The Distinction between Is and Ought (and the role of social science in ethics)
Normative and Theoretical Ethics
Metaphysics and the Study of Human Nature
Epistemology and Moral Knowledge Philosophy and the Search for Wisdom
Philosophical Ethics: goes beyond the ethics and morality associated with specific cultural norms or customs to include
...the study of the values and guidelines by which we live and the justification for these values and guidelines. Rather than simply accepting the customs or guidelines used by one particular group or culture, philosophical ethics analyzes and evaluates these guidelines in light of accepted universal principles and concerns. (6)In addition:
...ethics is a way of life.....ethics involves active engagement in the pursuit of the good life -a life consistent with a coherent set of moral values. According to Aristotle...the pursuit of the good life is our most important activity as humans. [....]
Aristotle believed that "the moral activities are human par excellence. Because morality is the most fundamental expression of our human nature, it is through being moral that we are the happiest. According to Aristotle, through the repeated performance of good actions, we become moral (and more happy) people. He referred to the repeated practice of moral actions as habituation. The idea that practicing good actions is more important for ethics education than merely studying theory is also found in other philosophies, such as Buddhism. (6)Points:
a) ethics as developed in the West is not primarily interested in theory for its own sake - but rather directly in the question, "How are we to live as human beings in order to be happy/content/satisfied?"
[Hence her opening this chapter with the quote from Aristotle:
The ultimate purpose in studying ethics is not as it is in other inquiries, the attainment of theoretical knowledge; we are not conducting this inquiry in order to know what virtue [arete - better translated as "excellence in the fulfillment of one's nature/potentials"] is, but in order to become good [in the sense of realizing our potentials, of fulfilling our nature excellently], esle there would be no advantage in studying it.
This dimension of ethics we will refer to as praxis. Any ethical theory requires implementation/application in the world in which we live: it must be 'practical' (meaning, something that can be done in the circumstances in which we find ourselves) - while it also (as Aristotle and others would argue) must involve practice, repeated effort towards realizing one's moral principles and ideals (one gets better at this with practice) and the correlative development of habit. The word praxis includes both of these senses.
[Boss defines praxis as "informed social action" - see. pp. 42f. More on this as we go along.]
b) contrary to some recent, especially postmodern critiques of "the West" - Western philosophy, including ethics, shares a number of fundamental insights with other traditions - including, as Boss points out here, Buddhism.
For an initial overview of some of the more important parallels between Eastern and Western thought, see:
http://www.drury.edu/faculty/ess/eastern/eastwest.html
The Role of Is and Ought statements
Distinguish between
descriptive - what is, "the facts"
and
prescriptive - what ought to be, valuesstatements
And notice the connection we observed last Thursday:
(conception of) human nature -> ethics -> politics
We refer to the social sciences in ethics for descriptions of human behavior and society - accounts of what is.
These descriptions are useful - but not definitive - for trying to develop a philosophical account of "human nature".
BUT: these descriptions, however useful, are not sufficient for providing us with a final, definitive, "factual" account of human nature.
Rather, the descriptions of human behavior must be interpreted: alternatively, the same human behaviors can be "explained" using more than one theory.
Given that there are multiple theories in the social sciences themselves regarding human nature - no single theory counts as the final, definitive, "factual" account of what human beings are.
Accordingly, the question of what human beings are - the question of human nature - becomes philosophical: we can argue for competing theories, using the best available evidence, arguments, etc.
But because no single theory can be demonstrated to be "true" with finality -
a) we have to acknowledge the possibility that several different theories may be true - and hence
b) we have to evaluate and choose the best theory/theories in light of the best available arguments and evidence we have at the time.
c) But because our choice of a given theory of human nature depends on evidence and argument - it is always open to revision (indeed, possible rejection) in light of new evidence and argument.
Normative and Theoretical Ethics
Normative Ethics:
Personal
Interpersonal
Social:
"The moral community is composed of all those beings that have moral worth or value in themselves. Because members of the moral community have moral value, they deserve the protection of the community, and they deserve to be treated with respect and dignity." (12)
EnvironmentalTheoretical Ethics (metaethical theories):
Noncognitive: emotivism
Cognitive:
Relativist Theories:
a) ethical subjectivism
b) cultural relativism
(Boss argues that the two are mutually exclusive: both cannot be held simultaneously without contradiction. We will examine with considerable care the difficulties with relativist theories - but for now we can also consider:
i) "performative contradiction" of ethical relativism
ii) difficulty of defining "culture" in order to have a working definition of cultural relativism
Universalist theories
Universalist theories assume/argue that there are moral values which hold for
the whole of the human community -
if not beyond (e.g., to include the moral community of all rational freedoms [Kant],
the moral community of all beings contained within the web of existence [environmental ethics, Buddhism,etc.]
We will examine several of these as we go along. Boss is correct, however, to observe that there is considerable overlap between universalist theories - in contrast with the opposition between ethical subjectivism and cultural relativism.This overlap further means that a given universalist theory may emphasize one particular dimension of morality more than another;
This inclusive pluralism, notice, is the point of the story of the blind men and the elephant.
As well - please don't assume (using a dualistic logic) that one must be
either an ethical subjectivist/cultural relativist [all moral values are relative]
or a moral universalist/pluralist [moral values are universal].There may a third/middle ground here as well - e.g., in what one contemporary ethicist, Seyla Benhabib, calls "quasi-universals." (More on that as we go along.)
Metaphysics and the Study of Human Nature
Here again we can see the distinction between the two logics we have started to examine:
Metaphysical dualists hold that reality is made up of two fundamentally distinct kinds of Being/beings - the material and the nonmaterial.
