ABSTRACT
People should think less about what they ought to do and more about what they ought to be. If only their being were good, their works would shine forth brightly. In contemporary American culture, morality has a bad rap, and for good reasons. Psychologist Steven Pinker states bluntly, “The world has far too much morality.” He goes on to explain that morality has often become an excuse to do terrible things to others. In the name of religiously based morals people persecute others who differ, torture heretics, and murder unchaste sisters in “honor killings.”Invariably, when students face moral philosophy for the first time—ethics and moral philosophy describe the same field in philosophy—they fall into one of two groups. Some students are either conventionally moral, often viewing morality as fixed, about rules and regulations, and with suitable punishments for moral infringements.
