DOCSLIB.ORG

Phil. 173: Metaethics Oct. 1, 2019 Lecture 9: Can Nihilists Live Their Nihilism?

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Phil. 173: Metaethics Oct. 1, 2019 Lecture 9: Can Nihilists Live Their Nihilism? Phil. 173: Metaethics Oct. 1, 2019 Lecture 9: Can Nihilists Live Their Nihilism? I. If Nihilism Is True, Then What Should We Do? Whether this question is even coherent depends on what sort of nihilism one adheres to. A few varieties: moral nihilism: There is no such thing as rightness, wrongness, duty, obligation, or any other moral notion. practical nihilism: There is no such thing as practical normativity of any type (i.e. no such thing as any sort of normative notion that applies to action), including the following: what one ought morally to do; what one ought prudentially to do; and what one ought all-things-considered to do. normative nihilism: There is no such thing as any normative notion. If the type of nihilism in question is practical or normative nihilism, then the above question makes no sense. If the type of nihilism in question is moral nihilism, and if the only sort of practical consideration that one is not a nihilist about are prudential ones (as in Joyce’s case), then the question makes sense and is equivalent to: “If moral nihilism is true, then what is it in my best interests to do?” Note that in this case, in addition to being a moral nihilist, one is also a practical egoist. Note, also, that if one is a moral nihilist, it is not entirely clear that one is entitled to talk about what we should do as opposed to what I (or you, or she, or he, or they) should do—the move from what it’s in each of our individual interests to do, to what it’s in our collective interest to do, is precisely the sort of thing in which morality consists. Let us focus on the question of what, if one came to realize that moral nihilism were true, one should do specifically with regards to one’s use of moral terminology and one’s holding of moral beliefs. There are four salient options here: 1. abolitionism: Jettison all moral vocabulary, and renounce all moral beliefs. 2. conservatism: Continue to use moral vocabulary as before, and continue to hold all of one’s old moral beliefs (even though most of them are untrue). 3. propagandism: Renounce all of one’s own moral beliefs, but hide the evidence for the truth of moral nihilism from others, so that they might continue to hold their (mostly untrue) moral beliefs. 4. fictionalism: Instead of believing in moral matters, and instead of engaging in moral discourse, adopt a fictionalist stance toward them (i.e. treat morality as a useful fiction). II. Williams on the Difficulty of Abolitionism The chapter by Bernard Williams nicely stresses how difficult it is to be a true abolitionist moral nihilist. In order to genuinely renounce all moral beliefs and attitudes, one must not: • be moved by distinctively moral considerations, such as “caring about other people’s interests, having any inclination to tell the truth or keep promises if it does not suit [one] to do so, [and] being disposed to reject courses of action on the ground that they are unfair or dishonorable or selfish” (p. 4); • adhere to the more formal aspects of morality, by (for example) having a disposition “to stand back and have the thought that if it is ‘all right’ for [one] to act in these ways, it must be ‘all right’ for others to act similarly against [one]” (p. 5); • resent how others treat one, since resentment is a distinctively moral attitude (p. 5); • think of oneself as being more splendid or courageous than the craven masses, since these are very nearly moral notions which depend on the idea that some dispositions are better for humans to have than others (pp. 6–7). The crucial distinction here is between a person without morality and a person with a peculiar morality. III. Nagel on the Impossibility of Abolitionism Thomas Nagel argues for a stronger conclusion than Williams’: he thinks jettisoning moral thought and talk is not just difficult, but impossible. According to Nagel, abolitionist practical nihilism is impossible: “The question ‘What should I do?’ like the question ‘What should I believe?’ is always in order. It is always possible to think about the question in normative terms, and the process is not rendered pointless by any fact of a different kind—any desire or emotion or feeling, any habit or practice or convention, any contingent cultural or social background. Such things may in fact guide our actions, but it is always possible to take their relation to action as an object of further normative reflection and ask, ‘How should I act, given that these things are true of me or of my situation?’ ” (p. 244). (There are indications that Nagel thinks this point shows not just that abolitionist practical nihilism is impossible, but moreover that practical nihilism itself is false, though he doesn’t fill in the details.) According to Nagel, a similar line of reasoning shows that abolitionist moral nihilism is also impossible: “The type of thought that generates answers to this question [i.e. ‘What should I do?’] is practical reason. But, further, it is always possible for the question to take a specifically moral form, since one of the successor questions to which it leads is, ‘What should anyone in my situation do?’—and consideration of that question leads in turn to questions about what everyone should do, not only in this situation but more generally” (p. 244). IV. Joyce on the Cost of Conservatism According to Joyce, the (prudential) cost of having untrue moral beliefs is too great to make conservative moral nihilism a viable option. Reasons why true beliefs might be valuable: • They might have intrinsic value. (Joyce doesn’t rely on this claim, which would be odd for a moral nihilist to make.) • They might have direct instrumental value. Joyce cites William James’ example of the value of having a true belief that a certain cow-path leads to a certain house, when one is lost in the woods trying to find a way to that house (p. 178). • They might have indirect instrumental value. Even if one does not act on a given true belief, it might still be instrumentally valuable, since “we never know whether and in what way a belief may be called upon to serve action” (p. 178). Also, the general policy of aiming for true beliefs and avoiding false ones (a policy we might call ‘critical inquiry’) is, according to Joyce, the most effective way of forming beliefs (p. 179). If we emphasize the importance of us, as a group, of engaging in critical inquiry together (as well as the benefits our true beliefs give to each other), a similar argument could be used against the viability of propagandist moral nihilism. .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Anthropocentrism
    Lecture 11: Anthropocentrism • Anthropocentrism and intrinsic value • Is anthropocentrism a good environmental philosophy? • Transformative power of nature • Problems with transformative power Friday, October 18, 2013 Topics • Anthropocentrism and intrinsic value • Is anthropocentrism a good environmental philosophy? • Transformative power of nature • Problems with transformative power Friday, October 18, 2013 Anthropocentrism • Human-centered • We only have direct moral obligations towards people • Animals only have instrumental value (that is, insofar as they are useful for our purposes). They don’t have intrinsic value (that is, in their own right). Friday, October 18, 2013 Anthropocentrism • The idea of intrinsic value is mysterious. (“the value it has all by itself”) • Usually, to say that something has value is to say that someone values it. Value presupposes a valuer (‘eye of the beholder’) • Value is typically not intrinsic to a thing, but “projected on it” by another (relative not absolute) Friday, October 18, 2013 Anthropocentrism • One reason that biocentrism and ecocentrism seem strange is that they entail that living things or ecosystems have intrinsic value - that is, it has value even if nobody values it. Friday, October 18, 2013 Kantianism • Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) • Kant believed that human beings possess intrinsic value. I value I value myself! food • This is because, unlike non- and sex humans, I can value myself. Consequently, I do not derive my value externally, but intrinsically. Friday, October 18, 2013 Kantianism • He also believed that only human beings have intrinsic value. That’s because only human beings have the self- awareness and reasoning capacity to value themselves. • This placed them in a unique moral category Friday, October 18, 2013 Direct and Indirect Obligations • Our direct moral obligations to others stems from a recognition of their intrinsic value.
