Search Results

This chapter appraises the possibility of all things considered moral conflicts. The chapter considers three kinds of objections to the possibility, based on considerations from deontic logic, on conceptual considerations concerning the nature of all things considered oughts, and on an analogy between moral and physical forces.

This chapter links the problems posed by value pluralism with those posed by moral conflict and aims to apply the solutions T. H. Green offers to the latter in the case of the former. The argument is that Green's analysis of moral action yields useful strategies for resolving moral conflicts and these strategies can in turn be applied in tackling the tensions arising when living in a value pluralist social environment. The British idealist distinguishes between an ‘epistemological’ aspect (knowledge of the right thing to do) and a ‘volitional’ aspect (commitment to do the right thing) of moral action, where the ‘volitional’ aspect plays a crucial role in resolving moral conflicts. It is this aspect of moral action that contemporary liberals like Rawls and Nagel fail to theorise and as a result lose crucial resources for easing the strains of living in a pluralist society.

This chapter states the aims of the book: its core question of the compatibility between formal Islamic doctrine and liberal citizenship It emphasizes how this book differs from historical, anthropological, sociological, or genealogical approaches to Islam and how the book seeks to avoid the pitfalls of studies which inquire into the “compatibility” of Islam with democracy or human rights. It introduces the idea of an overlapping consensus within political liberalism as an answer to the theologico-political problem and the place of a normatively committed comparative ethics, or what John Rawls referred to as “conjecture.”

This chapter discusses some of Aristotle and Kant's remarks about the nature of their own work in ethics in an attempt to show that their conceptions of moral theory differ strongly from the idea of moral theory that is assumed by contemporary antitheorists. Although the chapter concedes that both philosophers produced moral theories, they are not in the same sense as the antitheorists and they do not commit the sins attributed by antitheorists to moral theorists. For example, neither Kant nor Aristotle ever asserted that human beings can simply deduce correct moral judgments from universal principles. Both of them recognize the obvious necessity of informed empirical knowledge in human practical reasoning. Finally, the chapter sets out to make a framework for what it believes how an alternative moral theory should be.

Argues against two articles of Bernard Williams in which he attacks moral realism. In the first (Ethical Consistency), Williams finds a disanalogy between judgements of matters of fact and moral judgements in that when two beliefs are irreconcilable one must simply cede: whereas an obligation that overrides another obligation does so only with ‘remainder.’ Foot argues that although the notion of obligation when understood in one way does indeed allow coexisting irreconcilable obligations, this no more supports anti‐realism here than the possibility of clashing social engagements supports an anti‐realistic account of judgements about them. In the second article (Consistency and Realism) Williams argues from the special case of irresolvable moral conflict, where there are as good reasons for doing a as for doing not a, suggesting that there cannot similarly be as good reasons for believing and disbelieving a proposition. Foot denies that this implies anti‐realism for propositions about reasons, suggesting an analogy in the case of propositions that are equally assertable or deniable relative to different grounds.

This chapter is organized around challenges from Martha Nussbaum, Karen Stohr, and Diana Myers. Does a commitment to harmony entail an unhealthy desire for consistency and unity in one's life and relationships? Along similar lines, can a commitment to harmony be squared with the existence of moral conflicts? Finally, does such a commitment push one toward a state of “emotional vanilla” in which one cannot mount dramatic challenges to the status quo? The chapter argues that a contemporary Neo-Confucian understanding of harmony has the resources to rebut all these concerns. In particular, the role of imagination in overcoming moral conflicts is stressed; this is illustrated through consideration of famous passages concerning potential conflicts from the Mencius. Particular attention is paid to the role of anger. The chapter argues, though, that both classical and Neo-Confucians too often leave grief out of account, even though it can fit well into their picture.

After briefly adumbrating the structure of the book as a whole, this chapter addresses some important matters in the more abstract reaches of moral philosophy. It disambiguates several key concepts in order to clarify the import of moral conflicts, and it elucidates the distinction between deontological obligations and consequentialist obligations. It repels a number of arguments propounded by philosophers who have maintained that moral conflicts are not genuinely possible. It proceeds to delineate the general structure of morality, with reference to the deontology/consequentialism distinction and the other distinctions that have been highlighted earlier in the chapter. The author's absolutist position is pitted against Michael Moore's threshold deontology, which deems the perpetration of interrogational torture to be permissible in circumstances of desperation.

