Ethics and Reality

Collected Essays

Jenny Teichman

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781138624764
• eBook ISBN: 9780429863752
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Published in 2001, Ethics and Reality presents a new collection of Jenny Teichman's most important essays across a wide spectrum of ethical issues. Teichman explores a range of human problems including: war and peace, tyranny and terrorism, sex and gender and life and death. Focusing particularly on philosophical scepticism and reality, Teichman argues that if scepticism is irrefutable then ethical reasoning has no connection with reality and what look like genuine human dilemmas must be purely imaginary. The essays in the first part of this book are intended to show that scepticism can be rebutted; those in the second and third sections exemplify the application of moral reasoning to inescapable quandaries.

Part I:

Against Scepticism

Chapter 1

Sceptics and scepticism

Scepticism can consist in a general distrust of authority, or in antagonism to unfamiliar ideas, or in hostility to conventions and traditions. In modem times the most common form of anti-traditional scepticism has to do with morality and is connected both personally and historically with a loss of religious belief. Moral scepticism is expressed in statements like ‘Good and bad are all in the mind’, ‘If I feel that an action is right then it is right’, ‘“Good” only means “good for me”or “good for you”’. Opinions of this kind have spread far beyond the books and lecture rooms of professional philosophy teachers and are held by thousands, perhaps millions, of educated and uneducated people in the West. They are so common that naïve liberals, when prosecuted for breaking the law, quite often try to rebut the accusation by saying ‘But I don’t feel that I’ve done anything wrong!’

Those who reject the whole idea of an objective ethics can nevertheless be extremely dogmatic about political matters. Even sceptics, it seems, find it necessary to be dogmatic about something.

Moral scepticism has a basis in philosophy but philosophical scepticism per se extends beyond ethics and affects several different branches of enquiry. It has a long history which begins with the Greek thinkers Pyrrho and Protagoras.

Pyrrho (4th–3rd centuries BC) was a priest of Elis who argued that one should seek tranquillity by following custom rather than reason. His philosophical method consisted in confronting every possible belief with a plausible opposite belief and he tried not to commit himself to any positive beliefs whatsoever. In spite of what he said about the wisdom of following custom it seems that he sometimes tried to live up to his intellectual principles, one result – according to legend – being that his friends had to keep protecting him from danger. For he held that one cannot know that anything is dangerous. He thus illustrated a fact hinted at by David Hume, namely, that the apparent reasonableness of sceptical principles does not mean it is safe to live by such principles.

Protagoras (490–420 BC) was famous in his own time for his agnosticism in regard to the existence of the gods. Today his best-known saying is: ‘Man is the measure of all things’, by which he meant that all knowledge, so-called, is subjective. Objective knowledge, common to every person, is an impossibility, for the different beliefs of different men are all equally true (or false). Plato attacked Protagoras’s thesis, arguing, in effect, that it is self-refuting. Plato must be right here because if all subjective beliefs are equally true then the subjective belief ‘many subjective beliefs are false’ is just as true as any other.

During the 16th and 17th centuries scepticism sometimes took the form of questioning the doctrines of religion. Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) and Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) both expressed doubts about the then orthodox view of the Old Testament according to which the first five books of that document were written by Moses. They noticed that Moses’ death is reported in the Pentateuch and wondered how he could have recorded his own demise.

A temporary form of scepticism (sometimes called methodological) was invented by René Descartes. Descartes believed that true knowledge can only be achieved by first rejecting as false every proposition that can possibly be doubted. By doing this, he argued, one will acquire genuine knowledge in the form of principles which cannot possibly be doubted. He claimed to have discovered just such a principle, namely ‘I think therefore I exist’.

In the 17th and 18th centuries scepticism commonly involved questions about the nature of substance, the reality of matter and the reliability of the five senses. These questions were raised and discussed by three important British philosophers: John Locke, George Berkeley and David Hume.

Locke himself was not exactly a sceptic but when he said that substance must exist but is ‘I know not what’ he gave rise to scepticism in others, and especially in Berkeley.

Some philosophical sceptics cast doubt on beliefs and theories that seem to most people to constitute genuine knowledge. Others positively deny propositions which most people accept as true. Bishop Berkeley, who positively denied the existence of material objects, was a sceptic of the second kind; in fact he said he wasn’t a sceptic at all because sceptics ought to feel doubt whereas he had no doubts about the reality, or rather the unreality of matter. However Berkeley’s definition of scepticism is too narrow.

