alixtii | The Meta/Ethics of Radical Feminism, Not by Mary Daly

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The Meta/Ethics of Radical Feminism, Not by Mary Daly

In the comments of hannahrorlove's post attacking slash goggles, peasant_ and I somehow found ourselves in a conversation about the metaethics of radical feminism. Specifically, she asked:

If you reject relativism as uncomfortable, and you reject an exploration of belief formation as uninteresting, what has led you to believe in the near-universal radical nature of the problem?

It's true to say that I'm a radical feminist (insofar as I am one), as a result of certain important influences in my youth and childhood, in particular the influence of my mother, one of my high school English teachers, etc. (Mostly my mother.) This is true, but uninteresting. As a philosophically-interested human being, I don't just hold certain beliefs but also justify them to myself. These justifications are, of course, also causally determined and could be, if one were interested in doing so, explained in purely material terms. But I can't think of myself merely as a belief box (anybody have a cite for this concept?) into which random beliefs were merely shoved by nature, and I don't really think anybody could.

Mary Daly, in her book Gyn/Ecology, which is actually subtitled The Metaethics of Radical Feminism (and how disturbing is it that my copy--which is really my mother's old copy, has a huge picture of an axe on the cover?), which has been the deepest and most direct radical feminist influence on me in my adolescence and throughout my life, seems to avoid the question somewhat:

I would say that radical feminist metaethics is of a deeper intuitive type than "ethics." The latter, generally written from one of several (but basically the same) patriarchal perspectives, works out of hidden agendas concealed in the texture of language, buried in mythic reversals which control "logic" most powerfullly because unacknowledged.

[. . .]

There are, of course, male-authored, male-identified works which purport to deal with "metaethics." In relation to these, gynography is meta-metaethical. For while male metaethics claims to be "the study of ethical theories, as distinguished from the study of moral and ethical conduct itself," [she cites Titus and Keaton's Ethics for Today here as the source of the quote] it remains essentially male-authored and male-identified theory about theory. Moreover, it is only theory about "ethical theories"--an enterprise which promises boundless boringness. In contrast to this, Gyn/Ecology is hardly "metaethical" in the sense of masturbatory meditations by ethicists upon their own emissions. Rather, we recognize that the essential omissions if these emissions is of our own life/freedom. In the name of our life/freedom, feminist metaethics O-mits seminal omissions. (12-13)

There is much to love in these passages (remind me to re-read the entire book over the summer). But this still leaves open the question: where do radical feminist ethics come from? (Daly's next paragraph implies the answer might be the goddess Metis.)

A certain amount of philosophical pragmatism, a la Richard Rorty, enters into the discussion for me at this point. I think I've indicated before that I'm not sure what it would mean to assert that "the nature of the problem is radical and near universal" as some type of meaningful, propositional claim. How would one go about falsifying such a claim?

What I would argue is that the claim does not and cannot have a truth value. Instead, it is useful to conceive of the problem as being radical and near universal, while making no ontological claim--because pragmatism in general eschews ontology.

The questions raised by this answer are obvious: useful to whom? and according to what standard of usefulness? I don't see anything obviously wrong in ethicizing epistemology and metaphysics (well, I could see someone arguing it was contradictory to the self-evident nature of truth, but that's rather begging the question) (and theology goes here as well; this was an important point as I working on feminist meta/theology in undergrad), but certainly we need to have some account of feminist ethics in place?

I can see three possible responses (and this part of the discussion is familiar to me, because I explained this part point-to-point to my London roommate in a hostel bar in Austria in 2004). The first is existential commitment, which is basically to refuse to answer the question. Now there are some things that existential commitment is good for, not least of all acting as a stopgap explanation as one works out a more detailed metaethic. "This is where I stand; I can do no other" is a principled position I can respect, but it ideally shouldn't take the place of critical dialectic and self-exploration.

Now obviously someone working from a position of existential commitment can make normative claims; there's nothing stopping them, after all. But they can't quite give an account of why other people should take them seriously, so they're only useful in modifying the behavior of other people who share those commitments. This strikes me as a rather weak and silly sort of radical feminism (but perhaps describes the traditional, "real" radfeminists of the 70s quite well!).

The second option would be some sort of foundationalism. But as you note, foundationalism isn't really compatible with the core premise of radical feminism, that systemic injustice runs all the way down. (Although nowadays I would probably want to hedge on it a little and say something like it might run all the way down, and if it doesn't it still runs down pretty darn deep.) To locate supposedly "feminist" ethics in reason, language, or culture would be to merely reinscribe masculinist domination.

When I was in undergrad, it seemed to me the process was simple: you let feminist ethicists do their thing, and then we feminist metaphysicians and theologians would apply the results to metaphysics, epistemology, and theology. (Aesthetics always seemed to fit very uncomfortably into this system.) The idea of deriving ethics from religion still sort of gives me hives, but it's obvious that the system as I was thinking of it just isn't tenable: it throws way too much burden on the feminist ethicists. Standpoint theory has too many implicit metaphysical and epistemological assumptions to be able to do what it does and be logically prior to those disciplines. Appointing ethics as queen of the science isn't ultimately a meaningful change, any more than demoting metaphysics and putting epistemology in its place, or doing the same with philosophy of language, had been. As long as the sciences have a queen, we have a problem.

