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The question is motivated by reading the discussions on veganism:
Is 'veganism' a settled issue in Philosophy and Ethics? Why is it okay to eat meat but not to be cruel to animals?

While these threads provide many interesting, logical, and convincing arguments in favor of veganism, there is one thing that caught my attention: the issue is presented
not as a matter of personal preference/choice: I do not inflict paint on animals.; I do not want animals to suffer.
but as complying with an ethical/moral requirement: It is unethical/cruel to kill animals, so I do not it them in order to act ethically.; If people saw animals killed in front of them, they would not consume meat.

The implication is that people who adopt such arguments essentially try to influence others into adopting the same attitude (because it is ethical/moral = good), which in itself is a bad thing. Hence the questions:

  • Can one meaningfully speak of ethics/morality of a single person, or is it always something attributed to (and agree upon by) a community?
  • Would (or to what extent) an ethical argument in favor of veganism still hold, given that it possibly constitutes an unethical attempt to impose one's values/choices on others?

Disclaimer: I have no personal ax to grind against either vegans or meat-eaters.

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    Ethical & Moral are not interchangeable in Philosophy. So that can prevent some of these arguments in the first place. Do not use the dictionary or wikipedia to look up terms & roll with it. Many words have multiple contexts & not just one. Morals need to be universally applicable to all humans on EARTH. Ethics is not universal. Ethics has sub categories. What most people think of ethics is called descriptive ethics which is NOT Philosophy. This confuses many people. NORMATIVE ETHICS is part of Philosophy. Descriptive ethics is authoritative. Who you are & who you know make a huge difference.
    – Logikal
    Sep 15, 2022 at 12:51
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    Few consider influencing others to be a "bad thing", that is how persuasion generally works. Coercion into acting according to values one does not share may be "bad", but that goes beyond "influencing", and even then it is not necessarily "bad". Just replace veganism with refraining from murdering humans and think if you wish to leave that to "personal preference". So the question is not "is it" but rather under what conditions it is. And answering it requires specifying an ethical framework in your post. "Is it ethical?" is not a completed question, there is no standard ethics.
    – Conifold
    Sep 15, 2022 at 13:23
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    Contrary to Logikal's comment, "ethics" and "morality" are indeed used interchangeably in much of philosophy. It may be that the relativists are more likely to use the term "ethics" while the realists are more likely to use the term "morality", but they are talking about the same thing.
    – David Gudeman
    Sep 15, 2022 at 17:30
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    Whether something is ethical or not depends on their ethical presuppositions. If different people have different ethical presuppositions, there is no real way to say. However, if people have the same presuppositions, its a matter of coming to the bottom of what is aligned with those presuppositions between those two people that have different views on a topic. For example, a vegan and a meat-eater, if they both have the presupposition that all life is sacred, it can be argued that the vegan is acting ethically while the meat eater is not. It all depends on the presuppositions they have.
    – Lexipaichnidi
    Sep 16, 2022 at 18:32
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    @Logikal, I've read philosophers who said that the terms are interchangeable. I've had a professor teaching moral and social philosophy who said the terms are interchangeable. I disagree with your characterization of the different fields of ethics and the different professional ethics. They are in fact about morality, even though they may be approached from a non-realist perspective.
    – David Gudeman
    Sep 19, 2022 at 17:04

2 Answers 2

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Is it ethical to impose ethical values on others?

Your question suggests you take ethic itself to be a sort of overarching moral code or perhaps something like absolute or true or correct morality. No.

The definition of "ethical" that apply here is as follows:

Ethical 2. Being in accordance with the accepted principles of right and wrong that govern the conduct of a profession

To take into account how the word "ethic" is evolving, we probably have to extend this definition to say something like this:

Ethical 2. Being in accordance with the accepted principles of right and wrong that govern the conduct of a (human) community

So, given this, is it ethical to impose ethical values on others?

Which ones? Which ethical values? Presumably, you mean "one's own ethical values".

So, is it ethical to impose one's own ethical values on others?

The answer is now obvious: it is trivially ethical from your point of view to impose your own ethical values onto others if your ethic system implies that it is ethical to do so.

Addendum

Can one meaningfully speak of one's own ethical values?

One is a community. However, individuals rarely formalise their code of conduct. It is not good enough to make up some strictures on the hoof. One can have ethical values, but few people actually do. You could even have a new code every time it would suit you but this would involve hard work and changing your ethic according to circumstances would make you look dishonest. An ethic is something you need to articulate, and that you need to stick to, for better or worse. No wonder few people have one.

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  • Everyone gets to force everyone else to do things their way. Great. And everyone else gets to resist. Welcome to ancient history.
    – Scott Rowe
    Sep 15, 2022 at 16:51
  • @ScottRowe "Everyone gets to force everyone else to do things their way" Not anything I said or that what I said implies.
    – Speakpigeon
    Sep 15, 2022 at 17:38
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    I thought the last sentence said that? Anyway, I was pointing out that no part of Philosophy seems to actually answer these kinds of questions.
    – Scott Rowe
    Sep 15, 2022 at 18:07
  • My first question was about whether onw can meaningfully speak of one's own ethical values, and your definitions seem to suggest that one cannot: the accepted principles of right and wrong that govern the conduct of a (human) community - either values are accepted by a community (in which case they are not "own", but of the community) or they are not really ethical. Thus we deal here with people pretending that they proclaim values for the whole community, before the community actually agrees on them.
    – Roger V.
    Sep 16, 2022 at 4:38
  • @RogerVadim "the conduct of a (human) community" You're not going to like it but one is a community. However, individuals rarely formalise their code of conduct. It ain't good enough to make up some strictures on the hoof. One can have ethical values, but few people actually do. You could even have a new code every time it suits you but this would involve hard work and make you look dishonest. An ethic is something you need to articulate and that you need to stick to for better or worse. No wonder few people have one.
    – Speakpigeon
    Sep 16, 2022 at 16:17
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"The implication is that people who adopt such arguments essentially try to influence others into adopting the same attitude (because it is ethical/moral = good), which in itself is a bad thing."

There are multiple disagreements between people's morality... where do you draw a line? Is it ethical to allow your child to drink alcohol, because you'll not try to influence others? Is it ethical to allow your neighbour to keep some slaves to not influence others? It is ethical to vote for politicians that impose regulation and taxes on others? If it ethical to sodomize animals, and should you prevent your neighbour? And is it ethical to tell your neighbour that he could be better of cycling rather than driving on his very short route to work?

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    There's also the next iteration: is it ethical to tell your "ethical" neighbor to mind their own business? - Imposing morality/ethics on others may itself be considered unethical. Moreover, the issues from your examples are typically resolved by force - ethics of using which we can also question.
    – Roger V.
    Sep 17, 2022 at 5:59
  • We may question ethics of social systems from different angles. Some say "property is theft", others say "taxation is theft". Yet without the dominant political organism we get anarchy which also becomes bloody so... possibly there's no utopia left for any of us.
    – very big cat
    Sep 17, 2022 at 19:07
  • property is theft and taxation is theft are based on oversimplification of what property and taxation are about. E g., taxation can be a way of organizing state service beneficial to all citizens - like military, fire service, police, etc. But it also can be a way interfering with economy propping less successful, often against the will of more successful (who prefer other means of helping, like charities) And even then taxation may serve different imperatives - from helping people genuinely in need to propping 1% of the wealthiest people in the world at the expense of 0.1%.
    – Roger V.
    Sep 18, 2022 at 6:25

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