Just making the distinction between two kinds of Being, however, does not automatically require us to see these two kinds of Being to stand in a dualistic opposition.
It is only if we also add the logic of dualism to the claim that there are at least two kinds of Being that we are then required to believe that one kind of Being (e.g., the nonmaterial/the mind/the soul/God/etc. - often associated with the male)
must be superior to and divorced from the other kind of Being (e.g., the material/the body/this world/etc. - often associated with the female).
It is this hierarchical worldview which not only ecofeminists such as Karen Warren object to (Boss, 17), insofar as this dualistic worldview leads to the de-valuing of women and the world
manifest, respectively, in the male use of violence to subordinate women and
in especially a modern worldview [1637-1780, by my definition] which justifies [male] "mastery and possession of nature" - i.e., the exploitation of the environment.
As well, those holding to both different metaphysics (e.g., as Boss points out, [some forms of] Buddhism, a variety of indigenous peoples [Native Americans, the Bantu, etc.], and the "One-Substance" theories [Boss, 19f.] and a different logic (i.e., the logic of complementarity) would object to this dualistic logic and its hierarchical and violent consequences.
Hence the question of which logic(s) we use is among the most fundamental questions we can raise.
One-substance theories - seek to resolve the problems of dualism by eliminating one "side" of the dualist ontology. (These are called monist - "one-ist" - theories.)
Boss describes materialism as such a theory - one that underlies much, if not all, of contemporary Western science (physics, biology, chemistry -- and some (but by no means all) schools in the social sciences, such as sociobiology.
Important! Why, according to Boss, do most philosophers argue that biology alone is insufficient as the basis of morality? (20)
POINT: NO branch of knowledge - including the natural and social sciences - exists without an (assumed/implicit/unstated) metaphysics and epistemology. That is, such sciences assume a given metaphysics and epistemology, usually without identifying these assumptions as such. Such assumptions are usually buried underneath the guiding methodological principles of these disciplines.
This is not a bad thing necessarily: but
since the natural and social sciences require/assume/rest upon a given set of metaphysical and epistemological assumptions -
and if we intend, as philosophers, to uncover our most fundamental but often hidden assumptions and scrutinize those assumptions carefully to see which ones really (!) stand up -
then: we need to make those assumptions explicit - and critique those assumptions - rather than simply accept them (alongside the claims of the natural and social sciences which rest upon them).
As Boss further points out, such metaphysical monism underlies the theory of determinism. (20f.)
The debate between determinists and those who defend free will - in Boss's example, the existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) - is at least in part
a metaphysical debate: what are human beings really - free or determined?, and
an epistemological debate: how do we "know" what human beings are really?
But there is an additional metaphysical question: this debate can take several different directions -
Epistemology and Moral Knowledge
As we have now seen any number of times, a fundamental philosophical question we must ask in the face of any claim is How do you know?
Boss's example is the claim that the principle of nonmaleficence - do no harm - is binding on everyone. Question: how could we know of such a principle?
A variety of answers is possible:
The empiricist position is taken to an extreme in the first half
of the 20th century, in a philosophical movement called positivism.
Most late 20th ct. Americans, in my experience, are still under
the sway of this position; but it is highly problematic, for a host of
reasons - Boss mentions only one:
since positivism leads to emotivism [the theory that
moral judgments are simply expressions of individual feeling] -
and
since emotivism seems incapable of criticizing what otherwise
seem to be clear moral wrongs (the Holocaust, torturing children, etc.)
emotivism (and its underlying epistemology of
positivism/extreme empiricism) do not seem adequate positions.
Variants: there are especially feminist philosophers who argue
for the importance of particular experiences, including feelings, as crucial
elements in moral knowledge (Boss mentions Sandra Harding). We will examine
some of these arguments as we go along.
Philosophy and the Search for Wisdom
philosophy - philos / sophos: "lover of wisdom"
Boss notes that to be a lover means to act, to pursue the object of one's desire. Especially in Plato's dialogue, The Symposium, "philosophy" becomes more precisely defined as an erotic quest - where eros is the fundamental drive of the human psyche to pursue completeness at all levels (bodily/"spiritually"/rationally). Wisdom is urgently desired - at least for some - because it will make us more complete.
But to be a lover of wisdom also entails a certain humanity: the term "philosopher" was used in part to separate one group of thinkers from the Sophists, those who claimed to already have wisdom - and be able to impart it to others (usually for a fee...)
The philosopher, on this view, is knowledgeable enough to know s/he is not wise - but s/he seeks to acquire wisdom.
Such wisdom, moreover, is not simply theoretical: rather, wisdom should have something to do with how we actually live - and how we should live if we are to achieve important human ends.
Epistemological comment: distinguish between
Boss is also helpful in noting:
Philosophy, unlike most academic disciplines, involves the expansion and systematic nurturing of a basic human activity, rather than simply the accumulation of knowledge. Philosophy arises out of a natural sense of wonder and what many philosophers regard as a basic human need to find higher meaning and value in our lives. As very small children, we wondered and asked countless questions about the world around us. Indeed, child psychologists note that curiosity and ethical concerns about justice and sharing emerge spontaneously in children sometime between the ages of eighteen and thirty-six months, regardless of their culture and without prompting from adults. (29)
As well, also note that while particular differences may issue in different approaches to wisdom and the good life -
This does not imply, however, that wisdom is relative. Rather, it suggests that there are several paths to wisdom, just as there can be several paths to the top of a mountain. (29)
That is: difference between individual and cultural expressions of the quest for wisdom and the good life can be understood in at least two ways, depending upon our logic:
Self-realization