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Ethical Dilemma Resolved

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Cindy Smith

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May 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM5/12/97
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Thanks to everyone who sent me kind notes and helpful suggestions on
how to resolve my ethical dilemma. My professor and I have reached a
compromise in which I will be allowed to write my term paper on a
comparison/contrast between natural law/natural rights and one of the
ethical theories we have studied in class. I'm leaning towards
contractualism because I think contractualism and natural law
complement one another. Earlier, my professor remarked that natural
law is a form of moral realism. What do you think?

Thanks again for the helpful comments.

Cindy Smith
c...@dragon.com

Alexander R Pruss

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May 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM5/14/97
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Cindy Smith (c...@DRAGON.COM) wrote:
: Thanks to everyone who sent me kind notes and helpful suggestions on

: how to resolve my ethical dilemma. My professor and I have reached a
: compromise in which I will be allowed to write my term paper on a
: comparison/contrast between natural law/natural rights and one of the
: ethical theories we have studied in class. I'm leaning towards
: contractualism because I think contractualism and natural law
: complement one another. Earlier, my professor remarked that natural
: law is a form of moral realism. What do you think?

There are two kinds of moral realism: substantive moral realism and
procedural moral realism (distinction due to Korsgaard, _The Sources of
Normativity_). As I understand it, substantive moral realism says that
there are objectively true answers to moral questions (questions such as
"What should a person finding himself in circumstances X do?") Procedural
moral realism on the other hand says that while there may or may not be
true _answers_, there are correct and incorrect moral decision procedures
to follow when faced with a practical question of what to do, and the answers
to the moral questions _might only become_ true or false when the procedure is
followed. For instance, one version of procedural moral realism might give
the following procedure: "The thing to do is to imagine oneself performing
both alternatives, and see which fits better with one's character---which one
better expresses what kind of person you want to be." Before one follows
the procedure, on this theory, there is no answer to the question of what
the right thing to do is; but as one follows the procedure, this _makes_
one thing true.

Anyway, natural law is certainly a form of substantive moral realism.
According to natural law theorists, there certainly are true and false
answers to such questions as "Is it right in circumstances X to do Y?"
Contractualism can be construed in various ways. Probably because I do
not find anything other than moral realism plausible, I would take
contractualism to be a realist theory. In some forms, contractualism
is only a form of _procedural_ moral realism, because it doesn't seek to
discover absolute moral truths which are "out there", but the process of
deliberating "in the original position" is supposed to _construct_ these
truths. Rawls, though, would probably strongly object to his theory being
called _any_ kind of realism (cf. his paper "Justice as fairness: Political
not metaphysical").

- - -

Does contractualism complement natural law? Maybe. It's a very interesting
suggestion.

Alex

--
Alexander R. Pruss || e-mail: pru...@pitt.edu
Graduate Student ||
Department of Philosophy || home page: http://www.pitt.edu/~pruss
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
U.S.A.

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