Lustig B Andrew
Davidson College, Davidson, North Carolina, USA.
J Med Philos. 2018 Nov 17;43(6):631-649. doi: 10.1093/jmp/jhy027.
In a spirit of critical appreciation, this essay challenges several core aspects of the critique of secular morality and the defense of Orthodox Christianity offered by H. Tristram Engelhardt in After God. First, I argue that his procedurally driven approach to a binding morality based solely on a principle of permission leaves morality without any substantive definition in general terms, in ways that are both conceptually problematic and also at odds with Engelhardt's long-standing distinction between non-malevolence and beneficence. Second, I question the accuracy or adequacy of Engelhardt's critique of the Enlightenment project for his unwarranted privileging of a particular version of Enlightenment thinking at the expense of other Enlightenment perspectives less amenable to Engelhardt's working generalizations. Third, I challenge the theoretical cogency of Engelhardt's insistence on the ubiquity and intractability of moral controversies and his depiction of moral strangers and moral friends as, in effect, mutually exclusive terms. Finally, I question Engelhardt's embrace of a divine command model of ethics as the appropriate resolution of Euthyphro's dilemma and suggest that there may be intermediate approaches to the usual starkly drawn contrasts between divine command and naturalist accounts.
本着批判性欣赏的精神，本文对H. 特里斯特拉姆·恩格尔哈特在《上帝之后》中对世俗道德的批判以及东正教基督教的辩护的几个核心方面提出了挑战。首先，我认为他仅基于许可原则对具有约束力的道德采取的程序驱动方法，使得道德在总体上没有任何实质性定义，这在概念上存在问题，也与恩格尔哈特长期以来对非恶意和善意的区分不一致。其次，我质疑恩格尔哈特对启蒙运动计划的批判的准确性或充分性，因为他无端地偏袒一种特定版本的启蒙思想，而牺牲了其他不太符合恩格尔哈特一般性概括的启蒙观点。第三，我质疑恩格尔哈特坚持道德争议的普遍性和棘手性以及他将道德陌生人与道德朋友实际上描绘为相互排斥的术语的理论说服力。最后，我质疑恩格尔哈特接受神圣命令伦理模型作为对欧绪弗洛困境的适当解决方案，并认为在神圣命令与自然主义解释之间通常鲜明的对比可能存在中间途径。
