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Tentative Deductions and Morality

Image result for trash collectors

Let us pick up our thread about logical deduction. Our humble example of ‘trash day before laundry day’ may help us see that even our greatest
(apparent) certainties have a probabilistic element to them. Consider our first premise. It probably is
not the case that the trash collectors ALWAYS arrive on a Friday. There may have been one or more
times since I’ve lived here when blizzard or wildcat strike or other disturbance in The Force has brought
it about that the Friday collection didn’t happen. There must be some chance, however slight, that this
Friday was one of those exceptional Fridays, so the collection I’m remembering didn’t happen until
Saturday. Which means (if the other premises hold up) that today is actually Sunday. I better get busy
on my laundry before my clothes get any more ripe!


At any rate, let's bring this in contact with my theory of the right. The right is dependent upon the
good, and the good is intuitively known. I am wIlling to embrace a very general rule (the "golden
rule") and an even more general meta-rule (that rules are made for us, we are not made for them) both
of which govern what will be regarded as right. But it doesn’t seem that we can go much further,
deductively or otherwise.


After all, I have given up any hope of measuring goodness in the (Moorean) sense in which I understand
it. We can’t measure my joy in a great work of art against yours, or the joy of artistic creation versus
that of appreciation, etc. So … how can we even coherently reason about what sort of conduct in any
particular case shall produce more of the stuff? Maybe great art is produced by starving artists living in
garretts. So I should be careful about being over-generous as a patron lest I lessen my beneficiary's
creative flow. But that's less reasoning than guesswork.

Shall I run for office or pursue some profit making activity or, again, engage in some charitable
non-profit activity? Should I seek to own land, should that opportunity present itself? Are there
conscientious objections to the very idea of land ownership I should heed? If I do decide to own, what
sacrifices does it make sense to make in accumulating money for a down payment? should I do
so only for my own use or should I lease out some of what I own? Is that itself a moral decision or
‘just business’? Should I have a child? Or more than one should I listen to those voice who argue that
the earth has too many humans on it already?   

All of these questions are one question: what is the right way to live? And it does not seem at this
point in our inquiry that our discovery about the good (even assuming I have been persuasive as to
what that is) tells us very much about the right.

The very big problem for my theory of the right as stated above is just that it requires that we tie consequences to actions, while admitting that we can never, except in a very tentative sense, grasp the consequences of our actions before we see that they have occurred.

Comments

  1. The world would be a better place if more people would adopt your meta-rule that "rules are made for us, we are not made for them." Too many instead abide by "a rule is a rule." Judges, for example, should not apply a law in a case where the consequences would be inarguably evil. (Examples include some mandatory minimum sentences.) Of course, a judge should first attempt to construe the law so as not to apply in the case before him or her, but, if he cannot, then he should remember the principle established at Nuremberg that following orders is not a defense to evil. If he refuses to do evil, then the appellate court should do the same and affirm. Or better yet, the prosecution should not appeal, or should not have brought the case in the first place. But, unfortunately, I'm fantasizing here; forgive me.

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    Replies
    1. I do not mean "inarguably" literally, because someone can argue about anything. For example, a majority of the Supreme Court justices held that, under California's three-strikes law, a 50-year sentence for a third minor theft was not cruel and unusual punishment, which, in effect, means that they did not find it evil. But they probably didn't consider whether it was evil, as they believed that "a rule is a rule" (except for the rule against cruel and unusual punishments). This explains why I concluded above that I was fantasizing.

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