[lit-ideas] Re: Grice and Foot on the foundations of morality
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2010 17:37:56 EDT
Re: "Natural goodness":
Thanks to D. McEvoy and R. Paul for their comments.
>For Popper there are no more "foundations of morality" than there are
"foundations of >science" or "foundations of metaphysics".
Mea culpa. I would not know if Foot would call her system as providing "the
foundations". Indeed, 'foundationalism' has become a bad name in
philosophy. I was motivated to use the label, in a bit of a rush, to see any
overlap
between Grice's sort of 'foundational' programme and Foot's. As I recall,
Grice mainly discusses an essay by Foot which is mentioned by O'Grady in
the "Guardian" obituary: 'morality as a system of hypothetical imperatives'.
Grice dedicates the first and second Paul Carus Lectures on the conception
of value to an examination of Foot's -- and indeed Mackie's -- views on the
very nature of morality.
Of course, Popper's epistemic critique of 'foundationalism' or
'justificationism' can be evaded by not taking the notion of foundation or
justification too seriously i.e. interpreting these in a 'conjectural' way.
Nevertheless, just as the existence and success of science can only at best be
partially explained, so too the existence and validity of moral claims defies
anything like complete explanation.
McEvoy quotes from the Daily Telegraph obituary:
"In a key article, Moral Arguments (1958), Philippa Foot challenged this
relativistic stance, suggesting that anyone who uses moral terms at all
("bad", "good" and the like), whether to assert or deny a moral proposition,
must abide by certain agreed rules for their use . The only recourse of
someone who fails to accept the rules, she wrote, would be
===========
===========“to abjure altogether the use of moral terms”"
As McEvoy sees this, "The question here is, as said above, whether Hare's
point - or, better, rejection of the 'naturalistic fallacy' - leads to a
"relativistic stance"".
True. In that respect, the Daily Telegraph obituary focuses too much on the
background to Foot's views rather on her proper views, or views proper.
But I think relativism is lurking, as it were. I would need to revise Foot's
actual wording in "Moral arguments". For one, I would like to review the
'scope' of what she views as 'moral terms'. Call me VERY naive, but I find it
a BIT of a stretch to refer to 'good' or 'bad' as a "term". A term --
terminus, in Latin -- was mainly, yes, a NOMINAL structure, but not
necessarily
adjectival, no? Perhaps there is no better expression in English than
'term', but I would prefer something more basic, like 'expression'. For Hare,
the basic moral vocabulary is not a 'term', but a _verb_: 'ought'. And Grice
follows suits. For Grice ("Aspects of Reason"), it's "must". For Hampshire
("Private morality"), it is "should". In any case, MY pet theory of 'good'
and 'bad' is strictly Nowell-Smith's. The obituarist mentions 'rules', but
I would need to read Foot's first-hand to check in what 'sense' she is
appealing to 'rules' for the use of 'terms'. Let us recall that her "Moral
arguments" in a way predates Hare's -- and indeed A. Kenny's -- sequel of
essays under the title of "Practical Inferences", where the theory of Grice on
'implicature' was first cited.
The obituary continues:
"words, while they may not have an intrinsic MEANING, do have a proper
use."
------- quoting from FOOT:
======"It is surely clear that moral virtues must be
connected with human good or harm, and that it is quite impossible to
call anything you LIKE good or harm." ----
McEvoy comments:
"But is that "proper use" a criterion of 'good' or 'bad'? The fact this
question even makes logical sense opens up the gap between facts and standards
that lies at the heart of why the 'naturalistic fallacy' is indeed a
fallacy."
Again:
>is that 'proper use' a criterion of 'good' or 'bad'?
Again, one would need to trace one's argument back to Foot's actual words,
not her obituarist. The problems of 'meaning' and 'use' are so obtuse that
Grice dedicated his life to solve them: his idea of 'implicature' is
something which does not quite fit the "meaning" (the meaning of "some" to
mean
"not all", for example), but follows the 'use' ("Some of my lovers are
drug-addict").
In fairness to Foot, she's only using even GRANDER 'terms', like 'virtue':
======"It is surely clear that moral virtues must be connected with human
good or harm, and that it is quite impossible to call anything you LIKE good
or harm."
As my brother says, "You can call me ANYTHING, except late for dinner". So
the idea is a bit of a trick. Singer and others may think that there is
such a thing as 'animal' harm, so Foot's focus on the HUMAN side to this seems
a bit of a petitio --. Her term 'impossible' seems a bit anti-Carrollian.
As one of the characters tell Alice, "Impossible? As a morning routine, I
try to think at least three impossible things every day -- it makes my brain
healthy", or something. Her point seems to be about 'virtuous', and
'good'. For, in the case of 'harm' we would need something like 'unvirtuous'.
So,
her argument seems to be that there is a conceptual, or analytic,
connection, between "x is good" -- and 'x exemplifies a virtue'. But I should
need
to re-read her argument.
A clearer statement may be:
"It is surely clear that moral virtues must be connected with THE
PROMOTION of human good and the INHIBITION (or something) of human harm."
