Quine on Ethics

Quine's basic position on ethics, as expressed in this clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BwBG3w-uDo

seems to be that judgments of moral valuation have "no analog" with questions of scientific facts (assignment of truth values to statements about the world). Thus, in the end, moral judgment can be nothing but a reflection of what we have been taught to believe or what is inherent in us based on natural selection. Quine is paraphrased here, by one of his interlocutors, as saying the best that you can get in moral valuation are claims reflecting a kind of coherence theory, while in science you can get statements according to a kind of correspondence theory. Hence he appears to agree with the old Humean notion that one cannot derive an ought from an is.

In science and ordinary talk about the world, Quine holds that what we can say is determined by our inputs from the world around us but, in terms of moral judgments, what we can say is entirely determined by what we intuit, by how we feel about things. He allows that we can argue the facts of moral cases, of course, and so come to different conclusions even where we seem to share similar feelings or predispositions about the elements of the case, but his bottom line seems to be consistent with Hume's suggestion that moral judgment is entirely determined by our sensibilities -- which can be subject to change, of course, although not consciously by ourselves, for on this view we just are whatever our inclinations and feelings are . . .

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Metaphysics, Idealism and Moral Goodness

A correspondent of mine, from India, has been interested in Wittgenstein for quite a while. Recently some of his comments have brought me to the realization that it is the mystical in Wittgenstein (seen in the Tractatus and, later, in the indirect way Wittgenstein attacks traditional philosophical issues in the Philosophical Investigations) that most appeals to him. Perhaps he is not entirely wrong for surely he is in good company. Nevertheless, on this he and I are not quite on the same wavelength. After reading my piece here on Anscombe's take on Wittgenstein's treatment of the mental, he sent me an e-mail which I won't reproduce here since he chose not to post it for public consumption. Nevertheless, he had some interesting things to say on how he sees Western philosophy fitting in with that of the East, particularly with traditional Indian thought. Along the way he raised some issues concerning Anscombe's moral view. After responding this morning, it occurred to me that what I had to say ought to be said by me more publicly. So without divulging my correspondent's name or his words (since doing so must be his choice not mine!) I will just reproduce my response to him here . . .

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Minds, Brains, Souls/Anscombe on Wittgenstein and the Mental

I've recently picked up Human Life, Action And Ethics by G. E. M. Anscombe, a student of Wittgenstein and later editor of some of his work. I was not familiar with her as a philosopher in her own right, though I knew she had that standing. The book, a compilation of a great many of her most important essays, dealing mainly with matters of ethics and morals, was edited by Mary Geach, her daughter and also a philosopher in her own right, and Luke Gormally with whom I am not familiar. The very first essay (which is as far as I have so far got), is entitled Analytical Philosophy and the Spirituality of Man. Although I have not yet gotten far in it the following passage, near the very beginning, struck me as relevant to the battles so often played out in this discussion group (can we call it that?) and on earlier lists where many of us also participated. She writes . . .

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Empathy and Reasons

This is a very preliminary draft which I expect will require a lot of revision. It's also longer than my usual offerings here which aren't especially short in general anyway. I also diverge here from the typical Wittgensteinian path I usually follow and verge, dangerously, on a kind of existentialist incoherence. I hope to fix that in a later iteration. But for now I've decided to put this up on the list anyway . . . in case anyone here shares my interest in trying to understand and explain how moral valuing works.

Wittgenstein pointed out that the search for justifications, for reasons, ultimately comes to an end. We can only dig so deeply and then, as he put it, our spade is turned. We can go no further. But valuing is a reason-giving game since in making any ascription of value we do so with reasons in mind. Not to have reasons leaves us without a basis for valuing the thing at all – in which case, even if our spade is turned at some point, it cannot be turned here, within the valuing game itself, or that game must collapse. Without the reasons we give others and ourselves – which reflect comparisons of different things, of different options, of different possibilities – value cannot be ascribed. Reasons are the explanations we give ourselves and others when called upon to justify what we do. . . .

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The Moral Way

What is it that we want to find in intentions, manifested by agents through their actions, to warrant ascriptions of moral value?

Although we may consider a great many issues – from how we comport ourselves in public or private, to what we have for dinner and whom we choose to marry – to be moral questions, there’s such a broad range of these that it’s not a simple matter to sort them all out – or to distinguish between them. Sometimes what we deem “moral” is just what fits with certain codes of conduct we acknowledge although, at other times, we may think it right to dispute the codes themselves. If the moral dimension involves assessment of intent, can the intent to abide by a given code be enough to establish a judgment of moral goodness?

If the code itself can be questioned, on what basis can a presumably right intent prevail where even particular moral codes are subject to moral consideration? A code that urges vengeance in blood, for instance, might seem morally unappealing to many in the modern world even as it may remain compellingly attractive to members of cultures in which it represents the norm. Just being the norm cannot be enough to render something morally good then.

What then do we look to? And how do we reconcile conflicting moral claims and codes?

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Intentions and Selves (3rd Re-Write)

If moral valuing treats of intentions, and intentions are part of every action, what is it about them that excites our moral judgment?

Why is an action such as the purchase of an ice cream cone, to satisfy our own need or desire for it, subject only to evaluation based on the value we place on the ice cream – or on the capacity of the selected actions to acquire it – but, if we consider the intention behind the act, insofar as it relates to other persons, we see it in an entirely different way? Here is where the question of our feelings toward our fellows (and those we take to be equivalent) kicks in.

Intentions are a different sort of thing than the physical phenomena which the action, the items, or the states of affairs desired, are. There’s no actual thing we can point to as the “intention” and yet we cannot explain agential behavior without it. Agential behavior supposes motives, aims – that the actions are performed for a reason. And it takes an intentional agent to have reasons.

Daniel Dennett proposes that we recognize intentions in another by taking what he calls the “intentional stance,” one of three possible “stances” available to us in relation to things in the world . . .

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Act and Intent

Considering the features of any action which may warrant moral claims

All valuing assumes both choice (the possibility of selecting different courses of behavior) and action (the physical events which constitute the behaviors selected). Seen in this way, value can be assigned to any action along three vectors:

1) Intent (the purpose for which the action is undertaken)

2) Events (the physical phenomena associated with the act); and

3) Outcomes (the physical phenomena or states of affairs which the act is undertaken to secure)

That is, the sort of valuing we are now considering (this excludes uses of “value” which share the name but involve different practices such as truth values or fixing a symbol with some content) is always about picking an action to perform – either ourselves or to recommend or prescribe for another. To do this sort of thing we must look at the actions themselves to find features in them that commend the actions to us or should, in our estimate, commend them to others.

But if every action can be looked at along these three vectors, we have to determine how they relate both to one another and in light of the kinds of reasons we may give to justify a claim of having found value in them.

Consider a simple act like purchasing an ice cream cone. . .

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