What is the Common Morality, Really?

Transcription

1 What is the Common Morality, Really? Benjamin Bautz Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, Volume 26, Number 1, March 2016, pp (Article) Published by Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: For additional information about this article Accessed 29 Jan :57 GMT

2 Bautz What Is The Common Morality, Really? Benjamin Bautz What Is The Common Morality, Really? ABSTRACT. In recent editions of Tom Beauchamp and James Childress Principles of Biomedical Ethics, their famous principles have been deployed as elements of the common morality recruited to anchor bioethical reasoning. In Principles, however, Beauchamp and Childress defend neither their assertions about the content, nor the normativity, of the common morality. Because these content and normativity claims form the backbone of their approach, both claims deserve substantive support if the project of Principles is to be completed. Defense of the normativity claim remains an issue that has to date gone underdeveloped in the literature. Here I evaluate three ways of mounting such a defense, arguing that only one conceptual analysis demonstrating the principles to be part of the definitional criteria of morality might succeed within the confines of Beauchamp and Childress metaethical paradigm. I argue further that identification of the common morality with these definitional criteria presents a compelling way forward. A HYBRID APPROACH TO MORAL JUSTIFICATION Principles of Biomedical Ethics, the magnum opus of Tom Beauchamp and James Childress, remains one of the most influential bioethical works developed in the last thirty-five years. It continues to be the subject of vigorous debate in the bioethics literature, having undergone several substantial revisions since the publication of the first edition in In the seventh edition of Principles, published in 2013, Beauchamp and Childress continue their practice of clarifying, revising, and strengthening their views in response to waves of critics and defenders. In particular, though they have been committed since the first edition of Principles to four equal and prima facie principles principles of respect for autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice the broader theoretical context in which these principles are deployed has been significantly overhauled in recent years. As of the seventh edition, Beauchamp and Childress view of this theoretical context can be roughly summarized in the following way: Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal Vol. 26, No. 1, by The Johns Hopkins University Press [ 29 ]

3 kennedy institute of ethics journal march 2016 The aforementioned principles are norms selected from the common morality the set of moral standards, rules, virtues, and ideals endorsed by all persons committed to morality for being germane to the enterprise of biomedical ethics. As they put it, the four principles are vital norms of the common morality... particularly suited to biomedical ethics (2013, 410). Whatever status this origin in the common morality confers upon the principles, however, the reader is not asked to accept them without further justification. Rather, they function as considered judgments moral beliefs in which we are, pre-theoretically, highly confident in the method of reflective equilibrium. This approach, adapted from John Rawls, rests on the following thesis: Justification in ethics and political philosophy occurs through a reflective testing of moral beliefs, moral principles, judgments, and theoretical postulates with the goal of making them coherent. (Beauchamp and Childress 2013, ) That is, rather than proceed top-down from general first principles or bottom-up from specific judgments, we justify our moral conclusions by rendering them consistent with a cohesive network of principles, judgments, and other beliefs. It is thus a given proposition s coherence with the overall framework, not its level of generality or even prima facie credibility, that determines its ultimate moral viability. Even the most basic rules or staunchly plausible convictions may need to be revised in the name of coherence. Whether justification in ethics should proceed in this way, relying on holistic coherence an approach typically termed coherentism or in a top-down fashion from fundamental principles has been the subject of spirited debate. One oft-cited objection to coherentism is that it cannot appropriately justify a set of principles because it cannot guarantee elimination of bias. That is, a completely coherent but nevertheless immoral code of conduct seems perfectly conceivable: a cohesive network of principles might spring up around a set of fundamentally misguided initial considered judgments, leading to a wrong, but consistently wrong, set of rules. Even holistic consistency, the objection goes, cannot rescue the reflective equilibrium approach from an initial misapprehension of moral values. Beauchamp and Childress find this objection persuasive, citing as worrisome an allegedly coherent Pirates Code involving provisions for slavery, plunder, and the like. Accordingly, they abandon pure coherence as an approach to justification and opt for a hybrid strategy: reflective [ 30 ]

