Positive Moral Philosophy

My latest project is not a writing project, but a proposal for a new field of moral philosophy devoted to positive approaches to ethical life: Positive Moral Philosophy. The field is new in the sense that there hasn’t been a name. In another sense, it is not new: there is a fair amount of published work in moral philosophy that fits the bill of positive moral philosophy. That being the case, why give this body of work its own name?  Naming a field does a variety of good things. It helps us see that work on seemingly disparate topics is in fact part of a larger intellectual project. It helps legitimize work that, however excellent, might otherwise seem marginal to what moral philosophy is imagined to be really about. And it opens up intellectual space to take up projects that contribute specifically to that field and have those projects’ significance assessed as a contribution to that field.

Here is a working definition of the field I have in mind:

Positive moral philosophy is devoted to investigating the nature of and the social, interpersonal, and intrapersonal contributors to moral success and progress; it attends to the reparative, appreciative, generous, and hopeful dimensions of our relation to self and other, as well as to the attractions of morality and aspirational ideals; it emphasizes varieties of elective, non-demandable moral action over demandable moral requirements.

What makes a moral philosophy “positive” is, obviously, not just one thing. It might be positive because it develops a constructive account of the transition from less desirable moral point A—say, a level of moral development or a level of adequacy in social moral norms—to more desirable point B.  This is different from simply critiquing point A and justifying why point B is what should be the goal. It might be positive because it focuses on positively valenced moral attitudes, including what Strawsonians call the positive reactive attitudes, as well as on alternatives to negatively sanctioning interactions with wrongdoers.  It might be positive because it focuses on or presumes the attractiveness of morality such that, for example, people may have moral aspirations and ideals and admire moral exemplars. It might be positive because focused on actions that exceed what is morally required. It might be positive because focused on positive duties of beneficence, care or supportiveness, rather than negative duties of restraint, or on taking on responsibilities to see that certain goods get promoted. These are, as it were, spokes on a wheel of positive approaches to moral life, to which more could be added.

You can find a longer discussion of positive moral philosophy here (but please don’t quote it without my permission). There I explore the senses in which moral philosophy as usual is and is not “negative,” the rationales for naming new fields, and a set of themes central to extant work in positive moral philosophy. There’s also quite a long bibliography.

You can see the syllabus for my first seminar on positive moral philosophy here.

And you can find a description of the new OUP book series here.

If you are doing work in positive moral philosophy, I’d love to know what you are doing. If you have thoughts about the way I’ve proposed defining the field, I’d love to hear your thoughts. If you have suggestions for expanding the bibliography at the end of my paper, I’d love to hear those suggestions. You can email me at cheshire.calhoun@asu.edu.