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Purity and Judgment in Morality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

John Kekes
John Kekes
Affiliation:
State University of New York at Albany
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Extract

There are some people whose actions are much more often good than evil. If their infrequent immorality does not cause much harm, it is reasonable to regard such people as morally good. Nevertheless, moral goodness remains an elusive quality, because it is difficult to identify good actions. Motives, consequences, knowledge of alternatives and of the conventions prevailing in the context, the agent's history, character, and information all have a bearing on whether particular actions are good. These facts are not easy to ascertain in any case, but when we are looking for a pattern formed of countless good actions over a lifetime, the difficulties are compounded.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 63 , Issue 246 , October 1988 , pp. 453 - 469
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1988

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References

1 For some philosophical reflections on them, see Hartmann, N., Ethics (London: Allen & Unwin, 1932), Vols I–IIIGoogle Scholar, trans. S. Coit, especially Vol. II, Ch. XVIII; Myrna's, F. ‘Purity in Morals’, Monist 66 (1983), 283–297CrossRefGoogle Scholar, is a good critical discussion of Hartmann; and Kolenda, K. in Philosophy in Literature (Totowa: Barnes & Noble, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Chs 3–4, treats illuminatingly Dostoyevsky's and Melville's characters.

2 An account of the different types of culpable moral failure is Milo's, R. D.Immorality (Princeton University Press, 1984).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 ‘[S]tupidity pushed to a certain point is … immorality. Just so what is morality but high intelligence?’ James, H., The Golden Bowl (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973), 87.Google Scholar

4 For palpable illustrations, one should read her novels; I particularly recommend The Nice and the Good and The Black Prince; but here I shall make use of the essay ‘The Sovereignty of Good Over Other Concepts’ in The Sovereignty of Good (London: Routledge, 1970), 77–104Google Scholar; parenthetical references are to the pages of this volume.

5 There is an interesting discussion of fantasy in Wollheim's, R.The Thread of Life (Harvard University Press, 1984), especially Chs III–IV.Google Scholar

6 See Gallie, W. B., Philosophy and the Historical Understanding (London: Chatto & Windus, 1964).Google Scholar

7 My view of moral perspectives resembles Nietzsche's in many ways. The extremely illuminating interpretation of Nietzsche by Nehamas, A., Nietzsche: Life as Literature (Harvard University Press, 1985)Google Scholar is particularly close to my view. I should note, therefore, that there is a crucial disagreement between my view and Nietzsche's: I think, while Nietzsche denies, that moral perspectives can be justified and criticized on independent grounds.

8 For an incomparable account of how this process occurs in one aspect of life, see Oakeshott's, M. ‘Political Education’, Rationalism in Politics (London: Methuen, 1962).Google Scholar

9 The analysis I have been giving so far is in general agreement with the view of morality suggested by Nussbaum's, M. C. ‘Flawed Crystals: James's The Golden Bowl and Literature as Moral Philosophy’, New Literary History 15 (1983), 25–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also the responses by Wollheim, Gardiner, and Putnam in the same volume. But Nussbaum stops here, at least in the above paper, while I think we should go on in the direction of aiming at reflective purity. Thus, what Nussbaum takes to be the mature attitude to morality, I think of only as a stage of moral development.

10 I feel obliged to note that, while I have no sympathy whatever for it, there is a groping in the German romantic tradition for the same conclusion as I have reached. See Heller's, E. ‘The Taking Back of the Ninth Symphony’, in In the Age of Prose (Cambridge University Press, 1984), 129–148.Google Scholar

11 I am indebted to Annette Baier, James Kellenberger, Joel Kupperman, Lynne McFall, and Alexander Nehamas for very helpful comments. I read the paper at the conference on ‘The Virtues’ at the University of San Diego, February 1986. I am grateful to Jonathan Jacobs and Mike Martin for acting as commentators and for their criticisms.