Abstract
In Chapter 7 an attempt is made to apply the results obtained in Chapters 3 and 6 to meta-ethics and the study of morality and moral sentences. Meta-ethical doctrines are reviewed and criticized by focusing then to the issue of universalizability. At the end of the chapter a definition of the moral point of view is advanced. In this chapter – which is of special importance to the argument of the book – moral doctrines are assessed at the meta-theoretical level and a particular attention is given to “discourse theory” approaches.
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Notes
- 1.
“Menschliche Vernunft und Natur kann Gott in seiner Majestät nicht begreifen, darum sollen wir nicht weiter suchen noch forschen, was Gottes Wille, Wesen und Natur sei, als soweit er’s uns befohlen hat” (M. Luther, Tischreden, ed. by K. Aland, Stuttgart 1981, p. 43). It is worth recalling that in the Tischreden Luther defines reason as “the devil’s whore” (ibid., p. 57).
- 2.
J. P. Sartre, L’existentialisme est un humanisme, Paris 1970, pp. 30–31, italics mine. Cf. S. De Beauvoir, Pour une morale de l’ambiguïte, Paris 1947, pp. 273–274: “‘Ecoutons la voix de Dieu’, dit le croyant. ‘Il nous dira lui-même ce qu’il attend de nous’. Mais un tel espoir est naïf. C’est seulement à travers une voix terrestre que Dieu pourra se manifester car nos oreilles n’en entendent aucune autre; mais comment alors reconnaître son caractère divin?”
- 3.
R. De Stefano, Assiologia. Schema di una teoria generale del valore e dei valori, Reggio Calabria 1982, p. 68.
- 4.
See E. Pattaro, Reflexiones sobre pluralismo ético, in Anuario de derechos humanos, 1988, p. 403.
- 5.
K. R. Popper, Facts, Standards and Truth: A Further Criticism of Relativism, in Id., The Open Society and its Enemies, vol. 2, The High Tide of Prophecy: Hegel, Marx, and the Aftermath, 5th ed., London 1974, p. 385.
- 6.
B. Russell, Human Society in Ethics and Politics, London 1954, p. 98.
- 7.
In this connection, cf. G. Woodcock, Anarchism. A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements, Harmondsworth 1983, pp. 207ff.
- 8.
L. Tolstoy, Resurrection, English trans. by L. Maude, Oxford 1962, p. 498, emphasis mine.
- 9.
Cf. L. Nelson, Was ist liberal, in Id., Gesammelte Werke in neun Bänden, vol. 9, Rech und Staat, ed. by P. Bernays et al., Hamburg 1972, pp. 21–22.
- 10.
I. Kant, Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, ed. by K. Vorländer, 9th ed., Hamburg 1990, p. 112.
- 11.
See R. Alexy, Theorie der juristischen Argumentation, Frankfurt am Main 1983, p. 61.
- 12.
J.-J. Rousseau, Du contrat social, Paris 1973, p. 60.
- 13.
K. Kautsky, Ethik und materialistische Geschichtsauffassung, Stuttgart 1922, p. 109.
- 14.
See B. Croce, Teoria e storia della storiografia, ed. by G. Galasso, Milano 2001, p. 98.
- 15.
Cf. L. Nelson, Sittliche und religiöse Weltansicht, in Id., Gesammelte Werke in neun Bänden, ed. by P. Bernays et al., Sittlichkeit und Bildung, vol. 8, Hamburg 1971, p. 324: “Als Glied der Natur und ihren Gesetzen unterworfen bleibt er ein Fremdling in ihr, der sich selber nicht genügt”.
- 16.
Cf. A. Camus, L’homme revolté, Paris 1951, p. 81. A good example of a “nihilist metaethics” is offered by the central figure, Doctor de Vriendt, in a novel by Arnold Zweig: see A. Zweig, De Vriendt kehrt heim, Berlin and Weimar 1988, pp. 60–61. Not everything that is “natural” is also “positive” for man. An earthquake, cholera, drought, are natural events, yet very harmful for man, who fears them and fights them. Even the death of each of us is a natural fact, and even more inevitable than any earthquake or cholera outbreak; yet our very inner rebel at the idea of it. So we cannot make the “natural” or “nature” the basis for our values. Cf. also M. Frisch, Homo faber. Ein Bericht, Frankfurt am Main 1977, p. 107. Whoever acts upon nature, changes it, ipso facto expresses his discontent with the “natural” pattern of things and sets himself up critically towards it. This is an argument used by Ludwig Feuerbach but not so much to assert an anti-naturalist position as to attack faith in a rational divine entity held to be manifest in nature (see L. Feuerbach, Vorlesungen über das Wesen der Religion, in Id., Gesammelte Werke, ed. by W. Schuffenhauer, vol. 6, Berlin 1984, pp. 191–192).
