From: "Phil Roberts, Jr." 




Owleye wrote:
> 
> "Phil Roberts, Jr." wrote:
> 
> >
> > I am supposing that you can replace the term 'love' with the term 'value',
> > and therefore you end up with a maxim for valuative objectivity/impartiality
> > in which you 'Value your neighbor as you value yourself'.  This is not
> > quite the categorical imperative, which was more a matter of DOING something
> > rather than of BEING something, but its pretty damn close, and certainly a
> > long way from the sort of social contract theory often juxtaposed to
> > Kant.  And its compatible with the assumption that 'being rational' is
> > simply a matter of 'being able to "see" what is going on', in that I
> > am supposing that a valuatively impartial person "sees" more than a
> > partial one, which is why it is an attribute we try to find in potential
> > jurors.  One's view of the situtation is not clouded with passion, etc.
> > when one if valuatively objective/impartial.
> 


> 1.  What is the "sort of social contract theory" that is "often juxtaposed to > Kant?"
> 

Rawls is perhaps the most famous, but I am simply referring to a whole host
of attempts to reduce morality to a form of reciprocal altruism, in which
the benefits to all the participants outweigh the costs, and therefore in
which it is in everyone's MUTUAL best interest to conform to a "moral" 
code.  These are often
referred to as attempts to naturalize ethics, to explain the presence of
our moral sense either in prudential terms or in terms of what might have
been best for the species etc.

> 2.  What is your objection to it?
> 

All such theories are simply examples of enlightened self-interest, and
as such, do not capture the essence of morality which, in my humble 
opinion, entails the notion of self-sacrifice rather than enlightened 
self-interest.  They fall under the heading of prudence rather than
morality, and as such never come to grips with the real problem of
explaining morality in a species of naturally selected organism.

> 3.  How can we be valuatively impartial?  Is this akin to being a field
> anthropologist who thinks that she must be value-neutral?
> 

You and I probably can't be valuatively impartial, particularly given the
likelyhood that we have a little bit of rationality sitting on top of 
a half a billion years of arational motivational foundation.  But that
wouldn't alter the fact that a THEORY of rationality which entails 'being
objective' as a synonym for 'being rational' might well have superior 
epistemic credentials compared with its competing theores, such as egoism
or the mean/end theory (simplicity, elegance, explanatory coherence, 
compatibility with ordinary use of words, etc.).

> 4.  How are values observed?
> 

They are inferred more often than not, even with regard to one's own 
values, from one's behavior.  But the most important value of all,
IMHO, feelings of worth or worthlessness, is an intersubjectively
reproducible feature of nature which has gone all but ignored in
the soft sciences resulting from a lot of misconceptions about the
nature of science itself.

Thanks for your questions.

-- 

                  Phil Roberts, Jr.

       The Psychodynamics of Genetic Indeterminism:
Why We Turned Out Like Captain Kirk Instead of Mr. Spock
     http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/dada/90/