Rationality and Evaluative Frameworks
Preface
I Moral Agency and Evaluative Frameworks
The inevitability of strong evaluations
The plurality of goods and hypergoods
The ontological and empirical background beliefs
Constitutive goods and moral sources
Implicit and explicit
The scope of a framework
Practical rationality in the context of application
Evaluation of Taylor's claims
II Justification and Traditions of Enquiry
Traditions of enquiry and the epistemological crises
Justification and correspondence
Beyond universalism and relativism
III Justification and Evaluative Frameworks
The elements of an evaluative framework
Varieties of inadequacy
Moral argumentation and justification
IV Conclusions
Bibliography
[How to refer? Arto Laitinen (1995): Evaluative frameworks and rationality http://www.cc.jyu.fi/~rakahu/kirjat/ARTO.html]
Preface
After the publication of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn, we have gradually learnt to endorse the view that universal standards of rationality do not exist, even in science. All the standards of rationality are linked to the rival and incommensurable paradigms. And what applies to science, applies to morality as well: there are no ahistorical, acultural standards which would objectively determine what is good, right, or honourable.
The lack of universal standards seems to render the idea of rational justification of scientific paradigms and of moral precepts impossible. Thus, our options seem to be either moral subjectivism and a relativist "anything goes"-view in science or a conservative defence of whatever views and standards we happen to have at the moment.
In this thesis I will study the views of Charles Taylor and Alasdair MacIntyre who claim they have gone beyond these options with a historicist and comparative account of rationality. They both claim that an analogy between rationality in science and in morality should be taken seriously.
In the first section, I will study Charles Taylor's moral theory which sees our morality as based on "evaluative frameworks". This parallels the notion of a scientific paradigm. In science, it is not the case that anything goes, because the paradigm in use sets some limits on what the scientists can do. In a similar way, our moral conduct is guided by our evaluative frameworks. The claim that our moral agency does not collapse to arbitrariness, even though there are no universal standards, falls into two parts. Firstly, to be a moral agent is to continuously apply a moral framework. In the first section I will study what such a framework is and how it can be rationally applied. Secondly, the frameworks ought to be rationally justifiable. The problem of justifying evaluative frameworks is best approached through an account of justifying scientific paradigms. In the second section, I will argue that at least when it comes to science, MacIntyre's historicist account of justification succeeds in going beyond the options of conservatism and relativism, without invoking claims to paradigm-independent rationality.
In the third section, I argue that with some limitations, this account of justification applies to moral frameworks as well. I will suggest that for this purpose Taylor's account of evaluative frameworks should be formulated and developed so that MacIntyre's account of justification would fit into it better.
I Moral Agency and Evaluative Frameworks
In this section I will study Charles Taylor's theory of evaluative frameworks and present the account of practical rationality implicit in it.
The fundamental level of Charles Taylor's moral theory is our moral reactions or intuitions. For Taylor, these intuitions are historically and culturally formed, they are a result of upbringing and participation in social practices. Some intuitions may have instinctual roots, but even they receive variable shapes in culture. To make sense of moral reactions and intuitions is to articulate "evaluative framework" or the "horizon of significance" embodied in them. The evaluative framework gives the moral reactions the particular content they have and provides a contextual background which is necessary in determining the meanings of particular phenomena for us. (Taylor 1989a, ch 1; 1991a, pp. 31-41; 1985a, p. 15-44.). This context is provided by the implicit horizon of significance: "When we find a certain experience intelligible, what we are attending to, explicitly and expressly, is this experience. The context stands as the unexplicated horizon within which...this can be understood" (Taylor 1995, p.68). "Frameworks provide the background, explicit or implicit, for our moral judgements, intuitions, or reactions...To articulate a framework is to explicate what makes sense of our moral responses." (Taylor 1989a, p.26).
The evaluative framework incorporates a plurality of goods to which we are committed. Taylor also uses the term "strong evaluations" to refer to these. Among the goods there are so called "hypergoods" which is Taylor's term for the goods which are of central importance for us. The goods are backed up with ontological and empirical background beliefs which form another central part of the framework. (Taylor 1989a, pp. 4-9, p.105).
The evaluative framework guides the way we act, feel and think. The framework has two kinds of embodiment: first of all, the framework is tacitly expressed in our moral conduct, moral reactions and our inarticulate knowledge about the demands of morality. This is the inarticulate or implicit embodiment of the framework. Secondly, the framework is also linguistically articulated, and thus it has an explicit, more or less accurate, expression in language. (1985a, pp. 15-44).
Now I will turn more closely to the different aspects of evaluative frameworks.
The inevitability of strong evaluations
The main targets of Taylor's concept of 'strong evaluation' are the sociobiological, utilitarian and emotivist attempts to reduce morality to mere desires. Taylor makes a distinction between strong evaluations and weak evaluations, which is a further development of Harry Frankfurt's distinction between first- and second-order desires. The strong evaluations concern the moral worth of the first-order desires, whereas the "weak evaluations" are morally neutral orderings of desires. (Taylor 1985a, p.16). The decision whether to take a holiday in the south or in the north is one of Taylor's examples of weak evaluation. One holiday is more exhilarating, the other is more relaxing. In this evaluation, the worth of the desires is not in question.
I ultimately opt for the south over the north not because there is something more worthy about relaxing than being exhilarated, but just because 'I feel like it'. (1985a, p. 17). On the other hand, the strong evaluations
involve discriminations of right and wrong, better or worse, higher or lower, which are not rendered valid by our own desires, inclinations, or choices, but rather stand independent of these and offer standards by which they can be judged. (1989a, p.4).
These qualitative distinctions of higher and lower, (virtuous/vicious, more/less fulfilling, noble/base, fragmented/integrated, alienated/free etc.) and our conceptions of their proper objects are the central elements of our evaluative frameworks. (Taylor 1985a, p. 16).
Taylor argues against reductivist claims by asserting that strong evaluations are for humans inescapable. Taylor claims that the framework of evaluations is, as a matter of fact, 'a human universal' (1994b, p. 249). The crucial point about Taylor's claim is that everyone has at least an implicit sense of such distinctions, even those who try to do without them. Taylor claims, quite plausibly, that whether or not one is aware of it, one does in fact rely on these strong evaluations.
Taylor claims that without strong evaluations, without any qualitative distinctions concerning the worth of things, we would be in an identity crisis, we would lose our sense of who we are and what we should do. This according to Taylor is 'a pathological state' (Taylor 1989a, p. 32).
...were they to lose this commitment or identification, they would be at sea, as it were; they wouldn't know anymore, for an important range of questions, what the significance of things was for them.
And this situation does, of course, arise for some people. It's what we call an 'identity crisis', an acute form of disorientation, which people often express in terms of not knowing who they are, but which can also be seen as a radical uncertainty of where they stand...This is a painful and frightening experience. (1989a, pp. 27-8).
In addition to this descriptive claim, Taylor makes a normative one: being more articulate about one's strong evaluations means having more depth and having a less partial or distorted conception of oneself. (1985a, p.25).
The plausibility of Taylor's claim comes partly from the nature of these strong evaluations: they cover more than what we normally call morality. According to Taylor, the field of strong evaluations consists of three axes: (1) our sense of respect for and obligations to others, i.e. morality in the narrow sense, (2) our understanding of a full and meaningful life, (3) our sense of our own dignity or status, i.e our sense of ourselves as commanding the attitudinal respect of those around us. (Taylor 1989a, p. 15). This is one of the issues in which Taylor is critical of modern moral theory. He adds to the modern distinction between 'justice' and 'good life' a third axis, which is based on the premodern honour-ethics: the sense of one's own dignity. This is linked with what was theorised by Hegel (1977) as a struggle for recognition.
This wider concept is useful in understanding our evaluations in general, and placing morality in a larger context. This means also that from Taylor's claim of the inescapability of strong evaluations it does not yet follow that the moral axis is inescapable. (Taylor 1991b, p. 251).
The plurality of goods and hypergoods
Another issue in which Taylor's position is critical towards most modern theories is the plurality of goods. He criticises theories which try to derive all the goods from one fundamental principle. Taylor claims, quite rightly, that our framework includes a plurality of diverse goods, which cannot be formalised into one principle, they are incompatible but still genuine. (see eg. Taylor 1985b, pp. 230-47).
According to Taylor, this diversity gives rise to moral conflicts, which do not invalidate the goods in question. The nature of goods is such that sometimes we cannot avoid conflict. To illustrate this, Taylor uses Sartre's example of a young man who is torn between remaining with his ailing mother and going off to join the Resistance. According to Taylor, this example cannot be made sense of with Sartre's doctrine claiming that ethical commitments are based on a choice, because clearly the existence of the conflicting demands is not a matter of decision. (Taylor 1985a, pp. 29ff).
But given the wide range of genuine but incompatible goods, can the choice between them be rational? Taylor's answer is "yes". The goods can be ordered according to their relative importance. There are further qualitative discontinuities within the field of strong evaluations, some goods are more important than others. (Taylor 1989a, pp. 62-3).
We acknowledge second-order qualitative distinctions which define higher goods, on
the basis of which we discriminate among other goods, attribute differential worth or
importance to them, or determine when and if to follow them. (ibid., p. 63).
Taylor uses the term "hypergoods" to refer to these higher goods.
They provide the standpoint from which the other goods can be weighed,
judged and ordered. (ibid.). Thus, although there is a diversity of goods,
they can form a more or less well-ordered unity.
The domain of ultimately important goods has a sort of prescriptive unity. Each of us
has to answer all these demands in the course of a single life, and this means we have
to find some way of assessing their relative validity, or putting them in order of
priority. A single coherent order of goods is...something we always try to define
without ever managing to achieve it definitely. (Taylor 1985b, p. 244).
In a minimal sense, it seems that this claim about a single coherent
order of goods is a universal, descriptive claim: the goods will find their
contingent places within every life, whether or not this is intended. But
this of course leaves room for arbitrary decisions. So, more clearly this
is a normative claim: we ought to try and define the order of goods. If
the goods are ordered, there is nothing arbitrary in choosing between them.
But it seems impossible to claim that this applies de facto, universally
to every human agent.
