(no subject)

May 26, 2007 01:07

I sat down to write my philosophy of social sciences paper around 5:30, and all of a sudden it's nearly 1. I should be tired but my head's swimming; I'm intellectually twitchy and I haven't even attempted to follow my own argument yet. I've been trying to argue:

(1) if Smith is an externalist in Korsgaard's sense, he can hold that we judge that x is right by means of sentiments yet we're motivated to do x by means of reason
(2) if our motive for doing x is different from our grounds for judging that x is right, there can be times that our moral judgments (what's right) and practical judgments (what to do):
(a) are both correct yet conflict, i.e., doing x is right yet it's irrational (in some sense) do do x, or
(b) conflict and one is wrong
(3) both (2a) and (2b) are bad news for Smith
if (2a) he'd have to have some account of when to follow reason and when to follow moral sentiments, but this looks like an appeal to an ultimate principle and what could this principle be?
if (2b) how do we know when our moral sentiments are reliable?

I'm not sure that any of this makes sense... If (1) is true, we need to accept that

(i) we can have certain sensations, e.g., boredom or itchiness, and not be motivated to do anything about our situation based on the sensations
(ii) moral sentiments are relevantly similar to boredom and itchiness because they're just another type of natural feeling

I think (ii) is probably true, and I think most historical and contemporary sentimentalists would agree (well, probably not McDowell but that's probably a weakness in his account). I'm not sure about (i); I don't think it's obviously false, but there's probably no a priori argument to demonstrate its truth or falsity.

Worst of all, I may be right about the whole argument, but it might not really have much bearing on my goal, demonstrating that Smith's sentimentalism is a mess.
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