Philip Kitcher has published a review of On What Matters in the New Republic and it is available here. The review is unusually long, as is fitting given the length of Parfit's book and it is divided into four parts. In the first part Kitcher responds to the popular conception of ethics as based, in some way, on religion which he uses to bring out the general reasons why philosophers tend to resist this assimilation. As Kitcher states, Plato was already suspicious of such a connection and posed some clear problems for anyone who wished to take religion as the basis of ethics. Not only is there such a rich tradition of philosophy seeking to set ethics apart from religion but, even given the reign of specialisation in contemporary intellectual life, ethics seems to be one area where philosophy contributes to the general cultural conversation.
Having opened with these general comments Kitcher introduces Parfit to New Republic's readers as the author of Reasons and Persons and points out that the new book will be intensively studied given the status that the earlier book gave Parfit. The second section of the review turns to some of the distinctive elements of On What Matters introducing, for example, Parfit's discussion of "reasons" and his search for a "supreme principle" of morality. After mentioning the formulation of the "supreme principle" that Parfit eventually reaches, Kitcher mentions that Parfit does not take this principle to be capable of deciding all ethical questions (which is hardly surprising). Parfit's search for the supreme principle takes place by means of assessing and bringing together the rival claims of consequentialism, contractualism and something called "Kantianism" though there would be rather a lot to say about the ways Parfit characterises the latter (and in this blog I have discussed in some detail a number of elements of Parfit's account).
Since the first volume seems to present the manner that Parfit sees the problem and already to invoke the tools by which he aims to resolve it, the question of the status of the second volume of his work is a pertinent one that Kitcher raises. It appears to have two central points, one of which is to state and respond to the views of a number of critics of the views espoused in the first volume, and the other of which is to explore the nature of Parfit's problem with naturalistic views of ethics.
The third section of Kitcher's review is where he begins to lay out reservations concerning the positions adopted in On What Matters. Whilst one central question concerns the success of Parfit's convergence between the three theories he takes seriously, Kitcher raises two other questions as ones he is more concerned with than this one. Kitcher's first question concerns the goal Parfit has adopted, in terms of assuming that the convergence between the three theories would have important practical consequences if established. The reason Kitcher appears to be sceptical about this does not strike me, however, as a good one. Kitcher's scepticism concerns whether the formulation of a successful theory of convergence with regard to the major traditions of ethical theory would really matter given that we would still have the messy task of making ethical judgments. But this seems to me to rest on a misunderstanding of the import of ethical theory. Surely no one would seriously contend that a successful ethical theory would remove the need for judgment? Anyone who thought this would have a very odd view not merely of ethics but of the relationship between general formulations and particular circumstances in relation to theoretical models. No theoretical model can "saturate" the terrain it describes which is why there are levels of generality within such models and one of the ways these levels are marked precisely concerns the need for judgments of application. So it strikes me as odd to think that the point of Parfit's endeavour would be the removal of the appeal to judgment (though if it is successful it should presumably guide the process by which we form judgments, it could not tell us exhaustively when and where we need to apply them).
The reason why Kitcher appears to think that this appeal to judgment is somehow an objection to Parfit concerns the way in which he understands the formulation of a "supreme principle". Kitcher, in appealing in a pluralist way, to the notion that many principles might be needed, appears to take the invocation of a "supreme principle" to be something that leaves behind diversity of considerations though this can hardly be held to be true of others, like Kant, who have searched for such supreme principles. Kant takes the "supreme principle" of morality to be the principle of autonomy but anyone reading about the categorical imperative would be aware that distinct formulations of it exist and that these formulations appear to pick out different ways in which action can be assessed. This point, like the one about judgment, appears to be based on an odd view of Kitcher's.
Kitcher's second objection concerns the nature of Parfit's appeal to thought experiments. Again Kitcher points to the need for readers, when reviewing Parfit's thought experiments to come to views about whether the experiments in question have been formulated well by Parfit and whether they support his conclusions. Kitcher argues that Parfit possesses "no standard of objectivity for provoking reliable responses" which appears again to mistake what Parfit is up to. The suggestion of a standard of objectivity that is separate or distinct from Parfit's conception of "reasons" strikes me as otiose but, further, the assessment of thought experiments, whilst difficult given how far they take us from our ordinary use of concepts, is very standard in a lot of contemporary ethical theory and it appears odd to strike at Parfit in particular for favouring it. Some of Parfit's critics on this score, such as Allen Wood, have resorted on occasion to such experiments themselves and it is hard to imagine moral theory proceeding without some version of them.
The real thrust of Kitcher's problem with thought experiments is, however, posed in a sharper way when he suggests that the experiments are "rigged" and that questions of life and death appear to rest upon them. In fact it is not obvious to me that Parfit's theories rest as solidly upon the appeal to thought experiments as this suggests as he usually uses them in order not to decide an issue but rather to sharpen the precision of a formula. Secondly, in taking them to be "rigged" Kitcher appears to have recourse to a distinct way of describing ethical dilemmas that does not involve important presuppositions and I find this hard to comprehend.
In his response to Parfit's criticism of naturalism Kitcher fastens on an apparent admission of the role of intuition by Parfit and appears to take Parfit to view intuition in an especially mysterious way, something again that seems to require us to think that the appeal Parfit makes to intuition is different in kind or more suspect than the appeal others have made to it. Again, this is difficult to comprehend. The sum of the problems raised in the third part of Kitcher's review is meant to lead one to the conclusion that Parfit's work lacks the potential to contribute to the broader cultural discussion of ethics with which Kitcher began but it is hard for me to see that he has succeeded in making this point.
The fourth and final part of Kitcher's review presents an alternative to the conception of ethical theory that Kitcher views Parfit as having presented. This alternative is presented initially on epistemic grounds with Kitcher again picturing Parfit's method in question-begging terms as apparently being an heroic attempt to generate ethical obligations ab initio (a view for which I find no support in my reading of On What Matters). In response Kitcher appeals to a kind of Aristotelian picture of beginning in the middle of things, by which he means not in the middle of common sense morality but rather from the morass of detail provided about human beings within the human, natural and social sciences. In other words, Kitcher, like Blackburn, adopts an essentially Humean picture of moral theory that sees philosophy as offering no more than a generalization of the results of investigations into "human nature".
