How should common schools in a liberal pluralist society approach sex education in the face of deep disagreement about sexual morality? Should they eschew sex education altogether? Should they narrow its focus to facts about biology, reproduction, and disease prevention? Should they, in addition to providing a broad palette of information about sex, attempt to cover a range of alternative views about sexual morality in a “value-neutral” manner? Should they seek to impart a “thick” conception of sexual morality, which (...) precisely articulates how individuals should lead their sexual lives? In this essay, Josh Corngold cautions against the adoption of each of these various approaches. He argues that schools should instead adopt an “autonomy-promoting” approach, which will aim to empower students, cognitively and emotionally, to exercise sovereignty over their own sexuality. (shrink)

This book develops a novel multilevel social contract theory that, in contrast to existing theories in the liberal tradition, does not merely assume a restricted form of reasonable moral pluralism, but is tailored to the conditions of deeply morally pluralistic societies which may be populated by liberal moral agents, nonliberal moral agents, and, according to the traditional understanding of morality, nonmoral agents alike. The book draws on the history of the social contract tradition, especially the work (...) of Hobbes, Hume, Kant, Rawls, and Gauthier, as well as on the work of some of the critics of this tradition, such as Sen and Gaus. The two-level contractarian theory holds that morality in its best contractarian version for the conditions of deeply morally pluralistic societies entails Humean, Hobbesian, and Kantian moral properties. The theory defines the minimal behavioral restrictions that are necessary to ensure, compared to violent conflict resolution, mutually beneficial peaceful long-term cooperation in deeply morally pluralistic societies. The theory minimizes the problem of compliance for morally diverse societies by maximally respecting the interests of all members of society. Despite its ideal nature, the theory is, in principle, applicable to the real world and, for the conditions described, most promising for securing mutually beneficial peaceful long-term cooperation in a world in which a fully just society, due to moral diversity, is unattainable. If Rawls’ intention was to carry the traditional social contract argument to a higher level of abstraction, then the two-level contractarian theory brings it back down to earth. (shrink)

Controversies about abortion, the environment, pornography, AIDS, and similar issues naturally lead to the question of whether there are any values that can be ultimately justified, or whether values are simply conventional. John Kekes argues that the present moral and political uncertainties are due to a deep change in our society from a dogmatic to a pluralistic view of values. Dogmatism is committed to there being only one justifiable system of values. Pluralism recognizes many such systems, and (...) yet it avoids a chaotic relativism according to which all values are in the end arbitrary. Maintaining that good lives must be reasonable, but denying that they must conform to one true pattern, Kekes develops and justifies a pluralistic account of good lives and values, and works out its political, moral, and personal implications. (shrink)

Michael Moehler’s Minimal Morality: A Multilevel Social Contract Theory makes important contributions to the social contract tradition, particularly in exploring how social contract theories can address challenges that arise from deep moral pluralism. Fundamentally, the work provides a multilevel account of morality, though simplified for presentation as a two-level view of morality. These two levels of morality differ significantly in their form and in their contexts of applicability. One level is that of ‘traditional morality’, involving a rich (...) set of practices, motivations and shared values common to many mainstream moral theories. For instance, John Rawls provides a version of traditional morality in the form of principles of justice grounded in a shared conception of society as a system of cooperation between free and equal citizens motivated by a sense of justice. The second level is that of ‘minimal morality’, for which the book is named. Minimal morality is grounded in purely prudential and instrumental reasoning, and thus does not rely upon any special moral commitments or motivations. This latter level of morality, Moehler argues, is particularly important for societies possessing extremely deep moral pluralism rather than the moral consensus necessary for traditional moral. (shrink)

In this book, Robert Talisse critically examines the moral and political implications of pluralism, the view that our best moral thinking is indeterminate and that moral conflict is an inescapable feature of the human condition. Through a careful engagement with the work of William James, Isaiah Berlin, John Rawls, and their contemporary followers, Talisse distinguishes two broad types of moral pluralism: metaphysical and epistemic. After arguing that metaphysical pluralism does not offer a compelling (...) account of value and thus cannot ground a viable conception of liberal politics, Talisse proposes and defends a distinctive variety of epistemic pluralism. According to this view, certain value conflicts are at present undecidable rather than intrinsic. Consequently, epistemic pluralism countenances the possibility that further argumentation, enhanced reflection, or the acquisition of more information could yield rational resolutions to the kinds of value conflicts that metaphysical pluralists deem irresolvable as such. Talisse’s epistemic pluralism hence prescribes a politics in which deep value conflicts are to be addressed by ongoing argumentation and free engagement among citizens; the epistemic pluralist thus sees liberal democracy is the proper political response to ongoing moral disagreement. (shrink)

Abstract. In Minimal Morality (2018), I develop a multilevel social contract theory that accommodates deep moral pluralism. In this article, I reply to comments by Gaus, Van Schoelandt and Cooper concerning the three core projects of the book that aim to (i) revive orthodox rational choice contractarianism as a viable approach to the social contract, (ii) integrate this approach into a comprehensive social contract theory and (iii) show the applicability of the theory to the real world. My (...) replies clarify some of the main features of the theory, defend its core projects and expand discussion of some of its details in order to show that the theory can address the challenges raised. (shrink)

