I don't think I'm giving too much away if I say that the HBO series Westworld raises ethical questions about artificial intelligence. The series is set in an amusement park where people can live out fantasies of the Wild West, fantasies that to a striking extent involve murder and rape. But no one actually gets murdered, because the characters that populate the world are (very lifelike) robots. They feel no real pain, despite appearances to the contrary, and can be repaired relatively easily. And the customers are paying high prices for the privilege, so what could they have to feel guilty about?
I assume no one believes Jesus' idea that committing a sin in one's heart is just as bad as committing it in the flesh, but is also seems about as clear as can be that much of what Westworld's clients are paying to do is very bad (even though it is, in a sense, not really done in the flesh). Standard ethical theories seem incapable of handling this fact. Or, if not incapable, not at all well positioned to do so plausibly or simply. The problem is similar to the well known one about Kantian ethics and mistreatment of animals: if ethics is all about respect for reason and the creatures that embody it, then (why) is tormenting animals wrong? The Kantian answer is that it is bad because it makes tormenting people more likely, but this is fairly plainly inadequate. A dying man could spend his last moments torturing bunnies and do nothing unethical at all on this view.
Shooting at (robots that look and behave just like) people for fun is cruel. Perhaps part of why cruelty is bad has to do with its effects in the world, but, as Kant saw, bad will is bad on its own, regardless of whether it turns out to have bad consequences or not in any particular instance. It seems to me that Westworld therefore shows that consequentialism and textbook Kantianism are wrong, or incomplete, as moral theories. I'm sure others see it differently though.
On a related note, in Avengers: Infinity War the baddie is a consequentialist and the goodies "don't trade lives" (cf. Kant and Romans 3:8). I usually don't like science fiction-inspired philosophy, partly because it's usually metaphysics or epistemology (which are not my thing) and partly because it so often seems to be wrapped up in concerns about what is cool (also not my thing). But Westworld, which also raises metaphysical questions, seems to me to demonstrate something important about ethics that is rarely shown.
Attempts to anticipate dissent:
1. The clients of Westworld don't do anything wrong--you can do what you like to robots, as long as no actual people's rights are violated. In a way I agree with this. But perhaps that just shows that there is more to ethics than questions about actions and their rightness or wrongness. There is, it seems to me, just something obviously very bad about choosing to have the experience as of shooting a man and seeing him bleed to death, screaming in pain, etc. Perhaps the badness is located more in the heart-mind of the person choosing to behave this way, or in the choice to act this way, than in the act itself, but that there is badness there seems about as plain as it could be.
2. So you're saying it's wrong or bad to play video games that involve shooting, etc.? Not necessarily. But there is something bad about playing a game that focuses on violence and in which the players want the violence to be as realistic as possible. Space Invaders is not like this. Nor is Angry Birds. (Although would the Buddha play either of those games?) No doubt there is a gray area somewhere. Such is life.
The clients of Westworld don't do anything wrong--you can do what you like to robots, as long as no actual people's rights are violated
ReplyDeleteIsn't the real point of the show about the dawning consciousness of the robots? If so, then our sympathies are engaged in their favor, suggesting that it is other consciousnesses, other subjects, to which our moral concerns are directed.
It's not just their perfectly human appearance but the awareness they have that matters. The ethical dimension of the moral (form of valuation) would seem to have to do with subject to subject relations and so the claims and arguments of ethics must be about discovering some basis for caring about the other as if they were ourselves, when it happens that we don't, or doubt that we have reason to.
Certainly THIS is a widely occurring perspective (I hesitate to call it a principle here) across a broad spectrum of human cultures. Although what counts as harming the other's interests may vary by culture, harming them, when we could do otherwise, seems to have ethical broad resonance in human life. We feel we should not or at least that we ought to have a reason, something to fall back on, when balancing our own interests (to satisfy our own wants and needs) against the other.
The suspicion that we have no such reason beyond whatever is dictated by our own interests drives philosophical inquiry into our ethical beliefs and practices.
You might be right. But it's unclear whether they really are conscious, isn't it? One moment they will seem very much to be so, and then something will happen, e.g. they repeat verbatim what had seemed like an expression of real feeling, that makes you think again.
