Obstacles to Synthesis

Brandom’s reading of the Kantian synthesis of unities of apperception as an ethical task or end has enormously impressed me. One could largely identify the Kantian transcendental with the commitment part of what Aristotle called ethos, and with what Brandom and other contemporary writers call normativity. This seems to bring many things into sharper focus. I am also inclined to identify Hegelian self-consciousness with the result of what Kant spoke of in terms of synthesis, which leads me to want to speak of something like “synthesis or self-consciousness” as an ethical task. The Kantian and Hegelian characterizations take quite different paths, but (in part because of this) can be mutually illuminating. But I actually want to focus on the ethical task part.

As I said, I find this enormously inspiring. Nonetheless, I am still struggling with the fact that some people whom I want to call good, including one very dear to me, are largely prevented by past traumatic events and/or some organic disturbance from ever achieving much synthesis or self-consciousness of this sort, so that they are largely unable to participate in what in this context it feels a bit insensitive to call higher ethical considerations. A well-meaning person thus afflicted may have unstable responses to things and show what would look to us like deep inconsistency, basically dealing with very partial views one at a time in exclusion from one another, rather than reconciled or meaningfully related to one another. For the person experiencing in this way, just going through ordinary life is confusing, and can easily provoke high anxiety. Where thoughts and feelings form no coherent community and just atomistically bump against one another, ability to fully participate in the mutuality of social relationships will suffer. Such a person needs all the kindness and patience we can offer.

Subjectivity is a complex and multi-leveled affair. In terms of the development underway here, we at least need to distinguish transcendental, psychological, and organic levels in the scenario just described. Synthesis and self-consciousness are transcendental; the aforementioned obstacles are organic or psychological. One’s local bit of the transcendental is supposed to be independent of the empirical in one way, but in another way, in lack of the right empirical conditions, it will not grow and flourish. Still, I want to emphasize, there is a human being there deserving of respectful consideration. This last kind of insight is, I think, what is behind Kant’s insistence on the dignity of all human beings, simply as such. (See also Aphasia; Coherence; Honesty, Kindness.)

Truth, Beauty

In my very first post here, I mentioned a reversal of order of precedence in my own top-level view of things. An always ongoing quest for better understanding of things large and small, combined with intuitive sympathy or empathy for others, used to seem to come first. (Such “understanding” would not be the univocal representational Understanding that Hegel criticized, but something broader and more open-endedly interpretive.) Ethics would thus have basically taken care of itself, and would at most have been a matter of working out details.

At another intermediate point, I thought what should come first would be to seek beauty in all things, incorporating a sort of ancient Greek notion of beautiful actions. Again, ethics would have basically taken care of itself. If queried about this, I might have added that provided one sincerely cares, it is better to be light of heart than worried all the time. (See also Affirmation.)

Now I have come to think that understanding of things large and small is itself at root an ethical or meta-ethical activity, and have even begun to speak of a normative monism. The point I want to make here, though, is that there is a common theme across all three of these stages.

The common theme is a profound interdependence between how the world is for us, how we ought to think about it, and how we ought to act. The three stages mentioned above represent not changes of values that would result in different ground-level ethical conclusions, but rather a progressively deepening “self-consciousness”. (According to Brandom, this sort of autobiographical Hegelian genealogy itself plays an important role in the improvement of what I am here loosely calling “understanding”.)

From a Kantian critical point of view, we know that there will always be a difference between how we think the world is and how it actually is (and ultimately that anything like Cartesian certainty can only be a dogmatic illusion). But from an Aristotelian pragmatic point of view, we can go ahead and work with our current best understanding. Then from a Hegelian point of view, without forgetting that our understanding will never be the last word, we can charitably or forgivingly recognize that current best understanding as an expression of Reality and Truth. (See also Objectivity; Objectivity of Objects; Brandom on Truth.)

Reasons

As ethical beings possessed of second nature, except for a few very spontaneous acts, we always have reasons for what we say and do. We hope they are good reasons.

Ethical merit consists essentially in conscientiousness about the goodness of the reasons that motivate words and deeds and are used to justify them. Such goodness of reasons is never merely formal or technical; it is also social and situational. (See also Commitment; Ends; Reasonableness; Interpretive Charity; Agency; Rational/Talking Animal; Things Said; Rational Ethics; Evaluation of Actions; Intellectual Virtue, Love; Honesty, Kindness.)

Justification

Epistemological foundationalism always sounded like a patent logical absurdity to me, an attempt to escape the natural indefinite regress of serious inquiry by sheer cheating — a bald pretense that some content could be self-certifying and therefore exempt from the need for justification. I have a hard time being polite about this; such a claim feels to me like a deep moral wrong.

