P.A. ETH-TALK: IS IT ETHICAL?

9 Pages 2227 Words

ing a range of social action disciplines, is exemplified recently in the United States in the revival of interest in social philosophy especially since the publication in 1971 of John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice (Rawls, 1971); it is also found in the justice emphasis in Derrida (Derrida, 1992) and in the postmodern view of the implosion of the boundaries between the normative, the scientific and the aesthetic (Habermas, 1983). Second, the step – although forward – is a mis-step if it seizes on a version of the ethicizing project that is not realistic about the nature of the ethical, not comprehensive about practicality, and not willing to be hesitant in imposing ethical prescriptions on others. Third, I want to bring these ideas before a wider audience. This is why I am repeating much – for example – from an earlier version of a paper that became Farmer, 1999, modified by some recent thoughts.

Two caveats should be entered. First, there is nothing wrong with P.A. eth-talk options that do not apply to eth-talk in other action areas, e.g., business or social work administration. The arguments of this paper could be generalized beyond P.A. eth-talk. It applies in any situation where there are differences in opinion about ethics, e.g., in any multi-opinion or multi-cultural situation. My choice to focal on P.A. eth-talk results only from the fact that I am interested in P.A. (Incidentally, use of the neologism “eth-talk” is “inspired” by, and adapted from, an e-mail address used in the ASPA Section on Ethics. However, the adaptation – including a hyphen – is to underscore that the excellent work of that section is not being targeted.) Second, there is nothing in this paper that is intended either to undermine religion or to support relativism. As is noted below, my own skepticism about the capability of human reasoning “on its own” to identify grounded, inter-s!
ubjective moral prescriptions is un...