A different first chapter
I note your lack of enthusiasm for rewriting the Kant and Aristotle chapters. It seems to me that the rewrites would be necessary given the chapters as they stand, so how can you justify this lack of enthusiasm?
My 'enthusiasm' sometimes knows before my rational mind does. How important is a discussion of Kant and Aristotle to your empirical theory of ethics, anyway? I can understand your desire for a discussion of those philosophers while you were still wrestling with the problem of moral hypocrisy. But it appears to me that by the end of the thesis you have dug yourself out of that hole with your discovery of what you term commonsense viable morality. Essentially, it is simply the ethos that exists in the outside world, rather than the often hypocritical left-wing morality that runs rife on the university campus. I would love to be able to describe that as the primary empirical reality, purely because I can support it with integrity.
The primary empirical reality and something you can support with integrity are not really different things. What you can support with integrity does presuppose a kind of empiricism whereby a sincerely felt moral intuition is intrinsically motivating, as Hume noted. So really, what you are saying is that your moral intuitions are not significantly different from those of most other people around you. At least, most other people around you in the outside world, not necessarily within the ivory tower.
But then how do I justify the pursuit of an empirical theory of ethics? The internal reviewer noted that it is an unusual thing for a philosopher to pursue. I think that your best line of argument is to drop the whole business of saying "I don't want to be a hypocrite" and just adopt a Macleanean viewpoint, that philosophy cannot teach moral expertise. Moral expertise, to the extent that it exists at all, is something that we all share, and all a philosopher can ever do is present his own moral opinion on a matter.
This reminds me of the external reviewer's rather fatuous objection to subjectivism. He said that awareness of the thesis that somewhere thinking something does make it so "may make people all too willing to believe far too early that they have reached this point". The most obvious reply to such an objection is, how could undesirable practical consequences show that subjectivism is false? Equally, a subjectivist could legitimately ask, who are you to say how quickly is too quickly to assume that someone has reached this point? It is tantamount to saying that he has some kind of expertise to be able to tell other people that their own cares and concerns are such that they are somehow foolish or mistaken. Many of Anne Maclean's arguments speak to this point.
A preference utilitarian like John Harris can justify killing babies on the rationale that they are not aware of their existence over time. You are therefore not frustrating any preference to live by killing them. Most normal people are likely to find this shocking for no other reason than that--surprise, surprise!--he is talking about killing babies. They might have no deeper principle on which to appeal than this, and it is quite possible, if subjectivism is true, then all that can be said here is that their values are different from his. At the least, their values will be just as justified as his values on their own terms. If Harris is an objectivist, how could he then turn around and claim that they have simply been all too willing to believe far too quickly that they have reached the point where thinking something has made it so? How can he define 'too' willing in a way that is not completely arbitrary? These are the things that these people do deem to be important, and he does not seem to have any authority to tell them that their cares and concerns are such that they are somehow foolish or mistaken.
One of the basic assumptions of ethicists seems to be that the more complete their theory, the more it overrides a social norm. Theories are better than social norms. This, of course, presupposes a centralist view, whereby morality must be justified according to a centralised theory of right and wrong. A non-centralist, on the other hand, argues that right and wrong are situational things that are ascertained in particular cases that must be examined first, before one can infer any general principles from them. It seems to me that, mutatis mutandis, I could use (1) non-centralism as one of the foundational assumptions of an empirical theory of ethics. I can also say that (2) moral intuitions are experience-dependent (which I get from my supervisor) and that (3) they are intrinsically motivating (which I get from David Hume). These three premises combine to form the notion that social norms are the primary moral data. Social norms satisfy the three critiera: (1) they are situational in the sense that they do not necessarily form the foundations for a central theory of ethics. (2) They are experience-dependent, because one's moral attitudes are something that are conditioned from birth. (3) They are intrinsically motivating, because part of calling them attitudes in the first place presupposes that they are acted on as a matter of course.
Based on the above considerations, I certainly do not think that a discussion of Kant and Aristotle forms an appropriate first chapter. An appropriate first chapter is rightly concerned about the meta-ethical foundations of the theory. You already have three sections to explore in this chapter just like that.