4 Bautz What Is The Common Morality, Really? equilibrium, they suppose, can be reliably employed as the final arbiter of moral justification provided that there are independent reasons for thinking that the initial considered judgments represent genuine moral precepts. With these starting points guaranteed, the reflective equilibrium can be anchored in the right place, so to speak, and cannot possibly be developed into a pirates code. It follows that in this justificatory scheme, in order to demonstrate that they have the right principles of biomedical ethics, Beauchamp and Childress are committed to defending two claims: (1) the considered judgments they employ as anchors for reflective equilibrium do in fact embody genuine moral content, and (2) the principles they endorse do satisfy reflective equilibrium. It is clearly evident that a serious effort is made in Principles to support claim (2). Beauchamp and Childress devote one chapter to each principle, aiming, it seems, to carry out the method of reflective equilibrium with respect to the principle in question. In each chapter they begin with the stipulation that the principle represents a fundamental norm of the common morality and thus, is a reliable considered judgment and then proceed to discuss the specification and application of that principle to a range of relevant bioethical issues, demonstrating how the principle fits with other moral convictions and background beliefs. These discussions accomplish two tasks: first, they provide a forum for principled and rigorous analysis of pressing contemporary debates in bioethics. Second, if Beauchamp and Childress are successful in applying the reflective equilibrium method, these discussions themselves serve to demonstrate the coherence of the four principles, the practical judgments they generate, and our other background commitments, thereby providing coherentist justification for their framework and its component pieces. Whether or not these efforts to demonstrate reflective equilibrium are successful remains an open question, but it is not one I intend to take up here. Indeed, it is likely that the demonstration of coherence could be improved this probably requires an ongoing effort as biomedical science advances and our background commitments develop but it is clear to me that a good faith effort is made in Principles to do the job. Even if this effort falls short, there is relatively little mystery, at least, about the type of work needed to carry the task to completion. Rather than discuss this issue here, I wish to focus attention on the more slippery claim (1) that the considered judgments represent true moral content. A defense of this claim is not optional for Beauchamp and Childress, since, in order to [ 31 ]

5 kennedy institute of ethics journal march 2016 show that the reflective equilibrium they are pushing is indeed the right one and no pirates code, they must establish that its considered judgments do in fact embody genuine moral content. We need a guarantee that we are anchored in safe waters. The conceptual apparatus Beauchamp and Childress recruit for this purpose is the common morality. The argument they want to make is that because the four principles that serve as considered judgments are drawn from the common morality, they must embody genuine moral precepts. But if this argument is to be taken seriously, its component parts must be defended. First, it must be demonstrated that the principles in question actually are drawn from the common morality. I ll call this the content claim about the common morality: (1a) Content claim: The four principles are elements of the common morality. Second, it must be shown that this status as common morality precepts makes the principles worthy of our attention. I ll call this the normativity claim about the common morality: (1b) Normativity claim: Common morality principles dictate genuine moral obligations. In contrast to claim (2), claims (1a) and (1b) receive little substantive defense in the entirety of Principles. This is the extent of the relevant discussion I am able to identify, for example, regarding the much-disputed principle of respect for autonomy: The principle of respect for the autonomous choices of persons runs as deep in the common morality as any principle (Beauchamp and Childress 2013, 101). If Beauchamp and Childress are right about the common morality, then all persons committed to morality will of course accept this thought. Nevertheless, from a theory perspective, the claim that the principle of autonomy runs deeply in the common morality is merely an unsupported assertion of (1a). No further defense of the content claim is provided. And, as will become evident shortly, a fully-grown defense of the normativity claim is only hinted at in the whole of Principles. To summarize, if my characterization of Beauchamp and Childress approach is accurate, then their case for the four principles must rest on a successful defense of the claim that their considered judgments also the four principles contain reliable moral content. And as I have argued, if the path to demonstrating that we are thus anchored in clear waters lies through the common morality, then what are needed are convincing arguments for both the content and normativity claims about the common [ 32 ]

