The dilemma "is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or pious because it is loved?" is raised against:

Divine command theory (supernaturalism)

Which of the following is NOT among W. D. Ross's prima facie duties?

Maximising the general happiness

Aristotle's corrective (rectificatory) justice aims to:

Restore equality between parties after one has wronged the other

Ensure each part of the soul performs its own function

Restore equality between parties after one has wronged the other

Maximise the total happiness of society

Distribute honours and goods in proportion to merit

Joseph Butler's objection to psychological egoism is that:

Particular desires aim at their objects, and pleasure follows their satisfaction only because the object was first desired

Self-interest can never be known by introspection

Moral judgements merely express feelings

Assertion (A): Cultural relativism cannot consistently regard a moral reformer as improving his society's morality. Reason (R): For the cultural relativist, what is right is defined by the code of one's own society. Choose the correct option.

Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A

Assertion (A): Sidgwick was an intuitionist. Reason (R): Sidgwick held that the axioms of prudence, justice and benevolence underlying utilitarianism are known by rational intuition. Choose the correct option.

Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A

Which of the following are standard objections to cultural relativism? Select all that apply.

Diversity of practices does not entail that no practice is better

It cannot condemn atrocities in other societies

Diversity of practices does not entail that no practice is better

It cannot condemn atrocities in other societies

It cannot explain why pleasure is desired

It makes God's commands arbitrary

Western Ethics I: Basic Concepts, Teleology and Deontology, Egoism, Relativism and Intuitionism

Unit 4 opens with the vocabulary of ethics and the main families of theory. This chapter takes its first four bullets: the concepts of good, right, justice, duty, obligation, the cardinal virtues and eudaemonism, and the role of intuition in teleological and deontological theories; egoism, altruism and universalism; subjectivism, cultural relativism and supernaturalism; and ethical realism and intuitionism. The next chapter takes Kant, utilitarianism, punishment and the cognitivism debate. Most questions here ask which thinker or position a claim belongs to, so the chapter pairs each position with its classic source and its classic objection.

1. Good, right, justice, duty and obligation

"Good" applies primarily to ends and states of affairs (pleasure, knowledge, a good life) and "right" to actions. A thing may be good intrinsically, for its own sake, or instrumentally, as a means. How the two concepts are related divides ethical theories, a classification C. D. Broad made standard in Five Types of Ethical Theory (1930). Teleological theories define the right in terms of the good: an act is right if it produces the most good. Deontological theories hold that some acts are right or wrong in themselves, whatever their consequences, so the right is not derived from the good.

Justice: Plato defines it in the soul and the city as each part performing its own function (Republic IV). Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics V) distinguishes distributive justice, which allots goods in proportion to merit, from corrective (rectificatory) justice, which restores equality between parties after a wrong.
Duty and obligation: both name what one is required to do, but they are often distinguished. Duties attach to roles or to persons as such (a parent's duty, the natural duty not to harm); obligations arise from voluntary acts such as promises and contracts. Rawls draws this line in A Theory of Justice between obligations, which rest on the principle of fairness and voluntary acceptance, and natural duties, which bind regardless of consent.
Cardinal virtues: wisdom (prudence), courage (fortitude), temperance (moderation) and justice, set out in Plato's Republic and adopted by the Stoics and by Christian thinkers such as Ambrose, Augustine and Aquinas; "cardinal" is from the Latin cardo, hinge, since other virtues turn on them.

Eudaemonism makes eudaimonia, flourishing or well-being, the final end of human life. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics argues that the good for a thing depends on its function (ergon), and the human function is activity of the soul in accordance with reason; so eudaimonia is "activity of the soul in accordance with virtue", over a complete life. Moral virtue is a settled disposition (hexis) to choose the mean between excess and deficiency, relative to us, as determined by practical wisdom (phronēsis): courage lies between rashness and cowardice. Eudaemonism is teleological in structure, but the end is a way of living, not a sum of pleasures.

ℹ️ Intuition in both families of theory

Both teleologists and deontologists appeal to intuition, but to different objects. A deontological intuitionist such as W. D. Ross intuits particular prima facie duties (keep promises, do not harm). A teleologist such as Sidgwick holds that the first principles of utilitarianism, the axioms of prudence, justice and benevolence, are themselves known by rational intuition; he called this "philosophical intuitionism". G. E. Moore combined intuitionism about the good with a consequentialist account of the right ("ideal utilitarianism").

