Tag: ethics

Making Sense of Morality: A Brief Assessment of MacIntyre’s Ethics

Various ethics terms

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Some Contributions

What should we make of MacIntyre’s proposals? His ethics focuses on the importance of good character by embodying moral virtues and being authentic. He also draws attention to the importance of community. And, he emphasizes the need for living out the virtues, and not merely engaging in abstract theorizing.

Broad Concerns

As we have seen, MacIntyre and other authors writing in the light of the postmodern turn embrace nominalism. Yet, we have seen its disastrous effects, leaving us without any qualities whatsoever. So, there are no people, no morals (not even our core ones), no world, etc. But surely this is false, and it destroys morality.

We also have surveyed issues with historicism, which ends up with no way to start making interpretations. Yet, are we really so situated that we cannot access reality directly? Now, surely no human is blind to nothing, and we cannot know something exhaustively. Surely we have our biases, too.

Yet, from daily life, it seems we can notice that we do access reality. For example, how do children learn to form concepts of apples? It seems it is by having many experiences of them. Then they can notice their commonalities, and they can form a concept on that basis. Then they can use that concept to compare something else they see (e.g., a tomato) and notice if it too is an apple or not. Adults do this, too, when they use phones to refill prescriptions, or enter their “PIN” for a debit card purchase.

It seems to be a descriptive fact that we can compare our concepts with things as they are, just as in that apple example. We also can adjust our concepts to better fit with reality. I think we can know this to be so, if we pay close attention to what is consciously before our minds.

However, how we attend to what we are aware of can reflect patterns. We can fall into ruts, noticing some things while not attending to others. As J. P. Moreland suggests, “situatedness functions as a set of habit forming background beliefs and concepts that direct our acts of noticing or failing to notice various features of reality” (Moreland, 311). But these habits do not preclude us from accessing reality.

Specific Concerns

Now, MacIntyre rejects the soul as the basis for one’s being the same person through change. For one, it would be an essence, and he seems to think humans are just bodies (Dependent Rational Animals, 6). Can the unity of one’s narrative meet this need?

For him, a narrative does not have an essence; it is composed of sentences that tell a person’s story. At any time, the narrative’s identity just is the bundle of sentences that are its members. However, if a new sentence is added, then the set of members has changed, and a new story has taken the old one’s place. Sadly, then, someone cannot grow in virtue or rationality on this view, for they do not maintain their identity through change.

Moreover, can we really see that one tradition is rationally superior to another? MacIntyre in banking on our ability to become bilingual. However, on his view, a person at any time is constituted by his or her narrative, and that in turn cannot be pried off from the tradition on which it is based. When a person immerses him or herself into another tradition to learn its language, that learning always will be done from the interpretive standpoint of the first tradition, by which that person has been formed. Indeed, it could not be otherwise, since that person is narratively “constituted” by the first tradition’s conceptual/linguistic framework. But, as that person “learns” that second language, new sentences should be added to that person’s narrative. Yet, if so, that person no longer is the same! So it becomes impossible to see the rational superiority of another tradition on his own views.

For Further Reading

Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 3rd ed.; Dependent Rational Animals; and Whose Justice? Which Rationality?

J. P. Moreland, “Two Areas of Reflection and Dialogue with John Franke,” Philosophia Christi 8:2 (2006)

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 11

Making Sense of Morality: Alasdair MacIntyre’s Ethics

Various ethics terms

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MacIntyre’s Diagnosis

MacIntyre (b. 1929) observes people seem to speak from different moral standpoints, or languages. Some talk as though they are emotivists, while others are Kantians, utilitarians, relativists, Aristotelians, etc. But, it seems we no longer have a way to dialogue morally and come to agreements. These different ways of morally talking seem to presuppose objective standards to evaluate them. However, he claims that fails because they presuppose different evaluative concepts and frameworks.