    [Show full text]
  • An Introduction to Philosophy
    An Introduction to Philosophy W. Russ Payne Bellevue College Copyright (cc by nc 4.0) 2015 W. Russ Payne Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document with attribution under the terms of Creative Commons: Attribution Noncommercial 4.0 International or any later version of this license. A copy of the license is found at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ 1 Contents Introduction ………………………………………………. 3 Chapter 1: What Philosophy Is ………………………….. 5 Chapter 2: How to do Philosophy ………………….……. 11 Chapter 3: Ancient Philosophy ………………….………. 23 Chapter 4: Rationalism ………….………………….……. 38 Chapter 5: Empiricism …………………………………… 50 Chapter 6: Philosophy of Science ………………….…..… 58 Chapter 7: Philosophy of Mind …………………….……. 72 Chapter 8: Love and Happiness …………………….……. 79 Chapter 9: Meta Ethics …………………………………… 94 Chapter 10: Right Action ……………………...…………. 108 Chapter 11: Social Justice …………………………...…… 120 2 Introduction The goal of this text is to present philosophy to newcomers as a living discipline with historical roots. While a few early chapters are historically organized, my goal in the historical chapters is to trace a developmental progression of thought that introduces basic philosophical methods and frames issues that remain relevant today. Later chapters are topically organized. These include philosophy of science and philosophy of mind, areas where philosophy has shown dramatic recent progress. This text concludes with four chapters on ethics, broadly construed. I cover traditional theories of right action in the third of these. Students are first invited first to think about what is good for themselves and their relationships in a chapter of love and happiness. Next a few meta-ethical issues are considered; namely, whether they are moral truths and if so what makes them so.
    [Show full text]
  • A Confusion in Goodness
    Forthcoming in Philosophical Studies The Pen, the Dress, and the Coat: A Confusion in Goodness Miles Tucker Abstract: Conditionalists say that the value something has as an end—its final value—may be conditional on its extrinsic features. They support this claim by appealing to examples: Kagan points to Abraham Lincoln’s pen, Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen to Lady Diana’s dress, and Korsgaard to a mink coat. They contend that these things may have final value in virtue of their historical or societal roles. These three examples have become familiar: many now merely mention them to establish the conditionalist position. But the widespread faith in such cases is, I believe, unjustified. This is because, surprisingly, the pen, the dress, and the coat cannot have final value. I argue that the problem is internal: these cases are ruled out by every conditionalist account of final value. Further, the problem with these well-known cases applies to most other supposed examples of extrinsic, final goods. Thus nearly all cases given to support the conditionalist view cannot succeed. I suggest a kind of diagnosis: I claim that these examples are best seen as instances of sentimental value, rather than final value. I close by providing a brief account of sentimental value and explain how it relates to instrumental, intrinsic, and final goodness. Keywords: axiology, final value, intrinsic value, sentimental value The final value of a thing is the value it has for its own sake, or as an end. The intrinsic value of a thing is the value it has in itself or in virtue of its intrinsic features.1 Conditionalists hope to separate these two kinds of value.
    [Show full text]
  • The Welfare-Nihilist Arguments Against Judgment Subjectivism
    Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy https://doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v19i3.886 Vol. 19, No. 3 · March 2021 © 2021 Author THE WELFARE-NIHILIST ARGUMENTS AGAINST JUDGMENT SUBJECTIVISM Anthony Kelley ne way to construe subjectivism about well-being is as the view that x is basically good for S if and only if, because, and to the extent that x is Ovalued, under the proper conditions, by S.1 Dale Dorsey argues for an idealized, judgment-based theory of valuing, one according to which a person values a thing if and only if, because, and to the extent that she would believe, under the proper conditions, that it is basically good for herself.2 Call subjectiv- ism about well-being coupled with a judgment-based theory of valuing judgment subjectivism.3 Judgment subjectivism is a remarkable theory, and Dorsey’s case for it is compelling. If the theory is true, then what is good for you is wholly determined by what you believe is good for you. It is somewhat surprising that it has not been the subject of much scrutiny.4 In this paper, I offer three related arguments against the theory. The arguments are about what judgment subjectivism im- plies about the well-being of welfare nihilists, people who believe that there are no welfare properties or at least that none are instantiated. I maintain that wel- 1 This construal is Dale Dorsey’s; see Dorsey, “Subjectivism without Desire,” 407. One con- troversial feature of Dorsey’s statement of subjectivism is that it requires that a theory link a person’s good to her values in order for it to count as subjectivist.