2. Egoism, altruism and universalism

Whose good counts?
Position	Claim	Classic source and objection
Psychological egoism	A descriptive claim: everyone always acts from self-interest	Associated with Hobbes; Butler replied that particular desires aim at their objects, not at pleasure, and satisfying them yields pleasure only because we first desired the object
Ethical egoism	A normative claim: each ought to promote his own good	Defended in different forms by Epicurus, Hobbes and Ayn Rand (The Virtue of Selfishness); objected to as unable to settle conflicts of interest and as treating one person as special without reason
Altruism	The good of others is the proper aim of action	The word was coined by Auguste Comte ("live for others"); the objection is that pure self-sacrifice ignores the agent's own legitimate claims
Universalism	Everyone's good counts equally, the agent's included	Utilitarian "universalistic hedonism" (Sidgwick): "everybody to count for one, nobody for more than one" (Bentham's dictum, as Mill quotes it)

⚠️ Psychological versus ethical egoism

The first says what we do, the second what we ought to do. If psychological egoism were true, ethical egoism would be pointless as advice, since no one could act otherwise. Butler's arguments in his Sermons (1726) are aimed at psychological egoism.

3. Subjectivism, cultural relativism and supernaturalism

Subjectivism: "x is wrong" means "I disapprove of x", so moral judgements report the speaker's feelings. Objection (pressed by Moore): if so, two people who say "x is wrong" and "x is not wrong" do not disagree, since each truly reports his own feeling; yet they plainly do disagree. Emotivism (next chapter) was partly a response: moral judgements express feelings rather than report them.
Cultural relativism: right and wrong are relative to a culture's code, and there is no culture-independent standard. It draws on the diversity of moral practices (Herodotus's story of Greeks who burned their dead and Callatians who ate theirs; the anthropologist Ruth Benedict). Objections: the diversity of practices does not entail that no practice is better (the argument is invalid); relativism would make every moral reformer wrong by definition; it could not condemn slavery or genocide in another society; and much apparent disagreement is about facts, not values.
Supernaturalism (divine command theory): an act is right because God commands it and wrong because God forbids it. Plato's Euthyphro poses the dilemma: is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or pious because loved by the gods? If the first, goodness is independent of God; if the second, morality becomes arbitrary, since God could have commanded cruelty.

4. Ethical realism and intuitionism

Ethical realism holds that there are moral facts or properties that make moral judgements true or false independently of what anyone thinks or feels. Naturalist realists identify moral properties with natural ones (such as happiness or the satisfaction of needs); non-naturalist realists hold that they are sui generis. Intuitionism is the epistemology usually paired with non-naturalism: basic moral truths are self-evident and known by intuition, not inferred.

Three twentieth-century intuitionists
Thinker	Work	Claim
G. E. Moore	Principia Ethica (1903)	"Good" is a simple, indefinable, non-natural property, like yellow in being simple; defining it by any natural property commits the "naturalistic fallacy", shown by the open question argument ("x is pleasant, but is it good?" is always an open question)
H. A. Prichard	"Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?" (1912)	The sense of obligation is immediate and cannot be derived from the goodness of consequences or of the agent; asking for a proof of duty is the mistake
W. D. Ross	The Right and the Good (1930)	A plurality of prima facie duties, self-evident to a mature mind: fidelity, reparation, gratitude, justice, beneficence, self-improvement and non-maleficence; in conflict, judgement decides which is the actual duty

🎯 The standard objections to intuitionism

Intuitions differ between people and cultures, and intuitionism offers no way to settle the disagreement except to say one side sees wrongly. The idea of a special faculty that perceives non-natural properties struck critics as mysterious; J. L. Mackie later called such properties "queer". These worries pushed mid-century analytic ethics toward the non-cognitivism of the next chapter.

Key takeaways

Teleological theories define the right by the good; deontological theories hold some acts right or wrong in themselves (Broad, 1930). Justice: Plato's each-part-its-function; Aristotle's distributive and corrective justice.
Duties attach to roles or persons, obligations arise from voluntary acts (Rawls's distinction); the cardinal virtues are wisdom, courage, temperance and justice; eudaimonia is activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, virtue a mean fixed by phronēsis.
Psychological egoism describes, ethical egoism prescribes (Butler's reply to the first); altruism is Comte's word; universalism counts everyone equally ("everybody to count for one").
Subjectivism cannot explain moral disagreement; cultural relativism infers too much from diversity and makes reformers wrong by definition; divine command theory faces the Euthyphro dilemma.
Intuitionism: Moore (good is indefinable and non-natural; naturalistic fallacy; open question), Prichard (obligation is immediate) and Ross (seven prima facie duties).

Practice questions (10)

Attempt each one before opening the answer. Every explanation names the tempting wrong option as well as the right one, because that is where marks are lost.