My 'enthusiasm' sometimes knows before my rational mind does. How important is a discussion of Kant and Aristotle to your empirical theory of ethics, anyway? I can understand your desire for a discussion of those philosophers while you were still wrestling with the problem of moral hypocrisy. But it appears to me that by the end of the thesis you have dug yourself out of that hole with your discovery of what you term commonsense viable morality. Essentially, it is simply the ethos that exists in the outside world, rather than the often hypocritical left-wing morality that runs rife on the university campus. I would love to be able to describe that as the primary empirical reality, purely because I can support it with integrity.
The primary empirical reality and something you can support with integrity are not really different things. What you can support with integrity does presuppose a kind of empiricism whereby a sincerely felt moral intuition is intrinsically motivating, as Hume noted. So really, what you are saying is that your moral intuitions are not significantly different from those of most other people around you. At least, most other people around you in the outside world, not necessarily within the ivory tower.
But then how do I justify the pursuit of an empirical theory of ethics? The internal reviewer noted that it is an unusual thing for a philosopher to pursue. I think that your best line of argument is to drop the whole business of saying "I don't want to be a hypocrite" and just adopt a Macleanean viewpoint, that philosophy cannot teach moral expertise. Moral expertise, to the extent that it exists at all, is something that we all share, and all a philosopher can ever do is present his own moral opinion on a matter.
This reminds me of the external reviewer's rather fatuous objection to subjectivism. He said that awareness of the thesis that somewhere thinking something does make it so "may make people all too willing to believe far too early that they have reached this point". The most obvious reply to such an objection is, how could undesirable practical consequences show that subjectivism is false? Equally, a subjectivist could legitimately ask, who are you to say how quickly is too quickly to assume that someone has reached this point? It is tantamount to saying that he has some kind of expertise to be able to tell other people that their own cares and concerns are such that they are somehow foolish or mistaken. Many of Anne Maclean's arguments speak to this point.
A preference utilitarian like John Harris can justify killing babies on the rationale that they are not aware of their existence over time. You are therefore not frustrating any preference to live by killing them. Most normal people are likely to find this shocking for no other reason than that--surprise, surprise!--he is talking about killing babies. They might have no deeper principle on which to appeal than this, and it is quite possible, if subjectivism is true, then all that can be said here is that their values are different from his. At the least, their values will be just as justified as his values on their own terms. If Harris is an objectivist, how could he then turn around and claim that they have simply been all too willing to believe far too quickly that they have reached the point where thinking something has made it so? How can he define 'too' willing in a way that is not completely arbitrary? These are the things that these people do deem to be important, and he does not seem to have any authority to tell them that their cares and concerns are such that they are somehow foolish or mistaken.
One of the basic assumptions of ethicists seems to be that the more complete their theory, the more it overrides a social norm. Theories are better than social norms. This, of course, presupposes a centralist view, whereby morality must be justified according to a centralised theory of right and wrong. A non-centralist, on the other hand, argues that right and wrong are situational things that are ascertained in particular cases that must be examined first, before one can infer any general principles from them. It seems to me that, mutatis mutandis, I could use (1) non-centralism as one of the foundational assumptions of an empirical theory of ethics. I can also say that (2) moral intuitions are experience-dependent (which I get from my supervisor) and that (3) they are intrinsically motivating (which I get from David Hume). These three premises combine to form the notion that social norms are the primary moral data. Social norms satisfy the three critiera: (1) they are situational in the sense that they do not necessarily form the foundations for a central theory of ethics. (2) They are experience-dependent, because one's moral attitudes are something that are conditioned from birth. (3) They are intrinsically motivating, because part of calling them attitudes in the first place presupposes that they are acted on as a matter of course.
Based on the above considerations, I certainly do not think that a discussion of Kant and Aristotle forms an appropriate first chapter. An appropriate first chapter is rightly concerned about the meta-ethical foundations of the theory. You already have three sections to explore in this chapter just like that.
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