DeleteYes there is ambiguity but I think the real point of the narrative is to present us with genuine sentience arising in machines, suggesting, of course, that not only have they been built to look and sound like us, they have been built to experience as we do.
ReplyDeleteFarfetched given today's technology but not so much if we understand consciousness as Dennett explains it. And the point here is, you know, what if?
Anyway, the story line is uneven, repetitive (suggesting some future revelation will eventually emerge) and dark. But it is a fascinating series to watch and think about.
I don’t watch the series, but a couple of things just came to mind. Whether a simulated malevolence is “wrong” might be a function of ethics we are already familiar with. It might depend upon how the person processes it. Is it just an escape that doesn’t otherwise negatively affect relations with humans in the real world? Or does it desensitize. I’m thinking here about military training or experience. I’m also thinking about debauchery or gluttony, because I assume killing isn’t the only thing they do with the robots. I think the key to all of this isn’t the robots, it’s the similulation part. What creates the conundrum is that the central thing about murder being bad is gone — people are not actually dying. I think this same conundrum is what afterlife ethics is based upon. The idea, e.g., that Jesus saved all of us from the sins of this form of life— because it was, after all, just this form of life. Anyway, I didn’t express myself well here. I’m just trying to say that the ethics of simulation are always going to be curious because of this feature. The only thing that is real here is the effect it has upon its consumers (in future behavior).
ReplyDelete... I thought of one more thing. Think of these actors who actually do “get into character.” I’m thinking of Jim Carey playing Andy Kaufman. Or of Joe Peschi’s violent and racist characters. Think of what really good actors do to simulate and even become malevolent for its own sake. And now I am thinking to myself what I would be like if Westworld were real. I.e., if I paid to go to a place where I could simulate malevolent behavior just for its own sake. There is something about the variable of “simulation” that really throws a wrench into a discussion about ethics. And I think it has to do with one’s identity otherwise being preserved. Such that, behavior at Westworld could only ever be immoral if one’s identity (self) were otherwise in danger of real corruption in the first place. What we say here is something like this: the best actors are a little crazy, just as the best comics are a little disturbed. And as long as they make good actors or comics, we speak of this in terms of their talent, not in terms of morality. And so it is with Westworld. We speak of it as escapism for the kind of thing we would never actually be. Who would go to Westworld and be moral in the first place?
DeleteSean, one character, the young William, tries desperately to retain his moral compass while there (though the way the narrative is structured you don't realize that this William is actually a younger version of the mysterious man in black, a particularly vicious guest). He is overwhelmed by the violence and amoral nature of his encounter with the AI hosts. So, at least in this story, moral inclinations can be retained and even exercised in the amoral theme park that is Westworld.
DeleteI note that you speak of the danger of the corruption of the self, of falling into the vicious, amoral mindset the theme park is meant to enable in its guests. But the ethical question, it seems to me, at least,is why anything people do in the park, by shedding their inhibitions, should count as "corruption" at all.
Why, that is, should we think of callous cruelty towards others, indifference toward their suffering, etc. as bad? We do, of course (or the narrative woukd have no resonance) but why should we, if it turns out we don't feel that way in the first place?
Nor is it enough, I would say, to reply that that's just how we feel or have been taught to feel because what if it isn't, or we haven't? The point of moral judgment is to tell us what we should feel (and do) if we don't, to give us a compelling reason, one that carries within it something we would accept as a reason to be one way rather than another.
Just because YOU feel a certain way, or those around you do, is never a reason, in and of itself, for you to. A desire to conform or being coerced by others within the society in which I am embedded can give me reasons, but they are not moral ones, not reasons that hold if the coercion of general opinion, or overt coercion via threat or law enforcement, are not strong enough. If I think I can get away with doing something I am otherwise convinced is bad, as in Westworld, why should I care about moral judgments which say I should not?
In the end, moral claims must be of the type that we rationally choose to follow. External coercion, whether overt or implicit, can never be a moral reason and so cannot help in the moral game.
