In a recent posting over at Pea Soup there is another set of questions raised concerning Kant, this time from Michael Cholbi. These questions are meant, though, to follow partly from the arguments raised against the view that the only unconditional good is the good will. The question Cholbi raises is not specifically one that involves objection to this argument concerning the good will but, instead to the apparent exclusive disjunction between the unconditioned goodness of the good will compared to other goods that are taken to be only conditionally good. Cholbi wants to suggest that there are some goods that don't fit this exclusive disjunction.
The example concerns the pleasures and pains of animals. Cholbi wants us to think that the pleasures and pains of non-human animals are in themselves normatively significant regardless of their relationship to questions of rational willing. When presenting this case Cholbi moves on slightly from the understanding of the state of animals in terms of pleasure and pain and speaks instead about animal flourishing suggesting that the flourishing of animals is good regardless of relation to the will. In presenting this claim for an intrinsic value Cholbi neglects to ask what would be involved in making this claim concerning the flourishing of the animal. Are all non-human animals here in the same situation? If so, then an animal that best flourished through feeding on and destroying many other animals would presumably manifest this good in the same way as an animal that had lesser effect on the general bio-sphere in which case there would be no normative grounds for producing conditions that led more easily to the reproduction of one than the other. But this seems wrong so presumably there is something involved in the normative state which doesn't just attach to states of inclination of the animal in question. Again, the bio-sphere itself could evolve in directions that ensured the survival of the more destructive creature so if the normative value belongs to the bio-sphere itself then this should still be regarded as a good outcome.
If, by contrast, the normative value of the flourishing of the animals is taken to be one that resides in some kind of "balance" of the bio-sphere and a way to ensure that destructive predators are not the life-forms that have the greatest potential of survival are in question then this comes back to the conditions under which there can be willing to ensure this outcome as more likely than the opposite. But whilst we might want to claim this is due to the conditions of the animals themselves it is important to point out that these conditions are ones that we have to take to prefer in some situations rather than others and that this taking is one that has to be justified to us not merely in relation to the animals but also in regard to rationales as to why we should particularly interest ourselves in them. Since the latter has to address rational wills generally and not merely ones that might have a predisposition to think there is value in the conditions of the animals then the best strategy to persuade others should be to adopt a position that conforms to conditions of universally possible willing which would be the Kantian argument.
The reason why Cholbi seems unwilling to follow the argument in this direction is due to his commitment to the view that willing cannot be the source of the goodness or badness of the state of the animal. But this needn't be the claim concerning the animal itself it would be the claim concerning our relation to it. And that is sufficient for us to adopt the point in question in Kantian terms.
Showing posts with label Pea Soup. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pea Soup. Show all posts
Saturday, 20 March 2010
Friday, 19 March 2010
The Good Will and the Categorical Imperative
In a recent posting over at Pea Soup there are presented some arguments for thinking that Kant's view of goodness is "profoundly wrong". The author, Ralph Wedgwood, has difficulty in particular with the suggestion, made at the beginning of the first part of the Groundwork, that the only thing good without qualification is a good will. Wedgwood correctly views this opening claim of the Groundwork as closely related to the general formalism of Kant's ethics. The arguments presented in response to Kant's claims concerning the absolute status of the good will consist partly in suggesting other candidates than the good and partly in arguments for not taking Kant to be consistent in his general commitment to this view concerning the good.
The argument concerning other candidates for the "good" than the good will is presented first and consists in a general claim, not itself supported by argument, that there are things that exist that are intrinsically good. Included under this heading for Wedgwood are the value attaching to ecological systems, the value of pleasure by contrast to pain and the value of cognitive achievements. This is a somewhat diverse list and presupposes a commitment to a basic form of moral realism. In response it is worth asking whether this list of things of intrinsic value is meant to indicate that these things are of value regardless of relations to persons or not. A strongly realist position would suggest that the answer was in the affirmative. In which case the value of the ecological system would always exist regardless of the types of organisms it produced. Following that claim further it is hard to see how disvalue could attach to an ecological system that evolved in such a way that it produced certain life-forms that sustained themselves directly through the destruction of most others. Since the value is intrinsic to the system itself there is no ground for moral evaluation of any product of it. Similarly, if pleasure is an intrinsic good then it shouldn't matter intrinsically how it is distributed since the possession of the pleasure that can exist for some in torturing others to death might well be very great and surely it would require some standard extrinsic to the pleasure itself to find grounds of difficulty with this? Finally, whilst cognitive achievements may well be fine things in themselves they can be used for any number of types of ends and if those ends are irrelevant to the question of the goodness of the achievements then they could be used for any given end at all.