- 17.
R. De Stefano, Il problema del diritto non naturale, Milano 1955, p. 46.
- 18.
J. W. Goethe, Das Göttliche, in Id., Gedichte, chosen and introduced by S. Zweig, Stuttgart 1983, p. 86.
- 19.
L. Nelson, Ethischer Realismus, in Id., Gesammelte Werke in neun Bänden, ed. by P. Bernays et al., vol. 8, p. 282.
- 20.
Cf. J. Améry, Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne. Bewältigungsversuche eines Überwältigten, München 1988, p. 91.
- 21.
In this connection cf. Th. Geiger, Ideologie und Wahrheit. Eine soziologische Kritik des Denkens, 2nd ed., Neuwied and Berlin 1968, pp. 56–57.
- 22.
N. Chiaromonte, Credere e non credere, Milano 1971, p. 197.
- 23.
J. Benda, La trahison des clercs, 2nd ed., Paris 1975, p. 78.
- 24.
Such relationship between hedonism and naturalism comes up in a revealing way in one of Georg Büchner’s most celebrated plays: “Ich handle meiner Natur gemäß – says Thomas Paine in Dantons Tod (III, 1) –; was ihr angemessen, ist für mich gut und ich tue es, und was ihr zuwider, ist für mich bös und ich tue es nicht und verteidige mich dagegen, wenn es mir in den Weg kommt”(G. Büchner, Dantons Tod, Stuttart 1989, p. 48).
- 25.
L. Nelson, Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, Hamburg 1972, p. 78.
- 26.
Cf. P. Koller, Rationalität und Moral, in Grazer Philosophische Studien, vol. 20, 1983, pp. 276ff.
- 27.
Cf. B. Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, London 1985, p. 86. See also G. E. Moore, The Nature of Moral Philosophy, in Id., Philosophical Studies, London 1970, p. 339: “Whether the one state,” writes Moore, “was better than the other would depend not merely upon the number of desires that were simultaneously satisfied in it, but upon what the desires were desires for”.
- 28.
Cf. N. Hartmann, Vom Wesen sittlicher Forderungen, in Id., Kleinere Schriften, vol. 1, Berlin 1955, pp. 279ff.
- 29.
R. M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, London 1987, p. 203. Emphasis in the original.
- 30.
Cf. M. Kline, Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty, Oxford 1980, Chapter 10.
- 31.
See, for example, F. Waismann, Ethik und Wissenschaft, in Id., Wille und Motiv. Zwei Abhandlungen über Ethik und Handlungstheorie, ed. by J. Schulte, Stuttgart 1983, pp. 164ff.
- 32.
J. M. Bochenski, Wege zum philosiphischen Denken. Einleitung in die Grundbegriffe, 9th ed., Freiburg i. Br. 1985, pp. 76–77.
- 33.
Ibid., p. 71.
- 34.
R. M. Pirsig, Op. cit., p. 207.
- 35.
Cf. K. R. Popper, Epistemology Without a Knowing Subject, in Id., Objective Knowledge. An Evolutionary Approach, revised ed., Oxford 1986, p. 135.
- 36.
P. Strasser, Gut in allen möglichen Welten. Der ethische Horizont, Paderborn 2004, p. 64.
- 37.
G. de Maupassant, A propos du divorce, in Id., Chroniques, vol. 2, Paris 1980, p. 86.
- 38.
A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic, Harmondsworth 1982, p. 137. Emotivist meta-ethical positions are also defended by Charles Stevenson, Rudolph Carnap, and by Ogden and Richards (see, for example, C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards, The Meaning of Meaning. A Study of the Influence of Language upon Thought and the Science of Symbolism, 10th ed., London 1972, p. 125).
- 39.
A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic, p. 147.
- 40.
See F. Waismann, Ethik und Wissenschaft, in Id., Wille und Motiv, p. 184.
- 41.
K. R. Popper, Unended Quest, p. 62.
- 42.
Ibid., p. 209.
- 43.
Cf. G. Patzig, Satz und Tatsache, in Id., Tatsachen, Normen, Sätze, Stuttgart 1980, p. 12.
- 44.
“Violent outcries – of fear, of rage, of pain or joy – are not a specific property of man. We find them”, writes Cassirer, “everywhere in the animal world” (E. Cassirer, Essay On Man, New Haven, CT and London 1944, p. 115).
- 45.
A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic, p. 146. In addition, cf. G. E. Moore, The Nature of Moral Philosophy, pp. 333ff.
- 46.
See R. Carnap, Philosophy and Logical Syntax, London 1935, Chapter 1.
- 47.
Oxford 1952.
- 48.
R. M. Hare, The Language of Morals, Oxford 1986, pp. 17ff.
- 49.