6 Bautz What Is The Common Morality, Really? morality. So if the hybrid common morality/reflective equilibrium approach is taken seriously, the omission of such arguments counts as a failure to fully deliver on the normative project of Principles. It is surprising, then, to find that Beauchamp and Childress assert, but do not rigorously defend, the content and normativity claims. In fact, they never purport to offer a complete enumeration of the contents of the common morality, nor do they do more than express optimism about the possibility of defense of the normativity claim; such projects, they observe, would likely require a book-length treatment at a minimum. This approach outlining a strategy for defending one s principles and electing not to follow through on it might seem puzzling, and some readers may be tempted to conclude that Beauchamp and Childress must not actually be engaged in a normative project at all. Given the ample language throughout Principles indicating that the work is intended, at least in part, to be one of normative ethics, however, I prefer to frame the situation thus: Principles of Biomedical Ethics is an evolving work, and though Beauchamp and Childress remain committed to their principles and have now, over the last several editions, established a robust paradigm by which they hope to justify these principles, the completion of the project they have outlined is a mammoth task, the extent of which is still being worked out. Though Beauchamp and Childress have not provided a fully developed defense of the normativity claim, they believe such a defense can be made, and they propose three ways in which the necessary arguments could be developed. In what follows I evaluate each of these three strategies in turn, but before doing so I want to pause and make note of the fact that, in spite of the healthy attention paid in the recent literature to Beauchamp and Childress use of the common morality, exploration of the normativity claim has been relatively minimal. As Rebecca Kukla puts it, focus has been on a standard roster of worries (2014, 76), including the concern that no universal moral consensus can or will be found (Turner 2003; Strong 2008; Herrisone-Kelly 2011), the concern that the common morality is too abstract or indeterminate to be of practical value (Turner 2003; Arras 2009), and the concern that a focus on what people s moral beliefs are is inappropriate for the project at hand (DeGrazia 2003; Strong 2008). These are not unreasonable concerns, and Beauchamp has dutifully responded to many of them in Principles and elsewhere. Nevertheless, it is puzzling that the issue most fundamental from a normative ethics perspective why the common morality has any normative teeth in the first place has received comparatively little attention. [ 33 ]

7 kennedy institute of ethics journal march 2016 One explanation for this lack of attention might be that the basic definition Beauchamp and Childress provide for the common morality the set of universal norms shared by all persons committed to morality (2013, 3) packs in both descriptive and normative content. The common morality is accepted by all persons committed to morality, but it is also applicable to all persons; that is, it is also normatively universal. Perhaps the perceived audacity of the descriptive claim about universal acceptance has contributed to the focus on what it might mean and whether or not it is true. But this focus seems to have obscured an issue germane to the success of Principles as a work of normative ethics, which is just why it is that the norms of the common morality are binding. EMPIRICAL JUSTIFICATION: MURKY WATERS The first approach Beauchamp and Childress propose for establishing that the precepts of the common morality have genuine normative force is empirical justification. This is not mere justification by consensus, however, for such an approach would be, in Beauchamp s words, a moral travesty (2003, 266). Instead, a subtler role for empirical data is suggested. Recall that the reason for appealing to the common morality in the first place was the difficulty of eliminating immorality through simple coherence, given the plausibility of a repugnant but cohesive code of ethics. Unanimity might have a useful role to play in combatting this problem: one way of controlling for bias is the incorporation into the reflective equilibrium of only very widely held considered judgments. If it turns out that these judgments enjoy universal acceptance, then they would seem unlikely to be parochial or prejudicial, so the reflective equilibrium is less likely to get off on the wrong foot. Moreover, if the considered judgments are endorsed by those persons committed to morality, then insofar as such commitments are reliable guides to what is right, consensus among the morally committed is poised to offer assurance that no pirates code is in the works. So while consensus per se is no determinant of normativity, it might play a role in shoring up the reflective equilibrium. As Beauchamp and Childress write: One way to control for bias and lack of objectivity is to use information about what is widely, preferably universally, agreed to be correct.... Disputed or unshared judgments are not well-positioned to qualify as considered judgments, whereas shared agreement is a relevant consideration.... Although empirical information about commonness is [ 34 ]