    [Show full text]
  • JÖRG LÖSCHKE/ Harmony and Intrinsic Value
    HARMONY AND INTRINSIC VALUE Jörg Löschke∗ Abstract: The concept of harmony does not play a very important role in contemporary analytic philosophy. In this paper, I argue that this peripheral status of the concept of harmony in analytic philosophy is not warranted. In fact, harmony might be the central normative concept: some philosophers think that complex unity is the metaphysical grounds of intrinsic value: whenever something is intrinsically valuable, it is so in virtue of the fact that disparate elements are brought into complex wholes. In this paper I discuss the possibility that harmony, rather than complex unity, plays this pivotal role. I conclude that, while there are some considerations in favour of this view, there are also considerations that speak against it; nevertheless, analytic philosophers should be more concerned with the concept of harmony than they have been so far. Introduction The concept of harmony has traditionally played an important role in the ethical outlooks of many cultures. It is an important concept in Confucianism; it plays an important role in the philosophy of Native Americans and other indigenous cultures (Miller 2019); and it has been an important concept in the thought of many classical Greek thinkers. However, this interest in harmony as an ethical concept has hardly carried over into contemporary analytical philosophy. Harmony is sometimes mentioned in passing when philosophers talk about another concept that has gained quite some attention, namely the concept of organic unity.1 The principle of organic unity says that the value of a whole need not equal the sum of the value of its individual parts2: for example, the individual brushstrokes of a painting have little or no value at all, but in combination, they can constitute great aesthetic value.
    [Show full text]
  • Pragmatism, Environmental Philosophy and the Ghost of William James
    Contemporary Pragmatism Editions Rodopi Vol. 9, No. 1 (June 2012), 25–52 ©2012 The Turn of the Skew: Pragmatism, Environmental Philosophy and the Ghost of William James Piers H.G. Stephens This paper addresses two issues: the controversy over pragmatism in environmental philosophy, and the habitual exclusion of William James’s work from serious examination. Addressing critiques of pragmatic naturalism from Max Horkheimer, Eugene Hargrove and Holmes Rolston, I argue that their criticisms misfire, primarily due to skewed perception derived from mis-interpretative projections of views to which pragmatism is not committed. I conclude that the critics’ major concerns are largely groundless, but that greater emphasis on pragmatism’s experiential aspect would clarify this. 1. Introduction The possibility that pragmatism might offer a new, better direction for environmental ethics was first raised by Anthony Weston in a path-breaking paper in 1985,1 since which time a significant debate between pragmatists and anti-pragmatists has affected the whole field. Arguments on the pragmatist side have tended to criticize the high level of abstraction found within environmental ethics, often arguing against the practical helpfulness of the habitual stress on theoretical axiology, especially intrinsic value theory. In place of these axiological emphases, pragmatists have urged a greater and more pluralist attendance to specifics of particular environmental problems, and aimed at a greater emphasis on practical policy convergence in political terms. Thus
    [Show full text]
  • Intrinsic Value: Analysing Moore's Aristotelian Approach
    INTRINSIC VALUE: Analysing Moore’s Aristotelian approach1 Prof. Dr. Darlei Dall´Agnol (Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina) [email protected] Introduction The aim of this article is to analyse a tension in Moore’s ethics between two conceptions of intrinsic value. Taking Moore’s own review of his work (RC: 555)2,I shall refer to them as ‘good in Moore’s “own usage”’ and ‘goodness in Aristotle’s sense.’ In the first section, I shall scrutinise the texts where Moore states his own view pointing out the difficulties of his approach. In the second, I shall discuss Moore’s commitment to the Aristotelian approach, maintaining that it provides a more adequate account of intrinsic value and that it occupies a central place in his ethics. In the third section, I shall try to develop this Aristotelian account avoiding Moore’s misinterpretations and exploring features that he seems to neglect. In the concluding part, I shall point out that, if this interpretation of Moore’s ethics is correct, it requires a re-assessment of some of the common interpretations of his meta-ethical commitments and it also leads to a different understanding of his normative ethics and some of its practical implications. First of all, it is necessary to mark clearly the texts where Moore holds his own view and where he uses an Aristotelian approach. We can take, for this purpose, his own testimony: ‘...in my paper on “Is Goodness a Quality?” I said that I thought that the particular sense of “good” with which I had been concerned, was one in which “is good” meant “is an experience which is worth having for its own sake.” This was a sheer mistake as to my own usage,’ (RC: 555).
