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- REASON IS THE BEST JUSTIFICATION FOR ACTION
- VALUE JUDGMENTS ARE BENEFICIAL
BIBLIOGRAPHYBaier, Kurt. THE RATIONAL AND THE MORAL ORDER: THE SOCIAL ROOTS OF REASON AND MORALITY. (The Paul Carus Lecture, No 18) Open Court Publishing Company. January 1995.
1. REASONS PROVIDE A LEGITIMATE FRAMEWORK FOR ACTION Kurt Baier, philosophy, 1958, THE MORAL POINT OF VIEW: A RATIONAL BASIS OF ETHICS, 1958, p-np. It is unfortunate that the means-end model has dominated philosophical thinking in this field. It has led some philosophers, maintaining (rightly) that we can ask which is best thing to aim at in these circumstances, to conclude (wrongly) that there must be an ultimate aim or end, a summum bonum, to which all ordinary aims or ends are meanly means. Hence, they claim whether this or that is the better end to aim at must be judged by its serving the ultimate end or summun bonum. Other philosophers, maintaining rightly that there can be no such ultimate end or summum bonum, have concluded (wrongly) that we cannot ask which is the better end to aim at. They have claimed that reason can tell us only about what are the best means to given ends, but that the ends themselves cannot be determined or judged by reason. However, “being a good means to a certain end’ is not only the criterion of the merit of a course of action. 2. MEANS ENDS JUSTIFICATION IS FLAWED Kurt Baier, philosophy, 1958, THE MORAL POINT OF VIEW: A RATIONAL BASIS OF ETHICS, 1958, p-np. The error which this means-end model of the evaluation of the lines of action forces on us is this. It compels us to think that what is a reason for (or against) doing something is determined by what we are aiming at. Since different people aim at different things and since they frequently argue about what to aim at, either we are compelled to assume that there is one objectively determined end or aim which we must aim at if we are to follow reason, or, if reject objective ends as absurd, we are compelled to renounce all reasoning about ends. However, it is not true that our ends determine what is a reason for doing something, but, on the contrary, reasons determine we ought to, and frequently do, aim at. What is a reason for doing this, or against doing that, is independent of what this or that man is actually aiming at. The best course of action is not that course which most quickly, least painfully, least expensively, etc., leads to gaining of our ends, but it is the course of action which is supported by the best reasons. And the best reasons may require us to abandon the aim that we actually set our heart on.
Kurt Baier, philosophy, 1958, THE MORAL POINT OF VIEW: A RATIONAL BASIS OF ETHICS, 1958, p-np. Our conclusion is this. All consideration-making beliefs are person-neutral. They are simply true or false, not true for me and false for you or vice versa. On the other hand, all considerations or reasons are considerations or reasons for someone in some particular context or situation may not be the reasons for someone else or for the same person in another context or situation. For a given fact is a reason only because it is a reason for a particular person when deliberating about a number of alternative lines of action open to him.. Considerations or reasons are not propositions laid up in heaven or universal truths, but they are particular facts to which, in particular contexts, universally true (or false) consideration-making beliefs apply.
1. VALUE JUDGMENTS ARE VERIFIABLE Kurt Baier, philosophy, 1958, THE MORAL POINT OF VIEW: A RATIONAL BASIS OF ETHICS, 1958, p-58. Not all comparisons and rankings are value judgments. Moreover, there is no doubt that factual, that is, nonevaluative, comparisons and rankings are empirically verifiable. ‘This man is taller than that’ and ‘She is a tall girl for her age’ are ordinary empirical claims. If we are clear about the logic of empirical comparisons and rankings, we will be in a position to say whether what distinguishes evaluative from nonevaluative comparisons and rakings makes the former unverifiable in principle. It is my contention that the misunderstanding of the logic of empirical comparisons and rankings is, at least partly, responsible for the view that value judgments are not verifiable. An elucidation of factual comparisons and rankings will in any case, throw a good deal of light on the nature of value judgments. 2. VALUE JUDGEMENTS ARE VERIFIABLE EVEN THOUGH THEY MAY BE VAGUE Kurt Baier, philosophy, 1958, THE MORAL POINT OF VIEW: A RATIONAL BASIS OF ETHICS, 1958, p-59. It is often said that value judgments are vague. One of the things we mean by vagueness of a claim is just this, that in a comparatively large number of cases it will be impossible to determine whether the claims true or false, because the criteria on which it is based conflict. Vagueness is not incompatible with empirical verifiability. In ranking something, we are not directly comparing two objects, but are concerned with only one. In comparing, we want to know which of two objects has a given property to a higher degree. In ranking we want to know the degree to which one object has the property in question. Nevertheless, rankings too are sorts of comparison, though more complex. When we rank a man as tall, we assign him the highest rank on a three-place scale, tall, medium, short. Knowing the meaning of ‘tall’ involves knowing the logical relationship between being tall, of medium height, and short. One must know the number, names and order of the places on the scale. One must know that ‘tall’ means taller than of medium height and short,’ that ‘of medium height means taller than short but shorter than tall’ and, that ‘short’ means shorter than tall and of medium height.’ it is not enough to know what that ‘tall’ is the opposite of ‘short’; for that would not have allowed us to distinguish between opposites such as ‘dead’ and ‘alive,’ which are not capable of degrees, and opposites such as ‘tall’ and ‘short’, which are.
Kurt Baier, philosophy, 1958, THE MORAL POINT OF VIEW: A RATIONAL BASIS OF ETHICS, 1958, p-np. “Well,” my objector may say, “maybe you can get some sort if empirical verification of value judgments, but you can’t get anything that is really important. What makes for greater certainty and more reliable information is the formulation of one’s claims in the scientific manner. You won’t find matters of opinion, let alone of taste, in the sciences. Scientist do indeed need their imagination, their hunches, their flair, an so on. But they need them only in order to think up new ideas; they don’t need them when it comes to verification of proof of these ideas.” This is perfectly true, but not as damaging as might be thought at first/ For the same precision is possible in the field of value judgment also. Consider the following simple case. Jones is good at judging distances and lengths. He can say how long it will take a person to walk from one place to another, whether the dressing table or the carpet will fit in the bedroom, whether the tree to be felled would hit the house if it happened to fall that way, and so on. Normally, that he has good judgment could be confirmed only by waiting for the disputed event to take place.
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