Does morality have a reference in this world?

[Oreoracle]

From a empiricist perspective, emotivism makes sense, and may be the only option. It has manifold practical problems, though. For one, when we talk about “morality”, we are immediately talking about mores, ideas and customs people have in common. But emotivism says that, since there is no reference point of morality, morality is only circumstantially connected to mores.

Right.

The subjectivizing of morality seems to benefit no one.

Then again, “benefit” assumes ethics anyway. We have to agree on what is good before we agree on what is beneficial.

Ah, but, one might say, Darwinism has equipped us with similar emotions and biases, which we can build upon. But emotivism, even if it has a solid historical foundation, does not yield results which correspond to our intuitions about morality. I have heard it called “booyayism”. Since you have no objective standard – and if you try to create an objective standard it can easily be bypassed by a person who has different emotions – since you have no objective standard, all you can say to Hitler is “Boo!”

Be careful where you go with this idea. Just because emotivists don’t believe ethical standards are objective doesn’t mean they can’t follow consistent ethical principles.

When an ethical disagreement occurs, the best you can hope for is to persuade others. I realize the knowledge that ethics are subjective is inconvenient to have, but that doesn’t mean emotivism is untrue.

It is dangerous to derive “ought” statements from “is” statements; I will agree with that. Consider: in many/most countries in this world, drunk driving is considered acceptable or only slightly wrong. This is not the valid root of a moral judgment. Our morality cannot be by majority vote, but I am also convinced that it cannot be reduced to subjectivism.

When it comes to epistemology, extreme skepticism is an interesting exercise. When it comes to ethics, however, extreme skepticism is very dangerous.

It seems we can agree that both objectivism and subjectivism can be dangerous if misused. Of course, whether a system is misused is entirely our opinion.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

I don’t think of morality as needing any referent. It is not a set of rules that exist somewhere out there to be discovered. It is not a bunch of prohibitions and punishments. Those are rules and laws. Morality is the word we use to talk about our concerns for others. Moral development is about deepening those concerns and expanding the circle of others for which we are concerned.

But why should we have such concerns? Our knowledge of such concerns must be either innate or learned. But if innate, is such knowledge developed through natural selection (and therefore not knowledge, but programming) or truly *a priori *knowledge (like the laws of mathematics)?

If morality is a vestige of natural selection, then we need not respect it. It’s all very well to say that it will make us better or more highly developed people, but the term “better” would lack a reference, and the term “highly developed” does not refer to anything but evolutionary biology. Who is to say that the ends of evolution aren’t best served by eugenics, whether or not eugenics seems to be invalidated by a bunch of outmoded moral standards?

But if morality is not innate, it must be learned. But then it is only conventional, and it is perfectly obvious that conventions only need be followed insofar as they are in a person’s best interest. It must then be shown that living ethically will always be in a person’s best interest. This is an extraordinarily difficult thing to prove. Consider a man who knows that he can steal $20000 and knows he will not get caught. His mother has cancer, and lacks medical insurance; this $20000 is the only hope. Is living ethically in his best interest?

Moral development is not conforming to some pre-existing standard, but expanding our imaginations for who we perceive as part of our community with whom we have a shared interest. It is seeing ourselves in others and seeing their good as our own good.

I assume you would say that there is, then, no such thing as moral knowledge. If I said that science was about “expanding our imaginations”, it would be clear that I would be looking at it precisely the wrong way: science is about conforming our imaginations to the real nature of the world.

What is morality, then, if not knowledge? Is it then an interest, or a hobby? Why should we try to be moral?

Morality as a set of rules is kid’s stuff. Isn’t that what Jesus taught? Love others as yourselves? Rules and laws are just fingers pointing at how to do that.

You’ve misunderstood me. I don’t think that morality is a set of rules. I would rather say it is a set of dispositions, a set of virtues. Our acts either conform to these virtues or conflict with these virtues. You do not know what to do because of a rule (“do not lie”), but you know what to do because of your nature as a just human being, which tends to – but does not always – entail rules like the rule against lying.

Perhaps we could both agree on a Kantian sort of ethic? Kant says that the categorical imperative can be derived from reason, but he does not (at least not that I know of) propose an reference for morality.

