Martin J O'Malley (2013) Value Ethics: A Meta-Ethical Framework for Emerging Sciences in Pluralistic Contexts. (original) (raw)

Metaethical pluralism and ethical systems. A brief enquiry on moral practices

In this paper, I briefly discuss two of the three dominant ethical systems in academic philosophy, that is virtue ethics and utilitarianism. Therefore I leave Kantian deontology aside. This contraposition between the two doctrines is meant to be a practical defense of a brand of metaethical relativism which could also be called metaethical pragmatism or consequentialism, as it is inspired in the work and philosophical attitude of John Dewey. I also offer methodological arguments in favor of this metaethical thesis; however, further study about uses and practical effects of moral theories is needed to support it. I conclude by suggesting, with Aristotle, that new habits of moral reasoning and argument help forging our characters, and that thereby they change the nature of morality too, as well of our conceptions of the good.

Science and ethics: Toward a theory of ethical value

Journal for General Philosophy of Science, 1994

What is the difference between the just and the unjust, the courageous and the cowardly, the ethically valuable and the ethically not valuable? To answer these and similar questions, a critical theory of ethical value is advanced. Using sample sentences that include ethical value terms, normative and descriptive components of the theory are identified, and the normative component is developed in some detail. Three levels of normative ethical discourse, adapted from Laudan's levels of scientific discourse, are then distinguished: descriptive, methodological, and axiological. Each sample sentence is assigned to a level, and the subsequent discussion illustrates how to proceed rationally at that level. The rational techniques appropriate to each level include inductive inference, falsification, and causal inference. These techniques are likewise appropriate to the corresponding level of the sciences.

Rethinking Value Pluralism in the Ethics of Sharing Benefits and Burdens in Collaborative Research

Journal of Culture, Society and Development, 2020

The paper argues for an ethical consideration of value pluralism, which advocates for consideration and respect of differing values that emanate from diverging contexts and positionalities. Advancements in medical health research has resulted in tremendous increase in national and international collaborations, though with exploitative tendencies. Exploitation in collaborative research is however, avoidable if expected research benefits and burdens are shared fairly. Power imbalance dynamics from global north to south impound the ethical principle of fairness. The appreciation of multiplicity of values/benefits that are distinct, creates room for an embrace of the principle of autonomy which safeguards exploitation, by appreciating heterogeneous identity.

NORMATIVITY WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF PLURAL REASONS. THE APPLIED ETHICS REVOLUTION

Aahrus: NSU Press, 2007

TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments Preface Chapter I From the death of ethics to the normative turn Twentieth century ethics after the death of ethics Three Diagnoses of Death for Ethics And one Prognosis of Resurrection with Transfiguration The anti-normative turn: the Anglo-Saxon version And the Continental version Chapter 2 From the Normative Turn to the Controversy between Utilitarianism and ‘Deontology’ 1949-1958: freeing moral discourse from the “third person” 1958: From Moore’s anti-naturalism to Anscombe’s, Geach’s and Foot’s anti-anti-naturalism 1958: Baier’s way from metaethics to normative ethics: 1958: Lewis’s discovery of Apel’s performative contradiction 1966: Searle’s infringement of Hume’s Law 1960-1983: The Continental Normative Turn and the rehabilitation of practical philosophy 1960-1983: The Continental Normative Turn and discourse ethics 1936-1981: Utilitarianism redivivus 1971-1998: a resurrection of several kinds of ‘deontological’ ethics The new controversy between Utilitarians and Kantians and the emergence of a third way Theoretical and Practical reasons for the revival of practical philosophy A few intermediate considerations Chapter 3 The applied ethics revolution Conscientious Objectors and Ethical Committees The methods of Applied Ethics The New Political Philosophy qua Applied Ethics A slightly odd example: development ethics Applied ethics is not ethics applied Applied ethics is a ‘Kantian’ approach for non-Kantians Applied Ethics is Deliberation Applied Ethics is Reverse Subversion Applied Ethics is a Gift from Zeitgeist A provisional moral The first chapter tries to reconstruct a plot, or a hidden agenda, in the twentieth-century ethical discussion. It singles out two starting points for the Anglo-Saxon and the Continental discussion, to be identified with the philosophies of Sidgwick and Nietzsche, both supporting some kind of ethical scepticism. It discusses how far the diagnosis formulated by Karl-Otto Apel of a ‘parallel convergence’ between Existentialism and Analytic philosophy in separating facts and values and thus justifying ‘decisionism’ is useful in making sense of the agenda of the discussion. The second chapter discusses the reasons for two parallel U-turns at about 1958 which brought back to the forefront two traditional schools of normative ethics, Kantian and Utilitarian, and the reasons for criticism from the heterogeneous alignment of virtue ethicists. The third chapter discusses the phenomenon of emergence of ‘applied’ ethics from the Seventies, the reasons, both theoretical and political, for the revival, the point to which applied ethics may look like a grand return of casuistic and natural-law ways of thinking, and the difficult coexistence between general normative ethics and procedures to settle issues reasonably while ethical dissent is as alive as ever.

