Universalism & Particularism Fighting to a Draw

Universalism &ParticularismFighting to a Draw

H A S T I N G S C E N T E R R E P O R T 37January-February 2000

About all most people know of the Americanphilosopher George Santayana is that he oncesaid those who forget history are doomed to re-

peat it. He was only half right. Even those who remem-ber history are probably doomed to repeat it. Humannature, as always, keeps replaying its own act. How canthose of us with our eyes fixed on bioethics, for instance,do otherwise? There are only a limited number of waysof understanding morality, most of them by now histor-ically repetitive. They may be dressed up in new clothes,or have had their hair cut since last year, but in theirmost naked state they have a familiar-looking visage:haven’t I seen that face somewhere before?

My case in point will be the current interest in mul-ticulturalism, and the need to find ways of taking intoaccount cultural, ideological, ethnic, gender, and reli-gious differences. How are we as a community, dedicat-ed to pluralism, to find room for the different valuesand moral perspectives of different people and differentgroups? How, that is, are we to respect particularism, bywhich I will mean a respectful interest in the values andways of life of different cultural and ideological groupsand a commitment to taking those differences seriously.This interest comes at the end of an era when the em-phasis was heavily in the other direction, attempting tofind ways of transcending cultural differences to achievesome universal principles—principles binding on allunder all or most circumstances. There the question wasotherwise: how can we as a community, made up of di-verse individuals and groups, find a way to transcendthose differences in order to reach consensus on somematters of common human welfare? How, that is, are weto respect universalism?

My argument is straightforward. There cannot andshould not ordinarily be any decisive victory for partic-ularism or universalism. They should over the long runfight to a draw, existing in tension with each other, with

Daniel Callahan, “Universalism and Particularism: Fighting to aDraw,” Hastings Center Report 30, no. 1 (2000): 37-44.

For decades now, moral

philosophy and bioethics have been

dominated variously by universalist

and particularist impulses, both of

which exert legitimate pull on our

thinking. Although there is little

prospect of settling the debate by

recourse to theory, classifying the

cases in which particularist and

universalist demands compete

reveals a rough practical guide.

by D A N I E L C A L L A H A N

context and circumstance determin-ing their relative weight. Yet when weare called on to judge a conflict be-tween or among particular moralpractices, principles, or theories, or tochoose which particularism we oughtindividually to embrace or reject, wewill have to seek some universal per-spective to make that possible. Uni-versalism thus has a strategic and nec-essary advantage when the chips aredown. Ordinarily, it has parity only,and sometimes less than that.

Morality is about making judg-ments about right and wrong, goodand bad. There can be no culturallyand psychologically perceptive ethicswithout taking account of the diversi-ty of moral lives, but there can be noethics at all without universals, allow-ing a means of trying to stand asidefrom particulars to make meaningfulethical assessments.1 And a “univer-sal,” as I will use the concept, is sim-ply a virtue, a rule, a principle, or amoral perspective that is valid undermost circumstances for most peoplemost of the time. I use the term“most” simply to indicate that onecan almost always imagine a possibleexception. That possibility is not asufficient reason to reject universals;and it is a separate problem altogeth-er to deal with those exceptions whenthey seem to force themselves on us.

Three levels of moral reasoningneed to be kept in mind in trying tounderstand the relationship betweenuniversalism and particularism: con-ceptions of the good life and humanends of the broadest kind, individual-ly and collectively; conceptions of thevirtues, principles, and rules neces-sary for the welfare of human com-munities and societies; and concep-tions of the personal virtues, princi-ples, and rules that ought to guidethe living of a personal life. My dis-cussion bears on the second and thirdof these categories. While I deny thatit is impermissible to seek agreementat the first, highest level—it is a taskethics should not abandon—the lateIsaiah Berlin was probably right tothink it will be impossible. In fact,Berlin thought it might even be

harmful. There are many plausibleways of thinking about human endsand much wisdom in allowing themto flourish and compete with eachother. I will, in any event, not explorethat matter further. It is at the secondand third levels that the more con-crete problems of multiculturalismemerge.

