Clarifications. Treatise No 6. Ethics and politics.

Anti-introductionism
or
the explanation structure.
An exposition of our cognitive situation.

Preface B Supplement.

Clarifications.

As already put forward of course, it is not expedient that an author constantly corrects his published treatises, each time he finds an inaccuracy or a minor error.

Treatise No 6 the section “Ethics and politics”.

An argumentation for an ethics.

The promised justification of what is the basis of ethics has the following premise:

As long as we do not possess a complete knowledge and understanding of our situation in the world, we cannot speak about the world with decisive certainty and thus neither about a possible basis of what the right ethics and politics are. Thus, we have to concentrate upon many fields in order to clarify and discuss these questions.

It can be objected that this statement about the necessity of clarification is insufficiently justified. However, such an incompleteness just supports the point of view that clarification is necessary for answering the discussed questions. For as long as we cannot conclude anything decisive about the possible meaning of life or the basis of ethics, we must study many fields, and thus get a better basis of reaching a conclusion.

Inspired by this result, it can be argued in the following way for the basis of an ethics:

If we presuppose that it is necessary to clarify what the basis of ethics is, we must necessarily conclude that we have to study it.

Opponents to the existence of an ethical basis will perhaps just assert that they prefer a certain ethics or moral without justifying it, such as Alfred Ayer assumes that we can. However, unsubstantiated statements are groundless and thus arbitrary. (Cf. the section “The concept of semantic meaning”.) If the opponents do not advance justifications, they assert nothing and thus do not contribute to the debate, but keep aloof from it. For this reason, they have to advance and clarify their arguments in order to participate in the debate, which means that they must admit that clarification is necessary.

This study demands favourable conditions of life for everybody. Thus, we have a basis of ethics. This argument is logically committing, and thus inavoidable.

To clarify the argument, it can be compared to a similar but less conclusive argument. Such one can be advanced about the question about the possible meaning of life. If someone asserts that this question must be clarified, he is certainly logically committed to assert that this demands clarification, and that this demands favourable life conditions. However, by this we have not gained an answer to the very question of the possible meaning of life, but just a statement about the conditions for clarifying it. And this is not immediately a statement bout the very question about the possible meaning of life.

We can again look at the question about a basis of ethics. If someone asserts that this question must be clarified, as concluded above, he is logically committed to assert that this demands clarification, and that this demands favourable life conditions. This does certainly not give us an immediate answer to the asked question either, but only a statement about the conditions for clarifying it. This criticism can be countered thus:

The conditions for clarifying ethical questions are itself exactly an ethical matter. For the basis of an ethics is identical to the conditions of a determination of the different moral questions.

Literature.

[Berkeley 88]    George Berkeley: Principles of Human Knowledge
Penguin Books (London 1988)

[Cole 81]        Peter Cole, ed: Radical Pragmatics
Academic Press (London 1981).

[Dummett 78]     Michael Dummett: Truth and other Enigmas
Duckworth (London 1978)

[Fraassen 80]    Bas C. van Fraassen: The Scientific Image
Oxford University Press (Oxford 1980)

[Grice 94]       H. P. Grice: “Logic and Conversation”, i Basic Topics in the Philosophy of Language, Robert M. Harnish (ed.), (Harvester Wheatsheaf 1994).

[Kuhn 70]        Thomas S. Kuhn: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Second Edition, Enlarged
The University of Chicago Press
(Chicago 1970).