Reading List

Before getting to the whys and wherefores, here's a partial, randomized reading list, some of which I might formally review (later).

I've read some of that stuff before; e.g., I read Moore's Principia Ethica a long time ago. I have only a small, passing acquaintance with other works, but believe I should know them better. I learn something from all those writers, but don't take what they say as final answers. I don't think one must be an expert to write a worthy book; rather, one must have something to say that's interesting, whether right, wrong or indifferent. The reason all those people, and many more, are worth attending is the something of interest they put before us. For me, interest even includes being provocative, asking questions, without providing any solutions. Of course, that wide a net runs counter to the practical school of thought uninterested in questions not neatly equipped with answers. Unlike politicians, generals and business people, I do not think those proposing questions have any duty to provide an option for consideration, especially when the questions undermine the conventional wisdom or extend the range of possibilities.

The focus of my reading list is, of course, ethics and morals, because that is germane to my Moral Agents project. I find it hard to stick to the project reading, if only because it is tedious to read over and over that anything I think must be wrong. It seems the sort of ethical theory I've concocted is very unpopular, especially among professional philosophers, Conservatives, Capitalists and  the theologically inclined. It is even unpopular among those on the political left, since it is not a theory about the Masses, the vanguard or social justice. My views include too much personal responsibility for the Left, and not enough allowance of cults of personality for the Right. Anyone who is a relativist, or who proposes ethical subjectivism, is roundly denounced as having no morals at all, or allowing anything at all, or just not having any "grounding." All of that pounding is downright discouraging.

Should I take on everyone with whom I disagree? I don't think so, because I would never get to say what I believe on account of that defensive effort. I think the better strategy is just to say what's on my mind, and then discuss whatever reaction the auditors and critics might offer. The presumption of that strategy is that I have something to say of interest; I am not just regurgitating yesterday's meals. For example, in advance, there are a few important philosophers I am not reading or rebutting: the Catholic Saints, Augustine and Aquinas; the Marxist Saints, Marx, Engles, Lenin and Mao; and the existentialist theologians, Kierkegaard and Heidegger. I might get around to Charles Pierce, John Dewey and William James. I don't want to spend my life on Wittgenstein, Hare, Austin, Quine, Ryle and all the other Positivists, Linguists and English philosophers. They are all important, influential and relevant, but they are a life's work in themselves. I might have had more time for them, had I spent a lifetime professing; but, as it is, my future prospects are irregular and declining.

Those making the long journey Westward on the Oregon trail followed the route blazed by others, but were not any less pioneers. On that troublesome journey, people were forced to "lighten up," disposing of treasured possessions in favor of the necessities of survival. That process enabled the pioneers to start new lives under new and unexpected conditions, to generate a culture of the Western frontier that fascinated those left behind.

One of the things I am beginning to throw overboard is academia. I long ago threw overboard the claptrap that underpins Wall Street, as it is patently self-interested, false or inaccurate or all those things. I have more than once removed the trash strewn about by politicians; I think finally in the last year or two. So, it is with some regret and surprise that now I have to part ways with the professors, at least so far as they are academics. It is clear to me that each institution develops an elan, a way of life, which is conservative and self-perpetuating. This is not a new finding: it is the deeper, extended meaning of Thomas Kuhn's influential word, "paradigm." People are creatures of habit. They gather together as institutions which are the socialization of common habits. Institutions and people have a positive feedback on each other, and negative feedback on the external world. There is strength in the group, so people attach themselves firmly to groups, even giving up personal preferences and desires to remain in the group. One result is the mass movements and corporate cultures much discussed during the last century. Another result is the man in the gray flannel suit. Institutions gain a following because they fulfill certain important desires and keep their followers by molding them into institutional representatives. Are not soldiers and policemen instantly recognizable by the dress and demeanor? Are not most intellectuals "liberal?" In making people into stereotypes, institutions simplify social arrangements, make them more accessible, reduce conflict and capture the advantages of scale. That is, institutions represent a paradigm.

