Definitions of closure

Can ethical theory be employed to close or settle controversial moral problems? Could there be a policy or method for achieving closure on these problems? Answers to these questions depend somewhat on the sense of the term closure under consideration. Accordingly, I shall first discuss possible meanings of this term. I shall not, however, confine the analysis to the ordinary English meanings of the term, which often incorporate too many senses and fail to make distinctions important to philosophical argument. The term closure fails to distinguish, for example, between termination of controversy by final resolution and termination that stops short of either final resolution or truth. Accordingly, an analysis of the complex English usages of this word would in all likelihood prove fruitless.

My procedure will be the following: I first examine five distinct senses of closure. I then concentrate on the fifth definition, which is stipulative. I make no pretense that this fifth sense is either descriptive of ordinary English, or reforming (uncovering some deeper meaning), or the only important sense of the term. Stipulative definitions do not constitute profound philosophy, but both stipulation and comparison to alternative definitions can introduce clarity and reduce misunderstanding. These are my initial purposes. I shall then take the fifth stipulated understanding of closure and use it to develop a policy for achieving closure.

In all cases, closure is an outcome, not a process, for closure is the termination of a controversy. However, we cannot escape asking what processes lead to this outcome and, correspondingly, what the different senses of closure are.