THE FRENCH TRADITION

While the German tradition sees the relationship between ethics and morality as a correlation between theory and practice, the French tradition favours a completely different view of the two concepts. From the German tradition s point of view, ethics is based on reason. Such a final foundation does not seem possible to the French tradition. The deontological aspect, even though it still exists, loses its central position in ethics. Finally, a distinction between ethics and morality is still possible, but it does not run along the lines of the distinction between theory and practice. The entire architecture of moral philosophy is different in this school of thought.

The French tradition has its roots in French moralism. The authors, who can be understood as representatives of this tradition, can therefore be seen as members of the moralistic school. Contrary to what the word might suggest, moralism in this sense does not stand for rigorous enforcement of moral norms, but rather for the attempt of keeping up morality in the face of relativism and ambiguities . We will briefly describe the moral theory of Michel de Montaigne as the classical representative of moralism. While Montaigne is recognised as one of the founders of moralism, the modern author, Paul Ricoeur, is certainly less clear-cut as a moralist. However, we will see that Ricoeur embodies some of the ideas of moralism and that he displays some of the features that make him a representative of the French tradition. The French tradition in this text will stand for the ideas that: (a) ethical theories cannot have a final foundation, but find their justification in the propagation of peace and avoidance of violence; and (b) ethics and morality can be distinguished along the lines of deontology and teleology.

Michel de Montaigne and Moralism

The French tradition in this paper is understood to be strongly influenced by moralism. Moralism in turn stands for the idea that there is no final justification of morality comparable to reason in the German tradition. ^{[3 ]} A wider definition of a moralist that can be found in French literature is that he is someone who contemplates the essence of man, who reflects upon questions of conduct and interaction (Schalk, 1995, p. 20).

A ˜moralist in France has typically been a man whose distance from the world of influence or power allows him to reflect disinterestedly upon the human condition, its ironies and truths, in such a way as to confer upon him (usually posthumously) a very special authority of the sort commonly reserved in religious communities for outstanding men of the cloth. (Judt, 1998, p. 121f)

Moralism in this sense is not confined to a specific period or place in philosophy. However, the notion of moralism is strongly linked to French philosophy of the 16th and 17th centuries. One feature that unites different moralists is their continuous battle against philosophic systems. Life is seen as an infinite whole, which can never be comprehensively described. Allencompassing systems therefore have to be exchanged for other forms of philosophic thoughts. It is obvious that anyone who is considered part of this tradition necessarily has to be on an opposite pole of philosophy from the German tradition, where systematic thought and the attempt to explain everything with one theory are characteristic. Since philosophy is not understood as a system in moralism, ethics has to be justified by other means. The lack of systematic foundation has often led to moralism being equated to relativism.

Michel de Montaigne is one of the most important figures of moralism. His philosophical position is hedonistic. Joy and pleasure are man s final end, no matter what one may think about the means to reach this end. The final end, even of virtue (and thus of ethics), is pleasure (Montaigne, 1976, p. 7). On the other hand there is one fact that threatens our pleasure . This is our inevitable death. Since we know that death is inevitable and that we are necessarily headed in its direction, the worst that can happen to us is being afraid to die. If we fear death, it is impossible for us to do anything. All of our life we do nothing but build our death (Montaigne, 1976, p. 26). Death, however, is not to be feared because we don t have to care as long as we live, as we are alive . We don t have to care once we are dead either, because then we will not be able to care any more (Montaigne, 1976, p. 28). Nevertheless death remains the central point of philosophy. Montaigne therefore takes up Cicero s thought and even puts one of his essays under the heading of philosophise is learning to die. At first sight Montaigne seems to search for a good way to spend his life. Philosophy and science do not appear to have any other purpose than to teach him more about himself, about how to live and how to die well (Montaigne, 1976, p. 115).

However, this apparently harmless and contemplative philosophy has serious repercussions for the perception of morality and ethics. In order to completely understand this, one has to take into account that the reason for Montaigne sphilosophyofdyingwasnotonlyindividualdeath,whichloomson the horizon for everybody, but also the downfall of conventional morality at his time.

