Theor Med Bioeth DOI 10.1007/s11017-014-9282-8

Common sense and the common morality in theory and practice Patrick Daly

 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Abstract The unfinished nature of Beauchamp and Childress’s account of the common morality after 34 years and seven editions raises questions about what is lacking, specifically in the way they carry out their project, more generally in the presuppositions of the classical liberal tradition on which they rely. Their wide-ranging review of ethical theories has not provided a method by which to move beyond a hypothetical approach to justification or, on a practical level regarding values conflict, beyond a questionable appeal to consensus. My major purpose in this paper is to introduce the thought of Bernard Lonergan as offering a way toward such a methodological breakthrough. In the first section, I consider Beauchamp and Childress’s defense of their theory of the common morality. In the second, I relate a persisting vacillation in their argument regarding the relative importance of reason and experience to a similar tension in classical liberal theory. In the third, I consider aspects of Lonergan’s generalized empirical method as a way to address problems that surface in the first two sections of the paper: (1) the structural relation of reason and experience in human action; and (2) the importance of theory for practice in terms of what Lonergan calls ‘‘common sense’’ and ‘‘general bias.’’ Keywords Common sense
Common morality
Theory
Practice
Ethical justification
Beauchamp and Childress
Lonergan

Introduction Tom Beauchamp and James Childress’s latest defense of the common morality in the seventh edition (2013) of Principles of Biomedical Ethics highlights several recurring problems underlying their account of bioethics [1]. What is the relation between common sense and theory, between theory and practice? Is it possible to P. Daly (&) Boston College, 1 Birchwood Ln., Hopkinton, MA 01748, USA e-mail: [email protected]

123

P. Daly

base an ethical theory on consensus or coherence? Is it possible to arrive at sufficient reason to justify any ethical position? Which takes priority in ethical decisionmaking, reason or experience? Absent normative rules, are values inherently irrational? The authors acknowledge that their account of the common morality remains tentative and incomplete more than 30 years into their project. On the one hand, this attests to the difficulty that they face in their attempt to justify a uniform ethical standard for ‘‘all people in all places’’ [1, p. 3] and to the integrity with which they face it. On the other hand, the unfinished nature of their account raises questions about what is lacking both in the way they carry out their project and in the general presuppositions of the classical liberal tradition on which they rely. While the authors have sought in recent editions to accommodate their emphasis on principles and rules with the claims of virtue ethics and the ethics of care, they still fall back on a ‘‘pretheoretic’’ set of norms as the source of their method [1, p. 411]. Furthermore, as of the seventh edition, they no longer treat ‘‘communitarianism’’ under the heading of ethical theory, presumably because its emphasis on tradition and social context as a source of norms is incompatible with their basic position. Whatever the criteria for inclusion, their wide-ranging review of ethical theories has not provided a method by which to move beyond a hypothetical approach to justification or, on a practical level regarding values conflict, beyond a questionable appeal to consensus. My major purpose in this paper is to introduce the thought of Bernard Lonergan as offering a way toward such a methodological breakthrough. In the first section, I consider Beauchamp and Childress’s defense of their theory of the common morality. In the second, I relate a persistent vacillation in their argument regarding the relative importance of reason and experience to a similar tension in classical liberal theory. In the third, I consider aspects of Lonergan’s generalized empirical method as a way to address problems that surface in the first two sections of the paper: (1) the structural relation of reason and experience in human action; and (2) the importance of theory for practice in terms of what Lonergan calls ‘‘common sense’’ and ‘‘general bias.’’ I also identify lack of any discussion of value in later editions of the text as a separate problem that I plan to address in another paper.

Beauchamp and Childress’s theory of the common morality According to Beauchamp and Childress, the common morality is the ‘‘set of norms shared by all persons committed to morality,’’ by which we rightly judge the conduct of ‘‘all persons in all places’’ [1, p. 3]. The authors hold and defend the position that ‘‘four clusters of moral principles’’—under the headings of nonmaleficence, beneficence, justice, and respect for autonomy—‘‘form a suitable starting point for biomedical ethics’’ [1, p. 13]. In the sixth edition (2009), they say that these principles ‘‘express general norms of the common morality’’ [2, p. 12]; in the seventh edition (2013), they say that these principles ‘‘derive from… [but] do not exhaust the common morality’’ [1, p. 13]. They trace to W.D. Ross the first three: nonmaleficence, beneficence, and justice (see [3]). The remaining principle, respect for autonomy, has an interesting history in their hands. The Belmont Report (1978), the final draft of

123

Common sense and the common morality

which Beauchamp authored at the same time that he and Childress were drafting the first edition (1979) of Principles of Biomedical Ethics, identifies ‘‘respect for persons,’’ beneficence, and justice as its three foundational principles [4]. Working independently on their own text, Beauchamp and Childress included nonmaleficence as a fourth principle, distinct from beneficence, and in place of ‘‘respect for persons’’ they identified the ‘‘principle of autonomy,’’ a hybrid notion combining two aspects: one deriving from John Stuart Mill, ‘‘in self-regarding actions we ought to be as free as possible to do as we wish’’; the other deriving from Immanuel Kant, ‘‘in evaluating the self-regarding actions of others we ought to respect them as persons with the same right to their judgments as we have to our own’’ [5, p. 58]. In the third edition of their text, the ‘‘principle of autonomy’’ is reformulated as the principle of ‘‘respect for autonomy’’: ‘‘autonomous actions are not to be subjected to controlling constraints by others’’ [6, p. 72] (emphasis in original).1 In doing so, they lean heavily toward Mill and away from Kant, but a tension between utilitarian and deontological concerns still runs through this and all subsequent editions of their work. In the first two editions (1979, 1983) of Principles of Biomedical Ethics, Beauchamp and Childress simply assert that the principles and norms they identify ‘‘are accepted by most deontological theories and can also be discovered in the ‘common morality’’’ [5, p. 34; 9, p. 33]. In the third edition (1989), the authors introduce a new section on ethical deliberation and justification, where they remark: ‘‘Common morality cannot be invoked to justify itself…. Whether ethical theory can supply the needed forms of justification is a difficult problem that we will need to investigate as we proceed’’ [6, p. 9]. While they devote more attention to matters of justification in this edition, they say nothing further about a theory of the common morality. In the fourth edition (1994), responding to requests to state their views on method and justification [7, p. 23], the authors discuss three models of justification and devote sections of two chapters to the common morality. In their view, justification is a matter of establishing sufficient reason to believe that a particular action is obligatory; such reasoning must be not only relevant, but also adequate to warrant such a belief. The method that they favor employs both deductive (top down, principle-based) and inductive (bottom up, case-based) reasoning and aims to maximize coherence. Since principle-based reasoning and coherentism are subject to the problem of infinite regress and case-based reasoning cannot control for bias, it is necessary to rely on a core set of norms as a gold standard against which to compare any particular or systematic judgments of obligation. This is the ‘‘only avenue of escape’’ from a vicious circle of reasoning in which no morality is ever justified [7, pp. 13–24]. The common morality constitutes such a set of norms. These are accepted ‘‘without argument,’’ have a ‘‘rich history,’’ and are universalizable as a ‘‘formal condition’’ [7, pp. 24–26]. In the fifth edition (2001), the authors adjust the order of their argument, starting the book with a discussion of moral norms and finishing with a discussion of moral justification and the common morality. In doing so, they open and close the book by addressing the common morality, which they define in the first chapter as the ‘‘set of 1

