William Sweet President, Canadian Philosophical Association Professor of Philosophy

1. The Dialogue of Cultural Traditions: a global perspectiveDialogue, Cultural Traditions and Ethics William Sweet President, Canadian Philosophical Association Professor of Philosophy Director, Centre for Philosophy, Theology and Cultural Traditions St Francis Xavier University, Canada

2. Dialogue, Cultural Traditions and Ethics General Problematic Old ways of thinking about ethics • Religion-based / traditional • (Enlightenment) Reason-based • Affectivity and ‘intuition’ based • Generic humanistic and ‘conventionalist’ accounts

3. Dialogue, Cultural Traditions and Ethics General Problematic • Ethics and values as central to culture • Ethics deals with ways of living • BUT, in a world • that is Pluralist and diverse • that is Postmodern • In which we are aware of historicity, subjectivity, and contingency • how can we be ethical?

4. Old ways of thinking about ethics 1. religious / tradition-based • focus on 3 • classical Jewish/Christian/Islamic approaches • classical Asian approaches to ethics • Aristotelian virtue ethics; Stoic (and later) natural law

5. religious / tradition-basedJewish/Christian/Islamic 1. What are the key ethical principles? • 10 commandments (Hebrew Scriptures) • sermon on the mount (Matthew 5-7), also Matthew 22: “The Greatest Commandment” • Qur’an / Sunna and Hadith; also Sharia

6. religious / tradition-basedJewish/Christian/Islamic 2. What is the nature of this ethics? • - rules /laws • - sometimes abstract; sometimes concrete (e.g., love thy neighbour vs. dietary laws) • - the aim of ethical behaviour is….. • - difficult to separate ‘purely’ ethical from the religious

7. religious / tradition-basedJewish/Christian/Islamic 3. What is the source of this ethics? / How is this ethics authoritative? • from God • or conventions or past practice from interpreters of texts (rabbis, imams, etc….) • perhaps rules are reasonable or ‘natural’, but not why they command / are authoritative

8. religious / tradition-basedJewish/Christian/Islamic 4. this ethics depends on God • universal and particular • Why does God command this? (any reason?) • Are God’s reasons good reasons? (Euthyphro problem) • OR are these beyond reason?

9. religious / tradition-based Classical Asian approaches A preliminary question. Is there Asian philosophy? • Asian philosophy as a western invention • distinguish original (and/or philosophical) Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism from Confucian, Buddhist and Taoist popular cultures or spiritual life.

10. religious / tradition-based Classical Asian approaches • Asian philosophy?recognizes: • the value of diligence and work • the value of studiousness • the value of the family and relatives • the value of community and one’s responsibilities to the community.

11. religious / tradition-based Classical Asian approaches Nature of ethics • abstract principles AND concrete rules of conduct • the aim is to do one’s duty • of varna [caste] / classes of society or social life • may involve rites and rituals • development of (personal) virtue – i.e., it is a personal task, not subjective • to achieve enlightenment (moksa) / liberation (nibbana) • applies to all nature

12. religious / tradition-based Classical Asian approaches Source of ethics • Sometimes theistic, sometimes not • A principle of order (e.g., Heaven [T’ien]) • Natural law or nature • e.g., karma in Indian philosophy • BUT not obviously human nature • rooted in texts / scriptures

13. religious / tradition-based Classical Asian approaches So, this ethics depends on nature and tradition • V • V • V • V • V

14. religious / tradition-based Aristotelian / Stoic Nature of ethics • abstract principles • fewer concrete rules • Role of practical wisdom [phrónêsis] and [phronimos] . • e.g., be virtuous • "moral virtue/excellence": “a disposition or characteristic involving choice in observing the mean relative to us” Nicomachean Ethics II, 6

15. religious / tradition-based Aristotelian / Stoic seek happiness: • Happiness = df "an activity of the soul in conformity with virtue through a complete life via acting in accord with the rational element of the soul (I, 7)

16. religious / tradition-based Aristotelian / Stoic • courage {Gk. andreia]} between rashness and cowardice; • temperance {Gk. sophrosúnê]} intemperance and insensibility; • generosity between wastefulness and stinginess; • magnanimity {Gk. [megalopsychia]} between vanity and pusillanimity.

17. religious / tradition-based Aristotelian / Stoic • social, but also self-directed • again, involves the development of (personal) virtue • particular duties determined by function • an obligation to contemplation, meditation? • ultimately to achieve happiness

18. religious / tradition-based Aristotelian / Stoic Source of ethics • How do we know the good? • What is reasonable (cosmopolitan) • Natural law or nature • Determined by function • In fact, determined largely by tradition

19. religious / tradition-based Aristotelian / Stoic • So, it depends on….

