From: coonstot@quads.uchicago.edu (charles orville onstott)
Subject: Ethics as the Litmus Test of Philosophy
Reply-To: coonstot@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 19:36:34 GMT

Subject: Re: Private lives (was re: Paul Johnson (was Paglia))
In article <1993Jan10.153907.19166@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:

>Indeed it is, insofar as the singular goal, and the unique litmus test
>of all philosophical reasoning is ethics, and insofar as the ethical
>reasoning of a philosopher is supported or vitiated by his personal
>conduct.  If you should find yourself at a loss for positive examples,
>I refer you to Socrates and Spinoza.
>
>cordially,
>mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
>"Nothing can be said truly of what does not exist."

Not that we haven't had discussions on Heidegger before, Mikhail,
you still have failed to give any reasonable argument that
Heidegger's philosophy is inherently Nazistic; much less that
it some how "infects" his treatment of other philosophers.  However,
I am not interested in this particular point at this time.(I found
all prior conversations--rantings--with you on the matter useless and
uninformative)

As to ethics being the litmus test of philosophic reasoning,
this is philosophically meaningless.  First, you assume
that any ethics will necessarily be grounded in a 
system of reasoning.  That this stance alone is questionable
will not be dealt with now as the outcome of it makes little
impact on my conclusion.  If this is the case, then any
ethical standard by which you would judge any ethics(even
ones based on comportion as your arguement towards Heidegger
goes) must also be grouded in some philosophic system of
reasoning.  Hence a number of problems arise.
There is no way to make the claim: first, that an ethics
that is contrary to an ethical standard you do not subscribe
to will lead to necessarily better philosophic reasoning,
second,  that an ethics you believe to be superior to
another ethics will lead to necessarily better philosophic
reasoning, third, that an ethics you believe to be superior will
lead to a consistant philosophic grounding(and by this
I refer specifically to the consistancy within the ethics
and the grounding) is philosophically necessary, and
finally, your claim essentially states that we should
judge philosophy by its "ethics" alone, not by the
reasoning involved(as your claim is a slippery slope).
Therefore, I conclude that there is no necessarily sufficient
condition to privelege the study of ethics over the study of the
grounding for the purposes of avoiding a philosophy.

Another problem arises is your insistance that
comportion is inherently tied to a a given ethical standard,
essentially stating that all human beings automatically
live up to the standards they set,  the problem being that it is false.
This should be more than obvious.  Of course, with Heidegger,
you have no choice to but analyze comportion since his
philosophy is more or less devoid of an ethics.  In addition,
as you know, my reading of Heidegger is such that Heidegger
presents the grounding for a number of ethics because he
provides the grounding of a number of philosophies and as such his
philosophy should explain a variety of ethics(for example, Nazism
and to the proper treatment of "Relocation" which are
inherently contradictory).  In addition, proper study
of Heidegger would lead us to understand the type of philosophy
that leads to Nazism, or other forms of despicable ethical
systems, so that we may avoid them in the future.  Of course,
some will comfuse explanation with necessity; something that I think
you have done both in your treatment of Heidegger and with
your understanding of "Ethics as the litmus test."


BCnya,
  Charles O. Onstott, III
-- 
Charles O. Onstott, III                         (coonstot@midway.uchicago.edu)
Graduate Student in Religion and the Human Sciences
The University of Chicago Divinity School
        "[T]he problem of history cannot be solved by avoiding it." (B. McGinn)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc