| Summary: | Moral development is a topic that has consistently elicited contention because of the
difficulties, vaguenesses and uncertainties of the moral life. Combine this with the
contemporary pluralistic milieu and the problems of communicating unambiguously about
moral development are only exacerbated for a commitment to pluralism involves not only
recognition of the fact of diversity itself but the adoption of a normative position
commending diversity as a means of enriching our lives. In both descriptive and
prescriptive senses, pluralism poses significant problems for any discussion of moral
development not least of which is the challenge of ethical relativism. In this thesis I seek to
articulate an orientation toward moral development sensitive to the context of pluralism.
Along the way I address the themes of universal principles, traditions, ethical relativism
and moral languages—all with an eye toward relating them to moral progress. I argue that
universal principles understood as culture-transcendent arbiters of moral disagreement are
impossible to access, that our inescapable starting point within a tradition precludes gazing
directly into the Moral Law but that this need not lead to relativism. In addition, I discuss
moral languages in depth and conclude that they not only provide the framework for
expressing moral concerns but significantly determine our form of life.
Picking up on these themes, I harmonize a carefully delineated conception of
universalism-rejecting problematic senses-with cultural embeddedness and elaborate on
the notion of progress from "within." It is within a tradition that we develop habits of
affection and behaviour and exercise virtues we need in order to become virtuous. We can
then reflect upon, analyze and criticize the efficacy of customs and conventions and this
implies a conception of the good life that transcends the particularities of the moral
language(s) we speak. The result is a stereoscopic view of moral progress in which we
revise our understanding of the good in light of our experience and develop our conception
of the good and the habit of right judgment and action in tandem, each being corrected in
the light of the other as we move dialectically between them.
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