Moral Issue 12  King and Outlaw: Can a moral framework be compatible with different worldviews?

                King offers an approach to moral issues that reconciles different moral frameworks. He considers God’s command, self-realization, and consent of the governed as important principles rather than complete measures of right action. Each of these approaches accepts an agreement—either a covenant or contract—as the basis of human interaction. The agreement stems from the ability of humans to make a keep promises.

                Outlaw holds that dualist and materialist worldviews—known as foundational worldviews—lead to imperialist projects. When some people are convinced they have special insight into the ultimate nature of things, they tend to impose their views and ways of life on others who do not share those same views. In colonial settings, colonizers impose their views and lifestyles on colonial peoples.

                STRENGTH: King’s and Outlaw’s arguments have a strong appeal to people who subscribe to the various measures of right action—God’s command, self-realization, consent of the governed, and the greatest good of the greatest number. While King did not directly appeal to the greatest good of the greatest number, utilitarians can respond with sympathy to the suffering of people subject to such tyrannies as slavery and genocide.

Defenders of God’s command, self-realization, consent of the governed, and the greatest good of the greatest number regard these measures as universal standards of right action; by contrast, King and Outlaw regard them as important considerations or principles. King explains from each of three perspectives why segregation is unjust, and Outlaw challenges the certainty that accompanies the foundationalist claim that a specific measure or standard of right action is the universal standard.

                WEAKNESS: When the arbitrary treatment of some humans by other humans occurs, people are capable of creating rights from a fair-minded (cards-face-down) point of view to end such treatment. However, many people hold that life is unfair and that people who deserve less should receive less. As a result, arbitrary treatment must become quite extreme—even tyrannical—before people are willing to negotiate rights from a fair-minded point of view. Wars in the name of religion, for example, took place before the constitutional right to religious liberty was created, and a war over slavery occurred before the constitutional right not to be enslaved was passed.

The main difficulty with the fair-minded, unanimous vote is that it seems to require deep conflict that escalates into violence and warfare before people are willing to create the rights to protect against tyranny. King’s genius provided an answer to this weakness: the conflict over segregation may have escalated into a war over civil rights, but King led a non-violent movement that defused the threat of violence and led to a constitutional right to non-discrimination on the basis of race or national origin.