Horse (horse@wasted.demon.nl)
Mon, 30 Mar 1998 22:54:39 +0100
Lila Suad (and Struan if you're lurking)
Sorry for the delay inreplying but I wanted to think about this
carefully. There are a number of points raised by Struan which I
would like to address. Some of these points are addressed to Struan
whilst others are general.
The points to cover are:
1) Existence of Subject Object Metaphysics
2) Emotivism and MoQ
3) Rationality
4) Macintyre and Communitarianism
It looks like a lot but obviously I'm not going to do an in depth
analysis of everything. Some of the above will get mixed together at
various stages, so please bear with me.
1) Existence of Subject Object Metaphysics
Sorry to labour the point but I think it is important. You may not
subscribe to this view and you say that the foremost names in ethics
today don't either. I presume that you mean, in addition to MacIntyre,
Taylor, Sandel, Waltzer etc. but would exclude Rawls' Nozick and other
liberalist/libertarian thinkers - just a guess. There may be no direct
reference to SOM as such but this is the underlying view of existence
and the framework upon which "rational" thought is based. The rational
thought that I am refering to is the framework upon which "western"
reality rests. This can be traced back to Aristotle and beyond, but
is generally seen to have been formalised by Aristotle. From this
tradition we have the dualist view of existence - subject/object,
mind/matter etc. further supported by Kant, Kierkegaard, Hume etc.
This is, I believe, what is referred to as the subject/object
metaphysics.
In a general way it can be summed up as A OR NOT A.
That is to say, all things either are or are not.
A very simple test to show that the dualistic method is at the heart
of most western thinking is to ask a scientist or philosopher what
they think of multi-valued or fuzzy logic. Of those that have heard
of it the majority will say that it is nothing more than probability.
Many others have stated that fuzzy logic is either false logic or
simply refuse to discuss it. Prof. William Kahan of UCB described it
as the cocaine of science. The problems that have been encountered
attempting to integrate something as simple, obvious and intuitive as
this have been enormous. It goes against the grain of bivalent logic
which is established western logic.
I agree with you Struan that better educated and less myopic
individuals are gradually coming around to a multi-valued view of
existence but the progress is slow. MoQ is an example of the gradual
shift. Chaos, fuzziness and quantum mechanics are other examples. But
as far as I am aware none of the others are encompassed by a complete
metaphysics. They are, in the main, anomolies within SOM.
You are definitely wrong in your view that the SOM is necessary as
some sort of counterpoint to MoQ. Subject and Object are not
rejected, they are just seen as opposite ends of a particular
spectrum with an infinity of possibilities in between. This goes for
other aspects of a dualist reality. The MoQ is purely a base from
which to explore other aspects of reality. You have your way, we have
ours. To say that we are wrong and you are right is pointless,
elitist and dualist.
2) Emotivism and MoQ
I think that with emotivism we need to look at the ideas of the
philosophical school that produced this term - that of logical
positivism. You can basically sum up their entire ethos in a single
sentence:
If the subject of a sentence cannot be measured and/or
expressed mathematically then that sentence has no meaning.
In other words if you can't poke it or formulate it, it doesn't
exist. Another classic dualist example. Objective or subjective.
The school of logical positivism was a response to the domination by
the (mainly) Christian church of established thought patterns and
beliefs. It was an attempt by a number of individuals to place
scientific thought and structure at the top of the belief system
hierarchy. By displacing the church as the propagator of truth,
science becomes the only way to express beliefs about the universe
and reality in general. LP tried to reduce philosophy to no more than
linguistic analysis. If you disagreed with this system then you were
an emotivist. A few hundred years prior to this you would have been
called a heretic and burnt at the stake. Logical positivism had one
fatal flaw. It was wrong. The logical positivists had reduced science
to an ideology. False consciousness. As I said in my previous post,
one of LP's formulators - Karl Popper - realised as much and had the
grace to admit it.
So Logical Positivism, as with so many traditions and belief systems
uses the ideas of conformance and exclusion in order to achieve and
maintain its own importance. Either you are within the framework and
one of the cognoscenti or you are not and thus are wrong, misguided,
heretical etc. LP by definition does not accept the validity of
values as they are neither measurable nor open to expression within
mathematics. Values are not objective and are consequently mere
subjectivist ramblings. By definition then, MoQ, which is based on
values has no meaning and is thus irrelevant. A nice twist. This is
very much the sort of orthodoxy that Pirsig came up against with
Anthropology and Boas.
