Abstract

This essay is an investigation of the question: Should the numbers count? I present a way of thinking which argues against moral relativism but does not commit one to absolutism. We can have reliable standards without being rigid; we can explain moral change without falling into a skepticism that undercuts stability. Human experience is ambiguous but this doesn't imply there is no moral bedrock; uncertainty does not threaten a reasonably secure basis for judging. I argue that for morality there is no unitary source of value, no fundamental grounding for decision. The search for foundations in ethics is a misplaced project. We can confidently distinguish right and wrong, good and evil, even though moral order does not require universality. ;I explore four central issues: What moral principles are there? How to apply them in practice? Where does moral reasoning begin? Where do moral decisions take place? When we say that judgments are relative to contexts we do not imply that they are arbitrary or ungrounded. We do mean that ethical perspectives take shape in relation to circumstances and events. I develop a process model of ethics which suggests that there are no absolute or universal norms for decision making. Process ethics highlights the idea that moral experience is kaleidoscopic: competing value judgments reflect how people interpret culture, history, tradition. ;One of my goals is to explore the dynamics of how process morality actually cashes out. Along the way we discuss a variety of issues: sexual privacy, handicapped people, moral size and moral community, selective non-treatment of critically ill newborns; civil disobedience, conscientious action, the morality of conscription. The basic question I trace is: Why is it wrong to kill? Here our context is the Nazi Holocaust. Is it always wrong to kill an innocent human being? Are there any circumstances in which one might be justified? Or is it always wrong--no matter the situation or consequences--to kill innocents? Are there certain actions which, regardless of outcome, are simply wrong in themselves? Do we have any moral principles which should never yield?