This situation leads to shouting matches. This happened, he thinks, because the Enlightenment “project” dropped the idea of a moral telos (goal, end) from Aristotle and Aquinas. Without it, we seem left with just human nature as it is, and ethics as the tools to become moral. But, what should we be like?

With the different moral theories so far, MacIntyre thinks we lack how rationally to decide between them. He claims this is because no independent, rational standards exist to decide between them.

Without a cogent answer, Nietzsche wins – ethics is just about power after all. Or, perhaps we discarded an earlier moral tradition too quickly. MacIntyre thinks we should recover the Aristotelian moral tradition (and later, Thomism) to solve this dilemma.

MacIntyre’s Proposal

To recover Aristotle’s ethics, MacIntyre recommends several changes. First, while Aristotle depended upon the soul to ground a person’s identity through change (including growth in virtue), MacIntyre says we must reject the soul. In its place, he argues for the narrative unity to a person. One’s narrative is drawn from the narrative context of that person’s form of life (community), with its formative story and language.

While Aristotle’s virtues were universal properties present in one’s soul, MacIntyre needs a new basis for them. He appeals to practices, such as medicine, which are socially established, systematic, cooperative activities with goods internal and external to them. For a doctor, the internal goods include helping sick people get well, while an external good could be material prosperity. Practices have standards of excellence (virtue, or arête), and practitioners’ abilities to achieve those goals, and their understanding thereof, grow.

Instead of Aristotle’s context (the Greek polis), MacIntyre appeals to traditions, which are extended historically. They are socially embodied by particular peoples in their communities. A tradition is an argument “about the goods which constitute that tradition” (MacIntyre, After Virtue, 229). For example, Christianity could be a tradition, formed by many particular Christian communities down through time.

The telos of one’s life come from the intersection of that life with the master story of the tradition. Moral virtues enable the pursuit of a telos for the good of that person, to sustain the tradition, and help achieve the goods internal to practices.

MacIntyre and Language

MacIntyre draws heavily upon the later Wittgenstein’s (d. 1951) views of language. Each language is nominal and tied to a given form of life. Language does not have universal meaning. Instead, meaning is a matter of language use (verbal and nonverbal behavior) in that context, according to its grammatical rules and formative story.

Rationality is not some universal phenomenon; it is tied to a tradition with its master story (e.g., for Christians, the gospel story) and language. Though we always access reality through the interpretive lens of our tradition, MacIntyre still maintains there is a real world apart from our interpretations.

Yet, MacIntyre argues that we can rationally adjudicate which tradition is rationally better than another. How? It cannot be done as an outsider to a tradition; it has to be done from the inside. One learns the language of one’s own tradition, and learns to interpret and reason from under that “aspect.” But, that person also can immerse him or herself in another tradition and learn its language as a second first language. That way, by being able to reason and interpret in both ways, that person can “see” if a tradition can solve its own problems and that of another. If so, that tradition is rationally superior and deserves one’s allegiance. So, we can avoid relativism, even though rational standards are internal to each tradition.

For Further Reading

Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 3rd ed., and Whose Justice? Which Rationality?

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 9

Making Sense of Morality: A Brief Assessment of Critical Theory

Various ethics terms

Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay

What then should we think of critical theory (CT) and its shaping influences in these other views? I’ll consider some strengths and weaknesses.

Strengths

First, proponents rightly point out many injustices that should be addressed. They are right that too often, people in power abuse it to oppress people, which is wrong. Second, they rightly note that (for example) racial injustices can be embedded in systems, even if there are no individuals’ racist intentions. Third, reasoning morally in abstract ways can blind us to oppression and harms. We need to attend to peoples’ particular, embodied, social-historical factors in our policies, for they have to live with their good and bad effects. Fourth, people should be treated with justice, dignity, and equality.

Reality

CT proponents tend to adopt materialism and nominalism. Now, we saw with Daniel Dennett how without essences, everything becomes interpretation, yet without a way to get started and know anything. Also, with nominalism, while focuses our attention on particulars, it also undermines reality. But this end undermines all for which CT advocates have labored, for there is no real oppression or liberation, no rights or wrongs, or anything else. What they rely on to give their views strength (i.e., nominalism) actually destroys them.

