University of Kentucky UKnowledge Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy Philosophy 2016 The Normative Architecture of Reality: Towards an Object- Oriented Ethics Justin L. Harmon University of Kentucky, [email protected] Digital Object Identifier: http://dx.doi.org/10.13023/ETD.2016.114 Right click to open a feedback form in a new tab to let us know how this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Harmon, Justin L., "The Normative Architecture of Reality: Towards an Object-Oriented Ethics" (2016). Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy. 9. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/philosophy_etds/9 This Doctoral Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Philosophy at UKnowledge. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy by an authorized administrator of UKnowledge. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STUDENT AGREEMENT: I represent that my thesis or dissertation and abstract are my original work. 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I understand that I am free to register the copyright to my work. REVIEW, APPROVAL AND ACCEPTANCE The document mentioned above has been reviewed and accepted by the student’s advisor, on behalf of the advisory committee, and by the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS), on behalf of the program; we verify that this is the final, approved version of the student’s thesis including all changes required by the advisory committee. The undersigned agree to abide by the statements above. Justin L. Harmon, Student Dr. Theodore Schatzki, Major Professor Dr. David Bradshaw, Director of Graduate Studies THE NORMATIVE ARCHITECTURE OF REALITY: TOWARDS AN OBJECT-ORIENTED ETHICS _________________________________ DISSERTATION _________________________________ A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Kentucky By Justin L. Harmon Lexington, Kentucky Director: Dr. Theodore Schatzki, Professor of Philosophy Lexington, Kentucky 2016 Copyright © Justin L. Harmon 2016 ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION THE NORMATIVE ARCHITECTURE OF REALITY: TOWARDS AN OBJECT-ORIENTED ETHICS The fact-value distinction has structured and still structures ongoing debates in metaethics, and all of the major positions in the field (expressivism, cognitivist realism, and moral error theory) subscribe to it. In contrast, I claim that the fact-value distinction is a contingent product of our intellectual history and a prime object for questioning. The most forceful reason for rejecting the distinction is that it presupposes a problematic understanding of the subject-object divide whereby one tends to view humans as the sole source of normativity in the world. My dissertation aims to disclose the background against which human ethical praxis is widely seen as a unique and special phenomenon among other phenomena. I show that ethical norms, as delimited by utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics, etc., derive from an originary proto-ethical normativity at the heart of the real itself. Every object, human and nonhuman, presents itself as a bottomless series of cues or conditions of appropriateness that determine adequate and inadequate ways of relating to it. That is, objects demand something from other objects if they are to be related to; they condition other objects by soliciting a change in disposition, perception, or sense, and for this reason are sources of normativity in and unto themselves. Ethical norms, or values, are the human expression of the adequacy conditions with which all objects show themselves. In the post-Kantian landscape it is widely thought that human finitude constitutes the origin of ethical norms. Consequently, the world is divided up into morally relevant agents (humans) on one side, and everything else on the other. Adopting a deflationary view of agency, I argue that human-human and human-world relations differ from other relations in degree rather than kind. Thus, instead of a fact-value distinction, value is inextricably bound up with the factual itself. The critical upshot of my project is that traditional subject-oriented ethical theories have served to conceal the real demands of non-human objects (such as animals, plants, microorganisms, and artificially intelligent machines) in favor of specifically human interests. Such theories have also been leveraged frequently in exclusionary practices with respect to different groups within the human community (e.g. women and those of non- European descent) based on arbitrary criteria or principles. KEYWORDS: Object-Oriented Philosophy, Ethics, Speculative Realism, Hermeneutics, Post-Humanism Justin L. Harmon March 7, 2016 Date THE NORMATIVE ARCHITECTURE OF REALITY: TOWARDS AN OBJECT-ORIENTED ETHICS By Justin L. Harmon Theodore Schatzki Director of Dissertation David Bradshaw Director of Graduate Studies March 7, 2016 Table of Contents 1 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS LIVING AND WHAT IS DEAD IN SPECULATIVE REALISM ......................................................................................................................... 1 2 CHAPTER TWO: THE HISTORY OF AN ERROR ................................................................. 26 2.1 Ancient Sources: Being and Place ................................................................................................. 32 2.1.1 The Timaeus and the Myth of Origin .................................................................................... 32 2.1.2 Ethics of Inertia, Politics of Domination ............................................................................. 43 2.1.3 Ethics is a Messy Business ........................................................................................................ 46 2.2 Myth and Truth ..................................................................................................................................... 51 2.2.1 Myth as Inter‐ruption ................................................................................................................. 53 2.2.2 Myth and Logos: An Unstable Dichotomy .......................................................................... 56 2.2.3 Noble Lies and True Falsehoods ............................................................................................ 61 2.2.4 Mythic Closure as Opening ....................................................................................................... 64 2.3 Prefiguring The “Post‐Moral” Landscape: Descartes to Kant ........................................... 66 2.3.1 Mathesis Universalis: A New Arche ...................................................................................... 67 2.3.2 A Provisional Code....................................................................................................................... 74 2.3.3 The New Cartesian Architecture: From Doubt to Subjectivity ................................. 77 2.3.4 Bacon’s Inductive Physics ........................................................................................................ 84 2.3.5 Hume and the is‐ought Divide ................................................................................................. 85 2.3.6 Hume’s Transcendental Project ............................................................................................. 90 2.3.7 Reflective Endorsement and the Domain of Feeling ..................................................... 92 2.3.8 Kant’s Transcendental Idealism............................................................................................. 94 2.3.9 Kantian Constructivism ............................................................................................................. 99 2.3.10 Failure of the Transcendental Argument ..................................................................... 103 2.4 Coda: The Way Forward ................................................................................................................ 108 3 CHAPTER THREE: OBJECTS AND BEING ........................................................................... 113 3.1 Flat Ontology and the Role of the Univocal ............................................................................. 119 3.1.1 Anthropomorphism Contra Anthropocentrism ........................................................... 119 3.1.2 The Plane of Consistency ....................................................................................................... 122 3.1.3 Rethinking Difference ............................................................................................................