In his article “Justice, Deviance, and the Dark Ghetto,” Shelby asserts that the ghetto poor are compelled to carry out their natural duties even when they are not bound by civic obligations. I first begin by reconstructing this argument. Then I raise an objection to Shelby’s claim by showing that the existence of binding power in natural duties rests on weak grounds of moral personhood. I conclude by proposing and examining a possible rebuttal Shelby could raise against this objection.
Shelby argues that regardless of their freedom from civic obligations, the ghetto poor are nonetheless bound by natural duties. He highlights the difference between the two types of duties by stating that the latter “are unconditionally binding, in that they …show more content…
However, in regards to why natural duties must be fulfilled, he offers no explanation other than simply stating that ignoring one’s natural duties should never be permitted because it “cannot be fully justified from a moral point of view” (152). When he mentions one particular natural duty later in the article, the duty of justice, he claims that it “gives each person a strong moral reason” (153) which, again, provides no further support. Why should the simple fact that we are moral persons unconditionally motivate us to fulfill our duties? Why are we naturally moral persons to begin with? We are not born with intrinsic, unconditional moral duties embedded in our nature. Morality is an artificially constructed concept; it is a human invention created out of a need to ensure the society’s continued existence. For instance, we consider it wrong to randomly murder another person. This is not because the act violates some sort of normative rule existing independently of us, but because we have learned from experience that it undermines the existence of society by allowing its members to kill each other. So we discourage the act by assigning a negative value to it, calling it morally wrong. In short, moral personhood isn’t a strong enough origin of the binding power of natural duties, since morality itself has no absolute normative value and is only relative to the society which constructs and applies
Shelby argues that regardless of their freedom from civic obligations, the ghetto poor are nonetheless bound by natural duties. He highlights the difference between the two types of duties by stating that the latter “are unconditionally binding, in that they …show more content…
However, in regards to why natural duties must be fulfilled, he offers no explanation other than simply stating that ignoring one’s natural duties should never be permitted because it “cannot be fully justified from a moral point of view” (152). When he mentions one particular natural duty later in the article, the duty of justice, he claims that it “gives each person a strong moral reason” (153) which, again, provides no further support. Why should the simple fact that we are moral persons unconditionally motivate us to fulfill our duties? Why are we naturally moral persons to begin with? We are not born with intrinsic, unconditional moral duties embedded in our nature. Morality is an artificially constructed concept; it is a human invention created out of a need to ensure the society’s continued existence. For instance, we consider it wrong to randomly murder another person. This is not because the act violates some sort of normative rule existing independently of us, but because we have learned from experience that it undermines the existence of society by allowing its members to kill each other. So we discourage the act by assigning a negative value to it, calling it morally wrong. In short, moral personhood isn’t a strong enough origin of the binding power of natural duties, since morality itself has no absolute normative value and is only relative to the society which constructs and applies