In this essay I will argue that moral judgements are necessarily universalisable because universalisability is a feature inherently contained in the definition of a 'moral' judgement. I endorse Mackie's point that:
"Anyone who says..that a certain action (or person, or state of affairs, etc.) is morally right or wrong...is thereby committed to taking the same view about any other relevantly similar action (etc.). This principle, in some sense, is beyond dispute."
Indeed, it seems to be a view that appeals to common sense. We can see evidence that supports it in the fact that laws passed by governments seem to assume to a certain extent the universalisability of moral values. When a government passes a law stipulating, say, that drinking over a certain amount of alcohol and then driving a car will incur a heavy penalty, this seems to show that it is generally acknowledged to be wrong for anyone to drink and drive. I do not think a contender for the view that moral judgements are not necessarily universalisable can satisfactorily explain how the statement 'Person X ought to do Y' is a moral judgement if it is claimed that, in relevantly similar circumstances, person Z ought not to do Y. It seems an incoherent view to hold and although an answer to this objection could possibly be that there are lots of cases where 'moral' terms are used and yet the originator is clearly not implying that these judgements should hold for others in the same situation (a point which MacIntyre discusses), I would argue that the terms are simply not being used in a morally significant way. It is indisputable that the word 'ought' is used in a variety of different ways for a variety of purposes, but when it is used, for instance, to articulate a command it is serving a function other than a moral one. The statement 'You ought to go home now', can easily be expressed as 'Please go home now' and is clearly not a moral judgement. In the latter part of my paper, I would also like to contend that moral judgements can be universalisable because there exist objective moral values that we can have access to.
The crux of my argument then is that when we use a term such as 'ought' in a morally significant way, we are explicitly or implicitly, consciously or unconsciously, holding that judgement to be universalisable. I understand the term 'universalisability' to mean that when we make a moral judgement, such as 'Person A ought to do X', we are committed to saying that any other person in a similar situation to person A ought to do X as well. That is to say we appeal to maxims which we believe to hold in every like situation. As Langford makes clear:
"The golden rule can be spelled out further by this formula: 'When you act, act only in a way in which you can consistently will all other people to act'"
He makes the important point that whenever we do anything wrong, such as telling lies, we explicitly do not wish it to be a universal principle that everyone in a similar situation to ours must tell a lie, because, in order for us to benefit from lying, we rely on others being trustworthy and honest. Hence immoral behaviour is parasitic in essence, in that the agent seeks to make exceptions to the rules for him or herself whilst willing that everyone else adheres to the very same rules - "Once again, burglars want themselves, and perhaps a small group of others, not to be subject to the laws that they themselves wish to be binding on society at large"
For something to be a moral judgement it must be universalisable, but that does not necessarily mean that the person making the judgement needs to consciously consider it to be universalised. Of course saying that a particular action can be universalised does not necessarily mean that a certain action is absolutely right or wrong no matter what the circumstances (which is the category that, for instance, the maxim 'It is always wrong to commit murder' would fall into). A universalisable moral principle could, of course, be an absolute moral principle as well, but this is by no means a necessary requirement.
I mentioned in the introduction that the very fact that we have laws which are binding on everybody in society provides evidence that we have an in-built idea that moral judgements are universalisable. Locke argues, however, that moral principles are not binding on everybody and only apply to people who fall
within their scope which, he says, is "yet another triviality"
He cites Christ's duty to die on the cross as an example of a moral principle which does make an exception for a particular person and is not universally applicable. In response to this I would argue that Christ did not have a duty to die for us in virtue of the fact that he was the Son of God, but rather because he had a duty to love us (as indeed we have the same duty to love each other) and dying on the cross was an expression of his love. He had a duty to die in as much as this is what he had promised to do and I would argue that this, too, rests on a universal principle, namely that we all ought to keep our promises. I would question Locke's claim that:
"The plain fact is that not all moral principles do apply to everyone"
He uses the example of the command not to commit adultery to try and show this and he claims that this only applies to those who are married. However, I think the mistake he is making is in assuming that just because a person does not have the means or the inclination to break a moral principle, then they are not bound by that particular principle. Surely we would not want to say that just because a certain person is not in a position to commit a murder, it is not morally wrong for them. This point can be made clearer if we imagine a sign by a lake reading 'Swimming is prohibited by law'. I would argue that this prohibition applies to everyone including those who cannot swim, or maybe have no intention of doing so.
Alisdair MacIntyre, in his paper 'What Morality is Not', sets out to deny that moral valuations are universalisable on the grounds that there are cases when we would want to say that someone has made a moral judgement without appealing to a universalisable principle. He cites a case from Sartre in order to illustrate this, but it seems to me that in this case, although a decision about how to act has been made, it is not moral in nature. Locke picks up on MacIntyre's conscientious objector example to illustrate his view that moral judgements are often made by an agent who would not make the same judgement of a different person in the same situation. However, it seems unclear to me as to what the word 'ought' is actually expressing in the conscientious objector's statement:
"I ought to abstain from participation in war, but I cannot criticise or condemn responsible non-pacifists"
I should like to know what the reason is that prevents the speaker from going to war. Clearly if it is simply that he has a bad leg, for instance, the 'ought' is not being used in a moral way. But I would argue that the speaker is being inconsistent and incoherent if he is intending to mean that it is morally wrong for him to go to war and yet it is morally acceptable for people to be non-pacifists. Surely it is morally wrong for him to go to war because he is a pacifist, a term which implies that he holds it morally unacceptable for anyone to go to war?
