VALUES VERSUS NORMS : A PRAGMATIST ACCOUNT OF MORAL OBJECTIVITY

자료: Hedgehog Review, http://www.virginia.edu/iasc/HHR_Archives/Pragmatism/3.3EJoas.pdf

Hans Joas

Hans Joas is Professor of Sociology and Social Philosophy at the Free University of Berlin and the University of Chicago, where he also belongs to the Committee on Social Thought. He is the author of several books that are relevant for a revitalization of pragmatist social theory, including, G.H. Mead: A Contemporary Re-Examination of His Thought; Pragmatism and Social Theory; The Creativity of Action; and The Genesis of Values. 

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AMONG CONTEMPORARY THINKERS, HILARY PUTNAM is one of the strongest advocates of “moral realism.” At least since the publication of his book Reason, Truth, and History in 1981, he has developed ingenious and sophisticated arguments against moral skepticism and in favor of the possibility of objectivity regarding moral questions. “But not every defense of moral objectivity,” Putnam writes,

is a good thing. We live in an “open society,” a society in which the freedom to think for oneself about values, goals, and mores is one that most of us have come to cherish. Arguments for “moral realism” can, and sometimes unfortunately do, sound like arguments against the open society; and while I do wish to undermine moral skepticism, I have no intention of defending either authoritarianism or moral apriorism.

And he continues: “It is precisely for this reason that in recent years I have found myself turning to the writings of the American pragmatists.”1 

For most experts on American pragmatism, Putnam’s view that pragmatism is both antiskepticism and antidogmatism is not really new; they were attracted to these American thinkers for exactly the same reason.  But the fact that Putnam, despite earlier contact with pragmatist thinking in his student days, truly rediscovered it later in his life enables him not just to rephrase what the earlier pragmatists said, but to reconstruct and improve their arguments in view of possible objections so that a modified neo-pragmatism comes into sight—a neo-pragmatism that looks very different from Richard Rorty’s version.

The Rortyan version of neo-pragmatism has come to be perceived much more as a new and particularly radical form of value-relativism than as a contribution to the defense of moral objectivity. But Rorty’s position, whether it is defensible or not, cannot simply be identified

with the intentions and the works of the historical pragmatists. Catherine Elgin’s formula “between the absolute and the arbitrary” is particularly apt to characterize the fact that the pragmatists were indeed anti-absolutists, but that this did not turn them into a species of valuerelativists. 2 Many contemporary pragmatists are visibly relieved that Putnam’s reputation makes it easier again to mark the differences between Rorty’s thinking and the classical pragmatists and to draw the attention of a wider public to these differences. It goes without saying, however, that “being closer to the classical pragmatists” does not mean “being right,” though any difference between the contemporary pragmatists and classical pragmatism for which no explicit reasons have been given may initiate a process of reflection about the reasons for this difference.   (cotinued on the source link above)