Yes, but shooting at machines doesn't matter. It matters in the Westworld narrative only because the machines seem to be like us. If they are just clever simulations without an inner life, then the issue you and Duncan allude to would seem to be the whole picture, in which case all we are talking about is preserving our ethical sensibilities. But why are those sensibilities even a morsl problem. Here it looks more like an aesthetic question.
ReplyDeleteKant argued somewhat along these lines, that animals, lacking rationality, could have no claim on us for moral treatment but we ought to treat them well anyway because, as you note Sean, behaving abominably to them desensitizes ourselves towards others (though given Kant's emphasis on the good will being the will to follow the categorical imperative, his fundamental moral law, despite whatever we may feel, it's hard to square his approach to the ethical treatment of animals (understood as following the categorical imperative towards them) with an argument hinging on that imperative. After all, if the only true ethical good is following Kant's maxim to act with full rationality, there's no reason to worry about coarsening our sensibilities by maltreating the non-rational since it's the good will, not our sensibilities, that matter.
In Westworld the question posed, it seems to me, is only partly about what acting towards machine simulations abusively and cruelly does to us. There really wouldn't be any reason to refrain from such behavior with simulations if that's all they are. But it's the fact that we are shown not just their behavior, which seems to express feelings, but that, in fact, they possess an inner life. That makes them more than simulations and the behavior of the guests toward them not just desensitizing but immoral.
You should take the show in Sean. Though uneven at times it is certainly thought provoking.
There is a question of what behaving badly (e.g., cruelly) towards simulations does to us. There is also a question of what doing so, or really wanting to do so, reveals about us. Ethics can seem to be all about what kind of person one is, and how one treats extraordinarily lifelike simulations of people seems to reveal (almost) as much about what kind of person one is as how one treats real people does.
DeleteOn the other hand, as Sean mentions, no one actually dies in a simulated murder. Which is a HUGE difference. All the difference in the world, you might say.
I think both what happens and what kind of person one is matter, and matter very much. But it's easy to get sucked into thinking that only one or the other matters. And I'm not sure that it's enough to say that both matter, since there seems to be a radical difference between the two kinds of concern. It's the kind of difference that makes it hard to care about both at the same time. That is, if we care about what happens in the world then how can it possibly matter what kind of person anyone is in a purely internal sense? But if we start to think in a Hume/Krishna/Jesus kind of way (by which I mean focusing not on the effects of one's actions in the world but on something like character, will (I could add Kant to that list of unlikely bedfellows), or soul) then the effects of what one does seem, in some sense, irrelevant. So it's hard to say Yes to the view that A matters and B is irrelevant and to the view that A is irrelevant and only B matters. Somehow that's what I want to do though.
But why would we say that a person is a bad person if there were not something already bad in how they behave? And, if so, what can that be?
DeleteI'd argue it's to do with how we treat others and that that implies other subjects with mental lives.
Westworld resonates, to the extent it does (it is rather far fetched on the technology front) because the simulations aren't just simulations, they are real because they have mental lives (awareness, feelings, etc.). Mistreating them to the point of torture and murder and then bringing them back without the recollection of what they went through isn't excusable just because they don't actually die (or rather are revivable) or don't remember past pain (though the narrative hinges on the fact that they really do because it affects their reprogrammed selves).
As long as there is pain on their part there is wrongdoing on the guests' part, whether they tell themselves otherwise or not. And it cannot just be that they damage their own moral standing or their psyches or characters by giving in to such cruel impulses when they act them out. There has to be a reason cruelty is bad and that giving into it is wrong, corrupting, etc. Otherwise ethics can be no more than and that is pretty subjective.
For ethics to work, it has to have something objective about it (even if we are prepared to acknowledge that human experience is limited to humans or creatures like us). Ethics can't just about be what you or I or Sean feel is right -- because, when we don't, we still think we are morally culpable and, more, that we (or others) have a moral obligation to adjust how we feel, to avoid doing the things that corrupt us.
I think you have it right, that ethics looks inward, to the character or "soul" of the person but, of course, we are not isolated from our world but part of it and so looking inward cannot disregard the effects we have on the world. Motives matter because agential behavior is motivated.
