Blog for February 2025: Ethical Universals | Literary Universals Project

LITERARY UNIVERSALS WEBLOG: A series of informal observations and conjectures aimed at fostering more reflection on and discussion about cross-cultural patterns in literature.

Patrick Colm Hogan, University of Connecticut

In previous writing, I have taken pains to stress that the Literary Universals Project concerns descriptive, not normative universals. Thus, articles on the site may discuss universals of ethics. But those universals concern the description of norms, and do not have prescriptive force—just as the articles on religion (e.g., my last blog) address features common to religions, not which God or gods are the right ones. Consistent with these points, in Literature and Moral Feeling, I maintained that different ethical attitudes may be understood first of all as the setting of parameters, regarding some fundamental ethical principles. For example, the “scope parameter” governs who our ethical concerns favor. Basically, there are two values for this parameter. They are, roughly, a setting which prioritizes ethical obligation based or not based on the target’s social proximity to us—due either to a personal bond or to an identity category (usually with a further hierarchization of the former [affection-based relations] over the latter [identity-based relations]). In other words, one fundamental orientation given by this principle would prioritize the interests of relatives and friends over those of strangers, perhaps even excluding strangers from one’s ethical universe. Alternatively, one might not have any such prioritization, treating everyone as having the same ethical worth independent of one’s own emotional or identity-based relation to them. (Insofar as one cannot benefit everyone in the world one might prioritize cases based on such criteria as the urgency of a target’s need or the degree to which one’s aid is likely to be beneficial, but I count these as pragmatic decisions, not as part of one’s fundamental, ethical orientation.) Given the set of fundamental, orientational ethical principles (given by parameter settings), one may further concretize one’s ethical beliefs by specifying those orientational principles through narrative prototypes, such as heroic or romantic narratives. These narrative prototypes include predominant emotions. These emotions also serve to specify the orientational principles and to characterize different “styles” of ethical behavior.

For example, it seems clear then my own style of ethical evaluation is attachment-based, oriented toward romantic and familial narrative prototypes (both of which centrally involve attachment bonds). I am not certain exactly how to categorize Peter Singer’s ethical orientation–either fundamentally, emotionally, or in terms of narrative prototypes. (Given the frequency with which he recurs to cases of famine, hunger may be the motivational impulse that dominates his style of ethical thought, though it may also be grief or grief avoidance, as his examples commonly concern fatalities. Both are associated with narrative prototypes.) But it is fairly clear that it differs from my own. Consider for example Singer’s discussion of what I term the scope parameter. I agree with Singer that within limits we have greater moral obligations to some of those who are close to us than to people who are comparably situated in life but who are not close to us. For example, we have greater obligations to feed our own children than to feed hungry children elsewhere who are strangers to us. Moreover, I largely agree with Singer’s reasoning on this issue. However, some years ago when I discussed this issue in What Literature Teaches Us About Emotion, I relied centrally on a rather different reason (see 236).

The point will be clearer if I return to the example that I used at the time. It’s a standard sort of ethical conundrum used by philosophers in discussing ethical issues. As such, it has the usual problems of such philosophical fictions or anecdotes (e.g., it asks us to assume certainty about outcomes when in real life we would never have such certainty–a point that renders problematic virtually all our intuitions about suitable responses in such circumstances; I have discussed this in Literature and Moral Feeling [see 16 and 53]). Specifically, I took Mengzi’s example of a child who is about to fall into a well and drown an example also taken up by Peter Singer. The dilemma in this case is that by an unfortunate coincidence my own child has fallen into a well at the same time. It is simply stipulated as part of the dilemma that I cannot save both children. The question is–which should I save? (Note that this question arises no matter how one set one’s scope parameter. I have set mine to the egalitarian value, but would favor saving one’s own child in this scenario.) The first thing to say here is that the crucial point is that one needs to save one of the children, not waste time reflecting on fine points of ethical theory. As one’s preference will lie with one’s own child it seems likely that one will be more diligent in pursuing the rescue of one’s own child and thus the one will be more likely to succeed in rescuing one’s own child. In contrast, attempting to rescue the other child may lead one to feel distracted and double-minded, which may in turn inhibit one’s efforts and result in one becoming more likely to fail. The second thing to say here is that whichever choice is better by the lights of some absolute moral theory, we should presumably not blame the parent who rescues his or her own child, especially given the division of labor that assigns the role—of protecting this particular child–to the parent. This is not to say that there are no circumstances in which a parent who saves his or her own child would be blameworthy. For example, having saved one’s own child, one should immediately try to save the other child, even if that appears impossible. A parent who did not do this would be blameworthy. (This is one place where the certainty posited in the “thought experiment” may lead us astray, for we are very unlikely to have absolute certainty that saving both children is impossible.)

