The direction in which this conversation has evolved is quite interesting to me. I never took Wager's point to be that there are no moral maxims or clear cases. Those are easy to come by. I always took him to be talking about moral *judgment*, which comes into play when cases are hard, when, for example, the law allows mitigating circumstances. I see an interesting ambiguity here, between *judgement1, *deciding through philosophical argument that a moral maxim must be universal and *judgment2*, the usual kind, where the maxim is not in question but its application is. John On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 9:00 AM, Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > Donal wrote > > > I am unsure what is being denied in saying one doesn't believe in a > moral continuum: I confess I am quite a believer in 'continuum' thinking and > that most points can be, and even ought to be, located on some kind of > spectrum (or even spectra) in order to put them in perspective: while I do > not believe my dropping litter is an inevitable slippery slope to my manning > the gas chambers, I do think we can construct a (long) continuum between one > and the other. Admittedly, this might appear wrong by appearing to put > littering on the same level as genocide, but it does not do that: the point > of such a continuum (if there is much of a point) is not that everything is > on the same level but that what is next to its neighbour is often not that > far apart. Continuum thinking has its abuses (the 'slippery slope' fallacy > being one) but it also has its uses (some day I may publish how these may be > arranged in a continuum). > > > Upon reflection, I'm not sure what is meant by a 'moral continuum' either, > even though I must have at one time thought I knew. (Argument to the best > hypothesis.) I was perhaps thinking in a hazy way about the criminal justice > system, in which offenses are more serious the more certain elements are > present in an act, e.g. assault, assault with a deadly weapon, racially > motivated assault; involuntary manslaughter, manslaughter; manslaughter > during the commission of a crime, etc. If I did mean something like this, it > was by way of suggesting that morality should not be considered as analogous > to it. I didn't have in mind anything like the 'slippery slope' fallacy to > which Donal calls our attention. It's clear that we agree that this is the > wrong model, even though evangelical preachers often invoke it. > > **** > > [Donal again] JLS's deprecatory remarks on the use of "imagination" are > also questionable: for philosophers like Popper "imagination" is a most > important requirement for understanding, in part because what is understood > is not a "given" but a construction, and a theoretical one at that. Without > "imagination", for example, how I can ever know that genocide is wrong by > imagining what it is like to be a victim of it? > > > Robert than comments: > > >If this were really true, then I could not honestly say that I know > genocide to be wrong. It is as useless as a parent's saying to a child, 'How > would you like it if Sally pulled *your* hair?' The child has not been > taught any sort of 'moral lesson in this drama. No more does my shuddering > at descriptions and depictions of life in Auschwitz make that an important > part of my knowing that to subject human beings to such a life is wrong, was > wrong, and will be wrong, no matter what the casuist may try to say.> > > This is somewhat unclear (at least to me), though I guess Robert to be > saying that if it depended on 'imagination' to know that genocide was wrong > (say by imagining what it was like to be a victim) then we could not > honestly say that we know genocide to be wrong on this basis. Is this true? > > > My point was that I consider it to have been 'wrong' (a word that seems far > too thin to characterize what was done in the Nazi concentration camps), > even though I cannot begin to imagine what it would have been like to have > lived and suffered in one of them. Granted, Donal (via Popper?) says that > such a feat of the imagination is a sufficient condition for being able to > condemn the killing of millions of human beings in such barbaric ways; yet, > to repeat, I don't believe it is even a necessary condition. I can't do it > by means of any thought experiment, and no more can I imagine what it would > be like to be a twelve-year-old girl dying of cancer. > > > 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). The argument about the role of > 'imagination' I was putting forward is closer to the argument that > recognising others as persons, or as 'other minds' even, is something not > 'given' but something we acquire and which it requires a certain imagination > to acquire - and we might say without recognising others as persons we can > have no real sense of right and wrong. Of course, this touches on large > concerns, some of which I might address in another thread on P's philosophy > of mind by outlining his account of how we _become_ selves. > > > I agree that one must see others as being like us but doing so, it seems to > me, doesn't require a special act of the imagination; we grow up (most of > us) surrounded by human beings who, to us (or to me) form a natural class > for which no explanation can be given. It isn't at all obvious that one must > see others as persons, in some philosophical sense (for it's only > philosophers who talk this way) in order to treat them as fellow humans, > i.e., to see that others are like me in uncountably many ways and unlike me > in uncountably many others. I have no word for what one does see when one > comes to see others as persons, except for Kant's talk about autonomy and > Sartre's talk about 'authenticity'—that is, such things are mentioned in > discussing 'persons.' Yet to invoke them by way of explaining anything is to > suggest that we find our way out of a swamp by following a will-o'-the-wisp. > > > Robert Paul > > High Dudgeon > Oxon > > -- John McCreery The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN Tel. +81-45-314-9324 jlm@xxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.wordworks.jp/