The same wording occurs in all subsequent editions, 4–7th [1, p. 107; 2, p. 104; 7, p. 126; 8, p. 64] (same emphasis in editions 4 and 5). While Beauchamp and Childress acknowledge positive obligations flowing from ‘‘respect for autonomy,’’ they no longer refer to ‘‘respect for persons’’ after the second edition (1983).

123

P. Daly

norms that all morally serious persons share’’ [8, p. 3], claiming that it is both empirical in describing ‘‘what all people believe’’ and normative in establishing ‘‘obligatory standards for everyone’’ [8, p. 4]. ‘‘These fundamental precepts alone make it possible for persons to make cross-temporal and cross-cultural judgments and to assert firmly that not all practices in all cultural groups are morally acceptable’’ [8, pp. 4–5]. They open the final chapter with a discussion of the three models of ethical justification that they identified in the fourth edition: top-down, bottom-up, and integrated (or coherence-based). Still preferring a coherence-based theory, they make the same comment about the need to identify a core set of norms as an ethical starting point in order to avoid the theoretical problem of an infinite regress [8, p. 400]. This leads into an extended discussion of the common morality as the initial set of ‘‘appropriate considered judgments’’ needed for ethical justification [8, p. 401]. In the final chapter of the next two editions (2009, 2013), the authors follow the same format of discussing the three models of ethical justification, leading to the same caution about the need for a coherence-based theory for a core set of considered judgments [1, p. 408; 2, p. 385], and then to an extended discussion of the common morality. But in each of these editions the authors elaborate a secondary framework of justification, specific to their common morality theory, under the subheadings ‘‘Empirical,’’ ‘‘Normative,’’ and ‘‘Conceptual.’’ It is not clear why they employ two different frameworks of ethical justification within the same chapter. What does seem to be clear is that by introducing a hypothetical account of empirical justification as part of this secondary framework, they are responding to the criticism that there is ‘‘scant anthropological or historical evidence’’ to support the ‘‘empirical hypothesis that a universal common morality exists’’ [2, p. 4; 10]. Similarly, in a new subsection on ‘‘Moral Change’’ under ‘‘Common-Morality Theory’’ [2, pp. 389–392] and a new chapter on ‘‘Moral Status’’ [2, pp. 64–97], they explain historical differences in accepted moral practice not on the basis of a change in the common morality itself, but on the basis of a change in societies as to ‘‘who should receive equal [moral] consideration’’ [2, p. 391]. In laying out the secondary framework of justification in the sixth edition (2009), Beauchamp and Childress present an argument for the possibility of justifying the common morality on an empirical basis [2, pp. 392–396]. They propose to do this by demonstrating that certain norms are held universally by all persons committed to morality, with the self-fulfilling qualification that potential study subjects would have to be prescreened according to their moral beliefs and with the non-falsifiable proviso that there must be some universal norms even if we fail to identify them properly [2, pp. 392–395]. Next under the heading ‘‘Normative Justification,’’ without advancing any argument, they make two claims: (1) regarding empirical justification, ‘‘universal agreement does not render norms authoritative’’; and (2) regarding normative justification, ‘‘as [Bernard] Gert has shown, there is no reason why the norms in the common morality cannot be justified by a general ethical theory’’ [2, p. 394].2 Then they move on to conceptual justification, in terms of which the norms of the common morality are said to fall under the concept ‘‘morality.’’ They close with a caution that ‘‘extensive argument would be needed to defend these claims’’ [2, p. 396]. 2

But see their criticism of Gert’s position at [1, pp. 396–397].

