Many of the arguments are of the form “philosopher X thinks that Y is true”, but without appropriate arguments for Y.
I’d appreciate some examples (or just one) of this. :-)
I think 3.2 Intra- and Interpersonal Claims and the discussion of Parfit’s compensation principle, Mill’s harm principle and Shiffrin’s consent principle just before in 3.1 are examples. You don’t discuss how they defend these views/principles.
(I only started reading last night, and this is about where I am now.)
What I was keen to get an example of was mainly this (omitted in the text you quoted above):
Also, whenever there was a problem with an argument, Magnus can retreat to a less demanding version of Suffering-Focused Ethics, which makes it more difficult for the reader to follow the arguments.
That is, an example of how I retreat from the main position I defend (in Chapters 4 and 5), such as by relying on the views of other philosophers whose premises I haven’t defended. I don’t believe I do that anywhere. Again, what I do in some places is simply to show that there are other kinds of suffering-focused views one may hold; I don’t retreat from the view I in fact hold.
It’s true that I do mention the views of many different philosophers, and note how their views support suffering-focused views, and in some cases I merely identify the moral axioms, if you will, underlying these views. I then leave it to the reader to decide whether these axioms are plausible (this is a way in which the book in fact does explain/present views rather than try to “persuade”; Chapter 2 is very similar, in that it also presents a lot of views in this way).
It seems that Shiffrin and Parfit did, for example, consider their respective principles rather axiomatic, and provided little to no justification for them (indeed, Parfit considered his compensation principle “clearly true”, https://web.archive.org/web/20190410204154/https://jwcwolf.public.iastate.edu/Papers/JUPE.HTM ). Mill’s principle was merely mentioned as one that “can be considered congruent” with a conclusion I argued for; I didn’t rely on it to defend the conclusion in question.
I think 3.2 Intra- and Interpersonal Claims and the discussion of Parfit’s compensation principle, Mill’s harm principle and Shiffrin’s consent principle just before in 3.1 are examples. You don’t discuss how they defend these views/principles.
(I only started reading last night, and this is about where I am now.)
Thanks for your comment, Michael :-)
What I was keen to get an example of was mainly this (omitted in the text you quoted above):
That is, an example of how I retreat from the main position I defend (in Chapters 4 and 5), such as by relying on the views of other philosophers whose premises I haven’t defended. I don’t believe I do that anywhere. Again, what I do in some places is simply to show that there are other kinds of suffering-focused views one may hold; I don’t retreat from the view I in fact hold.
It’s true that I do mention the views of many different philosophers, and note how their views support suffering-focused views, and in some cases I merely identify the moral axioms, if you will, underlying these views. I then leave it to the reader to decide whether these axioms are plausible (this is a way in which the book in fact does explain/present views rather than try to “persuade”; Chapter 2 is very similar, in that it also presents a lot of views in this way).
It seems that Shiffrin and Parfit did, for example, consider their respective principles rather axiomatic, and provided little to no justification for them (indeed, Parfit considered his compensation principle “clearly true”, https://web.archive.org/web/20190410204154/https://jwcwolf.public.iastate.edu/Papers/JUPE.HTM ). Mill’s principle was merely mentioned as one that “can be considered congruent” with a conclusion I argued for; I didn’t rely on it to defend the conclusion in question.