Philosophical Practice and Values Based Ethics: Rethinking Social Action and Core Values

Concerns regarding philosophical practice (philosophical counselling) come into close contact with those for bioethics, and in general for applied ethics. Unlike counselling of ethics, where they target the strategies of solving ethical dilemmas which the individual or institutionalised subject is facing, and that targets the entire area of existential issues of the subject, the purpose of philosophical practice is to help the individual deal with existential dilemmas, and through means of philosophical instruments, to identify his own position and philosophical attitude. Within this paper we will analyse the main critics brought to philosophical practice as a particular style of philosophising, but also as an autonomous branch of philosophy. We will expose a series of theoretical fundaments originated in the reinterpretation of the Categorical Imperative and the introduction of the appreciation capacity as phenomenological expression of the orientation towards Alterity, of a new approach of the philosophical practice based on an appreciative ethics.

Value Pluralism versus Value Monism [Penultimate Draft

Acta Analytica, 2023

Value pluralism is the metaphysical thesis that there is a plurality of values at the fundamental level of the evaluative domain. Value monism, on the other hand, is the claim that there is just one fundamental value. Pluralists, it is commonly argued, have an edge over monists when it comes to accounting for the conspicuous heterogeneity of the evaluative domain and the rationality of regretting well-justified decisions. Monists, in turn, seem to provide a far more plausible account of rational evaluative decision-making. I argue that the impression of a theoretical stalemate, which is suggested by the exchange of those arguments, is premature. An assessment of the sub-positions in both camps, in conjunction with an analysis of value fundamentality based on the notion of grounding, reveals that certain versions of pluralism and monism-which I call moderate positions-can counter the respective objections. Thus, moderate value pluralism and moderate value monism emerge as the strongest positions in both camps. I conclude that the further debate should center around those two positions.

Pluralism, The Ethical Matrix, and Coming to Conclusions

Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 2007

The ethical matrix approach was developed by Prof Ben Mepham and his colleagues at the University of Nottingham in the early 1990s. Since then the approach has received increasing attention and has been used by several researchers in different projects related to assessing ethical impacts of different food production technologies and other policy options of societal concern. The ethical matrix is sometimes understood simply as a checklist of ethical concerns, but might also be seen as a guide to coming to conclusions on moral questions. The problem I discuss in this paper relates to how using the ethical matrix method as a decision guide can be combined with respecting pluralism. The aim of the paper is to suggest a framework making it possible to -at the same time -enhance public justification of judgments and respect pluralism. I argue that pluralism is fundamental to the ethical matrix approach; I distinguish between intuitionist principled pluralism and societal value pluralism; and I show how both kinds of pluralism imply restrictions on how conclusions can be made. No substantive moral decision principles can be allowed. Still, I argue, decision principles of a more epistemological or procedural character can be acceptable even within pluralism. The pragmatist principle of inquiry is defended as an account of moral problem solving compatible with both principled pluralism and value pluralism. When an ethical matrix is used within such a participatory inquiry process substantive conclusions can be drawn.