Comments on: Posner, Rawls, and Reflective Equilibrium

By: Randolph Fritz

Randolph Fritz — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 08:04:25 +0000

“Or is it due to the fact that homosexuals stopped hiding the fact and more people simply became acquainted with them?” But homosexuals came out for reasons and were accepted and defended for reasons. Sometimes ideas are important. Coming out was after all a form of civil disobedience, which is an idea of persuasion. “As soon as I became convinced that moral philosophy WORKED, I would become much less concerned about the methodology.” We sure know it can fail. So…sometimes it works. Sure wish we knew why.

By: micah

micah — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 03:40:00 +0000

Rawls’s approach to ethical reflection is fundamentally first-personal – it asks what principles I should accept rather than how can I convince someone else to believe what I already know. I think this point about Rawls’s approach to moral argument is very important. He aims at justification rather than at persuasion. But it may seem like Rawls shifts gears in certain places. For example, in his later work, Rawls considers what he calls “reasoning from conjecture”—which entails arguing for a reasonable political conception on the basis of what we consider to be unreasonable comprehensive views. I think this is an example of arguing for something we already know or accept. This is second-person moral argument. Yet it is still an attempt at political justification. Even if we don’t think that another’s comprehensive view is reasonable (or if we think parts of it are unreasonable), we might still argue that it provides those who adhere to it with reasons for respecting the demands of a political conception of justice. This need not be merely an effort at persuasion or manipulation. As long as we’re clear about what we’re doing, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with arguing from reasons we don’t believe in favor of conclusions that we do—a point I’ve tried to make elsewhere href=”http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/001507.html” rel=”nofollow”>http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/001507.html. This isn’t first-person moral argument, but it’s still a recognizable form of political justification.

By: micah

micah — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 03:38:07 +0000

By: Jay Gischer

Jay Gischer — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 23:48:21 +0000

Put me in the camp that says that reason the primary mover in morality. Or, more simply, people, including myself, are rational because being rational makes them feel good. I don’t consider this a pessimistic view. Understanding how emotions work, in me and in others, gives me the ability to manage them better. Of course, I can use this ability to make other people happy, or to make them miserable. But I happen to like making other people happy, so that’s my general tendency. My experience suggests that indeed, you will never sway someone with strong emotions through rational argument. Instead you must find a way to reduce the negative (to you) emotion and strengthen a different postive one. Usually, homophobia is the result of ignorance. Not the ignorance that comes from lack of book learning, but from the lack of day-to-day experience with a real, flesh-and-blood gay person. When a homophobe’s cousin comes out of the closet, it’s extremely uncomfortable to the homophobe. Something has to change, and very likely it isn’t going to be the existence or gayness of that cousin. So the pictures from San Francisco are all to the good, despite the short-term reaction. They show flesh-and-blood people, trying to care for one another and take responsibility for each other. This is not a bad thing. It’s very alarming to those who think that they are losing their hold over the mores of America, and who know that they are fighting a losing battle. Thus the short-term reaction, and it’s exploitation by politicians who are eager to dramatize their morals.

By: Dan S

Dan S — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 21:57:41 +0000

On morality, science, realism and belief formation: It seems likely that some of Posner’s criticisms of morality, which I accept, would stick well enough to science too. So must I, to remain consistent, be as skeptical about science as I am about morality? I still think that realism is a relevant issue. I believe in science because it works, it reliably produces miracles. I am not attached to any philosophical story about scientific belief formation, I just believe that whatever it is that scientists do must somehow work. That is not the case with moral philosophers. They could lack a subject matter and go thousands of years without noticing it. As soon as I became convinced that moral philosophy WORKED, I would become much less concerned about the methodology. I would assume that there must be something about their methods that was working, and I would be happy to follow the methods now and understand them later. Since I don’t know believe in the field for some other reason, the methodology itself needs to convince me. If you want to catch me with a double standard, you might say that I’m too credulous of other philosophical fields. But I think moral philosophy is at a special disadvantage, since it has issues coexisting with naturalism, and is easy (intellectually) to deny.

