I'll start us off with a meaty topic.
I am often baffled by the heavy reliance on intuitions in ethics. An unnamed professor in class (let's call him Shmoriarty) recently said "it's all we have!" Yet this concerns me. I understand that we all have intuitions that affect our opinions on ethical matters, but why should an intuition JUSTIFY an ethical conclusion?
I have seen philosophers scoff at ethical relativism, yet defend their intuitions as sensible justification for moral beliefs. It seems to me that intuitionism (and lesser degrees of the reliance on intuitions) boils down to relativism pretty quickly unless we think that everyone has the same intuitions. A brief look back at history (slavery, subjugation of women) informs us that intuitions about a lot of things have changed over time. Why should one's current intuitions have such a sturdy claim on our morals? Shouldn't we all be willing to say that I have intuition X, but in light of argument Y it appears intuition X could be false?
I don't think I am arguing that ethics can be done without a single reference to an intuition (though I suspect it might be possible). I'm wondering what the proper role for intuitions should be. Assuming full blown intuitionism is mistaken, most ethicists rely on intuitions far more than I am comfortable with.
What say the newly assembled BG bloggers?
(webmaster addition)Relevant Articles:
Moral Epistemology (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
First, I think you're right to be concerned with the large role being played by intuitions in ethical theory. It seems to me that ethics could perhaps be done without any appeal to our intuitions, or at least without appealing to them as normative forces.
ReplyDeleteYour post points to two distinct problems. First, there is the problem of the ubiquity of our intuitions. I think that many would argue that their appeal to intuitions in moral philosophy is in the hopes of discovering either than most (or all) agree with them or that there is someone else who can shed new inuitive light on the situation, eventually leading to agreement. The second problem is that, even if an agreement were to be reached, we would still be left with that old "is-ought" gap. Even if every single person in the world believed that, say, rape was wrong, why would this have any force as a moral law? It would simply be a fact that everyone believed it, but if someone were to be born who believed otherwise, why should the unanimity of our belief affect their convictions?
Obviously, these are not questions I will attempt to fully address here, especially as I suspect that our intuitions are neither ubiquitous nor have normative force. In fact, I suspect that a large number of arguments over inuitions boil down to disagreements of linguistic intuitions rather than moral ones. But that is for another time.
I would like to briefly address the question of whether or not ethics could conceivably be done without moral intuitions. I think that many who wish to escape intuitions look to consequentialism, which, though I think it is ultimately the best option, is still somewhat problematic. First, consequentialists, while they may avoid questions of the "right" cannot avoid questions of the "good." Unless one can say "this is a good [or bad] consequence," consequentialism goes nowhere. I think, however, that this can be dealt with, at least for political theory, with an appeal to something less mystical than our intuitions. One might say, for example, that the purpose of a government* is to impartially protect the interests of each of its consitutents. This would make the "good" simply those cases where those interests are protected. One might say, for instance, that, rather than being morally wrong, murder cannot be tolerated because its consequence is a state in which the state has failed to prevent a harm on one of it's constituents by another. This is very rough, but you get the idea.
The real trouble for getting away from our intuitions, I think, is that of "moral mathematics." For example, does impartiality mean that the state should save ten people rather than one or save the one if that one is "valuable" enough in some sense? It would seem that this question might be unanswerable without looking to our intuitions (though I submit that these may be linguistic intuitions rather than moral ones).
Anyway, I have rambled on enough. I look forward to hearing what the rest of you have to say.
*I realize that this (minimal) definition of government is quite controversial. I would hope that this is not an intuitive position, however; I think that such an idea of goverment should flow naturally from our reasons for having one in the first place, namely to protect us and to formalize our communitarian (in the non-philosophical sense) instincts. Again, I submit this only as a possible answer, and accept that I have in no way argued this position here.
First off, I have an intuition that the comment on any blog post should be shorter than the blog post itself...
ReplyDeleteI agree, Arthur, that intuitions are open for revision by appeal to something else. Maybe principle.
Still, I think intuitions catch something important. I guess it depends on what you think an intuition is, exactly. I kind of think it's a general sense of what most people, [in a given culture/context?] generally think is right in a particular circumstance.
Since I'm (mostly) a conventionalist about ethics, I'm happy with this, and like the use of intuitions. They nail down some set of prejudices that we can use to inform our expectations, and help guide us in the decision-making process.
Of course intuitions are subject to change, as are, in my opinion, all moral guidelines and dictates (that doesn't mean they will change, or that they won't stay the same, just that they are subject to change, and might).
