tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post2752015634496219870..comments2024-02-20T12:26:24.682-05:00Comments on language goes on holiday: ConsequentialismDuncan Richterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comBlogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-71118974910229643612014-08-26T16:59:45.424-04:002014-08-26T16:59:45.424-04:00You're very welcome. I hope I can respond else...You're very welcome. I hope I can respond elsewhere soon.Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-31564129347750166352014-08-25T10:29:43.928-04:002014-08-25T10:29:43.928-04:00Yes philosophy is weedy. But some weeds require ot...Yes philosophy is weedy. But some weeds require other gardens and I don't want to intrude further on this one. So I have crafted a response elsewhere which, if you are interested, I'd be glad to have your comments on. Thanks again for the invaluable opportunity to exchange ideas with you.Stuart W. Mirskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12247784373895331173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-83067313106625735442014-08-25T08:34:54.116-04:002014-08-25T08:34:54.116-04:00Thanks, Stuart. Into the weeds sounds like the gen...Thanks, Stuart. Into the weeds sounds like the general direction of philosophy.Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-82823251396081388212014-08-24T11:05:18.631-04:002014-08-24T11:05:18.631-04:00Hi, Duncan, thanks for the exchange but I have the...Hi, Duncan, thanks for the exchange but I have the feeling it's getting too much into the weeds now. I have taken the liberty of addressing your concerns in more detail over on Sean's site, Serious Philosophy http://ludwig.squarespace.com/volume-15/ which Sean created as a forum for philosophical exchanges, particularly about Wittgensteinian concerns. There I feel somewhat freer to engage in a detailed response (plus the textual limit is non-existent so far as I have yet discovered). So perhaps, if you have the time, you might want to take a look at my response to your very reasonable concerns over there. (You already have the link to the article itself in the right hand column of this page.) Otherwise I won't continue to press my view in this exchange since it would be redundant (and unlikely to get us to a point where we are largely in agreement in any case). But I do think your concerns can be adequately answered. Thanks again for your patience and feedback! Stuart W. Mirskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12247784373895331173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-10178544739308546462014-08-24T10:41:26.005-04:002014-08-24T10:41:26.005-04:00Sorry, "what if we just talked about goodness...Sorry, "what <i>if</i> we just talked about goodness..."Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-87437117815135545152014-08-24T10:39:48.841-04:002014-08-24T10:39:48.841-04:00what makes it good on this account is that it prom...<i>what makes it good on this account is that it prompts certain pleasant experiences in you</i><br /><br />In that case the account is wrong. The pleasant experiences come from perception of goodness. The aesthetically valuable is not good because we like it. (People like all kinds of crap.) We like it because it is good. <br /><br /><i>what do we say if you happen to be among those human beings who take no pleasure in such things? Have you missed the intrinsic goodness of that view</i><br /><br />Yes.<br /><br /><i>But what if such an affect prompted you to forget an important obligation?</i><br /><br />Then we would have something in the minus column as well as something in the plus column. Indeed, the bad would be caused by the goodness of the good. Surely this is easily conceivable? I might be so impressed by an act of heroism that I observe that I forget what I'm doing and walk into traffic, which kills me. The act of heroism was no less heroic, and no less good, because of this.<br /><br /><i>Yet acts are complex phenomena in a way that beautiful scenes and sunsets are not, so learning to find some lovely and some repugnant must be more about conditioning than are our natural responses to beautiful or ugly things because we have to learn them in their complexity.</i><br /><br />I'm not persuaded. Learning to appreciate beauty in, say, classical music or literature can require a lot of education. Learning to appreciate kindness need not.<br /><br /><i>But conditioning cannot be the basis for moral claims without undermining the moral point.</i><br /><br />Why is this? I don't know about conditioning, but being socialized and educated might well be required in order for someone to see the goodness or badness in certain actions, surely. Knowing right from wrong is sometimes very easy and sometimes much less so. Or so it seems to me. <br /><br /><i>The whole notion of "intrinsic" goodness or badness just strikes me as a linguistic mistake.</i><br /><br />What of we just talked about goodness and badness instead? I don't mind saying "murder is bad" instead of "murder is intrinsically bad." But if someone then claims that murder is only bad because of its consequences then I might object. Murder itself, the deliberate killing of an innocent person by another human being, is, other beings equal (and I might even omit this clause), bad. If this kind of claim is rejected then I'm not really sure what we mean by 'good' and 'bad' any more. Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-22032195757485156542014-08-24T10:20:12.149-04:002014-08-24T10:20:12.149-04:00I don't think supposing some forms of goodness...<i>I don't think supposing some forms of goodness are intrinsic while others aren't gets us any further</i><br /><br />It might not get us anywhere. But it's not a supposition that I'm choosing to make in order to advance some project. It seems to me to be a given, a fact that any adequate account needs to take into account.<br /><br /><i>Perhaps where we truly differ then is in how we choose to talk about these things</i><br /><br />Perhaps. But to my mind the lesser of two evils is still evil. Its being less evil than some alternative does not make it good. Indeed, that one of two evils is evil and that evil is not good are statements whose denial I could make little sense of.Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-21571146389428334712014-08-23T16:13:46.171-04:002014-08-23T16:13:46.171-04:00A great view is good because . . .?
Well it's...A great view is good because . . .?<br /><br />Well it's pleasing to look at in an especially satisfying way. Or it's a good place to stand if you want to see the sun come up, or to consider a pleasing expanse of valley. In the first case (as also in the case of the valley) what's good is what pleases you. In the second case, say the vantage point you have discovered, the view from there is instrumentally good, i.e., it affords you a place from which to watch something you find pleasing. So if the instrumental ascription covers extrinsic goodness, then does the image that pleases you cover the intrinsic?<br /><br />But what is meant in this latter case? After all, what makes it good on this account is that it prompts certain pleasant experiences in you, maybe a happy memory or sense of awe or perhaps mere delight at the lay of the land. If this is the sort of thing you have in mind by "intrinsic" goodness then what do we say if you happen to be among those human beings who take no pleasure in such things? Have you missed the intrinsic goodness of that view or is the goodness in its affect on you and not the valley or sunset you're looking at at all? If in the affect, then is being so affected intrinsically good? But what if such an affect prompted you to forget an important obligation? Distracted you from someone who needed you, or became so important to you that you stopped doing other things more important to your well being? Is having a feeling of awe or delight or being taken with something beautiful (as Moore ultimately thought) intrinsically good? Are claims of moral goodness like that, too, i. e., equivalent to being taken with something that pleases our senses or being repelled by what disgusts us?<br /><br />Yet acts are complex phenomena in a way that beautiful scenes and sunsets are not, so learning to find some lovely and some repugnant must be more about conditioning than are our natural responses to beautiful or ugly things because we have to learn them in their complexity. Learning to find "intrinsic" goodness or badness in actions must be about learning to grasp and attend to contexts. That is, it looks like more conditioning is involved in this case than in cases of aesthetic responses (though both involve some conditioning).<br /><br />But conditioning cannot be the basis for moral claims without undermining the moral point. So if it's about something " intrinsic," even if we can't say what that is, I don't see how it can support the moral game. The whole notion of "intrinsic" goodness or badness just strikes me as a linguistic mistake.Stuart W. Mirskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12247784373895331173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-32892163811868103752014-08-23T14:00:00.243-04:002014-08-23T14:00:00.243-04:00Perhaps we differ in that I think to get at what m...Perhaps we differ in that I think to get at what moral valuing is, how it works, what counts as a legitimate moral claim and what doesn't, we first have to give can account of valuing per se. And there I'd say it's a matter of what satisfies our needs, desires, etc. That is, valuing is the rational side of wanting, needing, etc. It's what happens when a rational creature thinks about itself in the world. Dogs like and want things just as we do but they don't value or have values. So at its most basic level, valuing is just what happens when an experiencing creature reaches the point where it can picture, think about, its world. (Brandom makes a point rather like this, and I think he's correct.) But not all valuing is equal and moral judgments present us with a special case because they typically have the form of one valuing creature being concerned for the interests of another which is hard to explain on the self-interest model which covers other valuing cases. Now not all moral value claims do that, but I think such instances represent the problem case.<br /><br />Typically valuing is about figuring out which something is most likely to satisfy the valuer's need or want. But moral valuing seems to run against this grain because, if THAT'S the basis of a moral judgment, then a whole lot of moral claims can't be supported and some claims, which seem counter intuitive to our moral judgments, seem to be okay.