Ethics as Scales of Forms

This book is an important contribution to moral philosophy, and also to moral theology. It overcomes the dichotomising fragmentation of much contemporary moral philosophy which tends to take one aspect or component of moral activity, such as the consequences of actions, rules or intentions, and to make it the only one. The book employs an adaptation of Collingwood’s scheme of ‘scales of forms’ to provide a synthesis which does justice to all aspects and components by placing each aspect, or component, on a scale in which each lower one presupposes the next higher and each higher one needs to be appropriately enacted and expressed in the next lower one. The lowest of all is that of the consequences of single actions and the highest, in which all the others are fulfilled, is that of the unique person as essentially an ens amans, a loving being.

That scale is itself insufficient, for it in turn presupposes a scale of values and ends to be realised and pursued, and thus overcomes another false dichotomy, that of deontological (duty) versus axiological (value) ethics, for duties without values and ends are pointless and arbitrary, and values and ends without duties are of no moral significance. The order of types of love, from mere liking and enjoyment to love of the unique person, provides an appropriate scale, integrated with one of various types of fulfilment, pleasure-happiness-virtue, whose summit, love itself, is also that of the previous scale. Thus insofar as we become what we ought to be, then, ceteris paribus, we shall also find our true fulfilment.

At each point, relevant texts from Greek to contemporary European philosophy, along with mentions of some other world- and life-views, are cited to illustrate and give substance to the argument.

This book is part of a series. View the full series, "Studies in Theoretical & Applied Ethics", here.


Dr R. T. Allen read Philosophy at Nottingham, and then obtained an external BD and PhD, with a thesis on “Michael Polanyi and Christian Theism”, at King’s College, University of London. He has taught Philosophy of Education at colleges in England, one in Nigeria, and The University of the West Indies, Trinidad. His publications include The Education of Autonomous Man (1992), Transcendence and Immanence in the Philosophy of Michael Polanyi and Christian Theism (1992), The Structure of Value (1993), Beyond Liberalism: A Study of the Political thought of F. A. Hayek and Michael Polanyi (1998), and The Necessity of God (2008). He has edited or co-edited four other books on philosophy, contributed articles to five others, and forty to journals published in Britain, continental Europe, North America, Australia and China. Now retired, married and with two grown-up children, he lives in Loughborough and is active in the British Personalist Forum and its journal Appraisal.

“This book is not about Collingwood, nor about his approach to ethics; neither is it a critique of Collingwood’s treatment of the idea of a scale of forms per se. Rather, it is an application of the idea of scale of forms analysis to ethics, intended as a way of introducing unity into what otherwise is typically seen as comprising either an unrelated group of disparate theories, or a mutually exclusive set of theories. Avoiding the tendency to dichotomise our moral thinking and seeing ethical theories as competing but compatible, as characterised by more or less completeness, more or less adequacy, moves us away from being forced into simple minded (because it ignores the real value of each theory) choices between apparently rival ethical theories. There is no reason why we should be forced into these choices, and Richard Allen shows how it is possible to salvage the virtues of different theories whilst avoiding shallow compromise. On this basis theories can be drawn together, their merits explored and their affinities developed and this can lead to a fruitful approach to the analysis of ethical theories and concepts.

“This is an interesting and rewarding book which I recommend to all who appreciate subtle ethical reasoning and dislike the false choices and disjunctions characteristic of much contemporary ethical theory.”
—James Connelly, University of Hull

Buy This Book

ISBN: 1-4438-5682-7

ISBN13: 978-1-4438-5682-9

Release Date: 29th August 2014

Pages: 210

Price: £44.99

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