61 pages • 2 hours read
Russ Shafer LandauThe Fundamentals of Ethics
Nonfiction | Reference/Text Book | Adult | Published in 2009A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Use of Ethics
The Fundamentals of Ethics, true to its name, is a primer for the field of moral philosophy. It collects and analyzes some of the most important modern ethical theories in Western philosophy, all of which seek to answer the fundamental question of how humans ought to live. This is the goal of the field of ethics: to prove or dismiss the existence of unseen rules that guide human behavior. Shafer-Landau does not pretend to have an easy answer (or any answer at all) to this inquiry, yet it is clear that his objective in exploring value ethics, normative ethics, and metaethics is to provide readers with the necessary tools to begin thinking about the use of ethics on their own.
There are three distinct starting points for exploring morality, and The Fundamentals of Ethics allows readers to begin from any of them. Value theory is concerned with identifying the nature of well-being. It sees ethics as useful for understanding what is important to pursue for its own sake. For example, hedonism posits happiness (enjoyment) as the only intrinsically valuable pursuit in life, while the desire theory suggests it’s about fulfilling one’s wants. The next section of the book is about normative ethics, which sees the use of morality as a means to classify certain acts as right or wrong. Prominent philosophers have attempted to formulate theories that can serve as guides for human behavior. The use of ethics here is therefore to bring a certain order to society.
The last third of the book is dedicated to questioning the use of ethics. Is morality real? If not, how can it be useful to people? Moral skepticism disregards ethics as inexistent or unknowable, and most of its theories dismiss the notion that ethics can be useful. In sum, although Shafer-Landau does not venture to directly answer the question of how humans ought to act and live, his most important objective in writing the book is to engage readers into thinking about the use of ethics in theory and in practice.
The Attractiveness of Moral Skepticism
The Fundamentals of Ethics begins and ends with moral skepticism. This is an interesting choice given the book is meant to improve students’ understanding of morality. To reprise an analogy employed by the author, beginning and ending a book about ethics with moral skepticism is the equivalent of introducing and concluding an essay on theology with an exploration of atheism (332). This attention to the skeptical outlook is present throughout the book, but most notably in the Introduction and the final pages of the book. From this deliberate choice in structure, Shafer-Landau, an objectivist at heart, reveals his concern with the popularity of moral skepticism among non-experts.
Why is moral skepticism so attractive? Shafer-Landau seems to believe it is a combination of defeatism and relativism that pushes non-experts toward dismissing ethics as a whole. In the Introduction, he lists some of the most common arguments for skepticism, most of which stem from either despair at achieving unilateral agreement in ethics or suspicion of objective moral rules. In the former camp, people are weary of the endless nature of ethical debates and prematurely conclude there can be no moral truths. Meanwhile, the latter camp argues that moral relativism provides a more tolerant outlook and accuses objectivism of dogmatism and narrowmindedness. These concerns are addressed in Part 3 of the book, where each of them is countered with an objectivist or non-skeptical argument. Additionally, in the final chapter of The Fundamentals of Ethics, Shafer-Landau provides 11 counterarguments to each skeptic outlook as part of his analysis on metaethics.
The Importance of Sound Logical Reasoning
From the very start of The Fundamentals of Ethics, Shafer-Landau emphasizes the importance of logical reasoning in the field of moral philosophy. This is because, according to the author, some ethical arguments are porous and shallow. Either their premises or their logic is faulty, and this could easily be glimpsed by thinking a bit more deeply on the subject. In the Introduction, he cautions his readers directly: “I encourage you to resist the diagnosis that in ethics, anything goes. As you’ll see, good moral thinking is disciplined thinking” (5). This warning is immediately preceded by an early dismissal of moral skepticism: The author believes that lay audiences may easily give in to the draw of nihilistic or relativistic arguments because they are unaware that upon further examination these perspectives can in fact be self-contradictory (see Chapter 21).
This warning sets the tone for the rest of the book. The Fundamentals of Ethics is a dense collection of ethical theories presented in a systematic fashion for ease of understanding. Historically, each of these theories has been defended and criticized in countless philosophical essays by various authors. With so much literature, so many perspectives, and countless revisions, it can be difficult for the uninitiated to parse through the jargon and unearth each of their core beliefs. Throughout the book, Shafer-Landau dissects these value theories, normative ethics theories, and metaethical theories to reveal their basic structure and axioms. He then presents them once more in the format of a logical argumentation, with clear premises that lead to a conclusion. He encourages students to follow his lead: An important skill in moral philosophy is the ability to question the validity of these premises and interrogate the logical soundness of their conclusion. In addition, each chapter includes a list of discussion questions to encourage students to think critically about the topics covered. The importance of sound logical reasoning is at the core of Shafer-Landau’s work; without it, there can be no ethical knowledge.