8 Bautz What Is The Common Morality, Really? not normatively determinative, it does in this way stand to contribute to the process of normative justification. (2013, 418) In this way, empirical data about universally accepted moral precepts may indeed contribute to Beauchamp and Childress method, but it is surely a mistake to suppose that such data could entirely obviate the need for independent normative grounding of considered judgments. The work consensus can do to eliminate bias and other moral defects should not be overestimated. At a minimum, the problem of bias remains at least a logical possibility even in the face of unanimity. Prejudicial views have enjoyed widespread popularity throughout human history, typically in contexts of power imbalances, deep-seated social conventions, or outright brainwashing. Members of marginalized groups, as in the case of antisuffrage women in late 19th century America, for example, have even argued emphatically in favor of their own oppression. The deeper problem is that while it is true that prejudice or bias is one way that considered judgments might be morally defective, there are many others, for not all moral defects involve inequality. Even if consensus could eliminate bias, it could not guarantee rightness, for an impartial rule say, one outlawing vaccines might be accepted by all and nevertheless remain morally unsatisfactory. Thus, as well as empirical data might do in pointing us in the right direction, they can never eliminate the possibility of a moral defect in the considered judgments, given the basic gap between description and prescription. Consequently, consensus cannot supplant independent moral justification in the selection of appropriate considered judgments. The advocate of the empirical approach might reply that it is not just consensus that counts, but consensus among the morally committed. This strategy gets off the ground, however, only if one finds the endorsements of such people normatively interesting. The justificatory buck is thus passed down to the issues of how morally committed people might be identified and why their commitments have any special authority. These questions are impossible to answer from an empirical perspective without smuggling in some normative assumptions, and the need for such assumptions undermines the entire appeal to empirical inquiry, leaving us back where we started. Without a reliable conceptual bridge from the universal acceptance of common morality norms to universal applicability of such norms, empirical facts are not well situated at least independently to defend the normativity claim. Moreover, the empirical work needed to determine which views are universal and which are not remains a practically infeasible [ 35 ]

9 kennedy institute of ethics journal march 2016 undertaking. Thus, the empirical justification strategy an appeal to the commonness of the common morality is of little use in solving the problem at hand: it neither obviates the need for a definitive explanation of the normativity of the common morality, nor can provide such an explanation. NORMATIVE THEORETICAL JUSTIFICATION: CART BEFORE DONKEY The second approach Beauchamp and Childress suggest for supporting the normativity claim is an appeal to some general ethical theory. In addition to citing the possibility of using Utilitarian theories, Kantian theories, rights theories, and virtue theories to provide theoretical justification of the norms of the common morality (2013, ), they appeal to the work of Bernard Gert in constructing a complete common morality theory as evidence that this project is likely to be productive: Our conclusion... is merely that such [general ethical] theories have been and can be constructed and, if they are successful, they would justify the norms of the common morality. (2013, 420) One preliminary clarification is in order: I will set aside the possibility that what Beauchamp and Childress have in mind is the use of one general ethical theory to justify one common morality principle, another theory for a different principle, and so on. This approach, while not inconsistent with the language in Principles, leaves one in an unappealing morass of conflicting basic and metaethical commitments. Rather, what I take them to intend is the use of some single general ethical theory to provide normative grounds for the common morality or at least the set four principles as a whole. In spite of their optimism about this endeavor, I want to argue here that it is both unlikely to produce the desired result and that it is incompatible with their metaethical paradigm. I have no knock-down argument for the first of these points, but I am content to point out that the development of a general ethical theory able to derive the particular moral precepts Beauchamp and Childress accept is a lofty goal. The important issue here, of course, is not whether or not an ethical theory could be generated to justify a picture of the common morality, but whether or not an ethical theory could be generated to justify the common morality from which Beauchamp and Childress are purportedly drawing. And while they do not claim to characterize that common morality in its entirety, they do [ 36 ]