3) Rationality
What exactly is this rationality then? (A good title for a book
maybe!) It seems to be a relative term - relative to what is
considered true at any given point in time. It is certainly not an
absolute term as history shows. Starting from the pre-Socratic
Greeks it has been redefined so many times that in some ways it has
tended to lose any credibility that it may have once had. It is no
more than another way of saying that if you are a right-thinking
person and you accept current dogma regarding reality then you are a
rational person. To be rational is to be sane, to be irrational is to
be insane. Again - right or wrong, rational or irrational. You used
pretty much this dualist idea yourself. I suppose we could use the
term non-rational to mean that one understands the position of
rationality but feel that it is incorrect.At least this is less
likely to get you carted off to the nut house. Again we come to
ideology and the idea that what is true is that which the majority
believe. If you do not believe what you are supposed to believe, as
the majority of people do, then you are not rational and must be
re-adjusted until you once again align with rationality.Historical
examples of rational thinking are that God exists, religious
creationism, the Earth is flat, the Universe is geocentric, etc. This
is a marvelous tool in the propagandists toolbox. And one which the
social manipulators use mercilessly. But obviously, as I don't accept
the "rational" point of view then what I say cannot have any meaning!
So what do we have so far.
That the term Subject/Object metaphysics refers to the dualistic
school of thought which believes that things are or they are not - A
OR NOTA.
That the term emotivism is a catch all rebuke to ensure that
we don't stray outside the bounds of logical necessity
That rationality is no more than conformity to a commonly held
belief.
4) Macintyre and Communitarianism
This could be tricky. I came across Macintyre about 2 years ago
whilst reading The Princples of Biomedical Ethics - Beauchamp and
Childress. He was described as a Communitarian philosopher/ethicist,
and having dug out a couple of books which refer to his framework of
thought I see no reason to dispute this. My apologies to yourself,
Struan, and to Macintyre but I feel that Macintyre and the rest of
the Communitarian ethicists are so caught up with the idea that
society is the pinnacle of evolution that I want to puke. This is not
to say that I feel that society and social activities are
unimportant, I just believe that some individual rights are of
greater importance than the rights of society. This is probably the
crux of our disagreement. At this point you can call me "irrational",
"emotivist" or whatever you like but I have not seen any evidence so
far, either presented by yourself, Macintyre or anyone else to make
me believe otherwise.
>From this point on much my information regarding Macintyre and
Communitarianism is from:
The principles of Biomedical Ethics (Beauchamp and Childress)
Liberals and Communitarians (Mulhall and Swift).
Horse's slightly blurred recollections of an Open University course
on Ethics - Life and Death
As I understand it, the basis of Macintyres ethical framework is
based on Aristotelian virtue, or to be more accurate it is a
reconstruction of neo-Aristotelian virtue based ethics. He uses three
central concepts - that of
1) Practice
2) The Narrative Unity of a Human Life
3) Tradition
1) Practice
The concept of Practice revolves around any activity that is coherent
and complex and part of some co-operative human activity. Internal
goods are achieved through that Practice. Also, if an activity lacks
internal goods it does not count as a practice. This provides the
basis for Macintyres first definition of the virtues:
"A virtue is an acquired human quality the possesion and exercise of
which tends to enable us to achieve those goods which are internal to
practices and the lack of which effectively prevents us from
achieving any such goods." ( Macintyre - After Virtue)
So participation in practices is essential for possession and
exercise of the virtues. This effectively forces any person that
wishes to participate of virtuousness into social interaction. The
one is only obtainable through the other. By entering into social
interaction rules pertaining to that social interaction will be
inherited. Those rules will provide the basis for rational debate
concerning the practice. An example of a practice is Chess. This is
sufficiently coherent and complex, is a social activity and involves
rules which make debate about a chess match a rational exercise. As
long as we stick to discussing chess within the framework of those
rule our debate is rational.