The philosophy of deep ecology originated in the 1970s with the Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess and has since spread around the world. Its basic premises are a belief in the intrinsic value of nonhuman nature, a belief that ecological principles should dictate human actions and moral evaluations, an emphasis on noninterference into natural processes, and a critique of materialism and technological progress.This book approaches deep ecology as a philosophy, not as a political, social, or environmental movement. In (...) part I, the authors compare deep ecology's philosophical ideas with other positions and debates in environmental philosophy and to other schools of thought such as social ecology, ecofeminism, and moral pluralism. In part II, they investigate the connections between deep ecology and other contemporary world views, such as continental philosophy, postmodernism, and non-Western philosophical traditions. The first anthology on deep ecology that is not primarily the work of the movement's followers, Beneath the Surface offers a rigorous assessment of deep ecology's strengths and weaknesses as a philosophical position.Contributors : John Clark, Deane Curtin, Arran Gare, William Grey, Mathew Humphrey, Knut Jacobsen, Eric Katz, Andrew Light, Jonathan Maskit, Val Plumwood, David Rothenberg, Ariel Salleh, Bron Taylor, Michael Zimmerman. (shrink)

This essay is a critical exploration of certain key elements in modernity's self-understanding – pluralism, secularism, the morally neutral state, and the the harm conditoin as a principle of law. Careful examination of all these elements reveals deep confusion about how they are to be understood. The picture that emerges is one in which modern society's self-image diverges dramatically from the reality, and critque of this self-image uncovers a pressing need for a reappraiasal of the values that are (...) commonly thought to underlie the contemporary Western world. (shrink)

Since its early origins, just war discourse has had two contrasting functions: it has sought to speak law and morals to power, and thus to restrain the use of force, but it has also served to authorize and legitimize the use of force. Critical voices have recently alerted to the increasing use of authorization and legitimization in a broader context of hegemonic and unilateral appropriations of just war discourse. In this article, I show that such critiques of just war have (...) a long history, and reconstruct the powerful challenge that two of the foremost international jurists of the Enlightenment—Christian Wolff and Emer de Vattel—mounted against early modern accounts of just war. Their neglected theory of “regular war” helps us to recover a sense of what a truly pluralist and anti-hegemonic doctrine of ius ad bellum may look like, and reveals a deep tension in the just war tradition between the criteria of political authority and just cause. (shrink)

In any society influenced by a plurality of cultures, there will be widespread, systematic differences about at least some important values, including moral values. Many of these differences look like deep disagreements, difficult to resolve objectively if that is possible at all. One common response to the suspicion that these disagreements are unsettleable has always been moral relativism. In the flurry of sympathetic treatments of this doctrine in the last two decades, attention has understandably focused on the (...) simpler case in which one fairly self-contained and culturally homogeneous society confronts, at least in thought, the values of another; but most have taken relativism to have implications within a single pluralistic society as well. I am not among the sympathizers. That is partly because I am more optimistic than many about how many moral disagreements can be settled, but I shall say little about that here. For, even on the assumption that many disputes are unsettleable, I continue to find relativism a theoretically puzzling reaction to the problem of moral disagreement, and a troubling one in practice, especially when the practice involves regular interaction among those who disagree. This essay attempts to explain why. (shrink)

Stuart Hampshire's political thought is an important but often overlooked contribution to contemporary debates concerning the nature and permanence of plural and conflicting values. In its combination of a pessimistic view of the limits of politics with a deep respect for pluralism and disagreement Hampshire's thought can be regarded as a significant version of 'the Liberalism of fear'. This is grounded in a belief that the inherited innocence of moral and political thinking has been undermined by our (...) experience of the horrors of the twentieth century. Hampshire's response is to propose a minimal form of proceduralism that contrasts with Rawls's political liberalism. Hampshire offers a criticism of the moralism that characterizes much modern political philosophy without advocating a stark realism. (shrink)

In this article, I defend a democratic form of the productivist welfare state. I argue that this form of the state can best cope, theoretically and practically, with the diversity of deeply morally pluralistic democratic societies for two reasons. First, the justification of this form of the state rests solely on general facts about human nature, basic human needs, and efficiency considerations in a world of moderately scarce resources. Second, this state does not aim to promote a specific view of (...) justice, but human flourishing more generally, expressed in terms of individual and collective productivity. The proposed democratic productivist welfare state supports its citizens up to the level that allows them to develop and exercise their talents and abilities without providing incentives for free riding. I argue that, under the specific empirical circumstances that I describe, in particular certain informational restrictions concerning the precise productive and destructive capacities of the members of society in practice and the soundness of the Aristotelian principle, this goal may best be achieved in practice by the introduction of an unconditional basic income at subsistence level, if society is sufficiently developed economically to provide such an income. On productivist grounds, such an unconditional subsistence income also addresses, pragmatically and partially, the problem of historical injustices against the weakest members of society and provides all group members with the means for democratic participation. (shrink)

India is one of the most culturally, philosophically and religiously diverse countries in the world. The roots, not only of these diversities but also of morally appropriate responses to them, i.e. to pluralism, go very deep. This presentation substantiates this claim by looking at the relevant edicts of Emperor Asoka who reigned in India in the 3rd century BCE. Asoka not only advises people with deeply divergent worldviews to live together face to face but also suggests what the (...) basis for this coexistence could be. He claims that resources exist in all traditions to exercise self-restraints. These self-restraints are of two kinds: self-related and other-related. Everyone should exercise both these self-restraints, particularly in speech. This ‘control of tongue’ is crucial for morally legitimate and principled coexistence. In the article, I try to explicate the meaning of these edicts and flesh out this argument by providing a vivid, quasi-phenomenological account of what public life in Asokan times was like. (shrink)

