You'll have to give me an example — Isaac

No, I don't think I will.

This is Sinn Fein sabre-rattling isn't it? — Tim3003

Yeah but no but. N Ireland has to vote for unification, but that becomes possible with Brexit together with the change in demographics. The rest of the UK would be fairly comfortable with a united Ireland, except for the encouragement it would give Scotland. But the people who will hate it are the, ahem Conservative and Unionist Party. So there is at least a chance that when the breakup shit hits the brexit fan, the Tories themselves will find it convenient to dump Boris. He's well hated already. Tory leaders quite often end up on the sacrificial altar.

But literally no one either here or in the entire moral philosophy canon is arguing that a law which is 'wrong' is best left unchanged. I can't think of a single person whom your caveat rules out. — Isaac

There are plenty of people who believe in extra-judicial killings, enhanced interrogation, etc. They believe injustice is right. But if you read the piece with an ounce of sympathy, you will see that this is exactly why Anscombe prefers the language of particular virtues rather than universal 'good' and 'ought'. No one argues that injustice is ever just, but plenty of people argue that it might be good sometimes.

How do we establish if the law is indeed wrong? That's the point. — Isaac

We argue it out. But I am only going to argue it out with people who will accept that if the law is wrong then it needs changing, because if we don't agree that far, then the argument is fruitless. And I absolutely am not going round that roundabout again with you or anyone else.

Consider the case of the law about which side of the road to drive on. In this case the 'correct' side is arbitrary but definite and varies from place to place. If you drive, then it is your business to know which side is the correct side and drive on that side an if you are an American diplomat's wife and kill someone by driving on the wrong side of the road in the country you are in, you are in the wrong. The law in this case is arbitrary but reasonable and necessary, and we know what is just. Unlike sexuality, where one cannot choose which side find attractive and no one is harmed if it is not the side they want it to be. We can argue these things out and get them wrong and correct ourselves.

But we cannot have that debate about justice v injustice itself, only about whether this law or that behaviour is just or unjust.

To take an extreme, if you are suspected of having corona virus, then the government in the UK has taken emergency powers to confine you for a period in quarantine, and this is an infringement of your freedom in the interest of public health justifiable or not, we can argue. If it is justified, it is not an injustice, and if it is unjust, it cannot be justified.

Then this hypothetical society's version of Anscombe comes along — Isaac

No. She does not say that. She says that if the law is wrong then the man is innocent and it is wrong to say that he is not innocent. And you are wrong to be accusing Anscombe of saying the exact opposite of what she is in fact saying. It is exactly the idea that moral justice cannot be compromised in this way that is the point she is making. IF you are willing in principle to compromise justice and say that it is good, THEN she will have nothing to do with you. Clearly, not everyone knows that; clearly she is of the opinion that consequentialism at least opens the door to such positions. To put it as simply as possible... Injustice cannot be justified, ever. Disagree all you like, but not on the grounds that she is justifying injustice.

the guilty homosexual makes no sense, they have done nothing wrong, the law is wrong, not them. — Isaac

Hold on to that thought: - The law can be wrong. And an example of a law that was wrong was the law against homosexuality. So if the law is wrong and someone has been convicted under that law then there has been a miscarriage of justice, and an innocent has been convicted.

But if we convince ourselves that the innocent can be found guilty, then whatever our opinion of homosexuality, we can find people guilty or innocent regardless. — unenlightened

That is to say, for example, that we we might find a heterosexual guilty of homosexuality, because he is a 'bad person' in some other way or because in some other way it is good. And this would also be a miscarriage of justice.

Notice that 'justice' here is the moral term, not the legal term.

Now what Anscombe and I are saying is that though miscarriages of justice happen, of both the kinds indicated, wrong law and wrongful conviction, if there is a philosophy that says that wrong law or wrongful conviction are good things in principle if they make things better for other people, then there is nothing more to be said.

See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Omelas

I'll take your umbridge. — Isaac

I have no umbrage to offer, I simply do not know how to talk to people about innocent bad people.

If the innocent (in this hypothetical society) happen to be bad people for whatever reason, then it is good that they are imprisoned. — Isaac

If you do not see the madness of your post, then I cannot help you. Seriously, you amply demonstrate why Anscombe will not argue. My work here is done.

