BAB 9

Are There Absolute Moral Rules?

You may not do evil that good may come.

ST. Paul, LETTER To THE ROMANS (CA. A.D. 50)

9.1. Harry Truman and Elizabeth Anseombe

Harry Truman, the 33rd President of the United States, will always be remembered as the man
who made the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When he be-
came President in 1945, following the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Truman knew nothing
about the development of the bomb; lie had to be filled in by the presidential advisers. The
Allies were winning the war in the Pacific, they said, but at a terrible cost. Plans had been
prepared for an invasion of the Japanese home islands, which would be even bloodier than the
Normandy invasion. Using the atomic bomb on one or two Japanese cities, however, might
bring the war to a speedy end, making the invasion unnecessary.

Truman wads at first reluctant to use the new weapon. The problem was that each bomb would
obliterate an entire city not just the military targets, but hospitals, schools, and civilian homes.
Women, children, old people, and other noncombatants would be wiped out along with the
military personnel. Although the Allies had bombed cities before, Truman sensed that the new
weapon made the issue of noncombatants even more acute. Moreover, the U.S. was on record
condemning attacks on civilian targets. In 1939, before the U.S. had entered the war, President
Roosevelt had sent a message to the governments of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and
England, denouncing the bombardment of cities in die strongest terms. He had called it
"inhuman barbarism":

The ruthless bombing from the air of civilians ... which has resulted in the maiming and in the
death of thousands of defenseless men, women, and children, has sickened the hearts of every
civilized man and woman, and has profoundly shocked the conscience of humanity. If resort is
had to this form of inhuman barbarism during the period of the tragic conflagration with which
the world is now confronted, hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings who have no
responsibilitv for, and who are not even remotely participating in, the hostilities which have now
broken out, will lose their lives.

When he decided to authorize the bombings, Truman expressed similar thoughts. He wrote in his
diary that "I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and
soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children.... He and I are in accord. The
target will be a purely military one." It is hard to know what to make of this, since Truman knew
the bombs would destroy whole cities. Nonetheless, it is clear that he was worried about the
issue of noncombatants. It is also clear that lie was satisfied lie was doing the right thing. He told
an aide that, after signing the order, he "slept like a baby."

Elizabeth Atiscombe, who died in 2001 at the age of 81, was a 20 year old student at Oxford
University when World War 11 began. In that year she co-authored a controversial pamphlet
arguing that Britain should not go to war because it would end up fighting by unjust means such
as attacks upon civilians. "Miss Anscombe," as she was always known, despite her 50-year
marriage and her seven children, would go on to become one of the 20th century's most
distinguished philosophers, and the greatest woman philosopher in history.
Miss Anscombe was also a Catholic, and her religion was central to her life. Her ethical views,
especially, reflected traditional Catholic teachings. In 1968 she celebrated Pope Paul VI's
affirmation of the church's ban on contraception and wrote a pamphlet explaining why artificial
birth-control is wrong. Late in her life she was arrested while protesting outside a British
abortion clinic. She also accepted the church's teaching about the ethical conduct of war, which
brought her into conflict with Mr. Truman.

Harry Truman and Elizabeth Anscombe crossed paths in 1956 when he was awarded an
honorary degree by Oxford University. The degree was a way of thanking Truman for America's
wartime help. Those proposing the honor thought it would be uncontroversial. But Anscombe
and two other members of the faculty opposed awarding the degree, and although they lost, they
forced a vote on what would otherwise have been a Ribber-stamp approval. Then, while the
degree was being conferred, Anscombe knelt outside the hall, praying.

Anscombc wrote another pamphlet, this time explaining that Truman was a murderer because he
had ordered the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Of course, Truman thought the bombings
were justified they had shortened the war and saved lives. For Anscombe, this was not good
enough. "For men to choose to kill the innocent as a means to their ends," she wrote, "is always
murder." To the argument that the bombings saved more lives than they took, she retorted:
"Come now. If you had to choose between boiling one baby and letting some frightful disaster
befall a thousand people—or a million people, if a thousand is riot enough—what would you
do?'

