Evaluating Criteria for Justifications of Morality

Abstract

The paper compares two basic questions of practical philosophy “How should I live?” and “Why should I be moral?” and proposes a system of criteria for the evaluation of different theories responding to the second question (justifications of morality). Despite the tendency to consider the first, open and more general, question the best starting point of practical philosophy and the process of self-realization, the author argues that the question “Why should I be moral?” remains meaningful and important because it initiates the justification of some imperatives whose violation utterly prevent us from living a good life. There are several conceptions that try to justify morality appealing to different essential human features: a desire to satisfy preferences, a desire to live happy life, a capacity to perceive values, norms and duties, a capacity to choose autonomously on the basis of the practical deliberation etc. To evaluate their arguments, philosophers should elaborate a system of criteria. The author proposes the following list: 1) the force of the grip of arguments on agent; 2) the scope of this grip; 3) the non-tautological character of arguments; 4) the absence of distortions pertained to the formal side of morality; 5) the absence of the radical gap between motivations used for justification and the ordinary moral motivation, 6) the absence of distortions pertained to the substantial side of morality (its normative content).