Perspective illuminates ethics across disciplines

Rather than a specialized approach to a set of philosophical questions or political issues, ethics presents a way of evaluating choices in an open society. The tools to navigate choices may involve a variety of expertise and disciplinary specialties, but these are also connected simply by the physical world where they are put into practice.

Piers Stephens, professor in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences department of philosophy, explains this all quite naturally – as he has to thousands of UGA students over a career that spans nearly two decades.

“My core interests have been the concepts of nature, in terms of freedom and the flourishing of the individual,” Stephens said, in a recent interview. “Some people tend to react strongly to the word individualism because it conjures this 1980s ‘greed is good’ type idea, because that language has been so thoroughly taken over. But it doesn’t need to be like that.”

A discussion about ethics is much broader than any single question and begins with developing a fundamental framework about ethical behavior and decisions.

Whether debates about individualism concern expression or consumption and possession, the reality of granting individual liberties presents a critical entrée into larger questions.

Rather than isolated instances of interpretation even on a broad subject area like environmentalism or a narrow question like support for the death penalty, ethical questions are even more far-reaching. 

“My master’s degree studies in political philosophy were basically looking at the essential rise of liberalism in the broad sense, the rise of forms of society which placed the liberty of the individual first, followed by questions of which liberties matter, how are they sliced up and how are they arranged.”

Stephens posits such questions as a great philosophical challenge. “If one believes a certain way, then begins to grapple with the implications of those beliefs, it may test those beliefs – if you don’t like where it’s going, what’s showing you? What’s wrong with the argument? Is there anything wrong with the argument?”

Great questions for a curious mind willing to grapple with unknown outcomes. For students today or Wales in the 1970’s, an illuminating succession of questions and challenges represent an intellect in ascent.

“One of my major figures is William James, who recognized that there is no one size fits all,” Stephens said. “You’re not going to get to any final conclusion in ethics or politics because the human condition will always develop, and as it advances it throws up new challenges. In this respect, ethics is just like other areas of inquiry of knowledge, it’s like science. However well the working theory covers all the evidence we’ve got so far, it may not necessarily cover the information we get tomorrow. So, one always must be open to the possibility of modifications.”

In an era of continuing modifications – from artificial intelligence to shifting notions of environmental stewardship and tradeoffs, ethics connects in multiple ways.

One is referred to as extensionism, in which existing theories and are simply extended in some way. 

Another is to think of ethics in terms in trying to find some new forms of language, or new forms of consideration whereby we might take them into account. “For instance, one of my grad students is very interested in panpsychism, the idea that everything in some sense might have a spark of mentality. If you start thinking of the world of being in some sense a living world, then arguably that’s likely to motivate your ethical frameworks in a different way.”

Yet another way is to try and continuously rethink the basis of the moral order – to think of human beings in the context of moral anthropology, as fitting into our environments. “And in doing so, trying to construct, as Native Americans did, relational models of how we should fit in with other creatures,” he said.

“Rather than extending our existing models, we rethink the basis of the models themselves.”

In any of the cases, Stephens’ work is nestled in the reality of teaching students to think, rather than what to think.

“Some ask how do you change people’s minds? Well, you can’t. People must go and change their own minds,” he said. “What you can do is give them the evidence and the arguments and see what they do with it. Other minds are not yours to change! But education is about giving them new ways to look at the world around them. And broadening the range of their possible understanding.”

In this context, an ethical framework provides a forum for difficult questions.

“One of the issues here is that ethics do affect all of us,” Stephens said. “There’s a tendency to think of it as niche or attached to particular social duties. Just going out into nature to sit, to think, to draw a sketch or two, write a poem, whatever it is, those seem to be the manifestations of freedom that don’t really concern other people too much.”

The more consumptive an action is, or the more it directly affects someone else’s direct interest, then it becomes more a source of how you must think about engaging with it ethically. “Should you be buying this? Should be consuming that? Should you be helping person A rather than person B?  What should the attitude be toward helping fellow citizens given that you can’t help all of them? Those are all valid ethical questions, and they affect all of us.” 

“Ultimately, ethics should be as much about enabling as it is about understandings and prohibitions.” Philosophy is not a theory, à la Wittgenstein, but an activity.

Inset image: Photo of Piers Stephens, Peabody Hall.