When you write about "who decides? who prioritizes?" it sounds as though you are referring to legal rights. While some ethical theories of rights do appeal to contracts and social agreements, much of the philosophy of rights appeals to nature, human nature specifically, or to duties, which are not a matter of convention. So, assuming that we human beings do have a right to life and this is foundational (it entails that others have a duty not to murder me, for example), this is not something normally thought of in terms of a person or group of people deciding we have such a right. In any case, whether legal or ethical, some rights are considered more fundamental because they explain more particular rights. So, it is natural to think that the right of self-expression is more fundamental than my right to write a letter about my beliefs, because the first right explains the latter. Your having a right to liberty (within constraints) is more foundational than your right to start walking toward the setting sun, because (again) the one is more foundational).

Of the rights you mention, each one can give rise to rather complex questions. Some rights are considered more foundational than others when they give rise to duties for other people. One reason for thinking (of those rights you mention) that the right (if there is one) to be sexually active is not as foundational as the right to life is because in the former case (presumably) no one has a duty to have sex with you, whereas if you have a right to life others may have a duty to rescue you when your life is in danger.

Ethics is concerned with relations, our relations to others, ourselves, and the enviornment. I don't believe there is any purpose to ethics per se. Those who study ethics do it with different ends in mind. For Aristotle, the study of ethics was intended to improve your moral life -- make you a better and for him "happier" individual. Others are more concerned with how to decide right from wrong in particular cases- and so to be able to give some justification for their choices and actions.

You suggest that Kant's criterion of wrong conduct turns on this question: "If everyone acted the way I am proposing to act, would this have undesirable consequences?"

I think Kant's actual question differs in two respects. Kant is not asking whether the agent would like some fictional world (find it desirable), but whether the agent can will it and her own proposed conduct in it. And the world Kant envisioned is not one in which all act the way the agent is proposing to act, but one in which all are permitted (and take themselves to be permitted) so to act. So Kant's question is: "Can I will the action I am considering along with its universal permission?" The basic idea here is that I should not permit myself an action that I cannot permit all others at the same time.

Let's see how this plays out in Kant's promising example. The agent considers extricating himself from financial difficulty by making a false (lying) promise. He then asks himself whether, in a world in which all took themselves to be permitted to make such promises, he could still will to act in this way. Kant's answer is no: in that fictional world, such promises would not be believed and therefore refused; and agents could thus not will to offer them because they would be useless for their intended purpose.

Now your objection survives this clarification. Suppose the world were such that some nice fairy fulfilled any promises that the promisor fails to fulfill. In that world, it would seem, making false promises would be permissible. For in that world, even if all took themselves to be permitted to make false promises, such promises would (not be believed but) still be accepted. In that world, then, the agent can will his proposed action alongside its universal permission. So it would seem that, as you say, the permissibility of making a lying promise turns on a contingent empirical fact, namely on whether there is some third party ready to step in to ensure that even lying promises are fulfilled.

I am sure Kant and orthodox Kantians would not want morality to be like this. But ask yourself in conclusion whether such responsiveness to basic empirical facts about the world isn't actually an advantage in morality. Would it really be wrong falsely to promise repayment if such false promises were to hurt no one? And is it really implausible to hold (to give another example) that the question whether one is duty-bound to procreate depends on whether enough children would be born even without such a duty?

Others can no doubt give more nuanced answers, but most people (I'd be wiling to say virtually all) who earn a living depend either directly or indirectly on government-supported institutions and government-provided infrastructure for the possibility of their livelihood. This includes but is not limited to - military defense against external aggression, a police force, a court system to enforce legal rights, a public education, system, highways...

A setting in which a worker can avail him/herself of none of those things is a setting in which very few indeed would prefer to work.

I don't see what is wrong with doing things that you want to do in a case like this. One is not perpetually obliged to think of whether one could be doing more for people. Right now instead of responding to this query I might be more suitably employed doling out food for the homeless and the computer on which I am now typing could be sold to provide water for villages in the developing world which require it. I could right now be doing things that save lives, yet here I am selfishly typing away unnecessarily and satisfying my desire to make my opinions public.

To allow all my personal interests to be submerged under the interests of others, though, is to dissolve one's personality. For some of course taking this step is in fact a reflection of their personality, but in the example you say you want to bring your children up in a house with a yard. We are not under the obligation to be saints and there is no reason why you should feel guilty about the reasonable ambition to own a yard.

