Universals Without Absolutes: A Theory of Media Ethics

Abstract

The global turn in media ethics has presented a tough challenge for traditional models of moral theory: How do we assert common moral standards while also showing respect for the values of those from outside the Western tradition? The danger lies in advocating for either extreme: reason-dependent absolutism or cultural relativism. In this paper, I reject Cliff Christian’s attempts to solve the problem and propose instead a moral theory of universal standards that are discovered via a mix of rationally grounded methods. Such universality refutes relativism but, because it is grounded in evolutionary naturalism and life-world philosophy—as opposed to a Kantian or theological transcendentalism—it also avoids absolutism.

Notes

^1. Jürgen Habermas’s (1995) neo-Kantian method for arriving at universally agreed upon norms (via the creation of open communication spaces, where power dynamics are at least largely reduced), is among the most compelling mechanisms for achieving such agreement.

^2. “Appear to have” because, as I will argue more fully below, I have yet to see any evidence that the differences are over basic principles, as opposed to how those principles are prioritized and applied within different cultural contexts.

^3. In a more recent piece, Christians similarly refers to a “crisis in ethics” and claims that the hard work of theoretical analysis and evaluation is a mere “anachronism” (Christians, 2015, pp. 2, 3), claims that clearly run contrary to the wide array of excellent literature in ethics theory and practice.

^4. For example, the “forms of life” and “life world” views of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Wittgenstein, 1973) and Edmond Husserl, respectively.

^5. Christians is hardly alone in making too much of otherwise interesting empirical claims. For example, Stephen Ward, declares: “A central fact of ethics is that, over time, the ethics of people change. Confronted with new situations and problems, people invent new norms and principles” (Ward, 2013, p. 304). He is either just empirically wrong here—anthropology, history and sociology have shown us there is in fact striking agreement over core principles (such as dignity, non-maleficence, and justice) throughout human history—or he is conflating different levels of norms and principles (see below) or simply reinforcing the context point: Any instantiation of a norm or principle is going to vary according to the prevailing facts and local needs (again, see below). That is, the norm/principle does not change; rather, its function in contextual ethics reasoning does.

^6. As he explains (Christians, 2015, p. 5), many virtue theorists have challenged the validity of the fallacy, showing that on a naturalistic metaphysics the distinction between is and ought disappears, but that kind of argument—one to which I am largely sympathetic—is very different than using a survey to capture a purported essential truth.

^7. See, for example, his (similarly vague) restatement of the principle as “the inherent dignity of the human species” (Christians, 2015, p. 6).

^8. These arguments are developed in Chapters 15 and 16.

^9. Fotion also includes content features—paraphrased here as complexity, concepts, addressing the right and the good, and Common Morality—and I will work those in at relevant spots, below.

^10. I’m grateful to David Ozar for reminding me of this point.

^11. I am grateful to the late Bernard Gert for his clarifications on this point in his response to an earlier version of this paper, presented at the 2010 Meetings of the Association of Practical and Professional Ethics (March 6, Cincinnati, OH).

^12. Martin Luther King, Jr. (King, 1954) spoke in similar language: “This universe hinges on moral foundations.” Special thanks to an unknown participant at the 2015 Meetings of the Association for Practical and Practical Ethics (February, Costa Mesa, CA) and to Steven Gamboa for helping me with this section.

^13. Singer, Peter. Animal Liberation, Updated Edition (New York: Harper Perennial; 2009).

^14. These argument constructions must assume “available information” includes all those facts that a reasonable person can reasonably be expected to pursue within inevitable epistemological and time constraints.

^15. Kant famously argues that moral accountability entails a further metaphysical assumption, that persons must have the ability to make undetermined (“free”) choices. Because I think moral accountability can, in fact, be ascribed without such metaphysical freedom (see, e.g., Frankfurt, 1971), I remain neutral on this point, other than to note that even if retributive punishment is a necessary condition for moral theory, it will necessarily fall upon a continuum of appropriate responses, given the associated continuum of, especially, epistemological capacities held by moral agents.

^16. See, for example, Gert, 1998.I would also note that throughout this and the procedure section, I am, per another of Fotion’s content features, engaged in conceptual clarification, explicating what is meant by key principles and moral terms.

^17. Ross is inconsistent here: In at least one place (21) he prioritizes non-maleficence and in another he categorizes promise keeping, gratitude and reparation—that is, key deontological, backward-looking, duties—as perfect duties: “A great deal of stringency belongs to the duties of ‘perfect obligation’—the duties of keeping our promises, of repairing wrongs we have done, and of returning the equivalent of services we have received” (pp. 41–42). As he makes clear, though, any prioritization is prima facie only: It is easy enough to come up with cases in which any duty is justifiably overridden by another.

^18. Typical counter examples include extreme utilitarian cases: Would it not be morally good to sacrifice one innocent person so as to save millions? First, my moral intuitions are that, no, it would not be; there are some moral avenues that it is simply and always wrong to pursue. Second, these cases are in fact so extreme, so unlikely to be relevant to real-world decision-making, that they may be interesting for theoretical discussion only, with no genuine contribution to practical ethics reasoning. Third, it is possible there are some cases—sometimes called “tragic dilemmas” (Hursthouse, 1999, pp. 71–75)—for which there is no possible moral resolution, at least not for any but an omniscient being.

^19. Aggregated minor impacts of this sort, over a narrow time frame, certainly could add up to a harm—consider how bullying meets such conditions

^20. Being embedded in a conceptual scheme or “organizational script” (Werhane, 1999) adds one more complication to the negligence question; if my script prevents me from seeing the harm, what is my responsibility to break out of that script? I address this more fully in the “Procedure” section, below.

^21. See, for example: Ward and Wasserman, 2010.

^22. See, for example: Haidt and Craig, 2004.

^23. See, for example: Haidt, 2001; Newton and Williams, 2010; and Hauser, 2006.

^24. This characterization is borrowed from a similar process developed by Dan Wueste, from the Rutland Institute of Ethics at Clemson University.

^25. See Meyers, Christopher. “Religious Beliefs, the Courts, and Healthcare Decision-Making,” Levan Humanities Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2015: http://www2.bakersfieldcollege.edu/lhr/.

^26. Usually obvious: I have consulted on any number of cases in which health care professionals believed they needed to track down a long-estranged but never-divorced spouse for surrogate decision-making, when a long-time partner was at the bedside.

^27. The notion of “moral remainder” is fairly controversial (see the series of essays in Journal of Moral Philosophy, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2007), but I see it as a necessary consequence of the acceptance of moral principles having ontological force and of the reality of conflict among them.