What makes morality possible?Suppose a person has a heart attack and dies at the wheel of a car, which subsequently veers out of control and kills someone. The person who has died is no longer able to control the car. The action of swerving off the road and killing the pedestrian is not one in which there is any conscious decision or obvious negligence. On the other hand, one might ask: - Did the person driving the car know about the heart condition?- Had he or she been warned by the doctor not to drive?

Whether justified or not, the moral issue concerns the rational choice, not the events that took place once the person was no longer able to act rationally. In this case,

you might blame the driver for his or her decision to drive, rather than for the death of the pedestrian.

Checklist – things you need to know

• What is required for an action to be considered morally significant.

• Are actions and events wholly determined by their causes?

• Are people free to make moral choices?• The difference between a factual description

of an action and a normative moral statement.

Chapter 3 – What makes morality possible?• What are the three basic requirements for ethical

behaviour – human action, rational thought, freedom. • What are the three different types of determinism – hard,

soft and theological. • What is meant by ‘conditioning’?• What is libertarianism?• What is compatibilism?• Explain the limitations on freedom. • What is the difference between internal and external

freedom?• Explain G.E. Moore’s ‘Naturalistic Fallacy’.

• Try to complete some of the essay questions on p33.