The argument listing independent goods seems to be clearly to fail if taken in the strongest realist sense. If, however, these things of intrinsic value have that value in relation to qualities of persons then the need for a discussion of will, and good will, follows.
The second argument Wedgwood gives concerns the supposed internal inconsistencies in Kant's defence of his conception of the absolute status of the good will. As examples of this Wedgwood suggests that Kant appeals to natural teleology, as in his condemnation of suicide. The condemnation of suicide does indicate that the basis of self-love, is, for example, to help further life by giving some basis for its continuation. However, the basic rationale of the argument concerning suicide doesn't last really on this claim as this claim is part of Kant's "hedonism" rather than part of his argument for the disvalue of suicide. The argument concerning the disvalue of suicide is that it involves a contradiction in that affirming it is part of affirming the value of willing itself. After all, how does a potential suicide support their own action other by saying that it is a right they should possess since it is their own life that is in question? So the potential suicide appeals to a value alleged to be intrinsic to their life and their power over it. The latter is the real point since this power resides precisely in their taking their own will to have value, a value however that is nullified in the affirmation of the act in question. That shows a contradiction, one that is opposed by the categorical imperative.
Wedgwood's subsequent points concern whether Kant justifies his claims concerning benevolence on the one hand and the relationship between the formula of humanity and the formalist foundation on the other. These are separate topics that have treated extensive treatment in literature on Kant. Whilst the notion of benevolence is not one he justifies through a notion like that of a "contradiction in conception" there is a case for saying it has something to do with "contradiction in the will". The argument concerning humanity, by contrast, is relatively short if humanity is essentially identified with practical rationality as it is by Kant. It's not that these two latter points aren't worthy of deeper treatment but simply referring to them as knock-down points against Kant is surely simplistic on Wedgwood's part. Finally, Wedgwood suggests that if you see value in the empirical natural world that you should reject Kant's view. If, however, we do see such value then surely it is related to conditions of being able to relate in the right way to things that are thought to have value. See again the point concerning cognitive achievements!
The argument concerning other candidates for the "good" than the good will is presented first and consists in a general claim, not itself supported by argument, that there are things that exist that are intrinsically good. Included under this heading for Wedgwood are the value attaching to ecological systems, the value of pleasure by contrast to pain and the value of cognitive achievements. This is a somewhat diverse list and presupposes a commitment to a basic form of moral realism. In response it is worth asking whether this list of things of intrinsic value is meant to indicate that these things are of value regardless of relations to persons or not. A strongly realist position would suggest that the answer was in the affirmative. In which case the value of the ecological system would always exist regardless of the types of organisms it produced. Following that claim further it is hard to see how disvalue could attach to an ecological system that evolved in such a way that it produced certain life-forms that sustained themselves directly through the destruction of most others. Since the value is intrinsic to the system itself there is no ground for moral evaluation of any product of it. Similarly, if pleasure is an intrinsic good then it shouldn't matter intrinsically how it is distributed since the possession of the pleasure that can exist for some in torturing others to death might well be very great and surely it would require some standard extrinsic to the pleasure itself to find grounds of difficulty with this? Finally, whilst cognitive achievements may well be fine things in themselves they can be used for any number of types of ends and if those ends are irrelevant to the question of the goodness of the achievements then they could be used for any given end at all.
The argument listing independent goods seems to be clearly to fail if taken in the strongest realist sense. If, however, these things of intrinsic value have that value in relation to qualities of persons then the need for a discussion of will, and good will, follows.
The second argument Wedgwood gives concerns the supposed internal inconsistencies in Kant's defence of his conception of the absolute status of the good will. As examples of this Wedgwood suggests that Kant appeals to natural teleology, as in his condemnation of suicide. The condemnation of suicide does indicate that the basis of self-love, is, for example, to help further life by giving some basis for its continuation. However, the basic rationale of the argument concerning suicide doesn't last really on this claim as this claim is part of Kant's "hedonism" rather than part of his argument for the disvalue of suicide. The argument concerning the disvalue of suicide is that it involves a contradiction in that affirming it is part of affirming the value of willing itself. After all, how does a potential suicide support their own action other by saying that it is a right they should possess since it is their own life that is in question? So the potential suicide appeals to a value alleged to be intrinsic to their life and their power over it. The latter is the real point since this power resides precisely in their taking their own will to have value, a value however that is nullified in the affirmation of the act in question. That shows a contradiction, one that is opposed by the categorical imperative.
