Authors: Edwin M Hartman
Publish Date: 2009/12/24
Volume: 88, Issue: 4, Pages: 707-716
Abstract
We typically test norms with reference to their usefulness in dealing with social problems and issues though sometimes we use hypernorms to evaluate them The hypernorms that we find most acceptable do not guide action in the way local norms do They do however raise challenging questions that we should ask in evaluating any practice and its associated norms In this respect they differ from the principles associated with traditional as opposed to modern morality As societies become more alike in part as a result of globalization they will face increasingly similar problems Then their local norms will be more similar and they will be more likely to share hypernorms Insofar as we can agree to try to justify our hypernorms we are likely to converge on the hypernorms characteristic of modern rather than traditional morality But people are often attached to their old norms and so are not very good at seeing how hypernorms raise questions that challenge the old norms Here moral imagination should aid in the adjustment process A system of democratic capitalism is hospitable to a good kind of moral convergence
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