Doug Henwood writes:
> Ok, I'm asking this seriously, and not in the spirit that Malgosia accused
> me of a couple of weeks ago (i.e., of someone entering a Marxism list and
> asking the participants to justify the Gulag). If morality shouldn't be
> communal, then why wouldn't it be moral for me to kill you? Or gouge out
> the eye of a passerby? Not in the legal sense, since obviously both would
> be felonies, but in the moral/ethical sense. Nietzsche might not have a
> problem with answering this, since there's one morality for slaves and
> another for masters. Presumably most of us don't accept that.
>
> Doug
>
Well, this isn't an answer to your question, exactly, but it's a point
worth considering...
I would suggest that while you can name a great number of practices that
"most of us don't accept," or that "most of us do accept," that alone
doesn't -- *really* -- get to the heart of the communality of the sort
that Foucault wants to reject.
I'd bet that while "most of us" wouldn't gouge out the eyes of
passersby, we're kidding ourselves if we suppose it is some shared moral
system that prevents this from becoming a widespread practice. There are
likely as many reasons for not gouging eyes out of passersby as there
are people who resist temptations to gouge out eyes of passersby.
Many moral systems attempt to "map on" explanations post hoc for
generally shared common practices. In terms of prescribing normative
systems, this has, arguably, proven disappointing. Surely I don't resist
gouging eyes because it flies in the face of the categorical imperative,
or because it decreases utility, or because I believe God presciently
deems it wrong.
Yet "we" seem to think that if we just keep looking we'll get to the
heart of the matter and find some common (communal) reason not to gouge
out eyes. I think that Foucault is suggesting the banality of that hope,
and perhaps even the harmful (whatever that means) consequences of
believing that is and ought to be our collective goal.
It's not a matter, though, of saying that if we reject such a
possibility then we must be prepared to live in a world where our eyes
may be gouged out at any moment, and we'll simply have to smile to our
attacker: "C'est la vie! Join me for a beer, you rascal."
The simple fact is that some people *do* gouge other people's eyes out.
And some people do not. And of those who do not, some fear being
attacked in return. Some fear the legal repercussions. Some think it's
wrong because God presumably doesn't like it. Some think it's wrong to
do so because they imagine a social contract between them and others
wherein gouging out eyes is, ceteris paribus, forbidden. Some think
rationality would have them resist eye gouging. Some would like to gouge
eyes, but don't want to get their clothes bloody. Some just think eye
gouging is yucky. Some have no desire to gouge eyes.
The point is that just because these people all manifest the same
behaviour in general - namely, *not gouging eyes of passersby - that is
not to say that there is a communal system of ethics at work. We are
fooling ourselves to think so.
My question is, why don't people who have such distaste for Foucault's
so-called ethical relativism understand that simple behaviourism isn't
proof of ethical universalism?
Peace,
Blaine Rehkopf
Philosophy
York University
CANADA
--
> Ok, I'm asking this seriously, and not in the spirit that Malgosia accused
> me of a couple of weeks ago (i.e., of someone entering a Marxism list and
> asking the participants to justify the Gulag). If morality shouldn't be
> communal, then why wouldn't it be moral for me to kill you? Or gouge out
> the eye of a passerby? Not in the legal sense, since obviously both would
> be felonies, but in the moral/ethical sense. Nietzsche might not have a
> problem with answering this, since there's one morality for slaves and
> another for masters. Presumably most of us don't accept that.
>
> Doug
>
Well, this isn't an answer to your question, exactly, but it's a point
worth considering...
I would suggest that while you can name a great number of practices that
"most of us don't accept," or that "most of us do accept," that alone
doesn't -- *really* -- get to the heart of the communality of the sort
that Foucault wants to reject.
I'd bet that while "most of us" wouldn't gouge out the eyes of
passersby, we're kidding ourselves if we suppose it is some shared moral
system that prevents this from becoming a widespread practice. There are
likely as many reasons for not gouging eyes out of passersby as there
are people who resist temptations to gouge out eyes of passersby.
Many moral systems attempt to "map on" explanations post hoc for
generally shared common practices. In terms of prescribing normative
systems, this has, arguably, proven disappointing. Surely I don't resist
gouging eyes because it flies in the face of the categorical imperative,
or because it decreases utility, or because I believe God presciently
deems it wrong.
Yet "we" seem to think that if we just keep looking we'll get to the
heart of the matter and find some common (communal) reason not to gouge
out eyes. I think that Foucault is suggesting the banality of that hope,
and perhaps even the harmful (whatever that means) consequences of
believing that is and ought to be our collective goal.
It's not a matter, though, of saying that if we reject such a
possibility then we must be prepared to live in a world where our eyes
may be gouged out at any moment, and we'll simply have to smile to our
attacker: "C'est la vie! Join me for a beer, you rascal."
The simple fact is that some people *do* gouge other people's eyes out.
And some people do not. And of those who do not, some fear being
attacked in return. Some fear the legal repercussions. Some think it's
wrong because God presumably doesn't like it. Some think it's wrong to
do so because they imagine a social contract between them and others
wherein gouging out eyes is, ceteris paribus, forbidden. Some think
rationality would have them resist eye gouging. Some would like to gouge
eyes, but don't want to get their clothes bloody. Some just think eye
gouging is yucky. Some have no desire to gouge eyes.
The point is that just because these people all manifest the same
behaviour in general - namely, *not gouging eyes of passersby - that is
not to say that there is a communal system of ethics at work. We are
fooling ourselves to think so.
My question is, why don't people who have such distaste for Foucault's
so-called ethical relativism understand that simple behaviourism isn't
proof of ethical universalism?
Peace,
Blaine Rehkopf
Philosophy
York University
CANADA
--