Tutorial # 3. Value. Discussion Questions

After having read Isaiah Berlin, “On the Pursuit of the Ideal,” New York Review of Books, 17 March 1988, pp. 11-18., think about these questions.

• Compare “Inter Milan is a better football team than AC Milan”, “Vodka is good”, “Miriam is a good person”. What’s the difference? How ‘good’ is used in these statements?
• Are the objects of value subjective psychological states or objective states of the world?
• Do we value money, sex or power for their own sake?
• Are there intrinsic values? Think about knowledge and scientific endeavours highly abstract (e.g. certain branches of math)?
  
• Is pain intrinsically bad?
• Can we observe values?
• Can we measure values? Can we measure how good a person is?
• Can values such as liberty and safety be commensurable? For example, can you promote personal freedoms at the same time as attempting to protect national security (e.g., through anti-terror legislation)? Can you promote freedom of choice while protecting the sanctity of life (e.g., in issues of euthanasia, abortion, and animal rights)?
• Can we resolve a disagreement about who is the hottest: Johnny Depp or Cristiano Ronaldo? Why?
• What’s the relationship between desirability and value?
• Where do values come from?
• What’s the difference between values and norms? Consider for instance the claims: “It is good to give to charity”, “One ought to give to charity”.
• When are human relationship false? Think of the quote from T.S. Elliot.
• Is Berlin’s confidence on the objectivity of values in a pluralist schema justified? Why/why not?
• Berlin describes two factors that shaped human history in the 20th century. What were they? Do you think he is right?
  
• Berlin mentions relativism. What do you think about what he says? What’s the difference with pluralism?
• At one point Berlin says: "any study of society shows that every solution creates a new situation which breeds its own new needs and problems, new demands. The children have obtained what their parents and grandparents longed for...but the old ills are forgotten, and the children face new problems, brought about by the very solution of the old ones, and these, even if they can in turn be solved, generate new situations, and with them new requirements—and so on, forever—and unpredictably." (p. 14) What does he mean?
  
• Berlin begins his final section, VI, with a question: "If the old perennial belief in the possibility of realizing the ultimate harmony is a fallacy, and the positions of the thinkers I have appealed to—Machiavelli, Vico, Herder, Herzen— are valid,…[then] ‘What is to be done?’ How do we choose between possibilities What and how much must we sacrifice to what? (p. 17)." How would you try to answer that question?
  

Tutorial # 3. Value. The Value of Human Relationships

From The Fire Sermon by T.S. Elliot (1922)

Unreal City
Under the brown fog of a winter noon
Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant
Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants
C.i.f. London: documents at sight,
Asked me in demotic French
To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.
At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun's last rays,
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—
I too awaited the expected guest.
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare,
One of the low on whom assurance sits
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence;
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Bestows one final patronising kiss,
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . .
She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover;
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
"Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over."
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.

Tutorial # 3. Value. Some Distinctions

Picture from xkcd


From Value Theory by Mark Schroeder (2008) - SEP

Three senses of "Value Theory"

I. “value theory” is a catch-all label used to encompass all branches of moral philosophy, social and political philosophy, aesthetics, and sometimes feminist philosophy and the philosophy of religion — whatever areas of philosophy are deemed to encompass some “evaluative” aspect.

II. "value theory" synonymous with “axiology”. Axiology can be thought of as primarily concerned with classifying what things are good, and how good they are. For instance, a traditional question of axiology concerns whether the objects of value are subjective psychological states, or objective states of the world.

III. “value theory” designates the area of moral philosophy that is concerned with theoretical questions about value and goodness of all varieties — the theory of value.

...

[Consider these sentences]

1) Pleasure is good.

2) It is good that you came.

3) She is good for him.

4) That is a good knife.

Sentences like 1, in which “good” is predicated of a mass term… in which philosophers have wanted to know what things (of which there can be more or less) are good.

Sentences like 2 make claims about what I'll (again stipulatively) call goodness simpliciter; this is the kind of goodness appealed to by traditional utilitarianism.

