Abstract
Some defenders of the view that there is a common morality have conceived such morality as being universal, in the sense of extending across all cultures and times. Those who deny the existence of such a common morality often argue that the universality claim is implausible. Defense of common morality must take account of the distinction between descriptive and normative claims that there is a common morality. This essay considers these claims separately and identifies the nature of the arguments for each claim. It argues that the claim that there is a universal common morality in the descriptive sense has not been successfully defended to date. It maintains that the claim that there is a common morality in the normative sense need not be understood as universalist. This paper advocates the concept of group specific common morality, including country-specific versions. It suggests that both the descriptive and the normative claims that there are country-specific common moralities are plausible, and that a country-specific normative common morality could provide the basis for a country's bioethics.
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Notes
Baker suggests additional counterexamples, as follows:
“Promise keeping,” for example, cannot be a cultural universal because the practice is necessarily limited to those cultures that use languages capable of formulating performative utterances—i.e., utterances that perform the action characterized, e.g., “I promise”. [7, p. 424]
A similar problem afflicts Beauchamp’s claim that “respect [for] the rights of others” is characteristic of “all moral societies.” Historically, the languages of most societies do not contain a term designating the concept of having a right. This concept first emerges in Anglo-Saxon culture in the thirteen (sic) century, when it was invented as a defense against the depredations of Norman conquerors. The philosophical notion that individuals have rights emerged even later, in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Anglo-Saxon culture. [7, p. 425]
I suggest that there are better ways to state the purpose of morality. Gert’s formulation seems too narrow, in that more is involved in morality than avoiding harming. In particular, harm, liberty, and justice would seem to be distinct concepts that are part of morality. An example of an alternative formulation is that the purpose of morality is to diminish the amount of harm, curtailment of liberty, and injustice that is suffered by those individuals toward whom moral precepts apply. However, I shall put these issues aside and accept, for sake of argument, Gert’s formulation.
This interpretation is consistent with Beauchamp’s statement: “If norms other than the ones I have specified were demonstrated to be shared across cultures, this finding would constitute evidence of a common morality, albeit one different from the account I have proposed [3, p. 264].”
A similar statement is made in Beauchamp, “The Mettle of Moral Fundamentalism”:
I believe...that it is an institutional fact about the substance of morality (not merely the formal features of the concept of morality and not merely my view of it) that it contains fundamental and shared precepts. It is by appeal to this shared moral substance that persons are enabled to make justifiable cross-temporal and cross-cultural judgments [5, p. 395].
Gert points out that common morality does not resolve controversial moral issues, such as the morality of abortion, physician-assisted suicide, or the allocation of health care resources. Moreover, one of the important topics it is unable to resolve, according to Gert, is the range of individuals toward whom one has an obligation to follow the moral rules. He states that almost all moral agents agree that we should follow the rules, at the very least, in our interactions with all moral agents, persons who previously were moral agents and who remain conscious, and children. But the question of what other individuals we have an obligation not to harm is a matter of disagreement. For example, he states that common morality does not resolve controversies over the moral standing of animals or human embryos and fetuses. See [1, pp. 8, 138–148]; [13, p.v.]; [14, p. 255].
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Strong, C. Justifying group-specific common morality. Theor Med Bioeth 29, 1–15 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-008-9058-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-008-9058-0