Hi Paul, Ray, and everyone else,

This has to be very quick.  Paul, I thought the comparison between ethics
and design/engineering was very interesting.  I had just a few other
thoughts about some things you said in the middle part of your email:

>Paul K here
[snip]
>If we discard the idea that moral philosophy is about trying to determine a
>"scientific" truth we are left with a philosophy which is more akin to
>design than science. That is we have a philosophy which deals with the
>specifics of time and place to determine a preferred ethical solution (a
>point on our circumference of options). This pragmatic and essentially
>relative route  has the value of permitting cultural difference and avoids
>authoritarian rule by edict. However as design needs a client's statement
>of need in order to have a problem to solve so (IMO) moral philosophy needs
>a statement of objectives if an ethical enquiry is to have any purpose (or
>meaning). It is at this level that "foundations" are necessary. In fact
>more than necessary, in my view they are implicit to any discussion that
>involves purpose. (even if the purpose is simply to forge an agreement, for
>then is  the intrinsic desirability of "agreement" not itself a founding
>principle?).
>
>The western tradition may have spent the last three thousand years failing
>to bequeath us incontrovertible foundations, either rational or spiritual,
>but is that justification for giving up?

Jim here: the first thing that jumped out at me was your sentence in the
first paragraph, "This pragmatic and essentially relative route  has the
value of permitting cultural difference and avoids authoritarian rule by
edict."  I agree with your overall point in the sentence but would like to
add that the pragmatic alternative to (epistemological) foundationalism
does not necessarily have to be "relative."  One of the most important
and/or influential books on metaethical theory in the last twenty years is
David Brink's *Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics*.  (As an aside
I might recommend that you and Ray find a copy of this if you are
interested in a more detailed analysis of foundationalism than Minteer
offers.  Brink is very densely reasoned but still very accessible.)

Brink is a moral realist (i.e. "realism" = there are objective moral
truths) but an anti-foundationalist, i.e. in terms of epistemology and
justification.  Thus the title of his book is intentionally ironic.
Although some philosophers assume that the two positions are contradictory,
Brink makes a very compelling case that moral realism can be based on a
coherentist or coherence-based epistemology.  His discussion is a bit too
lengthy and involved for me to describe adequately at the moment, but his
chapter 5, "A Coherentist Moral Epistemology," includes a terrific
discussion of some of the issues that we have discussed here, including
foundationalism, circularity, and Paul's point above about the necessity of
"foundations."

I could perhaps attempt a summary of Brink's argument at some later point
when I have more time; alternatively, what might be better is if Paul, Ray,
and/or anyone else who wants to obtain a copy of Brink's book read that
chapter and then we could discuss that, either on or off the list.

Even without us discussing Brink's position in detail (it comes very close
to my own metaethical position, I think), it is important for us to be
aware of his position.  For as Paul says, even though the "western
tradition may have spent the last three thousand years failing to bequeath
us incontrovertible foundations," this fact by itself doesn't *necessarily*
imply that philosophers are "giving up" trying to ground ethics and
morality on as firm a foundation as can possibly be identified.  To quote
just a single paragraph from Brink: the argument against epistemic
foundationalism is pretty much a purely logical one:

	"The need for second-order beliefs in justification demonstrates
that no belief can be *self*-justifying.  All justification must be
inferential.  This shows that no version of foundationalism can
successfully incorporate the epistemological requirement [against
circularity] that justifying beliefs themselves be justified" (120).

With that said, the metaethical alternatives that are left us are not
limited to either simple relativism or nihilism.  It is possible to hold an
ethical realist perspective on questions of normative and practical
importance, which include important questions in environmental ethics,
without first *requiring* the foundationalist certainty about first
principles that so many environmental thinkers seem to be seeking.  This is
Minteer's basic point, I take it.

I'm frustrated at a general lack of time at the moment to elaborate any
further, but I'd like to come back to this at some later point if anyone is
interested in hearing more. . . .


>
>Formerly gods were enough to hand down tablets of stone (or their
>equivalent) to provide us with governing principles, now some suggest we
>look to intrinsic value in the natural environment (the  pantheistic
>foundationalism Jim refers to?). I am puzzled by this insistence on looking
>beyond humanity itself.

This seems to be the "sixty four thousand dollar question" about all such
non-anthropocentric enviroethics theorizing.  I think Minteer does an
especially good job of at least opening that question up for us all to
consider--but he of course by no means closes that question for us.


Having invented the question, "how are we to act?"
>Why should we expect anything but the observation of ourselves to provide
>the answer. Looking for "something out there" to save us from the burden of
>difficult judgements (or of threatening conflicts) seems to me a childlike
>retreat to the security of a reassuring and infallible parent.

I think that this is an intelligent point, and one which I have never seen
expressed quite this way.  In some ways the search for extra-human
metaphysical entities such as "intrinsic value," "inherent worth," and the
like do resemble an attempt to evade making difficult judgments on our own.
Good point.

>Mother
>nature does not exist. Nature does exist but what nature is yet to become
>will be decided by our desires and defined by our power. This of course is
>very alarming as we are busy "designing" and making nature without a brief
>and without any founding principles. What do we need? What do we value? We
>must choose. Nature is as indifferent to the continued well-being of
>humankind it is to the planets circling an incipient super-nova. We can
>choose for our own reasons not to be indifferent to nature but what are
>those reasons?
>
>These reasons may not be "scientific truths", but they are necessary
>statements (axioms) from which to build an ethic with preferred outcomes.
>
>But  I assure you I do not suppose for a minute that the questions we need
>to ask can ever be neatly wrapped up. Engineers may strive for clarity but
>they are not naive.
>
>Apologies if this rant swerves too far from the technical use of the word
>"foundations" but it summarises the thoughts provoked.

Nope, I thought this was a great post, very thought-provoking for me as
well.  If you are interested in a very clear discussion of the
foundationalism problem in (ethical) justification, Brink's chapter five is
excellent and accessible.

Jim

Brink, David O. 1989. Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics. Edited
by S. Shoemaker, Cambridge Studies in Philosophy. New York: Cambridge
University Press.




>
>regards
> Paul K