Comments on: Subjective universalism

By: Curt

Curt — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 04:25:59 +0000

The problem with the law is that, even if one accepts it as a moral authority, it makes no distinction between laws that really are expressions of ethical values, laws that are simply supposed to contribute to the smoother functioning of society and laws that primarily exist to serve particular interest groups (which of course all laws do to some extent). So defenders of legal ethics have a hard time defining where the source of the law’s authority comes from, or why murder, practicing medicine without a license and speeding all fall within the same category. Of course more sophisticated naturalists often try to ground morals in natural laws rather than simply governmental laws, which are more vulnerable to corruption and self-interest, to say the least. But in my opinion there’s a fairly basic contradiction between the determinism implied by natural laws and the supposition of free will which is a necessary precondition of a meaningful ethics. Which is not to say that natural laws themselves are incompatible with free will, but if morals are natural laws, like gravity, then presumably one doesn’t have much choice as to whether to follow them.

By: mock

mock — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 01:26:09 +0000

I don’t believe most people are comfortable with the notion that ethical claims are in the end adjudicated within the political sphere, although this certainly appears to be the way things are. For some, this is probably unbearable to the point of striving incessantly for the universal validation of a certain morality, which I suppose could be the impetus for most of the Enlightenment’s treatments of the subject. Conservatives such as Roger Scruton have hailed Hegel for showing, against Kant, that ethics is in the end grounded in community and institutions, but one does not have to look long at the American political landscape for this notion to become as depressing as the Kantian position is implausible. This is why I don’t pay much attention to politics these days.

By: John Goes

John Goes — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 00:33:29 +0000

Yes, but confidence in the strength of subjectivity is a virtual ethical guileline anyway. If you believe in an objective good and evil (whether it is fully knowable in all instances being another question), that doesn’t commit you to believing in some hypothetical book of moral rules that are applicable to any foreseeable case. More prudent to suggest that rules are guidelines that admit of exceptions, probabilistic frameworks that may break when confronted with unusual events to which we must rely on our subjective perception. We have competing obligations, but we always have the obligation to choose the best one.