<br /><br />Straight up non-moral valuing can be understood as instrumental judgments: What's good is what works to bring about the most desired or desirable result. But because that often produces seemingly non-moral outcomes, we end up trying to justify moral claims instrumentally (via utilitarianism, say) or else conclude there is something extra special about the moral, that it's about things that are good in themselves (intrinsically good) or it's some special, non-natural quality or, invoking a naturalist rejection of Moore'solution, we really can equate whatever it is we take to be morally good with something natural, some state or condition which is definable as part of the natural world.<br /><br />I don't think supposing some forms of goodness are intrinsic while others aren't gets us any further than positing an intuited non-natural quality. It's subject to the same sort of criticism, namely how do we learn that it's intrinsic except by being taught it is, in which case what is being taught other than we should think this way and not another?<br /><br />I agree with you that sometimes an otherwise bad thing to do is really the right thing to do, maybe because it's the LESS bad thing under the circumstances. But then I would say that it's morally right, i.e., morally good in spite of having some bad consequences or making me feel bad, or guilty, for doing it! Perhaps where we truly differ then is in how we choose to talk about these things? For me moral goodness is a special case of goodness which brings different issues into play than other cases and the way to get at that is to examine the moral case in light of those cases which carry no (or only slight) moral implications for us.Stuart W. Mirskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12247784373895331173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-45677914037861179492014-08-23T10:13:22.229-04:002014-08-23T10:13:22.229-04:00I can think of no case where any possible descript...<i>I can think of no case where any possible description of a thing will always yield the notion that it's good. </i><br /><br />Me neither, but I'm not sure why this matters.<br /><br />When I talk about murder I don't mean in the legal sense but in the moral sense. I'm not sure whether pre-emptive killing of a would-be murderer is murder in that sense (I find the example hard to imagine), but it might be. Then I would say qua murder it is an evil act, qua self-defense (or defense of others) it is OK. All things considered it might be OK. But it would still have something bad about it.<br /><br /><i>If I drink the water one consequence is that I've taken hold of the cup and another is that I've poured the water down my throat </i><br /><br />We're using the word 'consequence' in different ways. I mean it as an event or state of affairs that comes after the act. Picking up the glass does not come after drinking. It is part of the act. You can use the word that way, but we might misunderstand each other if we aren't clear about this.<br /><br /><i>Well if you taste the soup and say "phew, this tastes like sewer water" and push it away, haven't you indicated it's bad, not good, and that that's a reason you're not going to eat it?</i><br /><br />Yes, if we change the example then it doesn't make the same point!<br /><br /><i>When we think something is good or not, what are we really saying? I argue that all we're ever really doing is telling others there's some reason to choose the thing or not. </i><br /><br />Maybe so. But when we <i>say</i> that something is good are we always giving advice in this way? I don't think so. Think of eating a really tasty doughnut or having an itch scratched. Exclaiming "oh, that's good" is surely not telling others that there's some reason to choose the thing. There might not be any others around, for one thing. And this can apply to moral cases. I might read about some act of charity or justice and exclaim "Good!" as I do so. <br /><br /><i>It all has to do with how the thing strikes us in terms of our needs, wants, etc.</i><br /><br />Can't things strike us as intrinsically good, as good without reference to our needs, wants, etc? It seems to me that this is exactly how things often strike us. If I see a great view it strikes me as good. I do not think at all about the thing in relation to my wants, etc. Of course there <i>is</i> some such relation, but I am not thinking about it. Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-204395188432577032014-08-23T09:47:57.933-04:002014-08-23T09:47:57.933-04:00What counts as intrinsic goodness and how do we as...<i>What counts as intrinsic goodness and how do we ascertain its presence?</i><br /><br />I don't know. I don't think anybody does.<br /><br /><i>If murder is intrinsically bad and love intrinsically good, then there should be no cases where murder is a good thing and love bad. </i><br /><br />'Intrinsically' doesn't mean absolutely or infinitely. I do think that murder is always bad and love is always good, but it's still possible for murder to be the lesser of two evils in some situation, or for it to be a bad thing that one particular person loves some other particular person. For instance, I'm married so it would be bad if I fell in love with someone other than my wife. I still think that that love would be intrinsically good even though the overall situation would be bad. Peanuts are good, but it's not good if they are consumed by people who are allergic to them. Does this mean that they are not intrinsically good? I don't think so. It just means that 'intrinsically' doesn't mean 'so overwhelmingly as to make context utterly irrelevant'. Other things being equal, a world with peanuts is better than a world without them.Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-38392959049013185302014-08-22T21:08:12.621-04:002014-08-22T21:08:12.621-04:00What counts as intrinsic goodness and how do we as...What counts as intrinsic goodness and how do we ascertain its presence? If we can't give an account of that, what are we actually claiming? That it's intrinsically good (or bad) because we think so?<br /><br />I guess that's part of what seems incoherent to me because, when we actually set out to say what we mean, we end up having to talk about contexts and consequences. If murder is intrinsically bad and love intrinsically good, then there should be no cases where murder is a good thing and love bad. Yet it seems to me that there are such cases. And every case of describing one or the other always involves describing events, circumstances, etc. I can think of neither in the abstract and, more, it seems to me that it's always the concrete instances that have goodness or badness.<br /><br />Resorting to an instrumentalist account, which entirely grounds the alleged goodness of anything in consequences, seems to be the very antithesis of moral goodness because instrumentalism is always self-interested which seems to run counter to any ordinary notion of how moral goodness works. But does that mean the only other option open to us to explain the basis for asserting moral goodness must be intrinsicness? If we acknowledge the role of consequences but find them in the intentions underlying any agential act, rather than in world-based outcomes, then I think we can have this cake and eat it, too. We can make a case for non-instrumental goodness without positing intrinsicness which, to me at least, smacks of the same sort of problem as Moore's "non-natural quality."Stuart W. Mirskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12247784373895331173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-81576264309444875572014-08-22T16:16:22.780-04:002014-08-22T16:16:22.780-04:00"Can't I intend to do something without t..."<em>Can't I intend to do something without thinking about what the consequences of doing it will be? If I'm thirsty and I drink I'm doing it because I want to, not because I have ideas about the consequences of drinking. </em>"<br /><br />Consequences, I would say, are where we draw them. More, no single act can ever provide us with a finite (or at least predictable) list of consequences. If I drink the water one consequence is that I've taken hold of the cup and another is that I've poured the water down my throat and another that I've ceased to be thirsty (or drank it so fast I started to choke!). And I thought about those outcomes because I have experience in drinking. I don't have to work them out though and yet, asked afterwards for the reason I drank that water, wouldn't I answer because I was thirsty? And if I would do that, doesn't that mean I knew what I was about when I reached for the glass?<br /><br />None of these seem to have moral implications though. But suppose I reach for the water when there's a person literally dying of thirst (fresh from having survived untold days in a desert) nearby and do it in order to drink it before he can, to quench my thirst, knowing that he was in dire need of that water.<br /><br />Then there's another consequence, namely that I deprived him of something he needed much more than I did. If I didn't realize I was doing this, I would say the only moral implication is what I do when I do realize it. Do I apologize or seek to secure him his own glass of water? Or do I slough my action off as tough luck on him?<br /><br />Aren't we always thinking about consequences only sometimes we have different ideas about what they will be than the facts may warrant?<br /><br />"<em>If I taste some soup and say it's mmm-mmm good am I saying that there is reason to eat it? Someone else might infer that, but it surely isn't what I'm saying.</em>"<br /><br />Well if you taste the soup and say "phew, this tastes like sewer water" and push it away, haven't you indicated it's bad, not good, and that that's a reason you're not going to eat it? If you think it tastes good, on the other hand, that <em>is</em> a reason to eat it though it may not be the most compelling reason or the only one available to you.<br /><br />Perhaps it's some kind of medicinal concoction and the fact that it tastes like sewer water isn't a relevant consideration if eating it can make you well, in which case <em>that's</em> a reason to eat it and, depending on what you're trying to achieve, the reason you need to proceed in swallowing the swill!<br /><br />When we think something is good or not, what are we really saying? I argue that all we're ever really doing is telling others there's some reason to choose the thing or not. It doesn't follow that there aren't different sorts of goodness or badness and that we can't weigh them up against one another to pick the one that matters in the circumstance. All that's happening, I'd say, is that, by calling some thing "good," we are informing others (or ourselves) that the thing stands in a certain relation to us such that, all other things being equal, it has some feature or features which provide us with a reason to choose it. And if that's so, then there's nothing intrinsic about any of this. It all has to do with how the thing strikes us in terms of our needs, wants, etc., both long term and short.Stuart W. Mirskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12247784373895331173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-85905234957189746012014-08-22T16:15:45.010-04:002014-08-22T16:15:45.010-04:00If these elements are events can't we say the ...