By: Clarkl

Clarkl — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 21:15:21 +0000

It seems that people are both making good points, but missing something fundamental about what Posner is arguing. I think he’s not arguing that we don’t change our minds or that evolution doesn’t happen. Far from it. However the reason that changes happen in the aggregate isn’t because of these reasons. Rather it is other effects. Consider the example someone gave of gay marriage. Yes views have changed, and perhaps rapidly. But is this primarily due to reasons? Or is it due to the fact that homosexuals stopped hiding the fact and more people simply became acquainted with them? Are the reasons liberals give that purportedly changed rapidly over the last 10 years the cause? Or are they, to use Posner’s comments, rationalization for simply the fact that homosexuality is more open. It is due to acquaintance, as Posner points out in his second blogging post. I’m not sure I agree reasons don’t matter. I think they do. Further I agree that many are in a way always questioning. (Although I think this much more of a minority) Yet, for serious change in the aggregate how much does this questioning happen? Consider the person who went from theist to atheist after reading Nietzsche. Aren’t there also people who go the other way? (I know many) Further was this change due to Nietzsche’s reasons or because of the community he now associated with in college? i.e. should it be described in terms of reasons or in terms of friends and aquaintances. Is it coincidence that many atheists with many religious friends move towards theism? Once again I’m not discounting reasons. I just wonder if there isn’t a lot of truth to Posner’s comments that perhaps many reasons are actually rationalizations. Reasons we give for a change of view that already took place. I think he pushes it too far. But I think there is a great deal of truth to what he says.

By: Dan Kervick

Dan Kervick — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 19:13:31 +0000

I don’t quite see how the issue of moral skepticism vs. moral realism, moral rationalism, moral intuitionism etc., etc. bears one way or another on the question of what is permissible legislation under American law. Americans live in a constitutional democracy. There are constitutional prohibitions on the kinds of laws that can be enacted. If a legislative enactment is not constitutionally prohibited, then it is constitutionally permissible. A legislative majority is constititutionally empowered to enact laws for whatever purpose, or on the basis of whatever priinciples, happen to move the members of that majority, so long as that purpose is not constitutionally proscribed or limited. Whether the principles involved are true or false, defensible or indefensible, superstitious or sober, eternal verities or projections of personal preference would seem to make no difference to the question of legal permissibility.

By: C.J.Colucci

C.J.Colucci — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 16:12:22 +0000

Posner writes elsewhere that our belief in the wrongness of deliberately running down a baby that has crawled into the highway when we can easily avoid doing so is far stronger than our belief in any conceivable form of argument purporting to show it. This is obviously true, but I’m not sure what follows from it.

By: Richard Bellamy

Richard Bellamy — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 15:31:53 +0000

Richard Bellamy says “The fact is, practically no one has changed their mind … ” On its face, this statement seems a bit odd in the context of gay marriage. I don’t have polling data, but, among liberals, it seems only a slight exaggeration to say that everyone has changed their mind in a relatively short period of time — say 10 years and maybe two or three year. I think this is more an issue that 10 or 20 years ago, no one actually cared, since there was no large concerted effort to win gay marriage rights. In other words, if there were a large anti-gay-marriage rally 15 years ago (which there wasn’t), no one who is currently pro-gay-marriage would have attended. Part of “do you support” is “do you believe there is a relevant political base supporting this goal.” A lot of people’s viewpoints shift with their “I want to be with the winner” mentality. “Politics” is largely a game of getting your issue to the front. Remember when everyone was opposed to flag burning, and there was almost a constitutional amendment banning it? Now, it doesn’t get mentioned anymore. If you decided to conduct a survey, lots of people probably will say they don’t support that amendment anymore. Not that they’d actively oppose it if it came up again—the just don’t care anymore.

By: bob mcmanus

bob mcmanus — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 14:26:40 +0000

“Why? Is he then grateful to be governed by unreason?” r fritz “deciding between candidates and platforms and so on certainly includes facts” …Posner The inclusion of “facts” is very important. Many would say that slavery and Jim Crow ended not because of a general change in moral philosophy but due to a newly recognized fact, the humanity and equality of blacks.

By: Mike Huben

Mike Huben — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 14:15:01 +0000

Whether or not the people Posner observes ever change their minds based on moral argument, the fact is that as we develop to adulthood, we do create our moral positions based on moral arguments that we hear. They do not spring forth full grown from the brow of Zeus, except perhaps for the few who are carefully indoctrinated and isolated from conflicting ideas. Hence Christian schools. The battle is being fought over the “provisional fixed points” supplied at a very early age. Sesame Street was probably the most effective weapon against conservatism ever created.

