gets placed elsewhere in a sentence than between the premise and the conclusion but if you get a good feel for the ‘plain vanilla’ versions discussed here, then you should be able to extend your understanding to

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other sentence patterns. Some other words, or turns of phrase, that carry out the same job are: ‘as’, ‘given that’, ‘on the grounds that’ ... you get the idea. Some other inference words work in reverse and signal that one has just had a premise and a conclusion is about to follow. For instance, another way of expressing F1, but switched around, would be: F1* Abortion involves killing people so it is wrong.

Again, there is a bunch of words and turns of phrase that do the same job that ‘so’ does here. A partial list is: ‘thus’, ‘therefore’, ‘hence’, ‘it follows that’ ... and so on; again I hope you get the idea. So, one piece of help that you often have in structuring an argument is looking for inference words. As noted, we have two (‘plain vanilla’) varieties: 1. Conclusion because (as etc.) Premise(s); and 2. Premise(s) so (therefore etc.) Conclusion. Key Ideas To help find the conclusion of a feral argument there will sometimes be inference words present; these are of two sorts: 1. Conclusion because (as etc.) Premise(s); and 2. Premise(s) so (therefore etc.) Conclusion

Although learning to hunt for inference words is useful in laying out an argument as a structure with clearly indicated premises and conclusion, sometimes an inference is occurring yet no inference word at all has been employed. One might have: F1** Abortion is wrong. It involves killing people.

Here we have two separate propositions (sentences in this case, but they could be clauses within a sentence – try replacing the first full-stop with a semi-colon) but, despite appearances, they are not two mere assertions. To see that they are not just two disjointed mere assertions one after the other but are connected (with the second proposition being (a partial) rationale for the first) there are a couple of techniques to assist. The first I will call ‘inference word insertion’; the second I will call ‘the why?-because trick’.

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Inference Word Insertion As the name suggests, with inference word insertion, one plays around with inserting inference words. Remember that we had two groups of them, one, if you like, the reverse direction of the other. I will use ‘because’ from one group and ‘so’ from the other. The idea is to shove one inference word and then the other (in turn) between the two propositions and see if either of them fits so that the resulting sentence ‘scans’. Does insertion of either of them help you to realize that one proposition is the conclusion and the other a premise? Let’s try ‘because’ (remember that this works in this way: conclusion because premise). F1**a Abortion is wrong because it involves killing people.

As I hope you will agree, this works; we can see the last bit as premise in support of the first bit as conclusion. Indeed, it is more or less the same as the original F1 (with just minor rewording). Tried around the other way, using ‘so’, it doesn’t work. F1**b Abortion is wrong so it involves killing people.

This just doesn’t jell as a move of reasoning. The upshot of this is that inserting inference words can help you to see not just whether an inference is going on or not but which proposition is conclusion and which is premise. When inserting inference words, I suggest that you use ‘so’ and ‘ because’ on the grounds that your intuitions as to what these mean are probably more reliable than for other inference words. Indeed, even if you do have an inference word but are unsure what it means, in particular, which direction it goes in (conclusion word premise, or premise word conclusion) you might want to insert the more intuitively familiar ‘so’ and ‘because’ to help you work out what is going on. So, say you had: F1a Abortion is wrong in virtue of the fact that it involves killing people.

You might at least realize that you have two propositions joined by the italicized inference phrase but not be confident as to just what that inference phrase means by way of picking out the conclusion. Your intuitions are probably better with ‘so’ and ‘because’ so insert them in turn in place of the italicized phrase and see which fits better. In this case, clearly ‘because’ ‘scans’ but ‘so’ doesn’t.

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Key Ideas If no inference word is present in the feral argument, try inserting inference words between that argument’s propositions to see which sort fits, or ‘flows’. If you have an inference word but are not quite sure how works, then try replacing it with ‘so’ and then with ‘because’ and see if that helps you work out which way the argument goes.

What of the other technique, the ‘why?-because’ trick. The ‘Why?-Because’ Trick Let’s try it on F1**. F1** Abortion is wrong. It involves killing people.

Here, we take each proposition in turn and ask of it ‘why (that proposition)?’ and see if answering ‘because (the other proposition)’ fits. If so, the ‘why?’ proposition was conclusion and the ‘because’ proposition, premise. In this case, if we asked: ‘Why is abortion wrong?’ and answered: ‘Because it involves killing people’, then that would fit. (Trying it the other way and asking: ‘Why does abortion involve killing people?’ and answering: ‘Because it is wrong’ just would not work.) So, by use of this trick we know that another way of writing F1** (without changing its meaning – just making it clearer that an inference is occurring) is as we did back in F1**a: ‘Abortion is wrong because it involves killing people’. Again, the trick tells us not just that an inference is present but which direction it goes in. This technique and that of clue word insertion are mainly of use when you are trying to understand the arguments of others but I have found students find them useful on occasion in working out what they themselves are saying! It is best, though, if you get yourself into the habit of arguing in a way that has appropriate inference words already written in explicitly and deliberately. That way you and whomsoever your argument is directed towards each have a better chance of avoiding confusion.

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Key Ideas Faced with two propositions, P1 and P2, and unsure of which is conclusion and which is premise, ask ‘Why P1? – because P2’ and ‘Why P2? – because P1’ and see which one makes sense. For whichever version ‘scans’, its ‘why’ proposition is the conclusion.

Those techniques explained, let’s return to considering F1. Laying out a Structure F1 Abortion is wrong because it is the killing of people.

Here, we do have an inference word (‘because’) and clearly some sort of sketchy rationale is being offered for saying that abortion is wrong but it is fairly incomplete as it stands. But, even with the bits we have explicitly on the page so far, we can lay things out a little bit more clearly. We now know which statement is the premise and which the conclusion, so let’s portray that in a structure. This gives us an initial structuring attempt as follows. S1 Abortion is the killing of people. So, Abortion is wrong.

This is some improvement on F1 in that it displays clearly just what is supposed to be proving what – what is premise and what is conclusion. However, note the switch to ‘so’; this is because in our structure the conclusion comes last. But it is not much of an advance. It’s still a bit obscure and is missing a bit (getting a feral argument into decent shape as a tight structure usually requires a few drafts as you progressively fix faults). So, let’s try a clearer, more completely explicit, version. Presumably, the absence of any other quantification means that one is speaking of all killing of people and all abortion, so that might as well be explicit (not that it will always be ‘all’ that’s written in – see the section: Clarifying Whole Propositions). Also, note that the conclusion is a moral proposition yet there is no moral value expressed in the premise; the latter is not a moral proposition. So, as discussed earlier, some sort of moral proposition (acting as a moral premise) should be in there but is missing. What might such a premise be? Note that, back in the feral argument, F1, nothing more was present that has not been captured in S1 – all the clauses/sentences of that feral have found a place in our structure. So, we have to ‘read between the lines’ a bit to find out the missing, or merely

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implicit, value principle the case rests on. In this case, it seems obvious (especially once it is written in by someone else, like me!): – the author is opposed to killing people, thinks it wrong to do so. So, we might have a better go at structuring it as follows: S1* MP All killing of people is wrong. CP All abortion is the killing of people. So, MC All abortion is wrong.

Working out Moral Premises That Are Difficult to Identify Note that three things have occurred from S1 to S1*. The MP has been written in explicitly, quantification has been made explicit (the ‘all’s) and the propositions that make up the argument have been labelled as to type (‘MP’ for the moral premise, ‘CP’ for the conceptual premise and ‘MC’ for the moral conclusion – and note that we have a CP, not a DP; though unusual, it sometimes happens). This might all look fairly simple and obvious but sometimes it simply will not occur to you straightaway what the missing MP is. As it is hugely important in these sorts of ethical enquiries to get straight what the values are that an argument is resting upon, you simply have to try harder to work out what the missing MP is. There are a couple of techniques that might help. Let’s go back to our initial, and incomplete, structuring of our feral. S1 Abortion is the killing of people. So, Abortion is wrong.

Say that you get stuck at this point and can’t see what to write in as a moral premise. You realize that you are missing one but can’t immediately see what it might be (again, realize that this is a problem that will arise not just with the arguments of others but with your own arguments; in effect, you won’t know what you meant!). Two approaches might help to find the missing MP. The first approach is to say to yourself something like: ‘I know that the author (perhaps you) is morally opposed to abortion but what other moral commitment of hers is hinted at in the feral? What else is implicitly there concerning the author’s moral values – (either what she is morally against or what she is morally in favour of)? Trying that with S1, most of you would realize that the author is not just against abortion but subscribes to a more general moral opposition to killing people. (And, incidentally and controversially, we see from the CP that she conceives of abortion to be a special case of killing people, an instance of that more general principle.)

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So obviously you are going to write in (as the MP) some sort of claim expressing moral opposition to killing people. When you write this in, write it in a way that obviously links up with or connects with the way some of the other claims are expressed. Have a look at the way that I did it in S1* and see how the MP meshes with the rest of the argument. It’s a matter of the turn of phrase that I have chosen to express the (previously implicit) value explicitly as the MP. Later in the chapter, in the section: Checklist Item 4, we’ll come back to this matter of having the bits and pieces of the argument mesh together. Then again, you might stare at the initial (incomplete) structure and ask yourself what else the author values and simply fail to come up with anything. What then? Well, then you try the second technique. In fact, I would be inclined to use this technique anyway just as a check upon whatever you might have done more intuitively. How does this second approach work? You will usually have another premise present. In this second approach, focus your attention on the premise that you do have. You haven’t yet got the MP that you are hunting for but you will have, most commonly, a descriptive premise. The abortion argument we are using is unusual in that the other premise is a conceptual premise. (Arguments can even have two MPs and you have one explicitly present and are hunting out the other; but that is a rarity that I’d rather not muddy the waters with right now.) When you focus upon the descriptive premise or, in this case, CP, you focus on it asking yourself questions along the following lines. The author (who may, remember, be you) is trying to advance an argument against abortion and tells us that it is a case of killing people. So what? Why would the author claim this as part of her case in trying to show that abortion is wrong? What is the relevance of this claim to that task? Well, presumably if the main point to be made about abortion, in support of the claim that it is wrong, is that abortion is the killing of people, then the author is presumably against the killing of people – otherwise, why bother mentioning it? So, I can write in as the moral premise something like: ‘Killing people is wrong’. And that, of course, will give us the MP of S1*. Key Ideas There are two techniques for ‘teasing out’ missing moral premises: first, ask what other moral commitments the author has apart from the one listed as the MC; second, focus on what is said in the (non-moral) premise that you have and ask what makes it morally significant as a reason in support of the MC.

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A Checklist for Checking Argument Structures for Tameness Now, S1* seems nicely clear and connected and seems to have all of its bits and pieces explicitly present (most notably an MP). It is already what I will call a ‘tame’ structure as opposed to the ‘feral’, more intuitive, statement of the argument with which we began and, for that matter, as opposed to our first attempts at portraying the argument in a structured form (S1 in this case). Note again that, to help keep track of things, I have labelled the moral premise ‘MP’, the conceptual premise, ‘CP’, the moral conclusion, ‘MC’ (and, had we had one, I would have labelled the descriptive premise ‘DP’). It’s a fairly obvious shorthand and acts as a visual reminder of what sort of proposition any given line is taken to be. Although you have hopefully tracked along with the above discussion of our little abortion argument without getting lost and can see the final structure as hanging together fairly nicely, it is quite likely that, for some time, your efforts at structuring will not often be this successful. Your argument structures will be faulty in various ways. So, what might go amiss? Well, you’ve seen my transformation of F1 into S1*; it seemed to go OK but, as I have noted, things will not always go that smoothly; what might go wrong? Lots, but a few errors are sufficiently common among those new to this level of reasoning rigour that they are worth remembering. My suggestion is that it’s worth explicitly and self-consciously checking through your arguments to make sure that you are avoiding these errors. Think of it in terms of a mental ‘checklist’ that you methodically work through, looking for various possible faults one after the other. With a bit of practice, mentally working through the checklist will become second nature. So, what’s on the list? Four things: 1. Is the conclusion on target? 2. Does each line of the argument contain only one proposition and does each proposition occur in only one place in the argument? 3. Is each line of the argument correctly identified as to proposition type? 4. Do the various lines of the argument ‘mesh’ together to form one coherent piece of reasoning? By applying this checklist methodically, one step after the other, and fixing any problems that you detect, one after the other, as they are found, you have a good chance of producing a structure that fairly well lays out what the original feral argument was trying to say. If you just look at an argument and try to form an overall ‘Gestalt’ impression as to its satisfactoriness, then you are likely to overlook faults. I emphasize looking for (and fixing) faults one at a time in a tightly focused way because this helps you to see (and remediate) things that you would otherwise miss and ensures that you don’t omit anything when analysing the argument for various faults. Let me explain each of these ‘taming’ checklist items one by one.

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Checklist Item 1: Is the Conclusion on Target? One thing to get clear right from the start is whether the argument structure has its conclusion talking about what you meant it to be. Arguments have purposes; they are intended to address some issue of concern. An argument is on target if it does just that and off target if it addresses some other issue. If it is not on target, then it is immediately in trouble as it has a conclusion, no matter how well proved, that is simply irrelevant to the task at hand. In the case of F1 and the various versions of S1, the argument was meant to be one directly addressing the issue of the rightness or wrongness of abortion. As an initial argument in an enquiry you would expect it to be bearing directly on this topic with its conclusion and the rest of the argument to be laying out a case for or against abortion (in this case it was against). So, let’s look at S1*, the best-stated version of the argument we had above, and check whether its conclusion is on target. In this case, it is pretty obvious that it is, so obvious that you might wonder why we bother doing this particular check. I will simply report to you that it is surprising how many people, especially when in the early stages of learning to reason more rigorously, simply wander off the track and start arguing about something else. They don’t go wildly off track but it is still off track, not arguing about what they were meant to be arguing about. For instance, one professional ethical issue for teachers to wrestle with is trying to have a considered view as to who should be setting the broad aims, or goals, of a curriculum. I have found student-teachers to have a tendency to drift across from this topic to a distinct one, namely: who should be deciding the content of a curriculum in order to achieve preset, or given, aims or goals. The first question is the topic: ‘Who should set the ends?’; the second question is the topic: ‘Who should decide the means to achieve some given ends?’. An argument with the conclusion as to who should decide on the means is irrelevant to a topic concerning who should decide on the ends. Easy enough to see when I portray it, harder to avoid when you are trying to make sense of someone else’s reasoning or trying to argue yourself. How to stop yourself making this error? – examine the argument focusing upon just one thing: is the conclusion on target? As another illustration, this time using our abortion argument, say someone structured that argument as follows: S1** MP All abortion is wrong. CP All abortion is the killing of people. So, MC All killing of people is wrong.

Have a look at this in comparison to S1* and you’ll see that the only difference is that the MP and the MC have been switched around, the argument is, if you like, upside-down. Curiously, I have found this sort of inversion of the order of the lines to be not uncommon among beginners. If you just looked at this argument as

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a whole and asked of it whether it was on target then you would probably answer that it was because the argument as a whole has lines in it mentioning abortion. But if, knowing that you are supposed to be presenting an argument establishing a stance upon abortion, that is, presenting an argument that concludes that abortion is wrong (in this case), then you would know that, for the argument to be on target, its conclusion has to be a stance on abortion. So, instead of looking at a whole argument you should look just at MC. And, looking at it, you would see that it doesn’t mention abortion at all and realize that it is not on target. In this case, S1** isn’t even a proper portrayal of the feral F1; in forming the structure the author has not taken proper note of the inference word ‘because’. The feral’s conclusion was on target but things got distorted in transcribing it into a structure. At other times, it will not be that the MC in the structure is a misrepresentation of the conclusion of the feral; it might be a perfectly faithful rendition of the original feral. The problem might rather be that the conclusion of each of them is off target. We saw a case of this above where the author had failed to distinguish two distinct ideas and ended up talking about one when she was meant to be talking about the other (the means/end schooling stuff of a few paragraphs ago). I’ll do one more illustration. Say, for instance, that you are trying to work out whether it was morally wrong or right for a financial planner to deceive her client as to the commission being paid to her by some investment firms for signing clients up for their products. Concerning this topic, the following argument might be offered. S2 MP Business Weekly surveys should always be believed. DP According to one such survey, most financial planners who operate on commission mislead their clients as to the commissions they earn from various firms for favouring their financial products when rendering advice to clients. So, MC Most financial planners who operate on commission mislead their clients as to the commissions they earn from various firms for favouring their financial products when rendering advice to clients.

Even if successful, the most that this argument is doing is establishing a descriptive proposition (which has been misidentified as an MC – we will come back to this below when discussing checklist item 3) about how most financial planners on commission actually do behave. However, establishing how widespread some particular behaviour is is a different thing to establishing whether it is morally right or wrong. The author of this argument has a conclusion that is off target. It is not wildly so; it is not as if it is suddenly an argument about the weather, or the war, or the next election. The argument’s conclusion looks as if it might be on target because it is, after all, talking about the disclosure relations between financial planners and clients. The trouble is it is talking about what they are, not what they

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should be. Again, precisely focused ‘interrogation’ of the structure’s conclusion when carrying out checklist item 1 should detect the problem. As with all of the checklist items, if you find a problem, fix it – rewrite the structure in a ‘Mark 2’ form that doesn’t have the hassle that you have identified. In the case of S1**, it would be a simple matter of turning it up the right way again. In the case of S2, it is so off-beam that it is probably a case of giving up on it as too muddled an attempt to try to cure by any simple refocusing of it to be ‘on target’. To nail down this ‘fix the problem’ point, let’s try one more example of an offtarget conclusion. Recall the discussion earlier on in the section about confusing the issue of who should decide educational aims with that of who should make detailed curricular decisions about means in service of such aims, or ends. So, say the topic we were interested in thinking about was: ‘Who should have the power to determine the broad aims that schools should be trying to achieve?’

In contribution to this, we get the following (off-target) feral. F3 Teachers should decide their school’s subject curricula for the reason that they will work more willingly if what they are teaching is their own decision.

Say that, put as a structure (and filling in the missing MP), we get: S3 MP It is important for all teachers to work as willingly as possible. DP If all teachers decide their school’s subject curricula then they will work more willingly than if they don’t. So, MC All teachers should set their school’s subject curricula.

So, is MC on target? – no. Curricula are means in the service of aims which are ends. There might be all sorts of good reasons (and, just maybe, S3 gives one) for granting teachers power over how to achieve some body of aims but such reasons don’t automatically apply to the issue of granting teachers aims-setting power – the level and type of decision is different. So, strictly the argument is off-target. Do we just discard it as a muddled diversion from the task at hand (much as we did with S2)? Maybe, but sometimes we can fiddle and reshape the argument’s thrust to get a sibling of it that is on target and is worth consideration. Think about this one. The motivating value (in the MP) is about the importance of teachers working willingly at their tasks. Admittedly the author went off-track in talking about the role of curricula setting in maintaining such willingness but

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mightn’t aims setting be also causally relevant to teacher willingness? In effect, the MP principle was applied to one (off-topic) issue but might well be applicable to the one that is of interest to us as well. Note that I’m not suggesting that the author of F3/S3 had anything like this in mind; she may just have been totally confused about the two levels of decision. But rather than simply chucking the whole thing in the bin as confused irrelevance to the issue at hand, why not see what can be usefully gained from the intuitive line followed, even if it was strictly off-target as the author offered it. I’ll return to this later but, first, consider this argument: S3a MP It is important for all teachers to work as willingly as possible. DP If all teachers collectively decide the broad aims governing their subject curricula, then they will work more willingly than if they don’t. So, MC All teachers should collectively decide the broad aims governing their subject curricula.

Whatever the merits of this argument might turn out to be (and it is flawed in a way it shares with its sibling S3 – we’ll come to this in the next chapter) it at least is an argument on the topic of broad aims decisions and, although not what our confused contributor had in mind, it might well be a useful on-target input to thinking on our topic. Key Ideas (Checklist Item 1) Ensure that your argument’s conclusion is on target – talking about what you wanted it to. If it isn’t, rewrite it so that it is. This might involve some subtlety of analysis.

Later down the track (in Chapter 5) I’ll add a complication concerning this checklist item but this will do for now. Checklist Item 2: Does Each Line of the Argument Contain Only One Proposition and Does Each Proposition Occur in Only One Place in the Argument? One of the motivations for laying an argument out as a structure is so that you will have a clear picture of each of the bits and pieces that go to make up the argument as a whole. The idea is to have each of the argument’s constituent propositions listed by itself on its own line in the structure and for it to be listed only once. Why bother with this? Well, first, laying them all out separately helps you to see their connections as part of a pattern of reasoning (or lack of it). Second, it helps you to identify and discard extraneous propositions that might have been in the feral but

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which are really playing no role as part of the argument at all. Third, it helps you to detect redundant repetition and eliminate it. Fourth, when it comes time to criticize an argument, it makes life easier for the critic if each of the distinct propositions you are advancing as part of your case is distinctly identified and portrayed in your structure. So, doing this item well has lots of benefits for other, later, tasks. Carrying out this checklist item is a matter of methodically looking at each of the lines in your initial structure, one by one, and checking that just one thing has been said. If you find a line containing two (or more) propositions, then break it up and add some lines so that each proposition has its own line. If, having done that, you look down the list and find a proposition present more than once, then eliminate the repetition. If such multiple listing all occurs in premise lines then the task is fairly simple. If you have the same proposition listed as a premise and as a conclusion line, then you have a hard think on your hands as to which is the proper role for the proposition in that argument; I would be looking back at the feral argument, playing around with inference words, thinking about what conclusion would have to be were it to be on target and so on. In the remainder of this sub-section I wish to illustrate this checklist item and, in particular, to draw attention to two common ways in which people fail to portray an argument’s propositions once only and only one per line. One Proposition per Line First, I will talk a little bit more about having just one proposition in each line and, in particular, about one common student error. I will describe this error as having a compressed argument occurring in a line. To begin with, let us revisit S1*: S1* MP All killing of people is wrong. CP All abortion is the killing of people. So, MC All abortion is wrong.

Take a look at S1*, we have split up the argument as a whole into its separate parts. What are those parts? – basically what one is trying to prove (the conclusion) and what one offers in its proof (the premises). These separate roles for separate propositions are made explicit in the layout of tame structures. That, after all, is part of the point of having things laid out like that. Note also that each premise contains just one proposition; that’s why we have more than one premise, so that those various distinct propositions (being advanced as components of the joint case for the conclusion) can be portrayed separately and understood (and may be criticized later) in their own right. Some of the propositions are more complex than others (see the relationship proposition in the CP or the rather involved DP of S2 as examples) but look at them and only one thing is said in each. So far, so familiar.

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One common error among those new to structuring is to not just state the conclusion as the conclusion but to re-state one of the premises in the conclusion line as well. So what one gets in the conclusion line is not just the conclusion proposition but a premise proposition as well. Looking at it, it reads as a sort of abbreviated summary of the argument as a whole rather than just the conclusion – hence ‘compressed argument’ as a tag. Another way of putting it is that you have something like a little feral argument occurring in just the conclusion line. As an illustration try the following first go at structuring our feral abortion argument: ~S1** CP Abortion kills people. So, MC Abortion is wrong because it kills people.

What is wrong with ~S1**? The conclusion-proper is just the bit up to the word ‘because’ and what follows is a repeat of the premise again. You should pick up that this is occurring because of the inference-word ‘because’, a word that commonly says ‘Here comes a reason’ – like it does in this sentence. So, instead of having just one proposition in MC we have two: ‘Abortion is wrong’ and ‘Abortion kills people’. Only the first of these should be there because only the first of these is stating the conclusion. (I don’t know why students do this but my suspicion is that they feel compelled to use the conclusion line as a sort of a mini-summary of the whole argument; that is not its role however.) The same sort of thing can occur in a premise – that is, one can have a compressed argument occurring in a premise line. As an illustration, try the following as a first go at structuring our feral abortion argument: ~S1*** MP Killing people is wrong therefore abortion shouldn’t be permitted. So, MC No one should have an abortion.

This attempt at taming has more than one flaw but, for present purposes, our interest is with the fact that the premise contains more than just a premise-role proposition (the premise-proper is just the bit before the word ‘therefore’). It is a compressed argument with the conclusion proposition repeated in MP as well. This preview of the conclusion is heralded by the word ‘therefore’ and, as it happens, it is not expressed in the same terminology as it is in the conclusion-proper. I have done this in this example because one of the ways of not realizing what is going on (in this case a preview of the conclusion occurring in a premise line) is that, although it is the same idea being expressed twice, it is expressed in ways involving it being worded differently. If the very same turn of phrase had been used in the conclusion and in the part of the premise following the word ‘therefore’, it would jump out of the page at you a little bit more obviously and the problem would be more

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apparent. So one piece of advice, that I’ll return to in checklist item 4 below, is to use the same turn of phrase every time you are expressing the same idea. It may not look stylistically pretty but that way you’ll be helped to follow what is going on in the argument and to see problems such as these. If you find a compressed argument in any given line, then work out which bit should stay where it is and leave it there. So, in ~S1***, the first bit of the MP would stay where it is (and in ~S1**, the first bit of MC would stay where it is). Then move the proposition that shouldn’t be on that line to its proper place in the argument; so, the last bit of the MP in ~S1*** would move to become an MC (note that it follows the word ‘therefore’). Of course when you try to do that you would note that you already had a conclusion and, if you had your wits about you, you would realize that what you already had as conclusion said the same thing as the last bit of MP. So, as you want any proposition only to occur once, you would simply scrap the last bit of the MP. As for ~S1**, the last bit of the MC would move up into the premises (note that it follows the word ‘because’). Having done that, when you later came to check your premises to ensure that each proposition only occurs once, you would realize that you already had that claim up in the premises and, again, you would scrap it. Although a common fault, having a compressed argument happening in a line is not the only way of failing to have each line having just one proposition. One can have two things going on in a line without them constituting a little feral argument and again, when this happens, they are best split up and separately listed. Consider this argument: S3 MP Competence and concern for the client’s well-being are two criteria necessary for anyone being a good counsellor. DP Horace is neither competent nor concerned for the well-being of his clients. So, MC Horace is not a good counsellor.

The MP contains two claims: that one necessary criterion for being a good counsellor is competence and that another necessary criterion for being a good counsellor is caring for the well-being of one’s clients. The MP should be split up to become two MPs, one for each necessary criterion claim. Similarly, the DP contains two pieces of supposed information about Horace: that he is incompetent and that he is unconcerned for the well-being of his clients. Best to split them up and have two DPs. (We will revisit this and complicate matters a bit in Chapter 8 – as a bit of a preview, it may be best to conceive of S3 as not one argument but two independent cases for MC all mixed up together.)

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No Repeated Propositions In the above section, our focus was on checking that each line contained just one proposition; in this one, I am assuming that we have split up any compressed arguments or other cases of multiple propositions in one line and the task is now to ensure that each proposition is only listed once. How we do this is to scan down the list of propositions forming the argument structure and step by step for each of them, ask: ‘Is this said anywhere else (perhaps in other words)?’. Under this heading, I would like to single out for particular attention one specific way of having one line’s proposition repeated elsewhere. The error I have in mind here is usually called: ‘a circular argument’. The repetition in question has the proposition forming the MC repeated somewhere up as a premise. Consider this argument: ~S1**** MP No person should ever carry out an abortion. CP All abortion is the killing of people. So, MC All abortion is always wrong.

This might seem fine to you at a casual glance but look methodically at it and ask if any line contains a proposition that is repeated elsewhere. So, look at MP and ask if it is repeated in CP – no, it isn’t so, so far so good. Next you would look at MP again and ask yourself if it is repeated in MC. It is not immediately obvious whether this is so or not. Each line seems to be against abortion but is worded differently. What you would have to do here is have a close think about what is meant in each of these lines. Doing that would, I think, bring you to agree that they are saying the same thing (or close to it but the difference is too subtle to fuss with at this stage), just in different words. Although not apparent at first glance, we have a proposition repeated. Although we had a problem with MP being repeated, we should then go on to check the CP in that same line-against-line way I just went through (CP with MP and then with MC). And then the same for the MC; sometimes this is repetitious of checks already carried out from the other end so to speak but it ensures that you have indeed covered the ground. You might think that there is no chance of the CP being repeated; after all, it is a conceptual premise and no conceptual premise can say the same as any proposition of any other type (in this case the two other propositions are moral-type). The trouble is that people sometimes mislabel propositions and call something, in this case, ‘CP’ when it is in fact a proposition of another sort (not that there’s this problem in this particular case). Anyway, check them all against each other. And, even though you have found a problem in this case with MP there might be another problem focused on CP. I will return to this business of mislabelled propositions below.

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When you have an argument that has the conclusion repeated as one of the premises, it is, as noted, commonly called ‘circular’ by logicians. Why? – because the reasoning moves in a circle ending up (in the conclusion) with what it began with (as a premise). Have a look at our above structure. Once you realize that the MP and the MC say the same thing, then you can see that the argument is just going around in circles. A premise is supposed to be part of a rationale, a reason for accepting some other proposition (the conclusion) and it is hardly going to do that job very well if it is a rewrite of the conclusion. This might sound like such an implausibly silly bungle that it is hardly worth drawing to your attention but I have found it to be a fairly frequent error. I think that what traps people is expressing the same proposition with two different sentence forms and not realizing that they are just two ways of saying the same thing. Had the argument said: MP All abortion is always wrong. So, MC All abortion is always wrong.

then it would be blatantly obvious that it is a useless piece of reasoning as a case for saying why all abortion is always wrong. Even if we made it less stark by adding in the CP that we had before, it would still be pretty obviously a useless argument. All that potentially tricks us in ~S1**** is the form of words. So, what should be done in the face of a circular argument? Our rule is to have no repetition of a proposition in the lines of an argument so, either we scrap MP or we scrap MC but which one? Remember that, by the time we get to this checklist item, we have already carried out some earlier ones. (There is a point to doing the checklist in order.) In particular, in the first checklist item we checked whether the conclusion was on target, was talking about what it was supposed to be talking about. So, presumably, we have satisfied ourselves that the conclusion is OK. That leaves MP as the proposition to be discarded. Mind you, this is a pretty sad result because what we were trying to do with the argument was back up MC by appealing to some deeper value principle in support of it. Now we will simply have a blank line. How can you fill in a new MP so that you do not have a circular argument? Go back to the sub-section: Laying Out a Structure and you’ll find some techniques. Before I close on this section, I wish to block a possible misconception about circular arguments. I’ve said that a circular argument is an argument in which the MC proposition is repeated as a premise. What about this argument?

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MP All hospitals should ensure that their patients have confidence in the competence of staff members. DP If hospitals ensure that staff members do not engage in disagreements in the hearing of patients, then patients will have confidence in the competence of staff members. So, MC All hospitals should ensure that their staff members do not engage in disagreements in the hearing of patients.

You might look at this argument when checking for a circular argument and become suspicious of what you take to be repetitious turns of phrase when you look at the sort of thing said in the first bit of the DP (up to the comma) and in the MC. Admittedly, it’s the DP and the MC, rather than the more usual focus on the MP and the MC, that are potentially causing the problem but it might still catch your eye. As it happens, there isn’t a problem. Look closely at the DP and it is not as if the first bit is a proposition in its own right. It is a mere fragment of a more complex if-then relational proposition asserting a causal link between witnessed disagreements and loss of confidence. In any event, as already noted, even as a fragment it is a fragment of a descriptive proposition. If it was going to be a repetition of the proposition of MC then it would have to be a moral proposition. A close examination should assure you that it isn’t. So, in short, beware of too quickly and too sloppily claiming a circular argument to be present just on the basis of some similar looking turns of phrase – analyse things. As a final reminder on circular arguments, remember not to think of the solabelled MP as the only source of possible repetition of the conclusion MC. Some other premise might well be mislabelled (see next checklist item) and be actually a moral proposition and thus be a candidate for possibly saying the same thing as the MC. Although I have focused upon potential circular arguments in which the MC is repeated somewhere in the premises, this is just a particularly troublesome case of proposition repetition. You might merely get a proposition repeated in more than one premise. It might not matter all that much but even fairly harmless repetition is cluttered and may interfere with you seeing the ‘flow’ of argumentation going on. So, check and weed out any such repetition. Key Ideas (Checklist Item 2) Every line should contain just one proposition (check especially for so-called ‘compressed arguments’) and no proposition should occur more than once (check especially for so-called ‘circular arguments’).

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Checklist Item 3: Is Each Line of the Argument Correctly Identified as to Proposition Type? Once you have all of the bits and pieces of the argument laid out with each appearing on only one line and with only one proposition in any given line, you are a position to check that you have each line’s proposition properly categorized. This might be quite a brief check as, in getting this far, you have had to think about these matters to some extent. It is still worth spending time to focus on this in its own right, however, because misconstruing and mislabelling the type of proposition in the given line is surprisingly common among beginning reasoners. The task is important because, in a little while, we will be wanting to consider mounting criticisms against an argument and one sort of criticism is criticizing the premises. Criticizing a moral proposition is a very different thing to criticizing a descriptive proposition and different again to criticizing a conceptual proposition. Misunderstand the nature of the target of your criticism and your criticism will be inappropriate. So, if you look back at Chapter 2, we had three basic proposition types (descriptive, moral and conceptual) and then two extra types built out of them (mixed and ambiguous). Recall that mixed propositions were ones where we had more than one proposition going on in a sentence and the two (or more) propositions that were bundled together were of different types (a descriptive proposition entangled with a moral one or whatever). Given the methodical care with which you will, hopefully, have carried out checklist item 2, any mixed proposition that was there in the feral or in an early version of the structure will presumably have been split up into its component bits and those component bits each allocated a line. So, in effect, mixed propositions should be out of the story by now. Ambiguous propositions might still be there, sitting on a line, but presumably, as you will have a label (‘MP’, ‘DP’ or whatever) for the proposition, you will have resolved which way it was to have been taken so, presumably, the ambiguity has been resolved. It is not as if you will have a line with the label ‘AP’ (for ambiguous premise). The upshot of this is that the only labels you will see as you move down the list of premise lines are ‘DP’, ‘MP’ and ‘CP’. In the types of argument we will be (primarily) considering, your conclusion will be some sort of moral proposition about what is right or wrong, or should or should not be done, or is more or less important than something else. (I say ‘primarily’ because, as I will explore in Chapter 5, there are other sorts of arguments that crop up in discussions of professional ethical issues. I won’t talk about these now because I don’t want to muddy the waters at this early stage.) And, if your conclusion is a moral proposition, there will also have to be a moral proposition as one of the premises. This is because you can’t pluck a moral conclusion out at the end of an argument unless you have fed another moral proposition in at the start as a premise. So, what

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you would expect to see in each of your argument structures is the conclusion labelled ‘MC’ and one (or more) of the premises labelled ‘MP’. As for the other sorts of proposition that might be present, as I have just noted, all that is left is the possibility of a descriptive premise and/or a conceptual premise. Although there will always have to be an MP if there is an MC, what else is present in the premises depends upon the particular argument. Very commonly, your structure will contain a descriptive premise (as well as a moral premise and a moral conclusion). Sometimes, however, there won’t be a descriptive premise, there will be conceptual premise instead (we saw an instance of this in an abortion argument above). Or there might be a medley of propositions of different types and more than one of some types. Finally, in some cases the argument might just have one premise, an MP. Very much the most common pattern for arguments in professional ethics is one MP, one DP and the MC but it is not the only possibility. In the next section, I will talk a bit more about structure patterns that are common in professional ethical discussions. All of that said, whatever you have listed and labelled in the structure that you are looking at, you should have all of those individual propositions correctly understood and correctly labelled to reflect that understanding. So, the task here is to see if you are indeed identifying, and labelling, each line correctly. How would you know? – As you might guess by now, by methodically checking your structure, line by line. So, if you had a premise line labelled ‘MP’, you would ask yourself: ‘Is this really a moral proposition at all?’. How would you tell? – by employing the techniques spoken of in the last chapter (hunting for moral clue words and so on). If it is correctly labelled, then, fine, on you go to the next line; if it is incorrectly labelled, then you change the labels so that it is correctly labelled. And so on down the list of propositions constituting the argument. As a result of this scrutiny and the changes it might lead to, you might end up with an argument that requires some rethinking. For instance, as the vast preponderance of your conclusions will be moral propositions, your premises will have to contain a moral premise and you might have thought that you had one and then discover that it was misidentified and now you are left without any proper MP at all. In such a case, you have to try to work out what the missing MP is (the sub-section: Laying out a Structure went into this). Key Ideas (Checklist Item 3) Methodically analyse each line in your argument structure to ascertain whether your first go at classifying/labelling it is correct or not. If necessary, re-label it.

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Checklist Item 4: Do the Various Lines of the Argument ‘Mesh’ Together to Form One Coherent Piece of Reasoning? Remember that the role of taming (and thus of this checklist) is to get the argument into good enough shape to portray your, or others’, ideas clearly and, in particular, to be to be coherently enough put to be worth subjecting to serious critical scrutiny. As a preliminary to a good hard think about the quality of an argument’s reasoning (which we will come to in a later chapter) it is an idea to just roughly check that it hangs together as a piece of reasoning at an ‘at first glance’ level. Is there a connection of ideas from line to line? Can you see it as one fairly coherent case rather than a jumble of independent propositions vaguely on the same topic? That is what I mean by an argument ‘ meshing’. The task here is to do a preliminary screening prior to more rigorous examination of the worth of its reasoning. It is hardly worth carrying out a more sophisticated critical examination if the argument is not even to ‘first base’ as a piece of connected reasoning. As exemplification of what I have in mind by an argument which ‘meshes’, let’s return to S1*. S1* MP All killing of people is wrong. CP All abortion is the killing of people. So, MC All abortion is wrong.

We have one value judgement given in the conclusion which is based on another, broader, moral stance, that outlined in the MP; the conclusion has as its key concept: ‘abortion’ and the MP: ‘the killing of people’. How does S1* get from one idea to the other? That is the role of the CP. It acts to connect, or mesh together, the propositions forming the MP and the conclusion. So have a look at S1* again, this time focusing on the CP. Note how it acts to join the MP and the conclusion together by asserting that what is talked of in the conclusion (abortion) is a case in point of what’s talked of in the MP (killing people). You are helped to see that this is so by S1* doing what I spoke of earlier – that is, using the same words for the same idea as much as one can. In this case, you can see ‘killing people’ as a common idea in the two premises (and which acts to connect them) and ‘abortion’ as a common idea in the CP and the conclusion (and acts to connect them). Let’s try another example, one that is a little bit more complicated and which doesn’t quite mesh. Consider:

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S4 MP Telling lies to avoid frightening someone is always right. DP Informing seriously ill patients of their illness will usually frighten them. So, MC Telling lies to seriously ill patients about their condition is usually right.

S4 is not wildly disconnected but tidying it up a bit would assist you to later appraise it. Looking at DP, we get the turn of phrase: ‘of their illness’ and in MC, we get the turn of phrase: ‘about their condition’. This is no big deal and seems to be a case of the same idea being got at by two forms of words but it is an easy tidy up and, as I said, you make life easier for yourself by having the language aligning as much as possible. I would tidy this one up as: S4* MP Telling lies to avoid frightening someone is always right. DP Informing seriously ill patients about their condition will usually frighten them. So, MC Telling lies to seriously ill patients about their condition is usually right.

First thing to re-emphasize is how I have again written this so that, as much as possible, I am using the same turn of phrase each time I express the same idea. It makes the sentences a bit clumsy at times but it is a great help in seeing how one proposition connects with another. You might still have qualms here in that I have used ‘always’ in the MP but ‘usually’ in the other two lines. Fussing about whether this is how you want things to be or not is a later task that we will come to in the next chapter. For now, don’t fuss about it when doing this checklist item. Such words expressing how much of something or how many (usually called ‘quantifiers’ – as in quantity) don’t have to be the same everywhere in an argument for the argument to be OK and attending to them at the moment under the heading of ‘mesh’ is not profitable. So don’t fuss about aligning such words (others are ‘all’, ‘only’, ‘most’ and so forth) up and down the argument that this stage. I’ll revisit the issue of quantifiers in the section: Clarifying Whole Propositions and in Chapter 4. In the case of S4*, you can see that the MP advances a quite general moral principle that telling a certain sort of lie (‘fright-avoiding’) is always right. The DP gives an instance of something (informing ...) that would be covered by this principle about right action and so, in the MC, the argument concludes that an opposite to it is right. Note that there is talk of telling lies in one place and informing in the other. Despite this, these more or less connect up if one allows for one being a negative of the other (telling lies is mis-informing). So, the argument does have its bits and pieces connecting up, or ‘meshing’, as I call it. So, for this checklist item, you are looking for linkage among the bits and pieces of the argument so that you get one flowing case and helping yourself to see such a linkage by aligning the language (except, at this stage, for quantifiers).

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Also, check for disconnected bits and pieces that mesh nowhere. If you have a proposition that doesn’t connect with anything else, then that is an instant nonmesh problem. For instance, say that we were checking out the following structure for mesh: S4a MP Telling lies to avoid frightening someone is always right. DP1 Informing seriously ill patients of their illness will usually frighten them. DP2 Informing seriously ill patients of their illness is against the wishes of some close relatives. So, MC Telling lies to seriously ill patients about their condition is usually right.

What is different in this argument compared to S4 is the extra DP, DP2. If you check for connectedness, then the last bit, about the relatives, connects to nothing else. DP2 is the only place we hear about that. So, having found this problem we fix it up. In this case, I would remove the offending premise as not part of this line of reasoning and mentally park it as possibly a second, independent, ground for lying to seriously ill patients about their illness. S1* and S4 both exemplify one of the two broad generic patterns that our arguments about what is right or wrong, or should or should not be done, commonly take. I will call this first pattern of argument: ‘set inclusion arguments’. Set Inclusion Arguments There are variations among the arguments that fit this broad pattern but, for most ones that you will come across in applied ethics, the general idea is something like the following. In the MP, we have some fairly general moral principle advanced then, in the DP, we have some more particular situation, type of situation, or person’s action connected to what the general proposition is about, in virtue of the former being a sub-set of, or an instance of, the sort of thing being talked about in the latter. Finally, in the MC, we have a proposition stating the author’s view as to the result of applying that general moral principle to that more particular case. Laid out as a structure schema, we get: MP A fairly general moral principle outlined. D/CP A more particular situation (etc.) brought under the umbrella of that principle. So, MC A judgement about that more particular situation (etc.) made.

Have a reread of S1* and of S4*and you should be able to follow what’s happening in those arguments in the above terms – although S4* is a bit tricky. Note how the bits and pieces of the arguments hang together and note how you are assisted in

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realizing that those bits and pieces hang together by realizing that the argument is a set inclusion argument and deliberately looking for a pattern of connections that aligns with the schema just outlined above. I said above that there were two common generic patterns of argument that occurred in discussions trying to establish some moral proposition as conclusion. As we’ve just seen, the first I have called: ‘set inclusion arguments’. The second sort I will call: ‘means/end’ arguments. Means/End Arguments I call them this because, looking at such arguments, you’ll find that the MP lists some sort of outcome, or end, to be achieved (or avoided, it depends on the particular argument). Then the DP (it’s usually a descriptive premise but, as we have seen earlier, other claim types can do this as well) connects some action as a means to achieving that end, or a means to avoiding the end, or whatever (again, details vary as to just what sort of connection it is). Finally, the MC says something about that ‘means’ action (that it be carried out, that it be avoided, or whatever – again the details vary). So, these arguments follow a schema as follows: MP ‘End’ proposition. DP ‘Means/End’ link proposition. So, MC ‘Means’ proposition.

To illustrate, consider the following argument: S5 MP It is important for school-leavers to be employable. DP If schools devote their energies to making school-leavers employable then this is a way of increasing the employability of school-leavers. So, MC Schools should devote their energies to making school-leavers employable.

This argument’s MP sets out an end, having school-leavers employable, which is considered important. Then, in the DP, we are told a way of increasing the achievement of that end, namely having schools devote their energies to achieving it. Finally, the conclusion advocates schools doing just that, namely adopting that means (for achieving that end). Note how the bits and pieces of the argument hang together and note how you’re assisted in realizing that those bits and pieces hang together by realizing that the argument is a means/end argument and deliberately looking for a pattern of connections that aligns with the schema outlined above. Let’s try another argument that exemplifies this second common pattern of reasoning. Say someone were to advance this argument, this time in favour of abortion, as follows:

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Structuring it, with a little bit of tidying, say that we got: S6 MP It is very important that the status of women is not lowered. DP Forbidding abortion will cause lowering of the status of women. So, MC One should not forbid abortion.

At the cost of some clumsiness of wording, the merit of S6 is again that one can see how the bits and pieces of the argument fit together. On the assumption that ‘allowing’ and ‘not forbidding’ are the same idea, I could have used ‘allow’ in the conclusion (‘one should allow abortion’) much as it was in the feral F6, but then it would not have so obviously meshed with the DP terminology. (Of course, I could have achieved much the same level of terminological linkage by wording things in ‘allow’ talk in each place; it doesn’t much matter which way you jump.) The reasoning quality of S6 is not perfect (we’ll come to examining such matters later – it commits one of the common errors we will look at in Chapter 4) but at least the argument isn’t a disjointed mess; it hangs together well enough to be worth thinking further about and that’s all we’re attempting to achieve in getting an argument to at least be in mesh. I said that I chose F2 as illustrative of our second common pattern of argument concerning what it is right and wrong to do or think. I’d like to spend a moment going back over these two types of pattern. Look back at F1 and its tame version S1* and recall that it is a case of relating things by set inclusion. Abortion was argued against by asserting that it was included in a set of events, the killing of people, that the arguer thought bad. In effect, what was happening was the arguer saying: ‘I’m against killing people and abortion is just a case in point so I’m against abortion’. S4, on the other hand, is a version of a ‘means/end’ argument. What is said is: ‘I’m morally against (the end of) lowering the status of women and forbidding abortions is a means to that (bad) end so I’m against that means, against forbidding abortions’. Of course one can have good ends and favoured means featuring as well in other variations of the same broad pattern, much as one could have set inclusion styles of argument with the MP citing a set of good, not bad, states of affairs. These broad types of common argument are worth remembering, as having them in your mind helps you in trying to get your own structures meshing.

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Key Ideas (Checklist Item 4) Getting things in mesh is a matter of getting all of the key component ideas connecting up in the right way. Any idea anywhere should connect to the same idea in at least one other place. Keeping in mind that most arguments that you will come across, or generate, on professional ethical topics will be either some form of set-inclusion argument or some form of means/end argument, it is a good idea to think about any candidate argument in terms of whether it fits one or the other broad pattern. Doing this will help you look for connections in the right places.

So much for some thoughts on meshing; it is the hardest thing to get right when taming arguments. Summary Remarks on the Checklist So there is the taming checklist. Once you have your initial intuitive feral argument laid out into an initial structure, methodically carrying out those four checklist items, one after the other in turn, is a hugely powerful way of ending up with a halfwaydecent tame structure. The checklist is not so much difficult to apply as it is laborious and requiring care but the labour bears dividends. When it is your argument that is being tamed, then it is a benefit for you in getting a better understanding of what you’re trying to say and thus of later discovering possible weak points in your thinking. And the same goes for others trying to grapple with your ideas. When it is someone else’s feral argument that you’re trying to lay out in a structure and render tame, one worry that you might have is that, when you find a problem with their structure and fix it up, you might feel you are distorting the original. This is quite possibly so but I don’t think you should be deterred by that from fixing it up. One way of thinking of it is that you have become co-author, concerned to get the argument from its present unsatisfactory state into a better version. And why not do that? After all, if the original argument, even when initially structured, is a mess then it is not a viable contribution to the enquiry in its present state. Yet, unsatisfactory though it currently is, some version or other of that original feral intuition might well be a viable contribution – even if it is not quite what the original author meant. Throwing the original totally in the bin because it’s a mess might be to lose a potentially valuable contribution when all it needed was a bit of a tidy up and rewrite. I can’t see why an author wouldn’t welcome such ‘distortion’ of their ideas to get a better version. Clarifying Key Ideas and Whole Propositions Apart from having arguments tame, another task is that of having the various bits and pieces present in the argument clearly understood. We have done this in part in

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the section: A Checklist for Checking Argument Structures for Tameness above but, even if we have done the checklist properly and fixed up any errors, it might still not be quite clear what is being said. Such obscurities should be clarified. Unless they are, the argument is not much of a contribution to the enquiry. In particular, much as was remarked in the section: A Checklist for Checking Argument Structures for Tameness, it will be rather difficult for anyone to critically react to an argument key parts of which are unclear. Obscurities tend to come in two sorts. The first concerns an individual word or turn of phrase (especially important if it expresses some key idea in the argument). The second is where the obscurity is not so much with any particular word, or turn of phrase, so much as with the whole sentence. I’ll speak about each of these in turn. Clarifying Key Ideas The above argument concerning abortion is a classic of this type. What does the author have in mind as counting as an abortion? Would the administering a ‘morning after’ pill (which prevents implantation) count as inducing an abortion? And, an issue of notorious controversy, what counts as a person? – anything that is a genetic member of the human species? even if it is a two-celled organism (as a conceptus initially is)? All of your structures will contain key ideas, some of which will need a little bit of pinning down in order for it to be clear what is said. Sometimes it’s just a matter of choosing another, equally brief, word or phrase to substitute for the dubious one in question. However my suggestion is that you do not bother always doing this clarification within the structure as it would make it read very clumsily a lot of the time because it would not be equally brief. Rather, do it in a couple of explanatory sentences in an accompanying paragraph. In effect, this is your ‘working definition’ of that idea; you are laying down how you are wishing to be understood by your use of, say, ‘person’. It is, though, only a working definition, an initial attempt at pinning an idea down, enough to be going on with for now in clarifying some argument so we can get on with our more important intellectual work of appraising its worth. It might well be that, later on in the continuing enquiry into your topic, you have to revisit the just-established understanding of the concept and further clarify matters or change things somewhat. That doesn’t matter; a working definition is only an initial clarified understanding of what you are saying that you are advancing, one that allows you to press on for now with your intellectual work. Nonetheless, the working definition that you have set up is one that stands until an explicit and deliberate later revision is carried out (if there is one). So far my main emphasis has been upon you clarifying your own arguments and certainly the task of crafting your own arguments as well as possible is a key focus of this book. However, as I’ve noted earlier, sometimes what you are trying to make sense of is someone else’s argument. Sometimes, when someone else’s argument is unclear, you can simply ask the arguer to clarify things. Sometimes though, that is impossible. It might be, for instance, an argument contained in

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some document that you are reading. In such a case, you can hardly make use of the argument as a contribution to your own thinking on your topic until you have a better idea of what it means. Sometimes, with a bit of thought, you are fairly confident of some interpretation you are making of some key idea and sometimes you are less confident. Either way, some sort of interpretation has to be implemented by you for you to be able to make any use of the argument at all. Perhaps it is not quite what the author meant (and perhaps the author was muddled and didn’t mean anything very clear in the first place) but if your main interest in the argument is as a contribution to your own thinking then, provided you make it clear that this is your interpretation of it, then set up your own working definition and press on. Remember that, however some idea gets pinned down in a working definition, that is what it is to be understood as meaning in every place it occurs in the enquiry (and no matter by which participants) unless explicit revision occurs. Sliding around with having various construals of some term or phrase in play in the one enquiry (especially if no one notices that this is happening) makes the whole exercise a waste of time. Clarify things! It is rarely wasted time (unless, of course, it is already dead obvious what is meant). In Chapter 5 I’ll be revisiting this discussion of working definitions in the context of talking about criticizing conceptual premises but those complications can be left to one side for now. Key Ideas If individual terms or phrases in an argument are unclear in meaning, then set up a working definition to establish how they are to be taken in the current enquiry.

Clarifying Whole Propositions Sometimes it’s not so much some individual word like ‘person’ that is unclear and demanding of a working definition. Sometimes it’s more the obscurity of a whole proposition, one forming a premise or conclusion in an argument structure. For instance, say a premise in some argument was: ‘Teachers are educational experts’.

Apart from it being unclear (and thus deserving of a working definition) what is to count as ‘an educational expert’, there is another obscurity here, one to do with the structure of the whole sentence. Have a look at ‘teachers’; what is meant by ‘teachers’ might be clear enough but does the sentence express the proposition:

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‘All teachers are educational experts’, or ‘Only teachers are educational experts’ or ‘All and only teachers are educational experts’, or: ‘Most teachers are educational experts’ or what?

How this gets clarified has considerable effect upon the role which it can play in an argument and upon your chances of criticizing it successfully. The italicized words are usually called ‘quantifiers’. My first suggestion is that you explicitly insert such quantifiers where they are absent so that the scope of what is talked about in the proposition is clearer to readers/hearers (and sometimes to yourself). We touched on this in the section: Laying Out a Structure. Other obscurities concerning what proposition is being put by a particular whole sentence can be because of the way in which the sentence has been constructed but the ways in which such lack of clarity can arise are legion (too many to itemize here) and I can only suggest that you very carefully examine each line in your argument, asking yourself: ‘Is it perfectly clear and unambiguous what proposition is being advanced by this sentence?’. If it isn’t, and it is your argument then rewrite it so that it does say clearly what you want to say. If it is someone else’s argument, then you have to make some clearer interpretation of it, much as spoken of above in the previous sub-section. Key Ideas Sometimes murkiness is at the level of whole propositions (particularly because of missing quantifiers); make sure that what is said is not open to misinterpretation.

Summary Remarks and Prelude to Following Chapters So, my suggestion to you is that you lay out feral arguments as structures and then proceed to tame those structures in a very methodical checklist-style manner, moving one by one, explicitly and carefully, through the items listed and explained above and modifying the structure as you go if you find flaws. Then, look at each line of your tame structure in turn and ensure that it is clear just what proposition is being advanced there. Hopefully, at the end of that process you will fairly reliably have arguments that are well enough expressed to be considered worthy candidate contributions to your thinking on your topic and the thinking of others who are engaging with your ideas. Of course, having your arguments tame and clear is, as I have said, a preliminary matter – an unavoidable preliminary matter, but only a prelude to the more important task of trying to ascertain whether the tame and clear argument is worthy of acceptance. And you will not know how worthy it is until you have tried to criticize it.

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Sometimes the business of argumentation is presented as if the participants are in some sort of adversarial contest and the task is to win the debate. There are indeed situations where argument is a tool of persuasion but that is not the case when one is trying to sort out a defensible position on some ethical matter of professional interest. After all, one might win a dispute even though one had bad reasons for one’s stance. All that is required is rhetorical skill and/or that one’s dialogical opponent is too dim-witted to realize the flaws in one’s reasoning. In such a case, winning is an empty victory. One would be left believing in some professional ethical stance that is, perhaps, flawed yet, just because one could overawe one’s opponents, the flaw is undetected. Better, I suggest, that one considers the critic of one’s argument, not as an opponent to be beaten but as a colleague who might do one the service of detecting flaws in one’s thinking (a ‘critical friend’ as it is sometimes put). And, if any such flaw is undetected, why on earth would this be a matter to be resisted? Why desire to cling to a flawed view just because the flaws are pointed out by someone else? In short, my suggestion is that, when thinking about professional ethical issues, one should consider all views and arguments as fair-mindedly and thoroughly as possible and, if that means accepting a criticism that seems sound and abandoning one’s initial view, then so be it; surely to move away from a mistaken view is progress! And if the criticism itself is faulty then that is also something to be ‘teased out’ (as we will explore in Chapter 6) but you won’t know whether it is really faulty or not unless you have had the integrity to express it in its strongest and clearest form first. So, my first message here is that the primary task in professional ethics is to work out the best answer that one can. Thus, criticism of your views should be welcomed because it might help you to improve them. So far, so good; but what if there isn’t a critic ‘falling readily to hand’ to give your arguments a critical ‘going over’? If you are unprofessional and dumb enough to be in ‘debate winning’ mode, then that is terrific. No challenger, then no challenge, and you win by default. But if you are in ‘best answer’ seeking mode, such complacency is dangerous – your views might simply be wrong. The solution is self-criticism. To do this, you have to put yourself in the mind of a critic and try to work out how your pet argument might be disagreed with. One of the intellectual ‘skills cum habits of thought’ which I am attempting to foster is that of fair-minded consideration of objections to your own views. As helpful critics do not always fall readily to hand, part of this is being able to self-criticize, being able to put yourself in the mind of a critic and imagine how, say, your pet premise might be disagreed with or the reasoning of your argument might be illogical. Clearly, in mounting criticisms against yourself, you will want the best and most plausible critical arguments possible; for, if you settle for anything less, you will not have properly critically probed your position and thus run a larger risk of acting in a way which, had you given it more careful analysis, you might have deemed unwarranted.

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So, getting an argument tame and clear is but a preliminary matter and the real task is appraising arguments fair-mindedly and thoroughly; in the next chapters, we’ll proceed on to considering such critical scrutiny of arguments.

Chapter 4

Subjecting Arguments to Criticism: Logic Criticism Introduction: Argument Criticism What we have been doing so far is trying to get to the stage of being able to lay out any given argument, one that we want to use or think about, as tamely and clearly as possible. Accordingly, we portrayed arguments in the form of structures and then methodically checked and adjusted those structures so that all of their bits and pieces were understood clearly by us and hung together coherently to form an argument. But getting an argument tame and clear is really just a preliminary business. It is important because, until an argument is tame and clear, it’s rather pointless going on any further but it is but a prelude to the main task. What we want to know about any given argument is whether it is any good or not. Should we place any reliance upon it as grounds for believing its conclusion? An argument can be nicely tame and as clear as you care yet still be a bad argument. So, how can we tell whether an argument is a good one or a bad one? A good practice is to try subjecting it to critical scrutiny and see how well it stands up in the face of criticism. And note that this is something that you should be doing not just to the arguments of others but to your own arguments. Just because you have thought some argument up doesn’t automatically mean that it is any good. Having the capacity to be thoroughly self-critical is a hugely valuable thing – and not just in matters concerning professional ethics. It is at its most important when the argument in question is one that you favour (it is easy to be blind to faults in your own thinking). This chapter begins my consideration of the tasks of argument criticism. So, what is involved? There are only two things that can go wrong with any argument. One is that it is illogical, that the move of reasoning from premises to conclusion is invalid. The other is that one (or more) of its premises is faulty. In this chapter, I wish to proceed on to some issues and techniques to do with criticizing an argument’s logic. In the next chapter I will consider the task of premise criticism. Before I proceed to the detail of this chapter’s business, let me talk briefly about these two possible failings of arguments. Say that you have had the following argument (much like one from a previous chapter) advanced to you.

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The author is asking you to believe MC on the grounds that it follows from MP and DP, each of which she takes to be acceptable to you. In effect, what she is saying to you is: ‘Look, you believe that some stealing is wrong and you believe that Jenny stole Jane’s wallet; don’t you see that it follows from those beliefs that it was wrong for Jenny to steal Jane’s wallet?’. How might the argument come unstuck? Well, first, you might say: ‘Never mind for the moment whether I believe that some stealing is wrong and that Jenny stole Jane’s wallet, regardless of my views about those two claims it just doesn’t follow from them that it was wrong for Jenny to steal Jane’s wallet’. (Have a look at the argument and you’ll probably realize that, even if you accept MP and DP, whether Jenny’s act of theft is right or wrong is not established by the argument because it all depends on whether her wallet stealing is one of the types of stealing that the MP has in mind as wrong or some other type – note the word ‘some’ in the MP.) What you’re doing with such a critical response is focusing upon the move of reasoning, upon the author’s claim that MC follows from MP and DP. Alternatively, a quite separate line of complaint against the argument would be to focus upon the MP or DP and dispute it (or both of them). So, you might say against MP: ‘Stealing is never wrong’ (perhaps because you have an objection to the institution of private property). Or, you might dispute DP by saying: ‘Jenny didn’t steal Jane’s wallet’ (perhaps because she had an alibi and was not even in the vicinity of the wallet). Moreover, to dispute MP is a different thing to disputing DP and you might dispute one but agree with the other. Note that these are three quite independent ways of criticizing our argument and thus the success of each of them is independent of the fate of the other criticisms. You might mount all three and have all three succeed, or none of them, or one of them, or ... . For the moment, I will classify criticism of MP and criticism of DP together as premise criticism (we will consider premise criticism in more depth in the next chapter). Premise criticism is to be is distinguished from criticizing the move of reasoning. I will call the latter ‘logic criticism’ and it is the business of this chapter. I will turn to it in the next section but first I want to talk a little bit more about the general business of argument criticism.

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Key Ideas There are two quite distinct ways in which an argument can go wrong and thus two quite distinct types of criticism which might be mounted against a given argument: criticizing its logical merits, the move from premises to a conclusion, and: criticizing the assumptions that the argument rests upon, its premises, in their own right. I will call these ‘logic criticism’ and ‘premise criticism’, respectively, and it is the former of these which is the business of this chapter (the latter will be addressed in the next).

Argument Criticism Compared to Listing New, Opposing, Arguments Before I move on to introduce the skills of logic criticism I want to spend a moment or so discussing the focus of logic criticism (and of argument criticism generally). Think back to my remarks about what an argument is. It is a connected set of claims, some of which, the premises, are advanced in support of another, the conclusion. The hope is that the premises are acceptable, that the conclusion logically follows from the premises and thus that the conclusion is established as acceptable. In a perfect argument you would have unchallengeable premises leading with impeccable reasoning to the argument’s conclusion. Things don’t usually initially pan out like that but understanding an argument’s weak spots helps you to work out how to fix it up or, if it remains a flawed argument, how much weight you want to give to it as a case for its conclusion (given that it is not without blemish). So, how to go about argument criticism? Look again at S1. Any such argument is up for critical examination. This might be achieved with the assistance of a dialogical partner (perhaps in a discussion on the topic) but it might not. Sometimes you are trying to think some issue out by yourself and that is where the skill of critical examination of your own arguments comes in. Note that, when I talk of criticizing an argument, it is criticizing an already existing argument that has been advanced – is there anything wrong with the reasoning advanced in that argument for its conclusion? It is, of course, unlikely to be the only possible argument on the topic and a common student error (in this context of argument appraisal) is to advance an argument supporting the opposite conclusion to that of the original and to deem that to be a way of criticizing that original argument. So, in this case, the critic might offer some argument to the effect that it is morally OK for Jenny to have stolen Jane’s wallet. We would then have two arguments on the topic, one for, one against. And we could keep going and keep adding arguments until we generated a whole spread of points for and against. And doing this is a common student flaw. This is a flaw because it is not much good for the goal of making one’s best judgement on the issue to have a medley of unappraised arguments on the table. For any given argument, one wants

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to have worked out whether it is any good, and, if not, just where its weaknesses lie. To do that, one has to focus on that argument’s supporting case (and not ignore that case by simply providing an argument for the opposite conclusion). Once you can do that critical scrutiny for any given argument, you can widen the application of that skill outwards and advance and appraise a number of arguments bearing on the issue and thus get a rigorous feel for the qualities of the elements of what is usually a whole complex interweaving web of sub-issues and arguments. To be able to think your way through such a web of argumentation is a very high order cognitive (and meta-cognitive) task and, as I have said before, it can’t be learnt all at once and there are sub-skills to be learnt first. You’ll find it difficult and frustrating enough going through the training hoops of mastering those sub-skills without prematurely trying to do too many things at once. So, if you have an argument like the above one, it is premature to start thinking up a host of other arguments (perhaps supporting Jenny’s action) if you don’t yet know how good this argument is. Argument criticism is just that; you focus on the argument at hand and try to work out whether it is any good, that is, whether its premises provide proper support for its conclusion. To reiterate (because it is such a common confusion on students’ part) criticizing this argument’s merits as support for its conclusion is a different business to mounting another argument for the opposite conclusion. It is the former task that concerns us now. You will craft and recraft and subject to repeated criticism one single argument at a time. Become able to do that and repeated application of these skills will allow you to work your way through, and inter-relate, a web of conflicting arguments. Key Ideas Distinguish the distinct tasks of criticizing a given argument to appraise its merits as a case for its conclusion and mounting a quite separate argument as a case for the opposite conclusion. The former is our focus here.