Bioethics and the Early Searchfor Principles

In the early days of bioethics,which I date to the 1960s, the ap-parent need was for some univer-

sal principles and for some way ofgrounding ethics beyond that of per-sonal taste, ethnic tribalism, or reli-gious diversity. By the 1990s, a greatshift was under way: how could bet-ter account be taken of just those ele-ments that the early workers in thefield had tried to transcend? How,that is, could the curse of what cameto be thought of as abstract rationalis-tic universalism, what Arthur Klein-man (not too gracefully) called“transpositional objectivity,” be lift-ed?2 I want to tell here the story ofthat swing of the pendulum, whilealso contending, as part of it, that thependulum will need to swing backonce again, just not all the way.

I begin this story with the imme-diate aftermath of World War II.Probably the most important eventfor political philosophy, and subse-quently for moral philosophy, wasthe international debate that led tothe formulation of the United Na-tions Declaration of Human Rightsin the late 1940s, to which wereadded various ancillary U.N. state-ments in the years that followed. Be-cause it used the language of rights,the declaration was immediately at-tacked as just another piece of West-ern cultural imperialism, Eurocentricethnicity, and philosophical preten-tiousness. Just because of that, manyfelt, the Declaration was doomed tofailure, its transcultural aspirationsmore than matched by the transcul-tural indifference with which its long

list of claims about human rightswould be greeted in the real world.

The critics and skeptics turned outto be wrong. In actual practice, to besure, the declared rights were (andstill are) regularly and publicly violat-ed, repeatedly and depressingly. Butthey managed to capture the linguis-tic and moral high ground, thusgradually reshaping the lower terraineven as they seemed to be trampledunderfoot. The language of humanrights came to be accepted as thecommon moral and political lan-guage of the postwar internationalcommunity. The tribute thathypocrisy pays to virtue in this casewas that even those who have spat onthe rights in practice have had to pre-tend to take them seriously in theirrhetoric and to concoct rationales,however clumsy, to show just howmuch they admire them. Freedom ofspeech and religion in the SovietUnion? Absolutely: it was writteninto their laws!

That rhetorical deference to rightswas a remarkable triumph, in two re-spects. One was the centrality of indi-vidual rights, not only the rights ofgroups and nations. The other wasthe universality of those rights, whichsliced right through whatever nation-alistic, cultural, or religious valueswould, in the name of particularityand pluralism, set them aside.

While these values have graduallyspread to other parts of the world,their most immediate effect was inthe Western developed countriesthemselves. They were forced tobegin taking seriously their own val-ues and to find new ways of extend-ing them. Thus began the rise of thelanguage of rights, especially in theUnited States, not a new language tobe sure but now pursued with freshzeal in the case of civil rights and thefeminist movement. It was also thebeginning of a new era for individual-ism and pluralism, also not newthemes but now taking on a renewedand expanded force.

At this point the story begins toget complicated, particularly whenone looks at the early steps of

38 H A S T I N G S C E N T E R R E P O R T January-February 2000

bioethics and the shape taken by aca-demic moral philosophy in the post-war years. The U.N. Declaration ofHuman Rights was shaped by a smallgroup of philosophers, thinkers, andstatesmen very much imbued withnatural law concepts, with a taste foruniversal moral truths, and with a be-lief in certain basic and underlyinghuman needs and desires, true for alltimes and places.3 Yet there wereother trends afoot at the same time,moving in an opposite direction, andthey came for a couple of decades orso to be dominant. They moved to-ward an individualism that would

dissolve all common bonds, and to-ward a view of philosophy that de-spaired of the possibility of any solidgrounding or universality at all.

In the work of the theologianJoseph Fletcher, the first major post-war writer in the field of medicalethics, the emphasis was on what hecalled situation ethics, a most ex-treme form of particularism.4 In hiswritings in the 1950s and 1960s heargued that there could not be uni-versal moral rules or principles at all:everything depended on situationand context, to be judged by a sweep-ing, altogether vague principle oflove. As it happened, this was a viewcongenial to many in medicine at thetime, who believed each clinical caseto be utterly unique and different(often not noting their own pre-dictable clinical behavior). Fletcheralso argued, in his 1954 book Moralsand Medicine, that the whole point ofethics should be to get rid of natural

law thinking, which he believedposited some kind of fixed humannature generating fixed rules of con-duct.5 Science and medicine wouldgive us freedom and choice: the free-dom to transcend nature and rigidmoral laws and therefore the abilityto live lives of our own choosing.While this was in many ways radicalin the comparatively conservative cli-mate of the 1950s, it turned out to beprophetic, capturing a way of lookingat medicine that would become in-creasingly dominant in the 1970s and1980s.

