PART ONE: INTRODUCING JUSTICE RULE ETHICS
Philosophizing means to use one’s reason to try to answer philosophical questions, such as “How should I live?” The purpose of this activity is to help one be happier, and happiness is arguably the goal that everyone wants more than any other goal. Thus, philosophizing can be a very important activity. It can also become a counterproductively complicated and/or boring activity. In order to avoid those pitfalls, I will often make a claim that has exceptions and then follow that claim with an endnote that both acknowledges and explains the exception or exceptions to the claim. This practice should make my writing much easier to understand and much more interesting.
Why do I believe that happiness is arguably humanity’s foremost goal? I am a human, it might be my foremost goal, and judging from the actions of all other humans, it might be their foremost goal too.[i] What is happiness anyway? Happiness is feeling more pleasure than pain, and misery (the opposite of happiness) is feeling more pain than pleasure. Pleasure is a feeling that one wants to feel, and pain is a feeling that one does not want to feel.[ii] In other words, whatever one wants to feel is his or her pleasure, and whatever one does not want to feel is his or her pain. Good and evil have much to do with happiness and misery. When an action causes more overall happiness, it is probably a good action; and when an action causes more overall misery, it is probably an evil action.[iii] This is true for an individual human as well as a group of humans.
Speaking of groups, most humans need to belong to a group of humans to maximize their happiness and minimize their misery. There is at least one reason for this. Humans are social beings. Thus, they are designed to interact and cooperate with each other. Belonging to a group of humans enables them to most easily do these things, and by interacting and cooperating with each other they generally fulfill their needs—everything from the need for adequate food to the need to fulfill one’s talents.
Rules are guidelines for how people are supposed to act. Every group of humans has rules, whether formal or informal. The reason is that rules generally help groups function better. What is the best way for a group of people to develop its rules? As much as possible, a group should listen to and learn from the desires of all its members, create its rules together, teach the rules to all its members, get all its members to voluntarily agree to and obey its rules, and have a mechanism to adjust its rules for the better. Let’s consider each of these steps in turn.
Step 1: A group should listen to and learn from the desires of all its members for at least three reasons. 1) All members of a group are important. Whether a little or a lot, they contribute to and take from the group and cause the group to succeed or fail. 2) Simply speaking, every human is aware of and greatly values her or his desires. Therefore, he or she wants her or his desires to be known, valued, and seriously considered; and he or she wants them fulfilled. 3) Everyone has something valuable to teach when creating the rules of their group. At the very least, they have an idea of what they want and need, and the purpose of the group is to (partly or completely) fulfill its members’ wants and/or needs. Otherwise, the members would not voluntarily belong to it for long.
It is best for a group to have its members voluntarily belong because, in most cases, this makes them obey the rules of the group more. Simply speaking, the more members obey the rules of the group, the more the group succeeds in its goal or goals. The reason is that the rules are created for the group to achieve its goals, at least in most cases.[iv] Also, the more members voluntarily obey the group’s rules, the less resources the group has to spend forcing members to comply with the group’s rules. That means that the group has more resources to spend on achieving its goal or goals.
Step 2: A group should create its rules together for the three reasons already mentioned in Step 1.
Step 3: A group should teach the rules to all its members so that all its members can purposefully obey and promote them.
Step 4: A group should get all its members to voluntarily agree to obey its rules because, as was already mentioned, the more members obey the rules of the group, the more the group succeeds in its goal or goals.
Step 5: A group should have a mechanism to adjust its rules for at least two reasons. 1) Humans are imperfect. Thus, whatever rules a group of humans agree upon are imperfect and can be improved. The more they are improved, the more easily a group can accomplish its goal or goals. 2) Situations change, and rules should sometimes be changed to adapt to new situations.
All humans belong to a group called humanity. What are the rules that humanity should follow? To answer this question, let’s do the five steps in our imagination.
Step 1: Listen to and learn from the desires of every human. To do this, we have to have all humans meet somehow. How could such a meeting take place? The Divine (the being or beings who purposefully created the universe) could keep every human mind alive after its body dies and then encourage all the minds to meet, saying something like this: “I will create the universe again and randomly put each of you into a new human body. Before you get conceived again, you will not know factors beyond your control. For example, you will not know your gender, sexual orientation, individual tastes, race, attractiveness, health, intelligence, talents, handicaps, or parents. Now use all your wisdom to have a long and productive meeting with each other to decide all the rules of your society, including your society’s ethical rules. This meeting will be called The Great Meeting of the Minds. Whatever rules you agree on in The Great Meeting of the Minds, you will have to follow after you are conceived again, and I will judge you on how you follow them. Those of you who will be relatively good will be greatly rewarded by me, and those of you who will be relatively evil will be greatly punished by me. This is how to make rights and duties that are as fair as possible. This is how to make true justice.”
Step 2: The Great Meeting of the Minds should do what The Divine says to do in Step 1, thus creating the best moral rules for humanity.
Step 3: Assuming that The Great Meeting of the Minds cannot communicate with people this side of death, it is the duty of all mortal humans to guess its moral rules by philosophizing and to teach each other their best guesses. Doing so will use all the knowledge, intelligence, and insight of humanity to answer the question: How should I live? To help answer this question, I have created The Justice Rule: Always follow whatever rules that you believe The Great Meeting of the Minds would produce.
