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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 September 2014
Both inside and outside the classroom, many discussions of ethical topics reach an impass because of an underlying ethical subjectivism. This essay examines the limitations, discoveries, and contributions of four forms of this subjectivism: (1) liminal egoism, (2) emotivism, (3) privatism, and (4) relativism. The essay critiques popular expressions of the assumption that one cannot make arguments about the objective rightness or wrongness of human action. It argues that the positive emphases of each form can be included in an objective ethic. Such an ethic is stimulated by subjectivism to affirm (1) the uniqueness of the self, (2) the character-forming and cognitive nature of the emotions, (3) the proper place of subsidiarity, and (4) the legitimacy of certain types of pluralism.
1 Browning, Don, Moral Context of Pastoral Care (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976), p. 34.Google Scholar For a splendid discussion of therapies that avoid the question of moral guilt, see Marin, Peter, “Living in Moral Pain,” Psychology Today 15/11 (November 1981), 68–80.Google Scholar Marin (p. 80) cites Paul Goodman for a colorful image of therapy: it is a combination of a whorehouse and an employment agency. That fits well the second and third stages we are speaking of: anomic and then responsible.
2 Rahner, Karl, “Thoughts on the Possibility of Belief Today,” Theological Investigations 5 (Baltimore: Helicon, 1966), pp. 3–22;Google Scholar for the ambiguity of all choice, see Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, Phenomenology of Perception (New York: Humanities Press, 1962), pp. 360–65, 442–56.Google Scholar
3 For example, see Duska, Ronald and Whelen, Mariellen, Moral Development (New York: Paulist, 1975).Google Scholar
4 Gilligan, Carol, “In a Different Voice: Women's Conception of Self and Morality,” and “Woman's Place in Man's Life Cycle,” Harvard Educational Review 47/4 (November 1977), 481–513CrossRefGoogle Scholar and 49/4 (November 1979), 431-46.
5 Kohlberg's now seven-stage schematic seems deductively drawn along Kantian lines. The fact that he can find few examples of his final stages should at least make one wonder if he is not looking in the wrong place. Gilligan's theory seems to be flawed by just the opposite problem. Her theory (which often does not fit the case studies she draws upon) captures the individual without adequately accounting for the more universal and abstract features of life.
6 See Glaser, John, “Conscience and Superego,” Theological Studies 21/1 (March 1971), 30–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7 In a culture such as ours that simultaneously prizes individualism yet has great difficulty understanding the self, it is not surprising that the culture itself has become narcissistic, preoccupied not only with the body, but also with every facet of the self. A society in which, at least for the middle and upper classes, basic needs are assured is able to devote more of its resources to development of selfhood. See Brandt, Anthony, “What it Means to Say No,” Psychology Today 15/8 (August 1981), 77.Google Scholar
8 Persons who are less psychologically oriented sometimes retort, “I've never lost myself.” Missing the point of “liminal egoism,” they fail to see that a liminal egoist is growing to a new identity and not searching for a lost one.
9 Not untypically, persons at this stage will put great stress on the evil of “hurting others,” or they will be quite sensitive to the helpless or to the victims of injustice. A person in this stage knows the meaning of “suffering,” but is less confident about what it is that persons are growing toward. Reflecting on a similar tendency in his own time, Goethe worried that the ideal of this ethic would be a hospital where each was a nursemaid for all the others. See Scheler, Max, Vom Umsturz der Werte (Bern: Francke, 1955), p. 308.Google Scholar
10 Henry Veatch has written a penetrating essay showing that this norm is the common tenet of most of contemporary philosophical ethics, whether deontological or utilitarian; “Is Kant the Gray Eminence of Contemporary Ethical Theory?” Ethics 9 (Spring 1980), 218–38;Google Scholar also see his “Are There Non-Moral Goods?” New Scholasticism 52 (Fall 1978), 471–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
11 This style of reasoning is found in much of the abortion debate; e.g., see Bok, Sisela, “Ethical Problems of Abortion” in Shannon, Thomas, ed., Bioethics (New York: Paulist, 1976), pp. 47–48.Google Scholar
12 See MacIntyre, Alasdair, After Virtue (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), pp. 30–31, 108–110.Google Scholar
13 Rational-emotive theory and behaviorism are two obvious exceptions. The first is suspect because it gives primacy to the “bad reasons” or “wrong propositions” people hold. Upon inspection, these “propositions” turn out to be merely articulations of underlying feelings. For example, to say, “I must be perfectly competent and successful in all I do before I am worthwhile,” is not, at bottom, to have a misguided anthropological theory. It is to be racked by insecurity. The behaviorist theory is suspect because it eliminates subjectivity.
