Topics Ethics

Question It seems to me that with moral dilemmas of Today, in the information age and in a democracy, people try to solve them by some balanced blend of different theories, say utilitarian consequentialism and kantian respect for the individual. For example, Torture and Abortion. It seems your ordinary citizen of today would consider both what is humane and dignifies the individual, but also tries to consider what the consequences are and how they might affect the greater number of people. Now, I'm sure as in every age there is a large group of intellectuals bemoaning the state of intellectual backwardness of Today, but I happen to believe that, as a whole, the average intelligence of society is a lot more than in the past. On that view, the hot button moral dilemmas of today are evolved questions of difficulty - they're morally "harder" than questions in the past. In part, I suppose, because new technology gave rise to new complex possible scenarios. Isn't it likely, given these assumptions then, that the moral theories of Yesterday are simply inadequate to the task of answering individual cases. Sure, the philosophers of the past might have had some clever way of shielding themselves from this possibility - that their theories would prove impossible in answering specific cases - but let's get real. If you know morality, but you can't answer a moral question, then you don't really know morality. Taking this further, could it be that the greatest philosophy of today is being created in the places where these questions are addressed - in courts, in discussion forums and yes, even in the newspapers, magazines and discussions between every day citizens. The question is: since today's society is so structurally different from those in the past that gave rise to the Great Philosophers, could it be simply that we have Great Philosophers among us, perhaps even more in number than in the past, but that their mode of expression has changed; rather than being exalted by a class of non-intellectuals and standing apart from society, they are the Joe and Jon and Harry among us - they're writing in our newspapers, teaching in our schools, etc. They aren't famous, they're simply among us, and perhaps coming up with ideas of a depth greater than that being found in the scholarly philosophical journals. Possible?

Accepted:
July 29, 2007

Comments

I don't agree with you that improvements in technology have led to a different conceptual level of philosophical problem. Society is certainly different from the past, but not that different. The same issues arise of justice, fairness, equality, welfare and so on, and that is why the classic texts still seem so relevant today, despite what you suggest. The examples you give of abortion and torture are perfect for the case against you, since they seem to me not to have changed at all over the years as moral issues, despite changes in technology. The fact that we can now, for instance, torture people with electrodes does not make it essentially different from pulling out their finger nails. So you need more of an argument to show why we should think that the familiar issues of the past no longer have purchase today.

On the other hand, I certainly agree with your last point, that ideas of much greater depth may be found outside of philosophy journals today. But then, it was ever so.