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 |
Common Morality: Deciding What to Do |
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Rating:  Summary: Gert's teaches how to think about morality without dogma. Review: Common Morality: Deciding What to Do by Bernard Gert (Oxford University Press) Unlike the usual texts on ethics where students are taught to identify types of moral theory with types of moral justifications, Gert's new text rather challenges us to learn what it is to reason morally and impartially. His general rules for an ethical system are especially flexible without allowing any easy sophistry that allows us to hoodwink ourselves or others in behaving badly for supposed good reasons.
In many ways Gert is the grand old man of practical ethics and this little book should make his procedures available to all who wish to act and access others actions upon a moral grid. A general account of morality with practical and accessible general rules could have revitalizing effect on public discourse and the holding our leaders and their decisions ethically accountable. However the skills suggested in this text may also help one clarify one's own values as well as assess the common good.
Moral problems do not always come in the form of great social controversies. More often, the moral decisions we make are made quietly, constantly, and within the context of everyday activities and quotidian dilemmas. Indeed, these smaller decisions are based on a moral foundation that few of us ever stop to think about but which guides our every action.
Here distinguished philosopher Bernard Gert presents a clear and concise introduction to what he calls "common morality"-the moral system that most thoughtful people implicitly use when making everyday, commonsense moral decisions and judgments. Common Morality is useful in that-while not resolving every disagreement on controversial issues-it is able to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable answers to moral problems.
In the first part of the book Gert lays out the fundamental features of common morality: moral rules, moral ideals, and a two-step procedure for determining when a violation of a moral rule is justified. Written in a nontechnical style, the ten general moral rules include rules on which everyone can agree, such as "do not kill," "do not deceive," and 'keep your promises." The moral ideals include similarly uncontroversial precepts such as "relieve pain and "aid the needy." In the second part of the book Gert examines the underlying concepts that justify common morality, such as the notions of rationality and impartiality.
The distillation of over 40 years of scholarship, this book is the most accessible version of Gert's influential theory of morality as well as an eye-opening look at the moral foundations of our everyday actions. Throughout the discussion is clear enough for a reader with little or no philosophy background.
Excerpt: A complete moral theory should not be taken to be a theory that provides a unique answer to every moral question. Rather, a complete moral theory should explain and justify the overwhelming agreement on most moral matters while at the same time explaining and justifying the limited disagreement on some of the most important moral matters. Moral theories that provide no explanation or justification for unresolvable moral disagreement are incomplete; those that claim there are no unresolvable moral disagreements are false.
A complete moral theory must not only provide analyses of the three concepts that are central to any account of morality-that of morality itself, of impartiality, and of rationality-but also show how these concepts are related to each other. A complete theory must also relate morality to human nature, making it clear why any beings having the essential features of human nature such as fallibility, rationality, and vulnerability would develop a system of morality with all of the features of our common morality. Al-though common morality is a system, it does not remove the need for human judgment. It is true that common morality is systematic enough that a computer could be programmed so that, provided with the facts of the case, it always comes up with acceptable moral answers. However, another computer could be programmed differently and still always come up with acceptable answers. There is no computer program that can tell you which of the competing computer programs you should adopt.
We often hear the complaint that scientific advances are out-stripping moral advances, as if we need to make new moral discoveries to deal with the new scientific discoveries and technology. We do need to understand how common morality applies to new situations, but there is no need for moral advances. Common morality, together with an understanding of the new situations created by scientific discoveries and technology, is sufficient to deal with any problem with which we are confronted. However, many people would prefer to make morality seem problematic. It is much harder to act immorally if you recognize that what you are doing is clearly immoral. Hobbes claims that if our interests were as affected by geometry as much as they are by morality, we would have no more agreement in geometry than we have in morality. The purpose of this book is to provide such a clear, coherent, and comprehensive description of morality and its justification, so that no one will be able to deceive himself or others about the moral acceptability of his actions. This will not eliminate immoral behavior, but by making it harder to defend immoral policies, it may contribute to the goal of common morality, which is the lessening of the amount of harm suffered.
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