So here’s a weird one for you. Philosophers are sometimes asked to take part in public discussions, and where they have a contribution to make, I think this is an entirely good thing. Philosophers recently gave evidence at the Leveson Inquiry, and they said some helpful things about freedom and privacy. Philosophers are also sometimes asked to bring a little philosophical clarity to moral problems, and every now and then I get asked to talk about the ethics of climate change in the midst of nonphilosophers — I just gave a talk at the University of Leeds, in connection to the UK Energy Research Centre, in an interdisciplinary workshop about low carbon vehicles. (If you can stand it, the talk is here — it’s really a short argument for the claim that we know more about how stuff works than how we ought to use it, and that the questions we ask shape the answers we give. Not headline news.)
I find this kind of thing very rewarding (for me anyway), but there is always the thought that I’m moralizing, rather than doing moral philosophy. The idea is that I’m setting myself up as a moral expert, telling people what they ought to do, and that’s an instant turn off. I try to get around that by saying, at the start of such talks, that I’m not a moral expert at all, and in fact there’s evidence for the view that people who study ethics are no more ethical than anybody else (there’s some evidence for the thought that ethicists are actually in bad moral shape – Eric Schwitzgebel’s research is interesting stuff). I say you wouldn’t expect someone who teaches or writes about English literature to crank out good sonnets, so why think someone who studies moral philosophy knows better than you what you ought to do? The student of moral philosophy just knows a bit more than most about certain ethical concepts, some part of the history of ideas, and maybe like any philosopher they can follow the implications of views pretty keenly.
But on the train back, I wondered whether ethicists can get away with what looks increasingly like a cop out to me. Is there’s scope for a weird conflict of interest here? If you’re an organic chemist and asked to talk about some aspect of human fertility, you can simply state the facts you know, make judgements based on your expertise, and advise a panel accordingly. But if you’re asked by some people in the medical profession to say something about the moral philosophy around the abortion debate, do you have to declare the fact that you’re a consequentialist or a Kantian or a virtue ethicist? If you’re of some faith or other and tied to a pro-life view as a result, maybe there’s reason to think that you should mention that ahead of accepting an invitation to advise a panel on abortion. Shouldn’t an ethicist fess up ahead of time too? “Look, I’ll give you an overview of the positions, but I’m a convinced consequentialist, I think that’s the right view of morality, so this is going to be a really biased take on abortion. But I can’t help that. I think consequentialism is true.”
Are applied ethicists sometimes unable to give unbiased advice? Is there a problem for them that’s no problem for people like chemists?
It is an interesting question. I wonder whether one sort of answer to the question depends to some extent on establishing whether the Socratic method is ever as pure as it is often presented as being.
According to the ideal Socratic method, the philosopher is something like a facilitator? Someone with no expertise in matters of substance who nonetheless has a procedural expertise, by means of which she gives tools to others to allow them to develop their own thoughts.
The application of that method sometimes (often?) seems like a bit of a con in the ancient texts. More like a rhetorical device than a philosophical one? Can it be perfected to remove all of the substantive presuppositions of the Socratic facilitator?
” in fact there’s evidence for the view that people who study ethics are no more ethical than anybody else”
Marc Hauser springs to mind. And in that context I wonder if there is a meta-meta-ethics:
http://ronmurp.net/2012/09/06/marc-hauser-are-we-engaged-in-meta-meta-ethics-here/
Do you need to hold to certain moral principles in order to be able to think rationally about moral principles? Can you cheat when doing meta-ethics?
James Garvey:
There may or may not be a disanalogy between the crafter of poetry which is a specialist occupation and the moral actor which includes everybody. We are led to believe that a weighing of the intricacies of the moral issues will lead to more moral conduct and not simply a reaction. On the other hand our spontaneous reaction may be a better indication of our moral system than the considered rationalisation. Aristotle in Book X of Nicomachean Ethics writes:
So when you present your credentials to the committee add:
‘I’m a champion rationaliser (Sophist) for almost any position you like but maybe what you need here are ordinary good decent people.! Then set out with your lantern like Diogenes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes_of_Sinope
I wonder if anyone’s done some sort of Gladwellesque BLINK study of coming to moral conclusions. I’m sure someone has looked in to whether we sometimes come to instant (unconsciously derived) moral conclusions about images or stories or faces, maybe comparing them to considered judgements made over time. Who thinks there’s much difference in the conclusions?