Yet, if we don’t come to grips with the end result of nominalism, we can seduce ourselves to think everything is what it is in name only – due to how we have conceived of it. So, both these views lead us to think that what exists is our construct. Yet, to be consistent, that means oppression (as well as liberation) is just some particular group’s construct. Justice, dignity, and equality, all of which are good moral values, end up being just the way a particular group has constructed their morals. But that result is anything but what critical theorists want. They argue for their views as the way things really are, and the way things should be for all people. Yet, based on their own theory’s bases, they cannot be such. Indeed, they are just a particular group’s constructs, and if they try to universalize them, they actually could be imperialistic and oppressive.

Knowledge

Earlier, I explored how Kant’s epistemology led to an inability to know anything, since we cannot traverse the series of appearances that “stand between” us and something as it really is. A similar problem resurfaces with historicism. Here, we cannot access reality directly; we can know it only insofar as we interpret it. Now, there is a very good point to be made here: what we experience we do need to interpret. It is one thing for me to see an animal in my yard; it is another for me to see it as one of our pets and act accordingly.

Similarly, the strength of CT claims depends upon our ability to see real people in real conditions, and see them as unjust. But, can we do this on historicism? I do not think so. Since we can never access something real as it is in itself, apart from our interpretation, it seems we only access our interpretation (call it I1) thereof. But, now a new regress appears. I1 is real, but, per the theory, I cannot access it as it really is, but only as I interpret it (I2). But then that same repetition occurs with I3, I4, and so on, without a way to ever get started. Knowledge becomes impossible on historicism. (Moreover, how can we even form an interpretation if we cannot access something as it really is, even if we do not know it exhaustively?)

Ethics

So, justice, dignity, and equality are nothing but our constructs, and they cannot be preserved due to the reasons above. Plus, since they are just “up to us,” it is possible (conceivable) that their moral goodness could have turned out otherwise.

Further, the fundamental duty on CT (that we are to liberate the oppressed from the oppressors) seems to lead to never-ending violence. Since there are only two groups, once the oppressed have been liberated, now they are the oppressors, and they and the former oppressors have switched places. But, now the cycle must repeat endlessly, with wanton violence.

Though CT identifies real injustices and oppression, it cannot hope to be an adequate basis to address them.

Making Sense of Morality: Liberation, Feminist, & Queer Ethics

Various ethics terms
Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay

Introduction

In this essay, I will survey key points of three theories that have been deeply shaped by critical theory (CT). I will try to draw out their ethical implications. In the next essay, I will assess CT.

Liberation Theology

The first is liberation theology. We will explore it through the teachings of the Catholic theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez (b. 1928). His ideas have been widely influential in Latin America and the west.

For him, the purpose of liberation is achieve freedom from anything that hinders humans’ fulfillment and communion with God and one another. Economic oppression is a key, but not the only, form of domination. In general, liberation is from sin. Yet, liberation can take many forms, such as by abolishing private property, changing the access to power by the exploited, and using a social revolution to break dependencies, such as upon the United States and its capitalist system. In his mind, socialism is far more fruitful as a political organization.

Rather than stressing abstract, universal principles, Gutiérrez focuses on concrete, particular people and their embodiment of oppression and suffering. For him, he endorses the interpretive lens of liberation as normative, and he sees liberation as a dominant biblical theme. So, we should read Scripture through this lens and in light of our embodied experience.  

Feminist Ethics of Welch and Harrison

There are varieties of feminist thought, but here I will look at two exemplars, Sharon Welch and Bev Harrison. For them, feminism follows CT in some key ways. First, feminist thought assumes the dynamic of oppression by oppressors. Second, it rejects many dualisms, such as of body and soul. Third, it stresses embodied, situated particulars in a historicist epistemology. Fourth, it rejects universals and essential natures.

