These essays are here because
they might be useful or interesting to someone other than me. If you
have any comments or questions, please e-mail
me. I'll never know if anyone is getting any mileage out of these
things unless you are gracious enough to take the time to let me know.
Thanks.
| Subjectivism, Realism,
and Morality (My Dissertation) |
Many philosophers and
non-philosophers alike have been inclined to hold that moral values are
subjective and that the truth of moral judgments depends upon personal
feelings and commitments. This view is based upon the idea that our
experiences are the basis of morality--that moral values are products
of our experiences. Here I consider both the motivations and the
difficulties with the subjectivist picture of morality, and suggest
that while subjectivism itself is mistaken, there are certain
apparently subjectivist claims, which can and must be accounted for by
a moral realist (Chapters 1-3). I then consider how a moral realist can
respond to the subjectivist picture--in which I include views which
generally go by the name "non-cognitivism"--and account for the idea
that our feelings play a substantial role in the shaping of moral
value, and that our personal feelings and commitments must figure into
any plausible account of moral truth (Chapters 4-7). A key question
here is whether a moral realist can do this, and as I argue, the
realist can. The resulting view is a non-absolutist realism on which we
are licensed in treating moral values as sufficiently independent of
our feelings (such that we can call these values real), but which also allows that
our feelings and experiences are part
of the story of how moral values get their hooks in us.
(Unlike the subjectivist, who thinks they provide the whole story.) I haven't compiled everything into a single file yet, but here are pdfs of each chapter, as well as an introduction, as I will defend it on March 12, 2008. The files may not say it, but everything is, I assure you, by me, Matthew Pianalto. Introduction Chapter 1: Mysticism and Subjectivism Chapter 2: Subjectivism and Reflection Chapter 3: Subjectivism and Truth Chapter 4: Feelings and Values Chapter 5: Passions, Blindness, and Progress Chapter 6: Commitment, Conflict, and Realism Chapter 7: Moral Realism; Some Considerations |
| Moral
Realism and Ways of Life |
This paper examines
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong’s claim that a person’s commitment to a way of
life is a relevant factor in deciding what it is true that the agent
ought to do in a moral dilemma. Sinnott-Armstrong argues that his view
shows that extreme universal moral
realism, which claims that facts about the agent make no
contribution to the truth of what an agent ought to do, is false. I use
Sinnott-Armstrong’s as a starting point to consider how a different
kind of moral realism can account for the relevance of ways of life,
and argue that they can be regarded as “realistic factors” in moral
deliberation because they are grounded in morally permissible
commitments which serve to shape the agent’s perspective on his or her
situation, rather then serving as additional reasons the agent weighs
in his or her decision. (This is part of Chapter 6 of my dissertation;
also forthcoming in The Southwest
Philosophy Review.) |
| Moral
Blindness and Moral Progress |
In this paper I offer a
sketch of moral blindness,
which starts with Hume's claim that there is a distinction between
moral sentiment (or value) and non-moral sentiments. This distinction
makes it possible for people to be mistaken about the moral relevance
of their evaluations. People can be morally blinded by these kinds of
mistakes, failing to recognize or take account of moral features of a
situation that demand attention. I examine a case of what I call moral
blindness involving sexual harassment (in the Minnesota mining company
depicted in the recent film North
Country). I then argue that an account of moral blindness paves
the way for an account of moral progress, and point toward the ways in
which these notions are connected to an overall argument for moral
realism. (This is part of Chapter 5 of my dissertation; also
forthcoming in the Review Journal of
Political Philosophy.) |
| Moral
Conflict and the Indeterminacy of Morality |
Presented
at Southwest Philosophical Society Conference (Nashville, TN, November
2006): Cases of moral conflict
often occupy a central role in arguments against claims that moral
judgments
admit of truth. In this paper, I argue that the employment of moral
conflicts
against the truth-susceptibility of moral judgments rests upon a false
conception of the determinacy of morality. I take under consideration
Jean-Paul
Sartre’s moral dilemma of the young man who must choose between leaving
home to
fight against |
| Subjectivism
& Error: How Could I Be Wrong About What's Right (For Me)? |
This is a link, not to
the paper, but rather to the handout for a talk I gave to the Socratic
Society on March 8, 2006. I begin by offering a characterization of
