[lit-ideas] Re: On being called a Lyre

Walter has written, in one message,

But while such emotions may be
> motivationally ert in leading one to offer defense or aid to others, they
> don't
> count as epistemically relevant to questions regarding the justification of
> willings and maxims. Such is, I believe,  philosophical truth at times.
> Nobody
> said an explanation of P had to be as simple or simpler than P, after all.


And, then, in a second,



> It is possible to act on a belief having no reference to feeling. A moral
> obligation is an example of such a belief. Obligations are motivationally
> ert
> all by themselves. Moreover, I believe, with Kant, that a duty is the sole
> morally worthy form of motivation. Others forms of motivation, when in the
> service of morally right judgement are admirable and deserve recognition of
> the
> virtuous  character of the agent, to be sure. And they are also useful in
> that
> kind of moral education Rorty calls "sentimental education."
>

I had been thinking on the way to the office of a small essay on the willful
blindness implicit in the assertion "I fail to see"; but that, I now see,
would be inappropriate. Walter has made his assumptions, which exclude by
definition emotion as a relevant factor in moral judgment. Who am I to
question a man's religion, except perhaps to ask how this stance is
different from that of the undergraduate who says, "I have a right to my
opinion"?
This is not to say that Walter and I will disagree when making moral
judgments. I, too, think it is a good idea to do what my mother taught me
and "Look before you leap," reserving judgment until you have taken the time
to study the situation as fully as possible. I have learned, however, that
there are frequently situations in which snap judgments are required, some
of which occur  with life and death at stake (Gary Klein's Sources of Power is
full of good examples, e.g., the fireman who feels a roof heating up under
his feet or the operator of a missile system deciding whether a fast
approaching object on her radar screen is a threat or a harmless civilian
aircraft). It is the nature of such situations that stopping to consider
what is going on in terms of universal maxims may have disastrous
consequences. The good news is that, as the psychology of recognition-primed
decision making that Klein elaborates suggests, no recourse to a rational
calculus based on moral maxims is required. Training and experience provide
us with situation-specific models of what to do that work more often than
not. Thus we survive or, less frequently, suffer a catastrophe. I wonder how
these situations fit into Walter's moral universe.

Or, for that matter, what about laws that spell out circumstances in which
diminished capacity, frequently attributed to emotional factors, affect
legal judgments to be considered immoral or even just amoral because the
model of a pure, maxim-based judgment is not followed in every detail?

Inquiring minds want to know.

John
-- 
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
http://www.wordworks.jp/

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