How does one carry out such argument criticism then? This can be quite difficult (especially if it is self-criticism of your own arguments) but is assisted by careful and methodical working through of distinct elements of critical examination. So, what are these elements? There are basically two things to think about – logic criticism and premise criticism and, as I have said, we will focus on the first of them in this chapter and the second in the next.

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Logic Criticism Introduced The basic intellectual skill of logic criticism is that of being able to tell when a conclusion follows from the argument’s premises. To reiterate, the concern here is simply and solely with the move of inference and not with the merits of the premises, or of the conclusion, in their own right. It is merely the connection between premises and conclusion that is the focus of attention. So, whether or not you agree with any of an argument’s claims, you can still judge whether or not, if one allowed the premises (‘for argument’s sake’, as we sometimes say) the conclusion would have to be allowed as well because it follows from the premises. In illustration, consider this argument: S2 MP Only police officers that verbally abuse children should be permitted continuing employment. DP No presently employed police officers verbally abuse children. So, MC No presently employed police officers should be permitted continuing employment.

I have chosen this rather weird argument because I surmise that none of you would accept any of the three claims (two premises and one conclusion) making up this argument. Despite this total rejection of its substantive propositions, you should be able to see that the logic of the argument, at least, is impeccable. The conclusion follows from the two premises as tightly as you please. What we are doing here is not bothering with the acceptability of the individual claims but only concentrating on the connection among them. Were one to accept DP and MP, would one thereby be committed to accepting the conclusion as well? In this case, yes; there is no way of denying the conclusion (having accepted the premises) without talking contradictory nonsense. With many arguments, however, you won’t find that nice tight logical connectedness. Your complaint will be that, even if the premises were to be accepted, they would not provide much of a case for accepting the conclusion. The conclusion won’t follow and it will be the argument’s move in logic that is objectionable. Key Ideas To critically examine the logic of an argument is to ask whether the conclusion of that argument follows from the premises and your judgement has nothing to do with your agreement or otherwise with the argument’s premises (or, for that matter, its conclusion).

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Logic Criticism of ‘Set-inclusion’ Arguments To consolidate your feel for the idea of the conclusion following from its premises as opposed to a conclusion not following, consider the following bunch of arguments. All of them are variations of ‘set-inclusion’ arguments, one of our two common argument pattern families. (In the next section I’ll have a look at our other main type of argument, namely: ‘means/ends’ arguments.) In what follows, each argument with a ‘~’ in its name is illogical; the rest are logically tight, or valid, as it is usually put. L1 MP1 All killers should be hanged. DP1 Kathleen is a killer. So, MC1 Kathleen should be hanged. ~L1 MP2 Some killers should be hanged. DP1 Kathleen is a killer. So, MC1 Kathleen should be hanged. ~L2 MP1 All killers should be hanged. DP2 Kathleen might be a killer. So, MC1 Kathleen should be hanged. L2 MP1 No killers should be hanged. DP2 Kathleen is a killer. So, MC2 Kathleen should not be hanged. ~L3 MP1 All killers should be hanged. DP3 Kathleen is not a killer. So, MC2 Kathleen should not be hanged. ~L4 MP3 No killers should be hanged. DP3 Kathleen is not a killer. So, MC1 Kathleen should be hanged.

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L3 MP4 Only killers should be hanged. DP3 Kathleen is not a killer. So, MC2 Kathleen should not be hanged.

The differences among these arguments mainly concern some logically crucial words like ‘all’, ‘not’, ‘no’ and so on. Let’s have a look at each of them in turn. L1 MP1 All killers should be hanged. DP1 Kathleen is a killer. So, MC1 Kathleen should be hanged.

It doesn’t much matter what you think about capital punishment and it doesn’t much matter who Kathleen is and what her homicidal tendencies are (as long as it’s the same Kathleen in DP1 and MC1). That is, it doesn’t matter whether you agree with the premises or not; regardless of that you should be able to see that if someone were to agree with the premises then they would not be able to disagree with the conclusion without having contradicted themselves. As I sometimes put it, the premises logically force the conclusion. If you were to allow that all killers should be hanged and also allow that she is a killer (for this exercise, never mind what you really think), then you would have just committed yourself to the view that she should be hanged. Given acceptance of the premises, accepting the conclusion is unavoidable. It is that sort of connectedness that you want between premises and conclusion so that the premises logically force the conclusion in the argument you offer. If they don’t, then, as a rationale for believing that conclusion, the argument is a frail reed indeed. (I’ll discuss the issue of illogical arguments further in Chapter 8.) Compare L1 with: ~L1 MP2 Some killers should be hanged. DP1 Kathleen is a killer. So, MC1 Kathleen should be hanged.

The only difference between this argument and the last is the word ‘some’ rather than ‘all’ in the moral premise. But what a difference that makes. If all that we have allowed is that some killers should be hanged, then we cannot conclude that Kathleen should be hanged simply on the basis that she is a killer because we do not have (from DP1) whether she is one of the killers that should be hanged or one of those that, perhaps, shouldn’t. Note that this criticism of this argument’s logic

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is unaffected by what I would imagine to be your greater tendency to agree with MP2 as opposed to MP1. What of the next argument? ~L2 MP1 All killers should be hanged. DP2 Kathleen might be a killer. So, MC1 Kathleen should be hanged.

This argument is also illogical. Even if all killers should be hanged, we can’t conclude that Kathleen should be hanged merely by learning that she might be a killer (and note that DP2 is a descriptive premise despite the hesitant ‘might’). Let’s turn to the next argument. L2 MP3 No killers should be hanged. DP2 Kathleen is a killer. So, MC2 Kathleen should not be hanged.

The conclusion of this one does follow. If one allowed that no killers should be hanged, then learning that Kathleen is a killer is learning that she is one of the people who, according to MP3, should not be hanged. Compare L2 with this argument (not from our list): ~L2* MP3* No one should be hanged for killing. DP2 Kathleen is a killer. So, MC2 Kathleen should not be hanged.

Note the difference between this MP and that of L2. In this one, the moral premise doesn’t propose that no killers should be hanged just that they should not be hanged for killing. The premise that we have does not rule out other grounds (treason perhaps) for hanging someone, even someone who killed, and thus the rather sweeping conclusion does not follow. In L2, however, we are told categorically that no killer should be hanged. Presumably, in that author’s view, it doesn’t matter what else they might have done. Thus, all of our above worries that Kathleen might deserve hanging because of some other action (treason, say) are ruled out by the L2 author. According to what is actually said in MP3, nothing else matters, she is a killer and, in virtue of that, should not be hanged.

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L2* MP3* No one should be hanged for killing. DP2 Kathleen is a killer. So, MC2* Kathleen should not be hanged for killing.

This one has the modified moral premise that we had in the last one but also has a modified moral conclusion. Note that that conclusion is no longer the sweeping claim that she should not be hanged but the more limited one that she should not be hanged for killing. The possibility that you might deserve killing for something else, like treason, is not ruled out; the argument simply doesn’t talk about such other possibilities. Note also that the argument is logical. I have introduced these two extra arguments to illustrate that one has to be careful to say what one means. It is easy to be trying to say L2* but to instead advance ~L2* or, very likely, L2 which is much more sweeping than you really mean and makes it sound like a good way to avoid being hanged is to kill someone! The lesson is: say what you mean as others will assume that you mean what you say. Let’s move on the next argument. ~L3 MP1 All killers should be hanged. DP3 Kathleen is not a killer. So, MC2 Kathleen should not be hanged.

This one is illogical as well. To accept that all killers should be hanged is not to say anything about whomsoever else should be hanged as well (it is not as if it says that only killers should be hanged). So, just because Kathleen is not a killer doesn’t mean that she should not be hanged because perhaps, for all we know, there may be some other ground for hanging her (again, treason perhaps). We simply don’t know from these premises; all that we are told is that she doesn’t satisfy one sufficient condition for it being proper to hang her. We can’t, on the basis of such premises, conclude whether she should or should not be hanged. ~L4 MP3 No killers should be hanged. DP3 Kathleen is not a killer. So, MC1 Kathleen should be hanged.

This one is rather more complicated and you might have to read over the following a few times to track what is going on. ~L4 is another illogical argument but why doesn’t its conclusion follow? ‘Accepting’ the premises (remember, this is just for

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the sake of checking the logic; it’s a ‘pretend’ acceptance) tells us that no killers should be hanged, that is, that being a killer is good enough for avoiding being hanged. The DP tells us that she is not a killer, so Kathleen doesn’t qualify for this way of avoiding being hanged. That is not to say, however, anything about any other categories of people who should not be hanged or about whether or not Kathleen is in any of those categories. All we know is that she fails to satisfy one way of being excused from hanging. Even though she has failed that, we can’t conclude that she should be hanged; we have to be neutral about whether she should or should not be hanged pending a better argument than this one. Now to our last argument: L3 MP4 Only killers should be hanged. DP3 Kathleen is not a killer. So, MC2 Kathleen should not be hanged.

The conclusion of this argument is forced. The moral premise tells us that being a killer is a necessary condition for it being proper for one to be hanged and the fact-type premise tells us that Kathleen fails this prerequisite. From these premises it indeed follows that she should not be hanged. Note the way that I thought about each of these: I tried pretending to accept the premises and then worked out whether I would have to also accept the conclusion – having accepted the premises (I will return to this process below under the heading: ‘the invalidity test’). Note also that, in trying to work out what followed from what, I had to attend very carefully to just what was actually said about relationships between various sets and individuals and their actions or properties in the various propositions constituting an argument. Trying to build up an analytical skill in thoughtfully understanding arguments is a more lasting benefit than rote learning various ‘patterns’ as valid or not, and practice and feedback from your tutor is the key to skill development. Key Ideas In trying to work out what logically follows from what, attend very carefully to what is said (and what is not said) in the argument’s constituent propositions.

Logic Criticism of ‘Means/Ends’ Arguments (Including One Common Fault) You will recall that I suggested that most arguments concerning professional ethics fell into one of two broad categories. The first, I called: ‘set-inclusion’ arguments.

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The second, I called: ‘means/ends’ arguments. I have tried to help you get a feel for some of the things that can go wrong (or right) with set-inclusion arguments when I talked you through the list of ‘hanging’ arguments in the previous section. The discussion wasn’t exhaustive of versions of, and problems with, such arguments but did, I hope, give you some ‘feel’ for the analysis of such argumentation. In this section, I want to discuss our other main type of argument and walk you through one main way that some such means/ends arguments fail to be logical. Basically, arguments of this type are ‘results’ or ‘consequences’ focused arguments and advanced with two main motivations. The first is that you are arguing for something on the basis of some (supposedly) good result that it will have. Either this is some goal or end that you think it worthwhile achieving and the action you are arguing for is a means to the achievement of that end, or there is some goal or end that you think it worthwhile avoiding and the action you are arguing for is a way of avoiding it. So, the good result gained by the action you are arguing for is either the achievement of something good or the avoidance of something bad. Put schematically, we can think of these two variations in the following way: 1a MP Achievement of some ‘end’ morally endorsed. DP Claim about some ‘means’’ role in the achievement of that ‘end’. So, MC Adoption of ‘means’ advocated.

And: 1b MP Avoidance of some ‘end’ morally endorsed. DP Claim about some ‘means’’ role in the avoidance of that ‘end’. So, MC Adoption of ‘means’ advocated.

The second main type is when you are arguing against doing something on the basis of some bad result that it will supposedly have. Again there are two variations. You either have some ‘end’ that you endorse and then you note that some ‘means’ will interfere with achieving that ‘end’ and therefore you are against it, or you have some ‘end’ that you wish to avoid and then you note that some ‘means’ is connected to bringing about that ‘end’ and therefore you are against it. Again, put schematically, we get:

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2a MP Avoidance of some ‘end’ morally endorsed. DP Claim about some ‘means’’ role in the achievement of that ‘end’. So, MC Avoidance of ‘means’ advocated.

And: 2b MP Achievement of some end ‘end’ morally endorsed. DP Claim about some ‘means’’ role in the avoidance of that ‘end’. So, MC Avoidance of ‘means’ advocated.

Of these two main types, it is the first, the one where one is arguing for the adoption of some means that causes the most problems. Consider this argument: MP The productivity of the practice should be in the top quartile of similarly sized practices. DP One way of having the practice’s productivity in the top quartile of similarly sized practices is to shed 20 per cent of its staff. So, MC The practice should shed 20 per cent of its staff.

This argument fits the broad pattern of 1a, above. However it commits a very common fault of some arguments in this pattern. I will call this fault: ‘An inadequately strongly worded means/ends link in the DP’. Have a look at the DP in our argument: just because the ‘means’ mentioned (shedding staff) is one way of achieving some desirable end (having the practice’s productivity in the top quartile …) doesn’t provide a strong enough case for concluding that that means should be adopted. For all we are told to the contrary in the argument, there might well be other ways of achieving that same end and one or more of those other ways might be more, or equally, efficient and effective than shedding staff. On the basis of the argument’s premises, it is not warranted to conclude that we should shed staff – in particular, its DP is inadequate. I have found this fault to be enormously common in beginning reasoners. I hope that you can see the danger in arguing in this way. There is every risk of adopting a solution that is not the optimal one. (I shudder to think how much money has been wasted by decision-makers reasoning in this manner and choosing means that are inferior to un-considered alternatives.) Let’s have a look at an argument exemplifying 1b, the second variation of our first type. It will also commit this same common reasoning error.

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MP All surgeons should avoid killing any of their patients. DP If all surgeons do no surgery then they will avoid killing any of their patients. So, MC All surgeons should do no surgery.

The action recommended in the MC is indeed, as we are told in the DP, one way of achieving the desired goal but, for all the argument says to the contrary, it might not be the only way and some other way might be more, or equally, efficient and effective. In the DP we are simply not told anything about other ways; thus it gives us inadequate information and MC simply does not follow. Note that we do not have to actually know of some other more/equally efficient and effective means to the achievement of the MP end than avoiding surgery; it is enough to point out that the argument’s premises have not ruled that out and, having failed to rule it out, the conclusion is premature. The mere un-ruled-out possibility of such alternative and superior means to the MP endorsed end is enough to make the conclusion fail to be entailed by the premises. Note that, in pointing out the inadequacy of the DP in performing the logical job being asked of it, one is not disputing the DP in its own right. The DP might be true (in this case, it isn’t – some surgeons kill their patients in other ways than operating on them, for instance, by shooting them) but, even if it were to be true, it can be true and yet be logically inadequate as part of a case for the conclusion. The other main type is not susceptible to this common flaw. Consider the following argument as an exemplification of 2b, the second variation of this type. MP All patients should have confidence in the competence of any hospital staff member. DP If a member of a hospital’s staff is rebuked by her superior in the hearing of a patient, then that increases the likelihood of that patient losing confidence in the competence of staff member. So, MC No member of a hospital staff should be rebuked by her superior in the hearing of a patient.

This argument is logical and it doesn’t much matter that there might be other actions that would even more effectively lead to a loss of patient confidence (like, say, broadcasting over the PA system: ‘We advise that all of the staff in this hospital only just barely passed their university courses’). Given that we think that loss of confidence should not happen, we should be avoiding anything that would bring it about, including the ‘rebuke’ scenario mentioned in the DP. In short, it doesn’t matter that it is just one way of bringing about the end when, as in this argument pattern, it is an end to be avoided, not achieved. Let’s try an argument exemplifying 2a, the other variation of this second main type.

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MP All police officers should avoid any suspicion of corruption. DP If any police officers dine with any criminals then that would cause them to be suspected of corruption. So, MC No police officers should dine with any criminals.

No doubt there are other ways (and some other ways that are very much more effective) to cause a police officer to be suspected of corruption (like, say, being observed receiving thickly stuffed envelopes from known criminals) but the existence of other such possibilities doesn’t stop our argument’s conclusion following. Contrast that with the problem caused by other possibilities, other possible ‘means’, in either variation of the first of our two main types (that where the conclusion was for some proposed course of action). Key Ideas There are sub-varieties of these consequence-focused means/ends arguments and much depends, in particular, on just what is said in the DP. One common error of some such arguments, those where the conclusion is for some course of action, is an inadequately strongly worded DP.

An Error Common to Both Set-Inclusion and Means/Ends Argument Types: an Inadequately Strongly Worded MP A logical error which is common to both of our two main argument types is where the argument has an inadequately strongly worded MP. Consider the following argument: MP It is important for as many school-leavers as possible to be employable. DP If all schools devote their energies to making all school-leavers employable then this is a way of having as many school leavers as possible employable. So, MC All schools should devote their energies to making all school-leavers employable.

Looking at this, it might have already occurred to you that DP commits the error mentioned in the last section – an inadequately strongly worded means/end link. But that is not our focus here. Arguments can have more than one logical flaw and there is another one present in this particular argument. Have a look at the strength of the wording in the MC. The word used is ‘should’. There are no ‘ifs’ or ‘buts’ or ‘maybes’; one is told that this is what schools should do. It’s a way of issuing a moral imperative, a moral ‘must’. The message is that, when all things have been

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considered, this is the final moral answer on the issue. (Incidentally, I have noticed that students tend not to realize the strength of ‘should’ claims; they are as morally strong as can be.) In order to have an argument supporting such a strongly worded conclusion, the premises of that argument have to contain a similarly strong moral commitment. (One can’t have a strong moral commitment logically follow from a weaker one.) And, of course, the premises’ moral commitments should be occurring in the MP so that is where one should look. But have a look at what is said in the MP, we are told that the end is important. We are not told that it is what one should do, or that it is of paramount importance, or more important than anything else, or more important than anything else that clashes with it (‘clashes’ because, after all, not all ends are in rivalry with each other). Any of those would have done by way of matching the strength of the MC but we don’t have any of them. The ‘is important’ turn of phrase that we do have is a fairly weak commitment and, for all we know to the contrary, from what the author has said, there might be other things more important than that end and which clash with it. We just don’t know and without some stronger commitment as to the relative importance of the end of having school-leavers employable, we don’t have enough of a case for the strongly put conclusion to follow. As it stands, we could say that schools (morally) need not devote their energies to making school-leavers employable, even though it is important for as many of them to be employable as possible and even though schools doing that would be a way of increasing their employability because other, more important, rival ends might exist which would not be served, might even be undermined, by schools doing that. In short, it is possible for us to agree with the premises, yet deny the conclusion. And that can never be possible with an argument whose conclusion logically follows. Key Ideas The strength of valuing in the MP must not be weaker than that in the MC.

The Invalidity Test So far, I have tried to give you some ‘feel’ for the logical validity (or otherwise) of the spread of arguments within our two main types – set-inclusion and means/ ends – and I have drawn your attention to a couple of common logical failings of arguments. One, an inadequate means-to-end link in the DP, was a common flaw of one type of means/ends argument. The other, an inadequately strongly worded MP, could be a problem in any of our argument types. My suggestion is that, in much the manner that you run a checklist over an argument to check its tameness, you automatically check any argument for the latter potential flaw and, if you have a means/ends argument (of the sort with an end to be achieved), that you also have a close look at the wording of the DP. The two flaws that we have gone through are

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common enough to be worth committing to memory and to automatically check for one or both as appropriate. However, arguments can have more flaws than it is feasible and convenient to draw up a list of. Moreover, even if we did draw up a list, you’re not going to remember its elements when you try to think reasonably about ethical problems that arise in your own professional practice. Better if you have some more general tool with which to make a judgement as to an argument’s logical validity. The point of this section is to introduce you to such a tool. I will call it: ‘the invalidity test’. The title here is probably a little bit overstated, it’s not a test in the sense that one can semi-mechanically check if an argument is invalid. It does, however, give you a good chance (at least when you get practised at using it) of detecting an invalid argument, one whose conclusion does not follow from its premises. The test relies on the following feature of a valid argument. In such an argument, if one accepts the premises, then one is logically forced to accept the conclusion as well; one can’t (consistently) accept the premises and then, in the next breath, deny the conclusion. Consider this argument: MP All decisions should be made only by those people with the relevant expertise to make such decisions. DP Only social workers have expertise relevant to making decisions about the parental competence of any single mothers. So, MC Only social workers should make decisions about the parental competence of any single mothers.

Logically, this argument is impeccable. Were you to allow MP and DP, then you would be unable to deny MC without inconsistency, without contradicting yourself. (The argument has a blatantly false DP but that has got nothing to do with the connections of premises and conclusion and the latter is the only issue for the argument’s validity.) Pause for a moment, look at the argument and satisfy yourself of this. If you insisted, across-the-board, upon expert decisions (MP) and social workers were admitted to be the only experts concerning the parental competence of single mothers (DP), then, having agreed to that, you couldn’t deny that social workers should be the only ones to make decisions about single mothers’ parental competence. Accepting the premises would mean that you were stuck with accepting the conclusion as well. This is a feature of all valid arguments. In all such logical arguments, what is said in the premises entails what is said in the conclusion so that, if you allow the premises, then you are logically forced (on pain of contradicting yourself) to allow the conclusion; having allowed the premises, denying the conclusion is impossible. We can turn this feature of a valid argument on its head as a test for invalidity. If you can’t (consistently) accept the premises and deny the conclusion in a valid argument, then if we can do that in some argument under examination,

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we know that it is not valid. Doing something that is impossible to do with a valid argument means that it is invalid. So, the test is simply carrying out an act of imagination on some target argument, trying to imagine a ‘scenario’, an imagined ‘world’, in which, without inconsistency, one could have premises accepted and conclusion denied. If that is even imaginable, never mind whether you think it is actually the case or not, or even plausible, then the argument’s conclusion doesn’t follow from its premises. The test would flop with our social worker argument. You can be as creatively imaginative as you care in thinking up scenarios and you will fail to think up any scenario situation in which, without contradiction, you have denied the conclusion yet accepted the premises. Contrast the fate of this argument: MP All decisions should be made only by those people with the relevant expertise to make such decisions. DP All social workers have expertise relevant to making decisions about the parental competence of any single mothers. So, MC Only social workers should make decisions about the parental competence of any single mothers.

The only difference between this argument and its predecessor is the first word in the DP; but changing that word from ‘only’ to ‘all’ makes all the difference and means that the new argument is invalid. Its invalidity can be seen by carrying out an invalidity test on it. Try this: Social workers need not be the only ones to make decisions about the parental competence of single mothers even though those decisions should be only made by those with the relevant expertise and all social workers have that expertise because other people might also have that expertise, like some psychologists. And, if they did, then they would just as much qualify to make decisions about the parental competence of single mothers as well. Note what’s going on here. I ‘deny’ the conclusion even though I ‘accept’ the premises because ... and then I outline some ‘assumptions’ that underpin my story. Note that, as I have put it, these are pretend acceptances and denials. You don’t have to believe any of the claims forming your invalidity test scenario. They can all be false, even bizarre, and it makes no difference to the working of the invalidity test. The power of the test is that what is said is possible, that the combination of claims isn’t contradictory. So it matters not at all whether or not you believe that some psychologists have that expertise; the point is that the premises haven’t ruled them out as having it. There is, if you like, a ‘gap’ in the supporting premises – we are not told enough to force that conclusion and the test assists you to see the inadequacy of those premises. We have already had some cases of an invalidity test style exercise in the foregoing; have a look, for instance, at the very last part of the last section. In effect, we were showing that the MP and DP couldn’t force the MC by showing it possible to have those two premises accepted yet the conclusion denied without

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any inconsistency arising. Note that there was no actual endorsement by me of any end as more important than that of having school-leavers employable; I just pointed out that the weakness of the argument was that the author hadn’t ruled that out, the premises thus didn’t say enough for the conclusion to follow from them. To reiterate, note that one doesn’t have to believe the scenario in order to employ it to make the simple point that what the author has said in the premises is not enough to generate the conclusion he wants to follow. I suggest that, at this stage, you read back through the chapter so far and see if, for those arguments I have identified as invalid, you can use the invalidity test to see why they are invalid. So, apart from being able to note that an argument has one of the two common errors mentioned above, my suggestion is that, by practice and tutor feedback, you try to build up a logical ‘feel’ for the validity or otherwise of various arguments. Note, though, that the ‘invalidity test’ is an imperfect instrument. If you can think up an ‘accept premises but deny conclusion’ scenario, then you have demonstrated invalidity. But what if, try as you may, you can’t think up any scenario that is not contradictory; does that mean that it is a valid argument? No, another possibility is that you have inadequate imaginative powers! The best that you will be able to tentatively say in such a situation is that, as far as you can judge, it is a valid argument. So: an imperfect tool but still a useful one. Key Ideas In the so-called ‘invalidity test’, try to imagine the possibility of accepting the premises but rejecting the conclusion. If you can, the argument is invalid. Mind you, if you can’t, that doesn’t automatically mean that the argument is valid – it might just be that you don’t have the imaginative powers to think up an apt scenario.

‘Patching’ (Fixing up Arguments Found to Have Logical ‘Holes’) It is one thing to find out that an argument is invalid, that it has a logical ‘hole’, but what next? In effect, as an attempt to prove its conclusion, an invalid argument is a failure. So it gets discarded. But just because that particular argument is unsatisfactory doesn’t mean that some other version of the same general intuitive line of reasoning that the argument has tried to capture wouldn’t fare better. Maybe, by fiddling about with an invalid version’s wording, one can change things so that the resulting ‘mark 2’ version is more logically satisfactory. In short, once you have found a logical ‘hole’ in an argument, try fixing it up, or patching it, as I will say. The motivation for doing this is that you do not want to too swiftly discard an intuitive line of reasoning when it is really only just one variation of it that is at fault. To illustrate this, let’s work with the argument from the section An Error Common to Both Set-Inclusion and Means/Ends Argument Types: an Inadequately Strongly Worded MP.

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MP It is important for as many school-leavers as possible to be employable. DP If all schools devote their energies to making all school-leavers employable then this is a way of having as many school-leavers as possible employable. So, MC All schools should devote their energies to making all school-leavers employable.

We found one ‘hole’ with this argument, it was, you will recall, one of the common errors, the one to do with the weakness of the moral commitment in the MP. So, let us try to patch it. Try this as a re-written argument in which this hole is patched. MPa It is important for as many school-leavers as possible to be employable. MPb No other ends clashing with having as many school-leavers as possible employable are more important than that end. DP If all schools devote their energies to making all school-leavers employable, then this is a way of having as many school-leavers as possible employable. So, MC All schools should devote their energies to making all school-leavers employable.

With the addition of MPb, the problem found earlier will not arise. Note that what I haven’t done is patch MP by saying ‘it is of paramount importance ...’ – that is, more important than anything else whatsoever. Putting that in instead of the weaker (‘it is important’) wording of the existing MP would certainly patch the hole. But, when you are patching arguments, remember that you are trying to make them viable contributions to your enquiry. If you patch up a logical hole in a way that makes the new moral premise implausible, one that you would swiftly dismiss, then the improved validity of the argument has been bought at the expense of creating another problem, namely, an implausible premise. In this case, it is indeed implausible to suggest that having school-leavers employable is anything like of paramount importance. More important than, say, world peace? – surely not. In effect, to say that would be over-patching, saying more than one has to in order to fix the weakness in the premise. MPb, on the other hand, allows that there might well be more important things than the end listed in MPa, but its claim is that none of the more important things clash. It’s not as if making schoolleavers employable is an option in rivalry with fostering world peace, for instance. Thus, the admittedly greater importance of the latter simply doesn’t matter in this decision situation. There are usually a number of logically satisfactory ways of patching logical holes and sometimes there is more than one way that is not just logically satisfactory but also plausible. For instance, in our example here, we could have said the following as a revised argument.

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Note the way that the MP has been rewritten to become MP*. Rewriting it in this way such that the moral language of MP* aligns with the moral language of the MC (‘should’ and ‘should’) automatically gets us over our concern that the original MP was inadequately strongly worded compared to MC. Generally speaking, I would suggest seeing if aligning the wording of the MP with that of the MC as a way of patching this sort of hole can be done with any plausibility. Sometimes, however, on one way of taking it, what one gets as a result might convey the wrong impression. In this case MP* makes it sound as if it is some sort of moral duty on the part of school leavers whereas the original made it sound more like some sort of moral duty that the rest of us had in assisting school leavers. So, in this case, I would be inclined to go down the MPa plus MPb route to do the same logical job but more in the spirit of the original argument. So, when you patch a logical hole, there are three, sometimes conflicting, demands: a) make the revisions as plausible as you possibly can and b) clearly in the spirit of the original version, while c) still patching the hole. How do you know when the hole has been patched successfully? See if it is still vulnerable to the common error concern or invalidity test scenario that exposed the hole in the first place. If it isn’t vulnerable anymore, then you have fixed that problem. Mind you, arguments can have more than one hole so merely fixing one doesn’t guarantee an argument’s validity. And that is the case with this one. I observed earlier that there was another common error with so-called means/ ends arguments – an inadequately worded means/ends link – and this argument has this error present in it as well. Have a look back to the previous section and refresh your memory; the problem, if you will recall it, lay with the means/end connecting link, the DP. How to fix it? We could say that that is the only way of increasing the employability of school-leavers but that is a more implausible claim than one has to make in order to patch the hole; it would constitute over-patching. One doesn’t have to go this far and it can be admitted that there are other ways yet one can judge that this way is preferable to them. There are various ways of doing this and what follows is not an optimal patch but it is relatively simple to follow so I will initially use it here. Try:

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MPa It is important for as many school-leavers as possible to be employable. MPb No other ends clashing with having as many school-leavers as possible employable are more important than that end. DPa All schools devoting their energies to making all school-leavers employable is the best way of having as many school-leavers as possible employable. So, MC All schools should devote their energies to making all school-leavers employable.

I am using ‘best’ here as shorthand for something like ‘most efficient and effective’ (note that what I’m doing here is offering a ‘working definition’ in the manner spoken of in an earlier chapter). As far as I can see, this argument is now logical. However, although this new DP is more plausible than some other possible patches, it is still rather implausible that that action by schools is going to have such a result just by itself. Thus the revised argument is vulnerable in that it makes an assumption as to a factual causeeffect relationship that is probably false. As commented above, to do that is not doing the argument any great favour. Is there anything better that can be used that is still a logically adequate patch but manages to be more plausible? I think so. I will just offer the first bit of it initially and then talk about it (later, I’ll supplement things with another extra DP). Say that, instead of DPa, we try this as a patch: DPb All schools devoting their energies to making all school-leavers employable is an essential part of the package that is the best way of having as many schoolleavers as possible employable.

First off, I agree that this is very wordy; I don’t, however, think that it is too wordy. There is not a bit of it that could be scrubbed out without crippling its ability to say what I want it to say. So, attend very carefully to the wording as it is an enormously useful patch for these cases where a hole is that the linking DP premise is inadequately strongly worded. Let me spend a little bit of time explaining what is being said in this patch. I’ll get at it by a slightly roundabout route. It is not uncommon in cause-effect relationship situations (and that is what almost all of these means/end linking premises are talking about) for some given effect to be brought about, or best brought about, not just by a single cause but by a bundle of them – a package, as I have said in DPb. Consider our situation in question. If our goal is to increase the employability rate of school-leavers, then that is the effect that we are to be achieving. The original DPa claim was that schools doing stuff was the best way of getting that effect. Nothing else has been mentioned. Presumably the idea is that, just by itself, schools doing such stuff will bring about the desired effect more efficiently and effectively (our unpacking of ‘best’, recall) than anything else that one could do. This is implausible. More plausible is that such activity by schools is a part of the story, that if schools do stuff and a few other things happen as well (government-sponsored

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transition to work programmes, employer talks with schools ...?) then all of those things added together constitute the best way of achieving that effect. If we are really interested in getting that effect (and the MP propositions commit us to it) then it is likely that the best way of achieving it is by having a whole package of things occur. So, noting that gives us the wording at the end of DPb: ‘... the package that is the best way of having as many school-leavers as possible employable’. But we are not interested in actually talking about that whole ‘means’ package in our conclusion; all that we are arguing for is the situation of schools carrying out certain actions. If we are to focus on that and to have a case for that particular element happening, what do we have to learn about its connection to our desired end? The answer is in the first bit of DPb: while not the whole package, it is a bit of it and, presumably, not a bit that could be dispensed with, or substituted for, without loss of the package’s causal power in producing the effect that we are after. In short, that it is an essential component in that package, that it has to be present for the package to be the best package, is what is said by DPb. So, hopefully, you see the point in having what might seem to be a forbiddingly wordy DPb. So is that enough as our patch? Probably not. In terms of achieving our desired effect, it might be futile for us to do something that is a mere part of a package if other pieces are not in place. Consider lighting a fire. Having the fire burning is the desired effect and we are to be doing something or other to bring that about. No doubt there are all sorts of means for achieving this end but say that we had something like this as the package that we had decided was the most efficient and effective way of achieving it: presence of oxygen, presence of dry fuel, use of match to light fuel. It’s not much use arguing that someone should have dry fuel, even if it is part of the best package for achieving our end, the fire, if we are operating in a vacuum or operating with no matches (or suitable substitute). So, what we want to be assured of is that the other parts of the package are in place, otherwise having dry fuel is futile in the service of our end of having a fire burning. In short, and turning back to our employability argument illustration above, we should not just be writing in DPb, but also the following: DPc All of the other parts of that package are, or will be, in place.

Here the ‘that’ is a simple grammatical back reference to the package mentioned in DPb. So, the final patched argument would be:

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MPa It is important for as many school-leavers as possible to be employable. MPb No other ends clashing with having as many school-leavers as possible employable are more important than that end. DPb All schools devoting their energies to making all school-leavers employable is an essential part of the package that is the best way of having as many school-leavers as possible employable. DPc All of the other parts of that package are, or will be, in place. So, MC All schools should devote their energies to making all school-leavers employable.

At this stage, we hopefully have our illustration argument totally satisfactorily patched. As you have seen, quite a lot of work was involved but, unless the argument is tidied up in some such manner, it is a needlessly flawed contribution to your thinking on the topic. Sometimes, indeed, one might have even more patching to do in order to fix up a multiply flawed illogical argument. Key Ideas ‘Patching’ an argument is rewriting it to create a version of the original that no longer contains the logical ‘hole’ you identified. As there might be more than one distinct hole, the process of patching might have to be repeated Always try to patch holes but also try to have the patched version in the spirit of the original and without making the new, patching, premises unduly implausible.

Summary Remarks In this chapter, I have tried to give you a feel for the logicality or otherwise of the sorts of arguments that are common in discussions of professional ethical issues. Apart from displaying a few common types of arguments and a few common errors, my suggestion has been that you are better off trying to build up a reliable ‘feel’ for when a conclusion doesn’t logically follow from its premises and I offered the invalidity test as a useful tool. Further, if you find a problem, fix it – an argument with an unpatched logical hole can’t establish its conclusion. It’s worth trying to patch because, even if the original argument is poor, some other version of it might not be and you are silly to too swiftly discard a line of thinking just because its initial version is flawed. My only other cautions have been that arguments might have more than one logical hole and that, when patching any given hole, the replacement premise should be plausible (as it is hardly any service to the conclusion to replace an argument that is illogical by an argument that is logical but has an implausible premise) and in the spirit of the original line of thinking. These are, however, sometimes competing demands that are placed upon

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a prospective patch and not all three can always be met. If that happens, then make sure that it is at least a logical patch and the other two demands are served as best as possible and remaining problems will be sorted out at a later stage. In closing, I will say one further thing. You will recall that I remarked earlier that before they were seriously looked at, feral arguments should be made tame and clear. My suggestion was that you simply do this automatically with any argument you generate or come across. My suggestion here is that you similarly automatically subject arguments to logic criticism and patch any logical holes that you find in any such arguments. So every argument should be automatically tidied and tightened up so that it is tame and clear and logical. However, being logical, although a desired feature for an argument to have, is not sufficient for the satisfactoriness of an argument. As I illustrated earlier, you might judge a perfectly logical argument to nonetheless give you dubious grounds for accepting its conclusion. All that it takes is for it to be based upon premises that you find unacceptable or, at least, doubtful. An argument for a given conclusion is no better than the premises upon which it is based. So, yes, if an argument has been offered as a contribution to your thinking on a topic (including those that you have crafted), then check if it is logical and patch it if it isn’t. Just don’t consider that that is the whole job of argument appraisal – you will also want to know if the premises are acceptable. As will become clear, much of the discussion surrounding professional ethical issues rotates around the acceptability of premises, particularly moral premises. Getting the arguments logical is really a preliminary move to being able to focus on premises in a productive way. It is to the task of premise appraisal that we turn next.

Chapter 5

Subjecting Arguments to Criticism: Premise Criticism Introductory Remarks Clearly, whatever the topic is, you want the arguments upon which you might base your judgements to be as sound as possible. Partly, as we saw in the last chapter, this is a matter of them being logically tight, or valid. But, as noted earlier, it is also a matter of the argument’s starting points, or premises, being sound. No argument is much support for its conclusion if its premises are to be rejected. Such an argument would be ‘built upon sand’. To illustrate, say we had the following, logically impeccable, argument. MP All killers should be hanged. DP Kathleen is a killer. So, MC Kathleen should be hanged.

Despite it being logically valid, it would provide a very poor case for its conclusion if you rejected the MP as unacceptable (what if, although someone had killed, it was in self defence, should that person then be hanged?) or rejected the DP as false (what if you know that Kathleen had an alibi for the time in question?). If either premise is unacceptable, then the argument fails to support the conclusion claim even though that claim (that Kathleen should be hanged) certainly logically follows from the two premises. So, how can one tell when arguments have poor premises? The quick answer is: ‘with difficulty’. For some premises, it can be quite an elaborate affair trying to appraise their soundness but you can only do the best job you can, in the time available, according to how important the issue is to you. One good way of seeing how good a premise is, is to try challenging that premise. Try mounting a criticism against it and see if it can withstand that criticism. So, what is it to mount a criticism against a premise? In essence, it is to craft another argument, one targeted at the premise in question. In the sorts of arguments which we will be examining, and considering creating, there will commonly be two sorts of premise – descriptive and moral (although some will feature a conceptual premise – we saw a case of this in Chapter 3 with S1*). As I mentioned in the last chapter, I am lumping these premise types together to contrast premise criticism and logic criticism, but it turns out that, within the

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generic task of premise criticism, the sort of thing that one might appeal to in criticizing a DP is different to that appealed to in criticizing an MP and different again for a CP. As will emerge below, this is due to the distinct nature of these propositional types. Despite these differences, there is a similarity in the broad ‘architecture’ of premise criticism and I will outline that below. To illustrate, let’s try criticizing the premises of this argument: 5-A1 MP Everyone should have freedom of thought on any matter. CP To instil any belief on any matter into anyone is to interfere with that person’s freedom of thought on that matter. DP All of St Crispin’s religious education curriculum instils religious belief in some of its students. So, MC None of St Crispin’s religious education curriculum should be taught to those students.

As you might guess, I crafted this argument so that it had a premise of each of our main types (something that is unusual). I have also made sure that it is logical (try an invalidity test: there is no way that one could deny the conclusion, yet accept the premises, without contradiction). I will work through criticizing each of these distinct types of premise in turn beginning with criticism of the descriptive premise as my guess is that you are more familiar with the task of criticizing descriptive propositions than criticizing either of our other two types. I will also use discussion of this type of premise to illustrate the common ‘architecture’ of any premise criticism. Key Ideas Arguments can fail through having flawed logic and/or flawed premises. A key way of appraising the worth of arguments’ premises is by subjecting them to criticism. Although the broad approach to premise criticism is common across the three premise types, the detail of what is mounted as a critical argument varies with those types.

So, how might one criticize the DP of 5-A1? Descriptive Premise Criticism To mount a criticism of DP is to argue that it is false. This means that the conclusion of the critic’s argument will be some sort of opposite of the claim made by DP.

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(As usual, if you are crafting such an argument you are probably wise to portray it ferally first, put it into initial structured form and then methodically make it tame and clear and logical.) So, in this case, the opposing claim has to be something like claiming that the curriculum does not instil religious belief (or not all of it does, or ...). What could one have in mind here by way of a critical argument? Well, you would have a better idea were this not to be a somewhat contrived ‘made-up’ example and you knew something about St Crispin’s but try this: say that the truth were that they have changed their curriculum recently and although it used to be successful by way of indoctrination of religious belief into students, the new curriculum isn’t. So, in effect, one would be suggesting that the author’s information about what the school was doing is out of date. Or, as a separate line of complaint, one might simply deny that any instilling, as opposed to attempted instilling, of belief actually results. In short, one might accuse the curriculum of more ineffectiveness than the author seems to believe. Or, as the claim is that all of the curriculum instils belief (at least in some students) one might deny this as too sweeping by saying that only some of the curriculum has that effect, that it is a ‘mixed bag’. As I said, just what sort of criticism, if any, one would mount against DP would depend on one’s understanding of the facts of the matter and thus which aspect of DP one considered open to dispute. Let’s assume that our main hesitations are along the lines of the ‘mixed-bag’ point last mentioned. Given this, I might criticize DP as follows: Some of the St Crispin’s religious education curriculum does not instil religious belief in any of its students because it merely portrays the history of the Christian religion.

Laying this feral argument out as a tame and logical structure (and inserting a missing premise) we get: 5-CA1 CDP1 Some of the St Crispin’s religious education curriculum merely portrays the history of the Christian religion to students. CDP2 To merely portray the history of some religion to students does not result in that religion being instilled in any of the students. So, CDC Not all of St Crispin’s religious education curriculum instils religious belief in some of its students.

Have a look at this argument and you should see that it gives reasons for concluding that the DP of 5-A1 is false. As is familiar by now I trust, with descriptive premises the author is trying to give a true description of the world. For many of the assertions that you will be making, there will be a suitable research literature to consult. But has that

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literature been properly accessed and understood? It is not uncommon for there to be conflicting, or seemingly conflicting, suggestions from the literature on some issue, especially if the phenomenon is complex. There is quite a skill to the sort of research literacy that can tap into and apply such literature to some issue of interest. The author simply might have got it wrong and descriptive premise criticism is an opportunity to probe her claim – perhaps by more sophisticated deployment of the relevant research literature. For instance, many of the arguments that crop up in discussions of problems in professional ethics are what I called means/ends arguments. In such arguments the descriptive premise linking the MP and the conclusion is usually some sort of cause/effect claim. The cause/effect link might be overstated. Try this as such a premise in some argument: DP1 If one is cheated by a business then one does not return.

Plausibly, this is simply false and could be objected to by pointing to studies establishing less sweeping claims in which some customers, even though cheated, nonetheless return. Key Ideas In criticizing a descriptive premise, one argues that the author has ‘got her facts wrong’. This involves crafting a critical argument the conclusion of which contradicts the target argument’s DP.

The Common ‘Architecture’ of Premise Criticism I said above that I would use the scenario of criticism of the descriptive premise to illustrate the common ‘architecture’ of the process of criticizing any type of premise. The major thing to note is that the conclusion of the critic’s argument (in the above case, CDC – for ‘critic’s descriptive conclusion’) is a form of contradiction of the premise that is the target of criticism (in this case, the DP of 5-A1). If CDC is true, then DP is false. This ‘CDC contradicts DP’, or, more generally, having the critic’s argument’s conclusion contradicting the ‘target’ premise in the criticized argument is the key feature of premise criticism of any sort. That point satisfied, the rest of the critic’s argument (its premises) provides support for that denial. Of course, having mounted a critical argument, one wants the critic’s argument, like any other, to be tame and logical and clear. But it is not even worth checking that it has all of these good features unless it is properly targeted. If its conclusion is not ‘on target’ in the sense of denying the target premise, then it isn’t even ‘getting to first base’ by way of doing the task that it is supposed to be doing.

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Any argument advanced as an exercise in premise criticism had better be doing just that – premise criticism! On this point, if you think back to the ‘taming checklist’ of Chapter 3 (Checklist Item 1: Is the Conclusion on Target?), I said that I would revisit this first of the checklist items later in the book. This is one such later place. The critic’s arguments, like any others, should be made tame, logical and clear. Recall that this was to be an automatic tidy up of them as contributions to an enquiry. So, as soon as one had laid one’s feral criticism out as a tentative initial structure, one was to be carrying out the checklist check of its tameness. The first item on that checklist is: ‘Is the conclusion on target?’. What counts as the conclusion of the critic’s argument being on target is that its conclusion contradicts the target premise (in the above case, CDC contradicting DP of 5-A1). Perhaps I’m over-labouring this point but note it well; it is commonly lost sight of (and I will revisit it below). To help avoid going down a mis-targeted side path, I suggest that you determine the conclusion of the critic’s argument first and check that it is indeed ‘on target’ before going any further; only then craft your supporting case for that critical conclusion. Key Ideas Don’t forget: the conclusion of the critic’s ‘premise criticism’ argument must contradict the challenged, or target, premise of the argument being subjected to premise criticism. To help ensure this, write down the conclusion of the critic’s argument first and check that it does indeed deny the premise that it is supposed to.

So much for the general architecture of premise criticism. Let’s see what such criticism looks like when its target is one or other of our other two premise types. Conceptual Premise Criticism Challenging a conceptual premise has the same general architecture as challenging a descriptive premise but the sort of thing going on in the challenge is different because of the different type of premise being criticized. As that target premise is a conceptual-type proposition, its denial (the critic’s argument’s conclusion) will also have to be conceptual-type. (A proposition of one type can’t contradict a proposition of another.) So, compared to our above challenge to our DP, this time we won’t be disputing the author’s factual claims. Rather, we will challenge her conception of the connection between ideas. What do I mean by this? It is not easy to explain briefly but here goes.

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Basically, when one starts to challenge a conceptual premise, one is engaging in an exercise usually called: ‘conceptual analysis’, an activity at the heart of what is usually called: ‘analytic philosophy’. Becoming skilled at this is no mean feat and is one of the objectives of most undergraduate philosophy majors. You probably won’t have time within your professional degree programme to build up this competence to a high level. However, you can at least be attuned to the fact that sometimes it is a conceptual premise, an assumption about the relations among ideas, that is causing the problem and be familiar with at least some of the skills used in criticizing such premises. Let’s look at our sample argument again. 5-A1 MP Everyone should have freedom of thought on any matter. CP To instil any belief on any matter into anyone is to interfere with that person’s freedom of thought on that matter. DP All of St Crispin’s religious education curriculum instils religious belief in some of its students. So, MC None of St Crispin’s religious education curriculum should be taught to those students.

Look at this particular CP and you’ll see that the author is, in effect, claiming that the idea of instilling a belief into someone is the opposite idea to that of letting a person freely adopt their own beliefs. (In much the same way as the idea of being a bachelor is, in part, an opposing idea to that of being married. I say ‘in part’ because part of the idea, for instance, ‘being adult’, is a shared, not an opposing, element.) To challenge CP of 5-A1 would be to suggest that somehow a person can still have freedom of thought about, say, whether something like the Christian god exists or is just a myth even though he has had instilled into his mind the belief that such an entity does exist. On the face of it, CP sounds unchallengeable. How is it even conceivable that one could be ‘programmed’ with a belief yet still have free choice as to whether to believe it or not? And, indeed, it might well be simply unchallengeable. Not every (or even any) premise in a given argument is always plausibly disputable. (Were ‘all bachelors are unmarried’ to be a conceptual premise in some argument or other, then it would presumably be indisputable.) The present case is an interesting one however. It all depends on what precisely is meant by ‘freedom of thought’ concerning a belief and by ‘instilling’ a belief. I’d like to spend a little time on this as what we are calling ‘conceptual premises’ are sometimes the focus of much complex and important philosophical discussion, not just in professional ethical controversies, and getting them right can involve an unusual attention to understanding the concepts in play. I said back in Chapter 3 that, once one has a tame structure in place, one should take pains to ensure that what has been said is clear. To that end, one might end

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up with some sort of clarificatory comments (‘working definitions’ as I called them) as an aside to the main flow of argument. We didn’t actually do this in the case of 5-A1. Say that we had done so and that what was offered was as follows: ‘by “instilling a belief” what I mean is causing someone to come to hold a belief without rationally persuading them of its truth and by “freedom of thought concerning a belief” I mean being able to accept or reject that belief without being swayed by any non-rational influence concerning it’. On the face of it, instilling a belief and having freedom of thought about that belief are thus opposed ideas and CP indeed looks unchallengeable. Maybe not, though. The working definitions are not quite as clear as they might be on one matter – time. Mightn’t I have belief in God instilled in me as a child and then, later, have other inputs to my thinking that negate that influence such that I end up exercising freedom of thought on the issue? In short, could I have theism instilled at one time but come to freely endorse atheism later? If so, if both can occur, then to instil belief on some matter into someone at one point in time does not (automatically) interfere with that person’s freedom of thought on that matter at every later point in time. So, given that the author’s clarifications made no reference to time limitations, the following argument in criticism of CP might be raised: 5-CA2 CDP1 It is psychologically possible for one to have a belief instilled in one and then to have countervailing (non-rational) influences of sufficient strength operate so as to ‘cancel out’ that influence. CCP1 If the non-rational influences upon one’s belief formation are equally balanced then one has freedom of thought with respect to adoption of that belief. So, CCC A belief on some matter can be instilled into someone at one point in time without that (automatically) interfering with that person’s freedom of thought on that matter at some later point in time.

As it happens, the sort of discussion that might continue on concerning this particular conceptual issue is quite rich and complex but our discussion of the treatment of such extended enquiries is a matter for the next chapter, not this one. At this stage, I simply wish to have illustrated how a criticism of a conceptual premise might go and to have alerted you to the subtlety of the issues involved in many such disputes. Again, note the key relationship between 5-CA2 and 5-A1. The conclusion (CCC) of the critic’s 5-CA2 contradicts the conceptual premise (CP) that was its ‘target’ claim within 5-A1. Some philosophical discussion of ethical topics rotates around the acceptability of various conceptual premises in arguments and concerns possible revisions to our understanding of the concepts involved in the face of challenge. It is common for conceptual refinements to arise as a result of such, sometimes quite extended, discussion. The subject matter of our example is a case in point. What ends up as a

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good conception of ‘freedom of thought’ and what its relationship is with inputs to someone’s thinking (perhaps particularly at an early age) is a vexed and complex issue and, although we won’t pursue the discussion here, it is an important one that arises in a number of professional ethical contexts. We could spend more time on this but I will simply refer you to standard undergraduate philosophy texts if you want to develop the skills of conceptual analysis any further. Fortunately, although there are professional ethical problems where conceptual muddle is a major problem and conceptual analysis the key tool in resolving the problem, for much of the time careful attention to providing what we called ‘working definitions’ suffices for enquiry to be able to proceed profitably if the major foci for concern in an argument are its DP or MP – especially the latter. Key Ideas In conceptual premise criticism, the task is not to dispute the author’s grasp of the facts but to dispute her understanding of the relationships between ideas. The focus is not upon what the world is like but upon the interrelationship of the meanings of various key terms.

Moral Premise Criticism Generally, this is the most important form of premise criticism for our purposes. I have found that students are fairly unfamiliar with the task of criticizing arguments’ moral premises and tend to want to concentrate on the descriptive premises. As far as I can ascertain, this is because engaging in disputes as to what the facts are is familiar ground and, for many issues in professional ethics, safe and easy ground in that there is a research literature ‘out there’ to draw upon in settling what the truth actually is. Mind you, conceptual premise criticism is, like moral premise criticism, an unfamiliar and difficult task. Although there is a philosophical literature ‘out there’ on many of the issues that arise in professional ethical dilemmas (for instance, in the abortion and euthanasia debates a key conceptual issue is what counts as a person) the literature is forbiddingly complex for non-philosophers. Fortunately, for most (not all, try the abortion debate just mentioned) issues in applied ethics, conceptual concerns don’t loom large. As noted earlier, with some careful attention to supplying what we called ‘working definitions’, things can be kept clear enough for the purpose of sorting through the particular problem at hand. So, descriptive premise criticism is relatively familiar and conceptual premise criticism is not common. Accordingly, the key task in sorting out one’s position concerning most problems in professional ethics is not so much getting one’s facts straight and conceptual framework well sorted, it is getting one’s set of moral

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values well enough worked out so that they can be confidently applied to the issue at hand. Normally, you will have several moral principles (some clashing with others) that bear on an issue. Sorting out one’s deeper moral priorities among these principles so that they are in good enough shape to guide decision on the issue at hand is no minor task. As a quick illustration, say that the issue in question is one of disclosing the content of a psychotherapist’s consultation conversations. One might have several values that bear on this issue. One such value might be a commitment to the confidentiality of such conversations (a bit like our earlier case of police and informers but with some different elements). Another value might be a commitment to the elimination of serious crime. These values can clearly compete if, in the course of a professional consultation, there is disclosure of sexual abuse of a minor by the client. Sorting out one’s priorities is a complex matter and one element in performing that task is raising and considering criticisms of various values when they are appealed to as moral premises in various arguments put forward on some topic. Key Ideas Professional ethical decisions rest upon one’s values but those values are likely to be conflicting. Sorting out one’s priorities among them involves critical appraisal of those values and a key element in that is moral premise criticism of values that occur as Moral Premises in one’s arguments.

So, how might moral premise criticism go? The ‘Mechanics’ of Moral Premise Criticism In broad architecture, a criticism of moral premises is the same as any other sort of premise criticism. So, this means that the critic is to craft an argument that has, as its conclusion, some claim that contradicts the target MP. As an example of this, let’s return to our example argument 5-A1: 5-A1 MP Everyone should have freedom of thought on any matter. CP To instil any belief on any matter into anyone is to interfere with that person’s freedom of thought on that matter. DP All of St Crispin’s religious education curriculum instils religious belief in some of its students. So, MC None of St Crispin’s religious education curriculum should be taught to those students.

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One way of criticizing this MP would be as follows: Perhaps on some matters (some central moral or religious beliefs perhaps) some people should not have freedom of thought because it is too important that they end up with the right answer and, if left their own devices, some people would end up with the wrong answer. So, laying this feral argument out as a tame and logical structure, we get: 5-CA3 CMP On some matters, it is more important that as many people as possible have a particular belief than that the belief is arrived at as a result of freedom of thought. CDP If everyone had freedom of thought on any matter, then more people than is avoidable would end up not having such beliefs on some such matters. So, CMC On some such matters, some people should not have freedom of thought.

It is worth noting a general feature of such moral premise criticism. Have a look at what is going on in 5-CA3. Note that, in the critic’s moral premise (CMP), you have something else (people having some particular beliefs) valued more than the driving value of the original MP of 5-A1 (that is, unrestricted freedom of thought) – at least in some matters. The critic’s own driving value is being articulated as CMP. Then, in the critic’s CDP, we learn that, at least sometimes, the critic’s value and the author’s do clash (giving people freedom of thought wouldn’t always result in the wanted beliefs). In effect, what the critic is saying to the author of 5-A1 is: ‘Look, the trouble with your unrestricted commitment to freedom of thought is that some people will sometimes choose to have the wrong thoughts and isn’t that sometimes worse than some loss of freedom when the issue is an important one?’. Or, put more generally, the tactic is to say something like ‘Your value sometimes clashes with this value (CDP) and this value is more important (CMP)’. ‘Partial Denials’ It is worth highlighting one feature of MP criticism, one that is exemplified above. Note the scale of the clash between MP and CMC. All that the critic is doing is, in effect, arguing that MP is too sweepingly general and that, in some situations, something other than freedom of thought (believing some important truths, in our example) is more important. What is offered in CMC is what I will call a ‘partial denial’ of MP; note that what is not said in CMC is some more extreme denial of MP like: ‘No one should have freedom of thought on any matter’. Generally speaking, such partial denials are good practice whether we have a dialogue between two actual people (‘the author/speaker’ and ‘the critic’) or you are engaging in self-criticism. Consider a two-person dialogue. As we shall see in the next chapter, teasing out a well-thought-through case on some issue can be quite involved and it will usually help that process of thorough enquiry if ‘the critic’ doesn’t effectively

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say: ‘Your premise is totally wrong’ but offers some less extreme rejection by mounting a critical argument to the effect that the premise in question is wrong to some extent (part of the time, or for some people, or in some ways or situations, or whatever). If you are in soliloquy and engaging in self-criticism, then arguing that you have got some premise totally wrong is hardly as plausible a way of having a productive rethink about things as would exploring a ‘partial denial’ in which you explore the possibility that you have got things a bit wrong. So, the ‘rule of thumb’ is that ‘partial denials’ are usually the preferred way of challenging possibly unsatisfactory premises. That said, there will no doubt be situations (most likely dialogical ones unless you are seriously intellectually schizoid) where an extreme denial is exactly what you want to do. Even so, engaging in a ‘partial denial’ style of criticism might nonetheless be your best chance of having a productive dialogue in which ‘the author’ reconsiders her views instead of becoming overly defensive. Although I have raised this issue within a section on moral criticism, the above discussion carries across to criticisms of our other two types of premise proposition as well. Key Ideas As with any premise criticism, the conclusion of the critic’s argument should be a form of denial of the target premise (in this case a moral premise). The general strategy of such a criticism is that the critic’s moral premise advances some other, more important (at least some of the time, for some people etc.) and rival value and the critic’s descriptive premise proposes that his value clashes with the author’s. Engaging in ‘partial denial’ of a target MP is generally advised (the same ‘rule of thumb’ applies to criticism of descriptive premises and conceptual premises).

Summary to Date So far, I have said that there are only two things that can go wrong with the reasoning that someone offers in support of some judgement on an issue of professional ethical concern (or with any argument on anything, for that matter). One is that it has a logical fault – we discussed this in the last chapter. The other is that one (or more) of its premises is unsatisfactory. It is the second sort of possible fault that has been the concern of this chapter. If there is something unsatisfactory about a premise, then it should be able to be exposed by successful criticism. To criticize it is to mount an argument against it, an argument that has, as its conclusion, a claim that contradicts the target premise.

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Remember that an argument might be vulnerable to criticism of more than one of its premises (or just one, or none) but even if they are all dubious (as with 5-A1) their criticism should occur separately otherwise things become a muddled mess. Although the general ‘architecture’ of premise criticism is similar regardless of the premise type under challenge, the particular task of the critic’s argument varies with the type of premise. Arguments on professional ethical topics might contain premises of any of our three basic proposition types (descriptive, moral and conceptual). Given the distinct nature of propositions of these three types, arguments critical of one type will differ in key ways from those critical of other types. The sort of consideration one would be basing an argument criticizing a descriptive premise on would be different from the sort of thing a criticism of the conceptual premise would be based on and moral premise criticism would employ a different basis of dispute yet again. Of the three types, I said that moral premise criticism was usually the most central task. In this case, the general tactic for the critic is to advance some other value which, at least sometimes (for some people etc.), is considered more important than the author’s MP (all of which gets expressed as the critic’s CMP) and which, to at least some extent, clashes with that MP (with that clash articulated as the critic’s CDP). In effect, the critic is challenging the soundness of the moral values that the author’s case rests upon by appealing to rival values. I also stressed the tactical merits of partial, as opposed to more extreme, denials of the target MP by the critic’s CMC. In criticism of a descriptive premise, one is offering reasons for thinking that the author’s case rests upon a misunderstanding of the relevant facts. In criticism of a conceptual premise, one is arguing that the author misunderstands some key concept or relationship among concepts. In all of this remember that although, for convenience, I talk of an ‘author’ and a ‘critic’, the situation might not be one of dialogue between two minds but one of self-criticism with you playing both roles. It is part of thinking thoroughly about some issue to ask things like: ‘I wonder if I have my facts straight’, or: ‘I wonder if the concepts I am using are well-enough understood’ or: ‘I wonder if the moral principles that I have some sort of commitment to will turn out to bear on this issue in more complicated and possibly conflicting ways than I now realize’. Exploring any of these matters leads to one or other of our tasks of premise criticism getting carried out. So much for the basics of premise criticism. In what remains of this chapter, I wish to re-emphasize the avoidance of a common error, do a little bit of extension on the idea of premise criticism and talk about the other side of the coin of premise appraisal: premise defence as opposed to criticism.

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Premise Criticism – a Common Error At the risk of labouring a point, I would like to spend some more time on what is a common student fault (I’m not quite sure why). We touched upon this in the last chapter but it bears repetition. Remember that premise criticism is one form of critically probing the reasoning given by an author in support of her judgement (with the latter appearing as the argument’s conclusion). Recall also that I just reminded you that only two things can go wrong with an argument’s reasoning. One is that it has faulty premises: in premise criticism, one is investigating whether one or other of the premises is faulty. But what about the conclusion – couldn’t one criticize the conclusion directly by mounting an argument against it? Well, one could and, as I have noted, students commonly do; but to do that is to ignore totally the reasoning offered by the author. It is as if one has said: ‘Never mind what you’ve said, I’m not carrying out any scrutiny of the worth of your supporting reasoning, I’m just going to ignore it and advance my own argument for the opposing conclusion – just as if you had never spoken. You have mounted a “for” argument on the topic and I am going to mount an “against” argument on the topic’. In our example argument, I would not (under the heading of ‘moral premise criticism’) be at all fulfilling that task by challenging MC: ‘None of St Crispin’s religious education curriculum should be taught to students in whom it will instil religious belief’, such that my critic’s argument had, as its conclusion, CMC*: ‘Some of St Crispin’s religious education curriculum should be taught to some students in whom it will instil religious belief’. What results if one stays focused constantly in this way on generating arguments that bear directly on the topic issue with their conclusion propositions is that the discussion/enquiry becomes cluttered with a bunch of arguments ‘for’ and ‘against’ some proposal but without any appraisal as to whether any of the arguments that have been generated are any good. Surely it’s not enough to just keep generating an unappraised string of arguments on a topic; one should wish to know which arguments are worth taking any notice of. Such generation of mere breadth, instead of depth, of enquiry is a waste of time (except as a sort of preliminary ‘brainstorming’ exercise prior to more serious thought). Eventually, if an argument on the topic of interest is presented, you will have to spend some time working out the merits of that argument and that means, in part, considering whether its premises are open to plausible criticism. Once its fate gets sorted out after some (probably quite extended) examination and enquiry, you might indeed get on to other distinct arguments bearing directly on the original topic. My point is simply that you can’t profitably have a series of arguments that bear directly on your topic under examination at once. So, criticism of any given argument focuses on the rationale that that argument presents for its conclusion. I want now to point out that, if you are careful and methodical, this ‘conclusion-denying’ error simply should not ever arise.