Hadn’t thought of Socrates. Did some reading recently about what he was up to — the elenchus, cross-examining or scrutinizing. The actual dialogues are probably a mixed bag (I don’t know them as well as I should) with his views sometimes front and centre, but sometimes maybe he really is just asking in the spirit of pure enquiry.
No, applied ethicists or ethicists cannot give unbiased advice, simply because there is no unbiased advice about ethics.
In fact, since ethics is about living a good life or the good life, why would one even imagine that one would not put one’s whole being (that is, one’s bias) into it?
An interesting question. Try different paradigm cases of the expert witness: contrast the organic chemist or pathologist with the evolutionary biologist or child psychologist.
I would expect the expert opinions of different chemists or pathologists to fall into a tight cluster; and opinions of the biologists or child psychologists to be widely spread. Why is that? Is that a philosophical question?
A related question: Does the philosopher have good and sufficient knowledge to add ‘expert’ opinion on the science or economic harm and harm-transfers of climate change? I suspect not. I suss that the philosopher is more like a dithering Tereisias, the blind and wise seer of Thebes of whom people would ask advice but not heed. It’s a tragedy, eh?
There is a sort of underground paper by Richard. Sharvy that is on point: http://www.luvnpeas.org/rsharvy/whostosay.html.
I think Socrates is very much to the point of James Garvey’s question. The suspicion that many readers have that Plato’s “Socrates” has a hidden agenda, is an interesting question in its own right. But even if he does have a hidden agenda, he spends a lot of time helping his interlocutors to discover problems in what they think they think, and thus to get closer (hopefully) to what they really think. Hopefully, trained philosophers are good at this.
It certainly seems plausible to say that while people who have some good training in ethics may not be more ethical than anyone else they do bring some moral clarity to the table. They will (should) not give an intuition and assume it is universal. They will not supply an intuition that contradicts other basic beliefs. They know how to look for these kinds of contradictions. They will know how some moral stance fits with other beliefs that humans have and cherish. They know how valuable an argument is and they know how to wield it.
I would be far more concerned however about philosophers giving arguments that involve premises from fields they know little of. I am a member of a field that philosophers often “moralize” about and also a philosopher (with a PhD and all). Talks and papers about my other profession often sound somewhere between ignorant and ridiculous often making me laugh, cringe, or both. I know little about climate science, and I would be very concerned about how I sounded, especially if I was giving a talk to climatologists.
So while I do think that philosophers can bring quite a bit of moral clarity to a discussion, I would urge some caution when stepping out of our lanes.
James:
I’ve read that people come to a judgment whether they like someone or not within 10 minutes or less. I’ve also read that instantaneous medical judgments are as likely to be correct as ones that are pondered over for a period. This is from several years ago so it’s probably the same study that Gladwell uses.
Is there a moral Libet effect? Are assessments assented to rather than worked out. It’s highly possible and not a good thing unless you happen to be the Aristotelian paradigm good man. We may ask ourselves what would X do in a similar case or resort to stories that have analogous situations.
The difference between the applied-ethicist scenario and the chemist scenario is that the ethicist, maybe like any philosopher, is really good at thinking through implications, including consistency of principles. But why other philosophers are not invited to public discussions is that they don’t have the extra virtue of domain knowledge in moral philosophy and/or the subject under discussion. I also get the sense that other philosophers aren’t interested in being a part of a public discussion: it takes them a bit out of their depth or comfort zone.
Besides domain knowledge in either organic chemistry or moral philosophy, the ethicist is different from the chemist because of her critical thinking skills, i.e., ability to stretch beyond what is known to what is presently unknown but implied.
