[lit-ideas] Re: Giving reasons and morality
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 04 Sep 2006 10:26:34 -0700
I tried posted this using my Yahoo address last night and was as surprised as
anybody by the typographical spinach that resulted. Perhaps this will be
clearer.
?RP
'--------------------------
Walter, concerned about reason giving and morality, wrote (and I?m quoting it
all so that we can deal with his own words):
'Version A
'Moral principles and norms having to do with equality, autonomy, reciprocity
and universality are general criteria which we apply to different contexts,
actions, policies, etc. Reason-giving is one particular activity or
language-game. We can do it either in accordance with the above stated
moral norms or we can engage in the activity while violating those same
norms. Moral principles originate within our socialization into a particular
culture, set of traditions, etc. So we, for example, come to learn to respect
the equal freedom of all persons and then we apply this norm within our
particular activities, one of which is reason-giving. (Or we fail to do so.)'
I?m not sure I understand much of this or recognize it as a description of
what ordinary people do when they invoke (if they do) ?moral principles and
norms.? To say that reason giving is one particular activity or language-game
suggests that there is something about reason giving that marks it off as an
activity different from justifying a claim or supporting a hypothesis, yet I
wouldn?t like to try to say how these three things differ from each other so
that one always knows when one is giving reasons and when one is engaged in
casuistry. People do what they do. Perhaps justification is just a species of
reason giving, along with begging out of going to a dinner party. But what any
of this has to do with moral principles escapes me.
'Version B
'Moral principles conceptually originate within the activity of giving
reasons. The former necessarily presuppose the latter. Without this
practice, we
could not learn, nor would we have, moral concepts such as equality,
autonomy, right and wrong, obligation, etc. It's not that these moral
principles
and concepts are available to us first, learned first within
acculturation, and
then applied to various activities and contexts, one of which is
reason-giving.
Rather, what it means to respect others as free and equal persons, what it
means to have an obligation, etc., are intelligible to us only because we
understand what it means to give reasons.'
I wonder what?s being claimed here. If it weren?t for reason giving there
would be no moral principles?? So that if some great moral leader were to
say, ?Suffer the little children to come unto me,? or ?The Good is
reducible to the greatest happiness for the greatest number,? we should
expect reasons (for what it isn?t clear) to be forthcoming. Or we should
expect that at least they are at hand and could be set forth if
demanded by the
young moralist. (?Why is it that we should??? ?How did you find out
that???) However, that one can, it?s implied, give reasons to support a
moral principle no more shows that the existence of moral principles
depends on
the possibility of reason giving than would the existence of the Great
Pyramids
depend on the possibility of their being photographed.
Take Mike Geary?s mamma. Did she instill in her son an aversion to promise
keeping; a predilection to slump at dinner until his chin rested on the
edge of
the table, allowing him to shovel in, with the edge of his knife, food
which he
then chewed with his mouth open; an inner voice that told him to kick the
already downtrodden? She could have. It?s logically possible. But I?ll bet
she didn?t. I?ll bet that she at least taught Atlas that he should keep his
word. ?But why?? the young skeptic asks. ?Why should I keep my word?? At
this point, anything Mike?s mamma could have said would have been silly.
?Why should I, if I?ve given my word, keep my word?? Anyone expecting
reasons to well out of the stone of metaethics must be thinking of moral
principles as as dicey as Euclid?s fifth postulate. ?Someday, it may turn
out that we were wrong: we shouldn?t keep our promises after all.?
But until then?
Robert Paul
The Reed Institute
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