Dismissive Replies to “Why Should I Be Moral?”

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Replies to Why should I be moral? are generally of two kinds: those that purport to answer the question and those that dismiss it as spurious. Those of the first kind aim not to discredit the question but to show that everyone, including the why-be-moral skeptic, is required by reason to be moral. Either that or they aim, more modestly, at showing that most people, though perhaps not the skeptic, have good or decisive reasons to live morally. I find these replies unsatisfying when they are modest and unconvincing when they are not;1 so it is with interest that I examine the second, dismissive, kind of reply.2 I start with a dismissive reply, hereafter called DR, that has several adherents and often turns up in ethics texts. Roughly, DR asserts that Why should I be moral? is ill-conceived—ill-conceived if it solicits moral reasons to be moral, because such reasons are plain to see; ill conceived if it solicits nonmoral reasons to be moral, because no one can reasonably request such reasons. This reply is unsatisfactory; it commits a serious error. The error is worth exposing, for it infects not only DR but much of the literature on the justification of morals. Also, the steps taken to expose it undermine