In her paper, Little attempts to disarm objections from the philosophy of mind to the claim of some virtue theorists that virtue is a form of knowledge. Some virtue theorists believe that the virtuous person is motivated to act simply by perceiving aspects of reality. When he sees that doing X is the courageous thing to do he is thereby motivated to do X.
Some have objected to this idea by saying that a conception such as this flies in the face of our basic understanding of the philosophy of mind. They claim that there is a clear difference between beliefs and desires and that the conception offered by the virtue theorist requires some sort of converging of these two different mental states. Either one is forced to postulate the "besire" which is one mental state having both the properties of a belief and a desire or one is forced to accept that certain beliefs entail desires. The objectors find neither of these options acceptable and thus condemn the idea of virtue as knowledge. Little, however, argues that there is nothing wrong with conceiving of mental states such as these. For example, she points out that the fact that one has any beliefs at all entails that one desires his beliefs to be true. Moreover, she discusses the sort of mental state that Humeans who have a sort of projectivist meta-ethical theory are forced to posit. For those with this sort of theory, the mental state that one forms when he forms an ethical judgment must have components of his sentiments (which he projected onto the world) and his beliefs. Thus, it seems to Little that mental states are more diverse and complex than simple beliefs and desires and that as a result one can not rule out virtue as knowledge theories on the basis of their requiring more than just beliefs and desires.
I am unsure of this as I think that a closer analysis may find that beliefs and desires are all that is needed. Take Little's example of desiring true beliefs being entailed by having beliefs. I think that she has it backwards here. To me it would seem that one wants something, then realizes that in order to achieve it he must have an idea of how the world is and so he wants to belief what is true. Then he goes about investigating his situation so as to discover what he must do to realize his original desire.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Pride
I had been planning to read and write about MacIntyre's "After Virtue" but have instead ended up reading another Taylor book which I have found to be very worthwhile. The book is "Restoring Pride" and is concerned primarily with discussing the concept of pride.
According to Taylor, pride is the justified love of one's self (as opposed to conceit or vanity which are both instances of unjustified self-love). However, though all people love themselves, not all are able to be proud because not all are justified in doing so. From this point most of the discussion focuses on answering the question of what serves to justify self-love. The answer, for Taylor, is not what a person has or does but what a person is. What matters is that a person is a good person and that it is only by being a good person that one can be proud.
By good person, however, Taylor does not mean 'good' as it is typically used today but rather he is employing the ancient conception of goodness where its meaning can be understood as superiority or excellence (this greatly opposed to the modern conception of a good person which more or less means a benevolent person). For Taylor, a person is good who has cultivated his talents to the point where, with respect to these talents (or virtues, or skills, or gifts, etc.), this person is literally superior to other people. What is important here is that the things that are essential to one's goodness, so construed, are all things internal to one's self. It is not riches, positions of power or immense fame that make a person good and thus have nothing to do with a person's goodness. Because goodness consists in superiority (or excellence) it means that its possessor is able to do certain things better than others and thereby create this better method of doing things or this better final product. A superior artist creates paintings that in ways and of a quality that lesser artists could not. Similarly, a superior athlete creates his own way of playing that can not be matched by the average player. Thus, for Taylor, superiority, and thus goodness, consist in a person's creative power; their ability to add something to the world that, but for them, would have never existed. It is one who has this sort of creative power and who cultivates and uses it can be proud.
What I would like to emphasize, and what I found to be the most important part of this book, is that what matters on this conception is what you are. The things you may have such as power, wealth and fame can be had by anyone and are thus no reflection of your goodness or superiority. On the other hand, your creative powers, the cultivation of which having been your life's toil, are no doubt uniquely yours and are expressed in ways that are yours alone. It is clearly here where your superiority or goodness can be found. Taylor discusses this concept in greater detail as well as how it can affect your relations with other people, but what I think is very important is the distinction between the significance of what you are and what you have. I think that this is important because I think that these ideas can be used to formulate an answer to the Gyges ring problem. This is something that I would like to discuss in the meeting, but the essence of it is this: what Gyges is focusing on the wrong thing. If he truly understood what mattered in life he would not act as he does. His actions show that he values externals over that which he truly is and is thus sacrificing the greater good for the lesser one.
According to Taylor, pride is the justified love of one's self (as opposed to conceit or vanity which are both instances of unjustified self-love). However, though all people love themselves, not all are able to be proud because not all are justified in doing so. From this point most of the discussion focuses on answering the question of what serves to justify self-love. The answer, for Taylor, is not what a person has or does but what a person is. What matters is that a person is a good person and that it is only by being a good person that one can be proud.
By good person, however, Taylor does not mean 'good' as it is typically used today but rather he is employing the ancient conception of goodness where its meaning can be understood as superiority or excellence (this greatly opposed to the modern conception of a good person which more or less means a benevolent person). For Taylor, a person is good who has cultivated his talents to the point where, with respect to these talents (or virtues, or skills, or gifts, etc.), this person is literally superior to other people. What is important here is that the things that are essential to one's goodness, so construed, are all things internal to one's self. It is not riches, positions of power or immense fame that make a person good and thus have nothing to do with a person's goodness. Because goodness consists in superiority (or excellence) it means that its possessor is able to do certain things better than others and thereby create this better method of doing things or this better final product. A superior artist creates paintings that in ways and of a quality that lesser artists could not. Similarly, a superior athlete creates his own way of playing that can not be matched by the average player. Thus, for Taylor, superiority, and thus goodness, consist in a person's creative power; their ability to add something to the world that, but for them, would have never existed. It is one who has this sort of creative power and who cultivates and uses it can be proud.
What I would like to emphasize, and what I found to be the most important part of this book, is that what matters on this conception is what you are. The things you may have such as power, wealth and fame can be had by anyone and are thus no reflection of your goodness or superiority. On the other hand, your creative powers, the cultivation of which having been your life's toil, are no doubt uniquely yours and are expressed in ways that are yours alone. It is clearly here where your superiority or goodness can be found. Taylor discusses this concept in greater detail as well as how it can affect your relations with other people, but what I think is very important is the distinction between the significance of what you are and what you have. I think that this is important because I think that these ideas can be used to formulate an answer to the Gyges ring problem. This is something that I would like to discuss in the meeting, but the essence of it is this: what Gyges is focusing on the wrong thing. If he truly understood what mattered in life he would not act as he does. His actions show that he values externals over that which he truly is and is thus sacrificing the greater good for the lesser one.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Part II: Natural Goodness
Given her schema of natural normativity, Foot goes on discuss what it is that makes a person good, the role of happiness in human goodness and then the threat of immoralism posed by the likes of Nietzche. As for what makes a person good, Foot discusses social living for human beings and the sorts of traits the possession of which makes one better suited for such a life. This discussion is very similar in many ways to the one she has about plants and animals which she uses to derive her concept of "natural norms". Thus, the same problems remain for me. I can see quite clearly how, given the way a wolf lives, sharp teeth, being fast, having a keen sense of smell, etc. are good for the wolf and that, as a result, given the way a wolf lives, one that has all these traits is better than one that does not. Thus, I understand that given the things a wolf tries to do traits such as these are good, but what I do not see is how the "things a wolf tries to do" can be characterized as good. Why is it that a wolf that tries to do other things than the norm is worse than the others? One can criticize a renegade wolf on the wolf-norms criteria, but that does not show that the wolf is good or bad but rather only that it is good or bad given a certain criteria. Just because wolves have certain behavioral regularities does not show that these regularities are good nor does that fact that certain traits are good for these regularities show that the traits are good. This is, I think, the big problem in Foot's book and I do not think that it is answered.
I thought that her discussions of happiness and immoralism were interesting. As for what she said about happiness, that it was not just a state of mind (such as contentment) is something that I can agree with. She also discussed the example of Wittgenstein on his deathbed claiming to have had a wonderful life to support the idea that happiness is not a necessary component of a good life. Finally she tentatively concludes that true happiness is the sort of thing that Aristotle imagined it to be: virtuous behavior accompanied by good fortune. She also seemed to want to say at times that part happiness consisted in enjoying that which is good, but she never really flat out said it which was probably a wise decision because such a conception is unlikely true (Taylor had a great discussion on this issue which I think we talked about earlier). With regard to Nietzche, immoralism and his revaluation of values she came to the conclusion that Nietzche's revaluation could not be right because it does not fit with the human form of life and thus that it is not valid for us. This of course relies heavily on the acceptance of natural normativity and what follows from it and thus I am not so sure what to say about it. I think there are reasons for rejecting Nietzche's ideas but that they are quite different from the ones Foot provides.
I get the sense that you do not think that I am giving Foot a fair shake and maybe I am not. It just seems to me as though the whole book is based on her conception of natural normativity and yet I think that this conception is mistaken. At any rate, I suppose that we can talk more about this on Tuesday.
I thought that her discussions of happiness and immoralism were interesting. As for what she said about happiness, that it was not just a state of mind (such as contentment) is something that I can agree with. She also discussed the example of Wittgenstein on his deathbed claiming to have had a wonderful life to support the idea that happiness is not a necessary component of a good life. Finally she tentatively concludes that true happiness is the sort of thing that Aristotle imagined it to be: virtuous behavior accompanied by good fortune. She also seemed to want to say at times that part happiness consisted in enjoying that which is good, but she never really flat out said it which was probably a wise decision because such a conception is unlikely true (Taylor had a great discussion on this issue which I think we talked about earlier). With regard to Nietzche, immoralism and his revaluation of values she came to the conclusion that Nietzche's revaluation could not be right because it does not fit with the human form of life and thus that it is not valid for us. This of course relies heavily on the acceptance of natural normativity and what follows from it and thus I am not so sure what to say about it. I think there are reasons for rejecting Nietzche's ideas but that they are quite different from the ones Foot provides.
I get the sense that you do not think that I am giving Foot a fair shake and maybe I am not. It just seems to me as though the whole book is based on her conception of natural normativity and yet I think that this conception is mistaken. At any rate, I suppose that we can talk more about this on Tuesday.
Clarification
I did not make my points very clear in my last two posts, so I will try and do a better job with that here. As for my comments on Foot, the essense of my complaint dealt with what I believed to be the arbitrariness of her criteria for determing that something was a good one of its kind. For example, take two rabbits one of which has traits that are good for survival while possessing terrible traits for reproduction whereas the other rabbit has traits that are good for reproduction while possessing terrible traits for survival. From here I want to know which is a better rabbit on Foot's account. (Clearly a rabbit that has good traits for both goals would be better than these two, but right now I only want to talk about these two rabbits.) My point is that the only way that an evaluation can be made favoring one rabbit over the other is by emphasizing survival or reproduction and what I can not see is how such an emphasis can be made without being arbitrary. What is it about rabbitness that favors one set of qualities over another? I don not think that Foot answers this question at all.
As for my counter-example, I think that the thought I had may have merit but my exposition of it was poor. What I was trying to say is that given that on a McD type theory one can be motivated to act on the basis of facts without needing any sort of feelings or sentiments, then a virtuous person could do the right thing without having any feeling about it whatsoever or even any desire with regards to it. If this is true, then it would also seem to be true that on a McD type view a person could be motivated by aspects of reality (just the facts) to do X, while all his feelings of compassion and sympathy made him desire to do Y. I think that it could also be that a McD type view could say that doing X is the right thing to do in these circumstances regardless of the fact that compassion and sympathy point one toward doing Y. Now if this is true and feelings, sentiments, emotions, wants and desires play no role in the moral quality then it seems as thought it would be possible for a totally heartless individual (so long as he acts rightly) to be a model of virtue, while a person full of compassion (who acts on that basis) to be a model of vice. Now, of course, it is doubtful that compassion and right action on a McD type view are often at odds, but there certainly seems to be a logical space for them to be so. And, if this is true, my point is that the compassionate act may be viewed as wrong given a McD conception. These seems very odd to me and unlikely to be true. So then to clarify, my point is that there is a possible gap for the McDowell sort of theory between acting rightly and acting compassionately. My worry is that the consequence of such a gap seems very implausible.
