The Justification of Morality and Why You Should Act Morally :: Morality Morals Controversial Issues Essays

The Justification of Morality and Why You Should Act Morally1. Introduction In this paper I wish to consider the following related questions (i) go off a system of morality be justified? (ii) Why should whiz act morally? (iii) How crowd out others be persuaded to act morally? clearly none of these questions is new, and moral philosophers have proposed a variety of responses to them over the centuries without stretching any general agreement. Nevertheless, because these questions are fundamental to any practical exercise of moral conjecture, it is worthwhile to continue to reflect upon them. For Jewish, Christian and Muslim societies, the justification of morality is the Word of God as expressed in the script and Koran. Given an authoritative text containing basic moral premises, the appropriate method for obtaining rules of conduct is a process of logical deduction from those premises to conclusions. However, if we tenseness our inquiry on European and American societies i n the present century, the pin of belief in sacred authority has undermined this approach to moral theory for many people. This monumental change-for morality-may be attributed to many factors. An increase in multicultural studies has emphasized the wide variety of beliefs that human beings hold, which may have lead more people to doubt that any one of them is authoritative. A summate of writers over the years have commented on the correspondence of specific sacred beliefs with ones society of birth, again leading thoughtful individuals to question the authority of their puerility religious beliefs. As a general sociological observation, one can point to a positive correlation between increasing educational level and a diminished belief in the authority of religious texts. When thoughtful persons reject religious authority as the basis of morality, it becomes requirement to find another basis for moral beliefs. One of the few statements somewhat contemporary moral philosophy which is unlikely to encounter opposition is that no moral theory enjoys wide acceptance. At present the most astray discussed theories of morality in the British-American literature are utilitarianism, deontology and social contract theory. The comfortably known utilitarian approach to ethical (note 1) decision making was proposed by Jeremy Bentham in his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789) and elaborated by lavatory Stuart Mill in several books, e.g., Utilitarianism (1863). In Chapter 1, Bentham defines utility as that which tends to mature benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness (all this in the present case comes to the same thing).