This is to say, if not us, then who? The author said, “I say you wouldn’t expect someone who teaches or writes about English literature to crank out good sonnets, so why think someone who studies moral philosophy knows better than you what you ought to do?” — but I do expect an English major to write better sonnets than I do; thus it’s not unreasonable to think that ethicists can do a better job at ethics than nonethicists can.
Everyone thinks they have a good moral compass, and that they have good political judgment, and that they have a good sense of humor. But this can’t be true. Why would you even think it was? If it’s not true, then of course it’s reasonable to give more weight to opinions by professional ethicists in matters of ethics than to Joe Plumber…
“Are applied ethicists sometimes unable to give unbiased advice?”
To be human, and alive, is to be biased.
In the real world, the best you can hope for is a bias that is consistent and predictable, so that you can allow for it.
Applied ethicists, like the rest of us, are incapable of giving unbiased advice.
Many thanks for the enlightening comments. For what it’s worth I think there’s something to the thought that a philosopher with considered opinions about morality might well be just the person to offer advice. I’m thinking of someone like Mary Warnock, who chaired the Committee of Inquiry into Human Fertilisation and Embryology — the conclusions of that committee found their way into law. What’s the philosophical alternative to someone with considered views? A philosopher who tells you all about alternative arguments but does not offer a thoughtful conclusion of her own? Why think that would be better than someone like Warnock?
It’s just that concept of consistency of principle and its discovery that is problematic. Philosophers think that way being led by the nose by Plato but does the average person and the philosopher when he is off-duty think that way? I suggest that judgement about moral action is along a range with an acceptance at one end and a definite rejection at the other. It’s wrong to tell a lie, always and ever, really? Kant got into trouble over that. What about theft? And seeing as you brought it up in the O.P. James, abortion? When a hard case eg. rape is admitted, is the thoroughgoing principle admitted or is the queasy feeling about 2nd and 3rd. trimester and partial birth abortion to be attended to. In America according to polls that is where the sense of moral badness lies. The robed defenders of the American Way have spoken on that but does it represent a moral concensus? I think not.
The following through of principle at all costs may bring a society into where it would not want to go. Was Warnock picked because she could be relied on to be on message? Probably. That is how these things work.
I will restrict my comments to saying that desire of the unattainable – some yardstick of external absolute morality – has singularly failed in its materialization.
The great thing about an absolute ethical standard is that there are so many to choose from, to justify whatever innately selfish act anyone wants to condone.
By the prevailing moral standards of – say the Nazi party – they did the morally most justifiable and justified thing.
Which ought to make anyone deeply suspicious of anyone who claims the moral high ground.
Leo Smith:
Can considerations of the common good replace the unbending principle beloved by philosophers? The common good is a pragmatic arrangement mediated by politicians who have a vision that is complementary rather than symmetrical to put it in Batsonian terms. Utopian no doubt.
“Can considerations of the common good replace the unbending principle beloved by philosophers?”
Of course. If you can decide what “common good” actually is… sadly… “a pragmatic arrangement mediated by politicians who have a vision” all too often means whatever is good for me and my supporters.
And so, back to “quis custodies custodiet”
Democracy is supposed to put the power back in the hands of the common people of course. In theory.
In practice it means that oligarchs – individually, or in corporate guise – simply spend huge sums on marketing to persuade whom they can, and buy the votes of those more astute, and by creating a party system, where really only two entities need be subverted in a typical two party system, the job gets much simpler. It doesn’t matter who is voted for, they are constrained by finances, by the system and by bureaucracy all of which has been subverted.
In a modern capitalist democracy the only real democratic freedom is purchasing power. Vote with the credit card.
A credit crisis and reduction of purchasing power eliminates that freedom.
And here we are.
I’ve had the same thought myself. Here’s my discussion of it:
http://socialproblemsarelikemaths.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/philosophy-and-public-engagement.html
Ethics are funny because even though we know the right thing, but we do not always do the right thing.
A philosopher can help irrational people see things in a different light.
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