As for my counter-example, I think that the thought I had may have merit but my exposition of it was poor. What I was trying to say is that given that on a McD type theory one can be motivated to act on the basis of facts without needing any sort of feelings or sentiments, then a virtuous person could do the right thing without having any feeling about it whatsoever or even any desire with regards to it. If this is true, then it would also seem to be true that on a McD type view a person could be motivated by aspects of reality (just the facts) to do X, while all his feelings of compassion and sympathy made him desire to do Y. I think that it could also be that a McD type view could say that doing X is the right thing to do in these circumstances regardless of the fact that compassion and sympathy point one toward doing Y. Now if this is true and feelings, sentiments, emotions, wants and desires play no role in the moral quality then it seems as thought it would be possible for a totally heartless individual (so long as he acts rightly) to be a model of virtue, while a person full of compassion (who acts on that basis) to be a model of vice. Now, of course, it is doubtful that compassion and right action on a McD type view are often at odds, but there certainly seems to be a logical space for them to be so. And, if this is true, my point is that the compassionate act may be viewed as wrong given a McD conception. These seems very odd to me and unlikely to be true. So then to clarify, my point is that there is a possible gap for the McDowell sort of theory between acting rightly and acting compassionately. My worry is that the consequence of such a gap seems very implausible.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
A few thoughts on seeing moral qualities in the world
I just a few thoughts on the sort of theories, such as McDowell's and Foot's, where the virtuous person can just see moral qualities in the world and then act on that basis. The idea here is that one can act totally on the basis of facts without the need for any sort of desire, feeling etc. as a reason. Now I think I can come up with a sort of counter-example to this sort of thinking on the basis of a Taylor type point that he made in his "Good and Evil". Essentially, he rejects the importance of duty in ethics because it seems possible for duty to to conflict with deep human feelings such as compassion and so on. I think that this same sort thing can happen on the McD sort of views. The case I want to imagine is one in which a virtuous agent acquires motivating reasons from aspects of reality which motivate him to act in particular way which is in direct opposition to the the way he desires to act on the basis of his feelings of compassion and sympathy which have been aroused by the situation in which he finds himself. A great example of this sort of thing can be found in the climax of the movie "Gone Baby Gone" where the protagonist is forced to make this sort of choice. He is a private investigator and while working on child abduction case learns that the woman whose child has gone missing is a terrible mother who spends more time at the bars than with her child. It becomes quite clear that if restored to her mother the child will not end up having a happy childhood. As the main character continues with the case he eventually discovers that the child had been abducted by a husband and wife who desired a child very much and intended to provide her with a wonderful life. They have done no wrongs to the child (other than, depending how you look at it, abducting her in the first place) and presumably will never do any to her. The movie makes it clear that the child's life will be much better living with the abductors than with her biological mother. Thus, the protagonist is confronted with this decision: report his discovery to the police (and thus restore the daughter to her mother) or do nothing (and thus leave the daughter with her abductors).
Now it seems quite clear in this case that, on the McD sort of view, if any moral qualities were discovered in the facts they would point toward restoring the daughter (as she had been stolen from her rightful mother!) yet any decent human being can sympathize with the arguments of the abductors who continually stated how much better off the girl would be with them. My intuition, and I think Taylor would agree, would be to leave the girl where she was and not report the findings. However, the protagonist decides to call the police, the husband and wife are arrested and the girl is brought back to her mother. The film ends with a scene of neglect where the mother goes out for a "night on the town" and leave the daughter at home for the night.
So my thought in thinking that this would be a counter-example is this: how could what the protagonist did be the right thing to do? And how could a McD-type view say that it was not (for clearly the abductors had done something wrong)? Though I could be wrong, I do not think that McD type view could get the intuitive result and if this is true then the only thing that can be appealed to in explaining the intuition would be this: human feeling and sentiment. And if this is true, I think that it must be admitted that a view that leaves out these considerations is deeply flawed.
Maybe I am wrong here, but I think it makes sense.
Now it seems quite clear in this case that, on the McD sort of view, if any moral qualities were discovered in the facts they would point toward restoring the daughter (as she had been stolen from her rightful mother!) yet any decent human being can sympathize with the arguments of the abductors who continually stated how much better off the girl would be with them. My intuition, and I think Taylor would agree, would be to leave the girl where she was and not report the findings. However, the protagonist decides to call the police, the husband and wife are arrested and the girl is brought back to her mother. The film ends with a scene of neglect where the mother goes out for a "night on the town" and leave the daughter at home for the night.
So my thought in thinking that this would be a counter-example is this: how could what the protagonist did be the right thing to do? And how could a McD-type view say that it was not (for clearly the abductors had done something wrong)? Though I could be wrong, I do not think that McD type view could get the intuitive result and if this is true then the only thing that can be appealed to in explaining the intuition would be this: human feeling and sentiment. And if this is true, I think that it must be admitted that a view that leaves out these considerations is deeply flawed.
Maybe I am wrong here, but I think it makes sense.
Part I: Natural Goodness
I think that Foot's book can be divided into two parts: 1) determining what the good is and 2) determining why it is rational to be good (irrational to be bad). So I have.
Foot's essential claim is that human goodness and badness is to be understood as the relation between a person and the purpose of social living. A person is good insofar as he fulfills this purpose and defective insofar as he fails to do so. Her thought is that human goodness is akin to occular goodness in that one's eyes are good if they allow him to see clearly, etc. Similarly an oak tree has good roots if they are strong and deep and therefore supply the oak tree with the water and nutrients it needs as well as holding it in place.
There is a certain sense in which this is obviously true. To say that a certain X has a particular purpose and then to say that it tends to fulfill that purpose is to say that such an X is good for that purpose. So for the purpose of seeing, it is quite clear that some eyes will be better than others and the same is true with regard to root systems. This sort of thinking is equally valid when it comes to an oak tree or an animal when a purpose is designated. Say, for the purpose of survival, one chipmunk may be better than the next but this does not show that this is the purpose of the chipmunk. I do not believe that it follows from the fact that a particular animal acts in a particular way such that acting in that way fulfills an end that therefore such is the purpose of the animal. Certainly a steer that is very passive and needs little coercision to move is a better steer than an active and aggresive one when it comes to fulfilling the end of cattle herding and slaughtering yet it would seem ridiculous to suppose that this is the purpose of the steer.
I just think that it is a mistake to think that on the basis of a thing's being good or bad at achieving some end that therefore such an end is its purpose. Moreover, of the various ends that animals act so as to achieve (i.e. survival, reproduction, etc.) which should be selected from these as the purpose? Take for example a chipmunk who, though reproductively unsuccessful, is a masterly in the art of evading predators and securing food and dies peacefully in his chipmunk hole at some ripe old age for chipmunks. Now compare this chipmunk to one that lives fast and dies young in the talons of an owl yet has left behind a score or more of baby chipmunks (which is of course an incredible number among chipmunks). Which is the good chipmunk? I have no idea what Foot would say. The natural response is that one is good for survival and the other is good for reproduction, but what this assumes is that the "good" attribution is relative to the "for what end" consideration. The former chipmunk is good qua some considerations and bad qua others and the same is true for the latter chipmunk, but to move from these facts to think that one is good qua nothing just seems to be nonsense. The move does not seem as nonsensical when it is done with regard to people (though I think that it probably is) but in this case it is just ridiculous.
The problem here is, I think, with the notion of purposes that are external to the agent on which the agent can be judged. It would be quite true to say that I am failing miserably at achieving the end or purpose of becoming a doctor and so too could one say that with respect to this end I am defective. But one can not move from this to the claim that I am defective (without adding "in such and such respect"). Similarly one can argue that a person is defective in fulfilling the purpose of social living but from this the move to say that they just are defective does not work. The point of all this is that if Foot is going to claim that something is good, like a system of roots, then I think that she is going to have to answer the question of "good for what?" and if she does not than I just can not see the substance of her claim. But if she does answer that question and gives a "for what" then she can no longer call the roots just plain good and thereby loses what I think she is after i.e. the no holds barred good attribution.
This whole thing reminds me of Ziff's discussion of "good" at the end of his "Semantic Analysis". His conclusion is that "good" just means "answering to certain interests" (where, I am quite sure, "answering" can be understood as fulfilling). If this sort of definition is taken seriously then it would be just plain nonsense to talk about something good without talking about "certain interests" or "for what" considerations. Because Foot does not do this, I think that there view is bound to fail. One just can not talk sensibly about the goodness or badness of something without anchoring his remarks in the considerations that give rise to them. Therefore, I think her account is rife with problems.
Foot's essential claim is that human goodness and badness is to be understood as the relation between a person and the purpose of social living. A person is good insofar as he fulfills this purpose and defective insofar as he fails to do so. Her thought is that human goodness is akin to occular goodness in that one's eyes are good if they allow him to see clearly, etc. Similarly an oak tree has good roots if they are strong and deep and therefore supply the oak tree with the water and nutrients it needs as well as holding it in place.
There is a certain sense in which this is obviously true. To say that a certain X has a particular purpose and then to say that it tends to fulfill that purpose is to say that such an X is good for that purpose. So for the purpose of seeing, it is quite clear that some eyes will be better than others and the same is true with regard to root systems. This sort of thinking is equally valid when it comes to an oak tree or an animal when a purpose is designated. Say, for the purpose of survival, one chipmunk may be better than the next but this does not show that this is the purpose of the chipmunk. I do not believe that it follows from the fact that a particular animal acts in a particular way such that acting in that way fulfills an end that therefore such is the purpose of the animal. Certainly a steer that is very passive and needs little coercision to move is a better steer than an active and aggresive one when it comes to fulfilling the end of cattle herding and slaughtering yet it would seem ridiculous to suppose that this is the purpose of the steer.
I just think that it is a mistake to think that on the basis of a thing's being good or bad at achieving some end that therefore such an end is its purpose. Moreover, of the various ends that animals act so as to achieve (i.e. survival, reproduction, etc.) which should be selected from these as the purpose? Take for example a chipmunk who, though reproductively unsuccessful, is a masterly in the art of evading predators and securing food and dies peacefully in his chipmunk hole at some ripe old age for chipmunks. Now compare this chipmunk to one that lives fast and dies young in the talons of an owl yet has left behind a score or more of baby chipmunks (which is of course an incredible number among chipmunks). Which is the good chipmunk? I have no idea what Foot would say. The natural response is that one is good for survival and the other is good for reproduction, but what this assumes is that the "good" attribution is relative to the "for what end" consideration. The former chipmunk is good qua some considerations and bad qua others and the same is true for the latter chipmunk, but to move from these facts to think that one is good qua nothing just seems to be nonsense. The move does not seem as nonsensical when it is done with regard to people (though I think that it probably is) but in this case it is just ridiculous.
