[Bups-dis] changes

[lj lj]

Dear Sophie,

No, I don't think this is just a difference in terminology. There's a 
massive difference between asking whether what people do is good or bad and 
asking what goodness and badness are. You cannot just define goodness and 
badness in-themselves by pointing to actions because that doesn't constitute 
an explanation of why those actions are good or bad in the first place. And 
the question of which actions are good or bad presupposes the distinction 
between goodness and badness in-themselves- after all, how can one ask for 
the identification of an action as good or bad if one does not already have 
criterion of goodness and badness?
The way that you phrase your definition of ethics is problematic (at least 
for me) because you want to define it in terms of the study of those actions 
which lead to or constitute a good (or bad) life. But that is exactly the 
kind of position which falls under the above analysis. Suppose that we 
accept your definition: in what way does that tell us why some lives are 
good and others bad? You will say, I assume, that the goodness or badness of 
a life is determined by the actions that constitute that life. But if that's 
right then we haven't really explained anything. There's no reason at all 
that we couldn't, say, invert morality and say that what you an I would 
consider to be 'bad lives' are, in fact, 'good lives'.
And that's because the concept of "living well" does no theoretical work 
unless it's as part of (or the result of) an analysis of goodness and 
badness in-themselves. One cannot assess whether actions do or do not 
constitute a life that meets the definition of "living well" unless that 
definition is not spelled out (and thus is non-circular) in terms of those 
very same actions.

The issue of WHY people argue is, in my opinion, actually a far, far more 
illuminating topic than many philosophical ones (so far as my aims are 
concerned). Some people think that it isn't the business of philosophy to 
tell us what to think but, rather it is to allow us to order our beliefs 
into a coherent system (David Lewis thought this). I think that there is 
some truth to this but, again, this brings up the is-ought issue: I might 
well accept a Lewisian position is how Philosophy IS but I'd deny that it 
OUGHT to be that way. I don't accept the relativism that emerges from that 
kind of position. I'm still naive enough to think that Philosophy aims at 
something like the truth.


"I don't quite understand how you can first claim that there is no given
relation to the world which is necessarily the one to which our knowledge
should conform, and then claim that there are relations to which our
knowledge should conform"
Simply put:
There are relations to the world in which I stand (the metaphysical issue)- 
these are all objective but they are not always true all the time.
My understanding should aim at the relation in which I stand to the world- 
but since I do not always stand in a given (objective) relation to the world 
it is not the case that my undersrtanding should always aim at the given 
relation to the world.
So, my understandng, necessarily aims at an objective relation in which I 
stand to the world. But the relation in which I stand to the world, while 
being objective, is not necessarily the relation in which I stand to the 
world.
I suppose that what you are driving at is an epistemic distinction between 
what my understanding ought to aim at and what it actually does aim at. I 
don't think that kind of distinction applies here because I think that 
having a false understanding is oxymoronic. I think that all understanding 
requires a grasp of truth (although one can, of course, have a wide 
conception of truth) and so to say that I literally understand something 
that is false is, in my view, a contradiction.


"As far as I can see, you're saying that our views can remain objective and
also change, because the fact of the matter changes and so does our relation
to the world. I understand what you said before about your own feelings
changing; but how does the fact of the matter change?"

Because, as I said in an earlier post, I think that in there is an epistemic 
barrier against my knowing the world independently of my feelings (in the 
same way that it today it is common to think that one cannot know the world 
independently of the senses)- as Hume remarked, we cannot step beyond our 
experience to see if it is correct. My point is that our conception of 
experience is fatally impoverished. I think that how we feel (and 
remembering that I'm construing "feeling" in a very wide sense) is an 
integral aspect to our experience and thus in the same way that our senses 
shape our conceptions and beliefs about the world, it is also the case that 
feelings do the same.
So, the consequence of this is that it just doesn't make (epistemic) sense 
to talk about a world beyond our feelings. And if it doesn't make sense to 
talk about a world beyond our feelings then it doesn't make sense to 
distinguish between an objective non-emotional understanding of the world on 
the one hand and a subjective (emotional) understanding of the world on the 
other.

"Lastly, why do you see the possibility of this happening (and so the 
possibility of our concept of
objectivity becoming weaker) as a problem?"
Well, feelings are supposed to be paradigmatically subjective. And the 
consequence of this is that if feelings constitute a part of our 
understanding of the world then our understanding will be partially 
subjective. Obviously, this is only a problem when set against the backdrop 
of the world being (ontologically speaking) an objective thing. Now, given 
what I think about feelings there are two ways to go: firstly, one could say 
that the world itself is subjective by denying an epistemic distinction 
between the way we understand the world and the way the world actually is 
independent of that understanding (as far as feelings go); or, secondly, one 
could deny that feelings are subjective and instead say that they are 
objective relations in which we stand to the world.
The first option requires us to demote the metaphysical status of the world 
at the expense of feelings, whereas the second option requires us to promote 
the metaphysical status of feelings at the expense of a stronger 
understanding of "objective" as far as the objective-subjective distinction 
goes (esp. given the status that we typically assign feelings).

Why is that a problem? I'm not sure. Maybe it's just the same kind of belief 
that we are indoctrinated into having as the assumption that I've been 
arguing against. Maybe there really is no problem in having a weaker 
conception of objective. I suppose that what worries me is that I'm not 
advocating a dissolution of the objective-subjective distinction but it 
seems that the weaker our conception of objectivity in relation to 
subjectivity (and vice versa) becomes the less substantial that very 
distinction becomes. And of course, while I think that our conception of 
objectivity does need to be tweaked in this way, I do worry about 
overshooting the mark and ending up completely dissolving the distinction.

Am I making any sense?

Regards,

Luis.

_________________________________________________________________
Got a favourite clothes shop, bar or restaurant? Share your local knowledge  
http://www.backofmyhand.com