De Officiis by Cicero III
He warns him, therefore, to be careful not to go into battle; for, he says, the man who is not legally a soldier has no right to be fighting the foe.
My God! He's describing the rules of armed conflict, as we were taught them in the army reserve, in terms of what you owe to people who surrender in wartime, and who is a legal combatant and who is not. Here and elsewhere, as I have quoted, it strongly seems to me that his morality and our morality are really not so different. And if not, then Emanuel Smikun's positing of timeless moral imperatives in social functioning suddenly becomes a lot more plausible.
I think that part of the problem here is that philosophy has in general not cared about real moral reasoning. As I have argued previously, it is too wrapped up in arbitrary formalisms, which I may call philosopher's games. It is proud to try to force moral reasoning to fit the Procrustean bed of these horrible games and denigrates real moral reasoning as "banal". Cicero, in daring to write real moral reasoning, has been described as "the Martha Stewart of philosophy"1.
On the one hand, merely writing the norms of one's society, even if one agrees with them, is likely to be banal. On the other hand, Cicero had a special reason for writing those norms, because he was giving moral advice to his son. As commonsensical as we may find some maxims, it seems that someone always has to hear them somewhere. But this is presumably not a good enough reason to write real moral reasoning in philosophy itself.
One interesting project would be comparative. It would involve both a comparison of our values with the values of our ancestors, and a comparison of our values with those of other cultures. It would be fascinating in itself to determine what we had in common and where we differed. More than this, however, it would be fascinating to determine why we had in common what we had in common, and why we differed where we differed.
Of course, it might be argued that this project is no longer philosophical in nature, but anthropological. A philosopher is above merely explaining the values that people do have, but must justify the values that people should have. An entire society may in some ways be unjust. It is up to philosophy to move beyond the veil of received opinion through the use of reason and argument to show us when society gets it wrong with morality.
But a philosophical training conveys no moral expertise whatsoever. In making a moral judgement, a philosopher will only be giving us his own moral opinion, which will be no better than anyone else's. A philosopher may rightly enter a debate with his society about right and wrong. But in this respect, his formalisms may not be considered to be any more authoritative than the platitudes of Cicero himself.
Furthermore, it is hard to believe that moral anthropology can contribute nothing to philosophy. Once we have a better understanding of why we value what we value, we will be in a better position to justify our values to ourselves. An awareness of any process of life will always bring enlightenment to reasoning that pertains to that process. It may make previously unsympathisable values sympathisable, and other sympathisable values questionable.
Am I, therefore, interested in moral philosophy really, or only moral anthropology? It seems to me that I am interested in moral anthropology as a guide to philosophy. I want first to take our existing social norms and explain why we have them. Second, I want to use these insights to draw moral conclusions and then explain, both ethically and psychologically, why my moral reasoning has changed from the empirical investigation.
Hence, my project is both descriptive and prescriptive at once. It is not enough merely to make a bare moral judgement and understand the justification for making it. One must also understand the psychological and anthropological influences behind it. Even though these are not in themselves justifications, they will have a clear impact on what justifications we are likely to make for our moral beliefs, and this justifies discovering what they are.
There is an alternative to this approach. One could write recognisably moral reasoning without arbitrary formalism, while at the same time disagreeing with one's society in some ways. In fact, one could even perhaps employ certain formalisms in a way that was effective towards social reform. For example, how much did the key thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment rely on commonsense moral reasoning, and how much on philosophic formalisms?
There were a variety of views taken during the Enlightenment, but they definitely shared an assault on authority. Without making a total survey of Enlightenment thought here and now, it is reasonable to suppose that some philosophical formalisms were employed. But perhaps the question is rather, what pressures do ideas put on society, and what pressures does society put on ideas? For example, what political influence does Peter Singer enjoy today, and what influence has the collapse of Russia had on the popularity of Marxism?
The real agenda that I have here is simply to stamp out hypocrisy. In this regard, psychology is on my side, through the principle of cognitive dissonance. Hypocrisy will only ever be a short-lived phenomenon for the majority of people, because their psychological tendency is for their beliefs and actions to become consonant with each other. I suspect that for the vast majority of university students, their hypocritical utilitarian left-wing rubbish tends to fall by the wayside when they actually have to get out in the real world and work for a living.
1Benjamin P. Hayek, in a customer review on Amazon.com, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0521348358/002-2353902-1194442?v=glance, borrowing a phrase from Professor Thomas Williams of the University of Iowa Department of Philosophy. Disclaimer, 2005-06-10: Bejamin P. Hayek has since removed the borrowed phrase, as he feels that it misrepresents the views of his esteemed teacher. He says that Professor Williams really holds Cicero in the highest regard. This has not stopped Hayek noting that Cicero is "lacking major substance" and "not a tremendously important" read. The parallel with Martha Stewart seems therefore to accurately represent his view of Cicero.