Returning to MacIntyre, he goes on to say that there are other counter-examples to the claim that moral principles are universalisable, such as the case of acts of supererogation. However, I do not feel that this is a sound point because as a Christian, I would deny that it is possible to perform such acts. You cannot do anything above and beyond what is expected of you because you are expected to be as Christlike in character as possible. Since none of us succeed in meeting this standard it is clear that we cannot perform acts of supererogation. As the Bible makes clear:
"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God"
MacIntyre discusses various examples of the uses of the word 'ought' but, as I hope I illustrated earlier, these can be divided into statements which have a moral context and those which do not. One other point I would briefly contest is the claim that:
"They [maxims] do not guide us because we do not need to be guided"
Surely if we have internalised a maxim it can still guide us subconsciously? He seems to be claiming that because it does not occur to us to act differently we are no longer being guided by the maxim. However, we would not say that changing gear in a car subconsciously shows that we are not relying on our knowledge of how to change gear. It is just that it has become so natural to us through practice that we can do it without being aware of it.
Peter Winch also argues that moral judgements are not necessarily universalisable and his paper largely constitutes an explication and criticism of Henry Sidgwick's views. He use an example from Melville's 'Billy Budd' to make his point, but I was not clear on exactly where the moral problem was to be found in this case. Vere made a decision based on the demands of his 'private conscience' and the demands of the military code. Presumably, unless he regretted that decision later and with hindsight realised that he ought to have made the opposite choice, he would have made the same decision again, under the same circumstances. How then can he avoid being committed to the opinion that anyone else in the same situation ought to act in the same way as he did? It seems to me that the only escape would be to say that just by virtue of the fact that it would be a different person would be enough to render the whole situation not morally similar enough. Mackie addresses this point in the fourth chapter of his book entitled 'Ethics' and I am inclined to agree with his point that the difference between one individual and another is morally irrelevant. Mackie discusses three stages of universalisation, the first ruling out the numerical difference between one individual and another; the second ruling out generic differences; and the third ruling out differences of taste, values and ideal etc. It would seem that it is increasingly difficult to find maxims that pass the test, as one moves through Mackie's stages of universalisation, and he himself acknowledges this. It looks as though it is only the first stage that reflects the meaning of the moral language we use, and it seems to me as though this is enough to support the position that I hold, that "the objective validity of one's own ideals provides an overwhelmingly strong reason for taking no account at all of ideals that conflict with them"
This does not mean, though, that moral thought does not give equal weight to the interests of each individual. If you believe that there are objective moral principles as decreed by God and it is in everyone's best interests to obey God's laws, then saying that everyone ought to obey God's laws is in fact acting in their interests, even if they do not recognise it as such.
Winch makes the criticism of those holding the universalisability principle that it cannot be applied because we cannot know the exact details of another's situation and therefore are in no position to judge it to be relevantly similar or dissimilar to our own. But I would argue that there are objective, absolute and universalisable moral rules, and so this criticism would not be valid because it would not be necessary to have complete knowledge of another's situation in order to make a prescriptive moral judgement. The fact that the moral laws in the Bible are God's rules and not man-made ones means that they have the authority to be imposed on everyone. In fact, if you really believe that they are God's rules for everyone, as I do, one could argue that you have a duty to tell other people that they are under God's authority too. I would argue that moral confusion comes about when there are objective moral principles that the agent is not aware of.
To conclude then, I would argue that universalisability is a necessary requirement of moral judgements because this condition is contained in the definition of what it is for something to be a morally judgement. It does not seem to be coherent to say 'A should not do B' and yet say that 'C should do B' under exactly the same circumstances. As Hare puts it:
"If a person says 'I ought to act in a certain way, but nobody else ought to act in that way in relevantly similar circumstances' then...he is abusing the word 'ought'; he is implicitly contradicting himself"
© Anne Witton 1997. No part of this article may be copied without my permission.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hare, R M Freedom and Reason Oxford, 1963
Honderich, T (ed) The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Oxford University Press, 1995
Langford, M The Good and the True SCM Press
Locke, D 'The Trivializability of Universalizability' in The Philosophical Review ,1968
MacIntyre, A 'What Morality is Not' in Philosophy Vol 32, 1957
Mackie, J Ethics Chapter 4 Penguin, 1977
Winch, P 'The universalisability of Moral judgements' in The Monist Vol 49,1965
Holy Bible, New International Version Hodder and Stoughton, 1991