The kind of justification we should care about is not some guarantee of absolute epistemic certainty, but a simple explanation why a claim is reasonable, accompanied by a willingness to engage in dialogue. All claims without exception should be subject to that. As Sellars said, “in characterizing an episode or state as that of knowing, we are not giving an empirical description of that episode or state; we are placing it in the logical space of reasons, of justifying and being able to justify what one says.” (Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, p.76.) Aristotle would agree. (See also Verificationism?; Empiricism; Free Will and Determinism.)

Modern Science

My main concern here is with a sort of meta-ethical discourse, and my critical remarks on topics like modern univocal causality should be taken in that context. Though I have deep appreciation for the cultural accomplishments of antiquity and even the middle ages, I am not any kind of Luddite. I am interested in science; admire higher mathematics; work with high technology; and use univocal causality in an instrumental way on a daily basis.

Ends

The nature of ends is addressed in book 1 of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. “Every art and every inquiry, and likewise every action and choice, seems to aim at some good, and hence it has been beautifully said that the good is that at which all things aim.” (Sachs translation, p.1.) The Kantian primacy of practical reason and the primacy of normativity in Brandom express a similar insight.

“Good”, however, is meant in as many ways as “being” is, so there is no common good that is one and universal, no good-in-itself.

In the course of this discussion, Aristotle repeatedly emphasizes that one should not seek more precision in a given subject than is appropriate to it. One also should not try to derive conclusions that are more exact than what they are derived from. In areas like ethics and politics especially, one should be content to point out the truth roughly and in outline, and to say what is true for the most part.

Aristotle would object to the notion of “value free” science. Even his physics is a pragmatic, broadly semantic inquiry. His notion of cause (aitia) is much broader and more pluralistic than the modern one. An end is a kind of cause in Aristotle’s sense, but not in the modern sense. Aristotelian ends are orthogonal to modern causality. Not until Kant and Hegel did the modern world begin to recover a similar sophistication. (See also Univocity; Free Will and Determinism.)

There is nothing subjective about an Aristotelian end. Aristotelian teleology does not involve any mental intentions of spiritual beings (see God and the Soul). An end is just what Brandom would call the conceptual content of something sought or achieved. It is a pure form. (An aim on the other hand is an end that is taken up subjectively.)

An end may be sought on its own account, or for the sake of something else. The realization of an end may involve the realization of subordinate ends, which may involve the realization of further subordinate ends, and so on. Ends for the sake of which other ends are realized and ends sought on their own account are considered to be of greater value. An end may be a way of being at work, or a work produced. An end sought on its own account is typically a way of being at work. Aristotle suggests that the most comprehensive and therefore most valuable end for humans is politics as an activity, which is concerned with the good of all. In general, a good or end is better the more complete and self-sufficient it is.

In accordance with the emphasis on completeness, the end of an individual is to live a whole life that is good, which can only be judged retrospectively. The work of a human being is “a being-at-work of the soul in accordance with reason, or not without reason… and actions that go along with reason… [done] well and beautifully” (p.11). (See also Reasonableness; Reasons; Commitment; Happiness.)

People are good at making distinctions about the things they are acquainted with. “This is why one who is going to listen adequately to things that are beautiful and just, and generally about things that pertain to political matters, needs to have been beautifully brought up by means of habits.” (p.4.)

I read Aristotle as suggesting that immanent ends of natural beings are ultimately the most influential of the “causes” or reasons why things turn out as they do. Yet they are a kind of soft “cause” that only attracts. All of Aristotle’s causes are soft in one way or another. Each of the four interacts with the others in quasi-reciprocal fashion, and none of them results in the sort of hard determination classically attributed to early modern mechanical impulse. (See also Efficient Cause; Form; Aristotelian Matter.)

Nothing in this is incompatible with also incorporating modern mathematics into the account, but Aristotle’s main concern is with a pragmatic semantics of experience.

It is relatively easy for us to imagine how nonrational, sentient beings that still have desire are moved by internal ends. Nonsentient things do not literally have desire, and we have been taught not to think as if they did. It is only a metaphor to say, e.g., that heavy objects “want” to fall, but there is no inherent category mistake or personification in talking about an apparent material tendency as exhibiting a kind of apparent end, below the level of sentient desire.

In quasi-Brandomian terms, Aristotelian ends are an expressive metaconcept useful in the interpretation of experience, not a hypothesis about something beyond experience. (See also Natural Ends; Kant’s Recovery of Ends.)

The same could be said of Aristotle’s view that the “first” principle of all things is actually related to all things as an ultimate end that attracts them.

