Ethical foundations of the left

Kenneth MacKendrick kenneth.mackendrick at utoronto.ca
Mon Jul 23 12:16:20 PDT 2001


At 02:47 PM 7/23/01 +0000, you wrote:


>No, it's just a fact that strong arguments do not trump intuitions.

Should we resign ourselves to this or generate better arguments to encourage *rational* thought? Intuitively - we have *reasons* for everything we believe. These might be bad reasons - based on idiotic logical deductions, poor observation, perhaps even naughty habits, but if I have an intuition that is going to rain, it is because I've had some experience in that past that, by analogy, indicates to me that it is going to rain. If we don't have some reasoning behind such intuitions, they are - strictly speaking - meaningless (meaningless to us). The only way to address this meaninglessness is to investigate further why our intution has become blocked to a cognitive faculties, this might mean therapy, but it might also mean a walk in the park. On a social level, intuitions are extraordinarily unhelpful - and probably authoritarian. If I say, I have a hunch that frogs are going to fall form the sky today, without explanation or reason, and then I actually pursue this in parliament... well... what nonsense, eh?


> Absolutely nothing could persuade me that slavery is better than
> freedom, even though this is remarkably difficult to show.

It isn't difficult to show at all. One would have to have experienced something of both in order to make any kind of coherent decision on the matter. In other words, if one is enslaved or exploited, it is obligatory for the 'free person' (so-called) to engender conditions that would allow a decision to be made: communicative logic demands that conditions be such that communication itself is not endangered. This logic is immanent to having a conversation at all. And, as Gadamer once noted, even the criminal tries to understand (a 'crime' cannot be successful unless the criminal [so-called] has already achieved 'verification' [with others] about a certain state of affairs that would allow them to even consider violating a behaviour norm --- this is a awkward example, I think I mentiond before that I like to quote it... however, it illustrates that understanding is primary for the coordination of any kind of action (instrumental, strategic, purposive and so on) - at least if that action has even the vaguest notion of attempting to be successful...


> It's idle to say that this is not as it should be; you just have to live
> with it. Moral argument only changes people's minds incrementally and at
> the margins. People adjust, tighten up, and systematize their intuitions;
> the results of many small changes may be a big one, but there is no
> reason to think that moral philosophers have been effective prophets.

It isn't a matter of a prophetic voice at all, it is a matter of mutual recognition and education. A crucial question would be this: are people interested in learning? If so, then the learning process makes demands on our everyday intuitions. Most of the time we aren't interested. Why? Because we've got nice substitutes to curb our interest in reason, emancipation, exploration and so on. But these substitutes are precisely the target of social criticism, because they form the blocks to communication and enlightenment that is inherent to the mechanism of thought (self-reflection and intersubjective reflection). We tighten up, form rigid boundaries for specific reasons, which can be identified in an objective way through theoretical inquiry. This is why critique, which is already part of self-reflection is necessary. This is always dialectical, it is taken more or less, sometimes we want to learn and sometimes we don't (reflective vs. non-reflective learning). How to we encourage the learning process which is immanent to our sensory perception? That's the question. And it *must* be solved on a rational level because there is no other way. I think it can be demonstrated, systematically, that intuition doesn't fall from the heavens or grow up from the earth - it is backed by reason. The idea of a 'thought' creatio ex nihilo is .. well... almost unthinkable. It would be on the side of the intuitionist to demonstrate how this is possible, even then, they would have to rely on non-intuitive means, or, default to an authoritarian argument (God, Nation, whatever). Even then, there would have to be reasons up to the point of termination, so even the most intuitive thinker must give some reasons, however foolish, inadequate or paltry they are (from a discursive perspective).


> On historical materialist grounds, why would you expect them to be?
> Social being determines thought, and much less vice versa. And no, most
> intuitions are, I think, unargued. The grounds I ahve to thinking that
> slavery is worse than freedom are much weaker than the conclusion.

Thought determines social being just as much as social being determines thought. The point, as Zizek notes, is that this is undeterminable as such. In Hegelian thought, both sides are strictly equal - and politics is the place where we argue over which is which and how is how.

In any event, Zizek aside, I still think that intuition is inherently connected to our cognitive faculties. If pressed, all intuitions can be expressed in the form of an argument, however inadequately. They can be criticized, revised, and developed. I mean, really - if I asked you to come up with an argument why freedom is better than slavery (and you took my question seriously) - you'd develop, I'm sure, a brilliant and stunning defense of the necessary - and rational - potential for human beings to be free, linked to the very fact of sensory perception qua intersubjective socialization... you might not put it like that, but I'm just intuitively guessing about how such an argument might be developed and articulated.

How do we know this is true? Because we engender its truth the moment we engage in a conversation, reflection is actualized, so to speak, in the attempt to understanding.

What do you think about that?

love, ken



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