[lit-ideas] Re: (a) Do You Have Free Will?/(b) Dworkin
- From: "Walter C. Okshevsky" <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2011 20:07:23 -0230
Interesting ... Is the proposition "All moral propositions are false" itself a
moral proposition? Ich glaube nicht. Like "All moral props are false" or "All
moral props are meaningless", the proposition makes a universal claim *about*
moral propositions without itself offering a substantive moral verdict on
anything. Ca voulait dire: moral epistemology (meta-ethics) bakes no moral
bread in the form of guidance or wisdom for particular courses of action,
agency, life, etc..
Think of The Master's idea of a "critique" of practical reason. Such an
investigation takes the form of a transcendental inquiry into the conditions of
possibility and limits of moral judgement and deliberation. The propositions
and
arguments proferred within the critique make no substantive claims about what
is
morally permissible or morally impermissible. They only tell you what is
necessary (and universally so) for making claims about what is morally
permissible/impermissible.
Another example: When Korsgaard argues that there can be no agency, self or
practical identity for a being that does not act in keeping with the two
principles of practical reason - i.e., the Categorical and Hypothetical
Imperatives - she is delineating the framework within which moral judgement,
deliberation, agency is possible. She is not proclaiming substantive truths
about what it means to be a moral self, agent, etc.. She is only drawing out
the
conceptual contours constituting the possibility of the moral.
I believe that Habermas's Discourse Ethics and Rawls's notion of an Original
Position are other examples of the same kind of meta-ethics.
I think that's right. Though not in any *moral* sense of right, of course.
Returning to wrapping up the Winter term with all thus entailed. Happy April
Phronimos to one and all.
Walter O
MUN
Quoting Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>:
>
>
> --- On Fri, 4/1/11, Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
> From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [lit-ideas] (a) Do You Have Free Will?/(b) Dworkin
> To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Friday, April 1, 2011, 1:09 AM
>
>
> (a)Strawson: Yes, if I don't have to answer.
>
>
> (b) In the "Dictionary of Philosophy", Dworkin's entry reads:-
>
> "Dworkin, Ronald: Asked "Do we have a right to pornography?" and answered
> 'Yes'. Whatever next?"
>
> Dworkin link:-
>
>
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/mar/31/ronald-dworkin-morality-dignity-hedgehogs
>
> Dworkin reportedly argues (for remember Adam Gompik on Popper):-
>
> "Dworkin, who used to argue these points at University College, Oxford, with
> Mackie in the late 70s, says: "My reply to John then and now is that his
> scepticism is self-defeating. When Mackie says: 'All moral propositions are
> false', that's a moral proposition, which is false if his proposition 'All
> moral propositions are false' is true, which it isn't." A-ha, a version of
> the Cretan liar paradox that Doctor Who used to make a clever robot
> short-circuit and explode. Sadly, Mackie died in 1981 so isn't around to
> retort."
>
> It is unclear to me why "All moral props are false" is, or ought to be, a
> moral proposition rather than just a claim pertaining to moral claims.
>
> * I don't think that you could claim that any particular moral claim is false
> without making a claim on the same epistemological level, ie a moral claim.
> If so, you cannot claim that all moral claims are false without making a
> moral claim either. Moreover, you cannot claim that all moral claims are
> false without asserting that opposing claims are simultaneously false, ie
> running into logical contradiction.
>
>
>
>
>
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