| Topic: |
Science > Philosophy |
| User: |
"Nik The Greek" |
| Date: |
10 Jun 2004 07:41:41 PM |
| Object: |
ethics as a grammatical illusion |
This came to me while considering Kant's categorical imperative. The
meaningfulness of so-called categorical imperatives is questionable.
Imperatives in general, or "ought"-sentences, are conditional by
nature. That is, we naturally use them, or naturally came to use them,
as conditional. "Do this, in order to achieve that." Antropologically
this seems like a reasonable chronology. At first, humans formed
conditional sentences. The elder would teach his child to "sharpen the
stick this way, so it makes a useful arrow". Only later on, and out of
the sheer power of our grammatical ability to form new combinations of
familier phrases, did categorical-unconditional imperatives came to
be. "Do this!", "THIS is good!" - unconditionally - is the unfortunate
product of our lingual ability. Our historical unawareness of the
importance of language as consituting thought; the natural tendency to
accept grammaticaly correct sentences as meaningful; has introduced
into language so many of these stray metaphors and modes of speech,
and along with them systems of values and beliefs. Yet it's important
to go back and get to the bottom of the history of our modes of
speech. To study their usage and hence their meaning, and to put an
end to many of our pointless discussions. I'm begining to think that
since Ethics (and also Aesthetics) deal mainly with so-called
'objective' or 'uncoditional' propositions and values, there's really
nothing interesting about them. "It is good to behave like THIS." and
"THIS is right" are the sort of sentences that stand at the
foundations of most Ethics; while I suspect the only really meaningful
sentences are always conditional. The much discussed naturalistic
fallacy is also just an aspect of language usage, or to be more
accurate, language-misuse. The jump from "is" to "ought" is so easy to
do grammatically, that there's no wonder we have been so happy to make
it in the past, uncritically. But before we set out to inquire whether
a jump from "is" to "ought" is justified, we need to determine if it
even preserves any meaning.
.
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| User: "BuddhaThu" |
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| Title: Re: ethics as a grammatical illusion |
12 Jun 2004 03:03:01 PM |
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Dear Nik,
This is an interesting post. If I may, I would like to respond to
this.
This is something I raised with a visiting lecturer from Oxford two
years back. His lecture was on the same issue supporting the
categorical imperative. I, personally, was shocked by his assumption
that ethics comes first above all else.
To me, it is the grammar that comes first. If you have yet to master
the language, (to which people like Davidson will ever doubt that
anyone could 100% do at anytime), then there is no "right" or "wrong,"
no "good" or "bad", and hence, no "ethics."
You cannot even ask why this is so, for if you have yet to train in
how use the word "why", how then can you ask?
In my studies among Christian biblical scholars, (I am a Buddhist by
birth), I could not believe the level of misunderstandings and
cacophonies of interpretation of their scripture texts. It is so much
more than just interpreting things "literally."
For instance, within the various moods of speech that is used within
the bible we have the following:
Indicative mood – to express certainty, things we can point to,
natural objects and the like…
Subjunctive mood - to express possibilities, conditionals, a
hypothetical "if-then," "would," "could" or "will" or in prayer in
terms of "may you…"
Optative - to express a wish, a desire, …
Imperative mood – to express commands ...
What I see the confusion, esp. among Christians is the
misinterpretation of what is a wish or possibility made probable by
God as in a blessing that allows them to do something vs. an outright
command.
The best example that Roman Catholic Church has long used to support
the ban on contraceptives is this citation from the bible . . .
And God ***blessed them,*** and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and
multiply, . . . (Gen. 1:28)
Most Churches often mistaken this as a command, or rather in the
imperative mood, but really it should be more something that God has
allowed them to do or made possible by the divine will.
It does not mean that it is something they have to do.
It just means that he has opened up the possibility in hopes that they
could use good common sense when the possibility no longer opening
itself up to its original intent, which is a ***blessing***. That's
all it means. But to turn it into an ***obligatory understanding***
when it is merely a ***permissible issue*** is disaster for a lot of
Catholic countries.