Given the largely Eurocentric nature of moral theology in the history of the Roman Catholic Church, what will it take to invest the theological community in the history and moral challenges of the Church in other parts of the world, especially Africa? What is to be gained for the whole Church when this happens in a deep and lasting way? In this timely and important study, Paulinus Ikechukwu Odozor brings greater theological clarity to the issue of the (...) relationship between Christianity and African tradition in the area of ethical foundations. He also provides a constructive example of what fundamental moral theology done from an African and Christian moral theological point of view could look like._ Following a brief history of the development of African Christian theology, Odozor examines responses of African theologians to African tradition and Christian responses to the reality of non-Christian religions. In a context where the African religious experience and heritage are powerful sources of meaning and identity, Christian evangelization raises questions both about the African primal religions and about Christianity itself and its claims. Odozor takes up the subject of moral reasoning in an African Christian theological ethics and concludes with case studies that show how the African Church has tried to inculturate moral discourse on a religiously pluralistic continent and relate the healing gospel message to African situations. Students and scholars of moral theology and ethics and church leaders will profit from the issues raised in _Morality Truly Christian, Truly African_. "This is an ambitious book. The scholarship is sound and the author engages a range of authors and their views. Odozor takes seriously the critical and moral demands of Christian theology as well as those of African indigenous religions and their cultures. There is perhaps nothing so thoroughgoing on this topic since Bénézet Bujo’s _Foundations of an African Ethic: Beyond the Universal Claims of Western Morality_." — M. Shawn Copeland, Boston College_. (shrink)

In his essay, ‘The Question of Machiavelli’, Isaiah Berlin notes the depth of Machiavelli's pluralism. Taking my cue from Berlin, I argue that much modern liberal political philosophy neglects this deep pluralism and, as a result, misunderstands modern political problems such as the phenomenon of religiously-motivated terrorism.

Recently Robert B. Talisse has put forth a socio-epistemic justification of liberal democracy that he believes qualifies as a public justification in that it purportedly can be endorsed by all reasonable individuals. In avoiding narrow restraints on reasonableness, Talisse argues that he has in fact proposed a justification that crosses the boundaries of a wide range of religious, philosophical and moral worldviews and in this way the justification is sufficiently pluralistic to overcome the challenges of reasonable pluralism familiar (...) from Rawls. The fascinating argument that Talisse furthers is that when cognitively functional individuals reflect on some of their most basic epistemic commitments they will come to see that, in virtue of these commitments, they are also committed to endorsing key liberal democratic institutions. We argue that the socio-epistemic justification can be reasonably rejected on its own terms and thus fails as a public justification approach. This point is made by illustrating the significance of deep epistemic disagreements in liberal democracies. (shrink)

Bioethics functions within a world of deep moral pluralism; a universe of discourse debating ethical analysis, public policy, and clinical practice in which a common, generally accepted morality does not exist. While religious thinkers are often approached within a hermeneutic of suspicion for assuming moral standards that cannot be justified in rational terms, secular bioethicists routinely find themselves in exactly the same intellectual predicament. That ethical theory, proposed values, or normative content is secular, that it does (...) not invoke God or any particular religious perspective, does not mean that it is rationally grounded, necessarily true, or universally binding. As the authors in this issue of The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy make clear, this normative reality directly impacts debates regarding concepts of health, illness, and disease, accounts of socially acceptable health-risky behaviors, and the political frameworks that shape public policy. As a result, honest discussion of diverse moral, religious, and political perspectives remains essential in clarifying the intellectual challenges, ethical intuitions, and ideological judgments that shape clinical practice and healthcare policy. Depending on which moral, political, or scientific concepts are guiding bioethical analysis, careful scrutiny will tend to support rather different policies and practices, each of which is likely to be worth careful consideration. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Development of Moral Theology: Five Strands by Charles E. CurranChristopher LibbyThe Development of Moral Theology: Five Strands Charles E. Curran washington, dc: georgetown university press, 2013. 306 pp. $29.95At least two entwined questions dominate Charles Curran’s The Development of Moral Theology: first, what differentiates Catholic moral theology from other approaches to Christian ethics, and second, how we should understand, evaluate, and appropriate that (...) tradition in light of its own pluralism and that of the broader society? Curran engages both of these concerns by critically tracing five historical strands that have shaped moral theology: sin, reconciliation, and the manuals of moral theology; Thomas Aquinas and the Thomistic tradition; natural law; the papal teaching office; and the Second Vatican Council.The bulk of Curran’s discussion consists of chapter-length treatments of each of these strands. This approach lends analytical clarity to a tradition with a varied, [End Page 219] complex history, and provides the foundation for his later synthetic, evaluative discussion. The first chapter is characteristic of the manner in which subsequent chapters proceed: Curran begins with biblical treatments of the rupturing effects of sin before moving on to the emergence of formalized approaches to dealing with sin via penitential processes and, later, the manuals of moral theology. Incorporated into this historical discussion are evaluative and prescriptive claims. For example, in contrast to the dynamic and rich biblical understanding of the nature of sin, Curran suggests that the manuals of moral theology both possess an insufficiently full understanding of the reality of sin and conversion and distort the meaning of sin by focusing on the objective act alone (24).The second through fourth chapters proceed in similar fashion, with critical readings of the varied history of each strand that underscore the internal pluralism of Catholic moral theology. Thus, chapter 2 shows that, while there is but one Thomas Aquinas, there are numerous Thomisms, and chapter 3 denies the presence of a unified, coherent theory of natural law, closing by arguing that this lack of coherence is synchronically discernible in contrasts between recent papal social and sexual teachings.Following a similar treatment of the papal teaching office in chapter 4, Curran discusses the significance of Vatican II in chapter 5 before offering a broad evaluation of his historical surveys in the conclusion. There he calls for Church hierarchy to be more forthright in its recognition of the tradition’s internal diversity, more open to dissent and disagreement, and receptive to the power of the Holy Spirit as the primary force enabling the Church as a people to live hopefully as mediating God’s presence in the world.There is much to be learned from Curran’s impressive knowledge of his tradition. This is a text that will be especially valuable to graduate students and scholars and teachers of Christian ethics; the chapters on Aquinas and the Thomistic tradition, natural law, and Vatican II will have a particularly wide appeal. Nevertheless, I fear the book is less than the sum of its very informative parts. The lack of an initial chapter establishing the meaning and significance of Curran’s study or of a conceptual framework to guide the reader in navigating deep and what are sure to many to be unfamiliar historical waters may leave some readers disoriented. Such a chapter would have been helpful in establishing a broader context for the study and identifying themes that arise repeatedly in the course of the discussion, for example: the nature of authority and dissent, the relationship between philosophy and theology, the relationship between truth and historical consciousness, and the nature of tradition as “living,” to name a few. As it is, such themes emerge only gradually for the reader, rendering engagement with the text as a whole a less rewarding experience than it might otherwise be. [End Page 220]Christopher LibbyMissouri Valley CollegeCopyright © 2015 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