Step 4: All minds in The Great Meeting of the Minds should voluntarily agree to the rules created during the meeting before they are expected to obey them.
Step 5: The minds which can should periodically reconvene The Great Meeting of the Minds as much as reason permits to change humanity’s moral rules.
Some questions arise at this time.
Why should factors beyond one’s control be unknown at The Great Meeting of the Minds? This will encourage the meeting minds to be fair. Beings should not be rewarded or punished for things beyond their control.
What equalities would the minds agree upon in The Great Meeting of the Minds? They would agree upon the same duties and rights for each other. Every duty and right in The Book of Expanded Deism is my best guess about the duties and rights that the meeting minds would agree upon. The Book of Expanded Deism is a book that I wrote which is full of theological and moral teachings.
By the way, a duty is a rule that limits one’s freedom and a right is a rule that expands one’s freedom. One duty might be the rule: Do not murder. And one right might be the rule: You have the right to live. In this case, you have the right to live without the right to murder.
What inequalities would the minds agree upon in The Great Meeting of the Minds? They would agree that people should be rewarded or punished based on what they voluntarily choose to do. The more voluntary good people choose to do, the more they should be rewarded. The more voluntary evil people choose to do, the more they should be punished. Social and economic inequalities, such as differences in authority and wealth, are good only if they result in benefits for all members of the society or the particular moral interaction. They should particularly benefit those of the lowest social and/or economic status. It is better for relatively good people to have more authority than relatively evil people because that will promote good and hinder evil. And it is better for relatively good people to have more wealth than relatively evil people for two reasons: 1) that will encourage all people to be relatively good because wealth buys more pleasure; and 2) the more wealth one has, the more social power one can buy. The more social power one can buy, the more good or evil one can do. (A relatively good human is a human who does more good than evil, and a relatively evil human is a human who does more evil than good.)[v]
How does The Justice Rule apply to non-human sentient beings such as chimpanzees, birds, snakes, frogs, fish, ants, and worms? The Justice Rule would help humans establish a particular society with a particular political system. That society would develop the best moral rules and laws to help humans treat non-human sentient beings as they should be treated.
How does The Justice Rule relate to the question that was asked at the beginning of this essay: “How should I live?”? If you are a human, you should always obey The Justice Rule because it always gives the correct moral answer to that question. In other words, Justice Rules Ethics is the best ethical system.
What is an ethical system? An ethical system is a group of related beliefs about how to determine what is good and what is evil. Good and evil are two categories of actions. Good actions are actions that should be done and encouraged, and evil actions are actions that should not be done and should be discouraged. Good is the only thing that should be done and encouraged, and evil is the only thing that should not be done and should be discouraged. If something should be done and encouraged, it is good; and if something should not be done and should be discouraged, it is evil. This initial understanding of good and evil is very general, but (metaphorically speaking) it points us in the right direction. We can continue to properly develop and refine our understanding of good and evil using that definition and metaphorical direction.
What if one doesn’t believe The Divine or The Great Meeting of the Minds are real? Does that mean that Justice Rules Ethics is very flawed? No. Personally and for the record, I do believe that The Divine exists, but I don’t expect The Great Meeting of the Minds to happen at any time, in the past, present, or future. The purpose of mentioning The Divine and The Great Meeting of the Minds is not meant to prove, or even suggest, that they are real. It is instead to help all of us humans imagine the most fair system of ethics.
Did you invent this Justice Rules Ethics by yourself? Not really. For the most part, I took the philosophy of John Rawls and changed it to make more sense to me. For details, research the ethical system called Justice as Fairness.
PART TWO: JUSTICE RULE ETHICS IS BETTER THAN RELIGIOUS ETHICAL SYSTEMS
For the next two parts of this essay, I will focus on other ethical systems more than on Justice Rule Ethics. The point of this is to determine what is good and what is bad about all the major ethical systems, and how Justice Rule Ethics deals with that good and bad. Hopefully, it keeps all the good while rejecting all the bad.
There are two major types of ethical systems: religious and secular. A religious ethical system is based on a religion, and a religion is a system of beliefs based on faith. Faith is one’s ability to believe something although it is not proven to be true. Supposedly, whatever a religion says is good is good, and whatever a religion says is evil is evil. Why? In most cases, because something supernatural such as The Divine founded that religion and speaks through it.
In contrast, a secular ethical system is not based on a religion. Instead, it is supposedly based completely on reason. Reason is one’s ability to perceive reality as honestly and completely as one can, and then make logical conclusions based on what one perceives. Believing in leprechauns requires faith, and believing in the moons around Jupiter requires reason. The reason is that no one has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that leprechauns exist and, using visual observation, many people have proven beyond reasonable doubt that the moons around Jupiter exist. I have never seen a leprechaun directly with my own eyes, but I have seen the moons around Jupiter with my own eyes using a telescope. Furthermore, to use Carl Sagan’s teaching, the claim that leprechauns exist is an extraordinary claim without extraordinary evidence while the claim that Jupiter has moons is, thanks to the telescope and scientists, no longer an extraordinary claim without extraordinary evidence. It is an ordinary claim backed by much ordinary evidence.