Wedgwood's subsequent points concern whether Kant justifies his claims concerning benevolence on the one hand and the relationship between the formula of humanity and the formalist foundation on the other. These are separate topics that have treated extensive treatment in literature on Kant. Whilst the notion of benevolence is not one he justifies through a notion like that of a "contradiction in conception" there is a case for saying it has something to do with "contradiction in the will". The argument concerning humanity, by contrast, is relatively short if humanity is essentially identified with practical rationality as it is by Kant. It's not that these two latter points aren't worthy of deeper treatment but simply referring to them as knock-down points against Kant is surely simplistic on Wedgwood's part. Finally, Wedgwood suggests that if you see value in the empirical natural world that you should reject Kant's view. If, however, we do see such value then surely it is related to conditions of being able to relate in the right way to things that are thought to have value. See again the point concerning cognitive achievements!
Thursday, 18 March 2010
Moral Philosophy and Moral Disagreement
In a recent posting over at Pea Soup there is a discussion, set off by Ralph Wedgwood concerning whether there is significant disagreement amongst moral philosophers concerning specific moral judgments. The argument Wedgwood makes is to the effect that there is not a general disagreement amongst moral philosophers and, in the process, he argues that moral philosophers have frequently been in the vanguard of liberalising attitudes, citing, as examples, the cases of homosexuality and capital punishment. The general case Wedgwood makes is that there is something in the nature of philosophy's fostering of a critical attitude that leads philosophers to be specifically agents of such liberalisation.
The posting by Wedgwood raises thus two related but distinct questions: is there general agreement between moral philosophers regardless of their adherence to different meta-ethical views and does this alleged agreement lead to a convergence on positions that promote liberalisation? These are good questions though rather difficult to answer. Part of the problem here is that much of the debate amongst moral philosophers is not strictly about specific judgments, at least that is so outside the specialist area of practical ethics. When moral philosophers engage in practical ethics they are, by contrast, exhibiting bases for disagreement on concrete questions.
The question of the disagreement that does exist strikes me as more interesting than a suggestion of a convergence on a liberalising view. If we take the central areas of practical ethics on which such disagreement currently centres they include the wide areas of bio-ethics and ethical questions connected to war and peace. On these topics the disagreements that exist often cross liberal/conservative lines inasmuch as such lines are stable in philosophical terms. For example, in the area of war and peace, there are reasons for disquiet about "just war" doctrines that can be voiced both by those on the pacifist side of an argument and on the side of those who feel that conduct of soldiers is too tightly constrained by such arguments. The former would tend to be "liberal", the latter "conservative". But the "centre ground" of the debate, if there is one, would draw out the difficulties of the terrain in a more general sense. It is far from clear to me that the ensuing discussions and clarifications have produced a liberalising consensus though it is true that when philosophers join explicit public debate on these issues they tend to urge positions that require some sense of legality to be brought to bear on war so most philosophers, on grounds related to that, had problems of one sort or another with the second Gulf War.
However, the general claim for a liberalising effect of the discussions that take place within the area of moral philosophy is not always so clear. For example, the area of abortion has tended to encourage both a view that there are rights here that accrue to women as those whose bodies are, in some sense, at issue. But this has not prevented there being some general sense, that has be weighed in the balance with this, that there are considerations that attach to the fetus, that it is not, as John Locke once put it, merely a "vegetable". If Locke's position was generally adopted there wouldn't tend to be any basis for restrictions on the "right" to abortion but few legislatures view that as correct and the philosophical discussion has not tended toward that view though it would be a "liberal" one.
The cases on which Wedgwood relies, those of homosexuality and the death penalty, seem less contentious. Certainly few philosophers tend to support the death penalty today despite the evidence of previous centuries in which philosophers did think there were grounds for support for it. Kant, for one, certainly does present arguments in favour of capital punishment though the question of his general position on punishment is a very difficult one to interpret. The argument for capital punishment, though, does indicate a basis for respect for the criminal as a ground for capital punishment, something that would tend, today, to be regarded as counter-intuitive, though this is partly due to the fact that how "respect" is understood in contemporary moral philosophy is not evidently Kantian. The question of homosexuality is one where there are strong grounds presented by some philosophers for notions that do not support the view of treating it in a way that produces outcomes of clear equality for gay people. Whilst the latter is certainly what I would hope would prevail I am less than convinced by the conception that there is a solid philosophical consensus here.
