tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post4831955490598999397..comments2024-03-28T19:56:42.305-05:00Comments on Alexander Pruss's Blog: Can conscience command something immoral?Alexander R Prusshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-52726909771987324372007-11-15T18:41:00.000-06:002007-11-15T18:41:00.000-06:00To be able show the conscience fallible in these e...To be able show the conscience fallible in these examples you might suppose that the maxim is not the basic unit of conscience: that the maxim is a sentence made of words, which can be understood as moral possibilities--whether the possibility of a man with rights; or of a subhuman man to be killed, or an insignificant man to be used as a subject. From the perspective of the conscience these possibilities must be understood as received, as givens, as items of a moral vocabulary. The conscience organizes these moral possibilities into maxims which are right _given_ those possibilities; but as you can call these possibilities into question _prior_ to their use by the conscience, then whether conscience is right is moot: the most that could be claimed for it is that its syntax is correct.<BR/><BR/>Mueller's maxim, for example, would then be expressed: "kill (Jews who are diabolic subhumans) in order to improve the world." It would be false to think of "Jews" and "diabolic subhumans", from the conscience's perspective, as separate nouns to be co-ordinated: it would be working with that clause as a unit. Or "do medical experiments on (George who is morally outweighed by the greater good)."Paul M. Rodriguezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00925737399903171837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-27995606651005994012007-11-14T11:55:00.000-06:002007-11-14T11:55:00.000-06:00Heath: I take it that the conditional here is not ...Heath: I take it that the conditional here is not material? (If it were, you would fulfill the duty to by changing your conscience.)Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-90914399102557999402007-11-13T20:44:00.000-06:002007-11-13T20:44:00.000-06:00I think One ought( if your conscience says do X, y...I think <BR/><BR/>One ought( if your conscience says do X, you do X)<BR/><BR/>amounts, in spirit at least, to your solution of<BR/><BR/>One ought (you do what conscience says).<BR/><BR/>You cannot fulfill this latter duty by altering your conscience, but you can relieve yourself of it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-21237266851606501972007-11-13T08:03:00.000-06:002007-11-13T08:03:00.000-06:00Heath:I am not sure it follows that wrong action i...Heath:<BR/><BR/>I am not sure it follows that wrong action is not intended. Suppose that Dr. Smith is convinced that the medical experiments are wrong, but nonetheless does them for the greater good of humankind. Then her maxim might just be to endanger George for the good of humankind. And that she <EM>can</EM> succeed at--George will be endangered, and humankind might benefit. But when she's acting from conscience, there is more to her maxim, if what I say about the case is right.<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the Dancy solution. I am worried about the logical grammar. "If A, then do B" does not seem to me to be an action, and it seems to me that only an action can be the complement of an ought. I can, of course, imagine that it be an ought to bring it about that "if A, then I do B". But there is no duty to bring it about that if conscience says to do X, you do X. (If there were such a duty, then a person who rid herself of conscience would thereby have fulfilled a duty.)<BR/><BR/>Another thing I've played with is this option: It is always your duty to do what conscience requires. Suppose conscience requires you to commit a murder. Then what you ought to do what conscience requires. But it does not follow from this you ought to commit a murder, even though committing the murder would be what conscience requires, because one cannot intersubstitute identicals in "ought to ..." statements. So you're stuck, as on the Dancy suggestion: you ought to refrain from murder and you ought to do what conscience requires, but you can't do both, since in doing what conscience requires, you'll be committing a murder. <BR/><BR/>Another variant of this is to individuate actions finely. Doing what conscience requires and committing a murder, then, are two actions. If you do both, you both do something right (obey conscience) and something wrong (commit murder). It would be nice if you could do just one of the two, but you can't.Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-75819725969659395822007-11-13T07:25:00.000-06:002007-11-13T07:25:00.000-06:00Alex, I think if you pursue this line of thought t...Alex, <BR/><BR/>I think if you pursue this line of thought to its logical conclusion, you will be claiming that no one who acts wrongly is doing what they intend to do. Which seems absurd. (Although the Thomist line on sin is not so far away from this.)<BR/><BR/>Here is another suggestion for how to understand "the dictates of conscience", drawn from Dancy's "The Logical Conscience." The norm governing conscience is wide-scoped, so that <BR/><BR/>One ought (if your conscience says do X, you do X).<BR/><BR/>It does not follow from this that if your conscience says do X, you ought to do X. <BR/><BR/>This solution has the pleasing-to-me consequence that someone whose conscience is in error can't go right: either they do something substantively wrong, or they violate the norm of conscience-following. The only way to act well is to do the right thing according to your conscience.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com