Dear John, List,
in your definition of pragmatic ethics you have included: "in order to achieve the admirable or the "good in itself" that is determined by a prior consideration of esthetics". Now I dont see, what might be left for the other kind of ethics, the prescriptive ethics. Especially, if one (proposal by me) would add to "consideration of esthetics":"and of logic" (such as Kant did, I think), then what would remain except superstition, such as blind belief in prophecies, myths, social structures that have lost their connection to reason (logic) and to needs (reasonably confirmed other elements of pragmatic ethics) and wishes (esthetics). Well, I agree with all you have written- and you have disproved the "people of prescriptive persuasion"s critique and their suggestion that pragmaticism would be "relative and utilitarian"- with your mentioned inclusion. Is that so? Now, there is another point of view, the sceptic. One Sceptician I talked with neglects the concept of "truth", because he supposes it to be supersticious aka metaphysical. He says, there is no true or false, there is only existing or non-existing. I think, this is a pseudo-argument. You (and me too) i think, dont use the term "truth" in another (eg. supersticious) way than in the logical, like whether or not a sign refers to "its proper object", i.e. whether a logical comprehension exists or not. And: Metaphysical is not supersticious- There can hardly be any statement that is not a tautology, that does not contain any metaphysics. My conclusion to all that would be: The middle way, the pragmatic one, is good enough- it includes both edge-positions: The prescriptive and the sceptic position, or (rather) makes them redundant. Prescripticism is blinded by supersticion, and scepticism is sick from prescripticism´s supersticion- legitimatedly so, but it overreacts, fights against windmill wings, by condemning mere terms, such as "truth". So far so much for that. Happy year,
Helmut
Peircers,
Found this comment from an earlier discussion that seems relevant:
> [Arisbe] Thoughts On Normative Sciences
> Jon Awbrey jawbrey at att.net
> Sat Nov 26 23:16:36 CST 2011
>
> A distinction can be made between "prescriptive" ethics,
> that recommends what a person should do in absolute terms,
> and "normative" or "pragmatic" ethics, that recommends what
> a person should do in order to achieve the admirable or the
> "good in itself" that is determined by a prior consideration
> of esthetics. People of the prescriptive persuasion typically
> criticize people of the pragmatic persuasion for being misled
> by notions of ethics that are far too relative and utilitarian.
> Be that as it may, one observes from the pragmatic perspective
> that logic is a special case of ethics that provides the norms
> for leading the conduct of thought to its proper object, truth.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jon
--
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Found this comment from an earlier discussion that seems relevant:
> [Arisbe] Thoughts On Normative Sciences
> Jon Awbrey jawbrey at att.net
> Sat Nov 26 23:16:36 CST 2011
>
> A distinction can be made between "prescriptive" ethics,
> that recommends what a person should do in absolute terms,
> and "normative" or "pragmatic" ethics, that recommends what
> a person should do in order to achieve the admirable or the
> "good in itself" that is determined by a prior consideration
> of esthetics. People of the prescriptive persuasion typically
> criticize people of the pragmatic persuasion for being misled
> by notions of ethics that are far too relative and utilitarian.
> Be that as it may, one observes from the pragmatic perspective
> that logic is a special case of ethics that provides the norms
> for leading the conduct of thought to its proper object, truth.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jon
--
academia: http://independent.academia.edu/JonAwbrey
my word press blog: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/
inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/
isw: http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/JLA
oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey
facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache
-----------------------------
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----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected] . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected] with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