Ultimately, then, I think the only workable option is a dialectical one. Reason (and I'll use that as a lump term for metaphysics/epistemology/theology) and ethics always have to be in dialectic to each other, with neither (or, in another sense, both) being logically prior to the other. (So, gritting my teeth, I have to accept that it is sometimes acceptable to turn to Scripture in order to learn about ethics--but this turn to Scripture will always-already be informed by a certain ethicism.) The limits of liberal democratism are built into itself and reveal themselves in history, so that there is a sort of imperative built within reason, language, and culture themselves for it to progress into radical feminism.

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Fairly disturbing, yeah, but not too surprising given her hate-on for the patriarchy and the castration imagery she employs.

No, I didn't say I was surprised, and I certainly can't blame her for her hate-on. (And I'll have reread the castration imagery in light of all the psychoanalysis I've just gotten, but there's something intuitive going on there, since loss of privilege really is experienced as a sort of castration.) But even if it's not a piercing weapon, there's still something surprisingly phallic in the violence of the imagery. . . .

Thank you for linking. [Edit: Not as in, "I didn't know what that was," but,
"Now an explanation of what that is is present for any readers who weren't already aware."] As soon as I read "axe" I thought, "It's a labrys, duh. What's the big deal?" It actually hadn't occurred to me to perceive that symbol as an actual violent weapon rather than as an image used by old skool lesbians or whatever. (Plus of course we know I'm not necessarily opposed to violence anyway, even as I'm unlikely to be on board with any such strains of radical feminism.)

And that's about all I've got, as apparently discussions of metaethics go even farther over my head than Alixtii philosophy discussions usually do.

Thanks for giving this a home, it was becoming increasingly awkward discussing it in a complete stranger's journal.

Okay.
:cracks knuckles:

As a justification that strikes me as an elegantly argued, clearly stated and logically coherent case, and it is one that I find really hard to respect. You may if you wish consider this pure prejudice, but I struggle and ultimately fail to understand (and I do mean understand in a very fundamental way) how anyone can hold a belief that is not founded on empirical observation. I am aware that some people do, many of them rational and logical people, but it is not something that I can in any way equate with or understand. You were brought up by a feminist and I was brought up by a scientist. In my understanding, even if one is claiming that a notion is innate then empirical observation is required to discover it and prove its innateness. And since the latest research has shown that there is a genetic basis to belief, I suppose we can just conclude that I do not posses the so-called god gene and probably leave it at that.

So, bearing in mind this prejudice of mine, a couple of very interesting points are immediately raised by what you have said.

If existential commitment and foundationalism both boil down to 'I believe this because I believe it' - which it seems to me that they do - then how does creating a dialectic between Reason and Ethics break the circle? I would describe that as simply adding an extra instrument to the orchestra whilst the angels dance on their pin. Unless of course you are in fact relying on the ethicists to bring in that vital element of observation which you seem reluctant to engage in yourself. (There is nothing wrong with being reluctant to engage in observation, if it doesn't interest you then it doesn't, but I would be so much more comfortable with understanding what you are saying if you were founding it on someone's observation, and then acknowledging what you have built your foundations on.)

So, gritting my teeth, I have to accept that it is sometimes acceptable to turn to Scripture in order to learn about ethics
You've lost me round that bend. Where does scripture come into it? Why should it be of any more or less relevance to ethics than any other text? (Well, apart from the fact that there is a bias of subject matter in many religious texts towards expounding on ethical issues.)

And then just when I am scratching my head and about to conclude that I can dismiss the whole thing as intellectually enjoyable but trivial, you say this:
The limits of liberal democratism are built into itself and reveal themselves in history, so that there is a sort of imperative built within reason, language, and culture themselves for it to progress into radical feminism.
Which looks very much like an observation.

Unless of course you are in fact relying on the ethicists to bring in that vital element of observation which you seem reluctant to engage in yourself.

I'm not convinced that naturalistic ethics are impossible; I find it plausible that a sufficiently ingenious thinker might find a way around the is/ought problem, and a philosophy professor I respected in undergrad (and continue to do so) was a big proponent of naturalistic ethics, but I can't quite see how they'd work and it doesn't strike me as the most obvious place to turn for an account of moral normativity. I just can't see how any amount of observation can tell us how we ought to act; at most, it can tell us how we do act or provide us with hypothetical imperatives.

You may if you wish consider this pure prejudice, but I struggle and ultimately fail to understand (and I do mean understand in a very fundamental way) how anyone can hold a belief that is not founded on empirical observation. I am aware that some people do, many of them rational and logical people, but it is not something that I can in any way equate with or understand. You were brought up by a feminist and I was brought up by a scientist.

My arguments against positivism aren't particularly new or exciting, mostly just to note that the positivist truth-criterion isn't empirically observable. Most positivists seem to either take certain assumptions by faith, for example that science can describe reality and truth is a function of doing so (although some positivists are also instrumentalists) and that only claims which derive from empirical observation are meaningful, in which case they fall into metaphysics (and inconsistent ones at that!) or else they are quietists, who eschew talk of the truth of positivism and take it as manifested in the action, in which case they are mystics. I suppose you can say that your inability to hold a belief in non-empirical propositions to be simply a result of your genes and/or brain chemistry, and not an intellectual position at all, but it's my prejudice that that's a rather cheap trick. (And again, seems to disavow personal responsibility and autonomy in a way I find very disturbing; is this the source of our disagreements over how to interpret various cases of rape and quasi-rape?)

It's not feminist ethics wouldn't turn to the world in order to make ethical claims; it absolutely would--that's the very heart and soul of feminist standpoint theory. But by doing so it's going to be operating on certain meta-ethical assumptions which are not empirical.

