[Paleopsych] Routledge: Daniel M. Weinstock: Moral Pluralism
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Daniel M. Weinstock: Moral Pluralism
The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Moral pluralism is the view that moral values, norms, ideals, duties
and virtues are irreducibly diverse: morality serves many purposes
relating to a wide range of human interests, and it is therefore
unlikely that a theory unified around a single moral consideration
will account for all the resulting values. Unlike relativism, however,
moral pluralism holds that there are rational constraints on what can
count as a moral value. One possible, though not necessary,
implication of moral pluralism is the existence of real moral
dilemmas. Some philosophers have deemed these to be inconceivable; in
fact, however, they do not constitute a serious threat to practical
reason. Another possible implication of moral pluralism is the
existence within a society of radically different but equally
permissible moralities. This poses a challenge for political
philosophy, and might justify a liberal view that particular
conceptions of the good life ought not to be invoked in the
formulation of public policy.
1. Moral pluralism and moral theory
2. Relativism and moral dilemmas
3. Moral pluralism and political philosophy
1. Moral pluralism and moral theory
Moral pluralism is the view that moral values, norms, ideals, duties
and virtues cannot be reduced to any one foundational consideration,
but that they are rather irreducibly diverse. As such, moral pluralism
is a metaphysical thesis, in that it tells us what moral
considerations there are. Pluralist moral philosophers disagree as to
exactly what the plural sources of moral value are. For example, Sir
David Ross (1930) distinguished six species of duty, including duties
of fidelity and reparation, of gratitude, of justice, of beneficence,
of self-improvement and of non-maleficence; and Thomas Nagel (1979)
has claimed that the conflicts among diverse moral principles are due
to there being five distinct sources of value - special allegiances,
universal rights, utility, perfectionist ends of self-development, and
individual projects (see Nagel, T. §5). Despite the differences
between these accounts of the sources of moral value, the resolution
of which constitutes a challenge for substantive moral theory, these
thinkers can be seen as united in the view that morality has developed
to protect and promote basic interests related to human wellbeing and
flourishing, but that since there is no unique form that human
wellbeing must take, there can consequently not be a theory of
morality unified around one supreme value (see Happiness §3; Welfare).
This is not to say that the truth of moral pluralism disqualifies any
attempt at formulating a moral theory (see Morality and ethics §§1-2).
Among the many moral values which human beings pursue, there are
undoubtedly some that can be grouped together and accounted for in
terms of some more general value relevant to the particular set of
human interests with which they are all in one way or another
concerned. Moral pluralism implies simply that none of these values
could plausibly claim hegemony over the entire set of moral
considerations.
Historically, moral pluralism has been linked with controversial
positions in moral epistemology and the ontology of value, according
to which moral facts are real and non-natural, and are given as
self-evident to a distinct human faculty of moral intuition (see Moral
realism; Intuitionism in ethics). It is in fact compatible with a wide
range of philosophical positions on these issues, including
anti-realism and naturalism.
Some philosophers have argued that the diversity of our moral concepts
is a distinctive feature of modernity. Alasdair MacIntyre, for
example, has claimed that the plurality of conflicting considerations
which make up the moral lexicon of the modern agent is a sign of
cultural decay. Modern morality is for MacIntyre a congeries of
concepts which have been inherited by modern agents from past forms of
life, but which have been torn from the coherent concrete human
practices within which they originated, and in the context of which
alone they have any real meaning. Moral pluralism is therefore in his
view a symptom of our moral discomfiture.
Moral pluralism has also been challenged by defenders of classical
single-principle moral theories. Yet there have also been signs of
theoretical rapprochements. Indeed, many modern consequentialists are
abandoning the simple view of human wellbeing embodied in classical
utilitarianism in favour of more multifaceted accounts (see
Consequentialism). And many deontologists can be read as formulating
rational priority rules ranking deontological constraints over other
types of moral considerations, rather than as banishing the latter
completely from the realm of the moral (see Deontological ethics).
2. Relativism and moral dilemmas
It is important to distinguish moral pluralism from a thesis with
which it has too often been confused, namely that of moral relativism.
A relativist claims that the truth of moral judgments is relative to
the conventions of the social group (or even to the individual whim)
of the person issuing the judgment, and that these conventions or
whims are not themselves subject to any further criterion of adequacy.
There are therefore according to relativists no rational constraints
on what can count as a moral value, and it is therefore senseless in
their view to speak of the truth, falsity or justification of moral
judgments (see Moral relativism). Moral pluralism in contrast holds
that while the variety of moral principles applying to human beings is
irreducible, it is not infinite. Rather, there are constraints on what
can count as a moral value (and there is therefore sense in speaking
of moral truth and falsity). These constraints might, for example,
have to do with the (inherently diverse but not infinite) forms which
human wellbeing and flourishing can take.
