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Athena's Temple

Athena's Temple
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Friday, April 1, 2011

Socratic Metaethics

"Buffeted and bruised by the currents of desire and longing for once to ride the wave, we may cast about for some buoyant device from which to chart a rational course; and, finding none, ask ourselves these questions:
Do we at least have the capacity ever to do anything beyond what is comfortable, convenient, profitable, or gratifying?
Can our conscious explanations for what we do ever be anything more than opportunistic ex post facto rationalizations for satisfying these familiar egocentric desires?
If so, are we capable of distinguishing in ourselves those moments when we are in fact heeding the requirements of rationality, from those when we are merely rationalizing the temptations of opportunity?
I am cautiously optimistic about the existence of a buoyant device – namely reason itself – that offers encouraging answers to all three questions. Without hard-wired, principled rational dispositions – to consistency, coherence, impartiality, impersonality, intellectual discrimination, foresight, deliberation, self-reflection, and self-control – that enable us to transcend the overwhelming attractions of comfort, convenience, profit, gratification – and self-deception, we would be incapable of acting even on these lesser motives. Or so I argue in this project."

-- Opening passage from Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Chapter I. General Introduction to the Project: The Enterprise of Socratic Metaethics

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