Political Philosophy and Ethics discussion

At the request of independent philosopher Bob Hanna, a member of this group, I am opening this substantive topic titled “Philosophy Without Borders” (PWB) in the “Both Political and Ethical Philosophy” folder of this Goodreads discussion group. This new “Philosophy Without Borders” topic corresponds, to some extent, to the eponymous online blog by Bob and his colleagues. In his introductory post, Bob will provide information about that blog. Going forward, Bob will post links to PWB articles that correspond to a particular “Political Philosophy and Ethics” topic in that topic. Comments that do not fit one of our topics (either existing or new) will be posted in this new PWB topic. Bob has assured me that his posts here and elsewhere in this group will comply with the group’s rules, including the relevancy rules. Since Bob’s philosophical interests normally relate, directly or indirectly, to political philosophy and/or ethics, I don’t think this will be a problem. Even his more theoretical discussions of Kant, for example, are relevant to this group, since Kant was always, to my mind, looking for a place for free will and thus ethics and sometimes political philosophy. What might be somewhat different in Bob’s posts in the present topic is a critique of professional philosophy and current academic practices in general. Although this stretches the limits of relevancy regarding this group, I believe, based on my reading of Bob’s writings in this area, that such comments will still be relevant, even if indirectly, to the subject matter of the “Political Philosophy and Ethics” group.

Pursuant to post 5 in the Rules and Housekeeping topic, Bob requested my advance authorization to create this new substantive topic, and the present new topic should not be considered a waiver of that rule or of any of the rules of this group, including but not limited to relevancy.

Alan E. Johnson
Moderator

Dear All,

PHILOSOPHY WITHOUT BORDERS, which is home-based on Patreon, here—

www.patreon.com/philosophywithoutborders

is a small cosmopolitan community of people, widely distributed in space and across time-zones, connected by the internet, who are pursuing philosophy together as a full-time, lifetime calling.

PHILOSOPHY WITHOUT BORDERS has two basic aims:

· to enable and support the pursuit of philosophy, worldwide, and
· to create and share original works of philosophy freely available to anyone, anywhere.

Here’s our blog, AGAINST PROFESSIONAL PHILOSOPHY—

https://againstprofphil.org/

Here are the latest posts on our blog—

The End of Mechanism, #9–Frankenscience, the Future of Humanity, and the Future of Science.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/02/2...

Morality and the Human Condition, #8–God and The Divine Command Theory.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/02/1...

THE FATE OF ANALYSIS: Analytic Philosophy From Frege To The Ash-Heap of History, #1–Introduction.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/02/1...

What Can Philosophy Do For Humanity?, #6–Some Lessons from Teaching Introductory Ethics, & Conclusion.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/02/1...

And here are our two journals—

BORDERLESS PHILOSOPHY: https://www.cckp.space/

CONTEMPORARY STUDIES IN KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY: https://www.cckp.space/

***

Thank you so much, Alan, for creating this new topic, & also to anyone else in the group for your interest & any follow-up discussion!

Dear All,

I think it's not possible to understand 20th century philosophy without understanding the history of the Analytic tradition.

Here's the second installment in a series that covers this tradition from beginning to end:

THE FATE OF ANALYSIS, #2–What Classical Analytic Philosophy Is and Isn’t, & the Nature of Philosophical Analysis.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/02/2...

Hi Robert,

I am posting in this topic so I will get updates when people post.

I haven't been able to even read part one of this series yet, to say nothing about delving into part two. However, I have wanted to better understand Analytic philosophy, and I have found no better resource than the ones you have provided. For me, the alternatives are to either start with your books, or to read through Frege scholarship on my own. I think I know which one I am going to pick.

Many thanks! for that, Allen.

In that book MS, I've concentrated on presenting the basic doctrines asserted by the leading figures in the classical & post-classical Analytic tradition, & the basic arguments they offer in support of those doctrines, along with my own critical analyses of the doctrines & arguments, & of the Analytic tradition as a whole, with only minimal attention paid to secondary scholarship.