Postwar moral philosophy wasalso pursuing a course different fromthat which animated the U.N. decla-rations. During the 1940s and 1950s,philosophical ethics underwent a de-cline both in prestige and substance.In the Anglo-American world, vari-ous forms of positivism and emo-tivism carried the day so far as ethicalsubstance was concerned: ethics rest-ed on nothing other than feeling,taste, and social determinants, andonly in the hard facts of science couldreal knowledge be found. The Ox-ford philosopher A. J. Ayer encapsu-lated that view most succinctly in hiscelebrated book Language, Truth andLogic, first published in 1936.6 Thefield of normative moral philosophy,temporarily demolished, turned tometaethics, the effort to see if morallanguage could be given some kind ofmeaning and grounding. The generalanswer was, no, unfortunately not.

While this was not exactly the wayJoseph Fletcher talked, it was closeenough to indicate the spirit of theera, running counter to the U.N.commitment. For Fletcher there wereno universal moral rules or rights—particularity is all. Fletcher’s soup dif-fered from that of the positivists andemotivists in that he threw in a largehandful of a sweet-smelling spicecalled love, somehow meant to guideus to proper moral behavior. A. J.Ayer might not have approved of thatmove, but he might otherwise havefound Fletcher’s soup (really a kind ofact utilitarianism) tasty enough.

Yet it was the U.N. spirit that ac-tually prevailed, although with a fewimportant twists and variants. By the1970s, situation ethics had beenroundly rejected as no ethics at all,and the philosophical positivism ofthe 1940s and 1950s was no lessthrown out because it simply couldnot account for the persistent humanneed to find some moral guidanceand something on which to rest thatguidance. That guidance was not,most believed, to be found in the nat-ural law, but the language of individ-ual rights did strike a responsivechord. By the 1960s, both individual-ism and rights language were on theupswing. In the values of autonomyand self-determination, that erafound a way of thinking congenial toan affluent, increasingly pluralisticsociety.

In the concept of rights could befound a way of universally groundingthat individualism, assuring individu-


In the early days of bioethics, the apparent need was for some way of grounding ethics

beyond that of personal taste, ethnic tribalism, or religious diversity.

By the 1990s, a great shift was under way: how could better account be taken of just those

elements that the early workers had tried to transcend?


als not only that their desire to be letalone by bureaucrats and moralistscould be rationally justified, but alsohelping to protect minority and othergroups from discrimination and op-pression. Only one other note wasnecessary, that of justice and equity. Ifthere must be negative rights, theright to be left alone, there might alsobe the need for some positive welfarerights, to make possible an effectiveindividual self-determination thatpoverty and discrimination could eas-ily vitiate. It was no accident that thegreat book of the 1970s was JohnRawls’s A Theory of Justice, which of-fered a way of grounding justice inindividual need and self-interestedprudence.7

The Drive for Universalism

The drive for universalism in the1970s also saw a sharp turning

away from the moral skepticism andrelativism of the 1940s and 1950s inother related respects. In place of theearlier metaethics, the great quest wasfor solid moral theory, of a kind thatcould ground moral judgments insomething other than taste and feel-ing. Good ethical theory, it was be-lieved, should be objective, rational,internally coherent and consistent,universally applicable, detached fromindividual self-interest, and imper-sonal in its capacity to transcend theparticularities of time and culture.The great debates that broke out weremainly between Kantianism, on theone hand, and utilitarianism on theother, both theories that seemed tomeet the requisite standards for uni-versal application.

These general trends in philosoph-ical ethics soon made their way intobioethics. The first wave of issues inthe new bioethics turned on the rightof human subjects to informed con-sent if they were to be part of medicalresearch. The revelation that abusesof human subjects were common,not just within the earlier Nazi medi-cine, but also in the postwar medi-cine of democratic countries, gave apowerful impetus to the principle of

respect for persons. That same impe-tus was to play itself out in an evenmore pronounced way in the case ofstopping the treatment of terminallyill patients. Just as there came to be,by the end of the 1960s, a recognizedright not to take part in medical re-search against one’s will, there sooncame to be in the 1970s a corre-sponding right to terminate medicaltreatment.

