Why do moral and ethical thoughts, beliefs, propositions, motivations, etc. seem different than purely descriptive or factual ones? Consider the following statements:
1. It is okay to rape someone as long as this is done as part of a study to determine first hand the psychological effects the act has on victims.
2. There is nothing wrong with believing 40 + 16 sometimes equals 55.
My point is that Q1 draws a stronger inner response than Q2. I see this in qualitative terms; falsity in purely descriptive propositions raises only a mild tension, but moral proposals produce a more robust resistance, one familiar form of which is ‘moral indignation’, which I propose can reasonably be said to be a type of response unavailable to inert factual falsehoods. The propositions “the capital of Italy is Barcelona” or “40 + 16 = 55” carry no such dynamic as false moral statements.
I sometimes use this thought experiment as an example of this distinction:
Imagine holding a heavy baseball bat. The following items are placed in front you in the following order:
1. A 300 pound boulder.
2. A flowering lilac bush.
3. A grasshopper.
4. A kitten.
5. A human infant.
Beginning with item 1, imagine swinging hard with your bat, striking each in turn three times as hard as you can. Observe your feelings as you strike each object. Unless you're psychologically defective, you likely won't be able to complete these tasks.
This suggests to me that the late philosopher Mortimer J. Adler (1902-2001) was correct when he made the following distinction,
"In Book VI of his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle, clearly cognizant of what he himself had said about the character of descriptive truth, declared that what he called practical judgments (i.e., prescriptive or normative judgments with respect to action) had truth of a different sort. Later philosophers, except for Aristotle's medieval disciples, have shown no awareness whatsoever of this brief but crucially important passage in his writings." (Ten Philosophical Mistakes, 1985)
One might need to substitute a sledge hammer for the bat for use on the boulder in order to cause any damage to it, but the point remains; it seems the corruption of organisms (the bat produces the falsification of the health--probably the maximum falsification of death in some cases--of each organism) produces stronger dynamic of resistance. Adler identifies two distinct kinds of truth, descriptive (material, factual) and prescriptive (moral, normative). What was posted above seems to support Adler. I’d be interested to hear thoughts.
1. It is okay to rape someone as long as this is done as part of a study to determine first hand the psychological effects the act has on victims.
2. There is nothing wrong with believing 40 + 16 sometimes equals 55.
My point is that Q1 draws a stronger inner response than Q2. I see this in qualitative terms; falsity in purely descriptive propositions raises only a mild tension, but moral proposals produce a more robust resistance, one familiar form of which is ‘moral indignation’, which I propose can reasonably be said to be a type of response unavailable to inert factual falsehoods. The propositions “the capital of Italy is Barcelona” or “40 + 16 = 55” carry no such dynamic as false moral statements.
I sometimes use this thought experiment as an example of this distinction:
Imagine holding a heavy baseball bat. The following items are placed in front you in the following order:
1. A 300 pound boulder.
2. A flowering lilac bush.
3. A grasshopper.
4. A kitten.
5. A human infant.
Beginning with item 1, imagine swinging hard with your bat, striking each in turn three times as hard as you can. Observe your feelings as you strike each object. Unless you're psychologically defective, you likely won't be able to complete these tasks.
This suggests to me that the late philosopher Mortimer J. Adler (1902-2001) was correct when he made the following distinction,
"In Book VI of his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle, clearly cognizant of what he himself had said about the character of descriptive truth, declared that what he called practical judgments (i.e., prescriptive or normative judgments with respect to action) had truth of a different sort. Later philosophers, except for Aristotle's medieval disciples, have shown no awareness whatsoever of this brief but crucially important passage in his writings." (Ten Philosophical Mistakes, 1985)
One might need to substitute a sledge hammer for the bat for use on the boulder in order to cause any damage to it, but the point remains; it seems the corruption of organisms (the bat produces the falsification of the health--probably the maximum falsification of death in some cases--of each organism) produces stronger dynamic of resistance. Adler identifies two distinct kinds of truth, descriptive (material, factual) and prescriptive (moral, normative). What was posted above seems to support Adler. I’d be interested to hear thoughts.
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