 

[Leela]

But why should we have such concerns? Our knowledge of such concerns must be either innate or learned. But if innate, is such knowledge developed through natural selection (and therefore not knowledge, but programming) or truly *a priori *knowledge (like the laws of mathematics)?

If morality is a vestige of natural selection, then we need not respect it. It’s all very well to say that it will make us better or more highly developed people, but the term “better” would lack a reference, and the term “highly developed” does not refer to anything but evolutionary biology. Who is to say that the ends of evolution aren’t best served by eugenics, whether or not eugenics seems to be invalidated by a bunch of outmoded moral standards?

I would say that evolution is a pretty good analogy for the deveopment of morality. Societies tend to come up with the same basic morals like don’t kill, don’t steal, no false witness-bearing, cover your head when you enter the temple etc. Some version of the Golden Rule has been articulated by just about every society we know. What do we make of that fact? For theists who are persuaded that morality rests on eternal principles, this fact may be viewed as evidence that eternal principles really exist and as clues that aid in our inquiry into what these principles may be.

Pragmatists like myself, who take a Darwinian view about culture as well as biology, can answer that the fact that various isolated societies have come up with many of the same practices is akin to dolphins and sharks evolving similar shaped bodies though with very different ancestry–what biologists call “convergent evolution.” Dolphins being mammals have early ancestors that left the sea and adapted for land-dwelling and later ancestors that returned and adapted to the sea. Though they have different histories they adapted similar solutions to similar environmental problems such as propelling their bodies through water efficiently. It doesn’t mean that a torpedo-shaped body is more True and eternal. Evolution has no end in mind. It doesn’t impose a single correct way that a ocean-dwelling animal must be. In fact, there are other shapes that ocean animals take. Likewise, we needn’t view the fact that societies have evolved to hold similar ethics as evidence that some supernatural force is trying to impose a single correct way for humans to behave, but we can still argue that some practices that societies developed in the past such as “do unto others…” are morally superior to alternatives such as “run around killing people while trying to steal one another’s pornography.”

Your question of why we should have such concerns sounds like the wrong question to me. The fact is that we do have concerns for others.

But if morality is not innate, it must be learned. But then it is only conventional, and it is perfectly obvious that conventions only need be followed insofar as they are in a person’s best interest. It must then be shown that living ethically will always be in a person’s best interest. This is an extraordinarily difficult thing to prove.

But morality is not about one’s personal best interests. It is about seeing the best interests of others as also your own.

Consider a man who knows that he can steal $20000 and knows he will not get caught. His mother has cancer, and lacks medical insurance; this $20000 is the only hope. Is living ethically in his best interest?

Depending on the circumstances I might take the money because it would be the right thing to do. I don’t think that there are any hard and fast rules that have no exceptions.

[continued later]

Best,
Leela

 

[Leela]

I assume you would say that there is, then, no such thing as moral knowledge. If I said that science was about “expanding our imaginations”, it would be clear that I would be looking at it precisely the wrong way: science is about conforming our imaginations to the real nature of the world.

What is morality, then, if not knowledge? Is it then an interest, or a hobby? Why should we try to be moral?

Pragmatists start with a different perspective on inquiry. As Richard Rorty puts it, “pragmatists hope to make it impossible for the sceptic to ask the question, ‘Is our knowledge of things [whether scientific or ethical] adequate to the way things really are?’ They substitute for this traditional question the practical question, 'Are our ways of describing things…as good as possible? Or can we do better. Can our future be made better than our present?”’ We don’t want to think of inquiry as having the goal of unearthing eternal truths. This as a bad goal since we could never know when we’ve achieved it even if we had. So the question of whether such eternal moral principles exist is one that pragmatists would prefer to be unasked. But while we can’t aim at truth, we can aim at better justification for our beliefs. If inquiry is a search for truth as traditionally understood, there is no way to talk about progress without already knowing what the truth is. But if inquiry is concerned with justification, then we can measure progress in terms of assuaging doubts. Pragmatists like myself would like to change the subject of conversation from whether we have a philosophical grounding for our beliefs to whether we have been imaginative enough to come up with good alternatives to our current beliefs that we can use to transform our present into a richer future.

