Making Sound Ethical Arguments
- Aug 18, 2020
- 7 min read
When we discuss whether something is ethical or not, one of the most important things is to come up with sound and convincing arguments. However, doing that can be difficult, and may take some deep thinking to accomplish. For this post, I have provided some examples of ethical arguments, all of which start with two premises before the conclusion, as well as explanations as to whether each argument is sound and why. Just to be clear, even if a moral argument is not supported the by the premises in question, that does not mean that the moral argument itself is incorrect. It only means that one needs to see if they can think of different premises to support their argument, or needs to make an adjustment to one or both of their premises. For the purposes of this post, whatever the conclusions are are also the arguments. There might be other ways of discussing ethics, though this methodology is how I learned to do it in my ethics class at college, and is the method I find to be the most effective.
Example 1
Premise 1: being dishonest in relationships about things that could be deal-breakers is immoral.
Premise 2: not telling someone you are in a relationship with that you are transgender is relevantly like being dishonest about something that could be a deal-breaker.
Conclusion: so, not telling someone you are in a relationship with that you are transgender is immoral.
To determine whether the premises here support the conclusion, we have to think about whether or not there are exceptions to Premise 1, or think of a relevant difference between the two things being compared in Premise 2. Are there exceptions to Premise 1? While being purposely and blatantly dishonest about something in an intimate relationship that could be a deal-breaker may indeed be immoral, omitting certain information that could be a deal-breaker is not inherently wrong. For instance, some people do not want to be with someone who is of a certain ethnicity. Yet, few would say that just because it is not obvious that one is of that ethnicity, they are obligated to disclose that to their partner. There are also people who do not want to be with people who have disabilities, but that does not mean that someone on the autism spectrum or with or some other disability is doing something immoral by not telling their partner about it. Accordingly, Premise 1 is not always true and therefore cannot be used to support the main argument. It also should be noted that omitting certain information from a partner is not quite the same as lying or being otherwise dishonest. It might lead them to think a certain thing about you that is not true, though that is not the same as openly lying about who you are. Hence, there is arguably a difference between the two things in Premise 2 that makes Premise 2 an untrue premise. Whether or not that is a relevant difference by can be determined by imagining the situation in question without that difference. If we, for example, imagine a situation where one willingly and openly tells their partner that they are of a certain age that they are not, that is certainly morally different from just not saying your age. That is true, regardless of whether one looks like they are a certain age that they are not. So the difference is relevant. Since there is a problem with at least one of these premises here, the conclusion cannot be defended through use of them.
Example 2
Premise 1: it is wrong to force a person to provide life support to someone in a coma through use of that person's body.
Premise 2: requiring a woman to carry a pregnancy to term is relevantly similar to forcing a person to provide life support to someone in a coma through use of that person's body
Conclusion: therefore, it is wrong to require a woman to carry a pregnancy to term.
For this, we need to first see if there is any situation in which Premise 1 would not hold. So are their any contexts in which it would be right to mandate that a person has to let someone in a coma us their body for life support? There may very well be situations in which encouraging that might be the right thing to do, but forcing it is definitely wrong, no matter what. As much as we should fight for other peoples' lives, we are not committing murder or doing anything immoral if we say no to letting someone use our body for such a thing. Given that, Premise 1 is valid. What about Premise 2? Is an unborn child on par with someone in a coma who needs to rely on someone else's body to survive? We know from science that unborn children are generally only capable of surviving outside the womb at around 24 weeks of gestation and later (see the link below for more details). That means that in general, before that point of gestation, unborn children cannot survive independently of their mom's body. So it can certainly be argued that before that point, requiring a woman to carry a pregnancy to term is like forcing someone to give a person who is in coma life support by letting them use their body. Some might still say that the difference is that in the case of a pregnancy, a person has already basically agreed let their body be used for that by engaging in the activity that has a risk of leading to pregnancy. Whether or not that is true, is that relevant difference? For instance, what if a person already attached themself to a person in a coma who needed their body for life support. It could easily be argued that they agreed to keep letting their body be used for that, if that was the context we were dealing with. Even so though, while it might be best for us to do the more generous things and keep providing that life support we already started providing, we still have the right to change our mind and detach ourselves. People have the right to change their mind about whether or not they consent to something while it is happening. For example, if a person says yes to being kissed, they have the right to say to stop at any point while the kissing is happening, and can stop it with as much force as is needed. Therefore, whether or this difference is a indeed a true difference, it is not relevant difference. As such, the conclusion here is supported by both of the premises.
