‘Ethicists’ appear regularly on radio and TV these days, giving their sage pronouncements. They used to ground their opinions on principles: ‘greatest good for the greatest number’; or ‘duty’; or ‘virtue’. Well-thought-out theories that have been argued at length by many bright people.

But no longer. Now they are pleased merely to give pronouncements, accompanied by a satisfactory amount of vigorous arm-waving. But without a showing of reasons and principles, there is no more reason to listen to them than to anyone else on the same subject: they have lost their claim to having any sort of special knowledge or insight.

Good, then, for Ronald Dworkin. He’s discussing law, but his position holds also for ethics:

“[The Supreme Court] can find its moral authority only in the character of the reasons it offers for its decisions. It has a sovereign responsibility to show that its judgments are grounded in principles that can responsibly be claimed to be premises of America’s democracy. [Justices] must say enough, in important and controversial decisions about constitutional rights, to indicate the principled basis of their decision and show that they understand and accept at least the obvious further commitments those principles require.”

(Ronald Dworkin, “Looking for Cass Sunstein”. New York Review of Books, 30 April, 2009, page 32. Abridged; emphasis added)

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