I'm interested in turning it around: why do you follow whatever principles you do? If it's to fit in within the dominant norms of your time and country, why do you find this valuable? If it's just because that's what you feel like doing at the moment, why do you think that's okay? Do you just perform random actions because your brain chemistry tells you to?

It is clearly far too early in the morning as far as my brain is concerned but I ought to at least try to respond to some of this. I apologise if the main impression I give is of being half asleep.

[feminist ethics are] going to be operating on certain meta-ethical assumptions which are not empirical
But if they aren't empirical what are they? That is the thing I am having real trouble grasping. You have listed some critiques of positivism (and sorry, but it really is too early for me to respond to those, I might try coming back when I am less brain dead) but that only helps me understand why you don't comprehend the world in the way that I do, I'm no closer to understanding what the way that you comprehend the world yourself actually is.

It may be that I am not capable of understanding this - just as a colour blind person can't understand 'red' as opposed to 'green', or it may just be that nobody has ever explained it clearly enough. Ever since I was a kid I have tended to get cross at about this point in philosophy discussions, so there is actually a lot of resistance there. (I will never forget my philosophy teacher's look of outrage when I suggested that maybe the reason nobody had found any universal ethical beliefs was because there weren't any. I suspect I have treasured that response ever since and have been biasing my own thinking accordingly.) The point being of course that my own way of looking at the world works very well for me, so I don't feel any need to try to find an alternative, and hence it is simplest to just dismiss the question.

why do you follow whatever principles you do? If it's to fit in within the dominant norms of your time and country, why do you find this valuable? If it's just because that's what you feel like doing at the moment, why do you think that's okay? Do you just perform random actions because your brain chemistry tells you to?
I see ethics as being about trying to make as many people as possible as happy as possible because ultimately that will make my own life as pleasant as possible. 'Pleasant' could probably be best described as enjoyable, long lasting and with the best chance of my genes surviving. I work on the basis of the selfish gene - so I put things in the order of myself, then my close relatives, then my friends and the immediate society I live in, then the wider society I live in, and so on working outwards. I work on the assumption that everyone else will be doing approximately the same so it all evens out. Some ethical problems I have worked out for myself, some I take from the society around me because I have never got round to thinking about them in detail. I think it is important to fit in with the norms of society because life is pleasanter if one does, sometimes though life is pleasanter if one tries to change the norms of society - I just make it up as I go along on a case by case basis. Since I assume everyone else does the same I assume that overall society will reach a balance that works best for the society as a whole. And yes, sometimes I perform random acts because my brain chemistry tells me to - for example when I lose my temper. I have no idea if this differs from what everyone else does, and if so how it differs, I have always assumed it is pretty much the same, but that is just an assumption. I do know that (in my terms) plenty of people give names like 'God' and 'conscience' to things that I call 'internalised social norms' and 'instinctive imperatives', but those are just differences of names as far as I'm concerned.

But if they aren't empirical what are they?

*shrug* Meta-ethical principles. I can give them names if you want: this one's Sarah, Michelle, Alexis, Aly, Joss, Summer. . . .

I--only in part--jest, but while what you asks makes sense to me, I don't think it's the sense you want it to make. Propositions might be independently-existing facts (which strikes me as needlessly metaphysical), or a certain type of property, or a function of language (probably the route I'd go), or whatever--but in any case, non-empirical facts are going to be fashioned out of the same "stuff" as empirical ones. Note that the laws of logic and mathematics--non-contradiction, modus ponens, the distributed middle, the distributive property, Euclid's first four postulates (but not the fifth), the rules of calculus, etc.--all fall into this set of non-emprical true propositions, so if you accept any of these and don't buy my explanation, I'm going to have to ask you what you think they are.

I have responses to the rest of the stuff in your comment, too, but I'm at work again . . . so it's going to have to wait a few hours until my next break.

I work on the basis of the selfish gene - so I put things in the order of myself, then my close relatives, then my friends and the immediate society I live in, then the wider society I live in, and so on working outwards

But Why that order? Why not some other order? You've only pushed the explanations back a step.

"Enjoyable" is of course begging the question--saying we want to do things because they are enjoyable doesn't seem to be saying anything other than we want to do them because we want to do them. The survival of one's genes is certainly an empirical phenomenon, but you haven't provided an explanation of why anyone should care whether their genes survive or not.

I will never forget my philosophy teacher's look of outrage when I suggested that maybe the reason nobody had found any universal ethical beliefs was because there weren't any. I suspect I have treasured that response ever since and have been biasing my own thinking accordingly.

This surprises me, since usually Anglo-American philosophers are anal about considering all the options (or at least all the options their logical minds can understand), and the possibility there aren't "universal ethical beliefs" (quoting because that seems different than some other similar claims) seems intuitively quite plausible. It reminds me of my high school theology teachers who were more interested in moral education than engaging in real theological discussion (likely, I had one good teacher) or high school English teachers who are more interested in indoctrinating students with made-up grammatical "rules" (don't end a sentence with a preposition) than being linguistically knowledgeable.

I work on the basis of the selfish gene - so I put things in the order of myself, then my close relatives, then my friends and the immediate society I live in, then the wider society I live in, and so on working outwards

But Why that order? Why not some other order? You've only pushed the explanations back a step.

