Becoming One’s Own Moral Compass: A Second Component of Moral Understanding

Abstract: Following Aristotle, who claims that a virtuous person "see[s] what is true in every set of circumstances, being like a carpenter's rule or measure for them" (Nicomachean Ethics, 1113a32–1113a34), Alison Hills argues that "a mark of a virtuous person is that she is an authority into what is right." (2009: 111). Such a person is "her own moral compass" (ibid), in contrast to relying on the testimony of another or merely "having access to a moral compass." (ibid). For Hills, moral understanding is important or valuable because, without it, one's character is less-than-virtuous; without moral understanding, one cannot be her own authority into what is morally right. And so, importantly, in being one's own moral compass, one need not rely on another's moral testimony to know what she should do.

Hills, in addition to several others, put forth, what I call, an intellectualist account of moral understanding, where moral understanding consists in understanding why p, or the grasping of reasons that explain or justify the truth of p. In this paper, I argue that intellectualist accounts are not able to make sense of why having moral understanding entails being one's own moral authority, for their conditions for moral understanding are insufficient in this regard. I argue that one can satisfy the intellectual conditions for moral understanding but still need to rely on the moral testimony of another.

In effort to flesh out what goes into being one's own moral authority, I advance an additional component of moral understanding – which consists in having an understanding of the relevant moral property, as it is instantiated in the particular kind of action under consideration. This component is grammatically and ontologically distinct from the first component (understanding why p), since the object of this latter kind of understanding is a proposition, and not a property. I argue that neither kind of understanding is reducible to the other; and one can be had without the other.

What I propose is that having full-blown moral understanding – the kind that enables us to be our own moral compasses – consists not only of understanding why p but also having an understanding of the relevant moral property as it is instantiated in a particular case.