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Earlier, when we were talking about taming a structure by methodical checking using a checklist, the initial question was: ‘Is the conclusion on target?’ You should be able to avoid the above error of misdirected criticism of a given argument’s conclusion by paying proper attention to this checklist item as it applies to the critic’s argument. The target for the conclusion of a critic’s ‘premisecriticism’ argument is a premise! – so you would expect to see his conclusion being the denial of the target premise not the denial of the author’s argument’s conclusion. As doing just that (criticizing the conclusion rather than a premise) is the common student error under discussion, doing this checklist item properly should detect the problem if you have been unthinking enough to commit this error. Key Ideas Premise criticism is just that. The target of such criticism is some premise or other of an argument, not its conclusion. Exercise discipline and properly check your critical offering’s targeting before moving on.

Argument Failure and the Fate of the Conclusion This section is a bit of an aside and doesn’t sit totally comfortably within this chapter but it seems around the right place to be introducing the issue. Say that you had decided that an argument had a faulty premise (or, for that matter, was ‘unpatchably’ illogical). To decide that is to decide that that argument fails in its task of establishing its conclusion satisfactorily. It might well be that, although a given ‘supporting’ argument fails, and fails in any version that you can think of, there is some other, quite distinct, line of support that fares better. For instance, say that you had considered the following argument in support of the proposition that one should not ever tell lies. MP We should always do what God commands. DP God commands us to not ever tell lies. So, MC We should not ever tell lies.

Upon reflection upon some criticism of MP (say by an argument that deploys as its CMP the rival value: ‘No moral agent should lose any autonomy of moral decision-making by being subservient to the moral prescriptions of any other moral agent’), you find that you cannot endorse MP any more. (This stage would probably take a while to reach rather than happen after a criticism being simply expressed but we will ignore such complexities for now; such matters are the business of the next chapter.)

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In effect then, as a case for MC, you judge the above argument to be a failure. But just because this argument has failed doesn’t automatically mean that no case for saying that one should never tell lies, one of a more satisfactory sort, can’t be advanced. You might be able to think up some quite different line of support for the same conclusion and that different case might fare better under critical scrutiny. (Such a case might be something along the lines of saying that one should not ever tell lies because the telling of lies helps to destroy social trust and social trust should be preserved as much as possible.) However, unless there is indeed some other, quite distinct, argument that can be advanced that fares better, the conclusion would be unsupported. Mind you, even if one can think of no satisfactory argument for the conclusion, it does not mean that the conclusion is wrong. Just because some proposition is without adequate defence does not mean that there is anything wrong with it, it is just that you don’t have grounds for thinking that there is anything right with it. There are many descriptive propositions, in particular, that are simply beyond our power to have any satisfactory grounds for belief in them. As a possible illustration, and staying with religion for the moment, take the vexed issue of the existence, or otherwise, of God. Now, take the proposition ‘God exists’. Assume for the moment something that you might wish to dispute with me, that is, that there is no successful argument in support of that proposition. That is, any argument one might advance would be either illogical or based upon premises open to successful criticism. Even if this were so, that would not mean that the proposition ‘God exists’ is false. It might be true even if we were to have no good reason to believe that it is. Mind you, if a proposition were to be unsupported by any satisfactory argumentation as far as you could see, this should give you some ‘pause for thought’ about any temptation to accept it. Key Ideas Argument failure is not conclusion failure, just failure of that particular line of justification for accepting that conclusion. Sustained failure of any argument to satisfactorily support such a given conclusion should, however, be of concern.

A Common Critical Technique One technique (not the only one) for mounting a challenge to a premise is to probe it with what are usually called counter-examples. What, then, is a counter-example? You are probably already familiar with the broad idea from past discussions about descriptive and moral propositions. Let me illustrate: As a descriptive proposition, try the following:

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‘All British generals to date have been incompetent’.

This could be challenged by advancing the following as a counter-example to this generalization: ‘The Duke of Wellington was a British general and was not incompetent’.

(Of course, weaving this in as part of a properly structured critic’s argument would be a bit more elaborate than that.) As a moral proposition, try the following: ‘All lying is wrong’.

This could be challenged by advancing the following as a counter-example to this generalization: ‘Lying to save an innocent person’s life is not wrong’.

In this case, I shall bother to portray the structured critical argument in full because much debate on professional ethical matters rotates around the acceptability of MPs as opposed to other types of premise. I suggest initial structuring of our above feral criticism as follows: CMP It is more important to save an innocent person’s life than it is to tell the truth. CDP Sometimes the only way to save an innocent person’s life is to lie. So, CMC Not all lying is wrong.

A couple of comments, note that this fits our earlier discussion of criticism of MPs. In the critic’s CMP we get another value advanced as more important than the one appealed to in the author’s MP. Then, in the critic’s CDP, it is pointed out that the two values clash. They do not clash all of the time (so it is not as if we conclude that lying is always wrong) but they do some of the time – hence our conclusion. It also complies with my earlier suggestion that it is usually a better tactic to mount a ‘partial denial’ criticism that disagrees a little bit with its target premise rather than rejects it out of hand. So far, so obvious, I hope. The same tactic can be deployed in criticism of a conceptual premise; say such a premise was the following: ‘All members of the species Homo Sapiens are persons’.

This could be challenged by advancing the following as a counter-example to this generalization:

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Those members of the species Homo Sapiens born with no cortical functioning are not persons’.

I trust that you get the general idea. If you look back to the section ‘Descriptive Premise Criticism’ you should be able to see that the style of criticism that we mounted there exemplifies this sort of raising of a counter-example. Note that what is happening in such a form of criticism is that one is disagreeing a little bit with the target premise. It is an instance of what I earlier called ‘partial denial’; one is not mounting an extreme ‘right to the other end of the spectrum’ denial of the target premise. For instance, in the above challenge to a possible conceptual premise, the critic is not suggesting that no members of the species Homo Sapiens are persons just that some are not. As discussed earlier, such limited criticism, or ‘partial denial’, is usually a sensible thing in an enquiry if it is to progress profitably. Key Ideas One common tactic in critical challenge to a rather sweepingly general premise is to appeal to counter-examples. Such a challenge has the merit of constituting a partial denial, not an extreme rejection, of the original proposition.

Premise Defence Although the opposite of premise criticism, I’m going to talk about premise defence in this chapter as it is the other basic skill involved in premise appraisal and sits here as well as anywhere. What premise defence amounts to is adding on an extra bit of argumentation that has an existing premise as its conclusion. Once this is done, you would have a better idea of where an argument is coming from, of the deeper story that is driving the author. Each of our three basic proposition types might occur as premises in an argument and each type of premise (a CP, an MP, a DP) might be one that you wish to see receive some support or defence. How might this go? Let’s return to our sample argument and try defending each of its premises in turn.

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Reason and Professional Ethics 5-A1 MP Everyone should have freedom of thought on any matter. CP To instil any belief on any matter into anyone is to interfere with that person’s freedom of thought on that matter. DP All of St Crispin’s religious education curriculum instils religious belief in some of its students. So, MC None of St Crispin’s religious education curriculum should be taught to those students.

Descriptive Premise Defence A feral defence of the above DP might go as follows: it is true that all of St Crispin’s religious education curriculum instils religious belief in some of its students because a survey was carried out on its students and this was the result of the survey. Laid out as a structured argument we might have the following: 5-DA1 DP1 All surveys correctly report the nature of the phenomena that they are investigating. DP2 A survey of St Crispin’s students indicated that all of St Crispin’s religious education curriculum instils religious belief in some of its students. So, DP All of St Crispin’s religious education curriculum instils religious belief in some of its students.

What has happened in this argument is that we have been given some grounds for holding the proposition DP to be true. In effect, an appeal has been made to the relevant research literature and that is a common line of support for descriptive propositions occurring in discussions of professional ethical issues. Note also that this case crucially rests upon a fairly sweeping assumption about the reliability of surveys (in DP1). This might, as the enquiry continues to unfold, prove to be a concern with the satisfactoriness of this defence. Conceptual Premise Defence A feral defence of the above CP might go as follows: to have freedom of thought on some matter is for one’s views on that matter to be ones that one has arrived at as a result of one’s own thinking and if a belief is instilled into a person then that person has arrived at it as a result of that process of instilling as opposed to it being the result of their own thinking; so, to instil any belief on some matter into someone is to interfere with that person’s freedom of thought on that matter. Structured, we get:

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5-DA1’ CP1 To have freedom of thought on some matter is for one’s views on that matter to be ones that one has arrived at as a result of one’s own thinking. CP2 If a belief is instilled into a person then it is not the result of their own thinking. So, CP To instil any belief on any matter into anyone is to interfere with that person’s freedom of thought on that matter.

What has happened in this particular argument is that we have had each of the key ideas, or concepts, in the original CP (‘instilling belief’ and ‘freedom of thought’) unpacked in meaning a little bit by appeal to a third concept ‘a view being arrived at as a result of one’s own thinking’ in a way that supports the opposition of ideas expressed in the original CP. (Mind you, the plot will thicken as soon as one ponders a little bit upon what counts as a belief being a result of one’s own thinking.) Moral Premise Defence A feral defence of the above MP might go as follows: humanity should maximize its capacity to challenge any of its ideas so everyone should have freedom of thought on any matter because, if they didn’t, then humanity would not be maximizing its capacity to challenge any of its ideas. Laid out as a structured argument we might have the following: 5-DA1’’ MP1 Humanity should maximize its capacity to challenge any of its ideas. DP1 Unless everyone has freedom of thought on any matter, humanity will not be maximizing its capacity to challenge any of its ideas. So, MP Everyone should have freedom of thought on any matter.

What has happened in this argument is that we have had the original commitment to quite sweeping freedom of thought supported by appealing to something that that freedom of thought is good for (it exemplifies what we called earlier ‘a means/ ends argument’). Argument ‘Chains’ One way of thinking about what has occurred above when we have defended one or other of the premises of an argument is to employ the metaphor of a chain. As you realize, chains have links and different lengths of chain might have different numbers of links. Think of an individual argument such as 5-A1 as forming a single link. When one of its premises, say, DP, is defended (by deployment of 5-DA1) the two arguments can be seen as joining in the manner of two links of a chain. The connection in this case is DP. DP plays two roles. In 5-DA1, it is the conclusion, or

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end point, of the argument; in 5-A1 it is one of the premises, or starting points, of the argument. In effect, it is the overlapping element, a proposition present in each component argument although playing a different role in each. One could portray the argument and the defence of one of its premises as one longer, more elaborate, structure: a chained argument of two links: DP1 All surveys correctly report the nature of the phenomena that they are investigating. DP2 A survey of St Crispin’s students indicated that all of St Crispin’s religious education curriculum instils religious belief in some of its students. So, DP All of St Crispin’s religious education curriculum instils religious belief in some of its students. and, MP Everyone should have freedom of thought on any matter. CP To instil any belief on any matter into anyone is to interfere with that person’s freedom of thought on that matter. So, MC None of St Crispin’s religious education curriculum should be taught to those students.

I had to change the order of the premises in 5-A1 to lay the whole chain out in a neat linear way but, as you should remember, this makes no difference to the logical power of those premises to entail their conclusion – it is just a stylistic thing which way round DP, MP and CP are listed. Of course, were we to wish to portray the defence of more than one of our premise propositions, we could not do it as a nice neat linear chain as above and the metaphor breaks down a little bit. Still, it is not a bad way of thinking about things for any given premise that is being defended. Key Ideas To defend, or support, a premise is to craft another argument which has, as its conclusion, the premise to be defended.

Summary Remarks In this chapter we have focused upon premises, the starting points of arguments, the component elements of the rationale given for a given argument’s conclusion. The suggestion is that it is not enough for an argument to be logical, an argument’s worth as a case for its conclusion is only as good as the worth of its premises.

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Accordingly, one task in appraising an argument as a contribution to an enquiry is to appraise its premises. One good way to begin to appraise a premise, especially if it is a premise in an argument that you favour, is to try criticizing it. To criticize a premise is to argue against it. The premises of an argument can be of any of our proposition types. These types are different and require different sorts of considerations to be appealed to in arguing against them. Another possible move in the appraisal of a premise is to explore its defence, to argue for it. In effect, this chapter is basically the last in which I introduce you to basic skills of reasoning at the individual argument level (although in Chapter 7 I do introduce a number of complications at the level of individual arguments). But enquiring thoroughly into a professional ethical issue will involve more than a scattering of individual arguments or even of those arguments and a criticism or a defence of one or other of their premises. Rather, there will be a web of such argumentation with the individual arguments constituting that web connected together in thoughtful and deliberate ways so that an enquiry builds complexity, depth and thoroughness. It is the task of the next chapter to introduce to you this sort of thoughtful and deliberate, in-depth, enquiry.

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Chapter 6

Extended Reasoning: the Basics Moving beyond Sub-skills This chapter is a turning point in the book. So far, I have been running through some basic sub-skills and some basic logical theory; let’s briefly review that. We distinguished merely asserting a point from providing an argument for it. Arguments are the basic building blocks of an enquiry. We noted that any argument is comprised of propositions providing premises and a conclusion. We distinguished three basic types of propositions (moral, descriptive and conceptual) and a couple of more complicated ones (mixed and ambiguous). We observed that most attempts at portraying arguments were pretty rough and ready and learned how to portray such ‘feral’ attempts in a structured form and then to methodically deploy a checklist to ‘tame’ such structures and ‘working definitions’ to clarify them (and remember that you would want the same assigned meaning for some term or phrase to be consistent within an argument and, indeed, a whole enquiry, or muddle is the result). We then moved from argument portrayal to argument appraisal. As repeatedly noted, only two things can go wrong with an argument – its starting points, the premises, or the (hopefully logical) move from them to its finishing point, the conclusion. The first possible problem that we considered was the issue of the logical validity of arguments. Some common logical errors were outlined, a technique for general logic criticism introduced (the invalidity test) and the point was made that there wasn’t much sense in simply pointing out the logical holes in an argument. Of more use in an enquiry is fixing up the faults found – ’patching the holes’ as we put it. I suggested that any argument that was advanced in an enquiry at any point should be automatically made tame and logical and clear as a standard tidy up. So, criticizing an argument’s reasoning (and patching up logical holes) would be part of this automatic ‘TLC’ suite of checks. The other possible focus for criticism is one or other of an argument’s premises. Accordingly, you have been introduced to the skills of premise criticism and, as a counterpart activity in the broader task of premise appraisal, premise defence. And that takes us to the end of the last chapter. While it is good to be able to competently perform the above tasks, such competence is but a fragment of the competence required to pursue an enquiry profitably. An enquiry is a whole edifice and the above tasks are at the individual ‘brick’ level or, at most, the level of a couple of bricks. The business of this chapter is to begin exploring how to string a bunch of such arguments together to constitute

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an in-depth enquiry that investigates in a sustained way some particular topic of a professional ethical sort. To continue our metaphor, the task now is putting the bricks together to make a ‘cathedral of learning’ (with apologies to the University of Pittsburgh). It gets quite involved, so be prepared to have to pause periodically to go back and ‘find your feet’ before moving on again. Also, be prepared to read and reread the chapter. Sometimes you’ll see a bit of exposition bracketed by the lead in: ‘An aside’ and the closure: ‘End of aside’. I use these when I don’t want to leave the impression that things mightn’t be more complex than the simpler track that we are following but don’t really want you to fuss too much about it at this stage if it diverts you from the main flow. My advice is to skip these asides initially if you are struggling to keep track of what becomes rather complicated as we go through the chapter and return to them later. However, if you are happily enough following the unfolding story and feel that you wouldn’t be ‘thrown’ by reading them, you might want to read them as you go just for completeness of the picture. A Little Bit of Scene-setting As just noted, a thoughtful investigation of almost any topic is more than just the advancing of an argument (or even several) in favour of your position, however competently crafted they are. Moreover, if you are in critic mode, then that involves more than the mounting of a single critical argument, no matter how ably that is carried out. A thoughtful investigation involves a quite elaborate ‘to and fro’ of argumentation as you think your way through a labyrinth of intertwined and competing arguments. As you might expect, there are better and worse ways of working your way through these complexities. As you might also expect, given what has gone before, the best way of doing it is with a great deal of rather selfconscious thought. The best way of having high-quality thinking is to think about your thinking as you are carrying it out and to very explicitly and deliberately plan your enquiry as you work your way through it. All of which raises the question: how does one think about one’s thinking in this way? There is no set recipe; however there are some useful guidelines and it is the task of this chapter to briefly introduce them to you. It’s worth making clear from the very beginning that two enquirers of equal logical skill, each thinking about the same topic, and even with each starting off with exactly the same initial tamed argument structure on the topic, might diverge wildly as the investigation of that topic unfolds. Just how this might occur will emerge as we work through the chapter; I mention it now merely to disabuse you of any idea that there is anything mechanical in the employment of our techniques in the pursuit of your enquiries. Also at this stage, I wish to introduce one term that I’ll be employing frequently in what follows. The term is: ‘metacognition’ (and others in its word family: ‘metacognitive’, ‘metacognize’ etc.). Cognition is the process of knowing and ‘meta’ is a prefix meaning ‘above or beyond’.

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The thinking that you will be carrying out (the arguments, the criticisms and so forth) amounts to your acts of (attempted) cognition on the topic under investigation. It is that argumentation that (eventually) leads you to know your position on the topic. But as well as doing that cognizing, you should periodically metacognize as well, that is, stand back from your thinking and reflect upon just what is going on. Doing this allows you to keep track of what has happened and to work out what the appropriate next move is in your enquiry. And what the appropriate next move should be depends in large part upon the enquirer; two enquirers reflecting upon the same enquiry history to date can decide to move the enquiry forward in different directions. Why? – because of the different mix of beliefs and values and priorities in their heads. So, where a given enquiry goes next is not automatically determined, it depends upon the enquirer; there is usually a best direction for a given enquirer, but not one for every enquirer. Your job as enquirer is to learn how to manage a complicated enquiry in a manner that gives you your best answer on the matter at hand. The sub-skills already covered give you the basic tools to use, competent metacognitive controlling of the enquiry tells you when to use which tool. So let’s proceed to discuss that in more detail. As I said above, enquiries will take different paths depending on the enquirer’s choices at various points and I can’t possibly illustrate all of these possibilities. So, what I will do is illustrate the process with just one enquiry with the enquirer making particular choices as to how it goes and pass comment on other possibilities by the way (sometimes detached as ‘an aside’). I will also assume that, although I speak of ‘author’ and ‘critic’, they are both you. That is, you are an enquirer trying to think an issue through thoroughly and, as part of that, critically probing your own thinking – being, if you like, in dialogue with yourself as you try to explore and resolve conflicts in your thinking by being a self-critic. Of course you might also be in dialogue with another person but, if so, I’ll assume that the task is the same – working out the best answer (as opposed to beating the opposition) and most of what I’ll say applies straight across. Key Ideas An extended ethical enquiry is more than a single argument; it is a disciplined and metacognitively thoughtful affair in which a succession of unfolding argumentative moves are connected in a deliberate way.

Getting Started Any enquiry in professional ethics begins with a problem, one probably best put in the form of a question. So, one might, for instance, ask: ‘Is it ever legitimate for a nurse to lie to a patient?’.

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Clearly, there are many arguments that might be advanced to directly support ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers to this question. Clearly also, a thorough treatment of the issue probably means that you will end up investigating quite a spread of such arguments. But it is a bad idea to try to raise them all at once. By all means ‘brainstorm’ so that you get a feeling for the spread of ‘for and against’ arguments directly on the issue under examination but you can’t talk about them all at once. A rigorous enquiry has to start somewhere, but it can’t start everywhere! So, having brainstormed a few feral arguments, it will probably strike you that some seem more central and important than others. My suggestion is to choose one of the lines of thinking that seem right at the core of things (at least, for you – others may differ). This may be a ‘for’ or an ‘against’ argument. So, take one such argument and portray it properly (using our full automatic ‘TLC’ suite of checks and adjustments). Concerning the question about the propriety of nurses lying that was raised above, say that a key issue was considered to be patient welfare and this led to the following argument: A1 MP1 All nurses’ primary professional obligation is to maximize the welfare of each of their patients. DP1 Sometimes, in order to maximize a patient’s welfare, it is necessary for a nurse to lie to them about their medical condition. So, MC1 On such occasions, nurses should lie to their patients about their medical condition.

Of course, you would have to clarify that the obligation meant was moral, not legal, and also say what counted as a patient’s welfare. Say that you gave a working definition of this along the lines of equating their welfare with their physical health. So, maximizing their welfare would amount to acting so as to have them as physically healthy as possible (over their remaining lifespan). Key Ideas Enquiries into a topic can’t be entered everywhere but have to be entered somewhere – this best occurs with an initial argument that seems to lie at the heart of the issues.

Now, what happens next?

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What Next? – Some Metacognition Following an Initial Argument So far, this is all familiar sub-skill stuff from previous chapters. What next? How to go from stating one argument, however central and important, to developing an extended enquiry that goes beyond that? It is just conceivable that an initial argument (say, our above one) is so undeniably wonderful that you are ‘bowled over’ by it and think that of course nurses should be primarily focused on patient welfare and thus, assuming that the rest of the argument is OK, lying is indeed sometimes warranted. I put it to you that such early acceptance of an argument puts you in danger of prematurely closing off an enquiry that, had you bothered to pursue it, might have unsettled your complacent acceptance of the merits of the initial argument. Almost all topics in professional ethics are rather more complex than that (despite regrettably widespread simplistic sloganizing about them). Your first thought on the topic is unlikely to be your last thought, so you’re almost always advised to resist the temptation to such early closure. Back to our question then: What next? As you have advanced an argument that you think to be pretty central and pretty sound, yet you want to investigate it a bit more (on pain of premature closure), an obvious candidate next move is to subject it to critical examination, to critically probe it to see if it is as sound as you had hoped. And, as you have (automatically) been at pains to ensure that it is logical (as part of the ‘TLC’ suite), this amounts to proceeding to premise criticism. Might there be something wrong with one or more of the argument’s premises? Given that we have two premises in A1, that would generate two such possible options at this point. Mounting such a premise criticism is indeed one possibility at this point and, at this early stage when there is only one argument ‘on the table’, it is usually the best thing to be doing – the sooner your initial thoughts get a critical probing, the better. There is another possibility though: defending some premise or other. But why would one bother to do this (given what I have just said about the merits of critically probing ideas)? Let’s talk about our above two premises in turn, both as to criticism of them and defence of them. MP1 For a moral premise, the only motivation for not criticizing, but defending, would be that, when you look at the initial argument, it is so shallow, or superficial, in some way, that its MP is not ready for critical attention. In effect, to proceed to criticism is sometimes premature, the author’s argument hasn’t said enough yet to be worth such critical attention.

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An Aside Our ‘lying nurses’ initial argument is not shallow like this but to illustrate what I mean, try this argument on another topic: MPa All students should have life skills. DPa The best way of having all students having life skills is for all schools to teach those skills to all students. So, MCa All schools should teach life skills to all students.

Technically speaking, this argument is not in bad shape (tame, logical and so on although I would want the idea of ‘life skills’ pinned down a bit and keep in mind that ‘best’ is just our shorthand for ‘most efficient and effective’). In particular, it is not circular in that the MP and MC do say different things (MPa concerns desired student qualities and MCa concerns what schools should do). Yet look at them. If an MP is supposed to be giving a ‘deeper’ motivating value in support of that expressed in the MC, then, although technically sound enough, this argument is a bit feeble. It has an MP that hardly counts as giving much of a deeper story. Both are expressions of the author’s enthusiasm for life skills. It might be profitable to challenge MPa but it is likely to be even more profitable to wait and allow some more distinct, deeper again, value to emerge that gives us more of an idea as to why the author values life skills, what he values life skills for. Getting that deeper value out into the open is the task of a defence of MPa. Once it is out into the open, it might be worthier of a critical probing (with a premise criticism) than his MPa is. So, we might defend MPa as follows: MPb All students should be able to cope with problems facing them in day-to-day life. DPb Only if all students have life skills, will all students be able to cope with problems facing them in day-to-day life. So, MPa All students should have life skills.

Again, some clarification would be in order (what precisely is meant by being able to cope with problems facing one in day-to-day life?) but note that, with the introduction of MPb, we are now one step deeper down the author’s set of values and have got to something distinct from the life skills commitment that was present, not just in MCa, but in MPa. We now have an idea of what those life skills are considered to be good for. Of course there would no doubt be a yet deeper story again (in answer to the query: ‘why is it so important that students be able to cope with such problems?’) but, with the emergence of MPb, we probably have enough of the author’s case for it to be profitably critically responded to.

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We are probably better off not hearing that ‘yet deeper story’ yet; better to get critical interplay happening. So we would then mount a criticism of MPb. Contrast this ‘life skills’ argument with the ‘lying nurse’ argument structure that we had earlier. As remarked above, there is no such superficiality about that argument and MP1 is already sufficiently deep and distinct from MC1 to be ripe for criticism if we so chose. End of Aside After that small digression, let’s return to the main flow. DP1 Apart from that MP, the only other premise in the ‘lying nurse’ argument is the DP. This seems to me to be obviously true so it seems to me that, in this case, any exercise in its defence is a waste of time and any exercise of criticism is doomed to failure and thus also a waste of time. But conceivably you might not be persuaded of that, or might be curious as to what grounds can be advanced in support of it, or in challenge to it. (After all, sometimes what seems to be obviously true turns out not to be – for instance, an example from the history of science is the proposition that the earth is at rest.) Anyway, if you were to be criticizing it, then you would be presenting evidence to the effect that it was false. Note that all that DP1 says is that sometimes such lying is the only way to maximize a patient’s welfare. To challenge this, one would have to provide evidence that such welfare maximization would never require lying. This is a big task. If you were to be defending it, then such a defence would strictly only have to show at least one case where this was so. Either way, presumably you would be appealing to some sort of relevant research literature on the matter. As I said though, DP1 seems so obviously true that a criticism is futile and a defence is pointless. So, with this particular beginning argument, our focus for the next move is back on MP1 and on criticism of it, in particular. With other arguments, in other contexts, the DP might well be what you feel should be defended, or criticized; in this case, however, I think not. So, in this case, our choice out of our four options (criticize MP1, defend MP1, criticize DP1, defend DP1) is: ‘criticize MP1’. Our tactical thinking is that DP1 is obviously true so it is pointless to defend it: and, given its obvious truth, it is futile to try a criticism (we are confident that it is not over-confidently held). As for MP1, it seems not to be too close to MC1 in its level of value (A1 isn’t superficial in the manner of the ‘life skills’ argument in our aside) and so we have no reason to delay ‘letting the critic in’. Accordingly, the tactically soundest next move is: criticize MP1. So, how might this go? Remember that mounting a criticism might not be motivated by vehement opposition to the author’s premise (something that is especially unlikely if, as we are here assuming, it is your argument and you are engaging in the useful practice

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of self-criticism). Rather, it might be the sort of ‘probing criticism’ that is carried out in the interest of thoroughness. (Then again, you might well be vehemently opposed to a premise offered as part of someone else’s argument.) The general tactic of moral premise criticism, you should recall, is to find some other value that is possibly more important than the target one and, at least sometimes, is in clash with it. In the ‘lying nurse’ example, this might seem to be difficult. What could be more important for a nurse than patient welfare? This seems like such a ‘motherhood and apple pie’ style value that it would be immune to challenge. If that is your thinking, then it is unusually important for you to jolt your complacency and have a good ‘go’ at thinking up a criticism of MP1 – one that seems at least halfway plausible to you. So, let’s try that. What else is it important for nurses to do (or be) that might clash with, and outweigh, patient welfare? One thing that might work is a view about nurse–patient relationships. Perhaps part of having a proper respect for another person’s status as a person – an autonomous moral agent – is treating them in a certain way. In particular, not treating them in a paternalistic way might be important (by ‘being paternalistic’ I mean something like ‘knowing what’s best for them’ and deciding for them without being honest with them about what’s going on). Indeed, not being paternalistic might be more important on some occasions than patient welfare and might conflict with it. Let’s portray this feral intuition as a formal structured criticism of MP1. CA1 CMP1 All nurses should treat all patients with respect for their status as persons. CDP1 Sometimes maximizing a patient’s welfare entails treating her without respect for her status as a person. So, CMC1 On those occasions, it is not a nurse’s primary responsibility to maximize his patient’s welfare.

You might care to refer back to the last chapter to confirm that this generally has the features which I spoke of as ones that a moral premise criticism argument should have. The only thing that would be worth the effort would be some sort of working definition clarification of what counts as respecting someone for their status as a person. I won’t do this but I shall warn you that CMP1 is murkier in its meaning than you might at first think. Before pressing on, I just want to pause briefly to recap the key ideas from our discussion so far.

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Key Ideas In the face of an initial argument (one that is tame, logical and clear) you have two broad options open to you. One is to further develop the author’s case by defending one or other of her argument’s premises. The other is to critically probe one or other of those premises. Generally speaking, one should try to let the ‘critic’ in as soon as possible (which might be you as self-critic). Given their centrality in driving ethical judgements, MPs, in particular, are deserving of critical scrutiny although some may be too shallow to be worth it and a prior defence might be wise. Remember that choosing an option as the path forward is a tactical decision, the key question is: ‘Which option looks best suited to progressing my thoughts on the merits of this argument and thus on the topic?’.

Thinking back over our ‘lying nurse’ argument, we had an argument in favour of some such lying that was based on it being, at least sometimes, the price of maximizing patient welfare. Having outlined that argument (A1) and noting that it had two premises, we had four possible options – defend or criticize each of the premises. In this particular case, after some thought and discussion, it was decided that the tactically soundest way forward was to mount a critical challenge against the MP1 commitment to nurses maximizing patient welfare. Having decided on this option, we crafted such a criticism (although MP1 looked like a hard value to criticize). And CA1 was the result – which is where we are at. I find it useful to diagrammatically chart the progress of an enquiry, especially when it becomes rather long and involved. It is a good way of keeping track of what is happening and seeing various features of the enquiry ‘at a glance’. Such charting is simple at this early stage of an enquiry but later it would be more complex as more ‘moves’ occur. There are many ways of doing this and here are two that I favour. One can think of the enquiry as having two distinct sorts of things happening in it: some substantive arguments on the topic (like A1 and CA1) and some metacognitive thinking about where we are at and where to go next (our ‘tactics discussions’ of our options), with that metacognition linking the unfolding substantive arguments together. In the first of my charting suggestions, I portray these two sorts of thing as different columns in a flowchart and represent the flow of the unfolding enquiry by a series of arrows that go back and forth between these two different sorts of activities. I recommend ‘portrait’ display of this first sort of chart.

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Diagram 1 The above flowchart lets you see the sequenced flow of moves in the enquiry (follow the zig-zag of arrows) and highlights the role that metacognition is playing. If you look carefully at the Metacognition column, then you will see that all of the options are listed and I also signal which ones are rejected and which one is selected as the path forward. If you look at the Substantive Argumentation column, you will see that I just list the proposition names and, with the vertical linking arrows, the relationships among those arguments. Useful although this style of diagram is for seeing the sequenced flow of the enquiry, it is less satisfactory as a device for keeping track of the relationships among the component substantive arguments of an enquiry and, as the enquiry goes on and becomes more complicated with more such substantive arguments being offered, it can be a good thing to have another way of doing things that focuses more on portraying those relationships and downplays the metacognition. Generally, I find it easier to do this in ‘landscape’ mode although it won’t much matter at this early stage of this particular enquiry; later, the diagram grows sideways in a way that is awkward to accommodate in ‘portrait’ mode.

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Diagram 2 Note the absence of the metacognitive element and note that, within any given argument box, I give a very abbreviated indication of what that argument was talking about (the dashes in the descriptive premises just signal an unspecified link of some sort between the two key ideas picked out and the ticks and crosses signal moral endorsement or rejection). Unless the boxes are going to become very cluttered, these entries are very much in ‘shorthand’ form and are really doing nothing more than triggering your memories as to what the fuller propositions might have been about. There is nothing particularly prescriptive about the detail of what I have inserted here, choose your own way of doing things – whatever helps you to recall ‘at a glance’ what the individual arguments were on about so that you can see their interrelationships. Later down the track, in more complicated diagrams, you will see me just not bother to fill anything in on some lines. This is because the key elements of our example enquiry as it unfolds are the moral premises and conclusions. Again, this is your shot to call; write in as much or as little as helps you to keep track of things without excess clutter. So, so far we have a challenge to the original MP sitting on the table, where next? More on Metacognition: Metacognitive Reviews and Metacognitive Deliberation If you look at Diagram 1 in the last section you can see that, even in the somewhat short history of this ‘lying nurse’ enquiry, there is a sort of a pattern emerging. A substantive initial argument, A1, was presented (the patient-welfare motivated one) then a bit of metacognitive thinking occurred in which the available options were considered and one of them chosen as the best next move (‘criticizing MP1’ as it happened). That path forward having been chosen, it was proceeded down and another substantive argument, CA1, one critical of MP1, portrayed. So, ‘argument then metacognition then argument’ is the emergent pattern – and, as we will see, this pattern continues as the enquiry builds complexity. The task at this point is metacognitive: to decide what to do in the face of this criticism. Partly this is a business of getting straight about the options that are possible at this stage of the enquiry and working out which one is best and why.

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But before starting to think about where to go next, it is a good idea to be very clear about where one has got to so far; and making an appraisal of that is what I will talk of as carrying out a Metacognitive Review. What do I mean by this? Key Ideas Enquiries tend to have two alternating types of things going on: the substantive arguments themselves and the metacognitive thinking in between which keeps track of what has gone on so far and then chooses the nature and direction of the next move in the enquiry, its tactical job, if you like.

Metacognitive Review Look at the two substantive arguments we have had so far (author’s and critic’s) and they are clearly in disagreement in a direct way on the acceptability or otherwise of MP1’s commitment to patient welfare. After all, this was the direct target for the CMC of the critic’s argument (I will speak of ‘author’ and ‘critic’ as a convenient device even though, for many enquiries, both will be you – performing different roles – as is the assumption in this enquiry). So, that is one disagreement that has emerged so far in this dispute. But the critic hasn’t just asserted the opposing CMC1, she has given reasons for CMC1 (and thus against MP1). Her reason for not wishing to endorse the sweeping ‘patient-welfare’ value is its clash (on occasions) with her ‘respect’ value. Given this, the best way of characterizing the focus of the deepest level of disagreement is as a dispute between CMP1 and MP1. The clash can be put in the manner of a question: ‘Should nurses’ primary responsibility be patient welfare even in situations where fulfilling that responsibility has, as its cost, treating patients without respect for their status as persons?’

My suggestion is that you always try to express the dispute (in this case, a deep moral value clash) that constitutes the newly emerged focus at a given point in an enquiry in this manner, as a sort of challenging question. This question sets the focal issue at this point in this particular enquiry. We are no longer directly addressing the issue of the legitimacy of nurses sometimes lying (although you should be able to see the connections back to that issue from where the enquiry has got to). As a result of us defending such lying in the author’s argument and then criticizing the basis of the defence (MP1) in the critic’s argument by appeal to the critic’s own motivating value (CMP1), the enquiry has moved focus to a dispute at a deeper level of valuing than that of the original topic. In effect, there is a shift in the ‘topic of the moment’ from the issue of lying to that of a priority dispute between valuing patient welfare and valuing treating patients

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with respect for their status as persons. Sorting such deeper priority disputes (or deep moral clashes, as I will talk of them) out in your mind is a pre-requisite for having an ethical framework of values that is in good enough shape for you to be able to confidently apply it to the topic at hand (lying nurses in this case). Professional ethics is a sub-branch of applied ethics and for you to apply your ethical views to professional problems, those ethical views had better not be a conflicted mess. An Aside Of course, although the focus of conflict is moral (at least in this case, because we challenged an MP) it could have been a different sort of conflict if we had challenged DP1. Moreover, some arguments will have conceptual premises in them and, if such a premise had been challenged, then it would be a different sort of conflict yet again. If, say, we had challenged a descriptive premise, then the issue at hand would be a dispute as to what the true facts of the matter are. If we had challenged a conceptual premise (not that there was one to challenge in this particular case in our author’s argument) then the current dispute would have been one about the meaning connections among the ideas involved. I won’t pursue these possibilities here any more as it would make even messier an already messy exercise (in illustration of the basics of complex extended reasoning); we’ll return to discuss such matters later. End of Aside So, at the moment, what we have is a moral conflict and the task of the enquiry is to try to get that set of deeper moral values sorted out. My point about all of this is that, before rushing on, it is a good idea to be very clear in your mind just what the focus of concern is at this particular point in the enquiry. Now, having worked out the current conflict as a key element in your Metacognitive Review, what next? When it is a moral dispute, as we have here, I find it useful to do one more thing before pressing on to select the next move. Remember that we expressed that current dispute in our example enquiry as the following question: ‘Should nurses’ primary responsibility be patient welfare even in situations where fulfilling that responsibility has, as its cost, treating patients without respect for their status as persons?’

Although it is unlikely, it may be that you are totally confident that you can answer that question. You might side with the author or you might side with the critic. This sets the boundaries of a range of possible initial reactions to the current dispute. There are less black-and-white reactions and these are more common in considering such deep moral disputes. So, for instance, although not totally persuaded by the critic, you might be pretty solidly inclined to favour treating people with respect

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even when the cost is some loss in their physical health (which is, recall, how we clarified the idea of patients’ welfare). Or, you might fairly solidly lean to the MP1 value. Or it might be a ‘tilt’ one way or another but a rather more hesitant, and slighter, one. What I am suggesting here is that, at those points in an enquiry where the current focus of dispute is a moral one (as in our example), you should try to get explicitly clear where your sympathies lie at the moment. They might of course change as the enquiry unfolds; it is just a matter keeping track of things as you go. I find the following metaphorical device useful here for capturing your intuitions. Imagine a beam balance with one of the competing moral premises at one end and the other at the other. Which is more important, or morally weightier? If you, say, tend to favour CMP1 over MP1, then the CMP1 end of the balance would be weighed further down. By how much though? After all, a balance steeply tilted towards CMP1 over MP1 is a bit of a different situation for an enquiry to be in than were the balance to be only shallowly so tilted. My suggestion is that you try to put an intuitive ‘gut instinct’ figure on the steepness of the tilt by mentally splitting up a total of 100 per cent between the two clashing values. So, if you were very much inclined to favour CMP1 over MP1 you might allocate that 100 as 90 for the former and 10 for the latter. In this case, there is a 90/10 ‘tilt’ (as I will talk of it) in favour of CMP1 over MP1. If you were more conflicted in your thinking at that point in the enquiry but still tended to favour CMP1 over MP1, it might be that that is best represented by, say, a 60/40 ‘tilt’ favouring CMP1. And so on through a morally schizoid 50/50 ‘toss-up’ tilt, over to the other side of the spectrum in which you favour MP1 over CMP1. Mind you, it would be rather odd to have MP1 favoured 100/0 over CMP1 if you are the person who had offered the latter. After all, if it were to be deemed so hopeless a criticism then why would you have even bothered to advance it? When you are allocating these ‘tilt’ ratios, keep in mind that they are merely (current) ‘gut instinct’ or intuitive preferences. They result from you consulting your current moral intuitions to see where your current moral priorities seem to lie. If you get 100/0 one way or another, then you have reached ‘closure’ on the dispute at hand and that thread of enquiry into your topic has finished (others may then open up, as we will see in due course). If you are anything more conflicted than 100/0, further enquiry is in order to investigate matters further. It might be that you are able to reach closure on that dispute once you have teased out more of the argumentation surrounding it. Just how it is best for you to start teasing out further argumentation depends a bit on the ‘tilt’ that you have identified. The best next ‘move’ varies according to the strength and direction of your current sympathies. An Aside Before I press on, and at the risk of raving on a bit, I’d like to address a possible misunderstanding as another aside from our main flow of exposition.

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Say that you allocate your ‘tilt’ as 100/0 in favour of CMP1 over MP1. Does this mean that you think that treating patients with respect for their status as persons is perfectly good as a value (100) and acting for their welfare is to be totally rejected (0)? No. Note that such ‘tilts’ are always relative – it is this value versus that value – and a given value might get a different score depending upon what it is being set up in clash with. All that you would be indicating with a 100/0 ‘tilt’ is that, at this stage of your thinking, you are sure that if ever the two clashed such that satisfying one value interfered with satisfying the other, then you would always go for respect over welfare. Lesser ratios indicate doubt or indicate concern that the hierarchy of the two values might not always be in favour of one over the other. It is possible, after all, for one value to outweigh another in some scenarios and not in others. Extended enquiries, if well done, can tease the detail of this complexity out. For now, your ‘tilt’ is just a current ‘gut instinct’. I will return to all of this more thoroughly in the next chapter; for now, I am simply trying to get you to understand the basics of our process of extended enquiry. End of Aside Another Aside Although I am not going to fuss much about this at this stage, counterparts of the ‘tilt’ business occur with descriptive disputes about what the facts really are and with the conceptual disputes about meaning relationships. For instance, it might emerge in an enquiry that a descriptive dispute ensues concerning, say, an eyewitness report of a felony conflicting with the alleged felon’s protestation of innocence. In essence, there is a conflict of rival testimonies as to what the facts of the matter really are. It might be that you are ready to reach ‘closure’ on this particular conflict, that you have enough confidence in one or the other party to not wish to pursue matters further. Then again, your ‘tilt’ might not be that conclusive and you might still have an open dispute, not being sure whom to trust and wishing to seek more data. A counterpart situation applies to conceptual disputes. The author’s side of the dispute might be claiming that, for a person to be morally responsible for an action, it suffices that it was freely chosen (in the sense that no one is physically forcing that action on that person). The critic might challenge that. The basis of the challenge being that, even when no one is forcing that action upon someone, that person would not be properly thought of as morally responsible if they were acting in a way that reflected their upbringing and the moral indoctrination, or ‘programming’, that it contained – in another sense, they would be unfree. In essence here, the dispute is as to how one is to understand the concept of moral responsibility – which sense of freedom is connected in what way with being morally responsible? In each of these cases, the tilt would be not so much a ‘gut instinct’ as one based on your current grasp of the relevant facts or your grip of conceptual

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connections among ideas. Nonetheless, perhaps the ‘tilt’ metaphor is still a good one to employ. End of Another Aside So, where we have got to so far can be encapsulated as follows: Key Ideas After each new substantive argument (like CA1) as a ‘move’ in your enquiry, you should pause for a metacognitive review to get clear just where the enquiry has got to, in particular, what the current focus of dispute is. Depending on what sort of premise has been challenged, that dispute might be moral, factual or conceptual. Commonly, it is moral. If so, then, as part of that review, you should explicitly identify the deep moral clash at that point in the enquiry and your intuitive ‘tilt’ concerning it. Tilts are relative importance ratings of the moral values in conflict. They might be anywhere in the range from totally favouring one value in the dispute (100/0), through ‘evenly torn’ (50/50), to favouring the other value (0/100).

I will, for the moment, keep tracking along with our sample enquiry to get across some basic features of the process. As you would realize, various options always exist for the next ‘move’ and, even so far, other enquiries might have followed other paths than the ones we chose (for instance, someone might have chosen to defend MP1, or DP1, or to criticize DP1). It is best for the moment that we keep going down our particular path of having criticized MP1, or things will become too complicated, too soon, for you to keep track of. So, to pick up the threads again, we have identified our current conflict as a deep moral clash, one able to be expressed with the question: ‘Should nurses’ primary responsibility be patient welfare even in situations where fulfilling that responsibility has, as its cost, treating patients without respect for their status as persons?’.

Let’s set a ‘tilt’ for the sake of continuing our illustration. Let’s assume that the critic’s argument found considerable favour with us – but not totally, so our ‘tilt’ is not 100/0, but it is still very strongly favouring the critic. So, say our ‘tilt’ is 80/20 in favour of CMP1 over MP1. (Remember this is just an initial intuitive reaction.) Identifying the ‘conflict of the moment’ and identifying our ‘tilt’ finishes this particular metacognitive review. So, what happens now, where do we go next?

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Metacognitive Deliberation As you will become sick of me saying, the answer to: ‘Where next?’ is: ‘Nowhere automatically’. There are options and we have to decide thoughtfully from among them. Unlike the case with our last exercise in choosing a path forward, we now have a new input to our thinking – we have gone far enough in things to have generated an unresolved controversy – the deep moral clash of MP1 versus CMP1. And, as an extra input into our thinking, we have some idea as to how we feel about things at this stage (we have an 80/20 ‘tilt’ in favour of CMP1 over MP1). As will soon emerge, that ‘tilt’ influences our tactical thinking. Note, though, that 80/20 is not 100/0. Substantial sympathy with the critic is not agreement that CA1 is right. Were you to simply agree 100/0 with the critic, then this particular thread of discussion on the topic would begin to close. But closure is, with an 80/20 tilt, not sensible at this early stage. Rather, the enquiry should open out a bit more in the hope that further argumentation might resolve things. So, the first thing to decide is whether you can ‘close’ on this conflict or not. In this particular case, with this tilt, the answer is: ‘No’. Thus ‘accept A1’, ‘reject A1’, ‘reject CA1’ and ‘accept CA1’ are ruled out. Note that ‘accept CA1’ is effectively the same option as ‘reject A1’, for if CA1 is accepted, then MP1 is rejected and thus A1 fails in virtue of that. Still, I’ll list ‘reject A1’ separately at this stage, as it’s easier to keep track of in ensuring that you are listing all the possibilities. I will return later (in the next chapter) to discuss ‘accept A1’ a bit more. For now, I’ll list it for completeness and simply observe that, of course, there is no question of accepting A1 when we have an un-dismissed, indeed favoured, criticism of its MP in play. So, given our tilt, no closure option is endorsed – before we can settle our thinking on this dispute, we have to investigate things some more. The thread isn’t to close yet; it is to open out more. But how? Before choosing a path forward for the enquiry, it is obviously a good idea to have an explicit grasp of all of the possible options facing you. The available possibilities depend a bit on the particular history of the particular enquiry, on the moves already made; in our example case, the options are as follows: Defend CMP1. Criticize CMP1. Defend CDP1. Criticize CDP1. Defend MP1. Defend DP1. Criticize DP1.

Note that this is a longish list and would have been longer than that if either of our arguments to date had had more premises than they did. (There is also another potential option that has been ruled out given our particular enquiry’s history;

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‘Criticize MP1’ is a ‘used’ option.) And the list will get longer. The further down the enquiry you go and the more things that have happened already, the more the options grow as to where you could go next; again, we’ll come back to that later. Note also that some options (the first four in this case) have only just become available with the advent of CA1. The other three are unchosen options left over from the previous exercise in metacognition. As we will see, this pattern of new options coming with the most recent argument plus an increasingly long list of old unused options is a recurrent feature of extended enquiries. So, on what basis are we to choose from among those options? I will call this process of choice ‘metacognitive deliberation’. (To deliberate is to carefully consider options before decision – an apt name then for what you should be doing.) The primary feature of this process of choice is that you are making a tactical choice as an enquirer. Of course you have a strategic interest in working out your considered views on nurses’ lying. But, in trying to do that, you mounted A1, then, in critical probing of it, CA1. This left you with a nicely exposed deep moral conflict (MP1 versus CMP1). In effect, your strategic goal of working out your views on nurses’ lying is blocked by the current dispute being unresolved. Thus your current tactical task is to try to sort out that conflict. This means that the next move should be whichever option you think will get you furthest towards achieving such a resolution. A key input to your deliberation is your tilt. A general ‘rule of thumb’ is that, if you are enthusiastically in favour of one moral value over another (in this case, respect over welfare to an 80/20 extent), then you are generally advised to explore going against your current enthusiasm – ‘going counter-intuitive’ as I will call it. This covers both criticizing what you favour and defending what you don’t. Why? Basically, it is a guard against having your enthusiasms run away with you. It is an all too common human tendency for people to become too quickly committed to a view and to not properly consider what might be wrong with it (and, as the other side of the same coin, to too quickly dismiss a view without properly considering its merits). What is usually tactically unwise is to reinforce whatever your current intuitive tendencies are. That is the way of overlooking possible problems. So, as we have an 80/20 tilt favouring CMP1 over MP1, the first option I would dismiss is the intuition-reinforcing option: ‘Defend CMP1’. What of the rest? ‘Criticize CMP1’ is a counter-intuitive move (as it challenges your current tendency to favour CMP1 over MP1) and should go onto your short-list. ‘Defend MP1’ is equally a counterintuitive move (as it reinforces the view that you less favour in the clash) and should also go onto your short-list. I’ll discuss these two a little bit more at the end; apart from them what else is possible? ‘Defend CDP1’ might be a possibility, as might be ‘Criticize CDP1’. It rather depends on how confident you are concerning the truth of that descriptive proposition. But as, in this particular enquiry, this was you being admirably

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self-critical by mounting CA1, it would hardly have been a helpful move for you to have put down a challenge to MP1 that rested on a known-to-be highly dubious descriptive premise. You surely had considerable confidence in CDP1. Still, even so, there may have been some doubts; not all descriptive propositions deployed in an enquiry are going to be ones that you are near certain about. So, if there are some doubts, you might wish to either explore them by criticizing CDP1 or, perhaps, reassure yourself that it really is OK by mounting a defence of it. Either way, given that it is a descriptive proposition that is involved, you would be hunting out relevant evidence concerning it. You might think that, as the tactical issue of the moment is the dispute between CMP1 and MP1, concentrating any attention on anything but one of these two propositions is a diversion. To some extent this is true but sometimes there are good grounds for diverting briefly elsewhere. After all, it is not as if the clash between CMP1 and MP1 is direct (unlike that between CMC1 and MP1). Rather, CMP1’s dispute with MP1 is mediated via CDP1. That descriptive proposition is the connecting link between CMP1 and CMC1 and thus gets CMP1 and MP1 into clash. Unless it is true, we would not have our ‘tactical problem of the moment’ (CMP1 versus MP1) even getting set up. So, given its importance in setting up our current dispute, if there is any doubt about it, it might well be very usefully ‘on task’, tactically speaking, to fuss about our confidence in the truth of CDP1. In this particular example enquiry, however, it again seems to me that this particular CDP1 is simply obviously true. Given that, it is pointless to bother defending it and futile attempting criticism. Thus, these two options are to be discarded. How about DP1? I decided not to defend or criticize it back when I was making my last metacognitive decision. My reasons then were much like what I have just outlined for CDP1 – DP1 is just obviously true. That hasn’t changed and so these two options stay discarded. What’s left after all of that? A short-list of two: criticize CMP1 or defend MP1. Note that these options happen to focus directly on the tactical problem at hand: resolving the moral clash between MP1 and CMP1 – sorting out our moral priorities, if you like. As it is the tactical problem of the moment, doing something that bears on one or other of those values in the hope of resolving matters is obviously tactically sound. And, given our ‘tilt’ of 80/20 in favour of the critic’s CMP1, what we are wise to be doing in response to this value clash is something that is counter-intuitive. Each of these options is. Criticizing CMP1 is fairly obviously counter-intuitive because it is to go counter to the value that we were solidly tilting towards. Less obviously, defending MP1 is also counterintuitive because it would be supporting the value that you are intuitively tempted to discount (relative to CMP1). So, for reasons that we can explain, we have trimmed the range of tactically sensible options down to two. But which of the two should be the next move? Both might eventually happen as the enquiry unfolds but only one thing can occur right now as the next move; so which should it be?

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An Aside I say ‘only one thing’ because it is generally a bad idea to have too many things going on at once. Sometimes you will be forced into it (as we will see in a later chapter) but it is easier to keep track of emerging complexities if you expand the discussion gradually, keeping things as simple as you can. End of Aside At this stage, the basis for making a decision between these two becomes even more personalized than before. A range of possible tactical motivations for doing one or other of our short-list might apply. In what follows, I will play with a couple of such possible considerations to give you an idea of the sort of thinking that might lead to a final decision as to a path forward. Here is one possibility  Say that you had been somewhat surprised by the relative success of the ‘respect’ value of the critic over the original author’s ‘welfare’ value. Moreover, say that you have a good idea of what the defence of the original MP1 would look like were you to mount it. That is, although not yet presented formally as an argument on the page, a defence (resting on some, yet deeper again, MP of the author’s) is fairly clear in your mind and, moreover, was in your mind when you did your tilt towards CMP1. Given this, there would be little tactical point in formally mounting this defence; it will not contribute anything in challenging your current intuitive tendency to favour the critic because it was informally present in the back of your mind already when you favoured CMP1. In such a scenario, you would be wise to choose ‘Criticize CMP1’ as your path forward. This is because it would add new issues into the enquiry and this might help you to resolve matters (as well as challenging your current intuitive tendencies). So, given this particular set of considerations, the choice between our two counter-intuitive short-listed options would be whittled down to one: ‘Criticize CMP1’. Here is another possibility  Say, instead, that you had been strongly committed to MP1 and were just going through the process of probing self-criticism for the sake of intellectual thoroughness. Yet, once it was advanced, CMP1 surprised you with its relative attractiveness. In such a scenario, say that its swift success has unsettled you and you now wonder why you were so enthused about MP1 in the first place. You still think patient welfare to be important but why were you rating it as highly as you did when offering MP1 (a rating you now doubt)? Moreover, in this scenario, unlike the last one, you might not have clearly in your mind what the answer to that question is. As is not uncommon in professionals’ thinking about ethical matters, with MP1 (in this case) you committed to a stance without any clear idea about why. In this case, you might be more interested in returning to MP1 at this stage and defending it, rather than taking some new tangent by criticizing CMP1. Your motivation is to see if you can find any decent rationale for your original MP1-style strength of commitment to patient welfare. Maybe you

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can begin to restore your original confidence in it. So, given this rather different set of considerations, this time the choice between our two short-listed counterintuitive possibilities goes the other way: to defend MP1. My point in exploring these two possible paths is to show that, although some tactical considerations are fairly clear (e.g. don’t close prematurely, don’t bother to reinforce strongish current value intuitions but challenge them) things become fairly personalized fast in a way that it is not possible to set up text-book ‘recipes’ for. You have to exercise careful tactical judgement in choosing a path forward from the options facing you and that judgement might appeal to motivations that are quite personalized. As just illustrated, two enquirers with the same enquiry history of ‘moves’ and the same ‘tilt’ might, for individually good reasons, take the enquiry forward in different directions. It is also possible that whatever tactical reasons you have don’t manage to trim the options down to one. You might be left with a short-list, any one of which seems as equally tactically sound as an option as any other. So, what to do then? Basically, ‘pick with a pin’. Do something from the shortlist and hope that it will help you resolve the conflict that is the current tactical problem. Finally, just because, at this stage, you choose one option and not others, doesn’t mean that you will not return to those others at some later stage. They remain on your books as possibilities for later choice; all unused options are ‘carried forward’ for later consideration and possible selection. So, for the sake of illustration, let’s return to our particular enquiry. I will assume that, of the two counter-intuitive scenarios listed, ‘Criticize CMP1’ was chosen for the reasons outlined. What next? Basically, implement the decision just made; having carried out our metacognitive review and deliberation we proceed on to crafting our next substantive argument, one having a denial of CMP1 as its conclusion. Key Ideas At any given point in an enquiry when a substantive argument has been offered, there is no automatic next move. A deliberated upon metacognitive decision is to be taken to select the path forward that is best suited to progressing resolution of the tactical problem at hand. That process of metacognitive deliberation is informed by the metacognitive review that has preceded it. In particular, if the key focus of the dispute is moral, then identifying the deep moral clash and the tilt concerning it are key matters. If you fairly strongly favour one side, then it is usually tactically wise to challenge your intuitive preference by ‘going counter-intuitive’.

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Summary of Enquiry to Date Portrayed in ‘flowchart’ diagrammatical form, we have this dialogue history:

Diagram 3 A few comments on this diagram. In the Substantive Argumentation column, note again the vertical arrows showing the relationships among the various arguments in that column. Note also that, in the Metacognition column, things are a little bit more complicated than last time we did one of these in Diagram 1. We now have some more detailed understanding of what goes on in metacognition and some terminology to deploy. So, in the first metacognitive exercise (after A1), I have re-labelled the box from ‘Options’ to ‘Options and Deliberation’ because we now have that term to describe what was going on there. We have also had a criticism happen prior to this latest exercise in metacognition and, to reflect that developing complexity, I have two separate boxes for the two separate tasks of review and

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deliberation; note the vertical arrow between them to show the sequence of events. Within the deliberation box, you will notice that it’s quite a long list. This time, I have internally broken up the list of options as, first, the four ‘closure’ moves grouped together, then four new options that have come with the new argument (CA1) and, last, the three unused options that have been carried forward from last time. How you bother to list these is your decision and you will see me doing things in a different way in Diagram 5 below. Another possibility is that you might find that your flowchart is getting too cluttered if you bother to list all of the possibilities and you might want to just list the review and then, in the deliberation box, just the path forward that you chose. Personally, I like to list the lot just to remind me that there really are quite a lot of options (again, look at Diagram 5 below). Before proceeding to the next section, I would like to supplement the above diagram with a brief recap of what we have done at this metacognitive decision point in this enquiry. As you might be beginning to appreciate, things can get rather complicated and, to help prevent getting lost, I think that it is useful for you to periodically do this sort of abbreviated summary. Having completed our criticism of MP1, we suspended our substantive enquiry and ‘went metacognitive’. Our first task was a metacognitive review in which we identified the current dispute. In our case it was MP1 versus CMP1, a moral dispute; we also consulted our intuitions to come up with our ‘tilt’ of 80/20 favouring CMP1 over MP1. Review finished, we proceeded to deliberate upon our options. First thing to do was to be aware of what those options were. So, we drew up a list – some options were associated with the latest substantive argument, CA1, and some were unused ‘left-overs’ carried forward from the last decision. Then we set about trimming the list, hoping to end up with one clear path forward. Some options were almost automatically discarded (we were not ready to accept anything and thus close that dispute, and we thought various descriptive premises to demand no ‘defend or criticize’ attention at all). Then, noting that we had a substantial 80/20 ‘tilt’ of intuitive preference favouring CMP1 over MP1, we decided that a primary tactical motivation to deploy in choosing from among the remaining options was to ‘go counter-intuitive’. This weeded things down to a short-list of two options: ‘Defend MP1’ or ‘Criticize CMP1’. Further, some secondary considerations did manage, in this case, to further reduce this to one option: ‘Criticize CMP1’. As far as we can judge, doing this is the smartest choice in trying to resolve the tactical problem facing the enquiry at this stage, namely the deep moral clash between MP1 and CMP1.

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Key Ideas Metacognition is comprised of two elements: Metacognitive Reviews keep you aware of what the enquiry has done to date and, in particular, what the current foci of unresolved conflict are. In particular, and if applicable, the review should identify the deep moral clash, and the ‘tilt’ concerning it, that you have. Metacognitive Deliberation involves understanding and choosing from among your options. After the elimination of non-viable options, you should choose from among the rest for reasons (of various sorts and of differing importance) that you can explain. This amounts to making a tactical decision, a decision as to which option will best help resolve whatever the current unresolved conflict is.

Some Possible Problems When Carrying out Metacognitive Deliberation Before pressing on with our enquiry, I would like to pause for a moment and warn of some common errors that those who are not used to metacognitive deliberation sometimes commit. Beginners often fail to keep in mind the ‘tactics discussion’ style of such metacognitive deliberation. Instead of giving reasons for choosing or rejecting various possible paths forward, some other (and useless in that context) sort of discussion is offered. Here are three errors that are surprisingly common when performing this task. I will illustrate them assuming that, say, the option: ‘Defend CMP1’ was the one decided upon this time. The first is to say something like: ‘One option is to defend CMP1; if I did this then I would be crafting an argument that had CMP1 as its conclusion. Another option is ...’. And then, out of the blue: ‘My choice is ...’. This gives the final choice but gives no reason for it. In supposed support, all we get is an outline of what the option ‘Defend CMP1’ would involve and ditto for the other options. But to merely describe what an option involves is to give no reason at all for choosing it or rejecting it. The second is to expand a bit on one or more of the options by giving a feral version of the substantive argument that would be eventually offered were that option to be chosen. So, one might have: ‘One option is to defend CMP1, I favour this because if nurses don’t treat patients with respect for their status as persons then they are acting as if they were superior to the patients yet everyone is morally equal’. To include this sort of thing is to confuse giving a metacognitive reason for choosing an option as one worth exploring next, with the separate activity of previewing ferally the substantive argument that might result once the option has been chosen. One can, indeed, have good tactical grounds for choosing to, say, defend CMP1 even if one has not got the faintest idea what such a defending argument would look like (even ferally). In short, substantive arguments on the

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topic have no place in your metacognition. They will come later once you are implementing your decision as to the next path forward. The third common error is to offer this sort of thing: ‘I don’t want to criticize CMP1 because I think it more valuable to defend it and that is what I will be doing. For similar reasons I won’t defend MP1 and, given that I wish to defend CMP1, I won’t choose the option ...’. This is mildly caricatured; but note that nowhere do we get any tactical rationale for choosing ‘Defend CMP1’ as the path forward. Clearly the writer is enthused by this option and, given that enthusiasm, the only reason advanced against any other option is that it isn’t the preferred one. If you keep firmly in mind that you are supposed to be giving a tactically motivated rationale for choosing to direct the enquiry down some particular path then, hopefully, you will avoid the above errors. For each rejected option, it should be clear why you are tactically avoiding it and, for the chosen option, it should be clear why it is chosen. Implementing the Metacognitive Decision As noted repeatedly, even in the same enquiry, different enquirers will likely make different decisions as to the best next move. In our example enquiry, I am assuming that the decision was to criticize CMP1. Moreover, if you look back at the thinking that finally led to a choice between our two counter-intuitive options and ruled out ‘Defend MP1’, that was done because, in our example scenario, how that defence would go was already mentally sketched in and its formal presentation wouldn’t add anything new in settling our deep moral dispute – hang on to that last point, we will use it later. So, how might our criticism go? I will portray a feral argument and then a tame, logical and clear structured version of it and then talk about the criticism a bit. As a feral challenge, try: some people are too morally bad to deserve any respect, so sometimes nurses shouldn’t treat some patients (the morally bad ones) with respect for their status as persons. Let’s lay this out as a tame and logical structure: CCA1 (For ‘critic of the critic’s first argument’). CCMP1 All and only those with status as persons who are also not morally bad (to a certain extent) deserve to be treated with respect by anyone. CCMP2 Some patients of some nurses are morally bad to that extent. So, CCMC1 Some nurses should not treat some (those) patients with respect for their status as persons.