I assume you know the theory of evolution and the selfish gene. So the order is because that is how evolution works. People and things which survive do so because they put their genetic survival first, things that don't put their genetic survival first do not survive, so any gene which represents an 'instinct' to ensure its own survival by direct breeding or kin altruism is going to outcompete a gene that switches off those instincts, in just a few generations. Hence there develop inbuilt imperatives to survive, which in human terms means that we have a very strong instinct to rank things according to their nearness to us. As a theory it is elegant, simple, and can explain a huge range of behaviour.

We both agree that everything can be explained without reference to the ego. I think it's important to be able to provide these explanations, but irrelevant; an intelligent speaker speaks not to a mass of chemicals but to a listener, from the perspective of her own ego. Thus sentences like: "How are you feeling today?" which is not a question about brain chemistry. So to shift the subject of the conversation from her own ego to the mass of chemicals is to avoid the rules of the language-game, if that makes sense.

As another rule of the language-game, so to speak, we expect people who exist in language to be able to provide explanations for their actions which treat themselves as egos. (We ask the child why she did something wrong, and she says, "I don't know." We don't ask the dog at all, at least not expecting a response. When we get this response from an adult, we either shake our heads in disgust at the attempt to deny responsibility or else find out whether she is mentally ill.)

This surprises me, since usually Anglo-American philosophers are anal about considering all the options (or at least all the options their logical minds can understand), and the possibility there aren't "universal ethical beliefs" (quoting because that seems different than some other similar claims) seems intuitively quite plausible. It reminds me of my high school theology teachers who were more interested in moral education than engaging in real theological discussion (likely, I had one good teacher) or high school English teachers who are more interested in indoctrinating students with made-up grammatical "rules" (don't end a sentence with a preposition) than being linguistically knowledgeable.

I don't think she was a very good teacher or very interested in teaching us. She was basically the economics teacher who (presumably due to the combination of PPE that they have at Oxford) got saddled with the job of providing compulsory philosophy classes to the Oxbridge candidates as part of the prep for winning a place. Needless to say, most of us treated it as a break from our real work and had as little time for the classes as she evidently had for us. It has probably biased me against the concept for life.

Okay, I'm home from work now, and I think I hit most of the points I wanted to make. To make it clear, it's not necessarily that I believe in metaethical principles because of my ethical commitments. I mean, that's true, but it's more that, as a result of my rejection of positivism as self-contradicting, non-empirical principles must exist. Which metaethical principles I believe in is determined by my ethical commitments, a fact which is itself a metaethical principle, and thus determined by my ethical commitments. . . .

I would argue--even if I'm not sure how to demonstrate--that your position is necessarily inconsistent, in that insofar as we're having this conversation in language, it's always-already implicitly and intrinsically ideological; it's built into the landscape. From your perspective, what does it really mean to "understand" my position--we're just altering each other's brain chemistries by modifying the patterns of the photons hitting each other's retinae (retinas?), right? (Which, obviously, is going on, but that's not the point.)

I've delayed answering partly because of RL and partly in the hope that inspiration would strike and I could start to understand you position a bit better. Needless to say I don't think it has. I suspect this may be one of those things where we are never going to 'get' the other's view. needless to say that does not mean we should stop trying, but I have to confess I am no longer optimistic.

For now, I'll concentrate on the smaller stuff and see if an overall pattern becomes clearer to me.

I shall start by splitting a hair because it is there to be split.
as a result of my rejection of positivism as self-contradicting, non-empirical principles must exist
Ouch. If your sole rejection of positivism is that it is self-contradicting then logically you can only conclude that non-empirical principles could exist, not that they must. If you are going to say 'must' then you need some element of proof.

I would argue--even if I'm not sure how to demonstrate--that your position is necessarily inconsistent, in that insofar as we're having this conversation in language, it's always-already implicitly and intrinsically ideological; it's built into the landscape. From your perspective, what does it really mean to "understand" my position--we're just altering each other's brain chemistries by modifying the patterns of the photons hitting each other's retinae (retinas?), right? (Which, obviously, is going on, but that's not the point.)
The only possible answer to that is 'Yes. So?' Because as far as I'm concerned we are indeed talking in language and it is therefore shot through with our cultural and biological histories (which is what I take to mean by 'built into the landscape') so each one of us is bringing vast accumulations of 'stuff' to the conversation in addition to our own personal experiences and opinions, just as we do to any conversation. And all of it as far as I'm concerned has an origin, there are no Ouroboors floating in space without any history, just chains of cause and effect. So if I want to understand the origins of ideas I look to social history, and behind that to ecological imperatives and brain chemistry, with which, of one could trace it back far enough, one could find the origins of conscious thought. None of which would matter in terms of difference between my views and whatever it is that you in fact believe except that we are talking about ethical issues, we are not just saying 'this is' but 'this is and it is right or wrong'. Now under my system, the closest I can come to 'right' is 'currently acceptable by the society I live in' or 'something that I perceive will be to my advantage or the advantage of those I care about' (the two are of course frequently the same). And I have to acknowledge that my value of 'right' may therefore change over the course of time, as indeed history shows me has happened for as far back as we can observe. I'm not quite sure what you standard for 'right' is but it seems to be more along the lines of 'something I feel to be right after due consideration', and I am still very unsure where you believe these ideas to have their origins. If I can understand where you think your ideas come from, and if I can relate it to where I understand ideas to come from, then I will feel in a position to both 'understand' why you believe the things you do and to make up my own mind in a more informed manner as to whether or not I agree with you.

