Search

Are we responsible for our misdeeds in dreams? The obvious answer would seem to be ‘No’. Dreams catch us with our defences down: just those critical and discriminative abilities which are distinctive of our waking lives as responsible moral agents seem out of play when we dream; el sueño de la razón produce monstruos. Moreover, if we are responsible for our dreamt misdeeds, then parity of reasoning demands that we be praised for dreaming noble dreams. But that is absurd. Moral credit should not come that easily, and so neither should moral blame.

What response is to be given to the immoralist's question 'Why should I be just?'? I say 'response' because it is not clear that the immoralist is looking for an answer. His question seems to be rhetorical, even contemptuous. It nevertheless presents a challenge to morality. The immoralist's position is that it is irrational to take justice and fairness seriously and that his own advantage or self-interest (perhaps in a very wide sense) is the only rational consideration for him. This is not a moral position although it is a normative position; the immoralist has an alternative to the moral life but not an alternative morality. (Compare how some lifestyles are appropriately presented as alternatives to religion but not as alternative religions.) The immoralist is not a moralist with idiosyncratic views on what is just and fair-what he might call 'true' justice or 'natural' justice. On the contrary, where some co-operative mutually beneficial project is involved he presumably recognizes what is fair (or at least what is patently unfair) much as we all do. What he does not recognize is the rationality of being fair. Nor is this because he thinks there is some other consideration (moral or otherwise) which overrides justice in this particular case. He does not deal with our complaint 'But that isn't fair!' by presenting other, allegedly overriding, considerations. Rather, such a complaint is not granted an initial relevance. 'Why should I be just?' he says. Moral philosophy has been dominated by two kinds of response to the immoralist's question. One sort of response-which seems to have found its place only recently in moral philosophy-is to attack the question itself as complex, trivial, silly, odd, or senseless. This approach does not answer the immoralist's question but it certainly does constitute a philosophical response. Some, such as Toulmin,1 have claimed that no sense can be given to 'should' in this context. Others, such as Hospers,2 seem to think the question is trivial and can only admit of an affirmative answer. But others, such as Singer,3 argue that the question has a prejudice on the negative side, for even to ask the question is already a sign of immorality. In general, I think the arguments of the philosophers who have taken this approach have been quite unconvincing. That there is a pru

The distinction between private immorality and public indecency plays a significant and perhaps a crucial role in H. L. A. Hart's argument in Law, Liberty, and Morality.1 This distinction, and the uses to which he puts it, have, however, been largely overshadowed in the 'debate' between Professor Hart and Lord Devlin which has centred around such 'great' questions as whether a shared morality is necessary for a society. I shall argue that Hart's position, in so far as it is based on that distinction, is quite untenable, and that even if it were to be a possible position, it would none the less be incompatible with the sort of 'libertarian' view of society expressed by John Stuart Mill, whose 'spirit', at least, Hart believes himself to be defending. The position that Hart sets out to defend is that society has no right to prohibit any action simply on the ground that it is immoral; the only actions with which society may interfere are those which are likely to cause harm. For instance, no matter how morally abhorrent many, perhaps most, members of society believe homosexual actions to be, homosexuality should not be held subject to regulation by society in the absence of clear and compelling evidence that such actions are harmful. But there are cases which even the libertarian would intuitively think of as subject to regulation, even though they are not obviously 'harmful'. In particular, there are the cases which are usually considered under the heading of 'public indecency', such as public nudity, fornication, or sodomy. On the surface, the prohibition of actions of this type would appear to be enforcing the convictions of society that they are morally wrong. Thus, Lord Devlin says: 'Why then do we object to the public exhibition of a false morality and call it indecency? If we thought that unrestricted indulgence in the sexual passions was as good a way of life as any other for those who liked it, we should find nothing indecent in the practice of it either in public or in private. It would become no more indecent than kissing in public. Decency as an objective depends on the belief in continence as a virtue which requires sexual activity to be kept within prescribed bounds.'2

In 'Sins and Crimes',1 A. R. Louch argues that the dispute between H. L. A. Hart2 and Lord Devlin,3 which is generally thought to revolve around the legal enforcement of morals, is in reality a dispute about the morality of the acts Devlin and other 'legal moralists' believe to be fit objects of criminal legislation. Since he finds 'something compelling about the move from the charge of gross immorality to punishment' (p. 39), Louch contends that 'the libertarian view depends . . . on taking a moral position counter to that advanced by the legal moralist' (p. 47). I shall examine the reasoning which leads Louch to view the law-morals controversy in this way and try to show that: (i) his interpretation of Hlart is mistaken and (2) he fails to establish that the libertarian must deny the immorality of the acts outlawed by 'morals legislation' in order to show that such laws ought not to exist.

