Fundamental Disagreement and Ethical Self-Consciousness Restricted; Files Only

Abstract

In this dissertation I provide a novel articulation of a mode of inter-traditional ethical response based in fundamental ethical disagreement. I do so by critically reflecting on the work of Alasdair MacIntyre, Bernard Williams, and Stanley Cavell in order to interrelate their respective positions on ethical self-consciousness. I argue that each thinker attempts to describe a limit to ethical self-consciousness by grounding it in the ethical institutions of everyday life. Each of these thinkers encounters difficulties in articulating this limit that can only be resolved by considering the interrelation of these accounts. My argument begins with a description of Moral Relativist positions as responses to the possibility of fundamental disagreement. Finding these positions to be lacking an adequate description of the experience of fundamental disagreement, I then consider Alasdair MacIntyre’s account of the interrelationship of ethical self-consciousness, fundamental disagreement, and tradition. I then consider Bernard Williams’s response to Alasdair MacIntyre and to modern moral rationalism. I argue that both MacIntyre and Williams fail to understand the limits of the ethical responses they describe, and, therefore, retain parochial descriptions of ethical self-consciousness. I argue that a more fully descriptive account of ethical self-consciousness interrelates the modes of ethical response articulated above by describing them in terms of the particular ethical response proper to fundamental disagreement. I then turn to Stanley Cavell’s account of exemplarity in order to flesh out this ethical response and the ethical self-consciousness that it requires. I conclude by considering some implications of the account of ethical self-consciousness I have provided.

Table of Contents

Introduction................................................................................................... 1

 

Chapter 1: Ethical Conflict and Moral Relativism........................................ 15

           1.1 Advantages of Relativism............................................................ 19

           1.2 Who’s Afraid of Moral Relativism?............................................ 30

 

Chapter 2: Traditions as Patterns of Rationality............................................ 39

           2.1 What is a Tradition?.................................................................... 47

           

           2.2 Whose Relativism? Which Abstraction?..................................... 54

           

           2.3 Taking It Personally..................................................................... 66

 

Chapter 3: Insubstitutability and Moral Minimalism..................................... 72

           

           3.1 Internal Reasons and Moral Emotions......................................... 73

           

           3.2 Virtues of Truth........................................................................... 82

           

           3.3 Relativism and Distance.............................................................. 92

           

           3.4 Idealism and Relativism............................................................... 99

           

           3.5 Two Limits or One...................................................................... 107

           3.6 The Intersection of Traditions in Fundamental Disagreement.... 119

           

           3.7 Intersection Point......................................................................... 123

 

Chapter 4: Ethical Exemplarity..................................................................... 126

           

           4.1 The Institution of Modern Criticism............................................ 130

           

           4.2 Cavell’s Concept of “Remarriage”.............................................. 134

           

           4.3 The Cavellian Procedure............................................................. 142

           

           4.4 Two Senses of Compromise in Self-Conscious Response.......... 148

           

           4.5 Cavellian Compromise in its Broader Context........................... 155

           

           4.6 Tradition, Truth, and Exemplarity............................................... 162

 

Conclusion..................................................................................................... 169

 

Reference List 186

About this Dissertation

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School	Laney Graduate School
Department	Philosophy
Degree	Ph.D.
Submission	Dissertation
Language	English
Research Field	Ethics Political Science, General
Mot-clé	Modernity Williams Ethics Self-Consciousness MacIntyre Cavell Disagreement
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	John Lysaker, Emory University
Committee Members	Marta Jimenez, Emory University Jason Blakely, Pepperdine University John Stuhr, Emory University Ellen Marshall, Emory University

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