Hello folks,

I will approach the question of "foundationalism" according to Minteer in
small steps.  I am not a philosopher/ethicist so I have to start from some
basic questions.  Remember, there are no prerequisites for entering this
discussion group! :-)

I hope you all will be patient with me.  Please correct me
when you know/think I am wrong.

I have a little problem trying to understand just what "foundationalism"
*is*. That is, I don't think that I really understand the "foundationalism"
question.
So I will start with the first couple of paragraphs from Minteer's paper
that follows:

------------------- quote -------

"In 1931, John Dewey concluded that ...the most pervasive fallacy of
philosophic thinking goes back to the neglect of context (Dewey 1985: 5).
Deweys concern was that the engagement of social and situational
considerations in discussions about knowledge and the moral life is of
central importance, yet this approach to understanding how people support
their beliefs (both moral and nonmoral) has been historically neglected in
philosophical practice. Specifically, the implication is that moral claims
are not made in the abstract realm of philosophical reasoning removed from
lived human experience, but rather are located and shaped within the real
lives of individuals in cultural systems - the messy, intertwined, and often
frustratingly indeterminate mass of community norms, traditions, and
practices.

"I believe that Deweys criticism of anti-contextual philosophical practice
has lost none of its currency or intellectual force as we approach the end
of the century. Indeed, I would suggest that in the field of environmental
ethics, his observation both poses a great challenge and provides a powerful
inspiration for our thinking about the justification of environmentalism. To
date, Deweys worry has here been met most effectively by Bryan Norton, who
has developed his own form of contextualism as it applies to the formulation
of environmental policy.1 Simply put, Nortons thesis is that decisions
surrounding environmental management must recognise the complex,
multi-scalar nature of ecological systems - a structure which suggests that
environmental policy needs to be sensitive to shifting biophysical and
social contexts if it is to be effective in maintaining the health of the
ecosystem in question. The variety of these ecological and human settings,
Norton argues, demands that we entertain a pluralistic accounting of our
moral positions, as no single ethical programme is up to the task of meeting
the multiple requirements of managing nested ecological systems as we move
across both natural and human communities. Whats good for the goose in the
Canadian wilderness might not be good for the gander of the New Jersey farm,
Norton believes, and environmental ethicists should take heed of such
situational diversity in their moral projects. At a more philosophical
level, Nortons contextualism suggests that the justification of moral claims
about the natural world, rather than being a matter of reasoning back to a
class of immutable first principles which enjoy a universal currency in the
resolution of environmental problems, is instead a process of supporting
ethical judgements in terms of specific environmental settings and social
values."
----------------- end quote ------

Ray here:
Minteer seems to me to be saying that "foundationalism" means that somewhere
in
Mother Nature's Law there is a section that says there is some immutable
basis (a genetic basis?) for philosophy and thus for ethics.

It seems to me that philosophy/ethics is a construct of the human mind,
informed by concrete events.  Humans are a social species; thus there has
been and is a need to develop some kind of rule(s) for interpersonal
exchanges.  War, personal combat, duels (the code duello) are not really
considered conducive to appropriate conduct in human exchange.

Thus, it appears to me that the way ethics begins its work is to identify
general characteristics of ethical issues.  Then comes developing parameters
for rules of conduct.  All of the work of ethicists depends on exchange of
ideas among the discussion participants.  *If* there is *a* foundation, it
is the result of agreement reached among the discussants.  There is *no*
fundamental law of nature involved except that which gives humans the
propensity to consider that there is a problem to be considered.  For
example, until Gene Modification became possible there was no ethical issue
to be considered.  Until human population density and its pressure on nature
reached some kind of threshold, there was no environmental ethic problem to
be considered.  And those problems only existed because some human minds
determined that the consequences of human acts had come to have ethical
significance.

Well folks, that's a start from my naive perspective.  I'd appreciate any
comments.

Ray





%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%