My interpretation is that various forms of commands should be in the
form of an optative or a subjunctive mood. A blessing is not a
command, even though it can deceptively look like one. A blessing is
something allowed or wished possible, but the possibility is only
actualized by human choice. True and authentic obedience to a command
or a possibility can only happen if there is free will.
Of course, the verbs to allow or wish or two different verbs. To allow
as a possibility (subjunctive) is to give assent to something, like
saying it is ok. To wish is to desire (optative) something on part of
God or people. People can wish, and God will allow. That is the
essence of a blessing.
Of course, the greatest kind of blessing of all is the kind of
allowing when there was no existence of a wish in the first place. How
could there be? Human kind was not there. It is just given. Such is
the nature of Gen. 1:28. This is the nature of "grace."
If God really, really commanded, then there would be no free will.
(This is a subjunctive mood ;-) .
nikthegreek@hotpop.com (Nik The Greek) wrote in message news:<9647b318.0406101641.14b2dfc8@posting.google.com>...
This came to me while considering Kant's categorical imperative. The
meaningfulness of so-called categorical imperatives is questionable.
Imperatives in general, or "ought"-sentences, are conditional by
nature. That is, we naturally use them, or naturally came to use them,
as conditional. "Do this, in order to achieve that." Antropologically
this seems like a reasonable chronology. At first, humans formed
conditional sentences. The elder would teach his child to "sharpen the
stick this way, so it makes a useful arrow". Only later on, and out of
the sheer power of our grammatical ability to form new combinations of
familier phrases, did categorical-unconditional imperatives came to
be. "Do this!", "THIS is good!" - unconditionally - is the unfortunate
product of our lingual ability. Our historical unawareness of the
importance of language as consituting thought; the natural tendency to
accept grammaticaly correct sentences as meaningful; has introduced
into language so many of these stray metaphors and modes of speech,
and along with them systems of values and beliefs. Yet it's important
to go back and get to the bottom of the history of our modes of
speech. To study their usage and hence their meaning, and to put an
end to many of our pointless discussions. I'm begining to think that
since Ethics (and also Aesthetics) deal mainly with so-called
'objective' or 'uncoditional' propositions and values, there's really
nothing interesting about them. "It is good to behave like THIS." and
"THIS is right" are the sort of sentences that stand at the
foundations of most Ethics; while I suspect the only really meaningful
sentences are always conditional. The much discussed naturalistic
fallacy is also just an aspect of language usage, or to be more
accurate, language-misuse. The jump from "is" to "ought" is so easy to
do grammatically, that there's no wonder we have been so happy to make
it in the past, uncritically. But before we set out to inquire whether
a jump from "is" to "ought" is justified, we need to determine if it
even preserves any meaning.
.
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| User: "Kamerynn" |
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| Title: Re: ethics as a grammatical illusion |
10 Jun 2004 09:50:17 PM |
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|
Nik The Greek wrote:
This came to me while considering Kant's categorical imperative. The
meaningfulness of so-called categorical imperatives is questionable.
Imperatives in general, or "ought"-sentences, are conditional by
nature. That is, we naturally use them, or naturally came to use them,
as conditional. "Do this, in order to achieve that." Antropologically
this seems like a reasonable chronology. At first, humans formed
conditional sentences. The elder would teach his child to "sharpen the
stick this way, so it makes a useful arrow". Only later on, and out of
the sheer power of our grammatical ability to form new combinations of
familier phrases, did categorical-unconditional imperatives came to
be. "Do this!", "THIS is good!" - unconditionally - is the unfortunate
product of our lingual ability. Our historical unawareness of the
importance of language as consituting thought; the natural tendency to
accept grammaticaly correct sentences as meaningful; has introduced
into language so many of these stray metaphors and modes of speech,
and along with them systems of values and beliefs. Yet it's important
to go back and get to the bottom of the history of our modes of
speech. To study their usage and hence their meaning, and to put an
end to many of our pointless discussions. I'm begining to think that
since Ethics (and also Aesthetics) deal mainly with so-called
'objective' or 'uncoditional' propositions and values, there's really
nothing interesting about them. "It is good to behave like THIS." and
"THIS is right" are the sort of sentences that stand at the
foundations of most Ethics; while I suspect the only really meaningful
sentences are always conditional. The much discussed naturalistic
fallacy is also just an aspect of language usage, or to be more
accurate, language-misuse. The jump from "is" to "ought" is so easy to
do grammatically, that there's no wonder we have been so happy to make
it in the past, uncritically. But before we set out to inquire whether
a jump from "is" to "ought" is justified, we need to determine if it
even preserves any meaning.