With all this in mind, we should conclude that the best ethical system will probably not be a religious ethical system, although one might be able to learn some useful teachings from various religious ethical systems. Instead, the best ethical system will probably be a secular ethical system.
As if the aforementioned advantage of reason over faith were not enough by itself to automatically favor secular ethical systems over religious ethical systems in general, there are at least three more compelling reasons.
Reason one: either good and evil exist regardless of The Divine, or else The Divine invents good and evil based on its own preference. In the former case, good and evil have nothing to do with The Divine, and humans should be able to understand good and evil (at least to a large extent) without supernatural help. In fact, if The Divine did not invent good and evil, it might be more evil than good. Thus, it might be a very untrustworthy teacher of what is good and what is evil.
In the latter case, good and evil are just arbitrarily picked. If The Divine decides that murder is good, it is good. If The Divine decides that murder is evil, it is evil. An invented ethical system is not an ethical system based on objective reality; it is merely based on the subjective preference of one of more persons. Even if that person or those persons are all-powerful, very knowledgeable, and the creator or creators of the universe, that does not necessarily make its or their ethical system based on any reality other than its or their preference.
Reason two: there is disagreement between different religions about what is good and what is evil. Therefore, at least one of them has a flawed ethical system, and perhaps all of them do. In fact, perhaps all of them have very flawed ethical systems. To be fair, at least in many cases, secular ethical systems often disagree with each other about what is good and evil. That is because there are many of them. However, secular ethical systems do not claim to be established by a supernatural revelation and are thus open to being proven or disproven using reason. The opposite is true of religious ethical systems.
For example, a Christian might always believe that drinking alcohol in moderation in this life is good because, supposedly, The Divine taught humanity this truth through Christianity. In contrast, a Muslim might always believe that drinking any amount alcohol in this life is evil because, supposedly, The Divine taught humanity this truth through Islam. If their faith in their respective religions is strong enough, no amount of evidence or logic will dissuade each of her or his belief.
However, secular ethicists should (and usually do) allow their opinions to change based on evidence and logic. If the evidence and logic which led them to embrace Secular Ethical System A are proven insufficient and/or flawed, and the evidence and logic which support Secular Ethical System B seem to be both sufficient and flawless, they will abandon the former for the latter with little or no struggle. In the case of alcohol consumption, secular ethicists will not ask The Divine or some book that was supposedly written by The Divine for the answer. Instead, they will ask themselves questions such as these: What is good, and what is evil? How can I tell what is good and what is evil? Based on my answers to these questions, should people drink alcohol? If yes, then when, why, and how much should people drink?
Reason three: if The Divine exists, it remains hidden and silent, at least to most people. Therefore, most people are wise not to believe those who claim to speak for The Divine.
Here is a truth so important that it deserves to be repeated again and again, even though it should be obvious to every human over the age of ten: People often lie, and people often lie in order to promote their particular religion. One should not trust a human who claims to be The Divine or a spokesperson for The Divine without an extraordinary amount of evidence. What might such extraordinary evidence be? I might require an astonishing miracle such as a giant hand scooping us (the one talking to me and me) both up and taking us for a remarkable tour of the entire universe; and even if that happened, I would still be a little skeptical because I know that I can be tricked and that some tricks can be very impressive and sophisticated. Perhaps I was drugged and/or electric wires were attached to my brain so that I only believed that I was given a remarkable tour of the universe by this incarnate deity or prophet. In general, skepticism is a virtue because it saves us from accepting lies as true.
So far in this part of the essay, I have proven that the best ethical system is a secular ethical system rather than a religious ethical system. That’s good news because Justice Rule Ethics is a secular ethical system. I’ve already focused enough on what is bad about religious ethical systems; now I will focus on what is good. Simply speaking, there are two strengths that religious ethical systems have that many secular ethical systems don’t have. 1) They are simple. Something supernatural says to do or not do something. Therefore, you should do or not do that thing. 2) Many, if not most, of them have a supernatural reward for obeying them and a supernatural punishment for disobeying them. For example, most forms of Christianity and Islam teach that the reward for obeying them is eternal paradise and the punishment for disobeying them is eternal torment. Such promised reward and threatened punishment can greatly aid one to obey and not disobey an ethical system.
Simple is generally preferable to complicated because it is easier to understand. Thus, all things being equal, the simpler the ethical system, the better. Most religious ethical systems that I know of are simpler than Justice Rule Ethics because they require less thought. It takes much thought to imagine the rules that The Great Meeting of the Minds would choose, and it takes little thought to accept a religious ethical system as true because doing so actually requires a lack of thinking. If one thinks much about any religious ethical system, one will realize that it is based on faith, so its foundation is probably false. The truth is that something like a supernatural being probably did not dictate it. Thus, all things are not equal. Justice Rule Ethics is better than religious ethical systems, despite requiring more thought.
