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Rag-bags, Disputes and Moral Pluralism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2009

Berys Gaut
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Abstract

Moral pluralism of the kind associated with W. D. Ross is the doctrine that there is a plurality of moral principles, which in their application to particular cases can conflict, and that there is no further principle to determine which of these principles takes priority in cases of conflict. Two objections are commonly advanced against this kind of pluralism: that it proposes a rag-bag of moral principles lacking a unifying basis; and that it offers no way to adjudicate moral disputes when our intuitions about what to do conflict. The present paper replies to both of these objections, in particular by responding to versions of them advanced by Brad Hooker. The tying together and justification of different moral principles may be achieved by a general rational justification procedure, rather than by a further moral principle; and such a rational justification procedure can help to adjudicate moral disputes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Utilitas , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , March 1999 , pp. 37 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1999

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References

1 Ross, W. D., The Right and the Good, Oxford, 1930Google Scholar.

2 Raphael, D. D., Moral Philosophy, 2nd edn., Oxford, 1994, p. 55Google Scholar.

3 Hooker, Brad, ‘Ross-style Pluralism versus Rule-consequentialism’, Mind, cv (1996)Google Scholar.

4 Audi, Robert, ‘Ethical Reflectionism’, The Monist, lxxvi (1993)Google Scholar; Gaut, Berys, ‘Moral Pluralism’, Philosophical Papers, xxii (1993)Google Scholar; McNaughton, David, ‘An Unconnected Heap of Duties?’, Philosophical Quarterly, xlvi (1996)Google Scholar.

5 Hooker, Brad, ‘Rule-Consequentialism’, Mind, xcix (1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hooker, Brad, ‘Rule-Consequentialism, Incoherence, Fairness’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, xcv (1995)Google Scholar.

6 Hooker, , ‘Ross-style Pluralism’, 537Google Scholar. The theory as stated makes what rules are right to adopt depend on contingencies about the next generation. However, if the next generation were deeply stupid, they might not be able to grasp rules of the complexity that we can understand; or conversely if they were exceptionally intelligent, much more complex rules might produce better consequences if adopted by them than they would if adopted by us. Or if the next generation were prone to be much more wicked, it might be better to give them a set of rules that simply forbade them to engage in truly heinous acts, in the expectation that a more demanding set of rules might be unenforceable; conversely, if they were more saintly than we are, it might be better to make more demanding rules for them than for us. So why should what it is right for us to do depend on contingencies about our children's dispositions? Worries like this raise doubts about the formulation of the rule-consequentialist theory. The details of the theory could doubtless be altered to meet this kind of objection; so I concentrate in the text above on the agent-neutral aspect of the theory, the abandonment of which entails the abandonment of a fundamental feature of Hooker's consequentialism.

7 For Hooker's grounding of his principle by appeal to impartiality, see his ‘Ross-style Pluralism’, 538.

8 I do not mean by this to deny that (arguably) there are agent-relative forms of consequentialism – for instance, egoistic consequentialism. But the great majority of consequentialist theories, and certainly the more attractive ones, are agent-neutral; indeed, consequentialism is often denned as an agent-neutral doctrine. In this paper when discussing consequentialism I am talking only of the mainstream of agent-neutral versions.

9 Gaut, , ‘Moral Pluralism’, 27 fGoogle Scholar.

10 Hooker, , ‘Ross-style Pluralism’, 536Google Scholar.

11 Gaut, , ‘The Structure of Practical Reason’, sect. IV, Ethics and Practical Reason, ed Cullity, G. and Gaut, B., Oxford, 1997Google Scholar. For the distinction between wide and narrow reflective equilibrium, see Daniels, Norman, ‘Wide Reflective Equilibrium and Theory Acceptance in Ethics’, Journal of Philosophy, lxxvi (1979)Google Scholar.

12 See Audi, ‘Ethical Reflectionism’, and Gaut, ‘Moral Pluralism’.

13 Ross, , The Right and the Good, pp. 54 fGoogle Scholar.; and McNaughton, , ‘An Unconnected Heap of Duties?’, 436Google Scholar.

14 Hooker, , ‘Ross-style Pluralism’, 532–4Google Scholar.

15 For an important example of the deployment of what I am terming the ‘hermeneutic method’ see Joseph Raz, ‘The Amoralist’, Ethics and Practical Reason, ed. Cullity and Gaut.

16 The dualism I have noted is related to the dualism within practical reason that Sidgwick defended, that between egoism and utilitarianism. See Sidgwick, Henry, The Methods of Ethics, 7th edn., Indianapolis, 1981, pp. 496–509Google Scholar; and also Crisp, Roger, ‘The Dualism of Practical Reason’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, xcvi (1996)Google Scholar. However, this kind of dualism is most readily construed as one between morality and self-interest; the dualism defended above lies within morality, and whilst the agent-relative perspective within morality is centred on the self, it is not egoistic.

17 For further and related arguments, see Gaut, ‘Moral Pluralism’.

18 Hooker, , ‘Ross-style Pluralism’, 541Google Scholar.

19 Gaut, , ‘Moral Pluralism’, 36Google Scholar.

20 Hooker, , ‘Ross-style Pluralism’, 544 fGoogle Scholar.

21 Ibid., 541–3.

22 An attractive feature of pluralism in general is that it can take from non-pluralist theories those of their justificatory considerations that are sound, modifying them so that what the non-pluralist theory holds to be the sole criterion of what is morally correct is understood merely to yield one criterion amongst many. For other examples, involving pluralist deployment of hedonic act-utilitarian and Kantian considerations, see Gaut, , ‘Moral Pluralism’, 28–9Google Scholar.

23 Hooker, , ‘Ross-style Pluralism’, 543Google Scholar.

24 Hooker makes a similar point about what a supporter of voluntary euthanasia would say about the case of euthanasia, but as he says the case is of course controversial and the very one under dispute (Hooker, , ‘Ross-style Pluralism’, 542 f.)Google Scholar. My point is that there are uncontroversial cases which show there to be no duty simpliciter not to injure physically. Of course, voluntary euthanasia might be shown to be morally unacceptable on other grounds: but not this one.

25 I am grateful to Robert Audi, Garrett Cullity, Brad Hooker and David McNaughton for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.