Making Morality: Pragmatist Reconstruction in Ethical Theory

Notes

177 Notes Introduction 1. In this book I will frequently talk about what “pragmatists” believe. I make no pretense that there is some kind of universal consensus among pragmatists about how to approach morality. Many pragmatists will have different ideas about what is most important in a pragmatist ethics. 2. Among the classical pragmatists, Dewey is the clearest about this radical reconstruction of the notion of theory. I think that among Dewey interpreter Michael Eldridge has done the best job in demonstrating that the notion of “intelligent practice” best captures what is central in Dewey’s pragmatic philosophy. See his Transforming Experience : John Dewey’s Cultural Instrumentalism (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1998). 3. Dewey offers just this sort of psychological explanation for this kind of idealization. See especially The Quest For Certainty, vol. 4 of The Later Works, 1925–1953 [hereinafter cited as LW], ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press; London: Feffer & Simons, 1981–1990), and Experience and Nature, vol. 1 of LW. 4. It is worth noting that pragmatists bear a certain affinity to the Hegelian tradition, including the Marxist offshoot of that tradition. Like Hegel and Marx, pragmatists seek to locate human rationality and human morality inside historically contingent practices. Though pragmatists such as Dewey reject the idea that there is a discernible pattern of development in human practices like that found in Hegelian absolute idealism and Marxist historical materialism, pragmatists, Hegelians, and Marxists are allies in their attempt to make philosophy “concrete” by identifying philosophical concepts in social prac- 178 Notes to Pages 4–15 tices. This very attempt to restore concreteness to philosophy is as a contribution to our attempts to use reason to arrive at an accurate , honest understanding of what it is to be rational in thought and action. Pragmatists, Hegelians, and Marxists are engaging in “self-critique.” Making philosophy more concrete is not using philosophy to satisfy narrow wants or desires. It is the pursuit of a more honest self-understanding. At the least, such honesty will help us pursue practices with integrity and wisdom, making the most of these practices in the brief time that we have to use them. 5. LW 1:34. 6. Ibid. 7:163. 7. Ibid., 164. 8. Ibid., 165. 9. These pragmatist efforts are well under way. See, for example, Andrew Light and Eric Katz, eds., Environmental Pragmatism (London: Routledge, 1996), and Glen McGee, The Perfect Baby: A Pragmatic Approach to Genetics (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefied, 1997). 10. “Pragmatic Ethics,” in The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory, ed. Hugh LaFollette (Malden: Blackwell, 2000), 400. 11. Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (Harmondsworth, N.Y.: Penguin, 1977). 12. After Virtue, 2nd ed. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984). 13. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995. 14. In Reading Dewey: Interpretations for a Postmodern Generation, ed. Larry A. Hickman (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998). 15. Set out in Beyond Deduction: Ampliative Aspects of Philosophical Reflection (New York: Routledge, 1988). 16. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988. 17. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996. 18 In The Blackwell Guide, 400–420. Chapter 1 1. A useful discussion of the idea of “ideal” versus “minimal” rationality can be found in Thomas M. Scanlon, What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998), 30– 36. 2. A popular account is that intentional explanation must make reference to desires (or some kind of pro-attitude) and beliefs, both of Notes to Pages 15–21 179 which figure in a reason that is taken to be a proximate cause of an action. See for example Donald Davidson’s “Actions, Reasons, and Causes,” in Essays on Actions and Events (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980). 3. A good sample of the debate here can be found in Samuel Scheffler, ed., Consequentialism and Its Critics, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988). See also Thomas Nagel’s The View from Nowhere (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 152–88. 4. We can set aside the question of how to treat cases in which a person is deceived about the nature of her own intentions. It is possible that in pathological cases our third-party explanations will show how someone has an incomplete or (more radically) a completely false understanding of her intentions. 5. Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Terence Irwin (Indianapolis: Hackett Books, 1985) 1094a20-21, p. 2. 6. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, ed. J. B. Shneewind...