This afternoon I had a talk with Chris about Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. After I stepped into his office and sat down before him, he asked me: what's your question? Actually, I had no ready question about the book because I had too many puzzles about it. It is really hard for me to raise a specific question currently, but I had to give a question to start our talk. Chris was confused by me and did not know what I am asking about. In fact I was also confusing about what I was going to ask. The question I raised was about the relation between formula of universality and formula of autonomy. It seemed very strange to Chris and he asked what exactly it was. Till the moment I began to realize the question I have in my understanding about Kant's work.
The question goes exactly like this: according to the formula of autonomy, one can give herself the law that she should act on all the time, but how is this connected with the formula of universality, which says that act on that maxim through which you can also will it as a universal law. Since each one is autonomous, they may raise different laws which is valid to themselves particular for themselves but might be contradict to each other when these laws are universalized among all rational beings. Chris let me offer examples to illustrate my view. I tried but failed. I tried to use examples of hypothetical imperative to illustrate that if a hypothetical is a moral law for one then it would be contradict to categorical imperative held by another one. But this example is on basis of wrong interpretation of Kant's hypothetical imperative. According to Kant, hypothetical imperative could be moral principles because they are conditional to something outside of person.
Then Chris helped me clarify some important points of this book. The first one is that there are four formulas of categorical imperatives, which are that of universality, of humanity, of kingdom of ends, and that of autonomy. The four of them, according to Kant, are the same one. Each of them is an aspect of the categorical imperative. The single categorical imperative is a formal requirement for morality. All duties derives from it. The second one is the distinction between hypothetical imperative and categorical imperative mentioned above. When we were talking about this issue, I asked another question which was actually clarified by Chris. It goes as follows: once I get a duty which is from the categorical imperative, I will look for means to achieve it. Then, is the action conditional one? Yes, it is. It is conditional to the end of the duty.Then, can we say such an action is also hypothetical. Categorical imperative just give us the end of duty, but can not promise the means directly. But this question is not challenging enough. Then means taken for achieving the end of duty is really conditional to the duty, but the duty is from categorical imperative. Just because of this, the action is considered as moral. The duty is derived from the categorical imperative, so it is internal and therefore action for sake of the duty is not conditional to things outside of person. So, it can not be considered as hypothetical.
Chris is very patient and enthusiastic. He invited me to talk with him every Thursday as I like. I am thankful to his enthusiasm. I believe our talk will be more fruitful in the future.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Monday, December 27, 2010
Comparison between Western philosophy and Chinese philosophy
Today I read two articles concerning comparison between western philosophy and Chinese philosophy. I found that the work of comparison is very helpful for me to understand both of western philosophy and Chinese philosophy. Before I read these two articles, I has been refusing to think Chinese philosophy seriously, especially Confucianism, but now I realize that it is necessary to have a comparing and critical reading of Chinese philosophy even though my main interests are in western philosophy. I note a significant problem in my understanding of western philosophy that my interpretation of western philosophy is often influenced by my covert Chinese traditional cultural background. Therefore, I must face this problem and avoid it by making comparison between them.
The two articles are raised in a collection of conference organized by the department of philosophy,NUS, in 2000. The first article I read is contributed by Prof. Ten. In this article, he criticizes the monist moral claim in Confucian tradition. He begins with conflicts between moral claims of personal relationship in family and loved people and moral claims of public. He raises several typical examples in western and Chinese literatures to illustrate the significant conflicts. He describes the moral development of person as circle in which the more central part means the stronger moral force to particular person, vice versa. For example, in Confucian tradition, the son should protect his father when he found him do wrongs, vice versa. He thinks reciprocity is the core of Confucian philosophy.However, this is dangerous to other moral claims, such as benevolence. He uses Bentham's argument to support the value of benevolence and denies Tu's claim about relation between the love of one's own people and the virtue for public. He thinks in many cases the fact is just contrary to Tu's view, for instance, in Ghandi's case. In the part of conclusion, Ten reminds us of the people left out of the moral circle who deserve respect as well.
The second article is contributed by Nussboaum. In this article, she criticizes Divison's interpretation of the golden rule of judgement in Confucian tradition, that is, if you do not want other to do something on you, do not do it to others. The logic form follows like this: if B expects A to do something to him, if A is superior, then, B should do same thing to his interior. if B expect A to do something to him, if A is interior, then, B should do same thing to his superior. As Nussboaum correctly notes that this form presuppose an order of hierarchy in society. Divison interpreted the golden rule in Kantian perspective, saying it implies that everyone respects others as the person like himself who has the common humanity. Nussboaum doubts the interpretation. Then she reviews the western tradition of moral discourse by citing Greek and Roman story concerning same kind of scene. From those stories, she interprets a missing thought which is absent in Confucian tradition. The mission thought could be found from Cynic, Aristotle and Raussou's works. The core of the thought is that everyone is invulnerable to miseries in life such as illness, lack of food, no mortal of exempt and so on. Therefore, when the king shows his pity to the bagger, he is thinking the possibility that one day he will be in the same situation. The distinctions between people are mainly based on artificial element which should not play role in making judgement. That means no body deserve what he gets from the luck of fortune, no matter it good or bad. However, we cannot find such a thought in Confucian tradition. She even believes that the democracy and the missing thought are dependent mutually. That is to say, people living in a non democratic society has no chance to face the missing thought, for example, in ancient China.
Ideas in these two articles give me a new interpretation of Chinese moral philosophy making me realize that the cultural sources of many severe problems in China.This work is very valuable for a Chinese to understand himself more clearly.
The two articles are raised in a collection of conference organized by the department of philosophy,NUS, in 2000. The first article I read is contributed by Prof. Ten. In this article, he criticizes the monist moral claim in Confucian tradition. He begins with conflicts between moral claims of personal relationship in family and loved people and moral claims of public. He raises several typical examples in western and Chinese literatures to illustrate the significant conflicts. He describes the moral development of person as circle in which the more central part means the stronger moral force to particular person, vice versa. For example, in Confucian tradition, the son should protect his father when he found him do wrongs, vice versa. He thinks reciprocity is the core of Confucian philosophy.However, this is dangerous to other moral claims, such as benevolence. He uses Bentham's argument to support the value of benevolence and denies Tu's claim about relation between the love of one's own people and the virtue for public. He thinks in many cases the fact is just contrary to Tu's view, for instance, in Ghandi's case. In the part of conclusion, Ten reminds us of the people left out of the moral circle who deserve respect as well.
The second article is contributed by Nussboaum. In this article, she criticizes Divison's interpretation of the golden rule of judgement in Confucian tradition, that is, if you do not want other to do something on you, do not do it to others. The logic form follows like this: if B expects A to do something to him, if A is superior, then, B should do same thing to his interior. if B expect A to do something to him, if A is interior, then, B should do same thing to his superior. As Nussboaum correctly notes that this form presuppose an order of hierarchy in society. Divison interpreted the golden rule in Kantian perspective, saying it implies that everyone respects others as the person like himself who has the common humanity. Nussboaum doubts the interpretation. Then she reviews the western tradition of moral discourse by citing Greek and Roman story concerning same kind of scene. From those stories, she interprets a missing thought which is absent in Confucian tradition. The mission thought could be found from Cynic, Aristotle and Raussou's works. The core of the thought is that everyone is invulnerable to miseries in life such as illness, lack of food, no mortal of exempt and so on. Therefore, when the king shows his pity to the bagger, he is thinking the possibility that one day he will be in the same situation. The distinctions between people are mainly based on artificial element which should not play role in making judgement. That means no body deserve what he gets from the luck of fortune, no matter it good or bad. However, we cannot find such a thought in Confucian tradition. She even believes that the democracy and the missing thought are dependent mutually. That is to say, people living in a non democratic society has no chance to face the missing thought, for example, in ancient China.
Ideas in these two articles give me a new interpretation of Chinese moral philosophy making me realize that the cultural sources of many severe problems in China.This work is very valuable for a Chinese to understand himself more clearly.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
诗奴
6月6日，山东《齐鲁晚报》A26版“青未了”副刊发表作者名为王兆山（山东作协副主席）的“词二首”。
（原题：《词二首》，作者：王兆山，日期：6月6日，版面：齐鲁晚报A26版“青未了”副刊）
江城子
废墟下的自述
一位废墟中的地震遇难者，冥冥之中感知了地震之后地面上发生的一切，遂发出如是感慨——
天灾难避死何诉，
主席唤，总理呼，
党疼国爱，声声入废墟。
十三亿人共一哭，
纵做鬼，也幸福。
银鹰战车救雏犊，
左军叔，右警姑，
民族大爱，亲历死也足。
只盼坟前有屏幕，
看奥运，同欢呼。
钗头凤
川之吟
山青秀，水碧透，
峰塌须臾河毁骤。
城飞歌，乡飘乐，
楼崩灵折，村消屯破。
祸。祸。祸。
国殇忧，八方吼，
令发京城动九州。
红旗烁，军歌越，
救川举国，不弃一个。
魄！魄！魄！
鲁迅有两句话送给你，看来是比较合适的：做奴隶虽然不幸，但并不可怕，因为知道挣扎，毕竟还有挣脱的希望；若是从奴隶生活中寻出美来，赞叹、陶醉，就是万劫不复的奴才了!
Joke
上海当局用了250个场馆、6个月的时间、7300万人来宣扬“城市让生活更美好”，而1幢大楼、4个小时、58位亡灵证明了这不过是一个口号。 一个国家的文明程度，不在于能不能办奥运会，不在于能不能办世博会，能不能办亚运会，也不在于能买多少美国垃圾国债，更不在于能去国外几十亿几百亿下订单，而是在于让公民坐在家里不会被烧死、上街摆摊不会被扇耳光，走路不会被李刚家的宝马车撞，想吃什么都不用担心会有毒。这个世界就是，不吸烟的得肺癌，不工作的做老板，不爱国的当大官；真正的爱不能要，真正的事不能干，真正的人不能做；需要书的读不起，需要房的买不起，需要人的娶不起；有文化的留不了学，有能力的找不到活，有良知的赚不了钱。 三聚氰胺害了那么多儿童，最后抓了几个养奶牛的；央视大火烧掉10几亿，抓了几个运烟火的；上海静安大火烧死58人，是4个电焊工的责任！跟西游记一样，有背景的妖怪都被带走了，没背景的妖怪都被乱棍打死 豹子办了个澡堂子，包给狐狸，狐狸包给松鼠，松鼠雇几只蚂蚁搓澡接客。有一天，狮子去洗澡，掉脸盆里淹死了。。。。虎大王震怒，派警察调查情况，骂了狐狸，打了松鼠，最后，抓了8只蚂蚁。。。。因为他们，竟然没搓澡证！！
Monday, October 18, 2010
Postmodern Condition as Utopia
Postmodern Condition as Utopia
---------A Postmodern Political Theory
By Zhang Ming
I. Description of Lyotard's postmodern condition:
There is no metanarrative as the origin of legitimacy. What we have is just small games. Then we face the skeptical challenge: there is no morally wrong or right in postmodern condition. To respond this, Nuyen draws out an postmodern ethics from Lyotard's works.
II. Nuyen's two levels of ethics: micro ethics and macro ethics.
Micro ethics applies to particular small games. In postmodern condition, instead of metanarratives we have the little games, the small discourses, each with its own rules. "To play a game entails to obey the rules of the game"(p414). "The rules are binding but the real source of normativity, of the force of obligation, lies in the agent himself or herself who chooses to play a certain game, thus chooses to play by the very rules that define the game"(p414).
The macro ethics applies to the relationship between different games. I see issues on this level as the political issues. On this level, there two kinds of terrorism arise.
III. Lyotard's recognization of two kinds of terrorism:
The terrorism of violence and the white terrorism of totality. The former one is visible, the later one is invisible. The most significant contribution of Lyotard is that he realized and recognized the injustice of totalization. So he says that "the question of presenting the unpresentable is the only one worthy of what is at stake in life and thought in the coming century" and calls for us "to wage a war on totality" and to be "witnesses to the unpresentable". Here the ethical problem arises. They are how to avoid totalization and how to present the unpresentable.
Nuyen thinks there are two strategies to respond the ethical demand. But before go into details about the two strategies, I will first do my reconstruction of Lyotard's postmodern condition the key of which is the redefinition of the netanarrative.
IV. Nuyen's two strategies deal with the two kinds of terrorism:
Political strategy and reflective strategy. Political strategy deals with the violent terrorism. The reflective strategy deal with the wrongs of differend, that of totalization.
V. Reconstruct Lyotard's postmodern condition as an ideal notion of free society and redefine the metanarrative as the totalization itself:
The key of the reconstruction is the reinterpretation of the concept of metanarrative. In Lyotard's mind, it seems like to be a kind of discourse ever existing in the history, that is, in the modern history. However, I would rather understand it as an illusion of legitimate discourse. The death of metanaarative, as claimed by Lyotard, means, in my mind, the nonexistence of metanarrative. There is no such kind of metanaarative as legitimacy. The incredulity toward metanarratives finally turn out to find the truth of history that the so called metanarrative is just the form of totalization of one kind of discourse, where differend is unavoidable. The attempt to be metanarrative is the ambition of totalization. Metanarrative is the justification of totalization. Therefore, I consider all metanarratives in history as products of totalization. That is to say, the metanarrative is just a beautiful coat for totalization. Totalization operates in the name of metanarrative. However, in fact, it is a process of totalization, a process of differendd, a process of causing the wrongs, a history of suffering of victims of differendd.
No metanarrative means no totalization. As long as there is totalization, we will never be in postmodern condition. Therefore I consider the postmodern condition as an ideal notion of free society. Just on this point, I have the same claim with Lyotard and Nuyen, that the war against totality is endless.
Further review of the two kinds of terrorism: sharing the same structure of terrorism.
So the rejection of violent terrorism also applies to the rejection of totalization.
VI. Reflection on the role of government and Political solution according to the two strategies
Since I see issues on the macro level as political issue, the political problem need a political solution.
The role of government to the violent terrorism:
The role of government to the white terrorism of totality: old government involved in totalization.
Pure notion of government from postmodern condition
We need a government which could not only rule out the violent terrorism but also prevent the totalization.
VII. Political missions before us
The mission set by Lyotard and Nuyen: to fight against the totalization and present the unpresentable individually.
The mission set according to my understanding of pure notion of government:
To fight against the old form of government to build up a new kind of government which could fight against the totalization and present the unpresentable.
VIII. Other implication of my reconstruction of postmodern condition and the redefinition of metanarrative
Review and evaluation of theories and events in history
Postmodern political philosophy based on Lyotard's Theory of just gaming
Postmodern political philosophy based on Lyotard's Theory of just gaming
Postmodernism and Utopia
Postmodernism and Utopia
Postmodern ethics
Micro ethics
Macro ethics
Political demand
What I want to do is to redefine or reposition the postmodernism condition described by Lyotard and to extend Nuyan's Postmodern ethics to the political area. Postmodernism flowers almost in any intellectual field and in most field they are profoundly productive. However, in the political theory postmodernism inserted few fingers. What People so called postmodernism politicians did were just some raise some separate criticisms that considered as the odd noise upon traditional political theories and government policies and actions. It seems like they are content with such kind of position in political area. But in fact, they can do more and what Lyotard said means more than what we know now. As Nuyan drew out a coherent theory of postmodern ethics, I will try to expend it to the political area following the same route.
One person can plays several kinds of games at the same time. There is no metanarratives that could be appealed to for legitimization when different games are in conflicts.
Why do we need a government? If the society is naturally well organized, we will not need to appeal to the government for just judgement. The natural good society is impossible because of the fact that some individual or group want to override others. In the situation no one's life, freedom and property is under protection. We can call the kind of action terrorism.
According to the postmodern ethic of Lyotard, we can recognize two kinds of terrorism. The first one is the direct terrorism, like murder, ritual killing, bomb, all that directly threaten person's life. Another one is indirect terrorism, which is what Lyotard called white terrorism. White terrorism originates from the differend, the negative effect of postmodern condition. It presents in the form of totalization which means one kind of game becomes superior over other games.
To avoid these kind of terrorism, we need a political solution. The political solution must be directed by the rules of metagame, that is, the rules of just gaming articulated by Lyotard. What is the nature of postmodern condition? Being free. Postmodern condition, in my mind, is actually the ideal free society for human beings. The destructive elements of the ideal, or the enemies of the free society are the two kinds of terrorism, one is visible and another invisible. These two kind of terrorism is consistent with the free society and would be ruled out by the rules of just gaming. The rules of just gaming is the ethical demands in a postmodern society.
But how to implement the rules of just gaming. The government. Government is built up to ensure the rules of just gaming are followed by all game players and prevent the society or all other kinds of games from the destruction of the two kinds of terrorism. Here we can see that the government derives from the existence terrorism. The nature of terrorism is violence. To fight against violence, the government has also need the violence, that is, the power. This is the insight of law or authority that Derrida has in the force of the law. Therefore, he say that in the foundation moment the power is neither just nor unjust. But in the postmodern condition, the government is based on the rules of just gaming.
The obligation of government is to rule out the two kinds of terrorism. In fact, the first one is easy to be recognized and to be ruled out. But the second one is hard to recognize and to fight against. The reason is that the totalization is often connected with the government. They get the legitimate coat by connecting closely with the government. This is the worst situation. In this situation, the role of government is suspicious. In fact, in this situation, the authority of government has lost her legitimacy. The situation is just what Foucualt described in his works, that the mixture of power and truth.
So, according to the postmodern ethics, we need a new kind of government. This kind of government is at the stake of protect all game player from not only from the violent terrorism, but also from the white terrorism, namely, the totalization where the old government is involved in. To be a postmodern government, she must keep herself neutral during all kinds of games. What is the proper being neutral for the government? According to the postmodern ethics, it should not only avoid involvement in the process of totalization, but also fight against any intentional or unintentional tendency to totalization, and erect all wrongs caused by the deferends. In Lyotard's words, the government should does her best to present the unpresentable, to free the unpresentable. Here, I point out that the multiplicity is the phenomenon originates from the free society without diferrend, rather than the value of the society that is set as value superior over others.
However, although Lyotard recognized the postmodern condition, but in fact we are not in the postmodern condition. Because the postmodern condition is actually an ideal of society like the original position of Rawls or the state of nature of Locke. The society we are living in is the society full of diferrend. What is the worst, we are living in a society where the government is still involved in the process of totalization. So, to have a government that could struggle against the the white terrorism of totalization, we first need to fight against the the government involved in the process of totalization. That is to say, now we still have to fight for ourselves in two war field at the same time, one is to fight against the totalization itself to present the presentable, the other is to fight against
the government involved in the process of totalization to build up a postmodern government that see preventing totalization as her sake.
Here I described a new kind of government based on the postmodern ethics drawn out by Nuyen form Lyorad's theory. But the postmodern political theory need to be justified more concretely. The biggest problem that I may have is the same one that Lyotard and Nuyen have to face, that is, since in postmodern condition, there is no narrative that could be justified to be superior over other games, then how could we justify the rule of just gaming is not such kind of metanarratives? In fact, I am inclined to admit that the rules of game is a kind of metanarrative, and the only one that could be justified in postmodern condition.
Another problem is that how to see the role of government during different games. Is it a kind of game? A metagame? Actually, Lyotard can not explain the compacted relation between different games. When he talks about games, he seems to see them as independent games to each other. However, in fact, they are closely woven together. For example, the economic game is almost connected with all other kinds of game. The relation between political game and other games is more complex. I am inclined to see the political game as the metagame the role of which is to ensure the fair condition for all other games. In this sense political game is the condition for the possibilities of other games. In this sense, I share the view of political theory that Rawls holds in his political liberalism.
From the postmodern point of view, we can give some new reviews about Marxism and Utilitarianism. For Marxism, the positive aspect is that it presents the unpresentable, namely, the worker class exploited by capitalists and fights against the totalization of capitalism. The negative aspect is that Marxism fell into totalization itself in its solution of the problems. I think that it find the right problem but it did not find the proper way to solve it. In its collective solution, individuals become the unpresentable. The mass become the unpresentable and the government become the totalization itself.
Utilitarianism actually is friendly with socialism. In the age of Bentham and Mill, the majority of the society is the poor. When they advocated to reform the society they were actually presenting the poor who were unpresentable in that age. But after the World War II, the majority of western society have a comfortable life. According to the principle of utility, it is unclear whether the minor poor should be improved by the sacrifice of common good. This implies that one theory may be coherent with the postmodern political demand but then it may become the opposition of the demand in the time. So the the view of postmodern political theory also implies a historical dimension at the principles of justice. I think this feature is consistent with the tamper of Postmodernism. In this sense, we may imagine that one day the principles of justice given by Rawls will become the opposition of the demand, that is, to present the unpresentable. Therefore, the mission of postmodernism is an endless task. It holds an ideal, that is the postmodern society, but in fact we will always be on the way getting close to the ideal. Of course, this ideal is an one different from the communist society, which is the extreme form of totalization.
Postmodern Political Theory
Postmodern Political Theory
Just presenting the unpresentable by political sublime is not enough, we also need to try best to prevent the tendency of totalization or differend, which is the origin of wrongs. This is why I claim that we need a political solution by building up a new kind of government. The role of government is crucial in the fight against totalization.
In history or reality, the role of government is complicated and suspicious because they may be involved in the process of totalization. What I am going to do is to put forth a pure notion of government, the postmodern government. It derives from the reconstruction of Lyotard's postmodern condition. In his view, postmodern condition is a period of history, namely the period after world war II. I will try to reconstruct it as an ideal notion of free society beyond history, from which point we may get a new dimension to review the history, or theories and events in history.
The key of the reconstruction is the reinterpretation of the concept of metanarrative. In Lyotard's mind, it seems like to be a kind of discourse ever existing in the history, that is, in the modern history. However, I would rather understand it as an illusion of legitimate discourse. The death of metanaarative, as claimed by Lyotard, means, in my mind, the nonexistence of metanarrative. There is no such kind of metanaarative as legitimacy. The incredulity toward metanarratives finally turn out to find the truth of history, the so called metanarrative is just the form of totalization of one kind of discourse, where differendd is unavoidable. Appealing to metanarrative means the attempt to be metanarrative, the ambition of totalization. Metanarrative is the justification of totalization. Therefore, I consider all metanarratives in history as products of totalization. That is to say, the metanarrative is just a beautiful coat for totalization. Totalization operates in the name of metanarrative. However, in fact, it is a process of totalization, a process of differendd, a process of causing the wrongs, a history of suffering of victims of differendd.
Just from the postmodern condition, an ideal conception of free society, in my mind, we are able to realize and recognize the wrongs of differendd, the terror of totality, and further the suffering of victims of differendd. Just at this point, as Nuyen drew out, we meet the postmodern ethical demand: how to avoid the wrongs of differ end, and how to present the unpresentable? To answer the ethical problem, Nuyen asserts that there are two kinds of strategies that can be drawn out from Lyotard's theory. He calls them political strategy and reflective strategy, respectively.
But before go further into the two strategy, I want to sketch out an outline of the whole scheme of what Nuyen calls postmodern ethics in my terms. In his postmodern ethics, there are two levels of ethics, one I call micro ethics, the other I call macro ethics. The micro ethic is based on the internal rules of small language games. From this point of view, we can develop a kind of normative theory of different occupation field. The macro ethics is concerned with the relationship between different games. It is based on the rules of just gaming, which aims at resolving the conflicts between different games. My focus would be mainly on the macro level. The two kinds of strategies answering the ethical demand is positioned on the macro level.
On the macro level, the postmodern ethics is to deal with two kinds of problem. One is the direct terrorism, like murder etc. The other is the wrongs of differendd, namely, what Lyotard calls the white terrorism of totality. The political strategy is used to deal with the problem of the direct terrorism. In fact, it is easy to recognize the direct terrorism but not easy to rule it out by postmodernism. So the key is to answer why the terroism should be ruled out according to postmodern ethics. The answer is that it destroys other player's right to play their own games. Everyone has the right and freedom to play any game he or she like to do as long as it does not destroy other's right and freedom to play their own games. The basis is the notion of free agent.
Concerning this issue, Nuyen think that the sole negative rule is not sufficient to rule out the terroism, so he adds a positive component that advocates to maximize the multiplicity of game playing and points out that the positive component works as a regulative rule in Kantian sense, not a determinate rule. But i think it is not necessary to add the positive aspect. It is inconsistent with the postmodern ethics and will bring out some other problems. In my view, the multiplicity is the natural consequence of free game playing, rather not the cause or independent value of game playing. We do not need to assume that the multiplicity is good and therefore it should be maximized. Certainly, the terrorism could be ruled out by it , but it still work to demand us to maximize the multiplicity even in cases not concerning terrorism. So the work left for me is to demonstrate the negative rule is sufficient to rule out the terrorism without adding a demand of maximizing the game playing.
The reflective strategy is used to deal with the wrongs of differendd. The white terrorism of totality is a kind of indirect terrorism, therefore it is hard to realize and recognize ti. From the point of postmodern condition, we can note that when metanarrative arise, then there is totalization. Totalization works under the cover of metanarrative. Totalization means some kind of discourse claim that it is superior to other discourses. Therefore, according to the existing grant narrative, other discourses become unpresentable. However, being unpresentable does not mean they do not exist. Lyotard adapts Kant's esthetic sublime to the political area. The esthetic sublime is an attempt to present the unpresentable when the faculty of imagination is demanded by the faculty of reason to present the object beyond its concept. When the imagination successfully creates new metaphors, symbols etc to present the unpresentable, people feel a kind of pleasure from the pain of imagination. it is the feeling of sublime. Lyotard applies it to the political area, Nuyen calls it political sublime, the presentation of wrongs of differendd.
Depriving other's right to play theory own games is amorally unjustifiable, or everyone has the absolute right to play their own games without intervene. This may be the same basis for rejecting the terrorism and totalization. Because they have the same structure that destroys individual's right of freedom to play their own games. I think this basis is valid enough to rule out the direct terrorism and the white terrorism of totality. The real and most significant contribution of Lyotard's postmodernism is that it realized and recognized the injustice of totality, and successfully draw out the same structure with terrorism by identifying the wrongs of differendd, this is why Lyotard calls the totality the white terrorism, such strong words. Then we can understand why Lyotard asserts that "the question of presenting the unpresentable is the only one worthy of what is at stake in life and thought in the coming century". Nuyen identifies it as the postmodern ethical demand. to respond the ethical demand, Lyotard calls for us "to wage a war on totality" and to be "witnesses to the unpresentable." They are the two sides of one coin. To fight against the totality and to present the unpresentable must be carried out together.
But Lyotard and Nuyen said little about the role of government in the mission. This is what I want to do. But all what I will talk about government is based on the reconstruction of Lyotard's postmodernism and Nuyen's postmodern ethics mentioned above.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Feedback to Charlene
Feedback to Charlene
In my response, I will argue that there would not be difficulty to rule out claim for respect of conscience that leads one to harm others and interference from government would be necessary in situation where people are driven to act by such kind of conscience.
Simply speaking, in Kukathusian sense, the liberty of conscience is so important that it should be protected against all possible intervene and violation. To protect individual liberty of conscience, the first thing to deny should be the violation from other individuals. Hence, we have reason to affirm that individual have the right to fight against any violation committed upon his liberty of conscience. Therefore, when you refer to the ritual killing, individuals threatened by it have the right to fight against commitments of ritual killing. I think we have no reason to deny this point and could not regard such kind of action as illegitimate action violating these ritual killers' liberty of conscience. In this sense, the respect for liberty of conscience and the right to protect it for oneself seem to be the contents of natural law. The legitimacy of an action could merely be justified by the fact that it originates from free conscience itself and the illegitimacy of an action is only determined according to the fact that it violates other's liberty of conscience. Here there seems to be a aporia. But it is not. Just like the way Kant defend autonomy of human being and the legitimacy of law that originates from the self determination, here we have reason to say that it is reasonable that liberty of conscience should and only should be constrained by itself. Therefore, an action should be intervened legitimately even if it is driven by one's own free conscience when it is violating other's liberty of conscience.
In the former paragraph, I argued that it is legitimate for one to intervene another's action when it is threatening to him or herself. The following question is whether it is reasonable to extend the intervene to the power of government. As Charlene cited, "[the goal of public policy] is not to shape the culture of the polity, or to uphold the dignity of the individual, or to rescue minority groups from their marginalized status in society. The liberal state is indifferent to these matters. Its only concern is to preserve the order within which such groups and individuals exist." (p. 250) why is it necessary for government to preserve the order? To preserve the order, in Kukathusian sense, is to protect individual's liberty of conscience. This is the reason why government exists. If there is no violation against liberty of conscience in society, the existence of government would not be necessary, in Kukathusian sense. No government is the ideal of minimal state. However, no intervene against liberty of conscience is impossible, so the existence of government is necessary, but the power should be limited as much as it should be. The basic goal for government is to protect people's liberty of conscience. The way to do this is to intervene any violation against liberty of conscience. The case of ritual killing is obviously in the list that government could legitimately intervene. It is based on the same basis with the individual intervene.
This is a defense for Kukathus based on his premise. But this does not mean I accept his basic standpoint. Moreover, for my limited knowledge about Kukathus' theory and the lack of your complete argument, I am not sure if my comments is proper for you argument. But the only thing I expect is that they could be useful for you to further your argument.
Feedback to Jacob
On this issue, here are just some questions, no comment I can offer.
May I understand the three criteria of model-saving you gave are reasons that an scientist should offer to stick to her current model when she meet contrary evidence? If so, then what I want to ask is whether it is also a kind of model-saving to modify some parts of her model to endorse the contrary evidence that is for the unmodified model? In many case, we can ignore contrary evidence when it scarifies one or more of the three criteria, but when it does not, could we still consider such kind of modification mentioned above as the model-saving? If so, is it acceptable to add one criteria as follows: model-saving is heuristically proper if the contrary deviance could be embodied by the model through making some modifications of the model settings?
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Notes on Lyotard's Postmodern Ethics and the Normative Question
Notes on Lyotard's Postmodern Ethics and the Normative Question
This paper and the other paper "Lyotard's Postmodern Ethics" are very inspiring for me. They made me not only have a clearer understanding about Lyotard's theory but also gain a new way to respect postmodernism.
To most extent, I agree that the ethical reinterpretation offered by you are successful. I am very interested in the strategy that you use to interpret Lyotard, and further more, thanks to the two papers, I am planning to interpret Lyotard's theory in a more political direction in my second term paper. According to your interpretation, it seem to be possible to have a new way to understand Rawls' and Nozick's political theory from the point of view of Lyotard's postmodern ethics.
Here, I just submit few notes concerning what I thought of when I am reading the paper.
The death of metanarratives implies that no universal narrative could be morally justified and what exist there are just small discourses that are justifiable according to their own local rules. Therefore, any kind of narrative trying to be superior over others would be morally illegitimate.
Under this landscape, two levels of ethics could be drawn out. I call them macro ethic and micro ethic. On the micro level, ethics serves for particular small games. As you put forth, "to play a game entails to obey the rules of the game"(p414). And you ground it on the autonomous agent, "the real source of normatively, of the force of obligation, lies in the agent himself or herself who choose to play a certain game, thus choose to play by the very rules that define the game"(p414). Moreover, the rule of a particular game could not be changed, because the rule is public for all players in the game. So "for any one game player, the rules of the games, its ethics, are binding until such time as he or she together with all other game players decide to change them"(p415). On the micro level, if one does not like some kind of game, he or she can choose to withdraw freely. Therefore, skeptical attack have no threaten to the micro ethics. If one wants to be an absolute skeptic he will have to encounter the risk of the Shakespearean choice between to be or not to be, because as he or she exist he has been in some kind of game.
However, the most significant and meanwhile the most controversial part of Lyotard's postmodern ethics is the macro ethics. If I can say that the micro ethics deals with the relation between individual and particular games, then the macro ethics is dealing with relations during different games. On macro level, the ethical demand is to deal with the wrongs of deferends, that is, how to avoid the oppression of some by others. According to your interpretation, there are two strategies that can be drawn out from Lyotard's works. One is called as the political strategy and the other is called as the reflective strategy. The political strategy is used to deal with injustice of terrorism based on the notion that depriving other's right to play their own game is morally unjustified. Here I mainly endorse the negative component and maintain my suspicion on the positive component in your interpretation. The reflective strategy is used to deal with injustice of totalization based on the notion that no narrative could be morally justified superior over others. Therefore, the urgent demand for justice is to do our best to present the unpresentable. Finally, you arrive at the notion that "to be a game player is to be playing the game of game playing, hence to be committed to the rules of game playing, namely, the rules of just gaming. The reason why terrorism should be ruled out and totalization should be blamed because playing them breaks the rule of just gaming, the rule of meta-game.