2) The Narrative Unity of a Human Life
With the Narrative Unity of a Human Life Macintyre looks at the
intentions, desire and goals of a person and relates them to the
actions that take place in a persons life and the settings in
which those actions take place. There are two types of intention,
short term and long term and a number of desires and goals. M. seeks
to relate a persons history to the history of the settings within
which actions take place. For an action to be intelligible it must be
seen as an episode in the history of a persons life. A persons life
thus becomes a form of narrative - a biography - wherein each of his
actions are seen as part of a greater whole. In addition, each
narrative is part of a greater narrative and the relationships
between individual narratives create complex social interactions. So
there are both individual and shared narratives. Macintyre refers to
it thus:
"...If the narrative of our individual lives is to continue
intelligibly - and either type of narrative may lapse into
unintelligibility - it is always the case both that there are
constraints on how the story can continue and that within those
constraints there are indefinitely many ways in which it can
continue." ( Macintyre - After Virtue)
The framework of the Narrative form provides a person with the means
of making a rational choice when different practices exert
conflicting demands. A person must constantly ask "how may I best
live out the narrative of my life" in their quest to achieve the good
life. The quest and the constant reference to both the individual and
the shared narrative educates the person about themselves and what
they are seeking. Macintyre now offers a revised definition of the
virtues which is:
"...[they] are to be understood as those dispositions which not only
sustain practices and enable us to achieve the goods internal to
them, but will also sustain us in the relevant quest for the good by
enabling us to overcome the harms, dangers, temptations and
distractions which we encounter, and which will furnish us with
increasing self-knowledge and increasing knowledge of the good."
(Macintyre - After Virtue)
3) Tradition
With the concept of Tradition Macintyre starts to relate Practice
and Narratives into a historical framework:
"...As such I inherit from the past of my family, my city, my tribe,
my nation, a variety of debts, inheritances, rightful expectations
and obligations." (Macintyre - After Virtue)
So the possession of a historical and social identity coincide.
Tradition thus becomes membership of a socially inherited set of
Practices within a larger historical Narrative and with this
Macintyre moves toward a position that we are not solely responsible
for the way in which our lives are formed or progress. Where persons
are understood as members of traditions the history of their own life
becomes part of the larger historical narrative with its consequent
argument for an extension within the historical and current social
framework. Rational decisions can be made against this background and
determine the persons available resources as to how best to pursue
the good life. All rational decisions will be made in terms of a
traditions best understanding of itself in relation to the practices
of that tradition and by evaluating and criticizing alternatives
within the overall historical and social framework.
The above is an extremely condensed explanation of the theory put
forward by Macintyre in After Virtue. It not a full or complete
account but gives a general taste of the direction in which he is
heading. There is more of the same in Whose Justice? Which
Rationality? and Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry.
Macintyre is generally seen as a militant or extreme Communitarian.
The Communitarian view is that everything fundamental to moral
principles derives from communal values, the common good, social
goals, traditional practices and co-operative virtues. Liberalism is
rejected by militant communitarians as it does not allow the
subsumption of individual belief and enterprise by the community.
The more moderate form does, to an extent, try to accommodate some
forms of liberal belief.
Militant communitarianism is extremely hostile to individual rights
and sees the libertarian as antagonistic towards tradition. It aims
to impose on individuals conceptions of virtue and the good life and
limit or eradicate those rights conferred by liberal societies. Only
by acceptance of Communitarian ethos can a person be seen as rational
as the idea of rationality is defied by communitarian and social
principles.
So here we have a system which is blatantly and exclusively social in
its approach to morality. No account is taken of individuality,
except in the sense that there is an acknowledgement that persons are
constituents in a social system. The notion that individuals and
their ideas are of any consequence is subsumed by the needs of the
society. This is a philosophy for ants and termites.
It is also the embodiment of the social/intellectual struggle wjhich
Pirsig has pointed to in Lila. This whole debate in many ways is a
re-enactment of the conflicts which Pirsig talks about. The
objectification of a system of Moral Values parallels the Boas
treatment of Anthropology. Apparently we are excluded from talking
about values in any way other than through the so called rational
methods put forth by Macintyre. If we do then we are being emotivist.
(This also parallels nicely with the psychbabble expression "in
denial")
An edifice is being constructed which disallows any form of
"irrational" values. Communitarianism and its proponents are a
growing force in moral philosophy. They are building on the
foundations of neo-Aristotelian virtue. As Boas and others
succeded in doing with Anthropology, communitarians are turning
ethics in a science with the consequent exclusion of values. But
values and value judgements are the very basis of ethical systems.
This debate is, I suspect, the first of many that will be directed
toward MoQ and those of us in the Lila Squad who wish to see MoQ
succeed as the successor to SOM are going to have a fight on our
hands. SOM has 2500 years of momentum on its side. MoQ is barely out
of the womb.
I'd better conclude at this point as this is getting overly long (I
can almost here some of you snoring). I would like to hear from
others in LS who feel that this is important and discuss ways in
which future assaults can be dealt with.
Horse
"Pleased to meet you, won't you guess my name.
But what's puzzling you is the nature of my game"
Jagger and Richard - Sympathy for the Devil
mailto:horse@wasted.demon.nl
mailto:darkstar@abduction.org
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