Ethics is thus seen on Kitcher's picture as a form of social technology that developed by trial and error in humanity's natural history, an approach that he fails to see as having substantial problems in accounting for the apparently necessarily binding character of ethical obligation. This appears to be the basis of Kitcher's rather misguided resistance to searches for the "supreme principle of morality". Kitcher's review strikes me as misguided in the types of objections and problems it poses to Parfit and the way in which it is so misguided reflects a real divide within ethical theory, a divide between those who take the point of such theory to have a distinctive philosophical basis and those, instead, who would follow Hume in advocating a drastic diminution of the role of philosophy in intellectual life. Whilst I have voiced, and will continue to voice, many criticisms of Parfit's work, it seems to me that in relation to this divide, Parfit is on the right side.
Showing posts with label David Hume. Show all posts
Showing posts with label David Hume. Show all posts
Tuesday, 24 January 2012
Monday, 19 December 2011
Joe Saunders Reviews Allison in *KSO*
The latest piece in Kant Studies Online is a review of Henry Allison's book on David Hume, Custom and Reason in Hume: A Kantian Reading of the First Book of the Treatise and it can be found here.
Saturday, 5 November 2011
Korsgaard, Obligation and *Groundwork* I
Christine Korsgaard analyses the argument of Groundwork I in an article she originally published in 1989 and subsequently re-published both in her own collection of essays, Creating the Kingdom of Ends and also in a collection of essays on the Groundwork edited by Paul Guyer. Unlike the essay by Nelson Potter also published in Guyer's collection and which I responded to in a couple of previous postings, Korsgaard's account is less a step-by-step analysis of Kant's argument and more a reconstruction of its overall point set against an historico-philosophical view of certain tensions in moral philosophy.
Korsgaard sets the response to the argument of Groundwork I against the background of the dispute between internalists and externalists in contemporary moral philosophy though she promises to illuminate this argument by connecting it to an historical pre-decessor. The historical counterpart of this contemporary argument is presented as the conflict between sentimentalists and rationalists. In both cases there is a conflict concerning how to view what it is to be morally obligated. On Korsgaard's account obligation includes 2 elements: both the sense that we are motivated to act morally and that this motivation is one that is binding upon us. Essentially the argument between the sentimentalists and the rationalists concerned, on her view, a stress on one of these to the exclusion of the other. So the sentimentalists give an account of motivation that renders it non-necessary and hence insufficiently binding whilst the rationalists show it to be clearly binding but provide no serious view of its motivating power.
The point of focusing on this debate about obligation is that Kant identified obligation, as early as the "Prize Essay" as the "primary concept" of ethics. Further, on Korsgaard's account, the argument of Groundwork I is best seen as a description of what the concept of obligation involves. It requires seeing that a morally good action is done from the motive of duty or because it is understood to be right. However, for this analysis to be informative philosophically it is necessary to see it as a response to the previous debate between rationalists and sentimentalists.
This previous debate is characterised by Korsgaard through a description that primarily rests on Hume. Korsgaard sees Hume as giving a basis for the view that there is a split between moral obligation and moral binding force. Hume's argument is taken here from the Treatise on Human Nature where he suggests that it would be, to use an anachronistic phrase, a form of "empty formalism" to identify right action with action that has the right motive. The basis for Hume's claim is that we need first some information about what kind of thing is virtuous before we have regard to the virtue of right acts. This requires that we appeal to a moral sense that has to approve something other than the motive of duty in order to reach moral content. This creates a dilemma that Korsgaard traces through the early modern debate and that she states as follows: "If we retain the thesis that it is motives that essentially make actions right, it apparently must be motives other than a regard for rightness itself. On the other hand, if we are to retain the thesis that the primary motive of virtuous action is the motive of duty, we must have some way of identifying or defining right actions which does not depend on their motives".
Essentially the first solution is the one adopted by sentimentalists and leads them to appeal to natural affections such as sympathy. This kind of account can also be seen to underpin utilitarian views of motivation and to have reappeared in another form in the work of Amartya Sen. However it leads to two problems since the motives it appeals to appear only contingently connected to right action and thus to lack a binding character. Further, since the natural affections are the prime source of moral obligation the motive of obligation itself appears to be something only secondary (perhaps a kind of "back-up"). This conception of moral motivation also appears to view the motivation in question not only as extrinsically related to the moral obligation generated but also in terms of a spectator's conception of how it operates (thus taking it to be essentially passive in form).
By contrast, the rationalist view emphasises a sense of the active force of obligation and in this way retains the view that the motive of duty really does move us. However the rationalist views the motive of duty as one we are led to adopt by the terms of how things themselves are and requires us to see moral significance as actually in the things themselves, something that leads naturally to moral realism and intuitionism. Further it does little to provide an adequate account of how motivation itself operates.
By contrast to these pictures Kant's view in Groundwork I starts with the idea of the good will and then proceeds to analyse the notion of duty by which such a good will would be moved. This analysis articulates a distinction between motivations that refer to two types of inclination (direct as when we are moved by enjoyment and indirect by the hypothetical relation to something beyond the inclination itself) and contrasts these with motivation that is based on duty. Having set these points out Korsgaard reveals what is innovative in her account of the motive of duty which is to take this motive as having its worth in terms of the grounds on which a purpose gets adopted. This leads to her effectively identifying Kant's notion of "maxim" as a process whereby something is taken to be a normative reason. There are then distinct reasons why a purpose is regarded as worth having and it is the difference between them that determines distinct types of worth. As Korsgaard puts it: "Duty is not a different purpose, but a different ground for the adoption of a purpose".
The ground for adoption of a purpose that is specific to duty is that in its case a maxim is adopted because it possesses an intrinsic and not an extrinsic legal character (hence the sentimentalist stress on motivation is linked to the rationalist argument for binding force). The binding force of the maxim in this case turns on the universality of the form of the maxim relating to the grounds on which one can will a purpose. Korsgaard, in articulating this point by means of an example, refers to the case of the lying promise (Ak. 4: 402-3) which is used already in Groundwork I (something often forgotten). The argument here is presented as turning on the impossibility of willing a universal law of lying as such a law would "destroy itself". The point being, as Korsgaard puts it, that "he cannot rationally will to act on this maxim at the same time as he wills it as a law".