This latter was not exactly a newright—the courts had recognized itmuch earlier—but it had often beenignored. That indifference would stillsurface on occasion, but no longer soeasily. The patient rights movement,which surged in the 1970s, would seeto that. It was only a short step fromthat development to a related empha-sis: that of the right of patients toequal and decent access to healthcare, stimulated by the rise of interestin equity issues and especially pro-voked by the growing disparity be-tween the rich and poor in gaininggood health care.

Where was ethical theory in themidst of these developments? By the1970s, philosophers had arrived onthe bioethics scene in large numbers,and the earlier theological grip onmedical ethics had lost its force. Thephilosophers who came to thebioethics of that era were very muchin tune with the turn toward norma-tive ethics in their field and the driveto ground that ethics in good theory.Part of the success of the influentialbook The Principles of Bioethics wasthat authors Tom Beauchamp andJames Childress found an approachthat seemed to do the desired job.They proposed a number of princi-ples (and a method called “princi-plism”) that, even if not fully ground-ed in a comprehensive theory ofethics, went far in that direction.8

In the principles themselves—re-spect for persons, beneficence,nonmaleficence, and justice—Beauchamp and Childress offered in-junctions of universal validity. Theywere quite willing to concede themany problems in interpreting anddeploying the principles and they

agreed that conflicts among the prin-ciples could be difficult to resolve(they offered no good method fordoing that). But the main point wasthat these principles could be usedanywhere and everywhere. They werenot meant to be culturally limited,and they thus provided the basis for auniversalist approach.

There were many critics of princi-plism, myself among them. But fewof the critics complained about theaspiration to universality. Particularlyfor questions about patient rights, in-formed consent, human subject re-search, and the like, nothing less thanuniversalism seemed appropriate.How could any culture, for instance,justify using otherwise competent pa-tients without their informed consentfor dangerous medical research? Andhow could any society justify usingincompetent persons, unable to giveconsent, for such research either?

The infamous Tuskeegee case inthe 1970s seemed to make that pointwith decisive emphasis. A large groupof uneducated blacks had in the1930s, without their knowledge,been chosen by some syphilis re-searchers for a study on the long-termeffects of the disease. For the researchto deliver the desired results, it wasimportant that they be given notreatment; and when effective treat-ment did become available afterWorld War II, they were in fact notgiven it. When that situation becamepublicly known in the 1970s, the re-action was unanimously hostile. Noone, so far as I can recall, chose to de-fend the study methods by appeal tothe culture and context of the timesor to the setting of the experiment. Itwas roundly condemned as a studythat would be unjustifiable in anyculture at any time, on a par withsome of the worst Nazi medical ex-periments.

By the 1980s, however, the criti-cisms of the then-dominant princi-plist approach increased in vigor. Thecriticisms came not only from com-munitarians (like myself ), but alsofrom those drawn to virtue theory, tofeminism, to modern-day casuistry,

and to multiculturalism. As theymore or less all asked together, even ifin different ways: how could we seri-ously make a commitment to a wayof doing ethics that seemed to ignore(despite its claims to the contrary) sit-uation, context, particularity, andenormous cultural differences amongindividuals and groups? No one waswilling to go back to a Fletcherian sit-uation ethics—altogether too antino-mian—but the very aspiration touniversalism was becoming suspect.The suspicion was all the greater tothe extent that the universalism wasbased on excessively rationalistic, de-tached, impersonal ways of thinking.Especially in clinical ethics, where pa-tient differences would be most obvi-ous, particularism seemed especiallyappropriate.

Where does the debate now stand?I call it a draw. No decisive choiceshould be made between universal-ism and particularism. Each will haveits place in different situations andeach will ordinarily have to be influ-enced and informed by the other. Butbefore I try to mount some systemat-ic arguments for this position, let memake some casual observations. Themost important is that I have yet toencounter a particularist who doesnot also have at least a few impas-sioned universalist commitments—otherwise contextualist feminists whomake a universal claim for the repro-ductive rights of women; communi-tarians who would under no circum-stances allow human subjects to beused against their will, even for po-tentially life-saving medical research;and casuists who would not for a mo-ment countenance deliberately dis-criminatory health policies that fa-vored the affluent. From the otherside of the coin, so to speak, I knowof few universalists who will notadmit some contextual or situationalexceptions to their general principles.Lying to protect those threatenedwith death, as happened time andagain in the Nazi era and most re-cently in Kosovo, often presents abreaking point for them.