If you want to appeal to common humanity to tell the difference — Isaac

I don't. A system of justice is an institution that decides guilt and innocence. So if we had convinced ourselves that homosexuality was wrong then the system would declare the guilt of a homosexual. And if we changed our convictions, then it would change and declare the innocence of a homosexual.
But if we convince ourselves that the innocent can be found guilty, then whatever our opinion of homosexuality, we can find people guilty or innocent regardless. I'm shocked to find that this needs so much labour to explain - the difference seems vast and obvious. If it is good to find the innocent guilty, then it is good to find heterosexuals guilty of homosexuality. Things fall apart.

How do you explain the strong link between support for Trump and the religious right then? — Isaac

We'd have to take that to the Trump thread and I don't have the stomach for it. I do have a long-winded explanation, but it's way off topic.

The moment you say "don't question this one, — Isaac

No one is saying that. Anscombe is saying that if you have a theory that says it is good in certain circumstances to pervert the course of justice, then you have a perverted ethic. You cannot usefully argue with someone who claims that black is white.

how many Trump supporters do you seriously think are moral relativists? — Isaac

You cannot be serious! Do you think Trump has any regard for divine law at all? Adultery, false witness, covetousness, are not merely committed but boasted of by him, just for starters. Any religious connection is a degenerate religion of convenience. I am not a great fan of all this divine law stuff myself, but you cannot blame Trumpism on religion. Absolutely the reverse.

the biggest problem is that we do nonetheless continue to advise, proscibe, admonish and even punish people on the grounds that they 'ought' to have done otherwise. — Isaac

Yes we do. This is going a bit off topic, but the importance is large. The generation that lived through the holocaust and WW2 is almost gone, and the same partisan populist rabble-rousing politics is returning in force. And the resistance to these dangerous trends has no philosophical ground on which to stand. As the discussion has shown, Anscombe even here in the thread has been castigated for refusing to countenance the extremes of moral opportunism consequentialism.

Psychologically, the position is psychopathic, and psychopaths are more and more being voted into power. This is the physicalist's psychology, that equates morality with emotion as another form of desire. And that is me pathologising psychology, as I am wont to do.

For what reason does a human being need a "divine will" to judge the made up stuff as good or bad? — Metaphysician Undercover

History.

You don't have to agree with Anscombe, and nor do I. Her argument though is that moral oughts only make sense in that context. Rather like money only makes sense in the context of property. I'm going to stop here though for a bit, and let someone else or no one else take over.

Do you agree that the made up shit, where it seeps into various forms of manifestation, from myths, religious stories, psychological theories, to physical theories about the nature and origin of life and the universe, has had an important affect on morality? — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes. And given the phenomena of such made up stuff, one can philosophise. But a philosophy that makes up the phenomena - no that's not philosophy. Again, this is the whole thrust of Anscombe's piece, that without the divine will the concept of moral oughts has no content and dissolves into an emotional (psychological) appeal, not a theory with any content. Again you are confusing the philosophy of made up shit, with made up shit philosophy.

But this weaving together tends to hide the distinction between the scientific principles produced from empirical observations of past events, and the made up shit, which are the principles by which the scientific principles are applied toward producing future events. — Metaphysician Undercover

I have many times pointed out here how the same people that applaud Hume's ought/is distinction object rather strongly to his will-be/has been one. And these are equally limits to reason, and thus to philosophy. But they do not limit life which makes profitable predictions and moral systems by its actions without reference to the strictures of reason. It is unreasonable to expect the future to be like the past. And it is unreasonable to expect it not to be. And especially, it is unreasonable to conclude that there will be no future.

Perhaps one might conclude, philosophically, that the future is made up, and that morality is made up. But it cannot be made up by analytic philosophy at least. Rather, as Anscombe declares it is made up by psyche, and the phenomenon is then examined by philosophy.

Moral philosophy determines what's good, — Metaphysician Undercover

No it doesn't. That's impossible. Philosophy has to be about something. Making shit up is called 'fiction'.

if Unenlightened's account is accurate, the article suffers the problems Unenlightened has demonstrated. — Metaphysician Undercover

But there is no problem. Moral philosophy depends on morals, not the other way round.

Everybody's perfect.

Thread theme tune.

Sorry, sometimes I don't see what appears obvious to others. That's why I ask for explanations. I don't think it's related to smartness, I think it's a psychological condition. Why not just address the issue instead of expressing a biased judgement of my psyche, in a way meant to insult? — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't know what to say really. To paraphrase A : moral philosophy is in a state because bla bla bla and all this other stuff needs to be sorted out before we can hope to make sense of it. In the meantime, I am not going to discuss any of this with Jeffery Dahmer, Adolf Hitler, or Pol Pot. I cannot justify it, but I'm not going to commit atrocities because philosophy is a mess.

