hell’s handmaiden

Here is another one written for the environmental ethics class with Rolston. All of the references are to ‘Nature, Value, Duty: Life on Earth with Holmes Rolston, III’.

The following was written for an environmental ethics class I completed in fall. The class was led by Holmes Rolston III, hence the frequent reference. I’ll get a proper citation up later today.

Rolston’s epistemological problems stem, according to Christopher Preston, from a failure to recognize any of a series of post-modern theses. In his words these are “the theory dependence of observation thesis, the mix of analytic and synthetic components in every belief, the critique of what has been called the ‘Myth of the Given’ in empiricism, the web-like nature of our systems of belief, the value biases present in epistemic claims, the fallibility of perception, understanding scientific empiricism as interventionist rather that representationalist, and the operation of language as a system” (Preston, p. 33). Recognizing these theses, in turn, should force an abandonment of his staunch realist position.

Honestly, it is the first round of freshman, mostly, college papers I’ve seen in years. The subject is relativism. Of the papers I’ve seen so far, easily one in ten argue…

No.

Much too generous.

Start over.

Of the papers I’ve seen so far easily one in ten contains assertions in support of ethical relativism. Some of them contain quite strong assertions in favor of it. What is even more bizarre is that most of these defenders of relativism defend individual relativism, not cultural, and most tow the same basic line– that we can’t decide who is right or wrong so we just act how we feel like and, effectively, settle things by force.

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Enlightenment theorists argued for the power of reason to direct human activity, a process Immanuel Kant, in the opening lines of What is Enlightenment?, described as “man’s leaving his self-caused immaturity.” Kant, and other Enlightenment thinkers chided humanity to think for itself, to reason from evidence and to leave behind authoritarian sources of knowledge such as, to again quote Kant, “a book which provides meaning for me, a pastor who has a conscience for me, a doctor who will judge my diet for me.”