There are two very different types of views that stand in opposition to the notion of ethics as a subject matter alongside others. In both, ethics is ubiquitous; but this shows that saying that ethics is everywhere can be equivocal. Also, according to both views, ethics is transcendental; once more, the term here signifies two very different things.
The first type of view involves an idea of ethics as permeating everything we do. It is not a separable domain engulfing only some of what we do. According to this view, there is ethical responsiveness already present, embedded, in everything we say and think. The ethical is a kind of condition for thinking about things in the first place—a condition for making contact with them with our mind, in judgment and in action. This is the sense in which it is transcendental, on this view. Simply put, making intellectual contact with things—trying to understand them, talking about them, describing them, and so on—requires taking an interest; it is taking an interest. If we philosophically try to give an account for describing, thinking, questioning, trying to understand, judging, manipulating and so on, if we try to adopt a point of view “from within” and characterize these activities—their reality, their point—then part of what we’ll have to say is that these are all forms of taking interest in things, engaging with them. But now, taking an interest means caring; it means finding things important, or worthwhile engaging with, or interesting, or noteworthy, and so on. And this means that for us there is value everywhere in our everyday commerce with things—in judging, describing, trying to understand, manipulating, and in general making contact with things with our body and mind. Our forms of intellectual and practical engagement with things are at the same time forms of evaluating them. This is true, according to this first kind of view, whatever this value is and however mundane it may look or be. If ethics is the study of what we care about, then according to this first view, to study what we care about simply means tracing the cobwebs of forms that our contact with things takes. The whole of ethics, we can trust, the whole of ways we care about things, engage with them, is caught up in this cobweb—and not by accident. This is, after all, what this cobweb is for.
In the second kind of view, ethics has absolutely no room in the normal everyday commerce with things. If anything, ethics is a global attitude towards this commerce, coming as if from a place outside it. In this sense, in this second view, ethics is transcendental. There are different forms that the ethical attitude might take—chiefly, deep dissatisfaction and deep being-at-home-ness. These are, in Tractarian terms, the attitudes of the unhappy and the happy correspondingly. But in both cases, ethics is not a certain domain in the commerce with things—not a separable subject matter; it is rather a reaction to this commerce. Also, it is not a reaction to some of it—to some language games, to some forms of judgment, or to some practical and intellectual forms of contact with the world. It is rather global. The dissatisfaction of the unhappy is not with this or with that fact, or with this or that form of interest in things. It is dissatisfaction with the very normalcy, the very everydayness of this interest. It typically comes with a wish for something else, something higher—for a new sense of reality, or for a revelation of the true essence of things, which the unhappy expects will once and for all uncover what she feels as a deep falsehood and illusion that is everywhere, and which cannot be penetrated by the ordinary forms of commerce. In opposition, the being-at-home-ness of the happy is equally global. It is not a being-at-home-ness in this or that practice, this or that fact, this or that culture. It typically involves recognition of one’s own finitude, and an acceptance of it, perhaps in the form of willingness to find oneself again in the yet unknown: a willingness to learn, to practice, to feel, to do, to experiment, to change.
It is easy to confuse the attitude of the happy with the first philosophical view of ethics I mentioned above. It is easy to think of the “view from within,” endorsed by proponents of the first philosophical view as a kind of attitude towards language. But this is confused: The first philosophical view does not imply happiness; it does not imply acceptance (or conservatism). The first philosophical view is not—not even meant to be—a global attitude toward our practices, and the fact that ethics, as understood along the lines of this view, permeates language as a whole does not make it an attitude towards language. The first view rather draws attention to the reality of our practices—to their point as expressions of all sorts of care and interests—by formulating a transcendental condition for those practices: It draws attention to something that is embedded in those practices, and it matters not what our attitude is towards this fact—whether we like it or not, happy with it or not. Happiness, in opposition, is an attitude towards language, an attitude towards life, and the whole of human practice. It is a global attitude towards the cobweb of forms which our contact with the world takes. In this way it is like unhappiness; in fact it is its opposite. Both happiness and unhappiness view language and world “from side-ways on.”
The confusion between the two views of ethics can also happen in the other direction: happiness and unhappiness—qua attitudes towards the totality of life—may be thought of as particular practices or kinds of practices, particular language games or particular colors that practices can take or styles in which language game can be conducted, or as one more distinction that captures a difference of responsiveness to things, and at any rate as something that is already weaved into, and can only be seen from within our life with things. This falsifies things. The attitudes of happiness and unhappiness are not weaved into our life with things, and are invisible by any inspection of our practices. Morality, in the second kind of view, is otherworldly. From the point of view of our practices, the attitudes of the happy and the unhappy look like a big and deep confusion. They involve a “failure” to do anything in particular, to take part in any particular activity, to take any particular sort of interest in things. Even using the word ‘attitude’ to capture what happiness and unhappiness are seems wrong. For normally ‘taking an attitude towards something’ denotes some sort of activity. For similar reasons no word would fit. And appreciating this is appreciating something essential about what ethics, according to the second kind of view, is, and why it is no subject matter.