123

Common sense and the common morality

Many more questions are raised than answered in this section. If justification is based on a criterion of sufficient reason and if empirical findings are not a sufficient basis to justify ethical theory, then what do the authors mean by ‘‘empirical justification’’? Again, the ‘‘three types of justification’’ [2, p. 392] as presented are independent of one another. If they are related as parts of a larger integrated scheme of justification, how are they related? Such questions and answers are not forthcoming. Meanwhile, we are to understand that the rules of the common morality are authoritative [2, p. 387]; that is, for anyone ‘‘committed to morality’’ [2, p. 393]. In the seventh edition (2013), the authors reprise this same secondary schema of ways to justify the common morality. Regarding empirical claims, they emphasize that the common morality is rooted in more than the four principles; its roots extend to other principles, such as promise keeping and truth telling, as well as virtues and rights [1, pp. 3–4]. Virtues now feature in a section of their own in the chapter on ethical theories [1, pp. 375–383]. They remark under the section on empirical justification that it does not constitute normative justification, but that it could factor into an integrated approach. They also expand their discussion of normative and conceptual justification and express a hope to tie the different ‘‘types of justification’’ together in support of a Rawlsian scheme of ‘‘considered judgments’’ and ‘‘reflective equilibrium’’ [1, p. 418]. As things stand, though, fundamental problems still confound their account under each heading: ‘‘Empirical,’’ ‘‘Normative,’’ and ‘‘Conceptual.’’ First, the empirical is not universal. Consider the authors’ proposition: ‘‘If an empirical investigation were to show that a universal content is found in moral belief, the claim that a common morality exists would be empirically justified’’ [1, p. 416]. In order to test this claim, they say that experiments would have to be designed to study only those persons who are committed to the common morality. Their critics have asked, if we have to know what the common morality is in order to choose study subjects, what are we testing? And if the norms of the common morality cannot be specified, how can they be falsified? In response, the authors propose a tentative experiment that screens subjects in terms of a specified principle, nonmaleficence, ‘‘that is reasonable to expect all morally committed persons to accept,’’ and determine how this belief correlates with other hypothesized norms in the common morality [1, p. 417]. Then they say, ‘‘The research design could also test whether various norms are universally held that we have not presented as universal’’ [1, p. 418]. But this notion of empirical research is patently mistaken. Putting aside various understandings of what is meant by nonmaleficence—e.g., does one have to be a pacifist and a vegan to participate in the study?—the results of such a survey would at best correlate the degree of professed adherence to two or more ethical norms in a particular study group at a particular place and time that might be generalized within a statistically determinate, non-universal margin of error. While science involves a process of reasoning in order to arrive at ‘‘conclusions [that] … can be tested empirically’’ [2, p. 393], empirically verifiable conclusions are (1) provisional, not universal and necessary, and (2) not suited to justify the common morality as universal and necessary. Second, in delineating types of justification, their use of the term ‘‘justification’’ remains ambiguous. The authors still refer to ‘‘empirical justification’’ in the first paragraphs of the section so titled, but then they shift and refer to ‘‘empirical confirmation’’ in the final paragraph of that section [1, pp. 415–418]. They open the

123

P. Daly

section on normative justification once again by saying that universal norms established empirically are not normative [1, p. 418]. What they are getting at is that the empirical does not establish the universal, as I have just said. But as it stands, they still seem to think that the empirical can determine the universal. They go on to say, ‘‘Neither historical facts … nor social science facts … serve to justify moral norms’’ [1, p. 418], make passing reference to the utilitarian, Kantian, rights, and virtue theories considered earlier in their text, and proceed to elaborate Gert’s justification of the common morality ‘‘on the basis of rationality’’[1, p. 419]. The authors claim no more than to be taking us on a tour, but then they do something odd. They introduce pragmatism as worthy of greater consideration here under normative justification than it received in the chapter on ethical theories, where it was simply listed as one of several bottom-up theories [1, p. 398]. Pragmatism, they say, ‘‘holds that moral norms are justified by their effectiveness in achieving the object of morality’’ [1, p. 419]; they cite an article by Beauchamp in which he states, ‘‘Centuries of experience have demonstrated … that these norms are what they are, and not some other set of norms, because they have proven that they successfully achieve the objectives of morality. This success in the service of human flourishing accounts for their moral authority’’ [11, p. 265].3 All of this is very interesting, but what are evidence of ‘‘effectiveness’’ or ‘‘centuries of experience’’ if not historical and social science facts? If the authors want to introduce pragmatism under the heading of normative justification, they need to tell us how pragmatism works without reference to experiential data. Third, ambiguity in use of the term ‘‘justification’’ extends to their treatment of conceptual justification. In posing the ‘‘plausible hypothesis’’ that the very concept of morality contains specific principles, they leave unanswered how one decides which principles these are, and among these, which are ‘‘descriptive’’ and which are ‘‘normative’’ [1, p. 420]. Are we to surmise that by conceptual justification they mean that the common morality is self-justifying?4 If so, who has access to this knowledge and on what basis? Is it available to all on the basis of the experience of acting freely and responsibly common to each? Or is it only available to those fortunate enough to be initiated into the gnostic order of the common morality? They caution that, ‘‘unlike Gert,’’ they have not ‘‘removed the veil’’ to disclose the full set of norms constituting the common morality, but hold forth in locating their four core principles as ‘‘one domain in the larger territory of the common morality’’ [1, p. 421]. Such visual metaphors fall short of conceptual analysis, let alone ‘‘conceptual justification.’’ In stating that ‘‘no system of belief lacking these norms counts as morality’’ [1, p. 420], how do they account for the ability to make this judgment absent answers to these questions? The problem that they critique a few pages later about deploying principles applies to defining principles in the first place—‘‘without tighter controls’’ on meaning, ‘‘critics will reasonably insist that too much room remains for judgments that are unprincipled’’ [1, p. 423]. Once more, we are told that the common morality is the ‘‘set of universal norms shared by all persons committed to morality … applicable to all person in all places’’ and that ‘‘we rightly judge all human conduct by its standards’’ [1, p. 3]. On what basis? As the evidence presented here indicates, Beauchamp and Childress have elaborated 3

Beauchamp and Childress make no reference to this article in the sixth edition (2009).

4

As noted above, they discounted this option in the third edition (1989) [6, p. 9].

123

Common sense and the common morality

an increasingly nuanced framework of arguments to justify their theory of the common morality in successive editions of their text. While they are careful to acknowledge that these arguments remain tentative and hypothetical, their vigor in pursuing them and the breadth of the literature they cite in their support lend considerable probity to what they say. In the final analysis, however, they appeal to consensus in practice to do the work of theory in maintaining these universal claims: ‘‘We can say without exaggeration that the proponents of these theories all accept the principles of common morality before they devise their theory…. Theoretical inquiry is worthwhile even if practical agreement can often be achieved without it’’ [1, p. 384] (emphasis in original).5