But if anyone is particularly interested in a given topic or topics, & wants to go into it or them in more depth than I have in the MS, then I can also suggest relevant secondary source materials....

Hi Robert,

I imagine the magnitude of the relevant secondary source materials you are aware of would probably crush the motivations of even the most keen graduate student. However, if it is one thing I have, it is time. (In the long term that is. I don't have a thesis to write, but I do have bills to pay.) I want to explore this area in some depth, and I like to begin with secondary sources. If it would not take too much of your time, I would definitely like to know what titles would broaden my knowledge on this topic. I have library cards to a public research university's library and a smaller liberal art college's library, so even a text that is likely to only be carried by a university library is something I am likely to be able to check out.

Many thanks! for that follow-up, Allen.

Here's a list of some good general studies of Analytic philosophy:

A. Pap, Elements of Analytic Philosophy (2nd edn., New York: Hafner, 1972); I. Hacking, Why Does Language Matter to Philosophy? (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1975); P. French et al. (eds.), The Foundations of Analytic Philosophy (Midwest Studies in Philosophy 6) (Minneapolis, MN: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1981); E. Tugendhat, Traditional and Analytical Philosophy, trans. P. A. Gorner (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1982), esp. part I; D. Bell and N. Cooper, N. (eds.), The Analytic Tradition (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990); M. Dummett, Origins of Analytical Philosophy Origins of Analytical Philosophy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993); R. Hanna, Kant and the Foundations of Analytic Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon/Oxford Univ. Press, 2001); S. Soames, Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century (2 vols., Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 2003); and J. Isaac, “The Rise of Analytic Philosophy,” in W. Breckman and P. Gordon (eds.), The Cambridge History of Modern European Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2019), also available online at URL = .

And here are two other books that are also good, although a little more narrowly focused on early Analytic philosophy or British Analytic philosophy:

https://www.amazon.com/Early-Analytic...

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-cul...

Thank you Robert. I will no doubt get to some of these this year. If my interest holds, I may even read all of them, with time.

Dear All,

Here's the third installment in PWB's series on the historical & conceptual foundations of Analytic philosophy--

THE FATE OF ANALYSIS, #3–The Rise and Fall of Frege.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/03/0...

Frege is one of the three founders of the Analytic tradition, but his seminal contribution was also philosophically tragic....

Dear All,

As the 9-5 work-week winds down, here's the second installment in PWB's series on radically enlightened cosmopolitan or global philosophy from an ecological point of view, by the Australian philosopher Arran Gare--

The Ultimate Crisis of Civilization: Why Turn to Philosophy?, #2–The Crisis of Philosophy and the Humanities.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/03/0...

Dear All,

Here's the latest installment in PWB's series on the historical & conceptual foundations of Analytic philosophy--

THE FATE OF ANALYSIS, #4–Husserl, Pure Logic, & The Sins of Logical Psychologism.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/03/0...

Classical Analytic philosophy begins with a stern & strict rejection of the thesis that pure logic is reducible to human psychology or any other natural facts (aka "logical psychologism"), but ironically enough, (i) the most influential anti-psychologistic philosopher was actually the phenomenologist Edmund Husserl, not Frege, & (ii) post-classical Analytic philosophy, initiated by Quine, is explicitly psychologistic....

Dear All,

Are you interested in the nature of the relationship between natural science & society, or between natural science & philosophy?

Here's the the third installment in PWB's series on radically enlightened cosmopolitan or global philosophy from an ecological point of view, by the Australian philosopher Arran Gare--

The Ultimate Crisis of Civilization: Why Turn to Philosophy?, #3–The Two Cultures and the Triumph of Scientism.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/03/1...

Dear All,

Is logic nothing but a natural, psychological fact?

That thesis is called "logical psychologism."

And if logic cannot be justified or explained without using logic, then is logic unjustified & inexplicable?

That's called "the logocentric predicament."