Why does one state "it is not profitable for us at present to do moral philosophy", and then proceed to do moral philosophy? — Metaphysician Undercover

You are smarter than this. I won't answer the ridiculous.

What's the point then? — Metaphysician Undercover

Exactly. There is no point. I am a vegetarian; the benefits of eating meat don't apply.

Isn't this just like saying "let's discuss morality, but I have no respect for your opinion, I just want to discuss my opinion"? — Metaphysician Undercover

I think it's like saying let's not discuss morality right now."

I WILL begin by stating three theses which I present in this paper. The first is that it is not profitable for us at present to do moral philosophy; that should be laid aside at any rate until we have an
adequate philosophy of psychology, in which we are conspicuously lacking. — A

So as to philosophers and the willing, the thesis is that we do not have a basis without religion on which to ground a discussion, and as to someone who will admit torture as being ok if there is a good profit in it or whatever, then we are not remotely talking about the same thing.

Well indeed. So they remain unsupported.
— unenlightened

No they do not remain unsupported, we support them all the time, by referring to ethical principles. That's what I told Banno, and Banno suggested that we might just declare that courage is a virtue without reference to any ethics for support. But that's not reality, in reality we support those judgements with such references. — Metaphysician Undercover

I really don't understand your argument. You seem to be declaring what we do and then complaining that we're not doing it. I'm saying that Anscombe is saying that there are positions she will not engage with. If you want to engage with them, that's up to you. As a vegetarian, I am simply not interested in the nutritional value of meat.

Such allegations of "corrupt" can only be supported in relation to the principles of some system. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well indeed. So they remain unsupported.

I do not want to argue with him; he shows a corrupt mind. — A

You of course are perfectly entitled to seek to provide support or lament the lack of support. I merely point out that such considerations are off topic. Rather as one might decline to exchange recipes with a cannibal.

Their decision-making methods may be flawed, either by our own or by their standards. — Isaac

Your relativism renders the discussion meaningless. I will not argue with it.

If I hold a theory that it is morally good to murder my wife on the basis of the perceived consequences, — Isaac

But if someone really thinks, in advance,I that it is open to question whether such an action as procuring the judicial execution of the innocent should be quite excluded from consideration-I do not want to argue with him; he shows a corrupt mind. — A

If I have a corrupt mind, I will have corrupt ethics and make corrupt calculations. This much must surely be accounted for, as one has ample evidence for its occurrence in the world. "I am an exceptionally fine fellow, and therefore anything that helps me is a good thing and anything that hinders me is a bad thing." I don't need to name names do I?

The best we can do is just muddle along. Hey, unenlightened? — Banno

There is something towards the end of the piece that is not articulated. If I dare to try and make it explicit, I may be wrong and I may fail, so bite my bum if you will...

Amongst the multiverse of possibilities that one might try to measure and compare as 'consequences', there is one kind that might be called 'psychological' in particular and that relates to a problem that psychology has as a scientific endeavour. And that is that the psyche is made of (or contains) psychological theory in a way that atoms are not made of atomic theory.

And she will not argue against a thought that shows 'a corrupt mind'. And what is a corrupt mind, and what mind can judge the corruption, and according to what psychological theory?

On the one hand, there are ethical theories that tend to corrupt the mind, and on the other there are minds that are corrupted enough to hold such theories. And consequentialism is such because in principle anything at all can be justified. And the reason for the philosophical failure is precisely that such theories cannot measure or account for their own consequences on the psyche that holds them.

So I justify murdering my wife because it will liberate me to do all sorts of good in the world, but cannot calculate the corruption that either the act or the calculation will have on me because the theory cannot conceive that it is itself corrupt, and the calculation cannot calculate the consequences of calculating.

But the 'artist's statement' has to be understood as the specific thing it is. — csalisbury

Yes, I thought I had conceded the point, but yes i pushed that line further than was justifiable. I fear that art has become a religion along with football and so on. Reciting the creed is more important that following the teaching.

If the art is good, the artist saying the meaning can and I think will in most cases detract from the art, since it will be seen through a narrower lens. — Coben

I have a neat solution to this; look first, read afterwards if you like what you see. Perhaps the artist is also interesting when he writes and perhaps not.

If people did not think they were going to make their art work through explaining what it means, they might realize they need to make powerful art in and of itself, and this power will include things that are not related to verbal thinking. — Coben

I suspect it is usually the other way about. That one cannot get one's work taken seriously by the gatekeepers of the establishment unless one has a good line of bullshit. And this is the problem, not what the artist says but that they cannot make art that will be exhibited without saying something 'conceptual'. Curators give the bullshit all the importance because they have no 'ground' by which to measure value otherwise.