Problems in theory and practice Beauchamp and Childress describe the ‘‘coherence’’ model of ethical justification that they prefer as integrated but in need of an alternative source for its original set of ‘‘considered judgments.’’ Appealing to ‘‘consensus’’ about the common morality as this alternative source, they deploy a secondary threefold model of justification that in its present form is not only incomplete, as they acknowledge, but actually incoherent and dis-integrated. As such, their claim that the common morality is a source of principles and ideals that are universal, definitive, and authoritative is a matter of bare assertion. This practical state of affairs can be explained, I believe, by the professed theoretical differences between Beauchamp and Childress regarding rule utilitarianism and rule deontology [13].6 In basing their project on consensus, the authors seem to follow a tacit rule not to speak directly about fundamental philosophical differences. However, there is no way around the knotty problem of justification without addressing the relative status of experience and reason in making judgments of fact and value. This is an example where practice needs theory to negotiate an impasse. The authors’ appeal to consensus in practice does not solve their problem, nor does their definition of morality on the basis of such consensus. Additionally, this issue of relative status or relative value points to another problem worth mention: Principles of Biomedical Ethics lacks any explicit account of value at all.7 The claims that Beauchamp and Childress make under the heading of empirical justification and their disavowal of such claims under the heading of normative justification could be taken straight out of the opening pages of Mill’s Utilitarianism. Utilitarians look to observation and experience as the criterion of ethical judgment; deontologists, to a priori operations of reason [14]. While it is not pertinent or feasible 5

Preceding this remark, the authors cite Brandt [12] about practical agreement between utilitarian and deontological theorists on primary obligations in all seven editions of Principles of Biomedical Ethics [1, p. 384; 2, p. 362; 5, p. 41; 6, p. 45; 7, p. 110; 8, p. 376; 9, p. 42].

6

The facts under consideration speak against DeGrazia’s claim that pluralistic consensus itself is an adequate basis for theory [13].

7

The terms good and value no longer appear in the index after the second edition (1983), although derivative terms, such as good faith error and value of life, appear in some editions. The second is also the last edition in which the authors refer to persons as objects of respect under the heading of autonomy.

123

P. Daly

to review even a small cross section of the literature on deontology and utilitarianism here, a few remarks are in order. Ross, whom Beauchamp and Childress both acknowledge as a source of their common morality theory, analyzes these questions in terms of the right and the good and asserts that his distinction between the right and the morally good resolves problems not only in utilitarian but also in Kantian ethical theory [3]. Mill considers right to be a function of the good: what is right is determined by the best outcome [14]. Both Ross and Kant consider obligation to be determined according to reason; for both, right is a function of ought. Goodness is a separate matter. For Kant, only good will is good without qualification [15, §393]. For Ross, virtue, knowledge, well-grounded opinion, and pleasure are all good, but only virtue among these is morally good, since it qualifies someone in terms of right action [3, pp. 41–46]. Ross claims that Kant makes the notion of ‘‘right’’ dependent on the ‘‘good’’ in deducing the categorical imperative from the dictates of reason to act dutifully (in other words, from his notion of the good) [3, p. 156]. He maintains that his distinction between ‘‘morally obligatory’’ (or ‘‘right’’) and ‘‘morally good’’ is needed to avoid confusion, since desirability is too variable a basis or criterion for moral laws. For all this, Ross is still left with a divide between reason and will in his system, will operating at a level of experiential motivation that is inaccessible to reason. The function of will is continuous across various forms of motivation in determining what is morally good in reference to action, whereas the function of reason is continuous across purpose and effect in determining what is right. But reason and will are discontinuous and must be kept distinct. For Kant, on the other hand, the ‘‘will is nothing but practical reason’’ [15, §412]. The function of reason is continuous across speculative and practical reason [15, §391]; but reason as autonomous is discontinuous vis-a`-vis the determinate laws of nature. So, while Ross identifies a ‘‘gap’’ between reason and will (desire, motive, etc.), Kant identifies one between reason and nature. A similar gap separates Beauchamp and Childress’s accounts of empirical and normative justification. Taking turns standing on either side of the gap does not close it. Neither does a conception of morality that purports to bypass the difference and in the process makes ethics nothing but an intellectual game to justify whatever one wants.

Lonergan on justification and common sense Deontological theory emphasizes reasons for acting; utilitarian theory emphasizes results of acting; virtue theory emphasizes the actor who reasons and acts. The pragmatist operates in terms of common sense and tries to determine ‘‘what works’’ in the situation at hand. A major thrust of the development of human sciences over the past two centuries has been directed toward finding a way that correlates these various approaches to theory and practice in an explanatory fashion. Bernard Lonergan provides the resources to work out such a way, based on what he calls ‘‘generalized empirical method’’; he does so most thoroughly in his masterwork, Insight, published in 1957 [16] and subsequently in a series of lectures and essays leading up to his second major work, Method in Theology, published in 1972 [17]. Lonergan’s work is better known in Canadian bioethical circles than elsewhere [18–20]. In this section, I hope to demonstrate its potential value in rendering

123

Common sense and the common morality

more tractable the problems I have been discussing, and thus to bring his work to the attention of a wider audience. Lonergan calls his method empirical because it accepts judgments as true only if verified by data; and generalized because (1) it deals with both data of sense and data of consciousness, and (2) regarding the latter, ‘‘not only with the data within a single consciousness but also with the relation between different conscious subjects, between conscious subjects and their milieu or environment, and between consciousness and its neural basis’’ [16, p. 268]. For present purposes, I explain his method only insofar as needed to address the problems that surfaced in the first two sections of this paper.8 These include (1) the relation of reason, experience, and conception in ethical justification; (2) the relation of theory and practice; and (3) the need for a theory of value. Regarding justification, I work from Lonergan’s account of the structured operations of knowing and doing. Regarding theory and practice, I work from his account of common sense. Regarding values, I plan to work from his account of the ‘‘human good,’’ but to defer this discussion to a separate paper. Justification We have noted a duality in modern ethical theory, manifested variously as a split between reason and nature, reason and experience, and reason and will. We have also noted a threefold division in the authors’ rundown of ways to justify the common morality—empirical, conceptual, and normative—which roughly corresponds to the Kantian division of human cognition into three distinct faculties of sensibility, understanding, and reason. Lonergan’s theory of the structure of human knowing and doing addresses both of these divisions: a duality in human consciousness to which the tension between two types of knowing—sensible and intelligent—attests; and the functional integration of different levels of conscious operation in our knowing and doing that forms a structured whole. The structured operations of knowing and doing I begin with Lonergan’s account of cognitional structure. He is unlike empiricists who hold that experience gives direct access to what is real as something we can see and touch; he is unlike idealists who hold that understanding gives direct access to what is real in the act of intuition; and he is unlike rationalists who hold that judgment gives direct access to what is real as universal and subject to law. Lonergan, instead, holds that none of these operations in isolation provides direct access to reality or constitutes the full act of knowing. We are immediately oriented to reality by the wonder that drives these operations and we reach the full act of knowing, if and when we do so, by a discursive process that unites these three levels of cognitive operation as a structured whole. Further, we are immediately oriented toward the good and the right by something analogous. Just as our wonder gives rise to questions about reality, so also there is a desire within us that gives rise to questions about what is good and what we ought to do. When we answer such questions and choose to act, we integrate a higher 8