10 Bautz What Is The Common Morality, Really? claim to have characterized a portion of it, namely the four principles. As mentioned, these four clusters of principles are: (1) respect for autonomy (a norm of respecting and supporting autonomous decisions), (2) non-maleficence (a norm of avoiding the causation of harm), (3) beneficence (a group of norms pertaining to relieving, lessening, or preventing harm and providing benefits and balancing benefits against risks and costs), and (4) justice (a group of norms for fairly distributing benefits, risks, and costs). (2013, 13) The principles also have the following structural characteristics: I. Universality: each principle, like every precept of the common morality, applies to all moral agents in all societies. II. Equal Prima Facie Standing: each principle has prima facie standing such that it regulates conduct only until overridden by another obligation, and no principle automatically takes precedence over another. III. Content-thinness: each principle describes a content-thin norm (such as Do not harm others ). In deciding what to do in any concrete case, the relevant principle(s) must be specified, or narrowed in scope, in order to cover the particulars of that case. Whatever scheme of normative justification is provided, it must support both the substantive obligations of the four principles as well as the broader structural characteristics of and relationships between those obligations. While there is something to be said for the way that the diverse group of ethical theories Beauchamp and Childress cite converge on what our commitments turn out to be, it seems a daunting task to derive this particular grouping of precepts, in its entirety, from, say, Kantian or utilitarian ethics. But if we are to be convinced that the four principles are, qua common morality norms, appropriately poised to anchor the reflective equilibrium, then we must be convinced that they have moral authority independent of that reflective equilibrium. If an appeal is made to some general ethical theory to guarantee this point, it would necessarily be made with the understanding that the ethical theory in question would be underwriting the entire schema. Principlism would stand or fall according to how plausibly the ethical theory could show the four principles as currently conceived to be morally fundamental. I am currently aware of no theory that appears poised to carry the entire project on its back in this way. [ 37 ]

11 kennedy institute of ethics journal march 2016 One interesting aspect of Beauchamp and Childress discussion of this issue is their ambivalence about which particular ethical theory is actually employed. Most moral philosophers view foundational, authorityproducing principles as just as important as the mid-level rules they generate. Even if they agree about the wrongness of murder, for example, the utilitarian and the Kantian disagree about why it is wrong, and likely agree that this disagreement is important. Even more striking is Beauchamp and Childress lack of concern about actually developing the kind of normative ethical theory they argue it is possible to develop. If, as I have argued, the success of their approach to justification requires the defense of the content and normativity claims and if, as they argue, normative theoretical justification can be produced to do so, then why not produce it? Perhaps doing so would indeed require a book-length treatment, but it seems to me that Beauchamp and Childress have independent metaethical reasons for not attempting such a project. Beauchamp and Childress seem to have in mind a view of applied moral philosophy modeled after the natural sciences. In a 1984 article criticizing the stale metaethical program on which general normative principles are arrived at through purely theoretical, abstract reasoning and then are presumed to be capable of providing specific guidance in particular cases, Beauchamp articulated the following position: If, as I believe, moral theories should not be modeled on geometrical systems, but rather on the sciences whose principles have been and continue to be shaped by new data, unexpected cases and situations, predictive failures, and modified hypotheses, then the notions of fundamental principles and its ally general ethical theory may do more to obscure the nature of moral thinking than to illuminate it. (1984, 519) Indeed, the method of reflective equilibrium on which Beauchamp and Childress have settled resembles in important ways the method of hypothesis testing used in the natural sciences. Rather than building top down from first principles, theory must be continually revised to account for new data; coherence is, in some sense, the ultimate arbiter of theoretical success. What, then, are the moral data on which ethical theories are based? If I read them correctly, Beauchamp and Childress have it that these moral data just are the contents of the common morality. In their metaethical view, all ethical theories are just theories of the common morality that fare better or worse in explaining and systematizing this initial shared database (2013, 384). [ 38 ]