The debate between impartialists and their critics has dominated both moral and political philosophy for over a decade. Characteristically, impartialists argue that any sensible form of impartialism can accommodate the partial concerns we have for others. By contrast, partialists deny that this is so. They see the division as one which runs exceedingly deep and argue that, at the limit, impartialist thinking requires that we marginalise those concerns and commitments that make our lives meaningful. This book attempts to (...) show both that the dispute between impartialists and their critics runs very deep, and that it can nonetheless be resolved. The resolution begins by asking how impartialist political philosophy can defend the priority of justice when it conflicts with people's commitments to their conceptions of the good. It is argued that priority can only defended if political impartialism has a moral foundation, and that moral foundation must not be a foundation in the ideal of equality (as is often thought), but a foundation in the partial concerns we have for others. In short, impartialist moral philosophy must take our partial concerns as central if it is to gain allegiance. However, if it does take our partial concerns as central, then it can generate a defence of political impartialism which shows why justice must take priority, but which also acknowledges that pluralism about the good is permanent. (shrink)

Contemporary society involves a number of different persons, groups, and ways of life that are deeply divided and very often opposed on fundamental matters of deep concern. Today, many contemporary philosophers regard this 'fact of diversity' as a problem that needs to be addressed when assessing the principles employed to organize society. In this paper, I discuss the fact of diversity, as it is understood by the notion of reasonable pluralism, and explain why it is thought by some (...) to challenge the stability of a society's political morality. I examine the leading attempt to offer an account of the stability of a political morality and I argue that John Rawls's attempt to account for the stability of Justice as Fairness fails for reasons applicable to all political moralities because the very notion of a stable political morality is implausible. Diversity, as reasonable pluralism understands it, is not a problem that can be solved either by identifying a stable political morality or by modifying a political morality in some way that will make it more stable. Instead, the fact of diversity indicates only that disagreements on all aspects of society's organization, including its organizing principles and matters of value, is a permanent feature of social life that cannot be ignored, wished away, or solved. (shrink)

In a recent article, Gauthier rejects orthodox rational choice contractarianism in favor of a revisionist approach to the social contract that, according to him, justifies his principle of maximin proportionate gain as a principle of distributive justice. I agree with Gauthier that his principle of maximin proportionate gain cannot be justified by orthodox rational choice contractarianism. I argue, however, that orthodox rational choice contractarianism, before and after Gauthier, is still a viable approach to the social contract, although the scope of (...) this approach is limited. Orthodox rational choice contractarianism can be applied fruitfully to moral philosophy only in situations of deep moral pluralism in which moral reasoning is reduced to instrumental reasoning, because the members of society do not share, as assumed by traditional moral theories, a consensus on moral ideals as traditionally conceived as a starting point for the derivation of moral rules but only an overarching end that they aim to reach. If orthodox rational choice contractarianism is applied adequately, then it offers a viable approach to the social contract that, in contrast to Gauthier’s theory, justifies a rival principle for distributive conflicts that is valid for deeply morally pluralistic societies. (shrink)

Gerald Gaus was one of the leading liberal theorists of the early twenty-first century. He defended liberal order based on its unique capacity to handle deep disagreement and pressed liberals toward a principled openness to pluralism and diversity. Yet, almost everything written about Gaus's work is evaluative: determining whether his arguments succeed or fail. This essay breaks from the pack by outlining underlying themes in his work. I argue that Gaus explored how to sustain moral relations between (...) persons in light of the institutional threats of social control, evaluative pluralism, and institutional complexity, and the psychological threat of acting solely from what I shall call themere first-personal point of view. The idea of public justification is the key to sustaining moral relations in the face of such challenges. When a society's moral and political rules are justified to each person, moral relations survive the threats they face. (shrink)

