ABSTRACT
One of the main benefits that ethical theory can get from a dose of real practical controversy in the company of practitioners of other disciplines is that we are brought to see the poverty of intuitionism and the appeal to conviction and consensus. Some philosophers, however, react to this experience, not by trying to find a viable theory which will yield arguments that can be defended, but by doubting the practical value of theory altogether. The handicap which afflicts some moral philosophers can have the same consequence and worse. They may think that there is just no hope of finding an ethical theory – that is an account of the logic of moral concepts – which will yield rules of reasoning. The only trouble is that events and technology do move on, and may require new discussions and measures; for example, ‘video nasties’ have come on general sale on the black market in Britain since the Williams Report was published.
