Module Two

Moral Reasoning
Constructing Moral Arguments
One way of expressing one’s moral judgment is thru an argument. Our views on whether an action is
right or wrong must be supported by arguments that substantiates its truth. We cannot just say that
killing is wrong or that abortion is immoral without presenting reasons why they are such. Thru
argumentation, we can provide proper justification to our moral judgments.
Arguments
An argument is a piece of reasoning expressed in words or symbols. Arguments are not squabbling
or mere verbal disagreements. You might be arguing without you noticing it. An argument refers strictly
to any group of statements of which one is claimed to follow from the others, which are regarded
as providing support for the truth of that one.
Parts of an Arguments: Premises and Conclusions
The conclusion indicates your main claim or position. This the statement that
you are defending. The conclusion is the statement to which the other statements
in the argument are claimed to give support, or for which they are given as If the fetus is a person, then abortion is morally wrong. Premises
The fetus is considered as a person.
reasons. The premises acts as the support to your conclusion. These are Therefore, abortion is morally wrong.
Conclusion
statements that provide the reasons why your conclusion should be true or
probable. Premises are the statements to which inference is based; the
statements that are claimed to provide grounds or reasons for the conclusion.
Types of Arguments: Deductive, Inductive, and Abductive
1. Deductive arguments are arguments that claims the truth of a conclusion from the Deductive argument
truth of the premises. In a deductive argument, there is a claim made that if the premises All humans are mortal
are true, the conclusion must be true. Deductive arguments use the principle of Socrates is human
entailment where the truth of the conclusion entails or follows from the truth of the Therefore, Socrates is mortal
premises.
2. Inductive arguments are arguments that claims the probability of a conclusion from Inductive argument
the truth of the premises. In an inductive argument, there is a claim made that even if the The sun rose from the east yesterday. The sun rose
premises are true, then the conclusion can only be probably true. Inductive reasoning from the east today. It is known that the sun rises
in the east since the dawn of civilization. Therefore,
relies on the predictability of nature to reveal that the future is likely to resemble the past.
the sun will rise in the east tomorrow.
The principle of induction uses past experiences to make future predictions.
3. Abductive arguments are also known as Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE). Abductive argument
Abductive reasoning draws a conclusion based on the explanation that best explains a Anna told you that she failed her midterm exam in
state of events, rather than from evidences provided by the premises. Abduction does not physics. Anna hasn’t been in your physics class since
your professor graded the exams. Anna has been in
reason straight from the premises to the conclusion, like in deduction and induction, but
psychology class, which meets right after physics
it reasons out by ruling out explanations until you are left with the most plausible Therefore, Anna dropped physics
explanation given the evidence.

Claims are statements that can either be true or false. These are the types of sentences
that can only be used for arguments. Claims can either be normative or descriptive.
Normative claims are statements the compels us to do or believe about something, while
descriptive claims are statements that tell us something about the world as it is.
Normative claims can either be deontic or axiological. Deontic claims are statements
that claim what one ought to do, while axiological claims contain value judgments.
Moral Claims are statements about that bears a moral content. Moral claims are
normative claims which means that they can either be deontic or axiological. Deontic
Evaluating Arguments. We can evaluate Moral Claims can either be morally wrong (forbidden or wrong to do), morally obligatory
arguments based on the following criteria: (wrong not to do), or morally permissible (ok to do or not do). Morally permissible deontic
1. Premise Acceptability – we need to check if claims can either be supererogatory (good if done, but not obligatory) or indifferent
the premises are true. Using a false premise (neither praiseworthy nor blameworthy). Axiological Moral Claims can either be morally
always leads to an unsound argument. The bad, morally good, or morally neutral.
premise should either be known to be true by
definition, knowable by just thinking about it, Why do we need to be aware about these types of claims? To know the type of moral
knowable on the basis of one’s own senses, claim we are arguing about can help us what kinds of premises or evidence we need to
knowable on the basis of reliable testimony, provide in order to justify the truth of our claims. Deontic moral claims should have
accepted as common knowledge, or supported premises that show that the claim is true in all instances, or false in all instances, or may
by a good argument. be true and false in various instances. Axiological moral claims would need to be justified
2. Relevance – the truth of the premises counts using statements that lead to moral judgments such as good, bad, or neutral.
in favor of the truth of the conclusion.
3. Sufficiency – taken together, do they provide Composing a Moral Argument
enough reason to believe the conclusion 1. Examine the statement of your conclusion. State conclusion using simple
language. Define key concepts, avoid ambiguous terms.
Myths on Moral Arguments 2. Analyze the claim of the conclusion. What is the required proof or evidence to
• Myth 1: Every opinion is equally valid justify the claim? Is the claim of the conclusion knowable or verifiable?