Though Singer invokes only the second reason (in an admittedly very different form of the division of labor argument, drawn from Goodin in his case), both seem to me to be the same sort of general, rational reason that Singer does invoke. In contrast, perhaps the most compelling reason for me to favor saving one’s own child in this scenario is very different. Specifically, I imagine the final moments of the two children before they drown. Both are overwhelmed with panic. But one’s own child would also feel a sort of grief at being abandoned by one of his or her primary attachment objects (i.e., his or her parents), thus a sense of rejection bordering on betrayal. When I find this concern the most compelling reason for saving one’s own child, it is an instance of my stylistic preference for attachment-based ethical reasoning. I should also point out that my reasons for preferring one’s own child in cases of this sort is generalizable and does not rely on prioritizing the near and dear over strangers, as such. Rather the reasons I have given–that one is more likely to succeed in saving one’s own child, that the social division of labor assigns one that role implicitly, and that one’s own child is likely to suffer more if one does not try to rescue him or her–do not presuppose that it is in general a superior policy to favor Individuals one likes or with whom one shares an identity category. Indeed, in other situations the same principles could favor the stranger over one’s own child.

In Literature and Moral Feeling, I draw on a range of areally and genetically unrelated literatures in making my arguments about fundamental, ethical orientation, etc. In consequence, I believe these points constitute plausible universals—first, ethical, then literary (due to the presence of ethical concerns in the literatures of various traditions). But note that they are descriptive and not normative universals. In other words, the universal principle is only that people’s moral attitudes evidence these sorts of inclination—specifically, a fundamental orientation, further specified through a preferred emotion and a prototypical narrative structure. Nothing in what I have said implies that my particular ethical preferences are right. Indeed, even if they are shared in great detail across cultures, they do not constitute a normative universal in that it would be possible for a given attitude to be shared even by all people yet still have no moral force. This can be seen by the simple fact that if Nazi propaganda had succeeded and literally everyone adopted fascist beliefs that would not make such beliefs normatively valid.

Of course, to some extent this conclusion is trivial given my contention that there are no objective facts about norms—ethical, aesthetic, or otherwise. If I’m correct, then no maxim has moral force per se. Beliefs only have motivational force for the individuals who hold those beliefs. But we can have rational dialogue about these beliefs, disputing for example the degree to which they are coherent, the degree to which they adopt factual presuppositions that are or are not plausible, and so on. Given this, it does seem possible to marshal evidence of descriptive universality toward the goal of defending a particular normative belief not as correct in and of itself but as common, as shared, across different traditions or cultures. Again, this does not give the belief in question normative force. However, it does give us a way of arguing that “cultural difference” does not constitute a definitive reason for disallowing one’s belief in a particular norm or one’s commitment to that norm. In short, it disables the cultural relativist claim that one’s ethically normative beliefs are rendered invalid by vast differences in culture. The point holds–perhaps even more strongly–if one does indeed accept the objective existence of moral norms, as does Singer (see, for example, “How”). I say this because if norms do indeed have an objective existence, then it seems plausible that there would be some way in which we could find out what those norms are. It also seems plausible that people from different traditions and cultures would all have access to those norms. Thus, the objective norms would be likely to appear among individuals—perhaps a minority of such individuals–in a variety of cultures.

In keeping with these points, then, it seems that literary, ethical, and other universals though descriptive can indeed have bearing on normative principles, whether one holds that moral norms have an objective existence or rejects that belief. Indeed, in One World, Singer does make a case for the normative value of reciprocity based in part on the cross-cultural recurrence of beliefs in the ethical value of reciprocity. Singer notes that “Some aspects of ethics can fairly be claimed to be universal, or very nearly so.” Specifically, he writes that “Reciprocity, at least, seems to be common to ethical systems everywhere” (citing Gouldner 171). He goes on to point out that “the notion of reciprocity may have served as the basis for the “Golden Rule”–treat others as you would like them to treat you [or, alternatively, do not treat others as you would not like them to treat you].” He then points out that, in the decade that preceded his writing of One World, there was “an attempt to draw up a ‘Declaration of a Global Ethic,’ a statement of principles that are universally accepted across all cultures.” As eventually approved, that declaration includes the Golden Rule, identified as “the irrevocable, unconditional [ethical] norm for all areas of life” (quoting from Swidler). This is in keeping with the fact that “the Golden Rule can be found, in differing formulations, in a wide variety of cultures and religious teachings, including, in roughly chronological order, those of Zoroaster, Confucius, Mahavira (the founder of Jainism), the Buddha, the Hindu epic Mahabharata, the Book of Leviticus, Hillel, Jesus, Mohammed, Kant, and many others” (Singer, citing Swidler 19-21).

