All of the major empiricists offer a defense of empiricism not only as a philosophy of knowledge but also as a philosophy of values, i.e. of morality and politics. The idea that experience is our main (or perhaps even only) source of knowledge hopefully seems plausible to you now, even if you disagree. But what about Locke's idea, later to be reproduced in Berkeley and especially Hume, that experience can be a source of moral authority and political legitimacy?
Here is a pair of questions to consider in writing your post: Do you think that morals are the kind of thing that we can learn about from experience? Or do the requirements of morality dictate that we turn away from experiential concepts such as pleasure (morals) and consent (politics) in order to arrive at a wholly rational conception of values not distorted by the pollutions of an experience that can too easily misguide us?
In looking forward from Locke to Berkeley it will be useful to keep these questions in focus. For one way of testing the viability of Berkeley's rather extreme take on empiricism (in which he denies the existence of all matter, asserting that only ideas exist) is to consider the consequences of this empiricism not only for our knowledge practices but also for our moral and political practices. We might want to ask ourselves in this spirit what sort of moral and political universe would result from Berkeley's version of idealist empiricism.
Those in the (a)-blog group should click on 'comment' below and post this week -- though all others are welcome to weigh in as well.
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Experience is the perfect teacher, but only to the extent that we are aware of the context of situations and the consequences of our actions. However, it's literally impossible to be aware of all the consequences of one's actions (because they extend forward throughout time forever), so our ability to learn from experience is limited to our awareness of those consequences. However, reason can help us discover moral principles that most of us haven't developed our level of awareness sufficiently as to discover them on our own. My favorite example of this is Kant's categorical imperative ("Never use a human as a mere means; never act in such a way that you could not will to be universal"). Ultimately, morality seems to require awareness of context, where you "just know" what has to be done without rational calculation or comparison to past events. To draw from a Biblical narrative, Jesus Christ was aware that "the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath"; he knew when it was in the highest good to break the rules.
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ReplyDeleteMike makes a very good point, morality is subjective and although we'd like to impose our morals on others our duty extends only as far as the sphere we create in each of our mind. Kant's notion of morality, to treat people as ends in themselves and not as mere means to an end, I see as something which is derived from social norms for personal utility.
ReplyDeleteSo, experience definately teaches us morals. However, rationale based on data from collective experiences can yield the avoidance of bad experiences and the seeking after of good ones.
I emphasise the idea that rationality should be based on experience, but to hold experience as a source for moral and political authority I would say is a stretch; things that are widely disputed should be experienced for ones self (yet not to further legitimize ones own ignorant rationalizations).
I guess in every instance of introspection there is some source of data based on experience. There is a somewhat arbitrary gulf that divides stupidity in experience from that of necessary experience.
As Mike stated, in the Biblcal account of Jesus the context was about whether to uphold the law according to what overzealous religious people considered to be right, or whether, according to the characteristics of God, people were allowed to work a little to meet their needs, even if it meant breaking the law(which even the zealots broke); the law had an ambiguity in meaning just as many morals also tend to have the same kind of ambiguity so that it could be justified by anyone with the "right" argument.
I think that experience is the only real teacher available to human beings. Only through experience can any person learn how to reason properly. No person is born with the ability to intuitively reason properly. They might be born with the capacity to reason correctly but only through experience can one discover the proper implementation of that capacity. The same goes with morality. Human beings in my opinion are not born with any intrinsic knowledge of morality. Even if we were not born with specific maxims, just abstract concepts like justice, or equality; how could we know the proper implementation of those ideas without experience to guild our hand? Reason can derive a specific morality but the correct implementation of that morality must be derived from experiential knowledge of past situations pertaining to concepts articulated as morality. Otherwise where can a person base their justification for their moral maxims? The person ultimately has to fall back on their experience of moral systems, which in their opinion have worked well in the past, so they follow them now. If people could just reason out proper morality, then I am sure we would have done it by now and there would be no need for debate. But because morality dose not work like that I must assume it is derived from something variable and individual, i.e. Experience!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Kathleen. I also believe that morals are not innate and that they must be learned through experience. Locke's theory that morals are derived from sensation and reflection makes perfect sense to me. We cannot say that a person is born with morals as we see "moral codes" being broken every day. It is obvious that a person's upbringing, in addition to countless other environmental factors, shapes his or her morals. Religious people take their moral codes from written sources [ie The Bible] and other people as well [ie priests, spiritual guides]. There are so many different factors that we must take into account when discussing the development of morals. Morals, I have noticed, seem like they can change throughout a person's lifetime as well. The experiences one goes through have a huge impact on what moral code they choose to follow.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to examining morals and morality from the empiricist perspective, I don't see why reasoning to attain moral code (whether personal or cultural) should be considered any different or more complicated than reasoning employed in any of the extremely basic ideas the Locke suggests are discovered through experience. At least from an epistemological viewpoint, the arrival at moral knowledge should come to occur the same way that we arrive at any other bit of knowledge. The only way that I see moral knowledge differing is in that it seems to have more variations and less agreement among thinkers. However, this could just be a testament to the extent that experience influences our moral knowledge. Morality being a much more mysterious, unquantifiable type of knowledge, is bound to be experienced in more ways. Not to mention the fact that it is highly dependent and built upon many other experiential factors. Perhaps, then, morality is the truest example that the empiricist has of (what an opponent might argue is) an innate set of principles that has been interpreted as thousands of differing, inconsistent theories, all thanks to subjective experience.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that morals can be fully learned through experience. Locke believes that individuals should think for themselves, but there must be some sort of foundation for morality. Morals don't seem to be fully innate, but perhaps there is some sort of notion of right and wrong that we are born with. As Locke would say, a faulty foundation makes an individual liable for error, but it seems at some point an individual's critical thinking skills can only do so much justice to morality. Even if individuals are thinking for themselves, they pollutions of experience can easily misguide them. Just some thoughts...
