Abstract

My topic is Gert’s rich, probing, and brilliantly illuminating treatment of an “evergreen” in moral theory, the question, “Why be moral?” He offers three different reasons which, he claims, together constitute an “adequate” and “satisfactory” as well as “the best possible” answer. Here, it suffices to examine its gist: Acting morally is never irrational, hence always rational, hence never rationally forbidden, sometimes rationally required, and always rationally allowed. As he acknowledges, his claim “that it is only rationally allowed to act morally may not be strong enough for some philosophers, but that…is the most that can be shown”. He concedes “that in the important decisions about whether or not to act morally, rationality does not provide a guide.… Disappointing as this conclusion seems at first, any other conclusion would be worse. Were rationality ever to prohibit acting morally, one would be forced, in the case of conflict, to advocate either irrational or immoral behavior. If rationality were always to require acting morally, one would be forced to regard all immoral actions as irrational, including that which was clearly in the self-interest of the agent. Contrasted with either of these alternatives, the conclusion seems far less disappointing than before”.