I think of morals like I think of language. Both are conventional, both change, both have "right" and "wrong" in the proper context, both are influenced by other languages/morals, and so on.
We have intuitions about language just like we have intuitions about morality. Those intuitions, however, depend on context. French speakers aren't going to have intuitions about English, unless the languages overlap in some significant sense, or have other interesting things in common. (Like grammar, say.)
And just as language changes over time depending on use and other things, so, too, do morals change over time depending on some set of things. Like use. Custom. Convention.
At any rate, all of this is to say that I think intuitions are perfectly acceptable things. Call them the sixth sense, or something, if you'd like.
Okay, now I had better read what Faraci had to say about this. Since I just skipped what he wrote to say my piece.
Peter, it sounds like you've embraced the ethical relativist position, then. A) is this accurate? and B) does this worry you?
ReplyDeleteIf it doesn't worry you, I suppose we've got a topic for the next post.
What Galen said.
ReplyDeleteBut, to answer more robustly, I think I am an ethical relativist to some extent, but to what extent I'm not sure. I'm convinced, for instance, that slavery was probably ethically all right at some point in time in some places. I'm not sure where, or when, but I'm not of the school of thought that thinks all slavery everywhere and all times has been and will be unethical. I think it depends.
But there's a difference between being a relativist within some sub-domain of ethics, and being a relativist whole-hog. So, for instance, I might believe that there are constraints on just what symbol can map onto what object-in-the-world in language. Maybe it's efficiency, maybe it's effectiveness at some task, maybe it's something else. I don't know. At any rate, I doubt that we can just use any word to mean just anything we'd like. That's what I think for morals as well. I guess the constraints there are things like stability, efficiency, and a whole host of other things (which will apply differently in different cases, and may constrain here and there differently).
In short, I don't have a nifty slogan that captures the whole of morality. And I really doubt that one is forthcoming.
As for B), both yes and no. I'm uncomfortable because I would prefer to have a nice, clean, and simple answer. I sort of have a non-answer at the moment (but I'm working on it), or, to put it more accurately, I have an answer that depends on lots of things, so it's not easy to put into a nifty slogan. But I'm also comfortable with it. It seems right, and doesn't rely on too many tea leaves at the bottom of the cup.
I see intuitionism (broadly speaking - a heavy reliance on intuitions - not Ross and Moore) devolving into relativism in the following sense:
ReplyDeleteintuitions vary from culture to culture. Culture A justifies their moral code primarily through their intuitions. Culture B does the same. If either culture is presented with an argument against their ethical theory they respond by saying "that sounds very counterintuitive." what is counterintuitive is ignored. There can no longer be meaningful ethical discourse between parties. Of course, not all may see this as unfortunate.
There are times, I'm suggesting, that philosophers commonly rebut a theory in this manner. It's no secret that I'm a utilitarian, and this is obviously where I'm coming from. Many utilitarian arguments are rebutted precisely this way: "I can see that utility might be maximized by solution y or z, but it seems intuitively wrong." To which I wish to respond, "maybe your intuitions are irrelevent here."
To Peter:
This corresponds nicely to what you were saying about relativism and slavery, because this problem of intuitions comes up in Hare's article "what is wrong with slavery?" He argues, like you, that he can think of a scenario in which slavery is justified from a consequentialist perspective. He expects a common objection will be that slavery seems intuitively immoral, to which he basically replies, "to hell with your intuitions, I'm presenting a real argument!" This isn't relativism, though, in his case, merely a consequentialism which can adapt to different circumstances.
I'd like to hear from a defender of intuitions, what they think the limits are for using their intuitions as justification for an ethical position. What would make you doubt your own intuitions? If they have moral force, to what degree?
I just realized Hare's article "What is Wrong with Slavery," does not have a question mark at the end, altering slightly the meaning of the title.
ReplyDeleteI don't know much about Hare's argument, but your explanation of it immediately brings the following question to mind: On what does Hare base his conclusion that certain circumstances might justify slavery if not on his intuitions concerning what makes a situation better or worse?
ReplyDeleteThis goes back to what I said earlier with regards to consequentialists; they do not have to worry about defining the "right," but they may still have to worry about defining the "good" and it may be difficult to do this without an appeal to intuition.
You criticize one set of intuitions by appeal to another set of intuitions that conflicts with it, or gives greater weight to your position. Intra-moral criticism, not inter-moral criticism.
