[lit-ideas] Re: Some of you may remember ... ueber-gaffe
- From: wokshevs@xxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Mike Geary <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:50:15 -0230
A few remarks on social probity and moral epistemology in light of Mike's
reflections ---------->
Quoting Mike Geary <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> Who never emails you? Bloom or Ingarten? If Ingarten emails you, does that
>
> mean that he's less high on the totem pole than Bloom who apparently
> doesn't? Is it culturally appropriate for either Bloom or Ingarten to email
>
> you if they are professorial muckety-mucks -- I mean, look at you, you email
>
> ME for Christsake!
----------> I haven't received an email from either one of them this year. (A
true statement, but not very accurate. Is "accuracy" an independent epistemic
criterion, to be differentiated from truth and rightness?)
> Can you blame Bloom or Ingarten for not emailing you?
> What if it should get out that they email you who is so low on the totem
> pole that you email me? Culture's have their appropriatenesses and their
> inappropriatenesses. It would be inappropriate for either Bloom or Ingarten
>
> to email you knowing you email me. 'Should' has nothing to do with it. As
> my psychologist asks: "do you consider that appropriate behavior?" He never
>
> asks "don't you think it was wrong to cop a feel on that nun?"
---------------> Perhaps the reason they don't email me is that I engage in
conversation with Mike. On "should" and "appropriateness:" I continue to
maintain that if one makes the claim that practice P is culturally
inappropriate, then that entails the view that members of that culture should
not engage in the practice. This holds, I aver, from both the internalist
(participant) and the externalist (objective) perspective I was at pains to
articulate last week (while still on vacation.) I'm not sure the converse
holds.
Mike's psychologist sounds like a cultural relativist. I am told most are. Since
therapy is distinct from truth or rightness, not much rides on it.
> It is
> socially inappropriate to vomit on the city bus. But is it immoral? I
> don't think so.
------> I agree with the former proposition. As to the question, notice that
Mike doesn't provide sufficient information for assessment of the moral status
of a maxim in this case. Was the vomiting accidental or intentionally
self-induced? If the latter, what end was being sought by the vomiting agent?
If the former, attribution of agency is mitigated if not abrogated.
> Social appropriateness can outweigh morality -- and often
> does.
------------> If by "outweigh" Mike refers to the status of having greater
epistemic warrant or objective force of reasons provided, then I believe his
statement is false. Any other construal of "outweigh" is philosophically
irrelevant.
> So killing a daughter to protect the family's honor isn't immoral in
> the eyes of those who believe in the social appropriateness of such
> measures, in fact, many would think it immoral not to kill the daughter.
----------> This too is philosophically irrelevant. Mike proffers an empirical
claim here under the guise of justification. No empirical claim on its own can
be epistemically decisive within the justification of a claim to moral
rightness.
> Kant be damned. Go figure.
--------> Both of these are prescriptive ejaculations, the probity of which
depend upon provision of justification for the above claims.
Walter O.
MUN
>
> Mike Geary
> socially inappropriate as he thinks he should be
> in Memphis
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; "Eric Yost" <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2008 2:17 PM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Some of you may remember ... ueber-gaffe
>
>
> > Some random reflections on culture, sex, cosmopolitanism, normative
> > prescriptions, single malt, being Canadian, the poetics of Roman Ingarten,
>
> > and
> > even more sex, not necessarily in that order:
> >
> >
> > Can one say that norm or practice P is "culturally appropriate" where the
> > sense
> > of this term is devoid of any reference to one or more "shoulds"? From a
> > native
> > perspective, the answer appears to be in the negative. If I say, as a male
> > faculty member, that it is culturally inappropriate for women to have
> > access to
> > the men's faculty club - where all who enter smoke cigars, sip fine
> > Glenlivet,
> > and relate romantic escapades with the past cohort at New College -
> > then I am saying that women *should not* have access to the club.
