tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post7428311322648213478..comments2024-03-28T05:47:54.177+00:00Comments on Philosophical Disquisitions: What is Contructivism in Metaethics? (Part 1)John Danaherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761686258507859309noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-42858306502191541832011-02-05T14:47:17.678+00:002011-02-05T14:47:17.678+00:00Hi John
I am aware that constructivism need not b...Hi John<br /><br />I am aware that constructivism need not be interpreted to involve arbitrariness. I was doing another series on Beyleveld's defence of Gewirth's principle of generic consistency which I have argued is a strong form of Kantian constructivism. I may even finish that series someday.John Danaherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06761686258507859309noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-1034349687839734392011-02-05T13:58:51.492+00:002011-02-05T13:58:51.492+00:00John,
I worry that you are taking the idea of co...John, <br /><br />I worry that you are taking the idea of constructivism from people who lack a proper understanding of it. In Kant's use and in Rawls', constructivism is not constructing arbitrary moral systems. Both Kant and Rawls likened the truth resulting from constructivist procedural to "rigorous" theorems of geometry. Rawls is not saying that justice is whatever society wants to construct around the word justice. He believes he has proven justice to be prioritarianism. <br /><br />Great blog, by the way. I read often and find your posts highly intelligent and thought proving.John Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04856431012436079334noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-77425220815922127452010-06-28T03:03:53.064+01:002010-06-28T03:03:53.064+01:00Hi, John.
Very sorry to say I haven't been fo...Hi, John.<br /><br />Very sorry to say I haven't been following your blog lately, but only out of ignorance, not apathy! Google Reader failed to notify me that there were any new posts; something went awry with my subscription, which I think I've now corrected.<br /><br />I might raise an eyebrow or two at Street's claim if I understood better what the claim meant. I take entailment to be a logical, or maybe semantic, relation holding between propositions, so I'm not sure how an action could be <i>entailed</i> by a value or how a value could do any entailing. I think I should read her article. Maybe it also contains a clue about whether she thinks that one proposition's entailing another is a mind-dependent fact, or whether facts about what counts as good reasoning are mind-dependent.<br /><br />Off now to catch up on your other posts. --SteveSteve Maitzenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13486753888846357635noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-660516649045083422010-06-02T09:16:27.206+01:002010-06-02T09:16:27.206+01:00Thanks John,
Yes, I think my questions have been a...Thanks John,<br />Yes, I think my questions have been answered in Part 2 - it's almost as though it were addressed to me. As regards the Realism thing: your previous post said that Realists hold moral facts to be 'mind-independent', but the term is ambiguous as between "independent of anyone's say-so or beliefs" and "independent of mental facts altogether". I went for the former, hence my confusion.<br /><br /><i>"I'll be doing more posts on her brand of constructivism in the very near future and they will provide more answers, so if you're interested stay tuned."</i><br />Will do. Thanks again.TaiChihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05130016615104653729noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-20718209293940677822010-06-01T17:16:08.055+01:002010-06-01T17:16:08.055+01:00Hi Tai Chi
I think some of your questions are ans...Hi Tai Chi<br /><br />I think some of your questions are answered in part 2. Basically, Street seems to disagree with you, and others, that the fundamental task of metaethics is semantic. She thinks it is ontological (she goes into the semantic v. ontological issue in greater depth than I do in my summary). I tend to agree with her about that. At least, it's the issue I am more interested in.<br /><br />I'll be doing more posts on her brand of constructivism in the very near future and they will provide more answers, so if you're interested stay tuned.<br /><br />One thing: <br /><br />"Realism" (as far as both Street and myself are concerned) means either (a) non-natural realism as propounded by Shafer-Landau, Wielenberg, Nagel, McDowell etc. or (b) naturalistic ideal response realism of the type propounded by Railton, Brink etc..<br /><br />It does not mean "thinks moral propositions have truth-conditions". That would be cognitivism. I think you are substituting cognitivism for realism at the end of your comment when you suggest constructivism collapses into realism or nihilism.John Danaherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06761686258507859309noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-10310904097308494692010-05-31T06:15:18.698+01:002010-05-31T06:15:18.698+01:00I've a worry: if Constructivism claims that &q...I've a worry: if Constructivism claims that "normative truth consists in what is entailed from the practical standpoint", then it seems that, at best, a Constructivist account will tell us <i>how</i> to arrive at moral truths, but cannot tell us what the moral propositions <i>actually mean</i>. That does nothing to alleviate our pre-philosophical puzzlement about what moral values are, and since it seems to me the point of a meta-ethics to give a semantic interpretation to moral language, I have doubts as to whether Constructivism isn't a part of Normative Ethics instead.<br />But suppose it does tell us what moral propositions mean. Wouldn't doing so amount to giving the truth-conditions of moral propositions? But then Constructivism appears to collapse into Moral Realism or Nihilism, for if we have truth-conditions, then we can determine whether the propositions are sometimes true or universally false, and so one or the other of Realism and Nihilism will be correct.<br />So, how is it that Constructivism can be both a distinctive meta-ethical doctrine and successfully elucidate the meaning of moral propositions as a meta-ethical doctrine should?TaiChihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05130016615104653729noreply@blogger.com