Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Define "Flourishing"


"Ethics needs a unifying principal. Moor’s 'just consquentialism' would protect rights through an impartiality test, then increase benefits to promote human flourishing."

The concluding statement of your third blog succinctly captures the essence of Moor's concepts. However, as I considered the definition, I found myself wondering how Moor defines his terms.
For example, what constitutes "impartiality" and what is the objective criteria for measuring and assessing the nature and degree of impartiality? Furthermore, what is "flourishing"? How can the state of "flourishing" be evaluated, measured, determined-- and by who-- does it have a cultural context, a social context, a political context?

Ultimately, it seems that Moor's concept of "just consequentialism" provokes questions based on the use of "loopy vocabulary" that needs explicit defining. Rather than providing clear answers to ethical dilemmas "just consequentialism" seems situational, open to interpretation, and capable of provoking endless questions (the feedback process?), but no definitive answers.
Perhaps this "looping" quality is a strength as well as a possible weakness. However, conceptually, I think that Moor's solution for ethical problems would gain persuasive strength if the vocabulary were more specifically defined.

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