<em> If these elements are events can't we say the same thing about them? Isn't an event a complex phenomenon?</em><br /><br />Sure we can, and do. The issue is what is intrinsic about any of them? As with an action, its elements are likewise subject to description as complex phenomena and that is somewhat arbitrary but nowhere includes something called "intrinsic goodness." I can think of no case where any possible description of a thing will always yield the notion that it's good. <br /><br />Of course, there are descriptions which contain, within them, certain emotive content. Murder, as you have pointed out, pretty much carries a negative connotation. Still I can imagine cases of killing rightly called "murder" which I'd want to call "good." As a convention of language, we tend not to think of some of these as murder. Cases of self-defense aren't murder generally, but suppose you overheard someone planning to kill you and your family and had every reason to believe he or she would and could do it. But his or her plans aren't legally culpable actions yet, they're just words and people change their minds and other events often intervene. Speech is not action in law even if it is for some philosophers!<br /><br />Here you happen to be in a position to know that this person, say he's a member of ISIL, plans to do what you have overheard and only you know that. And you have a chance to strike pre-emptively so he cannot succeed. Wouldn't you do it, even knowing full well that in the eyes of the law it's murder?<br /><br />Wouldn't you be prepared to take the consequences if you had to, just to save those you loved? Even if you would agree that the law is right because it can't see into the minds of citizens, still the morally right thing to do is to commit that murder. Murder in the abstract is surely a bad thing. But the case isn't abstract but real and happening to you and your loved ones.<br /><br />So I would say there are cases in which even an action so described, with all the pejorative connotations it carries, is yet morally good.<br /><br />Now you may want to call that consequentialism and you might be right but I would argue that in such a case the consequences (averted in this case) change the nature of the act in a fundamental way. So the idea that murder is inherently "disgraceful" or "intrinsically" bad or wrong, doesn't seem to make any sense. There is no act (and no part of an act) without a context and the context affects the act's status.Stuart W. Mirskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12247784373895331173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-90893514054686059662014-08-22T15:21:00.492-04:002014-08-22T15:21:00.492-04:00Thanks. It was great.
Any goodness accruing to an...Thanks. It was great.<br /><br /><i>Any goodness accruing to an action in this sense must belong to some of the underlying elements that make it up</i><br /><br />Why? If these elements are events can't we say the same thing about them? Isn't an event a complex phenomenon?<br /><br /><i>intentions assume consequences</i><br /><br />I'm not sure about this. Can't I intend to do something without thinking about what the consequences of doing it will be? If I'm thirsty and I drink I'm doing it because I want to, not because I have ideas about the consequences of drinking. That is, what I want is not to-make-my-thirst-go-away. What I want is to drink something, or perhaps what I want is this glass of water. I'm not thinking about consequences at all.<br /><br /><i>"good" and "bad" only serve to express belief that there is a reason (or reasons) to do one thing instead of another</i><br /><br />But is that true? If I taste some soup and say it's mmm-mmm good am I saying that there is reason to eat it? Someone else might infer that, but it surely isn't what I'm saying. Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-24383194045659136632014-08-22T11:00:05.880-04:002014-08-22T11:00:05.880-04:00I suppose it has to do with how we think about an ...I suppose it has to do with how we think about an action. I'd say there's no such entity as an action, only a series of events, including mental events, that underlie whatever we call an action. That doesn't mean there aren't actions, only that what we mean by "action" is a complex phenomenon. Any goodness accruing to an action in this sense must belong to some of the underlying elements that make it up and this seems to me to undermine any notion that there is something intrinsically good or bad in an act itself.<br /><br />Thinking a thing is good is to say that we have a reason to do it, acquire it, etc. And to the extent moral valuing is about finding the actions that are right for us, the good ones to choose <em>under certain circumstances</em>, there must be something about them that provides us with such a reason. There must be some reason to <em>choose</em> one act instead of another and it must have to do with the elements making the act up, not the act itself. So we have to look at those elements.<br /><br />There are many different kinds of reasons for choosing a thing (for deciding it's "good"). Many seem pretty non-controversial. They're reasons for us only to the extent that they satisfy some need or want we happen to have. But if moral valuing cannot be explained instrumentally (because that stands on self-interest) and we want to preserve the possibility of moral goodness as such, then we have to say how we choose things in a way that isn't strictly speaking an instrumental judgment.