If you're interested in either of these issues, then I recommend having a look at the fifth installment in PWB's series on the conceptual & historical foundation of Analytic philosophy--

THE FATE OF ANALYSIS, #5–Husserl’s Arguments Against Logical Psychologism, & How He Solves The Logocentric Predicament.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/03/1...

And I'll also re-post this in the thread on informal logic & reasoning.

Dear All,

Here's the the fourth installment in PWB's series on radically enlightened cosmopolitan or global philosophy from an ecological point of view, by the Australian philosopher Arran Gare--

The Ultimate Crisis of Civilization: Why Turn to Philosophy?, #4–Nihilism, Castoriadis, & The Radical Enlightenment.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/03/2...

Interestingly--to me, anyhow--Gare pushes the radical enlightenment tradition in the direction of an ecologically-oriented dignitarian progressive liberal democratic Statism, whereas (as you probably know, if you've been following other recent threads in this group) I push it in the dignitarian anarcho-socialist direction.

But leaving aside the Statist vs. anti-Statist issue, since we're both radical enlightenment dignitarians, there's a lot in common....

Dear All,

Interested in a brief exposition of the basics of Aristotle's virtue ethics?

Here's latest installment in PWB's series on "Morality and the Human Condition"--

Morality and the Human Condition, #11–Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/03/2...

And I'll also post this in the virtue ethics thread.

Dear All,

Here's the the fifth installment in PWB's series on radically enlightened cosmopolitan or global philosophy from an ecological point of view, by the Australian philosopher Arran Gare--

The Ultimate Crisis of Civilization: Why Turn to Philosophy?, #5–Reconfiguring the History of Philosophy After Kant.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/03/2...

Dear All,

Here's the the sixth & final installment in PWB's series on radically enlightened cosmopolitan or global philosophy from an ecological point of view, by the Australian philosopher Arran Gare--

The Ultimate Crisis of Civilization: Why Turn to Philosophy?, #6–Speculative Naturalism, the Radical Enlightenment and Ecological Civilization.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/04/0...

Dear All,

And here's the sixth installment in PWB's series on the conceptual & historical foundation of Analytic philosophy--

THE FATE OF ANALYSIS, #6–Moore, Brentano, & Husserl on Intentionality.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/04/0...

Dear All,

Here's the twelfth installment in PWB's series on "Morality and the Human Condition"--

Morality and the Human Condition, #12–Four Worries about Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics, & Contemporary Virtue Ethics.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/04/1...

The COVID-19 pandemic of course raises many moral & political issues, including issues about everyday virtues, often misdescribed as issues about mere "etiquette"--

https://www.citylab.com/life/2020/04/...

So I'll also post this in the virtue ethics & the COVID-19/coronavirus threads as well.

Dear All,

And here's the seventh installment in PWB's series on the conceptual & historical foundation of Analytic philosophy--

THE FATE OF ANALYSIS, #7–Meinong’s World.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/04/1...

Meinong is notable for having resurrected the Parmenidean principle that "thought & being are one," in the sense that he (Meinong) holds that any & every object of thought has some sort of ontological status, including impossible objects like round squares.

Because it flagrantly rejects the minimalist ontological principle known as "Ockham's Razor" (=entities should not be multiplied without necessity), Meinong's view is sometimes called "Plato's Beard"....

Dear All,

Here's the thirteenth installment in PWB's series on "Morality and the Human Condition"--

Morality and the Human Condition, #13–Millian Utilitarianism, & Ten Big Problems For It.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/04/1...

Dear All,

And here's the eighth installment in PWB's series on the conceptual & historical foundation of Analytic philosophy--

THE FATE OF ANALYSIS, #8–Russell & The Limits of Unlimited Logicism.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/04/2...

Hi Robert, this isn't directly related to the links you've posted, but I am currently reading Kant by Paul Guyer with the goal of reading your Kant and the Foundations of Analytic Philosophy afterwards. I find that reading philosophy takes more time compared to other books, but on the positive side, this is indication I am giving the content the attention it deserves.