Actually, Justice Rule Ethics is a relatively simple ethical system because, like most religious ethical systems, it just requires just two steps: 1) Imagine the rules that The Great Meeting of the Minds would agree upon, and 2) obey those rules. (The two steps of most religious ethical systems are as follows: 1) Believe that a supernatural being wants you to obey this list of rules, and 2) obey those rules.) Keep the simplicity of Justice Rule Ethics in mind when comparing it with other secular ethical systems, because it will fare well against them.
It is true that Justice Rule Ethics does not necessarily have a supernatural reward and a supernatural punishment. However, like all other secular ethical systems, it can easily be attached to a belief in a supernatural reward and punishment. All you have to do is believe that The Divine exists, will reward relatively good people after death, and will punish relatively evil people. Then pick a secular ethical system and use it to differentiate the relatively good from the relatively evil. I did this in The Book of Expanded Deism with Justice Rule Ethics.
PART THREE: JUSTICE RULES ETHICS IS BETTER THAN OTHER SECULAR ETHICAL SYSTEMS
We should now concentrate on secular ethical systems in order to determine which one is the best. The following are the two main categories of secular ethical systems with popular examples of each.
A. Consequentialist ethical systems: the consequences of one’s actions are the ultimate basis for any judgment about the goodness or evil of one’s actions. In other words, obeying good rules is less important than having a good result.
- State Consequentialism: whatever benefits one’s nation is good, and whatever does not is evil.
- Utilitarianism: simply speaking, whatever makes the most creatures, especially humans, the happiest is good, and whatever does not is evil.[vi]
- Ethical Egoism: whatever is best for oneself is good, and whatever is not is evil.
- Ethical Altruism: whatever is best for everyone but oneself is good, and whatever is not is evil..
B. Deontological ethical systems: the action itself, not the consequences of the action, is the ultimate basis for any judgment about the goodness or evil of that action. In other words, obeying good rules is more important than having a good result.
- Kantian Ethics: One should always do one’s duty, regardless of the consequence of one’s action. One’s duty is to follow the best moral rules, and the best moral rules are the rules that one would want all humans to obey at all times and in all places. For example, because I would not want everyone to lie, steal, and murder; I should not lie, steal, and murder. Part of my duty is to obey the following rules: Do not lie. Do not steal. Do not murder.
In other words, whatever rule would be best for everyone to follow in all cases is good, and whatever action violates that rule is evil. Good moral rules apply to all people at all times without exception.
- Natural Ethics: whatever Nature “tells” us to do is good, and whatever action violates Nature’s “command” is evil.
Nature is the phenomena of the physical universe collectively, including plants, animals, and landscapes, as opposed to humans or human creations. I just invented the phrase Natural Ethics for the purpose of this essay. However, many people believe in Natural Ethics, at least to an extent, even if they do not call it that.
At this point, you might be wondering: What kind of secular ethical system is Justice Rule Ethics, Consequentialist or Deontological? It depends on the ethical issue. I suspect that The Great Meeting of the Minds would usually pick Consequentialist rules but sometimes pick Deontological rules. The rest of this essay will, to a large extent, explain why.
Now is as good a time as any to mention that Justice Rule Ethics is a type of Social Contract Ethical System. Simply speaking, a Social Contract Ethical System is an ethical system based on the rules that a group of people choose and then agree to obey.[vii] Usually, a social contract refers to the rules of a nation or society. According to Justice Rule Ethics though, they refer to all rules that mortal humans should obey, including international, national, societal, and individual rules. International rules are the rules between nations of humans, national rules are the rules of a specific nation of humans, societal rules are the rules of a specific society of humans, and individual rules are rules between two or more individual humans—more than one human but less than a nation or society of humans.
Justice Rule Ethics only requires the consent of a single human. When a single human agrees to obey The Justice Rule, that choice will guide his or her actions when dealing with all other people, whether one-on-one or in larger groups. A single human can imagine and decide to obey the rules of The Great Meeting of the Minds, and so can every group of humans. The rules agreed to by The Great Meeting of the Minds is a social contract because all humans create and agree to it in the mind of the one doing the imagining.
One main type of Social Contract Ethical System is Implicit Consent while another is Explicit Consent. The theory of an Implicit Consent Social Contract holds that by remaining in the territory controlled by some society, which usually has a government, people give consent to join that society and be governed by its government. This consent is what gives legitimacy to such a government. The theory of an Explicit Consent Social Contract goes under the principle of explicit consent. Explicit consent happens when one is told the rules of a group in an understandable way and then freely chooses to join that group. Explicit consent usually leaves little or no room for misinterpretation. Justice Rule Ethics is an Explicit Consent Social Contract because all humans create and agree to the rules at The Great Meeting of the Minds, although this happens only in one mind’s imagination.
What is good and bad about all the major secular ethical systems, and how does Justice Rule Ethics deal with that good and bad?
Hopefully, it keeps all the good while rejecting all the bad. Let’s examine each of the aforementioned secular ethical systems and compare them with Justice Rule Ethics.
