Hilary Putnam

Meta-ethical theories, as seen in Habermas's Discourse Ethics, look toward a dialogical foundation for moral reasoning. Hilary Putnam's essays in Realism with a Human Face and Renewing Philosophy as well as Stuart Hampshire's 1991 Address to the American Philosophical Association exemplify some elements of these contemporary discussions.


How Not To Solve Ethical Problems (1983)

Ethical 'problems' are not like scientific ones and do not have 'solutions' in a scientific sense. It is better to think of difficult, controversial moral issues along the legal lines of ADJUDICATION (as when a court of law listens to all sides and makes the best judgment that it can).

Listening to all sides does not imply that all sides have an equally good 'reading' of the case. Just as there can be BETTER and WORSE INTERPRETATIONS of a play like "Hamlet," so there can be better or worse opinions in disagreements over ethics and aesthetics.

But note: To say that there can be 'better or worse" does not imply that there exists an 'absolute perspective" which can be used to 'solve the problem.'

Rather, it is to recognize that we are all in the same boat together and that we have to be willing to listen to each other -- and, in a pragmatic way, to 'muddle through' together as we confront difficult issues.

A Reconsideration of Deweyan Democracy (1992)

Echoing the principles of American pragmatism and Dewey's belief in 'social intelligence,' Putnam argues that "Democracy is not just one form of social life among other workable forms of social life; it is the precondition for the full application of intelligence to the solution of social problems" (RP p. 180)

Only when individuals and groups within a society are free to imagine the context of their situation and alternatives to those situations are the conditions for addressing 'problematical situations' met. Quoting Dewey:

[Philosophy's] primary concern is to clarify, liberate, and extend the goods which inhere in the naturally generated functions of experience...It has no stock of information or body of knowledge peculiarly its own...Its business is to accept and to utilize for a purpose the best available knowledge of its own time and place. And this purpose is criticism of beliefs, institutions, customs, policies with respect to their bearing upon good..." (Experience and Nature).
In the Southern California Law Review [63 (1990):1681-1688], Putnam discusses the similarities and differences between the views of Dewey and Habermas on democracy.


Justice as Strife (1991)

Stuart Hampshire

Hampshire suggests that we reverse the traditional relation of 'the soul' to 'the City.' Rather than viewing society from the perspective of rational principles inhereing in individuals, public, social processes might themselves provide a way of understanding both our selves and our society. In doing this, we will see more clearly how 'practical reasoning' proceeds -- in both its public and private forms.

Societies develop PROCEDURES for HEARING DIFFERENT SIDES OF A DISPUTE -- these require OPEN AND INFORMED DISCUSSIONS and METHODS OF NEGOTIATION.

At bottom, all involve "the FAIR WEIGHING AND BALANCING of CONTRARY ARGUMENTS bearing on UNAVOIDABLE and DISPUTABLE issues." This, says Hampshire, forms the essence of the ADVERSARY PRINCIPLE ('hear the other side') and seems to apply to our 'inner struggles' as well.

While SUBSTANTIVE JUSTICE evaluates actions and policies from a particular MORAL THEORY, PROCEDURAL JUSTICE applies the ADVERSARY PRINCIPLE to conflicts between 'moral enemies' (i.e., deeply grounded conflicts of value). It is the latter that best fits our approach to moral philosophy.

And in the real world, this political ability to seek out a 'smart compromise' is to be considered a high virtue -- one that expects conflicts of values and seeks procedures for regulating and refereeing the contest.


HomePage for Academic Dialogue on Applied Ethics Background for Meta-Ethics

Robert Cavalier, Carnegie Mellon and Charles Ess, Drury College