This claim that it is the will of the person themselves as reflected in the maxim adopted that requires them to see the impossibility of the world that such a will apparently aims for demonstrates the nature of the law in the universal law. This points already for Korsgaard to the emphasis on autonomy that is arguably only made explicit in Groundwork II.
Interestingly, Korsgaard's reconstruction of the point of the argument of Groundwork I says nothing about Kant's introduction of the notion of respect in this part of the work. For some thoughts on that see my previous posting on Nelson Potter.
Korsgaard sets the response to the argument of Groundwork I against the background of the dispute between internalists and externalists in contemporary moral philosophy though she promises to illuminate this argument by connecting it to an historical pre-decessor. The historical counterpart of this contemporary argument is presented as the conflict between sentimentalists and rationalists. In both cases there is a conflict concerning how to view what it is to be morally obligated. On Korsgaard's account obligation includes 2 elements: both the sense that we are motivated to act morally and that this motivation is one that is binding upon us. Essentially the argument between the sentimentalists and the rationalists concerned, on her view, a stress on one of these to the exclusion of the other. So the sentimentalists give an account of motivation that renders it non-necessary and hence insufficiently binding whilst the rationalists show it to be clearly binding but provide no serious view of its motivating power.
The point of focusing on this debate about obligation is that Kant identified obligation, as early as the "Prize Essay" as the "primary concept" of ethics. Further, on Korsgaard's account, the argument of Groundwork I is best seen as a description of what the concept of obligation involves. It requires seeing that a morally good action is done from the motive of duty or because it is understood to be right. However, for this analysis to be informative philosophically it is necessary to see it as a response to the previous debate between rationalists and sentimentalists.
This previous debate is characterised by Korsgaard through a description that primarily rests on Hume. Korsgaard sees Hume as giving a basis for the view that there is a split between moral obligation and moral binding force. Hume's argument is taken here from the Treatise on Human Nature where he suggests that it would be, to use an anachronistic phrase, a form of "empty formalism" to identify right action with action that has the right motive. The basis for Hume's claim is that we need first some information about what kind of thing is virtuous before we have regard to the virtue of right acts. This requires that we appeal to a moral sense that has to approve something other than the motive of duty in order to reach moral content. This creates a dilemma that Korsgaard traces through the early modern debate and that she states as follows: "If we retain the thesis that it is motives that essentially make actions right, it apparently must be motives other than a regard for rightness itself. On the other hand, if we are to retain the thesis that the primary motive of virtuous action is the motive of duty, we must have some way of identifying or defining right actions which does not depend on their motives".
Essentially the first solution is the one adopted by sentimentalists and leads them to appeal to natural affections such as sympathy. This kind of account can also be seen to underpin utilitarian views of motivation and to have reappeared in another form in the work of Amartya Sen. However it leads to two problems since the motives it appeals to appear only contingently connected to right action and thus to lack a binding character. Further, since the natural affections are the prime source of moral obligation the motive of obligation itself appears to be something only secondary (perhaps a kind of "back-up"). This conception of moral motivation also appears to view the motivation in question not only as extrinsically related to the moral obligation generated but also in terms of a spectator's conception of how it operates (thus taking it to be essentially passive in form).
By contrast, the rationalist view emphasises a sense of the active force of obligation and in this way retains the view that the motive of duty really does move us. However the rationalist views the motive of duty as one we are led to adopt by the terms of how things themselves are and requires us to see moral significance as actually in the things themselves, something that leads naturally to moral realism and intuitionism. Further it does little to provide an adequate account of how motivation itself operates.
By contrast to these pictures Kant's view in Groundwork I starts with the idea of the good will and then proceeds to analyse the notion of duty by which such a good will would be moved. This analysis articulates a distinction between motivations that refer to two types of inclination (direct as when we are moved by enjoyment and indirect by the hypothetical relation to something beyond the inclination itself) and contrasts these with motivation that is based on duty. Having set these points out Korsgaard reveals what is innovative in her account of the motive of duty which is to take this motive as having its worth in terms of the grounds on which a purpose gets adopted. This leads to her effectively identifying Kant's notion of "maxim" as a process whereby something is taken to be a normative reason. There are then distinct reasons why a purpose is regarded as worth having and it is the difference between them that determines distinct types of worth. As Korsgaard puts it: "Duty is not a different purpose, but a different ground for the adoption of a purpose".
The ground for adoption of a purpose that is specific to duty is that in its case a maxim is adopted because it possesses an intrinsic and not an extrinsic legal character (hence the sentimentalist stress on motivation is linked to the rationalist argument for binding force). The binding force of the maxim in this case turns on the universality of the form of the maxim relating to the grounds on which one can will a purpose. Korsgaard, in articulating this point by means of an example, refers to the case of the lying promise (Ak. 4: 402-3) which is used already in Groundwork I (something often forgotten). The argument here is presented as turning on the impossibility of willing a universal law of lying as such a law would "destroy itself". The point being, as Korsgaard puts it, that "he cannot rationally will to act on this maxim at the same time as he wills it as a law".
This claim that it is the will of the person themselves as reflected in the maxim adopted that requires them to see the impossibility of the world that such a will apparently aims for demonstrates the nature of the law in the universal law. This points already for Korsgaard to the emphasis on autonomy that is arguably only made explicit in Groundwork II.
Interestingly, Korsgaard's reconstruction of the point of the argument of Groundwork I says nothing about Kant's introduction of the notion of respect in this part of the work. For some thoughts on that see my previous posting on Nelson Potter.
