At 6:57 AM -0500 10/12/99, Paul C. Smith wrote:
> This looks like a difference between a "consequentialist" and a
>"nonconsequentialist" notion of ethics. Mike seems to hold an ethic that
>says that the morality of an act is completely a function of its
>consequences. Nancy apparently believes otherwise (if I'm not putting words
>into people's mouths). As far as I know, there are still ethicists of both
>flavors among those who make a career thinking about this stuff.
Bravo! An important distinction too often ignored by folk (e.g. the
APA ethics docs mix these two without distinction). There are also
folks who have decided that this argument between ethicists has worn
thin and are looking at new approaches (e.g. virtue ethics).
> While I doubt that Mike really believes this, his response implies that
>ethics (or at least nonconsequentialist ethics) are exclusively the realm of
>religion. I think this is an almost universal assumption, and I think it's
>completely wrong. In fact, by surrendering the ethics discussion to
>religion, we seem to be giving up on making progress understanding ethics.
>Most of the discussion will (by sheer force of numbers and money) be driven
>by Christian ethicists, who (as far as I know) place the source of ethics in
>a mythical divine being.
Mostly right, from my experience. The link between religion and
morality is quite strong, especially for those who are religious (see
below). But atheist ethics are at least logically consistent, and
sometimes quite bracing. Most Christian ethicists do base morality in
a "divine obedience" framework, but there is still quite some
disagreement about the "divine" part, with some advocating a
traditional "personal being" God and some opting even for panentheism
(Tillich & Borg are modern examples, ancient ones can be supplied on
request).
Steering back to psychology, this "divine obedience" ethic is
something I am currently researching as one option among others
(justice, care) for the basis of moral reasoning. Some good work on
this has been done in Hindu contexts by Schweder & Mahaparati, and
Rozin has done some work connecting different moral emotions to each
of the three types of reasoning (called by Schweder autonomy,
community, and sacredness). I suspect (hope) we will soon see these
listed in intro texts as a better alternative to the
now-somewhat-boring Kohlberg-vs-Gilligan fights.
-Chuck
- Chuck Huff; 507.646.3169; http://www.stolaf.edu/people/huff/
- Psychology Department, St.Olaf College, Northfield, MN 55057
