Right Actions and Good Persons

Controversies Between Eudaimonistic and Deontic Moral Theories

Marjaana Kopperi

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138323841
• eBook ISBN: 9780429835544
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

First published in 1999, this work tests the ancient against the modern in discussing whether modern approaches to ethics remain sufficiently able to provide a serious and justifiable account of morality. Marjaana Kopperi explores ancient, medieval and enlightenment philosophy to compare their notion of moral agents and 'the good life' with the more action-based notions of modern philosophy. Kopperi aims to examine how the promoters of agent-based ethical views deal with questions of what constitutes a good life and whether it can or should be quantified or justified.

1 Introduction

Should moral theory focus on actions or agents? Should it deal primarily with what it is right to do or concentrate on what it is good to be? Is it essential to define the content of the obligation or the nature of the good life?

These questions have been subjects of increasing interest in moral inquiry in recent years. Discussions about the appropriate nature of moral theory - whether it should guide human beings in their questioning of how to live or whether it should rather provide the criterion for right actions - form one of the main topics in contemporary moral philosophy. In these discussions several philosophers have expressed their dissatisfaction with the form of moral inquiry that, according to them, has dominated the field of moral philosophy during this century.¹ In their view, modern moral philosophy is too focused on actions and obligations. As such it neglects issues related to the agent, such as what makes life fulfilling and worth living. This action-centered tradition is most clearly expressed in the consequentialist and deontologist moral theories such as utilitarian and Kantian ones. Thus Julia Annas, for example, maintains that

there has been a growing sense that there is something deeply inadequate about the view that when we systematize theories about our ethical view we are faced with the traditional option, a simple choice between consequentialist and deontological ways of thinking. If this is our option, then we must choose between calculating consequences to discover the right way to act, or rely on moral rules to guide us.²

The origins of this dominant form of moral inquiry are often located in the rise of 'modernity' during and after the Enlightenment.³ The moral tradition deriving from the Enlightenment is regarded as having shifted the focus from considerations of the good life and happiness to the definitions for morally right actions. To find an alternative to this 'modernist' tradition, many philosophers have turned their interest to ancient forms of moral thought, and in particular to Aristotelian virtue-ethics. Unlike the modern ones, most ancient and medieval theories are not primarily concerned with the criterion for right actions, but rather with the good life of an agent. Essential to those theories is to provide the human being with a clear, articulated and correct account of her good life and how it can be achieved. The agent's concern for her life as a whole is regarded as the starting point for all moral inquiry.⁴

As well as the arguments against the characteristic nature of modern moral theory, its justification has also been criticized. Until quite recently, the usual method for justifying moral norms was to ground them on premises, facts or reasons taken to be universally true and objectively valid. Within this tradition morality is based on certain features common to all human beings despite the historical and cultural differences. Thus, to use Martha Nussbaum's formulation, morality is 'supposed to be objective in the sense that it is justifiable with reference to reasons that do not derive merely from local traditions and practices, but rather from features of humanness that lie beneath all local traditions and are there to be seen whether or not they are in fact recognized in local traditions'.⁵

Such a universalistic method for justifying morality has been, however, seriously challenged. According to current criticism, morality cannot be justified by referring to premises supposed to be valid regardless of time and place. Rather, moral and political norms are inseparably tied to locality, tradition and history. They derive their force from contextual meanings and interpretations. Instead of trying to find a universal and objectively valid basis for morality, the justification of certain norms should be tied to the ideas and values embraced by a specific cultural community; in short, moral philosophy must be contextualised.⁶

These two features of 'modern' moral theory - its action-guiding nature and its universalistic justification - are perhaps the ones most frequently criticized in contemporary discussion. Accordingly, the alternatives proposed tend to emphasise the notion of the good life in moral theory and the contextual basis of all ethical judgments.⁷ These alternatives raise, however, several questions themselves. It can be asked, for instance, what it actually means to begin ethical reflection from the point of view of the agent and her good life. What is the good life that the critics of modern ethics want to place at the centre of moral theory? Is it even possible to offer a specific account of the good human life? And if so, how can such an account be justified? Is it based on culturally and historically developed interpretations or on universalistic assumptions of some kind? One can also ask how people are to be motivated to accept and adopt such a view?⁸

These questions cannot be avoided when trying to determine whether the agent-centered approach can provide a consistent and acceptable alternative to the act-centered approach of modern moral theory. Yet, in my view, these questions have not been discussed, let alone resolved, in the contemporary literature. My aim in this study is, therefore, to examine how the promoters of agent-based ethical views deal with these questions. I shall consider how these questions may be settled on the basis of their argumentation. In order to do this, I shall discuss both aspects of the criticism of modern moral theory. First I shall analyse attempts to define agent-centered ethical views, and second, attempts to justify moral and political norms by binding them to tradition, custom and culture. In each case, I shall take the argumentation of a particular author as an example of a certain approach. The chosen writers are the ones who I think provide the best representations of the issue to be discussed.

My central thesis is that critics of modern forms of ethics do not succeed in answering these questions in a way that would support their view. They fail to provide an appropriate account of the good human life and to define ethical theory in agent-centered terms. In other words, they fail to formulate an ethical view that would clearly give priority to the notion of the good life in moral theory. Moreover, attempts to justify morality by binding it to a historical, social or cultural context also face serious problems.