The point is that, according to Anscombe, there are some things that may not be done, no matter
what. It does not matter ifyou could accomplish some great good by boiling a baby; it simply
must not be done. (Considering what happened to the babies in Hiroshima, "boil ing a baby" is
not so far off.) That we may riot intentionally kill innocent people is one inviolable rule, but
there are others as well:

it has been characteristic of [the Hebrew-Christian] ethic to teach that there are certain things
forbidden whatever consequences threaten, such as: choosing to kill the innocent for any
purpose, however good; vicarious punishment; treachery (by which I mean obtaining a man's
confidence in a grave matter by promises of trustworthy friendship and then betraying him to his
enemies); idolatry; sodomy; adultery; making a false profession of faith.

Of course, many philosophers do not agree; they insist that any rule may be broken, if the
circumstances demand it. Anscombe says of them,

It is noticeable that none of these philosophers displays any consciousness that there is such an
ethic, which lie is contradicting: it is pretty well taken for obvious among them all that a
prohibition such as that on murder does not operate in face of some consequences. But of course
the strictness of the prohibition has as its point that y u are not to be tempted by fear at hope of
consequences.

Anscombe and her husband, Peter Geach, who was also a distinguished philosopher, were the
20th century's foremost philosophical champions of the doctrine that moral rules are absolute.

9.2. The Categorical Imperative

The idea that moral rules hold without exception is hard to de- fend. It is easy enough to explain
why we should make an exception to a rule—we can simply point out that, in some
circumstances, following the rule would have terrible consequences. But how can we explain
why we should not make an exception to the rule, in such circumstances? It is a daunting
assignment. One way would be to say that moral rules are God's inviolable commands. Apart
from that, what can be said?

Prior to the 20th century, there was one major philosopher who believed that moral rules are
absolute, and he offered a famous argument for this view. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was one
of the seminal figures in modern thought. He argued, to take one example, that lying is never
right, no matter what the circumstances. He did not appeal to theological considerations; he held,
instead, that reason requires that we never lie. To see how lie reached this remarkable
conclusion, we will begin with a brief look at his general theory of ethics.

Kant observed that the word ought is often used non-morally. For example,

1. Ifyou want to become a better chess player, you ought to study the games of Garry Kasparov.

2. Ifyou want to go to law school, you ought to sign up for the entrance examination.

Much of our conduct is governed by such "oughts." The pattern is: We have a certain desire (to
become a better chess player, to go to law school); we recognize that a certain course of action
would help us get what we want (studying Kasparov's games, signing up for the entrance
examination); and so we conclude that we should follow the indicated plan.

Kant called these "hypothetical imperatives" because they tell us what to do provided that we
have the relevant desires. A person who dill not want to improve his or her chess would have no
reason to study Kasparov's games; someone who did not want to go to law school would have no
reason to take the entrance examination. Because the binding force of the "ought" depends on
our having the relevant desire, we can escape its force simply by renouncing the desire. Thus if
you no longer want to go to law school, you can escape the obligation to take the exam.

Moral obligations, by contrast, do not depend on our having particular desires. The form of a
morale obligation is not "If you want so-and-so, then you ought to do such-and such." Instead,
moral requirements are categorical: they have the form, "You ought to do such-and-such,
period." The moral rule is not, for example, that you ought to help people if you care for them or
if you have some other purpose that helping them might serve. Instead, the rule is that you
should be helpful to people regardless ofyour particular wants and desires. That is why, unlike
hypothetical "oughts," moral requirements cannot be escaped simply by saying "But I don't care
about that."

Hypothetical "oughts" are easy to understand. They merely require us to adopt the means
necessary to achieve the ends we seek. Categorical "oughts," on the other hand, are mysterious.
How can we be obligated to behave in a certain way regardless of the ends we wish to achieve?
Much of Kant's moral philoso phy is an attempt to explain how this is possible.

Kant holds that, just as hypothetical "oughts" are possible because we have desires, categorical
"oughts" are possible because we have reason. Categorical "oughts" are binding on rational
agents simply because they are rational. How can this be so? It is, Kant says, because categorical
oughts are derived from a principle that every rational person must accept. He calls this principle
the Categorical Imperative. In his Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), he
expresses the Categorical Imperative like this: it is a rule which says,

Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become
a universal law.

This principle summarizes a procedure for deciding whether an act is morally permissible. When
you are contemplating doing a particular action, you are to ask what rule you would be
following if you were to do that action. (This will be the "maxim" of the act.) Then you are to
ask whether you would be willing for that rule to be followed by everyone all the time. (That
would make it a "universal law" in the relevant sense.) If so, the rule may be followed, and the
act is permissible. However, if you would not be willing for everyone to follow the rule, then
you may not follow it, and the act is morally impermissible.

