UMLA 715 & COLQ301(H)             

Ethics and Rationality

 

I. Understanding the present state of ethical thinking

            1. Emotivism

            2. The Enlightenment Project in Justifying Morality

            (MacIntyre)

 II. Understanding what it means to be rational

            1. The rationality of science

            2. Critical Realism

            (Kuhn and Banner)

 III. The Failure of the Enlightenment to find a rational basis for ethics

            1. Why the project had to fail

            2. Consequences of the failure

            3. Nietzsche or Aristotle

            (MacIntyre)

 IV. The Fundamental Choice

            1. Understanding Nietzsche

            2. Nihilism

            3. The fundamental question

            (Hans Kung)

V. Is an autonomous, wholistic, critically rational, non-teleological basis for ethics        

     possible?   (Hans Kung)

 VI . Understanding the human 

            1. Coordinates for an Anthropology

            2. Negative experience

            3. The hermeneutical circle and critical theory

            (Schillebeeckx)

 VII. The Virtues

            1. From Homer to Aristotle

            2. Modern concepts of virtue

            3. Virtue defined

            (MacIntyre)

 VIII. Virtues, narrative structure of human life and moral traditions

            1. Virtue and morality

            2. The basic virtue

            3. Justice as a virtue

            (MacIntyre)

IX. Global Ethical Questions

            1. The altered nature of human action

            2. Ethics of the Future

            3. Purpose and Value

            4. Responsibility

            (Hans Jonas)

 X. Relation of Science and Ethics

            1. The Block Universe

            2. Postmodern Science

            3. Knowledge and the cosmological future

            (Deutsch)

     

 Texts:

"Between Science and Values," Loren Graham, Columbia Univ. Press

"After Virtue," Alasdair MacIntyre, Notre Dame Press

"The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," Thomas Kuhn, Univ. of Chicago Press                                                                                                
"The Justification of Science …," Michael Banner, Oxford, Clarendon Press                                  

"Does God Exist?" Hans Kung, Crossroads

"The Schillebeeckx Reader," Edited by Robert Schreiter, Crossroads

"The Fabric of Reality," David Deutsch, Viking Penguin

"The Imperative of Responsibility," Hans Jonas, Univ. of Chicago Press

Handouts, Professional Papers on Related Material

                                Critical Realism
  
          Spring of 2001 Seminar

        Outline

1.For science and values to relate in a meaningful fashion would require that there is an autonomous, holistic, non-teleological and critically rational basis for values.

2.MacIntyre claims that moral discourse is in a state of disarray and the cause of is twofold (a) confusion or loss of the meaning of moral terminology and (b) the failure of the Enlightenment to find a rational basis for ethics.

3.What is meant by rational? Perhaps, the rationality of science can provide a model for rational discourse. What is the rationality of science? And can this type of rationality be applied to an understanding of values? Yes.

4.However, there is a basic choice or decision: Is reality rational or not? That is, does being have purpose, value, shouldness, the potential for meaning, integrity, truth or is it neutral in these matters so that these characteristics are determined by the will of each individual. This basic choice MacIntyre asserts is a choice between Nietzsche or Aristotle.

5.Nietzsche and nihilism. A choice against rationality.

6.A choice for rationality leads to an examination of what it means to be human, to an understanding of the humanum. The tools available for this task are examined. The understanding must be corroborated by experienced reality.

7.What does science say about the fabric of reality? What does the history of human experience have to say? The authority of experience requires examination.

8.MacIntyre suggests that insight can be gotten form studying Aristotle and the Virtues, particularly as concerns individual ethics.

9.Jonas argues to an Imperative of Responsibility particularly as concerns the ethics of the future.

10.Is the analysis attempted globally consistent in providing a foundation for values and
a role for science? That is, in all these analyses are values a question of fact only?

Reading Assignment: 1/17 MacIntyre, p.1-35; 1/23 MacIntyre, 36-87; 1/25 Banner,
handout, 1-33; 1/29 Banner, 34-64; 1/31 Kung (Does God Exist?),341-397;...Kung,
Schillebeeckx, McIntyre, 3/7 Deutsch, Chap.1 and 2
Assignment Monday, 2 April, 01: Jonas, Chapter 2 and 3

Paper #1 Critical Rationality
Paper #2 Nietzsche or Aristotle
    Trust or No trust/Liberal Individualism or the Aristotelian Tradition
    Decision to trust or not trust/rationality or the passions (princples,rights and rules)
    Trust sustained by belief in a source,support,goal/Trust sustained by the Virtues
    Understanding the human/ Understanding the narrative unity of life and the moral tradition
    (The constant anthropological relationships, experience, the negative dialectic, hermeneutics
    and critical theory) Is there an autonomous, holistic, non-teleological, critically rational foundation
    for ethics?
Paper #3 Values in a Postmodern Scientific World, due on completion of Jonas.
   A postmodern understanding is essential for the compatibility of science and values.

Final Paper
 

Science:	Values:
What are the claims of science? (critical realism)	What have values been based on?  (a shared concept of man, accepted principles, the passions, authority, revelation)
What are the limitations of science?  (non-teleological, non-dualistic, methodologically reductionistic, deterministic)	Are facts and values unrelated?  (functionality, relationships vs. descriptions)
What is the postmodern fabric of reality?  (four fundamental theories)	Do values presume dualism?  (a vertical or horizontal perspective)
What underlies science?  (fundamental trust)	Are values necessarily teleological?  (claims to know purpose and meaning)
	What are possible bases of values?  (nihilism or trust)

Is a critically rational, holistic, non-teleological, autonomous
foundation for values possible and why should this type of foundation be sought?

Science:  The context for understanding reality through experience.