Moral pluralism is therefore compatible with the existence of rational
constraints upon moral thought.But the fact that a number of
statements to do with moral value might all be true while apparently
recommending incompatible actions, and that real, as opposed to merely
apparent, moral dilemmas emerge as a real possibility, has been
thought by some philosophers to disqualify it as a theory of value by
making it sin against basic axioms of deontic logic. These include the
principle that 'ought implies can' and the principle of agglomeration,
which states that if I ought to do A and I ought to do B, then I ought
to do A and B. This troubling apparent consequence of moral pluralism
must, however, be qualified by a number of observations. First, as
Michael Stocker has observed (1990), the premise that statements about
moral value are always act evaluations is an unvindicated assumption
of much modern moral theory, yet moral pluralism only leads to moral
dilemmas if this assumption is granted. There might be a number of
true moral descriptions of a situation, emphasizing different moral
considerations present in it. Any one of these might well on its own
give rise to an ought statement, but given the presence of other moral
considerations it may give rise only to what Ross has called a prima
facie obligation. As the latter are not directly action-guiding, they
need not conform to the strictures of deontic logic. Second, certain
axioms of deontic logic might actually embody controversial
first-order moral propositions. The fact that they conflict with the
hypothesis of moral dilemmas does not therefore automatically place
the burden of proof upon defenders of the latter. Third, the reality
of moral dilemmas need not, as philosophers such as Bernard Williams
(1965) have suggested, put paid to all attempts to rationally order
our, at times conflicting, moral values. There are reasons supporting
both sides of a moral dilemma, and the presence of a moral dilemma,
rather than signalling the necessary end of moral inquiry, can point
to the need to undertake inquiry into these reasons in a more
fine-grained manner. Moral pluralism involves the denial of the
existence of a supreme value from which all others might be derived;
it does not entail incommensurability, the view that moral
considerations cannot be compared and ranked. Thus, for example, there
may be rational priority rules allowing us to order the claims of
different moral values.
3. Moral pluralism and political philosophy
The plurality of moral values can manifest itself in a number of
different ways. Most relevantly from the point of view of political
philosophy, it can involve the existence within a society of a number
of equally acceptable moral forms of life. This form of social
pluralism poses a set of challenges for political philosophers,
suggesting that there may be no simple way of adjudicating conflicts
between adherents of equally admirable moral forms of life, or of
engaging in the interpersonal welfare comparisons often seen as
necessary for the formulation of theories of distributive justice.
Moral pluralism has been seen by many philosophers, including John
Rawls (1971), Thomas Nagel and Charles Larmore (1987), as calling for
the liberal doctrine of state neutrality, the view that particular
conceptions of the good ought not to be invoked in the formulation of
public policy.
See also: Axiology; Duty; Ideals; Pluralism; Religious Pluralism;
Values; Virtues and vices
References and further reading
Berlin, I. (1969) Four Essays on Liberty, Oxford: Oxford University
Press. (The classic twentieth-century statement of moral pluralism.)
Larmore, C. (1987) Patterns of Moral Compexity, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. (Argues that a purely political conception of
liberalism flows from the plurality of moral forms of life in a
society.)
MacIntyre, A. (1984) After Virtue, Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame
University Press, 2nd edn. (Argues that moral pluralism and conflict
result from moral concepts no longer being embedded in concrete social
forms.)
Nagel, T. (1977) 'The Fragmentation of Value', in H.T. Englehardt, Jr.
and D. Callahan (eds) Knowledge, Value and Belief, Hastings-on-Hudson,
NY: Institute of Society, Ethics and the Life Sciences; repr. in Moral
Questions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. (A clear
statement of the different sources of moral value.)
Rawls, J. (1971) A Theory of Justice, Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 34-40. (A standard modern argument against a form of
moral pluralism identified as 'intuitionism'.)
Ross, W.D. (1930) The Right and the Good, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 21. (The classic statement of an intuitionist moral pluralism.)
Stocker, M. (1990) Plural and Conflicting Values, Oxford: Oxford
University Press. (Argues that value pluralism does not threaten the
possibility of sound practical reason.)
Williams, B. (1965) 'Ethical Consistency', Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society, supplementary vol. 39; repr. in Problems of the
Self: Philosophical Papers 1956-72, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1973. (Raises problems for moral reasoning caused by the
plurality of values.)
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