Sentences like 3 are good for sentences, and when the subject following “for” is a person, we usually take them to be claims about welfare or well-being.

And sentences like 4 are what… I'll call attributive uses of “good”, because “good” functions as a predicate modifier, rather than as a predicate in its own right.
…

[The Issues]

Traditional axiology seeks to investigate what things are good, how good they are, and how their goodness is related to one another. Whatever we take the “primary bearers” of value to be, one of the central questions of traditional axiology is that of what stuffs are good: what is of value.

Tutorial # 2. Why Be Moral. The Immoralist Challenge. Discussion Questions

After having read Plato's The Republic, book 2, selection: 357a-367e (reprinted as ‘The Immoralist’s Challenge’ in Ethical Theory), think about these questions.
NOTE you can find an HTML version of The Republic @ The Perseus Digital Library

• Is our "duty" always identical with our self-interest. Why?
• Do we always know what our self-interest is?
• Is our self-interest determined by what we want?
• Give examples of "just behaviour". Is justice good in and of itself?
• Does being moral really serve our self-interest?
• What is good about being just, if others mistreat you because of your reputation?
• What should we do (and do we usually do in fact) when our duty conflicts with our self-interest?
• Are we always motivated by self-interest?
• Is there anything worthwhile in itself - regardless of its consequences?
• Do we have a natural tendency to be just (even when nobody can see us)?
• Is justice a convention?

Tutorial # 2. Why Be Moral. The Immoralist Challenge. Glaucon's Argument

Why act justly?

In the second book of the Republic, Glaucon begins by dividing goods into three categories:
1. goods that we desire for their own sake (e.g. joy);
2. goods that we like for their own sake as well as for their beneficial effects (e.g. health and knowledge);
3. goods that we desire only for their beneficial effects and not for their own sake (e.g. taking a medicine).

Being just is beneficial when others notice it and one gains a reputation for being just (as for 2.).
There can be clear disadvantages to being unjust; if others find out, it harms one's reputation, and unjust actions are likely to make one anxious that others will discover those actions (as for 3.).

What about 1.?
Glaucon's thought experiment.
He asks Socrates and Adeimantus to compare two people, one of whom is just, the other of whom is unjust.
The unjust person has a reputation for justice, despite the fact that he acts unjustly.
The just person has a reputation for being unjust that he will carry to his grave without prospect of correcting it.
Hence the unjust person will enjoy all of the benefits of a good reputation, while the just person will suffer all of the harms of a bad reputation.

Glaucon thinks that it is obvious that the life of the fortunate, unjust person is better than the life of unfortunate, just person.
Therefore justice is desirable only for its beneficial effects, and not for its own sake, and so in this respect is similar to medicine.

Tutorial # 2. Why Be Moral. The Immoralist Challenge. Trasymachus' Argument

In the first book of Plato's Republic Thrasymachus presents Socrates with the immoralist's challenge.

P1 The consequences of being moral can be disastrous for one's happiness, (e.g. imprisonment, torture, poverty, and death).
P2 By contrast, the intended consequences of immorality are highly desired components of happiness (e.g. power, wealth, and honor) (343a- 344c).
Therefore, we should not be moral if we want to be happy.
Moral people must be simpleminded; they cannot be wise (348b-d).

In the first book of the Republic, Thrasymachus attacks Socrates’ position that justice is an important good. He claims that ‘injustice, if it is on a large enough scale, is stronger, freer, and more masterly than justice’ (344c).
Thrasymachus makes three central claims about justice.
1. Justice is nothing but the advantage of the stronger (338c)
2. Justice is obedience to laws (339b)
3. Justice is nothing but the advantage of another (343c).

Here is Trasymachus' argument:

P1 The ruling group or person is the stronger of the parts of a society.
P2 In a tyranny the tyrant passes laws to his\her advantage.
P3 In an aristocracy aristocrats pass laws to their advantage.
P4 In a democracy the (ruling) masses pass laws to their advantage.
There are no other types of regime.
Therefore, The ruling part of any nation passes [and enforces] laws that are to its own advantage.