This is tame and logical but one thing that is manifestly unclear is the key new idea in the moral premises here – what counts as ‘morally bad (to a certain extent)’?

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We know that, whatever it is, if someone is like that, then this argument deems them not to deserve respect as a person (meaning by the latter what was clarified earlier, in the paragraph prior to CA1). But what is it? Obviously our degree of sympathy with CCMP1 might vary depending on what is meant, in particular, on what extent of moral badness is said to debar one from deserving to be treated with respect. One thing is clear, the moral badness is to be judged by reference to whatever set of moral principles are endorsed by the author of CCA1. And, as we have set this enquiry up as one carried out by one person engaging in self-criticism, that means that if you are the enquirer, then it’s whatever you count as morally bad. Ditto for the extent element. In effect, this is you laying down (at least tentatively) the qualities that would debar (and those that would qualify) someone from being deserving of respectful treatment. As I have said, it is your clarification to make and who knows what you, the actual reader at this point, would say on this matter. So, for the sake of progressing our illustrative dialogue, I will simply decree that what is meant in these moral premises is simply that all and only those who do not habitually tell lies to advantage themselves or are habitually unconcerned about the welfare of others are not morally bad (to our ‘certain extent’). Note that this gives us some guidance as to the qualities unpacking ‘morally bad’ (lying to ones’ advantage and not being concerned about others’ welfare) and the extent that is of concern (habitually). Of course it may prove as the enquiry unfolds that this clarification isn’t yet adequate but we would operate with it until any such inadequacies emerge – one can always revisit things later and refine meanings further. One other feature of the above structure is worth comment. Have look at the quantification in the moral premise. The ‘all’ asserts that every person who satisfies the criteria listed later in the premise is deserving of respect. The ‘only’ asserts that no one else, that is anyone who doesn’t satisfy those criteria, is deserving of respect. Reflect upon it, the two quantifiers do quite different jobs and both are needed to express what this ‘critic of the critic’ is wanting to say. (As I said way back in Chapter 3, quantifiers matter – what they are, and are not, affects the meaning of what is said.) I won’t bother to do a flowchart diagram of the dialogue with this last move in but you will see it in Diagram 5 in the next section. I will, though, do one of our other style of diagram, that more focused on substantive argumentation. Note again that the entries are only rather cryptic tags for your memory of the fuller version.

Diagram 4

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So we now have (hopefully) a tame, logical and clear criticism of the critic’s CMP1, where next? As I hope you would, by now, predict, nowhere automatically. As usual, we should first stand back from the fray and carry out a metacognitive review to get a grip on where the enquiry has got to and then proceed to deliberate among our options with a view to choosing a path forward. Key Ideas Having implemented our metacognitive decision and advanced the next substantive ‘move’ in the enquiry, one that does the tactical job we decided was our current priority, that argument, like any other, should be automatically made tame, logical and clear. What happens then, is, however, not automatic and another process of careful metacognitive review followed by metacognitive deliberation is to be carried out.

Next Metacognitive Review And Further Deliberation As you should realize by now, a major task for these reviews is to identify explicitly the current focus (or foci) of dispute. In this case, the type of dispute is moral and one obvious deep moral clash is that between CCMP1 and CMP1. Put in question form, this could be expressed as follows: ‘Should nurses treat even morally bad patients with respect?’.

And, concerning this deep moral clash, say that I am now beginning to get ‘cold feet’ about my (‘feelgood’ slogan-style) rather sweeping commitment to having nurses respect all patients. I might now have considerable sympathy for the view that, by being sufficiently immoral, people do not deserve respect for their status as autonomous moral agents. In effect, their immorality might legitimately have the consequence that I feel justified in subverting their ability to exercise moral autonomy (in this scenario, by lying perhaps, or withholding information from them, or ...). Let us say that my tilt is 90/10 favouring CCMP1 over CMP1. Before proceeding on to our deliberation among our options, there is another matter that I wish to illustrate. It is rather important as a feature of reviews once an enquiry has gone beyond the first couple of moves so I will spend some time upon it. The matter that I have in mind concerns what I will call: ‘voices’. We know that MP1 of A1 and CMP1 of CA1 are in dispute (after all, CA1 was deliberately set up to dispute MP1). We also know that CCMP1 of CCA1 and CMP1 of CA1 are in dispute (again, CCA1 was deliberately invented to dispute CMP1). So we have two deliberate deep moral clashes so far in the dialogue; but

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there is still a question to be addressed, however: ‘what is the relationship between CCMP1 and MP1 (of A1)?’ There seem to be three possible answers to this. One is that the best way of interpreting CCA1 is as the original author responding to criticism. The second is that one can’t so construe CCA1 and, although it wasn’t its formal role (which was to critically probe CMP1), CCMP1 happens to be just as much in dispute with MP1 as it is with its formal target CMP1. The third possibility is that CCA1 can neither be construed as the author critically replying to CA1 (having a second turn if you like) nor as an argument in dispute with MP1, but as yet another, third, viewpoint, one which is neutral to MP1. One way of thinking about this is in terms of what I will call ‘voices’. To date, we have two clear and opposed voices: the author (expressing A1) and the critic (expressing CA1). So what is the voice of the writer of the criticism of the critic? Obviously it is not the critic writing CCA1 but is it the other one of our existing voices, the author, or is it someone else again, some third voice. And, if it is a third voice, what is the relationship of that voice to the first, that of the author? Keep in mind that this talk of author, critic, voices and so on is just a device. In an enquiry they may well all be you (it is not at all uncommon for one’s underlying moral principles to be in multiple conflicts). ‘Voice’ is just our way of talking about a viewpoint of a distinct sort put as an offering in an enquiry. The other labels (‘first’ etc.) simply help us to remember where in the dialogue that viewpoint cropped up. To sum up this point about voices, there are, at this stage, three possibilities as to ‘whom’ the critic of the critic might be: a. Author replying; b. Third voice disagreeing with author; and c. Third voice neutral to author. My point is that, as part of a metacognitive review that is trying to keep track of what is unfolding in the enquiry so far, it is important to understand the voices present (especially if they are all you) as you try to think conflicts out. So, how do you work out which voice the critic of the critic is? The answer is: by analysing the relationship of CCMP1 and of MP1. Let’s talk about each of our above possibilities in turn. a. Say that what is really going on is that CCA1 is the author replying to the criticism of CA1. This should be detectable by noting that what is said in CCMP1 is the sort of thing that you would expect the author to be committed to. Usually what would occur in this scenario is that the author would be digging deeper into her values and appealing to some such value (as CCMP1) to put on the table in criticism of CMP1. A common way for this to occur is that the content of CCMP1 is the sort of value that could equally well have been offered as further development of the author’s

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views had you chosen to defend MP1. This is not always what is going on with this ‘first voice having a second turn’ scenario but if you can see how CCMP1 could act as (part of) a defence of MP1, then you can construe CCA1 as offered by the author who is responding to criticism by deploying her deeper values in order to criticize the critic. (To confirm your thinking that this is what is going on, try writing a little feral argument appealing to CCMP1 as the motivating moral premise of an argument in defence of MP1.) b. If, on the other hand, the scenario is one in which CCMP1 represents a third voice in dispute with MP1, then that should be obvious when you read each of them and see that they are in conflict with one another. One way of seeing this is to try using CCMP1 as the moral premise of another argument, one which has the denial of MP1 as its conclusion. If you can think up a plausible connecting premise (probably a descriptive premise) that puts the thing valued in MP1 in, at least partial, opposition with whatever is valued in CCMP1, then you have a third voice that is disputing, not just the second voice and its CMP1, but also the first voice and its MP1. c. Finally, if CCA1 represents a third, but neutral, voice then, looking at CCMP1, you would see that it is neither the sort of value you could see as ‘more author’s story’ (probably as a deeper support for MP1) nor something that is in conflict with it. So, what is the ‘voices’ situation in our sample enquiry? Let’s analyse things. Put briefly (and over-simply), MP1 commits to patient welfare. As asserted in CDP1, this clashes, on occasion, with the critic’s favoured ‘respect’. CCMP1 is still, to some extent, committed to respect but wishes to restrict who should get it: just all the moral people. As it is implausible to suggest that it would only be immoral people for whom ‘respect’ and ‘welfare’ might clash, it would seem that CCA1 constitutes a third voice that doesn’t just dispute CMP1 but also MP1. In effect, we have another, unintended, deep moral clash that has emerged, one that has its loci in MP1 and CCMP1. Put as a question, it is: ‘Should nurses’ primary responsibility be maximizing patient welfare even in situations where fulfilling that responsibility has, as its cost, treating moral patients without respect for their status as persons?’

Let us just confirm our analysis here by using CCMP1 as the motivating value in an argument criticizing MP1 (in the manner suggested above).

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CCA2 CCMP1 All and only those with status as persons who are also not morally bad (to a certain extent) deserve to be treated with respect by anyone. CCDP2 (CDP1) Sometimes, maximizing a patient’s welfare entails treating her without respect for her status as a person. CCDP3 In some of those cases, the patient involved would have status as a person and would not also be morally bad (to the stipulated extent). So, CCMC2 On those occasions, it is not a nurse’s primary responsibility to maximize his patient’s welfare.

Aside A few comments on this structure: Note that, in the second descriptive premise, we get two grammatical back references to earlier propositions in the argument (‘those cases’ and ‘the stipulated extent’). Similarly, in the conclusion, we get such a back reference with ‘those’. Doing this can lessen ‘clutter’ in the expression of an argument but it has the down-side that you have to be a little bit more skilful in ensuring that the argument is in mesh when you are check-listing it. Also, note that the moral premise is indeed the same as the one deployed in CCA1. Note further that CCDP2 says the same thing as CDP1, a descriptive premise that was originally deployed by the second voice, the original critic of the original author. Although our third voice is in moral dispute with the second (about the number of people deserving of respect) they share a factual belief about the possibility of this clash occurring. Participants in a dispute can agree about some things yet disagree about others. Note finally that the conclusion in the above argument looks the same as the conclusion that the original (second voice) critic of the author had. Indeed, just in terms of the words on the page, the two conclusions are identically worded. However, they don’t mean the same because the grammatical back reference of ‘those’ is different in each case. Mind you, the original critic (the second voice) would probably be happy to endorse CCMC1, it is just that he would wish to extend the exception cases to welfare maximization beyond those that the third voice would be comfortable with. End of Aside Anyway, by successfully crafting CCA2, it is confirmed in our mind that we have a second line of criticism that has emerged against MP1 (we will revisit this business of multiple criticisms of a given premise in Chapter 7). So, we have another deep moral clash, thus there will also be a new ‘tilt’. Say that, in this case, it’s 90/10 favouring CCMP1 over MP1. I said earlier that you should grow complexity gradually and deliberately but, in this case, two things have happened in the one move without any explicit intention that that occur. Still, they have both occurred and you would be silly not to explicitly recognize the emergence of a CCA2 ‘third voice’ criticism of the author and take account of it in your thinking.

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Anyway, given that things are becoming rather complicated, it is especially not a bad idea to pause and go into metacognitive review mode to make sure that you are tracking things without getting lost. Accordingly, what has happened up to this point in our enquiry? I would suggest that, basically, what we have is a ‘threecornered’ contest with each voice disagreeing with each other one. I would sum up the state of play as follows: Although initially inclined to consider patient welfare as a good ground for approving of a nurse lying to a patient, once I realized that patient welfare might be achieved by means that involved a lack of respect for a patient’s status as a person, I had serious qualms; indeed, in such a conflict I tilted 80/20 towards respect over patient welfare. Challenging my tilt, I considered that it might not be everyone who deserved such respect and, indeed, with 90/10 confidence, I inclined to the view that only moral people did. And then, in clash with the original patient-welfare view, I was even more confident that respecting moral people at least was more important than acting for their welfare (CCMP1 versus MP1 was 90/10) than I was that respecting just anyone outweighed acting for their welfare (CMP1 versus MP1 was 80/20). Of the two clashes with MP1, it seems that the line of criticism that I have more faith in is that derived from the third ‘voice’. Key Ideas Once an enquiry has gone beyond the initial stages, metacognitive review becomes both more complicated in what it covers and more important in helping to keep track of things. In particular, once beyond an initial criticism, you should think very carefully and explicitly about the inter-relationships of the various arguments in the enquiry. More might be happening than you deliberately intended to be present – the issue of ‘voices’.

Metacognitive review completed, where to next? As before, the next move is to engage in metacognitive deliberation among your available options. And, again, one can hardly do this without understanding what the options are; so, let’s list them. With the advent of CCA1 come a number of new options: Accept CCA1. Criticize CCMP1. Defend CCMP1. Criticize CCMP2. Defend CCMP2.

And, with, our now formally crafted, CCA2, come further options:

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Accept CCA2. Criticize CCDP3. Defend CCDP3.

Remember that the first two premises of this argument were already on the table in other arguments (see below) but you might find it useful to re-list them if that helps you to remember that they occur in more than one place. And, added to these, are all the unused options from the past (ones that we might now have some new reason to choose): Accept A1. Accept CA1. Defend CMP1. Criticize CDP1 (CCDP2). Defend CDP1 (CCDP2). Defend MP1. Criticize DP1. Defend DP1.

Quite a forbiddingly long list. But, although I include all of the available options for completeness, a good number of them are obvious non-starters. Here’s how I would think things through (go slowly in reading the following, there are a lot of proposition labels to backtrack on – looking at Diagram 6, below, should help). Although my sympathy with CCMP1 when compared with either rival is high, it is not at a level warranting acceptance yet; so the options of accepting CCA1 or CCA2 are out. Also, ‘Accept CA1’ and ‘Accept A1’, options rejected last time, have had nothing happen to warrant reversal of that decision. Further, given my critical focus upon moral premises, not descriptive ones, it seems a diversion from the flow of the enquiry to move focus to the latter. Anyway, as nothing has happened to change my confidence in DP1 and CDP1/CCDP2 and thus of the pointlessness of their defence and the futility of their criticism, those four options drop away. CCDP3 seems also to be obviously plausible (surely it wouldn’t only be the immoral patients whose welfare might well be served by disrespect). Given that the main current conflict is, in a general way, between ‘respect’ and ‘welfare’, and, given further that the ‘respect’ based criticism is at its strongest in its refined CCMP1 form and that a primary motivation in any further weeding is to focus on options that help me resolve that conflict, CCMP1 should be my focus. (If I don’t decide that respect for moral people outweighs their welfare, I am unlikely – given my 90/10 tilt to CCMP1 over CMP1 – to favour respect of those left, the immoral ones, over welfare. Put another way, if CCMP1 doesn’t end up beating MP1, could CMP1?) This means that any CA1 located options get weeded out. Events have overtaken them a bit. Curiously, the un-planned criticism of MP1 (CCA2) has proved to be more important in my mind than CA1.

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So, what’s left? – three options: Criticize or defend CCMP1. Defend MP1.

What should be the basis of my choice here? Recall that my tilt between CCMP1 and MP1 is 90/10 favouring the former over the latter. Given such a strong intuitive leaning, it is usually a good idea (as I have said earlier) to challenge, rather than reinforce, such an intention. (This is especially the case in the early stages of an enquiry; I’ll return to some complications next chapter.) If the motivation is to ‘go counter-intuitive’, then ‘Defend CCMP1’ is eliminated because doing that would be reinforcing my current tendencies; hence that leaves a short-list of just two options. So, should I defend MP1 or criticize CCMP1? My primary tactical motivation was to go counter-intuitive but that left me with these two options; so are there any secondary motivations that will guide a choice between them? Last decision time, I chose to criticize the critic (CMP1 in that case) and what emerged was basically a ‘friendly refinement’ of the critic’s case, one simply narrowing the range of the clash between ‘respect’ and ‘welfare’ that was of moral concern. I could, in effect, criticize again, this time against the new, narrower, species of the generic ‘respect’ position. However, having gone down the ‘criticize respect’ path, it might be more interesting to go back to MP1 and see if there’s anything that can be said in support of the ‘welfare’ value that might challenge my current tendency to discount it when it conflicts with respecting people, especially morally good people. Also, I have an existing dispute (respect versus welfare) in play and maybe I should stay with it and not run the risk of a more complex situation with too many ‘balls in the air’ at one time. Last time, I criticized CMP1 and I was lucky that the third voice that was generated was a ‘first cousin’ of the second, just one with a more restricted commitment to respect for others. If I mounted a criticism of CCMP1, then I wouldn’t want it to be a fourth voice (!). It could come from the second voice but that is out of play for the moment. So, it would seem that, were I to mount a criticism of CCMP1, it would end up being a criticism generated from the point of view of the first voice (the original author). Given this, why not just articulate more of that first voice position in a more straightforward way as a defence of MP1? It would then be easier for me to keep track of all of the voices in the dialogue. Admittedly, I said the last time that such a defence was mentally familiar but it might still be a good idea to get it formally ‘on the table’ and, perhaps, given its mental familiarity, I might even persist a bit and further expand upon that defence with a ‘defence of the defence’. Anyway, as things have unfolded, it seems a good move now even if it wasn’t earlier. So, after a somewhat involved ‘tactics discussion’ my metacognitive decision is: Defend MP1. Note that this is a ‘left over’ option from way back. Although I didn’t have a good reason to do it in the past, I now do and I can explain why to myself.

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Key Ideas As an enquiry proceeds, the number of options facing you in metacognitive deliberation as to where to go next expands rapidly. Fortunately, there are usually good tactical grounds for quickly ruling out a number of options and you are then left with a short-list for more serious consideration. Note that this process of metacognitive deliberation operates in a sequenced way with obviously poor options eliminated first and then the remaining ones trimmed methodically by appeal to primary motivations and then secondary ones and so forth until, hopefully, you are left with one path forward. Sometimes you can be left with a short-list of more than one with no good reason to choose among them; in such a case, given that you can’t do more than one thing at once, you will just be fairly randomly picking out one of them (you might return to do some other, unchosen, option, or options, from your final short-list at some later stage in the enquiry). Note also that, as an enquiry proceeds, it becomes increasingly important to carry out thorough and thoughtful metacognitive reviews – both to keep your finger on the pulse of what is emerging in the enquiry (in a perhaps un-planned way) and as inputs into your thinking as to where to go next.

What Now? So, where would the enquiry go next? Well, having decided to defend MP1, you would proceed to implement that decision. And, as we noted that such a defence had been mentally pencilled in already, it might be that it gets elaborated upon a little bit beyond that so that new ground emerges. One way of doing this is to double up on the defence so that we don’t just get a single defence move, like this (schematically): DMP1 (plus some other premises) So, MP1 (plus some other premises) So, MC1.

Instead, we get a ‘double depth’ defence as follows (schematically):

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DDMP1 (plus some other premises) So, DMP1 (plus some other premises) So, MP1 (plus some other premises) So, MC1.

You can see why I spoke earlier of ‘chains of reasoning’ and their links. In this case we would have a three-link chain. We will be looking at other ways of elaborating upon the author’s case in the next chapter. But, as this chapter is just an introduction to the basics of extended reasoning, I will leave things for now. Generally speaking, you would continue this process of metacognitively guided elaboration of the features of a dispute (in this case the current one is MP1 versus CCMP1) until confident enough about your feelings (your tilt) concerning that dispute to ‘close’ on it. (CCMP1 was close to this situation having a 90/10 tilt in its favour in comparison to either of the other moral premises). A discussion of that type of closure move (and its consequences for your enquiry on the original topic) is a matter for the next chapter. Summary Laid out as a flowchart, we have this form for our sample enquiry so far (see Diagram 5). Note again that there are two main types of alternating activity occurring as the enquiry proceeds. One is what I have called ‘substantive argumentation’ (the initial argument, the criticism of MP1 and then of CMP1 (and, in an un-planned way, of MP1 again) and, finally, the planned defence of MP1). The other is what I have called ‘metacognition’. In turn, this has two main types of activity.

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Diagram 5

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The first is a metacognitive review. Such a review is a backward-looking activity in which track is kept of what has already happened – in particular, of what the emerging foci of dispute are and, if it is a moral dispute, the deep moral clash (or clashes) and your tilt (or tilts) that are present. At this stage, we have another extra element in our reviews: voices. Note that I have accommodated this feature in the flowchart with the box headed ‘Extra Review’. At this point in this particular enquiry, the issue is the ‘voice’ of CCMP1, in particular, its relationship to MP1. If you recall our discussion of the three possibilities for that relationship, I hope that you will follow the ‘shorthand’ in the box well enough. Note also that there’s a little decision in there to confirm the analysis as to which voice it might be. To check out our view as to the voice of CCMP1, we crafted CCA2 and you will see that decision within the metacognitive ‘extra review’ box and then, zig-zagging across to the other column, we get CCA2 portrayed (and note the vertical arrow connecting it back to MP1 and showing the relationship between them). The other element within metacognition, metacognitive deliberation, is a forward-looking activity in which you consider possible options and, for various tactical reasons of varying importance, methodically weed the list in a sequenced way as much as you have good tactical grounds for. (An important input into this deliberation is the analysis of the enquiry’s current state of play as provided by your metacognitive review and, as applicable, your tilts concerning various disputes.) If you look at the ‘Options and Deliberation’ box that follows the mounting of CCA2 (and, effectively, after a bit of a quick think about voices, CCA1) you’ll see that I have listed the options differently this time and first group together those that come with the offering of CCA1, then those that come with CCA2 and then the list of unused options from the past. In particular, I haven’t listed all of the ‘closure’ options first (compare Diagram 3). Note also that I’ve got some options listed in an ‘accept/reject’ form. I didn’t do this in previous deliberation boxes and I offer it now just as a way of reminding yourself that, for instance, accepting CCA1 is tantamount to rejecting CA1 – they are two sides of the same decision. And, again, you might decide that all this is cluttering your flowchart too much and trim it to, perhaps, just the decision that you finally take or just those that were given serious consideration as possibilities. Again, my personal preference is to leave the clutter in because it reminds me of all of the possible options. Focusing on the relationship among the substantive arguments, you could try one of our other styles of diagram to get the following:

CCA111

CMC1 denies MP1

Diagram 6

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Note that, in this diagram, it is clear just what arguments are challenging what moral premises. Note also that, although I have painted in a ‘shorthand’ sketch of the content of some of the premises (and look back at the full versions in the structures and see how you would do some sort of abbreviation for the diagram), I haven’t bothered for either descriptive premise in CCA2. For a start, I couldn’t think of anything clear that wasn’t rather too elaborate and, anyway, for the task at hand of tracking relationships among substantive arguments, they don’t much matter – it is the moral premise and the conclusion that are of more importance here. One thing that I haven’t done in the diagram but that you might consider to be worthwhile, is to head each of our columns with some such title as ‘first voice’, ‘second voice’ or ‘third voice’. This reminds you that all of the arguments in that particular column come from the same point of view, or voice. So, A2 is a further development of A1 (both first voice) and both CCA1 and CCA2, although they do different jobs with different targets, have the same motivation, CCMP1; they are in the same voice. Anyway, as a result of these alternating activities of substantive argumentation and metacognitive tracking and planning of the enquiry, the controversial issues underlying the original topic should be gradually teased out and addressed with, ultimately, some resolution, or closure, concerning these deeper disputes. That resolution achieved, the enquirer has a more sophisticated and thought-through framework of beliefs and values to track back to, and apply to, the original topic question. Of course, our above enquiry is just one illustration of the basic elements of the process and, as you might predict by now, things could have gone down some other path and could have been somewhat more complicated. It is the task of the next chapter to begin exploring some of those possible complications.

Chapter 7

Extended Reasoning: Some Complexities Introduction As noted before, the basic building blocks of rational thought about ethical issues are arguments. And, if an issue is to be thought through in some depth, then this will be more than offering an argument or even a ‘job lot’ of ‘for’ arguments and another of ‘against’ arguments. Rather, what is wanted is an interplaying web of arguments, ones in interaction with one another. But how to craft that web, how to decide which arguments to place in which sorts of interaction? In the last chapter, you were introduced to the basics of this. In effect, the discussion generates depth by focusing upon the bases of an argument’s case, its premises. And, concerning these, two possible actions can be taken to expand the discussion. One is to criticize a premise and the other is to defend it. Either way, this generates a further argument that is related to a component premise of the preceding one. The trouble is that there is always more than one such move that one could do, so how to choose which one is the issue. This led us to the business of metacognition. Choosing what to do next was explained as a matter of tactics, of doing whatever seems best suited to advancing your thinking on the issues, with that decision as to what to do being informed by your appreciation of the enquiry to that point and, in particular, of the disputes, or clashes, that have emerged and your current intuitive appraisal of them. (You will recall my introduction of the concepts of metacognitive deliberation, metacognitive reviews and, within the latter, deep moral clashes and tilts.) In this chapter, I wish to go beyond the basics and outline some of the more sophisticated features of carrying out extended enquiries. These complexities will involve both of our tasks: substantive argumentation and metacognition. Some of these complexities are, well, complex, and you’ll have to read rather carefully and reread and discuss them with your tutor. Some matters are more central than others and it may be that your tutor picks and chooses a bit depending on the level of thought there is time and space to achieve within your course (the section on dispute closures is particularly important though). All of them are, however, aspects of sophisticated in-depth thought about professional ethical issues and this chapter ends up being fairly comprehensive and lengthy. I can’t really see any non-arbitrary way of breaking the chapter up into two or more chapters but confess misgivings given that it is a bit of a medley of bits and pieces. Accordingly, I think that it might be more than usually worthwhile to do a chapter index at the beginning. This might not be a lot of use initially because

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some of what I say in it will use terminology that won’t be clear until you have read the relevant section. I include it because it might nonetheless be a useful reference for you to turn back to in order to remind yourself of just where what you are reading fits in with what has gone before. So, here goes: Non-moral Disputes Revisited

Introduction Disputes Involving Descriptive Propositions Disputes Involving Conceptual Propositions

Complex Argument Structures

Introduction Joint Rationale Structures Independent Rationale Structures Summary So Far Independent Conclusion Structures Joint Conclusion Structures Summary So Far Roles of Some of These More Complex Structures Complex Structures and Non-moral Claim Types Another (Unusual) Type of Simple Argument Structure

Deep Moral Clashes and Their Treatment – Revisited

Introduction Issues of Degree – Moral Clashes and Tilts Revisited ‘Voices’ Revisited Tilt Shifts Tilts And Counter-intuitive Motivations

Dispute Closures

Introduction ‘Track-backs’ ‘Voices’ And Multiple Deep Moral Clash Closures Closures Involving Non-moral Propositions Problems upon Patching Dubious Premises and Messy Outcomes

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‘Real-world’ Reasoning Summary Non-moral Disputes Revisited Introduction So far, our attention has been focused primarily upon moral disputes. But, as you know, enquiries might also involve disputes as to what the facts are, or disputes as to how ideas are related or key concepts are to be understood – that is, disputes about the truth of either descriptive or conceptual propositions as they appear as premises in various arguments. Although we touched upon these in Chapter 6 in a couple of asides, I haven’t talked much about these to date as I have been trying to get a clear story across about exploring moral clashes and didn’t want to ‘muddy those waters’ by addressing descriptive and conceptual disputes. Another reason is that in most, not all, professional ethical disputes, the central concerns are not so much about what the facts are or how some key concepts are to be understood. Rather, the key concerns arise from being unsure as to how to proceed on an issue because your moral values are in conflict concerning it. Sometimes, however, the problem that you judge to be tactically important to sort out at some point in the enquiry will, indeed, involve one or other of these non-moral types and I’d like to spend a little time on each. Disputes Involving Descriptive Propositions One key way in which these occur in arguments is as premises connecting, or linking, two moral propositions together. Most prominently, this can occur in one of two types of argument: one is where we have one moral proposition supporting or defending another (as MP to MC, say in a premise defence or in an initial argument); the other is where we have one proposition in conflict with another (as in a counter-argument, which results in a Deep Moral Clash between the target MP and the critic’s moral premise via the critic’s descriptive premise). Clearly, neither of these two relationships (defence or criticism) will work well unless the claimed connection via the linking DP actually does exist. Descriptive premises act as the connective tissue of your enquiry’s arguments; they are not the primary focus but, unless sound, the enquiry is stymied. Sometimes, as with the DPs in our illustrative enquiry of the last chapter, the facts are clear; but sometimes they are not. What then? It depends; sometimes matters can be fairly easily checked out but often the DP in question can’t be because it makes an assertion about matters that are rather difficult to verify. For instance, in various professional circumstances, many descriptive claims concern the mental goings-on of individuals yet what some individual is thinking or feeling might be difficult to ascertain and there might be conflicting opinions about it. Moreover, the DP might be quite general in its scope

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and make assertions about relationships between whole classes of action (often causal claims if the argument is a means-end one). As these often talk about rather complex social events and processes, disagreements as to what the truth is might well occur and be difficult to sort out. Most (not all) professional ethical issues appeal to DPs that fall into the domain of the social sciences. Thus it might well be that relevant guidance on some query can be obtained by consulting the relevant research literature in sociology, psychology, pedagogical theory, or whatever. A word of caution though: given that many socio-psychological situations can be quite complex and tracking cause-effect connections a vexing business, it might be that the relevance of what was investigated in some body of research to what you want to know about is debatable or unclear. The circumstances investigated in the research might be a bit different and it might be unclear if it applies to your case (say the research covered only early teenage people and your concern was with late teenagers; or it covered Asian-Americans and your concern was with Asian-Australians and so on). Or, even if it is relevant, there are cautions as to whether or not it gives advice at a level of specificity that is useful for your purposes (it covers heart disease risk for middle-aged males and your concern is with middle-aged sedentary non-smoking males). There may even be cases where some studies seem to say one thing and others something conflicting. It is beyond the scope of this work to pursue such problems. I can only hope that the rest of your professional education has provided you with adequate ‘research literacy’ (as it is sometimes called) to have a reasonable chance of gleaning some guidance from the relevant published literature. However, even if you can sort your way through things to form some sort of tentative appraisal of the truth value of the descriptive premise that is of interest, you might not be able to be totally confident about accepting it (unlike the DPs in our sample enquiry of Chapter 6) or rejecting it. Moreover, it might be that you are in no position to find out anything more that will help increase your confidence one way or the other. Where does that persistent uncertainty leave an argument that involves it? As mentioned earlier, we had two main types of relationship between moral propositions that might be provided by a descriptive proposition: one was where one moral proposition defended (or supported) another and the other was where one moral proposition opposed another. Let us first outline the defence scenario; say it were one like this: MPa Any police officer who commits a corrupt act should be disciplined. DPa Sergeant Smith-Smythe committed a corrupt act. So, MCa Sergeant Smith-Smythe should be disciplined.

You might not be very confident of DPa’s truth. Indeed, you might even be able to give grounds for your doubts. Say that you had decided to challenge DPa and it went:

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CDPa Inspector Snider is totally trustworthy as to what he claims to be true. CDPb He says that Sergeant Smith-Smythe would never commit a corrupt act. So, CDCb Sergeant Smith-Smythe did not commit a corrupt act.

Now the web of information and evidence connecting to the matter of Sergeant Smith-Smythe’s alleged corruption might go on for some time but let us say that, at the end of it, you still haven’t got the facts of the matter totally pinned down to your satisfaction. You are fairly sure that the result is that he is indeed sometimes corrupt but there are doubts (although not totally trustworthy, Inspector Snider is generally so ...). If you were to put a figure on it, you would say that you are 70 per cent confident that DPa is true. So, where does this leave the connection between MPa and MCa? MPa is a general moral principle that we were trying to apply to the situation of Sergeant Smith-Smythe. But, for it to apply depends upon the connecting premise, DPa, being true. So, what is the upshot of our uncertainty about it? As you would expect, our confidence in the application of MPa to the particular case of Sergeant Smith-Smythe to yield our conclusion MCa is undermined to the extent that our confidence in DPa is undermined. In effect, and assuming that there is nothing wrong with MPa itself, the weakness of DPa means that we can only be around 70 per cent confident about that case for the view that he should be disciplined. Of course, if we also had doubts about the acceptability of MPa, then our uncertainty about our grounds for MCa would be compounded. We will return to this issue of dubious premises in a later section. So much for the effect of uncertain descriptive premises on the satisfactoriness of defences of moral propositions; what about when they occur within criticisms, within, say, a counter-argument against some moral premise or other? Say that we had mounted a counter-argument against MPa. Put ferally, say that the thrust of it was that some police officers, although corrupt, should not be disciplined because some short-term corruption was necessary to achieve longterm crime reduction. So, we might get the following counter-argument against MPa: CMPa The primary duty of all police officers is to act so as to reduce crime levels in the long term as much as possible. CMPb No police officers should be disciplined for carrying out their primary duty. CDPa Sometimes, for such long-term crime reduction to be maximized, some police officers have to act corruptly in the short term. So, CMCa Sometimes, some police officers who commit corrupt acts should not be disciplined.

For CMPa to get to grips with MPa (via the critic denying it in CMCa) relies again on the truth of CDPa. And, much as before, if its truth is in doubt, then some investigation of it would occur. This might be a defence of it or a criticism of it or,

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indeed, both; and such an investigation of it might go on for some time. Moreover, as was touched upon earlier, such investigation might involve consulting the relevant research literature and intelligent caution in applying that research to the claim at hand is advised. Finally, the upshot of all of that might be that the truth status of CDPa gets resolved to your satisfaction but it might also be that it does not. And, if it doesn’t, then the confidence that you have in its truth will effectively be the confidence that you have that the moral values advanced by the critic really do conflict with MPa (that they are different values is not, itself, of great interest; values can be different yet be quite compatible – the point is whether they are in conflict). Following on from that, say that you were to be only 80 per cent sure that CDPa is true. In such a case, even if you were totally confident that, in the event of any clash between CMPa and MPa, you would prioritize long-term crime level reduction over short-term corruption avoidance, you could only be 80 per cent sure that there was ever a clash between them to do any prioritizing about! (We’ll return to this issue of uncertain premises towards the end of the chapter). Aside Keep in mind that we talk of only this critical argument’s success in getting you confident that CMPa and MPa are in conflict. Even if this particular case is in trouble and commitment to CMPa is a dubiously applicable ground for challenging MPa, other counter-arguments, appealing to other possibly conflicting moral values, might fare better as lines of challenge to MPa (see the section on independent rationales, below). End of Aside So, how to handle all of this? – Basically, with hesitations that reflect what you are not sure of, to the extent that you are not sure. A key part of your metacognitive reviews would be keeping a very self-conscious finger on the pulse of all of this. Key Ideas Disputes concerning descriptive propositions’ truth can be of great importance because such propositions can act as descriptive premises forming a bridge from moral principles to their application and in setting up disputes between moral principles. If, even after investigation, there is doubt about a key descriptive premise, then that doubt should be reflected in your confidence in your case for your conclusion.

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Disputes Involving Conceptual Propositions It has been a while since I introduced these propositions and they have not been prominent players to date so a quick refresher is probably worthwhile. Conceptual propositions were characterized as ones whose truth or falsity is not a matter of whether they manage to describe the world or not; rather, it is a matter that is internal to the language – dependent upon the meaning relationships of various words and on the structures of sentences. I suggested that conceptual matters might crop up in two places: working definitions and conceptual premises (or, for that matter, conclusions). Working definitions were self-conscious attempts to pin an idea down well enough to go on with one’s intellectual work – the enquiry. It was recognized that such conceptual clarifications might, as the enquiry progressed, prove unsatisfactory and some key idea might accordingly be re-characterized. So, for instance, it might become apparent that, in the original working definition, two quite different ideas had been unknowingly blurred together. As an illustration, say that the original turn of phrase that was appearing in some argument and was receiving a working definition was: ‘health treatment equity’. Moreover, say that the working definition offered in clarification of this was: ‘citizens have equitable health treatment if and only if each has the same health treatment provisions, when ill or injured, as any other citizen with the same illness or injury’. This has certainly pinned down some matters. If Joe has cancer and Jasmine has a broken toe then they will be provided with different treatment but if each has a broken toe then the treatment will be identical (regardless of wealth, religion, geographical location, or what not). Now say that, as the enquiry unfolds, an issue that emerges is that of individual autonomy concerning whether or not an illness is even treated, or prevented, at all (think, for instance, of blood transfusions and the views of some religious sects, or of compulsory child vaccination programmes and the objections some have to them). If Joe and Jasmine each has a disease but Joe wishes it treated and Jasmine does not, have they had equal provision of treatment? Well, yes, in the sense that each was offered the same thing but, no, in that no treatment occurs for Jasmine (assuming that her wishes are complied with) but it does for Joe. It would be useful to know where the author stood on this (or stands – the distinction might not be something that she was really alert to until now). So, a revised working definition might be in order. Working definitions are basically meaning stipulations in which you make yourself clear: ‘When I say such and such, I mean this to be unpacked as so and so’. In effect, it is an attempt to have all in the enquiry on the same wavelength, not, that is, prone to arguing ‘at cross purposes’ with different participants taking key turns of phrase to mean different things. One way of thinking of it is as a plea: ‘Look, never mind (for the moment) how you would unpack “health treatment equity”; can we just agree to these definitions for present purposes and, in those terms, explore our substantive disagreements instead of focusing on meanings’.

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Although I am speaking here of a dialogue, much of the above transfers across to the case of an individual enquiring in soliloquy. In a working definition one is trying to sort out for oneself just what one understands various key concepts to amount to in order to press on and address more salient concerns. Of course, weird stipulations like: ‘when I use “oranges”, I am referring to apples’ will hardly help any enquiry and usually one is just hoping to signal where one stands concerning ordinary language which may, nonetheless, be somewhat vague or ambiguous. Sometimes, though, one wants to go beyond this sort of ‘clarification that is done just so all involved know what is meant and can focus on the real issues without confusion’ working definition style of exercise. Sometimes we are doing what analytic philosophers (like myself) spend much time over and we are advancing a tentative claim, or assertion, as to a connection among ideas; one that we are not stipulating so much as offering for genuine consideration and, hopefully, agreement. In a working definition one is trying to get semantic agreement ‘for the sake of argument’ so that one can focus on other things without distracting to meaning disputes. Sometimes though, an important part of what one is concerned to put before others for their intellectual consideration and possible challenge is a conceptual relationship claim – enter conceptual premises. Consider another concept that occurs in a number of professions – that of informed consent. Just what counts as a person having given informed consent? There is some room for dispute concerning this and that dispute is something that you might not wish to merely bypass by stipulation (in a working definition) so that you can concentrate on other matters. Rather, you might wish to have it upfront as a possible bone of contention. Try the following as an argument involving this concept in a conceptual premise: MP No one should have any medical information about them passed to anyone else unless they have given their informed consent to that. CP For a person to give informed consent to some information transfer means for that person to agree to that transfer having full knowledge of the consequences that will ensue. DP1 Sometimes transfers of medical information are consented to by patients who do not have full knowledge of the consequences that will ensue from that transfer. DP 2 In some such cases it is impossible to have full knowledge of the consequences that will ensue from the information transfer. So, MC In those cases no such information transfer should occur.

Clearly one thing that is a possible bone of contention here is how much information one has to know in order for one’s consent to be properly deemed informed. In short, CP might get challenged as deviating from a reasonable unpacking of the concept of being informed.

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Key Ideas Conceptual issues tend to arise in enquiries in two places: working definitions and conceptual propositions in arguments. With a working definition, one is basically stipulating a meaning for all involved to simply go along with ‘for the sake of argument’ because one’s interests in the enquiry lie elsewhere. With a conceptual premise, one is laying a conceptual relationship claim on the table as a hypothesis inviting challenge.

Complex Argument Structures Introduction So far, when structuring arguments we have seen two types. The first was our simple, or basic, structure, typically a ‘three-liner’ but not always. The second occurred when we deepened such an argument to get what I called: ‘a chain of reasoning’, one with more than one component link. The point of the chain/link metaphor was that, in such an argument chain, each component argument, each link, was connected to the next in virtue of a shared claim. A proposition that was in role as MP at the start of one link did double duty and was in role as MC at the end of the next link up the page. One can view the whole chain as a complex structure comprising a connected sequence of simple structures. So, let’s call these two types so far: ‘simple structures’ and ‘chained structures’. The first thing that I wish to do is introduce some further sorts of structure. The second thing I wish to cover is some of the ways these might emerge in an enquiry. Joint Rational Structures The most common argument type that we have had so far is a simple structure in which we have some valued state of affairs, some goal or end, being appealed to in our MP, some sort of linking premise as the DP and then some judgement or course of action being proposed in the conclusion. An example of a simple structure is the following one. It has an obviously false DP but it will do for present purposes. A7/1 MP1 Being informed about what aims are possible is a (morally) necessary and sufficient condition for being among the deciders of the broad aims of schooling. DP1 Only teachers are informed about what aims are possible. So, MC1 Only teachers should be among those deciding the broad aims of schooling.

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In MP1 we have a single criterion for being a decider being morally endorsed by the author. (It is endorsed as both required for being a decider and enough for being a decider but it is only one quality being endorsed.) We should really have split MP1 into two moral premises, one for the necessary condition claim and one for the sufficient condition claim, but MP1 will do as it is for now. As always, that argument’s MP might be counter-argued – say, to the effect that the deciders really should know more than just what might be an aim. In addition, the critic might say, they should know what the consequences of implementing various possible aims would be. In short, the deciders should be informed about possible aims and their consequences, not just possible aims. Let’s assume that one accepted this criticism. So, one might, after such a successful challenge to the MP, decide that, although knowledge of what the possibilities are is the least something every legitimate decider should have, it is not enough in and of itself to qualify someone as a decider. In short, to use what is, I hope, familiar jargon, one might judge knowledge of possibilities to be merely a (morally) necessary but not a sufficient condition to be met by candidate deciders. As will be explored more at the end of this chapter, in the face of a successful counter-argument, one revisits and revises the criticized argument to accommodate the criticism. Say that the way in which we wanted to revise the original MP was to say that one necessary condition for being a legitimate decider is to be informed about what the possible aims are, that is, what the decision options are; but another necessary condition is knowledge of the consequences of the various possible aims. Finally, one might judge the two necessary conditions, when combined together, to be enough to qualify one as a decider, to form a sufficient condition. In summary, we have two individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions. So, let’s try a revised structure. A7/2 MP2 Being informed about the possible aims options is a (morally) necessary condition for being among the deciders of the broad aims of schooling. MP3 Being informed about the consequences of each of those aims options is a (morally) necessary condition for being among the deciders of the broad aims of schooling. MP4 Knowing the aims options and knowing their consequences jointly form a (morally) sufficient condition for being among the deciders of the broad aims of schooling. DP2 Only teachers are informed about both possible aims and their consequences. So, MC2 Only teachers should be among the deciders of the broad aims of schooling.

Note a feature of this argument: although there are two reasons for having teachers as broad aims of schooling deciders, both reasons have to be satisfied by someone in order for her to qualify. They form, if you like, a joint rationale for someone’s

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inclusion; we have two aspects of the one joint reason rather than two distinct reasons, each good enough in its own right. Compare with this a different sort of argument in which, again, there are two reasons for including some group among the deciders but this time those two reasons don’t join; rather, we have two independent rationales for the same conclusion. Independent Rationale Structures To continue our example, instead of viewing knowledge of the options available and knowledge of their consequences as two (necessary) elements of a joint (sufficient) criterion for being a decider, one might instead view each as enough in its own right to qualify someone as a decider. That is, one might view knowledge of the options as a (morally) sufficient condition for being among the deciders but also view knowledge of the consequences as, by itself, another sufficient condition for being among the deciders (having done that, one can hardly coherently have them as necessary conditions as well – think about it). So, one might have these two arguments: A7/3 MP5 Being informed about the possible aims is a (morally) sufficient condition for being among the deciders of the broad aims of schooling. DP3 All teachers are informed about possible aims. So, MC3 All teachers should be among the deciders of the broad aims of schooling.

And: A7/4 MP6 Being informed about the possible consequences of aims is a (morally) sufficient condition for being among the deciders of the broad aims of schooling. DP4 All teachers are informed about possible consequences of aims. So, MC3 All teachers should be among the deciders of the broad aims of schooling.

The thing to note about these two structures is that they share a conclusion. In effect, we have two rationales for that conclusion, each independent of the other. (You might also notice that I have changed the quantifier from ‘only’ to ‘all’; this is not random but the reasons don’t matter for present purposes – you might like to have a think about it.) Summary So Far So far we have distinguished four sorts of structure.

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Simple structures involve a single move of inference (a single link, if you like) and that link appeals to just one driving value in its MP. Diagrammatically, we could put it as follows: MP DP (plus some other premises) So, MC

Joint Rationale structures are also single links but with more than one deeper moral value appealed to in the case for the conclusion; the values combine to provide a joint rationale. Diagrammatically, we could put it as follows: MP1 MP2 DP (plus some other premises) So, MC

In an Independent Rationale structure, we effectively have two (or more) separate cases for our conclusion and these can be laid out as independent argument structures. In our earlier example, it was two simple structures. The only thing that distinguishes this independent rationale scenario from one having any old two arguments is that, here, each is an argument for the same conclusion – so, not so much a structure as a converging pair of them. Diagrammatically, we could put it as follows: MP1 MP2 DP1 DP2 (plus some other premises) (plus some other premises) So, MC

What is important is that, when there is more than one value being appealed to in support of some claim, you are able to tell whether they form a joint or independent rationale. Chained Structures are basically a series of argument structures linking up ‘nose to tail’ to form a rationale in depth for the final conclusion. Mostly you have formed these as a result of deepening some structure with a premise defence but there is no particular reason why one shouldn’t offer such a deeper, chained, rationale straight off. Mostly the links of the chain will be simple structures but

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they could be other types as well. Diagrammatically, we could put a chain (with simple links) as follows: MP2 DP2 (plus some other premises) So, MC2/MP1 DP1 (plus some other premises) So, MC1

The last structure types I wish to outline I will call ‘independent conclusion structures’ and ‘joint conclusion structures’. They are less important in enquiries than the above but you should still understand them as something that might occur. Independent Conclusion Structures Consider the following structure as an attempt to lay out an argument: A7/5 MP6 Any school’s curriculum should satisfy all those who pay for it and all those who undertake it. DP5 All taxpayers pay for any school’s curriculum. DP6 All of its students undertake any school’s curriculum. So, MC4 Any school’s curriculum should satisfy all taxpayers and all of its students.

Have a look at this structure and you will notice that the conclusion is a compound claim (as we called it in Chapter 3). More than one thing is being proposed. In effect it is two claims. First, that the school curriculum should satisfy all taxpayers. Second, that the school curriculum should satisfy its students. In the case of this particular argument, we also have two driving moral values being appealed to, as we did in A7/2. There are differences though. There they were two aspects of a joint case for a single proposal. Here, as we have seen, the conclusion proposal is really a compound of two claims and MP6 is also a compound claim, it is a bundle of two moral-type claims which we could split up. So, in the case of A7/5 we could disaggregate the argument without change of meaning into two simple argument structures as follows:

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A7/5a MP6a Any school’s curriculum should satisfy all those who pay for it. DP5 All taxpayers pay for any school’s curriculum. So, MC4a Any school’s curriculum should satisfy all taxpayers.

And: A7/5b MP7b Any school’s curriculum should satisfy all those who undertake it. DP6 All of its students undertake any school’s curriculum. So, MC4b Any school’s curriculum should satisfy all of its students.

If you are able to break up an argument with a compound conclusion in this manner then, as touched on way back in Chapter 3 when we were discussing taming using our checklist, you should. Why? – because, as has been emphasized throughout the book, the more that you can break the tasks of critical enquiry up into manageable sub-tasks, the better. With A8/5 broken up into its component pieces you can concentrate your critical attention on the case for the satisfaction of taxpayers as one task and on the case for the satisfaction of students as a separate task. It might well be that you come to different appraisals of each of them and doing that is easier to keep track of if you have disaggregated the two arguments. In effect, what we have here is two separate simple structures that were being blurred together. Note that, because the structures are separate, the demise of one argument would not affect the other. However, not all arguments with complicated looking conclusions can be broken up in such a manner. With some such arguments, the bonds among the elements are such that one can’t break them down into simpler arguments without changing the meaning of what is said. These arguments are our focus in the next section. Joint Conclusion Structures Consider the following: A7/6 MP8 Any desirable curriculum should be offered if and only if it is feasible. DP7 Any curriculum is feasible if and only if adequate physical and human resources are available. So, MC5 Any desirable curriculum should be offered if and only if adequate physical and human resources are available.

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It seems to me that this conclusion is being offered as a package that is indivisible in the sense that (according to the author) it would not be much good offering a curriculum if only adequate physical, but not human, resources were available or vice versa. Rather than two arguments that have been compounded together, we have here a single argument with a complex but integrated conclusion involving two aspects jointly. Summary So Far Mostly, your arguments will be simple or chained structures. Their predominance is why I have left these other variations until now. The main new skills involved here are two. The first concerns arguments that seem to have more than one thing going on in the premises – in which case you have to work out whether, in your feral, you do indeed have a single structure (a joint rationale structure) or whether it should be split up into two or more separate arguments (an independent rationale structure or, perhaps, an unnoticed chained structure). The second concerns feral arguments that seem to have more than one thing going on in the conclusion – in which case you have to work out whether you do indeed have a single structure (a joint conclusion structure) or whether it should be split up into two or more separate arguments (an independent conclusion structure). To complicate your lives, you might get mixes of these. For instance, when tracking back up a chained structure for a deeper rationale, you might have a link that is an independent rationale structure. If so, you would be wishing to have a think about it, realize that the link is indeed formed of two arguments that constitute an independent rationale structure and then split it up into its component arguments. Why? Because you will only be wanting to deal with one of them at a time. Key Ideas Argument structures form six main types: simple, chained, joint rationale, independent rationale, joint conclusion and independent conclusion. A key task for an enquirer is knowing what is going on, so: analyse what structures are offered in order to ascertain their type.

Roles of Some of These More Complex Structures So, how might these more complex structures appear in an enquiry? As mentioned, it might be almost accidentally in that you were not trying to craft one but when you properly understood your feral, it turned out to be one or other of these more complex affairs. But it might also be a deliberate matter; there can be good tactical point in choosing to go down some of these paths. In this section, I wish to discuss

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such deliberate complication (and we will revisit the matter at the end of the chapter when discussing dispute closures). Independent Rationales Consider independent rationales: say that you were engaged in an enquiry and, at some point where you had a steepish tilt towards one of a pair of clashing moral values, you decided to ‘go counter-intuitive’ and chose to defend the weaker value. Clearly, what you would advance as such a defence would be your best guess as to a satisfactory line of thinking in that role. Despite this, it might not fare too well and, if your tactical motivation in mounting a defence was to challenge your current intuitive leanings, it might prove to be a failure. Even so, you might feel obliged to not give up on ‘going counter-intuitive’. So, what might occur? You could, I suppose, try your other counter-intuitive option, challenging the view that you tilted towards, but say that, for whatever tactical reasons, you did not want to do that. As a result, you choose to try defending your defence, giving a longer argument ‘chain’ in support of the MP being defended. Say that, upon reflection, this still doesn’t achieve much and your sympathies still lie about as much with the opposing value as they did at the start of the whole defence process. What now? You might judge that, no matter how you deepen that particular line of defence, it is not going to change your thinking. So, should you give up on defending and now move to challenging the comparatively more favoured value? Perhaps; but you might decide not to and (for whatever reason) still want to try bolstering the weaker view. Presumably then, as that particular line of defence was getting nowhere, you would think about other possibilities – in short, you might wish to investigate if there might be another, independent, rationale able to be advanced in support of MP, one that fares better as a challenge to our current inclinations (even though not as initially favoured as the one that has just failed in a protracted way to improve its standing). The same sort of thing might occur somewhere in an enquiry when a criticism is being mounted. One line of critical argument might not be faring very well and seems unable to be satisfactorily boosted by appeal to any deeper supporting defences. So, one might abandon that line of criticism for the moment and mount another criticism of the same target moral premise. In effect, this gives us two independent rationales for the same conclusion, CMC say, which was the denial of the target MP. So, the upshot of all of this is that, while I have advised you to try to keep to the minimum the number of lines of thinking that you have in play at one time, sometimes the inadequacies of an existing argument, or argument chain, warrant ‘parking’ it to one side while another line of support is investigated. Note that it is just being put on the ‘back burner’ for the moment. After all, it is not as if it has been 100/0 dismissed and it still counts as a source of lingering doubt about the merits of the more favoured moral value with which it is in dispute. (And, as will emerge in a moment, it might arise from near death in another form.) I will return to the issue of independent rationales when talking of closures in a later section.

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Key Ideas Although independent rationale structures might emerge as a result of unpacking a feral argument, one might also deliberately introduce them if the values initially advanced in defence of one side of clash seem unsalvageably weak despite exploration.

Joint Rationales I turn now to joint rationales. Again, it just might be that when you come to make sense of a feral argument, it turns out that what is present is best captured as a joint rationale structure. But, it might also be that you have good tactical grounds for deliberately crafting such a structure type. There are a few metacognitive situations in which this might occur. Consider the sort of scenario we just entertained, one in which some counterintuitive exploratory defence (or probing criticism) of some MP for other has been mounted and which had the form of a simple structure (or, after development, was a fragment of a more extended chain). Let us say that the defence (for brevity’s sake, I will skip constantly saying ‘or criticism’) doesn’t improve matters and even defending the defence doesn’t help. In short, your attempt at challenging your intuitions is not succeeding in shifting them. As explored above, you might give up and, putting the existing defence to one side, advance another rationale, one independent of the first, in defence of the moral premise in question. But it might not succeed either (not improbable given that it was but your second choice and your first choice failed to change your tilt). What then? Well, you could persist in further attempts at independent rationales, or move to doing the other main counter-intuitive move of criticizing what you favour, rather than defending what you don’t (of which more in a later section). Or, you could just give up on going counter-intuitive (again, of which more in a later section). There is, however, another option that is well worth consideration. At that stage, you have two unsatisfactory independent rationales in defence of some MP. In this case, an example would probably help so, let’s say that the enquiry in question is the ‘lying nurse’ one of Chapter 6 and, given our tendency to favour the ‘respect for moral patients’ value over the ‘patients’ welfare’ one, we try a defence of the latter. As discussed at the end of Chapter 6, this might be already mentally ‘pencilled in’, but say that the decision was to get the defence formally written into the dialogue. We didn’t pursue our dialogue any further in the last chapter but say that our initial defence of the duty to look after a patient’s welfare appealed to a deeper commitment to patients’ happiness. So we would have a descriptive premise linking the two by outlining the connection between welfare (understood as physical health, recall) and happiness. The details of the structure of all of this are beside the present point but it is worth portraying the newly emerged, post-defence, Deep Moral Clash. I would put it as follows:

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Having consulted our intuitions, say that this defence makes no difference and we favour respect over happiness 90/10. As happiness looks to be a fairly basic, or ‘bedrock’, value, it is hard to see how it might be further defended and so we might put this line of defence to one side as not working (even though we did not reach 100/0 ‘closure’ against it). In metacognitive deliberation, say that we decided that trying to defend the ‘welfare’ value was still tactically sound, so we proceeded to mount another, independent, defence (all as per the last section). This time, the rationale for the ‘patient welfare’ duty has nothing to do with the happiness of the patient but with a concern for the wishes of relatives and friends of the patient. Put ferally, the defence is that nurses should maximize patients’ welfare because that is the wish of most of those who are close to the patient. Again, I won’t fuss with the details of the argument structure but I will portray the Deep Moral Clash that it generates. Should a nurse always treat morally good patients with respect for their status as persons even when that runs contrary to the wishes of most of those who are close to the patient?

Although you might see the point in complying with the wishes of patients’ friends and relatives, it might seem to you that this is also well outweighed (say 80/20) by the moral commitment to respecting morally good patients’ status as persons. So, this has been of no great assistance in and of itself. At this stage, we have two independent rationales for maximizing patient welfare: It is for their own happiness; and It is what those close to them want to occur. Neither, however, is of sufficient importance in our mind to outweigh treating morally good patients with respect. However, this is if each is clashing individually with the ‘respect’ value. What if the values driving our two rationales, ones that are unsuccessful when considered independently, were to be combined to make a joint rationale defence – might such a combination outweigh the ‘respect’ value of the critic? Maybe, maybe not; but I trust that you can see that it is sometimes worth playing with such a possibility in an enquiry. A lot depends upon the strength of the individual tilts of the arguments that you are contemplating cobbling together. Clearly two near hopeless defences are not promising as raw material to combine for a joint rationale that has any hope of success. And, in our ‘respect’ scenario above, it indeed probably wouldn’t be worth the effort. Certainly we have discovered that not only does the respect value find itself clashing with the patient happiness value (as a result of our defence of patient welfare), it also clashes with the wishes of most of those close to the patient. Neither matter concerned us very

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much (90/10 and 80/20 tilts, favouring ‘respect’ in each case). And even adding them to make a joint rationale won’t help; they are too slight and won’t add up to enough. However, on other occasions, the individual bits might end up to more of a tilt change when summated. Say that, instead of 90/10 and 80/20, we had individual rationale tilts of 70/30 and 60/40. I trust that you can see the promise of their combination into a joint rationale. Before I leave this, I have a few observations that I would like to make. The first is to note that, much as we have gone down the path of bolstering one side of a dispute (without success so far in our particular example scenario), so (for whatever tactical reason) might we seek to do the same for the other side. ‘Respect’ might not have to face its opposing values alone. The decision as to what cards should be placed on the table and when is, as I had been at pains to emphasize, a matter to deliberate metacognitively upon. The thing to keep in mind is that there are often more cards that could be put on the table and put on the table in ways that go beyond our simple and chained structures of the last chapter. In effect, the list of options facing you has grown once you realize these further possibilities. Recall that, when you were first introduced to the business of carrying out metacognitive deliberation in the last chapter, I said that, before trying to work out what you should do next, it would be an idea to have a robustly complete understanding of what you could do next – the list of available options. At the time, I said that the list came from two sources: first, a bunch of options connected with whatever the most recent substantive argument was and second, whatever unused options were left over from past deliberation. I had my reasons for doing things that way (primarily trying to defer some complications, rather than confusing you with them when the basics were not yet understood) but now I want to revisit and revise my advice about the status of options from the past that have already been used. Think about what we did earlier when discussing deliberately developing an independent rationale (a new one that is distinct from an extant one that has proved ‘wobbly’) in defence of some moral premise or other (which could be a DMP, CMP, CCMP or whatever but we will just call it: ‘MP’). A defence of that moral premise had already occurred so, as per last chapter, ‘defend MP’ is a used option. Thus, as things stand, the advice from the last chapter on the options available would not even have up for consideration the mounting of another defence of MP. Initially in a thread, such option restriction is a good idea – recall what I said about wanting not to generate a spread of ‘for’ (or ‘against’) arguments that constituted an unexamined and unappraised list. This still applies in the early stages of a position’s development – one doesn’t want a premature explosion of rationales for the same proposition. But think about the scenarios that led us to wanting to mount either an independent rationale or (later) a joint rationale. This wasn’t just adding ‘for’ cases for the sake of it without having considered the merits of any of the extant ones. Rather, it arose from the protracted failure of a given extant defence of some moral

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premise (even after development) to gain traction against the moral value with which it is clashing. The option ‘defend MP’ has certainly been used but what emerged was without much profit in terms of trying, counter intuitively, to boost the un-favoured side of the dispute. In such a context, to re-do the option ‘defend MP’ with an independent rationale is not so much giving a supplementary rationale that has been gratuitously added to an existing un-appraised one as it is to be having another go at satisfactorily trying that option. Similarly, if two dubious independent rationales are combined to form a joint rationale, then the combined argument has a different status to the components out of which it was formed and, strictly speaking, is a further go at the option ‘defend MP’ – an option which has already been used twice (by the original rationale and then by the independent new one that would have occurred by this stage in the enquiry). Again though, this is not gratuitous generation of multiple defences. It has only occurred in the face of near failure of earlier attempts. Remember, none of these earlier efforts were 100/0 rejected, it is just that they are unable to improve the fate of that side of the dispute against its rival – even if given further ‘defence of the defence’ style development. So, in short, after a certain amount of unsatisfactory working with an existing offering in service of an option, you might well be tactically advised to have another go (as an independent rationale) and, later, perhaps to combine some such efforts (as a joint rationale). Doing this is, however, something that is not to be rushed into and it is only pursued when an existing extant argument, even when developed, is not succeeding. I’ll revisit the issue later (when we discuss what I will then call ‘track backs’) but that will do for now. The upshot of all of this is that it is a good idea to add to our options lists (for metacognitive deliberation upon) the following ‘catch-all’ option: Revisit some already ‘used’ option.

It might be queried: ‘Why bother to list it like this rather than just keep carrying every option (used or unused) forward for consideration next time?’. We could do this but there are two reasons why I prefer my above ‘catch-all’ way of doing it. One is that it lessens the length of our listings (something that becomes more important as an enquiry goes on). The other is that its unusual style of portrayal in our list reminds us that this is an option that is only to be considered in very special cases. Still, if you want to carry all options forward for completeness of listing, then do so. In effect, when you came to consider the option: ‘defend MP’ (or whatever) your tactical thinking would usually be something like: ‘No, don’t bother to do this as we already have a defence in place and its fate hasn’t been properly considered yet’. It might be, though, that in the sorts of scenarios (protracted failure of extant defences) outlined above, you’d say: ‘Perhaps, although we already have a defence

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in place, given that it is faring poorly, even after further development, we should consider mounting another defence’. The second general observation that I wish to make is a response to a common query: ‘Why not put all of the cards on the table right at the start?’. The quick answer is that you would likely swamp yourself and not have the capacity to intuitively react to, say, five reasons for having nurses lie and four against and a multitude of defences and criticisms and criticisms of criticisms and so on. Best, I suggest, to build complexity in your thinking step by step. Methodically deploy and refine your guiding principles as you go. This way you don’t just have a gut intuitive response to a whole great pile of considerations, you develop your intuitions as you go. This gradual teasing out of things gives you your best chance of getting a better understood and sorted out set of moral principles to apply, not just to the case at hand, but also to other ethical problems. It will also usually be the case that not everything that possibly bears upon the topic will have to be looked at for you to reach confident closure on the issue. So far, I have discussed grounds that you might have for deliberately introducing a more complicated structure type such as an independent or joint rationale. Both of these more complicated types focus upon premises. In each case, it is a matter of having a more complex type of case for some given conclusion that you are concerned to defend. What of our other two complex structure types – independent and joint conclusions – are there circumstances when it might be wise to introduce them? If there are, then I haven’t come across them. It seems indeed that these structures would only appear as a result of unpacking a rather messy feral argument. Key Ideas Apart from developing independent rationales, there might also be good tactical point in bundling some independently weak rationales together to form a joint rationale. This is usually only worth doing if the tilt that results changes one’s metacognitive thinking about the enquiry’s direction. Independent and joint conclusion structures seem without such deliberate point.

Complex Structures and Non-moral Claim Types Although I have made moral propositions a deliberate focus of the book, you already, of course, realize that sometimes the focus of an enquiry is upon the disputed truth status of a descriptive or conceptual proposition as initially deployed as a premise in some argument. Of course arguments concerning the merits of such propositions might be simple or chained but they can also be one of these four more complex types and more or less the same remarks apply as those just made concerning moral propositions.