The problem here is, I think, with the notion of purposes that are external to the agent on which the agent can be judged. It would be quite true to say that I am failing miserably at achieving the end or purpose of becoming a doctor and so too could one say that with respect to this end I am defective. But one can not move from this to the claim that I am defective (without adding "in such and such respect"). Similarly one can argue that a person is defective in fulfilling the purpose of social living but from this the move to say that they just are defective does not work. The point of all this is that if Foot is going to claim that something is good, like a system of roots, then I think that she is going to have to answer the question of "good for what?" and if she does not than I just can not see the substance of her claim. But if she does answer that question and gives a "for what" then she can no longer call the roots just plain good and thereby loses what I think she is after i.e. the no holds barred good attribution.
This whole thing reminds me of Ziff's discussion of "good" at the end of his "Semantic Analysis". His conclusion is that "good" just means "answering to certain interests" (where, I am quite sure, "answering" can be understood as fulfilling). If this sort of definition is taken seriously then it would be just plain nonsense to talk about something good without talking about "certain interests" or "for what" considerations. Because Foot does not do this, I think that there view is bound to fail. One just can not talk sensibly about the goodness or badness of something without anchoring his remarks in the considerations that give rise to them. Therefore, I think her account is rife with problems.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
McDowell - Values and Secondary Qualities
I have to say that I had a real hard time with this paper. At this point, I have read it three times and, though I do (I think) grasp the basics of his conclusion, I am at a loss with regards to his arguments. So then, I guess I will just shortly describe what I got from this paper, but this is something that we will certainly need to discuss on Monday.
In this paper, McDowell discusses the idea that because values are ordinarily conceived of as being in the world (or primary qualities) their reality should be denied as a result of their not actual being primary qualities. The idea is that one who conceives values as being independent of human experience is in fact mistaken. McDowell thinks that this is correct, however he believes that the way most philosophers have gone with it is incorrect. What most philosophers have thought is that because conceiving values in this way is a mistake what must really be going on is people projecting their own attitudes and feelings on to the external world. McDowell denies that this is the only interpretation of what is going on and argues for the idea that values are in fact secondary qualities (like texture or color). Thus, they are not independent of human experience yet they are not just projected attitudes either. They are, like colors, something which we can get out of the world if we have the right sort of perceptual equipment.
Sadly, this is really all I got out of this paper and even this is probably not exactly right. I just can not get at what he is trying to say here... Anyway, we can discuss this stuff on Monday.
In this paper, McDowell discusses the idea that because values are ordinarily conceived of as being in the world (or primary qualities) their reality should be denied as a result of their not actual being primary qualities. The idea is that one who conceives values as being independent of human experience is in fact mistaken. McDowell thinks that this is correct, however he believes that the way most philosophers have gone with it is incorrect. What most philosophers have thought is that because conceiving values in this way is a mistake what must really be going on is people projecting their own attitudes and feelings on to the external world. McDowell denies that this is the only interpretation of what is going on and argues for the idea that values are in fact secondary qualities (like texture or color). Thus, they are not independent of human experience yet they are not just projected attitudes either. They are, like colors, something which we can get out of the world if we have the right sort of perceptual equipment.
Sadly, this is really all I got out of this paper and even this is probably not exactly right. I just can not get at what he is trying to say here... Anyway, we can discuss this stuff on Monday.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Dr. Schueler - The Humean Theory of Motivation Rejected
Thanks again for sending me your paper. I found it to be very interesting. Nevertheless, I remain unconvinced and think that the sort of objections you (and McDowell) have raised for the Humean view have decent replies (though I may be wrong here and am very open to have my mind changed). That said, given that you already know the contents of your own paper, rather than summarizing it here I will just jump into questions I have about it and problems I see with it.
There are a few very important points in the paper on which, I think, the argument turns. Thus, it would be best to consider these points and whether or not they are true. As for practical reasoning, I am inclined to agree with you that reasoning is done over beliefs and thus it must be beliefs about desires rather than desires themselves that motivate action. (However I am not 100% sure about this. Does a baby cry because he first forms the belief that he desires his bottle and that crying will get him it? I don't know.) What I do not find plausible, however, is that one can believe that he wants X but not in fact want X. You made a comment to the effect that one might say "I am getting on the bus because I want to go to my sister's office and because this bus will take me there" yet that he might be wrong in thinking that the bus will so take him and that analogously he may be wrong about his wanting to go there. I doubt this, not because I am confused by Nagel's point but because I believe the two beliefs are disanalogous. One may indeed be wrong about his beliefs about the external world and this is the case because what makes his belief true or false is external to him making his grasping of the truth dependent on his perceptual capabilities. There is a mediating factor between the belief and its truth maker; thus, there is room for error. However, when we take the case of one's beliefs about his perceptions of the world the mediating factor is eliminated and with it the room for error. For example, If I believe that I am having the sensory experience of yellow I can not be wrong (for how could I be when the truth maker of my belief is internal to me?). Now in the case of desires I am inclined to suppose that they are analogous with the latter case rather than the former. My reasoning here is simply that what makes a belief about a desire true is internal and unmediated which, in my eyes, would seem to make such beliefs immune to error. (In your paper, however, you did mention that many philosophers think that we can be fallible with regard to our own mental states so maybe I am wrong in thinking as I do...)
If I am correct in my above thinking, then it would follow that whenever one had a belief that he desired something it would be true that he did in fact desire it. This seems quite intuitive as what else, save the desire itself, could be the cause of my believing that I desired something?
Next, I would like to discuss what I find to be an important terminological switch which I think is unjustified. The switch I am referring to is from "want" to "a good idea". This switch is made as a result of Nagel's point that whenever one acts on the basis of some motivation it follows that he wanted that which motivated him. Your thought is that Nagel's point deals with distinct sense of want which means the point or purpose of an action and not the sense of want which is what the Humean is after (i.e. desire). In all honesty, however, (though I admit that this may be a result of dimwittedness on my part rather than philosophical acumen) I do not think that there is any such sense of the word 'want'. The reason I find this other sense to be dubious is because I can not (though again this may be personal deficiency) can not think of any instance when 'want' is used in that way. There is, also, no dictionary (that I have found) which includes this second sense of the word and thus I am inclined to doubt that there is such a sense. Moreover, I think that Nagel's point just amounts to the fact that whatever it is that motivates you to act is the same as that which is your strongest want. Or, in other words, whatever is your strongest want will motivate you or that which motivates you is your strongest want. As a result of all this, I think that the switch from "want" to "a good idea" is unjustified. I object to this for two reasons: 1) because it would be very easy to misunderstand "a good idea" as being an idea that was good on the basis of some standard other than the agents wants and 2) because if "a good idea" is understood properly as being just a want, it can only be understood as an instrumental want. The second point is the more important of the two and I think that it is true because one can not call those things which are wanted for their own sakes "good ideas". For example, If I say "I want to survive this shipwreck so that I can achieve the goal of my life: painting a masterpiece", then in relation to my wanting to achieve my goal it would be a good idea for me to survive. However, if I want to survive the shipwreck just because I want to survive, then saying that surviving is a good idea does not make sense. In other words, saying that something is a good idea requires there to be a relation between the idea and that which makes it good, but for that which is wanted-for-its-own-sake there is no such relation.
However, in the example you gave, the "want" which was changed to "good idea" was an instrumental want; you wanted to go to your sister's office so that you could fulfill your greater want of getting to campus. Here is where I think another problem arises and is one that is tied to the concepts of putting together beliefs and wants and background wants. You say that given that there are better ways for you to get to campus, it is not a good idea to go to your sister's office and thus it is not what you wanted. And this, if it worked, would also be an example of believing that you wanted something while in fact you did not. The problem here is that what is being claimed to be wanted (i.e. to go to your sister's office) is an instrumental want which is only wanted insofar as it aids you in attaining some other, higher order want. These instrumental wants are therefore subject to scrutiny in a way that wants-for-their-own-sake are not. This is because instrumental wants are wanted only because they are believed to help achieve that which is wanted for its own sake. As a result, one's instrumental wants can be judged on the basis of how successful they are in having their achievement satisfy one's wants-for-their-own-sake. These higher order wants, however, can not be so criticized. One might say that your taking the bus to your sister's office is not what you wanted or not a good idea because it does not help you achieve some higher order, for-its-own-sake want (such as enlightening young minds for example). So, the point of all this is that one can not be wrong about his wants when they are wants-for-their-own-sake, but he can be wrong when it comes to instrumental wants because their ability to fulfill his higher order wants is subject to criticism. (I feel as though I have done a poor job explaining myself on this point, so here is a very simple example which should help: Imagine a man who wanted nothing more out of life than to fix and old car that he owned. Suppose that this was his one greatest want that was wanted entirely for its own sake. After examining the car he came to the false conclusion that the one thing he needed to fix the car was a new timing belt. Thus, he put all his efforts into the project of acquiring a timing belt. Clearly, the man wants a timing belt, but he only wants it as a means to something else. If it was pointed out to him that the problem was something else, and not a timing belt issue, then he would no longer want a new timing belt. But what is important here is that nothing at all could be pointed out to him which would change his wanting to fix that car. The reason is because instrumental wants are formed partly by beliefs about the world whereas wants-for-their-own-sake are not).
The reason that I think this is relevant to the "put together" "background" dilemma is because by understanding the difference between instrumental wants and for-their-own-sake-wants the dilemma can be dissolved. What needs to be present when things are being "put together" is an instrumental want while at the same time there is a for-their-own-sake-want in the "background". I think that understanding things this way can accommodate the example you gave and maintain the Humean theory.
One small point: At one point you identified a person as self-centered because he acts entirely out of his own desires. I disagree. I think that a self-centered person is one who only desires things for himself. Whereas the compassionate person is the one who desires things for others as well as for himself. But this is a small point.
Those are my thoughts. I am probably wrong in a lot of places but I thought that it would be best to put down exactly what I thought so that I could be corrected and learn from my mistakes. Anyway, it was a fun paper and I certainly do like this topic.
There are a few very important points in the paper on which, I think, the argument turns. Thus, it would be best to consider these points and whether or not they are true. As for practical reasoning, I am inclined to agree with you that reasoning is done over beliefs and thus it must be beliefs about desires rather than desires themselves that motivate action. (However I am not 100% sure about this. Does a baby cry because he first forms the belief that he desires his bottle and that crying will get him it? I don't know.) What I do not find plausible, however, is that one can believe that he wants X but not in fact want X. You made a comment to the effect that one might say "I am getting on the bus because I want to go to my sister's office and because this bus will take me there" yet that he might be wrong in thinking that the bus will so take him and that analogously he may be wrong about his wanting to go there. I doubt this, not because I am confused by Nagel's point but because I believe the two beliefs are disanalogous. One may indeed be wrong about his beliefs about the external world and this is the case because what makes his belief true or false is external to him making his grasping of the truth dependent on his perceptual capabilities. There is a mediating factor between the belief and its truth maker; thus, there is room for error. However, when we take the case of one's beliefs about his perceptions of the world the mediating factor is eliminated and with it the room for error. For example, If I believe that I am having the sensory experience of yellow I can not be wrong (for how could I be when the truth maker of my belief is internal to me?). Now in the case of desires I am inclined to suppose that they are analogous with the latter case rather than the former. My reasoning here is simply that what makes a belief about a desire true is internal and unmediated which, in my eyes, would seem to make such beliefs immune to error. (In your paper, however, you did mention that many philosophers think that we can be fallible with regard to our own mental states so maybe I am wrong in thinking as I do...)
