From Outlandish to Empty

I tend to think you can place moral theories[1] on a scale.

At one end would be theories which provide a sense of unity to morality and which dictate what we ought to do when faced with moral choices. Such unified theories are theoretically compelling, but often wildly at odds with common sense.

At the other end would be theories which coincide very closely with common sense. Intuitive objections to such theories would be few. Though this comes at a cost: Such theories often lack any sense of unity.

Theories that lean towards the former end of this scale are rejected for being too deeply opposed to common sense. Theries that lean towards the latter end are rejected for providing no analysis, no explanation, of morality at all, merely a description of what humans believe.

But here's the rub: The middle ground is likely to be objectionable on both counts. It won't explain enough to be compelling, and it will reject enough common sense to be declared absurd.

And there's also no reason to think that a theory could be imagined that fulfilled criteria of both unity and common-sense. Why can't common-sense be dis-unified?

And if that's true, we are in a bind. The important work to be done is not in adding more theories to this scale, but in deciding which criteria is the more important.

[1] Actually, I imagine this could be generalised much further.