The ontological and empirical background beliefs
Taylor claims that within the framework there is a largely implicit and unexplored "moral ontology"; that is, a picture of reality including conceptions of God, Nature, Society and Self. These conceptions are closely linked with our notions of good. They provide 'a background picture' for them. (Taylor 1989a, pp. 4-9, p. 105). This means that we can try and define which property or set of properties of humans, or animals, demands moral responses from us. (1985b, pp. 187-210)
In our moral judgments, we also rely on empirical beliefs: whether or not it is the case that someone or something has these properties. Taylor discusses the importance of empirical beliefs in the negative sense, when they appear as 'special pleadings' or exceptions to universality: for example, "the targets of Nazis are not really of the same species" (Taylor 1993, p. 209). According to Taylor, racism, sexism and nazism are often justified with this kind of pleading. It is clear, though, that some empirical beliefs also back up those universal views which do not include pleadings of this kind.
I agree with Taylor that these background beliefs are a part of our moral framework. For example, the moral debates about abortion, vivisection or the environment are issues which involve incommensurable ontological and empirical claims.
On the other hand, the connection between an ontological view and advocacy issues is by no means straightforward, as Taylor himself has noted. For example, a commitment to a social ontology of human beings does not necessarily lead to a rejection of the value of individualism. (Taylor 1989b, p. 14). Individualism can be backed up with other properties humans have: the capacity to choose for example.
Taylor talks about ontological views also in connection with the whole of morality, hoping to spell out in general the reasons for being moral. This is clearly a different question from asking what determines the contents of morality, and here I wish to criticise Taylor on several points.
Constitutive goods and moral sources
In what follows, I want to first introduce the concepts of "life goods", "constitutive goods" and "moral sources" and then argue that these distinctions are irrelevant to justification of the contents of morality. I will briefly criticise the idea of constitutive goods and also argue that the moral psychology based on the concept of "moral sources" is one-sided.
Taylor draws a distinction between "life goods" and "constitutive goods". The former are ordinary goods which are part of a good life. The latter stand for
...features of the universe, or God, or human beings, (i) on which the life goods depend, (ii) which command our moral awe or allegiance, and (iii) the contemplation of or contact with which empowers us to be good. (1991b, p. 243).
The connection to constitutive goods "is what makes certain of our actions or aspirations good; it is what constitutes the goodness of these actions and motives." (1989a, p. 92). Thus, the dependence mentioned in (i) is of a constitutive kind: the life goods would not be goods without the constitutive reality. Taylor uses the term "moral sources" for something which has the capacity to empower us to be good (iii). Taylor's examples of such constitutive goods are God, Plato's Idea of the Good and Kant's rational agency.(ibid.). But Taylor also claims that also the most anti-theological and anti-metaphysical ethics have a moral source and a constitutive reality implicit in them.
Even in the most anti-theological and anti-metaphysical ethic there is such a moment of the recognition of something which is not made or decided by human beings, and which shows a certain way of being to be good and admirable. This may be nothing
beyond the disenchanted universe which is the human predicament along with the
human potentiality to respond the way Dr. Rieux does [ie. a courageous mode of
solidarity to humans in their suffering, unsupported by any of the comforting illusions of religion or teleological history.] (1994c, p. 212).
I fully agree with Taylor's claim that this kind of negation of the
cosmic meanings of the universe is still a metaphysical picture of some
kind. But, I think that one cannot say that the background picture constitutes
the goodness of all the goods. The particular goods are human-dependent
and different goods have different reasons which explain why we see them
as good. If there is nothing external to humans from which values are derived,
then the connection between a general picture and particular goods vanishes.
What remains is an implicit general picture of the relation of moral agents
to the universe, but it no longer contributes to the goodness of the goods.
Despite this critique of "constitutive goods", I think that the ontological and empirical background beliefs as discussed above are relevant to the particular contents of morality. For example, the reason we think animals should have "rights" is not that humans can impose meanings to a meaningless universe ("the constitutive reality") but that we think animals have certain capacities to live a good life ("an ontological background belief"). (1985a, p. 193).
My disagreement with Taylor is that I don't believe that the general meaning of life in general, or general justification of morality, can be found in one single ontological account of 'constitutive reality' but from the plurality of concrete meanings that the situations of my life have. If my life is meaningful, the question of its general meaning does not necessarily arise. If the question is to be posed, then the answer is to be found from these concrete meanings rather than from one general picture. (see Löw-Beer 1991, p. 229).
Given this reservation, (that the "constitutive reality" does not contribute to the contents of morality) I would still like to spell out the picture of the (constitutive) moral reality in Taylor's theory. Central to this picture are humans who inescapably experience the cosmos as a meaningful place, although they can sometimes neglect these meanings and adopt a neutral, disengaged attitude. In Taylor's picture the goods and meanings are always historical, cultural, language-dependent and human-dependent. This does not mean that the meanings are merely human constructions because there can be something deeper manifesting itself through humanity. (Taylor 1992b, p. 260).
This picture is non-realist in the sense that the goods are seen as human-dependent. (Rosen 1991, Taylor 1991b). But it has room for realism if one sees the human-dependent goods as manifestations of something greater, rather than as human creations. Taylor himself holds the "manifestationist" view because of his commitment to theism and deep ecology. (1994c, p. 213). I want to argue that this question of whether or not the goods are manifestations is irrelevant to the justificatory reasoning. For both positions, the account of justification must take a historical and secular form. Taylor's God is hidden in the sense that contact with God does not determine the content of our morality, independent of our historical and linguistic understanding of them. (Morgan 1994; Taylor 1994b). From this we see that our moral reasoning cannot rely on anything beyond our own understanding.
My second disagreement with the notion of constitutive goods is linked with the notion of moral sources. I think a moral psychology based solely on this notion is not a sufficient account of moral motivation. I agree there is something which motivates and inspires us to be moral, but I agree with Löw-Beer and Rorty in that this is more likely to be poems and narratives than articulations of "constitutive reality" in "philosophical prose". (Löw-Beer 1991, p. 231). I do not want to deny that the articulations of a connection to an ontological reality like God can be empowering in Taylor's sense, but it seems to me that this does not cover the whole field of moral motivation.
This Kantian type of moral psychology of respect for constitutive goods seems to me too idealist or "intellectualist". A more communitarian aspect of moral motivation can be found in Taylor's writings as well: he talks about the role of social institutions which foster patriotism and the sense of solidarity and political participation which prevent alienation etc. (1989b, p. 176; Taylor 1991a, pp. 109-121).
In addition to these two perspectives, I think a special motivation for moral development can be found in the identified contradictions and inadequacies in one's evaluative framework. (see Sayers 1995, p. 10). I will return to this point in section three, where I argue that from MacIntyre's notion of tradition, the idea of the identified inadequacies as a motivational reason for development should be adopted in Taylor's framework as well.
Implicit and explicit
Taylor claims that the distinction between implicit and explicit plays a crucial role in moral and evaluative issues. This contrasts with the modern demand of full explicitness. Implicit knowledge plays a crucial role in the account of practical rationality.
In Taylor's use, the concept of strong evaluations refers both to what is implicit in our moral reactions and conduct and the articulations of these implicit views. Implicit "sense", "grasp" or "know-how" is primary, because it is what we primordially achieve by engaging practically in the world. These implicit understandings can never be fully articulated. (Taylor 1994a, p. 29; 1995, pp. 68-78). However, they can guide our actions in a very precise way.
...in the case of...portrait painting, we may be very inarticulate,..., but still be excellent
and discriminating at the art. But even with practices which have been much more theorized about...the grasp that an experienced citizen of a modern state has, as shown by his or her sense of what practices to encourage, what to protest against, what to treat as indifferent, is far from being exhausted by the explicit theories of democracy or participatory politics. (Taylor 1994a, p. 29).
There is a two-way relationship between the implicit and the articulate:
the articulations strive to be faithful to something, but at the same time,
their 'object' does not stay the same. (Taylor 1985a, p. 36). In the context
of the relation between the implicit and the explicit, we can draw an analogy
with language and its rules: Taylor thinks Rawls should be more articulate
about the implicit commitments which contribute to the implicit grasp which
guide in this construction. I agree with this, but on the other hand, I
think Rawls' account of an original position is a carefully constructed
narrative or a 'device of representation' which we can use in communicating
some of our basic intuitions about justice. (see Rawls 1985). knowing how
to use a word does not presuppose having learnt the explicit rules of grammar,
and acting virtuously does not presuppose having explicit articulations
of what virtue demands. Implicit know-how even guides the process of articulation.
As Taylor puts it:
Rival formulations are proffered. But the fact that we can be convinced in some cases that some of these are more in the spirit of the previously accepted good or practice testifies to the existence of this implicit understanding. (Taylor 1994a, p. 29).
But the other side of the coin as well has also to be taken into account: in the same way that the written rules of language guide the use of language, explicit articulations guide our implicit know-how.
Our attempts to formulate what we hold important must, like descriptions, strive to be faithful to something. But what they strive to be faithful to is not an independent object with a fixed degree and manner of evidence, but rather a largely inarticulate sense of what is of decisive importance. An articulation of this 'object' tends to make it something different from what it was before. (Taylor 1985a, p. 38).
Taylor claims that these articulations are frequently partial, clouded or uncertain (ibid., p. 39). A good articulation can lead to a more precise grasp of the good. Conversely, a sub-optimal articulation can distort this grasp.
To sum up, this "implicit sense" or "implicit grasp" as a kind of intuitive understanding has three main functions:
(1) It is ethical know-how: we know what kind of action the 'spirit
of our moral vocabulary' demands in an endless variety of situations. The
ability to know these demands is what Aristotle called phronesis.
(1994a, p. 28).
(2) We rely on it in choosing between rival articulations of goods.
(ibid., p. 29).
(3) Implicit sense makes practical reasoning and argumentation possible.
It is the foundation "on which we draw when we deliberate about ethical
matters." (1989a, p. 78).
Although our moral responses are ultimately the foundation of our morality, we sometimes know on the basis of articulations and arguments that our moral responses are mistaken. Taylor gives an example of a racist who as a result of an argument adopts non-racist views, but despite this his emotional responses still embody the racist views. (Taylor 1985a, p. 61). Here the primacy is on the explicit level, which tells that the responses are mistaken. This is essential for the possibility of moral arguments.
