{"id":21050,"date":"2012-06-20T08:37:57","date_gmt":"2012-06-20T13:37:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=21050"},"modified":"2012-06-19T16:38:57","modified_gmt":"2012-06-19T21:38:57","slug":"exploring-mormon-thought-ethics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2012\/06\/exploring-mormon-thought-ethics\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring Mormon Thought: Ethics"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> Ostler opens chapter 3 of The Problems of Theism and the Love of God<\/i> by referring to several different individuals\u2019 claim that the ontological commitments of Mormon theology foreclose the possibility of its embracing a defensible moral theory. Ostler then takes as his task in this chapter not only to identify what he takes to be Mormonism\u2019s moral theory but also to argue for the possibility of such a moral theory to be fully robust despite its rootedness in a non-traditional theism. Much of the chapter is tied up in the details of an ongoing exchange between himself and Francis Beckwith on this question, but the conclusions to which Ostler comes in the end are relatively straightforwardly stated:<\/p>\n

(1) Every moral theory fails except for the Kantian one.
\n(2) Even the Kantian moral theory fails in certain regards (i.e., it needs revision).
\n(3) A revised Kantian moral theory, fully defensible, is the Mormon moral theory.<\/p>\n

What does that revised Kantian moral theory look like? Ostler rejects one formulation of Kant\u2019s categorical imperative, according to which one should act only on maxims whose normativity can be universalized without paradox or contradiction. In its place, Ostler accepts the other major formulation of Kant\u2019s categorical imperative, according to which one should treat whatever is of absolute value as an end and not as a means to an end. Ostler revises Kant\u2019s own inflection of this formulation in an important way: it isn\u2019t the presence of rationality (as the essence of what is human) in something that marks its absolute value but its unicity or particularity. I am morally obligated to love whatever is particular.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve already expressed in another post some concerns about this idea, so I won\u2019t rehearse them here. What interests me is the move Ostler makes when he turns from attack (against other moral theories) and defense (of his own revised Kantianism) to articulation (of what he takes to be the \u201cLDS agape<\/i> theory of ethics in alignment with the gospel of Christ\u201d). Here he begins from individual uncreatedness—an idea that, in my opinion, deserves a good deal more philosophical attention before it can be taken as a justification for embracing a Kantian moral theory oriented to apparently uncontestable particularity—by moves quickly to what he calls \u201cthe law of love.\u201d If Mormonism\u2019s Kantian moral commitments mark its claim that human beings experience a moral obligation to assist in the growth and progress of particular intelligences toward participation in the divine nature, then the whole of the moral law can be summarized in the golden rule: \u201cTo the extent that it can be defined,\u201d Ostler says, \u201cthis law can be formulated simply as the practical law of the harvest: What we give, we receive; what we sow, we reap; what we send out, returns to us. Therefore, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, for as we judge others we shall be judged. This is the eternal law decreed by God before the world was and by which we shall be judged\u201d (pp. 113-114).<\/p>\n

So far, so consistent. But then, along the pathway of this discussion, Ostler says the following: \u201cBoth personal growth and interpersonal growth are also intrinsically valuable as ends in themselves. However, there is a byproduct of love that also makes love worth pursuing for its own sake—happiness\u201d (p. 111). What\u2019s this? Here, and just in passing (though he says another thing or two about it as he goes on), Ostler suggests that there\u2019s another<\/i> justification of the law of love, another<\/i> reason to love—something besides<\/i> particularity: happiness<\/i>. This is crucial. Happiness isn\u2019t something God, from outside of the situation of love, bestows on those who love; happiness is something internal to love itself. It\u2019s, in Ostler\u2019s appropriate word, a byproduct<\/i> of love.<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t agree more about all this. My question, then, is simply: Why not begin and end here?<\/i> Why bother with Kant? I suspect that Ostler\u2019s reason is that byproducts aren\u2019t enough to ground moral obligation<\/i>. How can one claim to have a moral obligation to love if one\u2019s simply after love\u2019s associated affects? (As a by<\/i>product and not simply a product<\/i>, it might be said that happiness can\u2019t be called love\u2019s teleology, and so obligation doesn\u2019t return in the form of a consequentialist ethics here.) And I think Ostler would be right to point out this problem, were he—as I suspect he would—to do so. But then my question would become: What\u2019s so important about moral obligation?<\/i> Is it so necessary for Mormonism to have a theory of moral obligation? Why can\u2019t we say simply that God reveals to us the happy way to live? Why do we need to say that God reveals to us the happy way to live toward which we have an obligation<\/i>?<\/p>\n

All of this is to ask, in the end, why we can\u2019t simply agree with the several individuals Ostler refers to at the beginning of the chapter. Why not just confess that Mormonism can\u2019t, given its ontological commitments, produce a satisfactory theory of moral obligation? Why not argue that that incapability is one of Mormonism\u2019s strengths? Why not agree with the so-called critics that Mormonism is more like training in the good life than exposition of universal moral obligation? It\u2019s that that baffles me here, particularly because it seems to me that it\u2019s the desire to produce a theory of moral obligation as such that drives Ostler to embrace a philosophically problematic conception of particularity—a conception from which I think it\u2019s just as difficult to derive obligation.<\/p>\n

Mormonism doesn\u2019t have a morality; it has an ethics?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ostler opens chapter 3 of The Problems of Theism and the Love of God by referring to several different individuals\u2019 claim that the ontological commitments of Mormon theology foreclose the possibility of its embracing a defensible moral theory. Ostler then takes as his task in this chapter not only to identify what he takes to be Mormonism\u2019s moral theory but also to argue for the possibility of such a moral theory to be fully robust despite its rootedness in a non-traditional theism. Much of the chapter is tied up in the details of an ongoing exchange between himself and Francis Beckwith on this question, but the conclusions to which Ostler comes in the end are relatively straightforwardly stated: (1) Every moral theory fails except for the Kantian one. (2) Even the Kantian moral theory fails in certain regards (i.e., it needs revision). (3) A revised Kantian moral theory, fully defensible, is the Mormon moral theory. What does that revised Kantian moral theory look like? Ostler rejects one formulation of Kant\u2019s categorical imperative, according to which one should act only on maxims whose normativity can be universalized without paradox or contradiction. In its place, Ostler accepts the other major formulation of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21050"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21051,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21050\/revisions\/21051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}