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    Moving Beyond Good and Evil: A Theory of Morality, Law, and Government
    Moving Beyond Good and Evil: A Theory of Morality, Law, and Government
    Moving Beyond Good and Evil: A Theory of Morality, Law, and Government
    Ebook42 pages36 minutes

    Moving Beyond Good and Evil: A Theory of Morality, Law, and Government

    By M. E. Tson

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    About this ebook

    This short book starts from first principles of moral nihilism and determinism and arrives at a shared system of morality and justice. It suggests a moral or ethical system that abandons the assumptions of objectivity, moral agency, and free will, and goes on to explore the implications of such a theory in the areas of criminal justice and government.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherM. E. Tson
    Release dateOct 24, 2009
    ISBN9781102467038
    Moving Beyond Good and Evil: A Theory of Morality, Law, and Government

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      Book preview

      Moving Beyond Good and Evil - M. E. Tson

      Notes

      ~~~~

      I. Introduction

      The Problem of the Right & Good

      Since the enlightenment, Western philosophers, politicians, and judges have sought alternative theoretical foundations for truth, right and justice to replace discredited authority and tradition. Many thinkers have since resigned themselves to there being no frame of all frames, no uncontrovertibly objective way of reconciling differing perspectives of truth and good, appearing to leave us with little alternative to extreme subjectivity, moral relativity, and interminable, irresolvable moral conflict. At the same time, the determinist underpinnings of medicine, psychiatry, and the natural sciences are gradually deconstructing the self, and presenting an idea of the mind and motivation that is increasingly at odds with the ideas of free will and moral agency that underlie many of our moral, legal, and political concepts. Insanity pleas, cultural defenses, Munchausen by proxy, and Battered Woman’s Syndrome are but some examples of this growing clash, and courts and juries often must struggle to draw a line between an irresistible impulse and an impulse not resisted, a line which the American Psychiatric Association has concluded is probably no sharper than between twilight and dusk.¹ In short, we have an intellectual tradition speeding towards extreme subjectivity, relativism, and determinism, and a moral and justice system still tethered to the concepts of moral agency and freewill.

      Some Proposed Solutions & Their Shortcomings

      Various moral systems have tried to get around this problem with limited success.

      Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism argues that all actions are to be judged according to how well they promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. The difficulty which arises here is in determining what is meant by average or collective happiness or welfare. How can the welfare of an individual be measured, and how can gains in the welfare of different individuals be added and then compared with losses?². There is also the problem of how to treat the preferences of those whose happiness depends upon making others conform to their own wishes, practices and beliefs. And finally, utilitarianism would seem to condone and even encourage sacrificing the welfare of the one or the few, if this would be expected to bring great happiness to the many. There is something viscerally repugnant about such a conclusion. Our moral intuition insists that the ends cannot always justify the means.

      Deontology. In contrast, advocates of deontological or duty-based ethics have suggested a set of prima facie rules of moral conduct which should be followed regardless of their consequences. The phrase, Honesty isn’t the best policy. It’s the only policy. is typical of this type of approach. Yet, even if, deontologists are right to insist that the ends do not justify the means, surely the inverse is equally true: the means are equally incapable of always justifying the ends. For instance, if brutal honesty leaves in its wake untold sadness and suffering, is it really the best policy? Again, intuitively, it would still seem to have something to answer for.

      Finally, deontological systems leave unresolved the crucial question of how are we, with our different

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