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Chapter 12
Moral, Legal, and Aesthetic Reasoning
Chapter Recap
The key points in this chapter are as follows:
• Value judgments are claims that express values.
• Moral value judgments express moral values.
• Certain words, especially “ought,” “should,” “right,” “wrong,” and their opposites, are
• Moral reasoning is usually conducted within a perspective or framework. Influential
Western perspectives include consequentialism, utilitarianism, ethical egoism,
deontologism, moral relativism, religious absolutism, religious relativism, and virtue
ethics.
• Determining just when and where a law applies often requires making vague claims
specific.
• Precedent is a kind of analogical argument by means of which current cases are settled in
accordance with guidelines set by cases decided previously.
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• Whether a precedent governs in a given case is decided on grounds similar to those of any
other analogical argument.
• To reason aesthetically is to make judgments within a conceptual framework that integrates
facts and values.
• Aesthetic value is often identified as the capacity to fulfill a function, such as to create
pleasure or promote social change.
• A critic who gives reasons in support of an aesthetic verdict forges agreement by getting
others to share perceptions of the work. The greater the extent to which we share such
aesthetic perceptions, the more we can reach agreement about aesthetic value.
Answers to Text Exercises
Exercise 12-1
1. ▲Value judgment
2. Not a value judgment
Exercise 12-2
1. ▲Not a value judgment, although it surely hints at one (perhaps a value judgment if you
think of “luxurious” as connoting a positive value)
2. Not a value judgment
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10. Value judgment
Exercise 12-3
1. ▲Moral value judgment
2. Not a moral value judgment
3. Moral value judgment
10. ▲Moral value judgment
11. Not a moral value judgment
12. Not a moral value judgment
Exercise 12-4
1. ▲A
2. D
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Exercise 12-5
1. Borrowers should pay for damages that occur to a borrowed object while that object is in
their possession.
2. ▲People ought to keep their promises.
10. The majority should not be allowed to dictate to a minority.
Exercise 12-6
1. ▲B
2. B
Exercise 12-7
1. ▲A
2. A
3. C
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10. ▲B
Exercise 12-8
1. ▲To be consistent, Tory would have to say that if a man has the right to marry a woman, a
woman should also have the right to marry a woman. He does not say whether he denies
men the right to same-sex marriage, but he does deny that right to women.
2. ▲To avoid inconsistency, Shelley must be able to identify characteristics of art and music
3. ▲Marin could be consistent only if he could show that the process of abortion involves
killing and capital punishment does not. Because this is impossible—capital punishment
4. Koko seems to distinguish between adults on one hand and seventeen-year-olds on the
other (presumably that’s the basis for treating her daughter differently). Whether she is
6. Zoey will need to back up the claims that marijuana is a drug in a way that tobacco is not.
She may be able to do this, but she hasn’t yet done it in the passage. (She might refer to
differences in mind-altering characteristics, for example.)
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they are not, then the disadvantage to the groups affected by Proposition 209 is just a
formality—not that one can’t stand on principle and oppose it anyway, of course.)
8. ▲To avoid inconsistency, Harold would have to identify a relevant difference between the
discrimination law and the marijuana law. In fact, there is one fairly obvious one to which
9. This is a tough one for many people, including us. We think dogs and people have enough
in common—the very things Chloe mentions—to warrant prohibition of experiments on
dogs unless there is a reason to believe that some considerable good will come of the
10. It seems to us that Mr. Bork has a couple of possible answers: First, he might say that the
11. This passage pits one value—that of consistency and fairness—against another: the
occasional importance of being able to change policies. If it is no longer feasible to
continue a policy, it may be that people can no longer be treated the same as others have
12. We can think of reasons that might be relevant here. If, for example, it were shown that
polygamous marriages produced more jealousy and hence more unhappiness or discord in
a family, this would be a reason that would not apply to same-sex marriages and would
help Heinz justify his position. On the other hand, of course, one might require very strong
reasons in order to overcome the general claim that people ought to be able to marry
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whomever they choose.
Exercise 12-11
1. ▲The harm principle: Shoplifting harms those from whom one steals.
2. ▲The harm principle: Forgery tends to harm others.
3. Legal paternalism, for obvious reasons; but suicide often harms the family of the deceased,
and thus one can also imagine an argument against some suicides based on the harm
principle.
8. Legal paternalism. The reasoning is that such laws prevent a person from seeking, or at
least from finding, medical treatment that might be incompetent. (Justifications of laws that
forbid one group from doing something in order to protect another group from doing
something to itself are sometimes said to be based on “impure” paternalism. In the “pure”
variety, the group restrained is the same group being protected.)
9. The answer here would be the same sort of answer as the one to question 5.
Exercise 12-13
Comment: In fact, a majority of the Supreme Court agreed with Justice O’Connor and sentenced
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John Angus Smith to thirty years in prison. Your authors take Justice Scalia’s side and believe
the Court’s majority made a serious mistake.
Exercise 12-14
1. ▲a. Principle 4
b. Principle 2
Compatible
Exercise 12-15
1. ▲Relevant on Principle 7
2. Relevant on Principle 1
Exercise 12-16
Principle 1: Asuka’s picture does not teach us anything, for no chimp can distinguish between
truth and falsity; it is a curiosity rather than a work of art.
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of encaging chimps; surely beings who can reach these heights of sublimely abstract expression
should not see the world through iron bars.
Principle 4: Dear Zookeeper: Please encourage Asuka to keep painting, as the vibrant colors and
intense brushstrokes of her canvases fill all of us with delight.
Exercise 12-17
1. ▲a
2. e