Subject: 
            Re: [evol-psych] The naturalistic fallacy is itself naturalistic
       Date: 
            Mon, 18 Feb 2002 14:05:01 +0000
      From: 
            Keith Sutherland 
        To: 
            Larry Arnhart 
        CC: 
            [email protected], [email protected]
 References: 
            1




In message , Larry Arnhart 
 writes
>In contrast to many modern moral philosophers who think
>morality comes from learning and following explicit norms stated as
>definitions and rules, Aristotle rightly saw that prudence cannot be
>reduced to definitions and rules.

Although he was sceptical about the notion of "human nature", the 
philosopher Michael Oakeshott also believed that morality was more to do 
with "practical judgment, rooted in experience" and that ethical codes 
were just abstractions from human experience (rather than logical 
deductions). He provides a wonderful illustration of this in his 
best-known essay "Rationalism in Politics":

"Moral ideals are a sediment; they have significance only so long as 
they are suspended in a religious or social tradition, so long as they 
belong to a religious or social life . . . When Confucius visited Lao 
Tzu he talked of goodness and duty. ‘Chaff from the winnower’s 
fan’, said Lao Tzu."

Rationalism in Politics (Liberty Fund edn., p. 41)

Although Oakeshott argued that moral ideals could originate from social 
or religious life he saw the latter as a subset of the former. Although 
Oakeshott agreed that philosophy was synonymous with logical reasoning, 
he claimed that "ethics" and "moral philosophy" were category errors, as 
moral behaviour was part of practical life, not philosophy.


-- 
Keith Sutherland