Moral Laws Presidential Lecture.docx (original) (raw)
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Why Ethics is a Normative Science: On Brightman's Moral Laws
Appraisal, 2018
By normative science, I mean that (i) ethics is like logic in the sense that it actively tries to arrive at knowledge of objective norms that apply to all people at all place and at all times and that moreover, (ii) ethicists have a particular expertise about the content of their discipline in the same way that the law professor or physicist claims in their own respective fields if ethics can be made scientific in the normative sense. In what follows, I explain Edgar Sheffield Brightman’s (1884-1953) model of ethics described in his Moral Laws and evaluate his reasons for thinking that ethics is a normative science. Along this argumentative journey, I adopt Brightman’s language as I walk with the reader in the text almost to appear as if I am endorsing the view of ethics as a normative science. In writing this way, I want to experiment with this thought as if I did adopt it.
From Science to Morality...On the Letter and the Spirit of the Law
Tradition and Discovery, 2009
Polanyi’s analysis of knowing as a skill that is dependent on tacit knowledge, his appreciation of the heuristic nature of the question and the emergence of an answer in a discovery, and his understanding of the intentional from-to structure of experience, all apply to moral knowledge as well as scientific knowledge. It is my conviction that the epistemological and ontological framework that Polanyi begins to develop is capable of unifying Aristotelian, Kantian, Utilitarian, sentiment-based, Intuitionist and Religious ethics in a vibrant, forward-focused synthesis. In this article, I begin to excavate that framework and show how it can be applied by addressing a puzzle in moral philosophy: the tension between following the letter of the law and following the spirit of the law. The Kantian notion that the moral law should be followed regardless of consequences, and the utilitarian notion that the laws should be made and even bent to advance a goal, reflect a tension that moral agents sometimes feel between following the letter of the law and following its spirit. Showing how Polanyi’s philosophy addresses this tension reveals that the good person achieves a way of being that answers questions inherent in the human condition. It shows how following moral maxims and principles can both be a method to transform oneself into that way of being and provide knowledge of reality. It also sets the theoretical groundwork for understanding how one can dwell in various moral principles or even transcend them.
Key Words: Polanyi, Aristotle, post-critical epistemology, meta-ethics, emergence, phronesis, deontology, virtue ethics, indwelling, traditions. Looking at the moral law from Polanyi's post-critical epistemology and emergent ontology reveals two interconnected roles for the letter of the law and two ways in which it can oppose the spirit of the law. For the moral student the law is a procedural method, for the moral virtuoso the law is an incomplete explicit expression of a tacit way of being. The two are connected in that procedural rules and practices set the basis for understanding and experiencing an emergent reality. This reality is embodied in the exemplars of a moral tradition and expressed in its principles and maxims.
Normative ethics does not need a foundation: It needs more science
The impact of science on ethics forms since long the subject of intense debate. Although there is a growing consensus that science can describe morality and explain its evolutionary origins, there is less consensus about the ability of science to provide input to the normative domain of ethics. Whereas defenders of a scientific normative ethics appeal to naturalism, its critics either see the naturalistic fallacy committed or argue that the relevance of science to normative ethics remains undemonstrated. In this paper, we argue that current scientific normative ethicists commit no fallacy, that criticisms of scientific ethics contradict each other, and that scientific insights are relevant to normative inquiries by informing ethics about the options open to the ethical debate. Moreover, when conceiving normative ethics as being a nonfoundational ethics, science can be used to evaluate every possible norm. This stands in contrast to foundational ethics in which some norms remain beyond scientific inquiry. Finally, we state that a difference in conception of normative ethics underlies the disagreement between proponents and opponents of a scientific ethics. Our argument is based on and preceded by a reconsideration of the notions naturalistic fallacy and foundational ethics. This argument differs from previous work in scientific ethics: whereas before the philosophical project of naturalizing the normative has been stressed, here we focus on concrete consequences of biological findings for normative decisions or on the day-to-day normative relevance of these scientific insights.
Philosophy 423: Ethics and the Law 2010
Fall 2010 PHIL 423: Ethics and the Law COURSE DESCRIPTION: In this course we will address moral and legal issues through the lens of both the legal and moral theory. We will begin with a review of moral philosophies including egoism, sentimentalism, utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics, as well as a review of some legal philosophies including natural law theory and a theory of justice. Next we will turn to specific topics of both moral and legal concern including abortion, same sex marriage, and the torture in the war on terror. Last, we will read the moral and legal theory of Richard Posner, a 7 th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge, who argues against the use of moral theory in law and argues for a version of pragmatism instead. Students will engage in three in-class debates, write three take-home exams, will give two short in-class presentations, and will be responsible for writing one book review. A list of potential, but not exhaustive, books for review is provided below.
Natural Law Reasoning in Applied Ethics. Four Paradigms
Cambridge Companion to Natural Law Jurisprudence, 2017
The natural law is one of the most enduring of philosophical traditions. By insisting that normativity is based on how things are in fact, the natural law tradition avoids the relativistic implications of the idea that morality is wholly based in features of man's making, whether consensus, feeling, emotion, social construction, convention, performative utterances or human methodology. It promises the possibility of arriving at moral truths by reference to truths of ontology and a metaphysics that is comprehen-sible to human reason. In this, the natural law tradition arguably offers a secure foundation for an understanding of right and wrong, good and evil, virtue and vice, and the common good. Although there are bound to be grey areas and borderline cases in the moral domain, the strength of the natural law approach is most evident where paradigms are concerned. In this paper we consider four ethical paradigms: genocide, disproportionate punishment (e.g. capital punishment for misdemeanours), mass live-birth human cloning, and pathologies like bestiality, incest and consensual cannibalism. Ethical dialogue often repairs to clear cases like these when wholesale doubt threatens dominion. Such examples are typically used to sharpen moral concepts, locate ethical limits and explore moral reasoning. Dealing with Clear Cases: Four Ethical Paradigms Consider four paradigms of wrongdoing. I say these are paradigms of wrongdoing not because I want to presuppose the truth of what I am claiming but because these kinds of examples are typically the sort that might be raised in any meta-ethical dialogue. The examples explore the possibility of objectivity in moral reasoning, the rational limits on human freedom, the proper teleological understanding of humans and their place in the world, and a catalogue of other conceptual apparatus traditionally
Morality, Law, and Practical Reason
Philosophia: International Journal of Philosophy, 2021
Morality is a normative system of guidance that figures into practical reason by telling people what to do in various situations. The problem, however, is that morality has inherent gaps that often render it inefficacious. First, it may be indeterminate due to the high level of generality in which its principles are formulated. Second, moral terms such as 'good' and 'right' may be so vague that they fail to specify the requisite behavior. And third, its subjective aspect, which is a product of personal experience, generates moral disagreement and thereby creates coordination problems that frustrate society's collective moral aims. The objective of this article is to advance the thesis that morality must sometimes depend on law as a supplementary source of practical reason, a dependence which can be explained in terms of three essential features of law: its institutional character, its claim to authority, and its status as a second-order exclusionary reason for action. It shall then be explained how these three features enable law to make difficult decisions on behalf of individuals, define objective standards of conduct, and solve coordination problems, respectively, and in doing so, manage to fill in the gaps of morality mentioned above. Hence, it will be argued that law is also a normative system that helps people achieve their moral aims, notwithstanding the fact that it guides human behavior through a different logic and mode of operation from those of morality.