What I am going to do is turn the focus on the role of government which was not mentioned in your paper. Before reading your paper, I was inclined to see Lyotard as an anarchist. After reading your first paper, I am going to consider Lyotard as a libertarian like Nozick. But now, I am going to think that to some extent Lyotard may endorse some of Rawls' basic statements. The first strategy, namely, political strategy, could defend for Nozick's minimal state when it meets the problem of toleration of terrorism. But according to your interpretation, I think Lyotard's theory does not stop here. Taking his political sublime, we can understand Rawls' difference principle as a witness of the least advantaged in the society. In contrast, Nozick's theory is lack of the consideration. In my second paper, I will try to argue for what I put forth here.
I am afraid that the note is full of misunderstandings about your papers. So please point them out, professor, as you find some.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Two kinds of distributive justice
Two kinds of distributive justice
In intellectual area, when we talk about the history of some subject, we usually derive it to the ancient Greece. However, when people try to do that about the issue of distributive justice, Fleischacker calls for stopping, because in fact the meaning of the term "distributive justice" has changed in the history. As he indicated in his A Short History of distributive Justice, the phrase "distributive justice" indeed comes originally from Aristotle, but "the notion [in modern sense] is little more than two centuries old"(SHDJ,2).
"Distributive justice" in its modern sense calls on the state to guarantee that property is distributed throughout society so that everyone is supplied with a certain level of material means. However, in it's original, Aristotelian sense, "distributive justice" referred to the principles ensuring that deserving people are rewarded in accordance to their merits, especially regarding their political status, and was not seen as relevant at all to property rights. In short, the ancient principle has to do with distribution according to merit while the modern principle demands a distribution independent of merit.
Debates about distributive justice in modern sense tend to center on the amount of means to be guaranteed and pm the degree to which state intervention is necessary for those means to be distributed. If the level of goods everyone ought to have is low enough, it may be that the market can guarantee an adequate distribution; if everyone ought to have an ample basket of welfare protections, the state may need to redistribute goods to correct for market imperfections; if what everyone ought to had is an equal share of all goods, private property and the market will probably have to be replaced altogether by a state system for distributing goods. Distributive justice is thus understood go be necessary for any justification of property rights, and such that it may even entail a rejection of private property.
However, desert is essentially tied to merit for Aristotle; it makes no sense, in his framework, to think anyone could deserve something merely because she needs it. It is essential, that is, not accidental, to Aristotle's concept of distributive justice that a notion of merit is at work- a notion by which people deserve something because of excellent character traits they have or excellent actions they have performed. It is equally essential to the modern notion of distributive justice that people deserve certain goods regardless of their character traits or anything they have done.
Even if many religions state advocate helps for the poor but in many case it is concerned with the virtue of the giver, not with the notion that the poor deserve these things offered to them. According to Fleischacker, it is in eighteenth century that the attitudes toward the poor begin to change greatly and the modern sense of distributive justice begin to formulate. This change attributes to works made by Rousseau, Smith, Kant and Babeuf. Rousseau has some profound insight into the nature of inequality. In his sense, human beings are directly responsible for almost all human misery. If society causes most human sufferings, we can infer that society should also be able to cure most human evils. This leads us to the premise for the modern concept of distributive justice, that is, "the belief that redistributing property so as to minimize or eradicate poverty is possible"(p58).
Then, Smith first drew widespread attention to the harm done by poverty to the poor's private lives. He recommends that wealth can be redistributed in at least three ways: "(1) by a direct transfer of property from the rich to the poor, (2) by taxing the rich at a higher rate than the poor, or (3) by using tax revenues, gathered from rich and poor alike, to provide public resources that will mostly benefit the poor"(p63). Smith's most significant contribution is the picture of the poor he dignified, which is essential to help bring about the modern notion of distributive justice, that the poor deserve certain kinds of aids. Once one does have such kind of belief, some sort of welfare state comes to seem morally necessary.
Kant, more clearly and explicitly than any of his predecessors, proclaims the equal worth of all human beings. Every human being, indeed every rational being, exists as an end in himself and not merely as a means. Every human being is of "absolute worth", hence of equal worth. At a fundamental level all people are equally worthy, equally deserving of a good life. Moreover, Kant construes human nature such that we have a set of potentials for fully free action that we can realize only if we live in favorable natural and social circumstances. This view has important consequences for distributive justice, for the development of people's potentials may require a large number of material goods and social institutions. So if the value of a person's life requires the development of his or her potential, then it may be necessary for society to provide the material circumstances for developing those potentials to everyone who would not otherwise have them. (p74).
It is Bebeuf, a leader of the french revolution, who first explicitly proclaims that justice requires the state to redistribute goods to the poor. But according to Fleischacker, even Babeuf does not seem to have used the phrase "distributive justice" in its modern sense. Only when John Rawls began developing his theory of justice in the 1950s and 1960s did philosophers and political theorists begin to take seriously the individual right to well being that Babeuf had proclaimed in 1796. This is what I will introduce next week.
SHDJ, A Short History of Distributive Justice, Samuel Fleischacker, Harvard University Press, 2004.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Notes on A.J.Julius' "Basic Structure and the Value of Equality"
Notes on A.J.Julius' "Basic Structure and the Value of Equality"
In A Theory of Justice, Rawls claims at the beginning that "the primary subject of justice is the basic structure of a society, or more exactly, the way in which the major social institutions distribute fundamental rights and duties and determine the division of advantages from social cooperation"(TJ, 6). That is to say, to evaluate whether a society is just or not, we do not have to know what everyone in the society is doing. It is enough to know how the basic structure of the society be arranged.
Following Rawls, in this article Julius argues that a basic structure is the subject of specifically egalitarian principles of distributive justice. As a matter of fact, what Julius plans to do is to offer a new version of Rawls' difference principle. According to Rawls' difference principle, inequalities in goods distribution are just "if they are to be to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society"(TJ 266).
Before proceeding to open her own argument, Julius recalls some difficulties for Rawls' account of distributive justice. Rawls plans to leave spaces for individual choice and action through the separation of institutional and personal spaces of decision. However, the separation implies that an inequality is not unjust if people can reverse it only by shift their personal decisions into special patterns. As G.A..Cohen points out, if we believe that basic structures are the subject of justice, we will conclude that justice principles fail to constrain those of our choices that play no part in shaping those structures.
Julius believes that Rawls' preoccupation with basic structure reflects not one but two distinct moral ideas. One is the idea that G.A.Cohen criticizes above. The other one is the thought that "social structures constituting societywide distributional mechanisms give rise to a set of sui generis obligations binding on the people who inhabit them, and that justice or a big, self-contained piece of justice consists in the satisfaction of those obligations"(BSVE, 327). In the following paragraphs, what Julius does is to argue how such kind of distributional mechanism is reasonable and possible.
Julius' arguments originate from a general idea that "parties to social interaction treat one another unfairly unless they aim for equality, and that fair treatment in interaction is their reason to aim for equality"(BSVE, 323). According to Kant, I must not treat you merely as a means. If I act with the intention of leading you to act in a way that advances my own interests, it implies I am framing you. To avoid treating you merely as a mean, I must not frame you unless I can justify doing so by appeal to your own interests.
Julius imagines a world where people in it interact interdependently in general. Everyone will find that her own action and interests are causally connected to the actions of manny other people. Then he argues that it is possible for every member of a group to combine for a common profile which is a list of sequences of individual actions, if the following conditions are satisfied:
(i)that her decision to act her part of that profile is supported by her belief that the others will act their parts;
(ii) that this belief of hers is supported by agreements she has reached with the others or by conversations she has had with them about what they will all do or by observation of actions that the others have chosen in order to promote this belief of hers;
and (iii) that she herself has promoted other's beliefs that she will act her own part of the profile.(BSVE, 329).
Once conditions of combination are satisfied, the efficient cooperation will be more profitable for every number. Since the combination permits me to share benefits produced by the cooperation, I will discover more and more possibilities to do so as to lead others to act in ways that benefit me. So in fact I am framing those others by my choice of this stance. But this framing must be justified to e everyone whose action is influenced by it.
Then Julius turns to the hypotheses of social reproduction. He try to justify the combination to everyone involved by explaining the process of social reproduction. He assumes that a person's situation is a list of factors relevant to the intentional explanation of her stance in interaction. These factors of situation might influence the characters of her basic interests, goals, and values,the classification of her possible actions, evaluation of consequences of her actions, and method for advancing her interests or goals. Once people's situations are stylized in certain ways, we can divid the population into types and all members of a type share the same situation. This implies a distribution of actions in the population. Then an assignment of situation and a distribution of actions by types together pick out a distribution of goods by types. Then we can describe the evolution of people's situations by some law of motion in the population distribution of actions. It implies that "some of interaction's invariances over time are explained by the mutual reproduction of pairs of situation assignments and action distributions, and that some of the similarities and differences between people's lives along distinct trajectories are explained by similarities and differences between the basic structures that those trajectories sustain"(BSVE, 330).
Since every path of interaction is attracted to some basic structure. Between two distinct structure X and Y, if I want to promote combination for X because I believe that interaction structured by X will run more to the advantage of people of my type, then I will have to justify the combination to people of other type that I am to frame. A basic structure is a shaper of action and also a distributor of goods.
If X were strictly best for every type, then we could justify combining for it by arguing that everyone does better there than in any alternative. But we cannot justify X to everyone by justifying it to each person considered in isolation from others since people's interests do not in fact go with each other. If the reproduction of X is to be justified to everyone, its justification to each person must instead invoke the constraint that it also be justified to others. Then the selection of X over other structures is justified. However, there is no distribution whose selection is acceptable to everyone outright, we must choose the distribution whose selection is most acceptable for the person for whom it is least acceptable. It follows that X can be justified to every type only if people of it's worst-off type do no worse than people of the worst-off type of any other structure.
This is Julius' argument for difference principle. His point is that just basic structures are those that everyone can knowingly reproduce without wrongly framing anyone. And he believe that a knowingly reproduction of some basic structure would survive all criticism from the point of view of framing.
Abbreviation:
TH. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999.
BSVE A.J.Julius, Basic Structure and the Value of Equality, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 31, NO. 4 (Autumn, 2003), pp. 321-355.
Justice, Deconstruction, and Future
Justice, Deconstruction, and Future
" Justice in itself, if such a thing exists, outside or beyond law, is not deconstructible. No more than deconstruction itself, if such a thing exist. Deconstruction is justice " (DPJ, 14-15).
