Justice For Hedgehogs

Cruz || Medina || Rubio || See || Tan

Ronald DworkinA brief background

Ronald Dworkin• Born Dec. 11, 1931• Died Feb. 14, 2013 at the

age of 81• Studied Philosophy at

Harvard University• Studied Law at both

Oxford and Harvard Law School

• Insisted on a rights-based theory of law as expounded in his work, “Taking Rights Seriously” (1977)

• Challenged one of the key developers of legal positivism, HLA Hart

Picture taken from nybooks.com

“Brilliant philosopher of law who put human dignity at the centre of his moral system”

Positivism in a nutshell “In any legal system, whether a given norm is legally

valid, and hence whether it forms part of the law of that system, depends on its sources, not its merits”

Dworkin did not subscribe to this way of thinking

Part I. Baedeker

“The fox knows many things but the hedgehog knows one big thing”- Archilocus

3 Central Principles1. The independence of moral judgments,2. The unity of moral values and,3. The interpretive character of these values.

Justice Equality Liberty Democracy Law

Interpretation We have to recognize that we share some of our concepts

including political ones in a different way (interpretative concepts).

We share them since we participate in practices and experiences wherein these concepts figure.

We differentiate since we hold different conceptions as to what best justifies the central idea of the said practice.

This makes our disagreements more genuine and forms the foundation for value disagreements rather than fact or dictionary ones.

Interpretation General Theory of Interpretation: It always aims to

retrieve the intention/ other psychological state of the author/creator.

Value based general theory that interpreters have critical responsibilities and the best way to interpret something is to call up these critical responsibilities on occasion.

Political Morality depends on Interpretation and Interpretation Depends on Value

Truth and Value We must accept that there is no objective truth about value

that is independent of the beliefs/attitudes of people who judge value: we have to understand their claims about what is just or unjust.

Our dignity requires us to recognize that whether we live well or not is not just a matter of whether we think we do.

It is our politics denies us the luxury of skepticism about value. Politics is thus coercive since we cannot act politically without

accepting the values espoused within politics as true and correct.

Truth and Value History and politics however is not one singular truth but a conflicting

mess of principle and prejudice wherein itself and the interpretation of such must be taken to be rooted in individual assumptions.

The importance of the metaphysical independence of value. Whether something is true or not is thus a matter or moral argument

and judgment. Ordinary moral “facts” tend to be twisted through philosophizing into

a “reconciliation of moral and natural worlds” Value must always be thought of as independent, they cannot be

values if we can just make them up (from moral facts made by people).

Truth and Value Theories drawn from within morality are themselves

moral judgments. The independence of value plays an important part in

proving the thesis that the various concepts and departments of value are interconnected and mutually supporting.

Value judgments are thus true not due to any matching but due to the substantive case that can be made for them.

Responsibility Responsibility is another important moral virtue. Though we can never expect agreement from our fellow citizens, its

alright to expect responsibility from them. We use part of our overall theory of value to check our reasoning in

other parts. We thus generalize the aforementioned interpretative approach. Putting our conceptions into the larger framework and checking

whether these conceptions fit in with the best of other conceptions. The character and the extent of our responsibility for our actions turns

into an ethical question: what is the character of a life well lived?

Ethics We each have a sovereign ethical responsibility to make

something of value from our own lives. Ethical responsibility is objective: we want to live well

because we recognize that we should live well rather than vice versa.

Our various responsibilities and obligations to others flow from that personal responsibility to our own lives.

Making our lives as a challenge, one we can o either good of badly.

Ethics Cardinal among our private interests an ambition to

make our lives good lives. In particular, is dignity. Self respect however is also needed if we are to make

sense of ourselves or our ambitions. Dignity and self respect thus are the two indispensable

conditions of living well.

Morality Importance of asking how can we account for the appeal

of morality we already feel. Doubly profitable question because: (it improves self

understanding and provides enriching material to morality).

We are drawn to morality in the same way we are drawn to the other dimensions of self respect.

Related to the Kantian idea that we cannot respect our own humanity if we cannot respect the humanity in others as well.

Politics Through the lens thus of dignity, value has truth and is

at the same time indivisible. Political philosophy suffers from a failure to treat main

political concepts as interpretative. The important concept thus lies in looking at politics

(and its conceptualizations) in a another way or another lens: through the lens of interpretation (responsibility) and value (moral virtue).

Some Truths (according to Dworkin)

“A person can achieve the dignity and self respect that are indispensable to a successful life only if he shows respect for humanity itself in all its forms. This is the template for the unification of ethics and morality. “

Moral and Ethics are thus interdependent. Morality is independent from both science and

metaphysics ( what some would call the “natural world”).

