Variations, Good and Bad, on the Theme of Right Reason in Ethics

Abstract

In his comparatively recent and altogether remarkable book, The Theory of Morality,1 Alan Donagan would appear to have managed quite to astound, not to say confound, the better part of his colleagues and confreres in the present-day moral philosophical establishment. what is the thesis of his book, if not that the fundamental precepts of traditional Hebrew Christian morality?the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, the Sum mary of the Law, et al.?are all of them nothing if not precepts simply prescribed by right Incredible!, you will say. Worse than that, it is downright presumptuous! one can imagine the typical, present-day moral philosopher exclaiming. For such precepts as those that Donagan cites and talks about are unmistakably religious precepts; and in the very nature of the case, a religious precept presumably derives such authority as it has only from its being thought to be by Divine command.2 How, then, can Donagan maintain that the typical religious precepts of Hebrew-Christian morality don't have to be regarded as being religious precepts in the usual sense at all? No, for he takes them to be grounded on nothing less than the authority of right reason! Now to this kind of characteristic secularist, not to say prejudicial, professional philosophical reaction, Donagan's answer consists simply in the subtle and sustained argument of his entire book. Nor is there any denying the impressiveness of his performance. Still, for all of its impressiveness, I wonder if perhaps even one who is in every way sympathetic with Donagan's conclusions might not question whether the right reason which Donagan ap peals to in his argument is altogether a reason that is right for his purposes. Thus many of his typical examples are examples of actions that everyone would acknowledge to be, in their various ways, harmful to others?stealing, murder, adultery, bearing false witness, etc. Unmistakably, these are exam ples of actions drawn right from the Decalogue. Not only that, but they are presumably also actions of a kind that everyone of us would unhesitatingly pronounce to be wrong. But what is distinctive about Donagan's treatment of such actions is that in his eyes the basis on which we can recognize them to be wrong is simply that they can be seen to be to reason.3 And yet is this entirely correct? Is it true that all such actions and others like them may be recognized as patently contrary to reason? After all, the relevant reason here would admittedly have to be the kind of reason that for