"...I say that this is a *good* chair this means that the
chair serves a certain predetermined purpose and the word
good here has only (sic) meaning so far as this purpose has
been previously fixed upon. In fact the word good in the
relative sense simply means coming up to a certain
predetermined standard. Thus when we say that this man
is a good pianist we mean that he can play pieces of a
certain degree of difficulty with a certain degree of
dexterity. And similarly... if I say that this is the
*right* road I mean that it's the right road relative
to a certain goal. Used in this way these expressions
don't present any difficult or deep problems. But this
is not how Ethics uses them."
**************
"Now let us see what we could possibly mean by the expression,
'*the* absolutely right road.' I think it would be the road
which *everbody* on seeing it would, *with logical necessity*,
have to go, or be ashamed for not going. And similarly the
*absolute good*, if it is a describable state of affairs would
be one which everybody, independent of his tastes and inclinations,
would *necessarily* bring about or feel guilty for not bringing
about. And I want to say that such a state of affairs is a
chimera. No state of affairs has, in itself, what I would like
to call the coercive power of an absolute judge."
--- Wittgenstein's lecture on ethics,
from _The Wittgenstien Reader_, ed. by
A Kenny, pp.289 - 292.
*This sentence is italicized*
"Suppose one of you were an omniscient person and
therefore knew all of the movements of all the
bodies in the world dead or alive and that he also
knew all the states of mind of all human beings that
ever lived, and suppose that this man wrote all that he
knew in a big book, then this book would contain the
whole description of the world; and what I want to say
is, that the book would contain nothing that we would
call an *ethical* judgment or anything that would
logically imply such a judgment. It would of course
contail all relative judgments of value and all true
scientific propositions and in fact all true propositions
that can be made. But all the facts described would, as
it were, stand on the same level and in the same way
all propositions stand on the same level. There are
no propositions which, in any absolute sense, are sublime,
important, or trivial."
--ibid, p.291
"I see now that these nonsensical expressions were not
nonsensical because I had not yet found the correct
expressions, but that their nonsensicality was their very
essence. For all I wanted to do with them was just
*to go beyond* the world and that is to say beyond
significant language. My whole tendence and I believe
the tendency of all men who ever tried to write or talk
Ethics or Religion was to run against the boundaries of
language. This running against the walls of our cage is
perfectly, absolutely hopeless."
---ibid, p.296
Kamerynn
.
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| User: "Nik The Greek" |
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| Title: Re: ethics as a grammatical illusion |
11 Jun 2004 10:10:14 AM |
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Wow. I guess I got some reading to do.
Could you possibly direct me to the digital source of the quotations?
Thank you.
Kamerynn <idon'tdoemail@sorry.com> wrote in message news:<10ci7hd4oe8m444@corp.supernews.com>...
Nik The Greek wrote:
This came to me while considering Kant's categorical imperative. The
meaningfulness of so-called categorical imperatives is questionable.