But I agree that the religious narratives we learn, and sometimes believe, are the place to look for an insight into the ethical dimension of our lives. The particular metaphysics seem less important to me than the underlying sense of being a subject and what that means in a world of other subjects. So I would look there to explicate ethics, the subjectness which defines our mode of being (and so acting) in the world.
Sorry I omitted a word in the post above. This statement should read " Otherwise ethics can be no more than [aesthetics] and that is pretty subjective."
DeleteThe missing term "aesthetics," which I accidentally cut in my editing of what I wrote, is an important part of the point I wanted to make.
Thanks, I wondered what the missing word was. I do think of ethics as being closely related to aesthetics, but my view of aesthetics is not the same as everyone else's, so it might not be helpful of me to say this.
DeleteI agree with you that "The particular metaphysics seem less important to me than the underlying sense of being a subject and what that means in a world of other subjects."
Thanks. I would say that ethics is grounded in our feelings, in the subjective but that that can't be all there is to it. To the extent it's a form of valuing, ethics must involve having, giving and accepting reasons. And this goes beyond merely feeling positively or negatively about something.
ReplyDeleteTo be a form of valuing, rather than just another expression of how we feel (which, I think, an aesthetic account would make it), there must be a basis for choosing not just one type of action over another but also one sort of feeling. We are not merely passive vessels of what we feel but take an active part in shaping our feelings through the things we choose to do and how we think about them.
Ethics seems to me to be as much about shaping our way of thinking about the world as about choosing courses of action.
Ethical choices are only one kind of choice we make, of course, but choosing (rather than just reacting) requires reasons and reasons must be thought. How we think and what we think is partly a function of the world we encounter around us but it's not wholly that, especially when the issue is how we should behave towards other things (including others like ourselves).
By the way, I'd be interested in your take on aesthetics. I tend to view aesthetics as subjective, as finding certain types of things emotionally satisfying through their sensuous appeal. But Schopenhauer had a different take, suggesting aesthetics is a phenomenon involving personal elevation, that experiencing works of art or scenes of great beauty, take us out of ourselves and into a different way of relating to the world. Is this your view, too?
I agree that the latter is often part of our aesthetic experiences (we do feel elevated at times by, achieving a sense of connection with something that we think of as "sublime"). But I can't see how this can be anything other than subjective. Some things have that effect on me, some on you and some, perhaps, produce in us similar effects. In this, isn't the aesthetic experience (seeing or hearing something of great beauty) basically subjective? The things you find beautiful (or otherwise moving) may leave me cold, and vice versa.
It's true that what moves one person will not move another, and probably sometimes there's not much more to be said about the matter. (Although it's also possible that real connoisseurs could say a lot about it.) But sometimes I am left cold because of a failure on my part, and sometimes these failures can be corrected. I might be failing to see something, or might not know enough about the context in which the work in question was produced. I might, for instance, fail to appreciate the subtlety of a work, and a patient friend might help me to see it. At least sometimes, this involves pointing out features that really are there to be perceived. So it isn't arbitrary, even if it is subjective. And it is not something that has nothing to do with reason.
DeleteReasons come to an end though. Eventually something is going to have be accepted as good or bad, in both ethics and aesthetics. An act might be shown to be bound to cause great pain or destruction, and still not everyone will care. And I don't see how it could be possible to prove that they ought to care. Unless we count as such a proof the proof that the act would cause great destruction. But that won't move everyone, since not everyone is good and/or rational.
Thanks. We are largely in agreement on aesthetics though perhaps not on the emphasis I place on the role of giving and accepting reasons in the ethical sphere. Reasons certainly come to an end at some point but that doesn't mean there can be valuing without giving reasons, whether in the realm of ethics or any other type. But perhaps the answer lies in our ability to jump from one type of reason to another. After all, nothing compels us to give reasons only within the confines of the syllogism.
Deletenothing compels us to give reasons only within the confines of the syllogism
DeleteThis is certainly true. And perhaps I overemphasize the end of giving reasons. (I still think it does come to an end though.)
I don't know, Duncan. I can't imagine telling someone that something is good or right, beautiful or true (or their opposites) and making sense unless I can also tell them why. If I tell someone that THIS is a good book but can't say why, is the claim about the book even intelligible? The same, I think, applies to ascriptions of rightness to an action. If pressed for a reason and I can only reply, because I think so, can anyone take me seriously?
