Commonsense Morality

Philosophically, the term commonsense morality is used most often to refer to the philosophy of commonsense, sometimes known as the Scottish philosophy after its primary exponents, Thomas Reid and his successors. It should be noted, however, that not all Scottish philosophers followed the philosophy of commonsense, and not all commonsense philosophers were Scottish. Also, other philosophers have used, in their normative ethical theories, notions of commonsense morality; in doing so, they typically are referring to our shared ideas of morality and moral judgment.

Commonsense philosophy as espoused by Reid, in its essence, was a reaction to the idealism espoused by George Berkeley and to David Hume's skepticism. In response, Reid argued that even if the existence of concepts such as real external objects or space are not strictly provable in a logical sense or cannot be learned from experience, their existence remains selfevident to all humans (the doctrine of natural realism). He further held that such principles and concepts are inviolable, since denying them does not rid oneself of them (denying the reality of external objects does not make them disappear).

Reid's realism in such questions carried over to his thoughts on ethics. Morality has principles, Reid argued, and the first principles of morality were as self-evident to people with moral education as were the principles mentioned above. These principles were of several types. One type, referred to as general, deals with matters such as whether a person can be blamed for an action over which the person had no control. The second type, referred to as particular, contains the more recognizable normative moral principles concerning duties to self, others, and God. For example, Reid gives a version of the Golden Rule as one of the [Page 366]self-evident duties to others; the other duty is that people should act to benefit the society of which they are a part. The latter sounds consequentialist, but Reid is typically considered a deontologist, and commonsense morality, in general, can be considered deontological in that moral rules are fundamental to ethics.

Ordinary commonsense is seen by Reid as containing the self-evident moral principles he discusses. If commonsense and theory are in conflict, then theory must be in error and should be altered to fit commonsense. However, instead of people agreeing to obligations out of self-interest and then recognizing their moral nature, Reid argues people know concepts in similar ways and understand their moral nature before agreeing on rules upholding such concept.

Reid quite rightly notes that the particular principles can conflict with one another. In this he agrees with moral pluralists. His solution is unlike that of pluralists such as W. D. Ross, however, because Reid says we also can see self-evident priorities among the moral principles. If the priorities are self-evident, they are always in a certain order, so context means little, unlike in Ross's pluralism. For example, Reid mentions that between the virtues of (unmerited) generosity, gratitude (generosity in response to another's action), and justice, justice is selfevidently the most important, gratitude the second, and generosity the third. On the other hand, Reid sees greater worth in generosity than in justice. Thus, justice must be instituted, but when one is unencumbered by other considerations, generosity should always appeal to the actor.

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