[lit-ideas] Re: Unanimity among philosophers as the advantage of so-called transcendental claims? (was: Univocal etc.)
- From: "Richard Henninge" <RichardHenninge@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2008 04:00:49 +0100
----- Original Message -----
From: "Phil Enns" <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2009 6:11 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Univocal philosophy as the value of transcendental
claims?
I appreciate the time and effort Richard Henninge put into his
response to my comments. In defence of my comments, I will merely
point out that I have repeatedly emphasized the universalizability of
moral claims.
The repeated emphasis that something can be done does not make it ergo
doable. Phil Enns cannot simply wish into existence universalized moral
claims. This is more a "will to power" than a use of Phil Enns's personal
individual reason to move a moral claim such as "don't steal" from a
personal maxim to live by to a universal maxim for people around the world
to live by. The meaning of Phil's last sentence here is that he, Phil Enns,
stresses the fact that moral claims can be universalized. Perhaps I was
unclear in my digression about transcendental clams, but my point was that
Phil is begging every question in the books. Where do we even find anybody
talking about "moral claims"? That's our first begged question. Why should
we grant the existence of such things as "moral claims," much less their
incomparably more extreme form, his proposed "transcendental claims." Aren't
all claims by definition a claiming that a state of affairs in the world
exists or is true, is "the case"? Wittgenstein says that the "world is
everything that is the case." Do the math. If you could say "It is the case
that there are moral claims," and be prepared to defend it against the
bitter winds of Wittgenstein's strictures against making bogus, indefensible
claims, perhaps your philosophical reflections would have a chance. Phil
even seems oblivious to the "power" nature of the vocabulary he uses. Few
philosophers dare to speak directly of *emphasizing, claiming and
asserting*. That is why it is a humorous case of the pot calling the kettle
black when he catches people like Wittgenstein "making transcendental
claims."
If I [i.e. Phil Enns] may quote myself:
"Rather, drawing on Kant and Habermas, I have suggested that moral
prohibition is the assertion that a particular prohibition has
universal import.
Phil is exasperatingly a master of weasel words. Notice the weakness of that
last word. Clearly what was called for was something like "applicability";
"import" merely says that this wonderful moral prohibition has an
international dimension, is not just a local number. But the pressure on
Phil is precisely to demonstrate applicability of a local or particular
prohibition everywhere. He shortcuts this responsibility dramatically by
simply saying, claiming, that what "_we_" (why all this underlining emphasis
on the particular and the personal when it is the opposite that he is trying
to prove? Doesn't Phil realize that he's only throwing oil on the fire, so
to speak, allowing anyone to challenge him with a statement to the effect
that "sure, that's what _you_ think about _this_ particularity, but how do
you get from that, _that_, to universally applicable?" You only make the way
to universalizability longer by burying your starting point in the ditch of
your underscored individual particularity.)
_This_ particular act is something _we_ think is
always wrong, no matter who does it, no matter where it is done, and
no matter why it is done. Even if _this_ is done by someone from a
different culture on the other side of the world, it is still wrong.
The force of the assertion lies in _our_ inability to see _this_
action as being anything other than wrong."
Since the example Richard provides quite obviously fails this
criterion, I think Richard's objection is off target.
OK, let me see if I can make this clear to Phil. I chose the most drastic
example I could find in the hope that it would shake Phil out of his lulling
security. He upholsters the cradle in which he takes his dogmatic slumbers
with the softest of weasel fur, say in that double negative used to say (and
at the same time obscure the saying) that the force (=power) of his
*assertion* (my emphasis) is _his and his fellows'_ (the context of the
speakers is not defined exactly) seeing that a particular action is wrong,
well, actually, in the first level of fogging, that they can't see it as not
wrong. But. . . what is to exclude the possibility that Phil and his
fellows are speaking from the inside of the equivalent of the Nazi
Deutschland described in my post? The one in which the crime of
"demoralizing the troops," punishable by death, would have been just as
easily universalizable along the lines of Phil's so-called criterion. All
that would be needed would be that the locals involved were able to see it
as a wrong thing to do (or unable to see it as not wrong). It is a specious
argument on Phil's part to say that he and his fellows cannot not see
"demoralizing the troops" as anything but wrong and hence my example "fails"
his criterion, specious because the actual application of the criterion
should involve a reference, not to him and his fellows, but to the fellows
judging what was and was not a crime in Germany in 1943, and they would
certainly have been able to follow this criterion the a T, to a
transcendental T, and that's why I said the whole program strikes me as
dangerous. We can only trust in the moral insight of the people in Phil's
neck of the woods and in there ability to see what is good for people on the
other side of the globe. So is my objection still "off target"?
On two other points, the bar is platinum
Thanks for that. I'll assume that it's true. I'll take your word for it, but
notice how much easier it is to grant things that can be fact-checked. The
realm of moral and transcendental claims is much more problematic and cannot
be fact-checked, hence one should not speak of it as if it could, as you
speak, for instance, of "Kant's respect" . . .
and Kant's respect is not for
the individual's reason, but reason, hence the criterion of
universalizability.
As you fabricate the transcendental realm of valid moral claims, so too do
you fabricate a reason beyond individual reason. Kant's pure reason exists
in every individual reason and it is this that makes it transcendental. It
is shared, but not through shared experience; rather, what is shared is the
necessary structure of experience. This is another specious point since no
real distinction can be drawn between the individual('s) reason and reason,
and hence no real logical force is behind your "hence the criterion of
universalizability."
Sincerely,
Phil Enns
Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Richard Henninge
University of Mainz
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