But nevertheless, these articulations and arguments would not be possible in the absence of the implicit non-explicable capacity to judge. This capacity makes it possible for us to choose between rival articulations or argumentations. Thus we have a two-way causality between the implicit and the explicit, a hermeneutic circle between them.
The roles of the explicit articulations are the following:
(1) In some cases they directly guide the way we act.
(2) They inform and correct our implicit sense and thus indirectly change the way we feel, act and think. The explicit level can do this first of all by articulating the background pictures and conceptions of the goods implicit in our framework. Secondly, this can be done using moral arguments concerning the comparative value of different conceptions and goods and arguments concerning the coherence of the background beliefs and our conceptions of goods. Thirdly, in the explicit level an argument can be made indirectly by giving examples and narratives or constructing "devices of representation" like Rawls's original position. These can communicate the implicit sense of good or particular insights.
(3) In the case of moral sources, as we saw above, Taylor holds that articulation may motivate and inspire us to be good.
The scope of a framework
Taylor makes a distinction between the form and the content (or the manner and the matter) of morality. The form of modern morality is, according to Taylor, self-referential. (Taylor 1991a, pp. 81-91). Evaluative frameworks are embodied in the moral responses and intuitions of individuals. In this sense, everyone has their own moral framework, and Taylor claims it is a universal fact that everyone has one.
The contents of this framework are not individually produced. Rather, they are primarily shared understandings. Shared with whom? If there is a plurality of cultures, traditions and subcultures with differences in the contents of these frameworks, who is the "we" for Taylor?
For Taylor, the "we" is primarily a language community. Goods and conceptions are constituted by language, and a "language only exists and is maintained by a language community" and "a self only exists among other selves." (1989a, p. 35). This means that the monological conception of my understandings and my framework is misleading. (1995, pp. 76-78). I always share a horizon of significance which provides my starting point, and if I reflect and alter my horizon, it is done by way of contrast with the shared view. (1991a, pp. 31-41). But in "disenchanted" modernity, more often than not, there is a contrast. Because no evaluative framework can be taken for granted, people seek the right one.
With these seekers...we are taken beyond the gamut of traditionally available frameworks. Not only do they embrace these traditions tentatively, but they also often develop their own versions of them, or idiosyncratic combinations of or borrowings from or semi-inventions within them. (Taylor 1989a, p. 17).
This picture is complicated by the fact that the scope of shared understanding has not only narrowed in modernity, in another sense it has also widened. Although there are individual differences, there are also aspects which are shared internationally. The "we" that Taylor is concerned with in Sources of the Self covers the "modern West". In a reply to Quentin Skinner's criticisms, Taylor writes:
"Who is the 'we' frequently invoked in the book, in claims about the
modern identity? This is a difficult question, and I still feel somewhat
hesitant and uncertain about it. But my aim was to outline certain modes
of though and sensibility which are either so widespread in the modern
West - perhaps I might better say, North-Atlantic region - that they are
the object of a wide consensus; or else so deep-lying that they actually
underpin the contending sides in a dissensus." (Taylor 1991b, p. 237).
Individualisation and modernisation are internally connected. Individualisation
of frameworks is possible only because civilization has developed in that
direction:
I am arguing that the free individual of the West is only what he is by virtue of the whole society and civilization which brought him to be and which nourishes him; that our families can only form us up to this capacity and these aspirations because they are set in this civilization...(1985b, p. 206).
Because of this process of individualisation, I think that the account of justificatory practical rationality must concentrate on the level of individual evaluative frameworks which Taylor talks about and not 'traditions of enquiry' as MacIntyre would have it.
Practical rationality in the context of application
Now I will turn to the question of what account of practical rationality in the context of application is assumed by Taylor's moral theory. I will answer this by contrasting Taylor's theory with MacIntyre's accounts of the practical rationality of an Aristotelian citizen and the practical rationality of a modern individual. I will argue that Taylor's account of strong evaluators lies somewhere between the two. It is a picture of a neo-Aristotelian individual, which takes the best parts from both pictures.
MacIntyre presents Aristotle's account of practical reasoning as having four elements:
(i) There are first of all "the wants and goals of the agent, presupposed
by but not expressed in his reasoning" (MacIntyre 1985, p. 161,
italics added). These provide the context for reasoning.
(ii) The second element is the so-called major premise: "doing or having
or seeking such-and-such is the type of thing that is good for or needed
by a so-and-so (where the agent uttering the syllogism falls under the
latter description)." (ibid., p. 162). The account of good, or good-for-someone-like-me,
is based on a view of the essence of man:
...moral arguments within the...Aristotelian tradition...involve at least one central functional concept, the concept of man understood as having an essential nature or an essential purpose or function...That is to say, 'man' stands to 'good man' as 'watch' stands to 'good watch' or 'farmer' to 'good farmer'...Aristotle takes it as a starting- point for ethical enquiry that the relationship of 'man' to 'living well' is analogous to that of a 'harpist' to 'playing harp well'...It is only when man is thought of as an individual prior to and apart from all roles that 'man' ceases to be a functional concept. (ibid., pp. 58-9).
For this functional concept of "man" to be meaningful, it needs the shared understandings and the public roles of Polis as its background. That's why the agents in Aristotle's conception are citizens, and why this conception does not without qualifications apply to modern individuals.
(iii) The third element is the minor premise, which is based on a judgement
stating that "this is an instance or occasion of the requisite kind." (ibid.,
p. 162).
(iv) The conclusion, the fourth element, is the action. (ibid.).
MacIntyre contrasts this account of practical rationality with one which is according to him presupposed by modern liberal theories and practices. Here the agent is an individual:
...in the practical reasoning of liberal modernity it is the individual qua individual who reasons, and not individual qua citizen or qua enquirer into his or her good...(MacIntyre 1988, p. 327).
Using Taylor's term, this individual qua individual is "a simple
weigher of alternatives", not "a strong evaluator". (Taylor 1985a, p. 23).
I think MacIntyre's description captures the widespread self-understandings
of modern liberal individuals, which according to Taylor are false. I will
reconstruct this account to correspond with the four elements of Aristotle.
(i) First of all, in liberal modernity preferences and desires count as a reason for action without further qualification. (MacIntyre 1988, p. 338). Thus, the first element is "the ordering of his or her preferences by each individual". (ibid., 342). This is not based on strong evaluations, or further qualifications of the desires, but on simple weighing and ordering.
(ii) The second element is the translation of preferences into decisions and actions. There is no functional conception of the good life of man, and the highest goal is to maximise the satisfaction of those preferences in accordance with their ordering. (ibid.).
(iii) I think one can say that a liberal theory tacitly presupposes an Aristotelian role for the minor premise, a judgement stating that "this is an instance or occasion of the requisite kind." (MacIntyre 1985, p. 162).
(iv) But in liberal modernity, there is room for a further "decision" in the practical syllogism: the conclusion from the premises is not action, but merely a statement "I should do so-and-so". "The decision whether to act in accordance with this judgement is not made simply by arriving at this conclusion." (MacIntyre 1988, p. 341). MacIntyre points out that from the Aristotelian point of view this is unintelligible and inconsistent. (ibid.).
Now I will articulate Taylor's views on the practical rationality of strong evaluators in the context of application. This will be done by comparison with these two models.
(i) The desires have the same role in Taylor's theory as in Aristotle's, they provide a context for reasoning. As we saw, Taylor also insists that modern individuals make further qualifications for their desires and preferences: they have second-order desires or a framework of strong evaluations.
(ii) The major premise for Taylor is as follows: doing or having or seeking such-and-such is the type of thing that is good for me. What is good for me can be either good for anyone, good for anyone like me or simply good for me individually. This good is determined on the basis of my evaluative framework. Thus the ultimate purpose is not necessarily maximal satisfaction of desire, but a good life for oneself and one's compatriots. Taylor's individuals are seekers of a good life. But they differ from Aristotelian Citizens in that there are no longer shared understandings in the premodern sense. With their own versions of frameworks, Taylor's individuals define for themselves what a good life consists of. Thus a "man" does not stand in relation to a "good man" in the same publicly recognised way as in the Aristotelian tradition. The modern ideals of self-determination and authenticity have further complicated things. (see Taylor 1991a).
(iii) The minor premise is the same as in Aristotle, a judgement that "this is an instance or occasion of the requisite kind." (MacIntyre 1985, p. 162).
(iv) The conclusion is the action. On the basis of Taylor's theory, there is no room for "a further decision" in the practical syllogism of modern individuals. But in the Aristotelian way there is room for deliberation, judgement or phronesis. Individuals have a more or less accurate power to judge which goods are relevant in which situation, and what their demands are in this particular situation. From Taylor's theory it follows that what we normally think of as a mere decision to act in such-and-such a way, is in fact a judgement guided by the evaluative framework. The crucial thing is that the application of the evaluative framework is largely based on the implicit sense of the qualitative framework, and we need not be explicit about it. In the context of justification, articulation plays a central role, but in the context of application it is not necessary at all.
From all this, it follows that the actions of strong evaluators are intelligible from the Aristotelian point of view which sees actions as conclusions. Actions are rational if the conclusion follows from the premises and if the premises are valid. As we have seen, neither the premises nor the conclusion have to be linguistically articulated. The rationality here is neither procedural nor explicit: The agents neither follow explicit procedures nor explicate their conclusions. The rationality is implicit and substantial: the measure of rationality is getting it right, and this may not need any articulation of the implicit views.
Evaluation of Taylor's claims
The claim concerning the inevitability of strong evaluations is crucial for Taylor's account. Therefore it needs to be shown, that even those who claim not to be strong evaluators, in fact are. We can make a distinction between those who realise they are strong evaluators and those who do not, ie. between strong evaluators "für sich" and strong evaluators "an sich", as Daniel M. Weinstock puts it. (Weinstock 1994, p. 176).
The group of "an sich" strong evaluators which Weinstock discusses are Kantians and utilitarians. They strive to formulate universal procedures of practical rationality, but in fact rely on some particular evaluative framework: Kantians on the dignity of humans, utilitarians on benevolence and instrumental reason. (Taylor 1989a, pp. 76-90).
Another group is formed by those theories which claim to reduce morality to desires, but at the same time advocate a particular morality themselves. Taylor mentions some versions of utilitarianism and sociobiology as such theories. (ibid.).