    [Show full text]
  • An Examination of Thomas Hurka's Virtue Consequentialism by Crystal Rose Submitted to the Graduate Degree Program in Philosoph
    An Examination of Thomas Hurka’s Virtue Consequentialism by Crystal Rose Submitted to the graduate degree program in Philosophy and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. __________________________ Chair: Erin Frykholm __________________________ Ben Eggleston __________________________ Tom Tuozzo __________________________ Brad Cokelet __________________________ Pamela Gordon Date Defended: August 23, 2017 The Dissertation Committee for Crystal Rose certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: An Examination of Thomas Hurka’s Virtue Consequentialism _________________________ Chairperson Erin Frykholm Date Approved: August 23, 2017 ii Abstract In this dissertation, I examine three separate issues pertaining to Thomas Hurka’s virtue consequentialism. Hurka’s account describes virtue as a positive orientation towards a good, and a vice as a negative orientation towards a good. The three goods that Hurka assigns to his theory are: pleasure, achievement, and knowledge. In my first paper I argue that an indirect approach to virtue development is more effective than a direct approach. I propose that an individual will have an easier time becoming virtuous if he works on cultivating his empathy, and being guided by a rational commitment to promoting the goods, rather than depending strictly on his willpower, and a rational commitment to promoting the goods. In the second paper I criticize Hurka’s definition of humility, and argue for my own account. Hurka characterizes humility as an asymmetrical recognition of goods. We might inflate the goods of others even though they are equal to our own, or we might deflate our own compared to the equal goods of others.
    [Show full text]
  • A Distinction in Value: Intrinsic and for Its Own Sake*
    A Distinction in Value: Intrinsic and For Its Own Sake* Wlodek Rabinowicz and Toni R¿nnow-Rasmussen Department of Philosophy, Lund University Several philosophers have recently argued for a distinction between intrinsic and final value. Following G. E. Moore (1903, 1922, 1993), an object is thought to be intrinsically valuable insofar as its value depends on (Ósupervenes onÓ) its internal properties. It has final value if it is valuable Ôas an endÕ, Ôfor its own sakeÕ, rather than for the sake of something else.1 From a traditional point of view in moral philosophy, this seems to be a distinction without a difference: To value something for its own sake is to value it for the properties it has in itself, i.e., to value it intrinsically, on the basis of its internal properties. This traditional view, however, has come under attack under recent years, notably by such philosophers as Christine Korsgaard (1983), Shelly Kagan (1992) and John OÕNeill (1992). All of them argue for the following claim: (C) There are final values that are not intrinsic. Entailment in the other direction has nearly never been questioned, as far as we know: It seems to be a general if not a universal view that all intrinsic values are final.2 In this paper we do *This paper is dedicated to Peter Gärdenfors on the occasion of his 50th birthday. The early drafts were presented in February 1999, at a Lund-Copenhagen symposium on intrinsic value, and then in March and May 1999, at the Departments of Philosophy in Stockholm and St Andrews.