DeleteIt's not that our reasons must all be of the same order but reasons, it seems to me, form the backbone of evaluation. If all I can say is this is how I feel, how am I different from any other animal with drives and preferences and behavioral instincts except that I happen to have language at my disposal?
But doesn't that bring something ekse to the game, i.e., an ability to speak (and so think) about an extended world? And isn't integrating our wants and needs into that world what valuing, as such, amounts to?
Isn't valuing necessarily about more than this immediate moment and its sensory inputs? Doesn't language turn our drives and preferences, whatever their provenance, into valuations? Could we even have concepts like goodness and badness, etc., without a language?
One can argue tgat concepts cannot be possible at all without language and I think that's true. But isn't valuation part of concept formation and use? If so, doesn't it make sense to treat valuationas a necessary pillar supporting the capacity to reason?
I can't imagine telling someone that something is good or right, beautiful or true (or their opposites) and making sense unless I can also tell them why
DeleteI think I can. Here are some examples.
1. We are having a meal with lots of unfamiliar dishes, some of them not to our liking. I take a bite of something and tell you, "This is good." Must I have more to say, except that I like it, in order to make sense? Isn't my remark perfectly intelligible?
2. A child is unhappy, perhaps again because of having to eat unfamiliar food. I give her a piece of candy that I know is just sugar, assuring her that it is good. Doesn't this make sense without my being able to explain why sugar tastes good?
3. There is doubt about whether someone really said a certain thing. I was there when they said it, and assure you that the claim that they said it is true. Must I be able to explain why it is true?
It's true that there can be a lot to be said about what is good about something. But what's so good about sweet or salty tastes, or what's so bad about pain, is very hard to say. I also think that the logic of explanation requires a stopping point, otherwise every explanation is incomplete.
Hmmm, yes, in #1 where all we mean by "this is good" is "I like it." For that kind of usage goodness equals liking (it's a matter of taste). In #2 the issue isn't why sugar tastes good (a question of chemistry and, perhaps, something deeper and possibly unanswerable, i.e., why anything tastes any way at all). But like the example in 1 the point seems to be about tasting which is clearly subjective.
DeleteIf I say to someone "this piece of chocolate really tastes good" and they say why do you think so, what makes it good, I can answer it has a wonderful flavor. If they say well I don't like the way it tastes then again we come back to questions of taste. In matters like this, saying "I like chocolate" or "I like how chocolate tastes" is equivalent to saying, "mmm, this is good".
In #3, the question of truth, reliable testimony (from eyewitnesses and/or competent authorities when the matter is more complex) are acceptable measures of what's true. While some things we know by having been there, seen it, etc., not everything is knowable in this way and we accept competent testimony as support for truth claims.
So, on balance, I would say that there ARE reasons we can give, only the reasons differ in different cases. Most uses of "good" or "true" are pretty open and shut in this way. We know what kinds of answers to give when presented with why questions. Some ideas of goodness, however, are more problematic.
What kind of answer do I give concerning a symphony or a painting or a book? It's generally not enough to say "well I like it" though in the aesthetic case, which these latter examples reflect, there is the subjective element, too. Still, we think more is required. Why do you recommend that book? Because it has X and Y and Z which make it quite enjoyable.
But in the moral case, subjectivity undermines claims of moral goodness. So is moral goodness really not a separate kind of goodness? Is it just the kind that reflects how we feel about something at the time we articulate it or a variation of prudential considerations? I would argue that applying either of these criteria destroys any notion of moral goodness. If murder or human sacrifice or theft (at least in particular situations) are wrong then they must be so no matter what the practices of any particular culture are. If we say well, I just don't like human sacrifice or enslaving others, etc., but hey, that's just me, do what you like, doesn't this abrogate the force of the moral claim against such acts? If enslaving others is like preferring chocolate ice cream to vanilla, then there can't be moral standards in the sense we understand them at all.
Yes there are stopping points. But different sorts of goodness claims stop in different places. It's enough to announce that chocolate is good because I like how it tastes. But it cannot be enough to say slavery is bad because it bothers me! The two cases cannot be the same and still preserve the force of the latter claim.