There is also a third group which challenges the value of the moral axis, but not of the whole field of strong evaluations. In this category there are those who treat people as means, not as ends. This can be done for the sake of pleasure (MacIntyre's "Rich Aesthete", 1985, pp. 22-30); or to gain recognition of one's superior status (Hegel's "Master", see Hegel, 1977). The former still relies on the second axis of strong evaluations, and aims to live a full life, the latter on the third axis; he or she and strives for personal dignity or status.
I think these examples show that Taylor's point about the universality of strong evaluations is well made. On the other hand, this argument does not suffice to show that everyone is a moral evaluator in the narrow sense of morality, or even that everyone ought to be. But I think this is a strength in Taylor's theory, not a weakness. If there are people who mainly follow their desires and seek pleasure, we must make sense of their actions, too. Showing that everyone is a strong evaluator may remove epistemological or meta-ethical considerations, which possibly distort their understanding of their commitments. Thus, an avenue can be opened for a re-articulation of values and for arguments claiming that everyone ought to be moral.
Even if we accept the inevitability of strong evaluations, we might want to contest the notion of hypergoods. Rorty might make the following counter-argument: could there not be a possibility that someone might be a strong evaluator and not identify strongly with any of the strong evaluations, but rather keep an ironic distance. (see Rorty 1989, pp. 73-95). Here Taylor can plausibly argue that the ironist's fundamental allegiance is to irony, which works as an overall good.
But what if one less playfully wants to keep one's goods in good order and simply not manage because of "the multiplication of goods and alternative possibilities of realising different sets of goods in different types of life"? This is MacIntyre's (1994, p. 189) worry, and he sees here a danger of a slide to emotivism or subjectivism, within strong evaluations. According to him this "gradually frees the self from commitment to any one such set or type of life and leaves it bereft of criteria, confronting a choice of type of life from an initial standpoint in which the self seems to be very much what Sartre took it to be". (MacIntyre 1994, p. 189). Thus the only hypergood available to one would be Rortyan irony, which would be unacceptable for anyone sharing MacIntyre's views.
In this kind of situation Taylor would not be able to claim there in fact is a hypergood, he could only state that it would be better if there were. But it is little more than a pious hope if the ordering of the goods is as hard to achieve as MacIntyre envisages. Thus the crucial question is: is this worry realistic? I think it is. It is easy to see how this worry follows from the doctrine that conflicting goods do not refute each other and that there is a plurality of goods. And I think this doctrine is well supported by our moral phenomenology. We can see how subjectivism creeps back in, if we consider someone who has no hypergood to begin with. A mere decision cannot justify an adoption of a hypergood. A further argument is needed to show that the transition involved in adopting this hypergood is a gain in comparison with the original state, in which there were no hypergoods. The success of this argument determines whether the transition is rationally justifiable or merely arbitrary. This kind of argumentation is considered in the last section.
However, this worry of MacIntyre's does not concern people who have a non-problematic identification with certain hypergoods to begin with. For them, there is a perspective from which they can order the vast amount of different goods available and, I would like to add, also reject some of them.
But for the rest of us, the coherent ordering of goods will remain little more than a regulative principle.it would be good if our goods would be well-ordered. But I am not sure whether Taylor acknowledges how the Rortyan picture of irony as a hypergood follows naturally from the plurality of goods. Taylor does not provide us with any clues how this ordering would in practice be done.
What about Taylor's other claims concerning morality? I think some of them are very illuminating and well supported by our actual moral phenomena. This applies to the account of the implicit and the explicit, the claims about the ontological pictures which structure our morality and the wide notion of morality with three axes. Taylor's concept of "manifestationism" is also a sophisticated way of approaching moral realism.
Taylor's theorising on the constitutive goods and moral sources has to be criticised on two major counts. I think the relation between general and concrete questions about the meaning of life have been separated more drastically than Taylor allows. Moreover, I think that moral psychology cannot be based merely on the notion of moral sources.
Taylor's account of applicatory reasoning provides a good picture of modern moral agency. It is superior to the Aristotelian picture in not needing polis as its background and superior to the picture of simple weighers of alternatives, which tries to reduce the moral dimension to desires. I think Taylor has established that everyone is a strong evaluator, but I think the scope of arbitrary choices within strong evaluations is bigger than Taylor would have it.
II Justification and Traditions of Enquiry
The actions of strong evaluators can be justified by showing how they follow from the evaluative framework one is committed to. This amounts to articulating the implicit judgements and the goods and background beliefs they are based on. Sometimes, this is a sufficient justification. But in many cases, more is needed: we have to give further justification for these goods and beliefs, to justify our evaluative frameworks. Is this something that can rationally be done?
First of all, Taylor notes quite rightly, that in modern times, no frameworks can be publicly recognised as simply given. Hence it might seem that we must try and (i) find a universal standard for justification, a standard independent from and neutral between all the frameworks. Or, if universal standards for incommensurable frameworks cannot be found, we must (ii) stick in a conservative fashion with the given goods and standards and the status quo or (iii) let any changes occur in them through arbitrary choices or contingent developments.
I will call these options "universalism", "conservatism" and "arbitrary relativism". MacIntyre's and Taylor's conception of rational justification as historical and dialectical comparison attempts to get us beyond these options, by claiming that all these options are based on a foundationalist account of reason. As opposed to the three options above, Taylor's and MacIntyre's account can be described as "historicist progressive pluralism."
Both Taylor's (1993, p. 230) and MacIntyre's (1977, p. 465) accounts draw a close parallel between moral transitions and the paradigm-shifts in scientific revolutions. The foundationalist model of reasoning cannot make sense of the rationality of either kinds of transition. Taylor defines this model as follows:
The foundationalist model of reasoning... understands rational justification
as (a) effected on the basis of criteria, (b) judging between fully explicit
positions, and (c)
yielding in the first instance absolute judgements about adequacy or inadequacy, and comparative assessments only mediately from these. (Taylor 1993, p. 230).
Taylor's comparative "ad hominem" model contrasts with the foundational model on all of these points. First of all, Taylor includes the implicit dimension of reasoning in his account. The foundationalist view holds that "once one has articulated their major premisses, it is assumed that all possible routes of appeal to them have been defined" (Taylor 1993, p. 221). But Taylor argues that "the real positions held in history do not correspond to these water-tight deductive systems, and that is why rational transitions are in fact possible." (ibid.).
Furthermore, Taylor claims that
...one can sometimes arbitrate between positions by portraying transitions as gains and losses, even where what we normally understand as decision through criteria -qua externally defined standards - is impossible. (Taylor 1993, p. 215).
Thus the ad hominem view can be summed up in claims that (a) there are rational ways of arguing without criteria, (b) the rival positions are in fact never fully explicit, (c) the judgements concern comparative gains and losses, and are not absolute.
Here we see how a space between arbitrary decisions and absolute truth opens up: there can be comparative judgements, drawing on our capacity to judge, trying to establish which of the two options is better. This is more than an arbitrary decision but less than a deductive proof.
I think that in moral deliberation, we cannot necessarily describe the process of finding one articulation or argument better than another very closely, because so much depends on our implicit grasp. We can of course try and articulate this by referring to other parts of our framework. On the other hand, when it comes to the rationality of the transitions from one scientific paradigm to another, we can trace a clearer pattern. For this reason, science gives us a clearer example of non-universal, non-arbitrary rationality. It is to this that I will turn now, to defend "progressive historicism" by arguing that with this account we can "dialectically and historically" justify the paradigm-shifts in science.
If MacIntyre's arguments are sound, it is an important achievement as such. Furthermore, it serves as a basis for developing an account of the justification of evalutive frameworks. In the third section, I will argue that despite the somewhat huge gaps in the analogy between science and morality, this account has some plausibility with reference to evaluative frameworks as well, bearing in mind certain qualifications.
Traditions of enquiry and epistemological crises
The basic unit in MacIntyre' theory of rational justification is a tradition of enquiry. For MacIntyre, this stands for moral traditions as well as scientific ones. In this section, I will deal with the scientific traditions of enquiry, because it best illuminates MacIntyre's account of rational justification. He thinks that the so-called "Judeo-Christian tradition" is an "unfortunate fiction", because in fact it includes several traditions. (1988, p. 11).
According to MacIntyre, modern liberalism which is the principal enemy of tradition has in an unwilling way become a tradition itself. (ibid., ch. 17). MacIntyre does not study the explicitly historicist liberalism of Rawls, Rorty, or Charles Taylor, which would make liberalism a harder target.
From MacIntyre's discussion (in MacIntyre 1988, pp. 354-361) we see that what is "given" in a tradition of enquiry consists of several elements. In the third section, I will separate the different elements to make the comparison with morality easier. I will group these under three headings: "the core elements", "the embodiments" and "the justificatory elements".
(1a) The core consists first of all of a set of empirical and ontological beliefs. We have assumptions about the constitution of reality, for example the particles and the forces of nature. In relation to science these beliefs structure the questions we ask and the appropriateness of different kinds of answers. Another element is a set of virtues. The virtues of a scientist are the abilities to live up to the standards of enquiry which one must fulfil in order to count as a member of the scientific community.
(1b) Furthermore, there is a set of methods and theories of enquiry. These include the universally shared standards of logic, but outside that, standards of rationality and methods of enquiry are incommensurable and incompatible within rival traditions. Standards of logic are not sufficient to remove this disagreement about the other standards. (ibid., p. 4). It is easy to see how these methods and standards play a role in science, but perhaps harder to see how this applies to moral traditions. But I think MacIntyre makes a good point in showing how they include different conceptions of practical rationality and methods of rational enquiry (ibid., pp. 358-9).
Secondly, I want to separate the different embodiments a tradition has.
(2a) There are authoritative texts which are taken as given. In science, the basic assumptions cannot be doubted. Science must to a certain extent be dogmatic about its foundations.
(2b) There are persons, who are "authoritative voices".
(2c) Beliefs and standards are linguistically embodied. (see ibid., ch.19). The limits of language are the limits of this linguistic articulation. These limits can be overcome by conceptual innovations.
(2d) These beliefs are embodied in the practices of a tradition. By participating in these, one gains tacit knowledge some of which is not linguistically articulated at all. The relevance of this for science has been stressed by Polanyi and Kuhn.
(2e) These practices are supported by institutional arrangements.
