CONSCIENCE, CASUISTRY, AND MORAL DECISION: SOME HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES*

The body of this paper is devoted to tracing out some aspects of the development of the idea of conscience in the Church of England in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Surely, it may seem, a subject of limited interest to the readers of this journal! Yet I hope they will find otherwise. I chose to describe this phase of the history of conscience in the West because it illustrates a decisive shift in ideas about conscience which has occurred in many Western cultures besides England's: the belief that the individual ought in many cases to seek the aid of others in forming his moral judgments gives way to the belief that he ought to be self-reliant in such matters. A knowledge of this shift can advance the philosophical understanding of the idea of conscience and the work to be done in the comparative study of conscience 'East'and 'West.'     

AUGUSTINE ON MORAL CONSCIENCE

There are widely differing accounts of Augustine's place in the early history of the notion of conscience. While some regard his contribution as groundbreaking, others consider that he only stressed interiority more than earlier authors. Starting with a contrast with Jerome, the present article aims at clarifying Augustine's specific contribution and the place of conscience in his moral thought.     

Said Nursi's Moral Philosophy

This article tests the oft-made claim that Islam and democracy are incompatible because of the presumed authoritarianism of religious morality. The article explores the moral philosophy expressed in the early writings of Said Nursi, concluding that by acknowledging individual autonomy and free will and rejecting authoritarianism as inimical to the exercise of conscience, Nursi's moral philosophy lays the groundwork for an Islamic democracy.     

CHINESE MORAL VISION, RESPONSIVE AGENCY, AND FACTUAL BELIEFS

The principal aim of this essay is to offer a plausible basis for a philosophical appreciation of the Chinese vision of Tao^a as creative harmony of man and world. In Section I, I shall present a distinction between ideal norm and ideal theme and suggest that the Confucian and the Classical Taoist points of view may be regarded as encapsulating distinct but not necessarily incornpatible moral attitudes. Section II develops this contrast in terms of two different conceptions of responsive agency. In Section III, the final section, I turn to the problem of the characterization of moral vision in relation to the role of factual beliefs.     

Kierkegaard,Levinas and the Question of Escaping Metaphysics

While Kierkegaard and Levinas may well be thought of as religious or ethical thinkers, I should not like the reader to be misled by this into assuming that this article is primarily about religion or ethics. Rather, my main concern may more properly be described as metaphysical or epistemological, for I am interested in certain styles of thinking that underlie the religious/ethical themes dealt with here. Thus, this article aims to show that in relation to traditional metaphysical styles, and to each other, the thinking of Kierkegaard and Levinas is parallel and divergent in complex ways. Both share a mistrust of modernist metaphysics, which they aim to escape by pointing to the way in which conceptions of metaphysical totalities (or systems) are breached by a destabilising infinity already internal to them. This anticipates later postmodern styles of thinking which challenge modern metaphysics, its resentment against time, and its confidence in human power to represent all that is by means of closed systems of interpretation. To the extent that they offer philosophical alternatives that accommodate the temporal, both have had highly significant contributions to make to a postmodern style of thinking that has implications not limited to religion or ethics. A study of the philosophical strategies of these two thinkers, where they seem to succeed or fall short in relation to each other and to the traditional strategies of metaphysics, should go some way toward clarification of what I believe to be the most viable style of thinking for a postmodern world. As I see it, one is confronted with three options. The first, represented by Kierkegaard’s ‘infinite resignation,’ may be associated with a Derridean style of thinking. Kierkegaard himself abandons this in favour of a style of thinking for which faith and revelation stand as metaphors. Levinas, in contrast, offers an alternative whose leitmotif is ethical responsibility. I shall try to show in the end that the first of these, which best accommodates the ‘undecidability’ of a middle ground, is the most suitable for contemporary thinkers.     

