Moral certainty

Moral certainty

The philosopher Ted Lockhart has come up with a practical solution for dealing with moral problems that can be used to decide whether or not to abort a foetus.

Lockhart suggests that we should "perform actions that we are maximally confident are morally permissible".

Translated into ordinary language this says that where we have to make a moral choice we should take the course of action that we are most confident is morally correct.

For example:

• a mother believes that on balance it is morally permissible to abort the foetus she is carrying because tests show that it will have a serious disability
• the mother believes that she should take the course of action that she is most certain is morally correct
• she is certain that it is always morally permissible not to abort a foetus
• since she has some doubts (even though they are very small doubts) as to whether an abortion in this case is morally permissible, she should not have the abortion

In most cases a person who follows this doctrine is likely to decide against having an abortion.