From Science to Morality...On the Letter and the Spirit of the Law (original) (raw)
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Key Words: Polanyi, Aristotle, post-critical epistemology, meta-ethics, emergence, phronesis, deontology, virtue ethics, indwelling, traditions. Looking at the moral law from Polanyi's post-critical epistemology and emergent ontology reveals two interconnected roles for the letter of the law and two ways in which it can oppose the spirit of the law. For the moral student the law is a procedural method, for the moral virtuoso the law is an incomplete explicit expression of a tacit way of being. The two are connected in that procedural rules and practices set the basis for understanding and experiencing an emergent reality. This reality is embodied in the exemplars of a moral tradition and expressed in its principles and maxims.
“Verbindlichkeit”: Some drafts of a groundwork in moral philosophy
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All of metaethical positions today can be replaced by a universal architecture of moral philosophy, all but one: moral realism. Here, I use the term “metaethics” to refer to any theory of ethics concerning the groundwork of ethics, on the one hand, and the inquiry of the use of philosophical words, concepts or methods on the other. In this article, I will present my hypothesis that in moral philosophy, we do not need any specialized metaethics at all. Metaethics as a discipline of philosophy is only required by the work of moral realists, who try to show us a realm of values and norms that exist (per se) naturally, non-naturally or supernaturally. How can they know? The effort of metaethical realists cannot be proven either in ontology or in the philosophy of language or in cognitive science or in any meta-science that works en plus to ethics, because even in every additional discipline, we have to accept the presupposition of a validity of judgments. So, let us try it the other way...
Moral Knowledge: An Exploration
The diversity of moral beliefs across present and historical human societies provides a powerful argument against the existence of a correct morality that we are capable of knowing. In this paper I consider another possible interpretation of this diversity: that the acquisition of moral knowledge is difficult and takes a great deal of time. I develop this theme by first reviewing some of the error, confusion, and surprising new discoveries that have occurred in the history of the sciences and mathematics. Since those who pursue these disciplines have the same cognitive abilities and limitations as those who seek moral knowledge, we have reasons for believing that learning the correct morality, if such a morality exists, will take place by the same complex and tentative processes that operate in the acquisition of other kinds of knowledge.
Morality as Practical Knowledge
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In his original essay, The Form of Practical Knowledge, Stephen Engstrom argues for placing Kant's ethics in the tradition of practical cognitivism. 1 My remarks are intended to highlight the merits of his interpretation in contrast to intuitionism and constructivism, understood as ways of appropriating Kant's legacy. In particular, I will focus on two issues: first, the special character of practical knowledge-as opposed to theoretical knowledge and craft expertise; and second, the apparent tension between the demands of morality and the requirements of instrumental reason, when this is understood as driven by concerns for happiness, prudence, and personal integrity.
Journal of Early Modern Studies, 2019
In his defense of innateness in New Essays on Human Understanding (1704), Leibniz attributes innateness to concepts and principles which do not originate from the senses rather than to the ideas that we are born with. He argues that the innate concepts and principles can be known in two ways: through reason or natural light (necessary truths), and through instincts (other innate truths and principles). In this paper I will show how theoretical and moral reasoning differ from each other in Leibniz, and compare moral reasoning and instincts as sources of knowledge in his practical philosophy. As the practical instincts are closely related to pleasure and passions, which are by nature cognitive, my emphasis will be on the affective character of instinctive moral action and especially deliberation which leads to moral action. I will argue that inclinations arising from moral instinct, which lead us to pleasure while avoiding sorrow, can direct our moral action and sometimes anticipate reasoning when conclusions are not readily available. Acting by will, which is related to moral reasoning, and acting by instincts can lead us to the same moral knowledge independently, but they can also complement each other. To illustrate the two alternative ways to reach moral knowledge, I will discuss the case of happiness, which is the goal of all human moral action for Leibniz.
Reasoning about Nature in Virtue, Action and Law: The Path from Principles to Practice
Diametros, 2013
This paper argues that the role of nature in Aquinas's account of virtue, action and law does not require the kind of adherence to Aristotle's 'metaphysical biology' that is refuted by Darwin because of the way Aquinas transforms nature as applied to a rational being and as an analogy to elucidate virtue, habit and law. Aquinas's grounding of ethics and law in the notion of nature is also not a kind of intuitionism designed to answer all moral questions and stop all ethical debates but a model which gives principles; these principles in turn are not that from which all conclusions can be derived with universality and certainty but are principles which are the topic of reasoned and ongoing debate about their interpretation and application in particular laws or practices. The paper then examines Aquinas's application of the principles of natural law to evaluate human law as an example of this reasoned debate, which is both subject to error and correction, showing how Aquinas's notion of nature can work in practical applied ethics.
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I say something about the relationship of Finnis’s work in ethics to my own, then summarise and criticise Finnis’s new natural law theory. My own view is an anti-theoretical view: there is no reason to expect any neatly systematic ethical theory to be true just because it is neatly systematic. The doubts that naturally arise about new natural law theory are mostly of this nature: they are based on suspicion of schematisms. I close with some positive suggestions about resources for ethics, in particular «the common understanding of humanity».