Kant gives several examples to explain how this works. Suppose, he says, a man needs to
borrow money, and he knows that no one will lend it to him unless he promises to repay. But lie
also knows that lie will be unable to repay. He therefore faces this problem: Should he promise
to repay the debt, knowing that he cannot do so, in order to persuade someone to make the loan?
If he were to do that, the "maxim of the act" (the rule he would be following) would be:
Whenever you need a loan, promise to repay it, regardless of whether you believe you actually
can repay it. Now, could this rule become a universal law? Obviously not, because it would be
self-defeating. Once this be- came a universal practice, no one would any longer believe such
promises, and so no one would make loans because of them. As Kant himself puts it, "no one
would believe what was promised to him but would only laugh at any such assertion as vain
pretense."

Another of Kant's examples has to do with giving charity. Suppose, he says, someone refuses to
help others in need, saying to himself, "What concern of mine is it? Let each one be happy as
heaven wills, or as he can make himself, I will not take anything from him or even envy him; but
to his welfare or to his assistance in time of need I have no desire to contribute." This, again, is a
rule that one cannot will to be a universal law. For at some time in the future this man will
himself be in need of assistance from others, and he would not want others to be so indifferent to
him.

9.3. Absolute Rules and the Duty Not to lie

Being a moral agent, then, means guiding one's conduct by "universal laws"—moral rules that
hold, without exception, in all circumstances. Kant thought that the rule against lying was one
such rule. Of course, this was not the only absolute rule Kant defended—lie thought there are
many others; morality is full of them. But it will be useful to focus on the rule against lying as a
convenient example. Kant devoted considerable space to discussing this rule, and it is clear that
he felt especially strongly about it. He said that lying in any circumstances is "the obliteration of
one's dignity as a human being."

Kant offered two main arguments for this view.

1. His primary reason for thinking that lying is always wrong was that the prohibition of lying
follows straightaway from the Categorical Imperative. We could not will that it be a universal
law that we should lie, because it would be self-defeating; people would quickly learn that they
could not rely on what other people said, and so the lies would not be believed. Surely there is
something to this: In order for lies to be successful, people must generally believe that others tell
the truth; so the success of a lie depends tin there not being a "universal law" permitting it.

There is, however, a problem with this argument, which will become clear if we spell out Kant's
line of thought more fully. Suppose it was necessary to lie to save someone's life. Should we do
W Kant would have its reason as follows:

(1) We should do only those actions that conform to rules that we could will to be adopted
universally.

(2) If we were to lie, we would be following the rule "It is permissible to lie."
(3) This rule could not be adopted universally, because it would be self-defeating: people would
stop believing one another, and then it would do no good to lie. (4) Therefore, we should not lie.

The problem with this way of reasoning was nicely summarized by Elizabeth Anscombe when
she wrote about Kant in the academic journal Philosophy in 1958:

His own rigoristic convictions on the subject of lying were so intense that it never occurred to
him that a lie could be relevantly described as anything but just a lie (e.g.. as "a lie in such-and-
such circumstances"). His rule about universalizable maxims is useless without stipulations as to
what shall count as a relevant description of an action with a view to constructing a maxim about
it.

In this respect, Anscombe was a model of intellectual integrity: Although she agreed with Kant's
conclusion, she was quick to point out the error in his reasoning. The difficulty arises in step (2)
of the argument. Exactly what rule would you be following if you lied? The crucial point is that
there are many ways to formulate the rule; some of them might not be "universalizable" in
Kant's sense, but some would be. Suppose we said you were following this rule (R): "It is
permissible to lie when doing so would save someone's life." We could will that (R) be made a
"universal law," and it would not be self-defeating.

2. Many of Kant's contemporaries thought that his insistence on absolute rules was strange, and
they said so. One reviewer challenged him with this example: Imagine that someone is fleeing
from a murderer and tells you he is going home to hide. Then the murderer comes, playing
innocent, and asks where the first man went. Von believe that ifyou tell the truth, the murderer
will find the man and kill him. Furthermore, suppose the murderer is already headed in the right
direction, and you believe that if you simply remain silent, lie will find the man and kill him.
What should you do? We might call this the Case of the Inquiring Murderer. In this case, most
of us would think it is obvious that we should lie. After all, we might say, which is more
important, telling the truth or saving someone's life?

