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Moral Compromise

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 June 2012

David Archard
David Archard*
Affiliation:
Queen's University, Belfast
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

A moral compromise is a compromise on moral matters; it is agreement in the face of moral disagreement but where there is agreement on the importance of consensus – namely that it secures a morally desirable outcome. It is distinguishable from other forms of agreement, and an important distinction between moral compromise with public agreement and moral compromise with public disagreement is also made. Circumstances in which the former might be permissible are outlined, and the sense in which it is allowed all things considered to agree is made clear. The relevant discussions of Dan Brock and Mary Warnock on the role of the philosopher to public policy are critically reviewed. Finally, a brief list is offered of the considerations relevant to an estimation of whether and, if so, when such compromise is allowed.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 87 , Issue 3 , July 2012 , pp. 403 - 420
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2012

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References

1 Benjamin, Martin, Splitting the Difference: Compromise and Integrity in Ethics and Politics (Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 1990)Google Scholar, Chapter 1 ‘The Meaning of Compromise’; Golding, Martin P., ‘The Nature of Compromise: A Preliminary Inquiry,’ in Pennock, J. Roland and Chapman, John W (eds.) Compromise in Ethics, Law, and Politics NOMOS XXI (New York: New York University Press, 1979): 3–25Google Scholar.

2 Benjamin, op. cit., Chapter 5.

3 Soren Holm discusses the nature (and in his view disadvantages) of compromise in the case of euthanasia in ‘Euthanasia: agreeing to disagree’, Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 13 (2010), 399–402.

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5 Jones might of course have been persuaded by the famous argument of Thomson, J.J. in her ‘In Defence of Abortion’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (Autumn 1971), 47–66Google Scholar.

6 Some of these are outlined in Abram, M.B. and Wolf, S.M., ‘Public involvement in medical ethics’, New. England Journal of Medicine 310 (1984), 628CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

7 Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Fertilisation and Embryology [The Warnock Report] (London: HMSO, 1984). Available at: http://www.hfea.gov.uk/2068.html.

8 See, for example, Lockwood, Michael, ‘The Warnock Report: a philosophical appraisal’, in his edited Moral Dilemmas in Modern Medicine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985): 155–186Google Scholar.

9 See, inter alia, Fox, M., ‘Pre-Persons, Commodities or Cyborgs: The Legal Construction and representation of the Embryo’, Health Care Analysis 8 (2000): 171–181CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Brazier, M., ‘Regulating the Reproduction Business’, Medical Law Review 7 (Summer 1999): 166–193CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

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11 For defence of this view see Swift, Adam, ‘The Value of Philosophy in Nonideal Circumstances’, Social Theory and Practice, 34 (July 2008): 363–387CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Op. cit., note 4, 36.

13 Arthur Kuflik, ‘Morality and Compromise’, in J. Roland Pennock and John W Chapman (eds) Compromise in Ethics, Law, and Politics, 51.

14 Benjamin, op. cit., 36.

15 The evidence that individuals are strongly minded to conform their publicly stated views with those of their peers was provided by the celebrated Asch conformity experiments of the 1950s. See Asch, S.E., ‘Effects of group pressure on the modification and distortion of judgments’, in Guetzkow, H. (ed.), Groups, leadership and men Pittsburgh (PA: Carnegie Press, 1951): 177–190Google Scholar; ‘Opinions and social pressure’, Scientific American, 193, (1955): 31–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘Studies of independence and conformity: A minority of one against a unanimous majority’ Psychological Monographs 70, (1956) (Whole no. 416)Google Scholar.

16 Brock, Dan, ‘Truth or Consequences: The Role of Philosophers in Policy-Making’, Ethics 97 (July 1987): 786–791CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

17 Ibid., 786.

18 Ibid., 787.

19 Op. cit., note 7, iv.

20 See, for instance, her ‘Moral Thinking and Government Policy: The Warnock Committee on Human Embryology’, The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly. Health and Society 63 (Summer, 1985): 504–522CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Warnock, Mary, Nature and Mortality: Recollections of a philosopher in public life (London: Continuum, 2003), 98Google Scholar.

22 Ibid., 99.

23 Op. cit., note 7, 1.

24 Hare, Richard, ‘In Vitro Fertilization and the Warnock Report’, in his Essays on Bioethics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 109Google Scholar.

25 Norman, Richard, ‘Applied Ethics: What is Applied to What?’ Utilitas 20 (July 2000), 133Google Scholar.

26 Op. cit., note 20, 510 and 519.

27 Ibid., 505.

28 Op. cit., note 24, 111–2.

29 Rescher, Nicholas, ‘Philosophical Disagreement: An Essay towards Orientational Pluralism in Metaphilosophy,’ Review of Metaphysics 32(2) (December 1978): 217–251Google Scholar.

30 Op. cit., note 4, 147–8.

31 Op. cit., note 13, 38–65.