Re: BHA: Re: Tobin Epistemological relativism

[viren viven murthy <vvmurthy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Ruth:

I have no problems with the positions you have outlined below, but I just
want to clarify a few things.  The concept of emergence seems obviously
true when applied to ethics on a descriptive level.  It is not
difficult to show that a number of different ethical systems have
emerged since Plato's time. However, on a normative level, I do not think
that emergence applies to the same degree.  This is because, from this
perspective, we are not just interested in the various prevalent ethical
beliefs but what people should believe and act on.  Hence should we accept
that ethics may, on the normative level, emerge such that we should accept
rape and cannibalism?  I am inclined to say no, but this is of course
based on a theory of human nature that, as both Mervyn and Marco have
noted, is changing slowly.  Hence strictly speaking, we cannot rule out
that human nature may change in such a way that rape and cannibalism
become ethical.  For those who hold this position, I have a number of
questions?  What changes would need to occur in order to make such acts
not unethical?  Perhaps if people were not autonomous and could never be
autonomous, cannibalism would be no more of a problem than eating
other animals.  Autonomy is definitely crucial when thinking of rape,
since we make an important distinction between consensual sex  between
adults and rape.  Autonomy itself may be insufficient, but my point is
simply that something we conceive to be essentially part of human
nature would have to change in order to make such acts ethical.  If
this is the case, then I am not sure we are justified in calling such
beings "human" from our present perspective.  Since, from my perspective,
it seems that such a transvaluation of normative ethics implies the
transformation of the human species into something else.

Viren

On Thu, 21 Mar 2002, Ruth Groff wrote:

> I agree with what Tobin said.  I can't quite figure out why the concept of emergence seems to be so much more difficult to accept in relation to moral realism than it is to realism about societies, for example, or about beliefs generally.  It's curious that Marko's physicalism seems plausible in relation to moral beliefs but not in relation to other sorts of higher level, or abstract phenomena.
>
> r.
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>
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