[lit-ideas] Re: Bartley's Non-Justificationism (Was: Justifying Moral Principles?)
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- Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2015 09:43:36 -0500
KEYWORDS: INTUITIONISM, MORAL INTUITIONISM, Prichard vs. Grice.
In a message dated 2/24/2015 1:30:17 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
"It's important not to fight unnecessarily over words."
Is it? That's the main philosophical sport! On the other hand, have you
noticed that on mainstream television, when some allegedly unnecessary fight
over words is involved the word 'semantics' (used by philosophers like
Morris) is usually used (Geary thiks 'usually used' is otiose -- 'even if
necessary').
McEvoy goes on:
"The [noun] "justification" can be used harmlessly enough, even though it
is suggestive of a "justificationism" that is mistaken as a theory of
knowledge and which should be replaced by a critical approach that accepts that
all our knowledge has a conjectural character. We can say (harmlessly
enough) that we are justified in preferring Einstein's physics to Newton's
alternative (in terms of their success in passing tests); but we should 'know'
this does not justify Einstein's physics in a way that renders it infallible
or definitely true, and that it does not imply that the great knowledge
contained in Einstein's physics is any kind of "justified true belief". [..
Also W]e should abandon the silly philosophical dogma that because Einstein's
physics cannot be regarded as [justified true belief] it must be denied
that it represents any sort of "knowledge"."
Too true. But while the
NEWTON --> Einstein
point belongs to what Kant called 'theoretical' or 'pure' reason (He was
being a 'purist' there), we may need an analogue in terms of 'practical'
reason. I mean, philosophers of science -- who focus on 'pure' reason are
always speaking of the Copernican revolution and the Einsteinian revolution.
But
revolutions in the realm of the practical 'reason' which was I think the
point that W. O.'s post involved) are more difficult to find.
My favourite is
Julius Caesar --> Augustus
The first was a dictator; the second a clement emperor.
----
McEvoy:
"I don't think there is any important distinction between theoretical,
practical or moral fields in this regard - our knowledge in all these fields
(which may overlap [by the way]) should be regarded as conjectural rather
than "justified" in some infallible way. It is the failure of our greatest
'theoretical' knowledge, at its most developed and well-tested in the
sciences, to attain anything like "justified" infallible status - the lesson
to
be learnt from the overthrow of Newtonian physics by Einsteinian - that
should warn us against regarding our less elevated views of practical and
moral
matters as having anything like "justified" infallible status."
Good points. Perhaps I should correct
Julius Caesar ---> Augustus
and replace it for
Kant --> Prichard
Grice knew Prichard well, and they shared some background
---- INTERLUDE ON PRICHARD as the main moral intuitionist ever: "I KNOW it
is wrong to lie" cfr. "I know that eating people is wrong".
---
Harold Arthur Prichard was born in London in 1871, the eldest child of
Walter Stennett Prichard, a solicitor, and his wife Lucy Prichard. Like Grice,
Prichard went to Clifton from where he won a scholarship to New College,
Oxford, to study mathematics. But after taking First Class honours in
mathematical moderations (preliminary examinations), he studied Greats (ancient
history and philosophy) taking First Class Honours. He also played tennis for
Oxford (against Cambridge, naturally -- what else?) On leaving Oxford he
spent a brief period working for a firm of solicitors with his father in
London, before returning to the dreaming spires, first as Fellow of Hertford
and then of Trinity. He took early retirement from Trinity on grounds of ill
health (in fact, he was ill), but recovered ("and since I could not
re-retire") was elected White's Professor of Moral Philosophy and became a
fellow
of Corpus Christi -- Grice's alma mater.
---- END of biographical interlude
i. I know lying is wrong
ii. I know eating people is wrong.
Prichard gave an early defense of the view in his "Does Moral Philosophy
Rest on a Mistake?", wherein he contended that moral philosophy rested
chiefly on the desire to provide arguments starting from non-normative
premises
for the principles of obligation that we pre-philosophically accept, such as
the principle that one ought to keep one's promises or that one ought not
to steal.
This is a mistake, Prichard argued, both because it is impossible to derive
any statement about what one ought to do from statements not concerning
obligation (even statements about what is good), and because there is no need
to do so since common sense principles of moral obligation are
self-evident.
Prichard was influenced by Moore ("some like Witters, but Moore's MY
man") whose Principia Ethica argued famously that goodness was an
indefinable,
non-natural property of which we had intuitive awareness. Moore originated
the term "the naturalistic fallacy" to refer to the (alleged) error of
confusing goodness with some natural property, and he deployed the Open
Question Argument to show why this was an error.
Unlike Prichard, Moore thought that one could derive principles of
obligation from propositions about what is good.
Alas, ethical intuitionism suffered a dramatic fall from favour by the
middle of the century, probably due in part to the fact that the new generation
of Oxonians had all the wrong intuitions (except Grice, of course), but
also due in part to the influence of logical positivism, in part to the
rising popularity of naturalism in philosophy, and in part to philosophical
objections based on the phenomenon of widespread moral disagreement.
Prichard starts where many moral philosophers never tread: from an account
of what an act is. What makes an act, so conceived, either right or wrong?
Prichard holds that the rightness of an act is ‘constituted’ by what
Prichard calls ‘a definite relation’ in which the agent stands to himself or to
others, that relation forming part of the actual situation in which he has
to act.
One thing Prichard means to exclude was that an act can be made right
merely by the goodness of its consequences.
Prichard writes:
"We do not come to appreciate an obligation by an argument, i.e. by a
process of non-moral thinking, and in particular we do not do so by an
argument
of which a premiss is the ethical but not moral activity of appreciating
the goodness either of the act or of a consequence of the act, i.e. our
sense of the rightness of an act is not a conclusion from our appreciation of
the goodness either of it or of anything else."
This does not mean, however, that in order to appreciate the rightness of
the act, one must appeal to a principle.
Hence my idea that
Kant --> Prichard
may be a good equation, since a philosopher loves a principle (cfr. Grice's
cooperative principle -- and maxims).
So perhaps another development could be:
Prichard --> Grice (In "Aspects of Reason", where he justifies Kant's
categorical imperative as a principle).
Prichard argues that if we ask why the fact that I borrowed the money
means that I ought to pay it back, all we can really do is to offer a
principle,
e.g. ‘because I ought to pay anything I owe’.
If we then go on to ask for a reason for the principle, there is nothing
left to be said.
But this is not because there is no reason for the principle.
It is because the principle ‘includes its reason, the reason becoming
explicit when the principle is properly expressed’.
It is characteristic of an intuitionist to deny that the right can be
derived from the good.
For Prichard, however, who WAS an intuitionist, goodness is very different
from rightness.
Goodness seems to be a simple monadic property.
Obligatoriness is completely different. It looks initially as if
obligatoriness – being what one ought to do – is another monadic property,
distinct
from goodness.
Prichard held that obligatoriness is not a property of acts at all.
If this action would be good, I ought to do it.
Prichard asks us what the principle of these inference could possibly be.
Prichard works initially with Sidgwick's contrast between intuitionism as
the view that conduct is right when conforming to certain principles known
to be unconditionally binding, and non-intuitionism as the view that there
are ends at which we should aim.
Sidgwick as a non-intuitionist maintains that right actions are those that
have a certain motive.
And Prichard holds that we cannot be required to act from a certain motive,
since our motivation is not something over which we have the required
control.
But Prichard's main target is Kant.
As he sees it, Kant maintained that an action is right if and only if it is
done from the motive of duty, that is, from a sense of obligation.
Now Prichard wants to admit that it can be good to act from this motive;
maybe this is the only morally good motive.
Other motives, such as a general benevolence, may make the relevant action
good, but cannot make it morally good.
But he wants first to insist that we cannot have an obligation to act from
a particular motive, as we have already seen. And there are further
difficulties peculiar to Kant's position, in which the motive is specified as
the
conviction that the act concerned is a duty.
The first is that the position has the consequence that no act, in
Prichard's official narrow sense, is a duty at all.
One's duty is to act from the motive of duty, never to do this or that act
in the narrow sense.
So Prichard is able to present Kant as holding that there is nothing that
we ought to do, and therefore that it is impossible to act from the sense
that one ought to do this.
If so, Kant has undermined his own position, since his understanding of the
motive of duty shows that there can be no such thing.
Or rather, if there is such a thing as the motive of duty, it follows
necessarily that it cannot be one's sole or primary duty to act on it.
Prichard was inspired by Cook Wilson, whom he heard say,
"What we know we know"
(cfr. I know eating people is wrong).
Prichard states that the view he inherited from Cook Wilson is that to act
is to originate a change, has to be wrong.
In fact, to act is to will a change, and the change willed is not an
action; most often it is a bodily movement,
Talk of principles was hot in Grice's Play Group. Gardiner was offered a
bribe by one of his students to skip one of his seminars. "How would YOU have
acted?" he asked the members of the Play Group.
R. M. Hare said that he would have replied, "I don't take bribes on
principle."
J. L. Austin said that he would have replied with a mere "No, thanks."
Cheers,
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