[lit-ideas] The universal applicability of moral judgments
- From: Eric Dean <ecdean99@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2008 17:09:51 +0000
While I think I understand the sense in which moral judgments can be
characterized as universal assertions, as Walter has been emphasizing, I think
that there's at least some cogent reason to wonder whether that might not just
be so much the worse for moral judgments.
Walter uses as an example: "Teachers ought to respect the autonomy of their
students." I think that is as clear an example of a universal assertion, and a
moral one at that, as one could ask for.
But precisely because it's a *moral* assertion, and not, say, an assertion
about mathematics or theoretical physics, I think one can legitimately ask how
to apply it without thereby betraying a hopelessly benighted relativism.
Morality is intrinsically an applied branch of knowledge, as it were. A moral
principle whose application is completely opaque wouldn't seem to qualify as a
moral principle.
So now for an example that raises a question about the universal application of
Walter's example. In the military, a drill sergeant's job would seem to
qualify as "teaching", but it notably would not be thought of as "respecting
the autonomy of their students".
I think the choices at this juncture are fairly simple and clear -- either
Walter's assertion needs to be qualified, or the notion of 'universality' needs
to be qualified, or the drill sergeant needs to be excluded from the class of
'teachers'.
Or take another example. The college chemistry professor has her students
doing a lab experiment with some potentially very dangerous chemicals. She
sees one of her students about to do something that could blow up the lab and
everyone in it. She immediately grabs his wrist and pulls it away from the
valve he was about to open. At that moment it would appear she did not respect
the autonomy of her student, within the meaning of Walter's putative maxim.
Again, I think the choices are fairly simple and clear -- either the universal
assertion needs to be qualified, the notion of universality needs to be
qualified, or the roles the professor and student are playing in the lab need
to be defined so their encounter no longer constitutes a potentially relevant
example.
My point is that I do not see how one can distinguish *moral* assertions from
their interpretations in the way one can meaningfully distinguish mathematical
assertions from their interpretations (vide the corpus of mathematical logic).
Because the interpretation of moral assertions inevitably involve potentially
endlessly qualifiable circumstance (life being as messy as it is), I don't
think the notion of 'relevantly similar' is the obvious, transparent notion
Walter seems to think it is.
The distinctions in law, plagiarism and semantics that Walter cites as
illustration for our ability to recognize 'relevant similarity' seem to me far
from perspicuous. The distinctions Walter cites -- between 1st degree murder &
accidental homicide, between copying another's work and coincidental
independent creation, and between the meanings of each word in various pairs of
related but distinct words -- all operate within realms in which the space of
possibilities is established in advance and the question is which of a pair or
group of correlated attributes applies, given that one of them must apply
(someone's dead by another's hand, so the law presumes the events fell under
one of a list of possible headings, murder 1 and accidental homicide being two
on that list).
But in the case of a moral maxim like "Teachers ought to respect the autonomy
of their students" the questions of who's a teacher, who's a student, what's a
student's autonomy and under exactly what situations should it be respected are
all very relevant, legitimate questions about the *meaning* of the maxim.
Unanswered, the maxim is, I submit, a bit of idle pedantry with no
applicability in the world. But as one goes to answer those questions, the
maxim's universality starts getting qualified.
As a guide to thinking about action, as, in other words, a suggestion about
where to look in resolving practical dilemmas about teaching people, Walter's
maxim seems very useful. In fact, I make an effort to apply it myself just
about every day. In my current job I'm 20+ years older than just about
everyone on my staff...
But to call it a universal maxim is, in my opinion, to crush that usefulness by
demanding subservience to an order whose relevance may not be readily
discernible. For example, I think one could make the case that the teacher who
grabs the foolish student's wrist before he blows up the lab was in point of
fact respecting the autonomy of the student in the circumstances -- there
wouldn't have been a student with any autonomy to violate or respect otherwise.
But one could also make the case that such a situation simply represents an
exception to the maxim.
I don't see the point of insisting on either interpretation, except as a form
of coercion intended to preserve some order or other. And I don't see what
insisting on the "universal applicability" of moral judgments can mean other
than to insist on one of those styles of interpretation.
Useful guides are just that, useful guides. They're not laws like the laws of
physics or the axioms of mathematics. Kant's categorical imperative, imho, is
a useful guide, in just this sense, not a universal law.
Regards to one and all,
Eric Dean
Washington DC
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