This still leaves the question of what we can mean by moral progress. Before I can get there, I need to point out that the pragmatist doesn’t see a difference in kind between facts and values, between scientific truths and moral truths. The truth-value of claims made in either sphere is the same sort of thing. When we say it is true that F=ma, and when we say it is true that cruelty is wrong, we are using the word “true” in the same way. So what I said about the pragmatist’s perspective about inquiry in general applies to inquiry into ethics. Just as we can’t aim at truth as a goal, we also can’t aim at “doing what is right” because as with truth, we can never know when we’ve hit the mark. (An aside, I once learned that “sin” was an ancient Hebrew archery term for “to miss the mark,” to not be as good as you could be, while the modern Christian interpretation seems to concern a supernatural force for evil in the world.) You can’t aim at being morally perfect, but you can aim at being more sensitive to the pain of others, at seeing others as part of yourself. Rorty descibes moral progress as “a matter of wider and wider sympathy.” We can aim at “taking more people’s needs into account than you did previously.”

You ask why we should try to be moral. Why not go around raping and pilaging? The simple answer for most people is, “because we are not sociopaths.” People like that exist, of course, but psychology has given us an idea of what this pathology is and how this pathology comes about. A sociopath’s self-conception contains no relations to others, either due to genetics or because of absent or abusive parents or some combination of genetics and upbringing. The sociopath is not a person who has given up on certain ideas about ultimate reality, but is a person who never developed trust for loving parents in early childhood. Children do not grow up to be sociopaths because they lacked the right metaphysical foundation, but rather because they lacked loving homes.

Psychologists tell us what we parents need to do if want our children to develop morally. Instead of telling our children that they will be punished for hurting others–that their behavior towards others has consequences only for themselves, we should rather ask them, “how do you think you would feel if someone did the same thing to you?” We should convince them that we need to be concerned about hurting others because it has consquences for others. It is the power of human imagination to put ourselves in another’s shoes that will help us progess morally. Psychologists tell us that teaching children only about the threat of personal consequences for their behavior toward others results in sociopaths. Teaching our children to do what a Church commands out of fear of personal punishment by eternal damnation, would be one way of doing just that. That is the sort of moral teaching that results in sociopaths, people concerned only for their own well-being or their own souls rather than people with a capacity for empathy for other human beings. Hell keeps people in line just like our legal system but it doesn’t make them more moral.

If we really were sociopaths, then we would indeed have no good answer to the question of “why aren’t we all thieves and murders and rapists,” but thank goodness we are not sociopaths. Our self-conceptions do include relations to others. Caring for those close to us comes naturally to us. We love at least some others as we love ourselves–not “like we love ourselves” but “as ourselves” in that some others literally are ourselves to some degree. The more we can expand and deepen this web of relations that we identify as part of ourselves, the more morally developed we are. We don’t need to think of ourselves as sociopaths that need to be restrained, but rather humans concerned with relating to other humans who need to be nurtured, especially when we are young, in order to develop the trust in other humans that makes progressive expansion and deepening of this web of relations possible.

Best,
Leela

 

[Biggie]

It is clearly only your opinion that we ought to desire to live. Is it bad to desire death? Why?

The rest of this has become circular. You have not refuted my argument that ought statements can have the same level of truth as descriptive statements. Neither have you explained or defended your argument that ought statements have “emotional value”, whatever that means. So I think the argument has been submitted.

As to life, I have not argued that life is good because “everyone is naturally inclined to live”. I did point out that the drive to live in nature is universal and unquestioned with the exception of man, which lends to the status of man as different in kind rather than different in type from other creatures.

As I pointed out, one ought to desire to live because one is living. Living is conditional. The moment one ceases to desire to live he may cease to live as he wishes. The fact one is living raises the presumption he desires to do so. This is simple logic, not an opinion.

“Is it bad to desire death” is a separate argument from the one above and until the above logic is accepted my answer would have no hope of being understood.

 

[Oreoracle]

The rest of this has become circular.

I’m not sure you know what “circular” means. In fact, I’m not sure you understand even rudimentary philosophical terms.

You have not refuted my argument that ought statements can have the same level of truth as descriptive statements.

Where’s the argument? Since I don’t see it, can you present it as a deductive argument, with the premises and conclusion laid out? This is all I’m seeing so far:

1. I am living.
   C. Therefore, I ought to desire to live.

Wow. I’m sure any philosophy professor would give you an A+ for that.

which lends to the status of man as different in kind rather than different in type from other creatures.