State Consequentialism
State Consequentialism is simple but is not the best ethical system because it does not maximize the happiness of the greatest number of creatures. Its focus is on what benefits a nation rather than what makes creatures happy. If a nation full of suffering slaves most benefits the nation, then State Consequentialism indicates that the nation should be full of suffering slaves. Perhaps Nazi Germany would have been such a nation if it had won World War II. In the Nazi German Empire, there might have been far more non-Germans than Germans; and the Germans might have contemptuously treated the non-Germans both as slaves and lesser humans. All the while, most of the Germans would willingly work to make the German Empire militarily and economically powerful, and long-lasting. And all the while, most of the Germans would have forced most of the non-Germans in the German Empire to unwillingly do the same.
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is a relatively good ethical system because it provides a clear and straight-forward method for making ethical decisions, emphasizes the importance of considering the consequences of actions and their impact on the well-being of others, and promotes actions that benefit the greatest number of creatures especially humans. However, Utilitarianism is a flawed ethical system because it may lead to the sacrifice of the rights or well-being of a minority for the greater good of the majority, can be challenging to accurately measure and compare the happiness of different individuals, and may result in morally questionable actions (ChatGPT, personal communication, January 7, 2024). Justice Rule Ethics has all the pros of Utilitarianism and avoids most of the cons. I would say all the cons, but Justice Rule Ethics can also be challenging in its own way. It is difficult to imagine all the rules that The Great Meeting of the Minds would create. Overall, though, Justice Rule Ethics is noticeably better than Utilitarianism, and Utilitarianism is very good. In its best form, Utilitarianism has many apparent exceptions to its rules, while Justice Rule Ethics has none.
For example, at a superficial level, Utilitarianism indicates that it would be ethical to kill one human in order to harvest her or his organs to save the lives of five other humans. A Utilitarian might wisely respond that allowing such harvesting would make so many people angry and scared that it shouldn’t be allowed. This is an apparent exception to the Utilitarian rules. Yet the whole problem is avoided with Justice Rule Ethics. The Great Meeting of the Minds would not allow such organ harvesting, end of story. It might allow the sacrifice of one human life for a million human lives, but it wouldn’t allow the sacrifice of one human life for only five.
Ethical Egoism
One great advantage of Ethical Egoism over other ethical systems is that it avoids any possible conflict between self-interest and ethics. Another is that it makes moral behavior by definition rational, on the plausible assumption that it is rational to pursue one’s own interests (“ethical egoism”). However, Ethical Egoism is not the best ethical system because it is very unlikely to maximize the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of creatures, especially humans. In fact, Ethical Egoism is very likely to do the opposite, that is maximize the greatest amount of suffering for the greatest amount of creatures, especially humans. One reason this is true is that Ethical Egoists are like parasites. Parasites feed off other living creatures, and they need those creatures to be alive so that they can keep feeding off them. If a creature dies, the parasites in that creature will die too. And because the parasites harm the creature more than help it, if there are too many parasites, they will kill the creature and, thus, accidentally kill themselves. Thus, Ethical Egoists tend to metaphorically kill the happiness of others first and their own happiness second.
Ethical Egoists feed off society, that is they generally take more help from society than they give. Ethical Egoists benefit most when society is healthy. For example, when society is rich, Ethical Egoists can more easily get and maintain wealth. When society is safe and free, Ethical Egoists can more easily be safe and free. If society is unhealthy, Ethical Egoists tend to suffer along with everyone else. They tend to be poorer, less safe, and less free than when society is healthy.
The smaller percentage of Ethical Egoists a society has, the healthier that society is because it has more people helping it be healthy than draining its health. The larger percentage of Ethical Egoists a society has, the less healthy that society is because it has more people taking help from it than giving help to it. In short, it has more metaphorical parasites.
To understand my point, imagine a society composed only of Ethical Egoists. Every member of that society is only seeking to help him or herself without unnecessarily helping others. Military personnel, police officers, and firefighters risk their lives much less. Teachers have much less sympathy and do much less work; in fact, many more teachers quit because teaching is very stressful. Politicians, business people, and entrepreneurs have even less morals than they do now. Everyone is stealing from each other, and everyone is very afraid to be stolen from. Everyone lies to each other. No one can be trusted.
Would you want to go to a doctor who is an Ethical Egoist? I wouldn’t; she or he might lie to me just to get more money from me. The same is true of all types of people: financial advisors, lawyers, bosses, employees, “friends,” relatives, etcetera. A society with too many Ethical Egoists cannot endure for long and is a horrible society to live in while it lasts.
Here, someone might argue that Ethical Egoism encourages people to follow certain rules of conduct that help everyone to be happy, because one is better off if everyone obeys these rules. Smart Ethical Egoists realize that members of a society have to give up some happiness sometimes to achieve the greatest amount of happiness overall. I respond that, at least in many cases, even smart Ethical Egoists will break good rules if they believe that the consequence for them personally will be more positive than negative. Thus, a doctor who is a smart Ethical Egoist will lie and say that the purpose of healthcare is primarily to help people be healthy; it is not to make healthcare professionals rich. However, he will lie to become richer if he believes that he personally will get away with that lie. Maybe he will require his patients to have unnecessary procedures, or prescribe them more expensive drugs to receive kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies.