ReplyDeleteOr you say that we have a stronger commitment to this here set of intuitions than to those over there. Or we might say that discarding this here intuition has the following consequences on these other things that we believe, and we won't like those consequences.
Yeah, and it sort of looks like relativism.
Arthur wrote:
ReplyDelete"intuitions vary from culture to culture."
Sure, but to what extent? There may be interesting cases where some "fundamental" intuitions are agreed upon in most, or all cultures. Sort of like the utterance "ta" tends to correlate well with most languages referent for dad.
"Culture A justifies their moral code primarily through their intuitions. Culture B does the same. If either culture is presented with an argument against their ethical theory they respond by saying "that sounds very counterintuitive." what is counterintuitive is ignored."
I disagree with this last bit. Not everything that is counterintuitive is ignored.
"There can no longer be meaningful ethical discourse between parties."
It depends, Arthur. If neither culture is willing to operate within the moral language of the other, then no communication will take place. I guess that sucks, but we'd be dealing with fundamentally different species, I bet. Or with people who hold really bizarre moral opinions.
You'll find moral correlations everywhere. Look at Mill and his use of utilitarianism to justify, basically, social libertarianism. The deontological libertarian would use some talk of rights to get to the same point. There's at least the beginnings of a conversation that the two could have (although I have trouble with deontologists since there is no real budging. We have these here rights, they are just plain obvious, and we need only use some deductive mathematics to see what is the right thing to do in every case.)
So you might, as a Culture A guy, say to the Culture B guy: "You like to do 'x'. But you have these here three other intuitions that seem to imply don't do 'x'. Abandoning the doing of 'x' means you need only abandon this one intuition, whereas continuing to do 'x' means violating these here three other intuitions. And what's more, these three other intuitions you'll like to keep, since they also support the doing of 'y' and 'z,' both of which you really, really like to do."
Oh, wait, this leads me to this question: Is what matters to you that people do certain things (jump on one foot, or whatever), or that they do them for the right reasons? Or both? Or something else? Because culture A and B can probably agree about doing or not doing 'x,' but they may end up having really, really different stories to tell about why they do or don't do 'x.'
I'm not claiming to have a moral position that makes no use of intuitions (though, I think one might be possible), the thrust of my original post was something more modest: just that most theories rely too much on intuitions.
ReplyDeleteI'm still interested in someone who is fond of intuitions laying out what is and is not an appropriate use of an intuition for justifying an ethical conclusion.
Utilitarianism is flexible, but is not relativism for the following reason. The rough and ready relativist thesis holds that what is moral is just what my culture (or subgroup, etc.) believes is moral. Morality cannot be sensibly applied across groups because morality is defined by the norms of that particular group. utilitarians, of course, have no problem criticizing other groups or cultures. The rightness of actions do depend on the circumstances (and thus are relative in a superficial sense), but utilitarianism does not recognize the legitimacy of a moral theory based solely in reference to what a particular group agrees upon.
Hello all - like the new blog, its nice to see a philosophy blog centered on ethics.
ReplyDeleteI tend to agree that intuition plays too large a role in moral debate (obligatory disclosure: I'm not quite a utilitarian, but close enough). Its struck me very heavily over the last year or so, particuarly since there have been a few papers I've read which try to appeal to intuitions that I very heavily reject (John Taurek's famous paper being the key example I have in mind)
It seems to me (and the structure of this thread perhaps lends support to my theory) that we need to find a balance between saying that intuitions play no role in moral theory and that intuitions play the only role in moral theory. The former seems to make moral argument impossible (imagine a utilitarian confronted with the question "Why is happiness good?"), but the latter makes it futile (how do we square the obvious disagreements in intuitions?).
One balance that I'm tempted by is to say an intuition is valid iff no person would deny it (that might need the rider "if they had full factual information", but I'll take that as read).
That means that the utilitarian need not answer why happiness is valuable, only note that everyone agrees that it is, in general, good. Of course, we might end up valuing things other than happiness (perhaps everyone also agrees that freedom is good), but we certainly will not end up placing prohibitions on things so culturally sensitive as infanticide, euthanasia, abortion, slavery etc., except in so far as those things impact on those others that we do value.
Thoughts?
Galen,
ReplyDeletelet me back down a bit from the relativism-intuition claim. The source of my complaint, I suppose, is that ethical debate can devolve to something approximating relativism if party A is allowed to rebut the argument of party B largely because B's argument is counterintuitive to A.
Are we to rely on intuitions in this way to support an argument? Where do intuition-lovers draw the line between justified and unjustified reliance on intuitions in ethics?
