Justice F or H edgehogs

1. Justice For Hedgehogs Cruz || Medina || Rubio || See || Tan

2. Ronald Dworkin A brief background

3. Ronald Dworkin • Born Dec. 11, 1931 • Died Feb. 14, 2013 at the age of 81 • Studied Philosophy at Harvard University • Studied Law at both Oxford and Harvard Law School • Insisted on a rights-based theory of law as expounded in his work, “Taking Rights Seriously” (1977) • Challenged one of the key developers of legal positivism, HLA Hart Picture taken from nybooks.com “Brilliant philosopher of law who put human dignity at the centre of his moral system”

4. Positivism in a nutshell • “In any legal system, whether a given norm is legally valid, and hence whether it forms part of the law of that system, depends on its sources, not its merits” • Dworkin did not subscribe to this way of thinking

5. Part I. Baedeker

6. “The fox knows many things but the hedgehog knows one big thing” - Archilocus

7. 3 Central Principles • The independence of moral judgments, • The unity of moral values and, • The interpretive character of these values.

8. Justice • Equality • Liberty • Democracy • Law

9. Interpretation • We have to recognize that we share some of our concepts including political ones in a different way (interpretative concepts). • We share them since we participate in practices and experiences wherein these concepts figure. • We differentiate since we hold different conceptions as to what best justifies the central idea of the said practice. • This makes our disagreements more genuine and forms the foundation for value disagreements rather than fact or dictionary ones.

10. Interpretation • General Theory of Interpretation: It always aims to retrieve the intention/ other psychological state of the author/creator. • Value based general theory that interpreters have critical responsibilities and the best way to interpret something is to call up these critical responsibilities on occasion. • Political Morality depends on Interpretation and Interpretation Depends on Value

11. Truth and Value • We must accept that there is no objective truth about value that is independent of the beliefs/attitudes of people who judge value: we have to understand their claims about what is just or unjust. • Our dignity requires us to recognize that whether we live well or not is not just a matter of whether we think we do. • It is our politics denies us the luxury of skepticism about value. • Politics is thus coercive since we cannot act politically without accepting the values espoused within politics as true and correct.

12. Truth and Value • History and politics however is not one singular truth but a conflicting mess of principle and prejudice wherein itself and the interpretation of such must be taken to be rooted in individual assumptions. • The importance of the metaphysical independence of value. • Whether something is true or not is thus a matter or moral argument and judgment. • Ordinary moral “facts” tend to be twisted through philosophizing into a “reconciliation of moral and natural worlds” • Value must always be thought of as independent, they cannot be values if we can just make them up (from moral facts made by people).

13. Truth and Value • Theories drawn from within morality are themselves moral judgments. • The independence of value plays an important part in proving the thesis that the various concepts and departments of value are interconnected and mutually supporting. • Value judgments are thus true not due to any matching but due to the substantive case that can be made for them.

14. Responsibility • Responsibility is another important moral virtue. • Though we can never expect agreement from our fellow citizens, its alright to expect responsibility from them. • We use part of our overall theory of value to check our reasoning in other parts. • We thus generalize the aforementioned interpretative approach. • Putting our conceptions into the larger framework and checking whether these conceptions fit in with the best of other conceptions. • The character and the extent of our responsibility for our actions turns into an ethical question: what is the character of a life well lived?

15. Ethics • We each have a sovereign ethical responsibility to make something of value from our own lives. • Ethical responsibility is objective: we want to live well because we recognize that we should live well rather than vice versa. • Our various responsibilities and obligations to others flow from that personal responsibility to our own lives. • Making our lives as a challenge, one we can o either good of badly.

16. Ethics • Cardinal among our private interests an ambition to make our lives good lives. In particular, is dignity. • Self respect however is also needed if we are to make sense of ourselves or our ambitions. • Dignity and self respect thus are the two indispensable conditions of living well.

17. Morality • Importance of asking how can we account for the appeal of morality we already feel. • Doubly profitable question because: (it improves self understanding and provides enriching material to morality). • We are drawn to morality in the same way we are drawn to the other dimensions of self respect. • Related to the Kantian idea that we cannot respect our own humanity if we cannot respect the humanity in others as well.

18. Politics • Through the lens thus of dignity, value has truth and is at the same time indivisible. • Political philosophy suffers from a failure to treat main political concepts as interpretative. • The important concept thus lies in looking at politics (and its conceptualizations) in a another way or another lens: through the lens of interpretation (responsibility) and value (moral virtue).