Sunday, 19 June 2011
Rawls, Classical Utilitarianism and Benevolence
The final section of Chapter III of A Theory of Justice returns to the topic of "classical" utilitarianism in the wake of the argument in the chapter that the utilitarian principle that would be seriously considered in the "original position" would not be the "classical" utilitarian one but rather the notion of "average" utility. The point of returning, at the conclusion of the chapter devoted to the "original position" to consideration of "classical" utilitarianism is to work through the conceptual means by which this view is justified since on the argument of the chapter it cannot have been by means of any kind of contractarian concern.
In indicating the problem of understanding the question of where the "classical" conception of utilitarianism can turn for its justification Rawls invokes the view of the "impartial spectator" used by Hume and Adam Smith. This notion of impartiality shows a commitment to a form of idealisation that is distinct from that involved in the conception of the "original position". The idea in general is that the "impartial spectator" has a general point of view that enables possession of knowledge of the relevant circumstances. The first point, after identifying this notion, is to work out what kinds of consideration the impartial spectator is concerned with and to see how they relate to those at work in the "original position".
The key difference between the impartial spectator and the original position on Rawls' argument is simply that the former's definition includes no assumptions from which the two principles of justice could be derived. Rawls views the basis for this claim to reside in the more restrictive sense of concern that applies to the impartial spectator. The impartial spectator's definition does not include any reference to deductive provision of reasons to adopt principles.
So the first look at the impartial spectator leads to a kind of "empty formalism" objection to its use. However, rather than stopping with this kind of criticism of the device Rawls looks instead at the means by which it can be given more determinate content. One way would be to supply this spectator with a form of moral psychology such as to give them plentiful supplies of sympathy (thus bending the device in a sentimentalist direction). Once this is done the derivation of "classical" utilitarianism can take place. Rawls points to Hume's account of utility as one example of how the link between the impartial spectator and a classical notion of utilitarianism can take place. On the Humean account there can be supposed increases in pleasure in the impartial spectator as the forms of pleasure felt within the social whole increase. So sympathy is here taken to be a principle that provides us with a psychological ground for impartiality.
The impartial spectator thus works through a form of empathetic identification with members of the society. Impartiality works here to weaken self-interest and knowledge of circumstances and a real capacity for identification guarantees that others are genuinely taken into account. Once the device's role is filled out it becomes apparent that it plays the role for the "classical" utilitarian that the "original position" has been designed by Rawls to play for the contractarian. They are hence competing devices. Interestingly, the appeal to the impartial spectator has also been explicitly made in Sen's recent work The Idea of Justice so Sen, in making this appeal, indicates a commitment to the idealising device that was, in Rawls' view, central to the formulation of "classical" utilitarianism.
If the impartial spectator requires sympathetic identification, the original position, by contrast, supposes nothing similar, instead taking the parties to the agreement to be mutually disinterested (as is the case with Adam Smith's market operators). Further, there is no appeal in the original position to either knowledge (which is generally not possessed due to the "veil of ignorance" with certain exceptions in regard to moral psychology) and, given the notion of mutual disinterest, nothing like the idea of sympathetic identification. Thus, in one sense, the moral psychology presupposed in the "original position" appears less generous than that applied to the "impartial spectator" though, in a different way, that allowed in the "original position" is greater due to the determinate notion of "person" allowed within the "original position". Generality is arrived at in the "original position" not by means of sympathy but instead precisely from the need, given the veil of ignorance, to assume it as a vantage point since one has little else to go on.
The determinate sense of personhood involved in the "original position" is in terms of the general meta-commitment each member of the contracting parties has to protection of their interests including the interest in being able to prosecute their own notions of the good. By contrast, the sense of person in the impartial spectator situation is appropriately "bare" with no indication included either of specific interests or of meta-interests. This is the basis, as Rawls now points out, for the charge that utilitarianism abstracts from the separateness of persons. The capacity for sympathy has replaced all specific interests and, in doing so, has robbed from participants any real sense of selfhood at all.
The abstraction from determinate qualities of persons in the impartial spectator device requires the notion of "impersonality" to fill the requirement of impartiality. Rawls views this as conflating all possible desires into a single system of desire. At this point the real reason why the "classical" utilitarian doctrine would not be adopted in the "original position" becomes evident as a consequence of the moral psychology assumed to be applicable to the contracting parties. Only if the contracting parties were assumed, not to be, as they are, disinterested but instead as perfect altruists, would there arise adoption of the classical principle of utility. "Thus we arrive at the unexpected conclusion that while the average principle of utility is the ethic of a single rational individual (with no aversion to risk) who tries to maximise his own prospects, the classical doctrine is the ethic of perfect altruists." Hence the conception of personhood presupposed in the different formulations of the principle of utility is not equivalent in the two cases.
Having brought out the psychological assumptions underpinning the "classical" utilitarian doctrine Rawls next turns to what these assumptions themselves involve. The perfect altruist of the "classical" doctrine is effectively without any specific desires of their own so they are parasitic upon the existence of others who possess such desires. This is presumably why Sidgwick and others have tended to the view that it might well not be best, from a utilitarian point of view, if all are utilitarians. If all were so assumed to be there would be no place at which any view of distribution could be centred. By contrast, the assumption of mutual disinterest in the original position takes it that there are separate interests which are in conflict and thereby works on the assumption that justice is concerned with the reconciliation with such competing interests.
One of the bases of the utilitarian appeal becomes clear from the considerations of this discussion. It is that it presents an intuitive rendering of the sense that moral judgments involve impartiality. But the device of the "original position" presents this appeal to impartiality in a different way by making different psychological assumptions and the assumptions that the original position requires are ones that Rawls can present as more "realistic" than those of the device of the impartial spectator. Rawls indicates that the interpretation of impartiality by utilitarianism is in terms of impersonality and that it is this interpretation that requires abstraction from the separateness of persons.
The possibility opens at this point in Rawls' discussion of a different theory of justice should the impartial spectator device be adopted but not involve conflation of desires into one system. Philanthropy as a principle, however, runs into similar problems as the adoption of benevolence would if it does not assume conflicting desires are present and if such conflicts exist then it follows that philanthropy will become selective and cease to operate as a general principle. The general point that emerges is that the problem with principles based on sympathy, benevolence or love all face the difficulty that they are second-order notions that are parasitic on first-order commitments. This is a new way of endorsing Kant's objection to pathological emotion as a form of ethical generalisation. Kant objected on the grounds of the instability of feeling. Rawls adds to this the point that feelings are, in any event, generally partial in consideration and to adopt an impartial conception of them is to require the continued existence of partiality and this continued existence of partiality is itself a problem for public adoption of sentimental principles. So "nothing would have been gained by attributing benevolence to the parties in the original position".