Nobody Puts Baby in the Container: The Foetal Container Model at Work in Medicine and Commercial Surrogacy

This article argues that a particular metaphysical model permeates cultural practices surrounding pregnancy: the foetal container model. Widespread uncritical reliance on this view of pregnancy has been highly detrimental to women's liberty and reproductive autonomy. In this article, I extend existing critiques of the medical treatment of pregnant women to the context of the burgeoning commercial surrogacy industry. In doing so, I aim to show that our philosophical analysis in both spheres is constrained by the presupposition that the foetus and pregnant woman are metaphysically and ethically distinct entities. By exploring the similarities and differences between the expectations placed on pregnant women in these two spheres, I show that the foetal container model is not a homogeneous understanding of pregnancy applied consistently across contexts; rather, it has been used to justify various practices and attitudes toward pregnancy and pregnant women through different moral frameworks, in the service of different overarching aims.     

MORAL REFORM,MORAL DISAGREEMENT,AND ABORTION

Abstract: Bernard Gert argues that legitimate moral disagreement calls for tolerance and moral humility; when there is more than one morally acceptable course of action, then intolerance and what Gert calls “moral arrogance” would be objectionable. This article identifies some possible difficulties in distinguishing moral arrogance from moral reform and then examines Gert's treatment of abortion as a contemporary example of moral disagreement that he characterizes as irresolvable.     

TWO CONCEPTIONS OF LIBERALISM: Theology,Creation, and Politics in the Thought of Immanuel Kant and Edmund Burke1

Constitutional liberal practices are capable of being normatively grounded by a number of different metaphysical positions. Kant provides one such grounding, in terms of the autonomously derived moral law. I argue that the work of Edmund Burke provides a resource for an alternative construal of constitutional liberalism, compatible with, and illumined by, a broadly Thomistic natural law worldview. I contrast Burke's treatment of the relationship between truth and cognition, prudence and rights, with that of his contemporary, Kant. We find that in each case where Kant's system is constructed from the first principle of autonomy, Burke's thought is oriented toward an end that is not of our making. Readings of Burke as a natural law thinker are currently out of fashion among Burke commentators; without relying, for the main thesis, on historical claims about Burke's “Thomism,” I nonetheless explore and challenge some of the assumptions that underlie the current orthodoxy.     

Toward a Gongfu Reconstruction of Confucianism —Responses to Comments by Huang Yong,Fan Ruiping,and Wang Qingjie

Responding to comments of my recent book, Understanding the Analects of Confucius, by Huang Yong, Fan Ruiping, and Wang Qingjie, this paper looks to highlight one of its major features—that it is a contemporary continuation of the Chinese tradition of doing commentary both as a way of allowing classic texts to unfold their rich meanings in the context of different times, and as a way for the commentator to express his or her own views. It strives to explain how a gongfu reconstruction of Confucianism can explain the apparent inconsistency between advocating rule-like instructions next to its encouragement of the art of flexibility, and to reveal what is more fundamental about Confucianism—rather than a system of rigid moral rules, it is an art of life. This gongfu interpretation would lead to the view that Confucianism does not depend on metaphysical truths as its justification, although it does need to hold metaphysical views as a way of affirming its values, which are justified through the excellence of life to which they lead. While the gongfu approach more accurately reflects Confucius’ own philosophical orientation, and it is therefore used to determine technical details such as what interpretations to put into translation of a text and what interpretations to list in the annotations as alternatives, it is, in the author’s humble view, also a unique contribution that the Chinese tradition can offer to world philosophy.     

技术、主体与形而上学的玄学遐想

本文主要从科学、技术与社会(STS)的视角出发,通过对当今法国哲学家让·鲍德后期晦涩的哲学思想,特别是其命定策略的考察,阐发了鲍德里亚后期哲学的重要意义:(1)鲍德里亚后期思想是一种典型的悲观的技术决定论;是现代技术决定论的翻版。(2)鲍德里亚的后期思想是对近代理性哲学的颠覆和“反动”,它试图通过对技术与人的关系的思辨考察,消解近代理性哲学中的大写的主体的“人”,并给出了未来技术社会中一幅悲观可怕的“人”的命运的图画。(3)后形而上学的玄学则是鲍德里亚思想的最终归宿。鲍德里亚后期思想既有其悲观主义的极端倾向,也包含了深刻的哲理,需要处于信息社会的我们加以关注。     

USES OF DIALOGUES AND MORAL UNDERSTANDING

In reflecting upon the Confucian, Socratic, and Zen dialogues, one is inevitably impressed with contrasting ways of moral thinking. For both theory and practice, apart from the more conceptual interest in rational reconstruction, it appears to be worthwhile to explore the function and significance of these ethical uses of dialogues with a view to drawing certain models or focal lenses for understanding the different dimensions of moral experience. With this limited aim in mind, I shall first present a general characterization of certain aspects of these uses, and then present considerations for their philosophical and practical significance.     