Something along the lines of the golden rule does then appear to be at least a statistical universal. To have this status it must be in some degree convincing to a range of people across traditions. It does not seem to me however that this convincing quality is a matter of reciprocity. To my ear reciprocity recalls tit for tat behavior–doing unto others as they have done unto you whether that doing is good or ill. Indeed, it seems to me that the golden rule is directly opposed to reciprocity in this sense. (Singer briefly suggests this, when he writes that, by the golden rule, one’s behavior is “not necessarily related to how someone actually has treated you in the past.” But in the same sentence he refers to this as a form of “reciprocity,” which seems to me inconsistent with the qualification just quoted, even allowing for the weakening of that qualification via the phrase, “not necessarily.”) Rather the golden rule seems to me consistent with three inclinations that I see as fundamental to our moral sensibilities—again, across cultures. These are 1) our inclination to form ethical norms which we see as universalizable and exceptionless (ethical conflicts are a problem because both alternatives retain their moral force, so that one must act unethically, no matter what one does); 2) our inclination to empathize with others particularly in their suffering and for that empathy to give rise to motivations, specifically motivations to ameliorate that suffering (I call these “non-egocentric motivations”); 3) our inclination to identify a subset of those non-egocentric, empathic motivations with the ethical norms (of #1) at least insofar as they satisfy further cognitively specified principles of consistency, etc. (e.g., insofar as they satisfy utilitarian or Kantian requirements, depending on our preferred method of determining ethical norms).

I should emphasize once again however that this does not provide evidence for the validity of a particular ethical norm. It merely tells us that advocates of a particular norm–the norm embodied in the golden rule—are likely to find allies in a range of other traditions. Indeed, even if one does not find allies already formed in another society, the ubiquity of the golden rule suggests that some members of other societies are likely to be open to the idea of the golden rule, to be convinced by its arguments in its favor, and so on. Finally, I should say that this does not mean that something like the golden rule is innate. Something like the notion of a moral norm–a universalizable norm that is also exceptionless (in the sense just mentioned)—may be innate, though it may be derivable from principles of rule abstraction and generalization, along with the non-egocentric, but motivated nature of ethics, which I take to be definitional; a type of act (e.g., eating an orange) may be perfectly fine, but it just is not ethics if we act out of self-interest or act randomly. I am more inclined to think that the capacity to empathize spontaneously or effortfully—indeed, the regular practice of empathizing in both ways– is part of of our innate nature. Given these two components however it seems to me that their synthesis–making ethical norms into instances of non-egocentric—thus, empathic–motivation is virtually inevitable in a certain number of cases. The fact that it does not occur in all cases is evidence that the golden rule is not innate per se. However, the components are there and are likely to be synthesized when appropriate circumstances

Future Directions

The implications of the preceding comments for a future study seem straightforward. We should seek other commonalities across genetically and aerially unrelated ethical traditions. This task was facilitated in the case of the golden rule by some close parallels in phrasing which made the commonalities more obvious. Other cases are likely to be more concealed, discoverable only after interpretation of superficially different phrases. This interpretation is almost necessarily culturally nuanced. It seems to be a common belief in culture studies today that culturally sensitive interpretation is virtually guaranteed to show great differences between cultures. I seem to be almost alone in my experience that the more I learned about a culture the more similarities I see between us and them and the fewer significant or “deep” differences I can discern. In any case, acquiring such cultural knowledge and sensitivity should not discourage us. Not only is it instrumentally valuable in revealing ethical universals; it also constitutes a worthwhile pursuit in and of itself.

I suspect that there are many different ethically normative tendencies that re-appear (with variations) across traditions, just as there are different ethically normative tendencies that appear in Western ethical tradition. But I should stress once again that, though the content of these will be normative–that is after all the point–they will nonetheless be descriptive universals. Indeed, insofar as they are incompatible with one another we could not take them all to be normative as that would lead us to commit ourselves to contradictory “ethical” behaviors. I rather suspect that we will find for the most part the usual alternatives for moral adjudication that we find in our own culture. Of course these will be formulated differently, just as different forms of consequentialism or deontology are formulated differently in the West. Moreover, those differences in formulation are likely to be significant and indeed valuable, for they are likely to give us different perspectives on fundamental issues in ethics—again, as we find with different theories in the West. But at the same time recognizing the universality of at least some fundamental beliefs about normative ethics (and, again, I suspect that “some” greatly understates the case) will reassure us that it is indeed possible to engage in productive, rational dialogue across and not only within cultural traditions. Indeed, I suspect that, if we are able to set aside our (largely content-neutral) biases derived from in- versus out-group divisions, we will find that we are no less likely to reach fundamental agreement with members of alien cultures than with members of our own. Indeed, this may ultimately lead us to realize that, in many ways, we are not justified in our unreflective categorization of one culture as “alien” and another as “our own.”