There are a handful of prominent ethical doctrines or moral philosophies in the Western (secular) philosophical tradition (with some of their ideas found in Asian worldviews as well): (i) deontology or Kantian ethics; (ii) utilitarianism or consequentialism; (iii) virtue ethics; (iv) care ethics; and, finally, (v) a more or less teleological conception which accords pride of place to consideration of the human good and flourishing (or ‘the Good’ and eudaimonia). There is also something called, after Jonathan Dancy, (vi) “particularism,” or, in the title of his book, Ethics Without Principles (Oxford University Press, 2004), but it appears to be a bit of an outlier among ethicists and philosophers (I’m happy to be found mistaken on this score).*
Over the years, I have immersed myself in much of the literature found in the first three, while according a little time to learning about (iv), care ethics, at least in so far as that has been developed by Michael Slote and Nel Noddings (much of it first inspired by the work of Carol Gilligan). I’ve never felt any special allegiance to any of these moral theories or ethical doctrines (sometimes morality and ethics are distinguished, but we can ignore the value of that distinction for our purposes), that is, until now: I’ve arrived at the belief that (v), the teleological version, is more or less capable of subsuming much of the best work in the other five “theories.” This is more an intuition or gut feeling than anything else because I’ve not tried to work out the specific arguments to support my conclusion. I suspect my underlying motivation comes from the Jain epistemological doctrine of relativity, anekāntavāda, one of three interrelated and mutually supporting doctrines for reasoning and logic (the others being syādvāda, the theory of conditioned predication, and nayavāda, the theory of partial standpoints). In brief, anekāntavāda refers to the principles of pluralism and multiplicity of viewpoints, the notion that truth and reality are perceived differently from diverse points of view, and that no single point of view is the complete truth (thus no ethical doctrine fully captures the nature of morality or the virtuous life). With both the late B.K. Matilal and Jonardon Ganeri, we might look at the Jain doctrine of anekānta as visualizing Truth on the order of a many-faceted gem, each facet (or ‘truth’) nonetheless possessing “a completeness and coherence of its own.”
But, you’re no doubt quick to point out, I’ve now ranked one ethical philosophy over the others insofar as I think it capable of subsuming the principal philosophical insights of the remaining ethical theories. True enough, so to that extent I’ve deviated from the Jain model of reason and rationality I’m claiming to see the gem, so to speak, in toto, from all sides! But such deviation—or transcendence—from, or of, relativity and pluralism is likewise found in the Jain tradition, so perhaps one can view my tutored hunch or intuition as analogous (in a far more reductive and modest if not pedestrian sense) to the claims of “omniscience” (kevalajñāna) made by the kevalin (in Jainism, an enlightened being; with virtually identical claims being made in two other ‘orthodox’ and ‘heterodox’ Indian/Indic philosophical traditions), for there are “awakened” or “enlightened” beings in these religious/philosophical worldviews capable of having, as it were, a transcendental knowledge or spiritual awareness, while still embodied, of Absolute Truth (which, definitively speaking, is inexpressible, while its spiritual state is indescribable). As my former teacher Nandini Iyer writes, we find in Indian classical philosophy, “which is always connected with religion” (that is, should we not view Cārvāka/Lokāyata as part of this early period, which is arguable) a fundamental belief in the possibility that mere mortals are capable of actually attaining
“a perfect knowledge of Reality—a ‘scientia intuitiva’ that leads to the Divine or the Absolute Truth. The conceptual frameworks [in our case, the various ethical philosophies] we build in the realm of rational thought are not useless just because they cannot describe Ultimate Reality. Serious examination of, reflection on, these explanatory and interpretive schemes, their differences and overlaps, are crucial to expanding and deepening our understanding of reality, even if these conceptual frameworks (any or all possible combinations and collections of them) cannot bring us the Absolute Truth. If nothing else, they enable us to understand the relativity of conceptual truths and structures, and make us see what Pascal meant when he said that the highest function of reason is to show us the limitations of reason.”
I am thus not claiming the teleological formulation of ethics represents “absolute truth,” but perhaps it helps us expand and deepen our understanding of ethical living, of a moral life well lived to the extent that it can (or might) subsume and transcend these competing ethical doctrines!
* I don’t intend to be dismissive of theological ethics, or religious ethics in general, it’s simply not part of this discussion. Indeed, I think there is much to be learned from religious ethics, even if one does not share their specific theological or metaphysical premises and convictions. A fine illustration of this is provided by Linda Zagzebski’s book, Divine Motivation Theory (Cambridge University Press, 2004), several ideas from which were put to good use in Amy Olberding’s Moral Exemplars in the Analects: The Good Person is That (Routledge, 2012).
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