For a theory of health science and practice based on Lonergan’s philosophy, see [21].

123

P. Daly

level of conscious intentional operation that includes deliberation, evaluation, and decision [16, 17, 22].9 A key driver of this discursive process is the reciprocal action of inquiry and insight. At the level of experience, we awaken to ourselves and to the world around us. Wakefulness turns to wonder, opening on the next level at which questions arise that call for understanding: what is going on? Insight is the moment of ‘‘getting it,’’ of grasping a possible answer to the question, what? Next, and without instruction or provocation, a new question arises: is it so? And with it a new level of consciousness that calls for judgment: is my answer to what is going on really so? In order to answer this question, we have to turn to experience to specify the what in question, and to understanding to specify the answer in question. And we have to gain a further insight of reflective understanding in order to grasp that there is sufficient reason to answer the question for judgment: yes, something is the case, or no, it is not. Lonergan characterizes reflective insights as ‘‘grasp of the virtually unconditioned’’ [16, p. 573]. They operate on content borrowed from direct insights, the what in question for judgment: is what so? And they represent the term of reflective inquiry when all relevant questions about something being so have been met. This interplay of experience, direct insight, and reflective insight relates to the unity of cognitional structure, which integrates the content of experience with that of understanding and judgment. Similarly, this unity pertains to the subject who experiences, understands, and judges, and who is the same subject at all levels of intentional consciousness. Beyond the set of questions that concern what is going on, another type of question arises on another level: what are we to do? This is the level of decision where feelings take on a new significance. At this level we respond ‘‘intentionally’’ to what we feel and judge to be worth doing but is not yet done; and we move beyond our feelings about how things should be to objective judgments about whether or not those feelings are correct. This level of intentional consciousness opens out to a world of possibility in which we are called to be creative, both of who we are and what we make of the world in which we act. In order to answer the question of what to do, we have to consider possible courses of action. Determining what is possible depends on our knowledge of matters of fact about what is going on, what is likely to happen depending on circumstances, and our ability to enter into and affect the circumstances of what will happen. More importantly, it depends on how we evaluate data and options concerning these options, including our feelings of ‘‘intentional response’’ to value [17, p. 31]. This entails who we are as moral agents, the horizon or limit of what we consider to be possible, and the way that we prioritize values, especially when they conflict. These considerations enter into practical reflection and subsequent judgment of value, which then enter into decision and action [17, pp. 36-52]. Lonergan’s account of factual judgment and objectivity in Insight is one of his most important contributions to philosophy. He calls himself a critical realist, meaning that we can know reality, but that such knowing is not simply a matter of physical or 9

Lonergan’s account of cognitional structure and objectivity takes up the first 13 chapters of Insight [16]. He discusses the level of decision in chapter 18 of Insight and chapter 2 of Method in Theology [17]. His 1964 essay, ‘‘Cognitional Structure,’’ provides an excellent summary account of the unified structure of these levels [22].

123

Common sense and the common morality

intellectual looking. His account of value objectivity is less well developed.10 For the purpose of this paper, I identify three central features of this account. First, the basis of historical and transcultural critique is the invariant structured set of operations of human knowing and doing, in which experiencing, understanding, judging, and deciding play the prominent roles. Second, the proper functioning of these operations grounds a set of related norms, which each person can confirm for herself or himself: be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, and be responsible. Third, our knowledge and our ability to choose wisely develop incrementally and collaboratively in what Lonergan calls a selfcorrecting cycle of learning and doing. This process is intrinsically normative when it operates without impediment. I will say more about this below in relation to Lonergan’s account of common sense and bias, but note here that he bases transcultural critique and normativity on a universal process: human subjects acting authentically are the foundation of ethics.11 By way of contrast, Beauchamp and Childress base their theory on a set of universal concepts [1, p. 3] and claim that rules for moral action, as well as the moral status of subjects, are predetermined by these concepts [1, p. 412-415]. Dualism in human knowing Next, regarding duality, it is important to distinguish insight from ‘‘taking a look,’’ both sensibly and intellectually. Insight is neither perception nor conceptualization; it follows perception and precedes concept formation. We get insights all the time, but they are easily overlooked, for insight is ‘‘so simple and obvious that it seems to merit the little attention that commonly it receives’’ [16, p. 3]. Lonergan relates this to a duality in our knowing. Insight for Lonergan is an act of intelligence that ‘‘supervenes’’ [16, p. 3] on imaginative presentations or images in a way that ‘‘cannot be imagined’’ [16, p. 32]. The perfect circle that we come to know is never a circle that we see.12 Rather, when we understand the definition of a circle, it is by virtue of an insight that grasps an interlocking set of relations and terms—point, line, radii, equality, plane, circumference—necessary for the ‘‘perfect roundness’’ of a circle [16, p. 36]. Lonergan quotes Aristotle that ‘‘forms are grasped by mind in images’’ [15, p. 699].13 Without images, there can be no insight. But if insights are not understood as fully distinct from the images through which they arise, there results a confused realism in our knowing that is, in Lonergan’s words, ‘‘half animal and half human’’ [16, p. 22]. This happens so naturally and so readily that its effects resonate through the perennial disputes about the value of philosophy in the first place [30]. Some examples may help to bring this point home. Animal consciousness operates on a higher level than plant life in meeting biological needs, but much of animal living is nonconscious (digestion, excretion, growth, etc.). As Lonergan remarks, ‘‘It is as though the full-time business of living called forth consciousness 10

This is an area of active Lonergan scholarship; see [23–26].