moral subjectivism as a positive theory about moral values, judgments,
and justification. I attempt to show that there is a way for
subjectivism to be modified which meets the standard objections that
moral subjectivism (1) cannot explain what moral disagreements are
about and (2) cannot allow for the possibility that I could be mistaken
in my moral judgments. The resulting theory, although not subjectivism simplicitur, still deserves the
name subjectivism, and is a viable metaethical position. |
| Feeling
and Moral
Perception |
In this
paper, I explore the role of feeling in
a realist account of moral judgment. I argue that feeling is the
subjective
mode of our perception of moral values and constitutes a part of the
basis of
our capacity for making moral judgments. I begin in §1 by drawing
from some
insights and problems in Stoicism, and arguing that feeling can help us
find
our way through the world, and so tells us something about reality and
how to
react. In §2 I review some of McDowell’s comments about the
analogy between
values and secondary qualities, and briefly discuss the relation
between
feeling and moral sensibility. In §3, I consider cases of
perceptual
unresponsiveness and error and draw analogies between these cases and
forms of
moral insensitivity. I end in §4 with a brief discussion of moral
disagreement
and the problems disagreement poses for claims that there is a right
way
to see (or feel in) particular situations or a moral reality to be seen
(or
felt) at all. Presented at the Northwest Conference on Philosophy,
October 2005. |
| Wittgenstein,
Ethics, & Nonsense |
Wittgenstein argues in
his “Lecture on Ethics” that ethical statements, although significant
in some sense, are nonsense. This argument bears similarities to his
claim at the end of the Tractatus
Logico-Philosophicus that the propositions it contains are
nonsense. This paper examines the argument in the lecture on ethics as
a means to better understand what Wittgenstein means by “nonsense,” in
reference both to ethical statements and the Tractatus. (Presented at the
Midsouth Philosophy Conference, Memphis, TN, February 2005; updated
version published, by invitation, in Analysis
and Metaphysics (December 2007).) |
| What
Do We Need Happiness For? |
Aristotle
argues that happiness must be an activity
(rather than a state). How do we make sense of this? What activity is
it? The answer turns out to be contemplation.
But wait! Wasn't the Nicomachean
Ethics supposed to be a book on practical reason? What's practical
about contemplation? Jonathan Lear (U of Chicago) argues that Aristotle
is driven to posit a "beyond" in order to complete his theory (i.e.
fill in the final upward gap). That is, Lear thinks Aristotle's system
breaks down. This paper offers an interpretation to the contrary.
Presented at St. Louis University Department of Philosophy's
14th Annual Graduate Student Conference, September 24, 2004. Revised
November 14, 2005. |
| Suicide
& The
Self |
This is my Master's Thesis (May 2004). Attempts to recast suicide as a philosophical problem (rather than a strictly psychiatric disease), and then offers the beginnings of an existential perspective on suicide. Takes into consideration issues of human freedom, anxiety & despair, the meaning of death and the rationality of suicide, and the moral considerations which emerge on this account of suicide. 6 Chapters, approx. 160 pgs. If you read all or any of this thesis, I would really appreciate notes and comments, as I am still working on these problems and may soon start attempting to formulate this work into a book. |
| Authenticity: The Resuscitation of a Moral Ideal | This essay explores the relation of moral ideals to normative ethical theory, specifically the ideal of authenticity (as discussed in Heidegger’s Being and Time, and more particularly in Charles Taylor’s The Ethics of Authenticity). I argue that moral ideals are a necessary component of a full conception of morality, and that authenticity offers one such important ideal. |
| What Do I
Do Now? - Heidegger & Existential Anxiety |
This
is the first essay where the problem of suicide entered the existential
picture (perhaps less existential
now, in a sense, and more broadly ethical) that I've been thinking
about for a couple years now. The essay begins the problematic by
taking up the notion of authenticity in Heidegger's Being and Time, and working toward anxiety, which seems to occupy an
important place in H's work (both in the descriptive and normative
respects, although H might not be so fond of such a fact/value
distinction). For Heidegger, the confrontation of one's own anxiety is
essential to authentic living, and yet there seems to be a threat
inherent in this moment of confrontation which Heidegger does not seem
to consider--the possibility of failing and falling into the deepest
(suicidal?) despair rather than resolutely becoming one's own authentic
self. This essay tries to say something about that threat. |
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