_The Undiscovered Dewey_ explores the profound influence of evolution and its corresponding ideas of contingency and uncertainty on John Dewey's philosophy of action, particularly its argument that inquiry proceeds from the uncertainty of human activity. Dewey separated the meaningfulness of inquiry from a larger metaphysical story concerning the certainty of human progress. He then connected this thread to the way in which our reflective capacities aid us in improving our lives. Dewey therefore launched a new understanding of the modern self (...) that encouraged intervention in social and natural environments but which nonetheless demanded courage and humility because of the intimate relationship between action and uncertainty. Melvin L. Rogers explicitly connects Dewey's theory of inquiry to his religious, moral, and political philosophy. He argues that, contrary to common belief, Dewey sought a place for religious commitment within a democratic society sensitive to modern pluralism. Against those who regard Dewey as indifferent to moral conflict, Rogers points to Dewey's appreciation for the incommensurability of our ethical commitments. His deep respect for modern pluralism, argues Rogers, led Dewey to articulate a negotiation between experts and the public so that power did not lapse into domination. Exhibiting an abiding faith in the reflective and contestable character of inquiry, Dewey strongly engaged with the complexity of our religious, moral, and political lives. (shrink)

Human rights are a construct of international law. Their legitimacy depends on them being informed by the deep-seated fact of global cultural pluralism and the concern of establishing a system that recognizes this pluralism, transcends a narrow parochial perspective and thus avoids the accusation of cultural or moral colonialism. There are two broad strategies to do this: by invoking an individualist-moral conception of HR designed to promote well-being and by invoking a social-political conception of HR (...) aimed at preserving world peace and stability. Economic rights are rights to commodify—to sell one’s labor, to buy goods and services and so on—under fair terms. That is to say, to take part in economic activities such as production and consumption within a distinctive social form by which they are mediated through exchange. I argue that endorsing rights of commodification is incompatible with a genuine concern with parochialism. Economic rights are neither necessary to protect some natural interest shared by all humans, nor the stability of a peaceful world order. Hence, economic rights should not be considered human rights. (shrink)

In Amartya Sen’s The Idea of Justice, democracy is necessary for the reconciliation of plural justice claims. Sen’s treatment of democracy is however incomplete and inadequate: democracy is under-specified, there are unrecognized difficulties in any context featuring deep moral disagreement or deep division and a conceptualization of public reason in the singular erodes his pluralism. These faults undermine Sen’s account of justice. Developments in the theory of deliberative democracy can be deployed to remedy these deficiencies. This (...) deployment points to a deliberative system encompassing those affected by collective decisions, with places for non-partisan forums and discursive representatives, conditionally open to multiple forms of communication, and geared to the production of workable agreements under normative and discursive meta-consensus. Democracy does not guarantee justice, but in a plural world it is essential to the pursuit of justice. (shrink)

This paper investigates early modern and enlightenment roots of contemporary ideas of public reason. I argue that concepts of public reason arose in answer to the question ‘who shall judge?’ The religious and moral pluralism unleashed by the reformation lead first to the weakening of authoritative common forms of reasoning, this in turn and more importantly lead to the question who is the final arbiter when a political community is faced with deep disagreement about political/ moral (...) questions. The rise of pluralism meant that to the question ‘what are the standards of public right?’ is added the corollary and equally important question ‘who judges when those standards are violated?’ The answer is that the public judges. Public reason thus refers to the role of the public as judge of public right and not simply to a set of reasons that an actual public happens to share. On this reading of Hobbes, Locke, and Kant, the initial contract recedes in importance while the seat of authoritative political judgment comes to the fore. Keywords: public reason; pluralism; Hobbes; Locke; Kant (Published: 4 December 2009) Citation: Ethics & Global Politics, Vol. 2, No. 4, 2009, pp. 349368. DOI: 10.3402/egp.v2i4.2135. (shrink)

Much attention has been devoted in recent years to the personal idealism of Martin Luther King, Jr. Among the major contributors to the scholarship in this area is Rufus Burrow, Jr., who places King firmly in the tradition of personal idealism, or personalism, while also uncovering the intellectual unease that made King both a deep and creative thinker and a committed and effective social activist.1 Clearly, Burrow's own sense of his role as a personalist informs his approach to the (...) life and thought of King. Although philosophical personalism figures prominently in Burrow's treatment of King in his writings, ethical and social personalism provides the primary theoretical framework for both Burrow's exploration of .. (shrink)

This book develops and applies a unified interpretation of John Rawls’ theory of justice as fairness in order to clarify the account of citizenship that Rawls relies upon, and the kind of educational policies that the state can legitimately pursue to promote social justice. Costa examines the role of the family as the "first school of justice" and its basic contribution to the moral and political development of children. It also argues that schools are necessary to supplement the education (...) that families provide, teaching the political virtues that support just social institutions. The book also examines the questions of whether civic education should aim at cultivating patriotic feelings, and how it should respond to the deep cultural pluralism of contemporary democratic societies. (shrink)

This book is a major new introduction to the field of ecological ethics. Taking issue with the common assumption that existing human ethics can be 'extended' to meet the demands of the ongoing ecological crisis, Patrick Curry shows that a new and truly ecological ethic is both possible and urgently needed. With this distinctive proposition in mind, Curry introduces and discusses all the major concepts needed to understand the full range of ecological ethics. Focussing first on the major concepts of (...) ethics - religious and secular - and value, Curry then examines the gradations of ecological ethics. He discusses light green, shallow or anthropomorphic ethics with the examples of stewardship, lifeboat ethics, and social ecology; mid-green or intermediate ethics represented by animal liberation/rights and biocentrism; and dark green, deep, or ecocentric ethics. Particular attention is given to the various kinds of ecocentric ethics, such as the Land Ethic, The Gaia Hypothesis, and Deep Ecology and its offshoots: Deep Green Theory, Left Biocentrism and the Earth Manifesto. Ecofeminism is also considered in this context. The concluding chapters discuss green ethics as post-secular, moral pluralism and pragmatism, green citizenship, and human population in the light of ecological ethics. This comprehensive and wide-ranging textbook offers a radical but critical introduction to the subject. It will be of great interest to students, activists, and to a wider public concerned with the ecocrisis, its main theories, debates, and possible solutions. (shrink)

