[lit-ideas] (a) Do You Have Free Will?/(b) Dworkin
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2011 01:09:40 +0100 (BST)
(a)Strawson: Yes, if I don't have to answer.
(b) In the "Dictionary of Philosophy", Dworkin's entry reads:-
"Dworkin, Ronald: Asked "Do we have a right to pornography?" and answered
'Yes'. Whatever next?"
Dworkin link:-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/mar/31/ronald-dworkin-morality-dignity-hedgehogs
Dworkin reportedly argues (for remember Adam Gompik on Popper):-
"Dworkin, who used to argue these points at University College, Oxford, with
Mackie in the late 70s, says: "My reply to John then and now is that his
scepticism is self-defeating. When Mackie says: 'All moral propositions are
false', that's a moral proposition, which is false if his proposition 'All
moral propositions are false' is true, which it isn't." A-ha, a version of the
Cretan liar paradox that Doctor Who used to make a clever robot short-circuit
and explode. Sadly, Mackie died in 1981 so isn't around to retort."
It is unclear to me why "All moral props are false" is, or ought to be, a moral
proposition rather than just a claim pertaining to moral claims.
Even if it were, Mackie would surely not have been so obviously logically
self-defeating in formulating his stance?
Then:-
"But if objective moral values aren't in the world, where are they hiding? In
the book, Dworkin finally tells us when we are justified in thinking any value
judgment true, namely: "When we are justified in thinking that our arguments
for holding it true are adequate arguments." Isn't that circular? Yes, but
Dworkin argues it's good circular, not bad circular."
Dare I suggest it is 'pointless' circular? And false, given our so-called
'justification' is always possibly mistaken (so that what we take to be 'true'
is not 'true')? If only 'infallible' justification is meant, then where does
its infallibility lie? How is this to be shown or known?
[It occurs to me that a better non-justificationist argument for there being
'true' and 'false' moral claims, is that every moral claim has a negation and
they can't both be true or both be false, so surely one or other must be true?
[The counter-view is that moral claims are a type of proposition that lack
truth-values, and so do their negations; but this would seem to render moral
argument rationally pointless].]
In any case, Dworkin's reported points hardly reflect a great mind at work.
Must they be distortions of his actual case?
Donal
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