Values:
--Trust in meaning
(Natural, possible, nature expresses purpose)

--Trust in the humanum
(ability to express subjective purpose, knowledge, power)

--Anthropological understanding
(fundamental, unchanging relevant relationships)

--The negative dialectic - alleviation of non-meaning
(no theoretical articulation but a practical response)

--Hermeneutics and critical theory
(understanding the narrative structure and the moral tradition)

--Virtue: the quest for meaning
(overcoming negative experience, power and knowledge imply responsibility)

--Ethics of responsibility
(to the future, to pursue value)

--In what way do values affect science?

--What is the role of belief in God and the role of religions?

---

Spring of 2000 Seminar:

Paper #1:  Understanding the Lack of a Rational Foundation for Ethics

MacIntyre analyzes the current condition of ethical judgments characterized by emotivism and traces the origin of
this development to the failure of the Enlightenment to find a rational basis for ethics. Hume and Kant are the typical sources of the attempt. Either ethics is based on the will ( emotions, passions, desires, etc. ) or on reason
( principles, rights, etc. ).However,  following Kant, these reasons are not rooted in fact ( speculative knowledge) and, following Hume, the need to base ethics on the will  is rooted in the separation of "is" and "ought" statements. From a critical realist epistemology, neither of these positions are justified. Can you argue to this conclusion? How does this affect the search for a rational foundation for ethics? In particular, in what way could it be possible for science and values to interact?

         What insights and beliefs prompt Nietzsche to recognize that the Enlightenment had not found a rational
         basis for ethics?  His analysis leads him to question reality, to deny any antitheses (including truth and untruth),
         to nihilism and to a fundamental reevaluation of ethical action. Is there an alternative to Nietzsche? What is the
         fundamental choice and how does this choice lead to a basis for ethics which overcomes Nietzsche? Is this
         basis for ethics critically rational, holistic, autonomous and non-teleological. And specifically, how are fact and
         value related? What is the task imposed by this ethical analysis and how does one go about carrying it out?

        Paper #3: The Interaction of Science and Ethics

        The argument for basing values on fact makes interaction not only possible but fundamentally important.
        Post-modern science is required to remove the conflict inherent in the classical (block universe) explanation
        of reality. Also post-modern science raises global ethical questions not encountered previously. Facing
        these challenges forces us to invoke the four basic theories for understanding the fabric of reality. Human
        responsibility for the future becomes an ethical imperative.

    An overview for the final paper due on 8 May 2000:
    -- The enlightenment failed to find a rational basis for ethics
     -- What is rationality? The critical realist's answer.
     -- Nietzsche's assessment leading to the Fundamental Choice.
     -- If humanity is meaningful, what does it mean to be human?
        Approached using the anthropological constants evaluated through
        negative experience, the hermeneutical spiral and critical theory.
     -- Virtue is the persistent quest for meaning. Virtue gives rise to principles,
        rules and rights. not vice versa.
     -- The quest involves understanding the Fabric of Reality.
     -- What then is our responsibility for the future?
 

Outline of this seminar as given in the spring of 1999:

Class#1    General discussion of the format of the seminar and its validity.

Class#2    The analysis of the current state of ethical discussion: emotivism. Contention that the
                Enlightenment has failed in finding a rational basis for ethics.

Class#3    An examination of the rationality of science through consideration of the sociology of
                science and of science's claim to truth  under the analysis of critical realism.

Class#4    The effect of epistemological stance on the relation of science and value demonstrated
                by considering the evolution/creation controversy. The inadequacy of dualism in
                effecting a separation. The challenge of post-modern science when its explanatory
                truth claims are taken seriously. Quantum mechanics.

Class#5    The ethical  alternative, if the Enlightenment has failed to find a rational basis
                for ethics.  Nietzsche and nihilism wt. a discussion of its philosophical roots.

Class#6    The insights of nihilism. The basic question: whether to trust that reality has meaning.

Class#7    The Fundamental Decision: To trust or not to trust that reality has meaning. Trust as
           a basis for ethics: man should be man. The anthropological constants.Negative
                experience.

Class#8    Why the Enlightenment failed to find a rational basis for ethics. The consequences:
                ethics based on the non-unitary notion of happiness or on rights and principles
                without basis. Fact and value. The expertise of the manager has no basis in social
                theory. Why Nietzsche or Aristotle? Is virtue based on rules or rules on virtue?

Class#9     The history of the virtues: Homeric, Classical Greek and Medieval as contrasted with
                 modern interpretations.

Class#10   What is a virtue? Practices, Virtues directed at the internal good of practices, the
                 Narrative order of a single human life, the Moral Tradition. Virtues in the Quest for
                 the Good life.

Class#11   Contrasting  understanding of the virtues in Franklin and Austin, the common
                  good versus
                  individualism, justice in Rawls and Nosick, neglect of the concept of "desert," the
                  assumed understanding of rationality, Aristotle vs. Nietzsche, not individual freedom
                  vs. Marxism .

Class#12    Understanding physical reality: the quantum concept of time, the real in terms of the
                  Universal Turing Principal, the importance of Life, knowledge as a physical entity,
                  reductionism and the necessary interaction of the four theories of computation,
                  Quantum mechanics, evolution and epistemology to produce emergent explanations,
                  cosmological interpretation of the end of time .

Class#13     Global ethical problems and the imperative of responsibility : prophesy of doom
                   takes precedence over the prophesy of bliss,the "shouldness" of being, evolution
                   exhibits purpose,purpose shows worth, value creates responsibility because of
                   knowledge and power, the analog is the parent-child relationship.

Class#14     Wrap up, discussion of final paper on "The Relation of Science and Human Values,"
                   Course evaluation.