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Something strange about the intuition of morality

שו”תCategory: philosophySomething strange about the intuition of morality
asked 4 years ago

In the SD
Hello Rabbi,
I wanted to ask, there’s something that sounds strange to me about the intuition of morality,
The supposedly moral source (“the idea of ​​the good”) is normative. And simply put, it is reasonable to assume that it describes a general law.
But for some reason, when we are required to answer the question of what the principles of morality are, we often construct them from reflection on individual, cosaist cases: for example, only after reflecting on a problem like the trolley dilemma will we derive principles such as whether there is sometimes a possibility of an activity that is defined as rescue and the byproduct will be death, as opposed to an action called killing, etc., etc. Deontological and utilitarian morality, and more.
This is why we would expect to see something like:
Moral intuition – “general law” —> And we will deduce from it “deductively” —> Private cases.
But in fact, many times it works more like abduction, where we have much easier moral insights about private events and we try to derive a general law from them by performing an abstraction. But the general law was actually supposed to exist before! And in general, how do we manage to compare it to the original general law if we don’t encounter it in the first place?
 


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0 Answers
מיכי Staff answered 4 years ago
So it is in the scientific study of nature. The law is general, but we know it through its particular manifestations. We know that objects with mass fall to the ground, but the general law is that any two masses attract each other. The particular case is easier to grasp and formulate than the general law. So it is with morality. In fact, there is an opposite direction between the thing itself and its study. In nature, the individual case is a product of the law, and in scientific research, the law is a product of generalization from individual cases. In halacha and law, there is a specific provision that is based on a general principle, but scholars of halacha and law generalize the individual provisions into general principles (this is the essence of scholarship).

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תודה replied 4 years ago

Indeed, I am aware that this is the situation in the natural sciences, and therefore this is my question from the moral point of view.
Because in the natural sciences we observe the general law through its empirical manifestations. Although this whole idea is a bit strange, this is probably how it is structured. (If you have a nice explanation of this, I would be happy to read it, not that it demonstrates but that it explains why this is so)
But in any case, in morality everything starts from moral intuition, which is apparently initially focused on the general law, but we actually understand it through a *hypothetical* examination of individual cases?! And from there we deduce the general law. Strange, isn't it?

And for scholars of law and jurisprudence, this is understandable, because the written law is written casuistically and in particular in the Torah (which is like in the natural sciences). In contrast to moral intuition, the entire basis of which is not written but ideological.

טירגיץ replied 4 years ago

There is also another approach according to which moral thinking-cognition does not work like scientific thinking-cognition. In science we have no access to the general except through observing an example. And from the example we know-think the generalization as you described in many places.
But in morality it is certainly possible that we have a direct theoretical approach to the general. And if in a concrete case there is a feeling of rebellion against the general, this does not mean in any way that the general is wrong. Rather, there is a gap between the theoretical theoretical perception and human feelings. And even if the feeling does not surrender and continues to stand its ground, it is still possible for a person to believe that it is right and proper and obligatory to act according to the rule that seems theoretically correct to him.

That is my opinion. [And as usual, I will deal with consequentialism: almost every challenge I have seen to consequentialism tries to take cases and examine the moral feeling through them. Such as the claim that of course one should not throw a person off a bridge to stop a train and the feeling rebels fiercely against this projection and hence it is proven that consequentialism is wrong. In my opinion, this is wrong on a methodological level and that is not how one should think about morality. Although for me personally there is almost no dissonance between feelings and theory. And the truth is that I think that for me the theory has forced and tamed the feelings]. And from Mill's words at the beginning of his pamphlet on utilitarianism I learned this.

I once asked whether it is true that in your opinion moral rules can be recognized only from examples or whether it is possible that the rule precedes the judgment on the case, and you answered me as if it were a dictum: “B2. I do not remember such a statement. I have written in the past about the fact that ethical discussion is usually conducted through examples, but from them rules are extracted and vice versa. I do not see a clear and absolute order between cases and rules. https://mikyab.net/posts/71518#comment-50092

I will quote Mill's language in ’On Utilitarianism’ Chapter 1.

“This difficulty remains with us even if we rely on the accepted opinion that there is a natural power, that is, a sense or instinct, that teaches us what is right and what is wrong. For apart from the fact that the very existence of such a moral instinct is one of the controversial matters, all those who believe in it and who have a hand in philosophy would have to neglect the opinion that it understands what is right or wrong in the special case in question, just as our other senses distinguish the sight or sound given to us at a given moment.
The moral power gives us, according to The opinion of all its interpreters who deserve to be called thinkers is only the general principles of moral laws. It is part of the intellectual side of our being, not of the feeling side. It invents for us the abstract laws of morality, not the moral in practice in the particular case.
The observational method in the doctrine of virtues, no less than the method that can be called a searcher, requires general principles. Both agree that the morality of a single act is not given by direct perception, but by the use of some particular rule in the particular case. They also admit, to a large extent, the same moral rules; but they differ as to the reasons on which they are based and as to the source from which their authority derives.

It is true that even in science it is not possible to know the details intuitively (what will be the speed of a given body in a planetary system) and intuitive knowledge deals only with abstract principles, but in the end it is born solely from observation of the world. But in morality it is possible Who directly observe the ideal of goodness without seeking its manifestations through concrete cases.

טירגיץ replied 4 years ago

Oh, W., sorry. I didn't see you added a comment.
I'll wait with mine after you finish (but our words are close and maybe the answer to you will answer me too)

מיכי Staff replied 4 years ago

Tirgitz, his question begins precisely with the fact that in ethics the observation is on the general, unlike in science. He wonders why, according to this, in ethics too, one deals specifically with the details and not with the general.

And to the questioner, I will go back and answer that sometimes there is a problem of formulation. You have a feeling about the general law but you do not know how to formulate it. You know how to apply it to a particular case, and from the general cases you can repeat and formulate the general. In the margins of my remarks, I will note that in science too it can be said that we observe the general law, but know how to formulate it on particular cases, and only from them do we repeat and formulate it. This is certainly Husserl's conception of iditic vision (that the general is seen through the details). The very observation of the idea of the good itself is perhaps done through the particular cases.

ו. replied 4 years ago

The reason why it is difficult to generalize is actually because of the difficulty in formulating it, which means reducing the original idea to words and concepts that are different from it? While we do derive a single instance from the original concept as a kind of example?
If so, then there is a flawed point in making a generalization because in fact it will not really reflect the concept in question in its essence, but only at most individual aspects of it, let's say. And it is much better to talk about individual cases than not?

B. If I understood correctly, then why even conceptualize the original concept with other concepts. It is like interpreting an entry in a Hebrew-Hebrew dictionary. It will not be helpful, but only harmful.

מיכי Staff replied 4 years ago

There is no connection between conceptualization and reduction. There are unformulated ideas and conceptualization offers them a formulation that represents them. Reduction is the logical positioning of one idea/concept on other ideas/concepts.

טירגיץ replied 4 years ago

I understand that you do expect harmony at the end of the process between the theoretical understanding of the general law and the moral judgment on the particular case. Why expect that? In science, it is clear to us that the senses are more reliable than generalization.

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