Dear Pasquale,

Yes, this is a question that exercised the earliest philosophers in Ancient Greece (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle). It is sometimes referred to as the problem of akrasia, which is the Greek term for weakness of will. Some of these early philosophers thought that ignorance is the key. People often do bad things because (basically) they don't know any better (or what counts as the good). A somewhat related view (taken up later by Augustine and Aquinas) is that when a person does something bad, he is actually (at least at the time of the act) pursuing something he believes (or he has deceived himself into believing) is actually justified or not wrong. So, on this view, a person might tell himself (and even tell the world) that he is only seeking justice, when in actuality he is a tyrant seeking revenge. Or, someone who in general thinks that adultery and stealing are wrong, gets himself to think that in these particular circumstances, the act is ok. Others, such as St. Paul in the New Testament, seem to affirm that one can do an act that one fully knows at the time is wrong. There is still debate on this view, though I myself suggest that the Augustinian proposal seems pretty intuitive. I suspect that even in the case of St. Paul, while he may know (deep down, so to speak) that what he is doing is wrong, on the surface to carry through with a wrong deed an agent has to (through perhaps self-deception) convince themselves that what they are doing is ok. Still, to be honest, it seems that lots of we human beings can be quite malevolent, irrational, and perhaps some evil we do is even without much thought (e.g. in obedience to an authority). For the classic early investigation of this problem, check out Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics 1152a25-27.

Framed in the language of duty, as you have done, I cannot see how you can universalize this as a duty, find it in natural law or divine command. A rule consequentialist might weigh in and say what greater good was your aim or even, do brides, as a rule, betray their intended on the night before their wedding? Trust is the outcome of a relationship, not a duty or test of one. To my mind the question is best framed as one of character: "who am I" - am I suspicious, paranoid or simply love to mess with someone's head? Better yet, "who do I wish to become" within this relationship? I wish to be a trusting partner and do trust, until I have cause to revisit the wisdom of this way of being. More important is whether I wish to be trust-worthy than trusting. Personally, I'd rather be a foolish lover proved wrong than a cynic who cannot or will not trust my lover.

Perhaps trust is not even a question of ethics - but the sting-operation really is!

There are a few reasons to not just give people what they want. First, how do they know unless they are given alternatives? Secondly, what they want may have dangerous consequences for others and be incompatible with life in a civilized society.

The demand for fairness is a basic moral demand and on occasion may well not be popular, but that is irrelevant to its rationale.

It sounds to me as if the notion of "informed consent" is being stretched past reasonable limits in your case. If it is well-known among members of the fraternity that new initiates are bullied, etc., it does not seem to me as if consent can be informed adequately if this is not made known to the prospective initiates before they pledge. At most colleges and universities, moreover, there are clear rules about what is and is not appropriate in these affairs, and anything that goes outside these rules is clearly not made exempt of sanction simply because the initiate "gave consent."

More broadly, society has a reasonable interest in ensuring that somethings don't happen to its citizens--even if those citizens were to give consent. Slavery is a good example. Maybe someone might actually think it was a great idea to become the chattel slave of another, and might give his or her consent to such an arrangement. Even so, the arrangement would still be illegal, and I think the same goes for whether the arrangement could ever be moral, consent or no. Several other examples from law (where most would have similar moral responses) are readily available, including polygamy and various forms of economic practices. We do not function under "buyer beware" not should a scam be accepted simply because the victim consented to it.

Good for you for taking what's right so seriously!

As for general advice, a few quick thoughts. First, though utilitarianism undoubtedly provides useful insights, it's not really clear that utilitarianism always gives the best answers. A quick example: the fact that a mafia leg breaker gets satisfaction and enjoyment from his work arguably carries no weight at all in deciding what's morally best. Perhaps the utilitarian can explain this, but only perhaps.

And that leads to the second point. It may be that the study of ethics tends to lead people to better moral decisions, but that's very doubtful. (Don't be so sure that the people on this panel know more than you do.) In any case, it's hard to believe studying ethics necessary for being good. Whether I'd turn to someone for moral advice and whether they've studied ethics don't have much to do with one another. But simply trusting one's gut isn't always best either; gut feelings are often wrong.

So what's the positive advice? A good deal of the time it's not hard to know how we ought to act. Don't be cruel; don't be inconsiderate; don't be dishonest; treat people fairly; try to put yourself in other's shoes. All those are mere rules of thumb, but for a good deal of daily life, they'll do. For harder problems, try to make sure you've got good information; remember that you have blind spots; do what you can to see things from more than one perspective; find out what thoughtful peope who've been in similar situations have to say.

There's no royal road here but often the problem is more a matter of motivation than of recognizing what's actually right. The fact that you're motivated to do what's right is surely a hopeful sign!