There are some people whose actions are much more often good than evil. If their infrequent immorality does not cause much harm, it is reasonable to regard such people as morally good. Nevertheless, moral goodness remains an elusive quality, because it is difficult to identify good actions. Motives, consequences, knowledge of alternatives and of the conventions prevailing in the context, the agent's history, character, and information all have a bearing on whether particular actions are good. These facts are not easy to ascertain in any case, but when we are looking for a pattern formed of countless good actions over a lifetime, the difficulties are compounded.

What is often called Descartes' dream problem (‘How do I know that I am not now dreaming?’) should perhaps be called Plato's dream problem instead. Certainly it can be found in Plato's Theaetetus at 158b–c. It can also be found in Cicero (Academica 2.27.88) and, through Cicero's influence, in much of the work of St Augustine.

Though we should probably find it easier to detect immorality in its instances than to determine morality in its essence, we generally take it for granted that to be moral is to be good. On the assumption, I suppose, that morality and goodness are actually equivalent, some have even said that it is goodness alone that is good. And yet in the name of morality men have suppressed their vitality, stifled their generosity, surrendered their reason, and gone like sheep to the slaughter. In the name of morality men have distorted the truth and tormented the innocent. They have cut off heads in the past and they cut off heads in the present. It seems to me that alike with morality and without it, alike without it and with it, human behaviour may display brutality and insanity. Our human society may disintegrate and wither because of moral vacillation and paralysis. But it may be blighted the world over because struck by the lightning of moral frenzy.

DISCUSSION of the problem of evil is complicated by the absence of complete agreement about how the moral/physical evil distinction is to be understood or applied. Ninian Smart,1 for example, takes moral evil to be that evil which is due to human wickedness. Plantinga2 says it is the evil which results from human choice and volition. For both of them the pain and suffering which is brought about by immoral actions is moral evil. McCloskey,3 on the other hand, maintains that moral evil is 'simply immorality'; from which it would follow that the pain and suffering which arise from immoral actions cannot be moral evil, because neither pain nor suffering is immorality. The most likely explanation of such differences would appear to be that, in a confused and confusing way, two different distinctions are being drawn by means of the 'moral'/'physical evil' terminology. In accordance with the first of these, moral evils are those that are brought about by the free choice of human beings, while those natural states or processes of the physical world which commonly cause pain and suffering, together with the pain and suffering they cause, are physical evils. The second distinction would appear to classify evils by reference to their qualities rather than their causal relationships. It is as though this was done by asking of any evil the (vague) question 'Is it a moral or physical phenomenon'. The use of such a distinction would explain McCloskey's definition of moral evil as immorality, and why he says that the term 'physical evil' is not apt because 'suffering . .. is not strictly physical evil'.4 One would arrive at this latter view because, unlike pain, suffering has no physical location nor any other properties that force one to classify it as a physical phenomenon. Having pointed out that the 'moral' /'physical evil' terminology is used in different ways, I ought to explain how I propose to employ it in discussing the problems of moral and physical evil. As far as physical evils go, there is, fortunately, a considerable overlap between the two distinctions and this provides a fund of uncontentious examples on which I draw. For convenience, and because I am mainly concerned with the similarities between moral and physical evils, I speak of pain and suffering being 'involved in' or 'produced by' moral evils, but I could equally well regard these as moral evils, consequences of moral evil, or physical evils. Whenever it is necessary I shall, therefore, rephrase what I have to say in order to allow for alternative methods of classification. Two of the more philosophically interesting of the proposed solutions to the problems of moral and physical evil are: the free will defence (F.W.D.), and the thesis that the existence of physical evils is a logically necessary condition of the existence of certain moral virtues and vices (N.C.D.). It is invariably assumed that these defences are compatible; in the sense that they can, without inconsistency, be incorporated in a theodicy. A look at some of the similarities between moral and physical evils provides us, I believe, with reasons for questioning this assumption. An obvious point about moral evils is that many, if not all of them, either involve or produce pain and suffering; the act of torturing someone involves their production, they may also result from other immoral actions. Yet, physical evils such as diseases, earthquakes and volcanic