Great comment, Galen.
ReplyDeleteA question: Do you think intuitions are primitive, or something else is? It seems to me that you think they are, since you say that they are (mostly) all we've got.
But what do you say to people who think that theory informs intuitions and vice versa? That intuitions themselves may be theory-laden in some interesting respects?
In particular, I'm curious if you think this is a problem for the view that you've expressed here, or if the dialectical nature of intuitions and theory is just a bit of a more complicated story? (Unless, of course, you don't think theory informs intuitions, that intuitions somehow by-pass theory, or something similar).
I'd like to hear your story because, at the moment, it looks like I agree with you about the epistemology of ethics.
Arthur - we might distinguish between core intuitions that tend to ground some significant set of ethical claims, and intuitions that have weaker links to various ethical claims, or connect up to fewer of them.
ReplyDeleteI suspect there is little hope in arguing about core intuitions. Either someone thinks impartiality matters (at least to some extent), or they don't. Either they think something like more benefit over harm is ethically good (with, maybe, exceptions) or they don't, and so on. And either they place greater weight on core intuitions, or they don't.
My suspicion is that all intuitions draw on some common set of core intuitions in some way. It would be right to rely on intuitions at the core, fundamental level, but relying on intuitions at the periphery would probably be unjustified. This is because something else, a chain of reasoning, maybe, or some other kind of linkage between core and peripheral intuitions, can be mistaken, or can be shown to clash with a core intuition. If you're dealing with someone who cares about consistency, then you can get somewhere.
Maybe the relationship is something like the following. We have intuitions about particular cases. We can probably distinguish between what is common about all of these intuitions, or, at least, some smaller set of intuitions that tie the rest of them together somehow. Like colours. Red, Green, and Blue are primary (core) because all other colours can be derived from them. Or like the stuff of the universe. Water, Air, Earth and Fire are primary because everything else can be derived from these (ha ha, oh snap!).
Back to colours: If someone were to present you with a book and say that they intuit it is a colour (and there's nothing funny going on with how they use language), you could probably say that their intuition is wrong/unjustified, and appeal to all the other things they believe are colours to show them that they need to scrap this intuition if they want to keep the others.
Alternatively, you might put to them the theory we have about colours, show them just how much other colour-related stuff is explained by it, illustrate its usefulness, show it accords with generally approved-of criteria (desiderata) about colours, and hope they change their mind about this here book being a colour.
Suppose they don't change their mind. Then either they disagree with the criteria for a colour and have a story to tell about it (or not, in which case walk away), they think it is an exception to the rule and want to stick with it, or something else.
I can see why colours are a pretty poor analogy, but I can't think of anything else at the moment.
We might have first-order, second-order, third-order, and so on, sets of intuitions, with each set in the last category relying on the category before it.
Suppose we intuit that lying is wrong. We explain the intuition by appeal to a story like: it treats people as means, and we have a stronger intuition (suppose it's second-order and not, like Kant might think, first-order) about it being wrong to treat people like that. But someone gives us a case where not-lying leads to some disastrous outcome. Suppose we have a first-order intuition that disastrous outcomes are to be avoided. The first-order intuition takes precedence over the others, and we go ahead and lie, and are justified in doing so. Relying on third-order intuitions (assuming everyone agrees that it really is a third-order thing) is unjustified.
Suppose instead we are dealing with a Kantian who holds that what we've called a second-order intuition (not treating people as means) is, in fact, a first-order intuition, and avoiding disastrous outcomes is only a second-order intuition. Then we don't lie. But relying on the intuition about lying itself is still unjustified, and needs to be justified by appeal to more core intuitions.
Supposing we think 'don't lie' is a first-order intuition, then we are justified in appealing to it.
Supposing we think all three are first-order, irreducible, intuitions (don't lie, don't treat people as means, avoid disastrous outcomes), then either we are in a genuine ethical dilemma with no way out (so flip a coin, or whatever), or we appeal to some further intuition about all intuitions like when possible, avoid violating more first-order intuitions when you can violate fewer of them (oh, oh, I'm suspecting that this last begs the question...).
So my answer is: We are justified in relying on first-order intuitions, all of the rest relying on them in some way. I think all successful ethical theories tease out one or two or a set of these first-order intuitions. Utilitarianism probably draws on 'avoid disastrous outcomes,' 'avoid harming,' 'promote benefits,' 'be impartial,' and so on which, I guess (and the particular instances I've given could all be wrong) are first-order intuitions which utilitarianism puts into a neat and simple theory with a catchy slogan.