However, in conclusion, Rawls does allow the contracting parties in the original position to have a "sense of justice", albeit not one that requires commitment to supererogation almost as a matter of course. The principles of justice, once adopted, are indicated by Rawls to later also be the basis of a sense of virtue. This appears to advert again to his earlier notion of "rightness as fairness" though, as usual, Rawls does not work this through at this point.
With the completion of section 30 Chapter III ends and so also does the first part of Theory, the part itself entitled "Theory". The key philosophical role of this part of the work is evident, not least in Chapter III itself. In the "preface" to the original edition Rawls indicated some parts of Chapter IV were also included in the "essentials" of the text but it is apparent that the first part of the book provides most of the "foundations" of the theory. As such, they have also provided some of the most important philosophical points of dispute with Rawls. It will be necessary, however, to press on in future postings to look in more detail at the ways in which the next parts of the book develop in order to see how Rawls goes on to "introduce order and system into our considered judgments" as he puts in the original introduction.
In indicating the problem of understanding the question of where the "classical" conception of utilitarianism can turn for its justification Rawls invokes the view of the "impartial spectator" used by Hume and Adam Smith. This notion of impartiality shows a commitment to a form of idealisation that is distinct from that involved in the conception of the "original position". The idea in general is that the "impartial spectator" has a general point of view that enables possession of knowledge of the relevant circumstances. The first point, after identifying this notion, is to work out what kinds of consideration the impartial spectator is concerned with and to see how they relate to those at work in the "original position".
The key difference between the impartial spectator and the original position on Rawls' argument is simply that the former's definition includes no assumptions from which the two principles of justice could be derived. Rawls views the basis for this claim to reside in the more restrictive sense of concern that applies to the impartial spectator. The impartial spectator's definition does not include any reference to deductive provision of reasons to adopt principles.
So the first look at the impartial spectator leads to a kind of "empty formalism" objection to its use. However, rather than stopping with this kind of criticism of the device Rawls looks instead at the means by which it can be given more determinate content. One way would be to supply this spectator with a form of moral psychology such as to give them plentiful supplies of sympathy (thus bending the device in a sentimentalist direction). Once this is done the derivation of "classical" utilitarianism can take place. Rawls points to Hume's account of utility as one example of how the link between the impartial spectator and a classical notion of utilitarianism can take place. On the Humean account there can be supposed increases in pleasure in the impartial spectator as the forms of pleasure felt within the social whole increase. So sympathy is here taken to be a principle that provides us with a psychological ground for impartiality.
The impartial spectator thus works through a form of empathetic identification with members of the society. Impartiality works here to weaken self-interest and knowledge of circumstances and a real capacity for identification guarantees that others are genuinely taken into account. Once the device's role is filled out it becomes apparent that it plays the role for the "classical" utilitarian that the "original position" has been designed by Rawls to play for the contractarian. They are hence competing devices. Interestingly, the appeal to the impartial spectator has also been explicitly made in Sen's recent work The Idea of Justice so Sen, in making this appeal, indicates a commitment to the idealising device that was, in Rawls' view, central to the formulation of "classical" utilitarianism.
If the impartial spectator requires sympathetic identification, the original position, by contrast, supposes nothing similar, instead taking the parties to the agreement to be mutually disinterested (as is the case with Adam Smith's market operators). Further, there is no appeal in the original position to either knowledge (which is generally not possessed due to the "veil of ignorance" with certain exceptions in regard to moral psychology) and, given the notion of mutual disinterest, nothing like the idea of sympathetic identification. Thus, in one sense, the moral psychology presupposed in the "original position" appears less generous than that applied to the "impartial spectator" though, in a different way, that allowed in the "original position" is greater due to the determinate notion of "person" allowed within the "original position". Generality is arrived at in the "original position" not by means of sympathy but instead precisely from the need, given the veil of ignorance, to assume it as a vantage point since one has little else to go on.
The determinate sense of personhood involved in the "original position" is in terms of the general meta-commitment each member of the contracting parties has to protection of their interests including the interest in being able to prosecute their own notions of the good. By contrast, the sense of person in the impartial spectator situation is appropriately "bare" with no indication included either of specific interests or of meta-interests. This is the basis, as Rawls now points out, for the charge that utilitarianism abstracts from the separateness of persons. The capacity for sympathy has replaced all specific interests and, in doing so, has robbed from participants any real sense of selfhood at all.
The abstraction from determinate qualities of persons in the impartial spectator device requires the notion of "impersonality" to fill the requirement of impartiality. Rawls views this as conflating all possible desires into a single system of desire. At this point the real reason why the "classical" utilitarian doctrine would not be adopted in the "original position" becomes evident as a consequence of the moral psychology assumed to be applicable to the contracting parties. Only if the contracting parties were assumed, not to be, as they are, disinterested but instead as perfect altruists, would there arise adoption of the classical principle of utility. "Thus we arrive at the unexpected conclusion that while the average principle of utility is the ethic of a single rational individual (with no aversion to risk) who tries to maximise his own prospects, the classical doctrine is the ethic of perfect altruists." Hence the conception of personhood presupposed in the different formulations of the principle of utility is not equivalent in the two cases.
Having brought out the psychological assumptions underpinning the "classical" utilitarian doctrine Rawls next turns to what these assumptions themselves involve. The perfect altruist of the "classical" doctrine is effectively without any specific desires of their own so they are parasitic upon the existence of others who possess such desires. This is presumably why Sidgwick and others have tended to the view that it might well not be best, from a utilitarian point of view, if all are utilitarians. If all were so assumed to be there would be no place at which any view of distribution could be centred. By contrast, the assumption of mutual disinterest in the original position takes it that there are separate interests which are in conflict and thereby works on the assumption that justice is concerned with the reconciliation with such competing interests.
