Another Moral Standard

Abstract

Do we have a standing moral obligation to prevent ourselves from acting immorally in the future? Suppose that we do. How could such an obligation be met? It would not be enough simply to resolve never to act immorally again. We know that such resolutions, however sincere, are, like New Year's resolutions, not always kept. Resolutions to act morally fail to be carried out for another reason-some of us are not sure which actions are moral and which are not. Our resolution always to act morally suffers from our uncertainty about morality itself. Thus weakness of will and moral ignorance are two ways in which moral resolve may fail to be effective as a method of preventing future immoral action. The question remains: What can we presently do that will guarantee no future immoral actions by us? Most of us know that no matter how sincere our present intentions to act morally, we shall sometimes fail to live up to them. Whatever our moral ideal, occasionally we give in to anti-moral influences. Egoists surrender to sympathetic feelings and altruists endure fits of selfish behaviour. Others break promises, tell lies, or refuse to share their good fortune with others. Over any considerable period of time most of us will surely violate moral requirements. Furthermore, we know this to be true after all, we are 'only human'. Therefore, the only alternative that we presently have to acting immorally in the future is to prevent ourselves from acting in the future at all. It should be pointed out that the claim being made is not the claim that we must act immorally at some point in the future or that we are not always free to act morally. The point is simply that, in general, it is reasonable to expect that we will, on some future occasions, freely (choose to) act immorally. This expectation is reasonable regardless of the moral point of view employed. Although in each situation which arises, acting morally in that situation is always an option available to us, our present options, given that immoral actions would be committed by us in the future, are (I) our acting immorally in the future and (z) our not acting in the future at all. Thus, if the answer to the original question is 'Yes', it appears that most of us may have a present moral obligation to bring it about that we shall take no future actions. It will not be enough simply to become physically passive, for, in doing so, we may fail to comply with duties of beneficence, self-interest, etc. What must be done is to terminate altogether our respective roles as morally responsible agents. Furthermore, this must be done soon, before any immoral action is inadvertently committed. In order to avoid being rationally obligated to accept this drastic consequence, we must give a negative answer to the original question. However, as will be shown below, answering the question in this way has important ethical implications.