If I am correct in my above thinking, then it would follow that whenever one had a belief that he desired something it would be true that he did in fact desire it. This seems quite intuitive as what else, save the desire itself, could be the cause of my believing that I desired something?
Next, I would like to discuss what I find to be an important terminological switch which I think is unjustified. The switch I am referring to is from "want" to "a good idea". This switch is made as a result of Nagel's point that whenever one acts on the basis of some motivation it follows that he wanted that which motivated him. Your thought is that Nagel's point deals with distinct sense of want which means the point or purpose of an action and not the sense of want which is what the Humean is after (i.e. desire). In all honesty, however, (though I admit that this may be a result of dimwittedness on my part rather than philosophical acumen) I do not think that there is any such sense of the word 'want'. The reason I find this other sense to be dubious is because I can not (though again this may be personal deficiency) can not think of any instance when 'want' is used in that way. There is, also, no dictionary (that I have found) which includes this second sense of the word and thus I am inclined to doubt that there is such a sense. Moreover, I think that Nagel's point just amounts to the fact that whatever it is that motivates you to act is the same as that which is your strongest want. Or, in other words, whatever is your strongest want will motivate you or that which motivates you is your strongest want. As a result of all this, I think that the switch from "want" to "a good idea" is unjustified. I object to this for two reasons: 1) because it would be very easy to misunderstand "a good idea" as being an idea that was good on the basis of some standard other than the agents wants and 2) because if "a good idea" is understood properly as being just a want, it can only be understood as an instrumental want. The second point is the more important of the two and I think that it is true because one can not call those things which are wanted for their own sakes "good ideas". For example, If I say "I want to survive this shipwreck so that I can achieve the goal of my life: painting a masterpiece", then in relation to my wanting to achieve my goal it would be a good idea for me to survive. However, if I want to survive the shipwreck just because I want to survive, then saying that surviving is a good idea does not make sense. In other words, saying that something is a good idea requires there to be a relation between the idea and that which makes it good, but for that which is wanted-for-its-own-sake there is no such relation.
However, in the example you gave, the "want" which was changed to "good idea" was an instrumental want; you wanted to go to your sister's office so that you could fulfill your greater want of getting to campus. Here is where I think another problem arises and is one that is tied to the concepts of putting together beliefs and wants and background wants. You say that given that there are better ways for you to get to campus, it is not a good idea to go to your sister's office and thus it is not what you wanted. And this, if it worked, would also be an example of believing that you wanted something while in fact you did not. The problem here is that what is being claimed to be wanted (i.e. to go to your sister's office) is an instrumental want which is only wanted insofar as it aids you in attaining some other, higher order want. These instrumental wants are therefore subject to scrutiny in a way that wants-for-their-own-sake are not. This is because instrumental wants are wanted only because they are believed to help achieve that which is wanted for its own sake. As a result, one's instrumental wants can be judged on the basis of how successful they are in having their achievement satisfy one's wants-for-their-own-sake. These higher order wants, however, can not be so criticized. One might say that your taking the bus to your sister's office is not what you wanted or not a good idea because it does not help you achieve some higher order, for-its-own-sake want (such as enlightening young minds for example). So, the point of all this is that one can not be wrong about his wants when they are wants-for-their-own-sake, but he can be wrong when it comes to instrumental wants because their ability to fulfill his higher order wants is subject to criticism. (I feel as though I have done a poor job explaining myself on this point, so here is a very simple example which should help: Imagine a man who wanted nothing more out of life than to fix and old car that he owned. Suppose that this was his one greatest want that was wanted entirely for its own sake. After examining the car he came to the false conclusion that the one thing he needed to fix the car was a new timing belt. Thus, he put all his efforts into the project of acquiring a timing belt. Clearly, the man wants a timing belt, but he only wants it as a means to something else. If it was pointed out to him that the problem was something else, and not a timing belt issue, then he would no longer want a new timing belt. But what is important here is that nothing at all could be pointed out to him which would change his wanting to fix that car. The reason is because instrumental wants are formed partly by beliefs about the world whereas wants-for-their-own-sake are not).
The reason that I think this is relevant to the "put together" "background" dilemma is because by understanding the difference between instrumental wants and for-their-own-sake-wants the dilemma can be dissolved. What needs to be present when things are being "put together" is an instrumental want while at the same time there is a for-their-own-sake-want in the "background". I think that understanding things this way can accommodate the example you gave and maintain the Humean theory.
One small point: At one point you identified a person as self-centered because he acts entirely out of his own desires. I disagree. I think that a self-centered person is one who only desires things for himself. Whereas the compassionate person is the one who desires things for others as well as for himself. But this is a small point.
Those are my thoughts. I am probably wrong in a lot of places but I thought that it would be best to put down exactly what I thought so that I could be corrected and learn from my mistakes. Anyway, it was a fun paper and I certainly do like this topic.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
McDowell - Are Moral Requirements Hypothetical Imperatives
In this paper, McDowell argues against the thesis put forth by Foot in her paper claiming that morality is just a system of hypothetical imperatives. Her essential claim is that for any moral requirement to be acted upon, one must have a reason for so acting. The only thing, she believes, that can account for this would be a desire to to act in accordance with morality or something similar. As a result of this, moral requirements turn out to be no more than hypothetical imperatives because they will only move one to act if one first desires to conform to them. This means that reasons for acting are necessarily internal and are not something that can be found outside of a person.
McDowell, however, disagrees. Though he does think that one can certainly consider his reasons for acting as morality requires, this does not show that a desire must play a part. The way he understands it some facts about the world may motivate a person's action and from this it follows that he had some desire related to those facts, however the desire is entailed by his being motivated and is not a cause of the motivation itself. (He gets this idea from Nagel in "The Possibility of Altruism".) McDowell sees desire as a consequence of the person's action. If X motivates A to do Y, then A desires X but it is not the desire that explains anything here. The idea is that A desires X as logical consequence of X motivating A to act in a particular way.
Yet one may wonder what, if not a desire, is doing the motivating here? (This is exactly what I am wondering.) McDowell claims that it is one's conception of the world (i.e. the facts, one's possible actions, the possible consequences of these actions, etc.) that casts a favorable light on a particular course of action (i.e. motivates him). Therefore, on this view it can not be the case that two people have the same conception of the world and yet one is moved to act in one way while the other is moved to act in another. The idea is that how things are constitutes a reason for action.
McDowell wants us to resist, at this point, the thought that the will (appetitive aspects of our mind) and reason (cognitive aspects of our mind) are two distinct entities in our minds and so too the thought that any cognitive state that entails an appetitive state is somehow not purely cognitive. He wants to deny that one can parse out all the appetitive aspects of a mental state and then be left with an entirely neutral cognitive state. In other words, he wants to deny that two people can see the world in the same way yet be motivated to do different things because of a difference in their wills (or appetitive nature or desires). He is, therefore, against the thought that the world itself is motivationally inert. This thought, though popular, is by no means a given according to McDowell and is instead an implication of a metaphysical view that the will and reason of a man are in some way separate and distinct entities. Though his thinking here is contrary to that of the natural sciences, McDowell think that this is OK because morality is not like the natural sciences and what is needed here is a metaphysical notion of the world (whatever this is...) not a scientific one. Any attempt to criticize his ideas here, says McDowell, would be not be a criticism from science but rather one from scientism. As a result, on McDowell's view one can be motivated to act without a desire being a part of the motivation.
I am inclined to suppose that somewhere along the line I missed something big here, because as it stands this view seems very implausible. It is not as though one distinguishes the will and reason arbitrarily but because they seem very different. It is one thing to describe a situation and another to evaluate it. Contrast: "There is a book on the shelf" with "I want a book to be on the shelf". What makes the former sentence true is the world whereas what makes the latter sentence true is me. Reasoning along these lines is what brings one to believe that the will and reason are distinct. Moreover, I am reminded of Taylor's discussion of conative beings and his highly intuitive claim that beings with no desires would never act. If McDowell is to be correct than Taylor's claim must be false which seems utterly crazy to me.
What I think is going on here is that McDowell is simply conflating the will and reason and thereby imagining them to be one entity. As a result, he is able to project his values (desires, etc.) onto the world and then claim to find them there. What makes me think this is that he emphasizes, not the way the world really is, but one's conception of the world as being the thing that motivates. Yet, if one's conception of the world is simply the way the world is, then clearly it must be motivationally inert because the world by itself can not give a reason (if it could why does McDowell say "conception of the world"?). Thus, all I can understand one's conception of the world to be is simply one's view of the way things are plus his values, desires, etc.
I do not want to disparaging of these ideas because it would be sort of neat if they were true, but I just can not see it. Though, I may have missed something important because I know this was a very influential essay...
McDowell, however, disagrees. Though he does think that one can certainly consider his reasons for acting as morality requires, this does not show that a desire must play a part. The way he understands it some facts about the world may motivate a person's action and from this it follows that he had some desire related to those facts, however the desire is entailed by his being motivated and is not a cause of the motivation itself. (He gets this idea from Nagel in "The Possibility of Altruism".) McDowell sees desire as a consequence of the person's action. If X motivates A to do Y, then A desires X but it is not the desire that explains anything here. The idea is that A desires X as logical consequence of X motivating A to act in a particular way.
Yet one may wonder what, if not a desire, is doing the motivating here? (This is exactly what I am wondering.) McDowell claims that it is one's conception of the world (i.e. the facts, one's possible actions, the possible consequences of these actions, etc.) that casts a favorable light on a particular course of action (i.e. motivates him). Therefore, on this view it can not be the case that two people have the same conception of the world and yet one is moved to act in one way while the other is moved to act in another. The idea is that how things are constitutes a reason for action.
McDowell wants us to resist, at this point, the thought that the will (appetitive aspects of our mind) and reason (cognitive aspects of our mind) are two distinct entities in our minds and so too the thought that any cognitive state that entails an appetitive state is somehow not purely cognitive. He wants to deny that one can parse out all the appetitive aspects of a mental state and then be left with an entirely neutral cognitive state. In other words, he wants to deny that two people can see the world in the same way yet be motivated to do different things because of a difference in their wills (or appetitive nature or desires). He is, therefore, against the thought that the world itself is motivationally inert. This thought, though popular, is by no means a given according to McDowell and is instead an implication of a metaphysical view that the will and reason of a man are in some way separate and distinct entities. Though his thinking here is contrary to that of the natural sciences, McDowell think that this is OK because morality is not like the natural sciences and what is needed here is a metaphysical notion of the world (whatever this is...) not a scientific one. Any attempt to criticize his ideas here, says McDowell, would be not be a criticism from science but rather one from scientism. As a result, on McDowell's view one can be motivated to act without a desire being a part of the motivation.
I am inclined to suppose that somewhere along the line I missed something big here, because as it stands this view seems very implausible. It is not as though one distinguishes the will and reason arbitrarily but because they seem very different. It is one thing to describe a situation and another to evaluate it. Contrast: "There is a book on the shelf" with "I want a book to be on the shelf". What makes the former sentence true is the world whereas what makes the latter sentence true is me. Reasoning along these lines is what brings one to believe that the will and reason are distinct. Moreover, I am reminded of Taylor's discussion of conative beings and his highly intuitive claim that beings with no desires would never act. If McDowell is to be correct than Taylor's claim must be false which seems utterly crazy to me.