THE CONCEPT OF PHILOSOPHICAL EXPERIENCE

Abstract: We often speak about religious experience, and sometimes we speak about metaphysical experience. Yet we seldom hear about philosophical experience. Is philosophy purely a matter of theories and theses, or does it have an experiential aspect? In this article, I argue for the following three claims. First, there is something we might call philosophical experience, and there is nothing mystical about it. Second, philosophical experiences are expressed in something quite similar to what Kant called “aesthetic judgements.” Third, philosophical experiences are expressed by using words in what Wittgenstein called “secondary sense.” Finally, I try to show the educational significance of pursing philosophical experiences. Through articulating them one might find one's ground, and through articulating them in a less private and more universal form one might raise oneself to universality. Thus, in expressing philosophical experiences one aspires to speak in a universal voice.     

FRAMING THE HUMAN CONDITION: THE EXISTENTIAL DILEMMA IN IRIS MURDOCH'S THE BELL AND MURIEL SPARK'S ROBINSON

One of the features of modernist and postmodernist novels is the way they interrogate classical metaphysics, in the spirit of what Habermas calls post‐metaphysical thinking, otherwise known as the post‐Enlightenment critique of the Enlightenment. As a literary prism, post‐metaphysical thinking is not anti‐metaphysical: it conducts its interrogation and still accommodates both secular and religious frames. Iris Murdoch and Muriel Spark are often compared but they interrogate classical metaphysics from different perspectives and for different purposes. In the nineteen‐fifties, Murdoch was an aspiring philosophical author who treated classical metaphysics as a canon of influential myth, while Spark was an aspiring theological author who had recently converted to Catholicism. Through a reading of The Bell and Robinson, both published in the same year, this article describes how the young Murdoch and Spark do what emerging literary authors of the nineteen‐fifties were expected to do: frame the human condition and reflect on its existential dilemma. With their different perspectives they both write within the same paradigm, or theory of mind; against symbolic backgrounds, and among significant dialogues, they make use of similar tropes. But Murdoch and Spark arrive at opposite positions on the relationship between imagination and reality, between logos and mythos, and ultimately on the nature of freedom and contingency.     

Challenging the bioethical application of the autonomy principle within multicultural societies

This article critically re-examines the application of the principle of patient autonomy within bioethics. In complex societies such as those found in North America and Europe health care professionals are increasingly confronted by patients from diverse ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds. This affects the relationship between clinicians and patients to the extent that patients' deliberations upon the proposed courses of treatment can, in various ways and to varying extents, be influenced by their ethnic, cultural, and religious commitments. The principle of patient autonomy is the main normative constraint imposed upon medical treatment. Bioethicists typically appeal to the principle of patient autonomy as a means for generally attempting to resolve conflict between patients and clinicians. In recent years a number of bioethicists have responded to the condition of multiculturalism by arguing that the autonomy principle provides the basis for a common moral discourse capable of regulating the relationship between clinicians and patients in those situations where patients' beliefs and commitments do or may contradict the ethos of biomedicine. This article challenges that claim. I argue that the precise manner in which the autonomy principle is philosophically formulated within such accounts prohibits bioethicists' deployment of autonomy as a core ideal for a common moral discourse within multicultural societies. The formulation of autonomy underlying such accounts cannot be extended to simply assimilate individuals' most fundamental religious and cultural commitments and affiliations per se. I challenge the assumption that respecting prospective patients' fundamental religious and cultural commitments is necessarily always compatible with respecting their autonomy. I argue that the character of some peoples' relationship with their cultural or religious community acts to significantly constrain the possibilities for acting autonomously. The implication is clear. The autonomy principle may be presently invalidly applied in certain circumstances because the conditions for the exercise of autonomy have not been fully or even adequately satisfied. This is a controversial claim. The precise terms of my argument, while addressing the specific application of the autonomy principle within bioethics, will resonate beyond this sphere and raises questions for attempts to establish a common moral discourse upon the ideal of personal autonomy within multicultural societies generally.     

