9 - Pluralism, Dilemma, and the Expression of Moral Conflict (1992, 2001)

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Talk of pluralism and of dilemma are everywhere in the air in contemporary ethics. And everywhere something called “moral theory” is coming in for a thumping. There is, it seems to me, ample reason for taking this talk of pluralism and dilemma seriously, and for trying to be as clear as we can about how it might bear on the enterprise of moral theorizing.

Pluralism and dilemma come onto the scene as purported facts of moral experience – and who can wonder? The fabric of our moral life is a patchwork, not a system. It has been long in making, and in it we find remnants of sacred as well as secular ways of thought, past social conflicts and compromises, changing conceptions of man and the world, codes of loyalty and honor, ideals of impartiality and mercy, cultural intersections, and legal systems. Nor is it finished. And the very stuff of this fabric – human wants and interests, passions and ideas – promises to resist ironing out.

Of course, it is typical in philosophy to confront a patchwork realm of human thought and practice, whether it is philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, metaphysics, or epistemology. Philosophers characteristically find themselves torn between plausible general principles and more satisfactory “intuitive fit,” or between fidelity to what lies within the realm and coherence with the present state of knowledge at large. But morality may be exceptional. Philosophical accounts of morality that achieve generality at the expense of intuitive fit, or borrow heavily from outside ethics, may seem not only counterintuitive, but wrong-headed, crass, disqualified. Surely there is something to this reaction.