Doing the right thing? Fun paper I wrote for school

In this paper I will summarize then criticize Anscombe’s criticism of moral philosophy, briefly criticize the main moral philosophical systems as far as one with a rudimentary understanding of academic philosophy goes, then suggest my own perspective on how to approach doing the right thing. I will also touch on my worries for what the repercussions of the incessant criticism that philosophy warrants does to the domain of moral thinking. My perspective is essentially such: every moral system has its own points that are validly subject to its own share of criticism and we are self satisfying creatures. Given this, we’re likely only going to do “moral good” given that it is convenient for us and our goals, so, I think it is rational and realistic for us to try and excrete moral value not through the solution outputs to these abstract moral systems, but through constant self betterment in trying to achieve our self satisfying goals.

Philosopher Anscombe says that moral philosophy should be laid aside until we have an adequate philosophy of psychology. The concepts of moral obligation and duty, or of what is right and wrong are survivals, or derivatives from survivals, from an earlier conception of ethics which no longer generally survives, and are only harmful without it. The differences between the well-known English writers on moral philosophy were then of little importance to her. She says that there are useful generic concepts of right and wrong which simply are about what’s good or bad for something relative to what we expect of it, but in modern moral philosophy it is assumed that there are also useful “special” concepts of right and wrong, about what is good or bad for us humans in an absolute sense. Because such “special” concepts of right and wrong have a useful function only against a backdrop of a worldview that postulates someone other than us that expects something of us (God prescribing laws), and because modern moral philosophy does not operate under this backdrop, there are no useful special concepts and the assumption that there are only serves to lead modern moral philosophers “down the garden path” (ex: Butler, Hume, Kant, Betham and Mill) (Anscombe, 1958) .

If the AI cybernetic revolution takes over and there is indeed an alien-like uniformity to philosophical opinions among humanity and the subject matter of “an adequate philosophy of psychology” is in the process of being computed I’d say fine and wait it out, and we are likely closer to this kind of thing then she could have ever imagined, however what did she really expect when writing that? How would we ever know when we, the academic community, have come to an adequate philosophy of psychology? We have made big strides since this publication in the sphere of psychological understanding and a uniformity of opinion is not present at all within the discipline. She writes that “terms like should or ought have now acquired a special so-called “moral” sense- i.e. a sense in which they imply some absolute verdict”. I understand the frustration she is grappling with here that there appears to be an implication of absoluteness with moral philosophers in their claims, but to lay moral philosophy aside altogether because of the problematic nature of language being approximate descriptions of ideas that we can’t ever know if they correspond to a notion of absolute truth, if such a notion exists at all, appears to me to do more harm than good. As for the concept of moral obligation and duty being “only harmful without” the earlier conception of ethics which has not survived, I think she is wrong.

We’re probably closer to human extinction through nuclear war then we are to whatever an agreed upon adequate philosophy of psychology would be between the scholars of our time. Given that this premise is correct and the premise that preserving life is good is correct and the premise that moral philosophy would have an impact on, say, preventing conflicts at the micro level (interpersonal) and macro level (war) is correct, we can conclude that Anscombe’s laying aside suggestion should be laid aside in order to move toward good. The unfortunate reality of critical moral thinking though is that it is indeed imprecise and impractical and so really annoying on two levels. It often gets in the way of short term personal satisfactions and desires and it is just confusing. We walk the balance of gratifying our egoistic desires and our hedonistic desires while also trying to appear as people who take moral thinking seriously without being lost in its confusion. We might read 3k pages of Kant, Mill and Aristotle to be told by a 19 year old with a vape that Nietzche bro, these are all man made systems and where are the proofs and well, where are they? I don’t see a convincing argument that a-priori thinking is possible Kant, or see a mode of action that I would ever want to be a universal law. Show me your Utilitarian mathematics Mill at work to solve real world problems that do not just stay in theory land. Tell me why, Aristotle, we should all stay within the virtuous golden mean that you have drawn out and how deviations out of the mean are not often warranted for specific important goals being met? It’s just people saying things at the end of the day and if their systems don’t align with what we already want, we’re going to be emotionally biased and resonate with the vaper’s dismal as this dismissal easily allows for the uninterrupted short term self gratification that predominantly takes the forefront of leading our behavioral conduct. For example, say John’s favorite way to spend an evening after work is eating a Big Mac and watching cartoons. John then reads some philosophy, Utilitarianism, then watches some videos about local homelessness and the maltreatment of animals in factory farms, then decides to spend his evenings volunteering at local homeless shelters and eating beans for dinner. He doesn’t enjoy the taste of beans and after a homeless dude called him the antichrist for the 6th insult of the night for no reason he stumbles upon this Anscombe paper or the vaper’s Beyond Good and Evil. Here is a philosophy that is seemingly equally legitimate suggesting to lay aside moral philosophy, in which the laying aside also allows for the personal hedonistic fulfillment of Big Mac’s and cartoon’s. John decides he no longer resonates with the philosophy of Utilitarianism.