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Another (Unusual) Type of Simple Argument Structure Way back, in Chapter 4, I said that, in enquiries into professional ethical issues, there were two main types of argument structure that might appear. One was what I called: ‘set inclusion’ arguments. There were sub-varieties of this but the rough idea was that some ethical stance was supported by noting the sort of thing it was and then relating that to some sort of broader principle as, say, an instance of the latter. So, for instance, one might (ferally) defend the view that Bartholomew should be sacked by appealing to the general principle that all employees who are incompetent should be sacked and asserting that he is indeed an incompetent employee (included as a member of the set ‘employees’ and of the set ‘incompetents’). The other type I called: ‘means/ends’ arguments. Again, there were variations on this but the rough idea was that some particular action (or class of actions) was defended by appealing to the consequences of doing it. So, one might defend the position that Bartholomew should be sacked by being (morally) committed to (the end of) efficiency being improved and holding that sacking Bartholomew (the means) would have the consequence that efficiency would be improved. It is such means/ends arguments that I wish to focus upon and contrast with another pattern of argumentation that is also to do with consequences – but in a different way. Sticking with the Bartholomew case for illustration, we could lay our means/ends argument out schematically as follows: MP efficiency improvement  DP Bartholomew’s sacking  efficiency improvement So, MC Bartholomew’s sacking 

(The ticks are ones of moral endorsement and the arrow in the DP is some sort of causal connection with sacking as cause and improved efficiency as effect.) This is all rather roughly portrayed but so far, so familiar, I trust. I am just reminding you of past stuff. Note that the focus of attention in the MC is Bartholomew’s sacking and it is in ‘cause’ (or means) position in the DP claim with some effect being claimed if we were to do the sacking. So, sacking, now, will lead to efficiency improvement, later. In this argument an action is proposed (MC) on the basis of a good consequence that will flow (as effect) from it. As noted, the extra structure type that I am about to outline is best thought of in comparison to our standard means/ends arguments. I will call this new type of simple argument structure: ‘commitments’ arguments. Let’s try an illustrative example. Ferally, we might argue as follows: ‘Sometimes guilty people should escape punishment because that is the outcome of a fair trial process’.

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Put as a structure, we get: MP* The processes of fair trials for alleged offenders should always be carried out. DP* Sometimes carrying out the processes of a fair trial for alleged offenders leads to guilty people escaping punishment. So, MC* On those occasions, guilty people should escape punishment.

Let me lay this one out schematically as well: MP* fair trial  DP* fair trial  not punished So, MC* not punished 

Examine this in contrast to the schematic version of the Bartholomew case and you will see that the key difference is in the descriptive premises. The direction of the ‘causal arrow’ is different. Earlier, we were defending something (the sacking of Bartholomew) by noting some good consequences that flowed from it (as an outcome). Here, though, it is the outcome that is being defended (some guilty party not being punished) on the grounds that it flows from something good (fair trials) as a consequence. This time, looking at the causal relationship, it is the effect that is being defended (as flowing from a good cause) whereas earlier it was the cause that was being defended (as flowing to a good effect). You can imagine how arguments of this sort might crop up. Imagine that the discussion was one about guilty people escaping scot-free sometimes and, in that discussion, the above argument was offered. Basically, the point would be that we are stuck with that situation sometimes happening because it is an occasional result of something that we should support (fair trials). If you like, the line here is that it is a situation that we should be willing to (morally) accept as part of the cost of having a commitment to a ‘fair trial’ justice system. The upshot of all of this is: be careful. If you have some sort of ‘consequences’ type of argument present then have a careful think about just what it is that you take to be going on before you lay it out as a structure. In particular, get straight just what the author is trying to make a case out for. Mostly, consequences arguments will turn out to be some form of our means/ends type but sometimes it will be a ‘commitments’ style of argument that you have – so, careful analysis is enjoined.

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Key Ideas ‘Consequences’ arguments come in two types. The more common is the means/ends type outlined earlier but sometimes an argument will be of what I have called the ‘commitments’ sort.

Deep Moral Clashes and Their Treatment – Revisited Introduction In the last chapter, you were introduced to the basic notion of Deep Moral Clashes; and, above, you had that built upon with our discussion of the possible role of more complex structures in dealing with them. In this section, we’ll look at a range of other matters that bear upon your understanding of these clashes and their treatment. Later, we’ll revisit them under another heading. Issues of Degree – Moral Clashes and Tilts Revisited Some moral agents have a single ‘bedrock’ intrinsic value. For instance, you will have come across the utilitarian maxim: ‘Act always so as to bring about the greatest happiness of the greatest number’. As it stands, it is overly obscure, nonetheless its driving motivation is sufficiently clear for present purposes. What is intrinsically valued is (human) happiness and nothing but human happiness. No doubt other things will be valued but not intrinsically; they will be extrinsically valued only in so far as they are instrumental in helping to maximize human happiness. They will be valued in terms of their consequences and the only consequence that ultimately matters is human happiness. If you act so as to more serve the cause of human happiness than any other action open to you, then, on this view, you have done the right thing. In effect, for such agents, any chain of argument resulting from deepening some initial argument (by defending its MP) will run out with the deepest link having this utilitarian maxim as its MP. Mind you, even with such a single guiding goal, there are practical, or computational, difficulties concerning working out which particular action of a spread of options actually does best serve the cause of human happiness – but they are technical difficulties. Such problems are to do with the truth or falsity of various fact-type premises operating in one’s deliberations. So, for instance, one might reason as follows: ‘I should cheat on my exam because so doing will increase my happiness and do nothing to decrease anyone else’s happiness and no other action open to me will more increase human happiness and I should increase human happiness as much as possible’.

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The trouble with that piece of reasoning is that all of the fact-type premises here seem dubious. Will such cheating really do nothing to decrease anyone else’s happiness? What if the incompetence associated with one’s cheating (despite one being certified as competent) impinges upon others? Is it indeed sufficiently probable that it will even increase your happiness? What are the chances of being caught? And, if caught, how will being known as a dishonest fraud affect your happiness? And is this action really the one that, more than any other available option, will contribute most to human happiness? Maybe dropping one’s course of study and working somewhere to help the plight of starving Africans would be superior in the service of the intrinsic value of human happiness. So, in short, even someone who has only one such intrinsic value, who values only one thing at that bedrock level, is hardly spared difficulty in working out what should be done or how to judge some action of some person. For most of you, however, the situation is more difficult yet again because most of you will have more than one intrinsic, or bedrock level, moral value guiding your actions as moral agent. Why this creates more difficulty is that they will sometimes clash. So, a pressing problem is: What to do in the face of the possibility of such intrinsic moral value clashes. To some extent, we have begun to address this problem already in that the usual form that a counter-argument (criticizing a target argument’s MP) would take would be to suggest that some sort of moral clash is occurring, to say something like: ‘Such-and-such (MP) shouldn’t happen because it clashes with so-and-so (CMP) which is more important’. To date, you have been basically advised to use the critic’s challenge as a vehicle for exposing such disputes and thus as a step towards sorting out your priorities concerning the clashing values (by considering things further, deepening the author’s and critic’s arguments and so on). What I want to do now is flesh out (with a little bit more sophistication) just what might be some of the elements of such an initial moral clash and its resolution. As you know, these clashes usually begin with fairly non-bedrock values that are close to the ethical problem under consideration – an initial argument’s MP and a counter-argument’s CMP if you like. Why would such a moral value clash exist? Basically, there are the two possibilities just touched on. First, if you were to track deeper down the chain of values underlying MP to its moral bedrock, then (at least) one such bedrock value is found and if you track down the chain underlying CMP, then you get a different bedrock moral value (or values). In short, one possibility is that your shallower value clashes, those ones closely tied to the ethical issue at hand, arise because of deeper moral conflicts. So, ultimately the task will be to sort out those deepest, or bedrock, level conflicts as best you can. There is a second possibility though. It might be that the fairly shallow MP/ CMP moral clash is not ultimately derived from a clash at the level of fundamental values. It might be that you only have one bedrock value – like our utilitarian maxim. (Or, if there are more than one, they are not here conflicting, so not generating the problem at hand; I’ll ignore this scenario for the moment.) Recall that these

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fundamental moral values are the motivational drivers of other, shallower, moral principles or judgements. So if ‘author’ and ‘critic’ start off with the same such fundamental driving value, how is it that from that same starting point we generate an MP and a CMP which clash? There are just two ways that this can occur. One is that somewhere we have an illogical argument. The other is that we have a problem with some non-moral premise or premises somewhere – that is, either we have managed to get ourselves in a conceptual muddle or we have an unnoticed conflict (and thus error) in our claims as to what the facts are. Professional ethical enquiries start at the level of a particular problem so of course you are starting things at the shallow end and building depth by various defences and counter arguments. And, when you thereby generate some MP/ CMP clash early in the enquiry, it simply may not be clear to you how it is that you have sympathy with both MP and CMP yet see them as clashing. It might be that the conflict indeed reflects deepest level moral conflicts which you have among a number of bedrock values that do not always agree. Or it might instead be that you have only one bedrock value and that the apparent moral conflict is really just that – apparent – with the real source of the apparent clash being a factual error or conceptual confusion or an illogical argument somewhere in the web of arguments forming your enquiry. For instance, two clashing views about the propriety of cheating might both rest upon the utilitarian maxim we outlined. The shallower level clash about cheating might be explained by, say, a factual disagreement about whether cheating on an examination will or will not have the consequence of causing unhappiness for various people. Because of this dispute as to the facts, two people in deep level agreement might end up in shallow level disagreement. Moreover, by losing metacognitive track of things, such problems might arise in your own thinking when you are, so to speak, both author and critic. How would you be able to tell what is going on in any given enquiry? First, by careful development of the elements of the enquiry and keeping your descriptive premises true as far as you know and, in particular, not having descriptive premises from various arguments in conflict without you noticing. Second, by keeping your concepts as precise and clearly understood as possible. Third, by meticulously ensuring that your arguments are indeed logical. Also, a lot of the work is going to be done in metacognitive reviews in which you try to keep your finger on the pulse of what is unfolding and, in particular, just what you think the emerging areas of contention are.

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Key Ideas Shallow level moral disputes (MP/CMP style) might be driven by deepest level disputes but might occur even when there is agreement about bedrock values. In such a case, the culprit is one or more of the following: a conceptual muddle, a disagreement as to what the facts are, or an illogical argument. These non-moral sources of apparent moral dispute can be tracked/prevented by careful crafting and checking of arguments and careful metacognitive tracking of their relationships.

As you realize, the whole approach that I recommend is a ‘ground up’ one, one in which you grow the enquiry’s depth by careful teasing out of motivations and objections. Again, you might think that it would be simpler to just identify your bedrock values and see what they say about the issue at hand. My reason for not advising this is that most people do not have an adequately clear and precise picture of what, at the most fundamental level, they actually do value. Their grasp of their own bedrock values is likely to mean that they will construe them in too simplistic a way to be a useful guide and basis for simple application to professional ethical issues. One can’t simply apply ethical principles if those principles are illunderstood and it is unclear when they conflict and what is to be done about it. Take the utilitarian maxim that I spoke of above. It might be attractive to you and seem clear enough for application. I assure you that it is not. The way that we have put it masks the existence of sub-varieties and those sub-varieties (all of which could be vaguely expressed in the way I put the maxim) would give different guidance in various ethically problematic situations. Better to ‘bottom-up’ build the complexities of your thinking as needed by the problem at hand, rather than expect to be able to just state an adequately complex set of guiding principles that you can ‘top-down’ apply. Moral Disputes Based on Bedrock Moral Value Conflicts Anyway, say we have some value clash to sort out. Further, I am going to assume for present purposes that it is one that is ultimately generated by a moral clash at the deepest level – one of fundamental, or bedrock, intrinsic moral values (so it is not just a matter of getting our facts wrong or getting in a conceptual muddle or being illogical). So, let us assume that we have teased things out methodically and got to such a deepest level moral clash. In short, we are fundamentally ethically conflicted in our values. What is to be done? Your first thought might be that it is all a matter of sorting out a hierarchy of moral values, one listing them in order of their comparative importance. So, let us say that you have as bedrock values both the value that lying is bad and the value that one should be kind to people (of course, even if you hold these values, they might not actually be bedrock values for you, but shallower ones, but just assume that they are). Clearly these morals might clash. For instance, you may be asked

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a question by a colleague who has written a grant proposal: ‘Is my document any good?’. In your view, the proposal might be dreadful. Saying that it is so satisfies one’s bedrock value against lying. But, let’s plausibly assume, if you say this then the colleague’s feelings will be hurt, self-esteem lessened and so on. ‘Be kind’ seems to enjoin lying to your colleague and pretending that the work is better than it is. The point is that in this scenario you can’t satisfy both values (although in other scenarios they might not clash). In response to this, the hierarchy suggestion would simply place the two values in an order of importance. So, you might say that, although lying is bad, failing to be kind to people is worse. So, in effect, whenever the two clash, you should, on this view, always tell a kind lie. Putting this in terms of our earlier talk of tilts, you would close any such dispute 100/1 in favour of being kind. If such simple rank ordering of values could always be done, then the life of moral agents would be greatly simplified. One way of thinking of such a hierarchy with, say, ‘Be kind’ outranking ‘Be truthful’ is that one could construe the moral prescription ‘Be truthful’ as being somewhat sloppily worded. A more sophisticated version would be: ‘Be truthful unless being truthful clashes with being kind’. In short, write in an exception clause. So, were one to just have a bunch of four values, 1, 2, 3, and 4, ranked in descending order of importance, then sorting out value clashes would be a fairly simple thing (apart from the technical descriptive, conceptual and logical difficulties mentioned earlier). One would always do 1 (assuming that it was an applicable option) and do 2 unless it clashed with 1, do 3 unless it clashed with 1 or 2 and do 4 unless it clashed with 1, 2 or 3. Unfortunately, such simple rank ordering of the relative importance of a number of bedrock values is simply not possible for most moral agents. It is likely that you have more complicated, or nuanced, moral views than that. Say you are, as before, tossing up between two action options: ‘tell the kind lie’ and ‘tell the unkind truth’. In some sense you might rate kindness as more important than truth but it is often not clear cut. Say that the scenario is the following. A person has suggested to an academic journal that she has a new theory of the origin of the universe which she can prove to be true. What would be done by the journal’s editor is to send the paper out to a couple of expert referees for their advice. Say that the putative proof of the paper’s thesis is flawed and that the journal’s referees pick this up. The editor knows that rejecting the paper will upset the author and yet to accept it for publication would be for the journal to tell a lie as to its worth. In such a case, the value concerning truth-telling looms large. It would be such a large lie that you might feel that the degree of un-truth involved outweighs any unkindness shown to the author by the rejection of the paper. But what if the clash between the two bedrock values involves minor lies with considerable unkindness avoided by those lies? The ‘hurt feelings’ versus ‘truth-telling’ dilemma was chosen by me as one which crops up in a number of professional situations – for instance, the contexts of feedback to students, clients and colleagues, formal reports (such as appraisals of colleagues for tenure/promotion), discussions with patients/clients, reports on

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authors’ submissions and so on. It ranges across a spread of professions. (It is not, of course, the only sort of moral value clash professionals face.) Even where you might feel very confident of the rigidity of some hierarchical ordering, worrisome cases can be crafted. Ordinarily, you might feel that preservation of life rates as more important than avoidance of suffering. If, in some decision scenario, you were (never mind why or how) faced with a choice of causing someone pain and suffering for a while or killing someone, I surmise that you would tend to favour causing pain as better, or less evil, than killing. But what if it were a great deal of suffering (very extreme and extended pain indeed for that person) yet on the other option, the person up for death had only a few days of unconscious life to live anyway? Would killing such a person be less evil than causing such horrendous pain to the other person? Many people, faced with this choice, would opt for killing; and would do so despite a rough and ready judgement that killing is worse than causing pain. What is making the difference is the degree, or extent, to which a moral value is satisfied or transgressed in each case. So, when you appraise options and consequences to judge the rightness of actions, a major complication is that it is not as if it is a simple matter of one option satisfying one value and another option another; it’s importantly also a matter of the degree, or extent, to which those values are satisfied. Key Ideas The relationship between values in dispute is rarely clear cut. In particular, things are often complicated by what I call ‘issues of degree’ – the extent to which one value is being satisfied and the extent to which its rival is not (in various clash scenarios).

Tilts Revisited  Recall that, with our tilts, I said that you might get anything from 100/0 to 50/50 to 0/100 the other way. I spoke of this as a rough indicator of the confidence that you had that one value would outweigh the other were they to clash. We are now ready to refine our understanding of this business of tilts. Let’s work through another example scenario. Say that you originally argued that disabled students should be included in mainstream schooling because that was the most effective way of fostering their socialization with their peers and such socialization was important and clashed with no other value that was more important. Say also that, in response to this, a counter-argument was advanced as follows: the academic learning of ordinary students is more important than the socialization of a disabled student and inclusion of a disabled student will indeed interfere with the academic learning of the other (ordinary) students in the class so such socialization does clash with a more important moral value (academic learning).

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You conceive of the Deep Moral Clash in this way: ‘Should the peer-socialization of disabled students be fostered even if it interferes with the academic learning of ordinary students?’. Concerning this, you have sympathy with the critic’s point of view and assign a tilt of 80/20 favouring the critic’s commitment to the academic learning of ordinary kids over the peer-socialization of disabled kids. Assume for simplicity’s sake that, after much enquiry, the bedrock value motivating the author’s thinking is some sort of commitment to the fair treatment of individuals and that motivating the critic is our earlier-outlined utilitarian maxim. (Of course we would want to spend some time clarifying each of these bedrock values but, as when I first outlined the latter, I don’t want to divert to that task of clarification and will leave things obscure as it doesn’t matter for now.) Also, concerning this deepest level clash of fundamental moral values (should happiness be maximized even if its cost is unfairness?), let’s assume that your tilt is 70/30 favouring happiness over fairness (see the section on ‘tilt shifts’, below). Note that our tilt is not 100/0 so we don’t have a neat rank order hierarchy of happiness over fairness available to us. Our ideas are messier than that. So, just what is going on? One way that I have encouraged you to think about a tilt is as a gut-level expression of your confidence in preferring one over another of two clashing moral values. We are now in a position to have a more sophisticated understanding of what is going on here. The 30 that you are assigning to fair treatment can be thought of as a suspicion that in some cases you might prefer to sacrifice happiness for fairness. Now connect this with the ‘issues of degree’ part of the section title. Plausibly, what is going on in these tilts that are not 100/0 or 0/100 closures is a combination of two things. The first is that, say, our 70/30 tilt means that we feel that, mostly, in a happiness versus fairness clash, we’d go for happiness – but not always. The second aspect of these tilts is that, although generally you rate happiness maximization over fairness, things get complicated by what I will call ‘issues of degree’. There are scenarios where the degree, or extent, of unfairness involved in increasing human happiness outweighs the increased amount of happiness thereby achieved. Reread this last bit and have a bit of a think – it is important and I don’t want it to be overlooked as you flow through with the discussion. So, what we have with our ‘non-closure’ tilts is an intuitive appraisal of the chances of one moral value outweighing another and the reason for sometimes jumping one way and other times the other, lies with the varying degrees of satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the values in question in various particular scenarios. I have focused on bedrock moral value clashes because that is where genuinely moral disputes end up but, of course, non-decisive tilts occur at shallower levels as well. Indeed, in most professional ethical enquiries, they occur first at such levels. In this particular example scenario, we had a clash of peer-socialization of disabled kids versus the academic achievements of ordinary kids.

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As you would guess, this is not a dispute that is likely to be resolved by simply ranking the two clashing values in a hierarchy of importance. After all, it is not as if, on one alternative (exclusion), the disabled student will be totally unsocialized and the rest of the class will have maximal academic learning and on the other alternative (inclusion), the disabled student will be maximally socialized and the rest of the class without any academic learning whatsoever. Rather, what will presumably occur with inclusion is more socialization of the disabled student and less academic learning by the rest than were the disabled student not to be included. Your view as to the morality of inclusion will likely depend on just how much better socialized the included student would be and how much academically worse off the rest would be – and that might vary from particular situation to particular situation. We’ll revisit things below in the section on ‘dispute closures’, but it may be that the upshot of all of this will be something rather more complex than simply being in favour of, or against, the inclusion of disabled students in regular schools. You might end up favouring it sometimes, in some circumstances, for some such kids, depending on just how much their socialization changes and how much such inclusion (or not) connects to the sort of fairness that you have finally worked out to be one of your bedrock values. Mind you, it will also depend on the degree to which other students’ academic learning is affected and thus, ultimately, how much human happiness is thereby downgraded. Finally, realize that many issues don’t involve the prioritization of just two clashing values. You may have a bundle of merits (of differing degrees and importance) of some action being weighed up against a bundle of demerits (again of differing degrees and importance). Recall the more complicated structures of an earlier section in which appeal was made to more than one value in support of a conclusion (which could well be the conclusion of a counter-argument) and you will imagine how complicated things can become. Of course a good many merits or demerits might end up tracking down to rather fewer bedrock or fundamental values that are motivating such judgements. My advice remains, though: grow the complexity through metacognitively deliberate unfolding of it and don’t expect to be able to just put it all on the table at once without suffering muddle. Key Ideas Appeal to the previous point about ‘issues of degree’ can help us understand what is going on (at least in part) when we have a ‘non-closure’ tilt present.

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‘Voices’ Revisited In the illustrative enquiry used in Chapter 6, we introduced the idea of ‘voices’. There, our third ‘voice’, one critical of the ‘respect’ value, was one that was a ‘first cousin’ of the CMP1 that it was criticizing. Like CMP1, CCMP1 generally favoured respect over welfare, it just had a more restricted view about when that respect should be issued (only to the morally good). We had CCMP1 outweigh CMP1 90/10 and thus, with that preference in the internal dispute between the critics, we were focused on a single Deep Moral Clash – CCMP1 versus MP1. But sometimes things will not be this neat. In our dialogue, the second and third voices were both variations on the ‘respect’ theme with MP1 as the common foe, and, in a sense, getting straight which version of the critic we tended to favour was wise before revisiting the issue of patient welfare. So, a three-cornered contest? – yes, but two corners (the two critics) were fairly closely aligned. Some enquiries might end up with voices that are more distant from each other than that. In this section, I’d like first to briefly discuss such scenarios and then I will go on to another matter. More Severely Disagreeing Voices  Let me illustrate with an enquiry that I will but briefly sketch, one quite different from the ‘lying nurses’ one and drawn from another profession, teaching. I won’t bother laying all of the arguments out in full. Say that the topic was what the primary focus of school curricula should be. Say further that the initial stance on this was that the primary focus of school curricula should be on literacy, numeracy and IT competence. Why? – Because that is what most employers want and schools should do whatever most employers want. All a little bit feral and no doubt it would benefit from some TLC but it will do for present purposes. In particular, we have the driving moral motivation, the moral premise, of this argument explicitly present – that schools should do whatever most employers want them to do. Say that we proceeded to criticize that moral premise (MP) along the lines that it was of utmost importance to have a society in which as many people as possible have shared moral values and a key ingredient in having this happen is for schools to have indoctrination of those values as a primary focus despite this interfering with doing what employers want. Again, I won’t fuss with the detail but I will portray the Deep Moral Clash, to wit: Should schools do whatever employers want even if the result would be that fewer members of society would have shared values than would otherwise have been the case?

Fine; now say that, for whatever reason, after metacognitive deliberation our decision is to criticize the critic’s CMP. So, as an argument disputing that view

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(that as many people in society as possible should share moral values) we might get the following feral: Everyone should have maximum freedom of thought and, as the only way that maximizing shared values in citizens can occur is by restricting some citizens’ freedom to hold unpopular values, society should not have as many citizens as possible sharing values.

Explicitly in the first clause, we get the CCMP and its commitment to freedom of thought. I will, in this case, pause to give a rough and ready working definition of ‘freedom of thought’: to have one’s freedom of thought maximized is, to the maximum extent possible, to have only those values, beliefs and so forth that one chooses to have (including via rational persuasion). This is still a bit murky but it will do for now. So, the Deep Moral Clash with the original critic is clear enough: Should as many people in society as possible have shared values even if it’s at the cost of lessening freedom of thought?

So, we have two Deep Moral Clashes so far: MP versus CMP and CMP versus CCMP. But, as you might have guessed, this last ‘voice’ doesn’t just dispute its intentional formal target, CMP, it also disputes MP. How so? Well, getting what employers want might be at the cost of some freedom of thought. To help see this possibility, look back at the initial argument: what employers seem to be wanting is a suite of knowledge and skills to do with literacy, numeracy and IT to be present in school leavers; but what if some of the students involved would not freely choose to have such knowledge? It looks, according to MP, that the schools should do what employers want regardless of what students might want to be the contents of their minds, regardless, that is, of how they might want to exercise freedom of thought. So, we have two quite distinct clashes involving the initial MP, the ‘values’ dispute with CMP (which was deliberate) and the CCMP ‘freedom’ one which is accidental, a by-product of the deliberate CCMP dispute with CMP. This is all to be kept careful track of in metacognitive reviews. And it may well be that the way the enquiry unfolds means that one criticism of MP is ultimately defeated (and that thread is thus closed) but that still leaves the other one not, or not yet, defeated. And, curiously, it might be that the deliberately mounted criticism (CMP in this case), which was your ‘first cab off the rank’ as a line of objection, is the one that fails and (after some exploration) the ‘accidental’ one succeeds. Stranger things than this occur when you start exploring the complexities of a topic in some depth – which makes the point again that your first thoughts in an enquiry into some professional ethical issue are unlikely to be your last ones: surprises happen.

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Deliberate Creation of Voices In the above case (and our earlier ‘lying nurses’ one from Chapter 6) we had the unintentional creation of a third voice. That it was present in the enquiry was only realized upon careful and methodical metacognitive review after the crafting of the argument containing CCMP. In effect, the enquiry has accidentally become more complicated in terms of streams of competing ideas than the two-voice dialogue we might have hoped that we were continuing. Although I have recommended that you try not to have too many balls in the air at once, sometimes we might deliberately seek out such complexity; sometimes the introduction of a third (or fourth, or whatever) voice might be done on purpose for good tactical reasons as outlined in an exercise in metacognitive deliberation. How might this go? Say that you have some MP/CMP dispute but realize that the whole enquiry is going to involve investigation of more competing viewpoints than that. You could follow my standard advice and keep things as uncomplicated as possible and just concentrate on that dispute but you might feel that it would be profitable that further complications occur now, that you want to have a wider picture on the table, and in your mind, so that you can sort out bits of it. So, using our curricular aims dispute example, we might explicitly realize that, although we are conflicted about whether it is more important for employers to get what they want or society to share moral values, there is another issue: any such compulsory curriculum is an imposition upon students’ freedom. You might wish to have a spread of such mutually conflicting values all on the table at once. If so, then all I suggest is that you have a very clear idea of just why you think making things messier is a good move and that you keep very careful metacognitive track of such matters in your reviews. Such added complexity is to be viewed with caution. Finally, although I have used an MP versus CMP versus CCMP scenario in my exposition, ‘voices’ multiplication might not occur this early in an enquiry but later down it. One such scenario might be the following: Say that you had an initial MP/CMP two-voice clash and that tilt was not a closure-style 0/100 but something messier. Let’s say that it favoured CMP over MP at 70/30. Accordingly, you play around with defences of the two voices and challenges to various deeper moral premises on each side and craft independent rationales and joint rationales and what-not until a quite multi-layered and manyfaceted rendition of the dispute between those two voices has emerged. In short, you really have teased out the dispute between those two voices. But say that the enquiry is getting nowhere in another sense. You still tend to favour the critic’s side of dispute (no matter what level that dispute has got to) and with some similar sort of tilt as what you started off with – 70/30. That we have not got 100/0 means that you have some persistent doubts about the critic’s web of values (when put up against the author’s). The elaborate teasing out of competing views (including some nuancing involving ‘issues of degree’) simply hasn’t settled things much and you feel that you have ‘hit a brick wall’.

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Sometimes nothing can be done, and things stay messy and unresolved – a scenario that we’ll discuss further at the end of the chapter. But sometimes it is worth introducing another voice as a ‘circuit breaker’. It could be that the 70, and not 100, relative score for the critic in the dispute with the author indicates qualms about the critic’s web of values that simply haven’t emerged in the formal dialogue with the author but are there somewhere in your mind. Sometimes these features can emerge better if the dominant view (in this case, the critic, is put in conflict with a third voice (a critic of the critic). What sometimes emerges from this is that the third voice prevails and the critic’s deepest moral premise so far (which would have been the target for the third voice criticism) gets modified to accommodate successful (100/0) criticism of it. (We’ll come back to this business of modification of a premise – in the face of its successful criticism – in a later section on what I call ‘track backs’, but we did already touch upon it earlier when talking of clashes and possible hierarchies in response to them and exception clauses as a way of expressing hierarchical relationships.) In effect, as a result of the success of the third voice challenge to the critic, some of our niggling, half-conceived of, qualms about the critic’s line of thinking might emerge into the light of day. As a result, we might get a modified, or ‘toned down’, version of the critic’s views emerging. And it might be that this new version of the critic’s view (with the niggle excised) is one that you are more comfortable with and moves you closer to closure against the author. Key Ideas Sometimes extra voices might enter an enquiry without you intending that. If this occurs, then part of the job of a metacognitive review would be to become alert to this development and to chart precisely what is going on so that you can decide what response you wish to make to that development. Sometimes, however, extra voices occur because you deliberately introduce them; this should only occur for good tactical reasons that you explicitly understand.

Tilt Shifts As we have seen a few times, when defences of one or other of a pair of conflicting values occurs, intuitive tilts concerning the new, even deeper, moral clashes can be different to those that preceded them. In this section, I wish to try to ensure that what is happening in this process is not misunderstood. I will look at two different scenarios.

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First Scenario  By now, I hope that I can operate fairly schematically without laborious illustration; so, say that we had an initial argument that was something of this sort: MP DP So, MC

Say that the MP was then challenged to give us this sort of counterargument: CMP CDP So, CMC

Our Deep Moral Clash tilt is, say, 80/20 favouring CMP over MP. So far, so familiar, I trust. In the face of this, say we decided, counter-intuitively, to defend MP; and say that such a defence gives us: DMP DDP So, MP (and) DP So, MC

With such a defence of MP in place, our new Deep Moral Clash is DMP versus CMP. Say that the defence was partly successful in that the new tilt is 70/30, still favouring CMP but slightly less so for the conflict with DMP than was the case against MP. I have said that all of these Deep Moral Clashes are bipolar. The tilt is a relative weighting of one moral value against another, not an absolute endorsement ‘strength’ of any given value. Even were there to be a 100/0 tilt, all that would be being said (tentatively always) would be that whenever the values in question clash, you would, without doubt, always prefer one over the other (and regardless of any issues of degree). A particular value can reach 100/0 closure against another value but still lose out, or be unclearly ranked, against some different value yet again. As I said, tilts are all relative. So, having carried out a defence, are we left with two distinct Deep Moral Clashes here – namely: MP versus CMP and DMP versus CMP? (With the author

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faring marginally better, 70/30, in the deeper, latter, one than in the former one which had a tilt of 80/20.) Not quite; and here is where the main business of the section begins. With DMP (together with DDP, of course) we have provided an argument supporting MP; that was, indeed, the whole point of introducing it. Let’s assume initially that, as with the descriptive premises in our ‘lying nurses’ enquiry, we are near certain of the truth of DDP. If the argument supporting MP is logical (which it should be, unless we have bungled) then your confidence in DMP should ‘bleed down’ the argument to boost MP. So, if you are 30/70 confident in DMP when in clash with CMP, then that boost in tilt rating transfers to MP. In effect, you used to be only 20/80 confident in MP against CMP but now (with DMP) that you have seen a reason for thinking MP, that support would raise your confidence in MP (when opposed to CMP) as well. In short, the tilt weight of your MP versus CMP tilt gets changed to align with your DMP versus CMP tilt. So, although tilts are bipolar, increased confidence in DMP in opposition to CMP affects the MP versus CMP tilt as well. Why? – because MP follows from DMP. Or, to be a bit more careful, it follows with the bridging assistance of DDP. And here lies a complication. We assumed above that DDP was near certainly known to be true. What if it were not? What if one problem with our defence of MP were to be that the value upon which the defence depended, DMP, isn’t very well-connected to MP? For instance, say that in MP we were committed to maximizing the average wealth of citizens and, in its defence, we appealed to the role of increased wealth in making people happier. So, DMP would be a commitment to increasing happiness and the connection of that to MP’s enthusiasm for wealth would be some such DDP as: ‘Maximizing average wealth is an essential part of the package which comprises the best way of maximizing average happiness’. But is that true? You might be anything but near-certainly confident of this (as far as I know, the wealth/happiness connection is highly dubious). Given those hesitations, the support given by DMP to MP is correspondingly dubious. By no means then, will the tilt rating of DMP over some CMP just ‘bleed down’ and automatically boost MP against CMP. So, it requires a moment’s thought as to how tilts associated with the current Deep Moral Clash might affect previous, ‘as deep as you had, at that stage, got to’ Deep Moral Clashes. (We’ll revisit this issue of dodgy supporting defences below when we talk about what I will call ‘messy outcomes’ in a later section.) So, to summarize this first scenario, if DMP, the deeper moral premise offered in defence of MP, fares better than MP in a moral clash with some critic’s CMP, that greater strength of the DMP ‘bleeds down’ the argument and bolsters MP (which, after all, follows from DMP – at least it does given that the descriptive bridging premise(s) are true). Second Scenario  As you mount a defence, another thing to be alert to concerning tilt values is the following. In the above discussed situation, DMP was faring better

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against CMP than MP had (originally, anyway, that is, prior to being defended). And, of course, the whole tactical point of the defence was to try to boost confidence in MP. But what if it failed in this task? After all, if you are carrying it out with a counter-intuitive motivation, then you will be carrying out an exploratory defence of something that you don’t much favour. Given this, it would hardly be surprising if that attempt at fair-minded thoroughness didn’t quite turn out successfully. So, let’s talk about such a scenario. Say that your best ‘go’ at such a defence involved a DMP that, when opposed to CMP as the new and the latest Deep Moral Clash, actually fared worse than MP did in comparison with CMP. In effect, it is an unsuccessful attempted defence. Let’s assume the new Deep Moral Clash tilt to be 90/10 favouring CMP. In such a scenario, would the lower tilt score of DMP against CMP ‘bleed down’ and lower MP’s rating (much as happened in our earlier scenario when DMP rated higher and that higher tilt score bled down)? Let me roughly sketch an example to help us think about this. Say that we had an original argument that had as its moral premise the claim that as many school students as possible should get the highest academic results they can. Say further that a challenge was raised against that MP and that the CMP of that counter-argument stated that no students should suffer high levels of stress. Of course we might want to clarify some of these ideas with working definitions but for present purposes I am not going to fuss. At this stage then, we would have a Deep Moral Clash that can be expressed as follows: should as many students as possible get the highest academic results they can even if that is at the cost of some of them suffering high levels of stress to achieve such results? Say that our tilt concerning this were to be 30/70 favouring CMP’s concern about stress levels. Given this tilt, we ‘go counterintuitive’ and decide to defend MP. The DMP appealed to in that defence is that all students should achieve academic results to whatever level their parents wish (with a connecting DDP to the effect that all parents want the highest possible academic results from their children). So the new Deep Moral Clash might be put as follows: should all students achieve academic results to whatever level their parents wish even if that is at the cost of some of them suffering high levels of stress to achieve such results? Say that our tilt concerning this particular Deep Moral Clash were to be 10/90, still favouring CMP. In effect, the defence has been a tactical failure; far from bolstering our esteem for the author’s case it seems to have lowered it. But one has to be cautious here. Certainly DMP is thought of less well than MP as a rival to CMP and so, in the context of exploring the merits of that author/critic dispute, DMP has proved to be a bit of a blind alley. But just because MP has been defended unsuccessfully by appeal to DMP doesn’t mean that MP is automatically downgraded in esteem. Remember the relationship between DMP and MP is that MP is in the role of conclusion in that little defending argument, with DMP in the role of premise. And it is perfectly possible to have a logical argument with a wonderful conclusion and an absolutely lousy premise. To illustrate: whatever the tooth fairy says is

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true and the tooth fairy says that the Sun rises in the east, therefore the Sun rises in the east. That the premises of this (logical) argument are ridiculous does not detract from the truth of the conclusion. Generally speaking, the same sort of point applies when it is moral propositions that are the key argument elements of which we speak. Generally speaking then, the situation with such a weak defence by DMP of our moral premise MP (now in role as conclusion) is that the DMP low rating does not ‘bleed down’ to MP. All that it means is that the offered defence has failed in its tactical job. We are thus back with MP as not yet satisfactorily backed up and with its tilt rating unchanged. Now as, in our scenario, MP was faring badly in the clash with CMP, things would be beginning to look bad for MP’s comparative merit were it not to be able to be defended in some other way that fared better than DMP did against CMP. This, of course, might well be possible (as explored when we talked earlier of independent and joint rationales). The point is, though, that MP isn’t automatically degraded in its appeal by DMP’s comparative lack of merit. Mind you, as noted earlier, with a successful defence involving a DMP that rated better against CMP, MP would have it is appeal automatically enhanced (assuming the truth of the DDP). There is, then, an asymmetry here about whether DMP’s tilt rating against CMP bleeds down the argument to MP or not. Of course, in either situation, MP’s tilt status is unlikely to be final and may shift as further enquiry ensues. If nothing better emerged by way of a rationale for MP and CMP stayed robust, then we would begin to worry about MP as literally indefensible. Key Ideas Generally speaking, if a defence of an MP generates a higher tilt (against the opposing moral premise) than before, then that tilt score ‘bleeds down’ to improve the rating of the defended MP. If, on the other hand, it is an unsuccessful defence that generates a lower tilt score, then that lower score does not ‘bleed down’.

Tilts And Counter-intuitive Motivations (and an Aside on Criticizing Moral Premises Appearing in Premise Defences)  In the last chapter, I advised that, if you had a steepish intuitive tilt concerning some particular Deep Moral Clash, then a primary tactical motivation guiding your choice of what to do next would be to challenge your current tendencies. The steeper the tilt, the more powerful is the motivation to ‘go counter-intuitive’ (as I put it). In this section, I want to suggest at least one scenario when the tactically smartest thing to do might be to reinforce your current tendencies rather than subject them to challenge. In particular, instead of an exploratory defence of the unfavoured proposition, or a probing criticism of the one you favour, it is sometimes wise to

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go with your intuitions and defend the moral proposition that you favour. Why so? What would be the circumstances that would warrant that? Well, say that, at some stage in an enquiry, when confronted with a Deep Moral Clash between two values (which I will refer to as MP1 and CMP1 in familiar fashion) you have a tilt of 80/20 favouring CMP1 over MP1. In short, your decision to criticize MP1 has been a tactical success and your confidence in MP1 (when put up against CMP1 anyway) has been rather dented. Given this tilt, you make the sound tactical decision to ‘go counter-intuitive’. So, your short-list is: criticize CMP1 or defend MP1. Say that, for whatever secondary motivation, you decide to defend MP1. You do that and the moral premise of the defending argument (call it ‘DMP1’) fares less than robustly against CMP1. So, say that your tilt concerning the latest Deep Moral Clash, DMP1 versus CMP1, is unchanged at 80/20. Still acting counter-intuitively, you have another go at defence and defend DMP1. Still not much success; the tilt for DDMP1versus CMP is 75/25. Perhaps, though, although it was the first line of defence you thought of, the DMP1 to DDMP1 ‘chain’ is not the best way to support MP1 and you can’t see that any further development (say, by digging down to some DDDMP1) is likely to help. Accordingly, you might decide that it is tactically sound (still in the spirit of ‘going counter-intuitive’) to explore another line of defence of MP1, a rationale independent of the existing DMP1/DDMP1 chain of support. So, call the moral premise of this new, second, defence of MP1, ‘D2MP1’. This gives, as our new Deep Moral Clash, D2MP1 versus CMP1. Say our new tilt is 85/15 favouring CMP1 over D2MP1. This is still not a defence that is managing to outweigh the critic’s CMP1. Indeed, it is faring even worse than the first line of defence did, especially after that first defence’s development to DDMP1. Now what? Well, you might play around with deepening this new defence by defending D2MP1 but, for brevity, let’s say that you can’t see how this might happen in any way that looks at all promising in terms of tilt adjustment. So, two failed defences and it might not seem to you that anything else that has more hope can be said by way of yet another independent rationale in defence of MP1. It might occur to you to try combining the two independent rationales to make a joint rationale but, even though the whole is sometimes more intuitively attractive than the mere sum of the independent tilt values might suggest, say that that doesn’t work either and CMP1 outweighs the combination of DDMP1 and D2MP1 60/40. This is tantalizingly close to 50/50 but it is the culmination of extended counter-intuitive effort and say that all of the ammunition available in defence of MP1 has been used up. Perhaps we could, still in the spirit of counter-intuitive thoroughness, try our other counter-intuitive option, namely ‘criticize CMP1’. Consider the question of ‘voices’ however. Such a criticism couldn’t be in the voice of the author because, for it to change anything tilt-wise, whatever card was put on the table as a CCMP1 would have to be a new value yet the history of the enquiry to date has been that everything relevant to the dispute between author

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and critic that the author might have to offer has already emerged in the guise of various defences – and without result. So, perhaps a criticism of CMP1 done from a non-author perspective, a third voice, could be a path forward? Maybe. But recall that all of these Deep Moral Clashes and their related tilts are one-on-one affairs. Even if CMP1 lost out in comparison with a ‘third voice’ CCMP1, that doesn’t automatically help MP1 (and its defences in whatever depth and combination) against CMP1 as that dispute is a distinct one. Remember that your tactical motivation for even considering doing this is one of doing a thorough job of going counter to your intuitions concerning the dispute between author and critic (MP1 versus CMP1 and later developments). Given that motivation, the only chance of relevance for a third voice challenge to CMP1, is that the new CCMP1 (or some deeper moral premise in defence of it if that line became further developed) would, by success, eventually force some modification to CMP1 and then that such a modified CMP1* would be less attractive than the original when put in clash with the DDMP1 plus D2MP1 combined rationale. I suggest that you pause for a second, reread slowly and thoughtfully, and try to ensure that you are following all of that. Again, for brevity’s sake, let’s assume that nothing like this looks to be a ‘starter’ or, if tried, it doesn’t make any difference to things with respect to the author/critic clash. (This doesn’t mean that such a CCMP1 versus CMP1 Deep Moral Clash might not be bearing helpfully on the current ‘author versus critic’ concern; it is just that it did not shift your sympathies on that clash series.) What now? You really really have tried to challenge your intuitions and, although some shift has finally occurred in tilt steepness, the direction is unchanged – you still favour author over critic, although now with rather more doubt. Look at what has occurred and there has been considerable development of the author’s case but none of the critic’s. That case has faced an expanding array of opposing values but remains in its original form. Perhaps if it were to be developed more, we could not just balance the depth of argument on each side of the dispute more but, by going pro-intuitive, resolve the doubts that we have comprehensively explored to no final avail and be able to move to closure in favour of the critic over the author. For such reasons then, we would be metacognitively warranted in ceasing to try to challenge our intuitions and, instead trying to boost them by going pro-intuitive. This could be by challenging D2MP1 or DDMP1 or by defending CMP1. And, if a challenge to the author’s defending values, it could be in the voice of the critic (in which case more of the critic’s values will emerge as challenges to the author’s deeper values) or in some third voice. Probably, given the relative lack of development of the critic’s case, it would be tactically unwise to add further voices at this stage and, if you are to do a new criticism of the author’s deeper case, then why not have it from the point of view of the critic, thereby further developing the current dispute rather than adding others?

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An Aside This is almost not an aside as it fits the flow of things here quite well but skipping it and returning to it at the section’s end is possibly wise. I said above the one option might be to criticize D2MP1 or DDMP1. More generally, sometimes an option is to criticize some moral premise (which I will just generically talk of as DMP for short) offered in defence of some other moral premise (again, just generically MP for short). This might occur early or late in an enquiry. In our scenario here, it is ‘late’ and after quite a bit of development and our motivation is to go pro-intuitive. But it might be that the defence of some initial MP is the very first thing that occurs and we then decide to criticize the DMP (we touched on this early in Chapter 6 in another aside in a section entitled ‘What Next?’). Moreover, such a criticism might be a counter-intuitive ‘probing one’. Anyway, however early or late, and whatever the motivation, why would one criticize DMP and not MP? Consider the following argument: A7/7 DMP1 No one should be a financial burden upon society unless them being unable to financially support themselves is unavoidable. DDP1 All unemployable school-leavers are financial burdens upon society who are not able to financially support themselves but whose inability is avoidable. So, DMC1/MP1 All school-leavers should be employable. DP1 Having all schools aim at having all school-leavers employable is an necessary part of the most efficient and effective means for having all school-leavers employable. So, MC1 All schools should have the aim of having all school-leavers employable.

So, in this case, a counter-argument against A7/7 would be an argument which had as its conclusion some form of denial of DMP1 rather than of MP1. But why? Think about the ways in which an argument can go wrong. Recall that there were only two: a logical hole or an unacceptable premise. Now consider MP1; say we were to wish to criticize it. MP1 has, however, already been defended; wearing its other label as DMC1, it was supported by DMP1 and DDP1. Given that it has already been argued for, it is immune to criticism unless there is something wrong with that defending argument. Were the argument to be perfect, with acceptable premises and a hole-free logical move from them to DMC1, then DMC1 (that is, MP1) would be established. A criticism of MP1 can only be successful if there is something wrong with the defence it has already received. So, criticizing MP1 presupposes criticizing the argument raised in its defence. But, as I just reminded you, there are only two things that can go wrong with that argument. One of them is already checked by the time that we have got to this stage of the enquiry.

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We have already satisfied ourselves that there is nothing wrong with the move of logic in either of these component arguments of A7/7 when we automatically carried out our logic criticism/patching exercises. So, unless we bungled, the only thing that remains to go wrong with that defence of DMC1/MP1 is an unsatisfactory premise. The problem might lie with either (or both) of DMP1 or DDP1. In short, when working out what to criticize in a chained argument, it is rather silly to criticize a premise (in this case we’ve talked of a moral premise) that has a defence sitting above it. It is best to go down to the elements of the supporting case and to subject them to critical attention. Commonly, if you have been careful in keeping your descriptive claims true as far as you know, then the focus of your attention will be whatever the deeper moral premise is and it will be that DMP rather than the MP which is subjected to premise criticism. End of Aside Returning to our flow, we were considering criticizing the author’s deeper story. Mind you, rather than challenging the author’s line of thinking from the point of view of the critic, if one were to be interested in developing the critic’s side, it would be just as well done by simply defending CMP1; and that is what I would do as it is the easier path to keep track of. (And, on that point, you can see how the diagrams of the last chapter, especially the second, landscape, sort that charted relationships among the substantive arguments, would help you to not get lost in all the moves.) Anyway, the point is that sometimes is worth developing the view that you favour, going pro-intuitive, especially if you have already satisfied the demands of intellectual thoroughness by having a good go at counter-intuitive explorations. Key Ideas Sometimes, when counter-intuitive moves have been exhausted without success, it is tactically sensible to reinforce your intuitions by defending the favoured view or criticizing the unfavoured one.

Dispute Closures Introduction This is one of the more important sections for, unless you are to argue back and forth for ever, the hope is that in some clashes you will be confident enough to (100/0) close the dispute in favour of one or other of the clashing propositions (as complicated by issues of degree perhaps). As explained earlier, one of the explicit intentions of extended enquiry is to go beyond one’s first impressions and delve into the depths of the issues and beliefs that underlie the initial problem

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or topic. These issues can be of any of our three types and a common result of deep enquiry is to discover that one’s deeper beliefs and values are in conflict. Much of the ‘to-ing and fro-ing’ of enquiry is an attempt to sort out those deeper conflicts. If some dispute is, at some stage, still unresolved, then the result of metacognitive deliberation would be some further argument, one teasing out some further elements of your thinking. This is done in the hope that, with more ‘cards on the table’, your priorities, or beliefs, might become clearer, more resolved and you can move to closure. In what follows, I will explain and illustrate the sort of thing that occurs when one finally does get clear just which way one wants to (100/0) close on some dispute. I have emphasized that, as they are the primary motivators of your judgements, moral issues loom high on the agenda as important to get sorted (and we’ve seen that moral disputes are usually complicated by what I have called ‘degrees of goodness’). Such disputes will be our initial focus. As we have an enquiry involving a series of such disputes available from the last chapter, I’ll use that ‘lying nurses’ enquiry as my example here. (You might want to quickly reread it if you don’t find my summary below sufficient of a jog to your memory.) ‘Track-backs’ Recall that, crudely put, we had an initial argument that was motivated by the moral principle that nurses should have patient welfare as their highest priority (MP1). The driving motivation for the criticism of this was a rival moral principle concerning respect for patients’ status as persons (CMP1). It was decided to challenge that and the basis of the challenge was the view that such respect should be limited to those who are not morally bad (CCMP1). In the last chapter, the tilt that we had concerning the clash between CCMP1 and CMP1 favoured CCMP1 90/10 over CMP1. After some consideration of voices, we also had CCMP1 and MP1 in clash and, in that case, had a tilt of 90/10 against MP1. As we had only an 80/20 tilt favouring CMP1 over MP1 and given our favouring of CCMP1 over CMP1, we decided to focus on CCMP1, not CMP1, as the source of criticism of MP1. After some deliberation, we decided that ‘defend MP1’ was the tactically soundest next move. We left it there, without implementing our decision. In this section, I’d like to borrow the first three substantive moves, or arguments, of that enquiry (it saves time and you are already familiar with it). For present purposes, however, I am going to suppose that, when it came to doing our metacognitive review after CCA1, we didn’t have a 90/10 tilt but a 100/0 one. In short, say that we were totally persuaded by the criticism of CMP1 and the option we would choose is thus ‘accept CCA1’. Pause for a moment to think about how we tended to approach the issue of deliberating upon our options. Basically, the first decision to be made about any given dispute was whether we were ready to (100/0) ‘close’ on that dispute or not if not, then we had a closer look at the other ‘opening out’ options and started

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weeding them by, say, ‘going counter-intuitive’ as a primary tactical motivation and so on. Consider also that we realized in our Chapter 6 review, that is, prior to any deliberative decision-making, that we had CCMP1 clashing with MP1 as well as CMP1 clashing with it. At this point, for this section’s expository purposes, I am going to assume that the review was sloppily and incompletely done. In particular, assume that we simply did not properly think about the issue of ‘voices’ and thus did not notice that we had that ‘third voice’ versus ‘first voice’ dispute on our hands. Accordingly, when we consider our options, the list is going to be shorter than before (owing to our supposed incompetent metacognitive review) and thus we are focused upon the CCMP1 versus CMP1 clash as the new element in the enquiry. As I’ve said, in this illustrative scenario, we are supposing that we are 100/0 bowled over by the criticism of CMP1 and thus any further deliberation upon options is otiose; we simply accept CCA1. This is, of course, going to mean that the version of the enquiry that we pursue here is going to go down a different path to that of last time (as just said, last time we foreshadowed a defence of MP1). So, given that we are ready to ‘close’ the CCMP1/CMP1 dispute in favour of CCMP1, what happens next? It is this that I wish to explain and illustrate in this section. Mind you, such acceptance is an implausibly swift outcome and it is likely that most enquiries would not reach a decision on a clash this quickly and the judgements as to the relative importance of various values would be nuanced by what, in an earlier section, I spoke of as issues concerning the degree, or extent, of satisfaction, or transgression, of a value. I am simply going to ignore such subtleties and, to illustrate the concerns of this section, I am assuming that we are satisfied with a simple rank ordering of the two values regardless of their degree and without further enquiry. What happens next? Well, any such closure decision is not isolated; it has consequences. Let’s trace them. If our tilt is 100/0 favouring conditional respect over unconditional respect, then that amounts to accepting CCA1 (given that it is logical and its other premise is true). Now, if CCA1 is accepted, this means that, to our present satisfaction, it establishes its conclusion. But its conclusion, CCMC1, denied CMP1. So, if CCMC1 is accepted, CMP1 is rejected. In short, the original critic’s argument, CA1, has had its key foundation, CMP1, kicked out from under it. We no longer have the apparently unconditional sympathy that we had for the view that all nurses should treat all patients with respect for their status as persons. But to reject that premise is not to have to reject it in an extreme way. Our agreement with the criticism of it does not force us to abandon CMP1 to the extent of saying that no nurses should ever treat any patients with any respect for their status as persons. Nonetheless, CMP1 can’t now stay as it is. Given our enthusiasm for CMP1 prior to the advent of CCA1, my suggestion here (and generally) is to make an adjustment to CMP1, but one which is the

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slightest one possible. CCA1 has forced a rethink, so CMP1 can’t stay as it is but how much do we have to back off? – just to the extent that our agreement with CCA1 dictates. So, I suggest making the smallest adjustment that still results in the modified CMP1 (let’s call it ‘CMP1*’ to mark the change from the original CMP1) accommodating the success of that criticism of the original version of it. So, consider this: CMP1* All nurses should treat all patients who are not morally bad (to a certain extent) with respect for their status as persons.

This satisfies the demand that we ‘tone down’ CMP1 just enough so that the new CMP1* accommodates the successful criticism (a process I sometimes call: ‘fiddle and fix’). So, what next? Well, with that adjustment to the moral premise, we have begun the process of (what I call) tracking back down our enquiry to see the consequences of our decision to accept CCA1’s criticism of CA1. The closure decision has consequences and it is a matter of tracking back down the enquiry to identify what they are and to make the appropriate changes to your thinking in response to that closure decision. The next part of that backtracking is to see what adjustments are required elsewhere in CA1 to restore its mesh and validity. After all, its original form was laboriously checked so that all of its bits meshed and the premises entailed the conclusion. Now we have intruded a new (italicized) element into the moral premise, an idea that that is present nowhere else in the argument; clearly then, the argument won’t any longer be in mesh (or logical). Also, that new element weakened CMP1 and the resultant CMP1* might not now ‘say enough’ to (in combination with CDP1) entail CMC1. So, a rewrite is probably in order. Sometimes this will only involve the other premise (or premises), sometimes just the conclusion, sometimes both and, very rarely, nothing at all. You will have to judge each argument on its own merits. In any event, the tasks are to restore mesh and validity. In this case, I suggest the following as a revised version of CA1. CA1* CMP1* All nurses should treat all patients who are not morally bad (to a certain extent) with respect for their status as persons. CDP1* Sometimes, maximizing a not morally bad (to that extent) patient’s welfare entails treating her without respect for her status as a person. So, CMC1 On those occasions, it is not a nurse’s primary responsibility to maximize his patient’s welfare.

Note that, in this particular case, CMC1 did not get changed in its wording. It is important to note this because it means that, although CCA1 has shown us that the original CA1 was flawed, toning it down to make it cease to be vulnerable to that criticism has not weakened it so much that CA1* has ceased to operate as

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a criticism engaging with MP1. CMC1 denied MP1 and, being unchanged in the revised argument, of course it still does. So, in this case, the backtracking exercise ceases with the rewrite of CA1 into CA1*. Sometimes, especially if such a closure occurs later down an enquiry, backtracking might go further as we trace a ripple effect back through a series of connected arguments as far as its influence goes. If we now did a metacognitive review of events, (as we should do) it would be worth reminding ourselves of the dynamics of the enquiry as part of that. Remember that we were assumed to have been sloppy in our previous review and not noticed the ‘third voice’ clash with MP1. In this particular enquiry, our error has, in large part, corrected itself. Look at the general thrust of CCA2 from Chapter 6 and at CA1* and you should see similarities and it would be astonishing dim-wittedness were the above congruence of third and ‘fiddled and fixed’ second voice criticisms of MP1 not to now begin to loom into a reviewer’s consciousness so that belated appreciation of the CCMP1/MP1 clash now occurred. However, not always will errors be fortuitously retrieved like this, so thoroughness in the first place is enjoined. In any event, a post ‘fiddle and fix’ review is important in order to find out just where the enquiry is at. I would do this new review something like the following: In my initial argument, I warranted nurse dishonesty by appealing to patient welfare. In probing criticism of this, I was motivated by a commitment to respect for patients’ status as persons, a respect that would sometimes not be in the interest of a patient’s welfare. Having sympathy with the criticism, I chose to subject it to critical scrutiny. It occurred to me that perhaps I was too sweeping in my commitment to respecting people. Does just anyone at all deserve such respect? – maybe not. Accordingly, my criticism of the ‘respect’ moral premise proposed that such respect should be limited to those who are not morally bad, rather than apply to everyone. Upon reflection I was satisfied that I was confidently enough in agreement with this to accept this criticism of CMP1. This meant that CMP1 had to be adjusted to accommodate the criticism. Having adjusted CMP1 to CMP1, I made other adjustments to the elements of CA1 to restore mesh and validity – giving CA1*. In this case though, softening the tone of the criticism made no difference to its capacity to continue to critically target MP1. So where am I left? – with an original argument having its MP challenged by a criticism, a criticism that has been modified somewhat but which was not seriously upset by its earlier version having to be changed in the face of successful challenge. Reflecting upon things, I think that I was incompetent in my lack of consideration of the issue of the ‘voice’ of the CCMP1 value. I suspect that this was because, as soon as I articulated it, I was totally convinced of the CCA1 criticism of CMP1 (which struck me then as too simplistically sweeping). My attention was thus to focus upon that dispute and I was illegitimately rushing on to adopt the next path forward. I now see that where I have ended up with the CMP1* versus MP1 Deep Moral Clash is much like what I would have had with a ‘third voice’ CCMP1-based criticism of MP1. Not quite, though, as CCMP1

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is more general and one can see CMP1* as a subsidiary principle of it. For the moment, I will continue down the path I have begun (with CMP1*) but keep in mind the broader motivation (CCMP1) that the ‘qualified respect’ line of criticism seems to have at the heart of it. Some such review as this helps you to keep track of things, especially when they get complicated. The only remaining Deep Moral Clash is, then: ‘Should all nurses’ primary responsibility be maximizing patient welfare even in situations where fulfilling that responsibility has, as its cost, treating patients who are not morally bad (to a certain extent) without respect for their status as persons?’. And, as it is a new clash, I should revisit my tilt. Say that, in this case, it is 90/10 in favour of CMP1*. Curiously, a successful criticism of the critic has firmed my enthusiasm for the general thrust of the respect point by removing a weakness present in the original, overly sweeping, CMP1. Of course, other challenges to CA1/CA1* might be mounted. And although this criticism, despite its success, has not disturbed the critical power of CA1/ CA1* against MP1, some other challenge to CA1* might be more damaging. So, perhaps our best next move would be to try another challenge, this time targeted at CMP1*. Such a challenge might be another ‘fourth voice’ or might be a ‘first voice’ response by the author and rest on some deeper value of the author as its driving motivation. Or, for that matter, we might just defend the unfavoured MP1 as our counter-intuitive response to our preference for CMP1* over MP1 in cases where they clash. For now, let us assume that the last option is selected for much the same tactical reasons as we had in Chapter 6 at the end. That metacognitive decision made, we would set about trying to implement it. In a real enquiry, something promising would probably emerge as development of the author’s case. In this illustration, however, I am, for brevity’s sake, going to assume that either nothing emerged at all, or that it did but, upon some further exploration, the defence failed to improve the tilt. In such a case, we might try our other counter-intuitive option – criticize CMP1* from a fourth voice point of view. But say that no promising lines of value conflict with CMP1* seemed to emerge. We are thus left with the dispute between MP1 and CMP1*. In effect, no matter how we set out to dispute or outweigh CMP1*, we fail. Such sustained failure would probably firm our support for CMP1*. Say that it did and, in its dispute with MP1, we decided to close 100/0 in favour of CMP1* over MP1 (perhaps after the sort of pro-intuitive defence of CMP1* we touched upon in an earlier section). So, what now? Well, having closed on another clash, we repeat the process. I’ll do this in a minute but first I want to digress to discuss something. An Aside A moment ago we revised CA1 (having fiddled with its moral premise). In that argument, it turned out that CMC1 could stay as it was. In other arguments, it may well be that, when you make adjustments to suit the revised moral premise this

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isn’t so and, the conclusion has to be adjusted to fit in with the new premise. If that happens, then there are two possibilities. One possibility is that it gets so mucked about that is no longer capable of denying whatever premise was its target. If this happens, then the result of it having been successfully criticized is that it has ‘had its teeth pulled’ as a source of criticism of its intended target. Had this happened in the enquiry that we are playing with, then we would have been left at the end of our backtracking with just A1 ‘on the table’. CA1 would have been so successfully criticized as to have been demolished to the point that it would be useless in performing its role in life: denying MP1. So, in such a scenario, when carrying out our metacognitive review we would have construed events as an enquiry that had attempted to mount a criticism of a key premise (MP1) of our initial argument but, after that criticism was itself successfully criticized, the enquiry was left where it started: with A1; an argument that is, so far, unsuccessfully challenged. What next? – probably another criticism of MP1, one appealing to entirely different grounds for concern. Or, if the other premises had not been as immune to criticism as our DP1 happened to be, perhaps a challenge to some other elements of the author’s case (‘well, I have finally decided that the moral principles upon which your case is based seem OK but I’m not sure that you have your facts straight ...’). What would probably be premature is accepting A1. The other possibility is that, even though CMC1 gets changed as a result of adjustments to the rest of the argument, the changes make no difference to its power to deny MP1. In this scenario, the changes are harmless changes that don’t stop the critic’s argument doing its critical job. In such a case, the situation is much like the one we were discussing before our aside: changed or not, the important thing would be that we still had a viable criticism and thus a Deep Moral Clash (MP1 versus CMP1*) to think about. End of Aside OK, let’s go back to where we were. A1’s MP1 was under challenge by the revised CA1*. In that ‘CMP1* versus MP1’ Deep Moral Clash, our scenario was that the weakened (but, as a result, more sophisticated) version CMP1* was now even more attractive to us but not decisively so. After further attempts to bolster MP1 and/or unsettle CMP1* had failed, we decided that CMP1* was sufficiently attractive to us to decisively outweigh MP1 so that we 100/0 tilted to close that dispute in its favour. And that is where we left off for the aside. All of that amounts to saying that CA1* has, to our (always tentative) satisfaction, proved its conclusion and thus proved MP1 to be unacceptable. Now what? As was done with CMP1, we try adjusting MP1 so that the revised version is immune to (by accommodating) the criticism and then proceed to make whatever changes we have to make in the rest of the argument to restore mesh and validity. So, what changes are forced upon MP1 by the success of CA1*? We could try this:

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This amounts to us putting in what constitutes an exception clause. Usually this sort of thing is fine (indeed, it is a common form of ‘fiddle and fix’ modification and we touched upon it earlier when discussing rank ordering as a response to having competing values; mind you, as was also said then, things can be complicated by ‘issues of degree’). It does, though, read oddly in this particular case. If patient welfare is being over-ridden, then it seems odd to still talk of it as a primary obligation, even with the ‘unless’ clause. Perhaps it is over-fussing about wording but keep in mind that words are the vehicle for your ideas and imprecision concerning them has some potential for generating muddles. Anyway, try this as a less jarring go at revising MP1: MP1* All nurses should maximize the welfare of all of their patients unless this involves treating some patients who are not morally bad (to a certain extent) without respect for their status as persons.

