From: turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Transcendent values  (was: human rights...)
Date: 14 Sep 1992 13:25:20 -0500
Organization: U Texas Dept of Computer Sciences, Austin TX
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu
Summary: Does Jim Kalb have another line of attack?

-*----
I think Jim Kalb summarizes the issue well:

In article <1992Sep13.184355.109@panix.com> jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb) writes:
> Your point seems to be that the only evaluative judgments that make
> sense are judgments that evaluate fitness for some actual purpose.  My
> answer, of course, is that we can't think about life sensibly and in
> fact none of us do think about life without evaluating purposes as good
> or bad categorically. ...

And here, Kalb is just wrong.  Many of us "think about life
without evaluating purposes as good or bad categorically."
Indeed, I have no notion of what qualifies something as good or
bad *categorically*, because those who appeal to this notion all
lapse into the fuzziest kind of speech when trying to explain it,
e.g., analogies that compare the categorical good with the
existence of the golden gate bridge.  (I am leary of arguments
that reify existence, and also of sweeping analogies, so when
someone uses both techniques for something so basic as defining
what they mean by a phrase, my Rhetorical Fuzz Detector clangs so
loudly my ears hurt.  In any case, I am pretty certain that *I*
do not rely on the notion of a *categorical* good.)

In response to Jim Kalb's example, I wrote:

>> Parents "love their children, so they want," i.e. *desire*, their
>> children to have fulfilling lives.  Parents have their own
>> *inclinations* of what constitutes a fulfilling life, and so they raise
>> their children with this *purpose* in mind. Here, I see a lot of human
>> desire, purpose, and inclination, and nothing transcendent at all. 

He responds:

> I also said that parents speak of love as a motivation for "making
> sacrifices" for their children, ...

There is nothing here that requires the notion of a "categorical"
good.  Most people have some long-term or far-reaching purposes
that conflict with their narrower interests.  Love for another
often generates such purpose.  Furthermore, many of us have a
broad interest in parents providing nurture and support for their
children, both from the compassion we feel for these children and
also from the unfortunate effects on the rest of us when a parent
does not have these purposes, or fails to accomplish them
(perhaps because the parent subordinates these purposes to other
desires).  In this context, we talk about good and bad parents,
but the good and bad are relative to various desires, interests,
and purposes.  There is nothing mysterious here that requires
transcending these notions. 

In contrast to the above, which seems to me a fairly clear
account, I think Jim Kalb's explanation of some "component" of
love that goes beyond human desire, purpose, and inclination
quickly becomes gobbledegook.  Consider the passage below. 

> I would identify that component as the recognition that the loved 
> one is as real as oneself.  It is that recognition, together with
> acceptance of rationality (neither of which can be reduced to desire,
> purpose or inclination), that makes it possible for the interests of
> other people to motivate us without regard to what our own d., p. & i.
> happen to be.

I have no idea what it means for one person to be more or less
real than another.  The acceptance of rationality, in my view,
stems directly from a person's *desire* to make sense, which the
above passage does not.  The only ways I have seen to motivate
someone "without regard to [their] own d[esires], p[urposes], and
i[nclinations]" involve deceit and coercion, and I would not
identify these components of love.

As a second example, Jim Kalb offers the process of discourse
itself, as something requiring transcendent values.

> ... As to arguments, you yourself advance arguments with the
> apparent intention that people whose subjective inclinations 
> favor the contrary view should recognize them as valid.

Again, there is a very simple understanding of this that does not
require any appeal to the mysterious "categorical" good.  In a
word: our inclinations often conflict with one another.  Some
people have a strong desire that their beliefs make sense.  This
desire often conflicts with other beliefs that they have come to
hold or desire to hold.  Expository discourse explores these
conflicts.  When I try to persuade a person of something, I
appeal to some of their beliefs against other of their beliefs,
and to some of their desires against other of their desires. 

I wrote:

>> I assert that people "can give no sensible explanation" of 
>> such claims [e.g.: the necessity of a "categorical" good] from
>> their many attempts to do so and their universal failure. ...

> I also don't know what you mean by "universal failure". ...

Kalb has defended the notion of a "categorical" good as well as
most I have seen.  So far, he has pushed heavily two lines of
attack.  (1) He has asserted that we all, of necessity, rely on
this notion.  Against this, I and others have disclaimed any such
relial.  Short of a claim that he can read our minds -- and more,
their inner workings better than ourselves -- this line of attack
must analyze our writings.  (2) He has given some examples where
he claims that the notion of a "categorical" good is required for
understanding or advocacy.  Against this, I have offered accounts
of these examples that are simpler yet that explain as much.
(Indeed, we have gone through at least two iterations of this
process.  This method could go on indefinitely as he offers
further examples or different aspects of the same examples, and I
offer alternative accounts.  Soon, I will tire, and will trust
that the interested readers will have figured out how to create
their own accounts that do not rely on notions of transcendent
value.)

To me, it seems that Kalb has failed to sustain his claims.  The
fact that I have read many writers try this, that Kalb has as
much success as most of them, and that this has been regularly
attempted in the philosophical enterprise is what I mean when I
say the failure is universal.

Russell