Method in Ethics

I raised the question in an earlier post of how Cicero thinks that virtues are sources of duties. As I indicated, he states this and presumes that it is almost obvious, throughout De Officiis. He is not a systematic philosopher himself, of course, and we won't find any further or explicit explanation of what he means.

And yet this raises, I think, an interesting question about method in ethics and moral philosophy. What I wish to suggest is that Cicero's text should serve as an authority for moral philosophy. To indicate what I mean by this, I will draw some contrasts.

I don't have the book with me, but if I remember correctly, in Sen and Williams, Utilitarianism and Beyond, Tim Scanlon begins his essay, "Contractualism and Utilitarianism", by saying something like: it's interesting how much moral philosophy resembles mathematics--one simply sits back, reflects on moral judgments, and thinks creatively to identify an adequate formal structure. --Well, it is unnecessary to identify this view with Scanlon's essay, since we are all familiar with it. Especially after the large-scale migration of analytic philosophers from the area of philosophical logical to the field of practical morality, it has been common to think of moral philosophy as the mere exercise of analytical skill.

Rawls (to take another example) of course draws a comparison with natural science and offers the method of reflective equilibrium: in moral philosophy we collect 'considered judgments' and use these like data points, formulating more general principles which account for them. (Yes, of course, these need to be placed in 'wide reflective equilibrium' with other views.)

But the method of 'moral authorities' (as I shall call it) rather proceeds as follows: we judge that Cicero himself (the man, not his particular, 'considered judgments') is a moral authority; we examine what he writes or says; and we pose the question, What would one need to believe--how would one have to see things--in order to reason naturally in the way that Cicero does? And then one's answer to this question provides the starting point for reflection in moral philosophy (which indeed could take various forms: systematization; looking for 'foundations'; clarification; articulation of principles; etc.).

The difference between the 'method of moral authorities', and the approach I ascribed to Scanlon, is that the method I propose can be carried out only by someone whose moral character and sensibility is sufficiently developed, first, to indentify moral authorities correctly, and then to understand what they are saying (insofar as they may be met in understanding--that is, to 'have a sense' what they are saying) . That is, there is a requirement of a certain moral maturity and (if I may use the term) wisdom, on the part of the person who employs it. Mere cleverness will not be sufficient, although it will be necessary. Similarly, simply thinking creatively will not be sufficient, but rather life experience, and a certain kind of moral achievement as shown in deeds, will be necessary as well.

The difference between the 'method of moral authorities', and Rawls' approach, is that the unit of observation (so to speak) is not the individual moral judgment, but rather the entire moral personality (as it were) of the person one takes as an authority. Furthermore, one's reflection on that authority's character or moral personality needs to be somehow congruent with, or natural to, that person's own reflections. (In reflective equilibrium, the principles one proposes, to make sense of separate considered judgments, may be quite different from those that were, or might have been, entertained by those who formulated those judgments.) One's goal in reading (say) Cicero, is to become Ciceronian, in outlook and sensibility.

It follows, too, that the 'method of moral authorities' does not yield results that can be, as it were, transferred without effort. It leads to few, if any, conclusions that can simply be passed on to others, to save labor and effort. Rather, each person needs to develop the right sort of understanding on his own, through effort and growth in moral understanding.

Also, there is a kind of transitivity in application of the 'method of moral authority': someone who applies it well, to the extent that he applies it well, himself becomes an authority, equal to that of the person whose moral character he is explaining. This is the way I conceive of what used to be the common practice in American colleges, of the college president delivering, for seniors, as a kind of capstone, the only course on moral philosophy that they would take. The president's lectures would take the form of reflection on authoritative texts; it would be understood that he had standing to do so, given his experience and proved practical wisdom, in his successful administration of the college; and his lectures would accordingly take on something of the weight of the tradition he was attempting to explain.