Without getting too far into the discussion of specific issues, however, the question of whether moral philosophers tend to agreement on specific moral issues is not as evident to me as it seems to be to Wedgwood. On the separate question of whether philosophy tends to promote liberalisation I am also not entirely convinced that we can make such a claim in a general way. Set against Wedgwood's point that philosophy promotes criticism is the opposite tendency of philosophy to find reasons for why things are as they are. The latter is also a key focus of philosophy (think here, for example, of Aristotle). So I suppose the weight of how I am thinking here does not tend to support Wedgwood's view.
The posting by Wedgwood raises thus two related but distinct questions: is there general agreement between moral philosophers regardless of their adherence to different meta-ethical views and does this alleged agreement lead to a convergence on positions that promote liberalisation? These are good questions though rather difficult to answer. Part of the problem here is that much of the debate amongst moral philosophers is not strictly about specific judgments, at least that is so outside the specialist area of practical ethics. When moral philosophers engage in practical ethics they are, by contrast, exhibiting bases for disagreement on concrete questions.
The question of the disagreement that does exist strikes me as more interesting than a suggestion of a convergence on a liberalising view. If we take the central areas of practical ethics on which such disagreement currently centres they include the wide areas of bio-ethics and ethical questions connected to war and peace. On these topics the disagreements that exist often cross liberal/conservative lines inasmuch as such lines are stable in philosophical terms. For example, in the area of war and peace, there are reasons for disquiet about "just war" doctrines that can be voiced both by those on the pacifist side of an argument and on the side of those who feel that conduct of soldiers is too tightly constrained by such arguments. The former would tend to be "liberal", the latter "conservative". But the "centre ground" of the debate, if there is one, would draw out the difficulties of the terrain in a more general sense. It is far from clear to me that the ensuing discussions and clarifications have produced a liberalising consensus though it is true that when philosophers join explicit public debate on these issues they tend to urge positions that require some sense of legality to be brought to bear on war so most philosophers, on grounds related to that, had problems of one sort or another with the second Gulf War.
However, the general claim for a liberalising effect of the discussions that take place within the area of moral philosophy is not always so clear. For example, the area of abortion has tended to encourage both a view that there are rights here that accrue to women as those whose bodies are, in some sense, at issue. But this has not prevented there being some general sense, that has be weighed in the balance with this, that there are considerations that attach to the fetus, that it is not, as John Locke once put it, merely a "vegetable". If Locke's position was generally adopted there wouldn't tend to be any basis for restrictions on the "right" to abortion but few legislatures view that as correct and the philosophical discussion has not tended toward that view though it would be a "liberal" one.
The cases on which Wedgwood relies, those of homosexuality and the death penalty, seem less contentious. Certainly few philosophers tend to support the death penalty today despite the evidence of previous centuries in which philosophers did think there were grounds for support for it. Kant, for one, certainly does present arguments in favour of capital punishment though the question of his general position on punishment is a very difficult one to interpret. The argument for capital punishment, though, does indicate a basis for respect for the criminal as a ground for capital punishment, something that would tend, today, to be regarded as counter-intuitive, though this is partly due to the fact that how "respect" is understood in contemporary moral philosophy is not evidently Kantian. The question of homosexuality is one where there are strong grounds presented by some philosophers for notions that do not support the view of treating it in a way that produces outcomes of clear equality for gay people. Whilst the latter is certainly what I would hope would prevail I am less than convinced by the conception that there is a solid philosophical consensus here.
Without getting too far into the discussion of specific issues, however, the question of whether moral philosophers tend to agreement on specific moral issues is not as evident to me as it seems to be to Wedgwood. On the separate question of whether philosophy tends to promote liberalisation I am also not entirely convinced that we can make such a claim in a general way. Set against Wedgwood's point that philosophy promotes criticism is the opposite tendency of philosophy to find reasons for why things are as they are. The latter is also a key focus of philosophy (think here, for example, of Aristotle). So I suppose the weight of how I am thinking here does not tend to support Wedgwood's view.
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Clarity and Philosophy (III)
My previous postings on this topic have tended to concentrate on responses that have been made, and thought justified, in response to works of Jacques Derrida. For some reason, his "style" is thought to be irritating by a number of people and this irritation has been rationalised by means of allegations of obscurity and, with this, an allegation of "wilful" attempts to mislead by means of such alleged obscurity. Previous postings gave short shrift to this reaction.
