Ethics Sterba, James P. Three Essay

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Although Sterba might argue in the long run that the children of all the world's people will be best served by placing limits upon development, it is hard to argue that it is just and fair that members of the developing world may suffer fewer benefits from industrialization because of the developed world's excesses. Neither the principles of restitutive or distributive justice are really served by either example. The wrongs done to the formerly colonialized peoples of the world are not addressed if they cannot attain parity with those nations that exploited them in a restitutive fashion, and the extent to which the earth must be and has been damaged by environmental harms caused by man to survive in a modern fashion suggests no restitution can be made to the earth from an environmentalist's perspective without an end to human development. Also, in terms of distributive justice for the greatest number -- do whom is the ultimate moral obligation? The earth? Future humans? Present humans? The answer produces radically different policy prescriptions with no easy answers.

One of the problems of viewing ethics in the abstract regarding environmentalism, feminism and multiculturalism is that these challenges to previous ethical systems are not simply philosophical challenges, but address basic social issues, like feminists' demand for better childcare but also more recognition in the workforce. Sterba acknowledges that Rawls' claim that the traditionally gendered family can be 'just' is false, given that women are unduly penalized for leaving that workforce to raise their children.

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But Sterba prescribes as a solution a kind of feminism with a focus on justice to the family. However, as admirable as some of his policy suggestions may be -- what of women who do not have children? And surely feminism and female rights cannot be subsumed into pro-family justice, as Sterba assumes. Feminists who question traditional values of liberal individualism and autonomy would contest the nuclear family as the basic unit of society, which Sterba accepts, even while they may be in favor of more relational forms of viewing the self than embraced by traditional ethical systems.

Finally, Sterba's assumption that non-Western voices can be placated with a more inclusive liberal dialogue about human rights in the world community is most problematic. To subsume all multiculturalists' arguments under one theoretical umbrella is impossible. Sterba assumes that the anger and oppression felt by Native Americas against their conquerors, enslaved Africans, and formerly colonialized peoples is 'the same' against the West, without taking into consideration the complex cultural difference and nuances between these different historical examples. Also, what of multiculturalists' arguments that decry feminism and individual rights as products of Western imperialist thought? Sterba's book is useful in the sense that it provides a broad introduction to many ethical systems and prominent theorists within those systems, but it never overcomes the challenge of defining 'traditional ethics' in such a schematic way, or confining those who would oppose traditionally ethical systems….....

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