    [Show full text]
  • 1. Introduction
    Analytic Metaphysics versus Naturalized Metaphysics: The Relevance of Applied Ontology Baptiste Le Bihan and Adrien Barton forthcoming in Erkenntnis Abstract: The relevance of analytic metaphysics has come under criticism: Ladyman & Ross, for instance, have suggested do discontinue the field. French & McKenzie have argued in defense of analytic metaphysics that it develops tools that could turn out to be useful for philosophy of physics. In this article, we show first that this heuristic defense of metaphysics can be extended to the scientific field of applied ontology, which uses constructs from analytic metaphysics. Second, we elaborate on a parallel by French & McKenzie between mathematics and metaphysics to show that the whole field of analytic metaphysics, being useful not only for philosophy but also for science, should continue to exist as a largely autonomous field. Keywords: analytic metaphysics, naturalized metaphysics, applied ontology, philosophy of physics, biomedical ontology. 1. Introduction According to Ladyman & Ross (2007) (“L&R” hereafter) analytic metaphysics should be discontinued because of its lack of emphasis on scientific knowledge that makes it a waste of intellectual resources. Although most analytic metaphysicians1 would 1 Here, we do not take stock on the nature of the relation between analytic metaphysics and naturalized metaphysics (e.g. the question of whether the latter is actually a part of the former according to some definitions of the fields), although we will argue at the end that analytic metaphysics should not be discontinued and can evolve largely independently from metaphysics of science. 1 presumably believe that their discipline has intrinsic value insofar as it describes the actual world or the field of possibilities, L&R deny this.
    [Show full text]
  • Rethinking Intrinsic Value Author(S): Shelly Kagan Source: the Journal of Ethics, Vol
    Rethinking Intrinsic Value Author(s): Shelly Kagan Source: The Journal of Ethics, Vol. 2, No. 4, Intrinsic Value (1998), pp. 277-297 Published by: Springer Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25115588 Accessed: 13-08-2014 16:51 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Springer is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Ethics. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 130.132.173.11 on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 16:51:18 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SHELLY KAGAN RETHINKING EXTRINSIC VALUE (Received 18 June 1998; accepted in revised form 11 July 1998) ABSTRACT. According to the dominant philosophical tradition, intrinsic value must depend solely upon intrinsic properties. By appealing to various examples, however, I argue that we should at least leave open the possibility that in some cases intrinsic value may be based in part on relational properties. Indeed, I argue that we should even be open to the possibility that an object's intrinsic value may sometimes depend (in part) on its instrumental value. If this is right, of course, then the traditional contrast between intrinsic value and instrumental value is mistaken.
    [Show full text]
  • A Critical Analysis of Intrinsic Value
    400 American Archivist / Vol. 59 / Fall 1996 Pease Award Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/59/4/400/2748963/aarc_59_4_hw1x8758l1u11671.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 A Critical Analysis of Intrinsic Value SHAUNA McRANOR Abstract: Intrinsic value was established in the early 1980s as a criterion of appraisal to identify those documents to be retained in their original form. Although perpetuated as an "objective" concept and a new appraisal standard for a particular class of documents, it becomes apparent through critical analysis that its application ascribes value to documents in much the same way as any other value in the traditional "taxonomy." What follows is an evaluation of the definition of intrinsic value, the criteria by which it is to be assigned, and its invocation in the appraisal process. About the author: Shauna McRanor is working on her Master of Archival Studies (M.A.S.) thesis at the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies, University of British Columbia. She received her B.A. in archaeology from Simon Fraser University in 1992 and continues to be involved in this discipline as a consultant to the public and private sectors. This article was written as part of the author's course work for the M.A.S. degree and was awarded the 1996 Theodore Calvin Pease Award for the best research paper written by a student in an archival education program. The award was made at the 1996 SAA annual meeting in San Diego. A Critical Analysis of Intrinsic Value 401 The Society of American Archivists 1996 Pease Citation The Theodore Calvin Pease Award is named for the first editor of the Amer- ican Archivist and is given to the best student paper as judged by the current Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/59/4/400/2748963/aarc_59_4_hw1x8758l1u11671.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 editor of the American Archivist and two individuals with expertise in archival research and literature.
    [Show full text]