One of the bases of the utilitarian appeal becomes clear from the considerations of this discussion. It is that it presents an intuitive rendering of the sense that moral judgments involve impartiality. But the device of the "original position" presents this appeal to impartiality in a different way by making different psychological assumptions and the assumptions that the original position requires are ones that Rawls can present as more "realistic" than those of the device of the impartial spectator. Rawls indicates that the interpretation of impartiality by utilitarianism is in terms of impersonality and that it is this interpretation that requires abstraction from the separateness of persons.
The possibility opens at this point in Rawls' discussion of a different theory of justice should the impartial spectator device be adopted but not involve conflation of desires into one system. Philanthropy as a principle, however, runs into similar problems as the adoption of benevolence would if it does not assume conflicting desires are present and if such conflicts exist then it follows that philanthropy will become selective and cease to operate as a general principle. The general point that emerges is that the problem with principles based on sympathy, benevolence or love all face the difficulty that they are second-order notions that are parasitic on first-order commitments. This is a new way of endorsing Kant's objection to pathological emotion as a form of ethical generalisation. Kant objected on the grounds of the instability of feeling. Rawls adds to this the point that feelings are, in any event, generally partial in consideration and to adopt an impartial conception of them is to require the continued existence of partiality and this continued existence of partiality is itself a problem for public adoption of sentimental principles. So "nothing would have been gained by attributing benevolence to the parties in the original position".
However, in conclusion, Rawls does allow the contracting parties in the original position to have a "sense of justice", albeit not one that requires commitment to supererogation almost as a matter of course. The principles of justice, once adopted, are indicated by Rawls to later also be the basis of a sense of virtue. This appears to advert again to his earlier notion of "rightness as fairness" though, as usual, Rawls does not work this through at this point.
With the completion of section 30 Chapter III ends and so also does the first part of Theory, the part itself entitled "Theory". The key philosophical role of this part of the work is evident, not least in Chapter III itself. In the "preface" to the original edition Rawls indicated some parts of Chapter IV were also included in the "essentials" of the text but it is apparent that the first part of the book provides most of the "foundations" of the theory. As such, they have also provided some of the most important philosophical points of dispute with Rawls. It will be necessary, however, to press on in future postings to look in more detail at the ways in which the next parts of the book develop in order to see how Rawls goes on to "introduce order and system into our considered judgments" as he puts in the original introduction.
Tuesday, 14 September 2010
Sellars and Kant on Intuition (IV)
The last posting on this topic considered the third movement of the first chapter of Sellars' book Science and Metaphysics and concluded with a comparison of Sellars' view of Kantian intuition and that of Salomon Maimon. In this posting I am going to consider the fourth movement of the first chapter.
The fourth movement opens with a series of questions concerning the status of "sense impressions" considered as the content of "sheer receptivity". The basic question considers whether the "sense impressions" need to be considered as states of consciousness (albeit non-conceptual ones) that intervene between the causal impact of the external environment on the mind and the verbal expression indicating a referential relation to the environment. Rather than see the "sense impressions" this way it could be the case, as is suggested by contemporary physicalists, that all we need to discuss is physical states. In which case, the relationship of guidedness between the referential verbal report and the environment on which it reports would simply be carried out by the physical operations alone. Here, it is interesting to see how Sellars, whilst maintaining a framework of scientific realism, moves away from the standard responses of physicalists.
What the appeal to the notion of the "sense impression" involves is a kind of state that is neither conceptual nor physical and, in making this appeal, Sellars resists classical intellectualism on the one hand and brute physicalism on the other. (Here we see his intellectual kinship to Kant and why the Kantian reference is important to him.) The rationale for the "sense impressions" remains one of accounting for the appearance of conceptual representation within the general awareness of perceptions. Particularly, it is meant to help deal with what we might think of as "minimal conceptual representations" even though, as indicated in the third movement of the chapter, Sellars does not take it to be the case that all visual perception need involve these.
The basic question concerns one of a correlation between the physical objects on the one hand and the mental states that have a connection to them. This is expressed again, as was the case in the third movement, through an analytical response to the way that conceptual representations occur. So, the example is given that, under "normal" circumstances there are perceptions of a red and rectangular object in specific circumstances. The circumstances are when we are in some causal relationship to the object. Another situation in which the perception of this type occurs is an "abnormal" one where something else than the specific object is affecting us due to its possessing, in some sense, characteristics that are related to the object.
What Sellars wants to account for is not a set of behavioural characteristics such as are displayed when someone consistently shows they can distinguish between "red" and "blue" accurately. It is rather the ability to conceptualize the experience that is at issue. The basic problem is thus not one that concerns the second case mentioned in the last paragraph (the "abnormal" one) but the first case (the "normal" one). How is that the conceptual occurrence of the description of the datum is given when confronted with something that referentially matches said datum? In responding to this Sellars wishes to invoke the "sense impression" as what is at work in "guiding" the conscious state such that the "sense impression" immediately corresponds to the causal stimuli that brings it about. (This "immediate" element of the "sense impression" is also a connection of it to the Kantian sense of intuition.)
There has to be something about the "sense impression" that makes it, in a way that does not apply to the verbal conscious report, analogous to the causal stimuli that brings it about. Rather than invoke this notion Sellars mentions that we could have one of two alternatives that might seem to dispense with the need for it. We could, on the one hand, claim that the capacity in question, is innate. On the other hand, we could just deal with it, in quasi-Wittgensteinian terms, by speaking about induction into a language-game. Sellars does not attempt, however, to deal here with the rationalist appeal to innatism but simply leaves that suggestion aside.
Sellars' response to the quasi-Wittgensteinian view is more interesting. The point he makes here is that, in order for this induction into the language-game to work, there must already exist the possibility of some cues for connection between verbal reports and causal and physical stimuli which the story in question presupposes and cannot explain. The account is, in fact, part of a story of generational connection but not really one that makes clear how such connection can take place at all.