19. Some Truths (according to Dworkin) • “A person can achieve the dignity and self respect that are indispensable to a successful life only if he shows respect for humanity itself in all its forms. This is the template for the unification of ethics and morality. “ • Moral and Ethics are thus interdependent. • Morality is independent from both science and metaphysics ( what some would call the “natural world”).

20. Part II. Truth in Morals

21. Ordinary View • Attitude towards moral truth that believes in the idea that at least some moral opinions are objectively true • Example: Someone who sticks pins into babies for the fun of hearing them scream is morally depraved.

22. Worries • “Statements about the physical world are made true by the actual state of the physical world” • But if we apply this idea to our moral judgments it becomes problematic • First problem: “The ordinary view insists that moral judgments are not made true by historical events or people’s opinions or emotions or anything else in the physical or mental world” • Second problem: “The ordinary view holds that people do not become aware of moral facts the way they become aware of physical facts”

23. Skepticism and Disappointment? • Skepticism • Internal Skepticism • External Skepticism • Error Skepticism • Status Skepticism • Disappointment? • Mistake • Encouragement

24. Skepticism

25. Error and Status Skepticism

26. Evolution of Status Skepticism • Ayer • Moral judgments: puffs of emotion • Hare • Moral judgments: disguised and generalized commands • Preference expressed by moral judgment are universal in content (includes the speaker himself) • eg. Cheating is wrong = Don’t cheat • Gibbard & Blackburn • Moral judgments: expressions – “acceptance of a plan for living” • Sentiments, attitudes, universal preferences, states of norm acceptance or states of planning

27. Internal Skepticism • Internal skeptics • Partial error skeptics • Internal error skeptics • Global internal skeptics

28. Uncertainty vs. Internal Skepticism • Uncertainty – default position; having no firm convictions • Skepticism – not a default position; relies on strong arguments (e.g morality has nothing to do with abortion as for any positive view of the matter)

29. The Appeal of Status Skepticism • Status skepticism – popular among academic philosophers • Why? • Internal skepticism is the only skeptical game in town • We can’t be skeptical about any domain of value all the way down

30. Disappointment? Q1. What makes a moral judgment true? A1. Moral judgments are made true, when they are true, by an adequate moral argument for their truth Q2. What makes a moral judgment accurate? A2. Further moral argument for its adequacy Q3. When are we justified in supposing a moral judgment true? A3. When we are justified in thinking we are right in our convictions that we have for thinking our convictions right.

31. Disappointment? • The theory of moral responsibility is itself a moral theory: it is part of the same overall moral theory as the opinions whose responsibility it is meant to check • Circular reasoning? Yes. Similar to scientific method. • Disappointing answers to ancient questions? Why? • Mistake • Expect answers to lie outside morality • Expect to find non-moral account of moral truth and responsibility • Confused Expectation. Fails to grasp independence of morality & dimensions of value. • Encouragement • Answers too abstract & compressed • Point to but do not provide moral theory • How to match moral theory to reality

32. Moral Epistemology/Ontology • “Any theory about what makes a moral conviction true or what are good reasons for accepting it must be itself a moral theory and therefore must include a moral premise or presupposition.” • We must construct genuine moral ontologies/epistemologies WITHIN morality. • Need structure & complexity for a moral ontology/epistemology • More than bare claim (morality is made true by adequate argument) • More than theory (about structure of adequate arguments) • More than idea (but an account of what moral responsibility is)

33. Moral Epistemology/Ontology • We should treat moral reasoning as a form of interpretative reasoning • Moral responsibility can only be achieved by aiming at most comprehensive account we can achieve of a larger system of value in which our moral opinions figure • Interpretative goals as structure of adequate argument • Defines moral responsibility • Does not guarantee moral truth • If arguments adequate  after comprehensive reflection  earn the right to live by them • Better interpretative arguments may be found  Uncertainty

34. Moral Epistemology/Ontology • Coherence is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for truth. • Respect distance between responsibility and truth • Appeal to idea of good & better argument • We cannot escape morality’s independence

35. General Impressions

36. Sources: Picture: http://assets.nybooks.com/media/photo/2009/07/07/starr_1-071609.jpg background info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_positivism#H.L.A._Hart http://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/feb/14/ronald-dworkin