Abstract
Paul Ramsey’s ethics certainly is Christian. But it is also more pointedly a Christian deontological ethics. For example, Ramsey claims, “[c]ertainly Christian ethics is a deontological ethic, not an ‘ethic of the good.’” In the context of his early writings, however, Ramsey’s characterization of the deontological bent of Christian ethics is frustratingly murky. Specifically, the analytic distinctions he makes are not sufficiently stark. In order to understand why Ramsey holds that Christian ethics ought to be construed as deontological, I will proceed as follows. I will first reconstruct Ramsey’s arguments from Basic Christian Ethics to appreciate his foundational claims about the Christian moral life. I will then turn to his later writings, focusing especially on those about medical ethics, that lend clarity to his earlier work. These later arguments, I will argue, help us better appreciate Ramsey’s earlier claims in favor of Christian deontology.
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Notes
- 1.
For an analytically minded overview of these debates, see Outka (1972).
- 2.
Whereas the debates in normative and practical ethics in philosophy departments are dominated by consequentialists and deontologists, the situation in Christian (and religious) ethics is different. Because of the work being done by Joseph Fletcher and Richard McCormick, much mid-twentieth-century Christian ethics was concerned with what is variously called casuistry, situational ethics, or procedural ethics. Since the publication of Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue (1981), however, a sea change has occurred, with various Christian ethicists, for example, Hauerwas (1983) , O’Donovan (1994) , and Porter (1990), focusing on narratival and virtue ethics. Whereas many earlier ethicists were concerned with the implications of Christian commitments for practical dilemmas, virtue ethicists are concerned with what it means to live an authentically Christian life. On this change, see Hollowell (2015, 4–8). This observation neither suggests that virtue ethicists are unconcerned with practical dilemmas nor suggests that work in Christian practical ethics is no longer being done.
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For example, in one of his earliest publications, John Rawls reviews Ramsey’s Basic Christian Ethics. After noting the vagueness about the criterion Ramsey draws upon for Christian ethics, Rawls writes, “I fail to see how Christian ethics, on Mr. Ramsey’s interpretation, either transcends what is vaguely called natural law, common sense, and other ordinary ways of reasoning, or how it adds anything to these when we are concerned with how to make (not motive for making) just decisions where, as nearly always, there is more than one neighbor” (1951, 5; cited in Gregory 2007, 202n32).
- 6.
A few recent books, Carnahan (2010, 2017) and Hollowell (2015), have focused on the implications of Ramsey’s thought for practical ethics, especially politics and war. I view my effort here as complementary to theirs: I want to make clearer Ramsey’s normative commitments such that they may be fruitfully retrieved to think about Christian ethics in general and such issues in particular.
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On the continuing importance of studying canonical figures in the history of religious ethics, see Lewis (2014).
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For example, “justice” is a topic of attention for both moral and political philosophers and religious ethicists. But whereas religious ethicists have been attentive to work in moral and political philosophy, Paul Weithman notes, “philosophers have been far less ready to return the favor by attending to work in religious ethics and moral theology—despite the fact that some of this work expresses deep reservations about liberalism and about rights in particular. If these reservations do attract attention, it is too often perfunctory and ends in dismissal without any serious attempt to come to grips with the deeper motivations of the criticism. The results are misunderstanding and missed opportunities to converse across disciplinary boundaries that are far more permeable than disciplinary literature sometimes suggest” (2009, 179).
- 10.
In contrast to Ramsey, consider William Frankena’s interpretation of the two great commandments. For Frankena, the first great commandment is a religious one while the second is a moral one (1963, 44–45). For Ramsey, there is an intimate connection between the first two commandments, with the first great commandment being lexically prior to the second, whereas for Frankena the two can be distinguished. I highlight this conflicting interpretation because (i) Ramsey and Frankena were contemporaries and (ii) Frankena made important contributions to the study of all branches of ethics.
- 11.
Outka (1972, 10).
- 12.
On the distinction between Greek philosophy and Christianity, Ramsey writes, “[t]he full particularity of neighborly love, finding the neighbor out by first requiring nothing of him, should not be reduced to universal brotherhood or the cosmopolitan spirit. This is stoicism, not Christianity” (BCE, 94). And on the distinction between communitarianism and Christianity, Ramsey comments on the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10.25–37). In the parable, the lawyer asks Jesus, “who is my neighbor?” In response, Jesus inverts the question, asking the lawyer, “[w]hich … was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” “What the parable does is to demand,” Ramsey writes, “that the questioner revise entirely his point of view, reformulating the question first asked so as to require neighborliness of himself rather than anything of his neighbor” (BCE, 93).
- 13.
Cf. Frankena, who writes: “[m]orality is made for man, not man for morality” (1963, 139). Cf. Matt. 12.1–8.
- 14.
Cf. Jackson (2003, 10), for whom neighbor-love is “a metavalue, that virtue without which one has no substantive access to other goods, moral or nonmoral.”
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Cf. Kant on hypothetical and categorical imperatives. In the Groundwork, while formulating what counts as a categorical imperative, Kant distinguishes between hypothetical and categorical imperatives. “When I think of a hypothetical imperative in general I do not know beforehand what it will contain; I do not know this until I am given the condition. But when I think of a categorical imperative I know at once what it contains. For, since the imperative contains, beyond the law, only the necessity that the maxim be in conformity with this law, while the law contains no condition to which it would be limited, nothing is left with which the maxim of action is to conform but the universality of a law as such; and this conformity alone is what the imperative properly represents” (Kant 1996, 73; emphases original).
- 16.
On establishing decision procedures in ethics, Rawls asks: “[d]oes there exist a reasonable decision procedure which is sufficiently strong, at least in some cases, to determine the manner in which competing interests should be adjudicated, and, in instances of conflict, one interest given preference over another; and, further, can the existence of this procedure, as well as its reasonableness, be established by rational methods of inquiry?” (1999b, 1). To establish such a procedure, Rawls holds, “we are concerned with discovering reasonable criteria which, when we are given a proposition, or theory, together with the empirical evidence for it, will enable us to decide the extent to which we ought to consider to be true so in ethics we are attempting to find reasonable principles which, when we are given a proposed line of conduct and the situation in which it is to be carried out and the relevant interests it effects, will enable us to determine whether or not we ought to carry it out and hold it to be just and right” (1999b, 2). David Little (1974) attempts to explicate Ramsey’s decision procedure. I will turn to his attempt later.
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On the distinction between (improper) selfishness and (proper) self-love, see Adams (1999, 137–138).
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For a textually grounded exploration into the relationship between neighbor-love and heavenly treasure, see Anderson (2014).
- 20.
In developing his own version of political contractualism, Rawls writes: “[m]y aim is to present a conception of justice which generalizes and carries to a higher level of abstraction the familiar theory of the social contract as found, say, in Locke, Rousseau, and Kant” (1999a, 10). Scanlon’s contractualism focuses on the moral domain. However, his view “is close to John Rawls’s as presented in A Theory of Justice,” with differences arising “mainly from Rawls’s concentration on the justice of basic social institutions” (1998, 375n1).
- 21.
On the distinction between Hobbesian and Scanlonian contractualism, see Kumar (2001). Hobbesian accounts of moral reasoning, on the one hand, “take as their intended audience those who initially do not take themselves to have an interest in complying with moral standards, and tries to show how it is that compliance with moral standards better advances an individual’s non-moral interests than non-compliance with such standards.” Scanlonian contractualism, on the other hand, “is in no way concerned with presenting non-moral reasons […] to those who do not recognize moral standards to be authoritative guides to proper reasoning and conduct, as to why it is in their interest to adopt such standards as authoritative. It is a characterization of moral reasoning that is firmly in the tradition of taking as its intended audience those who already recognize morality to be authoritative for them in their practical deliberations” (2001, x). Cf. Rawls (1999a, 211, 1996, 146–148).
- 22.
On the distinction between selfishness and self-love in light of demanding obligations to the neighbor, see Ranganathan (2012, 666ff). What remains unclear, for Ramsey and other commentators, is the extent to which Aaron is required to help Beth. For example, what if helping Beth bankrupts Aaron? Or nearly bankrupts him? Outka (1972, 268) holds that equal regard doesn’t require equal treatment. But to my mind, he doesn’t provide a sufficient criterion for determining the limits of neighbor-love.
- 23.
- 24.
On partiality toward oneself in one-to-one cases, see Miller (2009).
- 25.
Elsewhere, in his discussion of the use of force and self-defense, Ramsey does qualify (or restrain) this reading. See BCE, 177. As I discuss elsewhere in this chapter, though, discerning the criterion Ramsey draws upon remains difficult.
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- 27.
This section draws on Ranganathan (2017). Several paragraphs are repeated.
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- 29.
On his view, there is only one exception to expressed consent: when the patient is in extreme danger and cannot explicitly consent, for example, when the patient is comatose or otherwise unconscious (PP, 7).
- 30.
For comments on earlier versions of this chapter, thanks to Jason Heron, Chip Lockwood, Rich Miller, Jamie Pitts, and Sam Kessler.
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Ranganathan, B. (2019). Paul Ramsey’s Christian Deontology. In: Ranganathan, B., Woodard-Lehman, D. (eds) Scripture, Tradition, and Reason in Christian Ethics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25193-2_8
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