I also want to add the following: Ethical Egoism is a selfish philosophy because an Ethical Egoist cares about the happiness of her or himself much more than the happiness of anyone else. By being an Ethical Egoist, one is constantly thinking in selfish terms: “What is best for me, regardless of how it impacts others?” I suspect that when one is constantly thinking in selfish terms, such thinking becomes a strong habit that is very difficult to break. Thus, even when an Ethical Egoist wants to always follow selfless rules of conduct (rules of conduct that help everyone be happy) because he or she will be better off if everyone obeys these rules, she or he might find it impossible to consistently do so because he or she actually follows a selfish ethical system. Like tends to beget like, and selfish thoughts tend to beget selfish actions.
Of course, there are other reasons not to be an Ethical Egoist, and I will just briefly mention them to avoid being unnecessarily boring. Many human laws reward people for doing good, The Divine is likely to reward relatively good people after death, relatively good people are generally more liked and loved than relatively evil people, doing good makes this universe a better place to live, and one can get more pleasure overall from doing good than from doing evil. Furthermore, most human laws punish people for doing evil, The Divine is likely to punish relatively evil people after death, relatively evil people are generally less liked and loved than relatively good people, doing evil makes this universe a worse place to live, and one can get more suffering overall from doing evil than from doing good.
Ethical Altruism
Ethical Altruism is basically the opposite of Ethical Egoism. Assuming that everyone in a society voluntarily acts like an Ethical Altruist, Ethical Altruism is likely to maximize the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of creatures, especially humans. Here, I could also mention the other reasons not to be an Ethical Egoist, which are found in the previous paragraph. These reasons support Ethical Altruism.
However, Ethical Altruism is not the best ethical system because it lacks many of the strengths of Justice Rule Ethics. It is not based on reason because there is no compelling rational argument why one should do whatever is best for everyone but oneself. In other words, the happiness of every human is as important from an objective point of view as the happiness of every other human, because all humans should be treated as if they are of equal worth.[viii] Ethical Altruism focuses on the happiness of the vast majority of humans, which is good. Yet it neglects to focus on the happiness of oneself, which is evil. It does not treat all humans equally because it treats oneself as less important than all other humans.
Justice Rule Ethics is like the best compromise between Ethical Egoism and Ethical Altruism. Like Ethical Egoism but to a lesser degree, Justice Rule Ethics stresses that oneself is important; and like Ethical Altruism but to a lesser degree, Justice Rule Ethics stresses that other humans besides oneself are important. It treats all humans equally.
Kantian Ethics
Kantian Ethics has many advantages, and here are just a few of them (Stevie117):
- Kantian Ethics is very straightforward and based on reason, making it accessible to everyone.
- It gives us rules that apply to everyone and commands us to respect human life.
- It makes clear that ethics is doing one’s duty and not just following feelings.
- It aims to treat everyone fairly and justly, so it corrects the Utilitarian idea that some people can suffer as long as others are happy.
- Equal treatment of individuals gets rid of bias which sometimes influences decision-making.
- It tells us exactly what is right and wrong, giving us a clear sense of ethical guidelines.
- The ethical value of an action comes from its intrinsic rightness, so issues of teleological ethics are avoided.[ix]
However, Kantian Ethics, although it gives some good ethical guidance, has at least three problems that make it less helpful than Justice Rule Ethics.[x]
- “The first difficulty is Kant’s claim that outcomes are irrelevant to doing the right thing. . . . It isn’t irrelevant that the choices you make could harm [others]. . . . [T]here are times when we can predict pretty accurately what will happen if we do act A versus act B!” In other words, unlike Justice Rule Ethics, Kantian Ethics is not as focused on happy outcomes rather than following rules that usually lead to happy outcomes.
- The best moral rules are duties, and “duties are universal and apply without exception.” One problem with this assertion is that there might be more than one acceptable way to do a duty, and sometimes different ways can conflict with each other. “For example, we all have a duty to respect the dead. . . . Suppose in one culture respect for the dead requires burying and praying over them, while in another culture, people respect the dead by eating them.” Justice Rule Ethics easily avoids this problem by indicating the following course of action: 1) Do what maximizes the greatest happiness for the greatest number of creatures, especially humans. 2) If two or more actions both achieve the greatest happiness for the greatest number of creatures, especially humans; feel free to choose any of those actions. Thus, it is probably best to allow each of the aforementioned cultures to respect the dead in their own particular way.
- “We aren’t told what to do when rules come into conflict.” For example, “[w]e know that doctors have . . . the duty to save lives and the duty to prevent pain. . . . [I]f the doctor fulfills the duty to save lives, she will end up prolonging the life of her patient. But if she prolongs the patient’s life, she will fail in her duty to prevent the patient’s pain!” There is much less conflict in Justice Rule Ethics. Justice Rule Ethics has only one rule, The Justice Rule; and it is much easier for one rule to avoid conflicting itself than a group of many rules. Also, what was stated before still applies here. Justice Rule Ethics urges us to do at least two things: 1) Do what maximizes the greatest happiness for the greatest number of creatures, especially humans. 2) If two or more actions both achieve the greatest happiness for the greatest number of creatures, especially humans; feel free to choose any of those actions. If you are a doctor, help your patient to live longer if you believe doing so will maximize the greatest happiness for the greatest number of creatures, especially humans. However, if you believe that doing the opposite will maximize the greatest happiness for the greatest number of creatures, especially humans; do the opposite.