What I think is going on here is that McDowell is simply conflating the will and reason and thereby imagining them to be one entity. As a result, he is able to project his values (desires, etc.) onto the world and then claim to find them there. What makes me think this is that he emphasizes, not the way the world really is, but one's conception of the world as being the thing that motivates. Yet, if one's conception of the world is simply the way the world is, then clearly it must be motivationally inert because the world by itself can not give a reason (if it could why does McDowell say "conception of the world"?). Thus, all I can understand one's conception of the world to be is simply one's view of the way things are plus his values, desires, etc.
I do not want to disparaging of these ideas because it would be sort of neat if they were true, but I just can not see it. Though, I may have missed something important because I know this was a very influential essay...
Sunday, July 6, 2008
The Meaning of Life
I found this section odd because it seems very much at odds with Taylor's essay that I discussed earlier on this topic. At any rate, it is interesting and worth mentioning.
Again, Taylor considers the problem of the meaning of life through the myth of Sisyphus. Clearly this is a case of a meaningless existence. What is important here is not the size of the stones being rolled, how easy it is to do so, whether or not instead of stones it is a valuable gem, but what matters is that the activity is pointless. In the end it comes to nothing. (Now, however, supposing that there were a point to it, say the stones that he rolled up the hill were then assembled to create a marvelous temple, then we could not say that his activity was meaningless. This is essentially the line of thought that Taylor emphasizes in his other essay. However, in this essay, he stops there. He mentions the idea of giving the activity a purpose and then stops there saying, more or less, "but let's instead consider this". So I do not exactly know what to make of it. Maybe his thoughts on the meaning of life from this book and from the essay can be meshed... I don't know yet.)
Taylor then introduces a slight variation in the story. Everything remains exactly the same except now Sisyphus has a deep desire to roll stones and is blissfully happy that he is fated to do so forever. From the external point of view his activity is still meaningless as it lacks in any sort of point whatsoever. To us, everything is exactly the same as it was before he liked it. For Sisyphus, however, this slight change makes a world of difference. He will find meaning in his activity and thus, from the internal perspective, his activity has become meaningful. Has it? I really do not know. I will say however that little children seem to find their games very meaningful despite the fact that they are sometimes as pointless as rolling stones. Intrinsic value seems to be in the eye of the beholder, but is that what we are really after? External value/meaning seems more important, but as Taylor thinks there is none to be had... Anyway enough side commentary for now.
After considering the Myth of Sisyphus, Taylor applies the lessons learned their to life in general. First he considers a bunch of different lower animals whose entire existence is composed of eating, sleeping and reproducing. Clearly these, as with Sisyphus, are the image of meaningless existences. Yet, this is true of every animal the point of whose life is inevitably no more than life itself. The whole of life, then, seems like a great machine feeding on itself and running on and on for an eternity and coming to nothing. And we are part of that life. Though we are certainly different in many ways from the rest of living things (conscious of our own activity, aware of our goals, differences between each generation, etc.) we are still a part of this utterly pointless activity. We pursue goals all of which are of transitory significance and upon completing one we are off on to the next one which is, essentially, just more of the same. Each life resembles Sisyphus's climb to thetop of his hill, each day is one of his steps; the difference is that whereas Sisyphus returns to push the stone up again, we leave this to the next generation. (Here Taylor returns to the theme of "what if Sisyphus was building a great temple" and says that, though beautiful, this temple will eventually crumble like all other things. Buildings and nations are built and then fall and nothing persists forever. In his other article however, what gave meaning was not the building of the temple but the creating and this I suppose is unaffected by his comments here. Yet, creative activity is not discussed at all in this discussion of his.)
At this point, Taylor goes back to Sisyphus and considers what it would be like if his activity had a point and thus had meaning. Suppose again that Sisyphus was building a temple and that he wanted more than anything to do this. After great toil and long years, he had finally completed the temple and could now enjoy and contemplate it for all enterity. But, then what? This would be a life of infinite boredom! Clearly there had been a meaning here, a point to his existence, yet now that it is fulfilled anything that was worthwhile here has entirely slipped away. Surely this, external meaning, can not be the meaning we were looking for.
Thus, Taylor considers again the case of internal meaning (i.e. where Sisyphus had a great desire to roll rocks). Now that it has been established that there is no external meaning to our lives and that even if there was one it would not at all be what we were looking for, Taylor believes that we can reintroduce an important factor that had been neglected in our attempt to view human lives objectively: our own wills and deep interest in what we find ourselves doing. From this point we can see that the meaning our lives lack is of the external sort, the sort that eventually would result in infinite boredom, whereas the meaning that we do have is of the inner sort which is our compulsion to do just that which we are in fact doing and to continue doing it so long as we live. So if the long dead builders of now ruined buildings were to come back today and ask what was the point of all their toil we should say that it was not what was built that gave meaning to their lives, but rather it was the building that did so. Those things that we busy ourselves with now, the realizing of our ephemeral plans, are precisely the things in which are wills are involved and in which we are interested and as we do them no such questions of a point seem necessary. That we are interested is enough. The whole justification and meaning of our, and anything's, activity is just that it is our will to pursue it. What follows is the end of Taylor's discussion on the matter:
"A human being no sooner draws his first breath than he responds to the will that is in him to live. He no more asks whether it will be worthwhile, or whether anything of significance will come of it, than the worms or the birds. The point of his living is simply to be living, in th emanner that it is his nature to be living. He goes through his life building his castles, each of these beginning to fade into time as the enxt is begun; yet, it would be no salvation to rest from all this. It would be a a condemnation, and one that would in no way be redeemed were he able to gaze upon the things he has done, even if these were beautiful and absolutely permanent, as they never are. What counts is that one should be able to being a new task, a new castle, a new bubble. It counts only because it is there to be done and he has the will to do it. The same will be the life of his children, and of theirs; and if the philosopher is apt to see this a pattern similar to the unending cycles of the existence of Sisyphus, and to despair, then it is indeed because the meaning and point he is seeking is not there - but mercifully so. The meaning of life is from within us, it is not bestowed from without, and it far exceeds in both its beauty and permanence any heaven of which mean have ever dreamed or yearned for. " I found this to be a particularly good passage and a particularly good discussion on the meaning of life. His earlier paper could, I suppose, be used to augment these ideas so as to allow one to critique the value of his or another's activity from within. Anyway though, this discussion here could stand alone and be enough I think.
THE END of Taylor's "Good and Evil"
Again, Taylor considers the problem of the meaning of life through the myth of Sisyphus. Clearly this is a case of a meaningless existence. What is important here is not the size of the stones being rolled, how easy it is to do so, whether or not instead of stones it is a valuable gem, but what matters is that the activity is pointless. In the end it comes to nothing. (Now, however, supposing that there were a point to it, say the stones that he rolled up the hill were then assembled to create a marvelous temple, then we could not say that his activity was meaningless. This is essentially the line of thought that Taylor emphasizes in his other essay. However, in this essay, he stops there. He mentions the idea of giving the activity a purpose and then stops there saying, more or less, "but let's instead consider this". So I do not exactly know what to make of it. Maybe his thoughts on the meaning of life from this book and from the essay can be meshed... I don't know yet.)
Taylor then introduces a slight variation in the story. Everything remains exactly the same except now Sisyphus has a deep desire to roll stones and is blissfully happy that he is fated to do so forever. From the external point of view his activity is still meaningless as it lacks in any sort of point whatsoever. To us, everything is exactly the same as it was before he liked it. For Sisyphus, however, this slight change makes a world of difference. He will find meaning in his activity and thus, from the internal perspective, his activity has become meaningful. Has it? I really do not know. I will say however that little children seem to find their games very meaningful despite the fact that they are sometimes as pointless as rolling stones. Intrinsic value seems to be in the eye of the beholder, but is that what we are really after? External value/meaning seems more important, but as Taylor thinks there is none to be had... Anyway enough side commentary for now.
After considering the Myth of Sisyphus, Taylor applies the lessons learned their to life in general. First he considers a bunch of different lower animals whose entire existence is composed of eating, sleeping and reproducing. Clearly these, as with Sisyphus, are the image of meaningless existences. Yet, this is true of every animal the point of whose life is inevitably no more than life itself. The whole of life, then, seems like a great machine feeding on itself and running on and on for an eternity and coming to nothing. And we are part of that life. Though we are certainly different in many ways from the rest of living things (conscious of our own activity, aware of our goals, differences between each generation, etc.) we are still a part of this utterly pointless activity. We pursue goals all of which are of transitory significance and upon completing one we are off on to the next one which is, essentially, just more of the same. Each life resembles Sisyphus's climb to thetop of his hill, each day is one of his steps; the difference is that whereas Sisyphus returns to push the stone up again, we leave this to the next generation. (Here Taylor returns to the theme of "what if Sisyphus was building a great temple" and says that, though beautiful, this temple will eventually crumble like all other things. Buildings and nations are built and then fall and nothing persists forever. In his other article however, what gave meaning was not the building of the temple but the creating and this I suppose is unaffected by his comments here. Yet, creative activity is not discussed at all in this discussion of his.)
At this point, Taylor goes back to Sisyphus and considers what it would be like if his activity had a point and thus had meaning. Suppose again that Sisyphus was building a temple and that he wanted more than anything to do this. After great toil and long years, he had finally completed the temple and could now enjoy and contemplate it for all enterity. But, then what? This would be a life of infinite boredom! Clearly there had been a meaning here, a point to his existence, yet now that it is fulfilled anything that was worthwhile here has entirely slipped away. Surely this, external meaning, can not be the meaning we were looking for.
Thus, Taylor considers again the case of internal meaning (i.e. where Sisyphus had a great desire to roll rocks). Now that it has been established that there is no external meaning to our lives and that even if there was one it would not at all be what we were looking for, Taylor believes that we can reintroduce an important factor that had been neglected in our attempt to view human lives objectively: our own wills and deep interest in what we find ourselves doing. From this point we can see that the meaning our lives lack is of the external sort, the sort that eventually would result in infinite boredom, whereas the meaning that we do have is of the inner sort which is our compulsion to do just that which we are in fact doing and to continue doing it so long as we live. So if the long dead builders of now ruined buildings were to come back today and ask what was the point of all their toil we should say that it was not what was built that gave meaning to their lives, but rather it was the building that did so. Those things that we busy ourselves with now, the realizing of our ephemeral plans, are precisely the things in which are wills are involved and in which we are interested and as we do them no such questions of a point seem necessary. That we are interested is enough. The whole justification and meaning of our, and anything's, activity is just that it is our will to pursue it. What follows is the end of Taylor's discussion on the matter:
"A human being no sooner draws his first breath than he responds to the will that is in him to live. He no more asks whether it will be worthwhile, or whether anything of significance will come of it, than the worms or the birds. The point of his living is simply to be living, in th emanner that it is his nature to be living. He goes through his life building his castles, each of these beginning to fade into time as the enxt is begun; yet, it would be no salvation to rest from all this. It would be a a condemnation, and one that would in no way be redeemed were he able to gaze upon the things he has done, even if these were beautiful and absolutely permanent, as they never are. What counts is that one should be able to being a new task, a new castle, a new bubble. It counts only because it is there to be done and he has the will to do it. The same will be the life of his children, and of theirs; and if the philosopher is apt to see this a pattern similar to the unending cycles of the existence of Sisyphus, and to despair, then it is indeed because the meaning and point he is seeking is not there - but mercifully so. The meaning of life is from within us, it is not bestowed from without, and it far exceeds in both its beauty and permanence any heaven of which mean have ever dreamed or yearned for. " I found this to be a particularly good passage and a particularly good discussion on the meaning of life. His earlier paper could, I suppose, be used to augment these ideas so as to allow one to critique the value of his or another's activity from within. Anyway though, this discussion here could stand alone and be enough I think.