The first type of view involves an idea of ethics as permeating everything we do. It is not a separable domain engulfing only some of what we do. According to this view, there is ethical responsiveness already present, embedded, in everything we say and think. The ethical is a kind of condition for thinking about things in the first place—a condition for making contact with them with our mind, in judgment and in action. This is the sense in which it is transcendental, on this view. Simply put, making intellectual contact with things—trying to understand them, talking about them, describing them, and so on—requires taking an interest; it is taking an interest. If we philosophically try to give an account for describing, thinking, questioning, trying to understand, judging, manipulating and so on, if we try to adopt a point of view “from within” and characterize these activities—their reality, their point—then part of what we’ll have to say is that these are all forms of taking interest in things, engaging with them. But now, taking an interest means caring; it means finding things important, or worthwhile engaging with, or interesting, or noteworthy, and so on. And this means that for us there is value everywhere in our everyday commerce with things—in judging, describing, trying to understand, manipulating, and in general making contact with things with our body and mind. Our forms of intellectual and practical engagement with things are at the same time forms of evaluating them. This is true, according to this first kind of view, whatever this value is and however mundane it may look or be. If ethics is the study of what we care about, then according to this first view, to study what we care about simply means tracing the cobwebs of forms that our contact with things takes. The whole of ethics, we can trust, the whole of ways we care about things, engage with them, is caught up in this cobweb—and not by accident. This is, after all, what this cobweb is for.
In the second kind of view, ethics has absolutely no room in the normal everyday commerce with things. If anything, ethics is a global attitude towards this commerce, coming as if from a place outside it. In this sense, in this second view, ethics is transcendental. There are different forms that the ethical attitude might take—chiefly, deep dissatisfaction and deep being-at-home-ness. These are, in Tractarian terms, the attitudes of the unhappy and the happy correspondingly. But in both cases, ethics is not a certain domain in the commerce with things—not a separable subject matter; it is rather a reaction to this commerce. Also, it is not a reaction to some of it—to some language games, to some forms of judgment, or to some practical and intellectual forms of contact with the world. It is rather global. The dissatisfaction of the unhappy is not with this or with that fact, or with this or that form of interest in things. It is dissatisfaction with the very normalcy, the very everydayness of this interest. It typically comes with a wish for something else, something higher—for a new sense of reality, or for a revelation of the true essence of things, which the unhappy expects will once and for all uncover what she feels as a deep falsehood and illusion that is everywhere, and which cannot be penetrated by the ordinary forms of commerce. In opposition, the being-at-home-ness of the happy is equally global. It is not a being-at-home-ness in this or that practice, this or that fact, this or that culture. It typically involves recognition of one’s own finitude, and an acceptance of it, perhaps in the form of willingness to find oneself again in the yet unknown: a willingness to learn, to practice, to feel, to do, to experiment, to change.
It is easy to confuse the attitude of the happy with the first philosophical view of ethics I mentioned above. It is easy to think of the “view from within,” endorsed by proponents of the first philosophical view as a kind of attitude towards language. But this is confused: The first philosophical view does not imply happiness; it does not imply acceptance (or conservatism). The first philosophical view is not—not even meant to be—a global attitude toward our practices, and the fact that ethics, as understood along the lines of this view, permeates language as a whole does not make it an attitude towards language. The first view rather draws attention to the reality of our practices—to their point as expressions of all sorts of care and interests—by formulating a transcendental condition for those practices: It draws attention to something that is embedded in those practices, and it matters not what our attitude is towards this fact—whether we like it or not, happy with it or not. Happiness, in opposition, is an attitude towards language, an attitude towards life, and the whole of human practice. It is a global attitude towards the cobweb of forms which our contact with the world takes. In this way it is like unhappiness; in fact it is its opposite. Both happiness and unhappiness view language and world “from side-ways on.”
The confusion between the two views of ethics can also happen in the other direction: happiness and unhappiness—qua attitudes towards the totality of life—may be thought of as particular practices or kinds of practices, particular language games or particular colors that practices can take or styles in which language game can be conducted, or as one more distinction that captures a difference of responsiveness to things, and at any rate as something that is already weaved into, and can only be seen from within our life with things. This falsifies things. The attitudes of happiness and unhappiness are not weaved into our life with things, and are invisible by any inspection of our practices. Morality, in the second kind of view, is otherworldly. From the point of view of our practices, the attitudes of the happy and the unhappy look like a big and deep confusion. They involve a “failure” to do anything in particular, to take part in any particular activity, to take any particular sort of interest in things. Even using the word ‘attitude’ to capture what happiness and unhappiness are seems wrong. For normally ‘taking an attitude towards something’ denotes some sort of activity. For similar reasons no word would fit. And appreciating this is appreciating something essential about what ethics, according to the second kind of view, is, and why it is no subject matter.
RSS Feed
