Five frameworks. One trolley. A persistent question. The brief atlas of moral philosophy.
Western moral philosophy clusters around three ancient questions. They are less rivals than different lenses on the same fog.
What kind of person should I be? Focus on character, habits, and human flourishing.
What rules must I follow? Some acts are right or wrong regardless of outcome.
What results should I produce? An act is right if its consequences are best.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
Eudaimonia — flourishing — is the human end. Each virtue is a Golden Mean between extremes: courage between cowardice and recklessness, generosity between miserliness and waste. Character is forged through practice, not principle.
“Act only on that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”
The Categorical Imperative: morality is reason’s law. Lying, breaking promises, treating persons as mere means — forbidden, full stop. People possess dignity, not price. The right is prior to the good.
“The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.”
Pleasure good, pain bad — sum it up across all sentient beings. Quantitative hedonism.
“Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.”
Refines Bentham — not all pleasures equal. Higher (intellectual) pleasures rank above lower. Liberty matters as a precondition for utility.
“Justice is fairness — the principles you would choose behind a veil of ignorance.”
Imagine designing society without knowing your race, talent, or wealth. You’d demand equal liberties and accept inequality only if it benefits the least advantaged.
“An act is wrong if it could be reasonably rejected by anyone affected.”
Morality as justifiability to others. We owe each other reasons — principles no one could refuse on grounds of fairness.
“A different voice — one that hears responsibility before rules.”
Critiqued Kohlberg’s “justice” ladder for missing women’s reasoning: contextual, narrative, attentive to relationships.
“Caring is the foundation: a face met, not a maxim applied.”
Moral life begins in concrete encounter — mother and child, friend and friend. Abstract universals come second, if at all.
The toughest cases are those the founding theorists never imagined.
Should an autonomous vehicle be a Kantian or a utilitarian? Who is responsible when no human acts? Can a system without consciousness bear moral weight?
Singer extends utilitarianism: if suffering counts, species is irrelevant. Regan extends Kant: animals as ends in themselves.
What do we owe people not yet born? Discount their welfare? Rawls’ veil suggests treat them as equals.
Diffuse harm, distributed cause, distant victim. Every framework strains. Collective action where individual choice barely registers.
Moral facts exist independently — like mathematical truths. Cruelty is wrong, full stop.
No moral facts — only attitudes, emotions, projections. “Wrong” expresses disapproval.
Moral truths are made, not found — products of rational agreement among agents.
Rules underdetermine action. Two principles always conflict. Three values cannot all be honored. Wisdom is the faculty of knowing what this case demands.— The lesson of every applied ethicist
The same act in different contexts is a different act. Lying to a friend, lying to a tyrant.
Pluralists carry several frameworks the way a carpenter carries chisels. Each reveals what others hide.
Even right choices leave regret. Tragic dilemmas have no clean exit. The mature agent accepts this.
Dostoevsky’s worry: “If God is dead, all is permitted.” Most modern frameworks reply: no. Reason, consequence, contract, character — each grounds ethics elsewhere.
Divine command theory: right is what God wills. Without God, what binds? Why care about Kant’s reason or Mill’s utility?
Plato asked: is it good because the gods love it, or do they love it because it is good? If the latter — goodness stands on its own, regardless of any commander.
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” — Socrates, in Plato’s Apology. The ethical life starts here: not with the right answer, but with the willingness to keep asking.