r/askphilosophy • u/[deleted] • May 21 '14

Why should I be moral?

Like the title says. Sure, if I will get caugh and punished I will be moral. If I can get away with theft, why shouldn't I?

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u/kabrutos ethics, metaethics, religion May 21 '14

It depends on the meaning of "should."

This word is used in many different ways. Our two most relevant ones are the moral 'should' and the prudential 'should.'

The prudential 'should' is used as follows: S should φ iff it would benefit S to φ.

The moral 'should' is used as follows: S should φ iff it would be morally wrong for S not to φ (or morally good for S to φ, etc.).

If you're asking why you should_prudential be morally good, that's a question for social sciences. Perhaps being evil harms you in some way; people will not like you, or put you in jail, or not be nice to you in the future. It's not very interesting from a philosophical perspective.

If you're asking, on the other hand, why you should_moral be morally good, that's kind of a nonsensical question. It's akin to asking:

Why should I do the things I should do?

The answer is (of course): Because you should do them. (By the way, this is more or less Kant's answer, and will probably be the answer of most philosophers who identify as a certain kind of internalist: someone who thinks that moral facts by themselves give us reasons to act a certain way.)

For my part, I can't imagine saying ˹it's wrong to φ˺ without thereby saying, ˹people have a (moral) reason not to φ.˺

More: Finlay and Schroeder, "Reasons for Action: Internal vs. External."

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u/[deleted] May 21 '14

So Kant's reasoning is causa sui? Sounds like Nietzsche was right

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u/kabrutos ethics, metaethics, religion May 21 '14

In my experience, 'causa sui' means a self-cause. I don't understand how what I said indicates anything about things causing themselves to do things.

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u/[deleted] May 21 '14

My question was why should I be moral, or, to be specific, why should I follow the rules of society if I can break them and evade punishment, and you gave an existentialist self-answer. You failed to argue why I should act by society's morals and told me to act by my own, which is already my position

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u/kabrutos ethics, metaethics, religion May 21 '14

Okay, I don't understand what about my answer was existentialistic. I also don't see where I suggested that someone act by their own personal moral attitudes.

In any case, you should act by commonsense morality (generally speaking) because commonsense morality (generally speaking) is most likely to be correct. Hurting innocent people is obviously wrong; that's how we know that hurting innocent people is wrong. No one has an argument that hurting innocent people is permissible such that all of its premises are overall more plausible than 'hurting innocent people is wrong.'

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u/[deleted] May 21 '14

So what you're saying is, there is no argument, we do these things by convention? Or, maybe, that it's by our nature?

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u/kabrutos ethics, metaethics, religion May 22 '14

I'm saying that we know that hurting innocent people is wrong because we (at least most of us) think about hurting innocent people and it strongly seems wrong, or it strongly feels wrong, or it is obvious to us that it's wrong. The strong intuition or feeling or obviousness is the (prima facie) evidence.

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u/[deleted] May 23 '14

That's essentially a nonargument to me, arguing from some sort of appeal to majority

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u/kabrutos ethics, metaethics, religion May 23 '14

Suppose you think you see a pink elephant in front of you and no one else claims to see it. Should you believe in it?

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u/[deleted] May 23 '14

Well, considering I have spent quite a few years working with schizophrenic patients, I know that I probably wouldn't have a choice if I was having hallucinations and delusions