Moral Discourse in a Pluralistic World.

Ravizza, Bridget Burke

Daniel Vokey. Notre Dame, Ind: University of Notre Dame, 2001. Pp. ix + 373. $45.

The book is a helpful contribution to ongoing conversations about whether and how persons from very different moral traditions may argue productively about moral issues across cultural and religious gulfs. Such conversations are increasingly important in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, and Vokey's work is a challenge to those (moral skeptics) who believe that persons within rival moral traditions are unable rationally to resolve issues that divide them. V. argues that indeed we can have rational dialogue to determine the strengths and limitations of moral positions and practices across traditions, though he understands "rational" as what is opposed to manipulation or coercion rather than as an abstract, disembodied form of argument that excludes emotions or concrete experience. In fact, V.'s approach to ethics stands in contrast to a purely intellectual/ theoretical approach that rejects or subordinates the role of human experience in moral judgment.

Alasdair MacIntyre's work serves as V.'s starting point. He analyzes, criticizes, and reconstructs MacIntyre's account of the rationality of traditions, focusing on what can be learned from him about the practice of dialectical debate through which rival and incommensurable moral points of view may be assessed. He expands on MacIntyre's account of dialectical argument, offering an account of nonfoundational justification in terms of a search for "wide reflective equilibrium" among a community's beliefs, assumptions, attitudes, interests, norms, priorities, and practices (92-93). He claims that the choice of one perspective over others may be justified insofar as it most closely approaches wide reflective equilibrium in relation to its rivals. His account of nonfoundational justification as the search for this equilibrium is combined with a Mahayana Buddhist metaethics in order to establish "a philosophical framework within which the possibility of reaching agreement across incommensurable viewpoints can be affirmed" (273).

V. ultimately argues that MacIntyre's ethics of virtue will "fall short of its own criteria of success" (171) because it neglects an experiential dimension of moral development and discourse essential to sound practical judgment and effective moral education. He claims that MacIntyre's work is limited by an intellectual bias that "contributes to a widespread uncertainty about the nature of intrinsic moral value and so presents a serious obstacle to the project of assessing rival moral points of view" (173). His criticisms of MacIntyre's bias and corresponding dualisms and hierarchies will likely resonate with feminist and liberation theologians. The search for wide reflective equilibrium in moral inquiry, on the other hand, avoids a purely intellectual approach by appealing to moral values that are apprehended in the depth and quality of human experience. V.'s response to the apparent intellectual bias within MacIntyre's account of the rationality of traditions hinges on V.'s characterization of intrinsic moral value and its apprehension, which he develops by drawing on the conceptual resources of Mahayana Buddhism.

Chapter 6 summarizes some fundamental teachings of Mahayana Buddhism that provide a philosophical framework for discussing what V. calls, after Pascal, "reasons of the heart." This is the most original and interesting part of the book. In essence, V.'s reasons of the heart are nondualistic, immediate, cognitive-affective responses that help identify what is intrinsically good or bad; they occur in a state of "unconditioned awareness" prior to conceptions or dualisms. If I interpret correctly, V.'s reasons of the heart are not unlike Schillebeeckx's negative contrast experiences: in both cases, human experience (what moves us in a positive or negative way) can help us identify what is intrinsically good (what is of God and leads to human flourishing) and what is intrinsically bad (what is sinful and thwarts flourishing). Further, our immediate apprehensions of intrinsic value are ethically motivating: they can lead us to sound moral judgment which affirms the good, independently of self-oriented desires.

V. thoughtfully tries to find middle ground between objectivism and relativism, with the hope of furthering the cause of peace and justice in the world through conversation. I am more optimistic than he about the ability of those within so-called rival traditions to agree on basic, concrete goods necessary for the material, social, and spiritual welfare of human beings. We already do this quite well, as Lisa Cahill argues [Theological Studies 63 (2002)]. Still, the book is helpful to ongoing debate on these matters, and V.'s concluding discussion of criteria for productive discourse is a good foundation for further conversations about how we might come to agreements about vital moral issues while standing within different traditions.

Overall, V.'s determination to define terms in the interest of clarity makes for slow and difficult reading; a glossary might have been helpful. Readers should be prepared for the density of the text. Not recommended as an undergraduate text, graduate readers interested in moral discourse may find it worthwhile.

BRIDGET BURKE RAVIZZA
St. Norbert College, De Pere, Wis.