By: Shai

Shai — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 12:59:52 +0000

Hiding behind it is an image of human nature, pessimistic about biases and nasty evolved traits, so it is unsurprising that he thinks reason is relatively ineffective. But nihilism isn’t exactly coherent. If you think of it in terms of ordering of outcomes along one or more scale, reason can accomodate unoptimal outcomes, and interests and irrational human qualities don’t necessarily conspire to preclude progress in one or more sphere. This can co-exist with a government coopted by interests and the possibility that we will all be annihilated tomorrow by human stupidity.

By: Randolph Fritz

Randolph Fritz — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 08:04:43 +0000

“You cannot convince a religious person that there is no God, because he does not share your premises, for example that only science delivers truths. There is no fruitful debating of God’s existence.” This is just wrong. People are, in fact, sometimes persuaded on these subjects. “I think that what moves people in deciding between candidates and platforms and so on certainly includes facts (such as the collapse of communism—a tremendous fact), as well as a variety of ‘nonrational’ factors, such as whom you like to hang out with—I think that’s extremely important in the choice of a political party to affiliate with.” This, however, is unquestionably true of the vast majority of voters. An issue has to be huge before it is even visible to a majority of voters. “I also think it is largely inconsequential, and I am grateful for that fact” Why? Is he then grateful to be governed by unreason? This is an astonishing argument from a major legal theorist. Posner is arguing that all ethical philosophy is post hoc—that philosophers do not reason but rationalize, and their rationalizations serve only to reinforce beliefs based in irrational sources. And there, we know, he is wrong. Quite the opposite: over time, philosophical reasoning ultimately informs public belief and conduct—it does persuade. Posner apparently finds this a useful position—it allows him to claim that ethical critiques of legal theories are simple rationalizations and therefore may reasonably be ignored. But if one does not apply some ethical theory to legal reasoning, what is one to apply instead? Prejudice, intution, … raw power?

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 06:01:26 +0000

Dan S, I think I only need a position that’s weeker than the one you discuss- I don’t need to argue that anti-realism about science or the natural world is as plausible as anti-realism about morality, rather all I need is that there are not “compelling” reasons in the sense Posner (in Jon’s reconstruction) makes use of in science either, and I think that’s pretty clearly right. Note that that’s a totally different question than one about realism or anti-realism- it’s essentially a question about belief formation and perhaps justification. Of course people often do change there minds for what seem like reasons in science, but then, it seems pretty clear they do so in the case of morality, as well. My point isn’t one about realism- it’s that the argument Posner gives for skepticism (as an espistemological view) about morality is also an argument for skepticism about science, but he clearly rejects that, and says nothing (at least that I’ve read) to justify the distinction.

By: Dan S

Dan S — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 05:19:55 +0000

To Matt about natural science: It is hard to be a skeptic about the natural world. It’s possible – you can be some sort of idealist, but I have not found the idealist arguments against realism compelling. I think it is easier to be a skeptic about the moral world. It is not an appealing position to have, but that aside, much easier. The evidence for the existence of the natural world is compelling, and once you take that for granted, you need some sort of explanation for how it works. The best explanation you can think of at any given time may fail the “compelling” test, but that’s fine. If your current favorite is wrong, there is bound to be some other right answer, and maybe you’ll think of it later, or maybe you won’t. There are good reasons not to believe in the moral world. My current ill-informed opinion is that the reasons for disbelieving in the moral world are stronger than the reasons for believing in it. So until that changes, I am not interested in philosophically straightening out my moral intuitions, which may be about nothing. If someday I am given reasons for believing in the moral world, they would hopefully inform me in building a moral philosophy. The same should be true of natural philosophy. The reasons we have for believing in the natural world should inform our science. But I don’t know anything about phil of science, so I could easily be overlooking something obvious there. BTW, I have no idea whether this would be Posner’s argument. To Blah: fair enough, but if I have good reasons not to believe in moral philosophy, I wouldn’t consider your examples to be fruitful philosophically, although they may be fruitful socially/politically.