In chapter two, I shall begin by examining the 'ancient' and 'modern' forms of moral theorizing as they are usually understood in contemporary discussions. My approach, however, is not historical. I shall not seek to offer a historical account either of ancient or Enlightenment moral philosophy. My aim is rather to examine the crucial distinguishing features between these forms of moral reasoning as seen by contemporary critics of modern ethics. I shall also take a brief look at the central problems, particularly of the ancient forms of moral reasoning, though these problems will be discussed in a more detailed manner in chapters three and four.

The following two chapters analyse various agent-based moral views and the contextual justification of morality. In chapter three, I shall discuss the different attempts to build morality on the notion of the good life and consider how these attempts have succeeded. The views to be discussed are those of Robert Louden, Martha Nussbaum, William Galston and Charles Taylor. Chapter four concentrates on the issue of justification. I shall consider attempts to tie the justification of moral and political norms to history and culture. I treat the writings of John Rawls as my primary example. In his Political Liberalism Rawls justifies the particular moral order of contemporary, liberal democratic societies in terms of particular ideas and values implicitly shared by those societies (rather than in terms of some kind of universalistic moral theory). Thomas Bridges, who develops Rawls's view even further, provides another example.⁹

In the fifth chapter I shall conclude my thesis and explicate why, in my view, the modernist way of moral thought is still worth defending. I believe that when properly defined and understood, modern ethics can still provide a serious and justifiable account of morality.

Notes:

1 Among the best known of these philosophers are Robert Louden 1992b; Martha Nussbaum 19B6; 1990; Alasdair MacIntyre 1981; 1988; Charles Taylor 1989; 1992.

2 Annas 1993, p. 4. In a related way, Robert Solomon (1988, p. 16) argues that 'there is less difference than similarity between Kant and the utilitarians: moral philosophy is nothing if not objective, rational, based on principles, and exclusive of particular self-reference and mere personal perspectives'.

3 Bridges 1994; MacIntyre 1981; Taylor 1989.

4 Annas 1993, p.127; 1995, p. 241. See also Louden 1992b, p. 14; Nussbaum 1986, p. 5; 1990, pp. 25, 173.

5 Martha Nussbaum (1988b, p. 33) says this about the Aristotelian conception of the good, but this interpretation of the foundations of morality also applies to most other theories in the history of Western moral philosophy. See Plant 1991, p. 2. This issue will be discussed further in the next chapter.

6 From different points of view, such criticism has been presented by philosophers such as Bridges 1994; Lyotard 1985; MacIntyre 1981; 1988; Rorty 1991; Taylor 1989; Walzer 1983; 1989.

7 Thus, as Martha Nussbaum (1988b, p. 33) argues, 'to many current defenders of an ethical approach based on the virtues, the return to the virtues is connected with a turn toward relativism - toward, that is, the view that the only appropriate criteria of ethical goodness are local ones, internal to the traditions and practices of each local society or group that asks itself questions about the good. The rejection of general algorithms and abstract rules in favor of an account of the good life based on specific modes of virtuous action is taken, by writers as otherwise diverse as Alasdair MacIntyre, Bernard Williams, and Philippa Foot, to be connected with the abandonment of the project of rationally justifying a single norm of flourishing life for and to all human beings and with a reliance, instead, on norms that are local both in origin and in application.'

8 One can also ask whether their interpretation of 'ancient' and 'modern' forms of moral inquiry are correct. I shall discuss this question in some detail in the next chapter. I believe, however, that this issue is not crucial to this study, since the purpose of the study is not to examine the historical views but the alternatives presented to 'modern ethics' by contemporary critics of it. For this purpose, their rough distinction between ancient and modern moral theories seems to be satisfactory.

9 It is regrettable that the most prominent contemporary articulations of liberalism and liberal political order are so much focused on the public policy and political culture of the United States. Yet the idea of liberalism and the American political practice should not be identified. Thus, in this study, the terms 'liberalism', 'liberal democratic society' or 'liberal order' are understood in a wide, philosophical or moral sense. They refer to the political order that arises from the central ideals of modern ethics and grounds its basic institutions and practices on these ideals. As such they do not refer to the political system of any particular state.

2 Morality in Ancient and Modern Theories

Contemporary criticism of modern moral theories has basically focused on two features of these theories. First, the opponents of modern ethics criticize these theories for concentrating on actions and thus dismissing the personal, agent-related dimension of ethics. Second, they criticize the universalistic and objectivistic justification of morality.

According to the first argument, modern act-centered thought defines the domain of morality in terms of right acts or the consequences of acts. Understood along modernist lines, morality is primarily concerned with formulating general rules of right conduct while questions of the character, self-development or the good life of an agent are left out of sight.¹ Ethical theories may, generally speaking, be divided into those that focus on the acts that agents do and those that focus on agents themselves.² Act-centered theories see as the fundamental task of morality to call forth morally right actions. General rules and principles are, then, understood as methods for finding out what is right. Agent-centered theories, by contrast, hold that it is the agent and her life that should be prior. Moral theory should above all provide guidance to the agent about how to live. Whereas the crucial moral question for an act-centered theory is 'what ought I to do?' or, 'what is it right to do?', the agent-centered theory is concerned with 'what sort of person am I to be?' or, 'what is it good to be?'.³

The second form of criticism questions the search for a universally justifiable, objectively valid basis for morality. Attempts to ground morality on general knowledge or objectively valid premises have been described variously as philosophical, theoretical or metaphysical approaches to morality,⁴ In general, a philosophical or metaphysical approach involves the examination of being qua being: It deals with questions su...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Morality in Ancient and Modern Theories
• 3 Ethics and the Good Life
• 4 Contextual Justification of Morality
• 5 Moral Obligation and the Meaningful Life
• Bibliography
• Index of Names