Does Philosophy Matter? (Part Two) - NYTimes.

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AUGUST 8, 2011, 8:45 PM

Does Philosophy Matter? (Part Two)

By STANLEY FISH

Some of the readers who were not persuaded by my argument that abstract moral propositions do not travel into practical contexts
(see, "Does Philosophy Matter?") offer what they take to be obvious counterexamples. Joe (187) cites "the 'Philosophers' Brief' on
assisted suicide that was submitted to the Supreme Court." The example, however, counts for my side.
The brief was written by Ronald Dworkin, Thomas Nagel, Robert Nozick, John Rawls, Thomas Scanlon and Judith Jarvis Thomson
(an all-star roster if there ever was one). It argues against a Washington state law prohibiting assisted suicide. The philosophers
hope to persuade the Court to strike down the law by invoking a "liberty interest" all men and women have in making their own
"personal decisions" about the "most intimate choices a person may make in a lifetime" including the choice to die. "Death is, for
each of us, among the most significant events of life."
The Court alludes to this argument in passing when it acknowledges that the "decision to commit suicide with the assistance of
another" may be "personal and profound." The point, however, is summarily dismissed in the same sentence: "but it has never
enjoyed legal protection" (Washington v. Glucksberg, 1997). That is to say, while "abstract concepts of personal autonomy" (the
Court's phrase) may be interesting, they are not currency here in the world of legal deliberation. What is currency is the line of
decisions preceding this one: "The history of the law's treatment of assisted suicide in this country has been and continues to be the
rejection of nearly all efforts to permit it." Case closed. The editors of a leading jurisprudence casebook observe that "The
Philosophers' Brief arguments about autonomy seem not to have influenced the Supreme Court at all" (Jurisprudence Classic and
Contemporary, 2002). Why should it have? The Court isn't doing philosophy, it is doing law. Grand philosophical statements may
turn up in a Supreme Court opinion, but they are not doing the real work.
But what if a lawyer or a judge was a devout Christian or a Hasidic Jew or a follower of the Koran? Would that change things? It
well might, for it is a feature of religious tenets (at least with respect to some religions) that they demand fidelity to their
commands not merely on holidays or in houses of worship, but at all times and in all places. Believers, Marie Burns (1) observes,
do rely on their religion "to determine their views on a variety of subjects." Many people, An Ordinary American (140) reminds us,
when asked why do you do this, would reply, "This is what my religion teaches me to do."
The question is whether religion should be considered philosophy. For a long time, of course, philosophy was included under
religion's umbrella, not in the modern sense that leads to courses like "The Philosophy of Religion," but in the deeper sense in
which religious doctrines are accepted as foundational and philosophy proceeds within them. But for contemporary philosophers
religious doctrines are not part of the enterprise but a threat to it. The spirit is as Andrew Tyler (38) describes it: "to be skeptical,
critical and independent so that you're not so easily duped and frightened into submission by religious dogma." Courses in the
philosophy of religion tacitly subordinate religion to philosophy by subjecting religion to philosophy's questions and standards.
Strong religious believers will resist any such subordination because, for them, religious, not philosophical, imperatives trump. The
reason religion can and does serve as a normative guide to behavior is that it is not a form of philosophy, but a system of belief that
binds the believer. (Philosophy is something you can do occasionally, religion is not.)
But aren't beliefs and philosophies the same things? No they're not. Beliefs such as "I believe that life should not be taken" or "I
believe in giving the other fellow the benefit of the doubt" or "I believe in the equality of men and women" or "I believe in turning
the other cheek" are at least the partial springs of our actions and are often regarded by those who hold them as moral absolutes; no
exceptions recognized. These, however, are particular beliefs which can be arrived at for any number of reasons, including things
your mother told you, the reading of a powerful book, the authority of a respected teacher, an affecting experience that you have
generalized into a maxim ("From now on I'll speak ill of no one.").
A belief in moral absolutes, as an abstract position, is quite another thing. It affirms no particular moral absolute (although it might
lead down the road to naming some); rather, it asserts that the category of moral absolutes is full; and it does so against the
arguments of those who assert that the category is empty, not with respect to any particular moral absolute, but generally.
Wherever one stands at the end of a such a philosophical argument one will be committed not to any specific moral stance (like
turning the other cheek) but either to the thesis, again abstract, that moral stances are anchored in and justified by an underlying
truth about the nature of moral behavior or to the thesis that they are not.