Philosophy traditionally distinguishes between recognition of truth and the tasks of morality. It speculates on the one hand about being and on the other hand about virtue. Learning to die, however, means that all aims and ends of philosophy are united in a single focus. The difference between word and deed, between theory and practice melts away (Starobinski, 1986, p. 117f). Virtue in this setting not only aims at moral behaviour, but it helps us to hold death in contempt. Thus it allows us to develop the necessary quiet and contemplation to enjoy life (Montaigne, 1976, p. 9). We know that death awaits us anywhere , but we can overcome the fear of it. Contemplating death is therefore contemplating freedom. This is where Montaigne s philosophy becomes subversive for all moral systems. As we realise that dying is no evil, we are free of coercion and constraints (Montaigne, 1976, p. 16).

This philosophy does not lend itself as a basis for ethics. Montaigne does not offer a science that we could learn and no method to find out optimal conduct. His philosophy is rather a well-considered inquietude (Wutenow, 1976, p. 298). Thus Montaigne stands in the tradition of the stoic sceptics. He is no systematic thinker, and the only consistent characteristic of man he admits is his inconsistency (Montaigne, 1976, p. 103). With regard to morality he sees the factual plurality of moral systems and the difficulty of determining which of these systems should be chosen . What he denounces is the mystical authority that is attributed to the worldly and religious order of his time. This doubting of the foundations of morality and the lack of an alternative foundation led to Montaigne being called a relativist. This reproach is not quite justified, however, since he does recognise the need for moral norms. He simply chooses what seems to be most useful to public life, and that is the custom, the lived morality (Starobinski, 1986, p. 385). Montaigne s morality is thus fundamentally conservative since he simply accepts the norms that exist on the grounds that the existing norms are always better than no norms at all.

This shows that Montaigne fulfils the first criterion of what we called the French tradition, namely the fact that morality s foundation is to be found in the conservation of peace. Montaigne shares this foundation for the respect of public rules and morality with other French philosophers such as Pascal and Descartes. The formal respect of norms does not rely on their justice , but simply depends on their immediate result, which is public peace (Starobinski, 1986, p. 384). The second one of the aforementioned criteria of the French tradition, the distinction between ethics and morality along the lines of deontology and teleology, is not quite as apparent in his writings. He does not, in fact, differentiate between two notions the way we have so far. However, it is quite obvious that both of these aspects of ethics, which are often understood to be conflicting, each find a central place in his moral philosophy. On the one hand teleology is obvious in his hedonistic approach to morality in general. Lust is the final aim of virtue and morality. He does not go as far as to propagate the rules of ˜do as you will but, quite on the contrary, his solution is to adhere to existing norms, no matter what their justification. This duty of obeying norms and doing what is expected refers back to the first aspect of the French tradition, the keeping of peace. The idea is that peace can be held when everybody does his duty, which is to obey existing moral and legal norms. Having proven that the moralist Montaigne is part ”or maybe better, one of the founders ”of the French tradition, let us now proceed to the contemporary philosopher who represents this tradition.

Paul Ricoeur and the Other

Ricoeur can best be understood by looking at the most important philosophical tendencies of the time. He is influenced by phenomenology, by Heidegger, and by the further developments these thoughts have found in France exemplified by names from Sartre and Camus to Levinas. There is a general feeling that philosophy can, at best, have the task of helping analyse situations; it cannot prescribe acts or norms (Ricoeur, 1995a, p. 192).

The other holds a central position in contemporary French philosophy. ^[4] One sign of this is that Ricoeur s most important recent publication on the topic of ethics is titled Soi-m me comme un autre (1990). The title suggests that there is a close relationship between the self and the other. The self implies the other, it cannot even be thought without the other (Ricoeur, 1990a, p. 14). As Ricoeur demonstrates , this relationship between the self and the other has implications for almost every aspect of philosophy. Most important for our purposes is the result of this concerning moral philosophy. The other is understood to be someone who can, like myself , say I, who sees himself as an agent responsible for his acts (Ricoeur, 1990b, p. 258). Ricoeur emphasises the fact that in many languages the goodness of an action is judged not only by the goodness of its aims, but also by the orientation of the agent towards the other (Ricoeur, 1990a, p. 222).