I suspect we more or less agree about this, you me and the op, but it really isn't the bullshit that's the problem, it's taking the bullshit seriously. And that comes from the gatekeepers of the art establishment who naturally value what they do most highly.

You're treating this like legislation. — Coben

I don't like to do things people hate, if possible. But of all the problems with the sort of conceptual art that seems to do the circuit of European public galleries, the labels seem the least offensive to me. If the art is good, who cares about the labels? And if the art is bad, who cares about the labels?

So I can talk about art as long as I am not talking about my own art, or as long as I am not presenting art, or something? Seems a bit arbitrary.

I would have thought that the problem is not that the artist says something about their work, but that the work is not worth talking about. There's a lot of that about I will grant you. Naming no bananas.

Never mind.

Well "Art should speak for itself" certainly seems like an ideological/philosophical position that an artist might take or might not take. Your post could be made by an artist as a statement of their position, even if as it happens, you are not an artist, whatever one of those is. "Shut up and look" is a perfectly reasonable attitude to take when your contemplation is being interrupted, but as an op is smacks of performative contradiction, because you are yourself breaking the silence.

I hate the artists's statement. — Noble Dust

Isn't that an artist's statement?

I don't see why we could not simply accept courage as worthy in itself. — Banno

For lo, it is written in The Jungle Book, that Mowgli shall learn the courage of the tiger, the loyalty of the wolf, the cunning of the snake, the sociality of the monkey, and the strength of the bear, and shall become king of the jungle with the virtues of all.

I don't see why we could not equally accept cowardice as a virtue. We could call it 'discretion', the virtue of the stick insect. Is not a virtue simply a characteristic that works in terms of survival? a way of life?

I think you have passed too quickly on to virtue, and neglected what I think is fundamental to the psychology - conflict, between ought and want, or good and evil, or personal and social, or...

But meanwhile -- is it not clear that there are several concepts that need investigating simply as part of the philosophy of psychology and, as I should recommend -- banishing ethics totally from our minds? Namely -- to begin with: "action", "intention", "pleasure", "wanting". — A

One takes wanting for granted as a motive, but it is a curious affair. The physics of it is strange because the cause seems to come after the event. I want ice cream because it pleases me, but the pleasure seems to be projected backwards in time to become the motive force that gets me to go to the ice cream parlour. Of course a little reflection inclines one to say that it is not the great taste of the ice cream that one has not had that impels one to the parlour, but the memory and image of the great taste one has had yesterday and last week.

And as soon as one sees that one is motivated always by images of consequences and never by consequences themselves, one starts to see things somewhat differently in ethics too.

Hesitate to interrupt, but on the why a need for a philosophy of psychology: Hume was the empirical psychologist. But these days, a modern empiricist might present a different fork against the hedonist rather than the divine:- " you can't get a want from an is. That is to say, that one acts out (of) a conflict of oughts and wants, and that conflict is what makes the divide between is and ought. If only we wanted to do what we ought to do, then what ought to be would be. But no one has ever troubled over deriving their wants...

I don't see how this follows. — Wallows

Nothing follows. Not I, nor Jesus are making any argument. However, here is a suggestion from some psyche expert whose name I forget. There are two types of happiness; there is the immediate momentary thing - the chocolate melting in the mouth or whatever, and then there is the happiness of recollection. There's not much happiness in the recollection of the chocolate, but there may be much happiness in recollection of the smile on the face of your friend as you shared it.

And the message is that if you are chasing happiness, all you will get is momentary, and it will never amount to anything. It is the happiness that you give that will stay with you.

I see you are in the UK. Have you any contact with The Critical Psychiatry Network? If not you may find a sympathetic ear and possibly some useful information and even support...

You might want to distinguish psychology, which is mainly in the business of persuading you to vote for the tyrant and spend your pittance on the trash produced by Mammon Inc from psychiatry, which is a smaller organisation that deals with those few who refuse to conform.

Psychiatry is flawed in the sense that it cannot entirely control the miscreants. But your complaint is that it has too much success. And part of its success is to convince even most philosophers that sanity and madness are terms that apply to individuals and not relationships.

I exaggerate of course, and many people are of good will at least, and many who are dealt with by psychiatry are indeed troubled individuals, whose relationship with society is highly dependent and toxic to all parties. In a simpler society, one can chase out of the village those who will not play their part, and let them fend for themselves in the wilderness; when there is no viable wilderness, society has to confine such people with pills or chains or kill them.