I'll be heading up to the periodicals room today for reasons unconnected with any serious research. Rather, I want to read Skyrms review of Ken Binmore's Natural Justice which appears in the July 8, 2005 Times Literary Supplement. Brian Leiter pulls two bizarre quotes by Binmore out of that review. Here's the first:
"Could it really be that his [Kant's] claim to
fame as a moral philosopher is based merely on his having invented one
of the fallacies of the Prisoner's Dilemma before anyone else?"
I take it this has something to do with the Categorical Imperative, up to seven formulations of which have been claimed to have been found in Kant by various philosophers. Thus for example, we have the Kingdom of the Ends Formulation, the Humanity (or Not Only As a Means) Formulation, the Universal Law Formulation, and the Universal Law of Nature Formulation. (These are the four most common formulations. Whether or not another one, two, or three versions exist is up for debate.) The Prisoner's Dilemma, as it would be applicable to the Categorical Imperative, has to do with a game theoretic formulation of the imperative. I suspect that most philosophers would be hesitant to agree over just which game theoretic formulation of the CI is the correct one, or, indeed, whether any particular formulation could capture all of Kant's different versions of the CI. (But perhaps Binmore has discussed this.) To get the general gist of it, here's a first attempt at one such possible formulation:
Adopt only that strategy which, if adopted by all players, would be in your best interests.
Now this formulation manifestly does not capture the CI, but maybe something like it does. The best method of approaching the Prisoner's Dilemma (in so far as your best interests are concerned) does not involve always adopting the strategy that, if everyone adopted it, would serve your interests best, for that strategy would be to always cooperate with the other person. But, since the other person will not always cooperate, you would end up getting screwed an awful lot. Of course, what your best interests have to do with morality isn't at all clear, so I'm not sure what the relevance of the game theoretic approach is supposed to be. Yet perhaps Binmore explains.
I expect some serious scholarship from Binmore which includes a detailed discussion of the various formulations of the CI, their respective game theoretic analogs, and what one's best interests have to do with moral value. This would, of course, go only so far as substantiating Binmore's criticism of Kant in game theoretic terms, but we'd next need to see a discussion of the possibility of the deriviation of universal moral propositions from reason alone. This attempt also has much, if not everything, to do with Kant's primary claim to fame in the Groundwork. Binmore should also have at the very least carefully read The Critique of Practial Reason and The Metaphysics of Morals to make sure that Kant said absolutely nothing of worth there. After all, the only reason anybody reads Kant with morality in mind is because he "fucked up royally" in the Groundwork. Yeah. Leiter implies that the adjective "prissy" applies to Binmore, though I don't think it's the best choice. There's nothing "proper" about Binmore's snide carping, unless it's tossed in solely to liven up a book otherwise lacking in humor. This isn't to say that Binmore may have nothing philosophically interesting to say, but I'd like to see if he even makes an attempt to substantiate the petty insults he throws in Kant's direction. Plato doesn't fare much better:
"...a fascist [Plato] who thought that we all
so need a leader that nobody should even 'get up, move, or wash, or
take his meals' without permission! If philosophical scholarship could
convert such adolescent authoritarianism into a model of civilised
debate, might it not have done the same for Kant's attempts to evade
the rules of deductive reasoning?"
Let's start with Kant. Binmore may or may not be aware that philosophers generally recognize justification conferring patterns of reasoning that are not deductively valid. For example, Binmore may have learned that there is a name for the justification conferring practice he engages in more than any other, to wit, induction. Perhaps Binmore has also heard of abduction, and it's even possible that he has considered the arguments of some philosophers to the effect that induction is just a subspecies of abduction. Would using induction count as evading the rules of deduction? Without more information, I'm not sure what Binmore has in mind, but one more suggestion might be that he's bothered by transcendental arguments (i.e., arguments that proceed to their conclusions by establishing them as necessary preconditions for the obtaining of unique states of affairs). I'm not optimistic that we'll find something very insightful about transcendental arguments in this book, however, since that's a subject that requires several books in its own right. (For one book on the subject, see Robert Stern's link in my sidebar.) Maybe the only way to figure out if Binmore actually argues cogently for this strange attribution would be to read his book.