Thirdly, there are three elements which are mostly relevant for justification:
(3a) There is an agenda of identified, unsolved inadequacies. The normal practice of enquiry concentrates on overcoming these and also in identifying more to be overcome. These inadequacies are what Kuhn calls 'anomalies', and I will use these terms interchangeably. The ability in this constant process of meeting challenges forms what I want to call the "dynamic" aspect of justification. Again, it is easier to see this when applied to science than to traditions at large. But MacIntyre's (1985, pp. 291-2) conception of "living traditions" as "embodied conflicts" seems quite realistic as opposed to the Burkean conception of static traditions as "wisdom without reflection". (MacIntyre 1988, p. 353). I think this is a sufficient argument against conservatism: conservatism is based on an historically incorrect view of tradition.
(3b) There is a defined area of agreement and disagreement with other traditions. This is the raw-material for the "dialectical" aspect of justification, which is based on comparison with other traditions.
(3c) There is a narrative account of the history of enquiry within one's own tradition and of its encounters with other traditions. This is a narrative which tells how we have arrived at these conceptions and standards. This has happened as a result of conflicts and challenges which have been successfully overcome. Here we have the raw-material for comparison with the past stages of a tradition, which is the "historical" part of the justification.
This list of elements bears quite a remarkable resemblance to Kuhn's concept "paradigm". Furthermore, Kuhn's concepts of normal science and revolutionary science have their counterparts in MacIntyre's theory. The major difference is that MacIntyre's normal science is not mere "puzzle-solving" which produces no major novelties. (Kuhn 1962, ch.4).
For MacIntyre, the normal functioning of a tradition of enquiry concentrates on overcoming challenges, which are caused by different factors: beliefs, authorities and texts receive alternative interpretations, incoherences become evident, new situations and new questions arise. (MacIntyre 1988, pp. 354-5). These challenges are overcome by rejecting, reforming, re-evaluating, and re-interpreting the different elements and innovating new ones. Beliefs, vocabularies, theories, standards and authorities are all elements which can be altered as a response to this challenge. (MacIntyre 1988, p. 355). By comparison with Kuhn's purely cumulative normal science, MacIntyre's picture includes "minor revolutions" as well: authorities are replaced, texts re-interpreted, new beliefs introduced, standards and methods developed etc. But all this takes place within an overall continuity of the tradition in question. This capacity to make "minor revolutions" forms the dynamic aspect of the justification.
MacIntyre's counterpart for Kuhn's "science in crisis" is an "epistemological crisis" of a tradition. Such a crisis develops gradually after more and more inadequacies have been identified. When the tradition has lost its capacity to overcome the difficulties, it is in crisis.
At any point it may happen to any tradition-constituted enquiry that by its own standards of progress it ceases to make progress. Its hitherto trusted methods of
enquiry have become sterile. Conflicts over rival answers to key questions can no
longer be settled rationally...This kind of dissolution of historically founded certitudes is the mark of an epistemological crisis. (MacIntyre 1988, p. 362).
Overcoming a crisis requires a conceptual or theoretical innovation which fulfils two conditions: first, it provides a solution to the problems that have arisen, second, it is capable of explaining why the problems were not solved before and what it was that made the tradition incoherent or sterile. This innovation means that the tradition-before-the-crisis is not commensurable with the tradition-after-the-crisis. If the proposed solution fulfils a third condition as well, if it succeeds in maintaining fundamental continuity with the shared set of beliefs which had constituted the tradition up to this point, the tradition has passed through the crisis successfully. (ibid. pp. 362-5).
But there is also another option, which is crucial for MacIntyre's arguments against arbitrary relativism: if a solution is not found within the original tradition, there is a possibility that a rival tradition both offers a solution to the problems and an explanation why the tradition itself was unable to offer these solutions. If this is the case, the beliefs of the tradition have lost their claims to rationality.
In this kind of situation the rationality of a tradition requires
an acknowledgement by those who have hitherto inhabited and given their
allegiance to the tradition in crisis that the alien tradition is superior
in rationality and in respect of its claims to truth to their own.
What the explanation afforded from within the alien tradition will have
disclosed is a lack of correspondence between the dominant beliefs of their own tradition and the reality disclosed by the most successful explanation, and it may well be the only successful explanation which they have been able to discover. Hence the claim to truth for what have hitherto been their own beliefs has been defeated. (MacIntyre 1988, p. 365, italics added).
In other words, in this kind of situation the members of a tradition can see using their own standards that a rival tradition is superior. If the tradition in crisis cannot come up with a conceptual innovation which would save its beliefs, accounts of rationality and standards of enquiry, the only rationally justifiable thing to do is to adopt the set of beliefs and standards of the superior tradition. That is, the only rational thing to do, when rationality is measured with its own standards - is to give up its own standards. Taylor formulates this point as the rationality of the transition from a tradition in crisis, X, to a superior tradition Y. "What may convince us that a given transition from X to Y is a gain is not only or even so much how X and Y deal with the facts, but how they deal with each other. It may be that from the standpoint of Y, not just the phenomena in dispute, but also the history of X, and its peculiar pattern of anomalies, difficulties, makeshifts, and breakdowns, can be greatly illuminated. In adopting Y, we make better sense not just of the world, but of our history of trying to explain the world..." (Taylor 1993, p. 216).
From this we get an account of the rational justification of the beliefs, standards and methods of a tradition. This justification is at once dialectical and historical, it is based on a dialogue with rival positions and the history of overcoming inadequacies. (MacIntyre 1988, p. 360).
A tradition (or its standards, beliefs and methods) is justified, if it is superior to its predecessors in solving the problems that arose to these predecessors and explaining why these problems were hard to solve in the first place. In addition, it must be able to continually answer to the strongest possible challenges, coming from within the tradition and from outside. To be justified, it must be able to meet these challenges at least as well as its rivals.
The challenges from within the tradition take place by summoning up "as many questions and as many objections of the greatest strength possible". (MacIntyre 1988, p. 358). According to Taylor, a rival tradition can pose a challenge by "bringing to light something the interlocutor cannot repudiate". (Taylor 1993, p. 226).
It is the ability to answer these challenges which guarantees that the elements of a tradition are justified. The crucial thing is the ability to incorporate this solution in the body of beleifs of the tradition. When this does not cause fundamental problems and there is nothing wrong with the functioning of the tradition, it is not rational to abandon that tradition. It is possible that there are several traditions whose core elements are justified. When this is so, there are no superior traditions. I will call a tradition superior, if it can solve the problems of all of its contemporary rival traditions better than the rivals themselves and also explain why this is so.
MacIntyre's account can be supported by examples from the history of science. MacIntyre mentions the paradoxes that Boltzmann derived from accounts of thermal energy based on classical mechanics and which were solved only after Bohr came up with a theory of the internal structure of the atom. (MacIntyre 1988, p. 363).
Taylor's example of this is the difficulties of the theory of motion in pre-Galilean Aristotelian science. A Galilean paradigm which incorporates the concept of inertia has no such difficulty. Furthermore, the Galilean paradigm can explain why Aristotelian science had just the kind of difficulties or anomalies it had. (Taylor 1993, p. 216).in which things are seen as parts of a meaningful whole. The latter is a universal feature of understanding as much as the former. Thus Galilean science must admit it has grave faults in its ability to understand the meanings the world has for us. From Taylor's two arguments (which he doesn't combine), it follows that if the shift from Aristotle to Galileo is rational then by the same token a step from Galileo to a phenomenological Heidegger-inspired view of nature which has disengaged natural scientific understanding as one limit case of it, must be rational as well.
Justification and correspondence
Now I want to reconstruct and clarify MacIntyre's account of rational justification by invoking a distinction between "scheme" and "content" which resembles the Kantian distinction between things in themselves and things for us, and is a kind of historicised version of it. It is crucial for MacIntyre's account that what is "for us" is different from what was "for our predecessors", or what is "for our rivals". The justification concerns the comparison between these categories and does not directly refer to "things in themselves" or "the order of things". Still, it follows that if there is an order of things, then the account which is best in comparative terms, is also the most adequate account of the order of things.
To clarify this I want to distinguish between the following categories:
(i) The first category is the totality of "schemeless content". The totality of what can potentially be disclosed is the potential "content" of our perceptions which are always structured by our conceptual schemes and our (bodily and mental) capacities to perceive.
(ii) The second category is the totality of what is disclosed by the best theory so far, or by the superior tradition.
(iii) What takes the place of Kantian "for us" in the system I am proposing here is the the totality of what is disclosed by our tradition. In addition to things we can understand or explain, this includes the things which we perceive as something we cannot understand, or which we cannot explain without anomalies.
(iv) The fourth category is the totality of what is disclosed by rival traditions.
(v) The fifth category is the totality of what was disclosed by our predecessors.
Here we hve five different relations: the relation of our beliefs, expectations and understandings to all of these categories. All of these play a different role in the justification.
The historical dimension of justification concentrates on (v). We should be able to explain everything that was explained by our predecessors, and in addition, to explain the things that remained unintelligible for them. We should also be able to explain why this is so. There are some things that were conceptualised differently previously: we no longer see witches or the Forms of Nature etc. In such cases we must be able to show that our predecessors were mistaken, and also how and why they were mistaken.
The view of arbitrary relativism could argue that this transition from past to present is merely a change, not a "gain" or a "loss". Even though the problems of our predecessors are not problems for us, the relativist might claim that we have different problems. We do not share the certainties or anomalies of the past, but this does not mean we would have made "progress". We simply have different certainties or anomalies. But I think this relativist view cannot explain the irreversibility of some changes: we know more and a transition to a state of knowing less is not possible. The relativist might agree with this, but state that while it is true that we are capable of explaining more, it is also true that we have lost some of the mysteriousness of the world. I think this might be plausible as a general view of the world, but it does not make sense in connection to science. For the traditions of enquiry, the overcoming of inadequacies clearly is a sign of progress. Thus this relativist argument can be refuted.
The "dialectical" dimension of justification concentrates on (iv). The findings of our rivals are a challenge to us. If they present us with anomalies, we have to be able to overcome them. If we can continuously do this, our tradition is justified by the dialectical dimension. But at the same time, our findings are a challenge to our rivals, and here we may be in a similar position to our rivals as to our predecessors: we can explain how and why they are mistaken.