<br /><br />One time-honored answer is to invoke the idea of intrinsicness. But how can any act be intrinsically good or bad if action is just a complex of other stuff that's going on? How can we understand an act as that without also thinking about its effects, i.e., what it brings about? Nor can it be the action of a rationally thinking agent, a necessity in the moral case, without considering the agent's intentions, too, what the agent performed the act in order to bring about. And intentions assume consequences.<br /><br />This doesn't imply, at least not to me, that some acts have something intrinsically good or bad about them, that some are simply praiseworthy or "disgraceful" in themselves. I think we must look, rather, to the intentional element driving the act to find the moral aspect. What are intentions but the range of our thoughts, beliefs, desires, feelings, etc., that prompt us to act as we do? And these include our beliefs about the outcomes that <em>will</em> occur when we act in a certain way. Consequences are pre-supposed by intentions and intentions, being the expression of rational agency, are the relevant element of acts when we approach them in a moral, rather than an instrumental, way.<br /><br />If "goodness" is ascribed as I've suggested, it must be ascribed to some component or complex of components. Can goodness then be taken to be intrinsic to some component of an act then? Only if we think goodness, itself, is component-like which seems like a Moorean mistake. If goodness is really just a condition in which any object of reference stands to its referrer, a relational state between subject and object, then there's nothing intrinsic to be found, only the reason(s) we take a goodness-ascribing stance toward the object in question. And reasons are context dependent, contexts including both anticipated and anticipatible consequences.<br /><br />There can be nothing intrinsic about goodness or badness then if value is subject-dependent as I've suggested because "good" and "bad" only serve to express belief that there is a reason (or reasons) to do one thing instead of another.<br /><br />Anyway, welcome back. Hope you had an enjoyable vacation! Stuart W. Mirskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12247784373895331173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-40081177302079527232014-08-22T09:16:13.748-04:002014-08-22T09:16:13.748-04:00Thanks!
Doesn't there have to be some kind of...Thanks!<br /><br />Doesn't there have to be some kind of intrinsic goodness? If not then which consequences are good and which are bad? Utilitarians care about utility, which is taken to be intrinsically good, for instance. To make a judgment we need something to judge. Saying that whether something is good or bad always depends on its consequences seems to be like saying "it's turtles all the way down." But I haven't read the whole discussion yet and am probably missing something. Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-32696535704162973322014-08-22T09:08:44.870-04:002014-08-22T09:08:44.870-04:00To think there is intrinsic goodness or badness, y...<i>To think there is intrinsic goodness or badness, you have to take consequences entirely out of the equation.</i><br /><br />I don't see why. Can't I think that some acts are intrinsically right or wrong but that others' moral status depends on their consequences? Or on their reasonably to be expected consequences? Just war theory takes likely consequences into account, as well as ruling certain acts out as impermissible. We might disagree about whether such theory is good or bad, but it doesn't seem incoherent.Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-59485226496815146312014-08-15T09:06:51.445-04:002014-08-15T09:06:51.445-04:00To the extent that "consequentialism" im...To the extent that "consequentialism" implies that the end justifies the means, as in the Morris case, I think such a view is wrong.<br /><br />What Morris describes is fundamentally immoral, whatever the ultimate results. Such a "consequentialism" does seem to accurately characterize the utilitarian ethos, i.e., that if making an omelet is a good thing and you have to crack a few eggs (a bad thing) to do it, then cracking those eggs is rendered good, too.<br /><br />I think a better way of seeing this is to note that morality, as in doing what's right for others, is one thing and instrumental goodness another. Instrumentalist formulas never work for us in determining what's morally good because they are innured to moral consideration. We use "good" in different ways, based on what we think makes the things we apply that term to good. The problem arises, I think, when we can't keep the two straight which is a direct result of our not being able to say why moral goodness is good. To the extent we are in the dark about that, while acknowledging with ease that instrumental goodness is obviously good, we too easily slide into confusing the two types of goodness.