In #2 the issue isn't why sugar tastes good (a question of chemistry and, perhaps, something deeper and possibly unanswerable, i.e., why anything tastes any way at all).
DeleteI think it's important to separate the question of chemistry from the aesthetic question. The former is objective, scientific, and causal. The latter is not. "Why do you like it?" can mean either what causes you to like it (a scientific question) or what is it that you like about it (an aesthetic question). My point was that sweet tastes just seem to be something that (most) people like, and there is (usually) nothing more to be said about why, i.e. about what it is about sweetness that appeals.
What kind of answer do I give concerning a symphony or a painting or a book? It's generally not enough to say "well I like it" though in the aesthetic case, which these latter examples reflect, there is the subjective element, too. Still, we think more is required. Why do you recommend that book? Because it has X and Y and Z which make it quite enjoyable.
Right, in cases like this you can say you like X, or that X is good, because it has features a, b, and c. And perhaps you can say that a is good because of reasons 1 and 2. And so on. But eventually, if you keep going, you will reach a point where all you can say is that such-and-such a feature just is good, or just is something that you like, or just is something that many people like.
But in the moral case, subjectivity undermines claims of moral goodness.
I continue not to see why.
If murder or human sacrifice or theft (at least in particular situations) are wrong then they must be so no matter what the practices of any particular culture are.
I have no objection to this.
If we say well, I just don't like human sacrifice or enslaving others, etc., but hey, that's just me, do what you like
Why on earth would anyone say this? Just like the aesthetic case, there are reasons that can be given as to why something is bad. But eventually, as is also the case in science and mathematics and logic, the possibility of giving further reasons will end. Asking why deliberately punishing an innocent person is unjust (or why injustice is bad) is like asking why 2 + 2 = 4 or why it follows from "All men are mortal" and "Socrates is a man" that "Socrates is a man". Perhaps I'm oversimplifying slightly. Perhaps more can be said in some or all of these cases than "That's just how it is." But at some point, eventually, we will either stop asking Why? or else have to be told that this is just the way things are. This invalidates nothing.
If enslaving others is like preferring chocolate ice cream to vanilla
It isn't like this, and I have never said that it is. Preferring chocolate to vanilla is like thinking that fraud is worse than robbery, or vice versa. It's arbitrary. Acknowledging the evil of slavery is not arbitrary. Reasons can be given as to why it is not just bad but extremely bad. One's ability to understand those reasons, though, and one's likeliness of caring about them, will depend on features (e.g. empathy) that one may or may not have.
One's ability to understand those reasons, though, and one's likeliness of caring about them, will depend on features (e.g. empathy) that one may or may not have.
DeleteYes, moral judgment rests on having certain feelings and the reasons we give for our moral claims are grounded in having them. When we, or others don't, the reasons don't work.
The moral problem (what is the right thing to do?) thus hinges on the role of having and acting on feelings and on whether we are the victims of what we feel, justified or not solely based on whether we feel this way and not another, or the master of them? Are the feelings we have within our power to develop and cultivate in ourselves?
I would argue that feelings, while often present due to factors not directly within our own control (genetic predisposition, cultural acclimation, education, etc.), are also a function of the choices we make and thus are cultivatable (which seems uncontroversial if you think about it; Aristotle certainly considered habit formation and its impact on how we feel about things a key component in moral decision making). I think it's reasonable to suppose that our actions are not merely the outgrowth of how we feel about things, that they are also a means by which we develop and alter how we feel. In that case the moral question comes down to something else, something we may want to call a "spiritual" sort of question.
It's not just about whether we do feel that slavery is wrong but whether we should, and whether there's a reason for that which would be found in an argument about the nature of what it means to be a human being (or, better, a creature like us).
So I guess I'm saying that the moral finds its ground in the spiritual and that the spiritual (not necessarily bound to any particular religious or mystical point of view but perhaps consistent with some of them) is accessible in a discursive way, too. Thus, moral reasons grow from spiritual ones.