These observations (open to coun-terexamples of course) actually offer agood way in to my broader argu-ment. If it is exceedingly hard inpractice to be wholly universalist orwholly particularist, it is even harderin theory. It is not hard in the sensethat one can readily frame a logicallyconsistent moral theory that wouldgo one way or the other. The hardpart is to devise a theory that canreadily join universality and themoral complexity of everyday life. Aflavor of cruel fanaticism seems oftento go with single-minded, unnuancedapplications of, say, utilitarian or de-ontological theory, running rough-shod over that complexity and usual-ly devoid of moral imagination andsensitivity. Those who think this waycome across like people who know

musical theory but can’t whistle atune. Part of the enduring power ofAristotelian ethics—which gets toolittle respect these days in bioethics—is its circumvention of the universal-ist-particularist problem. It places theemphasis instead on a combinationof virtue, practical reason, and experi-ence-seasoned prudence. If it is not awholly successful way of thinkingabout ethics, that is because it doesnot show a clear way to develop uni-versals, which seems to me an indis-pensable element of the ethical enter-prise.

Reduced to the simplest terms, thedrive for a universalist ethics derivesin great part from our experience ofthe modern world, which has shownthe hazards of a ruthless ethic basedon nothing more than the idiosyn-cratic value systems of their propo-nents (and Naziism is the classic 20thcentury example). We feel a need todevise, for the sake of peace and mu-tual security, some universal and

binding set of standards to allow lifein common to safely go forward,both within and among societies. Inan interdependent contemporaryworld, there will and must be someprinciples and rules and rights thattranscend gross self-interest and par-ticularistic cultural hegemonies.9 Theother side of the coin of cultural plu-ralism, often neglected, is that wemay be forced to judge our own cul-ture, which could do harm, and tojudge other cultures, which couldpose a threat to us or to others.

In contrast, the press for a particu-larist ethic stems from the perceptionfirst that a genuine respect for per-sons and their local communities re-quires respecting their values, howev-er idiosyncratic they may appear. Andsecond that universal rules and prin-

ciples will either be too broad andgeneral to be of much illuminatingvalue (a leading complaint againstprinciplism), or too tight and narrowto do justice to the complexity andsetting of many moral decisions.While the pull in the particularist di-rection need not go all the way backto Joseph Fletcher’s situation ethics, itis not hard to understand how thelogic of particularism can push hardin that direction. This is where histo-ry can repeat itself.

There is not likely to be any high-er moral theory that will perfectly cutthrough the tension between the uni-versalist and particularist perspec-tives. Those perspectives exist becausetheir proponents are often interestedin different aspects of human morali-ty, ways of life, and human needs;and they are often irreconcilable,even if they express equally importantways of thinking about morality. Ifour concern is to find ways for dis-parate communities and values sys-


I call it a draw. No decisive choice should be made

between universalism and particularism.


tems to peacefully coexist on the basisof shared moral commitments, andto protect some basic human inter-ests, then a universalist approach willsurely seem attractive. If, instead, ourconcern is to find a way to acknowl-edge and respect the diversity ofhuman experience and ways of life,then a particularist approach is likelyto prove attractive. Both of these con-cerns are valid, even though it is ex-ceedingly difficult to do equal justiceto both at the same time.

Harmonizing Universalism andParticularism

The last-mentioned demand is themost urgent. It is to find a way

for these two important needs towork together in some kind of har-mony, not just in moral theory but inthe actual social and political life ofexisting communities. In that actuallife, an overall balance—if it can beachieved—will probably be possibleonly over time, not necessarily at anygiven moment. If that is so, then theimportant question is how to discernwhen one perspective is comparative-ly more necessary at a given historicalmoment than the other, and how—even when it is temporarilyeclipsed—it should continue to havesome sway. One way to approach thisquestion is by attempting to singleout the particular mistakes, or evils,that each perspective seeks to avoid,asking what we want to hold on to.