ANTIFOUNDATIONALISM AND THE POSSIBILITY OF A MORAL PHILOSOPHY OF MEDICINE

The problem of developing a moral philosophy of medicine is explored in this essay. Among the challenges posed to this development are the general mistrust of moral philosophy and philosophy in general created by post-modernist philosophical and even anti-philosophical thinking. This reaction to philosophical systematization is usually called antifoundationalism. I distinguish different forms of antifoundationalism, showing that not all forms of their opposites, foundationalism, are alike, especially with regards to claims made about the certitude of moral thought. I conclude that we are correct to mistrust absolutist principles in a moral philosophy of medicine, but can find some center within the practice of medicine itself for a moral foundation.     

CONSENT,CONVERSION, AND MORAL FORMATION: Stoic Elements in Jonathan Edwards's Ethics

The contemporary revival of virtue ethics has focused primarily on retrieving central moral commitments of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and the Neoplatonist traditions. Christian virtue ethicists would do well to expand this retrieval further to include the writings of the Roman Stoics. This essay argues that the ethics of Jonathan Edwards exemplifies major Stoic themes and explores three noteworthy points of intersection between Stoic ethics and Edwards's thought: a conception of virtue as consent to a benevolent providence, the identification of virtue as a singular and transformative good, and an account of moral formation as simultaneously self‐directed and received. Common ground between Edwards and the Stoics illustrates the value of recognizing Stoic moral thought as a philosophical framework that can enhance and undergird Christian ethicists' understandings of moral development and the nature of virtue.     

Naturalizing Moral Justification: Rethinking the Method of Moral Epistemology

The companion piece to this article, “Situating Moral Justification,” challenges the idea that moral epistemology's mission is to establish a single, all‐purpose reasoning strategy for moral justification because no reasoning practice can be expected to deliver authoritative moral conclusions in all social contexts. The present article argues that rethinking the mission of moral epistemology requires rethinking its method as well. Philosophers cannot learn which reasoning practices are suitable to use in particular contexts exclusively by exploring logical relations among concepts. Instead, in order to understand which reasoning practices are capable of justifying moral claims in different types of contexts, we need to study empirically the relationships between reasoning practices and the contexts in which they are used. The article proposes that philosophers investigate case studies of real‐world moral disputes in which people lack shared cultural assumptions and/or are unequal in social power. It motivates and explains the proposed case study method and illustrates the philosophical value of this method through a case study.     

Homosexuality, ethics and identity synthesis.

Implicit metaphysical assumptions concerning the nature of sexual orientation are reflected in the language used to frame ethical debates concerning "reorientation" therapies. An alternative metaphysical construal is presented concerning sexual orientation and sexual identity development and synthesis. This alternative construal allows for humility concerning what we know and do not know about sexual orientation, underscores the client's self-determination and autonomy, and demonstrates regard for personal and religious valuative frameworks. Rather than focusing on therapies aimed specifically at sexual reorientation, clinicians would do well to provide clients with informed consent and to facilitate identity development and synthesis in keeping with their clients' requests for professional services.     

Doing Ethics or Changing for the Better?

In this paper, classical pragmatism is used as a method, not as a substantial ethical theory, to develop “moral pragmatics.” Moral pragmatics offers a constructive approach for making progress where traditional ethical theories converge, and it innovates ethical deliberation. Assuming widespread agreement that real moral problems need practical solutions, the paper addresses two related problems: the missing link between ethical theories and moral practice, and the question of who is in charge of finding such solutions. It argues that “conscience” can create a link between ethical knowledge and moral practice, and that this partly discharges “the ethicist” from the task of solving problems that are not really, or not only, hers. Two specific methodological innovations are suggested that go beyond admonitions to render ethics sensitive to context. Instead, a reevaluation of “casuistry” and a sensitivity for “finding the right words” give an idea of how to achieve this goal.