Progress in Human Geography 21,4 (1997) pp.

583±590

Geography and ethics: a moral turn?

David M. Smith
Department of Geography, Queen Mary and West®eld College, Mile End Road,
London E1 4NS, UK

I A new disciplinary interface

The invitation to write progress reports on geography and ethics recognizes the signifi-
cance of a new disciplinary interface. Indications of a `moral turn' are evident in various
conference programmes and publications. It was first clearly signalled in the proceedings
of a conference organized by the Social and Cultural Geography Study Group of the
Institute of British Geographers, the introduction to which called for an engagement with
ethics or moral philosophy, involving `the articulation of the moral and the spatial' (Philo,
1991: 26). Then there was a session entitled `Rethinking metatheory: ethics, difference and
universals' at the 1994 meeting of the Association of American Geographers, which
generated a special issue of Society and Space (15(1), 1997) introduced by an essay on a
normative turn in social theory (Sayer and Storper, 1997), along with articles linking
social justice with broader considerations of the good life (Smith, 1997), rethinking
geopolitical encounters (Slater, 1997), and exploring aspects of identity relevant to a
relational ethics (Whatmore, 1997). There was a session on `A/moral geographies' at the
1995 IBG conference, and links between geography and ethics featured at the 1997
meetings of both the RGS (with IBG) and the AAG, with the promise of more to come in
1998.
Social justice has returned to the geographical agenda, heralded by Harvey (1992a;
1993). The diversity of re-engagement with this topic is indicated in a special issue of
Urban Geography (15(7)), and in articles on substantive issues such as change in South
Africa (Smith, 1995a; 1995b), disability (Gleeson, 1997), health care (Smith, 1995c) and
population migration (Black, 1996), as well as on more general aspects (e.g., Hay, 1995;
Gleeson, 1996). There have been three new books (Smith, 1994a; Harvey, 1996; Low and
Gleeson, 1997), with markedly different perspectives. The fact that `nature' appears in the
title of two of them reflects a link with environmental ethics and justice (Cutter, 1995),
which is itself generating a substantial literature including a special issue of Antipode
(28(2), 1996) and the first in a series on philosophy and geography (Light and Smith,
1997).
There have also been debates on aspects of professional ethics (e.g., Brunn, 1989;
Corry, 1991; Kirby, 1991; Newman, 1991; Harvey, 1992b; Keith, 1992; McDowell, 1994;

*
c Arnold 1997 0309±1325(97)PH176PR
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584 Geography and ethics: a moral turn?

Smith, 1994b), prompted in part by the changing context of academic work, including
increased competition for resources and commodification of knowledge. There has been
a suggestion that geography might play a part in moral education (Smith, 1995d). And a
new journal is being launched: Ethics, Place and Environment.
There is, of course, nothing new in geographical concern with a range of normative
issues. A continuing thread of social awareness with a critical edge can be detected, from
the era of radical geography, through the preoccupation with Marxism which followed,
and on to the discovery of marginalized `otherness' which built up during the 1980s.
There is obvious moral import to work on such topics as race, ethnicity, gender and
sexuality, along with interpretations grounded in postcolonialism, exclusion, trans-
gression and so on (too numerous to cite), which increasingly dominate human geo-
graphy. However, substantial publications with an ethical or moral focus explicit enough
to figure in their title are notable for their rarity (Harvey, 1973; Buttimer, 1974; Mitchell
and Draper, 1982; Tuan, 1986; 1989).
What distinguishes the contemporary geography and ethics movement is a greater
determination than in the past to look to philosophy, and not merely to the work of a few
popular figures (like Zygmunt Bauman and Michel Foucault) who make gestures
towards geographical space. However, it is still very much a one-way street. There is little
evidence that moral philosophers have any interest in or knowledge of the subject-matter
and literature of geography. For example, the index to the first hundred years of the
periodical Ethics: An International Journal of Social, Political, and Legal Philosophy, up to
1990, includes only half-a-dozen references to articles and discussions the title of which
might suggest a link with geography (Ethics, 1992), and the contents of subsequent
volumes give no indication of awareness of the emerging geographical concern with
ethics. References to a geographical perspective in ethics texts are so rare as to come as a
surprise.
Before going further, some terminological clarification is required. Differences are
sometimes imputed to the meaning of `ethics' and `morals' (or `morality'), associated
with different usage. For example, it is customary to refer to professional ethics (like
medical ethics), but to conduct in some other spheres as morality (e.g., sexual morality).
Nothing much is lost if both terms are taken to mean the same: having to do with
evaluation of human conduct, with what is right or wrong or good or bad, with what
people ought or ought not to do, and with the quality of their actions or characters, in
contexts which are not merely matters of etiquette or prudence.
The academic disciplines described as ethics or moral philosophy both refer to the
systematic study of ethical or moral thought and conduct. A common division within
this branch of learning is between meta-ethics, descriptive ethics and normative ethics.
Briefly, meta-ethics concerns what it means to think or do ethics, descriptive ethics ident-
ifies actual moral beliefs and practices, while normative ethics proposes solutions to moral
problems. The rest of this report identifies some of the scope for a geographical engage-
ment with this new disciplinary interface under the first two of these headings, leaving
the third for subsequent discussion.