For Sharon Welch (b. 1952), by attending to universal, abstract theorizing, we overlook practical effects thereof. For example, if we attend to the actual history of Christianity, she thinks we can see “the denial by the church and by Western culture of full humanity to women and minorities” (Welch, 59). Welch also embraces a historicist view of truth (Welch, 10). Our concepts are contingent upon our historical conditions.

Bev Harrison (d. 2012) agrees that we are historically situated. All our concepts, including our norms, dualisms, and even what is right or wrong are the social constructs of a given people. Since all knowledge is a construct, based on the particulars in a given setting, she thinks we should focus on praxis versus abstract theory in ethics.

Our historical situatedness entails we are embodied beings. To her, mind-body dualism is mistaken for various reasons. For one, we cannot pry the body off the soul, for all knowledge is body mediated. Two, it denigrates the body. Third, dualism entails difference and therefore subjugation.

To her, male-female dualism grounds patriarchy and its oppression of women. Further, other oppressive power relations and injustices are interrelated with sexism. These include racism, economic exploitation, and cultural imperialism, from all of which we need liberation.

Gender Studies and Queer Theory

Gender studies focuses on embodied particulars and historically situated knowledge. The American Psychological Association defines gender as “the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for boys and men or girls and women.” Gender identity is an interpretation of oneself as a particular individual, without reference to universals or essences. Yet, it is not separated from groups, and these in turn are tied to oppression.

Moreover, queer theorists reject heteronormativity and male-female “binary” thinking as static and oppressive views. Michele Foucault (d. 1984) thought there is no essence to sex. Judith Butler (b. 1956) describes gender as “the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being” (Butler, 45). Thus, queer theory creates many possibilities for how to conceive of one’s sexuality, resulting in a perception of having a liberated sexuality, notwithstanding one’s anatomy.

For Further Reading

Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity

Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation, rev. ed.

Bev Harrison, Making the Connections: Essays in Feminist Social Ethics

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 8

Sharon Welch, Communities of Resistance and Solidarity

“What is the Difference Between Sex and Gender?”

Making Sense of Morality: Problems with Naturalism 3

Various ethical terms

Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay

Introduction

Previously, I explored issues with Armstrong’s naturalistic kind of properties and how we cannot have knowledge on them. Now I will look at nominalism, which seems to be the most likely naturalistic view of properties. As Wilfrid Sellars (d. 1989) remarked, “A naturalist ontology must be a nominalistic ontology” (109). Yet, I will argue that nominalism undermines knowledge, and it will do so for naturalism, too, including in ethics. Yet that undercuts our clear knowledge of our core morals.

Nominalism

Unlike realists, who affirm the reality of universals, nominalists think that everything is particular. Literally, there are no identical qualities shared between two or more things. Moreover, every particular thing is just one thing (i.e., it is simple). But, how nominalist theories treat particulars varies.

For instance, on trope nominalism, there are many particular red color tropes in a bag of red delicious apples. While they may be analyzed as being exactly similar (yet not literally identical), they are discrete red tropes; e.g., red1, red2, red3, etc. An apple is many different tropes (e.g., a color trope, a sweetness trope, a round trope, etc.) that are bundled together

For austere nominalism, there are only concrete, particular objects. They are concrete, for they are located in space and time. A red delicious apple is just one thing, a red-sweet-round-apple. Finally, metalinguistic nominalism agrees with austere nominalism that there are only concrete objects. But, it holds that the “claims apparently about universals are really disguised ways of talking about linguistic expressions” (Loux, 46).

Assessment

As we have seen, nominalism has had a lengthy, deep influence on the west, including in ethics. I traced it back to Ockham, but since Hobbes, and running through Hume, Kant, Bentham, Mill, and almost every naturalist, nominalism has dominated philosophical thought, including ethics, as well as modern science.