For the universalist, the greatestperceived hazard is relativism, turn-ing ethics into little more than a clashof feelings, unprincipled politics, anduncritical cultural practices. RuthMacklin, in her valuable new bookAgainst Relativism, most compellinglylays out those hazards.10 For the par-ticularist, the danger is that of insen-sitivity to valid differences amongpeople and values. For the universal-ist, a world (or even a smaller com-munity) that has no transcultural val-ues, good for most times and places,is a world subject to moral chaos,open to local tyrannies. For the par-ticularist, a world of supposedly time-

less moral truths is likely to stand inthe way of individual flourishing andthe genius of varied local communi-ties. For the universalist, communi-ties need to be judged by moral val-ues that transcend their special histo-ry and interests; it is the only waythey can be called to account for theirmoral failings. For the particularist,any supposedly higher moral truthsare likely to turn out, in reality, tosimply be those of some powerfulgroup—males, or whites, or sectarianreligions, or secular ideologies, or cul-tural elites. To all of this back andforth, to and fro, I want to say yes,yes, you are all correct, and historyprovides all the evidence one couldask for to make the point.

A potent political and social issueas the 20th century draws to a close isthat of multiculturalism, and it canserve well as a case study of the strug-gle between universalism and particu-larism. As a social reality, the UnitedStates has long been made up of anumber of diverse, culturally differ-ent communities, a point recentlyunderscored by an influx of Asianand Latino immigrants. No less im-portant is the cross-cutting diversityof ideological and religious perspec-tives, generating a range of social val-ues in many ways more divisive thanethnic differences.

Some of the subcultures in ourcollective midst hold, for instance,that women should have a subordi-nate social and familial role; that reli-gious values should not be given aplace in public law and discourse;that children may be harshly disci-plined, even to the point of brutality;that patients should passively dowhat doctors or researchers ask, leav-ing medical and moral decisions sole-ly in the hands of physicians—or thatdoctors should give up their profes-sional autonomy in favor of completepatient autonomy; that clitorec-tomies, integral to some cultures,should be banned—or tolerated; thatsome degree of spousal abuse is ac-ceptable; that informed consent andthe individualism that lies behind itare alien notions since decisionmak-

ing is ideally familial rather than indi-vidual; that a brain death criterion ofdeath violates important religiousconvictions; that it is better to lie to adying patient about his or her condi-tion than to tell the truth; that every-thing should be done to save the lifeof a dying patient, however futile thatmight seem; that blood transfusionseven to save life are religiously forbid-den. And so on.

How should we respect and honorthese diverse values, attempting toallow those who hold them to do sowith dignity and without penalty? Atthe same time, not all of those valuesare consistent with other values wehave as a nation come to embrace,values felt to be universally valid andsocially imperative. When, where,and how are we as a nation to drawthe line against values that seemharmful or that violate the moralrules that may be necessary for all?

Judging Diversity

From this diversity, at least fourtypes of situations can be dis-

cerned:

1) situations in which the culturalstandards put someone at directrisk of physical or psychologicalharm (such as when the culture isindifferent to informed consent oraccepts spousal or child abuse);

2) circumstances in which no suchharm is done but the cultural stan-dard may violate the felt sense ofprofessional standards for physi-cians or other health care workersor impose extra costs on the com-munity (for example, when cul-tures or ideologies reject a braindeath standard for the terminationof treatment or desire to have vari-ous forms of futile treatment con-tinued);

3) situations in which there is nei-ther physical harm nor a clashwith professional integrity, but thelarger community’s values are vio-lated (as when women in some


subculture seem by their ownchoice to be subordinated tomen); and

4) circumstances in which the cul-tural customs and rituals of differ-ent communities cause some de-gree of mild offense, annoyance,or trouble for other communitiesbut no major problems (the dis-rupting camping in a crowdedhospital of large family groupsaround the bed of a dying patientprovides an example).

The first category, where directphysical and psychological harm is atstake, seems to me the least problem-atic to work with substantively, eventhough full of definitional difficul-ties: what is “harm” and who is to de-fine it? In general, if the laws or regu-lations that have been meant to pro-tect people have been fairly and re-flectively established, and have en-dured over time, then all groups mustconform to them.

