Steven Metcalf doesn’t like Simon Blackburn’s latest:
While Blackburn generously names his allies�the philosophers Bernard Williams, Thomas Nagel, and Hilary Putnam�details about his enemies are left sketchy. In Truth, the hostility to the unnamed relativist so overflows at points as to make her sound more like a solipsist, a nihilist, or even a willful and demented child. I spent a number of years in and around English departments and certainly met plenty of nudniks and witnessed my share of bizarre seminar discussions. But never once did I meet the shameless knave that Blackburn describes.
Well, I have. Repeatedly. Undergraduates tend to be the worst offenders when it comes to spouting relativistic nonsense, but they have older, and only slightly more sophisticated, allies all over the humanities, philosophy departments for the most part excepted. So I’m as puzzled by Steven Metcalf’s claim as he is of Blackburn’s.
Paul | 30-Sep-05 at 11:58 pm | Permalink
The problem is that Blackburn, the nihilist and relativist, claims to be able to reject the arguments of nihilists and relativists. It is standard psychology for a pot in that sort of situation to call the kettle wack. Word.
Chris | 01-Oct-05 at 12:04 am | Permalink
Oh, he’s not all that bad. I liked “Ruling Passions,” notwithstanding all the metaethical shenanigans that drive “us” bonkers.
Paul | 01-Oct-05 at 11:54 am | Permalink
I didn’t find “Ruling Passions” all that helpful in understanding Blackburn’s view. I think one needs to read papers such as “Rule-Following and Moral Realism”, “Errors and the Phenomenology of Value”, “How to be an Ethical Anti-Realist”, and “Securing the Nots,” in order to really understand how strange his view is.
My big problem with Blackburn is that he seems to think that the _metaphysics_ of morals has more to do with moral semantics than anyone would typically think. He says things like, Since the world is ‘value free’, we should not expect our claims about morality to be like scientific claims about what exists; no, they are claims expressing our various moral feelings and commitments. But when his is pressed to explain, as he should, in what circumstances moral claims *might* have had the ‘external,’ realist meanings that most realists (and Mackie, too) think they *do* have, he doesn’t have much to say:
But this is bizarre. Since Blackburn claims not even to understand what it would mean to say that realism is true (Would we be able to stub our toes on human rights?), why does he think that is the *only* circumstance that would lead to ‘external’ readings of our moral utterances are circumstances where realism is true? His account is not better–and indeed seems much less plausible–than the common sense view that *if* the world contains no moral facts, then our moral discourse is in some ways defective.
But Blackburn doesn’t want that, because he wants his quasi-realist sematics to swoop in and save the moral practices in distress.
So my problem with Blackburn is that he’s tried so hard to argue that the *possibility* that our moral utterances might incorporate quasi-realist semantics is enough to show that they do, while at the same time holding that the only case in which our moral utterances could be shown to incorporate realist semantics would be if the world contained causally efficacious moral facts. That seems to be a significant discrepancy in the burdens of proof imposed upon two views of one empirical phenomenon.
As we philosophers are wont to do after a tirade of that sort, I ask: Does that make sense??
Chris | 01-Oct-05 at 1:25 pm | Permalink
Paul, well, no, I don’t think it makes sense. And I distinctly remember having a friend call me up and yell at me for half an hour with frustration because she couldn’t understand how Blackburn could have the nerve to claim that it does make sense. (I’m not sure the realists in our department really have their shit nailed down either, though. The way that whole N.S.-J.J.T. debate fizzles out into desperate burden-of-proofing still drives me bonkers every time I think about it.)
Blackburn’s almost criminally vague and sloppy treatment of this absolutely crucial issue aside, I still insist that I got something out of Ruling Passions. It’s got some interesting things to say, and the writing is punchy and fun. At least, that’s how I remember it. So take that for what it’s worth. I suppose I was mainly interested to defend Blackburn against the schmucko reviewing him in Slate. I’m all for sensible Blackburn bashing of the kind you favour, but I don’t think this guy really knows what he’s talking about.
Oh by the way, I used Blackburn’s Being Good at the beginning of my biomedical ethics class at IC last year, and was sort of surprised to find that my students really hated it. I was expecting them to like it. So there you go: a whole roomful of Blackburn detractors. The poor guy.
Paul | 01-Oct-05 at 4:47 pm | Permalink
Sounds good.
I have heard, however, that his relatively small “Dictionary of Phil” is quite useful. Haven’t looked at it myself, though.
Paul | 01-Oct-05 at 4:51 pm | Permalink
Oh, BTW: I was asking whether my criticism of B made sense, not whether his view makes sense. Which were you saying didn’t make sense?
Chris | 01-Oct-05 at 5:44 pm | Permalink
Oh, I meant that B’s view doesn’t really seem to make sense, and that I’m sympathetic to some of the reasons you give for wondering what the hell he’s thinking.
Paul | 01-Oct-05 at 7:47 pm | Permalink
OK, good.
DavidP | 07-Oct-05 at 9:13 am | Permalink
‘Well, I have.’
Can you quote examples ?
Chris | 07-Oct-05 at 1:11 pm | Permalink
Well, besides arguments at parties, the people I have in mind are the continental-influenced thinkers, found especially in English, Comp Lit, German, cultural studies, and other departments. You don’t just get strictly relativism, though you do get that. I’m thinking of people who are still influenced by Derrida, and all that crap.
I hate these debates, and was aiming more for an expression of puzzlement than the beginning of something solidly documenting my experience. Take it for what it’s worth – which, since you don’t know me from Adam, can’t be much for you.