Normative judgments are typically subject to emotional reasons that cannot be justified by reference to facts alone. As a result, practical disputes sometimes go unsettled in ways that support James Lenman's view of moral inquiry as politics. An important consequence is that reasonableness is often preferable to truth as a criterion of good practical judgment. Although the role of emotions suggests metaethical expressivism as preferable to realism for analysing practical reasoning, reasonableness transforms expressivism from a form of noncognitivism into (...) a theory that recognizes cognitively rich forms of approval and disapproval. Defensible normative intuitions have good justifying reasons even when these reasons permit faultless differences of political opinion and ethical practice. Despite implying deep normative pluralism, however, a cognitivist form of expressivism explains how deliberative agents can construct and maintain reasonable moral communities. (shrink)

Kevin Wildes has recently argued in the Journal that Albert Jonsen's model of casuistry is ill-suited to a secular world context, because this model is rooted in a particular history and because of the moral pluralism of contemporary society in which a content-specific method of moral reasoning cannot readily be deployed. Contra Wildes, two arguments are offered. First, casuistry is not tied exclusively to Roman Catholic theology; casuistry also has deep roots in Classical thought, roots that (...) Jonsen and Toulmin underscore. Second, the context of Roman Catholic theology can be distinguished from the method of casuistry, permitting that method to be deployed successfully in morally pluralistic contexts. Keywords: casuistry, content, Jonsen, method, rhetoric, Toulmin, Wildes CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Moral reasoning typically informs environmental decision-making by measuring the possible outcomes of policies or actions in light of a preferred ethical theory. This method is subject to many problems. Environmental pragmatism tries to overcome them, but it suffers also from some pitfalls. This paper proposes a new method of environmental pragmatism that avoids the problems of both the traditional method of environmental moral reasoning and of the general versions of environmental pragmatism. We call it ‘justificatory moral (...) class='Hi'>pluralism’ – it develops the intuition that normative ethical theories need not be mutually exclusive. This leaves room for important forms of pluralist environmental ethics that do not require a once-and-for-all prior commitment to an ethical theory when deciding about policies or courses of action related to the protection of the environment. Justificatory moral pluralism offers a viable solution to the recurrent conflicts between efficient environmental decisions and the need for moral reasoning. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the set of problems regarding the HIV/AIDS crisis in the specific domain of corporate moral responsibility within a context of the Levinasian notion of proximity (infinite responsibility) and the Third. Against a totalitarian, homogeneous society, Levinas opens the way to a social pluralism, which has its sources in the disquiet provoked by the strangeness of the Other's face. Corporate responsibility, understood from this point of view, would not reduce institutional relations to an anonymous world (...) of neutrality. Corporate responsibility is unconditional in the sense that to be responsible is not a question of choice, but one of deep liberty, the liberty of taking the burden of the infinite responsibility for the Other customers, employees, the public at large and those who suffer in the world. This paper argues that it would then also mean that society (individuals, NGOs and governments) in accordance with the spirit of the Levinasian philosophy of infinite responsibility could exert pressure on corporations, such as pharmaceutical companies. Owing to their power, they could change their present responsibility policies to a more affirmative and engaged responsibility with regard to those who are ill and who suffer death or debilitation from HIV/AIDS and other prevalent diseases in the poorest parts of the world today. (shrink)

This article presents a normative‐theoretical account of democratic legitimacy that meets the challenge of moral and cultural pluralism in a way that takes the avoidance of oppression and violence to be a fundamental imperative. The discourse‐theoretical perspective of jürgen Habermas reveals that reasoned agreement among citizens is the only alternative to political oppression. Pace Habermas, however, the legitimacy of even basic constitutional principles does not require us to agree with one another for the same reasons. While we can (...) affirm such principles for a wide range of different reasons, the process of achieving reasoned agreements on contentious issues draws us together as citizens in loyalty to a particular, historical set of political institutions. The reasoned commitment to our constitution that we come to share in this ongoing process acts as an identity‐forming bond that allows us to live in peace with deep moral and cultural differences. (shrink)

This book develops and applies a unified interpretation of John Rawls’ theory of justice as fairness in order to clarify the account of citizenship that Rawls relies upon, and the kind of educational policies that the state can legitimately pursue to promote social justice. Costa examines the role of the family as the "first school of justice" and its basic contribution to the moral and political development of children. It also argues that schools are necessary to supplement the education (...) that families provide, teaching the political virtues that support just social institutions. The book also examines the questions of whether civic education should aim at cultivating patriotic feelings, and how it should respond to the deep cultural pluralism of contemporary democratic societies. (shrink)

In the face of the moral pluralism that results from the death of God and the abandonment of a God's eye perspective in secular philosophy, bioethics arose in a context that renders it essentially incapable of giving answers to substantive moral questions, such as concerning the permissibility of abortion, human embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, etc. Indeed, it is only when bioethics understands its own limitations and those of secular moral philosophy in general can it better (...) appreciate those tasks that it can actually usefully perform in both the clinical and academic setting. It is the task of this paper to understand and reevaluate bioethics by understanding these limits. Academic bioethicists can analyze ideas, concepts, and claims necessary to understanding the moral questions raised in health care, assessing the arguments related to these issues, and provide an understanding of the different moral perspectives on bioethical issues. In the clinical setting, bioethicists can provide legal advice, serve as experts on IRBs, mediating disputes, facilitating decision-making and risk management, and clarifying normative issues. However, understanding this is only possible when one understands the history, genesis, and foundations of bioethics and its inability to provide a resolution to postmodern moral pluralism. (shrink)