THE END of Taylor's "Good and Evil"
Absolute Love or the Love of Man
The ideas that I will be discussing in this post and in the following one are without a doubt Taylor's most complex and difficult for me to grasp. He seems in some ways to take back some of the things he had stated earlier in his account however, I think that it all can be taken together as a coherent whole. I will do my best to explain his ideas in what follows.
Taylor understands compassion to be something that is morally good. Moreover, he sees compassion as a form of love and thus it is love which bestows the moral quality of goodness. Conversely, malice is a form of hate and it is hate that bestows the moral quality of evil/badness. To explain love and hate, Taylor determines that there are two basic emotions elation and dejection and that it is their relations to oneself and others that produces love and hate. For example, elation at the suffering of another is the form of hatred that is malice and dejection at the suffering of another is the form of love that is compassion. The following is a diagram:
---------------one's own suffering-----------------
--------------/-------------------\----------------
-------------/----------------------\--------------
-----masochism------------------resentment-----
----------/---------------------------\------------
---------/-----------------------------\-----------
--elation-------------------------------dejection---
-------- \------------------------------/-----------
---------\-----------------------------/-----------
-----malice----------------------- compassion-----
----------\---------------------------/------------
-----------\-------------------------/-------------
----------------another's suffering-----------------
However, this only covers one aspect of morally significant love and hate and Taylor believes that there are two others. Compassion, for example, is only felt when another is suffering yet surely feelings of love exist in cases where no one is suffering. The following are two more diagrams showing this:
---------------one's own fortune-------------------
--------------/-------------------\----------------
-------------/----------------------\--------------
-----gratitude------------------ self-abasement---
----------/---------------------------\------------
---------/-----------------------------\-----------
--elation-------------------------------dejection---
-------- \------------------------------/-----------
---------\-----------------------------/-----------
-----conjubilation------------------- envy---------
----------\---------------------------/------------
-----------\-------------------------/-------------
----------------another's fortune------------------
---------------one's own being---------------------
--------------/-------------------\----------------
-------------/----------------------\--------------
-----self-love-------------------- self-hatred------
----------/---------------------------\------------
---------/-----------------------------\-----------
--elation-------------------------------dejection---
-------- \------------------------------/-----------
---------\-----------------------------/-----------
-----absolute love--------------- absolute hate-----
----------\---------------------------/------------
-----------\-------------------------/-------------
----------------another's being--------------------
At this point, Taylor wants to draw particular attention to what he calls absolute love which is simply elation as a result of another's being. The other can be a person or anything else for that matter (i.e. animal, pebble, sunset, etc.) but what is important here is that it is not dependent on ever changing states, like the sufferings and fortunes of another, but on one's very existence. Another factor that makes this love important is that only human beings are capable of having it and thus Taylor calls it the Love of Man. Taylor believes that this form of love, absolute love, is the greatest good and he comes to believe this to be the case in a similar fashion to the way he determines compassion to be morally good. In other words, it is deemed to be so because it is simply felt to be so. There could be some trouble here in that what if some others did not feel it to be so. However, in Taylor's defence, has anyone ever thought love to be a bad thing?
Once he has established that the greatest good elation at the sheer existence of things, or absolute love, Taylor moves on to discuss how this seems to contradict with his earlier explanation of good and evil. Earlier, Taylor had stated that the good was simply what was sought and the evil was that which was shunned. Taylor maintains this view, however also believes that absolute love is the greatest good for man. How can this be if it is possible, which it is, that one may seek the opposite of absolute love. To this Taylor says that absolute love is the ideal and greatest good because it satisfies all the needs that humans have as human beings (not, obviously, as animals) and thus that one who seeks something else will eventually realize that he has sought after the wrong thing. I guess the idea here is that everyone desires what Taylor concieves as absolute love. Although one may not realize that he desires this, he actually does. I do not know what to think here, this just needs discussion.
Given that love is what truly matters in morality, a further problem for moral rules/principles arises. Rules are meant to apply to actions however, love is a passion/feeling and thus is something which, unlike actions, can not be controlled by a person. I can choose to raise my arm or follow some rule or another but I can not choose how I feel about it. Thus, the concept of duty can have no place in morality as it involves performing those actions which are required by rules but, since it is a feeling/passion not actions that are of central importance to morality, rules and duty go out the window.
For Taylor, the proper aim of morality is not to discover one's duty and then perform it, but rather to find the greatest good and then attain it. Thus, the question is not "what should I do", but rather "what should I be". In asking "what one should be" an appeal to rules would be utterly unhelpful as such a question deals not with rules but with aspirations. What one should be is what one should aspire to be and that, according to Taylor, is quite simple: the ultimate aspiration is to be a loving human being. A loving human being is not deemed good because of what he does or produces but simply because of what he is which is something that all people, Taylor believes, see to be good. Taylor thinks that asking why such a person is good is simply to misunderstand what has been said.
In the end, Taylor understands this ultimate aspiration to be the aspiration to be a perfect human being. This he sees as something which is most likely impossible and moreover is not just something that someone can just do. Essentially, it is a way of being (or a feeling toward the world) that none could understand as anything other than supremely good.
I am still thinking about this. There is a certain appeal that it has but I am not sure...
Taylor understands compassion to be something that is morally good. Moreover, he sees compassion as a form of love and thus it is love which bestows the moral quality of goodness. Conversely, malice is a form of hate and it is hate that bestows the moral quality of evil/badness. To explain love and hate, Taylor determines that there are two basic emotions elation and dejection and that it is their relations to oneself and others that produces love and hate. For example, elation at the suffering of another is the form of hatred that is malice and dejection at the suffering of another is the form of love that is compassion. The following is a diagram:
---------------one's own suffering-----------------
--------------/-------------------\----------------
-------------/----------------------\--------------
-----masochism------------------resentment-----
----------/---------------------------\------------
---------/-----------------------------\-----------
--elation-------------------------------dejection---
-------- \------------------------------/-----------
---------\-----------------------------/-----------
-----malice----------------------- compassion-----
----------\---------------------------/------------
-----------\-------------------------/-------------
----------------another's suffering-----------------
However, this only covers one aspect of morally significant love and hate and Taylor believes that there are two others. Compassion, for example, is only felt when another is suffering yet surely feelings of love exist in cases where no one is suffering. The following are two more diagrams showing this:
---------------one's own fortune-------------------
--------------/-------------------\----------------
-------------/----------------------\--------------
-----gratitude------------------ self-abasement---
----------/---------------------------\------------
---------/-----------------------------\-----------
--elation-------------------------------dejection---
-------- \------------------------------/-----------
---------\-----------------------------/-----------
-----conjubilation------------------- envy---------
----------\---------------------------/------------
-----------\-------------------------/-------------
----------------another's fortune------------------
---------------one's own being---------------------
--------------/-------------------\----------------
-------------/----------------------\--------------
-----self-love-------------------- self-hatred------
----------/---------------------------\------------
---------/-----------------------------\-----------
--elation-------------------------------dejection---
-------- \------------------------------/-----------
---------\-----------------------------/-----------
-----absolute love--------------- absolute hate-----
----------\---------------------------/------------
-----------\-------------------------/-------------
----------------another's being--------------------
At this point, Taylor wants to draw particular attention to what he calls absolute love which is simply elation as a result of another's being. The other can be a person or anything else for that matter (i.e. animal, pebble, sunset, etc.) but what is important here is that it is not dependent on ever changing states, like the sufferings and fortunes of another, but on one's very existence. Another factor that makes this love important is that only human beings are capable of having it and thus Taylor calls it the Love of Man. Taylor believes that this form of love, absolute love, is the greatest good and he comes to believe this to be the case in a similar fashion to the way he determines compassion to be morally good. In other words, it is deemed to be so because it is simply felt to be so. There could be some trouble here in that what if some others did not feel it to be so. However, in Taylor's defence, has anyone ever thought love to be a bad thing?
Once he has established that the greatest good elation at the sheer existence of things, or absolute love, Taylor moves on to discuss how this seems to contradict with his earlier explanation of good and evil. Earlier, Taylor had stated that the good was simply what was sought and the evil was that which was shunned. Taylor maintains this view, however also believes that absolute love is the greatest good for man. How can this be if it is possible, which it is, that one may seek the opposite of absolute love. To this Taylor says that absolute love is the ideal and greatest good because it satisfies all the needs that humans have as human beings (not, obviously, as animals) and thus that one who seeks something else will eventually realize that he has sought after the wrong thing. I guess the idea here is that everyone desires what Taylor concieves as absolute love. Although one may not realize that he desires this, he actually does. I do not know what to think here, this just needs discussion.
Given that love is what truly matters in morality, a further problem for moral rules/principles arises. Rules are meant to apply to actions however, love is a passion/feeling and thus is something which, unlike actions, can not be controlled by a person. I can choose to raise my arm or follow some rule or another but I can not choose how I feel about it. Thus, the concept of duty can have no place in morality as it involves performing those actions which are required by rules but, since it is a feeling/passion not actions that are of central importance to morality, rules and duty go out the window.
For Taylor, the proper aim of morality is not to discover one's duty and then perform it, but rather to find the greatest good and then attain it. Thus, the question is not "what should I do", but rather "what should I be". In asking "what one should be" an appeal to rules would be utterly unhelpful as such a question deals not with rules but with aspirations. What one should be is what one should aspire to be and that, according to Taylor, is quite simple: the ultimate aspiration is to be a loving human being. A loving human being is not deemed good because of what he does or produces but simply because of what he is which is something that all people, Taylor believes, see to be good. Taylor thinks that asking why such a person is good is simply to misunderstand what has been said.
In the end, Taylor understands this ultimate aspiration to be the aspiration to be a perfect human being. This he sees as something which is most likely impossible and moreover is not just something that someone can just do. Essentially, it is a way of being (or a feeling toward the world) that none could understand as anything other than supremely good.
I am still thinking about this. There is a certain appeal that it has but I am not sure...
Friday, July 4, 2008
Part II: Malice, Compassion and Moral Good and Evil
After considering malice, Taylor turns to the incentive of compassion. The story he gives to highlight this incentive is the story of two soldiers marooned on an island in the Pacific during World War II. One of which is an American, the other a Japanese. After a battle where the Americans believed that they had wiped out all the Japanese on the island, the American marine was accidentally left behind. He, while exploring the island, stumbled across the Japanese and, to his dismay, discovered that the Japanese man had a pistol and a knife whereas he only had a knife. Certain that he could not defeat the Japanese man, he lived only by night, sure that he would soon be discovered. As time wore on he became more and more paranoid. However, one morning he stumbled upon the Japanese man who was fast asleep. The American raised his knife to kill his foe, yet could not kill the sleeping man and dropped his knife. This awoke the Japanese man who pushed his own weapons away and then each stood staring into the terrified face of the other. In this story there is clearly no hero, but what there is is a clear example of a tenderness towards a thing that can suffer, a kindness that goes beyond the desire for self-preservation. We find here a true example of moral good. Taylor considers how other ethical theories would account for this and finds them all inadequate as it is not the weighing up of consequences, nor any understanding of one's duty that shows us the goodness in this story. One need not be a philosopher to see that this is an example of goodness nor why it is so. (Taylor makes a good analogy, I think, where he claims that it would be as wrong to think that a person must understand philosophy in some capacity in order to understand good and evil as to think that one must understand the physics of refraction in order to enjoy a sunset.) Quite clearly, that which bestows the quality of moral good upon the final actions in this story is that they are done selflessly and for no other reason than the desire to do no harm to another's well-being.