Going back to the question at issue Sellars distinguishes between the sense that there are impressions of red rectangles simpliciter and impressions that red rectangles are located in specific regions. The latter already requires something conceptual being added to the former and so the former is the real first point that needs accounting for. Similarly, in the first instance, we should not be thinking about the standard cause of the appearance of the impression as this will inevitably lead in the direction of Humean questions. The basic reason for that concerns the move, noted in the third movement, of minimizing the referential element when we become stuck on analysis of the occurrence in question in terms of a philosophical analysis that approximates to that of puzzlement of the ordinary perceiver.
The fourth movement opens with a series of questions concerning the status of "sense impressions" considered as the content of "sheer receptivity". The basic question considers whether the "sense impressions" need to be considered as states of consciousness (albeit non-conceptual ones) that intervene between the causal impact of the external environment on the mind and the verbal expression indicating a referential relation to the environment. Rather than see the "sense impressions" this way it could be the case, as is suggested by contemporary physicalists, that all we need to discuss is physical states. In which case, the relationship of guidedness between the referential verbal report and the environment on which it reports would simply be carried out by the physical operations alone. Here, it is interesting to see how Sellars, whilst maintaining a framework of scientific realism, moves away from the standard responses of physicalists.
What the appeal to the notion of the "sense impression" involves is a kind of state that is neither conceptual nor physical and, in making this appeal, Sellars resists classical intellectualism on the one hand and brute physicalism on the other. (Here we see his intellectual kinship to Kant and why the Kantian reference is important to him.) The rationale for the "sense impressions" remains one of accounting for the appearance of conceptual representation within the general awareness of perceptions. Particularly, it is meant to help deal with what we might think of as "minimal conceptual representations" even though, as indicated in the third movement of the chapter, Sellars does not take it to be the case that all visual perception need involve these.
The basic question concerns one of a correlation between the physical objects on the one hand and the mental states that have a connection to them. This is expressed again, as was the case in the third movement, through an analytical response to the way that conceptual representations occur. So, the example is given that, under "normal" circumstances there are perceptions of a red and rectangular object in specific circumstances. The circumstances are when we are in some causal relationship to the object. Another situation in which the perception of this type occurs is an "abnormal" one where something else than the specific object is affecting us due to its possessing, in some sense, characteristics that are related to the object.
What Sellars wants to account for is not a set of behavioural characteristics such as are displayed when someone consistently shows they can distinguish between "red" and "blue" accurately. It is rather the ability to conceptualize the experience that is at issue. The basic problem is thus not one that concerns the second case mentioned in the last paragraph (the "abnormal" one) but the first case (the "normal" one). How is that the conceptual occurrence of the description of the datum is given when confronted with something that referentially matches said datum? In responding to this Sellars wishes to invoke the "sense impression" as what is at work in "guiding" the conscious state such that the "sense impression" immediately corresponds to the causal stimuli that brings it about. (This "immediate" element of the "sense impression" is also a connection of it to the Kantian sense of intuition.)
There has to be something about the "sense impression" that makes it, in a way that does not apply to the verbal conscious report, analogous to the causal stimuli that brings it about. Rather than invoke this notion Sellars mentions that we could have one of two alternatives that might seem to dispense with the need for it. We could, on the one hand, claim that the capacity in question, is innate. On the other hand, we could just deal with it, in quasi-Wittgensteinian terms, by speaking about induction into a language-game. Sellars does not attempt, however, to deal here with the rationalist appeal to innatism but simply leaves that suggestion aside.
Sellars' response to the quasi-Wittgensteinian view is more interesting. The point he makes here is that, in order for this induction into the language-game to work, there must already exist the possibility of some cues for connection between verbal reports and causal and physical stimuli which the story in question presupposes and cannot explain. The account is, in fact, part of a story of generational connection but not really one that makes clear how such connection can take place at all.
Going back to the question at issue Sellars distinguishes between the sense that there are impressions of red rectangles simpliciter and impressions that red rectangles are located in specific regions. The latter already requires something conceptual being added to the former and so the former is the real first point that needs accounting for. Similarly, in the first instance, we should not be thinking about the standard cause of the appearance of the impression as this will inevitably lead in the direction of Humean questions. The basic reason for that concerns the move, noted in the third movement, of minimizing the referential element when we become stuck on analysis of the occurrence in question in terms of a philosophical analysis that approximates to that of puzzlement of the ordinary perceiver.
Sunday, 5 September 2010
Belief and Philosophy
Before going into the substantive content of this posting I should first like to announce the launching of an exciting new site: Philosophy TV. It is clearly modelled on Blogging Heads but it is not focused on current affairs topics but rather on matters of philosophical dispute. The first one featured prompted some thoughts on my own part that led me to decide to write this posting.
In the first debate we have two contemporary philosophers who discuss a question of considerable interest. This concerns what is going on when people explicitly announce certain beliefs that many of their actions and dispositions fail to support and the substantive debate then centres on different characterisations of this tension. However, rather than attempting to resolve the actual debate between Tamar Gendler and Eric Schwitzgebel on this question I would prefer to shift the debate somewhat by looking at some points that are shared between them and which help to define some aspects of contemporary epistemology that bother me.
Firstly, the debate centres on what is meant by ascribing "beliefs" to someone. The "belief" model that both participants, to a certain degree, are questioning is one that assumes we can say what someone believes by attending to the pattern of things they are liable to say and the reasons they give for saying them. In both cases, the tension is noted between these avowals and the behaviours and dispositions to behave that people have. Such tension then motivates the two different accounts. The noting of the tension and the attempt to generate views that deal with it is what makes the discussion novel. What is not novel, however, is a fixation on "belief" itself. This fixation is partly concerned to move away with concerns with "knowledge" but also has its roots in a generic Humean kind of view. Gendler towards the end directly cites Hume and the framing of the discussion around the findings of contemporary empirical psychology is one that also ensures the fixing of the Humean model since much contemporary "empirical psychology" already includes a number of fundamental and unquestioned philosophical assumptions.