As before, we can’t leave things like that and other adjustments will be in order to restore mesh and validity. So, try the following for the rest of the argument: DP1 Sometimes, in order to maximize a patient’s welfare, it is necessary for a nurse to lie to them about their medical condition. CP1 To lie to anyone about their medical condition is a case of not respecting their status as a person. So, MC1* On those occasions upon which it is necessary to lie to a patient in order to maximize their welfare, a nurse should do so unless the patient is not morally bad (to a certain extent).

Rather involved and wordy isn’t it? But read it thoughtfully and you will see how the bits all do some work. Note that the revised premises don’t yield the original conclusion but only a qualified one. In this case, the changes in MP1* necessitated a revised MC1* but left DP1 as it was. We have, however, put in another premise to make a connection explicit and, note that this premise is a conceptual one – I am taking it as saying that the very idea of respectful treatment entails not lying to someone about their medical condition.

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So, let’s do a metacognitive review concerning where we have ended up on this thread of possibility. Not only did the original argument suffer (ultimately) successful criticism and have to be changed to accommodate it, those changes extended to the conclusion. In this case, MC1 had to be ‘toned down’ to MC1* in order to get something that actually validly followed from the modified premise set that the successful criticism forced upon the author. This means that, as a line of support for the original MC1, an A1 style of argument has proved a failure. If we keep the original MC1, the premises that entailed it are flawed (in that MP1 was shown unacceptable). But change MP1 to the more acceptable MP1*, and MC1 is no longer entailed, only the more restricted, or ‘toned down’, MC1*. In short, a process of criticism has established to our satisfaction that the original line of argument was flawed. In no form does it provide a satisfactory case for its intended conclusion, MC1. What is to be done in the face of this result? As usual, there are options. Remember that A1 was advanced as a central, important, line of argument for MC1. Presumably, we had, at that time, considerable enthusiasm for MC1 and were trying to articulate our main reason for that enthusiasm. This enthusiasm might still be present but it is not able to be warranted by any variation upon A1. Mind you, A1 was just an argument for MC1. Conceivably there is some other argument, call it ‘A2’, that, although not our first choice, might fare better in the long run (than A1 did) as a case for saying that it would be right for nurses to lie to patients on those occasions where it is necessary for patient welfare to be maximized. If we can think of such an A2 that looks promising, then we’d advance it and off would go a new thread in our thinking on the topic. In terms introduced earlier, we would be advancing an independent rationale for MC1 (independent of A1 that is). Another possibility is that, although we can’t think of anything which is even worth seriously considering as an independent rationale for MC1, we can think of a sort of ‘half reason’ which, when combined with another such ‘half reason’ would look like plausible rationale. That is, we might be able to craft what we called ‘a joint rationale’. Sometimes the elements of this would be new but, as discussed in an earlier section, it might be that an argument that didn’t succeed as a stand-alone independent rationale can be bundled together with some other consideration as part of a joint rationale.

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I am going to assume for the purposes of this illustrative enquiry, that no such way of mounting a different defence of MC1 (that is even vaguely plausible) occurs to us or, if it does, it ultimately fails. This leaves us with MC1 being indefensible, with the most that we can salvage (as something we do have a case for) being MC1*. So, is that finally the end of the enquiry? Should we choose the option: ‘accept A1*’? Not automatically (sigh!). While A1* is a satisfactory reaction to the success of CA1*, the latter might not be the only line of critical challenge against the author’s thinking. One possibility is that of mounting a new critic’s argument (call it ‘CA2’) against the revised A1*. This might be a new stand-alone criticism or, it might be that more complex affair, a joint rationale. Also note that A1* has a premise (CP1) that was not present in the original A1. It might be a focus of critical attention (in which case the discussion would be challenging the contention that the meaning of ‘respect another’s status as a person’ rules out lying to them about their medical condition if one was committed to such respect). So, what next? Your tactical motivation might be to want to see if, with the change to MP1*, we have got the moral principle driving the author’s case into a ‘finally’ satisfactory shape yet. If we suspect so, then, for familiar counterintuitive reasons, we might wish to mount a counter-argument against MP1*. Also, as moral clashes have been our concern for a while, we might be advised to stay in that mental ‘set’ until our moral principles get better sorted out. Even if, upon reflection, we think that CP1 is worth critical attention, we might be wise to defer such criticism for a while. So, perhaps the best next move is to investigate some new challenge to the author’s motivating moral principle, which, in its current incarnation, is MP1*. In an abbreviated form, let’s try flow-charting some of the above so that we can keep track of it.

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As for our substantive argumentation ‘landscape’ diagrams, try this (again, in abbreviated form):

CCMC1 denies CMP1

Diagram 8 This is where I will leave things for now. I hope that I have clearly enough portrayed a process of methodical ‘backtracking’ down the enquiry from moral ‘closure’ decisions concerning some dispute or other (in our case the CMP1/CCMP1 dispute was the start of this process). As you have seen illustrated again, there are always options even if you’ve got some sort of a path forward (or backward, for that matter) pretty much worked out. Note again that the initial thread of this particular enquiry was truncated early for expository purposes and the process of backtracking would probably not be as brief as this. The point where you first manage to close on some dispute might be early or late in the enquiry and the backtracking to accommodate it might be extensive or only involve a move or so from the past (as it was in this case). In all of this, though, the principles remain the same: if you can settle something, then methodically trace the consequences of that decision for the rest of your enquiry and then review where that back-tracking exercise has left you and deliberate carefully upon what seems to be the best path forward from there. It will

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mostly be the case that closing on one particular dispute will not be the end of your enquiry but merely settling your views upon one aspect of it. As always, be fully aware of the spread of possibilities facing you and choose from among them with explicit tactical motivations in mind! Also, realize that things are almost always more complex than they first appear but that being methodical and metacognitively aware can help you expose and deal with those complexities. Key Ideas The hope in generating Deep Moral Clashes is that, upon development, you’ll be able to ‘close’ in favour of one side or the other. That closure decision is not an isolated one but has implications for elsewhere in the enquiry. Just how extensive such effects will be will vary from case to case and it is a matter of methodically ‘backtracking’ changes that are consequential upon the closure decision.

‘Voices’ and Multiple Deep Moral Clash Closures In the last chapter, and earlier in this one, the issue of ‘voices’ was raised. Recall that more voices than just the two of a simple author/critic ‘dialogue’ might emerge as an enquiry becomes more complicated. One possibility with a third voice is that it disputes not just its intended target but some other moral premise as well. In such a scenario, what will be generated is not just the intended Deep Moral Clash but another one as well. Although I have recommended that you try not to have too many ‘balls in the air’ at once, it sometimes occurs that the enquiry thus has more than one controversy of current concern demanding your attention. In this section, I want to discuss the issue of dispute closures when more than two voices are present and all are quite distinct in stance (unlike our earlier CCMP1 and CMP1 from the ‘lying nurses’ enquiry which were closely related variations upon a theme). As an illustrative example, I will move from our familiar ‘lying nurses’ one to another one more suitable for the task at hand, The one that I will use was introduced and sketched above in the section entitled: ‘Voices’ Revisited. If you look back at that section, the enquiry involved was drawn from teaching and, for present purposes, it will initially suffice for us to briefly sketch the various moral premises and their inter-relationships. The moral premise of the initial argument was: MP All schools should do whatever most employers want.

This was subjected to counter-argument and the motivating premise of that counter-argument was:

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So, we had a Deep Moral Clash that could be expressed as this question: Deep Moral Clash 1: Should schools do whatever employers want even if the result would be that fewer members of society would have shared values than would otherwise have been the case?

CMP was then itself subjected to criticism and the motivating moral premise of that critical challenge was: CCMP Everyone should have maximum freedom of thought.

This yields as an intended Deep Moral Clash with CMP: Deep Moral Clash 2: Should as many people in society as possible have shared values even if it is at the cost of lessening freedom of thought?

But, as is familiar to you by now, CCMP is also in Deep Moral Clash with MP: Deep Moral Clash 3: Should everyone have maximum freedom of thought even if that can only occur if schools do not do what employers want?

So, basically we have a three-cornered dispute with each of the three ‘voices’ disagreeing with each other one. Or, if they are ‘all you’, as is probable, you find yourself quite morally conflicted when you start to make explicit those values of yours that bear upon the issue of what school curricular priorities there should be. I have left out the tilts but, as you have three Deep Moral Clashes, there will be three of them. Let’s say that the MP/CMP tilt is 30/70 (favouring the latter), the CMP/CCMP one is 20/80 and the MP/CCMP one is 10/90. So, we favour CCMP and CMP fares slightly better against it than MP does. Now, what is to be done in the face of this complexity is, as usual, something for careful deliberation. My concern in this section is not so much to practise that in detail but to focus on closures so what I will be doing is somewhat abbreviated in some respects. (I will, as before, assume that the non-moral parts of the various arguments happen not to be up for challenge.) Looking at the various disputes, there is some common ground between MP and CMP. In each case, they are willing to override freedom of thought; it is just that they have different ideas as to what might be important enough to warrant doing that. MP would override it in order to satisfy employers’ wishes and CMP in order to have greater commonality of moral values among citizens. Of course any two of the three values in contention at least share the feature that they are each in opposition to the third but I find the MP and CMP versus CCMP divide to be of

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particular interest. This is because it seems to me to be some sort of fundamental prima facie right for people to have freedom of thought and a key division is between those who would see grounds for its restriction (MP and CMP but for different reasons) and those who would not (CCMP). So, for me, the key question is if either MP or CMP constitutes a good enough reason. On the evidence of my tilts, CMP is more promising as a rationale (although still faring badly). Despite this, in the spirit of ‘going counter-intuitive’, the MP versus CCMP clash is what I have decided upon as the one to be focused upon next (with the ‘shared values’ basis for freedom reduction being put in the back of our mind for now). This decision trims the range of seriously considerable options to those associated with the arguments these two moral premises are part of. And, given the steep tilt, a counter-intuitive next move is advised. Say we choose to defend MP and the enquiry proceeds on for a while until, at some point, we close on some deeper dispute that we have exposed. The details of all of this don’t much matter for now but let’s say that, after backtracking the consequences of our decision back down the enquiry, we are left with the surprising result that CCMP fails in its dispute with MP. In short, we have a closure in which we have, after some further enquiry, dramatically reversed our earlier tendency to favour freedom of thought over granting employers power over schools. We are now satisfied that the loss of some freedom of thought is not a good enough reason to fail to grant employers such power. Now what? Basically, of the three Deep Moral Clashes we had, one has been resolved and two remain. Thus there is still unfinished business that has emerged from the enquiry to date. So, presumably the next move is to begin the process of trying to resolve one or other of them. Just because one dispute has been sorted to our satisfaction doesn’t mean that the enquiry has ended. We still have the original criticism of MP, that based on CMP, to consider and it was a criticism that our tilt shows we thought well of. It was itself challenged by the argument motivated by CCMP and our tilt at the time favoured CCMP over CMP. That CCMP was ultimately unsuccessful in its dispute with MP doesn’t mean that it won’t be successful against a different rival, CMP. Remember that these tilts are all bipolar. They are also, recall, just at-the-time intuitive ratings of the values in clash and, as we saw (somewhat dramatically) with MP and CCMP, they are subject to revision. As a result of our rethinking of the merits of freedom of thought when in conflict with giving employers power over what schools do, it is obvious that we are less sweepingly enthusiastic about freedom of thought than we were. So, even though CMP is a different rival for CCMP than MP was, an intuition re-consultation is probably in order before pressing on. Ditto for the MP versus CMP clash. Say that we do that. It doesn’t really matter for present purposes how these tilts change or don’t; the point is that when we come to work out what is our tactically smartest next move, our deliberation just might be informed by a review that contains revised tilts.

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So we would choose one of the remaining disputes to pursue, the one that it seemed to us was the most important the attend to first and so it would go on. The point is that, with just two ‘voices’, you might get a succession of clashes as each has its case deepened but this will still amount to only two basic viewpoints in dispute at various levels. This can become complex enough to sort out (as seen earlier) but different, and more, complexities enter when the clash of ideas contains more than two voices. The basic guide in all of this is remains: when you think that you have reached closure on some particular dispute, track the consequences of that closure decision. But realize that settling a clash between two voices will probably leave unfinished business when it comes to those voices’ separate clashes with some third voice. Key Ideas Having more than two voices in dispute complicates closure scenarios but the main operating principles are as outlined earlier.

Closures Involving Non-moral Propositions Above, and throughout the book, I have focused particularly upon moral disputes (Deep Moral Clashes as I have termed them). This is deliberate because the most usual foci of concern in professional ethical problems are various moral values that you have sympathy with but different ones of which lead you in different directions on your problem. However, as noted in the last chapter, it might be a descriptive premise or a conceptual premise that you wish to challenge. If so, off would then go some enquiry into what you take the relevant facts to be or what you take to be the conceptual relationships among the ideas in question. Let’s assume that, after some such process of enquiry, you reach closure on the dispute in question – what next? Basically, it is much as we have outlined for closures concerning moral disputes – methodically rewrite various arguments involving the descriptive or conceptual propositions in question in a manner that reflects your current judgement as to what the truth is concerning them. Much as before, you start with those arguments where the dispute got settled and then track back from them to make whatever changes elsewhere in the enquiry that are forced upon you by their connections to the arguments you have adjusted. Finally, in metacognitive review, appraise where the enquiry is at as a result of the changes and, in particular, what unfinished business there still is. Then, metacognitively deliberate upon what will be the best next direction for your enquiry to take.

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Key Ideas Much the same lessons as applied to dispute closures involving moral propositions apply again to those involving descriptive or conceptual propositions – methodically trace the implications of your decision back down the enquiry as far as they go.

Problems upon Patching If you reflect back over the ideas and techniques covered to date, we have had a certain ideal form which we have sought to have all of the arguments involved in our enquiries take on. First, we have tried to ensure (by patching if necessary) that any argument employed is logically tight (as far as we know). We sought to have our arguments’ conclusions follow so that if one accepted the premises, then one would also have to accept the conclusion. We have typically begun with some particular topic and with some tentative stance on the topic issue and that intuitive stance became the conclusion of a feral argument that was tamed, clarified and made logically tight. In an illogical argument, the problem is always that what is said in the premises is not enough to generate, or entail, what is said in the conclusion. In the face of this, one has two options for achieving validity. One is to, as I put it, ‘beef up’ the premises so that they do say enough to generate the conclusion. The other is to ‘tone down’, or weaken, the conclusion claim so that the (unchanged) premises do manage to at least entail the weakened conclusion. Of these two choices, I have recommended that, in response to detected invalidity, you first try ‘beefing up’ the premises. The main reason for this is that the existing conclusion constitutes your best bet as to what you want to prove, so you might as well stick to that intuition for a while (until forced away from it perhaps). Also, the (admittedly illogical) argument under examination was nevertheless your initial go at a good line of reasoning in support of your tentative answer to the topic question so you might as well see what the premises would have to look like to actually do that job properly and entail the desired conclusion. A possible problem is that, having done that as the price of getting some logical holes patched, the new, or revised, premises that you have deployed might themselves be problematic. Although we touched upon similar matters in an earlier section, I want to highlight the issues in this one, especially as arising from logic criticism. Generally, having achieved logicality by means of ‘beefing up’ the premises, one has almost always made those premises more vulnerable to criticism. The more they say, the larger a target they present for critical attention. Here lies a problem. Although we could give much the same analysis for other premise types, let’s say that the only hole was an inadequate MP. Sometimes, having ‘beefed up’ such a moral premise in response to an identified logical hole, you will instantly feel that the revised version is too extreme for you to accept. Although the original

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(too weak) MP was a view you happily endorsed, the patched version is not. For instance, the original might have said that the pursuit of truth is one duty of a scientist and when it got revised it became the claim that it was the most important of a scientist’s duties. And you simply might not buy that. At this point, you should be disturbed. It looks as though this line of reasoning for your ‘hoped for’ conclusion is in trouble no matter what. In its original version, it had an MP you are happy to endorse but that version of the MP (together with the rest of the premises) would not logically entail the conclusion you were seeking to support. Yet modify the MP so that it does say enough to patch the hole and the resultant logical validity has been bought at the cost of an unacceptable premise. It’s not much use having an argument, however logically valid it is, that has a dud premise, so (unless you have incompetently over-patched, of which more in a moment) this ought to tell you that any variation of this line of reasoning for your original conclusion is doomed. It looks as if it either has an OK moral premise but is invalid, or it is valid but at the cost of a dud premise. What now? As always, there are options for metacognitive deliberation upon. I have just one suggestion to make when considering your options. A theme of the intellectual style encouraged in this book is thoroughness. To the extent that the topic’s importance and time permit, I have advocated that you resist too quickly closing down consideration of some issue. Of course, sooner or later you will want to do just that and there is not much point in generating discussion just for the sake of it. So, what has this to do with the current situation? I have spoken of the possibility that some new or revised premise deployed as a patch in pursuit of validity might in itself be unacceptable. My suggestion is that, even if you are confident that some premise is indeed unacceptable, you should consider the possibility that there may be merit in formally exploring the basis for that snap judgement. So, say that we had some patch modifying some MP (like the one in our scientists’ duty illustration). There may be some tactical point in formally mounting a counter-argument in criticism of the revised version of the MP (MP*, say) that was offered as a patch even if you are fairly confident that you don’t at the moment think that the pursuit of truth would constitute the highest duty of a scientist. For instance, you might be confident that such status (‘most important duty’) is over-stated but not have a very clear idea of just what you would take to be more important and why. Moreover, such comparative ratings are quite likely going to be complicated by what we above spoke of as issues of degree. It is possible that it will be important for your enquiry to explore the intricacies of all of this even if you are indeed confident that MP* is not going to outweigh everything else in the 100/0 way its wording suggests. Then again, it might not matter for the circumstances of your particular enquiry to tease this complexity out. All I am suggesting is that you metacognitively entertain the possibility that, say, merely being confident that MP* is to be rejected might be a less satisfactory state of affairs for your enquiry’s health than proceeding to tease out some of the detail as to why (and, just maybe, surprising yourself by changing your mind).

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An Aside A moment ago, I parenthetically alluded to the possibility that you might have over-patched. I would like to just expand briefly upon this before returning to the main flow. Recall that the idea of patching is, generally, to fix a logical hole by utilizing the ‘smallest’ patch that will do the job. Put another way, one attempts to modify the original premise as minimally as possible, just to the extent required for it to do the logical job that was asked of it in the argument (and that it was failing to perform in its original form). By means of logic criticism, it has been established that the original premise is indeed too weak to perform that task; so, something has to be done in an attempt to salvage the argument. Sometimes, however, what people write in as a revised premise to restore validity makes more changes than the logic criticism forced the author to make. In effect, they overreact to the logical problem that they face. So, if the premise under challenge said that all real estate dealers are dishonest and this was challenged successfully by the critic establishing that there were some exceptions, then it would be an over-reaction to the critic’s exception cases (what I am calling ‘over-patching’) to revise the challenged premise to say that no real estate dealers are dishonest, rather than just making a less radical adjustment that merely says that some, or perhaps most, real estate dealers are dishonest. End of Aside Anyway, say that, after some further thought perhaps, the situation under consideration is indeed that of an argument that can’t escape having either dud logic or a dud premise – what should be done next? As explored in an earlier section, you could just give up and abandon that line of reasoning as hopeless (or hopeless as a stand-alone independent case for its conclusion). This would mean either finding some other, independent, rationale for your conclusion or combining the too-weak original MP with something else to form a joint rationale. If nothing of either sort seemed worth pursuing, or didn’t work out, then, instead of ‘beefing up’ the original MP so that it patched the hole (but at the cost of becoming unacceptable), you could then legitimately move to ‘tone down’ the conclusion to whatever did follow from whatever premises you felt able to accept (read back a couple of asides ago and that is what we did in an argument that had a problematic descriptive premise). Such a readjustment of your original thoughts and hopes is a good result from the process of critical analysis. We noted above that one result from a ‘patching’ process in response to a criticism of an argument’s logic might be modification of the MP with possible ‘ripple-effect’ modification to the MC (toning it down) as well. Similar problems might also occur with premises of other propositional types. For instance, when patching up an illogical argument it is sometimes the descriptive premises that we change such that we have, as the cost of attaining validity, a resultant DP* that is logically adequate but false. Again we would be in a bind where we either had a

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DP* (patched version) that was false although logically useful in the generation of the original conclusion, or a DP (original version) that was more plausible but had the failing of not saying enough to generate the original conclusion. When this sort of thing occurred with a moral premise, we modified it again back to something plausible as the first move in a ‘fiddle and fix’ exercise of rewriting the argument. So, why not just modify an unsatisfactory descriptive premise in the same way with the same resultant adjustment of the rationale under discussion? No reason; and that is precisely what I suggest that you do. So if, say, as a result of patching a logical hole, such a ‘beefing up’ of a descriptive premise has made it false as far as you now judge, then try toning it down until it becomes true (again, as far as you know). This might mean a total reversion back to the un-‘beefed-up’ descriptive premise of the original argument but, then again, it might not (you might have over-patched originally). Whatever the detail is, it might thus be that you decide that there is some version of the descriptive proposition in question that, though it is stronger than the original version, is not as strong as the overpatched version, and thus manages to be both true and, logically, a good patch. Just to illustrate the above sort of process, try the following as the original, logically problematic, argument: A7/8 MP9 All and only those who understand the aims options and their consequences should decide the broad aims of schooling. DP8 All teachers understand the aims options and their consequences. So, MC6 All and only teachers should decide the broad aims of schooling.

Say that, in the course of the logic criticism, we noticed that DP8 was too weakly worded to do the logical job asked of it and re-write it to get: A7/8* MP9 All and only those who understand the aims options and their consequences should decide the broad aims of schooling. DP8* All and only teachers understand the aims options and their consequences. So, MC6 All and only teachers should decide the broad aims of schooling.

But DP8* is just obviously false. Yet, if we wish to retain MC6 as the conclusion, it is hard to see what weaker proposition one could put in as a replacement descriptive premise that would still force that conclusion to follow. So, what is to be done here is to weaken the descriptive premise back to what you judge to be true and then see what will follow from this. Sometimes what you write in as plausible will be a reversion to the original premise and sometimes not. In this particular case, having focused your attention upon the descriptive premise and

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thinking about plausibility issues you would likely decide that even the original was, upon reflection, implausibly overstated. So, in this case, I would retreat even further to something like the plausible claim that some teachers understand the aims options and their consequences. I can’t see how anything stronger is plausible. So, let’s try writing that in as a descriptive premise and then make other changes to accommodate the fact that the new descriptive premise is rather weakly worded. What we would get is: A7/8** MP9 All and only those who understand the aims options and their consequences should decide the broad aims of schooling. DP8** Some teachers understand the aims options and their consequences. So, MC6* Those teachers should be among those who decide the broad aims of schooling.

As you see, this is all very much like our ‘fiddle and fix’ argument rewrites in response to successful counter-argument. In a like vein, a version of the original line of reasoning that has a ‘toned down’, or weaker than original, conclusion has resulted – one that actually follows from premises that we feel able to accept. So, in this particular example, we have managed to restore our ideal of an argument with acceptable/true premises and logically valid reasoning by, in effect, retreating to only being able to prove a weaker conclusion than we originally were after. Sometimes even backing off like this doesn’t quite work in getting an argument that has premises that you are totally satisfied with and is logically perfect; we will turn to this in the next section. In any event, and whatever the outcome, it is worth learning about the merits, or otherwise, of the original argument that you had high hopes about. Key Ideas Sometimes the trade-off for making an argument logical by ‘beefing up’ some inadequate premise is that it is at the cost of the new premise (the patched version) being unacceptable. Even if you are confident of this, it might be tactically wise to explore your judgement by mounting a premise criticism of that patched-version premise. If it does ultimately prove to be unacceptable, then reverting to a more plausible premise and then ‘toning down’ the conclusion to what is entailed by that more acceptable premise set might be a viable way forward.

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Dubious Premises and Messy Outcomes I said at the start of the last section that what we had as an ideal was an argument with valid reasoning and true/acceptable premises. As things emerged, we saw that these two demands might clash and that some line of reasoning for a particular conclusion might not be able to be made to satisfy both of these demands. In the face of this, I suggested a good hard metacognitive think about what to do next. The hope was still, however, that, sooner or later (and after extended thought perhaps), we would end up with a logical argument that had premises we were happy with and which thus established its conclusion (perhaps not the original one) to our satisfaction. This is fine if you can do it but it might not prove possible. For instance, let’s consider a case where some MP was challenged by a counterargument which pointed out that it is in conflict with some further value with which you have some sympathy. Say that the criticized MP advocated that all members of society should share the same values and the counter-argument pointed out that this clashed with freedom of thought (at least about what values to adopt) and contended that the latter was the more important value. You simply might not have thought about this potential clash (that is, that the price of achieving shared values might be indoctrination that interferes with freedom of thought) and although the criticism unsettles your confidence, you might not be sure quite where you now stand on the issues, especially given the likely complications of issues of degree. If you think way back to when I outlined to you the metacognitive deliberation options in the face of a counter-argument, two of them amounted to defending one or other of the values in rivalry. Sometimes, this sort of probing for yet deeper reasons will resolve the dispute and if, say, the ‘critic’ prevails, you will end up knowing what sort of revised MP (if any) you wish to have in replacement of the original. Sometimes, though, even when you explored what can be said for the values in rivalry (and explored criticisms of those cases and so on) even when you get to the end of what might be quite an elaborate web of such argumentation, it is possible that you still simply don’t have things clearly sorted out. You know that you are not happy to continue with the original commitment to shared societal values and you know that you have some sympathy with the freedom of thought line of the critic but it’s not enough sympathy for closure (in which you accept the criticism and return to ‘fiddle and fix’ the original into, say, something like: ‘All members of society should have shared values provided that such agreement has been freely arrived at’). Despite your sympathy with freedom of thought, you might feel that forced agreement is probably sometimes right (perhaps when the forced value is an important one) but you are not sure (issues of degree arise once more). In short, although not happy with the original MP, you might not be confident about the acceptability of any candidate substitute and not know how to accommodate misgivings raised by the criticism (and any ensuing exploratory enquiry).

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Similar murkiness can arise with the DP as the problem. Having decided that the DP is too strongly worded to be confidently endorsed as true, you might not be all that sure what is to be accepted in its place as true. You might, on reflection, not quite know what the facts are even if there is a research literature. Ditto again for CPs, uncertainty might persist. Indeed, although we have viewed the problem as one emerging with one premise or another as a result of some sort of criticism and then further enquiry that doesn’t manage to sort things, the misgivings might be there from scratch. You instantly might feel that, although some line of reasoning that is logical is ‘sort of’ OK as a case for some proposal, you are simply not totally confident of the moral acceptability of the MP, or of the truth of the DP or CP, and thus even your first go at the argument fails to meet our ideal. Faced with this, you are probably wise to explore such misgivings via counter-arguments but say that things do not get sorted out satisfactorily and no neat resolution occurs. In summary, some arguments that you don’t feel like totally discarding or accepting will, nonetheless, have foundations that you have some sympathy with even if you are not quite sure of things. Moreover, although you might be tempted to put such an argument ‘on the back burner’ until you’ve sorted out your views on the premises more satisfactorily, sometimes decisions won’t wait for that or resolution seems unlikely even with more time. Nor might you want to discard the argument totally for, inconclusive as it is, you might still consider it an important element in your thinking. As convenient shorthand, let’s call these arguments with such uncertain premises: ‘non-conclusive arguments’ and give our earlier ideal model the tag: ‘conclusive arguments’. In principle, the way of coping with this hesitation is simple (and touched upon in an earlier section). To the extent that you are unsure of the premises, you should be unsure of your conclusion. So, for instance, if you were 100 per cent confident of the moral claim of the MP but only 90 per cent sure of the truth of the DP, then (assuming that there is a valid logical move from premises to conclusion) you would only be warranted in endorsing the conclusion with 90 per cent confidence. There are hassles with the neatness of the above picture though. The main one is that it is rare for us to be able to assign neat probability weightings like this (especially to the value premise claims). This is a pity because, if we could do that, then much of our deliberation would become algorithmic using the probability calculus. But it isn’t and that means that arguments with premises that you are imprecisely ‘sort of confident’ about are hard to assess the worth of as cases for their conclusions. The best that you can do is to have a rough and ready ‘degree of confidence’ appraisal of them. What might indeed emerge, as the whole enquiry unfolds, is that none of the arguments critically considered by you is of the sought-after conclusive quality. Despite this, my suggestion remains that you initially keep all of your arguments as logically tight as you know how and with premises that initially yield the conclusion you seek to support and then tone things down in response to criticism,

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further thought and so on. If you do end up with a conclusive argument for your proposal then you’ve hit the jackpot. If not, then you might be stuck with trying to work out where the weight of argument lies. Unfortunately there are no recipes for that but it helps lots to have the arguments you are trying to weigh up being as well sorted out and understood as possible, hence all of the foregoing and the earlier chapters’ sub-skills. Key Ideas Sometimes arguments and disputes never get sorted out so that you have a nice neat conclusive case for your conclusion. Despite this, an argument having sound premises and a valid logical move is the ideal and is worth pursuing. Even if that ideal is not reached, your enquiry will give you a much more sophisticated understanding of the complexities underlying the topic and your views concerning them. This should help you to make a tentative judgement as to where the weight of reasons lies even if you are still somewhat confused and doubtful.

‘Real-world’ Reasoning No doubt the stuff in this chapter especially (but even the previous one) seems terribly complex and it is. Also, I have no doubt, you are thinking: ‘I won’t ever do this sort of thing, it’s too complicated and too involved’. Well it is involved. Any enquiry thread growing out of any given initial argument might go on for some time as you tease out your views on various deeper values. And there might be several initial arguments supporting that same stance and, further, distinct, stances on the topic each with its own spread of initial arguments and each of those arguments generating an enquiry thread as its soundness is examined. There is simply no way around this complexity if your final judgement on a complex topic is to be thorough. So, you might think, if that is thoroughness, then I will just have to content myself with sloppy superficiality. Up to a point, this strikes me as a legitimate attitude, even for a professional with, as I have earlier insisted, a professional duty to have considered views on these matters. Note, though, that thoroughness is not an on/off matter; it is more a matter of degree, one can be more or less thorough. How thorough you should bother to be is a matter of how much time you have to spend on the matter, how important the issue is and so on. I put it to you as an observation that many important value judgemental matters to do with your profession may not be able to be given totally comprehensive scrutiny but still deserve more thorough treatment than is common. How much of the above you employ on any given question will vary but it gives you the tools for going as far as you wish. At the very least, you should be able to state the arguments that motivate your position in a clear and complete

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way with the moral values that are impacting upon your position explicitly identified. You should also be able to self-criticize and realize that your initial arguments might not be as sound as you first thought them to be and have some ideas as what to do in the face of those flaws. You should, further, be alert to poor argumentation by others and have some capacity to probe for clarification of ideas, hidden assumptions in what they are saying (like implicit moral premises were) and have the tools to critically engage with their arguments and keep some metacognitive track of, and direction to, an enquiry. As I said, how far this goes will depend upon how important the issue is, the time available, the intelligence of the participants and so on. There is, however, great room for improvement in the level of discussion present in most professional contexts. I am no playwright but try the following as the first few moves of a more informal dialogue covering some of the skills displayed earlier. As my characters, I will have Albert as ‘author’ and Cindy as ‘critic’. Albert: (A1, if you like) You asked me what the institution of schooling should be trying to do. Well, surely when people leave school they should be able to enter employment and if schools don’t try to make that happen it just won’t happen as well as it could. So, one thing that school should be trying to do is having exiting students employable. Cindy: (Thinks: Hold on, that whole case rests on the assumption that school leavers should be employable and I don’t agree that all of them should be.) Says: (CA1) But the only jobs that they could get right after school would be low-skilled ones and many students aren’t going to want to go into those and it’s wrong for them to have to be employable at that stage in jobs they do not want. Such school leavers, at least, need not be employable. Albert: (Thinks: OK, she’s criticizing my commitment to school leavers being employable and I have considerable sympathy with what she is saying so maybe I should defend that commitment. Says: (defence of the MP of A1) I suspect that you are right but, so that I don’t too quickly agree with you, I’d like to tell you why I thought they should be employable at that stage. My thinking was that if they’re not employable then they will be parasites, dependent upon our handouts and that’s not right. Cindy: (Thinks: But isn’t it right? Again, his case is resting on an assumption that I don’t agree with; surely it is sometimes OK to be a parasite, if that’s what he wants to call being financially dependent on other people. I could challenge what I take him to be saying but as it seems so weird perhaps I should make sure that I understand him first?

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Says: (seeking a working definition of ‘parasite’) I don’t quite get where you are coming from here. It sounds like you are just generally in favour of people being totally financially independent no matter who they are or what their circumstances are. Is this what you meant by not being a parasite?

And so on (with increasing complexity). Although informal, the spoken portion of the above could (mostly) be represented in a ‘Substantive Argument’ column in a flow chart diagram. Between each spoken move and the next is some quick thought, some brief metacognitive planning by the next speaker. Note that, although they are informally stated, each of the offered arguments is fairly tame and, in particular, has an explicit moral premise. Albert and Cindy are having a fairly tight dialogue and, in particular, trying not to be simple-minded about their views. It might look deceptively easy. I would suggest to you, however, that that is mere appearance. To progress an enquiry as nicely as they are managing to do requires sound skills in argument and a sophisticated metacognitive grasp of how the enquiry is unfolding and where it could go next (the ‘thinks’ bits in the above). Once you have such formal skills ‘under your belt’, then you are able to operate an enquiry informally but in a way that is argumentatively tighter and metacognitively more aware than it would otherwise have been. All of the elaborateness of the earlier sections is the framework of a training exercise to get those skills in place. Hopefully, you will then be able to improve the sophistication of your thinking and writing and discussion in whatever professional circles you move in. Usually it is in written documents that greater sophistication occurs but even if you don’t carry out all of our ‘bells and whistles’ you should be able to think things through better than commonly occurs. As you will see from the next chapter, some improvement is warranted. Summary As I said at the start of this chapter, we laid down the basic architecture of pursuing an enquiry in the last chapter. The task of this chapter has been to portray a series of complications that were deferred because I did not want them to get in the way of getting that basic architecture outlined. One problem is that the series of complications tends to be a series of rather distinct points and a rather long series at that. Wading through this chapter required you to have your wits about you to a rather extraordinary extent. What I want to do now is just sketch through the bones of what we have covered. In the section on non-moral disputes, I pointed out that although the investigation of disputes involving moral propositions was core business and was what we focused on in Chapter 6, other types of dispute might crop up along the

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way as we pursue an ethical enquiry. Accordingly I briefly covered such disputes involving one or other of our other two proposition types. In the next section, I took our thinking beyond the simple argument structure types that we had met to date and outlined some more complicated patterns and discussed how they might crop up in an enquiry, sometimes in a very deliberately planned way. In the section following that, I returned to something that we had spoken of before, namely, Deep Moral Clashes. Exposing and dealing with Deep Moral Clashes is core business for an ethical enquiry and in this section I outlined some elements of a more sophisticated treatment of such clashes. In the next to last section, I reminded you that the point of an enquiry was, ultimately, to work out what we think on something rather than to just keep on enquiring for the sake of it. Accordingly, I discussed the situation when one was ready to close discussion of some particular dispute and outlined what happens as a result of such closure. I also discussed the situation when an enquiry doesn’t seem to end up with a neatly satisfactory version of some rationale. Finally, I observed that, even if you didn’t work through things with the sophisticated methodical rigour that full deployment of this range of techniques and processes would involve, your more informal private thinking and interaction with others on professional ethical issues should be argumentatively tighter and more metacognitively aware and planned than before. This is no mean achievement if you can manage it. As I remarked at the beginning, not everything in the foregoing is of equal importance and you might be directed by your tutor to focus upon some sections and sub-sections more than others. In the next chapter, I want to do two things: the first is to analyse critically a spread of slogans and buzz words of an incoherent sort (‘babble’) that infest discussions of professional ethical problems; and the second is to go through some concepts and distinctions that occur sufficiently frequently across a number of professional fields, and in ethical problems arising within them, to be worth having a fair grasp of but which are too often wielded in an obscure manner (‘murk’).

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Chapter 8

Babble and Murk Introduction Somewhat provocatively, I have entitled this chapter: ‘Babble and Murk’. I do so because professional discourse seems uncommonly cursed with the use of what are sometimes called ‘buzz words’ – usually as part of catch-cries and slogans that are accepted widely and without much thought. In what follows, I wish to analyse critically some of these and to add some theoretical ideas that will, I hope, be useful background for your thinking. As you might expect, some of these ‘buzz words’ are more salient in some professions than in others. They fall into two categories. The first comprises ways of thinking/speaking that have in-built incoherence as ordinarily deployed (babble) and the second comprises ones that are simply too vague or ambiguous (murk) to be vehicles for sound thought as they stand. I will start with the former sort and proceed to the latter in the second major portion of the chapter. The list is not an exhaustive one and, although it covers some salient problems, the concepts examined (and their analyses) are meant to be but illustrative. Hopefully what you get from the following is an appreciation that there are inadequacies in some of the concepts deployed in discourse about ethical issues arising in various professions – and some increased sensitivity for your ‘crapdetector’. You can get a long way with the repeated interrogation of your thoughts and those of others by the question: ‘Just what does that mean?’ Babble The ‘N’ Word In my experience, the most widely misused ‘buzz word’ is ‘needs’. As commonly used, it is so destructive of careful thought that I consider it to be akin to intellectual blasphemy. Thus I have chosen it as our first subject for critical scrutiny. It is not uncommon for professionals to preach, and be preached at, using slogans employing appeals to ‘needs’. It is said that we should pay attention to the special needs of various disadvantaged or unusual groups, or that pupils’ or clients’ or patients’ individual needs should be met by our practice, or that we should remember that schools or hospitals or counselling services etc. exist to satisfy society’s educational/medical/psychological etc. needs; and a host of other

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slogans and ‘one-liners’ could be mentioned that use the term ‘needs’. Helpful in sorting through this will be to get clear as soon as possible just what is being said when one talks of someone’s ‘needs’. So, the starting point for our scrutiny will be a piece of standard conceptual analysis. What does the concept of a ‘need’ amount to? The first thing to note is that if someone says, for instance, that John needs a sense of positive self-esteem, or even that Jane has a physiological need for food, something incomplete has been said, the propositions haven’t been finished off. To see the idea here, consider the proposition that little Jamie is taller. It doesn’t make sense because it is syntactically incomplete; taller than what? – than he was a year ago? than Jenny? what? To use a bit of grammatical jargon, ‘taller’ is not a one-place predicate term picking out a simple property (like, say, ‘square’ is); rather, ‘taller than’ is a two-place relation term signalling a relationship between two objects. In much the same vein, when someone claims that John needs a sense of positive self-esteem one can ask: For what? One plausible answer as to what might be meant in this case is that such a sense of positive self-esteem is needed for, say, John’s happiness. Let’s assume that this is what was meant. So we move from the incomplete: John needs a sense of positive self-esteem;

to the more coherent: John needs a sense of positive self-esteem for his happiness.

Once we have the proposition completely stated, we can unpack it a bit. I would suggest that the above is what we earlier called a mixed proposition; it is to be considered as a shorthand way of advancing two quite distinct propositions: For John, having a sense of positive self-esteem is a necessary condition, or needed, for his happiness;

and: It is a good thing for John to be happy.

The former is a descriptive proposition but the latter is a moral proposition. So, as usually expressed, ‘needs’ claims are incomplete, one needs (!) to know the answer to the question: ‘For what?’, in order to discover the goal or purpose of having the ‘needed’ thing. Sometimes it is fairly clear from the context of discussion but, even if that is so in a general way, it is worth getting explicitly clear about. Knowing what that desired goal is is important for your reaction to the claim. The point is that, although the speaker, or author, presumably favours that goal or purpose, you might not. And, if you don’t, then that difference in valuation would mean that you reject the ‘needs’ claim (in virtue of denying one of its component clauses). If you

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didn’t care tuppence for John’s happiness, then you wouldn’t agree that he needed a sense of positive self-esteem (for his happiness). And this would be so even were you to allow as true the other clause, the descriptive necessary condition proposition. Let me try another example; it might assist you to see my point here. Someone might say that Jane needs heroin (in order to satisfy her addictive craving). You might disagree, not because you deny that a ‘shot’ is a necessary condition for the satisfaction of her craving – you might admit this – but because you don’t value the point of the exercise, that is, you don’t value the satisfaction of Jane’s addictive craving; thus you deny that she ‘needs’ heroin. (You might, instead, be inclined to say that she needs treatment – so that the cravings no longer exist to demand satisfaction.) Let’s consider an issue facing teachers, one of the sorts of issues that this book is trying to help you think clearly about. Say I were to ask: ‘What should the broad aims of schooling be?’. Say also that, in reply, some teacher said: ‘Schools should aim to meet individual student needs’. Think about this in terms of the above analysis. No individual, Jeremy, say, has any such thing as a need simpliciter, it is always something needed for achieving something else. Once we have some goal already decided on for Jeremy (say, having him employable upon leaving school) then we can coherently talk of what is a necessary condition, or needed, in order for him to be employable. But without the setting of some such goal, the purported aim is empty. To say that schools should aim to satisfy individual needs doesn’t set a goal for schools, it relies on a goal having already been set. We haven’t got a coherent suggestion until we have advice about what various individuals need and we can’t know that except by reference to some goal (or goals), some moral stance about how one wants them to be. But that was just what one was trying to work out in trying to propose schooling aims! And, given this, why not just skip all the muddle of ‘needs’ talk and just directly list that goal (or goals if you have different ones for different individuals) as to what you think schools should be aiming to achieve? Not only is our notional teacher’s ‘needs’ claim no positive (or even coherent) contribution to serious thought about what schools should be trying to achieve, it is harmful to such thought. This is for two reasons. The first is that those advancing and listening to such answers might be deluded into thinking that something coherent has actually been said, that a candidate-aim suggestion has actually been advanced. Second, slogans that employ this term have a compelling quality to them, after all, how could anyone but a scoundrel deny people something that they need? As the term is usually used, it is also an implicit assumption that whether or not someone needs something is an objective matter, is some sort of empirical fact (perhaps of psychology, or economics, or biology ...). Thus all of this initially looks beguilingly attractive for it looks as if, in answer to the complex moral question: ‘What should teachers and schools be aiming to do?’, one could get an objective answer that no one could seriously deny, namely: ‘Satisfy the needs of children’. Thinking that one can have uncontroversial, objective, answers to complex value judgemental issues is intellectually naive,

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indeed dangerous. Before I close this section, I wish to point out a few more features of ‘needs’ talk. First, in the above I have discussed individual ‘needs’ talk but that is not the only way such talk occurs in discussions about what, in our illustration, schools should be doing or, more generally, what professionals and their institutions should be doing. Have a look at the second paragraph of this section. Notable is that sometimes the sloganizing appeals to fulfilling the ‘needs’ of some group like society-as-a-whole or the local community. As before though, just saying that schools should satisfy society’s ‘needs’ is empty and even if one tries to fill it in a bit by saying ‘educational needs’ and even if one starts to advance proposals like, say, that society needs literate citizens, one has not yet spoken coherently because of the relational nature of ‘needs’ talk and the absence of a specified goal (whatever society needs literate citizens for). As in the above-analysed case of John ‘needing’ a sense of positive self-esteem, propositions about what, say, society ‘needs’ are what we earlier called ‘mixed propositions’ and, when unpacked and stated fully as a descriptive necessary condition proposition and a moral goal proposition, we could, as before, save a lot of fuss by simply stating that goal as the aim in the first place. If one felt that in the society in question literacy was necessary for more informed voting decisions to occur and you favoured such decisions then why not get straight to the moral point and propose that schools should assist students to be informed (future) voters? At least then your cards would be explicitly on the table. Second, although talk of what John ‘needs’ usually involves some sort of goal about what the speaker considers to be good for John, it doesn’t always have to. Sometimes one can talk of what some individual ‘needs’ and have in mind what is good for some other party, as opposed what is good for that individual. For instance, say one had an unreformable serial killer; let’s call her ‘June’. Someone might remark that June ‘needs’ to be locked away forever. The implicit goal here might have nothing to do with June’s welfare so much as with the welfare of the rest of us. Third, because of the relational nature of ‘needs’ talk (X needs Y for Z), it is possible for the ‘Y’ to be kept constant but the other two to vary. So, for instance, one might say, of a scientist, that Bartholomew needs tobacco industry financing in order to be able to do his tobacco addiction research. Mind you, of another scientist, one might say that Boris needs tobacco industry financing in order to fund his tropical villa (different ‘X’ and ‘Z’) or that Bartholomew needs better ‘grantsmanship’ skills in order to be able to do his tobacco addiction research (same ‘X’ and ‘Z’ but different ‘Y’). My point is that the easiest way to follow all of this is not to merely rave on about Boris’s or Bartholomew’s needs but to get the mixed proposition disaggregated into its component moral and descriptive components (in the manner of our earlier analysis) so you know just what is going on. Fourth, note that, in my earlier analytical unpacking of the mixed proposition about John into its component descriptive and moral elements, I expressed the moral proposition component in the form: ‘Z is a good thing’. This is, as you

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should realize by now, a fairly weak endorsement of Z. I just used it in quick illustration but you know enough by now about different strengths of moral endorsement to realize that there is a spread of possibilities. ‘More important than anything else’ may be what was meant and having to work out not just what the valued goal is how much it is valued, adds to the burden of someone faced with an incoherent claim like: ‘X needs Y’. Not only should the goal (the Z) be explicit in order to know what’s going on but the strength of importance given to it. This is because getting this clear might make quite a difference to someone’s reaction to the endorsed goal. So, one might accept Z as ‘a good thing’ but not be as happy about endorsing it as, say, ‘the most important thing’. It would be helpful to know which was meant (if either; there are other possibilities). Although I have developed this point using examples connected to particular professional circumstances, teaching, I trust that you can see that similar problems arise with the use of ‘needs’ talk in almost any professional context. I also point out that talk of what is essential, required, necessary and so on has exactly the same sort of analysis as ‘needs’ does and thus has the same set of attendant concerns. The key thing to achieve is to get out into the light of day the morally valued goal; and asking of a needs claim: ‘Needs for what?’ is a way of doing that. Clashing ‘Needs’ Harking back for the moment to my concern that ‘needs’ worded propositions have a spurious status as apparent objective truths, consider the following scenario in continuation of the above discussion. Tammy asks Timmy and Tommy what broad aims schools should have. Timmy replies that schools should meet individual needs and Tommy replies that they should meet society’s needs. As complained of above, such talk is empty but almost no matter what emerges as what Timmy thinks of as a good way (or ways) for individuals to be and what Tommy thinks of as a good way for society to be, there will be clashes. What is good for an individual is often not what is good for the group. This is fine in and of itself; if Timmy supports one aim and Tommy another, then that is a matter for mutually probing extended enquiry of the sort introduced in earlier chapters. At least, it is fine if each of them realizes that what he is advancing is a moral judgement in clash with the moral judgement of the other. Such metacognitive awareness can be interfered with if one views one’s own stance as necessarily correct because it is just advocating what needs to be done. Thinking about ‘needs’ clashes might help avoid this. The only necessity in ‘needs’ talk is the necessary condition descriptive proposition that such-and-such is a necessary condition for the occurrence of so-and-so. And that proposition is neutral about what anyone should do (and, being just a claim, might not even be, as a matter of fact, true – a matter to which I will return below). Two people can indeed be in complete agreement about the necessary condition proposition, in complete

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agreement as to what the facts of the matter are if you like, yet still disagree as to what ‘needs’ to be done because they have rival goals. For instance, Harold might claim that Helga needs more counselling. Harriet might deny that Helga needs more counselling. Harold believes the following descriptive proposition: ‘Helga having more counselling is a necessary condition for Helga becoming thoroughly cured’. Harold also highly values Helga becoming thoroughly cured. Harriet does not so highly value Helga becoming thoroughly cured and more values Helga becoming just as cured as she wishes to be. Nonetheless, she agrees with Harold’s necessary condition claim. She just thinks that not only is Helga having more counselling a necessary condition for her becoming more thoroughly cured, it is also going to go beyond the level of cure that Helga wants. Harold doesn’t disagree with any of these descriptive beliefs of Harriet’s (he accepts that Helga does not want more counselling), he just has different value priorities concerning what is best for Helga, how cured she should be. So, without any disagreement as to what is, as a matter of fact, necessary for what, Harold and Harriet disagree as to what Helga ‘needs’ to do; the disagreement rests upon different moral priorities. Despite their direct disagreement concerning Helga, Harold and Harriet might, if intellectually crude, each describe their proposals as catering for Helga’s individual ‘needs’ (although they would likely not employ my ‘shudder quotes’). ‘Needs’ and Interests As touched upon above, sometimes talk of what someone, or some group, ‘needs’ seems to be meant as a way (however muddly and obscure) of talking about what is good for them, what is in their interest as we sometimes put it. Sometimes, though, it seems not to be in line with that analysis (which is basically the one offered earlier). This seems especially so when ‘needs’ occurs as part of phrases like ‘taking account of individual needs’ and ‘catering for individual needs’ and ‘being sensitive to, or aware of, individual needs’. In many of these cases, it seems to me that the suggestion is more that the views of the individual be ‘taken on board’. On this interpretation, catering for June’s individual ‘needs’ would be not doing what one might judge to be good for June; rather, it would be more about doing what she wishes to have happen. On this construal, catering for individual ‘needs’ is taking account of, and acting upon, those individuals’ views as to what should happen. So, if you like, it is doing what those individuals are interested in rather than what is in their interest (as you judge it). One could obviously advance either view and dispute would occur as to when people should be able to do what interests them and when they should have to do what someone else deems to be in their interest. My point here is just that ‘needs’ talk seems to ambiguously cover each meaning (and, in the mouths of some of the muddlier professionals employing it, an indistinct and undetected amalgam of both). The point of the sub-section is to apprise you of the distinction and to

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urge you to be explicitly clear in your thinking (and not to conflate the two) and to closely interrogate others as to just what they mean. ‘Needs’ and Wants If the thrust of the previous sub-section was to urge you not to confuse two ideas just because they seemed both to get talked about using ‘needs’ talk, the point of this one is not to insist on a ‘distinction’ where it is not at all clear that there is one properly to be made. It is not at all uncommon to hear practitioners of various sorts saying things like: ‘That may be what he wants but it is not what he needs’. Oddly, it is when they take the time to attempt to be conceptually subtle that they will tend to wish to think of needs as quite different to wants. It is not quite clear what this comes to but let me get to my criticism of this supposed distinction indirectly. As I have come across it most in educational circles, I will use an example from that profession. Say that we had a dispute between a student, Jeremy, and a teacher, Janette, about what Jeremy should be learning. Jeremy wants to learn about car engines; Janette wants Jeremy to learn about English grammar. We could describe this is a clash of wants. Or, we could rephrase it and say that Jeremy values learning about car engines but Janette does not value Jeremy learning about car engines. We could describe this as a value clash. Or, with some suitable unpacking as per above analyses, we could describe this as a clash of views about what Jeremy ‘needs’ to learn. All of these strike me as legitimate ways of construing the dispute between Janette and Jeremy. As noted, I have heard professionals and particularly, as in our case, teachers like Janette, say things like: ‘Jeremy may want to learn about car engines but that is not what he needs to learn; what he needs to learn is English grammar’. This strikes me as simply addle-pated arrogance on Janette’s part. As also noted, Jeremy may want one thing and Janette another. Jeremy may value different things than Janette does. Jeremy’s views about what he needs to learn may differ from Janette’s – perhaps in virtue of different goals – the Z of our earlier analytical schema. So, we could look one step more deeply and observe, perhaps, that Jeremy learning about car engines is held by Jeremy to be a necessary condition, or needed, for Jeremy to be happy in the short term. On the other hand, Jeremy learning about English grammar is, we’ll say, held by Janette to be a necessary condition, or needed, for Jeremy to be the sort of member of society that Janette values. But why ‘upgrade’ Janette’s views to some different status of proposition than Jeremy’s? Remember that ‘needs’ talk is goal-directed. Some held to be ‘needed’ thing is held to be a ‘need’ in virtue of it being held to be a necessary condition for some end that is held to be valuable. Assuming for the moment that Janette has her necessary condition descriptive proposition competently appraised (a matter I will return to below) the claim rests upon her valuing some end or goal; on something she wants to have happen (Jeremy being the sort of citizen that Janette values). It all boils down to a clash of views about how it is best for Jeremy to be. To judge whether Jeremy or

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Janette has the better proposal is a matter of looking at what each of them has to say in support of their value judgements; it’s not a matter to be settled in Janette’s favour by the fait accompli of deeming her to know Jeremy’s needs whereas poor Jeremy merely knows what Jeremy wants. Indeed, as will see in the last chapter, one theory about rightness and wrongness is to view moral propositions like these as merely expressing some sort of subjective preference, a ‘want’ if you like. And, if one thinks in this manner and views values as a sort of want, then ‘needs’ claims are crucially ‘wants’ claims in virtue of their implicit goal. Mind you, there are other analyses of rightness and wrongness that are portrayed in that chapter in which what is right is seen as some sort of objective truth. This only changes the detail of the above and the question would then become: ‘What makes us think that Janette has more insight into moral truth than Jeremy?’. The Necessary Condition Component in a ‘Needs’ Claim So far, I have been concerned to point out that ‘needs’ claims rely on implicit valued goals, on moral stances. When unpacking a ‘needs’ claim, such a moral proposition becomes one of two component propositions. Apart from that goalstating moral proposition, we have a descriptive necessary condition relation proposition and it is the latter that I now wish to make two brief comments on. My first comment is simply to observe that, as part of what is being said in a ‘needs’ claim is such a descriptive proposition, two people in dispute about what, say, Jeremy ‘needs’, might not be in dispute about the morally valued goal implicit in such talk. Jeremy’s friend Jim might agree with Jeremy that the important thing is Jeremy’s short-term happiness but be convinced that Jeremy would be very swiftly bored by car engine theory and would be much happier (even in the short term) doing outdoor education. Jim and Jeremy disagree about the truth of the descriptive proposition advanced by Jeremy concerning the link between him learning about car engines and his short-term happiness. Such a dispute is quite different to that between Jeremy and Janette even though each dispute is about what Jeremy’s ‘needs’ are. So, one ‘moral’ from this is to not just make explicitly clear what the ‘needs’ claim is saying but to make explicitly clear what the focus of any disagreement about it is. My second comment is to remind you that it is a necessary condition proposition that is being made in the descriptive component of a ‘needs’ claim. This is a very strong sort of proposition indeed. My impression is that lots of ‘needs’ claims are ill-conceived of in that no such strength of relationship is envisaged. The author has often simply not said what she really meant. Take the case of Jeremy above. Jeremy’s words (when unpacked) are to the effect that him learning (about car engines) is a necessary condition for his (short-term) happiness. What this says is that without such learning he won’t be (short-term) happy, such learning is a prerequisite for such happiness. Really? If Jeremy means this seriously, then we have a psychiatric case on our hands! Much of the time some less extreme relationship between the thing ‘needed’ and its implicit goal is intended. So, what

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is Jeremy claiming? Is it that learning about car engines will make him happy (or, to put it more carefully and technically: that learning about car engines is a sufficient condition for his short-term happiness)? If so, then a sufficient condition relation (this will bring about that) has been muddled with a necessary condition relation (this is prerequisite for that). Even that sufficient condition relationship is probably stronger than what is plausibly intended. Not only is Jeremy not likely to be suggesting that he won’t be happy without such learning he is also not likely to even be suggesting that such learning will guarantee, or bring about, such happiness (what if he gets such learning but his best friend dies or ...). Much of the time all that seems meant is something like: such learning will likely increase, or help increase (among other things like friends, food ...), my happiness (which I value). How much easier enquiry and discussion would be if people would try harder to simply say clearly and explicitly what they mean. As ‘needs’ talk rarely assists in this, I recommend that you drop it. It can be unpacked and made clear but alternative turns of phrase are less fuss and people rarely have the intellectual skills and patience to do the unpacking. If others use ‘needs’ talk, then try challenging it with something like: ‘Meaning precisely what?’ or get them to put their point another way. ‘Useful’ and ‘Relevant’ Relevant These are two other ‘buzz words’ that have much the same problems in their use as ‘needs’. They often crop up in discussions (and especially complaints) about some course of action (that it is not useful or irrelevant). Again, a preliminary analysis of these concepts is a good foundation for seeing the difficulties in their usual employment. When discussing ‘needs’ talk, I pointed out that the word was used as if it picked out a property that something had, rather than made a claim about a relation. The same applies here. A course in professional ethics, say, is not able to be coherently claimed to be irrelevant simpliciter; it can only be coherently claimed to be irrelevant to some task, or to the satisfaction of some purpose, or end, or type of professional activity, or some-such. Only after it has been specified just what such purpose is the one under consideration, can one make claims about what is relevant to that purpose. So, ethics courses might be irrelevant to the performance of everyday tasks and thus to most tasks undergone in most professions but relevant to understanding how to think about professional ethical dilemmas. Professional experience placements, for instance, might be relevant to the performance of the everyday tasks of most professions but irrelevant to understanding how to think through an ethical problem. I trust that you can see the similarities to ‘needs’ talk. Incoherent use of ‘relevant’, like incoherent use of ‘needs’, has an inbuilt assumption of superiority in a dispute. A critic of one’s argument that, say, ethics should not be in the curriculum of a professional preparation course because the curriculum should be relevant and

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ethics education is not relevant seems to be thrown immediately and unfairly on to the back foot. If the critic wishes to challenge the MP of the above argument then she seems to have to defend the indefensible by favouring irrelevance. How could someone be so stupid as to advocate making undergraduates learn irrelevant stuff? But it is simply unfair to the critic to so conceive of the lines of dispute. All that is happening is that the ‘relevance-monger’ and the critic have different tasks in mind that are deemed important. The proper locus of dispute is whether the curriculum should be limited to helping undergraduates perform everyday professional tasks or whether it should also assist students to think professional ethical issues through. Once such matters have been decided, then one can coherently opine about the relevance of this or that particular curriculum item to the endorsed aims. Unless that part of the relation has been set, talk of something’s relevance or otherwise is unfinished-off literal nonsense. Useful  Much the same can be said about the misuse of ‘useful’. Nothing is useful simpliciter; it can only be useful for the achievement of some goal, the performance of some task and so on. And what is useless for one purpose can be useful for another. When people advocate that any suggested activity, or skill, or item of knowledge should be ‘useful’, they usually have some set of approved-of tasks implicitly assumed as what usefulness is to be tied to. And if they complain of the ‘uselessness’ of, say, critical thinking, it is only a lack of usefulness for the achievement of the purposes, or the performance of the tasks, that they endorse as worthwhile that is being asserted. But unqualified talk of ‘uselessness’ sounds more objective, more matter-of-fact, than that. It might be conceivable that something is absolutely without use for any task whatsoever but that is not what is being asserted when people complain of something’s uselessness; rather, it is uselessness relative to whatever purposes, or tasks, that person endorses as worthwhile. And, as you might guess by now, the real focus of controversy might be more on what these ends should be rather than on the matter-of-fact issue of what is useful as a means for the achievement (or not) of this or that end. So, much the same lesson as for the dreaded ‘N’ word: if you must use this suite of ‘buzz words’ then, for the sake of your own and others’ intellectual health, realize that they are relation words and state, or ensure that all concerned understand, the value goals, or tasks, or whatnot that the claims are relative to. And when you hear others committing the above errors, get into the habit of asking: needs/relevant/useful for what? As noted with ‘needs’, sometimes the goal is clear from the context of discussion but often it is not, or is worth explicit pinning anyway so that it is perfectly clear just what is being subjected to possible critical challenge.

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‘Growth’, ‘Development’ and ‘Maximizing Potential’ Ever heard or read things like the following? Schools should aim at students’ educational growth. Teachers have a duty to foster the social, intellectual, emotional and spiritual growth of the children that they teach. My personal goal as a teacher is to try to maximize the individual potential of every child that I teach.

Yes? I thought they might sound familiar. My suspicion is that, like many people, you will have a ‘warm rosy glow’ of empathy with such sentiments. You might even have an ‘Of course this is right’ reaction to them. Regrettably, none of the above means much and all count as empty ‘feel good’ sloganizing for much the same sorts of reasons – hence their treatment together in this section. Although very (indeed, scandalously) prominent ‘buzz words’ in educational circles, especially in talk of aims, these crop up to some extent in some other professions as well so, although this section is particularly directed at teachers (and my examples will be from that profession), it should be worth others’ attention as well. You should reflect upon the discourse of your own profession and I will merely observe that the so-called ‘caring’ professions (another buzz word perhaps) and various professions connected to commerce and business seem to use them. What’s wrong with this way of talking (and thinking)? ‘Growth’ and ‘Development’ If I say that Janice has grown, meaning by this that she has physically grown, then it seems in many contexts to be an entirely descriptive proposition. I might be observing that she is taller or heavier or whatnot; in short, I am saying that a physical size change has occurred and, moreover, on that parameter of physical size, Janice has gone in the direction ‘larger’ rather than ‘smaller’. All harmless enough but, of course, being a descriptive proposition, it is, as it stands, and in and of itself, neutral when it comes to setting any moral direction for one’s interaction, professional or otherwise, with Janice. One could, I suppose, have a schooling aims proposal to do with physical growth and say something like: Schools should aim at fostering students’ physical growth.

Meaning what ? Well, meaning: try to help them get taller or heavier or whatnot. Silly sort of aim you might think but at least it is fairly clear. This concept of physical growth is, I think, the core notion that the metaphor of ‘growth’ (as used in educational aims and curriculum discussions and, as noted, in some

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other professions) rests on. The trouble is that as soon as we go beyond this core conception to the metaphorical derivatives of it, we find crucial differences that make for the emptiness of the slogans using such metaphors. How so? Let’s take an example to see. Say that a principal were to write in a newsletter to parents some such assertion as this: As a result of our survey of parents, a key feature of the coming year will be an increased focus on the emotional growth of our early childhood pupils.

