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The Trouble with Ethics: The Uniqueness of the Moral Subject and the Universality and Objectiveness of Moral Judgments
Abstract
One of the consequences of adopting a subjective perspective in ethics is an increasingly detailed description of the properties of the moral subject itself, taken as a unique individual. This approach leads to a fundamental question for ethics: how to combine the uniqueness of the individual situation of the moral subject with the universality of moral judgements? Barbara Chyrowicz, in his book Widok stąd. Dlaczego działamy tak, a nie inaczej? [The View from Here: Why do We Act This Way and Not Otherwise?], describes the various elements that make up the uniqueness of the moral situation and draws two strategies for solving the problem of universalisation: a Kantian one, referring to the category of freedom, and an Aristotelian one, pointing to the need for self-perfection. In this article, I try to show that such strategies, however, undermine two convictions crucial to contemporary moral philosophy: the importance of the individuality of the moral subject (Bernard Williams) and the cognitive limitations associated with the description of the moral situation and its ineliminable value-laden character. Acceptance of these convictions cannot be reconciled with the traditional view of ethics, but requires the separation of moral judgements from the overall evaluation of the subject’s activity made in terms of the meaningfulness of life, the acceptance of constructivism, relativism and ethical particularism.
Keywords:
universalism, moral subject, constructivism, Bernard WilliamsDetails
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