Contemporary Western New Moral Judgment Research

With the emergence of a large number of practical moral problems in contemporary Western society,applied ethics develops rapidly.However,when applying principles to solve practical moral problems,applied ethics not only fails to solve moral problems well,but also gets itself into a theoretical dilemma.Based on this,ethicists represented by Albert R.Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin found that the "bottom-up" moral reasoning method is more suitable for solving practical moral problems than the "top-down" thinking mode of traditional normative ethics.Meanwhile,they found that the case as the core of moral reasoning did not need to be reworked,as it had been introduced as far back as Aristotle in ancient Greece,called Casuistry.Traditional casuistry,derived from different cultural traditions,reached its peak in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,and then was "abused" in the late seventeenth century.To some extent,the traditional casuistry is a kind of sophistical reasoning.It often carries on the moral judgment and reasoning excessively,which is subjected to a series of criticism.Therefore,the traditional casuistry is defective.But it does not deny that all its moral thinking does not have a desirable and reasonable function to solve the moral problems faced by contemporary applied ethics.Jonson and Toulmin defended this and began a revival of the traditional casuistry,proposing a new casuistry,more central to the Aristotelian "case-based" approach,in order to better solve contemporary moral problems.The "new" casuistry is a kind of linked art,which is always case-centered and can clearly discuss individual and unique cases that can be universally understood and evaluated.It has a "bottom-up" inductive procedure different from the traditional philosophical ethics,which is rooted in moral intuition,uses moral rules and has the typical characteristics of relatively perfect operation methods.The new casuistry has provided effective help to a series of applied ethical and moral problems arising from the contemporary pluralistic society,provided a new perspective to solve moral problems,and avoided the disputes caused by excessive reliance on principles.However,the new casuistry is not a perfect moral theory,and its own limitations and the social and cultural root of moral dilemma can not really get out of the predicament of contemporary Western applied ethics only by virtue of the casuistry.Therefore,to solve the moral dilemma faced by contemporary applied ethics,it is necessary to coordinate and complement normative ethics and new casuistry,so as to solve contemporary moral problems together.