Dorothee Bleisch
Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
It is often claimed that moral theories must not only specify if and why actions are (morally) right or wrong but should also be action-guiding in a robust sense. A moral theory is taken to be action-guiding in this sense if it can be used by all human agents to identify the actions they ought to perform in particular situations. Whether one accepts this demand for usability, henceforth the usability demand, may crucially restrict the range of moral theories which one is prepared to accept and is therefore highly relevant for ethics. The relevance of the usability demand for ethics stands in contrast to the comparatively little attention it has received. In my talk I want to contribute towards closing this lacuna by discussing one of the most salient arguments for the usability demand, namely the argument from the successful moral life.
The argument was invoked into the debate by Holly Smith. It says that non-action-guiding moral theories ought to be rejected because they necessarily violate this ideal of the successful moral life. According to this ideal, “[t]he successful moral life […] is […] a career open not merely to the talents, but to a talent which all rational beings necessarily possess in the same degree” (Williams (1981: 21). In my talk I will first sketch how the idea of the successful moral life should be understood and then discuss how far violating the ideal shows moral theories to be flawed. I will argue that the argument from the successful moral life fails. For although there is a conception of the successful moral life on which it is true that non-action-guiding moral theories violate the ideal, this does not show them to be seriously or decisively flawed.
———-
Williams, Bernard (1981): ‘Moral Luck’, in B. Williams (ed.) Moral luck. Philosophical papers, 1973-1980, 20–39. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Smith, Holly (1988): 93 and 103-105 in ‘Making Moral Decisions’, Noûs, 22/1: 89.
Chair: Ugur Yilmazel
Time: September 6th, 14:00-14:30
Location: SR 1.005
SOPhiA 2026 