This chapter examines Hegel’s concept of tragedy from his Early Theological Writings, through the Phenomenology of Spirit to his Lectures on Aesthetics. Through the action of the tragic hero the main institutions of ethical life, the family and the state, come into conflict. In Hegel’s view the essence of tragedy is conflict, not a moral conflict between right and wrong, but a conflict between legitimate rights and institutions. Such conflict moves the unmovable, i.e., the norms and institutions of ethical life, threatening them with destruction. Such conflict arises out of the false consciousness of the tragic hero, who, convinced of his own rectitude, embodies a stubborn fixity of will that issues in one-sided action that both violates another legitimate right and plunges the hero into self-contradiction. S/he refuses to recognize what, if s/he were true to her/himself, s/he should honor. Like Aristotle Hegel believes in tragic resolution. In Hegel’s view the tragic resolution demands that the hero yield, give a little, recognize what s/he refuses, enlarge her perspective. If s/he yields, the drama does not have to end tragically; but if s/he refuses to yield, then the hero is destroyed by the very powers s/he refuses to recognize. The tragic resolution is constituted by a fundamental contrast: on the one hand, we are shattered by the destruction of one who is noble and excellent, but on the other we are fundamentally reconciled to this destruction because a conflict and loss of essential institutions that hold everything together would be even more unbearable. Hegel agrees with Nietzsche that the destruction of the hero, whose one-sided action threatens to destroy ethical life, is necessary, and is a healing, not as a fusion with primal being but rather the upholding of the essential rights and institutions of ethical life, the one as counterbalanced by the other.

Chapter 1 introduces the concepts of impossible moral requirements and unavoidable moral failure by reviewing and rethinking the philosophical debates about whether or not any moral conflicts are genuine moral dilemmas. When a moral conflict occurs and one chooses to fulfill one of the conflicting requirements, the other requirement thereby becomes impossible to fulfill. What happens to a moral requirement that becomes impossible in this way? The chapter claims that some moral requirements, those one can call negotiable, can be negotiated away in the course of resolving a conflict, while other moral requirements, which are non-negotiable, remain binding no matter how the conflict is resolved for the purpose of deciding which action to perform. After discussing moral value pluralism, the chapter argues that non-negotiable moral requirements—which concern significant values for which there can be neither substitutions nor compensations—remain binding even if they become impossible to fulfill.

In this chapter, the question of why just war principles should be accepted is explored. Central to the chapter is a discussion of how just war principles can be elucidated by means of general moral principles – in particular, prima facie principles of nonmaleficence and beneficence. Some other topics of moral theory discussed in the chapter are coherentism, moral universalism, the moral relevance of particular cases, the pertinence of human rights theory, moral deliberation, and the problem of moral conflict. As specific moral principles about a limited domain of particular cases, just war principles are intermediate between moral judgements about particular cases in that domain and general moral principles that hold comprehensively of all particular cases. On the one hand, we can make moral judgements about particular cases of armed conflict, in order to rethink or revise just war principles. On the other hand, in order to rethink or revise just war principles, we can also make use of such prima facie moral principles as nonmaleficence and beneficence. For concreteness, the chapter features the idea of noncombatant immunity.

David Hume argues for a pluralist view of morality. According to his pluralist view, there are different ultimate moral ends, those different moral ends can come into conflict with each other, and there is no invariable ordering principle that tells us what to do when those ends conflict. Hume maintains, for instance, that the artificial virtue of justice can sometimes conflict with the natural virtues of benevolence. In some cases, justice will override benevolence, but in other cases, benevolence will override justice, and there are no rules we can rely on to determine which sort of case we are in. Hume’s sentimentalist account of the origins of moral judgment explains these features of morality, and Hume’s sentimentalist explanation of the pluralist character of morality is at least as powerful as the non-naturalist, intuitionist explanation developed by W. D. Ross.