II Meta-ethics: a place for di€erence?

Meta-ethics is sometimes referred to as theoretical, as opposed to applied or practical
ethics. It concerns questions which it would be helpful to resolve, or at least consider,

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 David M. Smith 585

before solutions are proposed for particular moral problems. Thus, meta-ethics concerns
the meaning of such terms as good and bad, right and wrong, ought or should, i.e., the
language of moral discourse. Another aspect of meta-ethics is `trying to find out what
would constitute explaining the fact that people hold moral views' (Harman and
Thompson, 1996: viii±ix). More generally, meta-ethics concerns what moral argument is
about.
It is no comfort to the noviciate to discover enormous differences between philos-
ophers writing on meta-ethics. Paraphrasing Smith (1994: 3±4): we are told that engaging
in moral practice presupposes moral facts, and that this presupposition is an error, and
that moral commitment involves no such error; we are told that moral facts exist, and
that these facts are no different from those that are the subject-matter of science, and we
are told that moral facts exist but they are of a special kind; we are told that moral facts
exist and are part of the causal explanatory network, and we are told not just that moral
facts play no causal role but that there are no moral facts at all; we are told that there is an
internal and necessary connection between moral judgement and the will, and we are
told that this connection is altogether external and contingent; we are told that moral
requirements are requirements of reason, and we are told that it is not necessarily
irrational to act immorally, that moral evaluation is different in kind from the evaluation
of people as rational or irrational; we are told that morality is objective, that there is a
single true morality, and we are told that morality is not objective, that there is no single
true morality. Numerous distinguished philosophers are associated with these various
conflicting positions. Smith (1994: 4) concludes: `The scene is so diverse that we must
wonder at the assumption that these theorists are all talking about the same thing'.
Theoretical diversity is expressed in competing `isms'. For example, Singer (1991:
Part IV) covers the following: realism (the view that there is an objective moral reality),
intuitionism (that we can know moral truth by a kind of intuition), naturalism (that moral
truth can be known from some other property), subjectivism (that moral views are
personal opinions and not objective truth), relativism (that morality is relative to a
particular society or culture), and universal prescriptivism (which gives prominence to
reasoning about ethical judgements). And this by no means exhausts the `isms' which
abound in ethics (e.g., absolutism, cognitivism, egoism, emotivism, nihilism, objectivism,
scepticism), and other schools of thought without this particular suffix. There are also
differences over the value of moral theory itself, as well as about what moral theory
might be (compare Williams, 1985, and Louden, 1991).
How might the geographer engage such diversity? The large problems of meta-ethics
seem best left to philosophers, steeped in the vast and complex literature, and familiar
with its tortuous interrogations of such questions as whether a passer-by should rescue
a famous cleric or family member, or whether Alice ought to give Bert a banana
(e.g., Harman and Thompson, 1996). Fools rushing in, reinventing the wheel or slipping
on banana skins are evident dangers.
Nevertheless, there is one problem of such obvious geographical significance that it
cannot be by-passed: the tension between universalism and relativism. Its importance is
heightened by contemporary preoccupation with diversity or difference, requiring us to
`establish ways of criticizing universalistic claims without completely surrendering to
particularism' (McDowell, 1995: 292), or of defending some universals against unreflect-
ive particularism. Descriptive ethical relativism (the observation that what people believe
to be right or wrong differs among individuals, societies and cultures) is obviously true:
part of the facts about the world accumulated by anthropologists, sociologists and some

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586 Geography and ethics: a moral turn?

