Nihilism,Relativism, and Engelhardt

This paper is a critical analysis of Tristram Engelhardt's attempts to avoid unrestricted nihilism and relativism. The focus of attention is his recent book, The Foundations of Bioethics (Oxford University Press, 1996). No substantive or content-full bioethics (e.g., that of Roman Catholicism or the Samurai) has an intersubjectively verifiable and universally binding foundation, Engelhardt thinks, for unaided secular reason cannot show that any particular substantive morality (or moral code) is correct. He thus seems to be committed to either nihilism or relativism. The first is the view that there is not even one true or valid moral code, and the second is the view that there is a plurality of true or valid moral codes. However, Engelhardt rejects both nihilism and relativism, at least in unrestricted form. Strictly speaking, he himself is a universalist, someone who believes that there is a single true moral code. Two argumentative strategies are employed by him to fend off unconstrained nihilism and relativism. The first argues that although all attempts to establish a content-full morality on the basis of secular reason fail, secular reason can still establish a content-less, purely procedural morality. Although not content-full and incapable of providing positive direction in life, much less a meaning of life, such a morality does limit the range of relativism and nihilism. The second argues that there is a single true, content-full morality. Grace and revelation, however, are needed to make it available to us; secular reason alone is not up to the task. This second line of argument is not pursued in The Foundations at any length, but it does crop up at times, and if it is sound, nihilism and relativism can be much more thoroughly routed than the first line of argument has it.Engelhardt's position and argumentative strategies are exposed at length and accorded a detailed critical examination. In the end, it is concluded that neither strategy will do, and that Engelhardt is probably committed to some form of relativism.     

Proper Names and the Necessity of Identity Statements

An identity statement flanked on both sides with proper names is necessarily true, Saul Kripke thinks, if it's true at all. Thus, contrary to the received view – or at least what was, prior to Kripke, the received view – a statement like(A) Hesperus is Phosphorusis necessarily true if, as certainly seems to the the case, it's true at all. The received view is that (A) is true but only contingently true, while(B) Hesperus is Hesperuswhich is also true, of course, is necesarily true. Epistemologically, however, both the tradition and Kripke have it that (A) is a posteriori and (B) a priori.There are tensions in Kripke's views concerning (A), though, and ultimately in the views of anyone who holds that (A) is necessary. In this paper I draw attention to some of them and advance an argument for thinking that (A) is contingent.     

Relativism, Absolutism, and Tolerance

Abstract: A common view is that relativism requires tolerance. We argue that there is no deductive relation between relativism and tolerance, but also that relativism is not incompatible with tolerance. Next we note that there is no standard inductive relation between relativism and tolerance—no inductive enumeration, argument to the best explanation, or causal argument links the two. Two inductive arguments of a different sort that link them are then exposed and criticized at length. The first considers relativism from the objective point of view ‘of the universe’, the second from the subjective point of view of the relativist herself. Both arguments fail. There is similarly no deductive relation between absolutism and tolerance—neither entails the other—and no inductive connection of any sort links the two. We conclude that tolerance, whether unlimited or restricted, is independent of both relativism and absolutism. A metaethical theory that says only that there is one true or valid ethical code, or that there is a plurality of equally true or valid ethical codes, tells us nothing about whether we should be tolerant, much less how tolerant we should be.     

Moral Relativism and Majority Rule

A number of arguments against relativism are based on the concept of majority rule. Since, the arguments allege, on relativism moral truth is founded on majority opinion, relativism entails that (a) moral progress and reform are impossible, (b) propaganda, advertising, brainwashing, and high birth rates turn mistaken moral judgments into correct ones, (c) moral horrors, if enough people believe them acceptable, are not moral horrors at all, (d) finding out what’s right and what’s wrong is extremely easy, (e) moral reasoning is very different from what we normally take it to be, and (f) internal criticism of a moral code is impossible. These arguments get their due in this article, which first defines and explicates relativism and then exposes, explains, and criticizes the arguments. Especially important to understand about the relation between relativism and majority opinion is the notion of a convention. Accordingly, it is discussed at some length.     

‘My Senses Couldn’t Always Deceive Me’

Philosophia - Gilbert Ryle and a number of other philosophers have argued that Descartes’ claim his senses could always deceive him is false. Ryle’s argument is the well-known...