11

‘‘[T]he foundation of the process is not the logic of the system, it is people performing the operations of insight, judgement and understanding at each step along the way’’ [27, pp. 64–65]. 12

Like Dewey, Lonergan does not subscribe to a ‘‘spectator theory of knowledge’’; see [28].

13

Also in Greek on title page, citing Aristotle [29, 431b2].

123

P. Daly

as a part-time employee’’ [16, p. 207].14 The infant deals with the flow of sensitive life largely at the level of meeting biological needs, much as the animal does, attending to what is real ‘‘out there’’ as meeting those needs. In addition, the infant operates on yet a higher level—that of human intelligence—asking and answering questions and so discovering that reality is more than something sensible ‘‘out there.’’ A little girl approaches a strange man who is playing with a kitten by the water at the beach. Her mother calls her back, reminding her that she knows better not to go to strangers. The little girl says, ‘‘But he has a kitten.’’ The man with a kitten and the ‘‘stranger’’ her mother warns about are not yet related in her mind; but someday, when they are, it will not be some abstract ‘‘stranger’’ that she avoids but the man with a kitten whom she better understands. The girl grows up to be a nurse or doctor or physical therapist and spends years learning about health care theory. When the time comes to see actual patients, she may think of them as bodies afflicted by diseases that are ‘‘really’’ defined by their abstract properties. Or she may see them as individuals whose concrete situation is illuminated by theoretical understanding. The first way of thinking is an example of what Lonergan means by confused realism, which obscures the difference between experience and reason in order to make sense of things and overlooks the acts of insight by which we intelligently pivot between the concrete and the abstract [16, p. 28]. This ‘‘oversight of insight’’ [16, p. 5], or lack of selfunderstanding, resurfaces as the ‘‘gap’’ between reason and experience that characterizes modern moral theory and epistemology and that underlies Beauchamp and Childress’s unresolved account of justifying their common morality theory.15 The second way of thinking is an example of what he means by critical realism, which understands abstraction as ‘‘enriching,’’ and ‘‘biological’’ and ‘‘intellectual’’ consciousness as ordered and complementary [16, pp. 112, 410]. Regarding Beauchamp and Childress’s proposal of three ways to justify the common morality, Lonergan denies that we can make judgments or justify positions at any one level of cognitive operation. Justification is possible only by integrating all three levels—experience, understanding, and judging—in the full act of knowing. Regarding the second level of cognition, the important point for Lonergan is that insight precedes and informs concepts. Beauchamp and Childress’s account of ‘‘conceptual justification’’ appears to restrict understanding and knowledge to the manipulation of concepts and to rely on a ‘‘spectator theory of knowledge,’’ which Lonergan discounts. 14 Aristotle makes a similar observation about the nonrational part of the human soul: ‘‘For this part and this capacity more than others seem to be active in sleep, and here the good and the bad person are least distinct; hence happy people are said to be no better off than miserable people for half their lives’’ [31, 1102b5-8]. 15 Lonergan spends the first eleven chapters of Insight [16] working out his account of insight and providing multiple examples that are meant to be exercises for one’s own appropriation that one does in fact have insights, and further, that these insights underlie the expression of what we know or surmise or enact. This culminates in chapter eleven with an invitation to self-appropriation of oneself as a knower who integrates experiencing, understanding, and judging in the act of self-knowledge. Short of such exercise of personal learning at some time present or past on the part of a reader, trying to make sense of Lonergan’s teaching is like learning to manipulate math symbols without understanding what is really going on.

123

Common sense and the common morality

Common sense Regarding the relation between theory and practice, I turn now to Lonergan’s account of common sense [16, pp. 196–269, 314–324]. Beauchamp and Childress hold that the norms of the common morality are universal [1, p. 3]. However, since their theoretical account remains hypothetical [1, p. 423], they continue to rely on practice as the basis for making this claim [1, p. 384]. This is a problem. Practice is directed to the particular; it cannot establish a claim to universality. Rather, the universal is the intended domain of classical science and requires theory for its justification. One can be sympathetic to the project of finding a basis for transcultural and historical critique, but a pragmatic foundation ultimately rules out this option [32]. For example, John Evans traces the historical development of the four principles of ‘‘bioethics’’ to the specific political context of regulating the practice of human research in the 1970s. It continues to work most effectively in this context, although even here, as Evans points out, its claims to objectivity are suspect since it routinely supports the agenda of biotechnology and pharmaceutical concerns [33]. Socrates, a key figure in the development of the Greek notion of science as opposed to the opinions of everyday practice, provoked the wrath of Athenian gentlemen by exposing their ignorance of what they were talking about when they talked about virtue and knowledge.16 Aristotle then developed an account of definition and science, in which he distinguished knowledge of things in relation to us and knowledge of things as they are by nature [36, 71b34–72a6]. In part because modern science no longer relies on the Aristotelian notion of nature, Lonergan reframes the Aristotelian distinction to one between knowing things in relation to us and knowing things as they are related to one another [16, p. 316].17 The first he calls description; the second, explanation. Common sense and theory are two complementary domains of knowledge, two complementary universes of discourse: common sense operates from the viewpoint of description; science or theory, from the viewpoint of explanation [16, p. 320]. Both, however, employ the same set of cognitive operations: common sense to know things as immediate and particular, theory to know things as invariant and in general. Yet, common sense has its generalizations and theory starts with description. Each operates according to the previously mentioned self-correcting cycle of learning, in which we ask questions, get insights, and put forth words or actions, leading to new situations that prompt new questions, new insights, and so forth [16, pp. 197–198]. Echoing the opening line of Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics, Lonergan says that all learning is a matter of ‘‘organic growth’’ out of previous learning [17, p. 237]. But according to one’s viewpoint and concerns, one asks different questions, seeks different answers, and relies on different criteria of relevance in making judgments. Common sense ultimately wants to know what is going on and what to do here and now. It works from a general store of knowledge that accumulates to a group, a nation, 16 In the Meno [34, 93a–94e], for instance, Socrates pointedly challenges Anytus by reminding him that such great Athenians as Themistocles, Pericles, and Thucydides could not teach virtue to their sons. This same Anytus shows up in the Apology [35, 23e] as one of the accusers of Socrates. 17 Breaking away from Aristotelian physics, Galileo explained motion by relating distance and time to one another in his study of moving objects, independent of his sense of the objects’ weight or ‘‘natural’’ position.

