Deontological Ethics

Says a reader:

All humans are selfish by nature, and those who attempt to deny themselves for others, cannot succeed in their attempt, unless it ends in their own demise. Not even these people are selfless though, because they are attempting to be moral--according to the morality of altruism-- because they want to do what is right, and they want to do so for some selfish reason, even if it is to be free themselves from the shame that they are supposedly immoral.

Because of this, a man cannot be truly selfless (while remaining in existence at least). I am not the best person to explain this rational belief (I say rational, because many associate belief with faith, and it is not a belief based off of faith, but based off of reason), so in answer to name and question of the original topic, I will refer you to the philosopher, Ayn Rand, who's philosophy I "believe."

I respond:

I understand normative ethics to be the study of what makes an action right or wrong. Thus, the motivation behind that action-- selflessness or selfishness-- is irrelevant. What is relevant is that the behavior-- not the thought that animates that behavior-- is ethical. Also, any such action must be rational, so long as it is predicated with thought, or, to use a philosophical expression, an a priori. That principle might be "does it pay" (pragmatism) or "the greatest good for the greatest number" (utiliterianism) or "do your duty for the Dear Leader" (the leadership principle). So long as actions coherently derives from such principles, such an action would be both ethical and rational by definition. Is it possible to construct a meta-ethics that transcends such deductions? I find the deontological ethics of Kant the most persuasive, as it attempts to cast actions as inherently good or bad, based on a realistic picture of humans as autonomous, freedom-seeking, and intentional.

A reader responds:

This is it. You are there. It doesn't really matter what you like or don't like. Kantian ethics just treats morality as brutally and cold-hearted as reality treats the law of gravity. It doesn't matter if it is Mother Teresa or Charles Manson that is dying from falling off a cliff. Physics speaks the truth about the matter, either way. So, too, it doesn't matter if it is Mother Teresa or Charles Manson that is evil, ethics tells us the truth, either way. Reason holds no particular sentiment in favor of Mother Teresa or Charles Manson. It doesn't matter how much "it pays." It doesn't matter how many "people benefit from it." Your FEELINGS do not matter. YOU do not matter.

There is ONE cold-hearted REALITY that is he sum-total of the TRUTH of morality. It is cold, and it is hard, and if you cannot handle it, then go off and study anthropology. There is plenty in the world that will never ask you to confront this. Do something else.

Another reader weighs in.

Regarding selflessness, Adler points out here: http://radicalacademy.com/adleraristotleethics2.htm that Aristotle showed in his ethics that to live a truly good life we must desire the right things for the right reasons and that a person who is truly self serving, that is, doing what is best for himself, will do what is good for all men when he serves himself. So like others have said, selfish or selfless, doesn’t matter. But it doesn’t matter because it becomes two sides of the same coin for the truly ethical man (woman).

And yet another:

The function of morality is to submit an individual will to the communal will.
It's methodology is simple and grounded upon simple dualistic, survival tactics. Good/Bad are conscious determinations of what is good for me and what is bad for me, based no empirical factors. The social and cultural trick is to redefine self so as to harness this dualistic determination to social convention. Buddhism and Christianity use similar methods, as does humanism and a variety of other social and cultural dogmas. They are methods used by armies across the globe.
First stress the mind to the point of impressionability. Then break down its sense of identity, by slandering, insulting, degrading and shaming etc....a Nihilistic process. Once this is done you have before you a tabula rasa awaiting as new identity. In most cases the mind is trained to identify with a whole - a nation, a culture, a religion, a god, an ideal. At this point the mind cannot think of good without thinknig of what the system deems is good for it, even if this entails its own sacrifice or its own demise. You've just created an automaton.

You raise some interesting points, but I disagree with your premises and conclusions. Is morality merely a matter of socially-conditioned response, or is it something more? What at the ground justifies good or right action? Is it just a matter of responding to teachers, priests, and parents brainwashing us over our lifetime into believing that "four legs good, two legs bad"?

During the 1960s, the Episcopalian priest Joseph Fletcher developed the theory of situational ethics, that placed morality within the context of a particular situation rather than under an absolute rule. Other people would say that situational ethics is an oxymoron, as ethics must be based on something more persistent and transcendent than personal feelings. I’m suspicious of moral relativists with their fluid sense of right and wrong, that so often opens the door to having no morals, claiming as they do that . . .

It all depends on how you’re raised

It all depends on what is praised

What’s right today is wrong tomorrow

Joy in France is England’s sorrow

It all depends on point of viewAustralia or Timbuktu

In Rome do as Romans do

If taste just happen to agree

Then you have morality

When there are conflicting trends

It all depends, it all depends

Shakespeare’s Shylock in “The Merchant of Venice” gives the Kantian proof that moral universality resides in our human commonality: “If you prick me, do I not bleed? If you tickle me, do I not laugh? If you poison me, do I not die?" It is this shared physicality and emotionality that is my reply in the negative to the question: how can you have moral law without a lawgiver? That the human condition in every land and clime is made up of people that are essentially the same mix of people you find everywhere suggests to me that there might be a universality of moral values, once we strip away the layers of culture. But culture, history, and genetics make such a revelation almost impossible, but not impossible. When the facts came to light, all of humanity was appalled at the genocides inflicted on three separate continents—German Europe in the 1940s, Cambodian Asia in the 1970s, and Rwandan Africa in the 1990s.

But I’m equally suspicious of moral absolutists. Frankly, they scare me, not because of their beliefs, which they are free to hold, but because of the consequences of their beliefs, which are sometimes both immoral and illegal. A parent forgoes a blood transfusion for her ailing child as a demonstration of fidelity to God’s word, and the consequences are crocodile tears over a tiny coffin. There are some Christians, for example, if given the choice to deny Jesus or have their kids killed by terrorists, they would choose the latter with a clear conscience. But this is a false choice as I’ve been deprived of my ability to freely choose. Morality cannot exist in the absence of freedom, or, to put it another way, morality cannot be compelled as that would turn the us-- agent of morality-- into an automata governed by unaccountable forces. Thus, the situation itself is immoral. Any kind of response could only be immoral. So, since lying or not lying under the circumstances are both immoral, I would naturally lie in this case to save my children. The moral absolutists would insist that lying violates the Ten Commandments. Perhaps they would remember how Ananias and Sapphira were struck down in Acts 5 for lying to the Holy Spirit. Despite whatever rationalizations can be made not to lie, this is an example where the more moral course of action would be to lie to save a life. The immoral course of action is to elevate their conscience over the life of another person. This isn’t “trusting God”. They are just trusting their own weakly-rationalized understanding of what God requires in situations like this.

I disagree that morality is merely a submission of the individual will to the communal will, as history and current events tells us that the communal will from lynchings to the holocaust can be immoral. Nor is morality merely subjectivism, as in "I feel it is wrong to consume food that once had faces." It isn't a response to fear, as in "if you steal, you will go to hell." It is rather a feedback between individual intellect, conscience, and courage and the situation and context, rooting responses in what is sometimes absolutely true and good and leaving open for dialogue a civilized, patient, difficult, dialectical approach to respolving the grey areas, such as, for example, the administration of the commencement and conduct of war and the death penalty, the lifeboat scenerio, and start of life and end of life debates.