Yet, is it true? Consider again that on it, regardless of the specific version, something is just one thing. It is not composed of two or more things. In contrast, realists hold that when a universal property (e.g., red) is instanced in an object (an apple), that instance of red is a universal that has been particularized. The instance is the union of two things, which makes it complex.

Now, on nominalism, it seems we treat an object as a particular something. That thing might be a property like red, or a concrete object like an apple or a word. Yet, we treat each one as though it is something that is particularized. Yet, in reality, they cannot be complex. So, then it seems that either one of these things, the “particularizer” (the individuator), or the thing itself, can be eliminated without any real loss.

Suppose we eliminate the particularizer – e.g., the “1” in red1. Yet, if we do that, then we seem left with just red, the color itself, and it is not particularized. But that is what realists claim to be the case, that red is an abstract entity that is particularized when it enters into the being of some object, like an apple. So, eliminating the particularizer spells the end of nominalism.

Instead, suppose we eliminate the quality (or object). But, then we are left with just a particularizer (here, the “1”) which individuates nothing. That, however, makes no sense, for we always would ask, “one what?” In this case, the dire result is that there are no qualities or objects in reality. But, that means nominalism undermines reality.

Since nominalism maintains that every particular is just one thing, we can take either route without any difference in reality. In that case, we can take the latter option, and so we see that nominalism cannot preserve any qualities in reality whatsoever. There would not be any people, animals, plants, beliefs, and certainly not any morals. Nominalism undermines our core morals, as well as morality altogether. Moreover, it undermines naturalism as false.

For Further Reading

Keith Campbell, Abstract Particulars

Michael Loux, Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction, 3rd ed.

Wilfrid Sellars, Naturalism and Ontology

R. Scott Smith,“Tropes and Some Ontological Prerequisites for Knowledge,” Metaphysica 20:2 (2019)

Making Sense of Morality: Problems with Naturalism I

Various ethical terms
Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay

Introduction

Now that we have completed a survey of several versions of naturalistic ethics, we should consider a few big-picture issues for naturalism. Should we accept it as true? When we looked at Singer’s views, I raised one issue: it seems there is no sameness of one’s personal identity on naturalism. But, without that, there are no continuing subjects. Here, I will argue that on naturalism, we will lose all knowledge of reality because there are no essences.

Daniel Dennett and Knowledge on Naturalism

Dennett (b. 1942) is a leading philosopher of neuroscience. He denies there are any real, immaterial, “mental” states (e.g., thoughts, beliefs, desires). Nor is there any real intentionality, the ofness or aboutness of mental states.

Let me explain intentionality more. For many, it is a property of thoughts, beliefs, observations, concepts, meanings, and more. It seems these always are of or about something, even if that thing does not obtain in reality (e.g., Pegasus). I can think of Pegasus, even though there isn’t a winged horse. So, it seems intentionality would not be physical. If it were, it seems that having a thought about something would require that thing exists in order to physically cause that thought in me.

Instead, for Dennett, natural selection is a blind process without any intentionality, goals, or real thoughts. There is only physical stuff, including brains that process our sensory inputs. There are just brain states, patterns of physical forces, and behavior that we take (or interpret) to be about something, though they really aren’t. These interpretations are the result of many of the brain’s distributed “takings.”

Consistently, Dennett also denies any essences exist. But, if they did, they would be something non-physical that’s true of something (e.g., a person, a thought, or a meaning) just because of what kind of thing it is – i.e., due to its essence. If real, Dennett says there could be a “deeper fact” beyond just behavior of what our thoughts (or beliefs, experiences, etc.) are really about.

But, since they are not real, we are left with just interpreting behavior by adopting a tactic he calls the intentional stance (IS). Using it, we treat a frog, human, or chess-playing computer as if it were an intentional system. The IS is “the tactic of interpreting an entity by adopting the presupposition that is an approximation of the ideal of an optimally designed (i.e. rational) self-regarding agent” (Dennett, 239). We attribute intentions to the thing, to help predict its behavior.