Ethics consists of three dimensions, all of which have to be taken into account for the entire theory to be workable or relevant. The first dimension is the soi-m me, the thought of oneself. The underlying question of this reflective thought is that of the good life. It is an example of the Aristotelian tradition where the good life is the final end of ethics. As we have already seen, the reflection on oneself implies the other. In this context the other can mean two things. It is the other whose face I can see, which forces me to take responsibility as described by Levinas. At the same time the other refers to the faceless other or others. This is the anonymous other as the foundation of justice (Ricoeur, 1994, p. 15). The other as the personalisation of justice leads to an emphasis on institutions, which are the third element of ethics.

I define the ethical goal by the three following terms: the aim of the good life, with others in just institutions. The three parts of the definition are equally important. (Ricoeur, 1990b, p. 257, translation by the author)

Even though Ricoeur s moral philosophy seems to be rather teleological, he does not omit the deontological problem, the question of duty, which has had a big influence on the German, and especially Kantian tradition of moral philosophy. He distinguishes between ethics ( l thique ) and morality ( la morale ) along the lines of teleology and deontology. Ethics thus stands for the aim of a life accomplished under the distinguishing mark of actions held for good. Morality, on the other hand, stands for the obligatory side, distinguished by norms, obligations, prohibitions. These are characterised at the same time by the claim for universality and the factual effect of constraints (Ricoeur, 1990b, p. 256). Ethics stands in the Aristotelian tradition of the search for the good life, whereas morality is understood to be the Kantian side of moral philosophy (Ricoeur, 1990a, p. 200). The two aspects, however, do not have the same importance in moral philosophy. Morality only constitutes a limited if indispensablepartofethics.Ethics,thesearchforthegoodlife,envelopsmorality.

One central question of this theory is why we need morality at all. If ethics is the search for the good life, why do we need the constraints and duties of morality? Ricoeur s answer to this is clear and straightforward. We simply cannot afford to stay in the realm of the desire for the good life because our actions entail power and power may lead to our inflicting violence on others. The transformation from optative to imperative, from ethics to morality is forced by the existence of violence (Ricoeur, 1995b, p. 18; 1994, p. 16). This characteristic of morality as being the measure against violence is the reason why moral imperatives in many cases have a negative form. Violence in this context is understood to range from the more subtle forms of coercing people to do one s will such as flattery or lies, up to the most drastic forms of violence such as rape, torture, and murder (Ricoeur, 1990b, p. 262).

As a representative of the French tradition, Ricoeur does not try to depict this view of morality as a final foundation no femoral philosophy or femoral norms. The search for the good life and the desire to avoid violence are not founded by moral philosophy. In fact it is the other way around. Moral philosophy just takes moral attitudes and convictions as they exist and tries to justify them. A theory, which does not try to argue in one logic chain, but goes back to trying to justify the convictions on which it is built, would seem suspect to many thinkers educated in classical logic as it seems to commit the fatal error of a petitio principii . For Ricoeur this is does not pose a problem since this appears to be a feature of all philosophical theories.

I will support at the given moment that every moral theory presents in its argument a circularity of some sort. Maybe this is even the case in every grand philosophy. (Ricoeur, 1988, p. 216, translation by the author)

Ricoeur obviously fulfils the two criteria of the French tradition introduced earlier ”the lack of a final foundation of ethics, and the distinction of ethics and morality along the lines of teleology and deontology. Again, as in the case of the German tradition, this distinction that was only demonstrated with the help of one example can be found in the writings of many contemporary authors (e.g., Wunenburger, 1993, p. XIV; Lenoir, 1991, p. 13), which justifies the use of the term French tradition.

Now that we have seen several possible relationships between the notions of ethics and morality, we shall return to the question of how the notion of responsibility can be of help to solve problems of moral philosophy and the question why responsibility has become the ubiquitous word that it is. From there we will be able to come back to the moral and ethical problems of information systems and analyse the contribution of responsibility in this area. For this purpose we first have to take a brief look at the problems that arise from the definitions of ethics and morality as they were described so far.

^{[3 ]} For a more detailed discussion of the moralists scepticism of reason, see Rustemeyer (2001).

^[4] The other (originally l autre, l Autre, autrui ) is in many cases hard to translate, as it can refer to the other person who is opposite me, the other as person but in an abstract way, and also the other as the genuinely unknown, as for example death in the writing of Levinas (1983).