Is Derrida really and seriously talking about justice? It is not surprising to see such kind of surprise that one, who does not understand Derrida and even holds bias with him, has when he or she first looks at his messages on justice. Honestly, so am I in my first sight at the lecture, or the first part of the lecture, that he reads at the colloquium on " Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice". Such kind of reaction originates from the widely extended interpretation in which Derrida is sketched as "the devil himself, a street-corner anarchist, a relativist, or subjectivist, or nihilist, out to destroy our traditions and institutions, our beliefs and values, to mock philosophy and truth itself, to undo everything the Enlightenment has done—and to replace all this with wild nonsense and irresponsible play" (DN, 36). With such kind of impression to Derrida, people do not believe that he would seriously talk about the topic of justice. In their mind, deconstruction just simply means destruction. However, here Derrida is talking about justice indeed and dears to claim that deconstruction is justice itself.
In a nutshell, although deconstruction generally goes against all kinds of things like nutshell, Caputo summarizes, "the very meaning and mission of deconstruction is to show that things—texts, institutions, traditions, societies, beliefs, and practices of whatever size and sort you need—do not have definable meanings and determinable missions, that they are always more than any mission would impose, that they exceed the boundaries they currently occupy"(DN,31). In the force of law, the first thing Derrida did is to break a nutshell, the common conception of justice as law (droit). One piece is law, another piece is justice, they are closely attached together, however, the core in the nutshell is force or violence. As Pascal argues, "justice without force is impotent. Force without justice is tyrannical. Justice without force is contradictory, as there are always the wicked; force without justice is accused of wrong. And so it is necessary to put justice and force together; and, for this, to make sure that what is just be strong, or what is strong be just"(DPJ,10-11). Following Pascal, the conclusion is that since it is impossible to make the just strong, the strong have been made just, that is, the strong which is made just is law. Then, Derrida turns to reinterpret Montaigne's discourse that "so laws keep up their good standing, not because they are just, but because they are law: that is the mystical foundation of their authority, they have no other..... Anyone who obeys them because they are just is not obeying then the way he ought to"(DPJ, 12). One obey them not because they are just but because they have authority. Here, Montaigne clearly distinguishes laws from justice. From their opinion, we can find that justice is something originally outside of laws, something that is attached to laws. The reason why laws are followed by people is that fact they are law, that is, they are the authority. However, the foundation of authority is mystical.
The simple distinction between laws and justice is not enough for Derrida, then he continues to interpret the mystical foundation of authority which implies something violent existing there. To unveil the mystery, he turns to the the very emergence of justice and law. He asserts that "the founding and justifying moment that institutes law implies a performative force.....its very moment of foundation or institution ......would consist of a coup de force, of a performative and therefore interpretative violence that in itself is neither just or unjust and that no justice and no previous law with its founding anterior moment could guarantee or contradict or invalidate"(DPJ, 13). "Since the origin of authority, the foundation or ground, the position of the law can't by definition rest on anything but themselves, they are themselves a violence without ground. Which is not to say that they are in themselves unjust, in the sense of 'illegal.' They neither legal nor illegal in their founding moment"(DPJ,14).
By describing the violent structure of the founding act, Derrida concludes that law is essentially deconstructible. For people who were misunderstanding Derrida, this is the very thing what Derrida wants to do and usually did, that is, to destroy the beliefs that we are holding, such as justice and law. When they hear that some thing is claimed to be deconstructible, what appears in their mind is that the thing would be destroyed by Drrida, just like here the authority is claimed to be without foundation except itself with violence.
However, Derrida have more things to say about justice, that they usually ignore or fail to understand. They usually just see the negative aspects in deconstruction but fail to see the positive aspect. In fact, there are two main points in their ignorance about Derrida's deconstruction: Firstly, they fail to see that deconstruction is calling for some new things to add onto the old ones when it is applied to some things. It is not to simply destroy old things, but rather tear the old things open in order to make it possible to be renewed. The other one is that they fail to see what deconstruction affirmed. Actually, when it is in application upon something that is constructible in its sense, deconstruction is also affirming some thing at the same time, that is, the things that are undeconstrutible. The two points are closely connected in the process of deconstruction. In the following paragraphs, we will explain what a big misunderstanding they make, and find that deconstruction actually is on our side.
When he claims that law is essentially deconstructible, Derrida continues to point out "the fact that law is deconstructible is not bad news. We may even see in this a stroke of luck for politics, for all historical progress"(DPJ, 14). From the deconstructive point of view, one thing will not have future whenever it is to stabilize, to paralyze, or to close itself. Therefore, deconstruction goes against such kind of tendency and tries to crack all nutshells that do not open itself to the future. This may be the very mission that deconstructionists put on their shoulder. Therefore, we could see the deconstructibility of law as a good news although deconstruction could not guarantee what it will be specifically. Deconstruction is a positive element in historical progress because it is deconstruction that keeps the history open to the future. Furthermore, deconstructability of law itself is valuable for deconstruction because the deconstructible structure of law make deconstruction possible. Derrida argues that law itself is constructible, so it is deconstructible, furthermore, it makes deconstruction possible. Maybe historical progress under such kind of relation between law and deconstruction is what it should be.
Even if we admit that deconstruction gives law a future, but what about the value of justice? Out of our sense, Derrida gives us a very different account and a very high position. " Justice in itself, if such a thing exists, outside or beyond law, is not deconstructible. No more than deconstruction itself, if such a thing exist. Deconstruction is justice " (DPJ, 14-15). As you see, he also shows us a very surprising interpretation of deconstruction. Justice is the very thing that Deconstruction affirms. Justice is not deconstructible, however, it is just the undeconstructiblity of justice that makes deconstruction possible. Because without the undeconstructible deconstruction cannot be motivated, cannot find its movement and its impulse. In this sense, we can say that justice is what the deconstruction of law wants to bring about.
The deconstructibility of law makes deconstruction possible and the undeconstructibility of justice also makes deconstruction possible, thus, the result is that "deconstruction takes place in the interval that separates the undeconstructibility of justice from the deconstructibility of droit (authority, legitimacy, and so on)"(DPJ, 15). Deconstructioin stands in the gap between justice and law, one side gives deconstruction impulse and the other side is the object that it will crack, and both of them guarantee laws a future. "The future is not present, but there is an opening onto it; and because there is a future, a context is always open. What we call opening of the context is another name for what is still to come"(ATS,20). It is the progress through which deconstruction bents to pull new things into old things or to push old things open to the future. "Accordingly, everything in deconstruction......is organized around what Derrida calls l'invention de l'autre, the in-coming of the other, the promise of an event to come, the event of the promise of something coming"(DN, 42).
But justice is not a goal in the future that you can see or predesign. Once it could be foreseen then it would not be in the future, rather in the present. So deconstruction by justice refers to something unforeseeable but sill to come in the future. "Deconstructive analysis deprives the present of its prestige and exposes it to something tout autre, "wholly other," beyond what is foreseeable from the present, beyond the horizon of the ''same'(DN, 42). Therefore, the future is always open and further the context should be open. "it [deconstruction] is possible as an experience of the impossible, there where, even if it does not exist (or does not yet exist, or even never does not exist), there is justice"(DPJ,15). But this require the very experience of aporia. Justice means beyond the extreme boundaries, while the experience of the future is impossible for it does not allow passage. From this point of view, justice would be the experience that we are not able to experience. But Derrida thinks that there is no justice without the experience of aporia, no matter how impossible it may be. "Justice is an experience of the impossible. A will, a desire, a demand for justice whose structure wouldn't be an experience of aporia would have no chanced to be what it is, namely, a call for justice"(DPJ,16).
Aporia is the way to experience the impossibility. Maybe we can say that the "experience of impossibility" is just what deconstruction all about. "Deconstruction is the relentless pursuit of the impossible, which means, of things whose possibility is sustained by their impossibility, of things which, instead of being wiped out by their impossibility, are actually nourished and fed by it"(DN, 32). The impossible is undeconstructable because it beyond what we can see, namely, the possible. The possible, in Derrida's eyes, is a future, which is foreseeable and plannable, therefore, he call it the "present future". The experience means running against and beyond the limits of horizon, the present and the "present future". "To desire the impossible is to strain against the constraints of the foreseeable and possible, to open the horizon of possibility to what it cannot foresee or foretell"(DN, 134).
When we wait for the future that has been planned or predetermined, then we have annulled it. To open the future, it is necessary to free the value of the future from the horizon of present. Because the future, foreseen and pre decided possible is still limited in the present which need to be cracked from the point of view of deconstruction. That which defies any form of predetermination is singularity. "Justice always addresses itself to singularity, to the singularity of the other, despite or even because it pretends to universality"(DPJ, 20). There can be no future that is beyond the present and the "present future" unless there is radical otherness, and respect for this radical otherness. It is the way how justice participates in the future. Justice must be something that overflows law, which is always an ensemble of determinable norms and also be distinguished from what is general. "The singularity is what is always and already overlooked, out of sight, omitted, excluded, structurally, no matter what law, no matter what universal schema, is in place"(DN, 135).
Justice is never found in present order, justice is never present to itself. We can not see it but we can experience it by experiencing the impossibility when we meet aporia and where we are blocked. Why Derrida dear to say that "I know nothing more just than what I today call deconstruction"(DPJ, 21)? Because deconstruction is deeply and already engaged by the infinite demand of justice, for justice. Deconstruction is the experience of aporia, therefore it is the way of experiencing the impossible and the justice. Justice implies an opening to the future, and call for what is to come, to the coming of the other. "Justice calls, justice is to come, but justice does not exist"(DN, 154). However, although we know it does not exist, but we also know it is to come, therefore, by corresponding to its calling, we welcome a all new future.
DPJ, Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice, Ed. D.G. Carlson , D. Cornell, and M.Rosenfeld, Routledge, 1992.
DN, Deconstruction in A Nutshell: a conversation with Jacques Derrida, Ed. J.D. Caputo, Fordham University Press, 1997.
ATS, A Taste for the Secret, J. Derrida, and M. Ferraris, tan. G. Donis, Ed. G.Donis, and D. Webb
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Friday, September 10, 2010
My aspiration
My aspiration
The aspiration for my life is concerned with two issues: one is the institution, the other is the culture. The former one focuses on building a well organized government. The later one focuses on generating well cultivated people. The two issues are complicatedly fixed together in fact. Only both of the two are achieved successfully, a well ordered society is possible to be established.
The aspiration for my life is concerned with two issues: one is the institution, the other is the culture. The former one focuses on building a well organized government. The later one focuses on generating well cultivated people. The two issues are complicatedly fixed together in fact. Only both of the two are achieved successfully, a well ordered society is possible to be established.
Notes on "What is postmodernism?" by Lyotard
Notes on "What is postmodernism?" by Lyotard
What Habermas requires from the arts and the experiences they provide is, in short, to bridge the gap between cognitive, ethical,and political discourses, thus opening the way to a unity of experience.
What Habermas requires from the arts and the experiences they provide is, in short, to bridge the gap between cognitive, ethical,and political discourses, thus opening the way to a unity of experience.
