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Books
- D. Wong, Natural Moralities
(October, 2006), Oxford University Press 2006 (Korean and Chinese translations in preparation.).
(last updated on 2009/01/07)
Abstract:
“Moral relativism” is overwhelmingly a term
of condemnation, frequently of scorn or
derision, a term for putting one’s opponent
immediately on the defensive: “you sound like
a relativist—explain yourself!” or “you are
a relativist—shame on you!” The prosecutor
usually takes on the persona of the lone
voice of reason beating back the howling dogs
of spineless, trendy relativists. The rounds
of accusation remind me of the children’s
game, “Tag, you’re it.” If you get touched
by the “it” kid, you are condemned to run
after the others until you manage to touch
the next unlucky “it” kid. Social
conservatives accuse liberals of moral
relativism for defending reproductive, gay
and lesbian rights. Some liberals in turn
accuse multiculturalists of moral relativism
for not defending the universality of
reproductive, gay and lesbian rights. The
rhetoric portrays these crimes as falling but
a few slippery steps short of collaboration
with the Nazis. The only ones who don’t get
to play this game are the ones who accept the
label of moral relativists, but curiously
enough, there are very few people willing to
do so. If they are a howling pack, they do
not come when their name is called!
Anglo-American philosophy, (I suspect this is
true in at least some other philosophical
communities) engages in the same sort of
game, except in a more genteel fashion. The
aim of most philosophical discussions of
relativism is to establish its manifest
falsity. The standard characterizations of
relativism make it an easy target and seldom
reveal what really motivates people who are
attracted to it. Introductory textbooks in
ethics frequently portray the view as an
extreme variety of subjectivism (or
conventionalism)--a person's (or group's)
accepting that something is right makes it
right for that person (or group). Such a
discussion usually comes early in the
standard textbook—to get it out of the way so
that the “serious” philosophy can start. The
argumentative strategy is almost always
negative in attacking the arguments on behalf
of the view or purports to show some
incoherence in it. Rarely does someone try
to formulate some version of relativism that
is nuanced and plausibly motivated. The role
of the howling pack of relativists is often
awarded to confused students in Introduction
to Philosophy classes, or more recently, to
literary theorists.
In other words, people typically use the term
‘relativism’ as a substitute for confronting
hard questions. Here is how it works. The
rhetorical use of the term imposes on the
audience a dichotomy: either accept
relativism, defined in the most extreme way
possible, or accept absolutism or
universalism. I use the terms ‘absolutism’
and ‘universalism’ for two different kinds of
views about moral truth. Moral universalism
is the view that there is a single true
morality for all societies and times. Moral
absolutism is universalism plus the view that
the core of the single true morality is a set
of general principles or rules, all of which
hold true without exception. Often the
further claim is made that these rules hold
no matter what the consequences. For
example, some assert that individuals have
rights that can never be set aside for the
sake of avoiding bad consequences—never, even
if the heavens should fall. The more popular
denunciations of moral relativism often do
not distinguish these different possibilities
and sometimes end up criticizing
“situational” ethics that judge what is right
by the context or circumstances. This is the
criticism of relativism as the rejection of
absolutism, but note that one could be a
universalist and a “situational” ethicist at
the same time. One could hold, that is, that
right varies with the context in such a way
that anyone reasoning correctly and with all
the relevant facts would judge in the same
way, regardless of one’s society or culture.
I am among the handful of philosophers who
are willing to be associated with relativism.
The version I defend constitutes an
alternative to universalism and to relativism
as these views are usually defined. My
alternative agrees with one implication of
relativism as it is usually defined: that
there is no single true morality. However,
it recognizes significant limits on what can
count as a true morality. There is a
plurality of true moralities, but that
plurality does not include all moralities.
This theory occupies the territory between
universalism—the view that there is a single
true morality—and the easy target typically
defined as relativism—the view that any
morality is as good as any other.
This book further develops lines of thought
initiated in Moral Relativity. I argued
there for a version of moral relativism that
accounted for many aspects of the objectivity
we attribute to morality. Morality, I
argued, comprises an idealized set of norms
in imperatival form (“A is to do X under
conditions C) abstracted from the practices
and institutions of a society that serves to
regulate conflicts of interest, both between
persons and within the psychological economy
of a single person. A particular morality is
distinguished from others not merely by its
norms and by which norms have priority in
case of conflict, but also by its criteria
for determining what counts as an adequate
morality. Some of these criteria may be
universally valid across all kinds of
societies because of the very purpose of
morality to regulate conflicts of interest.
No adequate morality, for example, could
allow torture of another person on one's whim.
Nevertheless, I argued, such universally
valid criteria do not begin to determine a
morality with content sufficiently robust and
determinate to guide action. As a
consequence, some criteria for adequate
moralities will be local to a given society.
