Moral Reasoning

Abstract

Abstract The most fundamental disagreement about moral reasoning is whether moral wisdom is necessary for good moral reasoning, and if so, how. This controversy dates back to the origins of Western philosophy. According to Plato in the Republic , moral reasoning resembles reasoning in geometry, with one major difference. Geometrical reasoning is said to regard its axioms as beyond critical scrutiny, whereas knowledge of the highest good is attained through the method of philosophical dialectic. For Plato, wisdom is knowledge of the highest good. Once that knowledge has been acquired, moral reasoning proceeds, like geometry, to deduce rules and to resolve particular cases through application of those rules (Plato 1992: Pt. 7, Bk. 6). In the Nicomachean Ethics , Aristotle disavows this model of moral reasoning, maintaining that unlike precise sciences such as geometry, all general rules in ethics have exceptions. The notion that good moral reasoning is the derivation and application of clear‐cut rules is consequently misguided (Aristotle 2000: Bk. 1.3). For Aristotle, wisdom resembles the practical skills found among master craftsmen. Wisdom must be acquired from worldly experience and not from dialectic alone. And because wisdom requires training at the hands of those who are skilled it is accessible only to people who have the good fortune to be well brought up.