N. Bobbio, Teoria della norma, Torino 1958, p. 83, emphasis in the text. Cf. also, for example, R. Guastini, Il linguaggio precettivo, in S. Castignone, R. Guastini, G. Tarello, Introduzione teorica allo studio del diritto, Genova 1979, pp. 18–19.
- 50.
Cf. B. Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, pp. 124ff.
- 51.
Cf. G. J. Warnock, Contemporary Moral Philosophy, London 1967, pp. 27–29, 46–47.
- 52.
S. Toulmin, An Examination of the Place of Reason in Ethics, Cambridge 1970, p. 70.
- 53.
U. Scarpelli, Semantica, morale, diritto, Torino 1969, p. 92. But cf. U. Scarpelli, Gli orizzonti della giustificazione, in Etica e diritto, ed. by L. Gianformaggio and E. Lecaldano, Bari 1986, where it is stated that “one should avoid making the connection between argumentation and persuasion an analytical connection, that is, avoid making a doctrine of argumentation into, by definition, a theory of persuasion” (ibid., p. 22).
- 54.
On this point fundamental considerations are to be found in K. R. Popper, Objective Knowledge. An Evolutionary Approach, pp. 106ff.
- 55.
See N. Bobbio, Teoria della norma giuridica, p. 83.
- 56.
O. Weinberger, Die Conditio humana und das Ideal der Gerechtigkeit, in Grundlagen des Institutionalistischen Rechtspositivismus, ed. by N. MacCormick and O. Weinberger, Berlin 1985, p. 252. Cf. also H. L. A. Hart, The Concept of Law, Oxford 1961, pp. 155–156.
- 57.
K. O. Apel, Der transzendentalhermeneutische Begriff der Sprache, in Id., Transformation der Philosophie, vol. 2, Das Apriori der Kommunikationsgemeinschaft, Frankfurt am Main 1984, p. 357, italics mine.
- 58.
K. O. Apel, Der Ansatz von Apel, in Transzendentalphilosophische Normenbegründungen, ed. by W. Oelmüller, vol. 1, Paderborn 1978, pp. 165–166, italics in the text.
- 59.
See J. Habermas, Faktizität und Geltung, Frankfurt am Main 1992, pp. 138ff.
- 60.
See, for instance, K. R. Popper, Materialism Transcends Itself, in The Self and its Brain, ed. by K. R. Popper and J. C. Eccles, Berlin-New York, NY 1985, pp. 57ff.
- 61.
See, for example, O. Weinberger, Norm und Institution. Eine Einführung in die Theorie des Rechts, Wein 1988, pp. 20ff.
- 62.
This is the case, for example, with M. Riedel, Normative oder kommunikative Ethik? Zur Begründbarkeit moralischer Werturteile und Überzeugungen, in Norm und Werturteil. Grundprobleme der Ethik, ed. by M. Riedel, Stuttgart 1979, p. 69.
- 63.
See H. Albert, Traktat über kritische Vernunft, 3rd ed., Tübingen 1975, Chapter 3.
- 64.
See St. Toulmin, The Uses of Argument, Cambridge 1958, pp. 95ff., and cf. J. Habermas, Wahrheitstheorien, in Id., Vorstudien und Ergänzungen zur Theorie des Kommunikativen Handelns, Frankfurt am Main 1984, pp. 162ff. Cf. also R. Alexy, Theorie der juristischen Argumentation, pp. 114ff.
- 65.
See S. Toulmin, The Uses of Argument, pp. 100ff.
- 66.
See, e.g., J. Habermas, Diskursethik – Notizen zu einem Begründungsprogramm, in Moralbe wusstsein und kommunikatives Handeln, ed. by J. Habermas, Frankfurt am Main, pp. 53ff.
- 67.
J. Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. by R. Woolhouse, London 2004, p. 76 (I. iii. 4)
- 68.
A. Camus, L’homme révolté, Paris 1951, p. 84. The position of the intrinsically authoritarian nature of morality is upheld by Axel Hägerström, who links the moral sentiment with fear of a higher power: see A. Hägerström, On the Truth of Moral Propositions, in Id., Philosophy and Religion, English trans. by R. T. Sandin, London 1964, p. 84. “As the product of the need to reduce the complexity of lived experience by excluding some parts in favour of others determination intrinsically has a violent nature,” writes Francesco Crespi, a distinguished Italian sociologist (F. Crespi, Azione sociale e potere, Bologna 1989, p. 154, emphasis in original). Thus moral decision, as a form of determination of human conduct, would have an inescapable “violent” or “repressive” aspect. This view, which echoes Nietzsche’s thought, is however, I believe, the outcome of an error. Ethical choice, like the moral norms, does not reduce the possibility of action, but produces it, in the sense that without such a choice (or such a norm) that particular action would not be possible. Think of Buridan’s ass who between two sacks of oats could not decide which to choose, and so died of hunger. Had the ass chosen the sack on the right it would have accomplished a necessary condition for the “action” of eating the oats in the sack. This choice does not imply violence or the repression of any action, but accomplishes the necessary condition for carrying out an action. The choice is not then repressive, but productive of actions. The (ethical) choice is an opening, not a closing, of possibilities of action. As Simone de Beauvoir writes, “l’homme n’est qu’en se choississant; s’il refuse de choisir, il s’anéantit” (S. De Beauvoir, Pour une morale de l’ambiguïte, p. 295).
