Ethical Imagination or Ethical Reasoning?

Abstract

Ethical Imagination or Ethical Reasoning? Christine Overall The Ethical Imagination: Journeys of the Human Spirit. By Margaret Somerville. Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2006. 270 pp. $18.95 (paper) ISBN 0887847471. There is no literature on the of ethicists-they are simply presumed be ethical. (Somerville 2006, 5) The Ethical Imagination: Journeys of the Human Spirit is a compilation of the Massey Lectures of 2006, delivered by Margaret Somerville. Co-sponsored by CBC Radio, House of Anansi Press, and Massey College the University of Toronto, the purpose of the series, according the book's inside cover, is to provide a forum ... where major contemporary thinkers [can] address important issues of time. With the publication of the book, Somerville's Massey Lectures are disseminated even further. In Canada, Margaret Somerville functions as a intellectual, along with others such as Thomas Homer-Dixon, Janice Gross Stein, and Mark Kingwell. She appears frequently on radio and television, and her views about ethical issues are cited in the press.1 Academics like Somerville represent the university the public and purport offer original and provocative yet scholarly and well-researched ideas. Unlike some academics, public intellectuals establish a relationship with the community beyond the university. They talk not only their academic colleagues but society-at least, the portion of society that is willing engage with theoretical and scholarly ideas. The Ethical Imagination offers an opportunity assess Somerville's role as public intellectual and how well she carries it out. Somerville claims be interested in community. She speaks of our (or collective) human imagination (2006, 11), and she states that she is seeking a shared ethics (191). This is a worthwhile if very ambitious goal; but not many other ethicists are part of her community, and she has little presence in the philosophical discipline. Although she frequently quotes theologians and priests, there are few references philosophers. When she does speak of the work of philosophers, the citation is often a radio program (Charles Taylor [206]), or a magazine article (Roger Scruton [108]), and not scholarly books or articles. Many of her ethical references are her own published work. Perhaps interactions with other philosophers are not necessary her work. Perhaps what is important is the role Somerville plays vis-a-vis her interactions with the public. In what follows, I shall focus on four major flaws in The Ethical Imagination, which demonstrate, I believe, that the public is being seriously misled by the suggestion that Somerville is an ethicist who has something significant tell us about morality. Inconsistency Among Her Main Ethical Claims As an ethicist, I find it is quite common encounter people who are hostile ethicists in general and, sometimes, oneself in particular. These people ... perceive ethicists as 'moral police' telling them what and what not do, and seriously curtailing what they see as their rights and freedoms. (Somerville 2006, 22) Somerville's right-wing views on such issues as same-sex marriage (100-101) and abortion (186-87) are no secret. In The Ethical Imagination, she is forthright about her view that marriage should not be available same-sex couples (although civil unions are allowable) and that at least some abortions are inherently wrong (189). Other reviewers have pointed out some of the specific problems in these ideas (e.g., Schafer 2006). Here I shall identify a more general problem: a lack of consistency among her claims and a consequent post hoc attempt justify them. One of Somerville's animating principles is deep for all life (2006, 2). Unfortunately, the meaning and implications of respect for life are never clearly defined. The phrase appears imply that embryos and fetuses are equal in moral status children and adult human beings. …