I don’t know why you’re so hellbent on bringing this up. It’s irrelevant.

As I pointed out, one ought to desire to live because one is living. Living is conditional. The moment one ceases to desire to live he may cease to live as he wishes.

Hold on. You’re using the Aristotelian definition of “good” as “efficient,” then? So something is good if it efficiently fulfills its purpose?

The fact one is living raises the presumption he desires to do so. This is simple logic, not an opinion.

Quite right. However, we cannot induce that he should desire to live, merely that he does.

 

[Leela]

Leela;5488213:

Leela, then your reference for morals would be the human person as a good in of themselves.

Hi Benadam,

I don’t think that is what Prodigal Son means by a reference. He is looking for something for “good” to refer to. For Plato, good refers to the form of the Good. For believers, good refers to God. For pragmatists, words don’t need to refer to anything outside of language to be useful.

Best,
Leela

 

[tonyrey]

In other words you believe in the principle of equality. On what do you base this belief?

 

[Biggie]

I’m not sure you know what “circular” means. In fact, I’m not sure you understand even rudimentary philosophical terms.

Where’s the argument? Since I don’t see it, can you present it as a deductive argument, with the premises and conclusion laid out? This is all I’m seeing so far:

1. I am living.
   C. Therefore, I ought to desire to live.

Wow. I’m sure any philosophy professor would give you an A+ for that.

The tone of your response, other than insulting, is defensive. My experience is that this occurs when one is unsure of oneself. I will take this as an indication you are unable to defend your assertions. I am sure that morality as emotion makes some kind of sense to you, and the fact that it does seems some kind of breakthrough to you, but it seems to me you should be able to argue logically for it and withstand a challenge without cracking up.

What I have presented is a fairly traditional refutation of Hume’s subjectivity. I cited Mortimer Adler as a source in an earlier post and I could suggest you also refer to some of the writings of C. S. Lewis.

I don’t know why you’re so hellbent on bringing this up. It’s irrelevant.

Well it’s not irrelevant, but you clearly don’t get it. And as for the balance, you have not grasped it so it does seem a little futile to continue. Life, which has no intrinsic value per you - assuming one wants to prolong one’s life for no apparent reason other than his own, which certainly can’t be based on anything but “emotivity” and for which there are no absolute rules for doing so that are universally true, no no no - is too short.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Be careful where you go with this idea. Just because emotivists don’t believe ethical standards are objective doesn’t mean they can’t follow consistent ethical principles.

Agreed. But just because they say they are emotivists doesn’t necessarily mean that they do not believe in objective ethical standards. A five-year-old is perfectly capable of telling people he doesn’t believe in the Boogeyman, but when lights go out and he hears a noise, all bets are off.

When an ethical disagreement occurs, the best you can hope for is to persuade others. I realize the knowledge that ethics are subjective is inconvenient to have, but that doesn’t mean emotivism is untrue.

Generally, the term “persuade” is used with one of two contexts: 1) persuading someone of a truth (that the earth is round), or 2) persuading someone of a course of action (that we should go see a movie tonight). If I try to convince you to agree with me on a point of abstract thought (“rape is wrong”), I am doing a very different thing than convincing you not to rape someone. I am referencing something, call it a value, that you have the ability to reference. Convincing you of the proposition “we should go see a movie” is a very different thing.

If you consider morals a matter of trained emotion, you cannot very well say to a rapist, “You shouldn’t desire that thing”. They *do *desire it, and in many senses it is a natural desire. Your “should” references nothing.

On another thread, you claimed that God should not create people who He sends to hell. What did you mean by “should”? You were not talking about your *personal subjective opinion *on the matter. You were talking about justice, about the real nature of the world! Your “should” referenced an object, the object of ethics. The things that bind one person to another in any unequivocal sense must be objective – when we talk about justice, we must be talking about something.

It seems we can agree that both objectivism and subjectivism can be dangerous if misused. Of course, whether a system is misused is entirely our opinion.(Underlining mine)

Irony again, eh?

 

[Benadam]

Benadam;5488350:

Hi Benadam,

I don’t think that is what Prodigal Son means by a reference. He is looking for something for “good” to refer to. For Plato, good refers to the form of the Good. For believers, good refers to God. For pragmatists, words don’t need to refer to anything outside of language to be useful.