Practical Judgment

Practical judgment or practical wisdom (phronesis) is the main topic of book 6 of the Nicomachean Ethics. This involves a broadly rational assessment of particulars that is subject to error. It is closely associated with deliberation and choice. Its outcome is neither knowledge nor opinion, but action or a specific kind or manner of action. Practical judgment concerns what should be done, with the expectation that it will be done.

Good practical judgment is astute in a calculating way as well as compassionate, forgiving, and considerate of others (Sachs translation, p.114). It achieves an Aristotelian mean that avoids one-sidedness. (See also Intellectual Virtue, Love.)

Choice, Deliberation

Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics book 3 chapter 2 concerns choice. Choice is something willing, but not everything done willingly is done by choice. Things spontaneously done by children and animals and things done on the spur of the moment are done willingly and so are subject to praise or blame, but they are not done by choice.

Choice is not desire or spiritedness or wishing or opinion. It is involved with reason and thinking things through. It is the outcome of deliberation, the subject of chapter 3. It is the deliberate desire of things that are up to us (Sachs translation, p.43). It comes from desire combined with a rational understanding that is for the sake of something (p.103); it is “either intellect fused with desire, or desire fused with thinking, and such a source is a human being” (p.104). (The phrase “fused with” is actually an interpolation by the translator — the Greek actually just has “intellect and desire”, without specifying how they are related.)

We deliberate about things that are up to us and are matters of action. Deliberation is neither knowledge nor opinion. Inquiry about exact sciences or general truths or ends is not deliberation, but deliberation is a kind of inquiry. Deliberation applies to means for achieving ends, when outcomes can be predicted with some confidence, but are still uncertain. On big issues, we consult others. When there is more than one means to an end, deliberation seeks the one that is easier and more beautiful.

Deliberation may also examine how a thing will come about through a particular means, what other means are required for that means, and so on. Aristotle says that the analysis of dependencies of means and ends in particular works just like a mathematician’s analysis of a geometrical diagram.

Deliberating well overall belongs to people with good practical judgment (p.112). “What is deliberated and what is chosen are the same thing, except that the thing chosen is already determined, since the thing chosen is what is decided out of the deliberation.” (p.43.) Aristotelian choice is therefore anything but arbitrary. It is a normative and rational determination, emerging from an open, fallible, and pluralistic process. (See also Brandomian Choice.)

Willing, Unwilling

Book 3 chapter 1 of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics deals with willing and unwilling actions. “Praise and blame come about for willing actions, but for unwilling actions there is forgiveness and sometimes even pity…” (Sachs translation, p. 36.)

Unwilling acts are those that are forced by someone else, or come about through ignorance. Those that come about through ignorance include cases when people are talking and something slips out unintentionally, as well as all sorts of mistakes. Things done on account of spiritedness or desire, as well as those done on account of reasoned deliberation, are considered willing.

There are mixed cases in which the act would normally be done only if it were forced, but in particular circumstances it is done willingly to avoid a greater evil or to realize a greater good. Tradeoffs of this sort generally deserve praise or blame based on the goodness or badness of the tradeoff, but in extreme cases, mixed actions may just deserve forgiveness or pity.

Aristotle says there are perhaps some things one should never do regardless of the tradeoff, but that these cases are difficult to distinguish. He notes that it is in general not easy to say whether or not the ends justify the means. (See also What We Really Want.)

Nicomachean

I am fond of repeating Hegel’s dictum that Plato and Aristotle are the great educators of the human race. Of all their works, if I had to pick one, it is Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics that stands out most for its combination of excellence and broad relevance to the human condition. This is the same one I would recommend to someone starting out reading Aristotle. It is exceptionally well balanced in considering many angles of the subject matter, and very accessible to the nonspecialist. All rational animals should read it.

That said, translations of Aristotle can also make a huge difference. I especially like the one by Joe Sachs, which goes straightforwardly from Greek to English without introducing traditional Latin-based terminology that often obscures Aristotle’s meaning for English readers. Sachs, who has done outstanding translations of many works by Aristotle and Plato, also preserves more of the original syntax, which yields additional insights into the way the philosophers thought. Like Sachs’ other translations, this one comes out very lively and engaging. It is supplemented with excellent notes, introduction, and glossary. (If you have enough Greek to use a lexicon, it is also good to consult the Loeb edition or the old W.D. Ross Oxford edition, both of which include the Greek text.)

Aristotle himself would caution that only people who are fortunate enough to have had upbringing and life experiences leading to the formation of a disposition to be emotionally reasonable will really benefit from this. (See also Reasonableness; Intellectual Virtue, Love; Ends; Willing, Unwilling; Choice, Deliberation; Practical Judgment; Mean; Happiness. )