Ouch. If your sole rejection of positivism is that it is self-contradicting then logically you can only conclude that non-empirical principles could exist, not that they must. If you are going to say 'must' then you need some element of proof.

Unless we're going to go down some Godelian path where something can be true without the proposition asserting it being true, then no. If the proposition that there are no non-empirical principles, being itself a non-empirical principle, is logically incoherent (which it is) and thus false, then there MUST be a nonzero number of non-empirical principles.

This IS a proof--a proof by contradiction. Of course since I'm not sure that you acknowledge the laws of logic, as non-empirical principles, exist (either contingently or universally, I don't care which), this might mean not mean anything to you; OTOH, I can't imagine having a meaningful conversation about anything, let alone philosophy, with someone who rejects the laws of logic.

If I can understand where you think your ideas come from, and if I can relate it to where I understand ideas to come from, then I will feel in a position to both 'understand' why you believe the things you do and to make up my own mind in a more informed manner as to whether or not I agree with you.

I think that ethics come from, ultimately, the structure of language and reason. Now, I don't think that language and reason are divorced from our cultural and biological histories, but that they do sort of push us into certain non-empirical principles which are sort of contingently categorical.

For example, my language furnishes me with concepts such as "2" and "4" such that I'm forced into thinking of the latter as being the former multiplies by itself. Insofar as I understand the concepts, there is no need to turn to the world and without understanding the concepts no amount of turning to the world is going to do me any good. My language also furnishes me with the language with which to critique a theory of mathematics and maybe, if I were better at math, to go about constructing a new one. (I have read feminist critiques of mathematics, but like everyone else, I have no idea what a feminist math would look like or how it would be different than normal math.)

I think ethical premises work in more or less the same way, the result of linguistic structures which structure thought. Because of this, ethical principles are always-already built into our language games.

I think that ethics come from, ultimately, the structure of language and reason. Now, I don't think that language and reason are divorced from our cultural and biological histories, but that they do sort of push us into certain non-empirical principles which are sort of contingently categorical...[example of maths]...I think ethical premises work in more or less the same way, the result of linguistic structures which structure thought. Because of this, ethical principles are always-already built into our language games.

Ah! I think I am fumbling towards understanding you in terms that actually make sense to me. So, let me see if I've got this right: you believe that reason and language, arising as they do from our cultural and biological histories, reveal things which we can call categorical ethical truths because when examined by that reason and language they reveal themselves to be consistent.

Yes, no or marmalade?

Yes, or at least mostly. I suppose I don't believe they're completely consistent, or else there would be no reason (or ability, really) to critique the system itself, as feminists do, using radical critique from a position within the system. So we can use our categorical ethical truths to look at the way they themselves were produced by history, and how we might need to change that process to produce new categorical ethical truths. . . .

But I think you're understanding me. (I thought the math example might be useful. . . .)

Hurrah!

I suppose I don't believe they're completely consistent, or else there would be no reason (or ability, really) to critique the system itself, as feminists do, using radical critique from a position within the system.

I'm so glad you clarified this because that was going to be my next question.

I thought the math example might be useful. . . .

Actually it was more cumulative from everything you have been saying than just that particular example. I spent an embarrassingly long time with the comment reply window open writing and rewriting replies until something clicked. The example you gave didn't quite work because I always feel that basic arithmetic is actually founded in simple observation because that is how small children learn - by counting beans or whatever - and thus it is eminently testable. I had to go off and invent an example of my own using Pi (don't ask, I'm not a mathematician so I probably got it wrong anyway) and then come back and reread again.

Anyway, given all of which - vital question:

Whose language and reason?

Just your own, or a carefully chosen sample? And do you expect there to be differences between the language and reason of different individuals, since that would presumably result in different ethical truths. Are these categorical ethical truths only categorical for you in your own reference (which would bring us back to the problem of how to persuade others)? Or categorical for yourself and people with a sufficiently similar background (which I think is a perfectly legitimate position - we live in a society and much value is to be made of working with that particular society)? Or do you expect them to be categorical for every human being?

If you are sampling, how are you sampling? Whose work are you basing this on?

Do you expect these categorical ethical truths to stand for all time or will they change as language and reason develop? If you concede they change, at what rate do you think they change? Very fast - as fast as the understanding of an individual can change (you and I are not the same people as we were when we started this conversation because after the exchange of information we both now look at the world with slightly different perspectives etc.). Or very slow - at evolutionary speed which for most practical purposes is ahistorical. Or somewhere in between, at the speed that societies evolve.

Whose language and reason? Just your own, or a carefully chosen sample?

I don't believe (drawing on Wittgenstein's private language argument) that language and reason can ever be held singularly by just one person; it's the fact they are in (in whatever part) common with at least one other person that make them language and reason. And so we get a sense of linguistic communities who share a common language and reason. I do think that the vast majority (if perhaps not all) of 21st century Earthlings actually share to a large degree many of the deeper structures of a common language and reason; at the same time, there's a very clear sense in which you and I, despite speaking very similar forms of English, are speaking different languages.

To think of it in terms of language, obviously everyone has their own unique idiolect. But they might belong to a group with a specialized jargon, and also (usually) speak within a certain dialect, which may be part of a sub-language like a pigdin or creole, which is part of a language or languages, which fall under a family of languages like Indo-European.

Do you expect these categorical ethical truths to stand for all time or will they change as language and reason develop?