My interest in Analytic philosophy is still there. What with the COVID-19 situation, my original plan to get a girlfriend this year has been shelved, some truly perplexing circumstances I am experiencing right now notwithstanding. That leaves plenty of time for reading.

I hope you are well, and that your philosophical work is coming along nicely. I hope to read more of it after I finish Kant and the Foundations of Analytic Philosophy.

Hi Allen!, & many thanks! for that & for your interest in my work on Kant &/or Analytic philosophy..

Correspondingly, I don't know whether you (or others) would also be interested in this, but in any case last week I did an invited podcast on Kant's & Kantian philosophy with a young philosophy enthusiast from the Netherlands, the first installment of which is here--

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Inv84...

Sometime in early June, I'm scheduled to another two installments, this time specifically on Kant & the foundations of Analytic philosophy....

Thank you Robert, I watched the first video in its entirety since the start date of my job has been pushed back. I was trying to avoid philosophy during the daytime on a working day, but it seems like in this case, I was not successful. I listened to the whole conversation while I was waiting for my lunch to digest, and I learned a great deal - about why we should study Kant, his place in the larger philosophical community, and so on.

The volume I am reading begins by introducing Kant's life, and I found it fascinating how so many divergent influences had an effect on Kant's mature philosophy. Particularly, his mathematical training reveals itself when inspecting his distinction between the synthetic and analytic, and the a priori and a posteriori. (That's the part of his philosophy I was studying yesterday.) I think the fact that he had studied Euclid as part of his education explains his insistence that our representations of reality necessarily match our intuitions of reality. I suspect this kind of conviction comes easily to someone who has ever proved a theorem in planar geometry, and noted with pleasure how one's intuition about a theorem could be confirmed through demonstration and proof.

In short, I find the origins of his philosophy striking, as well as the particular arguments he used to defuse the philosophical problems he studied. I suspect there is much more for me to discover in his thought. Again, thank you for your talk - I hope to hear the other conversations that are planned in the future.

I just checked the text I was reading, and I think a point of difficulty has resolved itself. I thought Kant was saying that our representations necessarily match our intuitions, but in fact he is saying something much stronger - that the existence of these representations could only be possible given certain intuitions and concepts.

Many thanks! for your comments in ##25-26, Allen.

In #26 you've raised an extremely important point about Kant's transcendental idealism, namely that there are weaker & stronger readings of it.

On the weaker reading, Kant is saying that, given that the manifest or phenomenal world (i.e., the world we experience, if & when we have experiences) exists, then necessarily, the structure of that world conforms to the structure of our rational human cognitive faculties of (i) sensibility (which produces perceptions, images, memories, etc., but also non-empirical representations of space & time) and (ii) understanding (which produces concepts).

But on that weaker reading, since it assumes that the existence of the manifest world is given, there's no implication that this world either comes into existence with our existence, or would go out of existence if we failed to exist: hence even though the manifest world must conform to our minds, the manifest world is relatively independent of us (e.g., before human beings appeared, the manifest world already existed), & correspondingly this weaker reading is significantly realistic.

On the strong reading, by contrast, in addition to the conformity thesis, the existence of the manifest world does indeed depend on the existence of our minds, hence this reading is more idealistic & less realistic....

Thank you Robert, I imagine awareness of such points of ambiguity sharpen one's facility for close reading when studying source texts such as The Critique of Pure Reason.

My instinctive response is to say that only matter exists, and that the noumenal is illusory. However, conversations in this discussion group have made me aware that to hold this view is dogmatic in an entirely unjustifiable way - one can just as well assert that it is the noumenal that is in fact real, and that matter is what is illusory. It's an interesting question as to whether space and time, like matter, "really" exist. Whatever the truth is, it's almost certainly the case that our picture of space and time, should they exist, is incomplete. If our knowledge is incomplete, can we be confident that we can even sensibly describe a "truly real" space and time not subjects to the limitations of our human minds that isn't hopelessly naive?

One thing I found interesting while reading Guyer is the suggestion that physical properties are themselves manifestations of concepts. I am not sure if I have adequately captured his and Kant's meaning, but as far as I understand what is being said, I find this position to be implausible. Properties are fundamentally manifestations of our abilities to measure the physical world, and measurement always entails using a sensor of some kind. The act of interaction between the sensor and that being sensed seems to me to be a real interaction. Perhaps our understanding of what the sensor is measuring requires both concepts and intuitions that our minds "add" to the physical picture being measured, but it seems to me that the interaction itself must be real. We might not be able to represent it or understand it fully, but even if all that really exists is pure noumena, a description of that interaction between the sensor and the sensed exists at the deepest level of the most truly real layer of reality. That is what I think anyway. And perhaps, the mind itself is simply another sensor - what interaction exists between the mind and the world is itself a manifestation of a "truly real" layer of reality.

Also, I found your discussion of other scholars who believe that it is Hegel who seeded the most important conceptions we take for granted in contemporary philosophy fascinating, but like you I find Kant to be the more insightful thinker, at least insofar as I understand Kant, Hegel, and their differences at all. I have read a little bit of Robert Pippin and Terry Pinkard, and I think that while Hegel says some things that are extraordinarily insightful, the way he frames his philosophical project is burdened with these odd metaphysical commitments. At least, that is what I have gathered from reading Frederick Beiser and his efforts to excavate Hegel's writings in the original sense in which Hegel intended them.

I have read that the Neo-Kantians and Hegel were engaged in philosophical projects that were radicalizations of Kant, so that they would not need to make baseless assumptions that Kant had made. But when I consider what I know of Kant, or at least the broad strokes of his philosophical project as I understand it, it seems to me that Kant's way of framing problems was the most insightful, and that the Neo-Kantians and Hegel entrapped themselves in these odd philosophical projects simply because they tried to deal with certain anomalies that happened to exist in Kant's mature philosophy that they felt they could avoid by taking a different starting point. That is my understanding, and I am not sure if I have even correctly understood the debate between Kant and those who followed him. Regardless, considering the enormous influence Kant had on the direction of the Enlightenment and on contemporary philosophy, I expect my continued attention to the details of his argument to be rewarding.

Allen, a quick response--

Your comment on the centrality of "measure" particularly caught my eye.

Aristotle takes up "measure" as a key idea in chapter 1 of book 11 of his Metaphysics (1051a15-1053b8. With your scientific background, I'd be curious to know what you make of this chapter if you ever have occasion to look at it.

Measurement also seems to be central to quantum mechanics:
"The fundamental new element of quantum mechanics, the thing that makes it unequivocally distinct from its classical predecessor, centers on the question of what it means to `measure' something about a quantum system" (Sean Carroll, Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime, 2019, p. 17).

Although analytic philosophy is, as far as I understand it (which is not much), not relevant to political philosophy or ethics (see my post 4 in the Rules and Housekeeping topic), Kant is, even at his most metaphysical, relevant to political philosophy and ethics, since it seems to me that one of his principal aims (if not the principal aim) is to create a space for free will (and also the soul, if his remarks about the soul and God are not merely exoteric). Kant's ethics and political philosophy seem to depend on his metaphysics in a way that I am only beginning to discern.

Accordingly, I have cross-referenced discussions of Kant in the present topic in post 80 of the Kant topic of this Goodreads group.

Robert wrote: "Allen, a quick response--

Your comment on the centrality of "measure" particularly caught my eye.

Aristotle takes up "measure" as a key idea in chapter 1 of book 11 of his Metaphysics (1051a15-10..."

Hi Robert, I downloaded a translation of the Metaphysics from Amazon.com. Because of good experiences I have had with Hackett, I selected the New Hackett Aristotle. The passages in the book are numbered and I was able to find the passages you referenced.