Oh sorry, in my haste I was sloppy again. Correction:
Delete"The moral problem (what is the right thing to do?) thus hinges on the role of having and acting on feelings plays for us and on whether we are the victims of what we feel, justified or not, solely based on whether we feel this way and not another, on whether we are the master of our feelings or their victims? Are the feelings we have within our power to develop and cultivate in ourselves?"
It's not just about whether we do feel that slavery is wrong but whether we should, and whether there's a reason for that
DeleteAgreed. So an important part of ethics concerns the cultivation of emotional dispositions, as Aristotle and Mengzi argue. But deciding what people should be like seems very likely to involve an evaluative component over which people might disagree. Purely rational discussion (if there is, or could be, such a thing) seems unlikely to settle the matter.
Duncan I find this to be a really really helpful account. This is very well said. Thank you for such a wonderful composition. I think it very much nails the issue.
ReplyDelete———————————
“It's true that what moves one person will not move another, and probably sometimes there's not much more to be said about the matter. (Although it's also possible that real connoisseurs could say a lot about it.) But sometimes I am left cold because of a failure on my part, and sometimes these failures can be corrected. I might be failing to see something, or might not know enough about the context in which the work in question was produced. I might, for instance, fail to appreciate the subtlety of a work, and a patient friend might help me to see it. At least sometimes, this involves pointing out features that really are there to be perceived. So it isn't arbitrary, even if it is subjective. And it is not something that has nothing to do with reason.
Reasons come to an end though.”
Thanks very much!
Delete@Duncan Richter
ReplyDelete"I can't imagine telling someone that something is good or right, beautiful or true (or their opposites) and making sense unless I can also tell them why."
It becomes necessary to give reasons in support when the proposition (assertion, judgment, etc.) is problematic, when it is contested or questioned. This would apply to any of your 3 examples, or any other. More generally, the judgment of success (truth, acceptability, sincerity, etc.) of any expressed proposition depends on something else beyond the proposition itself (i.e., the meaning of the sentence uttered). Even the simplest sentence is in this position; e.g., "Joe's cap is red.", when speaker and hearer can both perceive clearly the color of Joe's cap. For example, say the question is which college football team the color of Joe's hat indicates support of, Ohio State or Indiana, and the sentence is "Joe's hat is crimson.", and the other person says, "no, it's scarlet." The logical criteria for the evaluation of these judgments are the same as for the simpler one, and essentially the same for other types of claims (e.g., in addition to descriptive (knowledge) claims, appeal to rules, as in ethical judgment, or sincerity conditions in subjective judgments (maybe you don't really think the cake is good), etc.). I've purposely made these statements as bold as possible, so I am hoping for counterexamples.
JPL
The logical criteria for the evaluation of these judgments are the same as for the simpler one, and essentially the same for other types of claims (e.g., in addition to descriptive (knowledge) claims, appeal to rules, as in ethical judgment, or sincerity conditions in subjective judgments (maybe you don't really think the cake is good), etc.).
DeleteThere are rules (of use) in every case, surely, or language wouldn't work (we could not understand each other). But here, it seems to me, the question is which rules underlie our assertions in the different cases. The rules for evaluative claims about flavors are different from those to do with observations. Aesthetic judgments are more complex than judgments of flavor of course, even though they are about the same sorts of thing.
Wine tasting or the chocolatier's assessment rests on discerning a finer grain of detail in the object tasted than the child (or adult's) delight in what u s being tasted. It may be enough to say 'this is good' to the host at a dinner table, to the waiter in the restaurant ('my compliments to the chef!') or to a friend across the table where the meaning intened is 'I like this,' but this seems inadequate if we are speaking to a fellow chef or connoisseur. Here what's wanted is an analysis, a breakdown of the constituent elements that make something pleasing to the palate, or a book worth spending time with, or a show or symphony worth attending.
All judgment statements rest on reasons but different types of reasons underwite different kinds of claims. Moral judgments look to be a distinct type, where neither preference claims ('I like that') nor aesthetic claims ('this and this and this, either individually or in combination, cause us to like X') suffice. Moral claims lose their potency if understood in terms like these. So either moral judgments are merely a disguised form of these others or they are something else.