Best,
Leela

Well, if I understand what you wrote, the good refers to recognizance of your self in others. One step further, it refers to cognizance of self. Again the good isn’t cognizance but the self.

 

[tjm190]

ever heard of abstracts?

 

[Oreoracle]

Agreed. But just because they say they are emotivists doesn’t necessarily mean that they do not believe in objective ethical standards. A five-year-old is perfectly capable of telling people he doesn’t believe in the Boogeyman, but when lights go out and he hears a noise, all bets are off.

Likewise, it is possible that self-proclaimed objectivists privately retreat to emotivism from time to time.

If I try to convince you to agree with me on a point of abstract thought (“rape is wrong”), I am doing a very different thing than convincing you not to rape someone. I am referencing something, call it a value, that you have the ability to reference. Convincing you of the proposition “we should go see a movie” is a very different thing.

It’s different in degree, but not in substance, I’d say. If I convince you to see a movie with me, it is implied that we value the same type of entertainment. We wouldn’t raise this preference to a level of importance that it would have to apply to others, however.

If you consider morals a matter of trained emotion, you cannot very well say to a rapist, “You shouldn’t desire that thing”. They *do *desire it, and in many senses it is a natural desire. Your “should” references nothing.

The reference point I would hope to target would be their sympathy for the potential rape victim. Of course, we can assume that this sympathy would be diminished due to their willingness to even consider rape. As you stated above, I would be referencing a value I can induce is shared between the rapist and I. It would be an emotional appeal.

On another thread, you claimed that God should not create people who He sends to hell. What did you mean by “should”? You were not talking about your *personal subjective opinion *on the matter. You were talking about justice, about the real nature of the world! Your “should” referenced an object, the object of ethics. The things that bind one person to another in any unequivocal sense must be objective – when we talk about justice, we must be talking about something.

I’m sorry if that is how I came across to you, but I don’t believe I ever mentioned justice. I call justice-based philosophies “I deserve” philosophies. You deserve this and I deserve that…it’s all nonsense to me. I would say that I’m more of an egalitarian (see: utilitarianism). I would rather people act in such a way that everyone has a similar quality of life (Note: This is significantly different than treating everyone the same. That is a common misconception of egalitarianism.).

Ethics are objects in the same way other concepts are objects. They are perceived, but they cannot be quantified and are dependent on the existence of the subject. They are only “objects” in the superficial sense of the word.

Irony again, eh?

Perhaps. It was intentional irony, though, as I hinted at the beginning of this post.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

It’s different in degree, but not in substance, I’d say. If I convince you to see a movie with me, it is implied that we value the same type of entertainment. We wouldn’t raise this preference to a level of importance that it would have to apply to others, however.

Logical point. But, remember, the rape victim doesn’t care about being valued. She just cares about not being raped. To say that how a person treats her is because of a value that he may or may not have is a mockery to moral education. If a person has a bad upbringing, you can be *sure *they will not have the right feelings toward this potential victim; but an internal moral law can still enable them to act decently toward her.

If you talk to people who grew up on the streets, they most certainly have a moral compass. But their feelings cause them to violate it.

As you stated above, I would be referencing a value I can induce is shared between the rapist and I. It would be an emotional appeal.

But people who have been hurt want to hurt others. They are fascinated by the power they have in hurting, and I don’t blame them for that fascination. No authority has ever convinced a hostile thug to stop hurting people by telling them to consider how the hurt person feels.

I’m sorry if that is how I came across to you, but I don’t believe I ever mentioned justice. I call justice-based philosophies “I deserve” philosophies. You deserve this and I deserve that…it’s all nonsense to me.

From Can We Truly Consent to Infinite Torture: (I have bolded all the normative words).

Thus, God **shouldn’t **offer us the choice between infinite torture or infinite happiness, as they are both items in a contract that we cannot conceive of.

We put up with having imperfect knowledge of the consequences of our actions in this world, but I think that, if God wants to be fair about it, he **should **give us perfect knowledge.

No, I mean that [God] could prevent all of my suffering while simultaneously allowing me to become more empathetic toward others (so that I may love them).

