[lit-ideas] Re: Popper's Unsolved Problems
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2016 17:20:05 +0000 (UTC)
I was suggesting that a problem-solving approach would seem to tend towards an
utilitarian ethics. But McEvoy emphasised that a solution can be true. I
suppose I can imagine scenarios where that is the case, but it would possibly
strike Grice at first that 'true solution' is a bit of a category mistake,
unless proved otherwise!>
It addition to where solutions can be "true" (because they correspond to the
facts) solutions can also be better or worse in a normative field [e.g. law]
even if their being "better or worse" is also a normative question and not
based only on correspondence to "facts" in the non-ethical sense of "facts"
(e.g. the sense of "facts" in the natural sciences).
This "better or worse" in the normative field cannot be identified with a
utilitarian ethics or reduced to a utilitarian ethics - it is not as if
utilitarian ethics exhausts the field of normative possibilities or must
ethically trump other normative possibilities.
If there is a position in grave danger of becoming a "category mistake" here it
is not a problem-solving approach but "utilitarian ethics": for a utilitarian
ethics cannot be ethical if it is based only on utility but only if it is based
on an ethical case for using "utility" as a basis for morality - in other
words, a merely utilitarian or "utility"-based case for utilitarianism could
not be a genuine ethical case because it lacks a genuine ethical basis. That
is, there cannot be a wholly non-ethical basis for any genuine ethics.
The reality is that most of us, given a range of specific ethical problems,
would use some elements of utility-based considerations - and utility-based
considerations might even be decisive in some cases - but we would also give
weight to considerations that were not utility-based. But the more fundamental
point is this: even where we gave weight to utility-based considerations, we
would only be being ethical in so doing if those considerations were given
weight for ethical reasons beyond the utility of giving them such weight.
DL
On Sunday, 13 March 2016, 14:44, "dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx"
<dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
A past winner of the Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year as
"Unsolved Problems of Modern Theory of Lengthwise Rolling", which reminded me
of ... Grice of course (the sky also reminds me of Grice) ... and Popper. We
were discussing a problem-solving versus a conceptual-analytic approach to,
say, legal philosophy, and I was suggesting that a problem-solving approach
would seem to tend towards an utilitarian ethics. But McEvoy emphasised that a
solution can be true. I suppose I can imagine scenarios where that is the case,
but it would possibly strike Grice at first that 'true solution' is a bit of a
category mistake, unless proved otherwise! "Unsolved Problems of Modern Theory
of Lenghtwise Rolling" is about metalworking. Another winner of the Diagram
Prize was "How to avoid huge ships", about how to avoid huge ships. In any
case, for Witters, as Rush Rhees noted there are i. problemii. unsolved
problemiii. unsolvable problem Rhees rephrased that in terms of 'questions',
for the Oxonian ear, which merited him a participation in a meeting of the
Aristotelian society. For Rhees then there are iv. questionv. unanswered
questionvii. unanswerable question It should be pointed out that if anyone made
the phrase 'pseudo-' (as applied to problem) in philosophy in the twentieth
century, that was Witters. He would thus add to the list: viii. pseudo-problem
and I suppose ix. pseudo-solution But being creative Witters would rather say
that a pseudo-problem asks for a DIS-solution, rather than a solution, which
brings us to x. dissolved problem and perhaps xi. dissolvable problem or
something like that. Cheers. Speranza
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