CMC Magazine / January 1, 1996
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We May Understand All Views Better
As our attention is shifted to the more general
philosophical frameworks, we may discern both strengths and
weaknesses in our own positions and those of our interlocutors.
We may discover, for example, the limits of the consequentialist
approach as such, e.g., because the appeal to consequences
depends on our successfully predicting both the preferable and
undesirable consequences of a possible policy--prediction which
can be notoriously unreliable. Likewise, Kantians and others who
stress the importance of persons, their attendant rights, etc.,
will need to confront the limits of these non-consequentialist
approaches--e.g., what do we do when basic rights appear to
conflict? What do we do when rights recognized in one culture
are not acknowledged in another culture (a problem of
considerable difficulty in the dramatically globalized
communication environment of the Internet)?
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