Natural Ethics
The only advantage of Natural Ethics that I can think of is that it seems to appeal to the highest authority. Perhaps nothing is more powerful than Nature, the phenomena of the physical universe collectively. Of course, many people believe that The Divine exists and is a higher authority than Nature, because The Divine purposefully created Nature. But the truth seems to be that The Divine does not talk with humanity directly, like a teacher talks to his or her students.
Billions of people seem to believe that The Divine has spoken through a prophet like Moses, Muhammed, and/or Joseph Smith; or spoken as a human as Jesus of Nazareth. But I don’t. I believe that those people were probably a little mentally ill and deceptive. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and the claim that one is a prophet or the only-begotten son of God is an extraordinary claim without extraordinary evidence. What is more likely, that Moses, Muhammed, and Joseph Smith were crazy and/or lying; or that The Divine really talked with them and told them important truths to communicate with the rest of humanity? If you say that they have to be legitimate because millions of people believe them, I say that billions of people throughout history used to believe that the sun orbits the Earth, and they were all wrong. As for Jesus, the claim that he is the only-begotten son of God (as most Christians believe) is even more farfetched than the claim that he is just a prophet (as most Muslims believe).
Natural Ethics is not the best ethical system because it often leads to less pleasure and more suffering. If Nature likes anything, Nature seems to like suffering, death, and selfishness. All sentient creatures on Earth suffer and die, and many are programmed by Nature to kill and eat other sentient creatures just to survive.
As for selfishness, it is often rewarded in Nature. For example, penguins steal rocks from each other to build nests, male lions murder the cubs of other male lions to cause the mother of the cubs to go into heat, and many kinds of cuckoo birds deceive other birds into raising their young. These examples teach that stealing, murder, and lying are natural activities that benefit the thieves, murderers, and liars. A society full of thieves, murderers, and liars will almost certainly be much less happy than a society full of the opposite kinds of people—people who (at least in most cases) do not steal, murder, and lie. If such good people do choose to steal, commit homicide[xi], or lie, they do so because reason tells them that such a normally evil action will maximize the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of creatures, especially humans.[xii]
The Bottom Line
Now that I have finished this section on secular ethical systems, I want to end by pointing out that Justice Rule Ethics can use all these other secular ethical systems to accomplish the goal of doing good. Thus, it is like golf. Golf is a game that is played on an open field called a golf course. The goal of the game is to hit a ball into a hole, using different types of clubs. A golf club is a slender shaft that has a grip at one end and a heavy wooden or metal head at the other. Different kinds of clubs are used for different kinds of shots, and a player’s clubs are carried by a person called a caddie.
How is ethics like playing golf? The course is like this universe, because the course is where golf is played and the universe is where ethical decisions are made. The sun is like The Justice Rule, because the sun enables players to see the course and The Justice Rule enables people to perceive what is good and evil. The goal of golf is to get a ball in a hole with as few shots as possible, and the goal of all voluntary actions is (or at least should be) to do good. Both goals are singular and simple. The clubs are like the different ethical systems for two reasons: 1) they are both similar to, but different from, each other; and 2) each is best used in certain situations to accomplish the goal. Imagine a caddie who wisely coaches a golfer. That is like one’s ethical sense, because, hopefully, one’s ethical sense wisely coaches one to choose the best ethical system for a situation. A golfer is like the ability to make ethical choices, because the golfer makes decisions to try to accomplish the goal of golf and the ability hopefully tries to accomplish the goal of doing good.
[i] Some people might argue that humanity’s foremost goal might be to be good or to grow closer to The Divine. But why would a human want to be good or to grow closer to The Divine? In order to maximize his or her happiness, or so it seems.
[ii] Sometimes a being (one thing that is alive) might not want to feel pleasure and might want to feel pain. For example, a being might not want to feel pleasure if doing so will distract him or her from danger. I imagine that someone very intoxicated on heroin might feel so much pleasure that she or he might not notice the danger of an approaching fire. In that case, the soon-to-be burn victim would probably want to feel less pleasure so that he or she will notice and thus escape the approaching fire. An example of wanting to feel pain would be the sensation of a minor burn on one’s hand when one puts it on a hot stove. Feeling the relatively minor pain causes one to retract one’s hand, thus saving it from much damage. Paradoxically, in such cases the pleasure becomes pain because the feeler does not want to feel it (at least to an extent) and the pain becomes pleasure because the feeler does want to feel it (at least to an extent). However, it is always true that pleasure is a feeling that one wants to feel overall, and pain is a feeling that one does not want to feel overall. Overall in this case means all instances taken as a whole.
[iii] Right now, I sound like a Utilitarianism; and I have much to say about Utilitarianism. At this point, I will only say that, simply speaking, Utilitarianism is the ethical system that whatever makes the most creatures, especially humans, the happiest is good, and whatever does not is evil. It is a relatively good ethical system. However, it is flawed because it may lead to the sacrifice of the rights or well-being of a minority for the greater good of the majority, can be challenging to accurately measure and compare the happiness of different individuals, and may result in morally questionable actions (ChatGPT, personal communication, January 7, 2024).
