Jamesian ethics

["Elaine Yeadon" <elaine.yeadon@lineone.net>]

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Jamesian Ethics

Those who know me at all will probably recognise that I'm quite interested
in the philosophy of William James. So far, though, this has been primarily
in his theory of truth or his work on faith. I love the pragmatic notion
of expedience, which leads James to claim that the true is just the expedient
in the way of belief. But I have recently been directed towards another implication
of this idea. R.A. Putnam notes that, for James, the 'good' in ethics is
the *expedient in the way of acting*. Now, I know very little ethics and
meta-ethics so may be missing some important element of James's thought in
the following interpretation, but I'm interested to see what philosophers
of ethics think what I've extracted from his work.

'Expedience' is explained by James as putting us in 'working touch' with
reality. Consequently, the goal of ethical inquiry should be to unite our
perceptions of reality with a set of morals. 

Any further goal based on our rationalised conceptions of what is to constitute
'good' (as are involved in many of the prevalent schools in philosophy of
ethics) will interfere with our judicial standpoint. But, practically, we
cannot expect to eliminate such presuppositions. A Kantian, for example,
may have a set of seemingly inescapable duties. It would be unrealistic to
think of man as being unbiased, so such preconceptions *will* be present
in resolving an ethical problem, for they contribute to what one considers
to make up the world. But even if not prominent, such conceptions will naturally
be a part of those things which need to be united, in order for the system
to be expedient. They may prove to be a / the source of our moral inclinations,
but they have no place in the ethical inquiry itself.

However, these conceptions aside, there must be *some* normative element
which frames inquiry. Yet, the norms should not be overtly ethical in nature.
One cannot, for example, try to take into consideration 'moral facts'. Rather,
the norms are about reality - the way things are or are not - one needs a
non-relativistic outlook on reality in order to recognise any decisive cohesion
in the ethical system (in order to decide when one has reached the desired
'unity'). So, the norms are 'ethical' to the extent that one has applied
an ethical question to them, but not because they inherently relate to morality
in themselves.

As far as I can see, James would be happy to claim that moral facts may well
exist, but that they are facts which arise out of ethical consideration of
other facts - they are *not* to be taken into consideration as preconceptions
at the onset of enquiry (the recognition of them must always enter at the
end of reasoning - when unity is reached - rather than featuring in the reasoning
itself.)

Indeed, to actively believe that there *are* no moral facts mistakes the
goal of ethical enquiry. Here we can refer to the idea of Charles Sanders
Peirce that anti-relativism is a requirement of the pragmatic approach. To
be relativist would be to eliminate the intention of reaching absolute truth.
So it is with my reading of Jamesian ethics. To deny the existence of moral
facts outright seems to deny that there is a decisive and satisfactory unifying
solution to an ethical dilemma. The difference between James's and Peirce's
writing on the topic is that this 'absolute' truth for James inaccessible
to people until the enquiry is absolutely settled - until ultimate convergence
of all evidence and opinion has occurred. Whereas, Peirce believes that we
can still have access to the truth which *will be* converged upon. Crucially,
though, both thinkers require the ideal of accessing absolute truth even
if it cannot be recognised. This is evident in James' statement about the
deficiencies of philosophical scepticism:

"so far from ethical scepticism being one possible fruit of ethical philosophizing,
it can only be regarded as that residual alternative to all philosophy which
from the outset menaces every would-be philosopher who may give up the quest
discouraged, and renounce his original aim."  The Moral Philosopher and the
Moral Life.

Moveover, the state of the universe, the physical facts per se, are neither
good nor bad -  they just *are* (in a tractarian sense). The good / evil
of a state of affairs requires some sentient observer. So, regarding moral
facts,
not only do they only become recognisable at the end of ethical reason, but
they *can only be present* as a result of sentience of this form. Personally,
I'm quite impressed with this idea and I'm interested to see what relation
it bares to established theories.

An instantly recognisable consequence of denying appeal to moral facts is
that we need some alternative means of distinguishing the better actions
from the worse. James settles, in true pragmatic style, on the idea that
'good' actions will satisfy the demands of those it effects. The good is
therefore *useful*, similar to the sense in which pragmatism requires  the
truths discovered through scientific enquiry to hold salience for the intentions
of the inquirer. So it seems that expedience in way of acting comes down
to this: If an action meets the demands and answers the inquiry in such a
way as to bring us closer to a unified understanding of reality, then it
is expedient and therefore good.

In cases of conflicting good actions, James argues that consideration of
convention becomes useful - not as an ethical norm, as such, but as a recognition
of what satisfies the most unifying demand. While we can aim for unity, it
is not surprising that we do not achieve it, due to the varying desires of
humanity, but if we continue to follow the 'line of least resistance', the
path with fewest problematic repercussions in the long run, then we take
a step closer to the prevalence of goodness.

I'm not sure I entirely agree with all of this (especially the last paragraph),
but I can definitely see where James is coming from. What are your thoughts,
and can anyone tell me how common/successful such views are in moral theory?

Thank you.


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