Stephan asked:

Is there a conflict between morality and rationality? Can all moral phenomena be accommodated
within utility theory?

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Two questions, to which I would answer 'no' and 'no'.

In the first case, we need to be careful about what we mean by 'rationality'. Immanuel Kant would say
that rationality provides us directly with the Moral Law, so there is no conflict. I disagree with Kant on
this, finding his account of rationality very austere and hyper-logical, ignoring the multi-faceted nature
of (what I would prefer to call) reasonableness, as it operates in the real world. But if we have an
account of reasonableness which is rich enough, taking in context, emotion, embodiment and
creativity, then I think that we can see morality as an attempt to negotiate how to live lives that are
good for us and for all others around us. This is pretty much Aristotle's view, with perhaps a twist
given to it from Jurgen Habermas' discourse ethics. Aristotle talked of practical wisdom, which I think
is pretty similar to what I have called reasonableness.

I don't think that utilitarianism can cover all morality. There are several problems with it. Here's one:
utilitarianism would allow as moral the killing in cold blood of an innocence person if that death would
save enough others. For me, the fact that utilitarianism clashes with our deepest moral intuitions is
enough to rule it out.

Tim Sprod

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