Aristotle begins by talking about geometric figures and what is going on when we engage in a geometric demonstration. He frames this in terms of his philosophy of energeia, dunamis, and entelechia. So far I understand what he is saying. From here he proceeds by analogy from the act of constructing geometric figures into some really esoteric theorizing I am not quite able to follow. This goes on for quite a while. After that, he starts discussing measurement, and how quantification is the most accurate form of knowledge. He then makes a few remarks, and refers repeatedly back to how fundamental units of measurement are somehow "indivisible." I am not very sure what he means to say here. Perhaps we could point to these passages of Aristotle's advocacy of the indivisibility of quantized units as a precursor to the central insights that lay behind quantum mechanics, but what I really struggle to understand is from what context Aristotle arrived at this pronouncement. Without access to the context that prompted Aristotle to say this, I am leery of giving him credit for anticipating quantum mechanics. Regardless, the passages are striking for the reverberations we can hear between what Aristotle is saying and our post-Newtonian understanding of physics.

Aristotle also pauses to dismiss Protagoras's quote that "man is the measure of all things." The commentator of my edition of Metaphysics interprets Aristotle to be saying that because man is only the measure of all things if he (or she) has accurate perceptions or scientific knowledge, the claim by itself is in fact uninsightful. Perhaps Kant would interject here that measurement in fact presupposes the mind, so in fact Protagoras's quote is in fact quite insightful if we interpret the quote as "mind is the measure of all things." To go back to what Robert Hanna remarked earlier, it may be that measurement is a phenomena that is intrinsic to the mind (intuition), but not reality (concept). If that is so, measurement is possible only because there are minds, and whatever reality is there does not have something like space or time that can in fact be measured. I am aware that Frege made it his life's work to prove Kant wrong, and to demonstrate that mathematics could be derived completely from logic, and therefore is an aspect of the noumenal world, since logic inhabits the world of pure reason. After Russell pointed out Russell's paradox after reading Frege's Begriffsschrift, however, this effectively leveled Frege's theoretical edifice to the ground. Toward the end of his life, Frege had to concede that Kant had been right - measure and numbers come from intuition, and not logic.

I want to clarify that I am not sure if Kant ever used the word "mind" in his work. Based on Robert Hanna's comments in the video he linked earlier in this discussion, the "psychological" interpretation of Kant may see Kant as essentially theorizing about the limits of thought, and therefore by extension the mind. However, whether Kant explicitly uses the word "mind" is not clear to me. This is one of those cases where it would be useful to read the source texts themselves instead of relying on the secondary literature.

Allen wrote: "I want to clarify that I am not sure if Kant ever used the word "mind" in his work. Based on Robert Hanna's comments in the video he linked earlier in this discussion, the "psychological" interpret..."

Can we proceed with discussions of Kant in the "Kant" topic, so that I don't have to keep cross-referencing the present topic in the Kant topic?

Sorry about that, that was thoughtless of me.

Dear All,

Here's the ninth installment in PWB's series on the conceptual & historical foundation of Analytic philosophy--

https://againstprofphil.org/2020/04/2...

Next stop: early Wittgenstein.

Dear All,

Here's the 15th installment in PWB's series on "Morality and the Human Condition"--

Morality and the Human Condition, #15–Three Classical Worries About Kant’s Ethics, & An All-Things-Considered Conclusion About Normative Ethics.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/05/0...

Next stop: Pascal & Schopenhauer on existential optimism & existential pessimism.

Dear All,

Here's the tenth installment in PWB's series on the conceptual & historical foundation of Analytic philosophy--

THE FATE OF ANALYSIS, #10–Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: A Brief Synopsis.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/05/0...

Next stop: more about the Tractatus.

Dear All,

Here's the 16th installment in PWB's series on "Morality and the Human Condition"--

Morality and the Human Condition, #16–Pascal’s Optimism About The Meaning of Life.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/05/0...

This includes an unorthodox interpretation of Pascal's so-called "wager" argument.

Next up: Schopenhauer's existential pessimism.

Robert wrote: "Dear All,

Here's the 16th installment in PWB's series on "Morality and the Human Condition"--

Morality and the Human Condition, #16–Pascal’s Optimism About The Meaning of Life.
https://againstpro..."

