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Editorial

W(h)ither Morality?

by Joel Marks

There is a dirty little secret about ethics which, like the purloined letter of Edgar Allan Poe’s mystery, has been hidden in broad daylight. The morality of most modern ethicists is not your grandparents’ morality, but instead something more mundane. Old-time morality, like old-time religion, was metaphysical. It presumed an objective basis in reality that held absolute sway over all human beings. The iconic image in the West is of Moses and the tablets containing the Ten Commandments: “Do this and don’t do that, says God!” But the objective basis could as well be taken to be an inherent human essence (Aristotle) or a cosmic principle of justice (karma) or the demand for logical consistency (Kant).

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