2 - Ethical systems

Abstract

The fundamental problem of ethical reality (ontology) is the potentially infinite variety of ethical experiences. The challenging question is how to make sense of it (epistemology). The choice is to proceed from the premise that variety is diversity where each experience is unique and de novo. Alternatively, variety is variation where every experience is a combination of some economical set of fundamental principles. The results in ethics have been two different approaches characterized as Principlist and Anti-Principlist. Among the Anti-Principlist school are versions of phenomenological, narrative, value, care, and feminist ethics. Typically, these approaches have been held as separate and antagonistic. The result is that nether approach is totally satisfactory. Explored here is the notion that each approach is a different side of the epistemic coin and thus, cannot be separated just as the two sides of a coin cannot be separated. Better ethics may evolve from iteration involving both.