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Moral Deadlock

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Ronald D. Milo
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Extract

Very often moral disagreements can be resolved by appealing to (nonmoral) factual considerations because in these cases the parties to the dispute agree as to which factual considerations are relevant. They agree, that is, with respect to their basic moral standards. Hence, when their disagreement about the non-moral facts is resolved, so is their moral disagreement. But sometimes moral disagreement persists in spite of agreement on factual considerations. When this happens, and when neither party is guilty of illogical thinking, we have a case of moral deadlock

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 61 , Issue 238 , October 1986 , pp. 453 - 471
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1986

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References

1 One of my aims in this paper is to show how people who agree on their basic moral standards may nevertheless disagree in their particular moral opinions, not just because they apply these standards in conjunction with different factual beliefs, but also because they apply and interpret them in conjunction with different non-moral value judgments. This point seems to me not to be sufficiently appreciated by moral philosophers.

2 Some may wish to insist that these value judgments are also properly described as moral judgments. I do not wish to make a great deal hinge on which value judgments are classified as moral ones. What is important is that, however one classifies them, value judgments about what is good (beneficial) or bad (harmful) for human beings are different kinds of value judgments both from moral judgments about how we ought (or ought not) to treat others and from moral judgments about which kinds of persons are good (or bad). The former have a different subject-matter and are made on a different level of evaluative discourse. The point I wish to argue for in this paper is that the latter issues make sense only against the background of an agreement concerning certain criteria of relevance. I am suggesting here that claiming that there are objective criteria governing moral judgments is compatible with allowing that subjective factors (attitudes and preferences) may enter into the interpretation of such criteria.

3 These examples are suggested by Hare, R.M., in Freedom and Reason (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), 161ff.Google Scholar, and by Jonathan, Harrison, in ‘When Is a Principle a Moral Principle?’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 28 (1954), 111–134.Google Scholar

4 See Philippa, Foot, ‘When Is a Principle a Moral Principle?’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 28 (1954), 95–110.Google Scholar