Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 30 (1):55-68 (2009)
Abstract |
The idea of moral reform requires that morality be more than a description of what people do value, for there has to be some measure against which to assess progress. Otherwise, any change is not reform, but simply difference. Therefore, I discuss moral reform in relation to two prescriptive approaches to common morality, which I distinguish as the foundational and the pragmatic. A foundational approach to common morality (e.g., Bernard Gert’s) suggests that there is no reform of morality , but of beliefs, values, customs, and practices so as to conform with an unchanging, foundational morality. If, however, there were revision in its foundation (e.g., in rationality), then reform in morality itself would be possible. On a pragmatic view, on the other hand, common morality is relative to human flourishing, and its justification consists in its effectiveness in promoting flourishing. Morality is dependent on what in fact does promote human flourishing and therefore, could be reformed. However, a pragmatic approach, which appears more open to the possibility of moral reform, would need a more robust account of norms by which reform is measured.
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Keywords | Morality Common morality Moral reform Gert Beauchamp Childress Foundational Pragmatic Pragmatism Ethics |
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DOI | 10.1007/s11017-009-9096-2 |
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References found in this work BETA
After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory.Alasdair C. MacIntyre - 1983 - University of Notre Dame Press.
Whose Justice? Which Rationality?Alasdair Macintyre - 1988 - Journal of Religious Ethics 16 (2):363-363.
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Citations of this work BETA
Pragmatism, Metaphysics, and Bioethics: Beyond a Theory of Moral Deliberation.Matthew Pamental - 2013 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 38 (6):jht030.
Respect for Cultural Diversity as a Global Bioethical Principle. Own Reasons From a Protestant Perspective.Riaan A. L. Rheeder - 2017 - Hts Theological Studies 73 (3).
Ethical Theories: The More, the Better?Sabine Salloch & Micha H. Werner - 2016 - American Journal of Bioethics 16 (9):40-41.
A MacIntyrean Critique of Theoretical Pluralism in Applied Ethics.Brandon Boesch - 2016 - American Journal of Bioethics 16 (9):41-43.
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