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Does Philosophy Matter? (Part Two) - NYTimes.com

"I believe in moral absolutes" and "I hold absolutely to the idea that men and women are equal" are propositions of quite different
orders. It is only the first proposition that doesn't travel; it doesn't tell you anything or direct you to do anything, necessarily. The
second proposition, if you affirm it sincerely, has already committed you to particular choices and decisions. So when Id (19)
imagines a Joe Schmoe who might say "But my moral beliefs do matter to my decision making," my reply is of course, they do, but
that in no way undermines my argument, which is not about moral beliefs but about a belief in moral beliefs. Moral beliefs are not
the kinds of thing you believe in; they are the kinds of things you have, or, rather, they have you.
Several posters complain that I can mount my argument only by rigging it, by excluding from the category of philosophy a whole lot
of things most people would put into it - religion, moral commitments and a great deal else. Lindsey S (176) asks, "Am I to
understand that epistemology doesn't matter. That philosophy of mind doesn't matter? That political philosophy doesn't matter?"
Well, they certainly matter to those who do them, those who engage in the debates and controversies that impel an academic
discipline. But I don't see how they matter to people who are just living their everyday lives. Thinking is not directed or improved by
your having an account of thinking, that is, an epistemology; your mind operates independently of whether or not you have a
philosophy of it; politicians don't have philosophical frameworks; they have strategies attached to some idea of what they want to
get done. But, Tom (143) objects, "the entire field of applied ethics rests on the premise that a moral philosophical framework can
guide moral decision making." Then the entire field should shut down.
But what about the Tea Party? That question was raised by a large number of readers who made two points : (1) the debt ceiling
controversy would have come to a better end if the participants had read and studied the right philosophical tracts, and (2) the
trouble with the Tea Party is that it is guided by a bad philosophy, one that dictates its members' behavior. The first point is clearly
silly; it employs the same reasoning that leads some people to believe that if only terrorists, tyrants, and jihadists would read our
constitution, the Federalist papers, and a few pages of John Rawls, they would come to their senses and become followers of
democracy. As for the second point, according to its Web sites the Tea Party believes in limited government and free enterprise and
opposes political schemes that assume the perfectibility of man and fail to recognize that we are motivated largely by self interest.
(The view is a variant of Mandeville's in "The Fable of the Bees," that private vices make for public benefits.) These are certainly
ideas and they are cited as support for the positions Tea Party members take; but "big government is bad" and "free enterprise is
good" are slogans that speak to the discontent of those who feel disenfranchised; they amount to philosophy after the fact; they
didn't produce the Tea Party disaffection; they dress it up for public viewing.
Finally, let me reply to the charge that I am contradicting myself by doing philosophy while trashing philosophy. "Interesting that
Dr. Fish would use such a 'finely' tuned philosophical argument to debunk philosophy" ( 43). But I'm not debunking philosophy or
saying that people shouldn't do it. Philosophy is fun; it can be a good mental workout; its formulations sometimes display an
aesthetically pleasing elegance. I'm just denying to philosophy one of the claims made for it -that its conclusions dictate or generate
non-philosophical behavior - and there is no reason that my denial of philosophy's practical utility should not take a philosophical
form.
Hugh McDonald (112) thinks he has me when he says that if philosophy doesn't matter, "Then your philosophy doesn't matter."
That's right; it doesn't, if by "matter" is meant that reading me will make a difference in the way you live. The only benefit one
might derive from following my argument is the removal of a confusion; you might no longer think that getting your philosophical
ducks in a row will lead to better and more moral decisions. But your new clarity will do you no more positive good - it will not
translate into superior forms of action - than your former confusion did you positive harm.
If you have a problem to solve or a decision to make reading me won't help you any more than chanting "I believe in moral
absolutes" or "I don't." What will help are the usual ingredients of what Aristotle calls "practical reasoning"- an understanding of
your goal, a survey of alternative ways of reaching it, a calculation of likely consequences, an effort to identify the relevant
considerations, a recollection of what happened last time, and so on. Sabrina Jamil (83) has me saying that because there is no
universal agreement on moral absolutes, we should "just drop it because it makes no difference ... which interpretation one holds
anyway." On the contrary, it makes a great deal of difference and it is our obligation to work through to the interpretation (or
judgment or decision) that seems right in the circumstances. In the course of our efforts many things (and not always the same
things) will be of use, but moral philosophy won't be one of them.

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