Oh, they definitely change; that's a cornerstone of the approach, I think. (Someone like Kant would have thought they'd stand for all time.) (This opens up questions about how to talk about the morality of past actions performed in history, but I think the questions are largely academic; we judge past actions by our standards because they are ours, the most correct set of standards we [believe we] have access to. This doesn't, I don't think, require us to imagine an ideal ethics or a God's eye view or an endpoint to history or anything like that.)

If you concede they change, at what rate do you think they change?

32 feet per second per second? Honestly, I'm not quite sure how to answer the question. I suppose that I need to recognize that while I am arguing that any notion of "categoricalness" we might have has to be contingent and contextual, still some claims are more categorical than others. I don't see us throwing out modus ponens any time soon, while aesthetic tastes are notoriously fickle.

Or categorical for yourself and people with a sufficiently similar background (which I think is a perfectly legitimate position - we live in a society and much value is to be made of working with that particular society)?

This is where I put most of the work that needs to be done, I think. This is where Putnam's Australia comes into the picture. (Since I'm home, I'm able to finally pursue the reference.) He imagines this Australia is peopled by "super-Benthamites" who have worked out "an elaborate science" of morality based on utilitarian principles, so that acts such as torturing children can in certain situations be easily justified without any cognitive dissonance. He argues that in applying this science, they will have rendered their language radically different to our own:

Every super-Benthamite is familiar with the fact that sometimes the greatest satisfaction of the greatest number (measured in 'utils') requires one to tell a lie. And it is not counted as 'dishonest' in the pejorative sense to tell lies out of the motive of maximizing the general pleasure level. So after a while the use of the term 'honest' among the super-Benthamites would be extremely different from the use of the same descriptive term among us. And the same will go for 'considerate', 'good citizen', etc. The vocabulary available to the super-Benthamites for the description of people-to-people situations will be quite different from the vocabulary available to us. Not only will they lack, or have altered beyond recognition, many of our descriptive resources, but they will very likely invent new jargon of their own (for example, exact terms for describing hedonic tones) that are unavailable to us. The texture of the human world will begin to change. In the course of time the super-Benthamites and we will end up living in different human worlds.

In short, it will not be the case that the super-Benthamites and we 'agree on the facts and disagree on the values'. In the case of almost all interpersonal situations, the description we give of the facts will be different than the description they give of the facts. Even if none of the statements they make about the situation are false, their description will not be one that we will count as adequate and perspicuous; and the description we give will not be one they could count as adequate and perspicuous. In short, even if we put aside our 'disagreement about the values', we could not regard their total representation of the human world as fully rationally acceptable. [. . . T]he inability of the super-Benthamites to get the way the human world is right is a direct result of their sick conception of human flourishing.

Insofar as people speak the same language, there is a sufficiently similar background on which to make a case. People who are really theocrats in liberal democrats' clothing may well be unpersuadable; neoliberals, on the
other hand, probably have a sufficiently similar paradigm for a conversation to be possible. Indeed, that's my central argument: that liberal democracy in particular contains within itself its own contradictions which give birth to radical feminism and the quest for systemic justice.

Or do you expect them to be categorical for every human being?

I don't reject this out of hand, but there is something un-postmodern and un-radical feminist about it, I think. Still, I'm not quite as radical as I once was when I was younger, and if the entire system doesn't need to be demolished, then it seems needlessly destructive to throw out the whole thing. (I don't think we could throw it out all at once, but we could concievably replace it piece by piece like the Ship of Theseus.) My claim is only something along the lines of that everything we think is categorical for every human being, forever and ever world without end, isn't necessarily so.

And now I need to get ready for church.

And I should add that the Putnam quote is from Reason, Truth, and History, pp. 140-141.

And again, seems to disavow personal responsibility and autonomy in a way I find very disturbing; is this the source of our disagreements over how to interpret various cases of rape and quasi-rape?

I don't think so. I may be confusing your own interpretation with

beccaelizabeth's, who I seem to recall was also involved in the discussion on rape, but I think our main difference is in the value we assign to intent. As far as I understand it, I consider intent to be vital and you don't. I value intent for reasons including my understanding of how our criminal justice system works and why it should continue to work like that, my sense of 'fairness' (which is pretty much the same thing), and the personal experience of having met quite a few teenage boys and young men who couldn't interpret the signals another person was giving them if they were spelt out with subtitles.

There may be cases where a lack of autonomy is relevant - for example in cases of very serious mental disorder - but that is not key to my basic opinion.

Hmm, I was thinking understandings of autonomy was the key issue, but what you say here about the disagreement makes sense. (The conversation about intent was with Beccaelizabeth--I don't know if I'd put it quite the same way, but we generally see eye-to-eye.) Though I'm not sure I agree that intent is the issue. When people can honestly say, "I didn't mean to have sex with someone who wasn't fully and completely consenting"--perhaps because they didn't know that the person was drugged or underaged--than my sympathy is with them (even if in some cases they may still need to be prosecuted, just like with any other crime; intent isn't the sole determiner). But usually the retort is, "I didn't know that people thought that people thought an activity with somewhat diminished consent is rape!" which isn't an intent issue--they fully intended to do what they did.

I think a division between ethics and laws can be made here, and other ways of complicating the issue. I think there are plenty of cases where we can agree that a person performed a wrong action when there were reasons why doing so doesn't make them a bad person, so to speak, for example that they were mistaken about what ethics required of them, or they were posessed by an alien, or. . . .