This last quote demonstrates, IMHO, that you think of love as proceeding from feelings. A great number of thinkers, theistic and otherwise, would consider this a flaw. You don’t love others because you feel for them – in fact, oftentimes a person that you serve will disgust you (prisoners, addicts). You love because you ought to love. I wish I could download some Kantian thinking into your brain…

 

[Prodigal_Son]

But morality is not about one’s personal best interests. It is about seeing the best interests of others as also your own.

This is an analytical definition of morality – it is only true, among people who use this definition of the word. If you claim it to be true in any larger sense, it must be validated by a reality in the world.

Pragmatists like myself would like to change the subject of conversation from whether we have a philosophical grounding for our beliefs to whether we have been imaginative enough to come up with good alternatives to our current beliefs that we can use to transform our present into a richer future.

But you have to keep butting up against the definition of good, don’t you? What is a “richer future”? One person’s richer future will be poorer for another, won’t it? How do we resolve disputes over which beliefs are best to hold?

These questions make it clear (to me, at least) that pragmatism tends to keep much too close company with subjectivism.

The pragmatic approach to science is quite marvelous, I must say, although sometimes I think it is straight out of Lewis Carroll. “True” means whatever we want it to mean, and we want it to mean “useful”. Once again, everything depends on the ends to which pragmatism is aimed, but those ends cannot be determined with the toolbox that the pragmatist has at his disposal. Am I wrong about this?

Rorty talks about “wider sympathy”, but why does he think sympathy is such a good thing. You say that we just are moral beings, and we need to expand that potential. But *I *am not a moral being. Sure, I have a sense of morality within me, but I have been (in certain portions of my life) perfectly willing to egregiously violate the sacred rights of other people, people that I would have simultaneously felt awful for. I had sympathy, but I very well may have done it anyway, had I the opportunity. I guess I just needed more sympathy. (Ever read Plato’s myth of Gyges?)

Your proposal that the teachings about hell create sociopaths is empirically unsound, in my opinion. Do you have statistics to back it up?

Thanks for your thoughtful feedback, by the way.

 

[Leela]

In other words you believe in the principle of equality. On what do you base this belief?

I said that morality is about our concerns for others. I pointed out that we are concerned about others and from that you inferred a principle of equality.

 

[Leela]

This is an analytical definition of morality – it is only true, among people who use this definition of the word. If you claim it to be true in any larger sense, it must be validated by a reality in the world.

All definitions of words are only true among those who use the word. To ask what a word means is the same as asking how this word is used. No?

But you have to keep butting up against the definition of good, don’t you? What is a “richer future”? One person’s richer future will be poorer for another, won’t it? How do we resolve disputes over which beliefs are best to hold?

Good point. We do always butt up against defining good. The conversation about what we mean by good will never end, and that is good. In fact, a problem I have with Christian theology is that it includes holding up an ideal standard of the perfect human being for us to aspire to, while simultaneously teaching that we can never actually achieve our aspiration. Christians want to give a static definition of the good that applies now and forever. Pragmatists substitute for the goal of unachievable Christian perfection the goal of the hope that our future can be better than our present. Pragmatists don’t agree that we have any idea of what the perfect human being is like and doubt that such a concept is good to pursue. They note that without knowledge of what perfection is, we would never know if we have achieved it anyway. Pragmatists and Christians agree that human perfection is an unachievable goal but disagree about whether an unachievable goal is a good goal to have. Christians claim to have knowledge, but pragmatists like Rorty who are skeptical of the possibility of grounding our knowledge claims would like to “substitute hope for knowledge.” He urges us to change the subject of conversation from whether we have a philosophical grounding for our beliefs to whether we have been imaginative enough to come up with good alternatives to our current beliefs that we can use to transform our present into a richer future.

I’ve described where these perspectives stand, but pragmatism doesn’t offer us a way of distinguishing between which of these views is the correct one. Pragmatists also don’t think any philosophical system can hope to do that. They note that while some religions and philosophies claim to have such a foundation to make the claim that their given perspective is the single correct one, such metaphysical foundations are a dime a dozen. The may have the virtue of being consistent within themselves, but Thomas Aquinas’s dictum “whenever you reach a contradiction, make a distinction” explains why it is not so hard for religions and philosophies to be self-consistent. We have no way of adjudicating between the various self-consistent religions and philosophical systems without begging all the basic questions.