We have two key words here, ‘emotional’ and ‘growth’. This looks to be a straightforward counterpart of the core idea of physical growth except that this time it is emotional, and not physical, growth spoken of. Appearances mislead however. In the everyday sense of the phrase that we had as our core notion, we had some sort of size parameter in mind and it was fairly clear what counted as growth on that parameter – a bigger size: more height, more weight or whatever. In the case of talk of emotional ‘growth’ things are trickier. ‘Emotional’ picks our parameter out (or perhaps a cluster, or family, of more individualized parameters). And, knowing that growth is being advocated at least tells us that change on that parameter is wanted – one can’t ‘grow’ in any sense by staying the same. So far, so good; but that is as far as the good news goes with this metaphor. The crucial problem is what sort of change upon some emotional parameter or other is to be granted the honorific label ‘growth’? One could try to run with a feature of the core physical idea of growth and just say: ‘More of (whatever) counts as growth in (whatever)’ as we would say more height counts as growth in height. Paradoxes abound however. Let me select as an example of an emotional parameter: racial intolerance. According to the above idea, emotional growth on the parameter of racial intolerance would be more racial intolerance! I doubt that this would be what the principal had in mind. Some of you might feel that I’ve played a trick here and that the trick is betrayed by the negating prefix ‘in’ in ‘intolerant’. The real parameter is tolerance, you might say, and accuse me of a perverse negative labelling in terms of its opposite, intolerance. Thus, if tolerance is the real parameter then growth on it will be more tolerance. Nope, won’t work; that is just muddled. Why? First, it is not as if tolerance and intolerance are two distinct emotional parameters; rather, they are opposite ends or directions along the same parameter. More intolerance is less tolerance and so on. So, going which way on that joint parameter is to count as growth? There is no automatic answer. Again, you might disagree and insist that, because it is ‘tolerance’ and its negation ‘intolerance’, getting more tolerance is going in the positive direction and more intolerance is going in a negative direction thus the former is growth and the latter regression. Nope; nothing of importance here hangs on which end of the parameter gets labelled with the primary term and which with the negation of that term.

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To see this, try another emotional parameter: hatred and non-hatred. Here the grammatically primary term is ‘hatred’ with the negative being ‘non-hatred’. So, following the advice of the objector in the above paragraph, emotional growth on this parameter would be more hatred. In short, neither end of any emotional parameter has the sort of inbuilt ‘growth’ direction favouring it in a parallel to the way that growth on a simple physical parameter like height means getting taller. The metaphor is misleading. You might feel that this is a lot of philosophical fussing of the worst sort and that ‘everyone knows’ what constitutes emotional growth: more tolerance, less hatred and so on. Nope; the above is not mere fussing and is rather important as an antidote to some dangerously simple-minded tendencies in educational (and some other professional) discourse. How so? The first thing to note is that, although there might be considerable agreement as to what counts as ‘growth’ on many emotional parameters, there will be others which are controversial. For instance, does it count as emotional ‘growth’ for a child to become increasingly proud about getting an ‘A’, or a merit certificate, or winning a race at the school swimming carnival? People will be in dispute about the moral worth of such feelings of pride. What can be said in the face of such disagreement? It’s not as if either party in the dispute is in factual error in the way that a ‘flat-earther’ is. The dispute is a moral one about what sorts of emotional qualities are good ones for people to have. It is dangerously simple-minded to think that there is some sort of ‘simple fact of the matter’ as to what is emotional growth and that everyone knows those facts. Best that all concerned realize that moral judgement is involved. Even more dangerous is when there is not much actual raging controversy and a sort of in-the-background moral ‘taken for grantedness’ is going on. I’ll switch to a related notion, development and, in particular, social development, for my example. At one time it was almost uniformly agreed that being patriotic, having a special commitment to one’s country was the better end of the patriotism/non-patriotism parameter of social change to be at. Thus, a person becoming more patriotic would count as becoming more socially developed on that parameter. There would now be more criticism of such views on the grounds that such nationalism is a sort of selfish and dangerous ‘tribalism’ and the view that it is more socially developed to be less, not more, patriotic would be more prevalent than in the past. Never mind what the merits of either view might be, the point is that for any view to be soundly held it has to have been subjected to probing criticism and this is unlikely to occur if it is just being automatically assumed by everyone to be right. Whether increasing or decreasing patriotism counts as social development is something more likely to be deliberated upon now than it would have been in the past when everyone just automatically ‘knew’ that patriotism was right (or, put in our terms, that a more patriotic citizen was more socially developed than a less patriotic one). As you would realize, however, even if this one is now more contested, we have our own taken-for-granted assumptions concerning other matters.

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So, in summary, coherent talk of ‘growth’ (or ‘development’) requires clarification of which parameters one is speaking of (and finer-grained clarification than just the generic ‘emotional’ or ‘intellectual’) and a moral judgement as to which end of the parameter is the good end. Slogans that are unclear and have their correctness taken for granted are no substitute for carefully thought-through views on complex matters. ‘Maximizing Potential’ Before leaving this family of misused ‘buzz words’, I’d like to touch on propositions like one of those earlier listed: My personal goal as a teacher is to try to maximize the individual potential of every child that I teach.

All of what has been said above about ‘growth’ and ‘development’ applies again here but with one additional twist. Presumably an individual has some potential for kindness and some potential for cruelty so is one to take it that, if one is to maximize his potential across-theboard then it should be each that is maximized? But that is impossible. As explored in the last sub-section, the two are simply opposite ends of the same parameter and someone becoming more kind is the same thing as that person becoming less cruel. One can’t maximize every potential because of such clashes. So, as you would guess from the foregoing, some moral judgements have to be made and, as with ‘growth’, this involves deciding which end of, say, the kindness/cruelty parameter is the good end. Problems with the ‘maximize potential’ slogan go beyond this though. Even if one has morally determined, for each ‘potential’ parameter, which end is the good end, there will still be clashes. Let’s be conventional and say that kindness is judged the good end of the kindness/cruelty parameter. Say also that truth-telling, or honesty, is judged to be the good end of the honesty/lying parameter. Wonderful, you might think; so, if we morally endorsed maximizing Jenna’s potential on these parameters, then we would maximize her potential to be kind and to be honest (just what right-thinking teachers would want). What does that proposal mean? Presumably: ‘make’ her as kind as possible and as honest as possible. But this is incoherent because of possible moral clash situations where to tell the truth is to be unkind. Maximizing her honesty is in clash with maximizing her kindness. So, the upshot of this is that one has to again make moral judgements about the relative importance of various qualities that a student might be brought to have (or to have more than at present). Priorities have to be set for the ‘maximize individual potential’ proposal to even start to make sense. So, if one thought that kind lies should sometimes be told, then one would not favour maximizing her potential for honesty; some lesser commitment would be sought. The tools of thought presented in earlier chapters should help you to work out these priorities.

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Indeed, further priorities have to be set even when clashes of the above sort are not present. Even were one to have a consistent set of ‘potentials’ in mind, say, for simplicity’s sake, ones that were simply rank-prioritized in terms of importance, one can’t maximize them all simply because there are too many. You and I have all sorts of ‘potentials’. We each have the potential to be better (and to be worse) at distinguishing leaf types than now. Same with balancing small pebbles in a pile, riding a unicycle, whistling out of the corner of the mouth, cooking omelettes and so on. The list is huge. One simply hasn’t the time to maximize every potential – even if one knew which direction counted as better and even if they were ranked in order of importance. (And note that some of these ‘potentials’ will seem to be of trivial importance – neither a good thing nor a bad thing to any extent much at all.) Obviously some picking and choosing will have to occur. But how, and on what basis? You might think that once one has rank-ordered one’s priorities, and knows what ‘potential’ one judges to be more important than what, it would be a simple matter of maximizing one’s top priority and then, if there is time left over, moving down to one’s second priority and so on. I doubt, however, if that is indeed a strategy you would wish to espouse. To make a similar point to one from earlier chapters, most ‘potentials’ are able to be fulfilled to a greater or lesser extent; it is all a matter of the degree of their satisfaction. Call a score of ten out of ten (in some chosen direction on some parameter of possible change) a maximization of that ‘potential’. However, not all failures to maximize are equal; seven is closer to one’s ideal than four. This constitutes a complication for the above-contemplated ‘working down the list’ strategy. Let me illustrate. Say that one had prioritized Judith’s potentials as follows: 1. Competent spelling; 2. Clarinet playing; 3. Avoidance of superstition. And so on. Never mind for the moment whether you would have these priorities or not and never mind just how they might get clarified. Say that Judith is already a fairly competent speller (a score of 7, say) and that she is a child prodigy at clarinet playing (a score of 9.5, say) but that she has had a Christian upbringing and thus has a tendency to superstitious belief (Christianity being, we will say, so classified) and so is currently rating 2 out of 10 on that parameter. Say further that, although the ranking is as shown, the decline in importance from 1 to 3 is not immense. Now, at 7, we clearly do not have ‘potential’ 1 maximized. We could devote time and energy to moving it as far towards 10 as possible but let’s assume that to do that would consume all of our available resources. That would mean ignoring ‘potentials’ 2 and 3 in our list. 2 might not be a source of concern as she is close to 10 anyway but what of 3? Given the closeness of deemed importance, despite the lower rank order, would a better strategy be to work on undermining

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her religious faith because of her comparatively low score on that superstitionavoidance ‘potential’? Perhaps so. Indeed mightn’t we want to have a complex strategy of intervention on a number of parameters depending on the importance of this, that and the other ‘potential’ and on the current degree of satisfaction of them? I suspect so. There is one further complication which I wish to mention. Perhaps any aim of maximizing some ‘potential’ should not just be governed by its importance and by Judith’s current score on it but by the feasibility of one’s intervention. If she now scores 6 and with massive diversion of resources one might be able to increase that to 6.1 then is the ‘game worth the candle’ even if it is a hugely important ‘potential’ being worked on? Having a near futile aim is, well, a bit futile! Accountability Although it crops up in many professions, I will again begin my illustration of the problems with this concept by discussing the way it crops up in the teaching profession. There seems to be an increased trend towards demanding that schools, teachers and so forth ‘be more accountable’. First thing to note is that there is no such thing as being accountable simpliciter; one is always accountable to someone or other and for something or other. Sometimes this is to society as a whole for the achievement of certain outcomes (as in much current discussion of literacy and numeracy benchmarks). Sometimes it is to parents for their child’s educational ‘progress’. Sometimes it is accountability for some matters to some people and for other matters to other people. Much as was the case with ‘needs’ etc., accountability is a relational concept, not a simple predicate. (A related turn of phrase with similar conceptual un-packing, and problems, is: ‘answerable to’.) One difficulty with ignoring this is that one gets empty sloganizing. I have seen things along these lines in mission statements and the like: ‘The school acknowledges that it is accountable to parents, students and the wider community’. On what matters is the school to be accountable to parents, on what other ones to students, on what further ones to the wider community? Unless things are clarified the commitment is empty babble. As we will see, on a more than minimal interpretation, one can’t be accountable for one thing to more than one group. This might not be immediately apparent so let me spend some time on the point. First, we’ll need a bit more analysis of the concept of accountability. If I am accountable to you for eating my greens at dinner, then what does this amount to? At the very least, it means that I owe you an account of my greens-eating or otherwise at dinner. You are being granted the right to know what I did. If this is all that is meant, then certainly one could be accountable in that sense to more than one person. But this is a minimal sense. There is also usually an element of granted power and control involved in accountability talk. In this stronger sense, in the case above, you are, in effect, being granted the power to determine what I eat at dinner (at least in part, that is, as to whether I eat greens or not and maybe concerning how big a portion

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I am to eat). My reporting to you, my giving an account of my activity at dinner concerning greens-eating, is merely information for you to use in your legitimate control of me. Perhaps if I have done what you wished, then I will be praised or rewarded; if not, I might be chastised or punished in some way. If one takes this latter, more robust, sense of accountability in which some sort of power is granted to the person or group to whom one is accountable for something, then one can’t be accountable to more than one group for the same thing. Go back to the greens case. How could I be accountable to both you and Jeremiah for eating my greens at dinner? You might disagree with Jeremiah as to whether I should be eating greens at all or, if so, what sort, how much and so on. I can’t serve two masters if their demands conflict. So unless it is just a minimal reporting that is in mind, one can’t be accountable for some aspect of one’s activity to more than one master. Further, distinguish another two distinct types of accountability. Matrix style, this distinction ‘cuts across’ the above one between: ‘mere reporting of information to someone about some activity’ and: ‘holding oneself responsible to someone who has legitimate power over you concerning some activity’. To illustrate, let’s draw the distinction within the former, minimal, sense of accountability. For me to be accountable to you in this sense is for you to have a right to know what I’m doing; but what sort of right? In an earlier chapter we distinguished a descriptive sense of ‘rights’ from a moral sense. The former was when it was a legal right; the latter was when it was a moral right – ditto with accountability. It could be that I have a legal duty of reporting my activity to you; or it could be that I have a moral duty of reporting my activity to you. The same distinction can be drawn within the stronger, power-granting, sense of accountability. It could be that you have been legally granted that power over me; or it could be that you have been morally granted that power over me. Both might apply, or neither, or just one or the other. In summary, if you must talk of accountability, then be sure that it is clear who is accountable in what way, for what, to whom. Again though, my suggestion is to simply drop the word. If, say, by asserting that a school should be accountable to its parent body for the school’s level of academic success in the curriculum against national benchmarks you mean that the parent body collectively should have power to control the school concerning that level of success, then say just that in so many words. And note that this seems to grant parents all sorts of corollary powers. Say that some poor results were partly because of a poor principal’s leadership. Presumably if the whip is in the collective hand of the parents, then they should be able to move to improve that success by firing the principal and hiring one with more promise. Or, if it is lack of tuition time that is the problem, then the parents should be able to get that increased and if that involves students and teachers working longer hours then so be it, the parents have spoken. And so on. (And if you don’t allow these corollary powers, then what on earth would you mean by saying that parents should have power over the school concerning, in our case, academic success?) If such a power claim is meant, then explicitly saying this ‘up front’ instead of spouting platitudes about accountability to parents would certainly make it much clearer just what was being proposed and thus would

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present a clearer target for critical challenge. Note what a different scenario it would be if all that was meant by: ‘accountable to’ in this context was our minimal sense and the suggestion was merely that parents should be told about the school’s academic success but the school didn’t have to respond to a lack thereof in any way that parents might wish. Summary Remarks on Babble The message from the above analyses is that it is delusional to think that a range of questions about what various professionals should do, can be answered in any straightforward way by utilization of sloganistic babble of the sort considered. Our ‘accountability’ discussion should be fresh in your mind and the earlier slogans amount to something like: Work out what mix of qualities (to what extent and with what relative importance) you think it is worthwhile for an individual to have and then act in whatever way gives you the best overall result concerning that mix.

Well, whoopee! That’s not a very helpful piece of guidance in response to any question – all the hard work remains ahead. It is about as helpful as saying: ‘You should do the right thing’ in response to the query: ‘What should I do?’ from someone faced with a complex moral problem. Murk In the above sections, I have argued that a number of ‘buzz words’ and slogans that crop up in professional discourse are so incoherent, as they are ordinarily deployed anyway, that it might be best to simply avoid them. There are some other slogans which are also troublesome, not because they’re incoherent but because they are obscure. In this section I wish to look at some of these. As I said at the start of the chapter, I am not attempting discussion of an exhaustive list of these, or even an exhaustive discussion of those that I do talk about. Rather, what I go through below is meant to be illustrative of an analytical intellectual approach to such murk. Hopefully, the following sections will help you to be attuned to the sorts of problem that I have in mind and you will be able to transfer such scrutiny across to other instances of murk that crop up in your own professional discourse. Equity There are a number of related terms which are used in the discussions that I have in mind, terms like ‘equity’, ‘equality’, ‘fairness’ and so on. I will focus on the first of these.

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It might be thought that if a term is thought obscure, then clarification of it is a simple matter of looking it up in a dictionary. Regrettably, things are rarely that simple. Let’s try such tracking of a web of connected concepts in a dictionary – starting with ‘equity’. In my edition of Webster’s, this notion is unpacked by reference to fairness or impartiality or being just. And, as this has replaced murk by more murk, following a couple of these further down the definitional trail, we get appeal to the notions: ‘unbiased’ and ‘un-prejudiced’. And, if, to resolve this further murk, we track one antonym (‘bias’) we get: ‘that which causes the mind to incline towards a particular object or course’ and, tracking ‘prejudice’, we get the suggestion that it is a view that is held without proof or competent evidence – although it seems ‘valid’ to one’s own mind (I use ‘shudder’ quotes because this is not like our use of ‘valid’ when we were discussing the logical merits of an argument). Mostly, this is not much help in that all we get is an extra list of labels that are just as murky as what we started with. It is simply not clear for most of them just what precisely is involved. It is not as if any of them are ‘double-Dutch’, we sort of grasp what is meant but then that was true of ‘equity’ as well. The point is that what we are getting is not at a level of conceptual sophistication that is adequate to the demands of serious thought; things are still too sloppy. The very last bit of our dictionary paper chase may look somewhat more promising in that you might think that you have a good grip on what counts as proof and competent evidence and, even if not, feel that scientists (or, perhaps, philosophers of science) could swiftly render advice. Perhaps so, but think about our proposition types: this latter tactic sounds fine for pinning down what counts as competent evidence for descriptive propositions but less so for moral propositions. As we have seen in the book to date, one might be able to ‘prove’ a moral proposition in the sense that we can link it to some premises from which it validly follows. And, for the descriptive premises forming that case, one could happily talk of competent evidence (as pinned down by appeal to scientists perhaps) but what of the moral premises? Things are much trickier. We will explore the status of moral propositions more in the next chapter but, as things stand so far, it is by no means clear that the sort of moral principles upon which (as premises) you might basing your moral (conclusion) stance are matters upon which ‘competent evidence and proof’ bear in any objective sense of the words that parallels what applies for descriptive propositions. As for the ‘inclination of the mind’ offering that we got at one point from the dictionary, it seems no help at all in our context as any moral principles you have will presumably incline you towards some course of action – they are, after all, what we were speaking of as motivating principles when we first introduced them. So, not much help really and, as usual, all the hard work of conceptual clarification lies ahead of you even once you have consulted the dictionary. Dictionaries aside then, what are we to make of ‘equity’ slogans? As noted above,

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our treatment won’t be exhaustive but simply illustrative of some issues for further thought. Part of the idea seems to be something like equal treatment – to treat people differently is inequitable. Everyone’s favourites here are various groups like black people, women, old people, homosexuals, physically disabled/handicapped people, poor people, Jews and so on. The suggestion is that to treat these folk equitably means that they should be treated equally to any other folk. As a first approximation, then, our analytical offering would be to suggest that treating people equitably is to treat them equally. You might think that this all sounds very promising but it simply won’t do. Why so? Are we to take it that treating Jim and Julie equally is doing exactly the same thing to/for Jim and Julie no matter what those individuals are like and no matter what the circumstances in question are? But a moment’s thought makes this seem to be a daft suggestion. Say Jim is drowning and Julie isn’t; on the face of it, unless we throw each a life raft (or neither) we would be acting inequitably (as above analysed). Or, say Julie is a convicted fraud and Jim isn’t; presumably equity, unpacked as equal treatment, enjoins that each should go to prison (or neither). Clearly if by ‘equal treatment’ we mean identical treatment ‘regardless’, that would be so but that is not what anyone wanting to wield the murky term ‘equity’ would have in mind, so a more sophisticated analysis is in order. Such a more sophisticated go at things is to suggest that to treat people equitably is to treat them equally with respect to those parameters relevant to the decision situation at hand (and to not take account of other factors or features of the individuals). What is meant by this? Well, when it comes to jailing people as frauds, or not, Jim and Julie should be treated on the basis of their status as frauds or not and nothing else. The only relevant parameter is whether one is a fraud or not. This would be equal treatment for each in the sense that the very same fraudulence test would applied to each and the same punishment would apply to each, contingent upon them being a fraud. Irrelevant to the equitable application of the ‘jail frauds’ principle to them will be that Jim is a black Jew or that Julie is a paraplegic lesbian. The key idea here is that we are unpacking ‘equity’ as not just crude identity of treatment ‘no matter what’ but as treatment that appeals to, and only appeals to, those parameters deemed relevant to the case at hand. Again, this might look OK at first glance but appearances deceive. Jim, we have said, is black. Presumably, in accordance with the usual rhetoric surrounding ‘equity’, it would be inequitable to fail to hire Jim and to instead hire Jade, a Caucasian, if that was just because Jim was black and despite them rating equally on the criteria advertised for the job. So far, so good; but change the story a little bit and make the job one on the staff of the Ku Klux Klan. And, forgetting for the moment that current law would probably forbid this, say that the ad for the job stipulated as one of the necessary criteria: ‘Must be Caucasian’. Here, by reference

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to a criterion relevant to the job, Jim would miss out and Jade would not. By reference to our analysis, this is equitable but would you be happy to call it so? Now try it the other way around. In Australia, at least, some aboriginal organizations can legally insist upon aboriginality as a criterion for appointment to some ‘culturally sensitive’ jobs. What is usually said of such situations is that the organizations are still complying with equity demands because aboriginality is just as much a qualification for that sort of job as, say, being able to drive a truck is for a job as a truck driver. So what, you might think, what is wrong with that? One possible problem is that the very same argument seems to apply to the Ku Klux Klan case as well. Say that the job involves lots of anti-black and white supremacist sermonizing; it is quite plausible that Jim’s blackness is an impediment to satisfactorily carrying out the demands of the job. In short, it is not at all clear that you could consistently consider the aboriginal organization employment conditions equitable and not the Ku Klux Klan ones – at least according to the unpacking of ‘equitable’ that we have offered so far. You might also want to think about the case of so-called reverse discrimination. Some organizations insist upon a certain quota of people of some under-represented sort in their job profile. So, as an example, one Australian political party has a quota for female candidates such that Jill might get to be the candidate over Jonas simply because of her sex and with no suggestion that she will thereby make a better parliamentarian than Jonas would. Similarly, many American universities and colleges once had (and may still have) student intake quotas concerning various minority groupings in society that were under-represented in higher education. Is this equitable? It certainly isn’t in any unpacking which appeals to equality of treatment on parameters relevant to the tasks at hand. Perhaps the idea behind equity is more one of equality of opportunity, not equality of treatment. Let’s tease things out a bit. Say that the college has an entrance examination for some course that is in much demand and that its offers for places in the course are made on the basis of one’s score on that test with the highest scores getting offers and then down the range until the course quota is filled. In one sense this is equality of opportunity in that anyone can sit that test, they all get equal time during the test and so on. But what if one comes from a background that doesn’t have English (say) as a first language, or one that has an anti-educational socio-cultural climate so that one’s educational level at the time of sitting the test is below what it might otherwise have been. It might, indeed, be below the level of someone of poorer genetic endowment with respect to intelligence but with a more robust educational background. In a sense, such a person is educationally handicapped and it’s akin to letting amputees and the fully-legged all run a race and then rewarding winners. So, perhaps somehow one should apply handicaps in the racing sense to the test and place different score demands on people sitting it depending on the sorts of factors mentioned above. Would that be equitable treatment? I think that it is more like what people have in mind when wishing to wield the murky notion of equity in scenarios like entry

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to universities. In effect, one is trying to compensate for previous differences in experience that make members of some groups less able than others (or than they might otherwise have been) in whatever the test is measuring. Mind you, one has to be cautious here. There is enough to the ‘nature’ side of the ‘nature/nurture’ dispute to say that, regardless of similarity of experiences and so on, some people are simply genetically less intelligent than others. This is hardly their fault any more than an educationally impoverished upbringing is their fault. So, should test results be somehow further adjusted for this? At this point it is becoming very unclear just what discriminatory function a multiply hedged-about test could perform. Make the ‘playing field’ totally level and presumably everyone will get the same score. The lesson from the above is that ‘equality of opportunity’ is by no means a very clear offering in analysis of what is meant by ‘equity’ and, if this path is to be explored further, then much intellectual sweat would have to be expended on getting it clear to all concerned just what was meant. We could continue teasing out aspects of the notion of equity with more elaborate analyses but I suggest to you that, if the task is to find out the ‘real’ meaning of ‘equity’, then first, there probably isn’t any such precise meaning that isn’t without puzzling anomalies where you would hesitate about the application of the word and second, it is a waste of your time anyway to bother. It is the second of these points that is the more important. Ask yourself why you even wanted to know what equity amounted to. I would think that it would be because you are wrestling with some vexing professional ethical issue where it looked as if some of the options might be usefully classified as equitable ones or not. So, you might have generated a little three-line argument along the lines of, we’ll say, one should always act equitably, hiring a black over a white in virtue of skin colour is not equitable so, one should never hire a black over a white in virtue of skin colour. But an early demand upon our arguments was that they be clear – in particular, that key ideas like those in the moral premise principle be clear. And, as ought to be blatantly apparent by now, ‘equity’ is not immediately clear and it would be no easy task to craft a satisfactory working definition. Say that you did pin the concept down to your satisfaction. Never mind what emerged and let’s just say that your analysis of ‘equity’ was ‘XYZ’. You could, of course, set this up as your own working definition of ‘equity’; and, so long as ‘XYZ’ itself was clear and all concerned kept in mind just what you meant by ‘equity’ and didn’t keep mentally writing in their own interpretive tendencies instead, an enquiry could proceed satisfactorily enough. The trouble is, though, that ‘equity’ is a term whose obscurity is such that fairly different threads of meaning can be prominent in various people’s minds. In short, it is asking a lot of participants in an enquiry to expect them to keep in mind your stipulated interpretation of it as ‘XYZ ‘ and not slide away to some other meaning that is in their own mind. Indeed, given the murkiness of the concept, you might yourself even slide around between the XYZ interpretation that you have crafted after some tightening up and others that were murkily floating around in your mind at some earlier stage.

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The upshot is that it is sometimes easier and wiser to simply drop obscure buzz words like ‘equity’ and, instead, carry out your enquiry in terms of whether, say, XYZ should always be pursued. To go back to one of our examples from earlier, don’t bother to fuss about whether the Ku Klux Klan hiring the white over the black was equitable or not, just focus on whether it was morally defensible or not. Then, pursuing this issue, focus upon on clear features of the situation (and the presence or absence of equity is not clear). So, although most of the job’s tasks were skin colour indifferent (typing speeches, constructing crosses, buying matches etc.) one of them (inciting feelings of white supremacy) was not. I put it to you that, in this case, the hiring issue will quickly segue into an enquiry into the morality of the job itself that the people are being hired for. And none of that is going to be much helped by focusing on ‘equity’ (whatever that might mean). In short, to avoid lots of diversions devoted to making sure that everyone doesn’t get at cross-purposes with each other by having different interpretive slants on what ‘equity’ amounts to, I suggest that you simply drop the word and put your moral point (and have others put theirs) directly in terms of whatever you more or less had in mind and were using ‘equity’ as a tag for. That way, you will get more directly to the issues that are of importance to you without having to divert to flailing around trying to clarify some murk. Respect We have touched upon this one in our ‘lying nurse’ example but lots of professions waffle on about respecting clients, or cultures, or beliefs, or ... ; quite what does this come down to? My message here will be the same as with everything in this part of the chapter: what is meant is obscure, the obscurity can cause confusion and miscommunication, clarification is pointlessly time-consuming and it is better to just avoid the jargon, even if it gives you a nice warm glow inside. Why not just put your point using whatever concepts you would appeal to were you to be asked what you meant when you spoke of respect? Given the potential that there is for misunderstanding, the elements of that definitional story would probably have to emerge sooner or later and it might as well be sooner and pre-emptively of questions being asked as to what was meant. So that you can see why I think that there is a problem with ‘respect’, I will offer some analytical comments. I am not going to give a laborious conceptual analysis of ‘respect’ in its multiple applications and meanings. What I will do instead is choose one scenario for one profession and suggest that similar sorts of problems (to those arising in our illustration) would arise also in many other scenarios and professions. Consider the case of a social worker, Paul, working in an indigenous community which has still retained much of its traditional belief system concerning the workings of the world, religion and morality. Paul is instructed by his superiors

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that, in carrying out his work, he must be respectful of these traditional beliefs. Just what is he being instructed to do? Two things are worth distinguishing immediately: how one thinks is one thing and how one behaves is another. On the face of it, respect looks like a mental quality, a mental attitude towards something or someone. So, on this line of analysis, Paul is being instructed as to what to think. What, then, would count as Paul engaging in respectful thinking concerning these traditional beliefs? One thing that can be swiftly ruled out is the suggestion that Paul is being instructed to think their beliefs to be true (if what we have in mind are descriptive propositions) or to share their ethical code (for moral propositions). I will focus just on the case of descriptive propositions, although some of the discussion applies to moral ones as well. The descriptive components of their belief system might be simply false, or, at the very least, without any clear warrant as true. It is somewhat strange, indeed futile, to ask Paul to override his rational faculties and adopt a set of beliefs that he realizes to be false or without justification. Such belief shifts are not subject to such imperatives. Even if you told me that I would die unless I believe that the earth is flat, I can’t just sit down and change my belief as an act of will. So whatever else mental respect might involve, it had better allow that one might ‘respect’ another’s descriptive beliefs despite thinking them false or irrational. It is worth raising, and rubbishing (without intellectual ‘respect’ in any sense perhaps) one view that sometimes gets appealed to here. It amounts to a form of relativism about truth. So, we get this sort of thing said: ‘Paul should realize that, although the indigenous beliefs are beliefs that are not true for him, they are true for them’. Even if initially attractive to you, you should realize that this is ridiculous as soon as you begin to push things a bit. Say that one of the traditional beliefs is that the earth is flat (and that Paul shares the modern scientific view that it is ‘round’, or, to be more precise, an oblate spheroid). Is it being claimed that he should believe that, although it is true for him that the world is round, for them, it is true that the world is flat. This seems contradictory. If to say that a belief is true is to say that it captures some aspect of what reality is really like then, as the world can’t be both flat and round, saying that the indigenous belief system (or that particular bit of it) is true for them can’t be using ‘true’ in any such ordinary way. (Note that one could allow that someone thinks something to be true without at all being committed to the view that it is true.) Given this perversity of usage, I suggest that you don’t even consider confusing the thinking of all concerned by talking in this ‘true for him but not for me’ type of way. There is a considerable literature on the topic of relative truth (including a book by me from this publisher) but it is a quite technically complex topic and I would suggest discretion is the better part of intellectual valour here. So, if respecting their belief system’s descriptive propositions can’t mean believing all of them to be true (or ‘true for them’) because some will be false and/or irrational, what could be meant?

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All that might be meant is thinking that, although some of what they believe is false, nonetheless, that is their business and it is no part of Paul’s business to ... well, what? If he thinks their belief to be false then, as we have seen, presumably that is OK. So, perhaps the idea is that he is to believe that people should not have their false beliefs challenged, that they should be able to continue to be deluded without being made aware of why their beliefs are false. I have said that ‘respect’ is a muddly notion but even in some fairly un-analysed and intuitive sense, this sounds more like an exercise in patronizing, than respecting, someone’s beliefs. Why should they be deliberately kept from knowing the full story on some matter (the shape of the earth, in our illustration)? Why would one want Paul to believe that such a policy of continuing their ignorance is a good thing? Perhaps the motivation here is that, if indigenous believers were apprised of the correct story, then they might change their views. But so what? Isn’t the move from ignorance to knowledge an intellectual step forward? Perhaps the idea is that ‘ignorance is bliss’, that an abandonment of false belief might lead to a loss of cultural self-confidence, social breakdown or whatever. It is not clear, however, that a culture based on falsehood is worth preserving. And on the debate goes. My point is that it looks lovely to say that Paul should ‘respect’ their (descriptive and false) beliefs but if the unpacking of that goes down a path such as the above, then the ‘loveliness’ of what he is being asked to think becomes highly contentious. In any event, how is it a proper professional ethical demand upon Paul to try to dictate his attitude to the question: ‘Should people be able to continue in false belief without any attempt to apprise them of the objections to these beliefs?’. In short, if expecting or demanding that Paul respect others’ beliefs amounts to trying to constrain Paul’s own thinking, his views as to the proper reaction to false believers, then is such attempted censorship of his thought really able to be sanitized by calling it a demand for respectful thinking? As I have said, all that I intend in all of the above is to ‘start some hares running’ and suggest that demanding that Paul be respectful of others’ (descriptive, but false) beliefs looks odd if it is a change in his mental attitude that we are demanding. Perhaps, though, it is not respectful thinking that is demanded but respectful behaviour (including verbal behaviour). So, even if Paul thinks that the indigenous belief system is primitive rubbish and that only the wilfully dimwitted would not have chucked it on the scrapheap of false theories long ago, he had better, qua respectful social worker, keep those thoughts to himself. It might be that, despite the mental attitude flavour of ‘respect’ talk, trying to work out what sort of thinking is being demanded of Paul is a blind alley. Perhaps it is not mind control but behaviour control that is intended. Even if it is a good idea for a deluded indigenous group to have their false descriptive propositional beliefs challenged at some stage, by someone (perhaps those in educational institutions), it might be insisted that Paul, qua social worker, should be no part of such intellectual remediation. If you like, it is not so much that Paul should respect their false

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descriptive beliefs as it is that he should treat the believers in a certain way – with respect, so to speak. This looks like progress; at least we have some sort of grip on what might be meant here. The analytical elements that seem to have emerged so far are that Paul is not to say that their beliefs are false (even if he were to give reasons) or behave in any other manner that suggests that the beliefs are false. Perhaps though, it is a weaker suggestion that, although he cannot initiate such remarks, he is able to offer them if asked things like: ‘Do you think, as we do, that the earth is flat?’. It is hard to see what he could do but say: ‘No’. Perhaps he is supposed to dissemble as to the belief-worthiness of various views and offer something more ‘diplomatic’ like: ‘No, but of course that is just my point of view and I recognize that there are other beliefs, like yours, that are equally legitimate’. But this is to ask him to lie in his teeth. The belief that the earth is not flat is not just his view and the rival ‘flatearth’ view struggles to be called ‘equally legitimate’ if by that is meant anything like that it satisfies defensible standards for the justification of belief claims. So, is he just to say: ‘No’ (and nothing more) on the grounds that it would be disrespectful to say anything further? Perhaps so, but perhaps this is being, in another sense, dis-respectful. Again, it sounds close to being patronizing in that it sounds like the topic of the falsehood (even the near certain falsehood in our scenario case) of their beliefs is one to be avoided as, well, what? – too threatening to their self-image, or self-respect, or something of that sort? Anyway I hope that the above ‘talking aloud on the page’ analytical exercise illustrates how a fairly common professional ‘buzz word’ is problematic in ways that can be simply overlooked by thoughtless sloganizing in its terms. As you should realize, the above is only illustrative and by no means constitutes a thorough analysis. Such an analysis is beyond the scope of this chapter and, as I have said, to be avoided anyway by simply saying what it is that one wants Paul to do using less junk-jargon. Tolerance Closely related to the above ‘respect’ ‘buzz word’ is ‘tolerance’. In a number of professions, practitioners are exhorted to be tolerant of the viewpoints of others that are different to their own and sometimes to be tolerant of behaviour that acts out such beliefs and, especially, values. I won’t offer even the (incomplete) level of analysis given above for ‘respect’ and will but point to some of the things that would have to be thought about were you to go down such an analytical path. (In order to be tolerant) should one permit any action to occur so long as it is conscientiously held to be right by the agent concerned (or the culture/group/ religion of that agent)? What if such an action is wrong according to your values?

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What if it is also wrong according to some broader grouping (like a society or a nation)? Does it make any difference whether it is a legal action or not? What of that special sort of action, speech? Should tolerance conceived of as the demand that one allow just anything to be said? What of thought? Does tolerance demand that we permit anyone to think anything or should we be able to instil/indoctrinate some views?

And so on. In short, it is just obscure (in a way that is fairly useless as moral guidance) to preach tolerance without a considerable amount being said and if that amount has to be said (for clarity’s sake) then why not just say it immediately, say precisely what one has in mind ‘up front’ and eliminate the dodgy word ‘tolerance’? On pain of paradox, no one can advocate permitting any action at all to occur, few would advocate totally un-restrained speech (although that is, at least, an unparadoxically coherent position) and many have concerns about permitting people to even think whatever they like (say their thoughts will motivate them to bad actions and you have no way of stopping such actions but might have a way of stopping the thoughts ever arising, or continuing, by subjecting them to childhood moral indoctrination, or ‘re-education’ when adults; in such a situation, perhaps one should so indoctrinate). My point is that these are all huge moral questions that will require much careful thought and such thought is not advanced by deployment of vague slogans like: ‘We should be tolerant of those who differ from us’. However rosy a glow such vague twaddle engenders, the hard ethical work of thinking things through still lies ahead of you. Freedom As I said in Chapter 1, many professional ethical problems arise because the profession is somehow connected with doing things that clash with other individuals’ freedom of thought or action or, to use another word I employed then, their autonomy. In this section, I’d like to spend a little time talking about what freedom might amount to. Quite a lot of philosophical sweat has been expended on trying to pin down the concept (or concepts) of freedom and it is by no means in as a bad shape as others considered above and, with a little bit of self-conscious caution, the term is one that can be deployed in enquiries to good intellectual effect. A good place to start is with the distinction made by the political philosopher Isaiah Berlin in a 1958 work (Two Concepts of Liberty, Oxford University Press, Oxford). The distinction is between what are sometimes called ‘negative’ and

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‘positive’ freedoms. We have spoken of freedom in the context of what to think and how to act and the positive/negative freedom discussions in the literature have mostly concentrated upon action. As we will shortly see, however, it is a distinction that is useful for our purposes when applied to freedom of thought as well. The distinction has its obscurities but is not a bad tool at all if used carefully. Put briefly, to have negative freedom is to have no externally imposed constraints or forces governing what one does. Positive freedom is best thought of as the ability, or capacity, to do something. In quick illustration, I have negative freedom to jump to the moon, no one is stopping me, but I am unable to do it, I do not have that positive freedom. Why the tags: ‘positive’ and ‘negative’? A negative freedom, to jump, say, is an absence of various external forces stopping one from acting as one wishes to (or forcing one to do what one does not wish to). A positive freedom is the presence of a capacity to do some act. And one can have one and not the other. We have seen negative, but not positive, freedom present in the ‘jump to the moon’ example and one might have positive freedom to get up out of a chair (one is not a quadriplegic, say) but not have negative freedom (the psychiatric nurses have strapped you in place). Generally speaking, most professional ethical dilemmas concerning freedom are ones that concern action, not thought, and negative freedom, not positive freedom. In short, many professions involve stopping people doing what they wish, and have capacity, to do. Accordingly, I will first spend a little time on negative freedom concerning action and then briefly touch upon the other three ‘cells’ of our cross-cutting matrix of possibilities. Stopping people doing what they wish to is obviously more salient in some professions than others. In a dramatic way, police are an obvious case but what of others? Rather a lot depends upon how broadly one construes the idea of constraining someone from doing something (or forcing them to do something else). Strapping someone down or grabbing them and physically moving them (manhandled into a police car, say) are obvious ways in which all other options become unavailable. I am, in the sense associated with the concept of positive freedom, still able to stand up (if only I were not strapped down) or walk down the street (if only I were not being shoved into the police car); I am just not (negatively) free to exercise that ability (or positive freedom). Most professions do not involve much force in this physical sense of the word but what of threats? This scenario is often of this sort: ‘Unless you act as I wish you to, you will be punished’. I put it to you that quite a lot of professions involve something of this sort, even if the pill is sugar-coated by euphemism. In one sense, complying with such threats is still an exercise in free choice but in another, it isn’t. Consider these two scenarios. Say that you were tossing up between two options, one of which has rather damaging consequences for you. You see a brawl in which a weaker person is getting hurt (and will soon be seriously hurt) by a stronger person. Though no martial arts expert, you know that if you intervene, you could stop things.

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Mind you, you would yourself get a bit hurt in the process. Being of a timid and fearful nature, you decide against intervention. Whatever one might think of the rightness of that choice, it seems to be a clear case of you having negative freedom – no one is dragging you off away from the fight or blocking your intervention. Basically, it looks like you deciding freely, based upon your appraisal of the options and their consequences. Now change the scenario a little. The ‘you’ in this scenario comes across someone lying in the gutter bleeding and you are inclined to assist. Then you notice someone else, another bystander seemingly. The other person, ‘Bruno’ I will call him, moves across to you and says that unless you move on and avoid interference, he will make sure that you get your face rearranged later in a less public place. You decide that discretion is the better part of valour and move on. Later, when the story comes out about the bashing and your presence, rapidly becoming absence, a friend berates you: ‘Why didn’t you help?’. You answer that you couldn’t, Bruno stopped you. In this scenario, did you have negative freedom? In effect, you are claiming that you did not. Each scenario has two options, one of which is dangerous to you. The main difference for our purposes is that, in the Bruno scenario, the danger has been deliberately added as a feature of one option by human action – the threat. To cope with all of this and work out if one had negative freedom or not, one would have to do further analytical work. I raise it just to show you that it might be plausible to call the Bruno case one of force (and loss of negative freedom) in some extended sense, even if, in another sense, it doesn’t seem to fit because the intervention option was not physically blocked off – you could still have done it, albeit at the expense of some personal injury later. So, although not a bad tool, the concept of negative freedom should be used with some caution and it is probably better to say things like: ‘In one way I was free but, in another sense, I was forced to leave’. In each scenario, I made reference to ‘your’ personality profile and, in particular, to your level of timidity and this moves us nicely into a discussion of grey areas for the idea of positive freedom, or ability. Are you indeed even able to intervene if you are too scared to? Are you ‘programmed’ by your genetic inheritance and various environmental influences upon you to avoid the intervention option and thus count as ‘psychologically disabled’ when it comes to being anything but timid? Is it but an apparent ability in that, although you are physically capable of carrying out some action, you are not psychologically capable of doing so? Note that we do sometimes think of people as psychologically incapable of doing anything other than what they end up doing – with instances being the insane, the drugged or the hypnotized. Although these would be fairly clear-cut cases, perhaps the net for psychological inability should be spread more widely. What we are beginning to get into here is what is known in the philosophical trade as ‘the free-will/determinism’ debate. When you avoided trouble in either scenario, were you exercising your powers of free will or were you acting out your psychological programming? And ditto, for that matter, were you to intervene.

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There is a vast and readily available literature on this sort of issue (almost any introductory philosophy text will introduce you to the main threads of discussion) and I don’t wish to pursue it in its own right in this chapter. My point with the above is simply to say that, much as thinking about what constituted external force or constraint led us into grey areas (the Bruno scenario), so does thinking about the possibility of ‘programmed’ psychological tendencies lead us to grey areas in the idea of being able, or unable, to do certain things (even if negatively free to do so). Again, if you are going to talk of freedom in considering any of these ‘ethical dilemma’ types of situations, then caution is the lesson. The above discussion has addressed two of our matrix cells: negative and then positive freedom concerning actions; what of thought? I suppose that there are scenarios with people stopped from thinking particular thoughts (negative freedom style) but more frequent are cases of removing, or preventing from ever developing, someone’s capacity to think certain things. In short, we are denying positive freedom. Counterparts of the strapping down, or even the less clearcut Bruno case that we used in illustrating loss of negative freedom concerning one’s actions are not going to loom large in most professional lives (even if they exist, and don’t, upon closer analysis, turn out to be better thought of as cases of removal/prevention of positive freedom). Accordingly, let’s focus upon positive freedom of thought (the capacity/ability to think various things) and the denial of such freedom. Try this scenario. Isabel is brought up by a fundamentalist religious sect and is schooled and socialized into belief in the religious tenets of that sect. Does she have the ability to think atheistic thoughts? Perhaps not – if by that is meant seriously consider, and perhaps move to endorsing, atheism or agnosticism. The issue here is one of what is sometimes called: ‘indoctrination’ (another somewhat obscure term but probably clear enough for present purposes). As you would predict, the major professional locus for such concerns about freedom of thought is teaching. Nor is it just religious schools that are concerned to instil or reinforce religious beliefs, or values, that are in question here – most schools attempt to instil some moral values even if not religiously based. Moreover, it is not just schools and teachers that come up against (positive) freedom of thought issues. Think back to our discussion of ‘respect’ and ‘tolerance’. Lots of professions’ activities come into contact with beliefs and values of other religions, cultures, sub-societal groupings of various sorts and so on. As discussed earlier, there is usually some pressure to be respectful, in some sense(s) of these words, of such alternative views (and, perhaps, of behaviour resulting from them). One common rationale for this is that people should be able to think what they like, especially on such matters as religion and ethics. One challenge to this sort of rationale comes from the last bit of the above remarks. What if what someone is thinking concerning religion is not so much a set of thoughts that is their own as it is a set of thoughts instilled into them by others? To be ‘respectful’ of someone’s own views on some matter is one thing but perhaps it is another thing to ask one to be ‘respectful’ of views that are, in

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one sense, not their own. Perhaps we should not treat someone’s religious beliefs, say, with professional ‘kid gloves’ if that person is some sort of victim of their indoctrinators and is unable to seriously entertain any non-theistic views. Indeed, would it be more an act of respect for their mind to try to save such a person from the consequences of them having suffered intellectual abuse, much as we would charge various professionals with the task of ‘saving’ people from the consequences of physical or sexual abuse? If not, what is the morally significant difference between the two sorts of situation? I won’t pursue matters further but I trust that you can see how issues concerning (positive) freedom of thought (and prior interference with its range) might be something impinging upon quite a few of you, not just teachers (and, presumably, ministers of religion). So, to close on ‘freedom’, the two cross-cutting distinctions between freedom of thought and of action and between freedom from external constraint or force (negative freedom) and the capacity or ability to do something (positive freedom) are useful elements in your conceptual framework for the consideration of a number of issues that arise in professional ethics. But, as we saw with some of our ‘grey area’ scenarios, things can get complicated and we have only touched on some of those complications. As with earlier considered, and murkier, terms and turns of phrase, my advice here is to work out just what you are trying say and , if you are to use ‘freedom’, then ensure that it is sufficiently qualified to be clear enough for the task at hand. And, when responding to its misuse by others, take some time to seek clarification of just what they might mean. Rights and Duties With these two, it is not so much that they are obscure as it is that they are somewhat misused by professionals; so here the murk is more in the mind of the thinker than in the concepts themselves. Nonetheless it is worth just a sketch of the ideas. First, let me remind you that we drew a distinction way back in Chapter 2 between a legal right and a moral right with the former being a descriptive matter and the latter a moral one. We could similarly draw a distinction between a legal duty and a moral duty. In what follows, I discuss only moral rights and duties. (It would not be terribly hard to transfer the elements of the discussion across to the legal case.) Say that I asserted that everyone has the (moral) right to free speech. What does this amount to? – basically that it is up to, say, me to decide whether to speak or not and, if I speak, to choose what to say. All of this is to be without ‘let or hindrance’ by anyone else. In effect, to consider me to have that right is to consider speech to be an area of morally legitimate negative freedom for me; when it comes to speaking, all options are for me alone to choose from. Contrast with that the suggestion that I have a (moral) duty to be polite. If it is a moral duty, then that is a (moral) restriction on my (legitimate) exercise

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of negative freedom. The option of speaking impolitely is being withdrawn as not a morally legitimate one. There is a little bit of a grey area here concerning negative freedom in that I might still be not stopped from speaking impolitely so, in that sense, the option is open, but if I do choose to speak impolitely then I will be morally condemned (unless a higher duty enjoined the impoliteness – a complication I turn to in the next section). Whereas if I had the (moral) right to free speech, then I could not be held to have acted wrongly if I exercise that right by choosing to be impolite and should not be stopped (again there is a possible complication concerning clashes with more important values). One may not personally be pleased with the choice made but the moral right to free speech is the right to make that choice; the choice is a morally permissible one. So, in summary, and skipping some complications just mentioned, to judge me to have a moral right in some domain is to judge me to have legitimate negative freedom of decision in that domain. To judge me to have a moral duty in some domain is to restrict what it is morally legitimate for me to do in that domain (and might but won’t necessarily, involve stopping me from doing anything but whatever it is that is my duty). I wish to make two further points about this pair of concepts before closing. The first is that having a right to X is incompatible with having a duty to X. Why? – because the former is freedom talk and the latter is restraint talk. So, for instance, to have the right to life is precisely the same right as having the right to death. What it means is that, when it comes to life and death, it is morally legitimately your shot (perhaps literally) to call. In short, such negative freedom means that committing suicide is a legitimate exercise of the moral right to life. Many people who talk of the right to life do not seem to realize this implication and my suspicion is that they really mean a duty to live. So, let’s analytically contrast the right to life with the duty to live. If I have a moral duty to live, then, unlike the case of a right to life, suicide isn’t morally legitimate (again, there are complications about overriding a duty by an even more important duty but this complication doesn’t affect the point at hand). One can, of course, have both rights and duties but not about the same thing. I have found that this is a source of confusion in that many professionals write/talk as if one can have both a right and a duty to do the same thing. That said, there is a conceptual connection between rights and duties (and this is the second of my closing points). Your rights, while imposing no duties on you, entail duties for others. If you have a moral right to free speech, then a direct entailment of that is that I have a moral duty to not prevent you from exercising that right. Given that right, it would be wrong (prima facie, again, let’s ignore the complication of higher moral priorities for now) for me to stop you saying what you please (or stop you remaining silent if that is what you please – one can exercise the right of free speech by being an elective mute). Thus far is uncontroversial; what is more controversial is whether I not only have the duty to (passively) not interfere with your exercise of your right but also the (active) duty to defend, promote and so forth your (negative) freedom of action. It seems

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that one can jump different ways on this matter depending on the particular right in question. A quick sketch I realize, but enough, I hope, to assist some reflective analysis of your moral views. PS: In some professions it is more common to hear talk of ‘rights and responsibilities’; for most purposes, ‘responsibility’ is interchangeable with ‘duty’ in such usage. Final Remarks So, a summary on murk? – simple: things might not be as clear as a superficial glance would take them to be, so spend time to get them clear. Much can be done by slowing an enquiry down and trying to de-‘buzz word’ it or, at the very least, making sure that things are clarified enough for serious thought to be carried out in their terms. As for babble: avoid it. Suffice it to say in closing, there is an awful lot of ill-conceptualized thought around the professional ridges that doesn’t do much at all to advance the cause of having a sophisticated treatment of complex issues; try to do better, please!!

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Chapter 9

Some Ethical Theory Introduction If you reflect upon what has occurred so far, we have had a content focus upon ethical issues arising in one variation or another across a range of professions. We have also had a procedural focus. Conceiving of professional ethical problems as ones within applied ethics, we have sought to track connections from the problem at hand to whatever underlying ethical values are being applied. We have written the latter in as various moral premises in the web of argumentation that articulates such connections. So, our professional ethical enquiries are exercises in applied ethics that use our tools of argument and extended reasoning. Of course, apart from the ethical principles forming the moral premises in various arguments constituting an enquiry, there will be premises of other types; in particular, such premises will form the ‘connective tissue’ between such underlying moral principles and the judgements made in their application. Moreover, some enquiries will focus on descriptive or conceptual issues as little sub-problems in their own right at times. Nonetheless, the main underlying issues to get sorted out are whatever the moral values are that you are applying to some professional ethical issue of concern to you. In this chapter, I wish to focus on those moral values, or ethical principles, in their own right. The chapter will have two main sections: one of these sketches some elements of what is normally called ‘Normative Ethical Theory’ and the other introduces you to some of the issues in what philosophers call ‘Meta-ethical Theory’. I’ll explain these labels in due course. For now, I just wish to emphasize that the issues involved in each area are quite complicated and their treatment in, say, a philosophy major in a BA programme would be more sophisticated than I have space for. None of what I say below is original and if you wish other slants on it or to pursue matters further, then enrolling in such a programme (or just in particular moral philosophy units if your college/university permits that) is recommended. There are also many good texts on ethics that are pitched at undergraduates and I would recommend browsing the bookshop on your campus and seeking your tutor’s or instructor’s guidance. Although limited in their treatment, I judge the ideas and issues that I portray in this chapter to be worth you putting in the effort to wrestle with in a serious way. Your professional activity is governed by your moral values and the more that you understand what they are and what confidence it is reasonable for you to have in them, the better.

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Three Types of Ethical Theory There are several sorts of enquiry that one might engage in concerning moral values. They are too frequently muddled together and, to avoid such confusion, a preliminary task will be to distinguish them clearly. I wish to distinguish three types: Descriptive Ethics, Normative Ethics and Meta-ethics. Descriptive Ethics First, one might wish to know what moral values are held by the members (or a majority of them) of the society of which one is part (or by some individual or group of individuals). Note also that one might find that this society mostly holds some value that some other society tends to reject. Or it might be that, although most members of a society tend to endorse some value, some individuals within that society reject it. Moreover, some individuals might reject the values that are held in their own society but find themselves in agreement with those of another society, past or present. Answers to such questions would be descriptive propositions, ones about the values of others – as opposed to ones advancing any moral value stance themselves. A feature of these sorts of descriptive propositions about moral values is that there is no inherent problem in noting that variation exists among humans and across (and within) the societies they form. If the task is to describe those values, then one simply does that. Saying that various people do or don’t hold this or that value is neutral as to whether you should agree with them or not (a point we will return to below). I say ‘neutral’ because finding out what ethical views are held by various people, including societies or sub-societies, is rather like finding out other facts about them – like their income, taste in clothes, social status and so forth. They are probably to be seen as lying within the domain of the social sciences and presumably could be researched by use of survey instruments or whatever. My point here is that descriptive ethics, being solely concerned with what is the case, is silent as to what should be the case. Describing what some person’s or group’s moral values are is not the same thing as saying what moral values they should live their lives by. You might recall that, very early in the piece, I made a point of distinguishing propositions of this descriptive sort (like: ‘Most Australians think that it isn’t wrong to cheat on an income tax return’) from moral propositions (like: ‘Cheating on an income tax return isn’t wrong’), pointing out that the simple presence of ‘wrong’ (even in its moral use) did not signal a moral proposition to be present. So, our first sort of enquiry (about the values held by various moral agents) is a social sciences descriptive style of enquiry. Having outlined it, and being at pains to distinguish it from what follows, I will pay it no more attention.

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Normative Ethics Although descriptive ethics is not addressing the question of the ethical values we should live our lives by, that is just what normative ethics does. I have said earlier that professional ethical questions are ones best conceived of as lying within the domain of applied ethics. As that name suggests, what one is doing in applied ethics is applying some ethical values to the issue at hand. But what ethical values should one be applying? Normative ethics is that area of moral philosophy that tries to answer that question. Although not every approach to normative ethics is of this sort, the approach that I have taken in this book is to encourage what I will call ‘principled judgements’ concerning professional ethical issues. I have sought to have you support your judgements by quite elaborate and explicit appeal to underlying moral principles that you hold (and which will form various moral premises) yet to realize that those underlying moral principles might conflict, even within one person, and, as a result of exploration of that conflict, some might be revised. One of the central tasks of normative ethics is to ask what, at the deepest level, such principles should be and, if your moral judgements are to be ultimately warranted by appeal to a matrix of moral premises, what can we generally say about the sort of thing that they might offer? To date, I have concentrated upon the task of tracking the complexities of the connections between professional ethical issues and the moral principles that inform views upon them and upon the task of trying to expose and sort out clashes among your principles at that deeper level. Below, in this chapter’s section on normative ethics, I will discuss some views as to what those principles themselves might look like. Meta-ethics If descriptive ethics concerns itself with describing what various individuals or groups hold to be good or bad, right or wrong and normative ethics asks what sorts of moral principles we should live our lives by (and, for us, use as the basis of various judgements on professional ethical issues), what is meta-ethics? I will answer this in a roundabout way. I have tried to help you to make judgements on particular professional ethical issues by appeal to some more general principles (in role as deep value premises). As you would realize by now, all of this is very difficult to do well but let’s say that you did manage to do that and that your views on some issue – say, the propriety of having any compulsory, or core, curriculum imposed on students by force (if need be) – were worked out to your satisfaction. Let’s assume that you came down against such a core curriculum and defended a curriculum that was entirely voluntary on the part of the student. A colleague disagrees and argues for the 4 ‘R’s (reading, ’riting, ’rithmetic and reasoning) as things that every student should, if capable, be made to master to some (explicitly identified) level of competency.

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Both of you being, by now, trained minds, you sit down and mutually explore your differences. It becomes apparent that there is no factual dispute between you. You agree as to what the world is like so your disagreement at the level of curriculum cannot be traced to a disagreement about the truth status of some descriptive premise somewhere in someone’s supporting argumentation. You meticulously check the logic of each other’s reasoning and can find no flaw and you seem to have the same understanding of various concepts and their connections. So, why do you disagree about the curriculum? Well, given the above, there is only one possibility left – disagreement at the level of moral premises (and, ultimately, very deep ones at that – see Chapter 7 on such disagreements). It might be a fairly straightforward dispute at that level (he believes in each individual’s duty to be useful in serving the group’s purposes; you don’t; you believe in the importance of individual control over what one is; he doesn’t). Or it might be some more complex form of dispute concerning priorities, or issues of degree, or whatnot (again, see Chapter 7). But, whatever it is, you and he might simply be in irreconcilable deep moral disagreement. And note that, despite such disagreement with another moral agent, each of you is satisfied in your own mind as to the satisfactoriness of your stance. Where to next? The dispute is not rationally solvable. You are each reasonable, you each agree on the facts (so it is not as if further scientific research will help). If the topic is one of but minor importance, you might ‘agree to disagree’; if it is a major issue, you might, in some sense, fight. Is there any sense, though, in thinking that, even if you and he can’t manage to resolve your dispute and even if you are both internally satisfied with your own stance, one of you is just wrong; that is, in some sense of the word, a moral error has been committed? Could one of you be a moral ‘flat-earther’, simply making a mistake – much as a flat-earth theorist, however sincere and self-satisfied, is simply making a mistake? And, if so, how could we tell who was in error? Or is ethics not like that and moral propositions not able to be thought of as being true or false? The third type of ethical theory, Meta-ethics, as it is called, addresses questions such as these (and others of a related sort). Meta-ethics is a major focus of this last chapter. We have met the prefix ‘meta’ before when we spoke of metacognitive reviews and deliberation. As before, the idea is that you are standing back from particular ethical judgements and principles rather than engaging in the making or crafting of them (much as earlier we were standing back from the stream of substantive arguments rather than engaging in crafting them).

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Normative Ethics – More Detail Introduction I said above that, having noted the domain of descriptive ethics in order to demarcate it from, in particular, normative ethics, I would cease to discuss it. Our normative ethical interest is not a psycho-sociological one concerning what moral values various individuals and groups do, in fact, hold but a moral one concerning what values one should hold. Let’s begin by reminding ourselves that, when addressing a professional ethical issue, I have suggested that you work ‘bottom-up’ in a carefully considered way from some tentative intuitive stance on the issue at hand in order to expose the principles which bear upon that stance. In one example that we used at some length, the issue was the propriety of nurses ever lying to their patients and our tentative stance in the initial argument was that they sometimes should. Why? – because so doing was demanded by a deeper commitment, one to patient welfare. The point about this process of defence of the endorsement of nurses sometimes lying to patients was that it was done by trying to connect the issue at hand to another one. As noted, I will call this ‘principled moral decision-making’. In trying to make a principled moral decision, one tries to bring moral principles to bear on the issue at hand. In this case, the initial element in this was to bring to bear the patient-welfare principle. The connection of this principle to the tentative stance adopted on the issue was by locating each in an argument. So, an MP outlined the principle appealed to in support of a (tentative) stance outlined in the MC (with the connection usually involving some DP or other). Of course, professional ethical matters are rarely neat enough to be settled by appeal to just one such exercise of appealing to an MP. Mostly, you will find a number of principles that you have some sympathy with that are all bearing upon the issue at hand. Sometimes the connection is direct and sometimes more indirect (via defences and criticisms). And, as we have seen, you will likely find that some of the principles that occur as moral premises in the various arguments that unfold in your enquiry oppose each other. So far, so familiar I hope. Principled moral decision-making involves bringing such moral principles to bear, applying them to the issue at hand. That process can be long and involved if done thoroughly. And, of course, sometimes one hasn’t the time to do it or the issue is too trivial to bother with sophisticated analysis anyway. However, important matters are worth thorough enquiry, if time allows. The job of the foregoing chapters has been to explore the complexities of thinking an issue through in some depth and, given that this involves conflicting principles, trying to sort out some priorities such that one’s set of moral principles is well enough organized to apply to the problem at hand. In this section, I wish to talk a little more about the principles themselves. I will put it to you that, when crafting arguments that bring various moral principles to bear through an enquiry, two distinct sorts of exercise might be going on.

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One is that you tend to apply principles of a type that is sometimes called ‘deontological’ (from the Greek ‘deon’, meaning binding duty). The other is that you tend to argue as a consequentialist (as in ‘consequences’). I’ll explain these to an extent suitable for the book’s purposes in a moment and then close with a suggestion as to what, as a professional facing ethical issues (as opposed to philosopher of ethics), you could profitably make of these theories. Consequentialist Ethics Say that the ethical issue facing you arose when someone is enrolled in a degree course that leads to being certified as qualified to practise some profession. There is an important assignment due but, for whatever reason, she has not managed to prepare adequately for it. Being a student of marginal competence, with a poor academic record, she knows that if she fails the assignment, then she is in grave danger of having her enrolment in the course cancelled. A friend in the same course offers to help with the assignment. There are two main types of principled reasoning that you might engage in when trying to work out whether you morally approve of this or not. The type that I wish to explore in this section involves arguing in a way that is concerned with what would result from accepting such assistance. The act is appraised as right, or wrong, good, or bad, by focusing on the consequences of the action. Hence, obviously, the label ‘consequentialism’ (another common label for this broad type is ‘utilitarianism’). Consider the cheating example. One consequence perhaps is that such a cheat would get a passing grade instead of fail. A related consequence (in our earlier scenario) is that the cheat will be able to continue enrolment in the course, thus saving time and money. Another, more indirect, consequence is that prospective employers will have the false belief that the cheat is competent as certified by her university. Even more indirect as a consequence is that future clients might have incompetent provision of professional services by the cheat. Another type of consequence, dependent upon how well known it is that cheating occurred, is a decline in the reputation of the university’s degrees. And, if known to occur yet be unpunished, another will be a rise in the number of undergraduate cheats. And so on. As is obvious, a given act has all sorts of consequences, both direct and indirect, and if they were appealed to in ethically judging the rightness or wrongness of the action, then pointing out those consequences would form descriptive premises in the arguments (what we call ‘means/end’ arguments) deployed in coming to a judgement. However, mere descriptive noting of consequences is hardly enough to drive a judgement, one needs to know whether the consequence portrayed is a good one or a bad one. And, as should be familiar to you by now, whatever criteria you were appealing to in order to rate some consequence as good or bad would be put in as the MPs of various means/end arguments. So, in illustration, one might have:

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MP Jane should be able to continue enrolment in her law course. DP Unless Jane cheats on her assignment for ‘legal ethics’ in her law course, she won’t be able to continue enrolment in that course. So, MC Jane should cheat on her assignment for ‘legal ethics’ in her law course.