Realism
In the diverse invitation to suspend artistic experimentation , there is an identical call for order, a desire for unity, for identity, for security, or popularity.
The use of categories in aesthetic judgment would thus be of the same nature as in cognitive judgment.
Such realism accommodates all tendencies, just as capital accommodates all "needs" , providing that the tendencies and needs have purchasing power.
Artistic and literary research is doubly threatened, once by the "cultural policy" and once by the art and book market.
The objects and the thoughts which originate in scientific knowledge and the capitalist economy convey with them one of the rules which supports their possibility : the rule that there is no reality unless testified by a consensus between partners over a certain knowledge and certain commitments.
Modernity, in whatever age it appears, cannot exist without a shattering of belief and without discovery of the " lack of reality" of reality , together with the invention of other realities.
The sublime is a different sentiment. It takes place, on the contrary, when the imagination fails to present an object which might, if only in principle, come to match a concept.
To make visible that there is something which can be conceived and which can neither be seen nor made visible: this is what is at stake in modern painting...it will enable us to see only by making it impossible to see; it will please only by causing pain.
Postmodernism
Is is undoubtedly a part of the modern. All that has been received, if only yesterday , must be suspected. ... A work can become modern only if it is first postmodern. Postmodernism thus understood is not modernism at it's end but in the nascent state, and this state is constant.
The postmodernism would be that which, in the modern, put forward the unpresentable in the presentation itself; that which denies itself the solace of good forms,... A postmodern artist and writer is in the position of a philosophy: the text he writes, the work he produces are not in principle governed by reestablished rules, and they can not be judged according to a determining judgment, by applying familiar categories to the text or to the work.
The answer is : let us wage a war on totality ; let us be witnesses to the unpresentable ; let us activate the differences and save the honor of the name.
Comments
We are in a slackening time! Yes, we are. But the conditions in different countries are crucially different. In those developed countries, the slackening implies the deconstruction of the totality project of modernity. However, in some east countries, the slackening may mean the withdraw to the time before enlightenment because they are still not enlightened enough. But some people should have equalized the problems of enlightenment to the problems of modernity. The problem of enlightenment is the mission of modernism. In contrast, the problem of modernity is the mission of postmodernism. When we confuse their distinction we will be on the wrong way to deal with problems that we are facing. For east society, it is crucially important to be clear what position they are in from the point of history.
Notes on "What is enlightenment?" by Immanuel Kant 1784
Notes on "What is enlightenment?" by Immanuel Kant 1784
The Art of Art History : A Critical Anthology
Oxford History of Art
Author: Preziosi, Donald
Publication: Oxford ; New York Oxford University Press (UK), 1998.
Immanuel Kant, 'What is Enlightenment?' from Kant Selections, Beck and Lewis White (eds), Macmillan Inc, New York © 1988, reprinted by permission of Prentice-Hall, Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey
Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere aude! 'Have courage to use your own reason!'—that is the motto of enlightenment.
For this enlightenment, however, nothing is required but freedom, and indeed the most harmless among all the things to which that term can properly be applied.
The touchstone of everything that can be concluded as a law for a people lies is the question whether the people could have imposed such a law on itself.
A greater degree of civil freedom appears advantageous to the freedom of mind of the people, and yet it places inescapable limitations upon it; a lower degree of civil freedom, on the contrary, provides the mind with room for each man to extend himself to his full capacity. As nature has uncovered from under this hard shell the seed for which she most tenderly cares—the propensity and vocation to free thinking—this gradually works back upon the character of the people, who thereby gradually become capable of managing freedom; finally, it affects the principles of government, which finds it to its advantage to treat men, who are now more than machines, in accordance with their dignity.*
Comments
What Kant emphasizes is the independence of subject. He advocates that individuals should dear to use their own reason when they are making judgment, rather not refer to authority. Meanwhile, Kant criticizes the oppression upon people's freedom of expression. He points that for the enlightenment, nothing is required but freedom. In short wards, enlightenment is a demand for people to use their reason freely without oppression from the authority. It is the project that was practiced by the western society. Whether did the project sketched by Kant succeed eventually? In one hand, Harbemas asserts that it is an incomplete project which need more efforts to be achieved. In the other hand, Lyotard claims that the project of enlightenment failed finally and further more we need to fight against the command of the totality which is the substantial characteristic of enlightenment.
However, what I see is the non balance of the enlightenment between different countries. Actually, the time is an age when the demand of enlightenment and postmodernism are fixed together. The project of enlightenment is not completed, that is, the subject has not been built up in some countries meanwhile the negative effect of modernity has become very apparent in some areas, which would have same effect on those countries that are in process of enlightenment. Therefore, we should notice that fact that some part of the world are facing the double commission of enlightenment and postmodernism. Obviously, the project in those regions would be more difficult and complicated.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Note on “Mill’s On Liberty: Introduction” by C.L.Ten
Note on "Mill's On Liberty: Introduction" by C.L.Ten
A summary of summary:
What is the nature of the liberty that Mill wanted to defend, and what are the sources of danger to it? In short, there are two kinds of resources of danger to individual liberty. The first one is the "social tyranny", which does not only imply the enforeful power of government but also the control of custom. The tyranny encroaches on both opinions and conduct and thereby prevents the development of genuine individuality. The second one is the potential mutual harm between individuals. If there is no necessary constraint on conduct to avoid that people harm one another freely, the individual liberty is impossible to be achieved. The former is advocating the absence of compulsion from government, while the later is claiming the necessity of the existence of social regulation. "so the problem is to estiblish a proper balance between individual independence and social control"(ML,2).
Where should the government have no control upon individual? Mill says that "the appropriate region of liberty " comprises: "first, the inward domain of consciousness; …liberty of thought and feeling; absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects…Secondly, …liberty of tastes and persuits; of framing the plan of our life to suit our character…without impediment from our fellow-creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them, even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong. Thirdly…freedom to unite, for any purpose not involving harm to others."(CW xviii,,225-6 [1,12]) In short, Mill expresses his view like this: "The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of persuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it"(CW xviii, 226 [1,13]).
Ten emphasizes the close connection between liberty and individuality. Without securing the appropriate region of individual liberty, "persons will lack individuality in that they are unable to form independent beliefs about the shape they want their own lives to take, nor are they able to lead their lives in accordance with their own conception of what a good life for them should be."(ML, 2-3) In the following paragraphs, Ten proceeds to interprate Mill's defense of liberty of thought and discussion as a deeper articulation of individuality. He points out that there is a shift from the likelihood of the opinion being true or false to the claim that every person should be able to judge for himself or herself the truth or falsity of an opinion. As he says, "if his argument has anything to do with the truth, it is evident that he is not so much concerned about whether freedom of expression will lead to the discovery of true beliefs, and all the individual and social benefits which such discoveries would bring. Rather, he is more interested in the manner in which people hold their beliefs, whether true or false"(ML, 4). A person can acquire a true opinion by simply relying on authority without any reflection. Mill rejects such an approach to the acquisition of true beliefs: "this is not knowing the truth" (Cwxviii, 244 [11,22]).
So called "knowing the truth" is to understand the meaning and grounds for one's own opinions, which need to keep them open to all arguments and evidence for and against these opinions. For Mill, individuals, who have "the dignity of thinking beings"(Cwxviii,243 [11,20]), will "accept as true only a belief that survives the challenges thrown at it in a free and open society where those holding diverse and conflicting views are encouraged to assert their opinions and debate with one another"(ML, 5).
In the case for liberty of conduct, Mill emphasizes the exercise of choice when people are carrying out their "experiments in living" at their own risk and peril. "He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice"(Cwxviii, 262 [111,3]). More important is that without choice something of great value would be missing. Individuality is a value that can be realized only when each person freely choose her own plan of life for herself.
Where should individuals be interfered by government? "The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others"(Cwxviii, 223-4[I,9]). Indeed Mill identifies the prevention of harm to others as the only legitimate ground for coercive interference with the conduct of a person. Self-harming and dislikeness in feeling or opinion could not be considered as harm to one another.
But some of Mill's comments indicate that his notion of harm includes elements which have bases independent of his account of individuality. For example, "a person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is just accountable to them for the injury."(Cwxviii,225 [I, II]). We may legitimately be compelled to perform many positive acts for the benefit of others. Although no detailed justification of these "social obligations" is given, they seem to rest on notions of reciprocity and mutual benefit. Ten points out that what counts as conduct harming the interests of others does not involve an appeal to individuality. Disagreements on these issues may need to turn to "the pinciples of efficiency, fairness, and productivity, which will determine each person's entitlement to the existing and future resources of the community"(ML,12).
Route for next week:
As we can see in the last paragraph of the summary, there is some elements in the principle of harm is not consistent with Mill's account of indivuduality in his defense of liberty. That implies that individuality is necessary but not the sufficient condition for individual liberty. To have a more coherent account of Mill's principle of liberty, we need to take his principle of utility into account. Henry R. West gives us an alternative to interpret Mill's principle from the point of principle of utility. Next week I will proceed to observe West's article of "Mill's case for liberty".
Notes
1. ML, abbreviation of Mill's On Liberty, ed. C.L.Ten, Cambrige University Press, 2008.
2. CW, abbreviation of The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, ed. John M. Robson, University of Toronto Press, 1963-91.
Zhang Ming
A summary of summary:
What is the nature of the liberty that Mill wanted to defend, and what are the sources of danger to it? In short, there are two kinds of resources of danger to individual liberty. The first one is the "social tyranny", which does not only imply the enforeful power of government but also the control of custom. The tyranny encroaches on both opinions and conduct and thereby prevents the development of genuine individuality. The second one is the potential mutual harm between individuals. If there is no necessary constraint on conduct to avoid that people harm one another freely, the individual liberty is impossible to be achieved. The former is advocating the absence of compulsion from government, while the later is claiming the necessity of the existence of social regulation. "so the problem is to estiblish a proper balance between individual independence and social control"(ML,2).
Where should the government have no control upon individual? Mill says that "the appropriate region of liberty " comprises: "first, the inward domain of consciousness; …liberty of thought and feeling; absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects…Secondly, …liberty of tastes and persuits; of framing the plan of our life to suit our character…without impediment from our fellow-creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them, even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong. Thirdly…freedom to unite, for any purpose not involving harm to others."(CW xviii,,225-6 [1,12]) In short, Mill expresses his view like this: "The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of persuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it"(CW xviii, 226 [1,13]).
Ten emphasizes the close connection between liberty and individuality. Without securing the appropriate region of individual liberty, "persons will lack individuality in that they are unable to form independent beliefs about the shape they want their own lives to take, nor are they able to lead their lives in accordance with their own conception of what a good life for them should be."(ML, 2-3) In the following paragraphs, Ten proceeds to interprate Mill's defense of liberty of thought and discussion as a deeper articulation of individuality. He points out that there is a shift from the likelihood of the opinion being true or false to the claim that every person should be able to judge for himself or herself the truth or falsity of an opinion. As he says, "if his argument has anything to do with the truth, it is evident that he is not so much concerned about whether freedom of expression will lead to the discovery of true beliefs, and all the individual and social benefits which such discoveries would bring. Rather, he is more interested in the manner in which people hold their beliefs, whether true or false"(ML, 4). A person can acquire a true opinion by simply relying on authority without any reflection. Mill rejects such an approach to the acquisition of true beliefs: "this is not knowing the truth" (Cwxviii, 244 [11,22]).
