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Rawls’s Justification Model for Ethics: What Exactly Justifies the Model?

100%

Alican N. F.

Dialogue and Universalism

2020

issue 1

171-190

This is a defense of Rawls against recent criticism, ironically my own, though it is also a critique insofar as it addresses a problem that Rawls never does. As a defense, it is not a retraction of the original charges. As a critique, it is not more of the same opposition. In either capacity, it is not an afterthought. The charges were conceived from the outset with a specific solution in mind, which would have been too distracting to pursue in the same article. This is that solution. It also highlights the problem. The original charges were that Rawls’s decision procedure for ethics does not justify his own moral principles, namely his principles of justice, and that the underlying problem may well keep the decision procedure from justifying any moral principles whatsoever, or at least any normatively useful ones. The underlying problem was, and still is, the model’s inherent universalism, which is built into the decision procedure through design specifications precluding relativism, yet only at the cost of limiting the relevant moral principles to generalities that are already widely accepted, thereby rendering the procedure at best redundant and very likely vacuous as an ethical justification model. These difficulties are manifested in the work of Rawls as the dogmatism of championing a distinctive conception of justice, a liberal one as he himself calls it, through a justification model that is too universalistic to permit such a bias and possibly also too universalistic to permit any substantive conclusions at all. The solution contemplated here is to position the decision procedure as a dynamic justification model responsive to moral progress, as opposed to a static one indifferent to such progress and equally open to all moral input, thus removing the inconsistency between the universalistic design and any distinctive or controversial principles, including the ones Rawls himself recommends, so long as they are consistent with moral progress.

Why Moral Norms Cannot be Reduced to Facts: On a Trilemma in Derivations of Moral “Ought” from “Is”

58%

Załuski W.

Archiwum Filozofii Prawa i Filozofii Społecznej

2019

vol. 2(20)

63-74

The paper aims at formulating a certain trilemma that applies to justifying moral norms. The trilemma can be succinctly stated as follows: any attempt to derive a “moral-ought-statement” from an “is-statement” with a justificatory goal (i.e. to justify the “moral-ought-statement”), even if it were successful in its “derivation” part (i.e. logically correct), would be unsuccessful in its “justificatory” part for one of the following three reasons: (1) it would consider each human action of which a factual statement can be made as morally obligatory, thus “justifying” a large number of implausible moral norms; or (2) it would presuppose a moral norm not derivable from facts; or (3) it would not explain why the distinction – made based on extra-moral criteria – between those factual statements about human actions from which moral norms can be derived and those from which they cannot be derived should count as morally relevant. The trilemma is illustrated in the paper by an analysis of Searle’s well-known attempt at deriving “ought” from “is”. Some further implications of the trilemma regarding the proper way of justifying moral norms are also examined.

Celem artykułu jest sformułowanie pewnego trylematu dotyczącego uzasadniania norm moralnych. Trylemat ten można ująć zwięźle w następujący sposób: każda próba logicznego wywiedzenia zdania moralnego (formułującego nakaz lub zakaz określonego działania), ze zdania lub zdań faktualnych, nawet jeśli byłaby poprawna w swojej części logicznej, nie mogłaby stanowić jego uzasadnienia z jednego z trzech powodów: albo (1) prowadziłaby do uznania każdego typu czynu za moralnie nakazany lub zakazany, nie pozostawiając tym samym miejscu dla czynów moralnie obojętnych; albo (2) zakładałaby istnienie normy moralnej nie dającej się wyprowadzić ze zdań faktualnych; albo (3) nie tłumaczyłaby, dlaczego dokonana na podstawie poza-moralnych kryteriów dystynkcja między zdaniami faktualnymi mogącymi stanowić podstawę dla derywacji norm moralnych i zdaniami faktualnymi nie mogącymi stanowić takiej podstawy, miałaby zostać uznana za moralnie istotną. Trylemat ten zostaje w artykule zilustrowany w kontekście analizy znanej próby Searle’a wyprowadzenia norm z faktów. Artykuł kończą refleksje na temat implikacji trylematu dla sporu o właściwy sposób uzasadniania norm moralnych.

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1 Archiwum Filozofii Prawa i Filozofii Społecznej

1 Dialogue and Universalism

1 Alican N. F.

1 Załuski W.

1 2020

1 2019

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Rawls’s Justification Model for Ethics: What Exactly Justifies the Model?

Why Moral Norms Cannot be Reduced to Facts: On a Trilemma in Derivations of Moral “Ought” from “Is”