Theists hope to bridge the gap through faith, but theists of different brands have separate irreconcilable “foundations” for their beliefs, so from the nonbeliever’s perspective, faith does not avail anyone. At least I can’t see how that boot-strapping is supposed to work. Pragmatists think that the best we can do is to tell our stories, “to redescribe the familiar in unfamiliar terms” that spark imagination for “new conceptions of possible communities.” We aren’t going to be able to answer the Nazi by appealing to a philosophical foundation for our beliefs. If the Nazi happens to be a sociopath, we aren’t going to be able to answer at all. The appropriate instrument of conversation in that case is law backed by police and guns.

These questions make it clear (to me, at least) that pragmatism tends to keep much too close company with subjectivism.

Pragmatism was invented to help is get around such philosophical cannards as subjectivity/objectivity. Objective amounts to “things that are easy to get agreement on” and subjective amounts to “things that are hard to get agreement on.”

The pragmatic approach to science is quite marvelous, I must say, although sometimes I think it is straight out of Lewis Carroll. “True” means whatever we want it to mean, and we want it to mean “useful”. Once again, everything depends on the ends to which pragmatism is aimed, but those ends cannot be determined with the toolbox that the pragmatist has at his disposal. Am I wrong about this?

Truth is truth. Utility is something else. But you are right that we always have to consider what are tools are.

Rorty talks about “wider sympathy”, but why does he think sympathy is such a good thing. You say that we just are moral beings, and we need to expand that potential. But *I *am not a moral being. Sure, I have a sense of morality within me, but I have been (in certain portions of my life) perfectly willing to egregiously violate the sacred rights of other people, people that I would have simultaneously felt awful for. I had sympathy, but I very well may have done it anyway, had I the opportunity. I guess I just needed more sympathy. (Ever read Plato’s myth of Gyges?)

I’m just describing (through Rorty) what it means to be more moral. Whether it is good to be more moral is another question, but it seems obvious when moral itself is a synonym for good.

Your proposal that the teachings about hell create sociopaths is empirically unsound, in my opinion. Do you have statistics to back it up?

Even Christian parents don’t teach their kids to do good because of fear of hell. At least the good ones do. Like anyone else they ask their kids to think about how others feel.

Best,
Leela

 

[JDaniel]

All definitions of words are only true among those who use the word. To ask what a word means is the same as asking how this word is used. No?

Good point. We do always butt up against defining good. The conversation about what we mean by good will never end, and that is good. In fact, a problem I have with Christian theology is that it includes holding up an ideal standard of the perfect human being for us to aspire to, while simultaneously teaching that we can never actually achieve our aspiration. Christians want to give a static definition of the good that applies now and forever. Pragmatists substitute for the goal of unachievable Christian perfection the goal of the hope that our future can be better than our present. Pragmatists don’t agree that we have any idea of what the perfect human being is like and doubt that such a concept is good to pursue. They note that without knowledge of what perfection is, we would never know if we have achieved it anyway. Pragmatists and Christians agree that human perfection is an unachievable goal but disagree about whether an unachievable goal is a good goal to have. Christians claim to have knowledge, but pragmatists like Rorty who are skeptical of the possibility of grounding our knowledge claims would like to “substitute hope for knowledge.” He urges us to change the subject of conversation from whether we have a philosophical grounding for our beliefs to whether we have been imaginative enough to come up with good alternatives to our current beliefs that we can use to transform our present into a richer future.

I’ve described where these perspectives stand, but pragmatism doesn’t offer us a way of distinguishing between which of these views is the correct one. Pragmatists also don’t think any philosophical system can hope to do that. They note that while some religions and philosophies claim to have such a foundation to make the claim that their given perspective is the single correct one, such metaphysical foundations are a dime a dozen. The may have the virtue of being consistent within themselves, but Thomas Aquinas’s dictum “whenever you reach a contradiction, make a distinction” explains why it is not so hard for religions and philosophies to be self-consistent. We have no way of adjudicating between the various self-consistent religions and philosophical systems without begging all the basic questions.