The Westworld example shows that there is a sensibility issue in play but is that enough to account for the moral case? It seems that it isn't when speaking in the moral register so either we are kidding ourselves when we make evaluative claims of a miral type (confusing preference questions with factual ones like that is red, not orange) or there is something else in play, something that confers a special kind of clout on moral judgments that is not available to taste or aesthetic judgments. Yet, arguably treating moral claims like truth claims seem to be ruled out, too, because there's nothing observable to test our assertions against.
All assertoric exchanges (language involves more than making assertions, of course) rest on our being able to offer reasons when asked for them and on their acceptability to our interlocutors as reasons. The question though is what sort of reasons count in the moral case and why.
It becomes necessary to give reasons in support when the proposition (assertion, judgment, etc.) is problematic, when it is contested or questioned.
DeleteYes, and sometimes such reasons can be given, other times they can't. As Stuart said above, sometimes "This is good" simply means "I like this." That makes perfectly good sense (in some contexts). And it makes sense to reply, when asked why, "I don't know. I just like it." This kind of response won't make for a very sophisticated dialogue about art or ethics, but it does make sense. And eventually, at the end of sophisticated dialogue (or perhaps before it can begin), we will need to accept, without explanation, that some things are good and others bad.
It may be enough to say 'this is good' to the host at a dinner table, to the waiter in the restaurant ('my compliments to the chef!') or to a friend across the table where the meaning intended is 'I like this,' but this seems inadequate if we are speaking to a fellow chef or connoisseur.
DeleteMaybe, but not necessarily. The connoisseur might simply agree. I think it's important to connoisseurship that some cases will be easily agreed upon by connoisseurs. As the prodigy begins to play the two judges just turn and smile at one another--this kid is the real deal. They could probably explain at length if they had to what is so good about the performance, but once you have mastered something you can sometimes tell right away and without difficulty whether something is done well or not. You might, indeed, have a very hard time saying what is good about it. But if experts agree that is prima facie reason to believe that the thing is good, and that this really is an area in which expertise is possible. If wine experts all disagreed wildly about which wines are good, this would be a reason to doubt that they are actually experts in anything other than sounding knowledgeable.
I'm not sure exactly how this connects with ethics, but we do largely agree on ethical questions without having to give long explanations. And this is important--ethics would be a very different thing if it always required lengthy, perhaps technical, explanations of why this or that is good or bad.
Perhaps the issue must start with exploring the role value claims play in discourse generally? What does it mean to call anything good, or right or beautiful or true? We look for something denoted by these terms but nothing turns up to answer to them. We apply different criteria in different contexts for making ascriptions using these terms, often the same terms but in very different cases. A good hammer isn't the same as a good dog or a good salesman or a good person or a good meal. The same word in all these cases is used in a similar way but to pick out different very features.
ReplyDeleteSo what's going on and how does the notion of moral goodness fit with these others? As I've suggested in the past, it seems to me that value ascriptions, including uses of the term "good," are just a way of informing others that we think there is a reason to choose, pursue,acquire or perform (depending on type) the referent we are calling "good." If we say "X is good" (or right or beautiful or true) what we mean is something like "there is something about X which is also a reason to choose X."
Of course, not every reason is equally good so our reasons are also subject to value ascription like any other referent, and, being the type of referent THEY are, other criteria are in play in their case than say the criteria for good hammers, books, meals, etc.
From this view that "good" just means "possessing one or more features that are reasons to choose that which has them," we can move to describing what kind of referential object is appropriate to moral ascriptions and what features they pick out. It seems to me that moral assessment is ascribable only to intentional behavior of a certain type and so to creatures capable of such behavior. Questions about the nature of moral judgment and about what counts as morally good and why can only be answered in this way.
But a good answer (one that satisfies the requisite criteria for explanations) must explain why we hold the moral beliefs we do and why we reject others. And it must provide us convincing reason(s) to accept or reject them.
A good moral account must tell us why slavery is good or bad, why murder is wrong, etc. It need not convince everyone all the time but it must make a cogent and coherent case that can convince if and when the conditions are right (we are rational, have accurate information about the case and are in an open frame of mind, i.e., in a listening mode).