<br /><br />Moral goodness stands on a different plane, so to speak. My own thinking is that this is because moral goodness applies to the complete action, from intent to result and everything in between, while instrumental goodness only applies to results and the capacity of the physical events of any act to secure these. The notion of instrumental goodness is thus more limited, which is why moral claims seem to us to take precedence over the instrumental. Every ascription of instrumental goodness may also be subject to a moral assessment if we expand our evaluation of the act to the intent, i.e., the state of the acting subject, but the reverse is not true.<br /><br />In the case described by Morris, or the American experience with this continent's native populations (or the Anglo Saxon with the Celts or the Celts with their predecessor populations now lost in the mists of time), morally bad acts (understood as such because they expressed states of mind inconsistent with what we take to be morally right) are not made morally whole by our satisfaction with how things ultimately turned out. <br /><br />History may have its own dynamic, and it's fair to say history is amoral, but none of that renders the immoral moral. And that's because moral valuing encompasses the act in its entirety while instrumental valuing looks only at outcomes, at consequences.Stuart W. Mirskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12247784373895331173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-81345257958663338282014-08-12T23:46:37.509-04:002014-08-12T23:46:37.509-04:00"what does unintelligible on analysis mean&qu..."what does unintelligible on analysis mean"<br /><br />While it seems to make sense in ordinary use, when we analyze it, it doesn't.<br /><br />"why do you think an act cannot be evil in itself? "<br /><br />Because there is no definition of that kind of evil without also considering context as in purpose, outcome, etc. And once those are brought in to justify the claim of "evil" then it's no longer evil in itself.<br /><br />"How do you analyse, say, concentration camps?"<br /><br />By looking at what the camps were used for and what they resulted in. For instance, the original notion of "concentration camps" merely referred to people concentrated together in an enclosed location. The term was first introduced, I believe, in South Africa where the British moved families of their Boer enemies into such camps. The Boers were not herded together to be killed as part of a program of ethnic extermination and were not systematically tortured or abused while so concentrated. The Nazis later took the idea of concentration camps and used them somewhat differently and, most of us nowadays, would think badly. Of course the Nazis, certainly some of them at least, and many German and other nationals who maintained the camps thought the concentration camps the Nazis built and used were good things, even if some humans suffered from them. So are concentration camps intrinsically evil? Obviously some weren't and arguably none were even if some were built to an evil purpose. And that goes directly to the intent of the agents who built and used them.<br /><br />"Do you mean the treatment is not what counts but its effects, so that if you deny food to people what is wrong about it is that they starve to death?"<br /><br />I mean what I've said, that the intent makes them wrong and intent can only be analyzed in terms of what the intender is trying to do (as in bringing certain things about in the world) the effect of which is that certain actual outcomes will be seen to have occurred when the act (or concentration camp) occurs as planned.<br /><br />I was not writing about Morris, but responding to Duncan's point about Anscombe's consequentialism by making the point that that view requires a commitment to a notion of intrinsic goodness or badness, a notion which, I have suggested, does not stand up to analysis.<br /><br />" Morris is of the view that ethnic cleansing is not, in itself, wrong, but it is only wrong when done to the wrong (right) people."<br /><br />I am of the view that what makes any act good or bad in a uniquely moral (rather than instrumentalist) sense is the sort of intention it expresses and that the good intent recognizes the subjectness of others while the bad denies or ignores it. My view is contrary to a doctrine of intrinsic goodness or badness (because it finds that notion unintelligible) while incorporating the idea of outcomes by recognizing that they (outcomes) are what are intended by the acts in question.<br /><br />I am certainly not defending any claim that exterminating any group of people, including American Indians, is morally good though I don't read history in moral terms. If we did then the vast majority of human would be rendered immoral. But history, human or otherwise, is neither moral nor immoral. It's just what happened. Stuart W. Mirskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12247784373895331173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-85779311348492003012014-08-12T15:53:16.275-04:002014-08-12T15:53:16.275-04:00Correct link:
