It has already been noted that agreement of a new moral theory with existing moral rules and ethical principles does not necessarily imply the validity of that theory. Nonetheless, there seems to be a certain quality to a mature theory that prompts one to acknowledge it as plausible; either it “makes sense”, in the case of a principle-driven theory, or it seems to get at the heart of what morality is really all about better than the theories that came before it. It is worthwhile, therefore, to look at how certain moral questions in today’s society might be dealt with by the various theories that have been introduced, to see how each one deals with the question and, hopefully, to decide whether the controversy is due to a real inability of any theory to come to a conclusion, or just to a particular flawed set of ethics.
A good example of a modern moral question is whether homosexuality is morally right or wrong. The objection to homosexuality in America comes mainly from the Christian establishment, which propounds a sort of Aristotelian morality often referred to as “Natural Law”. Essentially, the theory is as follows: God created the world, and created everything in it to serve a particular purpose. Rain falls to water the crops, which grow to feed the livestock, which live to be eaten by humans, who are the focal point of Creation.1 Similarly, the purpose of sexuality is to reproduce. Since homosexual sex cannot result in conception, it is contrary to natural law and therefore wrong.
It is fairly obvious that Natural Law theory is a principle-driven morality. It declares as its single keystone principle that whether an act is right or wrong is entirely dependent on whether that act goes against what God intended. This, unfortunately, is not a very good principle on which to base an entire morality, as it is generally accepted that we have no reliable way of deciding what God intends in every given situation. Therefore, since Natural Law is not in itself a mature morality, the objections it has to homosexuality have little weight. Since there is nothing inherent to homosexuality that would cause adherents of any of the other previously mentioned theories to balk (it promotes happiness and generally causes no harm, it does not discourage social behavior and indeed actively encourages certain types, it is not cruel in nature and involves a great deal of loving human interaction, etc.) it can be said with a great deal of confidence that homosexuality is not morally wrong, and its continued existence as a moral taboo is due simply to an immature point of view. That is a great deal to say, especially with any amount of confidence.
Less clearly resolvable, however, is the question of euthanasia; that is, the willing taking of a person’s life to relieve their suffering, usually during a terminal illness. It is not immediately apparent how some theories would even approach this question: for example, how does living or dying affect the cohesion of the society? It could be said that euthanasia would be morally wrong if it began to be so widely used in cases of elderly people that the structure of the extended family began to break down, but apart from that it appears the Social Contract morality has little applicability here. Utilitarianism seems much more appropriate, but an obvious stumbling block emerges immediately: can someone who is dead be happy or unhappy? If not, then it would appear the permissibility of euthanasia would depend solely on whether the family of the individual to be euthanized would despair less in the individual’s death than they would in a long process of suffering. But if it were the case that the family would grieve more for the death of the person than for their suffering, the person’s happiness must be taken into account as well, as the person would be alive to suffer. Such a complicated line of reasoning, taken in combination with the difficult proposition of measuring each person’s suffering to decide wherein lies the greatest happiness, suggests that we should also beware of taking the conclusion of Utilitarianism (assuming it ever reaches one) too seriously.