Moral Principles, Virtue Ethics, and Contemporary Conflict

Morality in a Pluralist Society: Sources of Conflict

A pluralist society brings together people of diverse cultural backgrounds, religious traditions, and secular worldviews. Disagreements naturally arise over public policy and private conduct. A moral conflict happens when opposing groups hold incompatible convictions on what is right or wrong, each convinced of the ethical correctness of their own stance.

You must be able to give two contemporary examples of moral conflict and identify the source of the conflict in each. The syllabus does not set particular examples. Euthanasia and drug policy are two strong choices.

1. The Euthanasia Debate (Assisted Dying)

• Arguments in favour: Supporters argue from compassion and individual autonomy. When a terminally ill patient faces unbearable suffering that cannot be relieved, allowing a peaceful death respects their right to make decisions about their own life and prevents prolonged physical agony.
• Arguments opposing: Opponents appeal to the sanctity of life, holding that human life has intrinsic, inviolable worth from conception until natural death. They highlight the medical principle "first, do no harm" associated with the Hippocratic tradition and raise the slippery slope concern that vulnerable elderly or disabled individuals might feel pressured to end their lives.
• Sources of conflict: A clash of values between personal autonomy and the sanctity of life. Underlying this is a tension between religious views (viewing life as a sacred gift from God) and secular views (prioritising individual choice).

2. Drug Policy and Substance Legalisation

• Arguments in favour: Advocates argue from personal liberty and harm reduction. Adults should have sovereignty over their bodies, and regulating substances removes profits from criminal gangs while treating addiction through healthcare rather than prison.
• Arguments opposing: Opponents argue that legalisation undermines the common good. Wider access risks increased addiction, mental health issues, road accidents, and public healthcare costs.
• Sources of conflict: A fundamental clash between individual liberty and the state's obligation to protect public health and the common good.

Two Extremes: Fundamentalism and Relativism

The syllabus treats fundamentalism and relativism as direct opposites. Fundamentalism claims there is one absolute moral truth possessed entirely by one's own group. Relativism claims there is no objective moral truth at all.

Contemporary Examples of Fundamentalism

• Example 1 (Religious): The Taliban in Afghanistan enforce a strict, literal interpretation of Islamic law. Since 2021, this has included banning girls from secondary and university education, rejecting dialogue with differing viewpoints, including many Muslim scholars who reject this reading.
• Example 2 (Religious – biblical literalism): Some groups hold that the creation accounts in Genesis must be read literally as science. They campaign to have this taught in place of evolution in some US schools, rejecting any other reading of the text.

Contemporary Examples of Relativism

• Example 1 (Cultural relativism): Arguing that human rights violations, such as female genital mutilation or denying women basic legal status, cannot be condemned by outside communities because they represent local cultural traditions.
• Example 2 (Individual relativism): A person claiming that illegally downloading media or evading taxes is acceptable for them because "what is right for you is not necessarily right for me, so nobody can judge another."

Moral Theories in Action: Guiding Principles and Thinkers

The syllabus asks you to state the basic guiding principle of a theory either as a question or as a statement. Learn at least three theories well enough to do both.

Tip: You only need three of these seven theories for the syllabus, but exam questions give a list and ask you to choose. Learn three thoroughly (guiding principle, named thinker, example choice, strength and weakness) rather than seven thinly.

One Choice, Seven Theories: A Found Wallet with €200 and ID

• Hedonism: Returning it brings peace of mind and avoids the fear of being caught.
• Utilitarianism: The owner's relief and retained identity documents produce greater net happiness than the finder's short-term gain.
• Deontological ethics: Returning it fulfils the universal moral duty not to steal, regardless of whether anyone saw you find it.
• Teleological ethics: Returning the wallet fulfils the good end of building social trust and honesty.
• Virtue ethics: An honest and just person returns the property, strengthening their personal character.
• Natural law: Reason shows that respecting private property is necessary for people to live together peacefully.
• Right relationship: Returning the wallet restores trust between neighbours and shows respect for the community.

Virtue Ethics in Contemporary Life

Most ethical systems ask "What should I do?" Virtue ethics asks "What kind of person should I be?" It prioritises character over mechanical rulebooks.

Aristotle's Account of Virtue

Aristotle taught that virtue is not innate; we become virtuous by habit, repeatedly choosing good actions until they become second nature: "we become just by doing just acts, brave by doing brave acts." He identified the golden mean: every moral virtue represents a balanced middle ground between two vices—one of deficiency and one of excess.

• Courage is the mean between cowardice (deficiency) and recklessness (excess).
• Generosity is the mean between stinginess (deficiency) and wastefulness (excess).