David Hume’s discussions of the topic occur in his book A Treatise of Human Nature and particularly in the chapters entitled ‘Of scepticism with regard to reason’ and ‘Of scepticism with regard to the senses’. It can be seen from these titles that Hume’s scepticism was very wide-ranging. Yet he also had an argument against sceptics. It runs as follows: Reason tells us that morality is not based on objective truths but on sympathy and social convenience. Reason tells us that personal identity is a myth. Reason tells us that scientific induction is logically unsound and that logical deduction cannot produce new knowledge. Reason tells us that the five senses cannot give indubitable information about the external world. Hence reason itself tells us that reason is incapable of validating our beliefs. Why then should we believe in scepticism? Moreover human nature makes scepticism impossible. We cannot live by reasonable sceptical principles. We are forced to behave as reality – in the form of our human nature – tells us to.

Limited scepticism involves either doubting or rejecting the possibility of knowledge in a particular field. Scepticism about morality is one variety, Berkeley’s rejection of the reality of matter is another and Bertrand Russell’s doubts about scientific induction is a third. Limited scepticism, though, has a tendency to expand. Questioning the reliability of the five senses can lead to doubts about the reality of matter, rejection of scientific induction can lead to the rejection of the ideas of space, time and causation while doubts about the existence of other minds can produce scepticism about the reality of the self.

Total or global scepticism rejects the possibility of objective truth in each and every field of enquiry. These days it is quite popular in what Thomas Nagel describes as the weaker branches of academe, by which he means to refer, I think, to sociology and English Literature. But it can also be found among philosophy teachers. One such is Professor Jacques Derrida, whose conclusions stem from a theory about language; another is Professor Richard Rorty, whose foundational notions have to do with the supposed subjectivity of ethical reasoning.

Global scepticism is nowadays quite fashionable. Its proponents all produce much the same kind of argument. They claim that truth, knowledge and reason are mere creations of the human mind and do not agree as between one mind and another. Differences of opinion, they say, should never be seen in terms of a true-false dichotomy but rather as products of local cultures or personal histories. In this way the global sceptics overlook the obvious fact that an opinion’s having an origin is not incompatible with its having a truth value. As Nagel says, these modern sceptics rely on all-purpose comments about reason in general and culture in general and respond to objections by simply repeating those comments.

Plato, as noted earlier, rejected the doctrine of Protagoras on the grounds that it is self-refuting. This objection retains its force when brought to bear on contemporary global scepticism. For the new sceptics too have to rely on the concepts which they pretend to abolish; thus the doctrine that there are no such things as truth and falsity must itself be either true or false. Now, some sceptics argue that this objection can be avoided by relativising the proposition ‘scepticism is true’, for example by turning it into ‘I believe, but you might not believe, that scepticism is true’. However that move merely substitutes one defect for another. The relativised proposition is not self-refuting, of course, but it does incorporate a self-refuting proposition (namely ‘scepticism is true’). It is therefore paradoxical. It is a variant example of G.E. Moore’s paradox ‘I believe p and p is false’.

The really thorough-going global sceptics will not be convinced by these considerations because having rejected the idea of objective truth and falsity they don’t worry about thereby having to reject the concept of refutation. Insofar as they reject the notion of refutation they simultaneously abandon the belief that there is a difference between sound and unsound arguments. Modern sceptics are impervious to criticism because they do not believe in the possibility of logical soundness; they see no difference between good and bad arguments. In other words they are irrationalists.

How do sceptics support their irrationalism? By telling a story about origins. The story is that a belief in objective truth is created by training and as a result consists of merely optional ways of using language. Traditional education, they say, trains students in an option which involves the idea that assertions are not normally relativised. But, say the sceptics, students can be taught how to use the conventions of post-modernism in which all statements are expicitly or implicitly qualified by Protagorean relativisations.

Telling stories of this kind cannot show that beliefs are optional. The idea that knowledge of the origins of beliefs can prove they are neither true nor false is simply mistaken.

It is indeed the case, unfortunately, that students can be trained to use the jargons of post-modernism. But (as Hume might have said) the training cannot affect their ordinary behaviour. Learning sceptical modes of speech is not like learning ordinary informal logic. Ordinary informal logic, the language of objective truth and falsehood, is absorbed in childhood. It is absorbed as the child learns to cope with reality: with parents and siblings, with standing up and falling down, with roads and sidewalks, and food and drink, and danger and safety. The word assertion is not a piece of verbal elastic which can be given a special sceptical sense; on the contrary it denotes a human activity which meshes with all our other activities. The linguistic conventions taught in post-modern classrooms do not and cannot mesh with the rest of human life. College students can be trained to use jargon in the classroom but no-one so far has been successfully trained to behave as a global sceptic. A genuine global sceptic would not go to lectures or write essays or turn up for exams or even order meals. For if objective knowledge is impossible there is no reason to believe that the lecture timetable is accurate or that the meal isn’t poisonous.