(Sidenote: Taylor mentions compassion towards animals as being another good example of the moral good. Essentially, he sees the moral good as any action that is done out of the concern for the well-being of anything that has the capacity to suffer. He also sees this sort of compassion as a good example of a case where a person acts for the benefit of another with no hope for gaining any benefit for himself. Conversely, the same is true in the reverse for moral evil.)
As a result of all this it can be seen that for Taylor it is the incentive of an action that determines its moral quality and not its result. He says that when people suffer it is always a great evil, yet this is true whether they do so because of a natural disaster or because of a cruel tormentor. However, the latter is more than just an evil, it is a moral evil (as we are revolted by it in away we are not by the former) and it gets this quality as a result of the incentive which caused these actions. Taylor believes that it is what is in the heart of an actor when he acts, more so than anything else, that prompts in us a moral revulsion or admiration.
Next, Taylor reintroduces justice and his conception of the common good. In his mind, a sort of rudimentary justice can exist between a group of totally self-serving beings, yet any sort of serious justice or common good can not exist between them. This is because there will at some point be a time when acting for the common good confers no benefits on a person and thus, if completely self-serving he would not do it. There can be no reason given him so long as it attempts to appeal to his self-serving nature. In fact, Taylor believes that no reason can be given at all why one should have more concern for the starving millions of the world than he should for slice of toast. He thinks that there is no reason whatsoever as to why one should respect and act for the common good. However, (and this is the important part) he thinks that no reason is necessary because people do, in fact, respect and act for the common good simply because people do have these sorts of desires. Essentially, human beings just do to some extent care about one another, have the capacity to feel sympathy, the ability to imagine another's suffering as one's own even though it is not, and the desire to sometimes help relieve that suffering. It is this sort of desire that makes possible the common good and though there is no reason why people should have the fact that we do is the most important one in morality. According to Taylor, all that matters is that we desire such things.
I find this to be very interesting. A conception such as this is vulnerable to the idea where everyone takes a pill and thereby thinks/acts differently, yet I do not think that this should count as a strike against it. Taylor is trying to explain morality as it is and thus the fact that things could be otherwise seems irrelevant here. I also find it interesting that on Taylors view the very part of our nature which leads us to do such good (i.e. that we can act selflessly) is the very part that leads us to do great evils. Very interesting indeed.
What I do wonder about is what Taylor would say about someone who possessed no feelings of compassion. I guess the question is not whether there could be such as person as this is obviously so, but whether or not there is such a person. Or maybe such a person would simply be the epitome of moral evil (if he were capable of malice) or of moral neutrality (if he were capable of nothing but self-love). I don't know.
A final note from me. I am inclined to wonder what Gyges would say here. I suppose that, given the sort of person he is, he would do the same things for he would certainly not yet be convinced. No reason has been given to him as to why he should not act as he does or, more precisely, why it is not in his interest to act as he does. But, what I think is important here is that there is equally no reason why he should act on his interests. It is not that he has better arguments, but merely that he has chosen one path over the other. He could not convince someone of a different character to act in a manner like himself because reasons for acting thusly are lacking. In the end it seems that there just are no reasons for one's actions over and above his wanting to act in such and such a way. Of course, however, this needs much more discussion.
(Sidenote: Taylor mentions compassion towards animals as being another good example of the moral good. Essentially, he sees the moral good as any action that is done out of the concern for the well-being of anything that has the capacity to suffer. He also sees this sort of compassion as a good example of a case where a person acts for the benefit of another with no hope for gaining any benefit for himself. Conversely, the same is true in the reverse for moral evil.)
As a result of all this it can be seen that for Taylor it is the incentive of an action that determines its moral quality and not its result. He says that when people suffer it is always a great evil, yet this is true whether they do so because of a natural disaster or because of a cruel tormentor. However, the latter is more than just an evil, it is a moral evil (as we are revolted by it in away we are not by the former) and it gets this quality as a result of the incentive which caused these actions. Taylor believes that it is what is in the heart of an actor when he acts, more so than anything else, that prompts in us a moral revulsion or admiration.
Next, Taylor reintroduces justice and his conception of the common good. In his mind, a sort of rudimentary justice can exist between a group of totally self-serving beings, yet any sort of serious justice or common good can not exist between them. This is because there will at some point be a time when acting for the common good confers no benefits on a person and thus, if completely self-serving he would not do it. There can be no reason given him so long as it attempts to appeal to his self-serving nature. In fact, Taylor believes that no reason can be given at all why one should have more concern for the starving millions of the world than he should for slice of toast. He thinks that there is no reason whatsoever as to why one should respect and act for the common good. However, (and this is the important part) he thinks that no reason is necessary because people do, in fact, respect and act for the common good simply because people do have these sorts of desires. Essentially, human beings just do to some extent care about one another, have the capacity to feel sympathy, the ability to imagine another's suffering as one's own even though it is not, and the desire to sometimes help relieve that suffering. It is this sort of desire that makes possible the common good and though there is no reason why people should have the fact that we do is the most important one in morality. According to Taylor, all that matters is that we desire such things.
I find this to be very interesting. A conception such as this is vulnerable to the idea where everyone takes a pill and thereby thinks/acts differently, yet I do not think that this should count as a strike against it. Taylor is trying to explain morality as it is and thus the fact that things could be otherwise seems irrelevant here. I also find it interesting that on Taylors view the very part of our nature which leads us to do such good (i.e. that we can act selflessly) is the very part that leads us to do great evils. Very interesting indeed.
What I do wonder about is what Taylor would say about someone who possessed no feelings of compassion. I guess the question is not whether there could be such as person as this is obviously so, but whether or not there is such a person. Or maybe such a person would simply be the epitome of moral evil (if he were capable of malice) or of moral neutrality (if he were capable of nothing but self-love). I don't know.
A final note from me. I am inclined to wonder what Gyges would say here. I suppose that, given the sort of person he is, he would do the same things for he would certainly not yet be convinced. No reason has been given to him as to why he should not act as he does or, more precisely, why it is not in his interest to act as he does. But, what I think is important here is that there is equally no reason why he should act on his interests. It is not that he has better arguments, but merely that he has chosen one path over the other. He could not convince someone of a different character to act in a manner like himself because reasons for acting thusly are lacking. In the end it seems that there just are no reasons for one's actions over and above his wanting to act in such and such a way. Of course, however, this needs much more discussion.
Part I: Malice, Compassion and Moral Good and Evil
A strict egotistical conception of human nature, though capable of accounting for some parts of justice, can not accommodate Taylor's conception of justice and the common good i.e. do not hinder but help (as there are some cases when hindering and not helping are far more beneficial to a person than the opposite). Moreover, Taylor's conception required what he called sympathetic projection, or putting yourself in another's shoes, which is something that makes sense on a straight egotistical account. In the real world there are people, in fact many people, who are more than capable of sympathetic projection and who act for the common good and thus it can be concluded than a conception of human beings as purely egoists will not do. Though an incentive, egoism is not the only incentive that human beings have; humans are compelled to act by other incentives as well, those being: self-hatred, malice and compassion. I will not discuss self-hatred because it is irrelevant to the current discussion. Like egoism, it is essentially morally neutral and thus undeserving of more reflection when morality is my prime concern.
Yet why they are morally neutral requires some explaining before moving on to malice and compassion. The reason that egoism and self-hatred are morally neutral is because they are to be conceived independently of their effects. If I were to act entirely selfishly there may be many evils which result, but these evils, as Taylor conceives them, are not moral evils. To understand this it is essential to understand Taylor's conception of good vs. his conception of moral good. The good, without the moral preface, is simply the satisfaction of desire or that which helps in achieving it. So then actions are deemed good insofar as they satisfy desires, bad insofar as they thwart desires. The moral good, on the contrary, is to be understood as the quality of an action independent of any of its effects. In other words, one can understand moral good and evil as the spirit in which a particualr act is performed. What it is that makes this spirit either morally good or evil, and thus the act, is (as far as I can understand) human sentiment towards it. I would like to interject my own thought here quickly. Though this sounds at first a little off in terms of the likelihood of people having differing sentiments, I have, after a bit of thinking, determined this to be not as likely as one might think. Certain actions just elicit revusion while others just as equally elicit admiration. It does not seem as though any human being could watch torture and not think it bad nor could any human being watch an instance of great kindness and not think it good... Thus, it should be quite clear that, in virtue of their producing no sentiments one way or the other, certain actions are morally neutral because of the fact that their incentives are. For example, that a man should act in his own interest is, independently of its effects, of no moral value one way or another as it elicits no feelings in either direction.
Malice and compassion, on the otherhand, and the actions that spring from them, do elicit such emotion. To show this Taylor gives three examples for each of the two incentives, yet I will only discuss one for each here. Malice shall be considered first. Imagine a scenario where three underfed and weary soldiers on patrol in a war ravaged and newly conquered land suddenly come upon an old shack and notice signs of life. They go to the shack and throw open the door which reveals an old, decrepit and starving man huddled in the corner. The fact that he is a citizen of their opposed nation is enough for these soldiers and they drag him out of the shack and force him to start digging a hole. Once he has finished they beat him to a bloody pulp with their rifles butts and then leave him quaking and dying in the recently dug hole. As they are about to leave the soldiers here a cry from inside the shack and return to investigate. What they find is a small, malnourished baby in her crib. They first flash shiny objects in front of her to make her laugh before killing her with a single gun shot before leaving. What Taylor intends this story to show, and what it does show, is our feeling of revulsion after reading this story. His question then, is what makes us feel this way? He then considers the varying options that different philosophers have given, rejecting them all in turn. (Briefly, it is not the failure of these men to do their duty, realize that they should only treat rational beings as ends or will that their maxim be a universal law that causes such revulsion. Nor is it caused by the consequenes of these heinous acts as our feeling does not change if it is revealed to us that those who died were mere hours away from starving to death. Their death is doubtlessly an evil, yet what changes it from just an evil into a moral evil is our perception of the incentive that produced and was aimed at producing these evils. This incentive is malice and it is its precense here that causes our revulsion and thus it is its precense that yeilds moral evil.
Part II coming soon...
Yet why they are morally neutral requires some explaining before moving on to malice and compassion. The reason that egoism and self-hatred are morally neutral is because they are to be conceived independently of their effects. If I were to act entirely selfishly there may be many evils which result, but these evils, as Taylor conceives them, are not moral evils. To understand this it is essential to understand Taylor's conception of good vs. his conception of moral good. The good, without the moral preface, is simply the satisfaction of desire or that which helps in achieving it. So then actions are deemed good insofar as they satisfy desires, bad insofar as they thwart desires. The moral good, on the contrary, is to be understood as the quality of an action independent of any of its effects. In other words, one can understand moral good and evil as the spirit in which a particualr act is performed. What it is that makes this spirit either morally good or evil, and thus the act, is (as far as I can understand) human sentiment towards it. I would like to interject my own thought here quickly. Though this sounds at first a little off in terms of the likelihood of people having differing sentiments, I have, after a bit of thinking, determined this to be not as likely as one might think. Certain actions just elicit revusion while others just as equally elicit admiration. It does not seem as though any human being could watch torture and not think it bad nor could any human being watch an instance of great kindness and not think it good... Thus, it should be quite clear that, in virtue of their producing no sentiments one way or the other, certain actions are morally neutral because of the fact that their incentives are. For example, that a man should act in his own interest is, independently of its effects, of no moral value one way or another as it elicits no feelings in either direction.