They neither follow from nor are ruled out
by the universally valid criteria. They are
the source of moral relativity. One of the
main sources of relativity I identified in
Moral Relativity was the difference between
rights-centered moralities and
virtue-centered moralities. The latter are
concerned with a good common to all members
of a community, a good partially constituted
by a shared life and structured by a set of
norms specifying the contribution of each
member to the sustenance of that life.
Notions of a common good and shared life are
not central to the former. Instead there is
an emphasis on what each member of a
community is entitled to claim from the
others. Though not all moralities
exemplifying these types are adequate
moralities, some from each type are. That
is, the rules from some of each type satisfy
all universally valid criteria for adequate
moral systems, and they satisfy the local
criteria that flesh out a society's ideal for
moralities.
I argued that moral statements about what
agents ought to do have truth conditions
deriving from these universal and local
criteria, and since the local criteria
differ, so will the truth conditions. Moral
statements are a kind of second order
normative language indicating what actions
are required by the norms of an adequate
moral system, where adequacy is spelled out
by the universal and local criteria. Two
speakers may mean something different on the
level of truth conditions by “adequate moral
system,” and therefore each may be saying
something true even when one is prescribing
that an action X be done and the other is
prescribing that it not be done. Their
judgments conflict on the practical level
because one cannot conform to both judgments
at the same time. I include within my
conception of a morality not only its norms
in imperatival form and the relations of
priority between them that constitute a moral
system of norms but statements with
explicitly normative terms such as “A ought
to do X” and “A’s doing X is right”
statements. Such statements specify what
actions and attitudes are required by an
adequate moral system of norms. It follows
from my view that there is more than one
single true morality. Let me emphasize that
speaking of moral truth in my sense is
compatible with radically different general
theories of what truth is: minimalist
theories and correspondence theories alike.
I do not hold that truth is relative. I hold
that the meaning and truth conditions of
moral language can vary in such a way that
moral statements conflicting on the
prescriptive and pragmatic level can be
consistent on the level of truth.
I remain committed to the main outlines of
the relativism with limits defended in the
first book (in what follows, I indicate where
I have changed my mind on certain matters).
However, in that book, I primarily focused on
the task of refuting universalism while
defending a good measure of moral
objectivity. My conception of the
universally valid criteria for the adequacy
of moralities was rather sketchy. In this
book I offer a robust conception of such
criteria, such that they rule out a
significant range of moralities as
inadequate. Whereas the first book focused
on the relativity in my theory of relativism
with limits, this book focuses to a much
greater extent on the limits.
A second new development in this book is
based on my keener appreciation for the ways
in which different types of moralities share
important values and are typically
distinguished by their differing priorities
and emphases on these shared values. This
appreciation plays a much larger role in my
argument, and it goes into my explanation of
the widespread phenomenon of “moral
ambivalence.” Such ambivalence consists in
recognition of severe conflicts between
important values and of the possibility that
reasonable people could take different paths
in the face of these conflicts. I argue that
moral ambivalence, in conjunction with a
naturalistic conception of morality, supports
the conclusion that there is no single true
morality. I also argue, however, that the
most plausible explanation for the overlap of
values between different moralities implies
that there are limits on the range of true
moralities.
Thirdly, there is here a new emphasis on
taking a naturalistic approach to
understanding morality, an approach marked
not by a commitment to a purely physicalistic
ontology (as naturalistic approaches are
sometimes conceived) but rather by a
commitment to integrate the understanding of
morality with the most relevant empirical
theories about human beings and society, such
as evolutionary theory and developmental
psychology. A naturalistic approach to
morality, when applied to moral ambivalence,
will support both the denial of a single true
morality and the existence of significant
limits on the plurality of true moralities.
Hence the title of this book, Natural
Moralities: A Defense of Pluralistic Relativism.
A fourth new development in this book is a
greater focus on the problems posed by moral
relativity for commitment to a particular
configuration of values. Here too, my
treatment of these problems was sketchy in
the first book. I lacked then but think I
have now a theory of reasons to be moral.
This theory provides an answer to the worry
that admitting the relativity of our present
moral commitments undermines our confidence
in them. It is not an answer that will
satisfy in the way that many might desire or
expect. The theory undermines the terms in
which the problem of confidence is usually
framed. Nevertheless, it is a major theme in
this book that admitting moral relativity
must affect the way we must act toward those
with whom we are in serious moral
disagreement. It must also affect the way we
must seek confidence in our moral commitments.
Finally, my recognition of the ways in which
different moralities can overlap and yet
constitute different approaches to human
problems has been fed by my work in
comparative ethics and in Chinese and Western
ethics in particular. While I have concluded
that the Chinese tradition in some important
cases simply poses different questions than
those dominant in the Western tradition, I
have also concluded that in other cases the
two traditions have a lot that is useful to
the other on common problems—what it takes to
foster effective moral agency, whether moral
commitments are compatible with individual
flourishing, and whether the acceptance of
relativism undermines confidence I one’s
moral commitments.