Part II. Truth in Morals

Ordinary View Attitude towards moral truth that believes in the

idea that at least some moral opinions are objectively true

Example: Someone who sticks pins into babies for the fun of hearing them scream is morally depraved.

Worries “Statements about the physical world are made true by

the actual state of the physical world” But if we apply this idea to our moral judgments it

becomes problematic First problem: “The ordinary view insists that moral

judgments are not made true by historical events or people’s opinions or emotions or anything else in the physical or mental world”

Second problem: “The ordinary view holds that people do not become aware of moral facts the way they become aware of physical facts”

Skepticism and Disappointment?

Skepticism Internal Skepticism External Skepticism

Error Skepticism Status Skepticism

Disappointment? Mistake Encouragement

SkepticismInternal Skepticism on Morality External Skepticism on Morality1st order, substantive moral judgment

2nd order, external statements about morality

Appeals to more abstract judgments about morality in order to deny that certain more concrete or applied judgments are true

Relies on social facts, metaphysical theses about kind of entities the universe contains

Cannot be skeptical about morality all the way down

Can be skeptical about morality all the way down

Internal skeptics rely on morality to denigrate morality

Able to denigrate reality without relying on it

Archimedean – stands above morality & judges it from outside

Error and Status Skepticism

Error Skepticism Status SkepticismAll moral judgments are false Moral judgments are claims of

moral fact vs. description of how things actually are (OV)

Relies on value-neutral metaphysics Eg. “moron particle”

Status skeptics deny moral judgments “status”

Morality is a misconceived enterprise

Morality is a misunderstood enterprise

Evolution of Status Skepticism Ayer

Moral judgments: puffs of emotion Hare

Moral judgments: disguised and generalized commands Preference expressed by moral judgment are universal in content

(includes the speaker himself) eg. Cheating is wrong = Don’t cheat

Gibbard & Blackburn Moral judgments: expressions – “acceptance of a plan for living” Sentiments, attitudes, universal preferences, states of norm

acceptance or states of planning

Internal Skepticism Internal skeptics Partial error skeptics Internal error skeptics Global internal skeptics

Uncertainty vs. Internal Skepticism

Uncertainty – default position; having no firm convictions

Skepticism – not a default position; relies on strong arguments (e.g morality has nothing to do with abortion as for any positive view of the matter)

The Appeal of Status Skepticism

Status skepticism – popular among academic philosophers

Why? Internal skepticism is the only skeptical game in town We can’t be skeptical about any domain of value all the

way down

Disappointment?Q1. What makes a moral judgment true?A1. Moral judgments are made true, when they are true, by an adequate moral argument for their truth

Q2. What makes a moral judgment accurate? A2. Further moral argument for its adequacy

Q3. When are we justified in supposing a moral judgment true?A3. When we are justified in thinking we are right in our convictions that we have for thinking our convictions right.

Disappointment? The theory of moral responsibility is itself a moral theory: it is part of the

same overall moral theory as the opinions whose responsibility it is meant to check

Circular reasoning? Yes. Similar to scientific method. Disappointing answers to ancient questions? Why?

Mistake Expect answers to lie outside morality Expect to find non-moral account of moral truth and responsibility Confused Expectation. Fails to grasp independence of morality & dimensions of value.

Encouragement Answers too abstract & compressed Point to but do not provide moral theory How to match moral theory to reality

Moral Epistemology/Ontology “Any theory about what makes a moral conviction true or what

are good reasons for accepting it must be itself a moral theory and therefore must include a moral premise or presupposition.”

We must construct genuine moral ontologies/epistemologies WITHIN morality.

Need structure & complexity for a moral ontology/epistemology More than bare claim (morality is made true by adequate

argument) More than theory (about structure of adequate arguments) More than idea (but an account of what moral responsibility is)

Moral Epistemology/Ontology We should treat moral reasoning as a form of interpretative

reasoning Moral responsibility can only be achieved by aiming at most

comprehensive account we can achieve of a larger system of value in which our moral opinions figure

Interpretative goals as structure of adequate argument Defines moral responsibility Does not guarantee moral truth If arguments adequate after comprehensive reflection earn the

right to live by them Better interpretative arguments may be found Uncertainty

Moral Epistemology/Ontology Coherence is a necessary but not a sufficient condition

for truth. Respect distance between responsibility and truth

Appeal to idea of good & better argument We cannot escape morality’s independence

General Impressions

Sources:Picture:http://assets.nybooks.com/media/photo/2009/07/07/starr_1-071609.jpg

background info:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_positivism#H.L.A._Harthttp://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/feb/14/ronald-dworkin