Bob, in your concluding summary of Pascal's argument, you repeatedly state that (in Pascal’s view, I gather) “God” is the “ground of morality.” Questions: Is this the God of revelation or the “God” of Nature (about whose attributes humans can know nothing) or both? Is Pascal’s stated position a denial that ethics/morality can properly be formulated on the ground of unassisted human reason (based on a nonreligious teleological understanding of human nature) as distinguished from revelation? If so, was such position, in your view, Pascal’s true understanding, or was it merely exoteric? Does one, in Pascal’s view, have to buy the whole package (theism with morality/ethics), or can morality/ethics exist without theism?

Many thanks! for those follow-up comments & questions, Alan.

As I mentioned, my reading of Pascal is unorthodox.

Pascal is generally regarded as a theist & fideist, & a near-fanatical Jansenist Catholic closely associated with Port Royal, all somehow combined with mathematical, scientific, literary, & philosophical brilliance.

My own reading emphasizes the brilliance, & treats the apparent theism, fideism, & Jansenism as not at all what they might seem to be, to unreflective contemporary readers & Church officials (exoteric).

As I read Pascal, he's a mitigated Cartesian, working within the classical Cartesian interactive substance dualist "mind (thinking, reason) vs. body (extension, matter)" framework, but mediating the two otherwise essentially distinct domains with something he calls "heart," which is in fact very close to Kantian sensibility.

In the Pensées he uses theistic, fideistic, & Jansenist rhetoric, but actually says that (i) God is essentially hidden from us & (ii) we're essentially ignorant of God's nature.

The concept of "God," in turn, is essentially moral, a set of (roughly) categorical imperatives in Kant's sense, appealing to our practical reason & our existential commitment to a morally good life (which Pascal calls "faith").

But Pascal is clearly not a Divine Command Theorist, given his views on God's essential hiddenness & our essential ignorance of God's nature.

So in my reading of Pascal , for every occurrence of "God," I imaginatively substitute "the highest good."

Now here's a point about the foundations of normative ethics: I think that every normative ethical theory begins with a primitive conception of the good (say, good consequences, good character, pleasure, happiness, self-interest, a good will, dignity of persons, etc., etc) & then derives "ought" claims from that conception.

But this means that every normative ethics presupposes some or another conception of the highest good, & does not itself rationally justify it.

So rationality in ethics presupposes a direct foundational awareness of what really matters, via what Pascal calls "heart," but other later philosophers call "moral intuition."

Then Pascal has simply used the word "God" for his conception of the highest good, in order to get his normative ethical theory off the ground.

That unorthodox reading of Pascal's moral theology in turn drives my reading of the so-called "wager," which I spell out in that section of Morality and the Human Condition....

Robert wrote: "Many thanks! for those follow-up comments & questions, Alan.

As I mentioned, my reading of Pascal is unorthodox.

Pascal is generally regarded as a theist & fideist, & a near-fanatical Jansenist C..."

Thank you for your clarification and additional explanation. My view of the basis of ethics is somewhat different. I sketched that view in my 2000 book on ethics (now intentionally out of print), which will be superseded by the more elaborate discussion in my forthcoming book Reason and Human Ethics (provisional title). After I complete my study of the Critique of Pure Reason, I will move on to Kant’s other works on free will and ethics. I suspect that I am going to differ in some ways from Kant regarding the basis of ethics, but it is premature for me to speculate about that until I have read all his relevant works.

ADDENDUM TO MY PRECEDING POST:

Robert wrote: "Now here's a point about the foundations of normative ethics: I think that every normative ethical theory begins with a primitive conception of the good (say, good consequences, good character, pleasure, happiness, self-interest, a good will, dignity of persons, etc., etc) & then derives "ought" claims from that conception."

