II. Morality and Moral Actions

The “what” of morality seems to be of little controversy and can be stated in the simple principle: “Harm no one; rather, help everyone as much as you can.” ³ As to the “why” of morality, there are differing theories. Kant’s ethics gives morality an imperative form, which demands that one acts through reason according to the moral law, with the moral law being a specially binding kind of obligation. For Kant, being morally good is a matter of following the moral law through reason. Even though Kant’s ethics is not explicitly theological in basis, one may suspect that Kant’s ethics, with its special kind of imperative and unconditional duty, seems to be founded on a surreptitious remnant of theology. However, following the principle of “harm on one; rather, help everyone as much as you can” is neither an imperative nor does it require reason at all times. I, therefore, decline to follow Kant in considering categorical imperative and practical reason as the basis of morality. Among the other theories for the basis of morality, I embrace Schopenhauer’s theory that the human nature of compassion, the desire to alleviate suffering of others or improve the well-being of others, is the basis for morality. I do so because human nature has the most direct and most plausible influence on human actions.

The human nature of compassion has two forms, voluntary justice and loving kindness. ⁴ If a moral agent acts out of voluntary justice in the proper virtuous sense, not merely obeying laws self-interestedly for fear of punishment, then the incentive of the moral agent’s action is purely and simply the prevention of harm or suffering to others or the preservation of their well-being. If one acts out of loving kindness, one’s incentive is actively to promote the well-being of others or actively to assuage their suffering. With compassion being the incentive and basis for moral actions, compassion’s two forms, voluntary justice and loving kindness, coarsely correspond to the two aspects of moral action “harm no one” and “help everyone as much as you can” respectively. In other words, an act of voluntary justice is an act to prevent harm to others, while an act of loving kindness is an act to improve the condition of others. All beings that suffer are worthy objects of compassion for us, including non-human animals.

In addition to compassion, among characteristics of human nature, each of us also has the natural disposition to desire our wellbeing – egoism, and the natural disposition to desire the suffering of others – malice. A person’s character is determined by how the three dispositions, compassion, egoism, and malice, stand to one another. Egoism is the principle and fundamental incentive for humans and animals alike, for the urge for one’s own existence and well-being is instinctual and pervasive. If one acts out of egoism, he may cause harm to others without aiming to, with such harm merely as a result of trying to attain his own ends. If one acts out of malice, he aims for the other to suffer and can even sacrifice his own well-being to pursue this aim. ⁵ An act out of compassion is the only morally good action. However, the incentive of compassion is in constant competition with the anti-moral incentives of egoism and malice, making a pure act of compassion a rare event.

Kant demands that a moral act be free of other motives except for the moral law alone. In other words, if one acts from the moral law but he also wants to improve his own reputation, his act is not of moral worth. One may similarly argue that for an act out of compassion to be of moral worth, the incentive of compassion must be unadulterated by any other incentive. However, the demand for a moral action to be purely an act from the moral law or purely out of compassion takes moral action out of normal human affairs. It is unnatural to demand an ordinary person to stamp out any incentive of egoism. For example, even the most selfless person acting selflessly toward others contains the motive of desiring egoistically the conscience of being a good person. Therefore, the purity requirement for a moral act to be untainted with an egotistical motive makes an unnatural requirement for humankind and takes morality out of ordinary considerations. Unless we wish for the study of ethics to be science without objects, much like alchemy, it seems unreasonable to demand the absolute purity of the moral agent’s virtuous incentive. Thus, a reasonable definition for a moral action should be an action arising out of compassion, which may or may not be tainted by an egoistical motive. It is, of course, even better when a moral action has a pure compassionate motive and compassion and is untainted by other motives. Acting out of compassion is distinguished from the ethics of Aristotelian eudaimonism in that eudaimonism has a primary goal of acting kindly for one’s own happiness. In other words, the incentive for eudaimonism is both virtue and one’s own happiness. Kant also combines virtue and happiness with his idea of the highest good, which he considers the ultimate consequence of morality. ⁶ While both eudaimonism and Kant’s idea of the highest good combine virtue with happiness, it is not necessary for moral action to bear a relationship with happiness. The incentive for acting out of compassion may or may not intermix with personal happiness. Thus, we state that the reasonable definition of moral action is an act that arises from compassion as a primary motive with some form of egoism that may or may not be happiness. In contrast, a malicious motive of any kind has no place in moral action.

The obstacle for one to act morally is not that one does not ever know how to act out of compassion, but to act out of compassion towards everyone consistently. In life, even the most immoral persons can have someone they care for. Cruel and unkind as they may be to most, they can be thoughtful and devoted to a select few. For the maxim of “harm no one; rather, help everyone as much as possible” that embodies how to act morally, it is not that immoral persons do not ever refrain from harm. They just do not exercise the refraining toward everyone, especially those they ought to refrain from harming. It is not that immoral persons do not help others. They just do not extend the help to everyone, especially the ones who they ought to help. Therefore, a first key challenge for a moral agent is to be able to extend compassion to everyone. Not all refraining from harming and help to others are moral acts because they may be obligations. When a police officer harms a mass murderer who would have gone on to injure innocent people, or when a doctor saves a patient’s life on the operating table, those acts are not of particular moral worth because they are expected as part of the police officer and the doctor’s obligations. However, if the police officer refrains from harming the mass murderer when he could do so to save the lives of the innocent or when the doctor refuses to help the patient on the operating table when it is within his ability to give the patient the help needed for a full recovery, we call such acts immoral. Thus, a second key challenge for the moral agent is to avoid acting immorally by failing to perform their moral obligations.

Thus, as a moral agent faces the two challenges to act morally, two corresponding considerations are important to morality and moral actions. First, to be moral, a moral agent should extend the coverage of “do-no-harm” and “help others” to everyone and all sentient beings. Second, to avoid being immoral, a moral agent should know his roles and moral obligations pertaining to the roles to ensure that those obligations are performed. As shown in the following section, these two considerations connect self-knowledge to morality, such that they reveal the answers to our two questions raised at the beginning of the essay. First, assuming a moral agent may increase his self-knowledge, how does the growth of self-knowledge allow the moral agent to act more morally, if at all? Second, what kind of self-knowledge has the effect of allowing a moral agent to act more morally?