traditional cultural geographers. Normative ethical relativism (the view that what
actually is right or wrong differs among individuals, societies and cultures) is just as
obviously contentious, unless we subscribe to the `vulgar relativism' criticized by
Williams (1972: 34±39) which requires equal respect for all moral codes. However, to
criticize actual moral codes which condone human sacrifice, institutionalized torture,
racism and the like raises the question of the origin and authority of the transcending
(or universal) principles used to condemn such local practices.
Recognition within philosophical literature that this is an explicitly geographical
issue is rare enough to draw attention to Billington (1993: 37±38), who uses the heading
`Geographical perspective' for a short section within his discussion of relativism. How-
ever, in referring to the many conflicting ideas throughout the world about how to
behave, he points out that one does not need to be an anthropologist (not geographer!) to
be aware of this. His discussion of relativism versus absolutism includes the question of
how judgements can be `made geographically' (Billington, 1993: 38), i.e., among different
ideas about how to behave held in one place as opposed to another.
Most attempts to seek absolute or universal moral truth rely on propositions con-
cerning what people would agree was right (or wrong) under certain conditions. These
might be that everyone is perfectly rational, conceptually clear, fully informed of the
facts, and accepting the moral point of view in the sense of being concerned about
right and wrong (e.g., Peffer, 1990: 272), or capable of rational reflection on relevant
arguments and well established empirical facts (e.g., Miller, 1992: 18). Some ideal process
of discourse with no imbalances of power among the participants may be assumed, as
a condition for accepting the outcome of collective deliberation as moral truth
(e.g., Habermas, 1990; Benhabib, 1992). Alternatives involve various approaches from
contractarianism and constructivism, leading for example to prioritizing the interests of
the worst-off (Rawls, 1971), the principle of reasonable rejection (Barry, 1995), or the
principle of noninjury (O'Neill, 1996) as universal moral propositions.
Another approach with more obvious geographical appeal is to accept the universality
of certain grand moral values, but also to recognize the spatial (and temporal)
particularity of their application. This would involve a positive answer to the crucial
question of `whether moral universalism can be reconciled with contextual sensitivity'
(Benhabib, 1992: 134). The realist Smith (1994: 188, following Williams, 1985: 129) draws
attention to `concepts that at once both describe some naturalistic state of affairs and
positively or negatively evaluate it: concepts like courage, brutality, honesty, duplicity,
loyalty, meanness, kindness, treachery', and points out that the prevalence of such
concepts suggests an agreement about what is right and wrong so considerable that our
language has developed to reflect it. Similarly the historicist MacIntyre (1981: 192)
suggests that `truthfulness, justice and courage ± and perhaps some others ± are genuine
excellences, are virtues in the light of which we have to characterise ourselves and others,
whatever our private moral standpoint or our society's particular codes may be', but that
this is `compatible with the acknowledgement that different societies have and have had
different codes of truthfulness, justice and courage'. That care might also be one of these
human virtues is a feature of the more relational ethics with which some feminists have
challenged mainstream, `masculinist' moral philosophy (Gilligan, 1982; Tronto, 1993;
Hekman, 1995; Clement, 1996; see also Smith, 1998).
Along similar lines, Walzer (1994: xi) makes a distinction between a `thin', minimalist
or universal morality, captured by such grand values as justice and truth, and a thick,
particular or local morality which is `richly referential, culturally resonant, locked into a

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 David M. Smith 587

locally established symbolic system or network of meanings': `there are the makings of
a thin and universalist morality inside every thick and particular morality'. He refers to
`a core morality differently elaborated in different cultures' (Walzer, 1994: 4).
This kind of distinction points to an important role for the geographer. This is to take
up where most philosophers leave off: to examine the contextual thickening of moral
concepts in the particular (local) circumstances of differentiated human being. And this
requires neither the abandonment of the entire Enlightenment philosophical heritage,
nor the complete embrace of postmodernism.

III Descriptive ethics: beyond moral geographies?

The term `moral geographies' has emerged in recent years as a rubric for empirical
investigations into various aspects of spatial patterns and relations which invite a moral
reading. These studies could be regarded as geographical exercises in descriptive
ethics. Anticipating the growing application of a `moral lens' to human geography, the
Social and Cultural Geography Study Group of the IBG comment as follows (Philo,
1991: 16):
such an investigation will take us towards the moral `relativists', in that we will seek to establish the geography of
everyday moralities given by the different moral assumptions and supporting arguments that particular peoples
in particular places make about `good' and `bad'/`right' and `wrong'/`just' and `unjust'/`worthy' and `unworthy'.
There can be little doubt that these assumptions and arguments do vary considerably from one nation to the next,
from one community to the next, and one street to the next: and it is also evident that the lines of variation overlap
in many ways with variations between people and places in terms of social class, ethnic status, religious belief and
political affiliation (to name but a few possibilities).

