[lit-ideas] Re: Morc Huck Pump
- From: "Phil Enns" <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas@Freelists. Org" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 11:41:59 +0700
Walter wrote:
"If an action "doesn't rise to the level of morally justified" then
how could it possibly be that that action is not morally wrong?"
Couldn't it be morally neutral? I walked to work today. I don't
think this action was morally justified in the sense of having a
normative quality. I certainly don't think it was morally wrong. I
think it is a good thing to do for various reasons, but none of these
reasons are moral, thereby leading one to think that there is not an
'oughtness' in play here. Using Habermas' vocabulary, the decision to
walk was an ethical one, not moral, in that the decision was based on
personal commitments to living a good and healthy life.
There is also another consideration. Habermas allows that his
discourse morality may be very restricted in its application and so I
would be extremely nervous with any claim that an action failing the
criteria of discoursive justification is necessarily 'wrong', whatever
that might mean. It seems to me that Habermas' project is not
intended to divide up the world of actions into groups of 'justified'
and 'wrong', but rather provide a means for reaching agreement where
incommensurable ethical commitments are in actual conflict.
Walter continues:
"I think that Habermas identifies the origins of our sense of being
wronged in our feelings of resentment at the sight or experience of
being treated in certain (immoral) ways. I don't think H. identifies
such resentment as being necessarily 'non-rational.'"
I don't have my books with me. Does H. use the word 'resentment'? If
I remember correctly he speaks of being offended. It seems to me that
there is an important difference between the two for any moral
project. Further, it seems to me that whatever one experiences in the
face of moral wrongdoings, it is necessarily 'non-rational.' Reason
draws on these moral intuitions in order to arrive at norms, so they
are necessarily distinct from moral reasoning. They are, as it were,
the material for the operation of practical reason.
Sincerely,
Phil Enns
Yogyakarta, Indonesia
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