Finally, what's this nonsense about Plato? Since when did Plato mention anything about nobody being able to "'get up, move, wash or take his meals' without permission"? (And since when has The Republic considered a model of civilized debate?) First, the principle seems, on the face of it, absurd. Did Plato also think that people should defecate on a time table with the permission of their leaders? And should they consult their commanders as to their daily choice of wardrobe? Perhaps. But the correct reading of a text such as The Republic is, at least so I contend, the best (and therefore most charitable) reading. This is a normative principle of textual criticism that I will simply assert applies to Plato's works. Binmore runs afoul of it. In fact, Binmore runs afoul of any plausible principle of interpretation. Here's what Binmore quoted (probably from Popper) set in context:
Now for expeditions of war much consideration and many laws are
required; the great principle of all is that no one of either sex should
be without a commander; nor should the mind of any one be accustomed to
do anything, either in jest or earnest, of his own motion, but in war and
in peace he should look to and follow his leader, even in the least things
being under his guidance; for example, he should stand or move, or exercise,
or wash, or take his meals, or get up in the night to keep guard and deliver
messages when he is bidden; and in the hour of danger he should not pursue
and not retreat except by order of his superior; and in a word, not teach
the soul or accustom her to know or understand how to do anything apart
from others. Of all soldiers the life should be always and in all things
as far as possible in common and together; there neither is nor ever will
be a higher, or better, or more scientific principle than this for the
attainment of salvation and victory in war. And we ought in time of peace
from youth upwards to practise this habit of commanding others, and of
being commanded by others; anarchy should have no place in the life of
man or of the beasts who are subject to man. I may add that all dances
ought to be performed with view to military excellence; and agility and
ease should be cultivated for the same object, and also endurance of the
want of meats and drinks, and of winter cold and summer heat, and of hard
couches; and, above all, care should be taken not to destroy the peculiar
qualities of the head and the feet by surrounding them with extraneous
coverings, and so hindering their natural growth of hair and soles. -Plato, The Republic, Laws, Book VII
The passage starts by Plato making reference to the laws pertaining to "expeditions of war". The "great principle" referred to is the principle that, in war, men should have commanders (as well as when, in peacetime, they are training for war). I am not, myself, a big fan of the military, but if we must have one, I suspect that it should have commanders. It is not our best and brightest that are fighting on the front lines, and anarchy would well prevail within the ranks if we let everyone run rampant without any leadership. Plato points this out, but perhaps Binmore thinks otherwise. There is, in fact, no possible way to interpret this passage such that it applies to everybody. Nothing could be more clear than that this passage has to do with the military, and, in fact, is a pretty accurate description of how we run our military today. Of course, Binmore's claim that the passage applied to everybody was self-refuting on the face of it since one might wonder who is commanding the commander, but even this obvious flaw in the principle Binmore falsely attributed to Plato didn't stop him from so attributing it. You might think an academic would have a little more respect for a historical genius who was far more intelligent than Binmore will ever be (this is not mean to be disparaging towards Binmore), but then, in Binmore's case, it seems you'd be disappointed.
Skyrms says the book is good, though the blurb on the OUP site is full of nothing-meaning words and might be construed as that form of deleterious conversational implicature akin to stating in a letter of recommendation that one's student is a hard worker with impeccable penmanship who gives philosophy his all. It also might onlybe meant for the lay reader, who will, unfortunately, be exposed to what are likely unjustified falsehoods concerning some of the greatest philosophers ever. In order to find out, I'll have to head up to the periodicals room to pick up the Times Literary Supplement and sink my teeth into Brian's review.
Recent Comments