Science and the Structure of Ethics

Abraham Edel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138514379
• eBook ISBN: 9781351290982
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Initially prepared as part of the Foundations of the Unity of Science volumes under the auspices of the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, Science and the Structure of Ethics soon took on a life of its own. Well positioned in the naturalistic tradition of ethical theory extending from John Dewey at the start and Richard Rorty at the conclusion of the century, Abraham Edel's volume offers a remarkable synthesis of the ways hi which ethical statements can be examined, and the nature of ethical concerns.

Edel reveals a singular capacity to move beyond oracular controversies of the good and the right hi favor of a comparative, analytic, and functional account of how ethical perspectives and practices affect the content of moral discourse. In Edel's work, the structure of ethical behavior is defined by biological, psychological, social, and historical functions. Hence a scientific account of ethics is possible since moral norms are themselves products of an experiential field open to verification procedures common to all other walks of human life.

In reviewing the impact of Edel's work hi general, and this volume in particular, Irving Louis Horowitz notes that Edel's naturalistic emphasis fits neatly with a view of ethics as something grounded in human experience rather than mandated from divine assumption: "It is hard for me to imagine a turning back from the hard lessons of the century, any more in ethical theory than in empirical research as such. We owe a central place in our century's intellectual capital to Edel's examination of ethical doctrines in the light of changing circumstances." This is a work certain to enlist the interest of ethicists, sociologists of knowledge, as well as those concerned with issues hi the philosophy of science and religion alike.

III. The Role of Science in Conceptual and Methodological Analysis

16. Conceptual-Methodological Frameworks

In contemporary ethical theory we often find questions of the following sort:

What are the distinctive terms to be employed in moral discourse (e.g., ‘good,’ ‘right,’ ‘wrong,’ ‘ought,’ ‘Virtue,’ etc.)? How are they to be related and moral sentences formed out of them? (For example: “Is ‘right’ to be defined in terms of ‘good’ or are these two independent terms? If ‘good’ is used as a predicate term, is the subject-form unrestricted, or can only an experience properly be described as good? Are ‘ought’-sentences really disguised imperatives?)

Can we properly define moral terms by non-moral terms? What kinds of relations are to be permitted between moral terms and descriptive terms referring to experiences, feelings, phenomenal qualities, contexts of human processes, and so forth? Are we to allow equivalence-definitions or other types of semantical rules? Or is the relation to take the form of some specified contextual function (e.g., to express feeling or to commend)?

What relations of moral sentences are to be permitted? Are there logical relations such as consistency between moral utterances or more generalized material relations of coherence? What form does organization or systematization take within a morality? Are there laws and systems of laws? Or, in some other sense, hierarchies of norms? Or rough collections of discrete decisions with at most family resemblances? Or other forms of patterning?

What modes of certification do moral sentences allow? Is it some type of cognition or empirical verification, or some type of feeling-sensitivity, or some type of willing or commitment-acceptance?

What modes of reasoning and justification are appropriate to the moral field? Is ethical reasoning deductive in form, or inductive? Or has it its own type of logic, with its own criteria of ‘good reasons’? Is there a logic of choice as distinct from a logic of thought? What is the nature of the process of application and decision? Can decision be rational or do decisions ultimately “just happen?

Answers to these and hosts of kindred questions about how the concepts and methods of morality are to be analyzed, construed, employed, and applied give us a fairly clear indication of the conceptual-methodological framework of an ethical theory. They furnish a kind of logical profile of that theory. Comparative study of logical profiles raises questions of their evaluation, and attempts to reconstruct the methodological framework of ethics call for framework policy decisions.

Our inquiry here is twofold: (a) How far are specific results of the sciences presupposed in the occurrence or adoption of a specific logical profile in an ethical theory? (b) How far is it possible to employ scientific method in ethics, as against regarding it as an overextension of a misleading model?

a) Scientific results were seen to play a large part in the constitution and evaluation of EP’s; such influence carries over into frameworks if logical profiles take different shape according to the specific EP imbedded in the ethical theory. In the preceding chapter we started with EP’s and suggested the scope of their influence; in the present chapter we start with frameworks, utilizing illustrations of framework problems, and look for points of indispensable EP reference. For example, one traditional kind of theory links the meaning of ‘good’ to self-realization, another to an act of commitment, another to pleasure. These may all be regarded as EP variables, since their meaning is furnished by the specific account of the self, of the will, of pleasure. (The picture of the self in self-realization theories of modern idealism differs markedly from that in contemporary psychoanalytically grounded ethics; even pleasure’ in the hedonistic tradition has different interpretations.) The heuristic principle in the inquiries of this chapter is that whatever framework problem is analyzed we will find its answer to be in some significant measure grounded in the values assigned to the EP variables in the ethical theory. There is no one way in which scientific results in an EP enter into all frameworks; it is the task of comparative research to sketch the actual variety with which scientific approaches and judgments embodied in different EP’s enter different logical frameworks. Nor is it being maintained that scientific considerations are the sole determinants of the logical profile. Comparable study would have to be directed to language-habits and to pragmatic or purposive elements.⁵⁷ But it is clear that they enter unavoidably with considerable determinative force and that they have accordingly an important place as grounds of policy decision in framework reconstruction.

b) Under what conditions would it be possible to structure ethics as a scientific enterprise, rather than as an art-enterprise, or a practical enterprise of some sort? Under what conditions would this not be possible?