ReplyDelete*"the pollutions" instead of "they pollutions" :)
ReplyDeleteI can only think of morals in a utilitarian manner. If we did not have a sense of pleasure and suffering, would there really be a need for morals? If murdering someone didn't cause any pain, and we were unaffected emotionally, there may be no reason not to murder someone. Perhaps if everyone then tried to kill everyone else, it would be impractical for the continuation of our species, but it may not be immoral if no one suffered. Ultimately, it seems there is no way to avoid basing our morals on our experiences. Since we can not live in any shoes but our own, however, we use reason to make accommodations according to the experiences of others. Our morals are constantly being modified with every new thing that happens to us. Reason gives us a choice of whether or not to accept certain experience as material. Like Kathleen said, even if ideas like justice and freedom were innate, they would have no relevance without experiences of what what causes pleasure and suffering.
ReplyDeleteExperience or knowledge of the experiences of others is the only possible way to form valid morals. The only reason we know things are bad or good is because we have witnessed them and the consequences they provoke. To create morals based on anything else would be to assume too much and totally disregard the tenants of empiricism that we have been learning about all quarter. While much reflection must be done on our experiences, it is only by starting off with our original experiences that we can begin to set up morals
ReplyDeleteOur morals are in constant fluxuation as we experience new things and reflect on the past. Morals cannot simply be taught, as the moral principles in which we base our lives are much deeper than simply well formed sentences. They must be obtained through experiences making them thoroughly understood and believed. We begin to form morals early on as we learn how people react to certain things and build off them as we grow, some having different morals than others. What would happen in world were everyone was born with identical innate morals?
ReplyDeleteReason and experience are both equally important when it comes to learning our morals. Relying on reason alone can lead one to base their morals on formulas and calculations which seems fairly problematic to me (utilitarianism comes to mind). But relying solely on experience seems equally as troublesome to me. Locke's proposition of evaluating good and evil based solely on the experiences of pleasure and pain comes to mind when thinking about morality based on experience. This idea specifically seems problematic to me because the rather subjective causes of pleasure and pain. A man may find pleasure in raping a woman, but this doesn't make it right. Of course we would have to account for the pain the woman went through but Locke does not call to account for others' experiences--only our own. We need to use both reason and experience when forming our morals because one without the other is inefficient.
ReplyDeleteHmm. As always there seems not to be a clear answer to this. I think you should form your morals based around what you experience, but what is important here is that you have to use your reason to remember that everyone is another person, just like you, and they also deserve to experience what you see as morally right actions. If someone offends you, you will feel bad. Now from an experiential standpoint, you should just make sure to never allow yourself to be offended. Maybe when you feel someone is about to insult you, you cover your ears, or punch them in the face. This isn't really complete, so you have to use your reason to extend yourself into everyone else's shoes. If in your experience you dislike being insulted then you shouldn't insult other people. This is basically Kant's categorical imperative.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that intrigued me, following our last lecture, was Locke’s idea of the state of nature. One way that Locke differentiates between the state of nature and a political society is authority, claiming that in the state of nature there is no single over-arching authority and in the political society this authority is present. Now, considering that Locke was a not just a Christian but one that was devote enough to engage in hermeneutics, I think that it is fair to say that God exists for Locke. This being said, then from the moment of creation there has always been an over-arching authority, God. This being said, it is not necessarily that case that if God is the over-arching authority, then there are innate moral principles. However, there are expectations, which make it difficult to “think for yourself.” The situation is constituted in such a way as there is only one morally right choose, assuming that God exists. Keeping brevity in mind, I think that I will stop rambling on; I just thought this was an interesting potential problem in Locke’s foundational beliefs.
ReplyDeleteAlthough reason can help us work through social understandings of morals, only through experience do we adapt meaningful knowledge of morals. Reasoning helps to interpret ideas of morals as we hear them from our parents, teachers, and peers, however, without experience the interpretation is lacking. All rationalized ideas of morality are only names and memorized descriptions; limited, generalized examples of situations and appropriate actions. Only through experience can we get feelings of empathy, guilt, or injury that contribute to our understanding of why such moral codes should be promoted in society. Without experiencing such feelings the ideas of morality are abstract and unconnected to ourselves. Although one may say that our experience taints moral notions, it would make little sense to have an objective notion of morals. Our experience in moral situations helps us determine how we should treat one another in order to avoid certain feelings. A rational take on morals is devoid of all personal connection, thereby preventing insight into the very feelings which are the origin for moral codes in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI think morality would have to be based on experience, and the experience of pleasure and pain in particular, so I suppose I'm in agreement with locke. In any choice a person makes they have to weigh their own pleasure against the pleasure or pain they will cause to whoever may be affected by their choice. To judge possible pleasure of pain as a result of actions, of course one must have had the experience of pleasure and pain before so as to have an awareness of what the experiential outcome of their action will be, both for themselves and any other who may be affected.
ReplyDeleteMorals are often taught in the form of 'do this because it's the right thing to do, because it will cause someone pleasure' or 'do not do this because it will hurt someone'; one could have these phrases spoken to them but would not understand the implications unless they had had a taste of pleasure and pain. Not knowing what pain feels like would make it difficult to empathize with an other in pain; similarly so with pleasure.
It seems to me that morals are the kind of things we can learn about from experience, however, it is important that we see 'experience' as Locke does, and include both sensation and reflection, rather than reading 'experience' as equivalent to 'sensation' only. With the inclusion of reflection, then, it seems that experience can provide us not only with first-hand sensational knowledge, like our own pleasure, but also with knowledge of the effects that actions have on others. I think that, in this way, experience serves as a basis for moral values.
ReplyDeletein general i think that morals mostly come from experiences and observation. however, there are cases of extremely psychologically disturbed people which makes me wonder if there really is an inherent nature to morality. i do think that psychology plays a role in how individuals perceive morality. not just the exteme cases. i can't believe that moral percpective is solely based on our experiences, as if we are born with a completely blank slate and then gather experiences and create morals which we use to justify our actions. i agree that our "moral code" can change over time. however some people choose not to adjust their actions to their new moral codes. or their actions change but their supposed "moral code" does not.
ReplyDeleteI think that morality is a process that continually builds (or declines) based on ones continuing experience and reflection upon that experience. However, I do not believe the process to be wholly a result of experience, but to also require some rational interpretive constructions. For example, when one is of an age to understand and first encounters a moral situation, they see the negative consequences that come from their failure to be honest, or if they acted honestly they can see the positive consequences. Though sometimes one acts honestly and can be hurt by that decision that is where reflection and a rational construction of the process of “acting honest” show itself. So it takes experience to understand and possibly predict the consequences of some moral or immoral action, and through reflection, the ability to conduct that process sharpens and one learns either to be more moral, or how to better get away with immoral action.
ReplyDeleteI feel that experience does or can contribute to the development of moral principles, but would not go as far as to claim it the only source. First of all, reason must be used in order to infer principles from an experience. Furthermore,because in order to relate one experience to another, reason must be used to distinguish similarities in the experiences. In another sense, experience is absolutely necessary to the development of moral principles, even if it be only in the sense that one draws from or learns from the experience of others- What is the use in reality of a principle not grounded in experience(past, present, or future)?
ReplyDeleteI feel that through experience our morals evolve. I believe in this concept of a “moral community” that we are all apart of and are all subject to its particular code in order to stay admitted. I think that there will always be social norms or things that are popularly perceived as right and wrong, but there will constantly remain a set of issues that people are unclear on, unsure or even unaware of, that can only be discovered through experience. By studying our historical experiences and mistakes, we can then adapt to current times and rewrite moral rules.
ReplyDeleteI don't think rationality will provide us with a sound ethical code. In fact, if we based our morals solely on rationality, we'd probably be living in a dangerous society. If a starving man sees a fat man with a cart of food, he could very well think that he's entitled to some of that food. After stealing and eating some of the fat man's dinner, the skinny man would feel satiated, content, and that his actions were justified. What kind of morals would exist in that case? If a woman couldn't bear her own children but saw Octomom on the news, she might kill her and steal her babies and would feel no remorse for her actions because she might think that murder was rational in that situation. So as I see it, morality is often counter-intuitive but is necessary for a productive society.
ReplyDeleteWe learn about morality through our experiences of our moral actions. How the consequences of our actions affect our lives and the lives of others contribute to our ideas of right and wrong. Without experiential consequences, we would have no context with which to think about our moral decisions. They would remain abstract entities, and consequently we would have no reason to reflect on them. Experienceable consequences are what motivate us to form ideas about morality.
ReplyDeleteBrandi Gratis