Example 3
Premise 1: everything unnatural is immoral.
Premise 2: homosexuality is unnatural.
Conclusion: so, homosexuality is immoral.
Is Premise 1 correct? Is there anything that is unnatural that is not immoral? For something to be unnatural, it has to be something that cannot exist without human intervention. There are plenty of manmade things that very few of us would say are immoral to make use of, with electronics being probably a primary example. Even just the buildings and houses we use are technically unnatural. The person saying that everything unnatural is immoral might be meaning to say that everything that is abnormal is immoral, but even then, the premise does not hold. Having a disability is abnormal, since most people do not have a disability. However, it is obviously not immoral to have a disability. There are some things that are abnormal that might be bad or immoral, such as people murdering other people, but their immorality is not because of them being abnormal. So Premise 1 cannot be used to support this conclusion. As for Premise 2, even if Premise 1 were valid, it would be an invalid premise as it is an undetermined statement. Right now, science is still attempting to figure out whether or not there is a genetic basis for homosexuality, with some sources, such as the one below, showing that genes likely have at least some impact on it. If the person saying this just means that homosexuality is abnormal, that may be true. However, as was just established, twhether something is normal or not does not determine whether its goodness or morality. Hence, this conclusion is most certainly not supported by the these premises.
Example 4
Premise 1: it is okay for businesses to remove everyone from their property who willingly does not follow their no shirt, no shoes, no services rule.
Premise 2: Businesses removing everyone from their property who willingly does not wear a mask is relevantly like businesses removing everyone from their property who willingly does not follow their no shirt, no shoes, no services rule.
Conclusion: accordingly, it is okay for a businesses to remove everyone from their property who willingly does not wear a mask.
Is there any circumstance where it would be inappropriate for a business to remove someone from their property who willingly does not follow their no shirt, no shoes, no service rule? Generally, no, but there might be some exceptions to that when it comes to individuals with certain disabilities, medical conditions, or other unique needs that make wearing one of those things particularly unhealthy or impossible for them. For example, if one's feet are in very bad shape for some reason, and wearing shoes would hurt their feet, it could probably be argued that an exception should be made for them. Likewise, there are certain individuals wear wearing a mask might be bad for them, such as children under 2-years-old. As seen in the link below, children under 2-years-old are advised not to wear masks. Making exceptions for those individuals is fair and equitable because things like disabilities, health conditions, and so on are immutable characteristics, and they may have needs that make it so that enforcing the rule on them may make access to the businesses's services more difficult for them than for other customers Other than those things though, businesses generally have the right to enforce their own dress code. With that in mind, Premise 2 is also generally true, so the conclusion is largely supported by the premises. However, given these exceptions that I just pointed out, it is probably necessary to slightly adjust the premises and the conclusion. Below is an example of a way that the premises and conclusion here can be adjusted.
Premise 1: it is okay for businesses to remove all able-bodied people from their property who willingly do not follow their no shirt, no shoes, no services rule.
Premise 2: businesses removing all able-bodied people from their property who willingly do not wear a mask is relevantly like businesses removing everyone from their property who willingly does not follow their no shirt, no shoes, no services rule.
Conclusion: accordingly, it is okay for a businesses to remove all able-bodied people from their property who willingly do not wear a mask.
All of the the above are just some of many examples of ethical arguments that you can make and premises you can can test to see if they support them. While always wording arguments and premises in this format might be unrealistic, we can certainly keep this format stitched into our minds and paraphrase it when discussing ethics with others.
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