The goal of cultivating virtue is eudaimonia, meaning authentic human flourishing. The Christian tradition later incorporated four cardinal virtues rooted in this approach: prudence, justice, fortitude (courage), and temperance.

Applying Virtues in Contemporary Life

• Justice: The habit of giving each person their due. A student practises justice in a contemporary setting by speaking up when a peer is unfairly excluded from a social group chat or bullied online, defending fairness at personal social cost.
• Temperance (Balance): The habit of exercising moderation across competing appetites and demands. A student practises temperance by balancing intensive study schedules with sleep, nutrition, and exercise, or by exercising discipline with alcohol and social media use.

Moral Development, Freedom, and Moral Maturity

Moral principles are core values that guide ethical judgements. They develop over a lifetime through six key sources: family, peers, culture, the media (e.g. the #MeToo movement challenging cultural acceptance of sexual abuse), religion and spirituality, and personal life experiences.

These sources can influence the reasons behind a choice. A family that stresses honesty may encourage a young person to return money found in a shop. Friends who challenge exclusion can encourage someone to include a classmate. A religious teaching such as loving your neighbour can guide a believer to help a person in need. These influences help shape moral principles; they do not remove the need to think and choose responsibly.

Growing in Morality: Lawrence Kohlberg's Stages

Lawrence Kohlberg argued that people progress through three levels of moral reasoning, each containing two stages. What matters is why a person acts, not merely what they decide.

• Level 1: Pre-Conventional (typical of young children)
• Stage 1 (Punishment and obedience): Right is avoiding punishment ("I will not copy homework because I might get detention").
• Stage 2 (Individual instrumental purpose): Right is serving personal interests through fair exchange ("I will help you if you let me borrow your game").
• Level 2: Conventional (most adolescents and adults)
• Stage 3 (Interpersonal conformity): Right is meeting social expectations and seeking peer approval ("I will dress this way so my friends accept me").
• Stage 4 (Law and order): Right is obeying social authority and maintaining social order ("The law must be obeyed unconditionally, or society collapses").
• Level 3: Post-Conventional (reached by some adults)
• Stage 5 (Social contract and individual rights): Laws are social agreements meant to serve human welfare and can be challenged democratically if unjust.
• Stage 6 (Universal ethical principles): Guided by self-chosen principles of universal justice and human dignity (such as Martin Luther King Jr. disobeying segregation laws).

Critique by Carol Gilligan: Gilligan challenged Kohlberg because his original study included only male participants. She argued that men tend toward an ethic of abstract justice and rules, whereas women often approach morality through an ethic of care, prioritising relationships, empathy, and mutual responsibility.

Moral Freedom and Maturity

Moral freedom is the ability to choose, through reason and conscience, what is right, free from unthinking habit, social manipulation, or fear of punishment, and to accept responsibility for that choice. It is not licence to do whatever one wants.

• Freedom from: Inner limits (addiction, panic) and outer limits (coercion, lack of information) that reduce moral responsibility.
• Freedom for: Directing personal liberty toward choosing the good and fostering personal growth.

A morally mature person displays distinct characteristics: they exercise moral freedom, form an informed conscience, take personal responsibility for their choices, balance individual rights with the common good, and commit to ongoing individual and community dialogue when handling difficult issues.

Key terms

Moral Conflict

A serious disagreement where opposing individuals or groups hold fundamentally incompatible convictions about what is right and wrong.

Fundamentalism

A rigid moral stance demanding strict adherence to literal rules or sacred texts, rejecting dialogue, compromise, or historical context.

Relativism

The philosophical position that objective, universal moral standards do not exist, making right and wrong dependent on personal preference or cultural customs.

Virtue

A habitual and firm disposition of character to deliberately choose and perform what is morally good.

Virtue Ethics

An ethical framework focusing on the character, habits, and intentions of the moral agent, aimed at achieving eudaimonia (human flourishing).

Golden Mean

Aristotle's principle that moral virtue is the balanced middle state between the opposing vices of excess and deficiency.

Deontological Ethics

A duty-based ethical framework holding that actions are intrinsically right or wrong based on whether they fulfil moral obligations, regardless of consequences.

Categorical Imperative

Immanuel Kant's central moral principle: act only on rules you could rationally will to become universal laws, treating people as ends and never merely as means.

Utilitarianism

A consequentialist moral theory holding that the right action is the one that produces the greatest balance of happiness or wellbeing for the greatest number.

Moral Freedom

The capacity to choose the good using reason and conscience, free from external force or unthinking habit, and to take responsibility for that choice.

Right Relationship

An ethical approach assessing moral goodness by whether an action builds, preserves, and restores harmony with God, oneself, other people, and the earth.

Eudaimonia

The Greek concept of ultimate human flourishing, happiness, and living well, identified by Aristotle as the goal of a virtuous life.