But my really, really strong suspicion is that utilitarians are like Heraclitus who say everything is water, and tell nifty stories about how that is so. For instance, I can't be impartial between my daughter and your daughter, and doubt that I ought to be. I think 'be partial to those who relate to you in particular ways' (I hope you get what I mean there, I see it isn't so clear) *is* a moral ought, and not a moral flaw. That's like my irreducible fire to your water, and I don't think I'll budge.
I just spent the entire morning writing this. And I just bet that there are posts above this one that I'm either repeating, or offer something that will cause me to revise the view I've just presented. Do forgive.
We cannot do without our moral intuitions in ethical disagreements any more than we can do without semantic intuitions when we disagree about the meaning of words. If we abandon intutions, then what is to guide our inquiry? Without our intuitions to contrain us, "analysis" will just turn to stipulation, as it does in language if we go it alone instead of consulting, say, a dictionary. But this is not to give the game away to the conventionalist. In trying to reach reflective equilbirium with others who don't share some of our intutions, each of us may alter or abandon certain conventional intuitions as we go, but this has to happen Neurath's boat-style. There's at least this much truth in conventionalism -- it's our necessary starting place.
ReplyDeleteYou may ask, 'What about those who don't share any of our intuitions?' Here I think Davidson is right that the very idea of a (radically different) conceptual scheme is incoherent. Why think a person can conceive of the good at all if she doesn't share any of your core intuitions?
You may ask, then, 'What about communities who have bankrupt (by our lights) moral intutions -- for instance, communities who permit or encourage the torture of infidels, chattel slavery, or free market capitalism?' So long as we can find some core intutions to agree upon, which we have here by hypothesis, then we can at least get off the ground. Perhaps that's all we can ask for in ethics . . . and it's quite a lot. For there are many features about human beings and our environment that our (more or less) constant across cultures and over time, and this provides some stablility and substance to our discussion/theory-construction.
Perhaps a cookbook could be full of instructions on how to prepare combinations of mud, nails, lighter fluid and excrement; just as an ethical theory could be a collection of axioms and systemtic inferences about why we should do a variety of harmful and silly things. The fact that these are degenerate examples must guide us, lest we feast on those meals and follow those rules.
Concepts without intuitions are blind.
You may ask, then, 'What about communities who have bankrupt (by our lights) moral intutions -- for instance, communities who permit or encourage the torture of infidels, chattel slavery, or free market capitalism?'
ReplyDeleteI think you meant to write "non-free market capitalism," Pax...
Oops. The above post by "B." is actually me. I'm not yet accustomed to blogging. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteI like calling these things "myths," it has a certain flair, don't you think?
ReplyDeletePax wrote:
"By 'intuition' I assume we mean something like 'considered judgment', that is, one that is backed by some more general principles or at least by particular reasons. Not any ol' judgment that is uttered by or occurs to a person counts."
No, no, by intuition I think we mean gutteral, basic, instinctive-like responses, not considered judgments at all.
Like this:
Joe: "Hey Bob, I think I want to lie today."
Bob: "I don't think you should, Bob, seems wrong to me."
Joe: "Why do you think it's wrong?"
Bob: "No reason, Joe, I just feel [read: intuit] it's wrong. Don't you feel [intuit] it's wrong?"
Joe: "Now that you mention it, it does seem wrong. I share your feelings [intuitions] about the wrongness."
Bob: "So you won't lie then?"
Joe: "Oh, I don't know about that. That depends on whether my thinking that lying is wrong is motivational or not. Maybe it isn't. I'll tell you afterward whether I lied or not."
Bob: "Hey, how about that free market capitalism, don't you love it?"
Joe: "No. I hate free market capitalism, sunshine, happy toddlers, and puppies. Strangely, I'm attracted to owning slaves as well. But that's another story."
Thanks for the thoughtful replies.
ReplyDeleteOn disagreement: I don't see how people can have a meaningful disagreement if they are talking past each other. That's why we often settle on definitions at the outset. For instance, it may turn out that you and I are using the term 'intuition' differently, in which case we would be "ships passing in the night," as the adage goes, instead of having a real disagreement. That's not to say that what we're doing cannot be "descriptively called a disagreement," but this is much too weak of a standard. After all, 'time is a river' and 'time is money' are indeed descriptions, and useful ones at that, but they are not focal cases of description.