14 See MacIntyre, chaps. 2 and 3; also Mills, Claudia, “The Moral Foundation of Assertiveness Training,” Philosophy and Public Policy 2/4 (Fall 1982), 11–14.Google Scholar
15 Even someone as sophisticated as Richard Brandt who insists that these feelings and desires must be tested, ultimately reduces the good to “whatever” is still desired after this therapy; see his Theory of the Good and the Right (Oxford: Clarendon, 1979), p. 32.Google Scholar
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17 Berger, Peter, Facing Up to Modernity (New York: Basic Books, 1977), pp. 23–34, 70–80;Google Scholar Browning, pp. 22-24; Bellah, Robert, “Religion and Power in America Today,” Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Society of America 37 (1982), 15–25;Google ScholarBettenhausen, Elizabeth, “Three Dimensions of Conviction and Conflict in Morality,” Nexus 59 (Boston University), 23/2 (Summer 1980), 45–52.Google Scholar
18 In the private realm, however, life is more managable and one can set goals. Still, cut off from major institutions such as churches or synagogues, private individuals often cannot set their own ultimate goals. The lack of clarity concerning the role and nature of the contemporary family is a prime example of our ethical apoplexy.
19 Hauerwas, Stanley, “Work as Co-Creation: A Remarkably Bad Idea,” This World 1/3 (Fall 1982), 89–102.Google Scholar
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21 See Vannoy, Russell, Sex Without Love (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1980);Google ScholarMyskens, James, Moral Problems in Nursing (Totowa, NJ: Rowman, 1982).Google Scholar
22 Nygren, Anders, Agape and Eros (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), p. 217;Google ScholarRamsey, Paul, Basic Christian Ethics (Chicago: Midway Reprints, 1978), pp. 100–101;Google Scholar for a different view, see my “Scheler's Phenomenology of Love,” Journal of Religion 62/2 (April 1982), 156–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
23 Scheler, Max, Formalism in Ethics and a Non-Formal Ethics of Value (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1973), pp. 508–19;Google ScholarMeilaender, Gilbert, “Is What is Right for Me Right for All Persons Similarly Situated?” Journal of Religious Ethics 8/1 (1980), 125–34;Google ScholarRahner, Karl, Dynamic Element in the Church (New York: Herder & Herder, 1964), pp. 13–29.Google Scholar
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25 Scheler, Max, “Ordo Amoris,” Selected Philosophical Essays (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1972), pp. 98–135.Google Scholar Also see my Anthropological Foundations of Scheler's Ethics of Love (Ann Arbor, MI: Dissertation Abstracts International, 1979).Google Scholar
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29 Rachels, James, “Can Ethics Provide Answers?” Hastings Center Report 10 (June 1980), 32–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
30 Curran, Charles, “Method in Moral Theology,” Studia Moralia 18 (1980), 107–28;Google ScholarGustafson, James, Ethics from a Theocentric Perspective, Vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), p. 327Google Scholar, Christ and the Moral Life (New York: Harper & Row, 1968)Google Scholar, and Protestant and Roman Catholic Ethics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), pp. 80–94, 120–26.Google Scholar