If there is, for instance, a well-founded consensus based on broadand accepted moral principles thatinformed consent is necessary to pro-tect research subjects from unwillingparticipation in hazardous research,no group can be exempt from thoseregulations, however much the valuesof that group might allow such ex-emption. Their very purpose is toprotect people at risk, those withoutpower, from the excessive sway of ex-ternal forces, be they the coerciveprestige of researchers, the pressure ofpoverty, or undue family or grouppressure. It is surely possible thatsome standards will be well-rooted—and wrong. That does not deny thevalue of universals so much as indi-cate the need for constant care andre-examination to see if specific uni-versals can still stand the test of timeand fresh experience or new insight.

I make use of what has beentermed the “harm principle,” afterJohn Stuart Mill, because it seems tome the only firm basis for coercivegeneral standards. While wrong ormisguided, moral views and practices

that bring no obvious harm are sure-ly subject to public challenge and so-cial rejection (claims of multiculturalprivilege notwithstanding), morethan that is needed to legally forbidthem. Even so, there will have to bedebate about what is and is not harm-ful. Sometimes no consensus will bereached (as with the endless abortionargument and the status of the fetus),but in most cases—recent historysuggests—time and steady debatewill bring some agreement, as in thecase of women’s suffrage, the aboli-tion of slavery, and the right to havemedical treatment terminated.

We have in America imposedsome standards on ourselves for im-

portant moral reasons; and there isno good reason to exempt subgroupsfrom those standards. Here the claimsof universalism are at their strongest.It is by virtue of their status as indi-vidual human beings that we seek toprotect people. We cannot make agood case for taking those rules seri-ously in the larger community unlessthey apply with equal force in all thesubcommunities. Even if there is dis-agreement about whether everyoneshould be subject to such rules, thereis not likely to be persistent disagree-ment on the proposition that directharm can result from the actions inquestion.

The second and third categoriesare more difficult to manage. Theharm that some from their perspec-tive perceive may not be perceived byothers as harm at all. Hazardousmedical research can kill or maimpeople. In contrast, the harms of cat-

egories two and three will be lessgrievous, more open to conflictinginterpretations, and approachingmore closely the realm of matters thatwe might be inclined to leave to thejudgment of the pertinent culturalsubgroups. At the same time, wemight recognize that those groupshold values that are significantly dif-ferent from values generally taken tobe normative in the society. In the ab-sence of grievous harm, there is noclear moral mandate to interfere withthose values. At the same time, somedegree of moral pressure to get thosevalues changed or relinquished is notout of place. As long as the method ofpressure is moral persuasion and the

force of general community consen-sus, intervention is appropriate. Itshould not become coercive pressure,but simply that nudging kind thatcomes from public challenge. Inmany cases, a practical compromiseor accommodation can be workedout; and that should always besought.

The fourth category is probablythe best established and most man-ageable. Various religious, racial, andethnic groups should be allowed tofollow their traditions and valueseven if they impose some degree ofburden on their fellow citizens. Oth-erwise, the very idea of pluralism ismocked. Even here, of course, limitsmight be drawn, particularly if thevalues of the subgroups create unduehardship on others; but there shouldbe a bending over backwards to avoidpenalizing the groups, intervening inonly the most severe cases. Orthodox

When, where, and how are we as a nation to draw the

line against values that seem harmful or that violate the moral

rules that may be necessary for all?


Jews who do not accept a whole-brain definition of death should gainthe support, financial and social, ofthose who do not agree with themand who may have to bear some ofthe costs of tolerating those beliefs.

The Variety of MoralJudgments

Ido not mean to suggest, with thisbrief analysis, that I have exhaust-

ed the subject of finding the rightbalance between universalism andparticularism, or even that I havedone more than sketch some possibleways of thinking about them. Norhave I dealt with the obviously im-portant problem of how, procedural-ly, to engage the issues politically.11 Iam mainly interested here in makingplausible the idea that there are somecircumstances in which, from an eth-ical and not simply procedural pointof view, differing moral standardsmust be put aside in the name of pro-tecting individuals from harm, othersin which they should be fully accept-ed, and—in the middle—cases inwhich they merit a critical tolerance,since we ought to try to persuadesome groups to change their values.Even though there may be argumentabout where to draw the variousneeded lines, it should not be impos-sible to do so. No society can be ut-terly multicultural: it must sharesome common values to even be afunctioning, minimally humane soci-ety. Nor should any society be mono-lithic in its values, simply pushingaside cultural differences: those dif-ferences are not necessarily incom-patible with a functioning societyand are often an enrichment to it.