A thoughtful posting over at Pea Soup pursues this question from a slightly different angle, though, once again, taking off from a response to the writings of Derrida. As is pointed out here the canon of philosophical writings includes many, not least Kant, who are writers whose work is by no means evidently "clear" and yet who we take to be worth the effort required to try to work out the sense of the texts they wrote. This does instantly show that if clarity is a mere synonym for "accessibility" then there would be a serious problem with defending quite a considerable number of works in the history of philosophy. The fact that this attitude is generally not adopted does suggest that standards of what should be understood to be examples of "clarity" in philosophy can also be very varied. Is Aristotle, for example, more or less clear than Kant? Even if "clarity" is taken as a synonym for "accessibility" then there would be varied answers here depending on which works were focused on and, even within the works, which passages and stretches of argument. Also, given that the reputations of philosophers rise and fall at different points it would seem that the basis of appreciation is not clearly tied to standards of "clarity".
A second point made in the piece referred to above is that the irritation some feel when reading Derrida is one that rises from what the author calls: "the posturing, the pretense, the thin layer of bullshit that covers such exercises of coded insider-talk". Whilst this may well indicate sentiments felt the notion of the writing in question itself containing something that clearly corresponds to this attitude is disavowed by the author of the posting. Since the writing in question is effectively "innocent" of such "crimes" then what is it that lies behind such responses? After all, some of us might feel that the prose of, say, Quine, is rather more rebarbative than that of Derrida and that it certainly addresses an "in-crowd" through its own mode of "insider talk".
The sense of "insider talk" might well get at the problem better as it suggests a feeling of exclusion on behalf of certain readers when confronted by certain types of writing. Again, that exclusion can hit different readers differently since I, for one, feel much more excluded from the writings of Quine than those of Derrida. So this sense of exclusion might well have something to do with a certain kind of expectation when confronted with philosophical prose, an expectation that is at issue in the demand for "clarity". What this expectation would refer to is a model of writing that has been picked up from certain types of philosophical writing that the reader has grown habituated to such that when a different type of style is presented the search for comprehension of the piece gets disappointed. In this case, however, the problem surely lies with the reader for importing an expected standard that might well be the right one for getting published in journals of academic philosophy and for being taken seriously at conferences held in certain places with certain types of people attending. However, surely that reflects the generalisation of a certain model without accompanying argument for the basis of this model and simply assumes the greater transparency of this model based on the experience of a selective group? In which case the standard of "clarity" has itself, as I suggested in previous postings, been significantly left under-determined.
A thoughtful posting over at Pea Soup pursues this question from a slightly different angle, though, once again, taking off from a response to the writings of Derrida. As is pointed out here the canon of philosophical writings includes many, not least Kant, who are writers whose work is by no means evidently "clear" and yet who we take to be worth the effort required to try to work out the sense of the texts they wrote. This does instantly show that if clarity is a mere synonym for "accessibility" then there would be a serious problem with defending quite a considerable number of works in the history of philosophy. The fact that this attitude is generally not adopted does suggest that standards of what should be understood to be examples of "clarity" in philosophy can also be very varied. Is Aristotle, for example, more or less clear than Kant? Even if "clarity" is taken as a synonym for "accessibility" then there would be varied answers here depending on which works were focused on and, even within the works, which passages and stretches of argument. Also, given that the reputations of philosophers rise and fall at different points it would seem that the basis of appreciation is not clearly tied to standards of "clarity".
A second point made in the piece referred to above is that the irritation some feel when reading Derrida is one that rises from what the author calls: "the posturing, the pretense, the thin layer of bullshit that covers such exercises of coded insider-talk". Whilst this may well indicate sentiments felt the notion of the writing in question itself containing something that clearly corresponds to this attitude is disavowed by the author of the posting. Since the writing in question is effectively "innocent" of such "crimes" then what is it that lies behind such responses? After all, some of us might feel that the prose of, say, Quine, is rather more rebarbative than that of Derrida and that it certainly addresses an "in-crowd" through its own mode of "insider talk".
The sense of "insider talk" might well get at the problem better as it suggests a feeling of exclusion on behalf of certain readers when confronted by certain types of writing. Again, that exclusion can hit different readers differently since I, for one, feel much more excluded from the writings of Quine than those of Derrida. So this sense of exclusion might well have something to do with a certain kind of expectation when confronted with philosophical prose, an expectation that is at issue in the demand for "clarity". What this expectation would refer to is a model of writing that has been picked up from certain types of philosophical writing that the reader has grown habituated to such that when a different type of style is presented the search for comprehension of the piece gets disappointed. In this case, however, the problem surely lies with the reader for importing an expected standard that might well be the right one for getting published in journals of academic philosophy and for being taken seriously at conferences held in certain places with certain types of people attending. However, surely that reflects the generalisation of a certain model without accompanying argument for the basis of this model and simply assumes the greater transparency of this model based on the experience of a selective group? In which case the standard of "clarity" has itself, as I suggested in previous postings, been significantly left under-determined.
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