For scientific method to be applicable in ethics, the human field must be sufficiently determinate to provide the following: (i) A concept of moral phenomena (including moral experience ) sufficient to mark off an area of inquiry (observed qualities, feelings, determinate will-acts or behavioral processes or human interrelations in definite types of contexts) either as distinctively moral or at least as an area in which interpretation of moral terms is to be sought or pointer-readings for verification of moral statements to be discriminated, (ii) A set of moral terms and definite ways for linking them to the established area of moral phenomena. (iii) Some meaning for generalization or systematization in the reiteration of experience or phases of experience or some more complex invariance or descriptive patterning. (This is the condition of possible regularity or “law-likeness” resting on some isolability among the phenomena.) (iv) Some mode of verification or certification for the generalizations and some procedures of validation or justification for working principles of a higher order. (v) Some modes of application and decision so that the systems of generalization wiV have relevance to the practical tasks of morality.

Even if moral utterances were wholly expressive or “blind-volitional,” scientific method in ethics would be possible if there is determinateness and lawfulness in the occurrence of the expressive utterances or blind-volitional acts. If a high degree of such regularity were found and a systematic explanatory theory developed, a concomitant or correlated descriptive use of moral terms could arise, just as constructs together with operations replace initial quality terms in any of the customary sciences. On the current philosophical scene, ethical theories of an emotive and prescriptivist type have tended to grow conceptions of validation or of “good reasons” even while insisting on the practical nature of ethics and the practical interpretation of ethical concepts.⁵⁸ This amounts to recognizing that there is a degree of determinacy in the field; where it is overlooked in one part of a theory it will come up in another part. In general, if a conception of the task of ethics as practical is offered, the question whether the practical task can be most effectively carried out by a descriptive or theoretical or practical interpretation of moral terms is not itself a practical but a scientific question guiding framework policy.⁵⁹

The denial of the possible utility of scientific method has to establish the kind of conditions in the field—for example, an intrinsic arbitrariness in the will—which will rule out any way of satisfying the conditions stated above. Dostoevski thus points to “an interest which introduces general confusion into everything”⁶⁰ and speaks of the independence of the will at all costs, which may even mean a man acting against his own interests! To determine whether such an interest exists and probes deeply into the nature of man or whether it is a clinical symptom would appear to necessitate a scientific scrutiny of its bases of operation.

The five sections that follow deal with each in turn of the conditions for the possible use of scientific method in ethics. At the same time, however, the discussion of framework questions is oriented to discovering the pivotal role of EP variables in framework decisions.

17. Are There Workable Concepts of Moral Phenomena and Moral Experience?

Consider, for example, the following familiar utterances:

It was my responsibility. My conscience won’t let me do it. It is obviously the thing to do. It was a strong temptation, but I resisted it. It was a strong temptation, so I succumbed to it. I felt that was no excuse. I recognize he has a claim on me but. . . . Here I take my stand; I cannot do otherwise. That’s outrageous. What else could a man do and still live with himself? That’s unfair. I sympathize with his predicament. Have you no scruples about doing it? Have you no compunctions? That would be giving up what I’ve worked for all my life. It was a courageous thing to do. You’ll never regret it. That would be a wonderfully satisfying way to live. I was so ashamed of myself. I felt as if I had been dragged through the mud. Surely we are deeply committed to this. Would you want your child to be like that? It’s not worthwhile doing. That was a fine experience. I can see that it is his ideal, but it does not attract me. It’s a matter of simple loyalty. I did promise, so I shall do it. After all, I am a member of the group, so I shall bear my share of the costs.

Such a list could be continued indefinitely, moving off in different directions. There are hosts of simple valuings—enjoyments, delights, and satisfactions and their opposites. There are diverse sets of feelings—varieties of guilt, shame, awe, respect, indignation, gratitude, sympathy, care. There are classes of interpersonal reactions—admirations and recriminations, with hosts of finely shaded adjectives. There are apprehended qualities of experience, such as finding something congruent or fitting, or frustrating, or ominous and overshadowing. There are moral-model relationships, such as the experience one has in regarding someone as an authority or as an ideal-figure. There are reflective experiences, such as what one would have chosen if he had had a clearer view or been less excited or what he would have recommended if he had been more disinterested. In all these cases we could ask what kind of experience is taking place—what kind of tasting or perceiving or feeling or willing or reflecting. Or we could ask what kind of phenomenon is taking place—what kind of qualities are appearing, what object-relations existing, what personal relations being manifested, and so on.