• Myth 2: Since we can’t agree on an answer, 3. Compose the argument. Offer at least three, but not more than five premises
there is no right answer that provides the strongest claim of your conclusion. Evaluate the argument
• Myth 3: It doesn’t matter, people eventually (Premise acceptability, Relevance, and Sufficiency)
act out of their own self-interest 4. Criticize your argument. Reexamine how the conclusion was written. Try to
break the claim of the conclusion or weaken the support offered by the premise.
Try to check if your argument contains fallacies. Compose a counter argument
by constructing a negation of your conclusion and try to provide proofs.
Compare and contrast both arguments. Choose the better one.
 HOW TO COMPOSE A GOOD MORAL ARGUMENT?
Now that you already have an idea of what an argument is, its parts (premises and conclusion), and its functions, let us now
construct our own argument.
An argument starts with a claim. A claim is a statement that you want to prove to be correct or true. It could come from different
issues or topics, but since we are talking about ethics and morality, it is only proper that we focus on moral issues. Moral Issues
are topics that can produce a deontic (what ought to be done) and/or an axiological (whether something is good or bad) claim
[Please see Chapter on Moral Reasoning for the explanation].
Let’s start with a claim that: Abortion is permissible.
This is claim came from the moral issue of abortion. The claim can be identified as a deontic claim. Since this is your main claim,
this will act as the conclusion of your argument since the conclusion of your argument is the main claim that you are trying to
prove. Now that you have a main claim, you need to give a support to your claim; you need to prove that your claim is true. In
order to do so, you need to provide reasons or proof. These reasons or proofs are known as your premises. In providing
premises for your claim, it must need to be true to guarantee the truth of your claim. If your premises are questionable or weak,
it would only make your claim weaker. Imagine the premises of your argument to be the foundation in which your main claim
is standing. If the foundation is weak, the claim would be destroyed.
How then can we start writing the premises? Think of any reason why you think the conclusion is true. For our example, we
need to think why abortion is permissible. One reason could be: If the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother and there
is no other way to save the fetus, then we must terminate the pregnancy.
Upon reading this statement, we can immediately say that, in that kind of scenario, we can allow for an abortion. However,
this statement alone is not sufficient to make the claim of the conclusion to be true. There are other reasons that we can
provide that would make the conclusion true.
Another reason could be: A woman has the right to decide what to do with her own body.
This statement may be right; however, we still need to prove why this claim is true. So, we need to think of reasons why this
statement is true. I shall provide two reasons: (1) We have autonomy over our own body. (2) To have autonomy over our
own body means that we can decide what to do with it, and we can choose the actions that we can do.
We still need to think whether our reasons are sufficient enough to support the claim. It doesn’t necessarily mean that if we
provide more proof, the better our argument would be. Sometimes, if we provide too much proof, the claim of the conclusion
can be more vulnerable to falsehoods. It is suggested that we only provide three to five premises for an effective argument.
Just to recap. So far, our argument looks like this
Conclusion: Abortion is permissible.
Premises: [P1] If the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother and there is no other way to save
the fetus, then we must terminate the pregnancy.
[P2] A woman has the right to decide what to do with her own body.
[P3] We have autonomy over our own body.
[P4] To have autonomy over our own body means that we can decide what to do with it, and we can choose
the actions that we can.
We can now ask, are the premises sufficient enough to prove the truth of the conclusion. Is there a missing premise that can
link all the premises together with the conclusion? This is the hard part. Sometimes, we tend to overlook the statements we
provide and assume that certain claims are just true without the need of stating them. If we look at our argument, it seems that
P2, P3, and P4 is not clearly linked with the issue of abortion. We then need to provide a premise that will link these three
premises with the conclusion. We can say that:
A woman has the right to choose and decide whether to have an abortion or not
The truth of this statement is justified by P2, P3, and P4; which would make it a conclusion using the said statement. Remember
that arguments could have many conclusions too especially if the conclusion can be used as a premise for another conclusion
just like in this argument. If we structure the argument properly, we can have something like this.
[P1] We have autonomy over our own body
[P2] To have autonomy over our own body means that we can decide what to do with it, and we can choose the
actions that we can do.
[P3] A woman has the right to decide what to do with her own body
[C1] A woman has the right to choose and decide whether to have an abortion or not. (using P1, P2, and P3]
[P4] If the pregnancy of threatens the life of the mother and there is no other way to save the fetus, then we
must terminate the pregnancy.
[C2] Therefore, abortion is permissible (using C1 and P4)
We must not also forget to evaluate our argument. We must evaluate the argument based on three criteria: (1) Premise
Acceptability, (2) Relevance, and (3) Sufficiency. [To know more about this, read the reading on Moral Reasoning]