Richter on Joyce on Morality
- From: Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2011 20:26:29 -0700 (PDT)
blog: http://languagegoesonholiday.blogspot.com/
article: http://languagegoesonholiday.blogspot.com/2011/06/lets-start-at-very-beginning-very-good.html
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Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start
Posted: 30 Jun 2011 06:17 AM PDT
Richard Joyce's The Myth of Morality consists roughly of three parts, each of
roughly three chapters. In the first part he argues that morality involves an
error, namely the belief that there are things one must not do, regardless of
one's desires or interests. In the second part he explores the relation between
morality and rationality, as well as the evolution of morality (and how we
probably came to have the false beliefs we know as moral). In the third
(which I haven't read yet) he argues for fictionalism, the belief that moral
beliefs are useful, and therefore should be kept, even though they are false.
It's all a bit like Kant on religion, a bit like Anscombe on the moral 'ought',
and a bit like early analytic philosophy (in relating ethics to literature),
which makes it interesting to me, but it also seems badly wrong. So I want to
investigate. Yesterday I posted more or less random thoughts on chapter 2,
which turned out not to be the best way
to begin. Today's post will probably still be a bit random, but at least it
will have the organizational virtue of beginning at the beginning. To the
preface.
Moral discourse, Joyce says in the second sentence of the preface, is
"fundamentally flawed." It is, he thinks, like
talk about phlogiston or witches. He goes on, on the next page, to say that:
The whole point of a moral discourse is to evaluate actions and persons with a
particular force, and it is exactly this notion of force which turns out to be
so deeply troublesome.Maybe it's this notion of moral discourse that leads to
all the problems, but I'll try not to jump to too many conclusions. Alice
Crary might have something to say about this conception of morality, though.
Fictionalism, he continues, involves using the discourse in question (in this
case, moral discourse) but neither asserting nor believing its propositions. (I
sense the need for Frege-style judgment-strokes and content-strokes.) The
fictionalist uses moral language in something like the way that a story-teller
uses sentences that she knows to be untrue (see Frege on Odysseus). It is also,
he says, like the use that the Dorze of Ethiopia make of the idea that leopards
are Christian animals and observe the fast days of the Ethiopian Orthodox
Church (information that Joyce got from Dan Sperber's work, apparently). That
is, they say they believe this, but they still protect their animals just as
much on fast days as on any other day when leopards might threaten them. So
they don't believe it in a naive way.
Since this is just the preface I'm talking about I'll offer impressions rather
than conclusions. But my impression is: so close and yet so far. Fascinating
though.
Other related posts:
