[lit-ideas] Re: On being called a Lyre
- From: wokshevs@xxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2008 19:17:36 -0230
On morality, epistemic force and sex ----------->
Quoting Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxx>:
> Walter O. wrote:
>
> "I see you've been drinking with David Hume and Adam Smith again."
>
> There are worse drinking companions. I am particularly in agreement
> with Hume on the importance and role of 'custom', which seems to be an
> underdeveloped aspect in Hume scholarship.
------> I'm not quite up to date on Hume scholarship, but I would be very
interested in learning about Hume's views as to how custom could possess any
epistemic value in the justification of moral deliberation and judgement. Nazis
appealed to "custom."
> Walter continues:
>
> "I do not deny that the emotions can be motivating factors."
>
> My claim is not that their importance lies in motivation but rather
> that emotions are necessary for both locating and identifying moral
> issues. The shock and offense that comes from being confronted with
> injustice provides moral discourse with the impetus and stuff for
> deliberation.
-------------> I take what I consider to be a more objective and impartial
approach to defining "moral issues." I believe X can be a moral issue despite
the complete absence of emotional response by individuals to that issue. The
recognition that one has a moral obligation to Y in circumstances W requires no
affective elements for that recognition. Indeed, to define an issue as "moral"
simply on the basis of people's emotional responses invites the ravages of
relativism and runs counter to the imperatives of a constitutional democracy.
Note that the "shock and offense" are *responses* to encounters with injustice.
Phil E. gets that (inadvertently?) right. I must first cognitively judge that
this situation or treatment of individuals constitutes "injustice" before I am
able to feel viscerally in response." What would it mean to feel the latter
independently of the former?
> Consider the sociopath who is incapable of experiencing
> moral outrage and therefore cannot engage in moral discourse.
> Emotions provide moral intuitions that are necessary for deliberative
> activity. Without them, there are no means for distinguishing the
> slaughter of a cow from the slaughter of a person.
--> The sociopath's problem is not necessarily one of diminished affective
capacity. It may well be a diminished cognitive capacity to judge moral right
and wrong. Her problem, this is to say, may be an intellectual one, not an
emotive one. On the matter of deliberative activity: moral intuitions are of no
epistemic value independent of moral principles. Even Rawls realized that much.
I'm wondering here whether Phil E is making an empirical claim or a
transcendental one.
Walter O
MUN
==========================================================================
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Phil Enns
> Yogyakarta, Indonesia
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