Rationally Speaking: A pluralist approach to ethics - 0 views
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The history of Western moral philosophy includes numerous attempts to ground ethics in one rational principle, standard, or rule. This narrative stretches back 2,500 years to the Greeks, who were interested mainly in virtue ethics and the moral character of the person. The modern era has seen two major additions. In 1785, Immanuel Kant introduced the categorical imperative: act only under the assumption that what you do could be made into a universal law. And in 1789, Jeremy Bentham proposed utilitarianism: work toward the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people (the “utility” principle).
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Many people now think projects to build a reasonable and coherent moral system are doomed. Still, most secular and religious people reject the alternative of moral relativism, and have spent much ink criticizing it (among my favorite books on the topic is Moral Relativism by Stephen Lukes). The most recent and controversial work in this area comes from Sam Harris. In The Moral Landscape, Harris argues for a morality based on (a science of) well-being and flourishing, rather than religious dogma.
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I am interested in another oft-heard criticism of Harris’ book, which is that words like “well-being” and “flourishing” are too general to form any relevant basis for morality. This criticism has some force to it, as these certainly are somewhat vague terms. But what if “well-being” and “flourishing” were to be used only as a starting point for a moral framework? These concepts would still put us on a better grounding than religious faith. But they cannot stand alone. Nor do they need to.
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while each ethical system discussed so far has its shortcomings, put together they form a solid possibility. One system might not be able to do the job required, but we can assemble a mature moral outlook containing parts drawn from different systems put forth by philosophers over the centuries (plus some biology, but that's Massimo's area). The following is a rough sketch of what I think a decent pluralist approach to ethics might look like.