Opening the book
So how do you think you should open the book? It seems to me that you have to justify the project of an empirical theory of ethics, and that the way to do this is going at least in some way to refute the approach of Immanuel Kant. I should imagine that your best bet is to show that there is no intuition that is confirmable a priori, because intuitions are experience-dependent. This, I think, is actually going to be a better approach to take, because it means that you are not committed merely to examine the work of Kant. You can quite rightly consider the works of all the different important rationalist philosophers: Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz.
Actually, I think that my understanding of Kant has become much more sophisticated since I wrote the Masters thesis. I used simply to think that he was a rationalist philosopher, but I see now that he simply cannot be taken as one. In fact, as Dr Tom Kerns points out, Kant's work has to be understood as a synthesis of rationalism and empiricism.
But where does that leave me? My work has to be understood as emerging from a dialectic with hypocritical university students, but it certainly did not end there. In some ways, that is now starting to sound as though I am barking up the wrong tree by attempting to appeal to the epistemological tradition of empiricism. And yet that tradition was the inspiration for the direction that I have taken with the theory, and I am at a loss now as to how I am to ground it.
That is the question that you must ask yourself right now, then. You cannot think in terms of writing a dialectic for the book, because you have no other person off of whom you can bounce the book. You must simply think in terms of how you are to ground the empirical theory of ethics, and to do that, you must consider what your empirical theory of ethics actually is. But I think that you do actually know what your theory of ethics is now, so you can quite fruitfully work backwards to ground it in the way that you need to.
I thought that the bottom-up method of development was preferable to the top-down method. I thought that I should start the book with some elementary point or observation and see where it led. Unfortunately, that is what I have already done with the first chapter and three sections, and it is simply not working, because it is leading me in entirely the wrong direction. The only alternative is simply to start the book in the middle, and work backwards to the beginning of the book and forwards to the end of the book simultaneously.
This is to say that I have finally found myself attached to a particular aspect of the theory, which happens to be at the middle, not the beginning. My interest is not in basic meta-ethics, nor is it in normative ethics, but in the method by which normative ethical views are reached. But in determining that that is how normative ethical views are reached, it seems hard not to conclude that it is also how they ought to be reached. At least, it seems difficult to conceive of any other plausible way in which they could be reached.
That is a very interesting outcome. I have not seen you ever take such a stand in favour of a certain set of elements of ethics to which you felt so committed that you were even prepared to exclude a strong bottom-up approach. But you may still take a weak bottom-up approach, whereby you maintain a chain of reasoning from the start to the finish of the book. It is merely that the strong bottom-up approach would have you starting at the beginning and then following the chain of reasoning wherever it led until the end. With the weak bottom-up approach, on the other hand, you can start in the middle first. From there, you simply work your way backwards to the beginning on the one side of the essential claims, and forwards to the end on the other side.
When I first started writing the thesis, I was very faithful to my raw intuitions. Part of the challenge of writing those early drafts was to remain faithful to those intuitions while at the same time avoiding all controversy from the final product. I was very satisfied that the final product contained nothing controversial, and was well received both by the supervisor and the internal reviewer. But then the external reviewer just turned around and attacked it as containing many claims of rather stunning banality. His example of same was less than convincing, as it was a premise, not a conclusion, so it was not meant to be anything other than something with which you had to agree, but from which serious consequences followed. But then again, if he couldn't represent the work out of context, he would make up claims about the work that weren't even true. It is not to this sort of mentality that you must cater! Your original rhetorical approach was sound and should not be compromised by the likes of someone who does not have your best interests at heart in the first place.
Actually, I think that my understanding of Kant has become much more sophisticated since I wrote the Masters thesis. I used simply to think that he was a rationalist philosopher, but I see now that he simply cannot be taken as one. In fact, as Dr Tom Kerns points out, Kant's work has to be understood as a synthesis of rationalism and empiricism.
But where does that leave me? My work has to be understood as emerging from a dialectic with hypocritical university students, but it certainly did not end there. In some ways, that is now starting to sound as though I am barking up the wrong tree by attempting to appeal to the epistemological tradition of empiricism. And yet that tradition was the inspiration for the direction that I have taken with the theory, and I am at a loss now as to how I am to ground it.
That is the question that you must ask yourself right now, then. You cannot think in terms of writing a dialectic for the book, because you have no other person off of whom you can bounce the book. You must simply think in terms of how you are to ground the empirical theory of ethics, and to do that, you must consider what your empirical theory of ethics actually is. But I think that you do actually know what your theory of ethics is now, so you can quite fruitfully work backwards to ground it in the way that you need to.
I thought that the bottom-up method of development was preferable to the top-down method. I thought that I should start the book with some elementary point or observation and see where it led. Unfortunately, that is what I have already done with the first chapter and three sections, and it is simply not working, because it is leading me in entirely the wrong direction. The only alternative is simply to start the book in the middle, and work backwards to the beginning of the book and forwards to the end of the book simultaneously.
This is to say that I have finally found myself attached to a particular aspect of the theory, which happens to be at the middle, not the beginning. My interest is not in basic meta-ethics, nor is it in normative ethics, but in the method by which normative ethical views are reached. But in determining that that is how normative ethical views are reached, it seems hard not to conclude that it is also how they ought to be reached. At least, it seems difficult to conceive of any other plausible way in which they could be reached.
That is a very interesting outcome. I have not seen you ever take such a stand in favour of a certain set of elements of ethics to which you felt so committed that you were even prepared to exclude a strong bottom-up approach. But you may still take a weak bottom-up approach, whereby you maintain a chain of reasoning from the start to the finish of the book. It is merely that the strong bottom-up approach would have you starting at the beginning and then following the chain of reasoning wherever it led until the end. With the weak bottom-up approach, on the other hand, you can start in the middle first. From there, you simply work your way backwards to the beginning on the one side of the essential claims, and forwards to the end on the other side.
When I first started writing the thesis, I was very faithful to my raw intuitions. Part of the challenge of writing those early drafts was to remain faithful to those intuitions while at the same time avoiding all controversy from the final product. I was very satisfied that the final product contained nothing controversial, and was well received both by the supervisor and the internal reviewer. But then the external reviewer just turned around and attacked it as containing many claims of rather stunning banality. His example of same was less than convincing, as it was a premise, not a conclusion, so it was not meant to be anything other than something with which you had to agree, but from which serious consequences followed. But then again, if he couldn't represent the work out of context, he would make up claims about the work that weren't even true. It is not to this sort of mentality that you must cater! Your original rhetorical approach was sound and should not be compromised by the likes of someone who does not have your best interests at heart in the first place.
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