[lit-ideas] Re: Moral Judgment and Perceptual Metaphor -- Good to Think?
- From: "Walter C. Okshevsky" <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, John Wager <jwager@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2010 21:01:57 -0230
A few replies to John's post:
Quoting John Wager <jwager@xxxxxxxxxx>:
> A few even more scattered ideas as a prolegommena to a possible
> response, interspersed below:
>
> Walter C. Okshevsky wrote:
> > . . . .Here's the *really* interesting part: Students, both undergrad, grad
> and
> > doctoral, find it very difficult to suspend judgement and "follow the
> arguments
> > wherever they lead you." The imperative of submitting your judgement to
> nothing
> > but "the force of the sounder argument" (who said that?) is a very taxing
> one,
> > it appears. (This is the Categorical Imperative in one of its guises, btw.)
> The
> > risk involved - i.e., changing your beliefs - seems to be one that
> > threatens one's already attained psychic unity (C. Korsgaard), and
> reflective
> > equilibrium (Rawls) and one's identity within an ethical community defined
> by a
> > specific substantive conception of the good/authentic life and its
> virtues.
> > Thus such transformation is deemed to to be avoided at all costs.
> >
JW replied:
> I agree that we all start out with certain moral "certainties" that are
> anything but certain. We all must submit these to the
> lens of some kind of moral theory; there isn't any such thing as a
> theory-less morality. When we examine our individual
> judgments, we usually find that our individual perceptions are not at
> all connected by logical consistency; we act in
> contradictory ways and don't even notice. So, yes, a first step is to
> try to over-come the kinds of irrational prejudices that
> we are all raised upon, just like we must submit our beliefs to the same
> kind of reasoned approach.
WO wrote:
> > In my classes we try to overcome such epistemic illness with therapy
> provided
> > by, amongst others, J.S. Mill and his arguments against censorship on
> grounds
> > of necessary conditions of inquiry and pursuit of truth. For surely a view
> that
> > one possesses but cannot bracket as to its truth or rightness for purposes
> of
> > impartial analysis, marks the host of such a view as a victim of
> censorship
> > (and indoctrination).
JW replied:
> One kind of illness is the kind that won't submit ethical intuitions to
> rational analysis. But I think that there is another
> equally destructive kind of illness, and that's the illness of carrying
> a theory to such extremes that it seems to allow
> (or prohibit) things that we begin to seriously question as being wrong
> (or right). Kant is a case in point. I agree that,
> rationally, to lie is to destroy the idea of thought itself, and so can
> never be morally justified. But then I'm asked a
> question that causes me to seriously question this theory. It's clearly
> going to break another duty that is just as pressing
> if I tell the truth. So I have to re-think my whole Kantian position and
> try to come up with something like "prima facie"
> duties or some variation on the ordering of duties to preserve the truth
> of what I already accept but allow for some kind
> of modification of that truth to account for some new perceptual facts.
WO replies: To hold a theory in a non-critical/-questioning manner is to be in
the grip of a prejudice. I believe that during the later stages of his life, K
himself succumbed to prejudice - specifically, the prejudice that some actions
are wrong independent of their formulation within a maxim. That contradicts his
entire moral theory. Without getting lost in the specific example, I do agree
that one's moral theory (meta-ethics) should not be accepted as an article of
religious faith or some sort of dogma. But without some moral theory, one
remains unable to judge morally, or even perceive or feel morally.
JW continues:
> It seems to me that the reasonable thing to do in this circumstance is
> to stop and re-think one's whole position on lying
> and try to make a decision that tries to do justice to both my
> perceptual facts of this particular situation AND my moral
> theory. To just check lying against the C.I. and see that it's always
> wrong, and then go ahead and tell the truth with full
> confidence that one has done the right thing seems to be a kind of
> illness just as harmful as not being rational in the first
> place.
>
> Of course I don't think that most beginning students in ethics are at a
> point when they seriously begin to question and
> modify a theory that they learned last just week, so I agree entirely
> with your pedagogy. But a few years later, when the
> seams of Kant become more problematic, the attempt to work out some kind
> of revision to whatever theory one started
> with just seems to be the most moral and most human thing to do.
WO replies:
Many students already have an incipient theory. They do, after all, judge right
and wrong, feel revulsion at certain acts, etc.. But it's a relativist theory:
judgements, affective responses, perceptions all come down to personal taste or
preference. To intend one's judgement as a universal one is to impose one's
values onto others, thus denying them respect as beings of equal moral worth.
(Interestingly, they are quick to incorporate new theory learned into their
defense of the status quo reflective equilibrium they have thus far attained.)
As well, they view their present desires and wants as in themselves sufficient
for action; in other words, they don't act on maxims.
JW writes:
> I have little patience for those who act with logical inconsistency, but
> I have even less patience for those who act with
> complete logical consistency only by ignoring perceptual information
> that seems obvious to me.