But, Dennett admits that if intrinsic essences were real, there could be real, intrinsic meanings to behaviors such as speech, writings, and gestures. He also recognizes the importance of Jacques Derrida’s deconstructionism, which also denies essences. Without an intrinsic meaning in the text, its meaning is just our interpretation. For Dennett, thoughts and speech are brain-writings, which are subject to interpretation, just like any other text.

Assessment

But, what then should we make of naturalism’s claims about the objectively real world being physical, that we are just our bodies, and that naturalism is true? At best, these are nothing but interpretations. Indeed, all our scientific observations and all our beliefs are just interpretations. But, of what? If everything is interpretation, we seem to face an infinite regress, without a way to even get started with accessing reality itself.

Additionally, interpretations also seem to be of or about something. That is, they too seem to have intentionality. But, without that being real, there are no interpretations. So, it seems that on naturalism (and not just Dennett’s version), there are not even any interpretations, or conceptualizations. Yet, without concepts, there are no beliefs, for beliefs require concepts. And without beliefs (which also are about things), there is no knowledge of the facts of reality. That knowledge is justified true belief – but without beliefs, there is no knowledge. So, naturalism cannot give us knowledge.

But, surely there are many things about reality that we do know. And so, naturalism must be false.

For Further Reading

Daniel C. Dennett, “Dennett, Daniel C.,” A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind: Blackwell Companions to Philosophy, ed. Samuel Guttenplan; see also his The Intentional Stance

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 6

Making Sense of Morality: Wielenberg’s Naturalistic Ethics

Various ethics terms

Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay

Introduction

There is one more naturalist’s ethical views to consider, and they are quite unique compared to others we have seen. Rather than deny the existence of objective, universal moral properties (i.e., types), Erik Wielenberg (b. 1972) affirms them. To him, they are Platonic kinds of entities, not being reducible to just physical things.

Wielenberg’s Ethics

For him, there are natural facts and moral facts. Particular moral instances (tokens) supervene upon particular physical facts. So, the particular moral properties instanced in a given act or person depend completely upon its non-moral properties.

 Why do moral properties supervene on non-moral ones? Wielenberg appeals to the “making” relation, which is a kind of causation. There is a natural fact of an act of deliberate cruelty that makes the act morally wrong (Wielenberg, 16). To him this making relation is a brute fact, one without further explanation.

Moreover, moral properties are epiphenomenal; they do not have any causal powers of their own to exert upon natural facts (Wielenberg, 13-14). He also allows the existence of the felt-qualities (i.e., qualia) of experiences, desires, etc. Beyond these concessions, humans basically are made of physical stuff.

Wielenberg also appeals to certain inalienable rights and obligations that humans have. These have arisen due to the cognitive capacities endowed upon us by evolution (Wielenberg, 56). These include, for instance, capacities to reason, set goals, suffer, and fall in love (51).

Assessment

Wielenberg seems to recognize that morals are not just descriptive things, which they would seem to be if naturalism is true. Instead, there is something irreducibly normative about them. Moreover, he steers clear of potential problems with morals if they are just particulars; after all, why should we all be just and loving, or not murder or rape, if those aren’t universals?

Nevertheless, there are a few problems with his view to highlight. First, in his example about the natural fact that an act is deliberately cruel, he seems to pack a normative, moral notion, cruelty, into his description of the natural, non-moral properties. Thus, it seems he presupposes that the natural is intrinsically moral. Yet, this move is at odds with naturalism, for it would posit essences to natural things. As we have seen, too, naturalists deny that there are intrinsically moral qualities that are part of nature.

Moreover, since moral properties are epiphenomenal, it is hard to see how we could know them. Since humans basically are physical, it seems we would come to know something by that thing causing a physical state in us. But since moral properties instanced in us cannot cause anything, they cannot cause such physical states. Thus it seems we could not begin to know them.

Consider also his claim of inalienable moral rights. On his view, the moral equality all humans would have depends upon their natural properties. Yet, we differ in terms of these natural properties. Not all humans have these cognitive abilities, and they differ in degree. If so, why should someone who lacks in these natural abilities be treated as equal with another who possesses them to greater degrees?

