Thomas: Chapter 1

The first point that Thomas makes is that having a good moral character does not imply having correct moral beliefs. What it is to have good moral character is to be motivated by the right sort of thing which Thomas assumes is altruism. So then two people may differ in their opinions on abortion and yet both have a good moral character because both have altruistic motivations. Essentially, what is important is that one want to do what is best for others not necessarily that one in fact does so. In support of this he gives an example of three moral exemplars: Socrates, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr.. Despite all being moral, each had a very different view on the morality of slavery. Again, this is meant to show that it is not correct moral belief that counts but rather one is motivated by moral considerations (i.e. altruistic considerations). [He gives more argument in favor of this but I think that the claim is obvious enough.] Though, of course, it is not just being motivated by moral considerations but also having moral views that are defensible. If one holds certain moral belief in the face of overwhelming evidence one can then question this person's actual motivations and his commitment to altruism.

As for what counts as a defensible moral theory, Thomas says that "(i) a person's moral views call for treating all innocent (full-fledged) persons in a minimally altruistic way; and (ii) the criteria by which a living being is determined to be a full-fledged person are grounded in the best scientific and sociological considerations available, and the criteria by which a person is determined to be noninnocent are not contrived." 'Minimally altruistic' means roughly that people are treated well not for self-interested reasons and also that one does not act with the with the sole point of harming others. Thomas includes a small caveat to (ii) where he says that defensibility requires that one's views are the best that can be expected of him given his early experiences, social environment and availability of information. Basically, what Thomas is getting at is that someone who holds a view that, from our standards, is absolute rubbish so long as he holds it as a result of his 'nonculpable' (probably not a word; I mean 'not his fault') ignorance and that he would change his rubbish view if his ignorance of certain facts was removed. The point of this is to make room for the racist young boy who has a good heart yet through no fault of his own mistakenly believes that non-whites should be treated as lesser beings in comparison to whites. Now of course if this boy grows up, moves away from his homogeneous and racist town, meets some average non-whites and then maintains his view, then we can say that he does not really have a good heart (good moral character) after all.

So then, at this point, the essence of Thomas's claim is that to have a good moral characther a person must be motivated by altruistic considerations, have defensible moral beliefs given his epistemic context and must change his beliefs in accordance with "corrective experiences" (i.e. when the racist boy meets a nice black man). [What I think is interesting here is that having moral knowledge does not entail having a moral character. I suppose this is obvious, but stating it, I think, helps brings out another point: one does not change the ammoralists mind by sharing moral knowledge with him. Even if we had the correct moral theory to offer him, Gyges would not be moved by the fact that his actions were wrong. In the context of combatting ammoralism, moral facts are not what matters but rather that which motivates is what is at issue. We do not need to show Gyges anything to make him moral. We need to change what motivates him.]

Another important factor in having a good moral character is that a person be morally autonomous. This is to say that it matters to this person not just that his moral views are defensible but that he can defend them. A person who is morally autonomous will not appeal to certain facts about what the majority of those in his community believe to be the correct moral views. Appeals to authority will have no weight with this person. What matters to this person is that he has well thought out and consistent ethical principles which he can expound. (For example, a morally autonomous person may cite the categorical imperative (while understanding what it means) while the morally non-autonomous person cites the 10 commandments). A good indicator of moral autonomy is whether or not 'corrective experiences' actually cause a person to change his beliefs. If the boy brought up in a racist town rejects the orthodoxy of his community in the face of contradictory evidence rather than dogmatically reasserting it, then the corrective experience has in fact served to correct his moral views and this reflects his reliance on himself, not authority, in making moral judgments and hence reveals his moral autonomy. Thomas does say that one can have a good moral character without being morally autonomous, but this would seem to be a case where the person is just lucky for having accepted the authoritative moral views of his community which also happen to be good (or at least defensible) moral views. What this person lacks however is the independent understanding of why his views are defensible which makes him vulnerable in cases where the received opinion is dubious. This person lacks the tools to amend his beliefs when amendments are needed and are not forthcoming from the resident authority figures.

A little ways on, Thomas accepts the neo-Humean view that reason is the slave of the passions (p. 25) as he thinks that the most important thing in morality is that a person have good will or an altruistic nature. This is just assumed however; no argument in favor of it against moral rationalism is given. He says that he wants to see "what follows if they (moral rationalists) are wrong". Naturally then, he wants to consider what desires we as humans have and how entrenched they are. His belief is that an altruistic account of human nature can be given as opposed to a self-interested account. His account of human nature comes in what follows.