Comments on Philosophy, et cetera: Is Normativity Just Semantics?

Ahh, well that is a reasonable way to make the deb...

2007-09-11T23:18:08.265-04:00

Ahh, well that is a reasonable way to make the debate about what is welfare substantive. However, I don't think this is at all what people assume when they naively start debating about welfare. It isn't the case that if you just went up to philosophers engaged in this question they would say:

Ohh yes we both agree that there is this primitive notion of rational normativity and we are debating in what way it applies to this situation.

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As far as taking this notion of rational normativity as primitive I frankly don't have any grip on the notion of rationality except as relative to a set of desired ends. You know the standard Hume quote.

If you take the acceptable ends to be merely part and parcel of your primitive concept then all discussions about what is welfare are just disguised discussions about what are the ends that are part and parcel of rational normativity. That may be interesting but this discussion can never serve the purpose that people seem to want it to serve, namely as a way to illuminate or get a handle on what is good since the only way to figure out what is in people's welfare is to first explicate this more fundamental moral notion that would solve the problem anyway.

I guess I'm inclined to take rational normativity ...

2007-09-11T23:05:44.644-04:00

I guess I'm inclined to take rational normativity as primitive (rather than having anything else 'undergird' it).

What do you find most mysterious or unclear about it?

Hmm, I think ultimately our disagreement comes dow...

2007-09-11T22:51:01.083-04:00

Hmm, I think ultimately our disagreement comes down to the nature of rationality.

I think you can apply the exact same objection to rationality itself. Namely either you believe that there is some external objective property that undergirds rationality or you mean to introduce rationality by construction/definition. If the later it can't hope to bootstrap us up into the realm of substantive disagreement and if the former we ought to make what the argument is about clear.

Hmm, thanks for the link and response to my post.N...

2007-09-11T22:44:26.961-04:00

Hmm, thanks for the link and response to my post.

Now I agree one could turn the debate about what is welfare into a substantive question by just defining it to mean 'that which is morally good to maximize.' However, my claim is that we couldn't turn it into a substantive question that is worthwhile to discuss prior to deciding on our moral theory. That is if we define welfare as I just mentioned above debates about what is welfare, while substantial, are just poorly veiled debates about what is moral and serve no purpose.

So what then of your attempt to define it as "what it is ideally rational to value for a person's own sake." I don't think this actually accomplishes anything. Terms like 'rational to value' or what is 'good for one's own sake' are no more clear or well defined than the concept you are hoping to explicate. Presumably these terms themselves are themselves reducible to terms that only reference the ontologically fundamental moral property and empirical facts (or something of the kind).

In some sense I feel this is like answering Quine's charge that one can't define what it means to be analytic by saying, "yes I can things are analytic iff they are true by definition." Yes you may have given a synonym for the statement but what is required is at least to gesture at a definition in terms of primitive terms.

In other words suppose I only understand statements about substantive moral facts (say I believe in a fundamental relation X ought to Y in situation Z) and totally physical claims. At least suggest to me how I can define what welfare means.

Peter

Definetely makes you wonder

2007-02-20T01:45:08.925-05:00

Definetely makes you wonder

Richard, it seems to me that you are right in gene...

2007-02-19T11:49:51.087-05:00

Richard, it seems to me that you are right in general but wrong in the specific case of well-being. In general, I would say that there can be real disputes over the "higher level properties or concepts", provided we use these concepts in order to make sense of our world and practical commmitments.
You may argue that "good" or "right" are such concepts- although I am even skeptical about it. (I like making sense of my world in terms of thick moral concepts like corageous more!!!)

But in the case of well-being, I go with Scanlon and hold that well-being is a transparent good: the fact that X contributes to my well-being does not give me an additional reason to pursue X (beside the reasons to pursue X that derive from other properties of X).So why should we care in practical life if X adds to our well-being or not? Anyway we pursue it for other reasons.

If SCanlon is right, and there is no important role that the concept of well-being can play, than queries about well-being's essential nature end up being more or less terminological.

Also: Sumner distinguishes the "normative adequacy" of a theory of well-being and its "descriptive adequacy". If you judge a theory of well-being (or welfare) by its normative adequacy alone, you end up justifying the point of view of Computational Truth.

That does sound right. (Although it should perhaps...

2007-02-18T00:51:31.891-05:00

That does sound right. (Although it should perhaps be noted that the 'pretty good reason to reject analytical reductionism' given in the post is actually nothing other than the open question argument; Moore had less sophisticated views in mind, but this is precisely the sort of argument he makes against people of his day who were trying to do similar things.)

when people debate they tend to each take a positi...

2007-02-18T00:29:44.627-05:00

when people debate they tend to each take a position and then try to win the debate.

Now if one side was to conceed the definition of "better off" to the other in this case they would probably be crippled, and, at least to third parties, I will probably loose. So the FIRST thing I need to do is to trick you into conceeding the terminological debate.

In theory two people thus might debate such an issue and have no disagreement at all but fight based on the nature of debate and their initial assumptions.

As to the issue itself I'm not sure if "number of desires filled" makes for a meausre that will have the sort of mathmatical properties we would like to see. So it would be interesting to see if it could be tied down.

For example is 2 fufilled desires better than 1? (think how many desires are there? what if filling one desire causes another). Is it twice as good? then there is the problem of who's desires? (you now? you later? you 'hypothetical' later? ideally rational you?)

GNZ