Imperatives in general, or "ought"-sentences, are conditional by
nature. That is, we naturally use them, or naturally came to use them,
as conditional. "Do this, in order to achieve that." Antropologically
this seems like a reasonable chronology. At first, humans formed
conditional sentences. The elder would teach his child to "sharpen the
stick this way, so it makes a useful arrow". Only later on, and out of
the sheer power of our grammatical ability to form new combinations of
familier phrases, did categorical-unconditional imperatives came to
be. "Do this!", "THIS is good!" - unconditionally - is the unfortunate
product of our lingual ability. Our historical unawareness of the
importance of language as consituting thought; the natural tendency to
accept grammaticaly correct sentences as meaningful; has introduced
into language so many of these stray metaphors and modes of speech,
and along with them systems of values and beliefs. Yet it's important
to go back and get to the bottom of the history of our modes of
speech. To study their usage and hence their meaning, and to put an
end to many of our pointless discussions. I'm begining to think that
since Ethics (and also Aesthetics) deal mainly with so-called
'objective' or 'uncoditional' propositions and values, there's really
nothing interesting about them. "It is good to behave like THIS." and
"THIS is right" are the sort of sentences that stand at the
foundations of most Ethics; while I suspect the only really meaningful
sentences are always conditional. The much discussed naturalistic
fallacy is also just an aspect of language usage, or to be more
accurate, language-misuse. The jump from "is" to "ought" is so easy to
do grammatically, that there's no wonder we have been so happy to make
it in the past, uncritically. But before we set out to inquire whether
a jump from "is" to "ought" is justified, we need to determine if it
even preserves any meaning.
"...I say that this is a *good* chair this means that the
chair serves a certain predetermined purpose and the word
good here has only (sic) meaning so far as this purpose has
been previously fixed upon. In fact the word good in the
relative sense simply means coming up to a certain
predetermined standard. Thus when we say that this man
is a good pianist we mean that he can play pieces of a
certain degree of difficulty with a certain degree of
dexterity. And similarly... if I say that this is the
*right* road I mean that it's the right road relative
to a certain goal. Used in this way these expressions
don't present any difficult or deep problems. But this
is not how Ethics uses them."
**************
"Now let us see what we could possibly mean by the expression,
'*the* absolutely right road.' I think it would be the road
which *everbody* on seeing it would, *with logical necessity*,
have to go, or be ashamed for not going. And similarly the
*absolute good*, if it is a describable state of affairs would
be one which everybody, independent of his tastes and inclinations,
would *necessarily* bring about or feel guilty for not bringing
about. And I want to say that such a state of affairs is a
chimera. No state of affairs has, in itself, what I would like
to call the coercive power of an absolute judge."
--- Wittgenstein's lecture on ethics,
from _The Wittgenstien Reader_, ed. by
A Kenny, pp.289 - 292.
*This sentence is italicized*
"Suppose one of you were an omniscient person and
therefore knew all of the movements of all the
bodies in the world dead or alive and that he also
knew all the states of mind of all human beings that
ever lived, and suppose that this man wrote all that he
knew in a big book, then this book would contain the
whole description of the world; and what I want to say
is, that the book would contain nothing that we would
call an *ethical* judgment or anything that would
logically imply such a judgment. It would of course
contail all relative judgments of value and all true
scientific propositions and in fact all true propositions
that can be made. But all the facts described would, as
it were, stand on the same level and in the same way
all propositions stand on the same level. There are
no propositions which, in any absolute sense, are sublime,
important, or trivial."
--ibid, p.291
"I see now that these nonsensical expressions were not
nonsensical because I had not yet found the correct
expressions, but that their nonsensicality was their very
essence. For all I wanted to do with them was just
*to go beyond* the world and that is to say beyond
significant language. My whole tendence and I believe
the tendency of all men who ever tried to write or talk
Ethics or Religion was to run against the boundaries of
language. This running against the walls of our cage is
perfectly, absolutely hopeless."
---ibid, p.296
Kamerynn
.
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| User: "Dr. Zarkov" |
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| Title: Re: ethics as a grammatical illusion |
11 Jun 2004 07:18:37 AM |
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You've just stated the obvious.
"Nobody can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered
an old idea and thinks it is his own."
--SYDNEY J. HARRIS
"Nik The Greek" <nikthegreek@hotpop.com> wrote in message
news:9647b318.0406101641.14b2dfc8@posting.google.com...
This came to me while considering Kant's categorical imperative. The
meaningfulness of so-called categorical imperatives is questionable.