Malice and compassion, on the otherhand, and the actions that spring from them, do elicit such emotion. To show this Taylor gives three examples for each of the two incentives, yet I will only discuss one for each here. Malice shall be considered first. Imagine a scenario where three underfed and weary soldiers on patrol in a war ravaged and newly conquered land suddenly come upon an old shack and notice signs of life. They go to the shack and throw open the door which reveals an old, decrepit and starving man huddled in the corner. The fact that he is a citizen of their opposed nation is enough for these soldiers and they drag him out of the shack and force him to start digging a hole. Once he has finished they beat him to a bloody pulp with their rifles butts and then leave him quaking and dying in the recently dug hole. As they are about to leave the soldiers here a cry from inside the shack and return to investigate. What they find is a small, malnourished baby in her crib. They first flash shiny objects in front of her to make her laugh before killing her with a single gun shot before leaving. What Taylor intends this story to show, and what it does show, is our feeling of revulsion after reading this story. His question then, is what makes us feel this way? He then considers the varying options that different philosophers have given, rejecting them all in turn. (Briefly, it is not the failure of these men to do their duty, realize that they should only treat rational beings as ends or will that their maxim be a universal law that causes such revulsion. Nor is it caused by the consequenes of these heinous acts as our feeling does not change if it is revealed to us that those who died were mere hours away from starving to death. Their death is doubtlessly an evil, yet what changes it from just an evil into a moral evil is our perception of the incentive that produced and was aimed at producing these evils. This incentive is malice and it is its precense here that causes our revulsion and thus it is its precense that yeilds moral evil.
Part II coming soon...
Incentives
Taylor sees in human beings four basic incentives of action or four possible objectives that an agent might try to achieve. These are (1) one's own well-being, (2) one's own injury, (3) the well-being of another and (4) the injury of another. He calls these incentives (1) self-love or egoism, (2) self-hatred, (3) compassion and (4) malice. Self-love or egoism, Taylor believes, is the incentive on which most actions are based, yet he believes that the others, though not as common, are the actual incentives of people as well.
Egoism is the first incentive that Taylor discusses because he believes that it is the one most readily acted upon. It is, quite simply, the incentive to promote and preserve one's own well-being. This sort of self-love exists in all people and is the basis for most of our actions. Some philosophers, such as Hobbes, have taken it to be the only incentive that people act upon, yet Taylor does not think that this adequately explains human action. Though one can explain to some degree how a group of people who are entirely self-serving could found a community and cooperate with one another, such things can not be explained in the hard cases i.e. giving to charity, helping the disabled and, more or less, simply doing things for others with no hope for compensation or gain. One can explain the great majority of a man's actions in terms of self-love, but not all can be explained that way.
For example, it is not at all odd that a person, upon seeing a young bird which has fallen from its nest, would lift up this bird back to its nest. Actions such as these, where there is clearly no gain for the actor, are extremely important to Taylor and what he believes are alone what provide the basis for claiming there to be a moral dimension in human life. Actions done on this basis are done out compassion or for the well being of another living thing. These actions are those that either give no benefit to the actor or even hurt him while doing some good to some other being.
The fourth incentive [I will not talk about the second because it is largely irrelevant for morality] is what Taylor calls malice and is action done for the purpose of injuring another when no benefit will result for the actor and even when harm for the actor may result.
There does not seem to be a problem here as far as I can see as this part is pretty simple. Of course, it should be noted that Taylor does not take these four incentives to be the only ones on which people act upon. What I think he means is that they are simply the basic incentives meaning that they are, in some way, at the root of all actions. One might describe the reason why someone acted as he did by appealing to something other than these four incentives, such as hunger, yet the incentive for one's own well-being is implicit here. One satisfies his hunger because he believes that it will serve his well-being. So then, Taylor's basic understanding of human action, as I understand it, is that there are four basic incentives that one chooses to act upon as a result of his will (or desires/wants/etc.).
Egoism is the first incentive that Taylor discusses because he believes that it is the one most readily acted upon. It is, quite simply, the incentive to promote and preserve one's own well-being. This sort of self-love exists in all people and is the basis for most of our actions. Some philosophers, such as Hobbes, have taken it to be the only incentive that people act upon, yet Taylor does not think that this adequately explains human action. Though one can explain to some degree how a group of people who are entirely self-serving could found a community and cooperate with one another, such things can not be explained in the hard cases i.e. giving to charity, helping the disabled and, more or less, simply doing things for others with no hope for compensation or gain. One can explain the great majority of a man's actions in terms of self-love, but not all can be explained that way.
For example, it is not at all odd that a person, upon seeing a young bird which has fallen from its nest, would lift up this bird back to its nest. Actions such as these, where there is clearly no gain for the actor, are extremely important to Taylor and what he believes are alone what provide the basis for claiming there to be a moral dimension in human life. Actions done on this basis are done out compassion or for the well being of another living thing. These actions are those that either give no benefit to the actor or even hurt him while doing some good to some other being.
The fourth incentive [I will not talk about the second because it is largely irrelevant for morality] is what Taylor calls malice and is action done for the purpose of injuring another when no benefit will result for the actor and even when harm for the actor may result.
There does not seem to be a problem here as far as I can see as this part is pretty simple. Of course, it should be noted that Taylor does not take these four incentives to be the only ones on which people act upon. What I think he means is that they are simply the basic incentives meaning that they are, in some way, at the root of all actions. One might describe the reason why someone acted as he did by appealing to something other than these four incentives, such as hunger, yet the incentive for one's own well-being is implicit here. One satisfies his hunger because he believes that it will serve his well-being. So then, Taylor's basic understanding of human action, as I understand it, is that there are four basic incentives that one chooses to act upon as a result of his will (or desires/wants/etc.).
Casuistry
We discussed Taylor's thoughts on casuistry a bit during our meeting but I just thought that I would quickly state them here for clarity and also because Taylor's positive view in large part relies on the fact that there can be no ultimate moral principle.
Casuistry is the procedure by which the moral quality of an action is determined by its relation to a general rule or principle of morality. This, Taylor believes, is the method used by modern moralists in their theorizing about ethics. However, casuistry in ethics is bound to fail for the general principles which are meant to justify our moral judgments are themselves entirely informed by our unreflective moral judgments. Taylor's claim is that whenever one tries to justify his conduct by appealing to a principle all he is doing is appealing to a principle which he has tailor made to accommodate his own moral intuitions. Thus, the principle justifies nothing as what it is supposed to justify is already assumed to be true.
To give an example of this, Taylor imagines a hospital dedicated to the moral principle: thou shalt not kill. Thus, all doctors and nurses attending this hospital take every measure in order to save people, yet under no circumstances act so as to destroy a living person. Yet, what should the employees do at this hospital when a maniac goes on the loose and tries to kill all the patients and where the only possible way to stop him is to kill him? Of course, the reply here would be to kill him as it would be an act of self defense. This is, however, an exception to the rule and is made on some basis other than rule (as a rule could not account for its own exceptions). What has happened here is that a particular sort of action has been assumed to be permissable despite the principle and thusly was declared to not covered under the principle. The clear problem here then is how one can determine what is and is not covered under the principle. Why can one not make the same sort of claims about such things as euthanasia and abortion, both practice prohibited by this hospital. Finally, now consider that this very hospital is faced with an ectopic pregnancy. If such a pregancy is allowed to continue both the mother and the child will surely die. The only other course of action would be to perform an abortion whereby, though the child will die, the mother will live. In this case, though the principle being held denies abortions, one can not for a moment doubt what should be done here. When the case is such that either one may refrain from action and thereby let two die or act and thereby save one, common sense provides the clear and obvious answer which no moral principle will overturn. Again, the principle finds an exception and what is made clear by all this is that any principle whatever (so long as it is not so vague so as to be void of content) is not impervious to exceptions and thus no principle whatever can stand as an ultimate prinicple of morality.
According to Taylor, what justifies conduct is its production of good not its alignment with any rule or principle. He thinks that rules and principles are important for society to have however, they must be evaluated in terms of their tendency to produce good and eliminate evil. If ever a principle is discovered to do the opposite it should be cast asunder. These conclusions, if correct, are devastating for rule-based ethical systems and would thus necessitate, if one is to be had, a system of ethics that does not rely on rules. This is exactly what Taylor then tries to formulate.
All in all, I think Taylor is right. Williams made a similar point in his book about intuitions informing principles which in turn justify the intuitions. Logic such as this seems in need of a lot of justification at best and is circular at worst. Thus, if casuistry can be shown to be unneccessary, as Taylor tries to show, then I believe it ought to be jettisoned along with the sentiment that ultimate principles are needed.
Casuistry is the procedure by which the moral quality of an action is determined by its relation to a general rule or principle of morality. This, Taylor believes, is the method used by modern moralists in their theorizing about ethics. However, casuistry in ethics is bound to fail for the general principles which are meant to justify our moral judgments are themselves entirely informed by our unreflective moral judgments. Taylor's claim is that whenever one tries to justify his conduct by appealing to a principle all he is doing is appealing to a principle which he has tailor made to accommodate his own moral intuitions. Thus, the principle justifies nothing as what it is supposed to justify is already assumed to be true.
To give an example of this, Taylor imagines a hospital dedicated to the moral principle: thou shalt not kill. Thus, all doctors and nurses attending this hospital take every measure in order to save people, yet under no circumstances act so as to destroy a living person. Yet, what should the employees do at this hospital when a maniac goes on the loose and tries to kill all the patients and where the only possible way to stop him is to kill him? Of course, the reply here would be to kill him as it would be an act of self defense. This is, however, an exception to the rule and is made on some basis other than rule (as a rule could not account for its own exceptions). What has happened here is that a particular sort of action has been assumed to be permissable despite the principle and thusly was declared to not covered under the principle. The clear problem here then is how one can determine what is and is not covered under the principle. Why can one not make the same sort of claims about such things as euthanasia and abortion, both practice prohibited by this hospital. Finally, now consider that this very hospital is faced with an ectopic pregnancy. If such a pregancy is allowed to continue both the mother and the child will surely die. The only other course of action would be to perform an abortion whereby, though the child will die, the mother will live. In this case, though the principle being held denies abortions, one can not for a moment doubt what should be done here. When the case is such that either one may refrain from action and thereby let two die or act and thereby save one, common sense provides the clear and obvious answer which no moral principle will overturn. Again, the principle finds an exception and what is made clear by all this is that any principle whatever (so long as it is not so vague so as to be void of content) is not impervious to exceptions and thus no principle whatever can stand as an ultimate prinicple of morality.
According to Taylor, what justifies conduct is its production of good not its alignment with any rule or principle. He thinks that rules and principles are important for society to have however, they must be evaluated in terms of their tendency to produce good and eliminate evil. If ever a principle is discovered to do the opposite it should be cast asunder. These conclusions, if correct, are devastating for rule-based ethical systems and would thus necessitate, if one is to be had, a system of ethics that does not rely on rules. This is exactly what Taylor then tries to formulate.
All in all, I think Taylor is right. Williams made a similar point in his book about intuitions informing principles which in turn justify the intuitions. Logic such as this seems in need of a lot of justification at best and is circular at worst. Thus, if casuistry can be shown to be unneccessary, as Taylor tries to show, then I believe it ought to be jettisoned along with the sentiment that ultimate principles are needed.
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