This essay develops an ideal of public legal reason--a normative theory of legal reasons that is appropriate for a society characterized by religious and moral pluralism. One of the implications of this theory is that normative theorizing about public and private law should eschew reliance on the deep premises of deontology or consequentialism and should instead rely on what the author calls public values--values that can be affirmed without relying on the deep and controversial premises of (...) particular comprehensive moral doctrines. The ideal of public legal reason is then applied to a particular question--whether welfarism (a particular form of normative law and economics) provides the sort of reasons that appropriate for legal practice. The answer to that question is no--to the extent that welfarism contends that the normative assessment of legal policies should rely exclusively on information about individual preferences, welfarism relies on deep and controversial premises of consequentialist moral theory that fail the test of public reason. The essay also investigates the thesis--advanced by Louis Kaplow and Steven Shavell--that any fairness principle (a nonwelfarist method of policy assessment) can violate weak Pareto (making everyone worse off). Whatever the implications of Kaplow and Shavell's argument, it does not show that welfarism can provide public legal reasons. The essay concludes that law's justifications should rely on normative principles that are accessible to reasonable citizens, whether they are theists or atheists, deontologists or consequentialists, moral philosophers or economists. Law's deliberations should be shallow and not deep. Law's reason should be public. (shrink)

Michael B. Gill offers a new account of Humean moral pluralism: the view that there are different moral reasons for action, which are based on human sentiments. He explores its historical origins, and argues that it offers the most compelling view of our moral experience. Together, pluralism and Humeanism make a philosophically powerful couple.

Issues of institutional identity and integrity in Roman Catholic health care institutions have been addressed at the level of individual institutions as well as by organizations of Catholic health care providers and at various levels in the Church hierarchy. The papers by Carol Taylor, C.S.F.N, Thomas Shannon, Kevin O’Rourke, O.P., Gerard Magill in this volume provide a significant contribution to concerns of Roman Catholic health care institutions as they face the challenges of providing health care in a secular, pluralistic, market-driven (...) economy. One way to understand institutional integrity is as a measure of the coherence between what an institution identifies as its commitments (its stated moral character), what an institution does (its manifest moral character) and an institution’s fundamental moral commitments (its deep moral character). The essays in this volume support this model of integrity. Although it is not their explicit focus, the four essays together provide a vision of institutional integrity for Catholic health care institutions. Each author focuses on one of the three central aspects of integrity: what one identifies as one’s commitments (Taylor), how one's actions reflect one’s values (Shannon and Magill), and what one is or what one values at a deep level (O’Rourke). I will offer a brief overview of the ways in which the integrity of Catholic health care institutions has been addressed. Then I will consider the four essays and show how each offers an analysis of one of the three critical elements of integrity. (shrink)

In the essay “What is Enlightenment?” , Foucault espouses a novel and emancipatory“philosophical ethos” which challenges individuals to undertake an ongoing, aesthetic project oftotal self-transformation . By advocating a view of the self---and moreaccurately the relationship one has to oneself --as a free creation on the part of thesubject, Foucault seems to be espousing a pluralistic ethical position. However, I argue that whilethis interpretation is not entirely false, it is not altogether accurate either. Quite simply, it is toobroad in scope. (...) Instead, I argue that Foucault’s philosophical ethos is best described as a DeepEthical Pluralist position. Furthermore, I demonstrate that the two most common objectionsto Foucault’s new ethos for the contemporary subject in the secondary literature, namely theregressive and dandyist objections miss their mark precisely because they are successful onlyagainst ethical pluralism but not DEP. (shrink)

Alan Reynolds: This paper is divided into three sections. First, I describe the wide plurality of views on issues of animal ethics, showing that our disagreements here are deep and profound. This fact of reasonable pluralism about animal ethics presents a political problem. According to the dominant liberal tradition of political philosophy, it is impermissible for one faction of people to impose its values upon another faction of people who reasonably reject those values. Instead, we are obligated to (...) justify our political actions to each other using reasons that everyone can accept. Thus, in the second section I suggest that our condition of reasonable pluralism inspires us to turn toward some form of contractarianism. The social contract tradition emerged precisely as an attempt to think about how a society characterized by deep moral disagreement could nonetheless agree about the basic principles of justice. I will show, in this section, that although the social contract tradition would seem to contain the best tools for thinking about how to deal with moral disagreement, it fails to help us think through the important issues of animal ethics. In the concluding section, I suggest some ways in which political philosophy might move beyond contractarianism when thinking about this issue, including embracing an agonistic style of politics. -/- Cet article est divisé en trois sections. Tout d’abord, je décris la grande pluralité des opinions existant sur les questions de l’éthique animale, montrant que nos désaccords sur le sujet sont profonds. Cette réalité du pluralisme raisonnable en matière d’éthique animale pose un problème politique. Selon la tradition libérale dominante de la philosophie politique, une faction de personnes ne peut imposer ses valeurs à une autre faction qui rejette raisonnablement ces valeurs. Au lieu de cela, nous sommes obligés de justifier nos actions politiques en utilisant des raisons que tout le monde peut accepter. Ainsi, dans la seconde section, je suggère que notre condition de pluralisme raisonnable nous mène à une forme de contractualisme. La tradition du contrat social est justement apparue comme une tentative de réfléchir à la façon dont une société caractérisée par un profond désaccord moral peut néanmoins s’entendre sur les principes fondamentaux de la justice. Dans cette section, je montre que, bien que la tradition du contrat social semble offrir les meilleurs outils pour définir la manière de traiter le désaccord moral, elle ne parvient pas à nous aider à réfléchir aux questions essentielles de l’éthique animale. Dans la dernière section, je suggère quelques façons susceptibles de permettre à la philosophie politique de dépasser le contractualisme dans sa réflexion sur cette question, ceci comprenant l’adoption d’un style de politique agonistique. (shrink)