Imperatives in general, or "ought"-sentences, are conditional by
nature. That is, we naturally use them, or naturally came to use them,
as conditional. "Do this, in order to achieve that." Antropologically
this seems like a reasonable chronology. At first, humans formed
conditional sentences. The elder would teach his child to "sharpen the
stick this way, so it makes a useful arrow". Only later on, and out of
the sheer power of our grammatical ability to form new combinations of
familier phrases, did categorical-unconditional imperatives came to
be. "Do this!", "THIS is good!" - unconditionally - is the unfortunate
product of our lingual ability. Our historical unawareness of the
importance of language as consituting thought; the natural tendency to
accept grammaticaly correct sentences as meaningful; has introduced
into language so many of these stray metaphors and modes of speech,
and along with them systems of values and beliefs. Yet it's important
to go back and get to the bottom of the history of our modes of
speech. To study their usage and hence their meaning, and to put an
end to many of our pointless discussions. I'm begining to think that
since Ethics (and also Aesthetics) deal mainly with so-called
'objective' or 'uncoditional' propositions and values, there's really
nothing interesting about them. "It is good to behave like THIS." and
"THIS is right" are the sort of sentences that stand at the
foundations of most Ethics; while I suspect the only really meaningful
sentences are always conditional. The much discussed naturalistic
fallacy is also just an aspect of language usage, or to be more
accurate, language-misuse. The jump from "is" to "ought" is so easy to
do grammatically, that there's no wonder we have been so happy to make
it in the past, uncritically. But before we set out to inquire whether
a jump from "is" to "ought" is justified, we need to determine if it
even preserves any meaning.
.
|
|
|
| User: "Nik The Greek" |
|
| Title: Re: ethics as a grammatical illusion |
11 Jun 2004 03:28:07 PM |
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"Dr. Zarkov" <Ming@Mongo.com> wrote in message news:<40c9a363$0$3015$61fed72c@news.rcn.com>...
You've just stated the obvious.
What's so obvious?
"Nobody can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered
an old idea and thinks it is his own."
Yes, I admit to that. Still if I reach an idea on my own, it only
makes me feel affirmed to discvoer that someone like LW had thought of
it before.
--SYDNEY J. HARRIS
"Nik The Greek" <nikthegreek@hotpop.com> wrote in message
news:9647b318.0406101641.14b2dfc8@posting.google.com...
This came to me while considering Kant's categorical imperative. The
meaningfulness of so-called categorical imperatives is questionable.
Imperatives in general, or "ought"-sentences, are conditional by
nature. That is, we naturally use them, or naturally came to use them,
as conditional. "Do this, in order to achieve that." Antropologically
this seems like a reasonable chronology. At first, humans formed
conditional sentences. The elder would teach his child to "sharpen the
stick this way, so it makes a useful arrow". Only later on, and out of
the sheer power of our grammatical ability to form new combinations of
familier phrases, did categorical-unconditional imperatives came to
be. "Do this!", "THIS is good!" - unconditionally - is the unfortunate
product of our lingual ability. Our historical unawareness of the
importance of language as consituting thought; the natural tendency to
accept grammaticaly correct sentences as meaningful; has introduced
into language so many of these stray metaphors and modes of speech,
and along with them systems of values and beliefs. Yet it's important
to go back and get to the bottom of the history of our modes of
speech. To study their usage and hence their meaning, and to put an
end to many of our pointless discussions. I'm begining to think that
since Ethics (and also Aesthetics) deal mainly with so-called
'objective' or 'uncoditional' propositions and values, there's really
nothing interesting about them. "It is good to behave like THIS." and
"THIS is right" are the sort of sentences that stand at the
foundations of most Ethics; while I suspect the only really meaningful
sentences are always conditional. The much discussed naturalistic
fallacy is also just an aspect of language usage, or to be more
accurate, language-misuse. The jump from "is" to "ought" is so easy to
do grammatically, that there's no wonder we have been so happy to make
it in the past, uncritically. But before we set out to inquire whether
a jump from "is" to "ought" is justified, we need to determine if it
even preserves any meaning.
.
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