[lit-ideas] Re: Universalizability
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2013 02:26:14 -0400 (EDT)
In a message dated 3/16/2013 4:05:51 A.M. UTC-02, _juliereneb@gmail.com_
(mailto:juliereneb@xxxxxxxxx)
quotes:
"The universalizability
principle enables Hare to avoid the charge of irrationality that is
usually
lodged against non-cognitivism , to which his prescriptivism belongs"
and writes:
"Could someone enlighten me and tell me what "non-cognativism" and
"prescriptivism" are IN THIS CONTEXT? It seems to me to be specialized
vocabulary
in this area of dialogue. If I unwrap the sentence, the blunt sense is
that prescriptivism is somehow a subset of non-ccognitivism, (...which would,
w/out the statement above, be vunlerable to a charge of irrationaly...)."
Exactly!
I should revise my source!
---
Indeed, cognitivism, as I understand it, is the idea that morality belongs
in the realm of _BELIEF_. Personally, I don't trust the word 'cognitivism',
because I see it as too associated with 'cognise', which is a verb that
Chomsky 'coined' as synonym for 'know'. Now, I'm enough of a relativist to
want to speak of moral 'belief' (rather than moral 'knowledge' --
simpliciter).
Hare's prescriptivism has been criticised in that in his view imperatives,
circularly, do an act of 'imperare' -- From Lewis/Short, Latin Dictionary:
"impĕro (inp- ), āvi, ātum, 1 (archaic form, imperassit, Cic. Leg. 3, 3,
6, and induperantum = imperantium, Enn. Ann. v. 413 Vahl.), v. a. and n.
in-paro, -- I.to command, order, enjoin (cf.: jubeo, praecipio, mando)."
Hare prefers to say, 'prescribe'. Imperatives prescribe. Descriptions
describe. Hare runs into problems in Part II of his "Language of Morals", when
he has to provide for the prescriptive (or imperative) force of things like,
"What a GOOD book this is!" -- and which invited the remark by Grice that
"x is good" only IMPLICATES that the utterer recommends X, rather than SAY
it.
The charge of irrationality was I think counterattacked by Hare by
reference to hypothetical scenarios like
the ps, from an online source.
If cognitivism is the thesis that morality belongs in beliefs,
non-cognitivism holds that it belongs rather in 'desires' (conativism).
Again, all this may need to be double (or triple?) checked, etc.
Cheers,
Speranza
ps.
[DOC] Reconsidering Hare's Argument for Utilitarianism
philosophy.fas.nyu.edu/.../singer.do... -
"Hare makes a ... statement about a Nazi who asserts that all Jews should
be killed. This prescription commits the Nazi to prescribing that he
himself should be killed, in the hypothetical case in which he discovers that
he
is a Jew. Since, we assume, the interests of Jews in continuing to live
are greater than the interests of Nazis in killing them, no one would prefer
to live the lives of all those affected by the prescription that all Jews
be killed. Nevertheless, Hare says, a Nazi could be so fanatical about his
belief in racial purity that he would think that he should be killed, even
if he were a Jew. If he accepts that, he is not violating
universalizability. Instead, in Hare’s words, "the fanatic nails his flag to
the content
of the ideal, irrespective of its holder.""
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