Nor would moral properties have anything to do with the moral judgments we make. Our cognitive capacities are the results of evolutionary adaptations, and while Wielenberg seems to think that evolution could give rise to capacities to know truth, it is far more likely that particular adaptations will not give us knowledge of the truth. After all, what counts in evolution is not truth, but survival and the passing on of one’s genes. Furthermore, if a murder is committed, then clearly it will shape our moral beliefs about that action (that it is wrong) and what should be done about it (e.g., a person should be convicted).

Moreover, there will be evolutionary variations in adaptations amongst all humans. If this is so, then, as Angus Menuge observes, it seems people across the globe could have varieties of moral beliefs, including ones that do not uphold Wielenberg’s inalienable rights of other humans, or our core morals.

For Further Reading

Angus Menuge, Review of Robust Ethics, in Faith and Philosophy 33:2 (2016).

Erik Wielenberg, Robust Ethics: The Metaphysics and Epistemology of Godless Normative Realism.

Making Sense of Morality: John Rawls’s Ethics

Various ethics terms

Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay

Introduction

Another more naturalistic form of ethics comes from John Rawls (d. 2002), which might be better described as secular. Rawls’s works have had enormous influence, especially in his conception of justice as fairness.

Overview of Rawls’s Political Liberalism

Taking democracy as his starting point, Rawls spells out the basis for how today we can come together and form the basis for such a society. Yet, this faces the challenge of a plurality of reasonable, competing “doctrines” (conceptual frameworks, or paradigms) that address substantive notions of the nature of the good, the meaning of life, and more. These doctrines appeal to metaphysical, moral, and/or religious views, including substantive understandings of justice. Examples could be religious groups and adherents of different philosophies and worldviews.

Each “doctrine,” he thinks, has its own internal rationale for its beliefs. What justifies them is not that they correspond with reality, for, similar to Kant, we cannot know that directly. Instead, they should be internally coherent. Yet, this means each doctrine will have its own criteria for the substantive questions of life, making them largely incommensurable. If so, it seems we cannot form a democratic society on the basis of these private, substantive kinds of reasoning.

How then can we form a society on the basis of apparently neutral, public reasons? Rawls uses a thought experiment in which representatives of different groups are in an original position, behind a veil of ignorance. They are to reason as though they are abstracted from their lives’ situations and conditions, and they are to choose principles of public, procedural justice as the basis of a society. He claims they would adopt two principles: 1) the equality principle: there is an equal claim for all citizens to basic rights and liberties; and 2) the difference principle: there is equality of opportunity, and the greatest benefit should go to the least advantaged socially and/or economically. He thinks the members of these different “doctrines” can find an overlapping consensus and form a social contract based on these two principles of procedural justice.

Assessment

Rawls tries to take seriously the fact of diversity and how we can come together as a unified society. He also realizes that while doctrinal views may differ greatly, nonetheless we can dialogue and find commonalities.

Yet, there are several problems with his views. Rawls thinks a secular, procedural basis for justice enables him to remain neutral in regards to the various doctrines. He too would need to be philosophically neutral, for such views belong to the doctrines, he claims. But, Rawls’s own views are not philosophically neutral. He has bracketed out any metaphysical notions of justice and other morals. He also has privileged his epistemology, that we cannot know such morals as they are in reality. Thus, we should embrace epistemic coherentism (a belief is justified not by its correspondence with reality, but by its internal coherence within a given web of beliefs).

Put differently, Rawls seems to think he can set aside his own standpoint and gain a neutral vantage point, to claim no one doctrine’s philosophical views can be a suitable basis for a democracy today. Yet, he seems to be privileging his own doctrinal stance, that secular thought is what is needed.