123

P. Daly

a culture, but it withholds judgment until it determines what it needs under present circumstances. Theory ultimately wants to know what things are and how they are related always and everywhere, other things being equal. It aims toward exact definition, not rules of thumb; principles, not proverbs; logical coherence or a new paradigm, not what works at the moment. The generalities of common sense are not an adequate basis for the generalization proper to theory: ‘‘Because within the range of human vision the earth is approximately flat, it does not follow that the integration of all such views will be a flat surface’’ [16, p. 322]. By the same token, the generalities of the common morality do not constitute a theory or justify its claim to speak in practice for ‘‘all persons committed to morality’’ [1, p. 3]. The self-correcting cycle of learning is a fundamental scheme in Lonergan’s account of historical development and decline. In facing questions, not settling for half-baked answers, and taking responsible action, the historical situation develops, as do the subjects carrying out these operations. In dodging or blocking questions, prejudging or judging rashly, and in making irresponsible decisions, the historical situation and the actors involved suffer decline. Take an example of development from the sixth edition (2009) of Principles of Biomedical Ethics, where Beauchamp and Childress consider arguments surrounding compulsory and voluntary screening for HIV infection in terms of the principle of respect for autonomy. They acknowledge that they changed their position to support voluntary selective screening of high risk groups when effective treatment for HIV-AIDS became available, since there was greater potential benefit to knowing one’s HIV status [2, pp. 298–300]. In the case of blood, sperm, and organ donation, which pose risks of harm to potential recipients ‘‘who cannot avoid those risks’’ [2, p. 300], they support compulsory selective screening.18 This specification of the general principle of respect for autonomy extends so far as one’s bodily integrity is maintained, but not so far as one’s bodily fluids or organs are gifted voluntarily to the public domain. In terms of the authors’ analysis, there is a tipping point between the private and public domains at which nonmaleficence takes priority over autonomy. In terms of Lonergan’s account of common sense, the authors’ change of mind on HIV screening is an example of the self-correcting cycle in the ‘‘subject’’ of common sense in response to developments in HIV research and treatment and epidemiology. In addition, common sense, as the commonly shared inventory of current insights and valuations, also developed in response to many cycles of basic science and clinical investigation, personal tragedy, and public dialogue, which led to better treatment and changes in the significance of testing. The moral significance of these developments is not limited to the adjustment in specifying and balancing which rules take precedence. Much more important for many people is the way that selfcorrecting cycles make it possible for them to make good decisions in the concrete circumstances in which they live their lives. Lonergan explains historical decline in terms of bias, which he defines as interference in the functioning of the self-correcting cycle. So long as we are open in 18

In the seventh edition (2013), the authors simply acknowledge that the rationale for HIV screening is ‘‘even stronger’’ since it stands to benefit the health of the individual as well as risk of transmission to others. They no longer use the terms ‘‘selective,’’ ‘‘universal,’’ ‘‘voluntary,’’ or ‘‘compulsory’’ in their analysis of public health surveillance [1, pp. 314–316].

123

Common sense and the common morality

asking and seeking answers to any and all questions pertaining to our situation, the selfcorrecting cycle is intrinsically normative. These include questions of ultimate meaning and goodness, as well as particular questions of responsibility to biosphere and neighbor. Bias is of four types: dramatic, individual, group, and general [16, pp. 214–231, 244–267]. Dramatic bias involves affective interference in the generation of images at the interface of neural demand functions and psyche, such as occurs in post-traumatic stress disorder. The other biases occur at the level of intentional consciousness. Individual bias blocks questions beyond those pertaining to the selfinterest of an individual. Group bias blocks questions beyond those pertaining to the interests of a group. Both individual and group bias are potentially correctable within the historical domain of common sense. General bias is not, since this results from the restriction imposed by common sense on questions that are not practical in the near or short-term. While Lonergan is in agreement with pragmatism in its emphasis on concrete human living, he criticizes the general bias of pragmatism in limiting its criterion of relevant questions to ‘‘what works.’’ Principles of Biomedical Ethics manifests a similar bias in relying on consensus in practice in the last analysis to justify the theory of the common morality. Its overarching view resembles a position that Lonergan calls ‘‘commonsense eclecticism’’ [16, pp. 441–445]. While lauding great thinkers of the past, practitioners of commonsense eclecticism urge modesty. Even if problems remain unsolved, individuals of genius have tried to solve them. Sound judgment in its hands has many postures: ‘‘[T]o bow to the necessary, to accept the certain, merely to entertain the probable, to distrust the doubtful, to disregard the merely possible, to laugh at the improbable, to denounce the impossible, and to believe what Science says’’ [16, p. 442]. For all that, its precepts for practical living are not empty, and in working out their implications, common sense eclecticism can draw on a list of proofs and answers to objections. What stands out in commonsense eclecticism is its security in making judgments while discounting the importance of understanding—as in the claim that the norms of the common morality are universal, even though we do not understand what that means or why that is so. What also stands out is that it does not understand the limits of common sense.