Theists hope to bridge the gap through faith, but theists of different brands have separate irreconcilable “foundations” for their beliefs, so from the nonbeliever’s perspective, faith does not avail anyone. At least I can’t see how that boot-strapping is supposed to work. Pragmatists think that the best we can do is to tell our stories, “to redescribe the familiar in unfamiliar terms” that spark imagination for “new conceptions of possible communities.” We aren’t going to be able to answer the Nazi by appealing to a philosophical foundation for our beliefs. If the Nazi happens to be a sociopath, we aren’t going to be able to answer at all. The appropriate instrument of conversation in that case is law backed by police and guns.

Pragmatism was invented to help is get around such philosophical cannards as subjectivity/objectivity. Objective amounts to “things that are easy to get agreement on” and subjective amounts to “things that are hard to get agreement on.”

Truth is truth. Utility is something else. But you are right that we always have to consider what are tools are.

I’m just describing (through Rorty) what it means to be more moral. Whether it is good to be more moral is another question, but it seems obvious when moral itself is a synonym for good.

Even Christian parents don’t teach their kids to do good because of fear of hell. At least the good ones do. Like anyone else they ask their kids to think about how others feel.

Best,
Leela

From a pragmatic, or pragmatist’s, point of view, it would seem that all of the time you spend in these fora is nothing more than a huge, pragmatic waste of time for you. No?

What’s up, Leela!

jd

 

[JDaniel]

I’m just going to toss a possibility out here. I’m an emotivist. This means that I believe statements such as “Killing humans is wrong.” hold no truth value (as Hume notes, “should” and “ought” are not operations we can observe). Instead, we can only infer one thing from ethical statements, this being the feelings held by those who share those ethical sentiments. If someone says that killing is wrong, the most we can infer from their statement is that they disapprove of killing.

So, why can’t morality simply be derivative of emotions?

Oreo:

You say statements like, “Killing humans is wrong.” hold no truth value and that ethical statements are nothing more than shared sentiments, approvals, or disapprovals. Then,
I have a simple question for you, "If ethical judgments are nothing more than expressions of approval, how do we distinguish between actual approval and right approval? If it is a true statement of fact that I do approve, is it not also true that I can approve or disapprove of my approval? Does this not make a true ethical judgment about my factual judgment?

jd

 

[JDaniel]

So life is valuable merely because nature compels us to maintain it? Why should I care about the direction nature takes? Oh yeah…because I want to.

Seriously, why does it matter that we’re naturally disposed to do something? Answer honestly.

Good point and great questions, Oreo. You are right, non-ethically speaking, but, with one small change in your words. You should remove the word “valuable” and replace it with the word “meaningful.” “Value” tends to signify goodness or badness and, therefore, leads to an ethical decision. For the word, “meaningful”, its value is neutral - at least to some extent.

On the one hand, we, as exigencies of nature have all of the same dynamics all of the other things in nature possess. The first of those dynamics is the survival dynamic. All other natural living things possess this dynamic as their primary dynamic. It is probably the single most prolific dynamic and it is that dynamic the possession of which the continuum tends towards inexorably. Except with humans, in some rare instances. As humans, we can choose to step off this continuum.

To judge a thing to be right and to decide to do it are not the same. To seek approval for one’s decision to do something is to ask for encouragement and support, in some manner, usually from others. This is purely emotional and not reasonable. To seek approval for the rightness of some act is to ask for a positive or negative answer. This answer is either true or false and these are genuine ethical judgments. So, the decision to step off the continuum that is proceeding down the dynamic-of-survival-road cannot be mangled in order to turn it into a wish for support for it. That is an ethical quagmire through and through.

The survival dynamic is a direction taken by nature and nature compels everything - except some men - to follow it. Whether its right to step off the continuum is a different question. It is an ethical one. It presupposes the questions, “Is it right do do this” Do I have a right to do this? Can I justify this to the most important people in my life? Can I justify this to God? May I do this?"

The value of life is only marginally mixed into all of this. You, alone, are what makes life valuable. Your presence and participation in the universe. To act to view, as a valued client might, such things as the heavens, the earth, the creatures on it, the creations of men, the dew on the morning grass, that mystical single shaft of light that finds its way through the branches and leaves of that tree overhanging one’s window, early in the morning, the breathtaking view of a flora filled valley, the clear sky at night, a rainbow, a perfect storm, a bolt of lightening, your favorite pet, and on and on and on. The value of life is grounded in your existence. And, one’s own existence is grounded in God’s, from my perspective.

jd