[iv] I wrote “at least in most cases” because I believe that some groups are not created for most of their members to achieve their goals. Such groups are created by a few people to use many people to fulfill the wants and needs of the few. An example of such a group would be the army of an evil leader. The evil leader and his or her top assistants force people to join the army and are willing to use those people as they see fit, even unto involuntary death.
[v] Much of my thinking in this chapter is based on the philosophy of John Rawls.
[vi] I wrote “Simply speaking” because there are different kinds of Utilitarianism.
[vii] I wrote “Simply speaking” because Justice Rule Ethics is a Social Contract Ethical System, although it “only requires the consent of a single human. When a single human agrees to obey The Justice Rule that choice will guide his or her actions when dealing with all other people, whether one-on-one or in larger groups.”
[viii] All humans should be treated as if they have equal worth. Why? There are at least four reasons.
The first reason is that it is literally true in the sense that all humans are of equal worth as humans. They are all equally human, and they are all one species. They are like $1 bills. One $1 bill is equal to one other $1 bill. (Yes, rare and collectable dollar bills can be worth more, but I am talking about regular, commonplace $1 bills.)
Of course, some humans are better at some things than others. General Patten would be better than the latest Playboy centerfold for leading armies, but the latest Playboy centerfold would be better for sex (at least for me) than General Patten. I admit that there are top humans and bottom humans in every category. For example, Shakespeare was an excellent writer, and some extremely mentally handicapped and illiterate person is a horrible writer. Many, if not most, modern humans are in between such greatness and un-greatness. Take me, for instance. I do not write as well as Shakespeare, but I write better than my hypothetical mentally handicapped and illiterate person. So, yes, I do concede that some humans are better at some things than others; and in that sense some humans are worth more than others. Give me General Patten to lead my armies, and give me the Playboy centerfold to lead my orgasms!
However, all humans are still of equal worth as humans, and now I get to the second reason that all humans should be considered of equal worth. It is much more practical. Yes, those who are most qualified for a job should get that job, but I am primarily talking about how the government and its laws should treat humans. Who should get the right to vote and why: the soldier, the actress, or the writer? Who is more valuable for society and why? Who should get the lesser jail sentence, and who should get the harsher?
I submit for your consideration that the soldier, the actress, and the writer can all contribute greatly to society and that it can be impossible for us mortal humans to precisely quantify which one has contributed the most. The same is true of every other human. The poet Charles Bukowski might have been a low-life drunk, but he might have benefited more humans than any CEO alive today.
My point is that, since it is too difficult to calculate the exact value of a particular human, it is more practical to just consider all humans to be of equal worth in terms of laws, rights, and responsibilities.
The third reason that all humans should be considered to be of equal worth is that it seems more fair—especially to those who would be treated as if they are of lower worth. Those who are treated as if they are of lower worth might actually be of higher worth than some of those favored by the government or a particular ethical system. Think of nations that have a few aristocrats and many peasants, or think of societies that had masters and slaves. Many peasants are kinder and smarter than many aristocrats, just like many slaves were kinder and smarter than many masters. The same is true of poor and rich humans. Many poor humans are kinder and smarter than many rich humans.
The fourth reason that all humans should be considered to be of equal worth is obviously related to the first and third reasons. Treating humans equally tends to stop rebellions and retributions before they start. Humans who are treated as lesser humans generally know that they are being mistreated, and it doesn’t seem fair to them. If too many humans are treated as lesser humans for too long, they will violently revolt, and perhaps rightly so. And long before that violent revolt happens, some of those angry and mistreated humans will find ways to strike back at their oppressors. Waiters can spit into the food of those they serve, and poor humans can steal and vandalize the property of the rich. There are probably countless ways that the oppressed can harm their oppressors.
[ix] The above list comes largely verbatim from Stevie117. GetRevising: Kantian Ethics – Advantages and Disadvantages. 16 Nov. 2015. 1 Jan. 2024. <https://getrevising.co.uk/grids/kantian-ethics>.
[x] In the next three paragraphs (Paragraphs 1, 2, and 3), whatever is in quotation marks comes from pages 174 and/or 175 of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Ethics.
[xi] I changed the word “murder” to the phrase “commit homicide,” because, in English, murder almost always has the meaning of an evil act of killing. Usually if not always, either an action is more good than evil, or it is more evil than good. If it is more good than evil, it might (or might not) be best to consider it a good action; but if it is more evil than good, it is probably best to consider it an evil action. An evil action should not be considered a good action, even if it is done by good people with good intent. Thus, murder is always evil.
[xii] I have been thinking of examples when it is morally better (i.e. good) to steal, commit homicide, and lie than when it is morally worse (i.e. evil) to not do those actions. Much depends on how one defines those words. With that fact in mind, here are the definitions that I will use. Steal means to take another creature’s property without permission or legal right and without intending to return it. “Homicide refers to one human killing another. Homicides can be divided into many overlapping legal categories, including murder, manslaughter, justifiable homicide, killing in war, euthanasia, and capital punishment, depending on the circumstances of the death. These different types of homicides are often treated very differently in human societies; some are considered crimes, while others are permitted or even ordered by the legal system.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homicide). A lie is a false statement used intentionally for the purpose of deception.
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