Moral assumptions are bound up with the social construction of different groups, who is
included and excluded, and so on: `spatial variations in everyday moralities will inevit-
ably be closely entangled with spatial variations in the ``structure'' and ``functioning'' of
human groupings'. Attention is also drawn to `the geography in everyday moralities . . .
moral assumptions and arguments often have built into their very heart thinking about
space, place, environment, landscape'. An understanding of local culture sensitizes us to
the geography of everyday moralities, `which ``glue'' together the assumptions and argu-
ments of particular peoples in particular places' (Philo, 1991: 19).
Work on moral geographies has been featured in two of this journal's reviews
(Matless, 1995: 396±97; OÂ Tuathail, 1996: 409±10), so what is said here can be brief and
selective. Some writers prefer the terms `moral landscape' (Clark, 1986; Ley, 1993;
Ploszajska, 1994), `moral location' (e.g., Ogborn, and Philo, 1994), `moral order' (Jackson
and Smith, 1984; Driver, 1988; Jackson, 1984; 1989), or `moral terrain' (Proctor, 1995). The
focus tends to be on what kinds of people and behaviour belong where. There are links
with work on the `purification' of space (Sibley, 1988; 1995), and with the notion of a
`moral discourse of climate' (Livingstone, 1991; 1992: 221±41). In somewhat different
vein, Tuan (1993) has explored the relationship between the moral and the aesthetic in
landscape.
Few writers on moral geography and similar concepts give much attention to the
meaning of `moral'. An exception is Matless (1994: 127), who is concerned with moral
conduct in the explicit sense of `different ways of being in the world and the reactions
of others to them'. He suggests that the moral geographies of the Norfolk Broadlands
work around Michel Foucault's three senses of morality: as moral codes, as the exercise

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588 Geography and ethics: a moral turn?

of behaviour in transgression or obedience of a code, and as the way in which

individuals act for themselves as ethical subjects in relation to elements of a code.
Links with other literature in moral or political philosophy in this kind of work are
rare. An exception is a critique of the formulation of justice by Rawls (1971), in which
Clark (1986: 147, 152) describes the original position, under which people decide on
institutions behind a veil of ignorance as to their actual position in society, as `an
imaginary moral landscape . . . a particular geography of morality . . . the ultimate color-
blind, non-sexist, non-racial community . . . a utopia with a moral order we can only
dream about'.
No references to moral geographies (landscapes, locations or whatever) have been
found in the literature of moral philosophy. Writers in this field appear ignorant of
(or uninterested in) the kind of work outlined above. However, an example from political
science is provided by Shapiro (1994), who makes extensive use of the notion of moral
geographies in exploring what he describes as the ethics of postsovereignty. Other
examples can be found in a book by an anthropologist, who refers to `contrasting moral
landscapes of city and region' explored by James Dickey in his novel and screenplay
Deliverance, in which four businessmen journey from the city to the northern Georgia
mountains where they encounter both the natural forces of water and the threatening
venality of local hill people, and to the circumferential highway around Atlanta as a
stockade, with everything on the inside considered by white residents of the sylvan outer
suburbs to be `the moral equivalent of the inner city: a racialized place of danger and
decay, to be avoided at all costs' (Rutheiser, 1996: 51, 83).
Future work might extend the examination of moral geographies into a fuller inter-
pretation of the historical geography of moral theory and practice. If moral universalism
is `a historical result' (Habermas, 1990: 208), then the particularism which it replaced and
with which it is now subject to challenge, like universalism itself, is just as much a
geographical result.

IV Conclusion

The extreme selectivity of this review reflects an early stage in the engagement of
geography with ethics or moral philosophy. Given the present momentum, literature can
be expected to accumulate thick (some perhaps thin) and fast. Future reviews will try to
reflect new developments, as well as something of what the present piece has missed,
guided by the reaction of any readers who care to help.

Acknowledgements

This report draws on parts of a paper `Geography and moral philosophy: some common
ground', prepared for the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers,
Fort Worth, April 1997, and accepted for publication in Ethics, Place and Environment as
this article went to press. I am grateful to my partner in Geography/Ethics Project,
Jim Proctor, for access to some of the fruits of our collaboration, and to members
of the Critical Geography Furum and others who responded to calls for references and
reprints.

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