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September 22, 2008
Edward Skidelsky in The return of goodness in Prospect argues that contemporary liberalism's insistence that morality is a mere matter of rights and obligations empties life of its ethical meaning. Consequently, we need a return to the virtue ethics of the pre-moderns, and a renewed conception of the good life.
He says that the:
These various pre-modern traditions, eastern and western, represent a style of thinking about ethics that has become almost unintelligible to us. Under the influence of Mill and others, we have come to think of morality as a system of rights and obligations, and the philosophical problem as one of defining these rights and obligations. But where there is no right or obligation, morality is silent. A man who, having fulfilled his obligations to others, settles down with a six-pack to watch porn on television all day may be foolish, disgusting, vulgar and so forth, but he is not strictly speaking immoral. For he is, as the saying goes, "within his rights."
I find that odd because Mill was a utilitarian and arged in terms of utility, the greatest happiness of the greatest number and harm.
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It fits with the atomisation of the individuals that has washed over the philosphical landscape in lockstep with the rise of neoliberalism. Non-maleficence has replaced beneficence as a core social vaule, much to the detriment of the fabric that holds societies together. If one questioned his ethics, the guy in the example above would probably say "sue me", crack another beer and continue to watch the film. We are all the poorer for it.