Hi Joe, I read your posts twice and I liked many of the things raised but have a bit of a difficult time figuring out your exact positions on these topics. Would it be possible to just write down your views in a few lines? You can leave out the arguments.
I’m not Joe, but I thought I’d offer my attempt. It’s a little more than a few lines (~350 words), though hopefully it’s of some use.
Moral anti-realists often think about moral philosophy, even though they believe there are no moral facts to discover. If there are no facts to be discovered, we might ask “why bother? What’s the point of doing ethics?”
Joe provides three possible reasons:
Through moral theorizing, we can better understand which sets of principles it’s possible to consistently endorse.
Sometimes, ethical theorizing can help you discover a tension among the different principles you’re drawn to. EJT offers one nice example in his comment. Joe takes various impossibility results in population ethics to provide another example.
Through moral theorizing, you can also develop a better self-understanding. If you’re just jumbling along without ever reflecting on your principles, you don’t know what you stand for.
Consider the total utilitarian. They’ve engaged in moral theorizing, and now better understand (so claims Joe) what they stand for. If you never reflect on your values, you forgo some degree of agency. You forgo the ability to properly push for what you care about, because to a large degree you don’t know exactly what you care about.
We can call the first two benefits of moral theorizing ‘static benefits’ (not Joe’s term). Moral theorizing can benefit you by taking for granted your psychology, and provide you with tools to better understand your psychology, and make your existing principles more coherent. However, there’s also a more dynamic benefit to be had from moral theorizing.
Moral theorizing can help you construct the person you want to be. This benefit is harder to precisely convey.
My analogy: I like going to galleries with friends who know more about the visual arts than I do. Sometimes, I’ll look at a painting and just not get it. Then, my friend will point out a detail I’ve missed, and get me to look again.
In many cases, this will make me like the painting more. It’s not that my friend provided me with more self-understanding by informing me that “I liked the painting all along”. Rather, I’ve grown to like the painting more through seeing it more clearly. Ethical theorizing can provide a similar benefit. When we engage in ethical theorizing, we “look again” or “look more deeply” at who we are. This is partly about understanding who we already were, and partly about understanding who we want to become.
Hi Joe, I read your posts twice and I liked many of the things raised but have a bit of a difficult time figuring out your exact positions on these topics. Would it be possible to just write down your views in a few lines? You can leave out the arguments.
I’m not Joe, but I thought I’d offer my attempt. It’s a little more than a few lines (~350 words), though hopefully it’s of some use.
Moral anti-realists often think about moral philosophy, even though they believe there are no moral facts to discover. If there are no facts to be discovered, we might ask “why bother? What’s the point of doing ethics?”
Joe provides three possible reasons:
Through moral theorizing, we can better understand which sets of principles it’s possible to consistently endorse.
Sometimes, ethical theorizing can help you discover a tension among the different principles you’re drawn to. EJT offers one nice example in his comment. Joe takes various impossibility results in population ethics to provide another example.
Through moral theorizing, you can also develop a better self-understanding. If you’re just jumbling along without ever reflecting on your principles, you don’t know what you stand for.
Consider the total utilitarian. They’ve engaged in moral theorizing, and now better understand (so claims Joe) what they stand for. If you never reflect on your values, you forgo some degree of agency. You forgo the ability to properly push for what you care about, because to a large degree you don’t know exactly what you care about.
We can call the first two benefits of moral theorizing ‘static benefits’ (not Joe’s term). Moral theorizing can benefit you by taking for granted your psychology, and provide you with tools to better understand your psychology, and make your existing principles more coherent. However, there’s also a more dynamic benefit to be had from moral theorizing.
Moral theorizing can help you construct the person you want to be. This benefit is harder to precisely convey.
My analogy: I like going to galleries with friends who know more about the visual arts than I do. Sometimes, I’ll look at a painting and just not get it. Then, my friend will point out a detail I’ve missed, and get me to look again.
In many cases, this will make me like the painting more. It’s not that my friend provided me with more self-understanding by informing me that “I liked the painting all along”. Rather, I’ve grown to like the painting more through seeing it more clearly. Ethical theorizing can provide a similar benefit. When we engage in ethical theorizing, we “look again” or “look more deeply” at who we are. This is partly about understanding who we already were, and partly about understanding who we want to become.
Thank you!!