I see moral apathy that can stem through critical moral thinking in our time, understanding all this and going, okay no uniformity of accredited opinions so what’s the use? Doing the right thing seems to be both inconvenient and inconclusive in its certainty as we weigh all these perspectives. Additionally, we see strong moral convictions in those that haven’t thought through all of the criticisms of their own perspectives which makes the apathetic types in turn look better because they accurately point out those with conviction’s naivete. I often think of Ricky Gervais’s rant during the Golden Globes when I see this sequence happening. “If ISIS started a streaming service you’d call your agents, so if you do win an award tonight don’t use it as a platform to make a political speech. You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything. Most of you spent less time in school then Greta Thunberg, so if you win come up, accept your little award, thank your agent, your god, then fuck off.” (Gervais, 2020). We all loved that moment, just listen to the cheer of the crowd and the comment section. We’re glad to hear one with no explicit moral convictions telling those with explicit moral convictions that seem to be coming from a place of ignorance to fuck off then to hear the ignorance. You’re putting yourself on a limb to be ridiculed for the weak points in your arguments as you go on your moral tangents and there is less cost in staying quiet or doing the criticism. So here we are, moral philosophy safely and conveniently laid aside with the justificatory assistance of a power house philosopher like Anscombe.

And so I come to my way of thinking of approaching moral action, in which I try to not encourage people away from their self gratifying nature or to a religious or philosophical system but to a perspective that can perhaps be both self gratifying and morally satisfactory. We are inherently self satisfying biological creatures that evolved from and share a vast majority of the same genetic makeup with organisms that can’t even comprehend morality. To positively affect our egoistic self, our hedonic self and the selfs of others seems to be a win-win mode of action in which everyone who’s not a psychopath will feel good about engaging in. The majority of vocations in our current society offer financial compensation for the individual’s input. The majority of vocations provide positive value to the society as a whole. In being a higher performer at your vocation of choice, you will provide more positive value to society (others) and this will correlate with a higher level of financial compensation (hedonistic) and a sense of overall meaningfulness (egotistic). In other words, being better at your job than you were last week will satisfy both you and others and there needs to be no consideration of philosophical jiu-jitsu to be willing to do this. You make yourself and your boss and your corporation and your society a slightly healthier one by not being one who will play solitaire on their PC in between tasks. In the film “Office Space” the solitaire time passer says to his therapist “So I was sitting in my cubicle today and I was thinking, since I started working here, every single day of my life has been worse then the day before it, so that means that every single day that you see me, that’s on the worst day of my life.” (Judge, 2003). Hating your job is not conducive to the high performance that leads to a healthier society and it isn’t fun either, therefore I think it is your moral obligation to pursue a meaningful occupation that will make you happy, in which the days just zip as you are entrenched in flow.

It is very easy to argue that Hitler was a high performing individual in his occupation and he even won Time’s man of the year for it back in 1938, so perhaps I should preface that this perspective does not apply to vocation’s motivated by sociopathy and psychopathy, or perhaps it just doesn’t work altogether. Marxism is a thing for a reason. — Barack Obama

Sources

• Anscombe, G. E. (1958). Modern moral philosophy. Philosophy, 33(124), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0031819100037943
• Gervais, R. (2020, January). Golden Globes. Speech, Los Angeles; Beverly Hilton.
• Judge, M. Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. (2003). Office space. United States.