Mini - Chapter 25
Methods and Moral theory
Contents of Chapter 25
Introduction
Jamieson on Method and moral theory
Bauman on ethics in the postmodern world - A sociological evaluation of ethical theories
Edited Extract - Steven Tipton and the exercise of authority and judgement - an exercise in
ethical analysis
Introduction
Key Philosophers and works
Dale Jamieson "Method and Moral Theory" in Singer P (editor) — A Companion to Ethics (Blackwell,
2001) pages 476–486
Steven Tipton Getting saved from the sixties. Moral Meaning in Conversion and Cultural Change (Los
Angeles and London: University of California, 1984)
Zygmunt Bauman Postmodern Ethics (Blackwell, 1993) and Life in Fragments: Essays in Postmodern
Moralities (Blackwell, 1995)
Key Terms
Moral theory, postmodern ethics, ostensive example, hypothetical example, imaginary example
What you will learn by the end of this chapter
You will examine why it is important to consider the components of a moral theory
You will consider the role of rules in moral theories
You will investigate the extent to which moral theories encourage or discourage individual moral
responsibility
You will have explored how Tipton's system might be used to analyse ethical theories
Jamieson on Method and moral theory
In his chapter, "Method and Moral Theory" in Singer P (editor), A Companion to Ethics (Blackwell, 2001
pages 476–486) Dale Jamieson explores the nature of contemporary moral theory. Moral philosophers
concern themselves with a very wide range of different kinds of questions including:
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What moral rules should we have and what sort of moral rules are they?
What do we mean by the moral language which we use?
Philosophers are especially interested in how reliable rule based moral theories are - how they work in
practice, whether they throw up inconsistencies or make judgements which we can see are wrong. So it
is possible to question the sorts of thing a Utilitarian thinker decides is right and whether that decision
can be shown to be problematic. In addition there is the important philosophical question of the theory
itself, both in terms of how it is put together (what are the building blocks of a moral theory) and
whether moral theories are really needed at all.
A moral theory can be seen as an abstract system, a theory which is far away from the experience of
the moment. It identifies and organises all of the elements of the system into different elements of
moral concern, from who is of moral concern, to what might be right or wrong, and how these things
are decided. The kind of element that the theory focuses on characterises the kind of ethical thinking
that theory encourages. Utilitarians are interested in consequences and maximum good while Kantians
are concerned with actions and universalisability for instance. Once the kind of categories are identified
and the relationships between those categories are explained they can be tested for reliability. When
evaluating Kant it is important to decide whether there could be a moral rule that has limited scope as
this would be a non-universalizable moral rule, challenging Kan’s proposal that universalizability is a
requirement of moral rules. When evaluating utilitarianism it is pertinent to know whether instances of
injustice or atrocity end up being justified by some greater majoritarian good. In both cases it is
important to discover whether a dimension of moral significance has been missed because of the
structure of the moral theory.
Later in his chapter Jamieson then goes on to explore a challenge to this traditional view of moral
theory. The challenge to convention comes from a much greater interest in the character and
motivation of people and the social impact of moral thinking, rather than consequences or duties.
Thinkers like McIntyre and Williams have concluded that modern moral theory actually leaves us with
more problems than solutions. Modern theories just seem to emphasise the moral muddle and
disagreement. Anscombe goes as far as to call the idea of an authoritative kind of moral obligation a
perversion brought about by religious ethics. This argument has been underpinned by psychological
research showing differences between men and women in their attitude to moral authority; men tend
towards obligations and women towards love.
Moral reasoning is something everyone does all the time. We make choices about what to do, and when
we are considering what to do to someone we wonder how we might feel if it was done to us. If we are
asked to explain our choices and actions through our reply we are engaging in moral theorizing.
Jamieson argues that we tend to be driven by pragmatic consideration, rather than a search for truth
and answers to those grand questions which philosophers concern themselves with. It is this which
undermines the supposed link between moral theories and practice. In fact Jamieson suggests that the
kind of moral theorising that moral philosophers engage in, is almost never used to inform actual moral
decisions although he hopes that they have some indirect influence.
Jamieson also gives some consideration to the two approaches which philosophers have used to inform
the construction of moral theories: foundationalism and coherentism. Foundationalism is illustrated with
the example of John who believes it is wrong to kill his neighbour gratuitously and extends from this
belief to a general belief that all gratuitous killing is wrong. The attraction of this view is that the end of
the chain of moral thinking is justified - we go from the general belief that gratuitous killing is wrong to
the specific belief that to kill ones neighbour gratuitously is wrong. Jamieson identifies some
weaknesses with this. Firstly there are self justifying beliefs, such as a belief in beliefs, which do not fit
this chain structure. In addition, there can be a lot of dispute about beliefs which are based on anything
other than logic. A belief that it cannot be raining and not raining at the same time is logically justified,
but people may disagree about a belief that abortion is wrong, an area where logic does not seem to be
able to give clarity.
Coherentism is illustrated by the thinking of John Rawls. It is the idea that beliefs can only be justified
by their relation to other beliefs. Rawls' idea is that a proper method begins with a set of considered
beliefs from which we deduce considered principles. Then both are revised in the light of each other.
However, it is disputed that this sort of revision would actually lead to something we would believe to
be good. An important moral principle may be compromised in the process of revision.
Both foundationsists and coherentists are trying to establish a set of defendable moral beliefs and
convictions and they tend to use examples as one way of working out what our moral intuitions are.