How sharp is the demarcation and the articulation of this realm? There have been many attempts to specify a single mark of the moral, as if moral experiences when isolated would be as simple as the sound of a bell or as unique as the taste of a persimmon. Underlying EP’s sometimes have a limiting effect on the kind of data explored. Thus the various individualistic psychological EP’s in dealing with obligation experiences tend to look inside the individual, and come out with different types of guilt or shame or remorse feelings. Interpersonal and social EFs identify obligation experiences as directly transindividual and so concentrate on claims and counterclaims, rights and corresponding duty relationships, and recognition of whole-institutional demands. A comparative perspective is required to insure extracting the full range of phenomena. Moral experience might turn out to be a complex orchestral experience with many instruments playing and even with cultural variations in the score.⁶¹

The field of relevant phenomena falls into fairly distinct groups: (a) the desire-aspiration-satisfaction group, including acts of desire, striving, goal-seeking, aspiration, pleasures and satisfactions, and so forth (and their opposites), as well as the recognition of the objects of these acts; (b) binding-authority phenomena, including consciousness of demands and claims and ties, as well as feelings of remorse and promptings of conscience; (c) acts of appreciation and depreciation, including reflective reaction to persons and traits, acts and situations.

These groups provide sufficient basis for interpreting moral terms and for furnishing pointer-readings in verification. This does not have to wait for a fully developed account of precisely what falls within the moral domain. A carefully identified phenomenon—an act of approval, a feeling of guilt, a feeling of satisfaction under controlled conditions—can serve as a verifying instance for a particular moral statement, whether or not it ranks as a moral experience, just as a pointer-displacement verifies the presence of an electrical property without being itself an electrical event. However unsettled the precise marks of a moral experience, gathering a wide pool of possibly relevant experiences is a firm starting-point for extending scientific method in ethics.

18. Ethical Concept-Families and Their Existential Linkage

It has long been recognized that there are three major families of concepts in the ethical linguistic community. One, including ‘good,’ ‘bad,’ ‘desirable,’ and the like, may be called the good-family, although nowadays it is perhaps more common to speak of value-terms. The second, including ‘right,’ ‘wrong,’ ‘ought,’ ‘duty,’ etc., may be called the obligation-family. The third is the virtue-family, with its broods of specific virtues and vices.⁶²

Some existential linkage for such ethical concepts is a necessary condition for the applicability of scientific method to the ethical domain. This is too often discussed as if it required equating each ethical term such as ‘good’ with some lower-order descriptive predicate such as “pleasant’ or “is desired’ and as if the rejection of such an equation ended the possibility of scientific method in ethics. This is an undue restriction on inquiry.⁶³ It is also unduly entwined with controversies over descriptivism and non-cognitivism, that is, whether an ethical statement is a descriptive report or serves some other function. The whole inquiry of the existential linkage of ethical concepts acquires wider scope by attentiveness to variations within the ethical tradition and to comparable problems in the philosophy of science generally.

Historically, different ethical concepts have always been closely associated with the various groups of moral experiences indicated in the previous section: the good-family with the desire-aspiration-satisfaction group, the obligation-family with the binding-authority phenomena, and the virtue-family with at least a large part of the appreciation or reflective-approval group. Hereafter, let us use the term 'domain’ to cover a group of phenomena as associated with a family of concepts. We have thus the good-domain, the obligation-domain, and the virtuedomain.

We can also note historical shifts in the dominance of the concept-families. In ancient times ethical theory confidently assumed that, if we knew the human good, everything else would fall into place. Medieval ethics seems to have thrust contractual ties and mutual obligations into a more prominent theoretical position. Kantian and post-Kantian ethics have intrenched the concept of obligation as almost definitory of ethics. Virtue concepts made inroads in ancient times by such devices as the Stoic construction of virtue as the primary content of the good and in some modern periods by the central place given to the moral ideal of character and personality. The historical careers of the concepts appears to reflect the relevance of different moral experience groupings to the institutional and historical problems of the day.

Comparative inventory of analyses offered in various theories for each of the central concepts shows that there is always a reference to some portion of the field of moral phenomena. For example, we find obligation analyzed as

a voice of veto or command (Socrates’ demon, or typical accounts of conscience as a still small voice)

a sense of “office” or a job to be done (Stoic) awe or respect for law or rationality (Kant)

a sense of overwhelming pressure (one of Bergson’s two senses, assimilating it to habit)

a sense of aspiration or attraction (the other of Bergson’s senses, assimilating it to the ideal; Platos analysis of the tug of the Good)

a sense of a governing whole, or a choice by the whole self (Bosanquet, modern idealistic philosophy)

a type of debt (Nietzsche)

a contractual-type of commitment (Socrates in Plato’s Crito)

a type of reasoning directed to maximization, or to harmonizing conflicting aims (e.g., Bentham, Santayana)

a type of sentiment, such as a pyramiding of sympathetic responses (e.g., Adam Smith)

a sense of loyalty or commitment (Royce)

an anxiety embodying developmental derivatives (Freud)

a vectorial quality of requiredness (Kohler, Mandelbaum)⁶⁴

and, of course, many other ways. The formal features of each conception seem to reflect...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction to the Transaction Edition
• I. The Nature and Complexity of the Problem
• II. The Theory of Existential Perspectives
• III. The Role of Science in Conceptual and Methodological Analysis
• IV. Decision, Freedom, and Responsibility
• Notes