Ethics: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy) by J.Gensler Harry

Author:J.Gensler, Harry [J.Gensler, Harry]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781134731183
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2013-01-11T00:00:00+00:00

Here’s a less graphical version of the argument. If we’re conscientious and impartial, then:

We won’t do something to another unless we believe that this act would be all right.

We won’t believe that this act would be all right unless we believe that it would be all right for this to be done to us in the same situation.

We won’t believe that it would be all right for this to be done to us in the same situation unless we’re willing that this be done to us in the same situation.

∴ We won’t do something to another unless we’re willing that this be done to us in the same situation.

So if we’re conscientious and impartial, then we’ll follow GR: we won’t do something to another unless we’re willing that it be done to us in the same situation. But we’ve been assuming (see Chapter 7) that we ought to be conscientious and impartial. It follows that we ought to follow GR: we ought to treat others only as we consent to being treated in the same situation.

So our GR isn’t a basic principle. Instead, it’s provable from the conscientiousness and impartiality requirements. Our GR is a theorem — something provable from principles that are more basic.

Let’s compare our GR with prescriptivism’s GR (see Section 6.3) — which also holds on our approach:

Prescriptivism’s GR says that this combination is inconsistent: (a) I believe that I ought to do something to another, and (b) I don’t desire that this be done to me in the same situation.

Our GR is stronger in three ways. First, we can violate it even if we don’t use “ought”; so we can’t escape it by refusing to make moral judgments. Second, we can defend our GR using practically any approach to ethics; so it doesn’t assume a controversial prescriptivist analysis of moral terms. Third, views that accept moral truths could accept that our GR expresses an important moral truth about how we ought to live.

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