Conclusion To date, Beauchamp and Childress’s defense of the common morality as a framework of universal norms rests on a hypothetical account of ethical justification and an appeal to consensus in practice by people of goodwill to shore up the hypothesis. The authors’ vacillation in committing to a specific account of justification can be explained by the fundamental opposition in classical liberal theory regarding the priority of experience or reason as the criterion of ethical judgment. Their appeal to practical agreement about the common morality as a basis for transcultural critique is fundamentally mistaken, as is their suggestion that universal and necessary laws can be justified by naturalized empirical method. Bernard Lonergan’s account of the structured operations of human knowing and doing supplies the invariant basis for transcultural critique that Beauchamp and Childress seek. His theory can be verified empirically, in terms of an expanded

123

P. Daly

empiricism that includes both data of sense and data of consciousness; that is, data related to our experiencing, understanding, judging, and deciding as not only intelligible, but intelligent. That expanded empirical field allows Lonergan to confirm that the self-correcting process of learning and doing underlies the common morality of common sense. Common sense and theory, like experience and reason, are integrated within this account. This integration does not occur on a conceptual basis in terms of universal rules, norms, intuitions, etc. Rather, it occurs on the basis of a universal process operative in all human deliberation and history—the selfcorrecting process of human action based on the invariant structure of human knowing and doing. The significance of this account extends beyond the field of bioethics. By virtue of the explanatory correlation of reason and experience, as well as theory and common sense, Lonergan provides a method by which to resolve the impasse between utilitarian and deontological accounts of ethics generally. Finally, judgments of value are prominent among the data of consciousness that Lonergan identifies in the self-correcting process. Following the second edition (1983), Principles of Biomedical Ethics lacks any explicit account of the role of value in ethics. I will return to this subject in a separate paper. Acknowledgments The author wishes to thank Patrick Byrne for his expert guidance in the study of Lonergan and at all stages in writing this paper. He also wishes to thank JLA Garcia for his careful analysis of multiple drafts and both Anne Kane and Paul Lauritzen for their helpful comments on recent drafts of the paper.

References 1. Beauchamp, Tom L., and James F. Childress. 2013. Principles of biomedical ethics, 7th ed. New York: Oxford University Press. 2. Beauchamp, Tom L., and James F. Childress. 2009. Principles of biomedical ethics, 6th ed. New York: Oxford University Press. 3. Ross, W.D. 1930. The right and the good. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 4. Beauchamp, Tom L. 2005. The origins and evolution of the Belmont report. In Belmont revisited: Ethical principles for research with human subjects, ed. James.F. Childress, Eric M. Meslin, and Harold T. Shapiro, 12–25. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. 5. Beauchamp, Tom L., and James F. Childress. 1979. Principles of biomedical ethics, 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press. 6. Beauchamp, Tom L., and James F. Childress. 1989. Principles of biomedical ethics, 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press. 7. Beauchamp, Tom L., and James F. Childress. 1993. Principles of biomedical ethics, 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press. 8. Beauchamp, Tom L., and James F. Childress. 2001. Principles of biomedical ethics, 5th ed. New York: Oxford University Press. 9. Beauchamp, Tom L., and James F. Childress. 1983. Principles of biomedical ethics, 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press. 10. Turner, Leigh. 2003. Zones of consensus and zones of conflict: Questioning the ‘‘common morality’’ presumption in bioethics. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 13: 193–218. 11. Beauchamp, Tom L. 2003. A defense of the common morality. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 13: 259–274. 12. Brandt, Richard B. 1968. Toward a credible form of utilitarianism. In Contemporary utilitarianism, ed. M. Bayles, 143–186. Garden City: Doubleday Anchor Books. 13. DeGrazia, David. 2003. Common morality, coherence, and the principles of biomedical ethics. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 13: 219–230. 14. Mill, John Stuart. 2001. Utilitarianism. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company Inc.

123

Common sense and the common morality 15. Kant, Immanuel. 1993. Grounding for the metaphysics of morals. Trans. James W. Ellington, 3rd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. 16. Lonergan, Bernard. 1992. Insight. Vol. 3 of Collected works of Bernard Lonergan, eds. Robert Doran and Frederick Crowe. Toronto: Toronto University Press. 17. Lonergan, Bernard. 1972. Method in theology. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 18. Doucet, Hubert. 2000. Historical context: Deliberation and methodology in bioethics. In Ethical deliberation in multiprofessional health care teams, ed. Hubert Doucet, Jean-Marc Larouche, and Kenneth R Melchin. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press. 19. Sullivan, William F. 2005. Eye of the heart: Knowing the human good in the euthanasia debate. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 20. Monsour, H.Daniel, ed. 2007. Ethics and the new genetics: An integrated approach. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 21. Daly, Patrick R. 2009. A theory of health science and the healing arts based on the philosophy of Bernard Lonergan. Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 30: 147–160. 22. Lonergan, Bernard. 1988. Cognitional structure. In Collection, vol. 4 of Collected works of Bernard Lonergan, ed. Frederick E. Crowe and Robert M. Doran, 205–221. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 23. Byrne, Patrick H. Forthcoming. The ethics of discernment. 24. Cronin, Brian. 2006. Value ethics: A Lonergan perspective. Nairobi: Consolata Institute of Philosophy Press. 25. Dunne, Tad. 2010. Doing better: The next revolution in ethics. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press. 26. Fitterer, Robert J. 2008. Love and objectivity in virtue ethics: Aristotle, Lonergan, and Nussbaum on emotions and moral insight. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 27. Melchin, Kenneth. 1998. Living with other people. Toronto: Novalis. 28. Shea, William M. 1991. From classicism to method: John Dewey and Bernard Lonergan. American Journal of Education 99: 298–319. 29. Aristotle. 1956. De anima, ed. W. D. Ross. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 30. Lonergan, Bernard. 1993. The theory of philosophic differences. In Topics in education, vol. 10 of Collected works of Bernard Lonergan, ed. Robert M. Doran and Frederick E. Crowe, 158–192. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 31. Aristotle. 1999. Nichomachean ethics. Trans. Terence Irwin. 2nd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. 32. Moreno, Jonathan D. 1998. Bioethics is a naturalism. In Pragmatic bioethics, ed. Glen McGee, 5–17. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. 33. Evans, John H. 2012. The history and future of bioethics: A sociological view. New York: Oxford University Press. 34. Plato. 1961. Meno. In Plato: The collected dialogues, ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, 353–384. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 35. Plato. 1961. Apology. In Plato: The collected dialogues, ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, 3–26. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 36. Aristotle. 1994. Posterior analytics, 2nd ed. Trans. Jonathan Barnes. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

123