Mostly I see the rape question as a complex scatter graph involving issues of law, ethics, and the opinions and intentions and desires of both parties. I probably tend to reserve the word 'rape' for a smaller and more intensely violent corner of the graph than you or Beccaelizabeth seemed to, and would like different words for other regions of the graph because I think the distinctions matter for everyone involved, but I suspect we don't actually differ as much on the underlying issues as that conversation implied.

The autonomy issue only got raised because I lost my temper over something Becca said (for reasons that aren't even slightly related to rape) and since we both backed off the conversation pretty quickly and comments got deleted along the way, we probably muddied the water as we did so.

If existential commitment and foundationalism both boil down to 'I believe this because I believe it' - which it seems to me that they do - then how does creating a dialectic between Reason and Ethics break the circle?

Merely to claim Ethical Position A because of Non-Ethical Position B and Non-Ethical Position B because of Ethical Position A would indeed make a circle, although its viciousness or virtuousness might be in question. But there's no reason we can't say--and this is one of the main thoughts up my sleeve, but we're definitely far outside the things which I am (based on that short-term existential commitment I alluded to above) certain of--A1 because of B1 because of A2 because of B2 because of A3 because of. . .

While I like the Ouroboors imagery of Reason and Ethics devouring themselves, I suppose it's less of a circle and more of a spiral--and ultimately, I suppose, a form of infinitism. Or maybe it is a circle, just with infinite graduations. The key thing is that an absolutely necessary characteristic of circularity is maintained--that meta-statements about the system as a whole can be justified using the elements of the system. To take theology as my example, if we take a New Criticism lens to Scripture and it tells use to interrogate Scripture using a New Criticism lens, that's all well and good and not particularly exciting. But if it tells us to use a New Historicist lens, and then the New Historicist lens tells us to use a post-colonial one. . . .

Even if we're skeptical of the usefulness of infinitism as a justificatory practice, I don't think the burden of proof is necessarily on the one who holds the ethical position at this point, though. These are the issues which underly all cognition, and would inflict any contrary position, including positivism, equally.

You've lost me round that bend. Where does scripture come into it?

Well, I'm assuming that looking at Scripture is part of what the discipline of theology (which I'm lumping with metaphysics and epistemology and philosophy of language and Goddess knows how many other disciplines into the catch-all "Reason") would do. If that ethics isn't logically prior to theology, then at least some part of our ethics will end up derived from Scripture. *eyes shellfish warily*

In my understanding, even if one is claiming that a notion is innate then empirical observation is required to discover it and prove its innateness.

Hmm. I'm wondering what, exactly, counts as empirical observation. Specifically, does phenomenology? If I say, "Hmm, I can't conceive of a square circle. Can you?" and you tell me that you can't either, does that constitute empirical observation? Is cogito, ergo sum an observation?

One of the sources of my faith (that is to say, my religious faith) is recognizing that two of the greatest atheistic philosophers of the last century, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Jacques Derrida, coming from the separate and dueling Western philosophical traditions of that age, couldn't exorcise a type of mystic transcendentalism from their work no matter how hard they tried. Is that recognition an empirical observation?

Which looks very much like an observation.

When I wrote that the limits of previous paradigms reveal themselves in history I was mostly trying to be poetic and feeling a bit Hegelian (I haven't read any Hegel, though, so take that which a grain of salt). That said, I can't think of anything wrong with the statement, so I suppose I stand behind it, at least tentatively. Not sure it's falsifiable, though. . . .

*eyes shellfish warily*
LOL. This really needs to be an icon.

Most of this comment is the stuff I am most having trouble replying to. I feel you are asking the question 'up or down' and as far as I'm concerned the answer is 'marmalade'. For me cogito ergo sum isn't an observation it is just an irrelevant Latin tag. If I want to understand the origins of thought I look to biology, ecology and cultural evolution, not philosophy. Philosophy is not useless, because no intellectual endeavour is useless, but it frequently strikes me as irrelevant. In the past philosophy was used to approach problems that had no alternative approach, and one of those was the origin and nature of thought itself, but since philosophy developed into natural philosophy, and then into the modern disciplines of science, the answer has become 'marmalade' and the questions so completely divorced from the original one that the philosophical approach just becomes a suduko puzzle - enjoyable in its own right, satisfying to find a consistent answer for, but that is all. So philosophise away, I am all in favour of it, were it in my power I would cheerfully vote university grants to support it and make it a compulsory element on everyone's curriculum, because thinking about thinking is a valuable mental exercise and highly enjoyable, and good and important and vital things have arisen from philosophy in the past and doubtless will do so again, but... when I see someone actually basing their beliefs on something that is not rooted in empirical observation in a way at least vaguely similar to my own, well then I am left very puzzled, and with that niggling sense (which I suspect most of us are prone to) that the other chap can't really mean what they say.

A thought occurred to me this morning arising out of some of the posts resulting from the current breast-fondling kerfuffle.

One of my many beefs with feminists (in the 'those bloody feminists' sense of the word) is that all to often I see people making claims for all women in the name of feminism. Since with monotonous regularity I either disagree with those claims or find myself actively excluded from them, this is a continuous minor irritant and a slow trickle of coal onto the fire of my smouldering resentment and 'reasons why I do not call myself a feminist'. What struck me this morning was that out of your entire flist - presumably a flist with a considerable bias towards interest in feminism and philosophy - we are the only ones taking part in this conversation. (The couple of comments up top about the axe not really being part of it.) That interests me because it helps give a possible explanation for why so many of the feminists on LJ make these 'speaking for all women' statements so often. It implies that there is actually very little interest in working out the underlying meta-ethics of feminism. There certainly isn't a reluctance to discuss feminist issues generally on LJ, yet no other takers at all for this conversation? I can't help feeling those two facts are probably related. People who have never really thought about the origins of their beliefs and ethics are far more likely to slip into the error of claiming they speak for 'everyone'.