The aim of Part One is to sketch the outlines
of a more formidable version of relativism
that I call "pluralistic relativism." The
theory is relativistic because it holds there
is no single true morality. It is
pluralistic because it recognizes limits on
what can count as a true morality. Gilbert
Harman once suggested that naturalistic
conceptions of morality tended (though not in
every case) to lead to relativist positions,
while non-naturalist conceptions tended
(though again not in every case) to lead to
universalist positions. Whether one gets to
a relativist or universalist position when
starting from a naturalist approach depends
both on the specific version of that approach
and on other views one holds about morality.
In Chapter One, I argue for a certain
understanding of moral conflict that I call
moral ambivalence, which stems from the
plural sources of value and duty. In Chapter
Two, I argue that moral ambivalence is best
explained using a naturalistic approach to
morality. The result is the theory of
pluralistic relativism, which can accommodate
many intuitions we have about the potential
objectivity of moral judgments. In Chapter
Three, I address the main objections to
pluralistic relativism, and discuss the ways
in which the theory has significant
consequences for the ways in which we judge
and act toward others who are in serious
disagreement with us.
Part Two supplies a closer look at a theme
that is introduced in Chapter Two: that the
naturalistic functions of morality, human
nature, the human condition, and the more
particular circumstances of a group at a
given time all work together to impose
constraints of varying levels of generality
on what constitutes an adequate morality for
that group. In Chapter Four, I discuss the
general shape a morality must take if it is
to promote effective moral agency in human
beings. Such a constraint helps to explain
the universality of certain types of special
duties toward particular others, such as
duties to family members. I also use my
conclusions about what is required for
effective agency to argue that a life of
relationships governed by special moral
duties is a necessary part of a flourishing
life. Chapter Four therefore partially
confirms certain themes developed by the
recent communitarian and neo-Aristotelian
movements.
Communitarianism is usually opposed (by its
defenders and critics) to liberalism. I
question this opposition in Chapter Five,
arguing that certain themes central to
communitarian must and can be incorporated by
liberalism. I go on to argue that a
satisfactory moral ideal of family life can
incorporate mutually supporting communitarian
and liberal themes.
In Chapter Six, I discuss some contemporary
attempts to derive constraints on morality
from considerations about what it is
realistic to expect of human beings. I argue
that we need a more nuanced view of how such
considerations do yield adequacy constraints.
In particular I suggest that we need to
distinguish the constraints imposed by human
nature from constraints caused by more local
factors such as our particular cultural
circumstances and the way they have shaped
us. The discussion of realistic possibility
in Chapter 6 also illustrates the way that we
often make unfounded assumptions about what
it is realistic to expect of human beings in
order (perhaps unconsciously) to justify our
falling short of our own values. It
therefore illustrates a way in which
pluralistic relativism can allow for
fundamental criticism of one's own morality.
Part Three brings into closer focus the
issues raised in Chapter One: the
difficulties for moral commitment stemming
from recognizing a plurality of true
moralities. Chapter Seven presents a theory
of the reasons to be moral that enables us to
partially resolve these difficulties. The
theory I defend undermines the usual sense in
which we mean the question "Why be moral?” I
argue that there is no real answer to that
question, because it presupposes that a
commitment to moral values can be validated
by a pre-moral rationality, and such a
presupposition is false.
There is no answer to the question "Why be
Moral?" in the sense in which moral
philosophers usually take it, but I argue
that we should never have expected an answer.
Nevertheless, we must answer a serious
challenge to the reasonableness of moral
commitment. We cannot show that it is
irrational to be amoral or immoral, but we
can ask whether fulfills human needs to be
moral. Chapter Eight addresses this question
and the challenge raised to this sort of
answer by Foucault’s insight into the
pervasiveness of power relationships. I
argue that it is possible to turn back that
challenge to some degree, but that defenders
of modern liberal moralities have not fully
answered some of its main points.
Even if the above challenges could be met, we
still may wonder whether the pluralism of
alternative adequate moralities undermines
our confidence in the commitments we have
made to particular moralities. I address
this problem in Chapter Nine, bringing to
bear the philosophy of Zhuangzi, who teaches
us that recognizing the worth of other ways
of life is not a threat to be avoided but an
opportunity for enrichment. Finally, we must
deal with our moral conflicts with others
even if we have nurtured a confidence in our
own moral commitments. Chapter Nine supplies
a detailed picture of the role of the value
of accommodation in our attempts to cope with
serious moral disagreement. I give examples
of the way in which this value might be
applied to moral conflicts such as the ones
over abortion and over distributive justice.
Finally I propose a role for a certain kind
of ritual, as derived from reflection on the
Chinese tradition, in strengthening the
dispositions of citizens to act on the value
of accommodation.
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