P5 Every ruling party defines justice as obeying the law
P6 All ruling parties agree on defining justice as obeying the law is the correct definition.
Hence, justice is obeying the law.

Justice is everywhere to the advantage of the ruling party.
Justice is everywhere [to] the advantage of the stronger.

Tutorial #1. The Status of Morality. Ought and Is. Discussion Questions

After having read David Hume, ‘Moral Distinctions not Derived from Reason’ in Ethical Theory, think about these questions. Note An HTML Edition of the relevant reading from Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature can be found from eBooks@Adelaide "The University of Adelaide Library": HERE

• Can you derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’?
• What is the difference, if any, between a claim like “You ought to buy the next round of drinks” and one like “You ought to keep your promises”?
• Does the fact that most drivers in Italy run red lights entails that running a red light is right? Why?
• Do we have a “sense impression”, or experience, for rightness and wrongness?
• Is morality objective, and if so in what sense(s)?
• How do you understand “naturalism” in moral philosophy?
• Can ethics be considered as a “natural social science” - see Greene's article?
• What can, if anything, scientific evidence contribute to our understanding of morality?
• In which sense, according to Hume, justice is an “artificial virtue”? What is his argument?
• Why ought one to keep a promise, or ought not to steal? What are the grounds for these rules? Are they different from the grounds of a rule such as “you ought not to burp while eating dinner”?
• If we were Vulcans, would anything change in the status of morality?

note the cartoon above is by Stephen M. Campbell

Tutorial #1. The Status of Morality. Science and Morality

How can our understanding of ethics and morality be affected by empirical sciences?

From Josh Greene (2003):

Many moral philosophers regard scientific research as irrelevant to their work because science deals with what is the case, whereas ethics deals with what ought to be. Some ethicists question this is/ought distinction, arguing that science and normative ethics are continuous and that ethics might someday be regarded as a natural social science. I agree with traditional ethicists that there is a sharp and crucial distinction between the ‘is’ of science and the ‘ought’ of ethics, but maintain nonetheless that science, and neuroscience in particular, can have profound ethical implications by providing us with information that will prompt us to re-evaluate our moral values and our conceptions of morality.

The full article is:
Greene, J.D. (2003) From neural "is" to moral "ought": what are the moral implications of neuroscientific moral psychology? Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Vol. 4, 847-850.

Tutorial #1. The Status of Morality. Hume on Ought-Is

The "is-ought gap" (see David Hume, ‘Moral Distinctions not Derived from Reason’):

1. All claims that can be known by reason are either empirical matters of fact or conceptual truths (e.g. "All bachelor are married", "All triangles have three corners").
2. Moral claims do not represent empirical matters of fact.
3. Moral claims do not represent conceptual truths.
4. Therefore, reason cannot give moral knowledge.

Any valid argument for an ought claim must have at least one ought-claim among its premises.
Ethical claims about what is right or wrong are ought claims.
A valid argument for an ethical claim must have some other ethical claim among its premises.
Therefore, no number of facts about how things are deductively entails that they ought to be one way or another.

NOTE
- Hume was an empiricist:
In general, empiricism is the thesis that:
We have no source of knowledge (or for the concepts we use) other than sense experience.

Hume maintains that all the materials of thinking, which he calls "perceptions", can be divided into two categories:
1) impressions, which are called sensations.
2) The less forceful, remembered copies of our immediate experiences, which are called ideas.
All ideas come from impressions.
Ideas can be combined.

Relations of ideas include mathematics.
Mathematical claims are true by virtue of the meaning of the terms, and to deny them is to assert a contradiction.
But these do not tell us what the world is like.
Matters of fact are based on sensory experience.
There is no contradiction in asserting that they are false.
They do not enjoy certainty but can be known only with varying degrees of probability.