I actually agree in part with the last claim you made. You said that you "prefer to engage people on the level of the myths they already tell themselves, rather than trying to convince them of a whole new series of myths. It's not only arrogant for philosophers to do that, but ineffective as well." I agree with all of this except the part about the mythical status of folks' deepest evaluating convictions. And it seems to me that the real philosophical arrogance is telling folks that their most cherished values are myths. I don't know if you've got an error theory in mind or some kind of noncognitivism, but, if so, you have to subject your own values to these as well, which takes the sting out of calling other peoples' values myths.
The part where I agree is with engaging others on their own terms. This was Socrates' method most of the time, right? Anyway, the Davidsonian point I made in my original post and the point about getting into reflective equilibrium with others was a claim that we can discover universal principles that we already share, not a claim about imposing our standards on others. That's why I didn't really understand your point about swapping dictionaries, and why I don't understand why you are saddling me with the "one true morality" view which, at least in its familar comic book variety, is that claim that morality is determinate in all cases.
On the social practice/moral norm distinction. The fact that there is a social practice of criticizing social practices does not entail that the norms referred to in the former practice are justified by or grounded in that practice. For instance, the value of pleasure is not grounded in the social practice of seeking pleasure. Pleasure would be valuable even if not valued in practice, just as human life would be valuable even if not valued in practice. Now, we can tell a genealogical story about how values are "grounded" in history, and those stories are valuable, but that's to change the topic. So perhaps we're talking past each other, because I don't really see how what I am arguing is at odds with a view about spontaneous norm development or any other genealogical account. If so, it would be natural to say "We don't really disagree after all."
Jaworski -- I don't think people have "guttural, basic, instinctive-like responses" to acts of lying or to economic systems that promote efficient transfers come what may. Lying and Capitalism are both very complex practices, and moral intuitions target only some of the properties and relations that comprise these practices and not the wholes. Your dialogue seems to muddy things by suggesting that moral intuitions are "basic, guttural, instinctive-like" gestalt experiences about complex wholes rather than a kind of experience of some of the properties and relations comprising these wholes. So, if Bob were to ask, "What is it about lying that feels wrong to you?" and Joe responded, "Nothing really, it just feels wrong," then, other things being equal, we should take him at his word and conclude that he does not have any moral intuitions about the component parts of the practice of lying at all. Which is to say, he has no moral intuitions about lying at all. If we were still interested in the feeling he reported or why he reported it, then we should seek some other explanation. The genealogical accounts discussed above would be a good place to start.
ReplyDeleteYoung children can have moral intuitions about causing or receiving pain; older ones can have intuitions about lying; but a young child cannot have moral intuitions about Capitalism. Even if one's moral intuition-capacity is fully developed in childhood, a child still lacks the intellectual ability to ascertain the properties and relations that comprise Capitalism, so there is nothing for his intuitions to go to work on. Sadly, even when there is this intellectual ability, as in normal adults, there is not always effort, and for other reasons ignorance often extends into adulthood. Just think of all the Americans who would denounce unrestrained Capitalism, if only they properly understood the properties and relations that comprise it! But really, must I flirt with this kind of Platonism and claim that those who endorse the libertarian state are just confused, that if they would look a little harder they would see the light? I don't think this is the only route. It seems we can identify some core intuitions that we all share and then work from the ground up, constructing rather than discovering.
I found David S's comment very helpful. Everything after that has been Gobbledygook if you ask me.
ReplyDeleteDave S writes:
ReplyDeleteConsider ordinary truth, as in, “it is true that the cat is on the mat.” For my money, if it is true that the cat is on the mat, this must be true for everyone. It can’t be true for you but not me that the cat is on the mat (so long as we are talking about the same time, cat, and mat). The concept of truth requires that if there is a truth of the matter, that there be only one such truth for all—of course different things can be justified for me and you, but different things cannot be true for me and you.
Many familiar sentences might are true for some people yet not true for others (at least in a certain sense of "true for"). Consider, for example, the sentence "I was born in New Zealand." This sentence is true for me, in the sense that I would speak truly by uttering it. But it is not true for most other readers of this blog.
A moral relativist might say something similar about moral sentences. A sentence like "X is wrong" might be understood as meaning something like "I don't like X." In which case, the sentence might be true for some but not for others. But this doesn't rest on any confusion about the concept of truth.
I just found your blog and want to say thank you ! It is really nice post thanks for sharing and just keep up the good work !
ReplyDeletebuffalo | greenbaypackers | philadelphiaeagles | pittsburghsteelers | newyorkgiants | chicagobears | miamidolphins | baltimoreravens