My own view is different from all these schools of thought, though incorporating all of them, as appropriate, in the detailed applications. To my mind, the foundation of ethics is in a (nonreligious) teleological understanding of human nature, with reason (properly understood, for example, as in Plato and Aristotle) being the ultimate principle and all else following from it. My view might be similar to Kant’s in some respects (for example, in what I understand to be his rejection of Scottish “common sense” ethics) but different in others (for example, in my rejection of deontological rules [“categorical imperatives”] and adopting an approach something like—but not identical to—that in the Nicomachean Ethics).

Thus, “ought” derives from “is” where the “is” is human nature, understood in light of the above-indicated teleological principle. And, yes, I have just uttered words—“human nature” and “teleological”—that are absolutely verboten in contemporary academic discourse. And that macht nichts to me.

Thank you, I found Robert's article and the ensuing discussion quite interesting. I fondly recall the conversations I had in high school with my friends at that time, skewering Pascal's argument, armed with our high school knowledge of statistics and probability. Those arguments stand up pretty well actually, even today, so I was interested to hear a different take on Pascal's wager that manages to find some gold in the dross after all.

Dear All,

Here's the eleventh installment in PWB's series on the conceptual & historical foundations of Analytic philosophy--

THE FATE OF ANALYSIS, #11–The Tractatus in Context, & A Simple Picture of its Basic Structure.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/05/1...

Next up: we find out what Wittgenstein means by the famously (or notoriously) gnomic first proposition of the Tractatus:

"The world is everything that is the case" (Die Welt is alles, was der Fall ist).

Dear All,

Here's the second installment in PWB's series on the nature of memory, its political manipulation (as fictionally represented in Orwell's 1984, e.g.), & the political philosophy of cognition more generally--

Memory, “Alternative Facts,” and the Political Philosophy of Cognition, #2–Varieties of Memory.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/05/1...

Dear All,

Here's the twelfth installment in PWB's series on the conceptual & historical foundations of Analytic philosophy--

THE FATE OF ANALYSIS, #12–Tractarian Ontology.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/05/2...

Dear All,

Here's the third installment in PWB's series on the nature of memory, its political manipulation (as fictionally represented in Orwell's 1984, e.g.), & the political philosophy of cognition more generally-

Memory, “Alternative Facts,” and the Political Philosophy of Cognition, #3–Strong Non-Conceptualism and Radically Naïve Realism about Sense Perception and Memory.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/05/2...

Dear All,

Here's the 18th installment in PWB's series on "Morality and the Human Condition"--

Morality and the Human Condition, #18–Pascal or Schopenhauer? Optimism or Pessimism?
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/05/2...

As I interpret it, Pascal's optimism gets between the two extremes of Leibnizian optimism (life has meaning imposed on it by God & human moral progress is inevitable/necessary) on the one hand, & Schopenhauerian pessimism (life is meaningless & human moral progress is impossible) on the other.

As such, Pascal's optimism bears some significant similarities to Kant's notions of a "revolution of the will" & "moral faith," to Kierkegaard's "leap of faith," to the Existentialist notion of freedom as the individual & collective human creation of life's meaning, & also to William James's notion of "meliorism":

"meliorism treats salvation as neither necessary nor impossible... [and] it treats it as a possibility that becomes more or a probability the more numerous the actual conditions of salvation become" (Pragmatism, lecture 8).

Dear All,

Here are PWB's three most recent posts, covering a lot of philosophical ground--

The Police Won’t Save You From Themselves.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/06/0...

Borderless Philosophy 3 (2020), Featuring Works by Babette Babich and Others, on The Philosophy of Poetry, Approximation, Radical Metaphilosophy, Fictional Alien Observers, The Ethics of Simulated Brains, Non-Conceptuality, Apprehensive Aesthetics, & Postmodernist Politics.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/06/0...

THE FATE OF ANALYSIS, #13–The Tractatus, Logical Space, & Real Space.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/05/2...

Dear All,

Here's the 19th installment in PWB's series on "Morality and the Human Condition"--

MORALITY AND THE HUMAN CONDITION, #19–Two Kinds of Existentialism.
https://againstprofphil.org/2020/06/1...