> >
> > From an externalist perspective, however, what is "culturally appropriate"
>
> > is
> > understood simply in empirical terms: ""This is what they do, and they
> > believe
> > they should it." That claim can be made independent of the *assertion* of
> > any
> > normative or prescriptive claim involving a "should." It thus allows for:
> > "They
> > believe women should not have access to the faculty club but they're quite
>
> > wrong
> > about that and women should have access. After all, some of them
> > appreciate a
> > fine malt and cigar, and most have jolly good stories to relate as well."
> >
> > So for an American to say that not remembering where you were on 9/11 is
> > culturally inappropriate would seem to entail the view that Americans (at
> > least) *should* remember where they were given the extraordinary nature of
>
> > the
> > event. I don't see how "culturally inappropriate" can intelligibly be
> > divorced
> > from the "should" in this case. But then, it would be odd to say that
> > Canadians,
> > or Armenians or Hungarians could or should not share that same participant
> > perspective. And this suggests that my distinction between the 2
> > perspectives -
> > participant and externalist - breaks down in this case. And that because,
> > it
> > would seem, some events are cosmopolitan in nature -
> > i.e., thay are of deep concern to humanity as such, regardless of
> > cultural,
> > national or religious orientation. To say "You're Canadian, hence ..." is
> > quite
> > irrelevant to the case. I had a conclusion when I started this argument
> > but,
> > alas, it now escapes me. Candidate conclusions are most welcome.
> >
> > Walter O.
> > (Not running for government office in Canada.)
> >
> > P.S. OK, so I lied about saying something about the poetics of Roman
> > Ingarten.
> > (Who the hell IS Roman Ingarten anyway?? Is he as famous as Harold Bloom?
> > He
> > never emails me.)
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Quoting Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>:
> >
> >> Hi, Phil!
> >>
> >> The "may" does not suggest a significant difference.
> >> You may disagree.
> >>
> >> You wrote: "I find Eric's comments interesting in that
> >> he seems to suggest that all Americans _should_ know
> >> where they were when they heard about the attacks of
> >> 9/11. . . . . I would be interested in Eric's
> >> explanation of why all Americans should know where they
> >> were on 9/11."
> >>
> >> Phil, your "should" strikes me as a philosophical
> >> land mine, and I'll save my comments on that "should"
> >> for the end of the post. My "may" and your "should" ...
> >>
> >> However, almost all Americans alive during Pearl Harbor
> >> knew where they were when they heard the news of the
> >> attack. The same with JFK; it's almost a commonplace of
> >> American culture that people remembered where they
> >> were when JFK was shot.
> >>
> >> Why should 9/11 differ from -- or be less than -- these
> >> other calamities? More were killed on 9/11 than at
> >> Pearl Harbor. Its cultural significance is on par with
> >> JFK's assassination. That's why Obama's remark is a
> >> gaffe: it was condescending and strangely alienated
> >> from mainstream ethos. Perhaps he was playing to those
> >> who, for political reasons, would marginalize the
> >> significance of 9/11. I don't know.
> >>
> >> Perhaps, because you are Canadian, you also miss the
> >> iconic status of "remembering where you were when" this
> >> or that major US event happened. It's not your country.
> >>
> >> Of lesser events, Obama's remark would be germane. For
> >> instance, I can remember where I was during the
> >> Challenger Shuttle disaster, and many of us do.
> >>
> >> Now the "should" in your post: the attempt to abstract
> >> some Kantian universal. At first, I thought you were
> >> merely being a sophist, but after some sleep, I see you
> >> are intrigued by the notion of obligation. I can only
> >> answer that there is no "should" in play here, merely a
> >> sense of the culturally appropriate.
> >>
> >> For example, if a US citizen, who had attained the age
> >> of reason when JFK was shot, could not recall where he
> >> or she was that day, they would probably be considered
> >> weird or socially retarded. And with some cultural
> >> justification. How disconnected and out-of-touch must
> >> one be not to have reacted to that event and stored
> >> one's relation to it in memory?
> >>
> >> It's akin to not knowing where one was when one's
> >> parent died. Surely you cannot make a moral argument
> >> from not knowing, but you can make an argument for
> >> cultural deficit or extreme self-centeredness.
> >>
> >> Best.
> >> Eric
> >>
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> >
> >
> >
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