The account which Hegel is opposing is not exactly expressivism. It is not a theory about the meanings of moral terms, but about what makes an action good or bad. The account appears to be, roughly, that what makes an action good is that it is done from a good motive or that the agent is convinced that he is doing what he should be doing.
As Hegel traces the account which he is opposing, he argues that it leads to relativism. This should be a familiar argument, whether one accepts it or not. It is basically the same development which leads from "it doesn't matter what you believe so long as you're sincere," to "what's true for you might not be true for me."
(e) Subjective opinion is at last expressly acknowledged as the criterion of right and duty when it is alleged that the ethical nature of an action is determined by the conviction which holds something to be right. The good which is willed does not yet have a content; and a principle of conviction contains the further specification that the subsumption of an action under the determination of the good is the responsibility of the subject. Under these circumstances, any semblance of ethical objectivity has completely disappeared. Such doctrines are intimately connected with that self-styled philosophy... which denies that truth...can be recognized. --PR,, remarks to §140, italics in original.This is what I refer to in the title of this post as "moral subjectivism." It is not the stage of our present culture but the stage which our culture was in not long ago. It is what some people refer to as "postmodernism." One of my occasional discomforts with agreeing with MacIntyre's claim that we are, culturally, expressivists, is that we are no longer relativistic expressivists. We do claim that there is right and wrong, that there is true and false, albeit even as we continue to regard moral discourse as exprevissivistic.
(f) ...The only possible culmination - and this must now be discussed - of that subjectivity which regards itself as the ultimate instance is reached when it knows itself as that power of resolution and decision on [matters of] truth, right, and duty which is already implicitly [an sich] present within the preceding forms. ...in addition, its form is that of subjective emptiness [Eitelkeit], in that it knows itself as this emptiness of all content and, in this knowledge, knows itself as the absolute - The extent to which this absolute self-satisfaction does not simply remain a solitary worship of the self, but may even form a community whose bond and substance consist, for example, in mutual assurances of conscientiousness, good intentions, and enjoyment of this reciprocal purity...and certain other phenomena [Gestaltungen] are related to the stage [of sunjectivity] which we are here considering - these are questions which I have discussed in the Phenomenology of Spirit (pp. 605ff). --ibid., italics and brackets in the original.Turning to the Phenomenology of Sprit, then, we find:
Conscience, then, in its majestic sublimity above any specific law and every content of duty, puts whatever content it pleases into its knowledge and willing.
...When, however, consciousness finds expression, this puts the certainty of itself in the form of pure self and thereby as universal self. Others let the act hold as valid, owing to the explicit terms in which the self is thus expressed and acknowledged to be the essential reality. The spirit and substance of their community are, thus, the mutual assurance of their conscientiousness, of their good intentions, and rejoicing over this reciprocal purity of purpose, the quickening and refreshment received from the glorious privilege of knowing and of expressing, of fostering and cherishing, a state so altogether admirable. (The Phenomenology of Mind, 384-385 in the Dover edition, trans Baillie)At this stage, the subject takes itself to determine what it should do by itself. To be in this stage does not require that we take ourselves to be consciously legislating morality for ourselves. Rather, I would suggest that the idea that one must follow one's heart fills the same role. In fact, Hegel seems to suggest this in the Phenomenology when he says:
Conscience, which in the first instance takes up merely a negative attitude towards duty, qua a given determinate duty, knows itself detached from it. But since conscience fills empty duty with a determinate content drawn from its own self, it is positively aware of the fact that it, qua this particular self, makes its own content. Its pure self, as it is empty knowledge, is without content and without definiteness. The content which it supplies to that knowledge is drawn from its own self, qua this determinate self, is drawn from itself as a natural individuality. (ibid., 387, italics in original)What Hegel is saying here is simply that, though we think we are find what is good emanating from our inner "true" selves, we are actually only finding our own natural, particular, undeveloped desires. For Hegel, the true good is universal, whereas the particular, qua particular, is evil. Hegel does not completely oppose the idea of being oneself, but his idea of what that should amount to is distinct from what we mean by it. Hegel's notion of the self is one where the self is what it is only in the context of a whole which it finds itself in. The notion of the self which we use when we tell someone to be herself is a notion of the self as separable from the social context the self is in, as a self-sufficient, self-legislating almost-divinity--the notion which Hegel is critiquing in these passages.
Let me point out, too, that these passages speak of a community composed of people assuring one another that they are okay--"I'm ok, you're ok." This is a phenomenon one can find easily in certain circles, and it helps to strengthen bubbles because this assurance keeps us from second-guessing ourselves. One often hears such a community's opponents suggesting that the assurances are required because the members are afraid that they are wrong, but notice that there are some groups of this kind which oppose each other. Perhaps both are wrong, and I suspect both are correct about the other, that they are afraid they are wrong, because no one has a firm basis on which to make their moral claims, and thus no one has any valid certainty (incidentally, his analysis of hypocrisy, which follows shortly after the above passage, appears to apply very well to virtue signaling).
I owe an explanation of how this developed form of expressivism is not relativistic. A large part of this is that the phenomenon which Hegel is articulating is not self-consciously relativistic. It is inherently open to relativism, but claims to be objective. When someone claims to be following his own heart, he is not claiming to be inventing his own morality, but to be following true morality as revealed by his heart. Our natural dispositions sway us to clump toward similar positions, and so we can maintain the illusion that we are all tracking moral reality even when none of us are, since there is consensus. Because there is no verifiable basis for moral claims, however, expressivism comes to be how moral discourse works, even thought morality is not, itself, expressivistic. If our hearts are our only guides, then the only way to convince someone of a moral claim is to sway her heart, the only way to disagree with someone's moral claim is to view him as being untrue to himself.
Any relativism which exists, then, is buried under claims to objectivity. The expression of moral claims may be made in such a way that is reminiscent of relativism, with the same kinds of empty objections to opposing views, but the individuals making the claims no longer think the opposing views are right for anyone.
I should note that there are genuine arguments offered for some positions in some circles. Often these arguments are not very well thought out, however, and occasionally they are more rhetoric than genuine argument. The semblance of argument, however, remains. It likely never left, and it forms the seed from which we may hope to regain a morality based, to some extent, on rational disputation.
No comments:
Post a Comment