Secondly, although the move in the discussion towards the example of what is involved in responding to such an important matter as racial understanding is a shift from standard examples such as belief that something is red and is interesting in re-framing questions in ways that appear more substantive still there are large areas of "belief" that appear not to be addressed. So, in ordinary speech, when people speak of "belief" they are indeed referring to things like the racial example or to political beliefs or to religious beliefs. But when we look at topics of religious and political beliefs it strikes me that there are some large questions that the predominant model does not deal with. For example, if someone is a believing Christian, then, according to the group they belong to, they have signed up to a number of propositions as things they take to be true. But in what sense is it the case that this is really what they have done? What does "belief" mean in such a case as opposed to the more mundane levels where philosophical analysis usually focuses? It isn't just that there is apparently quite a lot involved in belief in a religious group's doctrines or that the scope of them is very large. It is also that there are no items picked out in the world by these beliefs (or this is largely true, some cases complicate the matter). Since this is so what is "believed in" is not something that is open to check by any of the means taken to be standardly appropriate in the more mundane cases. There are similar problems with political beliefs since these are capable of mutation in such subtle ways that they never clearly map the world. So I find the philosophical debates about "belief" curiously isolated from what often, in the area outside philosophy, are normally taken to be key cases of "belief".
The third problem, connected with the second, is why it is that philosophical analysis of "belief" seems to be so insistently tied to looking at what is going on with particular individual believers. There exist "belief systems" and one question that has always intrigued me concerns the sense involved in stating that large numbers of people "believe" something to be the case. In one sense there are some apparently unproblematic examples. So the majority of people who have at all considered it hold the belief that the world is a sphere and that it rotates around the sun. It is true, even with this belief, that there are complexities. Anyone aware, in any degree of detail, of cosmology and astronomy, will have a more sophisticated sense of such a matter than the majority who are not so aware. Similarly, those exposed seriously to phenomenology or to concentrated philosophy of science will have a different but also deeply reflective view of these matters that is again different to the view of the majority. So even here there is a sense in which the majority don't "believe" in the propositions in question in the same way as the separate sophisticated groups just mentioned. Even more is this the case with bodies of "beliefs" that have apparently embraced large numbers of people with religious beliefs and political ideologies foremost. In such cases there are amazing levels of difference between people and a genuine puzzle, for me at least, what sense it makes to claim all these different levels converge on the same "belief".
Somehow, however, these questions about philosophical analysis of belief never seem to be raised or related to as substantive problems. So I thought I would lay that out as a point that might be worth consideration in future philosophical discussions.
In the first debate we have two contemporary philosophers who discuss a question of considerable interest. This concerns what is going on when people explicitly announce certain beliefs that many of their actions and dispositions fail to support and the substantive debate then centres on different characterisations of this tension. However, rather than attempting to resolve the actual debate between Tamar Gendler and Eric Schwitzgebel on this question I would prefer to shift the debate somewhat by looking at some points that are shared between them and which help to define some aspects of contemporary epistemology that bother me.
Firstly, the debate centres on what is meant by ascribing "beliefs" to someone. The "belief" model that both participants, to a certain degree, are questioning is one that assumes we can say what someone believes by attending to the pattern of things they are liable to say and the reasons they give for saying them. In both cases, the tension is noted between these avowals and the behaviours and dispositions to behave that people have. Such tension then motivates the two different accounts. The noting of the tension and the attempt to generate views that deal with it is what makes the discussion novel. What is not novel, however, is a fixation on "belief" itself. This fixation is partly concerned to move away with concerns with "knowledge" but also has its roots in a generic Humean kind of view. Gendler towards the end directly cites Hume and the framing of the discussion around the findings of contemporary empirical psychology is one that also ensures the fixing of the Humean model since much contemporary "empirical psychology" already includes a number of fundamental and unquestioned philosophical assumptions.
Secondly, although the move in the discussion towards the example of what is involved in responding to such an important matter as racial understanding is a shift from standard examples such as belief that something is red and is interesting in re-framing questions in ways that appear more substantive still there are large areas of "belief" that appear not to be addressed. So, in ordinary speech, when people speak of "belief" they are indeed referring to things like the racial example or to political beliefs or to religious beliefs. But when we look at topics of religious and political beliefs it strikes me that there are some large questions that the predominant model does not deal with. For example, if someone is a believing Christian, then, according to the group they belong to, they have signed up to a number of propositions as things they take to be true. But in what sense is it the case that this is really what they have done? What does "belief" mean in such a case as opposed to the more mundane levels where philosophical analysis usually focuses? It isn't just that there is apparently quite a lot involved in belief in a religious group's doctrines or that the scope of them is very large. It is also that there are no items picked out in the world by these beliefs (or this is largely true, some cases complicate the matter). Since this is so what is "believed in" is not something that is open to check by any of the means taken to be standardly appropriate in the more mundane cases. There are similar problems with political beliefs since these are capable of mutation in such subtle ways that they never clearly map the world. So I find the philosophical debates about "belief" curiously isolated from what often, in the area outside philosophy, are normally taken to be key cases of "belief".
The third problem, connected with the second, is why it is that philosophical analysis of "belief" seems to be so insistently tied to looking at what is going on with particular individual believers. There exist "belief systems" and one question that has always intrigued me concerns the sense involved in stating that large numbers of people "believe" something to be the case. In one sense there are some apparently unproblematic examples. So the majority of people who have at all considered it hold the belief that the world is a sphere and that it rotates around the sun. It is true, even with this belief, that there are complexities. Anyone aware, in any degree of detail, of cosmology and astronomy, will have a more sophisticated sense of such a matter than the majority who are not so aware. Similarly, those exposed seriously to phenomenology or to concentrated philosophy of science will have a different but also deeply reflective view of these matters that is again different to the view of the majority. So even here there is a sense in which the majority don't "believe" in the propositions in question in the same way as the separate sophisticated groups just mentioned. Even more is this the case with bodies of "beliefs" that have apparently embraced large numbers of people with religious beliefs and political ideologies foremost. In such cases there are amazing levels of difference between people and a genuine puzzle, for me at least, what sense it makes to claim all these different levels converge on the same "belief".
Somehow, however, these questions about philosophical analysis of belief never seem to be raised or related to as substantive problems. So I thought I would lay that out as a point that might be worth consideration in future philosophical discussions.
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