Learning to See Red Wheelbarrows

I reject the claim that my position involves a unitary view of morality by pointing out that I have never implied that a person's moral life involves “a total vision of life.” Rather my emphasis on vision is meant to direct attention away from ethical theories that make decisions about quandaries central to the moral life. The language of vision is used to make three interrelated points: (1) how difficult it is to see accurately particulare things such as a desk, a red wheelbarrow, suicide, the telling of a lie; (2) how our ability to see requires the development of linguistic and moral skills; and (3) how seeing involves community in order to train us to regard the other honestly. I suggest that the misreading of my position is due to a studied blindness developed by a rather uncritical adherence to some of the least successful aspects of contempotary ethical theory—such as the assumption that the search for a foundation and/or concept of morality makes philosophical sense. Finally I argue that my position does not entail relativism, but neither does it provide any philosophically decisive arguments against the moral relativist or skeptic. Indeed I suggest that it is a mistake to assume that the truthfulness of moral argument is dependent on the development of such arguments. Finally I argue that my attempt to develop a broader perspective in order to assess the moral intelligibility of Christian convication is still valid.

Epistemology · Mistake · Moral development · Moral psychology · Moral relativism · Morality · Relativism · Skepticism · Social cognitive theory of morality · Sociology · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Ethics in medical practice · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · War, Ethics, and Justification

• Character, Vision, and Narrative

  Open Access•Gene Outka•Religious Studies Review•1980

  Incluir item