On Ethics
by Dennis J. Darland
May 8, 2008
Copyright © 2008 Dennis J. Darland

Dennis:

It seems that much of popular culture is trying to convey some sort of ethical message. But these are (at least often) not reasoned out messages, but conveyed emotively through examples. Someone told me _Star Trek: the Next Generation_ was great literature. And someone else told me I should watch TV to find out what to do (This was right before my breakdown in 1997 when I thought I was getting messages from the TV). But BR had doubts about whether there was "ethical knowledge." So on what basis can we object to such propaganda? Doesn't it provide a way to convey a common ethical base for society (leaving aside what that message is, and that there seem to be multiple incompatible messages) via modern technology and in a form that will be readily absorbed?

Reply:

Dennis said "But BR had doubts about whether there was 'ethical knowledge.' So on what basis can we object to such propaganda?"

This is an important problem for Russellian ethicists with scruples. BR wrote in his reply to Buchler in Schilpp: " In opposing the proposal (to introduce bullfighting in the US), I should _feel_, not only that I was expressing my desires, but that my desires in the matter are _right_, whatever that may mean. As a matter of argument, I can, I think, show that I am not guilty of any logical inconsistency in holding to the above interpretation of ethics and as the same time expressing strong ethical preferences." (P. 724; _Papers_ 11).
If you can find Russell showing how he's not guilty, you may have a well-grounded objection to the propaganda you mention.


Dennis:

I can indicate part of how I think this would go. "Good behavior" is a result of "healthy psychology". Health here is analogous to "physical health." There are objective criteria for it. I am most influenced by Erich Fromm on what I would take to be "healthy psychology." (I don't recall if he used this term but I think it fits his thinking.) Of course this doesn't uniquely determine desire or behavior. There are many different choices (and it's choices that matter more than desires it seems to me) all of which could be considered healthy, as there are also many unhealthy ones. Also an unhealthy person could make many healthy choices (that is ones a healthy person might make as well), though it might be that a person making unhealthy choices would have, at least to some degree, be unhealthy. Of course, not all criminals are usually classified as mentally ill, but I would suggest here there being both criminal and non-criminal behaviors which are unhealthy. It may be that criminal behaviors should be those which punishment is effective as a deterrent (and perhaps also that there is no better way to avoid the behavior). Non-criminal mentally ill being treated in other ways depending on the sorts of behavior and the effects on other people and the other ways the unhealthy behavior can be averted. Then "ethical knowledge" is knowledge of what a healthy person would (or could) choose. Thus, a person who possessed "ethical knowledge", might still themselves be unhealthy. Knowledge not being sufficient to produce desire.

I think should add the fact that a healthy person might consider, in some cases, "criminal" behavior as the only acceptable choice.

Maybe I should say I am explaining a way BR could have responded to the difficulty - not that he did. The way I happen to think is correct.
Also it is not inconsistent to desire others to adopt your desires, but you have to provide reasons or some other means to cause them to adopt your desires, otherwise their desire for your to adopt their desires is on an equal footing. The adoption of objective criteria for whast a "mentally healthy" person might desire gives a way to decide between competing desires.
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