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Moral Addicts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2010

Anthony Cunningham
Anthony Cunningham
Affiliation:
St. John's University
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Extract

Any good ethical theory aspires to provide as comprehensive a guide to moral value and motivation as possible. Within modern moral philosophy, conceptions of moral value have been dominated largely by considerations of justice and concerns for the common good, and moral shortcomings have been accounted for primarily by appeal to ignorance, weakness, indifference or outright hostility to moral values. Yet the ways in which we fall short are far more complicated. By discussing one interesting example here, I hope to provide some support for the claim that our conceptions of moral value and motivation need enrichment. In making my case, I utilize a character who is more like a caricature than a figure from ordinary life. This touch of hyperbole is deliberate. Reflect for a moment on the function of a good cartoon caricature. By exaggerating physical features, it draws our attention to characteristics that go unnoticed in their normal context. Whereas cartoon caricatures aim at amusement, my goal is to distil some of our perceptions of moral excellence.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , Spring 1994 , pp. 223 - 236
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1994

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References

Notes

1 Van Gogh, Vincent, The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh (Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1959), vol. 2, p. 228.Google Scholar

2 Herman, Barbara, “On the Value of Acting from the Motive of Duty,” Philosophical Review, 90 (1982).Google Scholar

3 Railton, Peter, “Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 13 (1984).Google Scholar

4 Wolf, Susan, “Moral Saints,” in The Virtues: Contemporary Essays on Moral Character, edited by Kruschwitz, Robert and Roberts, Robert (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1987)Google Scholar. For direct and indirect responses to Wolf's line of argument (particularly with respect to ethical reductionism) see: Adams, Robert, “Saints,” Journal of Philosophy, 81 (1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Blum, Lawrence, Friendship, Altruism and Morality (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980)Google Scholar, and “Moral Exemplars,” in Midwest Studies in Philosophy (Notre Dame, IL: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), vol. 13Google Scholar; Nussbaum, Martha, The Fragility of Goodness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986)Google Scholar; Stocker, Michael, “The Schizophrenia of Modern Moral Theories,” Journal of Philosophy, 73 (1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Plural and Conflicting Values (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990)Google Scholar; and Williams, Bernard, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985).Google Scholar

5 Wolf, “Moral Saints,” p. 149.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid., p. 148.

8 Ibid., p. 138.

9 This issue and related ideas are discussed further in my “The Moral Importance of Dirty Hands,” Journal of Value Inquiry, 26 (1992): 239–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 I would like to thank the reviewing editors for their very helpful comments and criticisms of an earlier draft of this essay.