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"For what can a right-to-life advocate say that would persuade a militant feminist, a gay liberationist to a moral majoritarian, a champion of law and order to a lawyer specializing in getting criminals acquitted on technicalities, a Mormon to a hippie, a marine to a transcendental meditator, or, for that matter, a philosophy professor to a junkie? The moral sensibilities of these people are so far apart that there is no common ground for one even to explain to the other his or her position. Or so the disintegration thesis goes.
The result is that informed moral debate is disappearing from our society. In its place, we have cynical or despairing indifference or an assertive shrillness masquerading as moral indignation." (p.7)
"The disintegration thesis is a powerful challenge to our moral convictions, but it is mistaken. Moral conflicts are indeed prevalent, but they betoken change, not disintegration. We are witnessing the new struggling to be born, not the death throes of the old. Our morality is changing in deep ways, but it is still our morality: alongside discontinuity, there is substantial continuity. The disintegration thesis is not mistaken about the facts but about the interpretation of the facts. What defenders of it observe is there, but it is not as they interpret it.
The deep moral changes do indicate that something is disintegrating ; it is, however, not our morality but merely a particular conception of it.
The reason why the disintegration thesis misinterprets our present moral situation is that it mistakenly identifies our morality with this conception, and it mistakenly supposes that as it becomes untenable, so our morality is itself threatened. The disintegration thesis recognizes only two alternatives—the acceptance or the rejection of a particular conception of morality—and it falsely supposes that our morality itself stands or falls with the fortunes of that conception.
The conception of morality that defenders of the disintegration thesis have in mind is monistic. Monism is the view that there is one and only one reasonable system of values. This system is the same for all human beings, always, everywhere. Human lives are good to the extent to which they conform to this system, and particular values are better or worse depending on their standing in the system. It is acknowledged, of course, that countless people do not conform to it. The reason for this is sought, however, in the deviating people, not in the system of values that the conception embodies. People are supposed to deviate either because they are insufficiently reasonable or because they are handicapped by character defects or adverse circumstances. According to monists, the task of morality is to create institutions, formulate principles, and educate people so as to further their living and acting according to this one reasonable system of values. Since deep moral changes are symptomatic of our radical disagreements about the nature of this system, given the monistic interpretation of morality, it will seem that our morality is disintegrating." (pp.7-
-John Kekes, The Morality of Pluralism, Princeton University Press, 1993, 227 pages.
The result is that informed moral debate is disappearing from our society. In its place, we have cynical or despairing indifference or an assertive shrillness masquerading as moral indignation." (p.7)
"The disintegration thesis is a powerful challenge to our moral convictions, but it is mistaken. Moral conflicts are indeed prevalent, but they betoken change, not disintegration. We are witnessing the new struggling to be born, not the death throes of the old. Our morality is changing in deep ways, but it is still our morality: alongside discontinuity, there is substantial continuity. The disintegration thesis is not mistaken about the facts but about the interpretation of the facts. What defenders of it observe is there, but it is not as they interpret it.
The deep moral changes do indicate that something is disintegrating ; it is, however, not our morality but merely a particular conception of it.
The reason why the disintegration thesis misinterprets our present moral situation is that it mistakenly identifies our morality with this conception, and it mistakenly supposes that as it becomes untenable, so our morality is itself threatened. The disintegration thesis recognizes only two alternatives—the acceptance or the rejection of a particular conception of morality—and it falsely supposes that our morality itself stands or falls with the fortunes of that conception.
The conception of morality that defenders of the disintegration thesis have in mind is monistic. Monism is the view that there is one and only one reasonable system of values. This system is the same for all human beings, always, everywhere. Human lives are good to the extent to which they conform to this system, and particular values are better or worse depending on their standing in the system. It is acknowledged, of course, that countless people do not conform to it. The reason for this is sought, however, in the deviating people, not in the system of values that the conception embodies. People are supposed to deviate either because they are insufficiently reasonable or because they are handicapped by character defects or adverse circumstances. According to monists, the task of morality is to create institutions, formulate principles, and educate people so as to further their living and acting according to this one reasonable system of values. Since deep moral changes are symptomatic of our radical disagreements about the nature of this system, given the monistic interpretation of morality, it will seem that our morality is disintegrating." (pp.7-
-John Kekes, The Morality of Pluralism, Princeton University Press, 1993, 227 pages.
