Hi Matt, all That is all well-said and what I was after. You made correct inferences about my position on the matter. Note that I agree with you in that neither of us think that dmb is a closet Kantian. I just wanted to use his comments as a jumping off point to talk about pragmatism with regard to the prudence-morality distinction. This is something I recall Rorty saying that pragmatists reject, but I don't recall him making an explicit argument against it. Your thought experiment concerning a habitual liar who fakes moral behavior in every instance throughout his entire life is along the lines I was thinking. If we view issues of morality in practice as pragmatists will want to do, then motivation for action only matters to the extent that it it predicts what sort of actions we can expect.
What remains to be articulated is how the MOQ levels might shed some light on the issue of moral responsibility and prudence versus moral behavior. I am interested to see if anyone wants to explore how the MOQ may help reconcile this Kantian distinction with pragmatism as a utilitarianism. Best, Steve On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 5:37 PM, Matt Kundert <[email protected]> wrote: > > Steve said: > Yet it still makes little sense to talk about responsibility until we get > to beings that have social patterns because only such beings have > behavior which is modifiable through praise and blame. It's just not > worth punishing a rock since there is no hope that its behavior could > change as a benefit of punishment (rocks don't participate in social > patterns), but a scolded child may behave better next time. > > DMB said: > ...If we comply simply to avoid punishment, that is not morality at all. > It's merely fear-driven obedience, coerced compliance. This is how > most psychopaths stay out of jail. They will avoid murder because it > puts them at risk of going to jail. It's not because THEY think it's > morally wrong, but because they know that other people think it's > wrong. One philosopher who looked into this says the immoral > psychopath knows what's moral in the same way that an atheist can > have knowledge of theology without actually believing any of it > himself. > > Steve said: > This sounds to me like dmb is invoking a Kantian prudence-morality > distinction that I would think a pragmatist would eschew. Matt, I > was wondering if you had any thoughts on pragmatism and this > distinction. > > Matt: > The reason why Dave's comment appears to erect a > prudence-morality distinction is because it sounds like the kinds of > things social critics who also viewed themselves as upholding the > Kantian distinction while being against utilitarianism would say. The > last half of the 19th-century especially gave birth to this kind of line > of thought because Kantian liberals wanted to distinguish themselves > from the wildly successful utilitarian liberals (with origins in > Smith/Hume, but mainly the Bentham-Mill-Mill sequence). The > 19th-century utilitarians were also taking advantage of their alliance > with science, by which I mean the rhetoric of science. As the heirs > of epistemological empiricism, they told everyone that their method > was science applied to ethics/politics. People attracted to saying > that the avoidance of punishment does not count as moral behavior > were, then, largely Christians and rationalists (by which I mean, > rationalists who had lost to empiricism, and so reconstituted > themselves as Kantian idealists). > > I say all this to point out a number of artifactual nettles lying around: > things Pirsigians would be attracted to (being against pernicious > scientism) and leery of (rationalism-as-against-empiricism, maybe > Christianity). But on the other side of pragmatism, which James > said was an outgrowth of utilitarianism, we need to beware red > herrings and focus on what we need done in order to have a > serviceable moral philosophy. > > The first thing I would note is that Dave's comment might be divided > into doing two kinds of polemical work: 1) moral responsibility > cannot issue from avoidance-thinking and 2) avoidance-thinking > cannot create moral thinking. (1) is created from the idea that "this > is how psychopaths stay out of jail." One's practical inferences can > be entirely of an avoidance stripe and comply with our legal system, > but this can't be morality because moral behavior must consist in > avoiding wrong-doing because _you_ want to avoid wrong-doing, > not because others want you to. The problem with judging moral > behavior, put this way, is clear: what's the difference between a > lifelong liar who behaves the exact same way from birth to death > as the honest saint? Nothing, judged by outward behavior. This, > however, is a _theoretical_ problem. On the practical side, one > might very well say that most liars slip up. > > As a theoretical problem, it speaks against the prudence/morality > distinction by requiring us to articulate practical consequences for > being able to tell moral behavior from non- (like saying "I didn't kill > him because that's wrong" and appearing to mean it), and practical > stuff is non-Kantian. So I don't think Dave's comment