![Isaiah-Berlin[1]](http://jewishcurrents.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Isaiah-Berlin1.jpg)
From ethics to meta-ethics. Ethics is the branch of philosophy that asks how we should act, what we should consider to be good or bad/evil, meta-ethics is the branch of philosophy that asks about that activity.
So "how should I act?" is an ethical inquiry, and "what does it mean to ask how I should act?" is a meta-ethical activity.
I've outlined in recent posts here what I consider a breakthrough in my own understanding of ethics.
Here I'd simply like to apply some meta-ethical labels to the view that results.
As I've noted, a good name for this type of view given traditional taxonomies would be"teleological intuitionism." What does that mean?
It means that the view is intuitionist in that it relies upon an inferred human capacity [or "faculty" if you like] for the direct recognition of intrinsic goodness.
It is teleological in that there is an end, the increase of the amount of intrinsic goodness in the world, and all other goods, along with all rights, are to be judged with an eye to their significance as the means to that end.
It is also pluralistic, though, in that the end is not the increase of some one quantity, but of at least three as I count them, in principle perhaps more: the sublime, the beautiful, and the intimate (inter-personal) goods. One might well enhance one of these three at the expense of another, and if given the opportunity to do so one might well face a situation in which there is no single right answer. In this respect, the view is compatible with the pluralism of an Isaiah Berlin, the fellow portrayed above.
At a still higher meta level, the view I've tried to outline is cognitivist. I am committed to the view that there are truth-bearer sentences about ethics.
Whether it is realistic is less clear cut. Is "yellow" a real mind-independent fact in the world? The light-waves are (if our understanding of physics is realistic!) but yellow as a phenomenal fact may not be.
It is, finally, a foundationalism. Our intuitions of intrinsic goodness form a bottom turtle, which itself must float in unturtled space. Instrumental goods are the turtle standing on top of that. The practical case for in most cases following conventional mores stands, rather uneasily, on top of that.
Nice segue from the meta-philosophical question I raised yesterday, although I suspect that you'd already prepared today's post then.
ReplyDeleteToday I'm puzzled why you ask whether "yellow" a real mind-independent fact in the world as a stand-in for your real question: whether goodness is a mind-independent fact. I imagine that that question is the real challenge to your teleological intuitionism, as it must have been to Moore's ethical philosophy. Are you trying to skirt it?
Never! My point was simply that when we talk about compound facts with a psychological component, asking about "mind independence" itself becomes confusing. Yes, a sublime view is only good if it is somebody's view, so it is not independent of that subject being there. But a third party considering the situation can deem this good in a way independent of his (the third party's) mind. Jane looks at the Grand Canyon and is awestruck. John says that Jane's awareness of the sublime is an intrinsic good. John's comment is not a subjective one.
ReplyDeleteBut John is implicitly agreeing with Jane that the Grand Canyon is visually sublime, so John's comment depends upon his being there (or having been there) too. (John has not said that Jane's belief that the Grand Canyon is visually sublime is intrinsically good, whether or not the Grand Canyon is visually sublime.) Whether Jane's awareness of the sublime is intrinsically good is a separate question.
ReplyDeleteA related matter is that ethics and aesthetics are objective, although not in the sense that, like a proposition of science, they can be proved. Rather, they are objective in the sense that one can make reasoned arguments, based on agreed-upon criteria, that something is ethical or beautiful, and convince others to change their minds. Ethics and aesthetics are not matters of subjective taste, such as whether chocolate ice cream tastes better than vanilla.
I'm not sure I grok the point of the first paragraph there.
ReplyDeleteI do grok the second one, so I'll speak to that. And for the moment I'll stick to the aesthetics part of that. Can we agree that there are shifts in taste over time? If so, I'll try to describe them, and get back to your point from a historical perspective.
There is an underlying battle between connoisseurship and novelty. Suppose that we are living in a time when the impressionistic style is dominant in the world of painting. The smart people are the ones who know something about impressionism, who have developed and shared with one another standards that determine which painters are doing it best, etc. A recognition of beauty arises and is understood within this universe of discourse.
BUT ... there is also an innate human drive for novelty. Eventually the relevant public will get bored by impressionism, and there will be a thirst for the next Hot New Thing -- maybe (in my very simplified history): cubism. The initial appeal of cubism will be that it is NOT impressionistic, and there will be intense arguments between those who speak for novelty and the connoisseurs of the older style. Those arguments will be, as you say, reasoned. They aren't simply "you like vanilla." Yet the underlying dynamic is clear. The bored cannot be talked out of looking for novelty. The connoisseurs can sometimes be talked into seeing the value in the new thing, and even becoming connoisseurs of that.
And, inevitably, the process is repeated down the line.
So, yes, aesthetics does give rise to reasoned arguments, but I think the overall point can accommodate that, given an appreciation of historic context.