[lit-ideas] Re: Morc Huck Pump
- From: wokshevs@xxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 16:08:27 -0330
Please see specific replies below ---------------------->
Quoting Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx>:
> 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?"
PE:
> 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.
----------> All ethical maxims are open to moral assessment. Nazis have their
own ethical conceptions of the virtues, the good life, etc.. Their acceptance of
the maxims that follow from such conceptions is logically and morally distinct
from the moral acceptability of these maxims in terms of moral rightness. Thus
the title of a text by Habermas: *Between Facts and Norms.* Moreover, and I
don't think H. would disagree with me or Kant on this, "oughtness" adheres to
all our actions, willings and judgments in the sense that one of the following
categories applies transcendentally to all of them: morally permissible, or
impermissible (entailing an obligation to refrain from acting on such maxims.)
Particular cultural or religious conceptions of what it is to live "a good and
healthy life" are open to moral assesssment. Some of them are immoral (and thus
irrational).
PE:
> 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.
WO: "Moral rightness" is a "justification-immanent" concept for H. What "moral
wrongness" means for H is the "fact" that the maxim under consideration does
not meet approval under epistemic conditions of symmetry and reciprocity. Given
the incoherence of realist conceptions of moral rightness and justifiablity
(such as C. Lafont's), H's discursive criterion remains the best account of
justification in moral realm we have.
> 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.'"
PE:
> 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.
WO: Interesting. What is the difference between being "offended" and feeling
"resentment" at an other's disregard for the autonomy and dignity of an
individual? I, too, don't have the German in front of me, but I don't think H
invests much purchase in the distinction you draw. What is imp. here, I would
think, is that the feelings we find ourselves having in response to occasions
of moral oppression, marginalization, violation of human rights, etc. bear, in
themselves, no epistemic value in justification. A feeling has no epistemic
warrant/force, this is to say, since our feelings are the result of contingent
socialization into the values, traditions and liturgies of a particular
cultural and/or religious tribe. Feelings can signal to us an affront to the
dignity of a person as an end-in-itself; but they cannot justify the validity
claim involved.
PE:
> 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.
WO: A truly fascinating claim! Totally wrong, but fascinating. Neither Kant nor
Habermas would support your view here since that view is the essence of
heteronomy in moral virtue/judgement. The "material" for practical reason
appears for rational deliberation under the conditions of universalization
(Kant) or the epistemic conditions of discourse (Habermas.) The ideal of moral
virtue is, of course, autonomy.
WO continues:
One's experience in the face of moral wrongdoing may well be non-rational. That
is just to say that the agent's experience fails to recognize the wrongness of
the action. But if one recognizes, within this experience, the moral
"wrongdoingness" of the action or maxim, then rationality is and must be in
play. Morality, after all, is drivative upon rationality itself. All that is
immoral is irrational; though not all that is irrational is immoral. (I think I
got that right.)
Walter O.
MUN
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Phil Enns
> Yogyakarta, Indonesia
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