Kant responded in an essay with the charmingly old-fashioned title "On a Supposed Right to Lie
from Altruistic Motives," in which he discusses the Inquiring Murderer and gives a second
argument for his view about lying. He writes:

After you have honestly answered the murderer's question as to whether his intended victim is at
home, it. may he that he has slipped out so that he does not come in the way of the murderer, and
thus the murder may not be committed. But if you had lied and said he was not at home when he
had really gone out without your knowing it, and if the murderer had then met him as lie went
away and murdered him, you might justly be accused as the cause of his death. For if you had
told the truth as far as you knew it, perhaps the murderer might have been apprehended by the
neighbors while he searched the house and thus the deed might have been prevented. Therefore,
whoever tells a lie, however well intentioned he might be, must answer for the consequences,
however unforeseeable they were, and pay the penalty for them ...

To he truthful (honest) in all deliberations, therefore, is a sacred and absolutely commanding

This argument may be stated in a more general form: We are tempted to make exceptions to the
rule against lying because in sonic cases we think the consequences of truthfulness would be bad
and the consequences of lying good. However, we can never be certain about what the
consequences of our actions will be—we cannot know that good results will follow. The results
of lying might he unexpectedly bad. Therefore, the best policy is to avoid the known evil, lying,
and let the consequences come as they will. Even if the consequences are bad, they will not be
our fault, for we will have done our duty.

A similar argument, we may note, would apply to Truman's decision to drop the atomic bombs
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bombs were dropped in the hope that the war could be swiftly
concluded. But Truman did not know for sure that this would happen. The Japanese might have
hunkered down and the invasion might still have been necessary. So, Truman was betting
hundreds of thousands of lives on the mere hope that good results might ensue.

The problems with this argument are obvious enough—o obvious, in fact, that it is surprising a
philosopher of Kant's stature was not more sensitive to them. In the first place, the argument
depends on an unreasonably pessimistic view of what we can know. Sometimes we can be quite
confident of what the consequences of our actions will be, in which case we need not hesitate
because of uncertainty. Moreover—and this is a more interesting matter, from a philosophical
point of view Kant seems to assume that although we would be morally responsible for any bad
consequences of lying, we would not be similarly responsible for any bad consequences of
telling the truth. Suppose, as a result of our telling the truth, the murderer found his victim and
killed him. Kant seems to assume that we would be blameless. But can we escape responsibility
so easily? After all, we aided the murderer. This argument, then, is not very convincing.

9.4. Conflicts between Rules

The idea that moral rules are absolute, allowing no exceptions, is implausible in light of such
cases as the Case of the Inquiring Murderer, and Kant's arguments for it are unsatisfactory. But
are there any convincing arguments against the idea, apart from its being implausible?

The principal argument against absolute moral rules has to do with the possibility of conflict
cases. Suppose it is held to be absolutely wrong to do A in any circumstances and also wrong to
do B in any circumstances. Then what about the case in which a person is faced with the choice
between doing A and doing B, when lie must do something and there are no other alternatives
available? This kind of conflict case seems to show that it is logically untenable to hold that
moral rules are absolute.

Is there any way that this objection can be met? One way would be to deny that such cases ever
actually occur. Peter Geach took just this view, g appealin to God's providence. We can describe
fictitious cases in which there is no way to avoid violating one of the absolute rules, he said, but
God will not permit such circumstances to exist in the real world. In his book God and the Soul
(1969) Geach writes:

"But suppose circumstances are such that observance of one Divine law, say the law against
lying, involves breach of some other absolute Divine prohibition?" — If God is rational, he does
not command the impossible; if God governs all events by his providence, he can see to it that
circumstances in which a man is inculpably faced by a choice between forbidden acts do not
occur. Of course such circumstances (with the clause "and there is no way out" written into their
description) are consistently describable; but God's providence could ensure that they do not in
fact arise. Contrary to what nonbelievers often say, belief in the existence of God does make a
difference to what one expects to happen.

Do such cases actually occur? There is no doubt that serious moral rules do sometimes clash.
During the Second World War, Dutch fishermen smuggled Jewish refugees to England in their
boats, and the fishing boats with refugees in the hold would sometimes be stopped by Nazi
patrol boats. The Nazi captain would call out and ask the Dutch captain where he was bound,
who was on board, and so forth. The fishermen would lie and be allowed to pass. Now it is clear
that the fishermen had only two alternatives, to lie or to allow their passengers (and themselves)
to be taken and killed. No third alternative was available; they could not, for example, remain
silent or outrun the Nazis.

