This book represents ethics as concerned not just with what we should do or even with that conceived as done for the kinds of reasons that, morally, befit what we should do. Ethics concerns our overall conduct. The ethical theory presented here stresses the three major dimensions of conduct: its matter – its act-type – the agent’s motivation for acting, and the manner in which the agent does the thing in question. This theory has the important implication that moral obligation encompasses adverbial obligations, particularly those regarding the salient manners of what we do. The adverbial dimension of ethics deserves more explication than it has received, and this book is intended in part as a contribution to remedying that imbalance. The motivational dimension of moral conduct is also important, and it cannot be reduced to matters of obligation – by treating actions for reasons as act-types that are objects of obligation – nor can manners of action be fruitfully represented as act-types. Acting for a reason is not a manner of action but a compound phenomenon entailing both an action and an explanatory basis of it, and actions so conceived admit of indefinitely many manners of performance.

Value is commonly divided into the intrinsic – what is good (or bad) “in itself” – and the instrumental, what is valuable as a means. This chapter describes two kinds of “value in itself.” The first comprises experiences of certain rewarding kinds; the second comprises objects of experience having intrinsic properties in virtue of which these objects can be central in intrinsically valuable experiences. This threefold conception – of intrinsic, inherent, and instrumental values – is explained, illustrated, and enhanced by accommodating contributory value, yielding a multi-dimensional value theory. Hedonism is shown to be more plausible than generally realized but also too narrow. In showing this, the valuational pluralism of the chapter is extended to include intrinsic moral value as a distinct kind, and the organic character of value, inherent as well as intrinsic, is illustrated and clarified; and the organicity of inherent value is shown also to apply to reasons for action.

Ethics has tended to concentrate on (1) what we should do, (2) virtues of character, or (3) the importance of motivation in appraising actions. All three are ethically important. But there is a dimension of moral responsibility that should have a place beside obligations to act, virtues of character, and appraisals of actions in relation to their motivation. It is the manner of actions. This can be right or wrong, an object of intention, and behavior for a reason. Interpersonal relations are not a behavioral grid with fixed points representing only act-types. This chapter explores manners of action. The result is a wider conception of acting rightly than the common understanding on which (despite the adverb) it is simply doing the right thing; a partial account of how acting rightly figures in the content of intention; and a sketch of the moral dimensions of the manners in which we act.

The theory of moral perception presented in Chapter 8 presupposes moral realism. Moral realism is controversial. Moral rationalists have defended it by drawing an analogy between mathematical knowledge and moral knowledge. It is commonly thought that mathematical facts, such as theorems, play essential roles in scientific explanations and that this explanatory power supports realism regarding mathematical objects. Do purported moral facts, such as true moral principles, have comparable explanatory power? This chapter explores several kinds of explanatory roles apparently played by both moral facts and mathematical facts. In comparing these roles, the chapter shows how moral realism is supportable in ways that draw on an analogy between the explanatory roles of moral facts and counterpart roles played by both certain mathematical facts and certain facts in the physical realm. The case made for moral realism is compatible with the view that moral properties are “naturalizable” but does not require this.

Is the concept of a reason the most basic normative concept, as some deontologists think, or is value more basic, as consequentialists think? This chapter concerns normative reasons, the distinction between those and normative grounds, and the relation of both to value. Reasons are commonly considered facts. The chapter develops a non-factive account of practical reasons, explains why taking account of such ascriptions is important, and challenges the factivity view of reasons. It argues that reasons are grounded, and thereby not unqualifiedly basic, even if the concept of a reason is irreducible. If reasons are grounded in the way described, they can still do the jobs we take them to do, but they are better understood in the wider context the chapter provides. This context includes that of ascriptions of intrinsic value. Intrinsic value is reason-grounding in ways that reflect both our experiences and our understanding of action for reasons.

The right thing can be done for the wrong reason. An action might meet an obligation such as paying a debt when the agent’s doing of that, the act-token, is motivated purely by fear of reprisal and thereby fails to be morally creditworthy. The action might, in Kant’s parlance, lack moral worth. Much that we do is based on more than one motive, as where self-interest aligns with moral obligation. Can we, at will, control which of the aligned motives will determine why we do the thing in question? Does morality require that we try to see that moral motivation – or at least some unselfish motive – determines our actions toward others? And if we act for both a moral reason and a prudential one, to what extent, if at all, is the action morally creditworthy? This chapter explores these problems and sketches answers to these and related questions.

This book aims at transcending the dichotomy between deontology and consequentialism by accounting for reasons, obligation, and value in an integrated normative framework. In that framework, the consequences of our actions include more than what we caused by acting, and the main focus of deliberation is conduct. Deliberation should take account of the moral value our conduct realizes. That in turn may have intrinsic value or intrinsic disvalue. The importance of moral value is illustrated and shown to be central for deontological ethics but also of major importance for the view – consequencism – that the overall consequences of our conduct, organically understood, provides the widest and deepest moral standard. Consequencism is neither purely deontological nor purely consequentialist; it is pluralistic and accommodates all three dimensions of value; it incorporates the virtue-theoretic requirement on moral motivation; and its normative demand is a preferential standard stronger than satisficing but weaker than maximization.

Actions are not merely what we do but essentially connected with intentionality, particularly beliefs and intentions, and thereby with the will. Some actions are basic; others we do by doing something basically – “at will.” Act-types are the kind of thing we can exemplify repeatedly or multiple agents can exemplify simultaneously, say speaking. Act-tokens are individual actions tied to a particular agent, time, and mode of performance. Ethics must address both: types as contents of intentions and primary indicators of obligations, and tokens as morally significant in ways that, like their underlying motives, are not fixed by their type. This chapter also clarifies control of action, direct and indirect. It is not just basic acts that are under direct voluntary control; most of the salient manners of our actions are. Moral obligation and moral responsibility for action extend to those as well as to the acts they color – or discolor.

Living morally is not just a matter of fulfilling one’s obligations, important though that is. It requires a stable pattern of moral conduct, which should not only meet the standards expressed by the commonsense principles described in Chapter 4 but also meet the two higher-level standards proposed in Chapter 5. Living morally does not require that everything we do be morally motivated, but it does require appropriate conduct. This is the three-dimensional kind of behavior identifiable by asking thick moral questions. These concern not just what we should do but also the other two dimensions of conduct: first, what our motivation would be and second, the manner in which we would act. How, in practice, we are to frame and sustain intentions to achieve good conduct is a difficult matter, and it calls for descriptions of the different kinds of guiding intentions that put moral conduct on life’s itinerary.

Ethics has triple vision. It looks to the past and concerns what we have done, why we have done it, and how we did it. It also views our ongoing activities in three dimensions of what we do: its what, why, and how. What we do (our “deeds”), why we do it (our motivation for acting), and how we do it (the manner in which we act) are morally important. Beyond concern with all this, ethics requires us to choose well among our options and, so far as we can, to realize good ones, to do so for good reasons, and to do it in the right ways. From the moral point of view, what kind of person we are is evidenced by our past actions, manifested in our present conduct, and confirmed or disconfirmed in our future conduct. All three basic dimensions of conduct – our deeds, our reasons for doing them, and the manners in which we do them – are explored in this book.