What I called the "dynamic" dimension of justification is linked with (iii). When new inadequacies and unintelligible phenomena are disclosed, either internally or as a result from the rivals' challenges, we must be able to find a solution to the problems. Our tradition is justified if it can continuosly find solutions to these.
The adequacy of our beliefs and explanations to (ii) is the criterion of "warranted assertibility", which is consequently not ahistorical. We have a warrant for our assertions if we can explain and understand all that is disclosed by the best theory so far. Traditions strive to find out what is the best theory so far by challenging each other. Here we get to what MacIntyre calls the "the correspondence theory of falsity": new findings can prove our old conceptions false and thus they lose their warranted assertibility. But until then, the old conceptions are justified. (MacIntyre 1988, p. 356).
According to MacIntyre, we are never in a position to know that our conceptions are adequate in relation to "the order of things". This can be put in terms of the impossibility to directly perceive "schemeless content" (i). Nevertheless, MacIntyre states that the concept of truth refers to this relation to the order of things. Warranted assertibility is only an indirect sign of the ahistorical truth thus conceived. Hence MacIntyre must think there is some kind of order of things, things in themselves are not simply an unorganised chaos organised by the categories of our mind and language. I think this reference to the order of things can serve as a reasonable explanation why some beliefs and theories enjoy warranted assertibility instead of others. But it is crucial to note that the historical, dialectical and dynamic elements of justification are not dependent on this, they make reference only to the things already disclosed. Therefore it seems to me that one can hold the Kantian view of the chaos of things being organised by our categories and at the same time hold MacIntyre's account of justification.
Beyond universalism and relativism
MacIntyre's account makes sense of factual scientific progress and also to normatively justify the rationality of traditions of enquiry. But then the important question is: in what sense have we escaped universalism and relativism?
This account of justification and superiority is 'inter-traditional' in the sense that it applies universally to all traditions, it is "an account of the rationality presupposed by and implicit in the practice of...enquiry-bearing traditions" (MacIntyre 1988, p. 354).
But it is not universalistic or foundational in the sense that it would provide a 'set of independent standards of rational justification by appeal to which the issues between contending traditions can be decided.' (MacIntyre 1988, p. 351). The universal core of logic cannot judge between the different applications of it. Any attempts to form fully neutral or universal criteria rely on some particular criteria of some particular traditions. That's why the point of MacIntyre's account is that a tradition must be challenged and defended internally, on its own standards.
But from this, it follows that MacIntyre's 'inter-traditional' account of rationality must have some presuppositions as well: it assumes something should apply to all the traditions.
MacIntyre's account has at least two presuppositions which might seem rather dodgy from a postmodern point of view: it supposes that every tradition rather tries to overcome its difficulties rather than letting them be, and that incommensurable traditions can understand each other. I will argue that these do not cause difficulties for MacIntyre's account.
I will outline very briefly the way in which MacIntyre (1988, ch.19) thinks that translatability and non-ethnocentric understanding of other traditions is possible. It is not practicable for me to explore this issue here. Rendering the incommensurable traditions translatable proceeds in several stages. To begin with, incommensurable traditions do not understand each other. But members of one tradition can learn the language of another tradition as a "second first language" and finally master the practices of the other tradition. Someone in this position can translate his or her understandings into his or her "first first language". Some parts of this translation can be done by "same-saying", but some parts need conceptual innovation. Through these conceptual innovations, the limits of translatability can be broadened and also by the same token the former limits of the "first first language". The stretching of these limits and the gaining of understanding of other practices then make it possible to criticise both traditions and identify inadequacies in them or point out possible solutions to the identified ones.
I think this account is a sufficient answer to the standard accusations of intranslatability and impossibility to understand others. But even if we can understand and translate others, the traditions can still be incommensurable in the sense that they lack shared standards of measurement. It is the main argument about the historical and dialectical account of justification which deals with this problem; and translatability and ability to understand others merely support that claim.
But what about the assumption of the universality of 'overcoming': isn't the idea a modern one? Does it apply to all cultures? I do not find it plausible to think that premodern traditions would not have aimed at finding answers to questions which they saw as problems on their own standards. In modernity 'overcoming' has gained a more radical sense, that of overcoming all limitations and givens whatsoever. This idea of overcoming did not prevail in previous cultures. And I think the postmodern critique of this modern idea of 'overcoming' does not apply to MacIntyre's more premodern sense of overcoming as 'solving problems', especially when what counts as a problem is defined within the tradition.
Thus, I think that MacIntyre's account is not universalistic in a bad sense, it leaves room for historical and cultural pluralism. On the other hand, MacIntyre's account does not collapse to the full relativism of arbitrary choices. This is because traditions can be defeated and defeat other traditions and because traditions may or may not fail to respond to epistemological crises. (MacIntyre 1988, p. 366). Whenever a tradition meets a superior rival, again on its own standards of rationality, it is rational to adopt the beliefs and standards of the rival tradition. That is why "arbitrary relativism" is wrong in principle.
Despite this, there can be long periods when none of the rivals prove superior. Relativism has hence something going for it:
...over long periods of time two or more rival traditions may develop and flourish without encountering more than minor epistemological crises, or at least such as they are well able to cope with out of their own resources. And where this is the case,
during such extended periods of time no one of these traditions will be able to encounter its rivals in such a way as to defeat them, nor will it be the case that any
one of them will discredit itself by its inability to resolve its own crises. (MacIntyre 1988, p. 366).
This existence of rival traditions which have not turned sterile or incoherent, is legitimate from MacIntyre's point of view, it is genuine pluralism.
To sum up, I think MacIntyre has succeeded in going beyond the
dichotomy of arbitrary relativism and universalism by changing the underlying
conception of rationality. His position avoids the obvious problems of
universalism in coping with the incommensurable standards of rationality,
and it can answer to the postmodern challenges which come from the relativist
direction.
III Justification and Evaluative Frameworks
It seems to me that whenever someone succeeds in avoiding a problem by changing the presuppositions, the question still remains but in a new form in which it is no longer a problem. In MacIntyre's case, changing the presupposition about the adequate mode of rationality makes the problem of relativism versus universalism disappear as a problem. But the question of the number of justifiable traditions remains. Universalism is transformed into the superiority of one tradition above others and relativism into a genuine pluralism of several justifiable traditions.
When we held science as our example of a tradition of enquiry, superiority was a valid ideal. What about in relation to evaluative frameworks? Obviously in that context relativism has a lot more going for it. In modern societies it is common to think that this is how it ought to be: there ought to be pluralism and everyone ought to have their own values. (Taylor 1991a, pp. 13-23).
In the case of cultures, there seem to be several justified options, and the idea of superiority seems crassly ethnocentric. Justifying the culture of modern liberal individualism, for example, does not mean showing it is universally superior to others, but that it is one justified option among others. And within the individualist culture, it is obvious that the number of different justified life-plans or evaluative frameworks is huge.
In what follows, I want to develop an account of justification which takes this demand of genuine pluralism seriously. It is a mistake to mix up genuine pluralism with arbitrary relativism. Although there is a plurality of evaluative frameworks, we nevertheless want to be able to justify our frameworks against arbitrariness. Thus the question is: will MacIntyre's account of rational justification also be successful in getting us beyond the options of universalism, arbitrary relativism and conservatism in the context of evaluative frameworks.
If this kind of internal and historicist account of justification can succeed, it will avoid the flaws of ahistorical universalism. Will Kymlicka's articulation of the presuppositions of modern moral philosophy serves as an example of the kind of universalism I want to avoid:
(i) "...people have a pre-moral interest in discovering what is truly fulfilling and worthwhile in life", and thus "there is no need for moral philosophers to describe the precise contours of the good life". (ii) "...impartiality...is a fundamental moral value. Each person, from the moral point of view, matters and matters equally." Hence moral philosophy should concentrate on the questions of what's right or just instead of the questions of what's good. (iii) Given the plurality of goods, "morality may sometimes require more of people than they can voluntarily accept. In these circumstances, it is legitimate for other people, using other means, to compel compliance." (Kymlicka 1991, pp. 178-9).
None of these points, I think, are entirely satisfactory. First of all, I see no reason why philosophers as well as, say, poets should not contribute articulations of what a fulfilling life (or true honour) is. Further, while I agree that the issues of the moral axis demand justification more urgently than questions of good life and honour, I do not think the latter are necessary irrelevant for justification in the moral axis. Thus there is a need for moral philosophers to talk about a good life. (I think that there is a need for moral philosophers to talk about society, epistemology, metaethics and ontology as well.).
Secondly, while I agree with Kymlicka on the centrality of impartiality I think the universalist view cannot justify this commitment. But this commitment can be justified historically: we in the modern West are committed to this good. This good articulates our moral intuitions.
I would like to add that the internal account of justification can back up this claim by referring to the different elements of the framework and their "reflexive equilibrium". (see Rawls 1972, pp. 17-22). Instead of a hierarchy where most elements are supported by one unfounded foundation, the structure of the framework can be a circle of elements which support one another. I think we have to take this holistic approach in order to make sense of genuine
pluralism, i.e. of the fact that all genuine goods cannot be part of my framework. Taylor's account of moral argumentation (in Taylor (1993)) seems to deal with the goods or conceptions anyone would have to affirm, as opposed to someone within a particular framework. His argumentation refers to human universals instead of the plurality of frameworks. Here I want to affirm a greater degree of relativism than Taylor does. So the crucial question to which the account of justification must be able to answer is how we can judge whether these "circles of mutual support" -ie. the evaluative frameworks on the whole- can be compared and rationally justified.
Thirdly, Kymlicka moves from a consideration of rational persuasion to the coercive powers of society a bit too quickly. It is not only that people are more motivated to act when the action is voluntary, but the question of coercion is also a moral issue. How do coercion and genuine pluralism fit together, then? Since Kant, liberal theory has argued that from a commitment to pluralism it follows that coercion is legitimate to protect individual spheres of freedom. But another imperative also follows from this, and this imperative is one that Kymlicka does not see as being necessary to follow: the coercive rules of morality and justice ought to be justified in connection with individual evaluative frameworks; that is, justified by standards internal to them. This calls for an argument seeking to establish that the frameworks which do not include these socially coercive moral views are not justified. This might not be possible in all cases, but the regulative ideal can still be valid.