Now suppose the two rules "It is wrong to lie" and "It is wrong to facilitate the murder of
innocent people" arc both taken to be absolute. The Dutch fishermen would have to do one of
these things; therefore, a moral view that absolutely prohibits both is incoherent. Of course this
difficulty could be avoided if one holds that at least one of these rules is not absolute. But it is
doubtful that this way out will be available every time there is a conflict. It is also hard to
understand, at the most basic level, why some serious moral rules should be absolute, if others
are not.

9.5. Another Look at Kant's Basic Idea

In his book A .Short History of Ethics (1966), Alasdair MacItyre remarks that "For manywho
have never heard of philosophy, let alone of Kant, morality is roughly what Kant said it was"—
that is, a system of rules that one must follow from a sense of ditty, regardless of one's wants or
desires. Yet at the same time, few contemporary philosophers would defend the central idea of
his ethics, the Categorical Imperative, as Kant formulated it. As we have seen, the Categorical
Imperative is beset by serious, perhaps insurmoun table problems. Nonetheless, it might be a
mistake to give up on Kant's principle too quickly. Is there some basic idea underlying the
Categorical Imperative that we might accept, even if we. do not accept Kant's particular way of
expressing it? I believe that there is, and that the power of this idea accounts, at least in part, for
Kant's vast influence.

Remember that Kant thinks the Categorical Imperative is binding on rational agents simply
because they are rational—in other words, a person who did not accept this principle would be
guilty not merely of being immoral but of being irrational. This is a compelling idea, that there
are rational as well as moral constraints on what a good person may believe and do. But what
exactly does this mean? In what sense would it be irrational to reject the Categorical Imperative?

The basic idea is related to the thought that a moral judgmen tmust be backed by good reasons—
if it is true that you ought (or ought not) to do such-and-such, then there must be a reason
whyyou should (or should not) do it. For example, you may think that you ought not to set forest
fires because property would be destroyed and people would be killed. The Kantian twist is to
point out that if you accept any considerations as reasons in one case, you trust also accept them
as reasons in other cases. If there is another case where property would be destroyed and people
killed, you must accept this as a reason for action in that case, too. It is no good saying that you
accept reasons some of the time, but not all the time; or that other people must respect them, but
not you. Moral reasons, if they are valid at all, arc binding on all people at all times. This is a
requirement of consistency; and Kant was right to think that no rational person may deny it.

This is the Kantian idea—or, I should say, one of the Kantian ideas—that has been so
influential. It has a number of important implications. It implies that a person cannot regard
herself as special, from a moral point of view: She cannot consistently think that she is permitted
to act in ways that are forbidden to others, or that tier interests are more important than other
people's interests. As one commentator remarked, I cannot say that it is all right for me to drink
your beer and then complain when you drink mine. Moreover, it implies that there are rational
constraints on what we may do: We may want to do something—say, drink someone else's beer
—but recognize that we cannot consistently do it because we cannot at the same time accept the
implication that lie may drink our beer. If Kant was not the first to recognize this, he was the
first to make it the cornerstone of a fully worked-out system of morals. That was his great
contribution.

But Kant went one step further and said that consistency requires rules that have no exceptions.
It is not hard to see how his basic idea pushed him in that direction; but the extra step was not
necessary, and it has caused trouble for his theory ever since. Rules, even within a Kantian
framework, need not be regarded as absolute. All that Kant's basic idea requires is that when we
violate a rule, we do so for a reason that we would be willing for anyone to accept, were they in
our position. fit the Case of the Inquiring Murderer, this means that we may violate the rule
against lying only if we would be willing for anyone to do so were he faced with the same
situation. And most of us would readily agree to that.

Harry Truman, too, would no doubt agree that anyone else in his particular circumstances would
have good reason to drop the bomb. Thus, even if Truman was wrong, Kant's arguments do not
prove it. One might say, instead, that Truman was wrong because other options available to him
would have had better consequences—many people have argued, for example, that he should
have negotiated an end to the war on terms that the Japanese could have accepted. But saying
that negotiating would have been better, because of its consequences, is very different from
saying that Truman's actual course violated an absolute rule.