That probably sounds like a snide criticism, but actually it makes me more tolerant of them. If I thought they had sat down, really analysed why they believe what they believe, and they still thought that all women should or did believe the same thing as them, well then I would feel even more excluded by feminists than I currently do. Realising that they are probably just being thoughtless because they've never considered the issue, because it doesn't interest them, makes it far easier for me to forgive them.

One of my many beefs with feminists (in the 'those bloody feminists' sense of the word) is that all to often I see people making claims for all women in the name of feminism.

I tend to talk about feminism as an intellectual paradigm much more than as a historical movement, but looking at the history of feminism as a movement, this criticism certainly has been lodged at it from the beginning. I like to think that third-wave feminism is better at this, but the truth probably is that it is better only in some ways, in some of those ways it is still not better enough, and in some other ways it's just as bad as it ever was. C'est la vie. As for my own practice, the fact that I'm not a woman makes speaking for all women more obviously problematic, of course, although I do think there are some claims one can't help but make.

That interests me because it helps give a possible explanation for why so many of the feminists on LJ make these 'speaking for all women' statements so often. It implies that there is actually very little interest in working out the underlying meta-ethics of feminism.

My first thought is that this sounds like a reasonable state of affairs--there are certainly more people engaged in acting ethically existing on this planet than engaged in meta-ethical theory.

My second thought is to go one step farther--I think some feminist thinkers would actually be resistant to working out the underlying meta-ethics of feminism. I think the Mary Daly quote I provided (and, to paraphrase Sen. Obama, I could no more renounce Daly than I could my liberal feminist mother) gestures in that direction: that that type of theorizing is masturbatory, male-centered, or distracting from necessary good works and social activism. The last would be a good argument if I were more convinced there can be a sharp divide between theory and activism; to render the first too more sympathetically. But I think there was, at least, (I'm not sure of the current state of theory) a feeling that standpoint theory could motivate as anti/foundational epistemology on its own; that all one had to do was look at the plight of women and have that inform everything (in some indeterminate way?), and everything that looked for answers outside women's lived experience was barking up the wrong tree. (I think implicit in this stance were certain assumptions which were actually founded on existential commitment.) Nowadays I think there's a more of a sense of this fracturing with the realization under third-wave feminism that there's no one single "women's lived experience."

I like to think that third-wave feminism is better at this, but the truth probably is that it is better only in some ways, in some of those ways it is still not better enough, and in some other ways it's just as bad as it ever was. C'est la vie. As for my own practice, the fact that I'm not a woman makes speaking for all women more obviously problematic, of course, although I do think there are some claims one can't help but make.
Some generalisation is always inevitable and therefore it has to be forgiveable or you can't discuss the issues at all. Actually I do quite often see people saying 'all women or so close as to make the difference irrelevant' which I think shows they are at least trying, but(life being nothing if not ironic) in many ways that makes the problem worse - because if you happen to be outside the 'all' then you are left feeling that someone just said your experience was irrelevant. I'm not sure there is actually a solution to this. When discussing all these social issues which contain a large element involving feeling excluded from mainstream society it is inevitable that feelings about exclusion will be aroused to a greater than normal degree.

What gets my goat (an easily fetched beast on occasion) is that when I reject feminism because it excludes me I then quite frequently get feminists chasing after me, often quite angrily, and shouting that I have to be a feminist whether I want to accept the title or not. I tend to get quite rude about that stage.

the realization under third-wave feminism that there's no one single "women's lived experience."
Yep, that very much comes under the heading of no shit Sherlock, but I suppose I shouldn't be too rude, every set of ideas has to start from somewhere and is bound to make some pretty significant blunders along the way. Hence of course my personal strong imperative towards being a conservative - which at least gives a cushion of slowness against the blunders becoming too engrained before someone manages to point them out and stop them in their tracks. (Please excuse the horrendously mixed metaphors in that sentence.)

My first thought is that this sounds like a reasonable state of affairs--there are certainly more people engaged in acting ethically existing on this planet than engaged in meta-ethical theory.
Yes, you are probably right. I myself am never comfortable unless I work everything out right back to the bare bones, but I acknowledge this is more of a personal foible than anything I should expect of other people. It is though lovely to meet someone like yourself who is also willing to work on a similar basis.

that that type of theorizing is masturbatory, male-centered, or distracting from necessary good works and social activism. The last would be a good argument if I were more convinced there can be a sharp divide between theory and activism;
I don't see how one could ever divide the two completely, certainly not without living in constant dread that the house is built on sand.

thats it, guy

User

alixtii referenced to your post from Thoughts on Religion on an Ash Wednesday Morn saying: [...] dialect with it.) But I also believe that that's the only game in town.[This brings us to Alixtii's peculiar brand of meta/ethics.--ed.] [*Yes, there's gendered language there. There's something in the gendered language which I think is ... [...]

Hack again?!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The Meta/Ethics of Radical Feminism, Not by Mary Daly

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well done

Thoughts on Religion on an Ash Wednesday Morn

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