To sum up, the historicist account of justification attempts to justify frameworks in a holistic manner, because all the elements of a framework can support one another to some extent. The basic insight is that everyone has an evaluative framework to start with and this framework is justified unless there is something wrong with it by its own standards.
Moral arguments always concern individual beliefs and conceptions of good in comparison with their antitheses. Moral arguments try to show that the elements of the interlocutor's framework present him with problems. They also try to show how
these problems could be solved. So someone's evaluative framework is not rationally justified if it has inadequacies and does not or cannot incorporate the solutions available to its identified inadequacies, and if there are other frameworks which can provide such solutions.
The elements of an evaluative framework
I will now strengthen the concept of evaluative frameworks as presented by Taylor by incorporating into it elements analogous to those of MacIntyre's traditions. This developed concept of framework is still "broadly Taylorian" as these elements can also be found in Taylor's writings. If there are exceptions to this, I will point them out. I have used the same numbering to emphasize the comparison with MacIntyre's concept of tradition as presented above.
Firstly, the "core elements":
(1a) As we saw, the evaluative framework includes a plurality of goods and hypergoods. It also includes empirical beliefs and ontological accounts of self, society, nature and God. These were introduced in the first section.
(1b) This enlarged conception of framework also includes epistemological and metaethical views, which guide our moral reflections. Taylor often stresses the importance of these and in fact different kinds of reductive epistemological and metaethical views are the main targets of his project. (see eg. "Introduction" in Taylor 1985a).
Second, there are different kinds of embodiment:
(2a) Rather than authoritative texts, the evaluative framework includes examples and narratives of good and bad actions and agents, encountered in real life or fiction. These examples and narratives are sometimes the only device for communicating moral knowledge. (Taylor 1994a, p. 29). Taylor acknowledges the importance of these but does not include them in the narrower conception of evaluative framework which was discussed in the first section.
(2b) In a way, there are no authorities when it comes to modern morality, because autonomy requires that one's moral principles are one's own. (Taylor 1991a, p.2). Although there are no authorities, there are "significant others" whose opinions, views and expectations play a central role in relation to our identity. (see Taylor 1991a, pp. 33-4). I would like to add that there are also "phronimos", moral experts whose ethical judgements we trust. This idea of moral experts is plausible at least in the context of "practices": there are those who master a practice and have grasped its internal goods and those who haven't. (MacIntyre 1985, pp. 186-203; Taylor 1994a).
(2c) There are linguistic embodiments of our views in a particular vocabulary. Taylor acknowledges that a change in a vocabulary can result in a change in moral views and self-interpretations. (Taylor 1985a, p. 37, p. 230). Rorty sees this as the most important aspect of the framework, the "final vocabulary" we have. (Rorty 1989, pp. 73-95).
(2d) The embodiment of some aspects of our framework in action and in practices (see Taylor 1994a, MacIntyre 1985, pp. 186-203). This non-linguistic implicit embodiment of the framework is one of Taylor's central insights.
(2e) Social institutions which support practices embody some conceptions of good and ontology as well. (Taylor 1979; 1985b pp. 111-25; MacIntyre 1985, p. 194). These can either coincide with individual frameworks or then they can force individuals to act against their views of what counts as moral, fulfilling or honourable.
The third part of the framework consists of the elements central to justification.
(3a) Our sense of the inadequacies and dissatisfactions
that our evaluative framework gives rise to is also part of this broader
conception of evaluative framework. Here we have the greatest difference
from Taylor's conception of evaluative frameworks. I think we should separate
three different types of dissatisfaction: (i) There may be a contradiction
between society or the world at large and our framework. According to Walzer,
this dissatisfaction (together with the sense of solidarity) is the main
motive for social criticism. (Walzer 1989, p. 3, pp. 19-24). (ii) We may
be dissatisfied with ourselves, our capacity to feel, think, act or will
in accordance with our evaluative framework. (iii) From these two we must
distinguish the situation in which we have a sense that there is something
wrong with our framework itself. It may produce conflicts, incoherence,
false expectations, contradictions, which cannot be overcome without a
change to the framework. Sean Sayers has argued that these contradictions
can force one to modify one's views.
Just because these frameworks are contradictory, the developing self...is forced to seek
a resolution among the conflicting pressures they exert. (Sayers 1995, p.10).
For MacIntyre, the identified inadequacies are the focal point for development and the retrospective justification of traditions, and it seems that the same applies to evaluative frameworks as well. In the spirit of the quote from Sayers, I want to claim that it is the anomalies which drive us to change the world, ourselves or our conception of the good. Below I will examine in greater detail the different kinds of inadequacy that a framework may have.
(3b) The framework also includes conceptions of the contrasts between my framework and other frameworks. Taylor discusses this awareness of these contrasts (Taylor 1989a, p. 17) but does not give it the justificatory role it has for MacIntyre. But it is essential for the overall justification of the framework, that these contrasts are justifiable. I would like to add that because we are concerned here with individual evaluative frameworks, the frameworks of our predecessors also form a group of "others".
(3c) When transformed into the context of an individual framework, the historical dimension gets a biographical form: we have a narrative giving unity to our life and justifying our set of goods and hypergoods "genealogically" by interpreting the transition to them as a gain. (Taylor 1989a, pp. 25-52, pp. 72-3).
The main difference between this broader conception of the framework and Taylor's views is the central place given to inadequacies. In a way, this is in line with Taylor's notions of hypergoods and the conflicts linked with them. But still, Taylor's moral psychology is based on the "pull" that different goods have and the respect they command. This broader concept stresses the "push" of incoherences instead. If we take the plurality of goods seriously, we see that we are pulled in different directions. I would like to add that this gives rise to a push towards unified identity. It is not only that the highest goods pull us more than other goods, we are also pushed away from contradictions.
Varieties of inadequacy
Now I want to turn to the different types of inadequacy that the evaluative frameworks, as opposed to the self or the world, can have. The variety of the elements of a framework provides us with a variety of different kinds of inadequacy. My claim is that any of these can be the relevant element in a moral argumentation which tries to challenge or establish a holistic justification of an evaluative framework.
In presenting the different kinds of inadequacy, I use as my example an individual "X" who claims he or she in neglecting the environmental issues because it is his or her explicit moral conviction.
I think this is an example of a case in which, according to modern moral philosophers as presented by Kymlicka above, coercion legitimated by universalistic arguments would be the only way to proceed. According to the universalistic conception, the arguments concerning good life would be irrelevant here, as indeed any arguments trying to make X voluntarily change his or her mind. I would like to counter this by claiming there can be several kinds of arguments with this aim and which are addressed to this particular individual. They are "ad hominem" in the sense proposed by Taylor (1989). These arguments don't try to "prove" that acting in such and such a way is universally binding for everyone, but by reason seek to demonstrate that it is better to act in such and such a way rather than not.
Now I will turn to different kinds of inadequacy. The examples below try to illuminate what kinds of arguments might be available.
First of all, the empirical beliefs one relies on can be false. Taylor thinks that an argument of this kind can usually be levelled against the moralities with "special pleadings".
Also certain ontological accounts might be inadequate. Among the well known moral debates the issues of abortion and vivisection clearly rely on incommensurable ontologies. But I do not think that ontological pictures like this can always be compared in a way that leads to a rejection of one or other as inadequate. Sometimes this may be the case. Taylor gives some examples of inadequate ontologies: for instance, the disengaged view on human agency and the atomist ontology of individuals. Taylor also argues against religious views which do not admit the language-dependence or human-dependence of goods, ie. the role that the human world of experiences has in religion. (Taylor 1994b, p. 228).
Thus X might for instance have an ontological picture of mind-body -dualism, or perhaps a disengaged computational model of reason, which cannot make sense of the way in which our having a certain kind of body structures the limits of the intelligibility of phenomena (Taylor 1995, pp. 61-79). The rival, then, might be an ontology stressing the dependence of the human mind on a human body and the dependence of a human body on its environment. The former has difficulty in explaining the most basic everyday phenomena, so the latter ontology can easily present challenges which are hard to meet within the dualist picture.
One kind of inadequacy is linked directly to the conceptions of goods. Goods and hypergoods may contradict each other, be in a state of disorder or perhaps not be genuine goods at all.
Taylor associates with Plato the attempts to establish that some
moral demands are irrelevant, based on a mistake. For example in The
Republic,
The internal goods, citizen dignity and fame, are savagely reinterpreted as a grasping
after mere appearances, simulacra. (Taylor 1994a, p. 33).
But if both conflicting goods are real, this kind of revisionism is not possible. The kind of argumentation which Taylor links with Aristotle relies on "architectonic goods" in determining the "correct rank and proportion" of ordinary goods, and thus resolves the conflict of clashing goods. (Taylor 1994a, p. 30, p. 34).
I would like to add that the Hegelian approach to the conflict of goods would attempt to define a position which has reconciled the two demands in a way that makes them no longer conceptually incompatible. In contrast to this, Aristotelian architectonic goods do not reconcile incompatible demands, but attempt to order them in accordance with their priority. For example, Hegel's project of social philosophy (see Hardimon 1994) aims at reconciling individuality and social membership. It attempts to show that we can fulfil our individuality through our social membership and our social membership through individuality. As a result of conceptual investigation, the conflict disappears. Of course, the success of this argument depends on whether the reconciled versions of individuality and social membership have lost something of their original moral force, or whether they have mainly lost their unattractive features and retained their good side.
Now the Platonic, Aristotelian and Hegelian procedures provide us with several possible ways of arguing against X. Perhaps one could follow Plato and argue that the liberty to consume this-and-that or the liberty to drive a car are not genuine goods. Or then one could follow Aristotle and admit that the liberties mentioned above are in fact genuine goods but ones which are in contradiction with the demands of sustainable development. Then one might try and argue that they ought to be subordinated to the hypergood of sustainable development. Or finally, one could follow Hegel and claim that the conceptions of goods might involve contradictions which can be reconciled, that true freedom and self-realisation do not conflict with environmental ethics.
