Between Universalism and Skepticism: Ethics as Social Artifact

224 Pages·1994·13.79 MB·English

by  Michael Philips

Between Universalism
and Skepticism
This page intentionally left blank
Between Universalism
and Skepticism
Ethics as Social Artifact
MICHAEL PHILIPS
New York Oxford
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1994
Oxford University Press
Oxford New York Toronto
Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo
Nairobi Dar es Salaam Cape Town
Melbourne Auckland Madrid
and associated companies in
Berlin Ibadan
Copyright © 1994 by Michael Philips
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Philips, Michael, 1942-
Between universalism and skepticism: ethics as social artifact /
[Michael Philips],
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-19-508646-5
1. Ethics. I. Title.
BJ10I2.P455 1994 171'7-dc20 93-24722
246897531
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
For my wife, Marion, whose amazed criticisms of my earlier
moralistic tendencies forced me to rethink basic questions of
ethics and whose deep appreciation of innocence, kindness, and
humor helped me to understand the relation between the good
and the right.
This page intentionally left blank
Preface
During the many years I worked on this book, I taught in three
philosophy departments and was a visiting scholar at another. I am
indebted to students and colleagues at all of these institutions for
their comments, criticisms, and encouragement. I am especially
grateful to Ramon Lemos, with whom I talked philosophy nearly
every working day while we were colleagues at the University of
Miami. Although our approaches to ethics are very different, I learned
much from his good-natured but penetrating questions, comments,
and arguments, and was buoyed by his friendship. I also benefited
considerably from frequent conversations with Dick Sikora, Sam
Coval, and Earl Winkler during my two years as a visiting professor at
the University of British Columbia. The tenacity and intelligence
with which each of them criticized my views and with which Dick
argued for his own distinctive version of rule utilitarianism forced me
to rethink and clarify many ideas. Neil Thomason was my main
philosophical companion in Portland during his years at Reed College.
His unusually high standards of rigor and argument helped constrain
my tendencies to leap from peak to peak, and his tough-minded but
good-natured (and often very funny) questions about my views of
responsibility and blame (and many other issues) helped to improve
them. Gerald Doppelt and I have been friends since graduate school
and have had many memorable discussions about ethics and political
philosophy over the years. His wildly comic and often deadly accurate
portraits of our common philosophical opponents and of professional
philosophy in general have helped me to see things more clearly and
keep them in perspective. I am also indebted to Mark Okrent and
viii Between Univeisalism and Skepticism
Charlotte Witt, with whom I exchanged work regularly while we
were visiting scholars at U.C. Berkeley, and I am extremely grateful to
the readers for Oxford University Press for their many careful and
useful criticisms of the text. But I owe the most to my wife, Marion.
Before we met I had no interest in writing academic philosophy. She
helped convince me that it is a respectable activity and that I would
find it rewarding. Our (well, yes) arguments about practical ethical
issues helped to awaken me from my dogmatic Kantian slumbers.
And I learned much about life and ethics from her courage to face
what is real and see the good in it.
Portland, Oregon M.P.
June 1993
Contents
Introduction, 3
1. Intuitionism and Wide Reflective Equilibrium, 20
2. Reasons, Persons, and Contracts, 46
3. The Formal Conception of the Good, 68
4. Ethics as Social Artifact, 89
5. Evaluating Standards, 128
6. Goods and Evils, 152
7. Ethics and Agents, 182
Index, 202