Modern sceptics make much of the fact that the origins of many ideas are cultural. Now, tracing the origins of ideas, be they coherent or incoherent, is a task for historians of philosophy and is not the same enterprise as examining the validity or otherwise of arguments, or the truth or otherwise of premises and principles. To confuse or meld these equally important yet very different tasks is part and parcel of modern scepticism. For scepticism in our time claims that once the psychological or cultural origins of a theory have been described everything that can be said about it has been said. Plato and Hume and others have shown by example that this just isn’t so.

Chapter 2

Berkeley’s incompatible predicates

George Berkeley was born in 1685 and died in 1753. In his books he denied the existence of the material world; his memorial window at Trinity College, Dublin, is inscribed ‘He astonished the multitude’.

In the first of his Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous Berkeley says the facts that an object can have, or appear to have, different colours at different times, and different shapes and sizes on different occasions, are absurdities and so not facts at all. His account of the matter is sometimes called ‘the paradox of incompatible predicates’.

Using the same way of talking we can set out ‘the paradox of the solitary predicate’. I see a distant castle which appears to be about the size of a matchbox. I walk or drive towards it. Unfortunately I cannot go indoors because the building is still the size of a matchbox; nor can I meet the owner because he is too small to be seen with the naked eye. I come across a dreadful tiger, ferocious and much larger than myself, but however fast I run the tiger always is, or always appears to be, as huge as ever. Someone gives me a penny: it continues to look circular in shape however I turn it around. I buy a new red coat which is red under white light and under sodium light and under any and every possible coloured light. In the dark it still looks red. And all experience of the primary and secondary qualities of physical objects is like this.

In the real world of so-called incompatible predicates a blue spotlight falling on a white face makes a blue patch or spot. If every object had just one permanent colour there could be no coloured spotlights. If each thing had just one unchanging shade of colour and just one degree of brightness there could be no spotlights at all, white or coloured. But the difference between a source of light which makes a beam and throws a spot, and a source which sends out light diffusely, is a matter not of kind but of degree; in other words there is a sliding scale here. So perhaps in a world of solitary unchanging predicates there would be no light at all and no darkness either.

If every object had but one size, large, small or medium, as the case may be, one could acquire new possessions but it is clear that this would often not be much fun because so many of them would turn out to be be permanently toy-like. On the other hand the sudden appearance of a large and frightening animal would not only be more difficult to explain than it is nowadays but far more difficult, if not indeed impossible, to deal with. How could one run away? In such a world either the person (the ego) would become, after a time, entirely and permanently surrounded and engulfed by objects. Or else motion would be unreal and the universe would be completely static.

These consequences are no more literally paradoxical than Berkeley’s but they are quite as absurd as his absurdities. (Much more so in fact.)

If it is absurd to say that objects can have or appear to have incompatible predicated qualities and also absurd to say that an object must always possess and appear to possess the same unchanging qualities, then there must be something wrong with the notion of a quality, or something wrong with predication, or (possibly) something wrong with physical objects.

Berkeley says there is something wrong with objects insofar as they are thought of as material substances. According to him we will avoid absurdity if we think of objects as non-material ideas in the mind. We avoid the first set of absurdities, the supposed occurrence of incompatible predicates, by coming to agree that ‘things’, i.e., ideas, are momentary.

Momentary items cannot move about. Nevertheless they can have or appear to have spatial position. Momentary items cannot be first one colour and then another. Nevertheless a momentary light can presumably seem to shine on the surface or apparent surface of a momentary thing. Because they are momentary, ideas cannot be approached or run away from. But if they have apparent spatial position and apparent surfaces the places they apparently were in can be approached. So on this supposition ideas can be thought of as items which would have been or appeared larger or smaller if … or, alternatively, as items which would have been or appeared exactly the same size whether or not …. To that extent ideas, like material substances, are involved in the absurdities mentioned above, absurdities, that is, which stem from the concept of a solitary unchanging predicate.

The truth, however, is that ideas cannot be sensibly thought of as either occupying space or as having surfaces. So they avoid all absurdities (real or imaginary) connected with colours and shapes and magnitudes because those properties cannot be predicated of them in the first place.

It seems then that we must choose between the absurdity of (supposedly) incompatible predicates and the absurdity of momentary and so unchanging ideas, a static world and the abolition of motion. To reject both alternatives is to reject predication as such. And that is the only way in which ideas can solve Berkeley’s problem here.

The natural conclusion, of course, is that the supposedly incompatible predicates are not incompatible at all.

Chapter 3

Nietzsche and scepticism

Friedrich Nietzsche was born in 1844 and died in 1900. He was a brilliant scholar who became Professor of Classical Philology in the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I: Against Scepticism
• Part II: Ethics and Reality: Sex and Gender, Life and Death
• Part III: Ethics and Reality: Tyranny and Terrorism, War and Peace
• Bibliography
• Index