Ghetto LifeCorrect link:<br /><br /><a href="https://twitter.com/AdamSerwer/status/499265462400999425/photo/1" rel="nofollow">Ghetto Life</a>J.Z.https://www.blogger.com/profile/10440788177625973099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-42510182696371857022014-08-12T15:49:21.230-04:002014-08-12T15:49:21.230-04:00Reading through your responses and our conversatio...Reading through your responses and our conversation it seems to me that you have not read the original opening post.<br /><br />I'm sorry, but what does unintelligible on analysis mean? And why do you think an act cannot be evil in itself? How do you analyse, say, concentration camps? Do you mean the treatment is not what counts but its effects, so that if you deny food to people what is wrong about it is that they starve to death? <br /><br />And even that is debatable it seems (I'm working on the assumption that you are supportive of Morris, that seems to be your position, and that is after all what the original post is about) that you think there are cases where it is justifiable to starve an entire population to death to achieve specific colonial goals. Morris is of the view that ethnic cleansing is not, in itself, wrong, but it is only wrong when done to the wrong (right) people. In the case of the US he says it was right to annihilate the Native Americans, because the results of annihilation are so great (that seems to be beyond debate). It seems to me that he can say the same for slavery, segregation, and the e.g. current situation in Ferguson where this is going on:<br /><br />pic.twitter.com/EMQVI5ZoCW <br /><br />The ghetto might as well be the Gaza strip. If that, Morris's view, is your view I find it hard to make sense of. And that is not because it is senseless, necessarily, but because it is entirely foreign to me. That would be why we are talking past each other. <br />J.Z.https://www.blogger.com/profile/10440788177625973099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-17630701969235225462014-08-12T12:25:27.216-04:002014-08-12T12:25:27.216-04:00JZ wrote: "All I've tried to say without ...JZ wrote: "All I've tried to say without much success is that the distinction between act and consequence that you make makes no difference, and that denying the intrinsical nature of an act by saying it is in the consequences neutrally described (whatever that is) or in the victim (who on your account are not) because they are your view are intrinsically evil doesn't make your account more scientific or general."<br /><br />And that's "what you say" in the same way you accuse me of just asserting. But what you would need to show is WHY there is "intrinsic" goodness or badness, if that's what you want to claim, as in what kind of claim can you offer to support intrinsicness (other than the fact that some people believe there is)?<br /><br />I've given cases where it's reasonable to doubt the presence of "intrinsic" value in particular cases while you haven't offered any reason for why we should think, instead, that there is "intrinsic" value present in those cases that would undermine a contrary moral intuition, i. e., that the context makes the difference, other than to assert some people do think this. <br /><br />Nor do I have any idea where you get the apparent claim you impute to me: "or in the victim (who on your account are not) because they are your view are intrinsically evil . . ." Perhaps your statement was just garbled but my reading of it is that you have taken my point that moral value resides in the state of mind of the agent to mean some unnamed "victims" are "intrinsically evil." Of course my view rejects ascriptions of intrinsic goodness or badness as unintelligible on analysis. So perhaps you are right that we are just talking past each other. Should you want to continue, I think you would need to explain why goodness and badness can be intrinsic to some things, actions or individuals. Otherwise, I accept your desire to call it a day and move on. Thanks for responding.Stuart W. Mirskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12247784373895331173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-73311178823366845912014-08-12T11:09:13.773-04:002014-08-12T11:09:13.773-04:00I think, Stuart, that we are speaking past each ot...I think, Stuart, that we are speaking past each other and should probably end this here. With respect.J.Z.https://www.blogger.com/profile/10440788177625973099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-26521867797232743052014-08-12T11:07:38.659-04:002014-08-12T11:07:38.659-04:00SM: "As to the hypothetical cases I cited, th...SM: "As to the hypothetical cases I cited, the point is to show that there is always something about the context that makes the difference, which undermines a claim to "intrinsic" wrongness (or rightness) in my view."<br /><br />That's what you say, what consequentialists say. That's been clear from the beginning. All I've tried to say without much success is that the distinction between act and consequence that you make makes no difference, and that denying the intrinsical nature of an act by saying it is in the consequences neutrally described (whatever that is) or in the victim (who on your account are not) because they are your view are intrinsically evil doesn't make your account more scientific or general. Nor does the shuffle of saying that the all the genetic/psychological answers to what morals are are not in yet, so no one can say what is really truly moral, and that until then moral is what the victor says it is. That's nothing new, as the OP makes clear. <br /><br />Finally, to take a like look at (what I choose to unscientifically call) presumption and prejudice (or knowing evil with certainty beforehand) that is closer to home there's this:<br /><br />The ghost of Mike Brown: why must a dead black child defend his right to life?<br /><br />http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/12/mike-brown-ferguson-shooting-police-black<br /><br />It's the same old story, for a different set of (what I choose to unscientifically call) victims.J.Z.https://www.blogger.com/profile/10440788177625973099noreply@blogger.com