Recall, though, that you were also introduced to the business of premise defence. Say we carried that out for the above MP in response to the query: ‘What is so important about Jane’s continuing enrolment?’. Whatever the argument offered in its defence, there will have to be some further moral premise appealed to. No matter what this might be, that further moral premise might itself face the same sort of query demanding that it be defended. So, say that, in advancing a case for Jane’s continuing enrolment, appeal is made to the importance of her being available for professional employment as soon as possible. And we could ask why that is so important. (We touched on such matters in Chapter 7.) This begins to look like an endless business. No matter what is offered as a deeper value in defence at any given point, it seems that we could keep probing for the yet deeper story, for the deeper value underlying the one at hand. Fortunately, it is not like that and this sort of chain of defences ends. Indeed, it has to end, on pain of what logicians call: ‘a vicious infinite regress’. It is impossible, in a real moral value system, one held by real and finite moral agents, to have such an infinite chain of values. What happens instead is that one gets down to one or more fundamental values, ones that act as a sort of moral bedrock, as the ultimate ends in our means/end chains of moral justification. As to what such final values might be and how many of them there might be, disagreement reigns among consequentialists. Two popular ones are these: ‘Always act so as to maximize the greatest sum total of human happiness’; and ‘Always act so as to maximize the greatest sum total of human desire satisfaction’.

A few things to note: The first is that these are not the same end – desire satisfaction is not automatically connected with being happy, a lot depends upon the desire; and happiness might occur without it constituting the satisfaction of any preceding desire. Another point is that there are variations within these broad concerns for human happiness or desire satisfaction. So, instead of largest sum total happiness (which might be achieved by quite uneven distribution of that happiness), one might favour the most even spread of happiness. One might also be concerned with the happiness of species other than humans and trade that off against human happiness (Peter Singer’s name looms large here). Or, instead of the greatest amount of desire satisfaction, one might similarly want some sort of evenness of spread of desire satisfaction. Further clarifications and more sophisticated and

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complicated variations have been offered on these two themes but it is beyond the scope of this book to pursue matters further. Also, ends other than some variation of the ‘happiness’ or ‘desire satisfaction’ ones have been advanced. So, one might be concerned to maximize true belief, or freedom of thought, or religious conviction, or ... . Again, pursuing such possibilities in detail is beyond us and you should consider reading further in the philosophical literature. Finally, if one has more than one such fundamental principle (concerning the ultimate ends that one will be wanting to be served by human action) then there is no guarantee that they won’t clash. Indeed, there is a guarantee that they will. We touched on this in Chapter 7 and I will return to it in a section below. Whichever ultimate end(s) is(are) chosen, the idea is that this is where justification runs out. Such values are what are ultimately appealed to in warranting other moral judgements and values. They form the deepest MPs of a web of means/ end argumentation. Deontological Values Consider again our cheating example. Instead of appealing to what will result from the action, to its consequences, one might just look to the action itself, to the sort of action it is, in and of itself. So, try this argument. Jane’s action is wrong because it is an act of dishonesty and acting dishonestly is always wrong.

Upon clarification being sought from the speaker by asking: ‘What’s so wrong about it? – after all, sometimes no harm comes of dishonesty’, we might be told: ‘Whether it does any harm or not is not the point; acting dishonestly is just the wrong sort of thing for someone to do’. This rationale for condemnation of the cheating is quite different to our previous consequentialist ones. In those arguments, the DP claimed that some consequence, or outcome, of the cheating would occur and the MP stated some moral principle that covered that sort of consequence. By reference to that principle, the consequence was rated morally as a good or bad one. In effect, the action of cheating would be, say, morally condemned by forming an appraisal of what the consequences would be and morally judging those consequences. The act of cheating is, in a sense, judged indirectly by way of judging its consequences. In contrast, someone inclined to think about ethical issues in a deontological way focuses directly on the act itself and morally judges that act by categorizing it as an instance of this or that type – where the types, or classes, of actions are ones covered by moral principles. So, in this case, the act is condemned because is it is an instance of the type: dishonesty. Of course, just as the consequentialist might become conflicted by an action having both good and bad consequences and have to sort out some priorities,

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a deontological theorist might become conflicted by an action being able to be categorized in more than one way, some good, some bad. So, consider the person helping Jane. She might be acting dishonestly by doing Jane’s assignment (a bad thing, prima facie, we will assume) but she is also satisfying a friend’s request (a good thing, say). Further, much as the consequentialist can track defences of MPs in a chain of means/end arguments that ultimately end in something at a fundamental level like, say, some version of the ‘greatest happiness’ principle, so, too, the deontologist might have a chain of arguments defending some initial MP. The style of that chain is quite different, though. Keep in mind that deontologists are not interested in what results from an action, just in what sort of action it is, in and of itself. Thus, such a defensive chain of reasoning will not contain means/end arguments. Rather, our other main type, set relationship arguments, will be deployed. A common deontological pattern in defence of a particular act’s rightness (or wrongness) is to locate the act as an instance of a class of actions upon which we have some morally principled position. So, as an example, say that Sarah, whose profession is that of politician, is contemplating how she should vote concerning a proposed war. The war in question concerns a country (Eastland, say) with which the politician’s country (Northland, say) has a formal treaty. Eastland has formally sought assistance in accordance with the clauses of the treaty. Although no doubt unfamiliar with normative ethical theory, the politician counts as a deontologist in her manner of thinking about ethical issues and, in effect, thinks as follows: MP1 All treaties should always be honoured. DP1 Our treaty with Eastland stipulates that if Eastland requests it, Northland should declare war on any country Eastland is at war with. DP2 Eastland is at war with Westland. DP3 Eastland has requested that Northland declare war on Westland. So, MC1 Northland should declare war on Westland.

A colleague of Sarah’s, Tom, who has a consequentialist bent, suggests that going to war against Westland will have all sorts of bad consequences and Northland should seek some way of wriggling out of its treaty obligations. He challenges Sarah to justify her view that Northland should declare war on Westland. Sarah replies with a fairly feral and abbreviated version of the above structure: ‘We have to; we signed a treaty with Eastland and we can’t break that’. Tom responds: ‘Why shouldn’t treaties sometimes be broken?’. In our terms, Tom is seeking from Sarah a defence of her MP1 claim that all treaties should always be honoured (although she may not have explicitly formulated the principle like that to herself – remember all of the problems that we had in Chapter 3 concerning the teasing out of missing moral premises).

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Say that Sarah responded to Tom’s challenge cum request as follows: ‘They shouldn’t be broken because they are a sort of promise’. Laid out as a structure this feral defence amounts to this argument: MP2 All promises should always be kept. CP1 Not honouring a treaty is always an instance of not keeping a promise. So, MP1 All treaties should always be honoured.

In effect, when combined with the original structure that we attributed to Sarah, we now have a two-link chain of reasoning. Put in a ‘why? – because’ way, it goes (somewhat abbreviated) like this: why should we go to war? – because we should honour our treaties; why should we honour our treaties? – because all promises should be kept. Going to war is warranted by noting that such an action is an instance of the type: ‘honouring treaties’. And the whole type (or set) ‘honouring treaties’ is warranted by noting that it is a subset of the set: ‘keeping promises’. We have generally spoken of defences of premises as constituting a deepening of a given argument but note that, in the case of such deontological defence exercises (using set relationship arguments), it is better thought of as widening, rather than deepening, Sarah’s case. The warrant proceeds by appeal to more general principles. As with consequentialism, this process of MP defence can’t go on forever and eventually appeal is made to (usually very general) principles that are ‘bedrock’ or held to be capturing intrinsic values. These principles specify types of action that moral agents should perform and which cannot be subsumed under some yet broader classification. Also, as with the consequentialist, it is quite possible that various values that lay down prima facie duties (even if they are at this fundamental, or bedrock, level) will conflict with each other in various scenario situations. For instance, one might, as with the case of Sarah above, hold (prima facie) that one should always keep one’s promises yet also hold that one should always be truthful. Clearly, sometimes keeping one’s promise would involve lying. (For instance, one might promise a dying parent that one will keep their daughter from harm and this might only be achievable in some scenario by lying to a drug-crazed and violent house intruder about her presence.) We will revisit the matter of value clashes below (although, as noted, it was addressed in Chapter 7). Just to re-emphasize the distinction using the ‘cheating’ case: that particular deontological judgement that it was wrong might be made even if it is clear that none of the consequences that would disturb a consequentialist actually obtain. A consequentialist, on the other hand, would see nothing wrong with an episode of cheating provided that no bad consequences ensued from it. Most people have a tendency to incline towards one or other of these broad theoretical orientations when approaching ethical issues and problems in a

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principled way, one that rests their judgements upon principles of some sort – but not everyone does. I turn to such hybrid normative ethical views next. Hybrid Normative Ethical Views As just mentioned, most people incline fairly much towards one or another of these two broad types of normative ethical principle. However, many people, especially when first trying to explicitly understand their approach to principled ethical decision-making, find themselves thinking both as a consequentialist and as a deontologist, even on the one issue. For instance, in our ‘lying nurse’ example, we had one argument in which the lying was supported by appealing to a good consequence of the lying, namely the increased health of the patient who was lied to. In a counter-argument against this argument’s ‘patient-welfare’ MP, appeal was made to treating patients with respect. We didn’t bother to defend this ‘respect patients’ CMP but, had we done so, I doubt that the story would have involved advancing a means/end argument pointing out the good consequences that would flow from respecting patients. Rather, it seems likely that the construal of the ‘respecting patients’ value would be deontological, such respecting would be just seen as the right sort of way to act and were it to be defended, then I would imagine that it would be by appeal to a broader commitment to respect for people generally. So conceived of, and thinking of the enquiry to that point as one in which the counter-argument has been mounted by the author as an exercise in probing self-criticism, we seem to have a moral agent who is a normative hybrid of consequentialist and deontologist. He is inclined to want to act in a respectful way as just the right way to act in and of itself (and not with some good consequences in the back of his mind as the justification for so acting) but concerned that (sometimes) doing that will have consequences that might be bad enough to warrant disrespectful treatment upon those occasions. So, not just a moral dilemma, or conflict, but one that involves elements of each of our normative theoretical orientations. Although just illustrated with a value conflict, hybrid thinking can also occur in other ways. One might, for instance, just think, deontologically, that one has a duty to act honestly. Although that commitment is not dependent upon any consideration of consequences, one might also favour it on the basis of its good consequences. Consider our ‘cheating student’ scenario. Not only might one decide not to cheat because that counts as a case of acting honestly, one might also support it with the consequentialist point that, if one did cheat, then that would run a high risk of lowering confidence in the university’s grade integrity which, in turn, would ... . The above portrayal of deontological and consequentialist views and their relationship to our processes of principled argumentation is inevitably sketchy but I hope that it gives you some feel for two major approaches to warranting stances on professional ethical matters or, if you like, major ways of thinking about the sorts of fundamental moral principles that you would be appealing to, and applying,

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to reach some such stance. As I said earlier, there are many good undergraduate texts on normative ethics and if you wish to pursue this level of theory further, then that is where to turn. For now, if you understand the two approaches, I would just suggest that you reflect on the ways that you think about ethical problems and see which is the approach that you are most comfortable about. Diagrammatically put, what we have so far is:

Diagram 9 Meta-ethics – More Detail Introduction As noted earlier, we have met the prefix ‘meta’ before in ‘metacognitive’. It is from Latin and means ‘above, or beyond, or after’. With ‘metacognitive’ the idea was that you mentally stood apart from your thinking (or attempts at knowing your values, hence the ‘cognitive’ which is meaning-connected to knowing) and thought about your thinking. (In that case, the particular sort of metacognition involved was planning your enquiry’s direction in the light of progress to date.) Meta-ethics is thinking about ethics, in particular, thinking about the nature of moral values and value judgements. Humans engage in all sorts of intellectual, or quasi-intellectual, enterprises – science, art, religion and so on – and we’ll be trying to work out what is distinctive about one of them: ethics. These issues are hugely controversial in philosophy and I don’t expect you to end up with a thoroughly worked out meta-ethical view. I certainly won’t be giving answers, just challenges, questions and puzzles. What I hope will occur, however, are three things. First, that one or other position of the spread of views that I am about to introduce to you will capture, or articulate for you, your existing meta-ethical tendencies. Second, that the difficulties facing your preferred view will give you pause for thought. And third, that you will see the enormous problems caused by these complexities for moral agents in dispute with other moral agents. In the remainder of the chapter, I’ll be introducing you to some broad sorts of meta-ethical theory and to some of the argumentation concerning them. I don’t have space to do the job thoroughly (that would be a text in itself) but, as with normative ethics, there are loads of good introductory texts around. If you do read further, then be warned that the literature is rather inconsistent when it comes to terminology and the labels I use for the various theories might not be consistent with some other texts. Also, contrary to my focus on argumentative depth in the foregoing, I will just present the initial part of what would be a long enquiry as the

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merits of various arguments got teased out. I intend merely to provoke thought and alert you to some issues. The Descriptive/Moral Distinction Revisited – Moral Objectivism and Moral Subjectivism Almost the first thing we did (way back in Chapter 2) was to outline the distinction between descriptive propositions and moral propositions. Yet some meta-ethical theorists would call the distinction spurious; for them, moral propositions are just a variety of descriptive propositions. How so? Read on. The view is controversial and, even if it is right, the distinction was still a useful one for our purposes at that time even if it turns out to be too crude. It is such a, if you like, descriptive construal of moral propositions that I wish to look at first. The meta-ethical theory in question is Moral Objectivism (in contrast to moral subjectivism, which we will come to in due course). Moral Objectivism The name ‘moral objectivism’ is appropriate in that such theorists contend that the correct understanding of what is being said when someone issues a moral judgement is that a claim is being made about the objectively present moral facts of the case. We are, then, to understand moral propositions to be in much the same line of business as ordinary descriptive ones; each is trying to tell us the facts about what the world is like – it is just that a moral judgement is aimed at bringing to our notice a particular sort of fact. So, much as: ‘Grass is usually green’ asserts that a certain property, greenness, is typically found in a certain sort of thing, grass, so: ‘Stealing is usually wrong’ tells us that a certain property, wrongness, is typically found in a certain type of event, or action, stealing. According to the objectivist, each purports to tell us something about the way the world objectively is and each is true or false depending upon the factual accuracy of the proposition. In development of the point, consider the following as illustrations. P1 The earth is round. P2 The earth is flat.

Whether P1 or P2 (or neither) is true is a matter, not of our whim, or fancy, or of current scientific fashion, but of the cold, hard facts of reality. P2 was at one time the dominant view among theorists but we would take them to have had false beliefs, to have been simply misguided as to what the facts really were. P1, on the other hand, we take to correspond to reality, to the objectively existing facts of the universe. Now, consider: P3 Stealing is always wrong. P4 Stealing is the right thing to do if it is the only way to stay alive but wrong otherwise.

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Although P3 and P4 differ in their judgement in only one circumstance – when one thieves to maintain one’s life, they do differ. Which view is morally superior? According to the objectivist, one (or both – maybe stealing is always right or right in other circumstances) of these propositions is simply false. That is, in an exactly analogous way to the dispute between P1 and P2, at least one of P3 or P4 has just got its facts wrong, simply fails to describe the world as it really is, as a matter of objective fact. Subjectivism  Contrasted with this is the view of the moral subjectivist. You have probably heard the expression: ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’. Contrast these two propositions: P5 That painting is beautiful. P6 That painting is ugly.

We would not usually think that the dispute between these two propositions is one about what the facts are, about what the painting is really like. Rather, we allow that such judgements are a personal, or subjective, thing. It is not that the painting is, as a matter of fact, in itself, beautiful; it is just that the speaker of P5 favours it, responds in a certain way to it. And, even if we agree with P5, it is not as if the speaker of P6, like that of P2, is in error; it is just that she responds in a different way to the painting. Crudely put, much as the meta-ethical objectivist aligns P3 and P4 with the scientific or descriptive P1 and P2, the meta-ethical subjectivist aligns them with P5 and P6. Rightness and wrongness, like beauty and ugliness, are held to be ‘in the eye of the beholder’. So, in contrast to the objectivist, the claim here is that to have a moral principle is not to have a theory about the moral property present in a certain class of situation. It is just to have a certain attitude about such situations. And, to make a particular moral judgement is not to claim that a particular (moral) factual state of affairs obtains but merely to express an attitude, or stance, about something. For the moral subjectivist, someone’s proposition that something is wrong means no more than that that person is opposed to it happening (and similar remarks for other pieces of moral language could be made). This is actually a bit too ‘broad brush’ and there are sub-varieties of subjectivist, but, for the moment, we’ll ignore such sub-varieties and focus on distinguishing generic subjectivism from objectivism. So, in summary, for objectivism there is some sort of moral fact of the matter, whereas for subjectivism there is nothing more going on in morality but the preferences of moral agents. (Not that objectivists don’t prefer ‘the good’ as well, it is just that they think that there is more to morality than that, whereas subjectivists don’t.) Our first major meta-ethical distinction, then, is that between meta-ethical objectivism and meta-ethical subjectivism. Put diagrammatically, so far we have:

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Diagram 10 Some Implications of These Meta-ethical Theories I trust you can see how this sort of theoretical dispute affects the way one thinks about professional ethical issues. Consider, for instance, a central candidate aim for schooling: ‘producing good citizens’. Let’s say that what counts as a ‘good citizen’ gets clarified, in part, as: one who accepts the values of society. But say also that to achieve such an aim seems to involve some sort of (perhaps subtle) indoctrination in which students’ (positive) freedom of thought, at least concerning some moral values, is interfered with. Let’s assume that you have wrestled with the clash between the ‘freedom of thought’ value and the ‘shared societal values’ value and sorted out your priorities in favour of the latter. Now consider our two metaethical theories. A glance back at our two views, subjectivism and objectivism, should indicate that the view of the meta-ethical objectivist is the one that seems, on the face of it, to be the most favourable to providing some sort of additional legitimacy to the ‘value-indoctrination’ view. Why is this? Well, consider our astronomy examples of a while ago. You might feel on solid ground if you teach a child that the earth is round and not flat (and justified in your attempts to revise any tendency for him to believe in the latter) just because you take former proposition to be true. That is, as a defence against the criticism: ‘Why don’t you let students have the freedom to believe whatever view about the shape of the earth that they wish?’, you might feel it adequate to reply: ‘But that would mean letting some of them believe what is false’. So, in a parallel way, if you felt that the values on the basis of which you were intervening were objectively true values, you might feel that that was all the justification you need. If, on the other hand, you felt that moral matters were essentially subjective, that goodness and badness and so forth were ultimately no more than a matter of taste, or feeling, or whatever, then you might feel much more uneasy about instilling a set of moral values in others, or acting on their basis to restrict another person’s freedom. Consider our ‘undergraduate cheat’ example. Say that Joan, a friend, hears about it and challenges Jane (the cheat): ‘You shouldn’t have done that, cheating is wrong’. Jane responds that it isn’t wrong so long as no one in authority finds out. According to the meta-ethical objectivist, either Jane or Joan has a false belief, is, so to speak, a sort of ‘moral flat-earther’. According to the subjectivist, there are no truths to be had in the moral domain and they have no more than different stances concerning the activity of cheating. If Jane (or Joan) see their moral views in an objectivist way, then it places a different interpretation upon how the nature

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of their disagreement is construed than if a subjectivist theory of ethics were to be believed instead. Either way, an exploratory dialogue between them could occur but it would be conceived of differently depending upon which meta-ethical theory was accepted much as an exploratory dialogue between two people about the beauty of a painting is of a somewhat different kind to an exploratory dialogue between two people as to the shape of the earth. So much (for now anyway) concerning why we should be interested in such a meta-ethical dispute. What about the meta-ethical dispute itself, which theory is correct – subjectivism or objectivism? As you will realize by now, I have no intention of trying to supply an answer. Meta-ethicists are by no means agreed on this matter. However, as is the case with so many debates within philosophy, to merely note that an issue is not fully resolved is not an adequate ground for avoiding thinking about it. The issues are usually too central and important to our ways of thinking about the world and our place in it to be ignored or left in the background of your mind, unnoticed. Such is the case here. Moral principles and value judgements don’t just rule our professional lives, they intrude into every part of life. So the task is to think about things as best you are capable of, and have time for, and come to as intellectually satisfying a decision as possible. What I will be doing is presenting you with a range of arguments (concerning the subjectivism/ objectivism controversy) for you to think about and begin to assess. In the interests of brevity, the following will be just the tip of an iceberg and, as noted before, there is a considerable philosophical literature on this and many introductory texts covering meta-ethics could be accessed to continue what I begin below. Objectivism – More Detail Naturalism Outlined Let us start with objectivism. Before we can proceed much further you should realize that there are, broadly speaking, two sub-varieties of objectivism. Both are objectivist because both hold that goodness, badness etc. are matters of fact (and claims about them are thus to be properly understood as descriptive propositions, ones attempting to describe some aspect of reality). Where they differ is in their story as to just what sort of fact it is that the moral opposition is about. The first variety, naturalism, holds that ‘goodness’ (and so on, I will limit the number of moral terms of I refer to from now on but a similar sort of analysis transfers across to each of them) is just a shorthand label for referring to other, quite ordinary, natural features of the world. That is, that goodness is, by definition, identical to some ordinary sort of property and is not some sort of funny special property of its own sort. (As we’ll soon see, the other sub-variety of objectivism thinks that goodness is its own special sort of property and is sometimes called: ‘non-naturalistic objectivism’.)

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Even then, there is further disagreement among moral naturalists as to just which sort of ordinary property constitutes goodness. Let me illustrate. Some naturalists would claim that, say, to judge some action as good is just to say of it that it is conducive to the survival of the human race. Because it doesn’t matter what particular action, or even type of action, we have in mind here let’s just use the all-purpose tag ‘X’. So this variety of naturalism can be displayed as follows: ‘X is good’ means ‘X is conducive to the survival of the human race’.

There are other varieties of naturalism; two common ones are: ‘X is good’ means ‘X contributes to the greatest happiness of the greatest number of humans’.

and: ‘X is good’ means ‘Most people in my society approve of X’.

Some comments: First, note that each of these is a naturalistic theory, the sort of thing mentioned in the right-hand side of each definitional analysis is an ordinary, albeit complex, sort of fact (biological or psycho/sociological). On each view, in order to find out what particular sorts of action actually are right or wrong, good or bad, one might appropriately consult various scientific experts. For example, social scientists might lend guidance as to whether X actually was approved of by most people in society or not. If, say, most of them did approve of tax avoidance, then, for the sort of naturalist who, in the above way, meaningequates rightness with societal approval, tax avoidance is thereby automatically, as a matter of objective fact, right. Though not as straightforward, the situation is much like saying that, if someone is identified as an unmarried male adult human then, just in virtue of the meaning-equation of ‘being a bachelor’ and ‘being an unmarried male adult human’, that person is thus automatically, as a matter of objective fact, a bachelor. To learn that Bartholomew is a bachelor just is to learn that he is an unmarried male adult human. We have the same fact about him, just two meaning-equated labels for it. Similarly, for this variety of naturalist, to learn that tax-avoidance is approved of by society is just the same thing as learning that it is right. The latter is not an extra fact about tax avoidance, it is the same descriptive proposition presented again using a different label. As mentioned earlier, one implication of this would be that two of our propositional types from Chapter 2, descriptive and moral, would collapse into one: descriptive. On this naturalistic view, there is no distinction to be made between those types. However, although each of the three rival analyses outlined is naturalistic, they are each defining moral terms differently when it comes to the

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detail of the analysis (and there are more suggestions in the literature than just these three). My second point then is that one should note that each is a claimed analysis of the meaning of (in this case) ‘good’; (similar things would be said about ‘right’, ... – there is a whole related family of moral terms and it doesn’t much matter which one we choose to focus on). So, each of these analyses itself constitutes what we were earlier calling ‘a conceptual proposition’ to the effect that such and such means so and so. Each hopes to be correctly reporting just what is meant by words like ‘good’ and it seems somewhat strange that they are so different – on the face of it, we seem to all have much the same meaning for these words even if, as a matter of normative ethical principle, we disagree about what sorts of things are right and what wrong. This is much like you and I sharing an understanding of ‘bachelor’ yet disagreeing as to whether Joshua is or is not one. As we will shortly see, this meaning focus gets these naturalistic theories into trouble. Third, obviously enough, similar sorts of definition (but negatively put) could be given for ‘bad’, ‘wrong’ and so on. Fourth, as you probably already realized, the last of the three analyses listed above (the one about society and its views) questions the distinction made earlier between what I called descriptive and normative ethics. It takes propositions about what is good and what society asserts to be good to be the same claims. Fifth, despite superficial appearances, the second of the above analyses has to be carefully distinguished from the consequentialism (a normative ethical theory) of earlier in the chapter. I will return to this. Diagrammatically, so far we have:

Diagram 11 This is the last diagram I will portray because, although we have more discussion of matters below, it gives the overall architecture of the spread of views covered in the chapter. Remaining to be discussed in more detail are non-naturalistic objectivism and subjectivism. Standard Objections to Such Naturalistic Analyses One or other of these three versions of naturalistic objectivism might seem to you to be appealing and roughly correct but keep in mind that these theories are supposed to be telling you what is meant by words like ‘good’. That is, they are supposed to

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be presenting you with definitions reporting meanings in much the way that: ‘X is a bachelor’ means ‘X is an unmarried male adult human’ is presenting a definition reporting our conception of ‘bachelor’. As touched on above, you might think that the very fact that there are (so far listed) at least three rival definitions of radically different sorts is immediately rather suspicious; after all, you might think, there isn’t that much controversy about most definitions (as in ‘bachelor’ above). But some of the concepts in terms that we naively wield every day are obscure and ill-understood and controversy and disagreement may properly exist until things are pinned down and tightened up a bit. Moral language seems to be a classic case. (Certainly the issue won’t be settled by looking up a dictionary – see the sort of thing that we said in Chapter 8.) Still, the offerings are suspiciously radically different. Anyway, how can we decide on whether any, or none, of the above is a correct analysis of the nature of our moral concepts? Basically, it’s a matter of seeing if any of them intuitively ‘fit’. That is, if, in response to any of them, you say: ‘Yes, that’s it, that’s what is meant by terms like “good”, “bad” and so on’, then you are accepting that conceptual analysis. However, we don’t have to leave things as unstructured as this. We can bring various features and implications of the suggested analyses into particular focus for our intuitions to bear upon. As an illustration, let’s discuss, say, the ‘human survival’ suggestion. The claim was, remember, that by ‘X is good’ is meant ‘X is conducive to human survival’. This implies that anyone who advances a substantive normative judgement to the effect that some act is good despite it involving the destruction of the human race is not just advancing an eccentric moral position, he’s talking literal nonsense. I mean this quite literally. That is, on this analysis, such a proposition would be held to be as literally incoherent as the proposition that Jones is a bachelor despite being married. But if we look at the proposition that some act is good despite it involving the destruction of the human race, it seems not to be incoherent. You might reject it but it doesn’t seem to be ‘married bachelor’-style nonsense. Yet, cashing out the meaning of ‘good’ according to the above analysis entails that it would be, because such a claim, when unpacked, would be saying that the act was conducive to human survival despite it involving the destruction of the human race! (Much as, when unpacked, ‘Boris is a married bachelor’ would be saying that he was a married, unmarried male adult human.) The proposition that wiping humanity out is a good thing might be an odd claim, and we would certainly like to hear how such a dramatically destructive act could be justified, but we do understand the proposition as coherent even if we end up deeming it to be in moral error. (Which, incidentally, you shouldn’t be too quick in saying. What if humans were waging an aggressive war against a peaceful and culturally and intellectually superior alien race and it was a matter of them or us being destroyed?) So, what’s happened here is that we’ve drawn out an entailment of the proposed analysis and shown that it is counter-intuitive. The analysis would have it that a certain sort of moral view is incomprehensible yet our linguistic intuitions tell us that it isn’t. So, we’ve tentatively decided that that analysis is intuitively unsound.

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It’s supposed to be telling us what we mean by words like ‘good’ but, if you accept the foregoing, it doesn’t. There is more to be said on everything covered in this chapter, but it seems that that particular naturalistic theory of what one is saying of some act in calling it good is to be rejected as unsound. Let’s look briefly at the others we have listed so far. Recall that, as naturalistic analyses, each claims to identify ‘goodness’ as just meaning the same as, or being shorthand for, some expression picking out some fairly ordinary natural quality. And each has an analogous implication to the above. That is, they would, respectively, classify the propositions: ‘X is good but does not contribute to the greatest good of the greatest number of humans’; and ‘X is good but is not approved of by most people in my society’.

as un-understandable literal nonsense. Indeed the same (and, in my view, for what it’s worth, rather crippling) objection seems to apply to any such attempt to automatically meaning-equate goodness with some other (and natural) property. For any such property it seems possible for there to be coherent disagreement about whether or not that sort of thing is good. One can coherently debate whether or not human survival, human happiness and so on are good things in a way that one can’t coherently debate whether or not bachelors are married. Or so it seems; perhaps there are flaws in the above argument, although it is an argument that is long-standing in moral philosophy and generally well thought of. A Possible Confusion  I want to now (briefly) return to the distinction between the ‘greatest human happiness’ naturalistic meta-ethical analysis considered here and the normative consequentialist theory we met earlier. One version of the normative consequentalist principle might be: ‘Acting so as to contribute to the greatest happiness of the greatest number of humans is good’. At first glance the normative and meta-ethical theories look very similar in that each connects goodness and human happiness. Appearances deceive however, for the types of connection differ. Say someone disputed the normative ‘greatest human happiness’ view that we saw earlier; this might be an animal liberationist who was concerned about scientific research using animals, perhaps. She might say: ‘Look, I accept that human happiness is important but not to the exclusion of that of other species. Sometimes maximizing human happiness is not good because we should trade off some human happiness to gain increased happiness for members of other species’. A normative dispute might then occur, one of the type that you have teased out as a formal dialogue between ‘author and critic’. But each participant in the dialogue understands the other; they share meanings. (Indeed, such mutual understanding is a necessary condition for disagreement – that was why we earlier spent time in working definition style clarification to get all concerned onto the

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same wavelength. The words ‘good’, ‘should’ and so forth are common linguistic property and the dispute is not about what ‘good’, or ‘should’ means. The meaning is shared and the dispute is about what actions fall into, say, the category: good. It is exactly parallel to you and I sharing an understanding of the meaning of ‘bachelor’ but disputing whether Boris is, or is not, a bachelor (‘He had a secret marriage a decade ago’ – ‘No he didn’t’). But were one to have a meta-ethical naturalistic version of the ‘greatest human happiness’ view, one as listed in this chapter, then things are different. In that case, if some animal liberationist raised the very same argument then a long normative ethical critical dialogue would not ensue. Our meta-ethical naturalist would presumably respond with something more like: ‘Look it just doesn’t make sense to say that it’s good to lessen human happiness (in order to increase that of other species); you don’t understand the language properly, “good” just means “maximizing human happiness”. So that’s like saying that human happiness will be maximized by lessening it – which is, of course, incomprehensible nonsense’. Such a naturalistic retort falls flat. It has none of the force of saying (in response to someone who’s remarked that Boris seems the most happily married bachelor she’s met) ‘Look it just doesn’t make sense to say that Boris is a married bachelor; you don’t understand the language properly, “bachelor” just means “unmarried (male adult human)”’. It is not nonsensical to say that human happiness should be lessened in favour of increasing that of other species. Whatever you think of animal liberationist theses, they are at least coherent in a way that married bachelor ones are not. The difference is not that ‘bachelor’ is a trivial example with clear meaning whereas ‘good’ is more abstract and difficult, something where our intuitions are unclear. It is indeed more abstract and difficult and, in some aspects, our intuitions might not be clear but on the following, at least, our intuitions are clear: whatever else is a possible meta-ethical theory concerning ‘good’ (and the rest of the family of moral concepts) simply equating goodness with the maximizing of human happiness as meaning the same thing is, I suggest, intuitively to be rejected. I have found in the past that many students have considerable initial sympathy with naturalistic meta-ethical theories. I think that this is because they don’t fully understand just what the implications of such theories are. In particular, I think many students confuse having some strongly held normative moral principle (like the consequentialist one discussed above) with having any such pet moral view ‘automatically true’ in virtue of the very meaning of the words (as per a naturalistic objectivist account) – hence my spending some time on the distinction. I suggest that, if you are getting a bit lost here, you reread the section and raise the matter with your tutor/instructor; the point is quite an abstract one. Super-naturalistic objectivism!  First cousin to these naturalistic views, and open to the same sort of complaint, is the view that by ‘X is good’ is meant ‘X is commanded by God’ – a sort of supernaturalistic objectivism if you like! For a start, it would be a matter of some controversy as to which god (or gods) the

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theory is to have in mind here; but whichever way we jump, this view has the same sort of problem as before. It implies that the moral propositions and judgements of atheists, or religious rebels, or those believing in some other sort of god to the preferred one are literal nonsense. For even the most religiously pious of you, this should be a counter-intuitive consequence. It is conceivable that there is some sort of supreme being and it might even be the case that he/she/it is perfectly good. If this were to be so, then one would expect such a creature’s every command to be good. But this would just be the way things turned out, it is not what is meant by saying that something is good. An atheist can, in the fullest sense, employ our ordinary moral concepts to make moral judgements without being caught up in some sort of self-contradiction just because of her atheism. Summary so far Let me just sketch back over what we have been doing so far. We distinguished three sorts of enquiry about moral values and here focused on just one of these, the one asking about the nature of values and value judgements – that is, metaethics. Concerning the nature of moral values and judgements, we distinguished two main camps of meta-ethical theorist – the ethical objectivist and the ethical subjectivist. With its air of factuality, objectivism seemed a more comforting theory for those wishing to uphold, and perhaps impose, values. Looking more closely at objectivism, it emerges that, within that broad theoretical camp, there are sub-divisions. One of these varieties of objectivism is ethical naturalism. It itself has sub-varieties, depending on the particular natural property taken to be meant by ‘good’ (and some were illustrated). As it turned out, these sub-varieties seemed not to need detailed individual scrutiny because all versions of naturalism seemed to suffer from intuitively unacceptable implications (as outlined a short while ago). So, the story to date is: one variety of objectivism fairly solidly clobbered, or so I suggest to you – what now? Non-naturalism Outlined Another variety of objectivism is, predictably enough, non-naturalistic objectivism (henceforth ‘NNO’ for short). There are other names in the literature for varieties of this view like: ‘moral realism’ and ‘intuitionism’ (the aptness of which will be clearer as we proceed) but I will stick to ‘NNO’ to emphasize the contrast with naturalistic objectivism. Like its naturalistic brother, NNO is an objectivist theory, that is, it does hold that goodness, badness and so on are objectively existing properties of the universe and are not just ‘in the eye of the beholder’. The difference here is that it’s not held that claiming that some action is good meaning-equates to making a claim involving fairly ordinary natural properties; rather, according to the NNO theorist, such a proposition asserts the presence in that action of the objective and distinct property of goodness. ‘Goodness’ is not

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seen to be just a ‘shorthand’ way of referring to something otherwise familiar, some sort of natural property (like: ‘what society approves of’). Rather, it’s its own beast – a different sort of property in its own right. So, if you like, we can, on this view, divide the world’s properties up into two sorts – ‘ordinary’ natural ones (of varying complexity) like size, number, mass, conduciveness to human survival and so on, and ‘special’ moral properties like goodness, rightness, badness and so on. (In contrast, the ethical naturalist had only one list – ordinary natural ones – some of which are also labelled ‘goodness’, ‘badness’ etc.) Generally speaking, NNO has been more kindly thought of in the meta-ethical literature than has moral naturalism. In particular, it is not open to the meaning-equation problems that naturalistic theories got into when they insisted that what was actually comprehensible was incomprehensible nonsense. Now this is all very fine sounding but, as usual, we should look at what arguments can be advanced in favour of such a theory and what against it. The great merit of the theory, like any objectivist view, is that it holds out the hope that moral truths are available, that some views about what conduct is good and what bad, are just true and others are just false. It would be comforting to think that someone who holds the view, say, that having sexual relations with children was morally permissible was not merely morally unusual in her views but in moral error in some objective sense, a ‘moral flat-earther’ whose views were just, as a matter of (moral) fact, false. And, with respect to the full spread of our professional ethical controversies, it would be nice if there were true answers to be had. It would be especially comforting and motivating if you could be assured that your views were not merely your views (like your taste in music) but captured moral truth. On this view, a moral theory, like a physical theory, is a hypothesis about the nature of reality and moral disputes would be disputes about what the universe is really like with some of the people in dispute, no matter how firm and sincere their conviction, being in error, objectively in error, their view being just false. And this would be in just the same sense that, if the earth goes around the sun and not vice versa, then the geo-centrist theorists just have a false view. And if Jesus BarJoseph was an obscure Jewish revolutionary with delusions of grandeur and not the son of God (as, say, there is no such entity), then theists just have a false view. And if the speed of light is not a constant, then modern physicists just have a false view. Similarly, if having sexual relations with children is right, not wrong, then most of us just have a wrong view – a false hypothesis as to the moral facts on this. All of these views on various topics would just be different ones about different aspects of reality and be true or false depending upon what the objective facts of the universe happened to be. (On this view, it might seem appropriate to rename ethics as ‘moral science’ – a term I understand to have been in vogue in the past.) Of course, all of this could be said of naturalistic objectivism as well. The above paragraph is really just reinforcing the message of objectivism of any sort. The difference is only that the moral principles are not held by the NNO theorist to be about ordinary physical reality of about some special sort of moral aspects of the universe.

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Standard Objections to Such Non-naturalistic Analyses Advance upon naturalism though it may seem to be, there are problems with NNO. One trouble lies with all of those ‘ifs’. Morality seems in rather worse shape than science (though perhaps no worse off than religion) in establishing or justifying its claims. So: even if there are some moral facts, how do we know what the moral facts are? My senses of sight and sound might tell me that, say, a child is being bullied before my eyes but my judgement that this is wrong goes beyond what those senses supply. So, what warrants my claim that it is wrong? One suggestion in this context is that we have something like a ‘sixth sense’, an organ of moral intuition which just lets us ‘see’ moral properties of goodness and badness in much the way that the other senses are taken to apprise us of the presence of more ordinary properties. There are several worries with this idea of a sixth moral sense. First, we don’t just make judgements about actions going on in front of us but evaluate things far distant from us in space and time (something generally not possible with our other senses, although astronomy is an interesting exception). For instance, I make the judgement that William the Bastard of Normandy should not have made Harold Godwinson swear an oath of fealty to him by threatening him with indefinite imprisonment if he didn’t. How can a sixth sense account of moral value judgements cope with cases like this? Second, we make moral judgements about whole classes of actions. That is, we issue general judgements like: ‘Stealing is wrong’. Yet we haven’t ‘seen’ all instances of stealing, so we can’t have ascertained the unfailing presence of the property of wrongness by applying our sixth moral sense to all cases. But perhaps I’m being too hard on the NNO theorist here, he might claim that the same goes for general propositions in science and claims by scientists about distant places and times; so mightn’t the moral objectivist defend his claims in much the same ways that a scientist would? Mightn’t we build up general moral views by induction from particular instances? – perhaps. Or have the hypothesis that all stealing is wrong as the best explanation of a spread of particular ‘observations’ that this, that and the other case of stealing is wrong? – perhaps. Clearly a whole meta-ethical enquiry looms here and I am only gesturing at some possible initial moves. A third worry with this sixth sense view is to point to the non-independence of the sense. Generally speaking, the other senses operate independently of each other; that is, I can smell things without seeing them and so on but this doesn’t seem to be so in the case of moral judgements. If I have no information from my other five senses, then I can make no moral judgement. Say someone is being murdered in front of my blindfolded eyes and stopped-up ears. Presumably (if she thought it wrong) the NNO theorist would claim that the air would be veritably reeking with the moral property of badness yet I would not be able to detect it directly with my claimed sixth moral sense. All very odd. Of course, as with everything in this chapter, some way around the objections might be found. Nonetheless, some NNO theorists have responded to them by playing down the notion of a sixth sense. They claim that it is not as if we can

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detect in any direct way particular instances of particular moral properties being present; rather, our intuitive powers allow us to recognize general moral truths about our world. Contrast this with our previous NNO version. Rather than ‘seeing’ wrongness, say, in particular situations one is confronted with and then, perhaps, building up more general principles by induction, or whatever, from such particular items of moral ‘data’, one intuits the truth of the general principle directly and then applies it to make judgements in particular cases. This gets us over the oddities of the ‘sixth sense’ notion but other worries remain with NNO. As to whether you consider these to be serious enough to disincline you to accept any form of NNO is for you to judge (however tentatively). One family of worries concerns the ‘physics’, if you like, of what is going on here. If they exist at all, then rightness and wrongness seem to be very strange properties indeed. Quite what is their relationship with other, more ordinary, properties like mass and length? Should our account of the laws of nature include laws of ethics and, if not, why not? Of course, mere weirdness is not automatically a problem – consider the bizarre nature of the accounts current in micro-physics. However, the seeming absence of moral properties from our ordinary scientific accounts of the functioning of nature is problematic. Nor is it at all clear how inclusion could occur. Another family of worries concerns our access to, or knowledge of, what situations, or types of situation, have goodness or badness present. We have seen the problems with the ‘sixth sense’ account of detecting goodness or badness. The intuition of general moral principles’ truth is also difficult to fathom. What is going on when a moral agent just ‘intuits’ that, say, all stealing is wrong (or that all stealing is wrong unless it is food and one is starving, or …), or, at a more fundamental level perhaps, that acting for the greatest happiness of the greatest number of humans is always right? One model that is sometimes appealed in answer to this question is that of mathematics. It is sometimes held that the basic axioms of various mathematical systems are some sort of necessary truths, that merely entertaining them leads us to see that they could not be other than true. Some philosophers have held that some normative ethical principles, particularly deontological ones, have that status. As usual, I enjoin you to hunt out some introductory texts on moral philosophy to pursue matters further and I will content myself with just one observation. Note that moral controversy rages on almost any matter that you care to name. This seems to sit uncomfortably with quasi-mathematical intuition of moral certainties. In summary so far, there are two broad sorts of worry about NNO theories. One concerns the oddity of moral properties compared to ordinary ones and the other one, the challenge of the question: ‘Even if there are objective moral facts of the matter, how could we ever know them, how could we assure ourselves that we are not “morally colour-blind”?’. It would be nice if we could satisfactorily resolve these challenges to NNO theories, because it might place our inclination to, for instance, intervene and run

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a criminal’s life for her (on the basis we are ‘only doing what is good for her’ or ‘good for society’) on a firm factual footing. In particular, we would not be open to the challenge: ‘That’s just your view’ that seems always to be able to be mounted against someone who is over-riding someone else’s wishes on the basis of moral principles construed in accordance with subjectivist meta-ethical theory (as we will see below). I would like now to keep exploring this ‘How could we ever know what the moral facts actually are – even if they exist?’ objection to NNO. The question is not an idle one. Our worry has been to establish some sort of objectively firm basis for the ethical values governing professional practice (or motivating professional reform). If it is indeed to be a firm basis we had better be fairly sure of our moral facts. If a naturalistic theory of some sort were to be correct then the problem would be no more difficult than those facing science but what if the right theory is some version of NNO? Look at the immense normative disagreement among humans on matters of morality. If some set of normative principles is objectively correct, then how could we know which? And what could you say to someone who disagreed with your ethics? That is, what on earth could you do to prove that you were correctly describing moral reality, not them? If there are moral facts out there waiting for us to, say, intuitively apprehend them, then there are a lot of people running around with faulty moral intuition. That is, people differ even on the most fundamental moral matters; they differ from place to place and time to time. How can we tell who are morally muddled and who not? The worry applies whether we have ‘sixth sense’-style particular moral judgements in mind or ‘mathematical principle’-style general moral principles as what is being intuited. A couple of the attempts to meet this concern are worth our attention. One response is to say that we can tell which value propositions are true and which are false by seeing what other people think. That is to say, we might feel that, although some individuals can’t intuit soundly, surely the majority can be relied on. This might be all very well except that it is unclear whose votes we should count – the majority of what? ‘Those of our society’ you might say – but meaning what and why? What counts as your society? – your town/region, state/ province, nation ... ? However construed, a further worry is that the majority view shifts within a society over time and certainly from society to society and from group to group within any given society. Let me elaborate upon each of these concerns with this ‘Trust the majority of society as moral truth see-ers’ answer to our ‘How would one know the moral truth?’ challenge. I will deal with the former first, then the latter. Say that you had opted for your nation as the most obvious unpacking of ‘your society’ for moral purposes. But why not a state or province within it (or, to go more fine-grained, a local community or, to go more coarse-grained, humanity as a whole)? The more compact the group that you look at, the more likely you are to find some intra-group consensus but, also, the more likely you are to find that the majority of that particular group is in ethical dispute with the majority view of

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some other little group. The wider you cast your net, the more likely it is that there will be disagreement within the group. There is also the issue of time. Societies change in various ways over time and one parameter of that change concerns the moral values endorsed. Of interest to many professionals would be the shifts in thinking about the relative importance of individual rights versus those of groups, and, particularly, of attitudes taken to individual freedom of thought and action and legitimate constraints upon them. So, when do you fix the time for your survey? The views of any society that you will be surveying the ethical intuitions of will change over time. You might be a bit impatient with this concern and think that it is just obvious that current society is the correct group for the ‘survey’. But why? Remember the context of the discussion. We were entertaining NNO as a meta-ethical theory and, in response to a ‘moral blindness’ worry, we advanced the view that, while individuals might have moral ‘illusions’ surely most of the group wouldn’t. In this context then, one would have to be asserting of one’s own current society that it is less prone to moral illusion than other societies in different times or places. How on earth could one justify that sort of proposition? Moreover, imagine others thinking in exactly that sort of parochial way at about their own society in some other time or place. What could one say to them? Sometimes people are tempted to respond: ‘Well, what is right for them may not be what is right for us; it all depends upon the society that one is living in’. Again, though, keep in mind the context of this discussion, namely moral objectivism of an NNO type. This view, if applied consistently to others in other societies, would have the extremely odd, if not quite incoherent, consequence that the moral facts vary from time to time and place to place (unlike the ordinary natural laws of, say, physics). It would also mean accepting that it was right for a Mongol hordesman to pillage, rape, burn, torture and so on; that it was right for Germans in the Thirties to persecute Jews, mediaeval Spanish Christians to persecute dissenters and so on. Also it is unclear how one should treat the not unknown case of society changing its mind on some issue as a result of a charismatic figure or propaganda campaign. If the majority view changes, does that mean that the facts change as well? – if so, they are oddly malleable and ‘un-factual’ sounding facts. Or should we say that either the earlier or later views of society were in error? That sounds better but leaves us with the original problem: how do we know which group speaks truth? Given all the difficulties that we got into on that one, some would seek some other criterion beside majority opinion as a way of discriminating among rival and incompatible moral hypotheses. One such move is to appeal to some sort of god. On this view, the factually true moral hypotheses are those that the god tells us are true. (For theists, there is usually some sort of link held to obtain between the god believed in and principles about what is right and wrong and, as you will see, we have a version of such a link in each of our meta-ethical theoretical possibilities.) What can be said in response to this suggestion? My first point here is to distinguish the view at hand here from our ‘supernaturalistic’ objectivism of a while ago. There, the view was that ‘X is good’

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meant ‘X is commanded by God’. Unlike with that theory, the claimed link here is not one of meaning. Rather, it is the view that (non-natural) properties of goodness and badness are indeed an objective part of the fabric of the universe, are built into the ‘physics’ of reality. The only extra twist is the hypothesis that the universe was made by some entity and that his/her/its reports of the nature of the universe are thus our most reliable guide as to the moral (and other) aspects of reality. Note also that there is no question of the god’s commanding being bound up with goodness (within our below discussion of subjectivism, we’ll consider yet another theistic variant that does have such a link). Goodness and badness are just held to be artefacts of the creating god – woven into the objective fabric of the universe just as much as mass and electric charge and all of the other natural features of the universe are (although moral agents seem to have some creative role as well in that they make something, say, bad by doing it – all a tad weird). As it turns out, there are considerable difficulties with this ‘Ask some god or other what the moral facts are’ way of resolving our difficulty concerning how to work out what moral hypotheses actually reflect reality, or capture the moral facts. An obvious one is that it is hugely controversial, to say the least, whether any sort of god exists at all and, if so, what he/she/it/them is/are like. Even assuming that there is some such entity and that the god settled on indeed made the universe, how are we to have access to that god’s advice as to the contents of the universe? Interpretation of religious tracts is a notoriously dicey and controversial business – that’s how sects crop up. In any event, as might occur to you after the complexities of earlier chapters, what is available from such tracts is at best a series of simple maxims that might be crude starting points for one’s moral principles but leave all of those complexities unexplored. (As the saying has it, ‘The devil is in the detail’ – not literally speaking of course!) So, how else might one get guidance from the god as to the sophisticated moral ‘fine-grain’ of the universe? Perhaps by individual revelation but, as the reports of individuals claiming such experiences conflict wildly, one would need some way of sorting out the simply psychiatrically disturbed from those who do indeed have access to the god’s advice (if any). In any event, let’s assume that you feel that not only does NNO give the correct meta-ethical theory of wrongness and rightness, goodness and badness and so forth, but that, moreover, with some god or other’s assistance or without it, you can tell objectively wrong situations from objectively right ones. All of this sounds very promising but there is still one last difficulty with the NNO view that I would like put to you (indeed it is a puzzle for naturalistic objectivism as well). Moral judgements are not just a matter of noting which acts are right and which wrong, of noting various aspects of the universe; they are action guiding. That is, to hold some act to be right is to hold it to be the right thing to do, one is obliged to do it. It’s hard to see how any mere factual information about the universe (even about queer properties of the universe) could of itself oblige us to act in some particular way. Perhaps this point is just another way of wondering just what sort of property goodness is being suggested to be.

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Subjectivism – More Detail Given the difficulties in finding any sort of defensible version of moral objectivism, some theorists abandon it altogether and advocate the position of the ethical subjectivist. Crudely put, recall that moral subjectivism rejects any suggestion that there’s any possibility of the truth or falsity of moral propositions. On this view, ethical principles and judgements are ultimately no more than a matter of taste, or preference. If I say that stealing is right and you say that stealing is wrong, then it is not as if one of us has uttered a falsehood. As neither proposition is to be thought of as attempting to describe reality, neither proposition can be thought of as failing to do that. So, you and I are held to simply have different attitudes towards stealing. Standard Objections to Subjectivist Analyses And this brings us to the major worry with this view. In contrast to aesthetic attitudes, moral attitudes (whether conceived of as subjectivism or as either version of objectivism would suggest) are standardly claimed to have two distinctive features, ones logically bound up with the concept of something being a moral judgement. First, they are said to be universalizable; second, they are said to be prescriptive. What is meant by these terms? Well, if I say that it was wrong for Jones to steal then, to say that this judgement is universalizable is to say that I am committed, on pain of inconsistency, to saying that it would also be wrong for anyone else to steal. Or, rather, to keep it a bit more accurate, it would be wrong for anyone else relevantly similar in relevantly similar circumstances to steal (a necessary, but troublesome, qualification; but just what counts as relevantly similar? – much of the fine detail of equity disputes concerns the unpacking of this). As for the prescriptiveness point, this notes that one isn’t just expressing an attitude when one is issuing a moral judgement, there seems to be some sort of prescriptive element to it. In a moral judgement one tells people (including oneself) how to behave. So, if I say that people should tell the truth, then I am issuing an imperative, or prescription, instructing people, myself included, to tell the truth. These two commonly accepted features of ethics cause trouble for the subjectivist. All very well, one might think, for me to have a certain set of preferences and govern and judge my actions in their terms. But if that is all they are, mere personal preferences, then why on earth should Jones or Smith or you be judged in their terms? And how dare I issue prescriptions as to how other people are to behave! This sort of objection has immediate and obvious relevance to the value clashes which led us into examining the nature of values in the first place. How can we be justified in imposing our moral judgements on other people if they are no more than mere preferences? Call this: ‘the prescriptive impertinence objection’. There are four main suggestions as to how one might respond to it –

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appeal to the authority of some group, some god, or to reason; or: ‘tough out’ the objection. So, one response to this is to immediately insist that it is not just your view that you are imposing, it is the group’s, say, society as a whole, with you (some professional or other in this case) merely acting as its agent and complying with its preferences. A couple of queries. What if you are out of moral step with the majority? Should you then act according to aims which reflect those majority value principles, even though they are ones that you reject? After all, on the subjectivist view under discussion, it is not as if their view is true and yours false (there’s no question of truth or falsity); there are just more of them than there are of you. Anyway, if you are going to appeal to the majority, which majority? That is, a majority of which set of people. We tracked through a parallel worry earlier with the NNO theory. Various candidate groups will differ in their moral preferences so which group is to be deemed to have moral authority (and why)? Would the answer vary according to the sort of moral issue under discussion? That is, might different groups have different domains of proper moral authority? And what is going to be the status of dissenting moral minority groups (say of a cultural or religious sort) that are a minority within the designated group? And so on. Also raised in this context of appeal to the group is the issue of universalizability. If, say, society’s majority preferences are to be imposed, then on whom? (This is a manifestation of our earlier worry about unpacking ‘relevantly similar’.) Are they to be imposed just on members of that society? Does that then mean that each society is to be pronouncing upon what is right for its own members but not on what is right for those in other societies (because relevantly dissimilar)? So, so long as some society is agreed that, say, Jews should be eliminated, or women not allowed to vote, or parents allowed to instil their religious beliefs in their children, or whatever (write in your own moral horror story and some society, some when and where, has favoured it) then that is the appropriate set of moral preferences to govern the actions of that society’s members. Enter ethical relativism with a bang – a self-destructive one. In contrast to that ‘majority preference’ attempt, another response to this ‘prescriptive impertinence’ worry is advanced by many of those of some sort of theistic persuasion (especially those subscribing to some sect of major monotheistic Muslim/Judaic/Christian religions). It appeals to the views of some god or other. Distinguish this sort of theistic moral subjectivism from the two theistic theories discussed to date. Theistic naturalism had a meaning tie up between goodness and what the god wanted (but note that it isn’t a meaning link up here, so this view is not vulnerable to our earlier worries about non-nonsense being deemed nonsense). Theistic NNO had objective moral properties, just ones that were artefacts of the god. On this view, however, appeal is being made to the preferences of the god (however we might ascertain them) as the preferences to which appeal is to be made as those having prescriptive force when various agents’ preferences clash. So, on this variety, there is still rejection of the objectivists’ idea of moral facts and morality is held to be subjective, a mere matter of preference,

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but it is to be the god’s preferences, not those of any grouping of humans, that count. I will leave it to you to paint in some objections to theistic moral subjectivism as they will closely parallel ones already made against theistic NNO. Apart from these concerns, there is a more basic challenge. Remember that we came to this view as one response to the prescriptive impertinence objection. That is, why should I be judged by, or take any particular notice of, your preferences? That was the challenge. The theistic answer here is: ‘Well of course no human’s, or group of humans’ preferences have any authority over you but God’s preferences are different and do have that authority’. But, even if one allows that the god in question exists, the simple challenge here is to ask: ‘Why so, why consider some non-human, supernatural creature to have prescriptive force over us?’. This proves to be an extraordinarily awkward question to answer in any sort of satisfactory manner. I’ll leave you to play around with the arguments if you are of some sort of theistic persuasion and I will offer just one further comment. Most (JudaeoChristian) theists’ first go at answering the objection is: ‘Because he created us’. Don’t be too quickly satisfied with this response; it is very readily criticizable. As a third response to the prescriptive impertinence objection, there is the suggestion that rational consideration of ethical issues will somehow solve this concern about clash of preferences. Some preferences, it is said, are forced logically upon us and the source of their authority is that they are necessitated by reason. This would be fine if it worked and there have been famous attempts at doing it (most notably by the philosophers Immanuel Kant and Thomas Hobbes). I don’t wish to do more than gesture at considering this sort of view as it becomes rather complex fast. Suffice it to say that general opinion in moral philosophy would be that no existing attempt has escaped crippling objection. We considered a related point of view when talking about direct quasi-mathematical intuition of moral principles when talking about NNO. As usual, my advice is to flesh out this chapter’s sketch with the standard literature in moral philosophy. View my comments as mere ‘tasters’. Finally, instead of trying to find some person or group whose preferences are seen to have some special moral authority, one can respond to the ‘prescriptive impertinence’ objection about judging others by one’s own moral values (given that those values are admitted to be no more than deep preferences that one has about how the world is to be) by, as I put it earlier, ‘toughing out’ the objection. If some moral principles are indeed your deepest preferences, then what could possibly have more salience as a guide for living your life by (including your, perhaps interventionist, interactions with others)? What else can one sensibly do? Another, related, objection to subjectivism concerns its plausibility as an account of what we seem to construe our ethical views to be. It seems too slight a status for them to be construed as mere preferences, albeit ones we might be willing to subscribe to, and indeed enforce upon, others. Surely, it is said, there is more to what is right and what is wrong than just subjective preferences, no matter whose. Surely people can just be bad, be in moral error – Hitler, say. Such intuitive

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concerns would lead one away from subjectivism to some sort of objectivist view (though, as seen, they have their own problems). So, in summary on subjectivism, it can be seen as a response to the severe difficulties of any variety of objectivism but itself seems open to the objection that, if moral views are just subjective preferences (albeit strongly held ones), how can it be anyone’s duty to act in accordance with someone else’s preferences? All very difficult to sort out. One last view that I wish to address, and which obviously has abandoned any hope of finding a solid basis for imposing values on others, is that of what I shall call ‘the moral anarchist’. This view is most easily seen as denying the universalizing and prescriptive elements we spoke of above. It accepts that moral values are ‘in the eyes of the beholder’ and so is a version of subjectivism; but contends that one’s own moral preferences should only apply to oneself and should neither be used to judge nor to prescribe the conduct of others, far less as the basis for controlling it. Comments: first, one wonders whether this is really a theory of the nature of moral concepts at all, for plausibly the universalizability and prescriptive elements abandoned here are indeed inbuilt logical features of morality, part of the meaning of the moral concepts. Rather, anarchism is perhaps better construed as a rejection of morality, as the substitution of another, non-moral, way of governing one’s life. Second, one might wonder what is going on here; has a second-order prescription been issued by the anarchist to the effect that other people should abandon other meta-ethical theories and embrace moral anarchism (no matter what they think)? If so, then there is a whiff of self-contradiction here! Another difficulty concerns conflict. Sooner or later people living their lives by their own individual anarchistic values will be in clash – man, as the aphorism has it, is not an island. What is the anarchist’s account of what happens next – might is ‘right’, or what? Summary As you will have realized, normative and meta-ethics are complex areas and we have done no more than skate on the surface of things. That said, it is worth your while to at least be aware of a range of possible theories, some of which you might be sympathetic to (despite the objections). Professional life does involve intervention in the lives of others on the basis of the interveners’ values and that does raise a concern about the status and nature of that basis for intervention. Although we’re not going to do so, should you wish to pursue normative and meta-ethical issues further, then the tools of clear, sustained rational dialogue that you have been introduced to in earlier chapters more or less transfer across to that task. Your argumentation within meta-ethics, at least, will not, however, contain much by way of moral propositions because you will be arguing about, not within, ethics. (And conceptual propositions will be of great importance and of some subtlety.) If you want to pursue such issues further, then, as I have said

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before, I’d recommend that you seek enrolment in a moral philosophy unit within an arts degree or, less satisfactorily, buy from your institution’s bookshop some introductory philosophy text that covers normative and/or meta-ethics and read it carefully.

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Index

accountability 244–6 argument checklist for checking 49–67 clarifying ideas in 67–70 compared to assertion 40 criticism of common logical errors 84–7 introduced 73–6 invalidity test 87–90 logic criticism introduced 77; see also logic criticism premise criticism introduced 97–8; see also premise, criticism patching logical holes 90–95, 217–21 patterns means/end, outlined 65–7 set inclusion, outlined 64–5 types chained 115–16, 167, 170–71 independent conclusion 171–2 independent rationale 169, 170, 174–5 joint conclusion 172–3 joint rationale 168–9, 170, 175–9 simple 170, 180–82 structuring 41–8 and inference words 42–6 consequentialist ethics 268–70, 282–3 deep moral clashes 131–4, 182–9, 213–16 descriptive ethics 264 deontological ethics 270–73 ‘development’, see ‘growth’ and ‘development’ dispute closures 201–13, 216–17, 222–4 duties and rights 259–61 equity 246–51 ethical theory, broad types of 264–6

ethics and religion 283–4, 289–90, 292–3 extended enquiry broad features of 154–8 complexities concerning, overview of 159–61 closures, see dispute closures freedom 255–9 ‘growth’ and ‘development’ 239–42 hybrid normative ethical views 273–4 inference words insertion of 43–6 introduced 42–3 invalidity test 87–90 logic criticism common logical errors 84–7 invalidity test 87–90 of means/end arguments 82–6 patching logical holes 90–95, 217–21 of set inclusion arguments 78–82 ‘maximizing potential’ 242–4 means/end arguments common logical faults of 84–7 outlined 65–7 metacognition introduced 120–21 metacognitive deliberation contrasted with metacognitive reviews 129–30 explained 135–8 possible problems with 142–3 reviews contrasted with metacognitive deliberation 129–30

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explained 130–34 tilts and deep moral clashes 131–4, 182–9, 193–201, 213–16 voices 146–50, 190–93 ‘needs’ 229–37 and wants 235–6 meta-ethics 265–6, 274–94 objectivism 275–6, 278–90 naturalism 278–84 non-naturalism 284–90 subjectivism 276–7, 291–4 normative ethics 265, 267–74 patching logical holes 90–95, 217–21 premise criticism common architecture of 100–101 a common error of 109–11 a common technique of 111–13 of conceptual premises 101–4 of descriptive premises 98–101 introduction 97–8 of moral premises 104–7 defence of conceptual premises 114–15 of descriptive premises 114 introduction 113–14 of moral premises 115 propositions aesthetic 26–7 ambiguous introduced 24–5 summary of 27–8, 34

conceptual 30–34 criticism of 101–4 defence of 114–15 disputes involving 165–7 descriptive contrasted with moral 13–28 criticism of 98–101 defence of 114 disputes involving 161–4 summary of 27 mixed 28–30, 34 moral clue words for 21–5 contrasted with descriptive 13–28 criticism of 104–7 defence of 115 summary description of 27 ‘relevant’ 237–8 religion and ethics 283–4, 289–90, 292–3 respect 251–4 rights and duties 259–61 set inclusion arguments common logical fault of 86–7 outlined 64–5 tilts and deep moral clashes 131–4, 182–9, 193–201, 213–16 tolerance 254–5 ‘useful’ 239 voices 146–50, 190–93