20. Enlightenment / reason-based - most modern ethical theories • 4 principal kinds (though there are more) • - contract based • - principle based (deontological) • - consequence / result based (e.g., utilitarianism) • - right-based

21. Enlightenment / reason-based contract based • Rousseau; Hobbes, Locke, Plato (Thrasymachus); John Rawls • What principles would a (rational,) self-interested, individual agree to, in order to live in society? • ‘social contract’ • not “purely” rational (see Hobbes); a desire to avoid pain and suffering • some general ‘natural laws’

22. Enlightenment / reason-based principle based (deontological) • Kant • Again, what would a rational being discover and ‘assent to’? • Law • Can be rationally grasped and recognised as true (and obligatory) by all rational beings (not just human beings) • autonomy = giving this law to oneself

23. Enlightenment / reason-based principle based (deontological) How is this law known? the categorical imperative: • “act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.” • "Act so as to use humanity, in your own person or in others, always as an end, and never merely as a means."

24. Enlightenment / reason-based principle based (deontological) • universal and absolute – a priori – (without exception) • ‘recognized’ and enacted by reason alone • doesn’t matter if people agree to it or not • does not – cannot – depend on external lawgiver • does not depend on consequences or results

25. Enlightenment / reason-based consequence / result based • Again, what would a rational being discover and ‘assent to’? • e.g., Mill • also Jeremy Bentham, William Godwin, Henry Sidgwick; today: Peter Singer. • “The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” Ch 2.

26. Enlightenment / reason-based consequence / result based • not proven from 1st principles, but still proven • see Utilitarianism Ch 4 • “happiness is a good: that each person's happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons.”

27. Enlightenment / reason-based consequence / result based • has a lawlike character • Can be seen by all rational beings • ‘reasonable’ rather than “purely” rational • In a way this is universal and in a way absolute • What utilitarianism amounts to in practice depends on the circumstances • important to have experience, be attentive to details, and develop moral expertise • does not depend on any external lawgiver BUT does depend on a theory of motivation

28. Enlightenment / reason-based Right based • e.g., Locke? • Again, what would a rational being ‘assent to’? • Based on ‘natural law’ = ‘a law of reason’ • preservation of life and liberty • Liberty fundamental: • “natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of nature for his rule.” - Second Treatise of Government, Ch 4: • State of nature: "A state of perfect freedom...within the bounds of the law of nature".

29. Enlightenment / reason-based Right based • limits on what we can do: • not violating a like liberty/freedom • ‘as much and as good for others’ • Can be seen by all rational beings • more ‘reasonable’ than “purely” rational • Is this universal and absolute? • empiricistic • depend on an external lawgiver? Unclear (probably not)

30. Sentiment / pitié E.g., Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). • 4 basic, inborn characteristics of humans: • Basic drive to care for self (amour de soi) • pitié • Perfectibility • Freedom • How ought people to treat others ? • First, amour de soi • also la pitié – pity (or sympathy or empathy for the other).

31. Sentiment / pitié • What is pity? In Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes (1755), 1ère partie : • “pity is a natural feeling, which, moderating in each individual the activity of the love of oneself, contributes to the mutual conversation of all the species. It is it which carries us without reflexion to the help of those that we see suffering; it is it which, in the state of nature, holds place of laws, manners, of virtue, with this advantage that no one is not tempted to disobey its soft voice;

32. Sentiment / pitié • not something rational • Not mutual • does not imply a shared sentiment or interest or mutual recognition; one simply has this “reaction”. • Not clearly moral; no sense to say that one (morally) ought to “feel” sympathy. • pitié exists regardless of social life or socialization, • Needs imagination (i.e., the capacity to imagine beyond our own interests)

33. Sentiment / pitié • David Hume (1711-1776). • judgments / traditional morality arise from a moral sense, not reason. • A matter of fact (discoverable by experience), virtue is always accompanied by a feeling of pleasure, and vice by a feeling of pain. • moral approval is a feeling, similar to an aesthetic feeling; not an act of reason, like a mathematical inference.

34. Humanistic ethics / ethics by convention • E.g., Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) • human centred • conventional (Jack Donnelly) • designed to achieve certain underlying values • E.g., human being as autonomous and equal • has become "deeply rooted" and is recognised • No moral or natural foundationalism. • Rights - the product of historical accident; may change. • serve as a regulative political ideal