Download Ethics in a Pluralist World

AKC 8 General – Autumn Term 2010 – Knowing What To Do
29/11/10
AKC 8 – 29 November 2010
Knowing What To Do: Ethics in a Contemporary Context
Lecture 8: Ethics in a Plural World
Dr Esther D. Reed, Associate Professor of Theological Ethics, University of Exeter.
1.
What Kind of Plural World?
Descriptive Moral Relativism establishes only that there are deeply held
disagreements. Morality is either a culturally-rooted and tradition-specific, or a
personal and highly subjective affair:
Descriptive Moral Relativism (DMR). As a matter of empirical fact, there are deep
and widespread moral disagreements across different societies, and these
disagreements are much more significant than whatever agreements there may be.1
Metaethical Moral Relativism Some relativists take another step and claim that noone can assert the superiority of their position over that of others.
Metaethical Moral Relativism (MMR). The truth or falsity of moral judgments,
or their justification, is not absolute or universal, but is relative to the traditions,
convictions, or practices of a group of persons. 2
2.
What Kind of Ethics and Law?
Kant’s Doctrine of Right and Keeping Ethics Private
Immanuel Kant draws a distinction between ethics and right (Recht) or law. The
reason for this distinction is his division of freedom into internal and external.
This distinction, on which the main division of the doctrine of morals as a
whole also rests, is based on this: that the concept of freedom, which is
common to both, makes it necessary to divide duties into duties of outer
freedom and duties of inner freedom, only the latter of which are ethical.3
Freedom means ‘independence from being constrained by another’s choice … insofar
as it can coexist with the freedom of every other in accordance with a universal law’. 4
Any action is right if it can coexist with everyone’s freedom in accordance
with a universal law, or if on its maxim the freedom of choice of each can
coexist with everyone’s freedom in accordance with a universal law.5
Pluralism and Ethics in Public
By contrast, The Pluralism Project at Harvard University does not delimit ethics to the
realm of inner freedom, but regards ethics as a matter of public concern:
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First, pluralism is not diversity alone, but the energetic engagement with
diversity.
Second, pluralism is not just tolerance, but the active seeking of understanding
across lines of difference.
C. Gowans, ‘Moral Relativism’ Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy (2008)
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-relativism
2
C. Gowans, ‘Moral Relativism’.
3
Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals transl. Mary Gregor (CUP, 1991), {§407], p.
207.
4
Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, [237], p. 63.
5
Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, [230], p. 56.
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AKC 8 General – Autumn Term 2010 – Knowing What To Do
29/11/10
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Third, pluralism is not relativism, but the encounter of commitments.
Fourth, pluralism is based on dialogue. Pluralism involves the commitment to
being at the table -- with one’s commitments. 6
Today, writes Diana Eck, the challenge is to find ways of articulating the complexity
of the “we” that makes up our societies.7
3.
Test Cases: Abortion and Torture
‘Thick’ versus ‘Thin’ Theories of the Good
John Rawls’s political liberalism is a ‘thin’ theory: ‘citizens must vote on the question
according to their complete ordering of political values’. 8
Pluralism and the Quest for Cross-Cultural Legitimacy
Abdullahi An-Na’im argues that no normative system of ethics or political standards,
including political liberalism, can be culturally neutral.9
I am therefore calling for framing the issue in terms of the contextual nature
of human understandings and practice of Islam, on the one hand, and the
universality of human rights on the other. This approach is more realistic
and constructive than simplistic assertions of compatibility or
incompatibility of Islam and human rights that take both sides of this
relationship in static, absolute terms.10
Only when human rights have achieved an adequate degree of legitimacy within a
given tradition is it possible to hope that peoples of diverse cultural traditions can
agree on their meaning, scope and application.
 Full details about the AKC course, including the handouts:
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/akc
 If you have any queries please contact Elizabeth on ext 2333 or [email protected].
 The AKC Examination Friday, 1st April between 14.30 and 16.30.
Diane L. Eck, ‘What is Pluralism?’ The Pluralism Project at Harvard University
http://pluralism.org/pages/pluralism/essays/from_diversity_to_pluralism
7
Diane L. Eck, ‘Becoming a More Complete “We”’ The Pluralism Project at Harvard
University http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/jan09_eck
8
John Rawls, The Law of Peoples (Harvard University Press, 1999), 169.
9
Abdullahi An-Naim, ‘Human Rights, Religion, and the Contingency of Universalist
Projects’ Occasional Paper, no. 2. PARC, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs,
Syracuse University, September 2000, pp. ix-xiv, 1-32, esp. p. 3.
10
Abdullahi An-Naim, ‘Islam and Human Rights’ in William Twining, Ed., Human Rights,
Southern Voices (CUP, 2009), 98.
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