Morality: Actions Not Concequences Essay, Research Paper

What makes an action moral? Is it the action itself or its consequences? These are questions that are not new to me, I have been asking myself that ever since I thought I knew what good is. Two separate views have been brought to my attention lately, two different philosophies, the Kantian philosophy, and the Utilitarian point of view. And the only way I could think of to decide which of the two I agree with, is to integrate each of them into an example, a situation, and see how they hold out. The example is of a doctor, after having attended to a patient who had a severe heart attack, the patient died, later on his widow came crying and wailing, asking him how her husband had died. It was the doctor s knowledge that the man died in a cheap motel, in bed, with another man. Surely if the wife finds out she would go insane, or commit suicide, or any other reaction that the doctor cannot control, so should he tell her the truth? Why does she need to know, it will make no difference, it won t bring him back, why shouldn t he tell her that her husband died while saving a school-bus from falling off a bridge, and the strain of pulling that buss to safety gave him that heart attack, why not tell her that his dying words were: “tell my wife that I love her very much, and that my only regrets in life is that I didn t spend enough time with her.” I could go on and on thinking of a million answers that would make the widow proud, happy, and telling her sons and daughters good stories of their dead father, any story besides the truth. Telling a white lie often disguises itself as doing something good, the doctor makes himself believe that he has nothing to gain from the lie, so therefore it is good, because a bad lie is one which you do in order to benefit yourself, but in this case the doctor doesn t think he s gaining anything, he isn t deceiving the widow to steal her money or get anything, just to please her, to make her feel better. So how would Kant deal with that, how would Kant decide? Kantian philosophy outlines the Universal Law Formation of the Categorical Imperative as a method for determining morality of actions. This formula is a two part test. First, one creates a maxim and considers whether the maxim could be a universal law for all rational beings. Second, one determines whether rational beings would will it to be a universal law. Once it is clear that the maxim passes both prongs of the test, there are no exceptions. As the doctor is faced with a distraught widow who asks how her late came to his death, you must decide which maxim to create and based on the test which action to perform. The maxim “when answering a widow’s inquiry as to the nature and duration of her late husbands death, one should always tell the truth regarding the nature of her late husband’s death.” (This will be maxim 1 (M1)) passes both parts of the Universal Law Formation of the Categorical Imperative. Consequently, according to Kant, M1 is a moral action. The initial stage of the Universal Law Formation of the Categorical Imperative requires that a maxim be universally applicable to all rational beings. M1 succeeds in passing the first stage. We can easily imagine a world in which doctors always answer widows truthfully when queried. Therefore, this maxim is logical and everyone can abide by it without causing a logical impossibility. The next logical step is to apply the second stage of the test. The second requirement is that a rational being would will this maxim to become a universal law. In testing this part, you must decide whether in every case, a rational being would believe that the morally correct action is to tell the truth. First, it is clear that the widow expects to know the truth. A lie would only serve to spare her feelings if she believed it to be the truth. Therefore, even people who would consider lying to her, must concede that the correct and expected action is to tell the truth. By asking she has already decided, good or bad, that she must know the truth. What if telling the truth brings the widow to the point where she commits suicide, however? Is telling her the truth then a moral action although its consequence is this terrible response? If telling the widow the truth drives her to commit suicide, it seems like no rational being would will the maxim to become a universal law. The suicide is, however, a consequence of your initial action. The suicide has no bearing, at least for the Categorical Imperative, on whether telling the truth is moral or not. Likewise it is impossible to judge whether upon hearing the news, the widow would commit suicide. Granted it is a possibility, but there are a multitude of alternative choices that she could make and it is impossible to predict each one. To decide whether rational being would will a maxim to become a law, the maxim itself must be examined rationally and not its consequences. Accordingly, the maxim passes the second test. Conversely, the supporters of “white lies” feel the maxim should read: “When facing a distraught widow, you should lie in regards to the death of her late husband in order to spare her feelings.” Applying the first part of the Universal Law Formation of the Categorical Imperative, it appears that this maxim is a moral act. Certainly, a universal law that prevents the feelings of people who are already in pain from being hurt further seems like an excellent universal law. Unfortunately for this line of objection, the only reason a lie works is because the person being lied to believes it to be the truth. In a situation where every widow is lied to in order to spare her feelings, then they never get the truth, the widows themselves will be asking the questions expecting a lie. This leads to a logical contradiction because no one will believe a lie if they know it a lie and the maxim fails.

Perhaps the die-hard liar can regroup and test a narrower maxim. If it is narrow enough so that it encompasses only a few people, then it passes the first test. For example, the maxim could read, “When facing a distraught widow whose late husband was found dead of a heart attack, and next to him was his gay lover, and they were both in the nude, then you should tell the widow that he died saving a school bus and thinking of her in order to spare her feelings.” We can easily imagine a world in which all doctors lied to widows in this specific situation. That does not necessarily mean that it will pass the second test however. Even if it does pass the first test, narrowing down maxim can create other problems. For instance circumstances may change and the people who were originally included in the universal law, may not be included anymore. Consequently many will not want your maxim to be a universal law. Likewise, if one person can make these maxims that include only a select group of people, so can everyone else. If you create a maxim about lying to widows that is specific enough to pass the first test, so can everyone else. One must ask if rational beings would really will such a world in which there would be many, many specific, but universal, laws. In order to answer this question, one must use the rational “I” for the statement “I, as a rational being would will such a world,” not the specific, embodied “I” which represents you in your present condition. You must consider that you could be the widow in the situation rather than the doctor, then decide whether you would will such a universal law. I agree with the morality based on Kantian principles because it is strict in its application of moral conduct. Consequently there is no “if s” in individual cases to determine whether an action is moral or not. An action is moral in itself not because of its consequences but because any rational being wills it to be a universal law and it does not contradict itself. Regardless of what the widow does with the information, the act of telling her the truth, is a moral one. No one would argue that telling the truth, if she asks for it, is an immoral thing to do. Sometimes moral actions are difficult, and perhaps in this situation it would be easier to lie to the widow, but it would still be an immoral action that I would not want everyone to do. This picture of morality resonates with my common sense view of morality. If the widow subsequently commits suicide or commits any other immoral act as a consequence, that has no bearing on the morality of the original action in itself. Utilitarianism would differ on this point. Utilitarianism outlines that an action is moral if it increases the total happiness of society. Morality is based on consequences. Telling a lie to the widow would increase her happiness and consequently would, at least possibly, be a moral action. Utilitarianism would also take into account the precedent set by lying; however, the analysis still rests on predicted consequence, which one cannot do, maybe by telling her the truth she would feel appreciative and consequently become a person who never lies herself, making her a better person, thereby making the act of telling the truth the moral one? A moral action is not moral because of the results of it being done, or its consequences, it is moral in its self, abiding by the universal laws. Sometimes this might seem harsh, again arguing that there is no harm being done by doing this one immoral act of telling a white lie, but again your own judgement of how much harm it is doing is relative, the truth could be extremely important to the widow, therefore, throughout these infinite possibilities, one can only know one thing for certain, and that is which is the moral thing to do, according to the universal law, and that is what they should do, tell the truth, the consequences become the widow s problem, not yours.