Is Philosophy an Ethical Subject?

Is Philosophy an Ethical Subject?

To hear it from Plato, you would think so. The ultimate form is The Good and we are admonished to seek it. We should search for beauty, truth, and goodness; this is our duty, our solemn obligation. Happiness will inevitably result. We should (morally) avoid the seductions of art and sophistry. We must elevate our souls in the quest for wisdom. Philosophy is thus shot through with ethical content, according to Plato; it is an ethical discipline. Then there is the period following Plato in which religion and philosophy are intertwined and ethics paramount. Meanwhile eastern philosophy is largely occupied with ethical questions—how to live, etc. Locke, Berkeley, and Hume have strong ethical concerns and write on ethics; they urge the virtues of empiricism (Berkeley wants to combat the evils of materialistic atheism). In the twentieth century Russell, Moore, and Wittgenstein strike ethical poses of one kind or another (skeptical or anti-skeptical). Clarity is commended; obscurity condemned. There is a moralistic streak to the proceedings. All philosophy departments have ethics on the curriculum, and intellectual virtues are preached and practiced. There is a kind of philosophical church—a whiff of the monastery. The atmosphere is thick with moralizing, chiefly intellectual. It is not difficult to see why: logic is central (how one ought to reason), the moral necessity of clarity, the supreme good of Reason, honesty of argument, contempt for fallacy and non-sequitur. True, the ethics mainly concerns intellectual ethics, but it is no less intense for that. Many philosophers fancy themselves moral exemplars and parade as such (fair enough). We philosophers believe in the right and the good and think of ourselves as improving mankind. We are thoroughly normative in our attitudes. We may feel morally superior to others, rightly or wrongly. It might even be contended that philosophy is a branch of ethics; the subject is steeped in ethical concerns—all of it. Hence the susurration of disapproval that hangs in the air at philosophy colloquia when the speaker (or questioner) is thought to be not quite up to our high intellectual-moral standards (“Didn’t he just beg the question?”). We are expert philosophical moralizers, or we take ourselves to be (I plead guilty).

But is this rosy picture really true anymore? Is a modern philosophy department as morally sensitive as all that? I will forgive you if you express skepticism. Has philosophy shed its obsolete quasi-religious fervor in favor of something more like a science department? I think we might reasonably reply that academic philosophy today has become professionalized and corporatized; it is more like a regular work-place in which self-advancement is the prevailing ethos. There are remnants of the old monastery, but we have become scientized and sanitized; we are all business these days (promotions, publications, grants, conferences, etc.). But—and this is the biggest of buts—we have left the essence of philosophy behind. Philosophy is dyingbecause of it; indeed, it is pretty much dead. People are not so much interested in philosophy as in what it can do for them career-wise. The love of the subject as such has gone, or is in retreat, or is on life-support. The purity of philosophy has dwindled to the impurity of the marketplace—capitalist philosophy, in a word. That is why so many philosophers want to get rid of philosophy proper and replace it with psychology or physics or politics. The ethical dimension has been eclipsed and the soul (the spirit) has gone out of it, or is in the process of going out of it. In the end this may kill the discipline. Certainly, the moral quality of actual philosophers has greatly diminished, as witness the moral posturing to which we have been subjected for some time now. Intellectual standards have slipped horribly. Crude politics has taken over–plus crude scientism and crude ideological rhetoric. This is part of a culture-wide depreciation of ethics in general, which has many sources, not the least of which is a misplaced worship of the empirical sciences. In any case, philosophy is in its death-throes, in large part because it has forgotten its ethical mission. Psychology and physics don’t have this mission, but the inculcation of good intellectual ethics is central to philosophy and necessary for it to thrive. Plato was basically right.

Is philosophy also an aesthetic subject, like art history or pottery class? Here matters are less clearly etched in the history of the subject, but I think the signs are unmistakable: elegance of prose, clarity of argument, beauty of theory. Like mathematics, we don’t have empirical findings to fall back on, but we do have aesthetic appreciation—the thrill of a good proof. Not for nothing did Plato include beauty in his list of primary forms. A philosopher can look shabby (as Socrates did) but his arguments had better not be. Peter Strawson was a perfect example of this ideal: elegance of clothing, voice, and prose. I think we underestimate the appeal of the beautiful in philosophy, especially in the matter of writing (Plato was a great stylist as well as a great philosopher). Russell was a consummate stylist and I could mention many others. Thus, beauty and goodness are part of the stuff of philosophy, and long may they remain so. As things are going, however, they may not last much longer and the field will become an aesthetic and moral wilderness full of self-serving corporate types obsessed with the bottom-line. The signs are ominous.[1]

[1] Philosophy as it exists on the internet is largely devoid of moral or aesthetic qualities, being a cesspool of vulgar politics and careerism. I don’t think the minds of your typical philosopher today are much better. I recall happier days when philosophy was philosophy.