So called "knowing the truth" is to understand the meaning and grounds for one's own opinions, which need to keep them open to all arguments and evidence for and against these opinions. For Mill, individuals, who have "the dignity of thinking beings"(Cwxviii,243 [11,20]), will "accept as true only a belief that survives the challenges thrown at it in a free and open society where those holding diverse and conflicting views are encouraged to assert their opinions and debate with one another"(ML, 5).
In the case for liberty of conduct, Mill emphasizes the exercise of choice when people are carrying out their "experiments in living" at their own risk and peril. "He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice"(Cwxviii, 262 [111,3]). More important is that without choice something of great value would be missing. Individuality is a value that can be realized only when each person freely choose her own plan of life for herself.
Where should individuals be interfered by government? "The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others"(Cwxviii, 223-4[I,9]). Indeed Mill identifies the prevention of harm to others as the only legitimate ground for coercive interference with the conduct of a person. Self-harming and dislikeness in feeling or opinion could not be considered as harm to one another.
But some of Mill's comments indicate that his notion of harm includes elements which have bases independent of his account of individuality. For example, "a person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is just accountable to them for the injury."(Cwxviii,225 [I, II]). We may legitimately be compelled to perform many positive acts for the benefit of others. Although no detailed justification of these "social obligations" is given, they seem to rest on notions of reciprocity and mutual benefit. Ten points out that what counts as conduct harming the interests of others does not involve an appeal to individuality. Disagreements on these issues may need to turn to "the pinciples of efficiency, fairness, and productivity, which will determine each person's entitlement to the existing and future resources of the community"(ML,12).
Route for next week:
As we can see in the last paragraph of the summary, there is some elements in the principle of harm is not consistent with Mill's account of indivuduality in his defense of liberty. That implies that individuality is necessary but not the sufficient condition for individual liberty. To have a more coherent account of Mill's principle of liberty, we need to take his principle of utility into account. Henry R. West gives us an alternative to interpret Mill's principle from the point of principle of utility. Next week I will proceed to observe West's article of "Mill's case for liberty".
Notes
1. ML, abbreviation of Mill's On Liberty, ed. C.L.Ten, Cambrige University Press, 2008.
2. CW, abbreviation of The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, ed. John M. Robson, University of Toronto Press, 1963-91.
Zhang Ming
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
The time of the king
The time of the king
The king takes all my time; I give the rest to Saint-Cyr, to whom I would like to give all. Madame de Maintenon
1. She gives the rest which is nothing since the king takes it all from her.
2. "I would like to give all" indicates her infinite sigh of unsatisfied desire. Her desire would be there where she would like to give what she cannot give, the all, that rest of the rest of which she cannot make a present. Desire and the desire to give would be the same thing.
3. Derrida refers to a certain circle whose figure precipitates both time and the gift toward the possibility of their impossibility . The law of economy is a circle implying the idea of exchange, of return. But if there is gift, the given of the gift must not come back to the giving. In the sense , the gift might be impossible. Not impossible but the impossible.
4. Time is also considered as a circle . Wherever there is time, wherever time as circle , the gift is impossible. A gift could be possible only at the instant an effraction in the circle will have taken place. This instant of effractiion must no longer be part of time. In this sense one would never have the time of a gift.
5. If we are going to speak of it, we will have to name something. However, unless the gift were the impossible but not unnameable or unthinkable a dimension opens up where there is a gift.
6. Conditions of possibility of the gift designate simultaneously the conditions of the impossibility of the gift. In the logic of debit, the circulation of a good is not only that of the things but even of the values or the symbol and the intention to give , whether they are conscious or unconscious. Thus, in order to be a gift, it is necessary that donor and the donee do not recognize the gift as gift. If it present it self , it no longer presents it self.
7. Forgetting does not work as well in making a gift possible. Because for there to be forgetting in this sense, there must be gift. The gift would also be the condition of forgetting.
8. Forgetting and gift would be each in the condition of the other. Heidegger names forgetting as the condition of Being and of the truth of Being. The forgetting is another name of Being.
9. As the condition for a gift to be given, the forgetting must be radical not only on the part of the donee but on the part of the donor. There where there is subject and object , the gift would be excluded. A subject will never give an object to another subject.
10. The truth of the gift suffices to annul the gift. The structure of this impossible gift is also that of Being and of time.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Journal Entry of Walter Sinnott-Armstrong’s “Intuitionism” of Moral Skepticisms
Journal Entry of Walter Sinnott-Armstrong's "Intuitionism" of Moral Skepticisms
Summary
To avoid skeptical regress, we need turn to intuitions where the skeptical regress stops. According to Walter's definition of intuitionism, the simplitical intutionist claim is that "some moral beliefs are justified non-inferentially". What walter focuses on is neither specific areas conerning which moral beliefs are justified non-inferentially, nor which features of these moral beliefs make them justified non-inferentially, even nor psychological descriptions of ability to draw an inference or not. In contrast, he applies his arguments mainly to the central claim that all intuitionists share, namely, that "some believers are justified onn-inferentially in holding some moral beliefs."
Walter makes a distinction between so called "weak moral intuitionism" and "moral intuitionism", a stronger view in his mind. He argues that the weak moral intuitionists failed to stop the skeptical regress for its facit admission of the podential ability to draw an inference for a belief. The one actually challenging skeptics is the stronger intuitionist claim that "if a belief can be justified independently of any actual inference and also independently of any ability to draw any inference, then there is no dependence on any inference with any new premise that needs to be justified." The following arguments are mainly concerned with the stronger version of moral intuitionism.
Firstly, in an extreme contrast class, Walter displays intuitionist's inability of defending itself againt attack from nihilists. When a moral nihilist denies a proposition which is obviously true to moral intuitionists, what they can say is just to point out it is obviously right to us. "such moral beliefs appear obvious to almost everyone who is not a moral nihilist, but that appearacne is just what would be predicted by the moral nihilist's hypothesis that all moral beliefs are evolutionary or cultural illusions." However, as Walter correctly points out, "when both of two hypotheses would predict an observation, that observation cannot be used as evidence for one as opposed to the other. "
Secondly, walter turns to modest contrast. He asks: when do belidfs need confirmation? It is hard to give a direct judgement who is winner between intuitionist and its opponents. So Walter takes anologies to non-moral beliefs as as a strategy for his arguments. Through anologies, he summarizes the following principles: 1) Confirmation is needed for a believer to be justified when the believer is partial; 2) Confirmation is needed for a believer to be justified in holding a belief that other people deny or doubt, when the believer has no reson to prefer one believer to the other; 3) Confirmation is needed for a believer to be justified when the leliever is emotional in a way that clouds judgment. 4) Confirmation is needed for a believer to be justified when the circumstances are conducive to illusion. 5) Confirmation is needed for a believer to be justified when the belief arises from an unreliable or disreputable source. Then he argues that these epistimological principles also apply in the area of moral belief, therefore the confirmation is needed for justified moral beliefs and that this is enough to undermine moral intuitionism claiming that some believers are justified non-inferentially.
Walter then gives his responses against most possible objections. First of all, he raises a dilemma against who claim that their moral beliefs and believers are special. Simplistically express like this: moral intuitionist should assume that they themselves are also subject to problems indicated in section 9.4, unless they have some special reason to think that they are immune. "But if they do have a special resson to trust their own strongly held non-inferable moral beliefs, then that special reason is itself confirmation for those moral beliefs", which is compatible with walter's conclusion that confirmation is needed.
In the second place, Walter denies the possibility to confirm a moral belief without inferential ability. If the believer is aware of a confirmation, then the believer has enough information to be able to argue like this:
I hold this moral belief in circumstance like these.
If I hold a moral belief in circumstances like these, then it is usually true.
∴This moral belief is (probably) true.
Thirdly, walter corrects a misunderstanding about his approach, reclaiming that "I do not assume that justified believers must know or be justified in believing (or even be able to know or be justified in believing ) that they are justifiied."
Fourthly, responding to accuse of forgetting that a moral believer can be difeasibly justified without being adequately justified, Walter points out that an underminning defeater takes the force out of a reason without providing any reason to believe the opposite. That suggest that we have no reason to trust our immediate moral beliefs before confirmation. And undermining defeaters also have no reason to leave space for immediate moral beliefs without confirmation.
Finally, he argues that his principles do not lead to disaster, because his opinion is not that moral intuitions are not justified, but only that they are not justified non-inferentially because they need confirmation. And he also reclaims that his claims is completely compatible with everyday moral reasoning because although they do not need to formulate actual inferences, they still might need to be able to infer their moral beliefes in order to be justified. More basically, obiviousness does not show that a belief is not based on inference, much less that it is justified non-inferentially.
In the conclusion part, Walter examines the trival way in which some immediate moral beliefs might be modestly justified and asserts that all this technical way shows is just that these beliefs are assumed to be true in everyday contexts. "But what matters here is that moral intuitionism cannot show how any moral believer or belief be justified in any way that is sufficient to stop the skeptical regress".
Comments
In the article, Walter actually reveals an epistemological paradox. If you want to justify your moral beliefs you will face the skeptical regress; to avoid this, you can turn to intuitionism, but then you will confront the problom of uncertainty. According to Walter's arguments, you, as an intuitionist, has to make confirmation for your beliefs which will unavoidably lead to skeptical regress again. Under the pressure of Walter's arguments, I remind Wittgenstein's quote: "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent". When Walter works on his best to open my mouth to defend for my moral beliefs, do I have the right to be silent? If I claim that I am an ituitionis on moral belief, do I mean that I believe that my moral beliefs are justified non-inferentially as he difined? According to Walter, I certainly have the right to be silent, but if I , as an intutionist, try to assert that moral intuitionism could be justified non-inferentially, then I would have to respond his questioning. As long as I open my mouth to try to say something, I am contradicting with my own stand. Is it a puzzle or a trap? Can you speak illogically?
Intuitionism implies that the moral believfs are not spoken out in language but does not mean that they do not exist. Some moral beliefs are just telling but not explaining for themselves. They present to people as self-evident truth and will be accepted by people unconditonally. When Walter tracts us to speak something for them, what he is doing is actually compelling us to reconsider these moral beliefs that you got immediately in some situation. And additionally I would like to admit that this kind of situation is arbitrary, or else, they would be able to be reconstructed in logical wards. Some moral beliefs present to you as self-evident beliefs.
