[lit-ideas] Re: Moral Imagination
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 9 Oct 2011 16:36:17 +0100 (BST)
________________________________
From: "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
>McEvoy:
"Bear in mind my suggestion was only that 'imagination' is (or may be)
required here, not that it is, or could be, a sufficient condition for
something being wrong (after all, there are many things we can imagine without
[imagining] them being wrong)."
Paul and my point is that imagination, while fine in the arts -- hence
'fine arts' -- is OTIOSE in ethics.
(neither necessary nor sufficient).
Moral Principle MP is a moral principle iff...
NO reference to imagination adds to what makes MP a moral principle.
----- I'm surprised McEvoy mentions necessary and sufficient conditions
('too strong', 'too weak' conditions) and fails to see this point.>
Ah. Well, when I spoke of 'imagination' it was re its role in _understanding_
"something being wrong" (perhaps this isn't clear enough from what is quoted
above, even n context): it is an epistemic role not an ontic role I had in
mind. So something may be [ontic, deontic] what we ought to do, yet we do not
imagine it is: in this sense imagination is neither necessary, nor sufficient,
for something to be a valid moral principle. But it is another question, in
moral epistemology so to speak, whether some measure of imagination is required
in order for us to _understand_ a moral principle. This is the question I had
in mind.
The sense in which "imagination" has this epistemic role, as I'm defending it,
is the sense in which "imagination" has this role in conjecturing a scientific
theory or even devising a way to test a theory: it is far from confined to what
is "fine in the arts" (which btw often betray a lack of imagination, except in
the apparent imagination needed to believe few don't see through the emperor's
clothes). [The link made between what is fine in the arts and "hence 'fine
arts'" is of course merely JLS legerdemain, and here and elsewhere Robert Paul
may have to defend himself against JLS' defence of him].
But it is possible that there is an underlying difference of conception of
"imagination", and its epistemic role here, that might need discussing. It
seems to me that the so-called 'problem of other minds' is a useful topic to
explore this: for here is a problem where analogical reasoning [from one's own
mind] seems to beg the question, as therefore does any appeal to our own
experience of our own mind. The fact is everyone else might be an automaton
even if I am not (or at least experience myself as not): nothing observable can
necessarily refute the view they are automata, and while this irrefutability is
a vice not a virtue in terms of measuring the logical strength of such a view,
still it is irrefutable a view. It is in part an act of imagination to guess
that others have minds (though as we learn others are selves as we ourselves
become selves, this act of 'imagination' is not usually seen as such a leap but
rather concommitant with our own
increasing self-awareness) since we are imagining something unobservable and
not experienced from the 'inside'.
Also I am far less dismissive of the role of arguments of the "How would you
like it?"-type in teaching an ethical perspective and inculcating ethical
understanding, especially if we see that such an argument works with a very
important unspoken premise- 'you have a right not to be treated that way
because you are a person, but they are persons too and so also have that
right'. That unspoken premise is nevertheless understood even by children, who
do not typically seek to answer "How would you like it?"-type challenges by
saying they are irrelevant because different rules or considerations apply when
it is them and not others. As a result I am also far less dismissive of the
role of "imagination" in considering "How would you like it?" when it is
something you have not experienced [like living in a concentration camp] and
thus the role of "imagination" in moral development. It is because of this kind
of very practical and down-to-earth "imagination" that
we do not have to experience the suffering of others to be able to identify
with and understand their suffering (certain psychological pathologies arise
from a lack of such "imagination").
Donal
salop
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