12 Bautz What Is The Common Morality, Really? This metaethical schema has far-reaching consequences for Beauchamp and Childress implicit view of normative justification. In the natural sciences, data points may be in need of systematization, categorization, or explanation by principles, but their validity as data points is unrelated to their concordance with theory. A theory in physics, for example, may help us understand why we find the data we find, systematize our results, or predict future findings, but it does not itself rule certain data points in or out (experimental method is what does so). When one fully adopts this paradigm in moral philosophy, one must accept the notion that, whatever they turn out to be, fundamental moral data points the contents of the common morality are normatively unimpeachable. They may merit systematization, organization, and perhaps even explanation or prediction by moral theory, but no general ethical theory is in position to grant or take away their normativity. For in this paradigm, whether or not a precept is part of the common morality i.e., is normatively binding and whether or not that precept is part of the data set of interest are one and the same question. And this is a question that is not answered by theory, but determined by investigational method. So if the common morality provides the basic moral data the fundamental normative content to be accounted for then it is wrong to ask for an independent normative justification for these data according to some general ethical theory or principle. To do so would be to misunderstand the direction in which normative justification proceeds: Some writers in ethical theory and applied ethics seem to think that we would rightly have more confidence in our principles and considered judgments if only we could justify them on the basis of a comprehensive ethical theory. However, this outlook has the cart pulling the donkey: We should have more confidence in an ethical theory if it could be shown coherent in a comprehensive way with the considered judgments and norms comprising the common morality. (Beauchamp and Childress 2013, 411) According to this paradigm, the most fundamental, non-negotiable normative content is the content of the common morality. Any precept from the common morality, then, has normative force (pending reflective equilibrium) simply in virtue of its position as a common morality norm, or basic moral data point. And if the direction of normative flow runs necessarily from the common morality and not to it, then it is indeed a mistake to suppose that common morality norms are subject to justification by some theory positing more basic normative principles. The consequence of this view, it seems to me, is in clear opposition to the aforementioned [ 39 ]

13 kennedy institute of ethics journal march 2016 optimism about justifying common morality norms on the basis of general ethical theory. For such justification would be putting the cart before the donkey. If this is a faithful characterization of the metaethical paradigm on which Beauchamp and Childress are operating, then the possibility of providing a theoretical defense of the normativity claim by appeal to some more basic principle or theory is ruled out. Precepts of the common morality are normatively interesting just because they are drawn from the common morality. Metaethical debates aside, this does not mean that no further work is needed to support the normativity claim, and show that the considered judgments Beauchamp and Childress employ do indeed embody moral precepts. For if we are to take seriously the claim that the four principles have, qua common morality norms, the moral authority they are supposed to have, something must be said about why we should believe that they are in fact drawn from the common morality. If the paradigm is the scientific method, it is important to keep in mind that, while data are not ruled in or out by principles, any experiment lives or dies by its methods of data collection; data are ruled in or out based on the quality of experimental methods. To return to my terminology, what is still needed is a defense of the content claim an answer to the skeptic who wonders if, say, the principle of respect for autonomy really does run deeply in the common morality. And it would seem that if the content claim could be defended, the normativity claim would necessarily follow. The goal is not to put the cart before the donkey, but to make sure that we have hitched our cart to the right donkey in the first place. CONCEPTUAL JUSTIFICATION: COMMON MORALITY AS DEFINITIONAL CRITERIA Thus far, the two approaches discussed have fallen short in different ways: actual empirical data might support the content claim, but, as I argued, could not support the normativity claim. Conversely, appeal to some general ethical theory might appear to support the normativity claim, but I argued that it need not support Beauchamp and Childress particular content claim and, moreover, that it would violate their metaethical paradigm. The final approach to the common morality Beauchamp and Childress endorse is conceptual, and it is one that has promise of providing a reasonable unified explanation of both the content and normativity claims. The basic premise is that insight about what is genuinely moral can be had by conceptual analysis: [ 40 ]

