Current Philosophy

0021 Simon Laflamme. "Proble'matique de philosophies morales occiden-tales," Philosophiques 13:1 (Spring 1986), pp. 21-38.

It is commonplace to observe the cultural and historical dependence of moral codes in different societies. But it is less common to ask why this dependence exists. Why is the content of morality variable when its existence is universal?

Laflamme replies that there are conflicts built into the business of developing ethics. At the heart of it is a tension between, on the one hand, the rational and putatively universal considerations developed by philosophers, and on the other hand, the demand that any ethical norms be applied to real life, to specific and complex situations. One result is a practical ethics full of compromises and contradictions: one should not do evil, but of course sometimes.... Another result is a proliferation of dichotomies in the never completed effort to understand actual situations in general terms: voluntary/involuntary, rational/instinctive, natural/civil, common/private, and so on.

Trying to systematize the inherent conflicts in ethics, Laflamme describes three pairs of opposites that all moral systems must deal with:

The universal vs. the particular. As already described, ethics wants to consider the general, but it must be applied to the individual. This opposition brings into play two others: that between freedom and determination, and that between nature and history. How a moral system balances these dichotomies serves as a basis of comparison -- but certainly not of identity.

CURRENT PHILOSOPHY 27

Reward vs. punishment. There is a tendency for ethics to promote virtue for its own sake: we are not supposed to be good merely in order to obtain certain rewards or to avoid punishment. Yet at the same time moral goodness is urged as producing some enticing result or condition, be it a heavenly reward or a virtuous state which is perceived (or at least promoted) as desirable.

The desirable vs. the unattainable. Both moral codes and moral paradigms tend to be idealistic: we should be saints. And yet moral perfection is not really possible for us.

Differing moralities, in Laflamme's view, are not particular expressions of a universal reason. Rather, they are the result of the different ways in which different societies (and the individuals within those societies) have dealt with these dichotomies.

And because ethics tries to normalize the thoughts and attitudes of a society, it is unavoidably political. It can be seen, therefore, as a form of ideology as well.