Jeffrey Brand - Ballard Consistency , Common Morality , and Reflective Equilibrium

Biomedical ethicists often assume that common morality constitutes a largely consistent normative system. This premise is not taken for granted in general normative ethics. This paper entertains the possibility of inconsistency within common morality and explores methodological implications. Assuming common morality to be inconsistent casts new light on the debate between principlists and descriptivists. One can view the two approaches as complementary attempts to evade or transcend that inconsistency. If common morality proves to be inconsistent, then principlists might have reason to prefer a less pluralistic theory, thereby moving closer to descriptivism. Descriptivists, by contrast, might want to qualify their claim to accommodate all of people’s basic moral convictions. Finally, both camps might wish to adopt a more revisionist posture, accepting that an adequate ethical theory occasionally will contradict some of people’s deepest moral convictions. Proper application of the method of reflective equilibrium, to which both descriptivists and principlists claim allegiance, may entail greater openness to revisionism than either camp admits. One of the liveliest theoretical debates in biomedical ethics remains the controversy between “principlists” and “descriptivists.” In recent years, representatives of the two factions have found some common ground (Beauchamp 1995, pp. 188–90; Gert, Culver, and Clouser 1997, pp. 89–90). Yet each faction continues to insist that the competing approach is flawed, and inferior to its own (Beauchamp and Childress 2001; Gert, Culver, and Clouser 1997). I offer what I expect to be a controversial perspective on this debate. Principlists and descriptivists seem to assume that common morality constitutes a largely consistent normative system. I ask: what if this assumption were false? What if common morality were, in fact, deeply inconsis13.3ballard 8/15/03, 11:21 AM 231 KENNEDY INSTITUTE OF ETHICS JOURNAL • SEPTEMBER 2003 [ 232 ] tent? What if it required revision before one could answer, or even illuminate, the interesting, controversial questions in biomedical ethics? The inconsistency hypothesis is not popular with mainstream biomedical ethicists. It is more popular, though still controversial, among those working in general normative ethics. I shall offer little direct defense of the hypothesis, as others already have made the case more effectively than I could (Kagan 1989; Parfit 1984; Unger 1996; Bennett 1995; Norcross 1997). Instead of supporting the inconsistency hypothesis directly, I shall suggest that partial recognition of its truth explains why principlists and descriptivists criticize one another as they do. One can view the two approaches as complementary attempts to evade or transcend the inconsistency of common morality, an inconsistency of which each faction seems inchoately, but only inchoately, aware. Were the inconsistency hypothesis true, it would have important ramifications for both principlism and descriptivism. Principlists, I shall suggest, might have reason to prefer a less pluralistic theory, thereby moving closer to descriptivism. Descriptivists, on the other hand, might want to qualify their claim to have accommodated all of our basic moral convictions. Finally, both camps might want to adopt a more revisionist posture, accepting that an adequate ethical theory occasionally will contradict some of people’s deepest moral convictions.