requires him > to be a theoretical Kantian (why one _wants_ avoid theoretical > Kantianism isn't actually something I'm going to take up, though > that's really all Steve was asking me to do). We can be > pragmatists, I think, and still think that not killing because killing is > wrong, rather than not killing because killing will send you to jail, is > a better line of reasoning. And by "better," I mean that if we taught > our children that that kind of reasoning is better than > avoidance-reasoning, then we as a society would likely have less > killing. I say "less killing" and not "more moral behavior" because > that would be circular: to be a pragmatist in this regard, you have > to start with what you want and don't want in behavior, not a > previously demarcated field. A Christian telling you that you are > sinning by having premarital sex has defined sin a certain way and > _then_ damned you for flouting the line. But what do you care if > you don't already think premarital sex is bad? The suspiciousness > in Dave's reply lay in his "It's not because THEY think it's morally > wrong, but because they know that other people think it's wrong." > The "morally" there is superfluous. What that remark does, rather, > is contextually define what Dave's calling "moral." And as I've > suggested, so long as Dave more or less agrees with this line of > reasoning (or offers a different one that avoids theoretical > Kantianism), he's clear as a pragmatist. > > However, it does require further, non-Kantian answers about how > moral responsibility works and is passed along. For what I called > (2), "avoidance-thinking cannot create moral thinking," is culled from > taking Dave's remark to be fully relevant to Steve's. First, I do not > take it that Steve reduced all practical inferences to > avoidance-thinking, nor commended them as the only kind we need > (Steve can correct me if he does think these things, though it > doesn't seem to necessarily be implied by what he wrote). Steve > was talking at the evolutionary scale, using distinctions in levels and > what we would call morally _responsible_ behavior. One point > Steve did not make explicit is that if one signs up for Pirsigianism, > one _has_ to say that rocks behave morally, but that also > concurrently means one _must_ make a relevant distinction > between rocks and humans in their _kinds_ of moral behavior at > another place (at least if one wants to defend the practice of not > punishing rocks for killing people when they fall from high distances). > So Steve made it in terms of being held morally responsible for > actions: no rocks, yes people. > > Steve said that moral responsibility doesn't start to make sense "until > we get to beings that have social patterns because only such > beings > have behavior which is modifiable through praise and blame." That > defines _basic_ social patterns, but because we already sign on to > Pirsig's lauded maneuver of distinguishing between levels, defining a > basic pattern does not by itself imply a reduction of other patterns > that may arise from it (in Pirsig's schematic, intellectual patterns; > but in our own philosophizing, we might distinguish more). That is > at the conceptual level, and Steve's example--of the scolded > child--gives us the pedagogical level. What Steve said suggests that > praise/blame is in some way basic to social patterns and moral > responsibility and that in creating moral behavior in children, one > begins with praise/blame. > > What Steve has not said more about are those further non-Kantian > answers I mentioned in relation to Dave, about how one precisely > moves from praise/blame to "thinking that is itself not consciously > motivated by potential praise or blame." That is Dave's definition > of moral behavior again. However, given that Steve did not on its > face imply any pernicious utilitarian commitments, Dave's > comment remains fully relevant, it would seem, only if we also > ascribe (2), "avoidance-thinking cannot create moral thinking," as > contra Steve's pedagogical claim. Dave's comment is apropos to > "a scolded child may behave better next time" only if A) we deny > Steve's ability to move from praise/blame to morality (which I'm > suggesting Dave wouldn't be able to do without fielding theoretical > Kantian reasons) and/or B) we have a better suggestion about > moving a child to moral thinking. Dave's reply seemed pretty > categorically against praise/blame, so I've ascribed (2), but what > Dave needs that Steve has already fielded is a non-Kantian > answer about how we inculcate moral thinking that does not itself > rely on praise/blame. And further, because Steve (or perhaps just > myself, given what I've said about what is and isn't implied by > Steve's remarks) thinks that we _can_ move from low-level stages > of praise/blame to full-on moral thinking, Dave might also mount a > further justification for thinking one cannot start with praise/blame > and reach moral lines of reasoning. (Dave might also abdicate my > ascribed position, and rather argue that he simply has a better > non-Kantian suggestion for inculcating moral thinking.) Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
