118. Debatable ethics

In this blog I have argued (e.g. in item 16) against absolute universals that apply strictly everywhere and forever.

Concerning knowledge, I arrive at warranted assertability, instead of truth in any absolute sense of being objective and indubitable, as discussed in item 104. We cannot claim truth in an absolute sense but this does not necessarily yield relativism in the sense that any opinion is as good as any other. Arguments matter, using logic and facts whenever those can reasonably be established, imperfect though they remain, and conditions for their use are satisfied.

Now I arrive at the equivalent of this in ethics. There are no absolute, i.e. strictly universal and fixed rules of conduct. In item 95 I even rejected Kant’s famous categorical imperative (a variation upon the ancient golden rule that one should not do to others what one does not want done to oneself). I accept fundamental moral rules as guidelines that are to be followed as a matter of strong principle, but I allow for exceptions and special pleading.

To many philosophers this yields a debatable ethics, and indeed that is precisely the point: ethics is debatable. That, after all, is also what we find in legal courts, where judges interpret the law and mete out punishment with an eye to motives, pressures, circumstances, means, and capabilities. Here also we find the use of multiple causality that I discussed earlier in this blog. There generally is no simple single cause of misdemeanour or crime.

But how, then, can argumentation in deviance from rules occur without resulting in a relativism where any excuse will do? It is a matter of debate, again with arguments concerning multiple causes, as indicated.

There are problems in the notion of a just debate, without one-sided imposition of power, as I discussed in the preceding item (with reference to Jürgen Habermas). Perhaps under unequal power such debate should look more or less like jurisdiction: with a prosecutor and a defence attorney. And should there then be a jury, as in countries with an Anglo-Saxon tradition, or only a judge?

A complication here is, of course, that there are no detailed moral laws as there are legal laws, and no independent judges, prosecutors and attorneys, subjected to standards of knowledge, training and ethical conduct. Once upon a time priests and vicars fulfilled that role, executing divine law.

There are good reasons for this. Political mechanisms determine legal laws but liberal societies are averse to laying down similar moral laws beyond legality. That does not mean that no more or less law-like moral rules arise, as part of institutions, but that they are beyond democratic control, and as a result they are even more subject to hidden structures of power than legality already is.

Morality should be based on ethics, so what ethics do we use? As I argued earlier, I am a follower of Aristotelian virtue ethics, recognizing that virtues are multiple, often not instrumental but intrinsic, often incommensurable, contingent and subject to change.

So, what moral debates can this yield? Similarly perhaps to Socratic dialogue. But rather than this being dominated by a single clever rhetorician, such as Socrates, there should be competent opponents. In case opponents are not competent, mediators and perhaps something like a jury. Or could one perhaps think here of the role that the chorus played in ancient Greek tragedy, taking an outside view for commenting on the proceedings? Is that perhaps how we can ideally interpret public debate in the media?