There are different categories of examples. An example used in evaluating moral theories might be
taken from real life - these are called ostensive. An example of an ostensive example is a critique of the
decision to drop the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A second category of example is a
hypothetical example. In this case you consider your decision on what to do in a plausible moral
dilemma - whether to give some change to a beggar, for instance. These two categories are common.
There is a third kind of example, the imaginary example. Here an unreal scenario is presented, as
illustrated by a balloon game where one must decide to save one of the Pope, a pregnant single mother
and Mozart, for instance. A classic example of this is used in the abortion debate - a person is
kidnapped and hooked up to a brilliant violinist who needs the use of their kidney for nine months while
they recover - is it reasonable for the person to be forced to stay hooked up as separating will cause
the death of the violinist. This is used to argue that a pregnant women should be not be forced to go
through with the pregnancy. Jamieson feels that hypothetical examples are more grounded than
imaginary ones and that we cannot trust our intuitions when it comes to imaginary situations. Perhaps
this underestimates the role of our use of imagination when considering options and justifying choices.
Task
1. What elements does a moral theory need to contain? Analyse Utilitarianism, Virtue Theory and
Kantian Ethics to see what components each theory has. Are they similar? Do all theories have the
same sorts of elements or do they differ?
2. Look back at the examples you have come across in your studies - are they ostensive, hypothetical
or imaginary?
3. Evaluate a theory using three examples - one each of ostensive, hypothetical and imaginary. Which
example offers a more powerful result?
Bauman on ethics in the postmodern world - A sociological
evaluation of ethical theories
It was noted above that Anscombe has called the idea of an authoritative kind of moral obligation a
perversion brought about by religious ethics. The eminent sociologist Zygmund Bauman has raised a
number of similar concerns about ethics and ethical theory, and their use by those in authority or those
in power. His concern is with the world which, as he sees it, is characterised by ambiguity and
uncertainty. It does not fall into a clear and concrete philosophical or theological order. It is from this
perspective that he has written a heavy critique of traditional ethical theories and thinking of most kinds
and traditional sources of moral authority. The kind of criticism which he makes of ethics, which is
sociological, philosophical and political, is useful for evaluating moral theories.
In his classic work, Postmodern Ethics and partner volume, Life in Fragments, he developed his attack.
In Postmodern Ethics he attacks the idea of granting authority to the moral wise;
“If philosophers, educators, and preachers make ethics their concern, this is precisely because
none of them would entrust judgement of right and wrong to the people themselves or would
recognize, without further investigation, the authority of their beliefs on the matter.” (p.10)
He suspects that 'high ethics' is a way of undermining the moral status and moral responsibility of the
people;
“Only ethics can say what really ought to be done so that the good be served. Ideally, ethics is a
code of law that prescribes correct behaviour ‘universally’ – that is, for all people at all times;
one that sets apart good from evil once for all and everybody. This is precisely why the spelling
out of ethical prescriptions needs to be a job of special people like philosophers, educators and
preachers. " (p.10)
These special people have a position of authority over ordinary people. We are left to carry on applying
rules of thumb that we cling to, given us by the moral authority which has legal and judicial weight. In
other words the kind of moral behaviour which ethical experts tend to offer is one governed by law.
Those experts also judge how good the people are at following these moral laws. Their authority comes
from having special access to knowledge not available to ordinary people. They gain it by communing
with the spirits of the ancestors, studying the holy scriptures, or unraveling the dictates of reason.
Bauman feels this approach embraces a derogatory view of the ‘ethical competence’ of ordinary people
in ordinary circumstances. We are impotent in the face of these experts who we depend upon and must
go to for guidance. What is more, the kinds of ethics the "experts" come up with are distanced from the
hurly burly of real life. It is developed in the rarefied environment of schools of philosophy or theology.
We live in the muddy, ambiguous world of real life where applying these sorts of rules seems much
more difficult than in the carefully worked out calculations the experts made. What is more, simply
following laws laid down doesn't help us learn to take responsibility for making moral decisions
ourselves. Quite the reverse is true. We are inducted into becoming dependent on the wise, but when
we are alone in the world, having to act, we do not have our experts at hand to help.
Another aspect of his criticism is the role of community in expressing and organising ethics. Moral rules
are seen as the ways in which society organises and orders itself. We see religions encouraging their
believers to live by their moral systems, politicians asking for people to uphold the common good, live
by the agreed values of society. However, Bauman reminds us that being good sometimes means
opposing the moral standards of the community, for instance in Nazi Germany. So for society to be
morally fit, it needs to encourage a willingness to stand against the common accepted view. This does
not go down well with community-orientated religious and political groups who want the collective to
walk the same ethical way, and this tension is seen in the difficulty religious traditions of most kind
have in accepting different sexual orientations.
Finally, he is suspicious of the dominance of rationality in ethical theory, the necessity for complex
intellectual thinking to work out what is moral. He argues that being moral is much more about acting
out of a pre-rational duty to the other.
Bauman's contribution is to challenge the nature of ethics itself and the power relationships which seem
to be implied in the kinds of systems which ethics has classically looked to. In any ethical theory we can
ask, does the theory encourage moral responsibility, does the theory encourage the idea that we must
take moral responsibility for our actions and judgements, or does it encourage us to defer to others, or
do what we are told; ultimately, do ethical theories engender morality.
Task
Consider an ethical theory you have studied. To what extent does it encourage the person to take moral
responsibility for their actions and judgements, and to what extent does it encourage us to defer to
others, or do what we are told?
Edited Extract - Steven Tipton and the exercise of authority and
judgement - an exercise in ethical analysis
Moving beyond the construction of moral theories, other writers from other disciplines have contributed
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