- 69.
B. Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, p. 177.
- 70.
See O. Weinberger, Jenseits von Positivismus und Naturrecht, in N. MacCormick and O. Weinberger, Grundlagen des Institutionalistischen Rechtspositivismus, Berlin 1985, p. 148, and O. Weinberger, Norm und Institution. Eine Einführung in die Theorie des Rechts, pp. 37–38; and cf. P. Koller, Meilensteine des Rechtspositivismus im 20. Jahrhundert: Hans Kelsens Reine Rechtslehre und H. L. A. Hart’s “Concept of Law”, in Reine Rechtslehre im Spiegel ihrer Fortsetzer und Kritiker, ed. by O. Weinberger and W. Krawietz, Wien 1988, p. 170. Norberto Bobbio speaks of the “minimum content” of law in connection with the definition of law as supplied by modern legal and political theories. This “minimum content” is seen as consisting in preventing actions that threaten the social order, and result in conflicts that threaten the group’s subsistence, in short, in securing and maintaining social peace (see N. Bobbio, “Diritto”, in Dizionario di politica, ed. by N. Bobbio and N. Matteucci, Torino 1976, p. 320).
- 71.
B. Croce, Riduzione della filosofia del diritto alla filosofia dell’economia, Napoli 1926, p. 50. It should be recalled that Croce is, here, still, maintaining a voluntarist conception of law according to which legal norms are imperatives, or “demands or acts of will” (ibid., p. 49), and accordingly accompanied by sanctions (ibid., p. 47).
- 72.
In this connection see H. Kantorowicz, The Definition of Law, ed. By A. H. Campbell, London 1958, p. 15, where we read: “The State theory of law is unfit to guide us through the mazes of the history of legal thought and science. It rules out any application of juristic analysis to societies before the formation of State”.
- 73.
This position of Hart’s seems also to be shared by Neil MacCormick: see his Law, Morality and Positivism, in N. MacCormick and O. Weinberger, An Institutional Theory of Law, Dortrecht 1986, pp. 127ff.
- 74.
It has also been maintained, on the wave of this “evolutionist” approach, that love in its modern meaning constitutes the outcome of progressive social “differentiation” and of the evolution towards ever more complex systems, and at the same time a mechanism for accelerating this “differentiation” and evolution (see N. Luhmann, Liebe als Passion. Zur Codierung von Intimität, Frankfurt am Main 1984). It is hardly to deny that the modern concept of love has come into being historically, constitutes an “idea” that is not at all rooted in man’s genetic and physiological structure, and is connected with the arising of a humanist, individualist view of the universe. (In this connection see also the now classic D. de Rougemont, L’amour et l’occident, Paris 1984). However, the arising of this new “idea” or conception of love does not need to be connected with any “evolution”, if by this is meant a strictly causal process intrinsic to human society and obeying finalistic laws.
- 75.
“Moral philosophy arises when, like Socrates, we pass beyond the stage in which we are directed by traditional rules and even beyond the stage in which these rules are so internalized that we can be said to be inner-directed, to the stage in which we think for ourselves in critical and general terms (as the Greeks were beginning to do in Socrates’ day) and achieve a kind of autonomy as moral agents” (W. K. Frankena, Ethics, 2nd ed., Prentice-Hall, NJ 1973, p. 4). Cf. also B. Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, Chapter 1.
- 76.
For some time now, indeed, we have been seeing repeated attempts to repudiate ethics as a strongly normative dimension (indicative in this connection is, say, G. E. M. Anscombe, Modern Moral Philosophy, in The Is-Ought Question, ed. by W. D. Hudson, London, 1969, pp. 175ff.), or to reduce ethics to communitarian morality, that is, reduce critical to positive morality (this is the direction that, say, Richard Rorty has been tempted to move in: see R. Rorty, Solidarity or Objectivity? in Post-Analytic Philosophy, ed. by J. Rajchmann and C. West, New York, NY 1986, pp. 3–19. In relation to communitarian views, see the critical analysis by C. S. Nino, The Communitarian Challenge to Liberal Rights, in Law and Philosophy, 1989, pp. 37ff.
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La Torre, M. (2010). Value Judgements and Justification. In: Law as Institution. Law and Philosophy Library, vol 90. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6607-8_7
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