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Elements of a Decision Procedure for Christian Social Ethics*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Charles H. Reynolds
Charles H. Reynolds
Affiliation:
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tenn. 37916
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Extract

Several philosophers have observed an affinity between a role that an understanding of God has in Christian ethics and a role of an ideal observer in their own ethical theory. R. M. Hare has even gone so far as to assert that, “Since for many Christians God occupies the role of ‘ideal observer,’ the moral judgments which they make may be expected to coincide with those arrived at by the method of reasoning which I am advocating.” Now, Hare is correct in observing that God and an ideal observer have certain characteristics in common. But God is not simply an ideal observer. And some of the differences between God and an ideal observer may be as important as the similarities for the way in which Christians make moral judgments. It is therefore somewhat hasty of Hare to assume that his method of reasoning is identical to the method of reasoning appropriate in Christian ethics.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 65 , Issue 4 , October 1972 , pp. 509 - 530
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1972

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References

1 See Reynolds, Charles, A Proposal for Understanding the Place of Reason in Christian Ethics, The Journal of Religion 50 (1970): especially 157–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Freedom and Reason (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963), II. 6.4, footnote 1.Google Scholar

3 For the sense in which I am using the term ideal participant, see the article mentioned in footnote 1, especially 164–68.

4 It would be philosophically convenient if the “should” in this sentence could be appropriately interpreted as a nonmoral religious “should.” However, insofar as the theological “circle” is also, even if indirectly so, a moral “circle,” such an attempt breaks down.

5 Firth, Roderick, Ethical Absolutism and the Ideal Observer, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 12 (1952).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Mandelbaum, Maurice, The Phenomenology of Moral Experience (Glencoe, III.: The Free Press, 1955), 45.Google Scholar

7 Firth, op. cit., 335.

8 Ibid., 341.

9 Baier, Kurt, The Moral Point of View (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1958), 94.Google Scholar

10 Dembo, Tamara, A Theoretical and Experimental Inquiry into Concrete Values and Value Systems, in Perspectives in Psychological Theory, eds. Kaplan, Bernard and Wapner, Seymour (New York: International Universities Press, Inc., 1960), 78–114.Google Scholar

11 See Firth, Roderick and Brandt, Richard, Discussion: The Definition of an “Ideal Observer” Theory in Ethics, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 15 (1955).Google Scholar

12 Firth, op. cit., 326.

13 Baier, ibid., 88.

14 Whereas I do not believe aesthetic values have importance for explicating the concept of justice, they are highly important for working out the notion of the common good of the community. Ethicists too frequently identify justice with the idea of common good, whereas they are different moral concepts and can be expected to do the same jobs for us only at our own peril. Justice has to do more with fair procedures and the common good more with substantive ends. Both concepts have their appropriate place in a comprehensive ethical theory.

15 See Hare, R. M., Freedom and Reason II.7.4Google Scholar, where this line of argument is developed. I am indebted to John Rawls in my criticism of this position.

16 Hartshorne, Charles, Reality as Social Process (Boston: Beacon Press, 1953), 107.Google Scholar

17 Rawls, John, Justice as Fairness, Philosophical Review 67 (1958), 164–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Rawls, John, Distributive Justice, in Philosophy, Politics and Society, eds., Laslett, Peter and Runciman, W. G. (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1967)Google Scholar; and John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971).