I argue that Taylor’s engagement with secularity demonstrates his deep concern for preserving key humanist insights, an abiding commitment to moral pluralism, and the sincerity of his religious faith. Taylor insists on transcendence as the best hope for securing the continued commitment to the moral legacy of humanism in the west, but while he personally advocates a renewed Christian humanism, his notion of transcendence is amenable to other interpretations, including non-religious options, and so allows for a (...) potential overlapping consensus on humanism from what Taylor calls the “transformation perspective.”. (shrink)

This paper adopts justificatory moral pluralism – a multilevel framework for justifying the choice by different agents of the most appropriate norms and values to guide their decisions and actions – to climate change. Its main objective is to investigate how ethics may effectively help achieve a better result in deciding how to mitigate, adapt, or compensate by enhancing the moral acceptability of the available policies or actions that are most likely to counter the effects of climate (...) change. JMP presents agents – individuals, nonstate, and state – with a thorough yet flexible process of matching policies and actions with ethical theories, raising the robustness of moral reasons for politically efficient and individually motivating courses of action against climate change. JMP triggers climate responsibility and sensibility in agents, engaging them in discussing and finding out individually and collectively the most acceptable paths for the decarbonisation transition that is fast approaching. (shrink)

In this thoroughly revised and updated second edition of the highly successful _Ecological Ethics_, Patrick Curry shows that a new and truly ecological ethic is both possible and urgently needed. With this distinctive proposition in mind, Curry introduces and discusses all the major concepts needed to understand the full range of ecological ethics. He discusses light green or anthropocentric ethics with the examples of stewardship, lifeboat ethics, and social ecology; the mid-green or intermediate ethics of animal liberation/rights; and dark or (...) deep green ecocentric ethics. Particular attention is given to the Land Ethic, the Gaia Hypothesis and Deep Ecology and its offshoots: Deep Green Theory, Left Biocentrism and the Earth Manifesto. Ecofeminism is also considered and attention is paid to the close relationship between ecocentrism and virtue ethics. Other chapters discuss green ethics as post-secular, moral pluralism and pragmatism, green citizenship, and human population in the light of ecological ethics. In this new edition, all these have been updated and joined by discussions of climate change, sustainable economies, education, and food from an ecocentric perspective. This comprehensive and wide-ranging textbook offers a radical but critical introduction to the subject which puts ecocentrism and the critique of anthropocentrism back at the top of the ethical, intellectual and political agenda. It will be of great interest to students and activists, and to a wider public. (shrink)

Moral pluralism is a reality. It is grounded, in part, in the intractable pluralism of secular morality and bioethics. There is a wide gulf that separates secular bioethics from Christian bioethics. Christian bioethics, unlike secular bioethics, understand that morality is about coming into a relationship with God. Orthodox Christian bioethics, moreover, understands that the impersonal set of moral principles and goals in secular morality gives a distorted account of the moral life. Therefore, Traditional Christian bioethics (...) is separated from bioethics by a radical difference in paradigms. (shrink)

The late Arthur Fox has left us a very fine book on the difficult subject of the relation between faith and philosophy in Spinoza's thought. The attention is focussed on the Theological-Political Treatise, concerned with public policy, the freedom to philosophize, and religious faith. The shift of focus in the interpretation of Spinoza's philosophy, from the Ethics to the Theological-Political Treatise, enables Fox to show his deep involvement in questions regarding the links between philosophy and theology on the one (...) hand and the morality of private and public life on the other. The analysis and interpretation of Spinoza's philosophy thus also throws an interesting light on contemporary problems of moral pluralism, religious faith, and rational political strategy. (shrink)

J. Baird Callicott claims that moral pluralism leads to relativism, skepticism, and the undermining of moral obligations. Buddhist ethics provides a counterexample to Callicott; it is a robust tradition of moral pluralism. Focusing on one of the most significant texts in Buddhist ethics, Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra, I show how it draws on a multiplicity of moral principles determined by context and skillful means (upāya kauśalya). In contrast to Callicott’s description of pluralism as detrimental to (...) moral life, I suggest that South Asian Buddhist traditions provide a model of moral reasoning that is both robust and flexible, a model appropriate for the many kinds of moral obligations that arise in the context of environmental ethics. (shrink)

Environmental ethics has reached a certain level of maturity; further significant advances require reexamining its status within the larger realm of moral philosophy. It could aim to extend to nonhumans one of the familiar sets of principles subject to appropriate modifications; or it could seek to break away and put forward its own paradigm or paradigms. Selecting the proper course requires as the most immediate mission exploring the formal requirements of an ethical system. In general, are there constraints against (...) bringing our moral relations with different sorts of things under different mIes of govemance? In particular, how much independence can an environmental ethic (or ethics) aim to have? (shrink)