>
> To make this perhaps a bit more concrete: I am not very successful at
> maintaining romantic relationships. I think that
> one of the reasons for this is that I tend to see what's right as more
> important than what's most helpful to maintain the
> relationship. It's difficult for me to admit I'm wrong, especially when
> I don't think I am. But often that's precisely what's
> required if one wants to keep the relationship alive; it's sometimes one
> or the other, not both. Sometimes, the "right"
> thing to do is to lie, and say I'm sorry, that I was wrong, even when
> I'm sure it wasn't me. I don't think Kant would ever
> agree with this, but to me it now just seems an obvious part of human
> life that this is sometimes required, and is not
> morally wrong.
WO replies: Independent of a maxim, it's hard to say what follows from Kant's
considered judgement here. But "admitting" that one is wrong for the prudential
purpose of maintaining a relationship may not be an efficacious means to the
attainment of that end; the action as such fails to meet the requirements of
the Hypothetical Imperative.
JW writes:
> I really like your description of a "dialectic" relationship in ethics
> because it can account for these kinds of conflicts.
> The "synthesis" required is a more comprehensive theory that includes
> both the previous theory and the new perceptual
> facts that require the previous theory to be modified.
WO replies: I'm not very clear on how perceptual information can require
revision to a moral theory, since I don't see how one could perceive acts as
being right or wrong, good or bad without some theory. Encountering a sleeping
homeless person on the sidewalk, I may see him to be a person in need of help.
On a different moral theory, I see him as an opportunity to pad my coffers
(assuming his success at panhandling that day).
Walter O
MUN
>
>
> > Walter O.
> >
> >
> > Quoting John Wager<jwager@xxxxxxxxxx>:
> >
> >
> >> John McCreery wrote:
> >>
> >>> /Morality is so rich and complex. It?s so multifaceted and
> >>> contradictory. But many authors reduce it to a single principle, which
> >>> is usually some variant of welfare maximization. So that would be the
> >>> sugar. Or sometimes, it?s justice and related notions of fairness and
> >>> rights. And that would be the chemist down the street. So basically,
> >>> there?s two restaurants to choose from. There?s the utilitarian
> >>> grille, and there?s the deontological diner. That?s pretty much it./
> >>>
> >>> /
> >>> We need metaphors and analogies to think about difficult topics, such
> >>> as morality. An analogy that Marc Hauser and John Mikhail have
> >>> developed in recent years is that morality is like language. And I
> >>> think it?s a very, very good metaphor. It illuminates many aspects of
> >>> morality. It?s particularly good, I think, for sequences of actions
> >>> that occur in time with varying aspects of intentionality./
> >>>
> >>> /
> >>> But, once we expand the moral domain beyond harm, I find that
> >>> metaphors drawn from perception become more illuminating, more useful.
> >>> I?m not trying to say that the language analogy is wrong or deficient.
> >>> I?m just saying, let?s think of another analogy, a perceptual analogy./
> >>>
> >>> Johnathan Haidt, Edge
> >>> <http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/morality10/morality.haidt.html>.
> >>>
> >>> To an anthropologist entranced for more than four decades by
> >>> Levi-Strauss? call to consider the ?logic in tangible qualities? and a
> >>> student of Victor Turner, who envisions dominant symbols as
> >>> bipolar?one pole a cluster of concepts the other, the sensory pole, a
> >>> cluster of tangible qualities that evoke powerful emotions, Haidt?s
> >>> thinking is highly appealing. What say others here?
> >>>
> >>>
> >> This question of John's is a bit old, but I've been mulling it over and
> >> want to send a delayed response.
> >>
> >> What is ethics? What place do concepts or principles have in ethics?
> >> What do we do when we practice ?ethics? as a thoughtful process? Many
> >> philosophers try to begin with the ?theory? that would allow us to
> >> predict what general form ?X is right? would have. If I am treating
> >> someone fairly, then ?X? is the right thing to do. If I am maximizing
> >> happiness, then ?X? is right. If ?Happiness? implies ?X,? and
> >> ?Happiness? is the correct view, then ?X? follows. Our old friend Modus
> >> Ponens.
> >>
> >> But I don?t think this is the way we always operate when we try to do
> >> ethics as a rational process. Sometimes we start with the conclusion,
> >> and then try to argue back to the premises. ?Y? is wrong. Ooops! I
> >> hadn?t ever had to deal with ?Y? before, but clearly ?Y? can?t possibly
> >> be the right thing to do! Ooops again; it looks like ?Happiness?
> >> implies ?Y.? What to do? Our old friend Modus Tollens: If ?Happiness?
> >> then ?Y.? Not ?Y.? Therefore, not ?Happiness.?
> >>
> >> What this means in practice is that most of us are more than willing to
> >> throw out a theory when it conflicts with some deeply held idea of the
> >> immorality of a particular practice, no matter what theory might say
> >> it?s the right thing to do. (At least, that seems to me what I have
> >> done in the past, and what I see as a reasonable prospect for following
> >> in the future.) It also seems to be how philosophers write journal
> >> articles; they try to modify the theory to allow for its use in
> >> situations where the theory seems to allow ?Y? so that the theory no
> >> longer allows ?Y? to be seen as the right thing to do.
> >>
> >> I think that this is similar to Turner's two "poles" of "concepts" and
> >> the "sensory" component. We change both as we go. We need both as
> >> starting-points for ethics.
> >>
> >> What say other others?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
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