14 Bautz What Is The Common Morality, Really? It is less clear but still a plausible hypothesis, and one we accept, that the concept of morality contains normativity not only in the sense that morality inherently contains some action guiding norms, but also in the sense that it contains certain specific moral norms that is, a body of norms in morality in the normative sense. (2013, 420) Such norms constitute what Philippa Foot called the definitional criteria of moral good and evil (1970, 137), and Beauchamp and Childress suggest that their four principles, in so far as they have a secure place in the common morality, are crucial elements of the concept of morality (2013, 421). Their stated view, then, is that careful analysis would show the four principles to be entailed in the concept of morality. Setting aside for a moment the nontrivial question of whether or not this conceptual analysis can be provided, there are two very different ways of interpreting the consequences of this stated position for the common morality. On the one hand, Beauchamp and Childress might argue that, since the four principles are elements of the definitional criteria of morality, any person committed to morality and thus to the common morality must, by definition, be committed to those principles. Implicitly, the status of the four principles in the common morality would be guaranteed, and the content claim would thus be warranted. On this view, the shape and contents of the common morality would remain something of a mystery, but, given the proper conceptual analysis, Beauchamp and Childress would be right in contending that the four principles are drawn from the common morality. There are several problems for this approach. First, the definitional criteria presumably the most fundamental precepts of morality would on this view be relegated to the job of establishing the place of the principles in the common morality. But why one should care, from a normative standpoint, about the rest of the common morality would remain a mystery. In fact, the common morality would take on a strange shape: some of its norms would comprise the definitional criteria of morality while others, presumably, would not. Oddness per se need not be considered a theoretical bug, but this heterogeneity would make it even more difficult to state what it is about the common morality that makes it normatively interesting. In fact, one might be tempted to abandon the common morality enterprise entirely. Lastly, on this view, all common morality norms both those representing definitional criteria and those not doing so presumably would be united by some shared, common-morality-defining feature. And, given that Beauchamp and Childress aim to appeal to the common [ 41 ]

15 kennedy institute of ethics journal march 2016 morality for normative grounding, not the definitional criteria, it would have to be this mysterious feature that would serve as justification for relying on common morality norms to anchor the reflective equilibrium. But it is difficult to see what sort of feature this could be if one accepts my arguments that empirical commonness and ethical theory are not up to the task. When framed in this way, then, the definitional criteria could not satisfactorily help with the normativity claim. I raise this convoluted interpretation not as a straw man, but rather to emphasize the coherence of the following position: Rather than take the view that the definitional criteria fix a small subset of the common morality norms, it could be argued that the set of integral norms delineated by the definitional criteria just is the common morality. This seems to me to be the most cogent position left available within the bioethical schema heretofore discussed. As above, any person committed to morality would, by definition, be committed to these essential norms, and thus the universal acceptance of the common morality would be guaranteed. And provided a convincing conceptual analysis, there could be no doubt about why the common morality would have genuine normative import, for it would comprise the precepts integral to the idea of morality itself. There is a certain elegance here: the feature in virtue of which norms belong in the common morality the fact that they are built into the concept of morality itself is also the feature in virtue of which they can be expected to anchor the reflective equilibrium in the right place. The requisite conceptual analysis is poised to explain which norms comprise the common morality and why this is a status of normative relevance, explaining both (1a) and (1b). Though Beauchamp and Childress make sparse commentary on the way this conceptual analysis might work, I want to further explore how it might fit into their broader theory because it shows promise in answering the theoretical questions I have raised. One issue worth considering is the way in which this conceptual approach might fit into the metaethical program discussed in the previous section. There it was said that the common morality is the fundamental dataset for moral philosophy. Here it is being suggested that the common morality also comprises the definitional criteria of morality. Are these two perspectives consistent? They can be if one accepts the view that moral philosophers, in working to systematize and explain this dataset, are engaged in an intricate project of conceptual analysis. This is not an uncontroversial metaphilosophical issue, and it is not one I intend to evaluate now. I merely wish to point out that there is no gross inconsistency here, granted a certain metaphilosophical picture. [ 42 ]