In this respect, I'm slightly confused, because I think 'bad' (or even
'evil') is the antonym of 'good' -- not 'harm'. I would not know what the GREEK
for "harm" is but I suggest something like 'pain' (lupe). but the opposite
of 'harm' seems to be 'pleasure' (hedone). And THAT is a 'naturalistic'
approach to ethics. One which identifies the good with the virtuous
(Aristotle), and the evil with the harmful. This begs the question as to
'right' or
'fair' punishment, when 'harm' IS due -- its promotion is due -- because of
special circumstances, etc.
McEvoy then addresses two questions which Foot found absurd:
“Why do you hate pain?”
“Why do you want to feel happy?”
McEvoy comments:
"it _does make sense_ "to ask: “Why do you hate pain?” or “Why do you
want to feel happy?”".
Yes. I'm especially in favour of an analysis of the SECOND, since it's the
idea of "happiness" that Grice uses in his second book ("Aspects of
Reason") to build upon Kant's idea of 'hypothetical imperative' to a system of
morality. For Kant,
if you want p, do q
works fine most of the times. And when there's no apodosis or antecedent in
view, it's fair to add, "If you want to be happy, ...". But as Grice
notes, the idea of 'happiness' is NOT a simple one. And he has to take back
some
Kantian steps and reach Aristotle (that's why his favourite philosopher
was "Kantotle" or "Ariskant"). In the last chapter of "Aspects of Reason",
Grice draws from his former pupil, J. L. Ackrill -- Brit. Academy lecture on
Aristotle on eudaimonia -- to discuss in what sense "one wants to be happy"
is analytic or not. For Grice, happiness is a complex idea that involves a
harmony of ends, sustainability, and many other minor features. So it's
not gratuitous to ask, as Foot seems to suggest, that desired 'happiness' is
a given.
McEvoy continues to quote from the obituary:
The obituary reads:
"In her book Natural Goodness (2001) Philippa Foot rebutted the
philosophical distinction between descriptive meaning (which deals with facts)
and
evaluative meaning (dealing with moral qualities). In the case of living
things — plants, animals and humans — she argued that >evaluations simply
state a special class of fact."
McEvoy comments on the triviality of the issue, and provides an example
where 'fact' is used with reference to evaluation:
"It is a fact that Dr. Shipman ought not to have killed his patients."
I AGREE. And I think it's best to take more seriously views of so-called
'quasi-realism' as practiced by S. W. Blackburn (also of Oxford). The issue
seems 'metaphysical', and 'moral realism' seems the right label here. For
Blackburn, there are no 'moral realities' as such, hence his 'quasi-realism'.
There are at most 'projected attitudes'. Grice's 'constructionism' agrees
with Blackburn's.
Grice would analyse the utterance above in terms of "it is acceptable".
There are two realms of acceptance: 'alethic' and 'practical', as it were. The
canons on 'acceptability' cross the boundaries between what Foot has as
'factual' (or 'descriptive') and 'evaluative'. It is also true, as McEvoy
notes, that Foot's reliance on 'special class' of 'fact' sort of evokes
something like a supervenient approach to morality which may be neither here
nor
there.
McEvoy considers Foot's argument towards the 'logical form' invariance of:
---- This tree has good roots.
---- This person does good deeds.
and comments:
"to say that a tree has 'good' roots in the non-ethical factual sense
that, say, it is primed to survive a 'bad' winter better than a tree with 'bad'
roots, is to make no ethical claim at all - and whatever might be said
about superficial similarities in logical form between such a claim and the
claim that someone has done
something _ethically_ 'good', because the 'naturalistic fallacy' is indeed
a kind of logical fallacy these two kinds of claim are not at all
"logically the same"".
I would agree. "good" is of course a pretty 'empty' 'valuer'. I think Geach
uses this example in the essay that Foot reprints in her collection:
---- it is a good schriptometer.
-------- Geach argues that even if we do not KNOW what a 'schriptometer'
is, we may still make sense of the proposition. x is a good chriptometer if
it is good in performing the function that a schriptometer is supposed to
perform.
Grice went more along Footian paths. His example was the rhyme in Lewis
Carroll, 'let's talk of cabbages and kings'". Grice wants to say that when we
use some words -- e.g. 'cabbage' -- we are presupposing some standard of
goodness. He is more to the point with terms like 'sentence', or 'argument'.
"He argued convincingly". Grice wants to say that 'argument' is best used
for 'good' argument. "He said, 'the the is king of of France France not bald
not France"". That is NOT a sentence. A 'sentence' is a "good" sentence.
So Grice speaks of some expressions as being 'value-oriented'. They
presuppose some standard of goodness. This may be what Foot is having in mind
too.
"the tree has good roots".
--- "he did a good deed".
I would not know about 'good' deed. I think that it's best to use 'good'
-- when talking of trees, and persons -- as applying to 'person'.
It is a GOOD tree. It has GOOD roots.
It is a GOOD person. He performs GOOD deeds.
------- The issue then becomes: what is a 'bad' root? Grice would say that
a 'bad' root is not really a 'root'. "Root" is a value-oriented concept.
Similarly, when I rang at Geary's house:
"I brought you some flowers!"
--- "These are not flowers. They are 'plastic' flowers!
What do you mean 'they'?
"The plastic flower is not a flower".
------- But they are GOOD, qua plastic flowers, no? And it's the intention
that matters, etc.
But must rush,
Speranza
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