Therefore, Rawls’s reasoning invites the question: why shouldn’t the competing doctrines argue publicly, to see if they can offer compelling reasons for their views of the nature of justice, the good life, etc.? Just because we have a plurality of moral viewpoints, it does not follow that none is more rationally defensible than another. The mere fact of diversity does not necessitate a procedural basis for justice.

Another concern is his concept of a person as one “who can take part in, or who can play a role in, social life, and hence exercise and respect its various rights and duties. Thus, we say that a person is someone who can be a citizen, that is, a normal and fully cooperating member of society over a complete life” (Rawls, 18). Yet, this understanding could exclude many people, including those with permanent disabilities, from protection as citizens.

For Further Reading

John Rawls, Political Liberalism

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 7

Making Sense of Morality: Christine Korsgaard’s Naturalistic Ethics

Various ethics terms

Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay

Introduction

Now I will turn away from analyzing naturalistic, ethical options in terms of noncognitivism and cognitivism. Here, I will explore the views of a few individuals, starting with Christine Korsgaard (b. 1952).

Korsgaard’s Kantian Ethics

Like Mackie, Korsgaard rejects objectively real, intrinsically moral properties as very “queer.” Instead, the world is made of matter. How then does she derive ethical prescriptions?

She thinks that apart from our valuing something or some action, there is no value in the world. We do this by imposing our reason onto the material world. For her, this is like what Kant taught us, that we are to will what should be universally the case (i.e., by acting autonomously). This is an exercise of our practical reason.

One basis for her move is she thinks that if, like Plato thought, objectively real, intrinsically moral properties exist, then it is hard to see why they should have anything to do with us, since we are material. In that case, why should a person be moral? I think this is a good concern with Plato’s own views, to which I will return much later.

Instead, she thinks the only way we can secure our obligation to be moral in light of naturalism is by imposing reason onto reality (i.e., matter). By using practical reason, we self-legislate and construct our moral norms. These practical reasons exist and are prescriptive. We construct them by reason and universalize them by following Kant’s categorical imperative.

How do we go about forming these reasons? Korsgaard thinks it occurs as we are guided by our various practical identities. Such identities are descriptions according to which people find their lives to be worth living, and their actions worthwhile. By treating our human identity as normative, we regard it as a source of reasons and obligations, which she labels a moral identity. Then, ourmoral identity yields universal obligations, and that makes us, like Kant thought, members of the kingdom of ends. That is, we should always should be treated as valuable in ourselves, and not merely as a means to some end.

Assessment

If naturalism is true, then Korsgaard’s ethics makes much sense. There are no intrinsic morals in a naturalistic world. Yet, we do experience the importance of morality, and it seems that morality would have to be a construct of some sort. She clearly recognizes this, and her appeal to Kant fits well with her project. Moreover, she is right that our practical reasons exist and are normative. They are real, even though they do not exist independently of us.

Now, moral normativity depends upon us and our being able to use practical reason. Three issues arise here. First, what if some humans are unable to use their reason adequately, or at all? Would they thereby become disqualified from being valued in themselves? Also, who decides if they can reason “adequately”? Second, what if some do not see their lives as worth living? Does that also disqualify them from being valued in themselves? If so, may they be discarded or actively euthanized? Third, Korsgaard assumes we can reason on naturalism. Yet, later, I will examine to see if that is so.

Korsgaard could reply that there is a safeguard based upon the universalizability principle. We should will what we want to be normative and universal for all. But, this could be misused, it seems. For example, all persons should be treated with dignity seems very universalizable. Yet, then a separate, descriptive matter arises, to which all may not universally agree: are all humans persons? If not, some humans could be treated as means to an end due to a nonmoral decision. That is, her criterion of universalizability may not be sufficient to prevent abuses.

Further, Korsgaard’s proposal depends upon our treating ourselves as valuable. But, why should we, if we know naturalism is true? We can play that “game,” and if we live in affluent conditions, that might seem satisfactory. But, for those in oppressive conditions, that “game” could become unbearable.

For Further Reading

Christine Korsgaard, The Sources of Normativity

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 7