The question, then, is notwhether multiculturalism should berespected. It should. Charles Taylorhas articulated the idea of a “politicsof recognition,” focused on theclaims of different groups for full andungrudging respect. Taylor concedesthat the claim that all cultures areowed equal respect is not withoutproblems. He nevertheless concludesthat there should be a presumption

of respect for cultures with long his-tories, even though it “involves some-thing of an act of faith.”12 But a pre-sumption is not a permanent freemoral pass. All cultures are likely tohave, in one form or another in someof their parts, features and values thatare not justifiable by any ethical stan-dard that goes beyond the self-justify-ing rationale of those who holdthem.

I contend that it is perfectly ap-propriate in a pluralistic society forthe various cultures within it to com-ment on and criticize each other—and where necessary to attempt tochange by persuasion each other’s val-ues when they seem harmful or mis-taken. The price of toleration in afree society should be that the valuesof the group of which one is a partwill be open to criticism by others.Better put: criticism and persuasion,yes (for the most part); coercion, no(for the most part). Ethics may some-times bring peace, but often it mustdisturb the peace. It should not shirkfrom that latter task.

Bioethics does not well serve soci-ety simply by promoting a respect forother cultures. That’s nice, but notenough. It better promotes the soci-ety by helping to develop the criteriaand standards for knowing whichpractices and values should be ac-cepted and affirmed, which simplytolerated, and which rejected. Thatwill not be easy, and will sometimesbe thankless. But if bioethics is to beof any value at all, that value willcome from its effort to help devise re-sponsible ways of making justifiablemoral judgments.

All cultures deserve our presump-tive respect, but none can claim amoral exemption from scrutiny andevaluation. A serious pluralismshould make that acceptable. Onlysome kind of universal principles orvalues, transcending the particulari-ties of individual cultures, will makesuch scrutiny ethically plausible. Norcan certain rights and claims perti-nent to the respect for persons begrounded at all short of some univer-sal norms. In that sense, an underly-

ing universalism is inescapable. Atthe same time, a rigid, monolithicuniversalism usually fails to do justiceto cultural diversity and complexity,much of which is perfectly justifiableand of no harm, and often beneficial,to the moral or social commons.Kierkegaard once said that the“both/and” is the way to hell. Not al-ways. In the case of universalism andparticularism, it is the only viablepossibility.

Acknowledgments

This paper was originally written fora project on ethics and multicultural-ism organized by Barbara Koenig andthe Stanford University Center for Bio-medical Ethics.

References

1. I have developed this point further inD. Callahan, “The Social Sciences and theTask of Bioethics,” Daedalus 128, no. 4(1999):1-21.

2. A. Kleinman, Writing at the Margins(Berkeley: University of California Press,1995), p. 55.

3. J. Morsink, The Universal Declarationof Human Rights: Origins, Drafting, and In-tent (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylva-nia Press, 1996).

4. J. Fletcher, Situation Ethics (Louisville,Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997).

5. J. Fletcher, Morals and Medicine(Boston: Beacon Press, 1954).

6. A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic(Magnolia, Ga.: Peter Smith, 1992).

7. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cam-bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,1971).

8. T. L. Beauchamp and J. F. Childress,Principles of Biomedical Ethics, 4th ed. (NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1997).

9. S. Bok, Common Values (Columbia,Mo.: University of Missouri Press, 1995).

10. R. Macklin, Against Relativism (NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1999).

11. This has been effectively done by A.Gutmann and D. Thompson in Democracyand Disagreement (Cambridge: BelknapPress, 1995). See also S. Benhabib, ed.,Democracy and Difference: Contesting theBoundaries of the Political (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1996).

12. C. Taylor, Multiculturalism and thePolitics of Recognition (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1992).

Universalism & Particularism Fighting to a Draw

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