Let's make an analogy. When I met Charlene, I got an impression that she is beautiful and I believed that this judgement was from intuition. Then you ask me why you think she is beautiful. If I try to answer your question, the only alternative is to reconstruct my impression about her and express them out in order to make you understand or believe my judgement, such as offering evidence like that she has beautiful eyes, slim gesture or attractive voice. However, let's imagine that there is another guy who does not think Charlene is beautiful, and offers the same kinds of evidence to support his judgment, then what you can find? I think we have reason to believe that there is something that concerns my own intrinstic form in my brain, the form of beauty conception. When Charlene's beauty fits the beauty form in my brain, then I will judge that she is beautiful. It is same in opposite condition. However, if I try to explain my judgment by offering the intrinsic form, I fall into Walter's trap again. No matter which kind of explanation I offered, they are not the certain proper or right explanation, so I also can say that I said nothing when I was saying that.
Walter give a very broad defination of inference and a very narrow defination of moral intuitionism. This setting likes a pair of scissors cutting down anything that is out of inferential justification. As long as you say something for your moral beliefs, you will fall into the trap designed by Walter. Is there any way to destroy Walter's trap? I think there are three ways. Firstly and also the best, you maintain to be silent. You see the truth which you can tell but can not explain. You can see it, that is enough. This response, I guess, will make Walter mad and abuse you irrational. Secondly, we can redefine concepts of intuitionism and inference. But this will change Walter's scheme and he may claim that we are talking about different things.
Lastly, the only alternative left is to destroy his arguments internally. According to Walter's defination, if the confirmation for believer to be justified is needed, the intuitionist claim fails. Ok, now let's imagine that I am a moral intuitionist. Under pressure from Walter's arguments, I need to confirm one of my moral beliefs. According to Walter's arguments, as long as I admit that confirmation is needed for my claim to be justified, I failed to be a moral intuitionist. Then he wins. It seems to be a little simplitical. In Walter's mind, it is not necessary to concern what kinds of justification I will give since they all will inevitably fall into inferential justification. But he ignores a kind of possibility that I tried all possible ways to justify my moral beliefs inferentially but failed in the end. And anybody who holds some kind of moral beliefs is unable to succeed as well. Is this a way to confirm that my moral beliefs are justified non-inferentially? It is, I think. Additionally, we need to note that it does not mean that my moral beliefs are wrong if I could not offer successful justification in the background of Walter's arguments because he claims again and again that "his opinion is not that moral intuitions are not justified, but only that they are not justified non-inferentially because they need confirmation." Now since we have no way to justify some of our moral beliefs, the things left for us is to accept them or not. I accept them.. Why? I will be silent.
Summary
To avoid skeptical regress, we need turn to intuitions where the skeptical regress stops. According to Walter's definition of intuitionism, the simplitical intutionist claim is that "some moral beliefs are justified non-inferentially". What walter focuses on is neither specific areas conerning which moral beliefs are justified non-inferentially, nor which features of these moral beliefs make them justified non-inferentially, even nor psychological descriptions of ability to draw an inference or not. In contrast, he applies his arguments mainly to the central claim that all intuitionists share, namely, that "some believers are justified onn-inferentially in holding some moral beliefs."
Walter makes a distinction between so called "weak moral intuitionism" and "moral intuitionism", a stronger view in his mind. He argues that the weak moral intuitionists failed to stop the skeptical regress for its facit admission of the podential ability to draw an inference for a belief. The one actually challenging skeptics is the stronger intuitionist claim that "if a belief can be justified independently of any actual inference and also independently of any ability to draw any inference, then there is no dependence on any inference with any new premise that needs to be justified." The following arguments are mainly concerned with the stronger version of moral intuitionism.
Firstly, in an extreme contrast class, Walter displays intuitionist's inability of defending itself againt attack from nihilists. When a moral nihilist denies a proposition which is obviously true to moral intuitionists, what they can say is just to point out it is obviously right to us. "such moral beliefs appear obvious to almost everyone who is not a moral nihilist, but that appearacne is just what would be predicted by the moral nihilist's hypothesis that all moral beliefs are evolutionary or cultural illusions." However, as Walter correctly points out, "when both of two hypotheses would predict an observation, that observation cannot be used as evidence for one as opposed to the other. "
Secondly, walter turns to modest contrast. He asks: when do belidfs need confirmation? It is hard to give a direct judgement who is winner between intuitionist and its opponents. So Walter takes anologies to non-moral beliefs as as a strategy for his arguments. Through anologies, he summarizes the following principles: 1) Confirmation is needed for a believer to be justified when the believer is partial; 2) Confirmation is needed for a believer to be justified in holding a belief that other people deny or doubt, when the believer has no reson to prefer one believer to the other; 3) Confirmation is needed for a believer to be justified when the leliever is emotional in a way that clouds judgment. 4) Confirmation is needed for a believer to be justified when the circumstances are conducive to illusion. 5) Confirmation is needed for a believer to be justified when the belief arises from an unreliable or disreputable source. Then he argues that these epistimological principles also apply in the area of moral belief, therefore the confirmation is needed for justified moral beliefs and that this is enough to undermine moral intuitionism claiming that some believers are justified non-inferentially.
Walter then gives his responses against most possible objections. First of all, he raises a dilemma against who claim that their moral beliefs and believers are special. Simplistically express like this: moral intuitionist should assume that they themselves are also subject to problems indicated in section 9.4, unless they have some special reason to think that they are immune. "But if they do have a special resson to trust their own strongly held non-inferable moral beliefs, then that special reason is itself confirmation for those moral beliefs", which is compatible with walter's conclusion that confirmation is needed.
In the second place, Walter denies the possibility to confirm a moral belief without inferential ability. If the believer is aware of a confirmation, then the believer has enough information to be able to argue like this:
I hold this moral belief in circumstance like these.
If I hold a moral belief in circumstances like these, then it is usually true.
∴This moral belief is (probably) true.
Thirdly, walter corrects a misunderstanding about his approach, reclaiming that "I do not assume that justified believers must know or be justified in believing (or even be able to know or be justified in believing ) that they are justifiied."
Fourthly, responding to accuse of forgetting that a moral believer can be difeasibly justified without being adequately justified, Walter points out that an underminning defeater takes the force out of a reason without providing any reason to believe the opposite. That suggest that we have no reason to trust our immediate moral beliefs before confirmation. And undermining defeaters also have no reason to leave space for immediate moral beliefs without confirmation.
Finally, he argues that his principles do not lead to disaster, because his opinion is not that moral intuitions are not justified, but only that they are not justified non-inferentially because they need confirmation. And he also reclaims that his claims is completely compatible with everyday moral reasoning because although they do not need to formulate actual inferences, they still might need to be able to infer their moral beliefes in order to be justified. More basically, obiviousness does not show that a belief is not based on inference, much less that it is justified non-inferentially.
In the conclusion part, Walter examines the trival way in which some immediate moral beliefs might be modestly justified and asserts that all this technical way shows is just that these beliefs are assumed to be true in everyday contexts. "But what matters here is that moral intuitionism cannot show how any moral believer or belief be justified in any way that is sufficient to stop the skeptical regress".
Comments
In the article, Walter actually reveals an epistemological paradox. If you want to justify your moral beliefs you will face the skeptical regress; to avoid this, you can turn to intuitionism, but then you will confront the problom of uncertainty. According to Walter's arguments, you, as an intuitionist, has to make confirmation for your beliefs which will unavoidably lead to skeptical regress again. Under the pressure of Walter's arguments, I remind Wittgenstein's quote: "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent". When Walter works on his best to open my mouth to defend for my moral beliefs, do I have the right to be silent? If I claim that I am an ituitionis on moral belief, do I mean that I believe that my moral beliefs are justified non-inferentially as he difined? According to Walter, I certainly have the right to be silent, but if I , as an intutionist, try to assert that moral intuitionism could be justified non-inferentially, then I would have to respond his questioning. As long as I open my mouth to try to say something, I am contradicting with my own stand. Is it a puzzle or a trap? Can you speak illogically?
Intuitionism implies that the moral believfs are not spoken out in language but does not mean that they do not exist. Some moral beliefs are just telling but not explaining for themselves. They present to people as self-evident truth and will be accepted by people unconditonally. When Walter tracts us to speak something for them, what he is doing is actually compelling us to reconsider these moral beliefs that you got immediately in some situation. And additionally I would like to admit that this kind of situation is arbitrary, or else, they would be able to be reconstructed in logical wards. Some moral beliefs present to you as self-evident beliefs.
Let's make an analogy. When I met Charlene, I got an impression that she is beautiful and I believed that this judgement was from intuition. Then you ask me why you think she is beautiful. If I try to answer your question, the only alternative is to reconstruct my impression about her and express them out in order to make you understand or believe my judgement, such as offering evidence like that she has beautiful eyes, slim gesture or attractive voice. However, let's imagine that there is another guy who does not think Charlene is beautiful, and offers the same kinds of evidence to support his judgment, then what you can find? I think we have reason to believe that there is something that concerns my own intrinstic form in my brain, the form of beauty conception. When Charlene's beauty fits the beauty form in my brain, then I will judge that she is beautiful. It is same in opposite condition. However, if I try to explain my judgment by offering the intrinsic form, I fall into Walter's trap again. No matter which kind of explanation I offered, they are not the certain proper or right explanation, so I also can say that I said nothing when I was saying that.
Walter give a very broad defination of inference and a very narrow defination of moral intuitionism. This setting likes a pair of scissors cutting down anything that is out of inferential justification. As long as you say something for your moral beliefs, you will fall into the trap designed by Walter. Is there any way to destroy Walter's trap? I think there are three ways. Firstly and also the best, you maintain to be silent. You see the truth which you can tell but can not explain. You can see it, that is enough. This response, I guess, will make Walter mad and abuse you irrational. Secondly, we can redefine concepts of intuitionism and inference. But this will change Walter's scheme and he may claim that we are talking about different things.
Lastly, the only alternative left is to destroy his arguments internally. According to Walter's defination, if the confirmation for believer to be justified is needed, the intuitionist claim fails. Ok, now let's imagine that I am a moral intuitionist. Under pressure from Walter's arguments, I need to confirm one of my moral beliefs. According to Walter's arguments, as long as I admit that confirmation is needed for my claim to be justified, I failed to be a moral intuitionist. Then he wins. It seems to be a little simplitical. In Walter's mind, it is not necessary to concern what kinds of justification I will give since they all will inevitably fall into inferential justification. But he ignores a kind of possibility that I tried all possible ways to justify my moral beliefs inferentially but failed in the end. And anybody who holds some kind of moral beliefs is unable to succeed as well. Is this a way to confirm that my moral beliefs are justified non-inferentially? It is, I think. Additionally, we need to note that it does not mean that my moral beliefs are wrong if I could not offer successful justification in the background of Walter's arguments because he claims again and again that "his opinion is not that moral intuitions are not justified, but only that they are not justified non-inferentially because they need confirmation." Now since we have no way to justify some of our moral beliefs, the things left for us is to accept them or not. I accept them.. Why? I will be silent.
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