Who held that "good" is a simple, indefinable, non-natural property?
1. R. M. Hare
2. J. S. Mill
3. G. E. Moore
4. A. J. Ayer
Show answer
Answer: C — G. E. Moore
Moore argues this in Principia Ethica (1903), accusing definitions of good by natural properties of the naturalistic fallacy. Mill defined the good in terms of happiness, Ayer was an emotivist and Hare a prescriptivist.
The dilemma "is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or pious because it is loved?" is raised against:
1. Emotivism
2. Psychological egoism
3. Cultural relativism
4. Divine command theory (supernaturalism)
Show answer
Answer: D — Divine command theory (supernaturalism)
The Euthyphro dilemma targets the view that morality depends on divine will: either goodness is independent of God or it is arbitrary. Relativism, egoism and emotivism face other objections.
Which of the following is NOT among W. D. Ross's prima facie duties?
1. Fidelity
2. Gratitude
3. Maximising the general happiness
4. Reparation
Show answer
Answer: C — Maximising the general happiness
Ross lists fidelity, reparation, gratitude, justice, beneficence, self-improvement and non-maleficence. Maximising general happiness is the utilitarian principle his pluralism rejects as the single source of duty.
Aristotle's corrective (rectificatory) justice aims to:
1. Ensure each part of the soul performs its own function
2. Restore equality between parties after one has wronged the other
3. Maximise the total happiness of society
4. Distribute honours and goods in proportion to merit
Show answer
Answer: B — Restore equality between parties after one has wronged the other
Corrective justice restores arithmetical equality in transactions and wrongs. Proportional allotment by merit is distributive justice; each part doing its function is Plato's definition; maximising happiness is utilitarian.
Joseph Butler's objection to psychological egoism is that:
1. Particular desires aim at their objects, and pleasure follows their satisfaction only because the object was first desired
2. God commands us to love others
3. Self-interest can never be known by introspection
4. Moral judgements merely express feelings
Show answer
Answer: A — Particular desires aim at their objects, and pleasure follows their satisfaction only because the object was first desired
In the Sermons (1726) Butler argues that desires for food, revenge or others' good are directed at those objects; the pleasure of satisfying them presupposes the desire, so pleasure cannot be the only thing desired. The other options are not his argument; the last is emotivism.
Assertion (A): Cultural relativism cannot consistently regard a moral reformer as improving his society's morality. Reason (R): For the cultural relativist, what is right is defined by the code of one's own society. Choose the correct option.
1. Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
2. Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A
3. A is true, but R is false
4. A is false, but R is true
Show answer
Answer: A — Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
Both are true and R explains A. If right means "approved by the society's code", a reformer who opposes the code is wrong by definition, and change can never count as improvement; this is one of the standard objections.
Assertion (A): Sidgwick was an intuitionist. Reason (R): Sidgwick held that the axioms of prudence, justice and benevolence underlying utilitarianism are known by rational intuition. Choose the correct option.
1. Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
2. Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A
3. A is true, but R is false
4. A is false, but R is true
Show answer
Answer: A — Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
Both are true and R explains A. Sidgwick rejected "dogmatic intuitionism" about particular rules but defended "philosophical intuitionism" about the self-evident axioms that ground utilitarianism, which is why he is both a utilitarian and an intuitionist.
Which of the following are cardinal virtues? Select all that apply.
1. Charity
2. Temperance
3. Justice
4. Courage
Show answer
Answer: B — Temperance; C — Justice; D — Courage
The four cardinal virtues are wisdom, courage, temperance and justice. Charity is one of the three theological virtues of Christian thought (faith, hope and charity), which Aquinas adds to the cardinal four.
Which of the following are standard objections to cultural relativism? Select all that apply.
1. Diversity of practices does not entail that no practice is better
2. It cannot condemn atrocities in other societies
3. It cannot explain why pleasure is desired
4. It makes God's commands arbitrary
Show answer
Answer: A — Diversity of practices does not entail that no practice is better; B — It cannot condemn atrocities in other societies
The argument from diversity is invalid, and relativism cannot condemn slavery or genocide elsewhere. Arbitrariness of God's commands is the Euthyphro objection to divine command theory, and the desire for pleasure concerns hedonism and egoism.
How many prima facie duties does W. D. Ross list in The Right and the Good? Type the number.
Numerical answer — type the value.
Show answer
Answer: 7
Seven: fidelity, reparation, gratitude, justice, beneficence, self-improvement and non-maleficence (fidelity and reparation are grouped as duties resting on one's own previous acts).