Ethics of Inarticulacy
This was another heavy reading, and the fact that it was almost 40 pages long didn’t help matters. Again though, I found the chapter to be incredibly thought-provoking, even if I struggled to synthesise all the ideas put forward by Taylor. But before tackling this week’s text, I’d like to address a question from last week:
…what worries me about this is the hint of determinism and the possible lack of freedom. If I am a product of my environment or community why put me in jail for killing the local postman. After all I am a product of my environment…
…what exactly does the forest monk add to his “self” or identity after 30 years of meditation. I mean if he is merely reploughing his upbringing in a community whats the point. Where is the added value of his contemplation? Can he fundamentally change his identity by contemplation?
…One other question. I like this phrase “the self in moral space” heading this thread. Does Taylor define “moral space”? I would like to see that definition.
I think those questions are a good place to start because I’m finding it hard ti maintain a sense of continuity between the chapters, which are obviously meant to build upon each other. In chapter 2, Taylor defines moral space as ‘a space in which questions arise about what is good or bad, what is worth doing and what not, what has meaning and importance for you and what is trivial and secondary‘ (p. 28). He goes on to say that this space is not the creation of individuals, but is formed by communities. In fact, in chapter 3 Taylor is at pains to stress that the moral realm isn’t neutral, a blank canvas waiting for people to turn it into whatever they please, but something that takes place as members of a community interact.
The questions above also come to the fore in this week’s reading. On the one hand, Taylor seems to be determined to stress the role of communities, and yet there is something almost individualistic about the way he presents communities. He devotes most of the chapter to the idea that there is something flawed with a procedural view of morality as opposed to a substantive one. The procedural one is the sort that is dominant today, where provided your thinking is sound, you get to define to a large degree your own view of ‘the good life’ and morality within the bounds of that good life. In fact, the different views moderns have of the good life generally isn’t articulated. But because we inhabit a moral space that we create in common, there’s an internal contradiction to our views of morality. Taylor, I think, feels the sensible thing rather is to communally come up with a vision of the good life then morally ground ourselves in that.
That said, communities (very broadly defined I suppose) are culturally different and so would have different views of the good life. I’m not sure about this, but if I read him correctly, he seems at this point to be happy to accept that it is impossible for someone from a community that prioritises equality as its greatest good to understand a practice like FGM.
The quotation of the week:
Our qualitative distinctions, as definitions of the good, rather offer reasons in this sense, that articulating what underlies our ethical choices, leanings, intuitions. It is setting out just what I have a dim grasp of when I see that A is right, or Xis wrong, or Y is valuable and worth preserving, and the like. It is to articulate the moral point of our actions. That is why it is so different from the external reason. I can only convince you by my description of the good if I speak for you, either by articulating what underlies your existing moral intuitions or perhaps by my description moving you to the point of making it your own. And that is why it cannot be assimilated to giving a basic reason (p. 77).