One important form of inadequacy is the faults of the metaethical theories and methods. These can be false in a way which distorts ethical commitments. They can be subject to philosophical argument, and are in fact the central focus of Taylor's project. The concepts of strong evaluations, the three axes of morality, diversity of goods, hypergoods, moral sources, constitutive goods, implicit/explicit, phronetic moral know-how, ad hominem-reasoning all are directed against reductive views of some sort. For example, the reason why X has not committed himself or herself to environmental values may be a general moral scepticism, which in turn can be based on a false view of rationality. This position could then be argued against on a meta-ethical level.
These kinds of inadequacy can be found within the core elements of the framework. But also the different embodiments of the framework can suffer from or lead to anomalies. It is not hard to see how the points implicit in moral examples, the actions of moral experts, the articulations within the limits of our conceptual scheme, the implicit know-how gained in practice and the rules and regulations of institutions can contradict each other.
Furthermore, any of these different embodiments can suffer from insufficiency as well. For instance, there are examples and narratives which can support one-sided conceptions of the good. What Wittgenstein says about philosophy, applies to moral knowledge as well:
A main cause of philosophical disease - a one-sided diet: one nourishes one's thinking with only one kind of example. (Philosophical Investigations, 518).
One mode of moral argumentation is then to provide new examples and fictional narratives which carry a particular insight. Rorty stresses the point of these in his demands for a morally inclusive literary canon, which adds to our understandings about other cultures and their goods. (Rorty 1989, pp. 73-95).
In the case of X, we can think of the narratives in which humans are pictured as "the cancer of Mother Earth", or stories of the type in which the globe has existed for 24 hours and during the last seconds humans have appeared on the scene and destroyed it at a remarkable pace. I think that a careful construction of such "devices of representation" of some intuitions or insights can be a legitimate task for (post-Rawlsian) moral philosophers. (see Rawls 1985).
Yet another way in which the framework may be considered faulty is that it lacks living examples of moral agency and moral experts. I think this is one of MacIntyre's main worries about individualism: there can be no "masters" of morality if all individuals seek the good life in accordance with their own conception. Such individuals are easily led astray, and perhaps their ability to judge may not develop. Our X might be one example of such a case.
The moral vocabulary may be insufficient to make sense of one's inarticulate views. In a case like this, inarticulate views can contradict articulate beliefs. If one can gain access to new vocabulary, it may help to identify and solve old inadequacies. As we have seen, the thesis about inarticulacy is one of Taylor's leading ideas. For example, the concept of "alienation" from nature, community and from work may articulate something our X has experienced, but has never had the means to conceptualise.
Another kind of inadequacy is formed by an insufficient experience of participating practices and grasping their internal goods. Thus one possible argument is: "try this and you'll see." Here we meet a limit to moral argumentation: some knowledge can be gained only through experience.
Also institutions can cause contradictions between actions and the evaluative views of the agent. This case is central to social criticism. There are masses of examples where environmental problems are caused by economic, legal and political structures. For example, the main reason for neglecting the environment may indeed be the atomisation and fragmentation of society, and the embodiment of individualism in the main liberal institutions. Here we reach another limit of moral argumentation: some changes don't come about by argument and a change in views alone, they demand social reform as well.
The third part of the framework is formed by the elements linked primarily with justification. There can be flaws in these elements as well: the identification of inadequacies may be insufficient. Or then, the representation of the disagreements with others may be biased, in which case we justify our frameworks against straw-men. Or finally, the narrative account of one's life may be unfaithful to real events and may view the transitions to the present goods as gains in a way that falls into the "fallacy of presentism" (Rosa 1995, p. 24). Thus the classic imperative "know thyself" becomes relevant here.
Moral argumentation and justification
Now we have seen how moral argumentation can have a starting point in the identification of different kinds of inadequacy. This is, of course, only a first stage in a moral argument, which takes the form of comparison between different alternatives. In the course of deliberation some arguments, interpretations, pictures and articulations will turn out to be more compelling than others. In this deliberation, our capacity to judge plays a crucial role, as discussed in the first section. Regardless of the wide variety of possible interpretations, this kind of internal argumentation does not always prove successful. Taylor admits that the model of reasoning he proposes will be useless when "faced with an opponent who is unconfusedly and undividedly convinced of his position" (Taylor 1993, p. 209). We have seen, however, that a fully explicit evaluative framework is a fiction. In real life, there's likely to be inarticulacy, inadequacy, confusion and incoherence, either identified or unidentified. No position is immune to all arguments whatsoever. But it does not follow that our opponents are necessarily immune specifically to our criticism or we to theirs. According to MacIntyre, two rival and incommensurable traditions may be immune to each other's criticisms for long periods of time. And Taylor agrees that nothing can give any a priori guarantee that in fact all moral arguments can be solved. (Taylor 1993, p. 213) "Nothing assures us a priori that relativism is false either. We have to try and see." (ibid., p. 227). In the beginning of "Explanation and Practical Reason", (Taylor 1993) Taylor makes an empirical statement that there seem to be limits to what people can unconfusedly and undividedly espouse, and thus the most alarming cases, like someone thinking that any murder is justified, are not a real threat. According to Taylor, Nazis do not think killing people is not a problem, but this ban on murder is full of special pleadings. (1993, p. 209).
Towards the end of the article Taylor notes that "...it does not show that the most worrying cases, those which divide people from very different cultures, can be so [in reason] arbitrated...we have almost no understanding at all of the place of human sacrifice, for instance, in the life of the Aztecs." (ibid., p. 226). If this is the case with X as well, then in the end we may have no possibility other than either coercion or toleration.
Now how does the historical and dialectical account of justification fit into the task of justifying evaluative frameworks? So far we have made the reservation that the scope of pluralism is bigger in morality. Secondly, we have noted that a straightforward equation between moral conflicts and scientific anomalies is not possible. Can we still plausibly talk about historical and dialectical justification?
I think biographically we are all familiar with transitions we view as gains and as positive development, because they offer us a solution to an inadequacy. We can make better sense of our lives or order our goods better or clarify our conception of the goods. Taylor (1993, pp. 223-4) calls this kind of biographical transition "error-reducing moves", which by definition guarantee that the latter position is better than the former one. But these biographical transitions are still open to challenge and rival interpretations: perhaps the transition was a loss, not a gain. The historical justification of evaluative frameworks deals with the rival readings of these biographical transitions.
The dialectical part of this justification is based on the ability to answer the challenges that comparison to "others" poses. The others can come from the same culture, from other cultures or from the past, and even from fiction. We must be able to justify our contrasts with others, ie. the differences must be those of genuine pluralism and not of arbitrary relativism.
But in this respect, the analogy to science does not fully work. This comparison and our conception of our contrasts with others can never be inclusive, because there are so many different kinds of others and so many kinds of disagreements. Therefore we need to judge what amount of comparisons is sufficient for justification. (MacIntyre 1988, p. 358). We have to judge how much time and energy we should use in moral reflection. (Williams 1985, p. 171). The sufficient amount of dialectical comparison depends partly on the importance of the question. Full inclusiveness does not seem to be a valid regulative principle apart from the cases which demand consensus or shared understanding. Hence, a third difference between science and morality emerges: in morality it is a matter of judgement how much dialectical comparison is needed to support the justifications concerned.
Given these reservations, the focus on inadequacies still looks like a promising approach to justification. The different elements of the evaluative framework can support one another and this "supportive circle" can on the whole be justified historically, dialectically and dynamically. The historical aspect demands that the interpretation of one's biography as a progressive narrative leading to one's present framework has to stand challenges from rival interpretations. The dialectical aspect demands that all the individual elements of the framework must also stand the comparison with past and present rivals. This comparison is to be made within the standards internal to the evaluative framework. This cannot guarantee that the present elements of the framework are rationally sustainable, because there is always potential for improvement and development. Real frameworks always involve incoherence, contradiction and inarticulacy. These provide the framework with its internal dynamics.
This account does not collapse into conservatism or arbitrary relativism. The crucial point is the variety of inadequacies and consequently of the different kinds of arguments relevant to the evaluative framework. These show that changes in the evaluative frameworks have a rational direction: away from the inadequacies. Therefore, both arbitrary relativism and conservatism can be avoided. But these changes are open-ended, the inadequacies can be overcome in several ways. Thus there is room for genuine pluralism.
Throughout this work it has been assumed that universal standards on morality do not exist. For this, there is the factual reason that the existence of incommensurable cultures or frameworks seems to make that impossible. But there is also the moral reason of seeing pluralism as a genuine good. The latter is not a sufficient reason for claiming that universalism is impossible, but it is a sufficient reason for seeking alternatives to it. That is why there are few arguments against universalism. Rather, the arguments seek to establish that the account has not slipped into universalism. But perhaps it should be said that here the historicist account of justification is philosophically favourable for two reasons: Firstly, it does not have to merely assert its foundations. Secondly, it can give a richer account of arguments relevant to morality.
IV Conclusions
From the discussion in the three previous sections, I wish to draw the following conclusions:
Human agents are inescapably strong evaluators. They can rely on their implicit grasp of the contents of their evaluative framework in the context of the application of that framework. A rational application is one which gets it right.
The framework is justified if the transition to it can be narrated as a gain and if it does not suffer from identified inadequacies which could not be solved within the framework but which would therefore demand a transition from it to a rival position in which the problems can be solved.
This historical and dialectical account of justification gets us beyond the options of universalism, conservatism and arbitrary relativism. In the field of science, MacIntyre's notions of translatability and "living tradition" support this claim. In morality, several qualifications have to be made: firstly, genuine plurality is far more important in morality than in science. Secondly, all moral conflicts are not anomalies of evaluative frameworks, there can be genuine conflicts without any inadequacy. It would be inadequate not to acknowledge these conflicts. Thirdly, what counts as a sufficient amount of challenge in the context of justification is a matter of judgement.
Despite these qualifications, the account is still able to go beyond conservatism, universalism and relativism. The disagreements with universalist moral philosophy are threefold: 1) genuine pluralism and the demand for internal justification can be taken as a moral commitment supporting this account, 2) there are no unfounded universalistic assertions which would serve as (quasi-)foundations, 3) There is a rich variety of different kinds of argumentation relevant to morality. These fall largely outside the category of strictly moral arguments in the universalistic sense.
Conservatism and arbitrary relativism can be avoided by invoking the
internal dynamics of the framework. These dynamics are based on different
kinds of inadequacy which broadly determine what counts as a solution,
although they cannot in advance determine the precise contours of the solution.
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