Question Do moral philosophers work like this: 1. I have a Wish to see a certain form of society. 2. I must now think of a Reason why everybody should work to create this form of society. 3. Got it! 4. In order to make my Reason compelling, I will now claim that the Reason pre-dates my Wish. 5. My Wish is now the product of the pre-existing Reason. 6. All persons of Reason will share my Wish and work to create the form of society designed by my Wish.

Accepted:
June 5, 2008

Comments

None that I know (well, except MAYBE Nietzsche). Why would the moral philosopher have the Wish? If s/he's a philosopher at all, it will be for Reasons.

It looks to me more like how a Straw Man works.

Kalynne asks most pertinently, "Why would the moral philosopher have the Wish? If s/he's a philosopher at all, it will be for Reasons." But, will the philosopher have Reasons for taking these considerations, and not those others, to be Reasons? Will the philosopher have a Reason to be a philosopher (so understood)?

This is indeed the accusation thatNietzsche levels at moral philosophers: that they have culturally baseddesires (to acquire a form of power or influence over some othergroup) and that the reasoning comes afterwards. However, evenNietzsche doesn't accuse philosophers of doing this deliberately orconsciously (not surprisingly, since he doesn't hold much stock bywhat we in fact decide or become conscious of).

On the other hand, a lot depends uponwhat the Reason is in your step 3. If the reason is philosophically compelling then itdoesn't matter at all whether it pre-dates the wish or not.Consider an analogy: scientist A hates scientist B. Scientist Bpublishes a paper putting forward hypothesis X. Scientist A devoutlywishes to demolish this hypothesis utterly, for no other reason thanto rub B's nose in it in front of their peers. A devises a proper experiment to test X,carries it out rigorously, finds that indeed X is false, andpublishes accordingly. Is that bad science? Well, A should probablyseek urgent counselling, but it is certainly not bad science.

Nietzsche'scritique of the tradition of moral philosophy only works, then, ifyou combine it with a general critique of the capacity of reason tomeaningfully demonstrate anything about the good or the just.Nietzsche sees this and tries at least to provide this generalcritique.