16 Bautz What Is The Common Morality, Really? There is another feature Beauchamp and Childress attribute to the common morality that is worth considering here. They state that, rather than a product of pure reason or logic, the common morality is a product of human history, is transmitted in communities, and is learned as one grows up; it is neither ahistorical nor a priori (2013, 4). Again, rendering these features consistent with the stipulations that the common morality comprises the dataset of ethics and the definitional criteria of morality is not impossible, as long as one is comfortable with a certain conception of conceptual analysis. Such analysis must acknowledge the social context in which concepts are generated, learned, transmitted, and put to use. The definitional criteria, in such an analysis, while essential to the concept of morality, would remain historically generated, learned, and transmitted in communities, just as the concept itself is. These constitutive norms would be neither ahistorical nor a priori, but moral philosophy would retain the nontrivial task of characterizing and systematizing them. One potential stumbling block for this view is the possibility that this sort of historically-sensitive conceptual analysis collapses into empirical investigation, and the putative moral authority sought by conceptual analysis lapses into justification by consensus. After all, one way of investigating a concept is to survey either by thought experiment or by empirical research its natural usage. But if we propose to draw conclusions about what is right from what people around us say is right, we are guilty of moral travesty, to use Beauchamp s words. Fortunately, I think there is a middle road between purely a priori conceptual analysis and empirical research. When it comes to concepts, philosophy is not just in the business of cataloguing. Rather, philosophers are practiced at pruning, modifying, and revising concepts into cogency. I see no reason to believe that this process cannot be carried out while maintaining awareness that our folk concepts are products of history and recognizing that they are also wide, fuzzy, and sometimes contentious. Indeed, it is this last feature that poses likely the greatest challenge for the conceptual approach. Irrespective of the nontrivial issue of what sorts of conclusions we ought to draw from our own natural language, a conceptual analysis of morality is an enormous project one that philosophers have been struggling with for, arguably, thousands of years. As Peter Herissone- Kelly has concluded, the results of such an analysis are unlikely to be universally regarded as uncontroversially correct (Herissone-Kelly 2011, 585). And as I have argued, Beauchamp and Childress have not delivered on the normative promise of Principles until they have satisfied claim (1). [ 43 ]

17 kennedy institute of ethics journal march 2016 If doing so requires completion of this daunting analysis, then it may be a practically unobtainable goal. CONCLUSIONS In sum, the conceptual approach to the common morality is, of the three approaches discussed here, best suited to explain why the four principles are common morality norms and why this feature of theirs is normatively interesting. As I have argued, without such explanations, Principles rests incomplete as a work of normative ethics. According to this conceptual approach, the common morality is identified with the set of core substantive norms essential to the concept of morality. This concept is understood to be a product of human history, and it is the constitutive role of the common morality norms in the definition of this concept that renders them universally accepted and universally binding and that guarantees their membership in the dataset of ethics. This is an elegant approach, but it is practically daunting and, more importantly, laden with a controversial set of metaethical and metaphilosophical presuppositions. Nevertheless, it seems to me to represent the most cogent way of developing the view of the common morality implicit in Beauchamp and Childress framework. As things stand, far too little has been said about what the common morality really is, and we are left wondering if it truly is a donkey worth following. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thank Jeff Kahn for invaluable guidance in the development of this paper. Thanks also to Tom Beauchamp for his characteristically insightful input and to Gail Geller and Joe Carrese for their mentorship. Work on this paper was supported in part by the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Dean s Summer Research Fund. REFERENCES Arras, John The Hedgehog and the Borg: Common Morality in Bioethics. Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 30: Beauchamp, Tom L On Eliminating the Distinction between Applied Ethics and Ethical Theory. The Monist 67: A Defense of the Common Morality. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 13: Beauchamp, Tom L., and James Childress Principles of Biomedical Ethics 7th ed. New York: Oxford University Press. DeGrazia, David Common Morality, Coherence, and the Principles of Biomedical Ethics. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 13: [ 44 ]

18 Bautz What Is The Common Morality, Really? Foot, Philippa Morality and Art. Proceedings of the British Academy 56: Herissone-Kelly, Peter Determining the Common Morality s Norms in the Sixth Edition of Principles of Biomedical Ethics. The Journal of Medical Ethics 37: Kukla, Rebecca Living with Pirates: Common Morality and Embodied Practice. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 23: Strong, Carson Justifying Group-Specific Common Morality. Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 29: Turner, Leigh Zones of Consensus and Zones of Conflict: Questioning the Common Morality Presumption in Bioethics. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 13: [ 45 ]