Richard Dawkins invented the notion of "meme," about which I am skeptical, but memes are analogous to paradigms. What we have is certain ideas or structures, invisible to the eye and unheard by the ear, which are nonetheless features of human existence. I think memes and paradigms are explanations of observations - scientific hypotheses - but do not have any independent existence. Like all other science, they dance in the brains of their beholders, nowhere else. Still, they are effective in guiding behavior whenever they infect suitable sorts of brains. Intelligent creatures are capable of developing the patterns which are memes and paradigms, and applying them in everyday behavior. (It is not circular reasoning to say that it is that very behavior, when observed, which gives rise to notions such as paradigms and memes. Notion-forming from observation is another recursive application of pattern recognition.) The special virtue of memes and paradigms is their "will to power;" i.e., they parasitically resist destruction to the extent they occupy (but do not destroy) the brains of successful organisms. It is not that these memes and paradigms have any kind of self-awareness or historical direction, any more than do genes. It is just that, in the circumstances, some of them survive and others do not without reason or recourse.

The point of this digression is simply that academia is another of those ancient institutions which survive by applying their own methods and disciplines. Peer review, for example, is one way officially approved academics screen out the unorthodox. Extended apprenticeship and limitations on tenure are other methods of achieving the same result. Despite the much celebrated belief in academic freedom, academics must swear allegiance to their institution (hence their colleagues) just as do soldiers, policemen, politicians and corporate employees. In all those institutions, those who go their own way, do not follow orders exactly or even suggest change are penalized, even fired. The use of the word "fired," meaning termination, is ominous, for it implies being burned or shot to death; i.e., permanently ended. To lose one's place in institutional life is to be excluded from History, to be reduced to the anonymity of clay. The odd thing is, despite the imposing nature of institutions, the vast majority of people - even those participating in institutions - are left out of History. What's left in History is the stereotypical, the representative, the average or the trend, none of which have a face or voice that is any of us.

So, that leaves individuals who would be their own masters with steep uphill struggles. Again, oddly enough, that is most of us. In America, for example, more than 2/3 of all businesses are Mom-and-Pop operations. Less than 1/3 of all employees hold the plush jobs (with ones with benefits) offered by corporations and government. In the intellectual world, those guarding the gates dominate what is known, what is taught and certainly what is distributed by the media. It is a rare day when someone like Michael Moore breaks through solid steel doors. For those in disbelief about my claims, please check out your local bookstore, movie theater and other businesses to see how it is. I learned the lesson when I lived in Hollywood in 1980.

What's wrong with academic philosophy, especially ethics? Unlike Quantum Mechanics, which is a truly weird, but very profitable, subject, no one pays any attention to what comes out of the schools of ethics. It's just not practical, which makes ethics an oddity indeed, for it is supposedly practical philosophy. The last century of was one of unmitigated horrors only approximated by science fiction films. Despite persistent examples in philosophy books that claim no one would do this, millions of babies and other people were killed for fun by soldiers and civilians. Sometimes the claim is made that no rational person could do that sort of thing, from which we are forced to conclude that most people are irrational. A plethora of examples, including recent crops of Washington politicians, Wall Street financiers, and corporate CEOs, corrupt power brokers all, show how little ethical concepts have penetrated "real life." Worse yet, even academia is not immune from ethical disorder, as shown in the spate of forgeries, plagiarisms and other dishonesties apparently motivated by an irresistible desire to get ahead, to get rich quick. When we arrived at "Greed is Good" a few decades ago, that should have triggered air raid sirens all over the land. ethics professors should have convened emergency sessions. But "should" never was.

For me, actual historical events and real lives are fodder for ethical analysis. Ethics needs to show what should happen instead of what actually happens. Ethicists need to ask why ethical principles and moral maxims fail to produce acceptable moral behavior. When ethical theories actually produce results, their founders will become important teachers. For all those reasons, as well as my lifelong, personal interest in the foundations of ethics, I persist in my project. I cannot argue every case and issue with the academics; I have neither the time nor patience nor ability. Despite those who think otherwise, I don't enjoy haggling and wrangling; in fact, I detest it. I am somewhat of an eclectic, so I choose to take what I can of all those teachings, and make of it what I will.

Do I know how my investigations of ethics will turn out? No, I don't. What I do know is that what I now believe about ethics is very far from where I started over forty years ago. I am doing my very best to record and make sensible this work in progress, wherever it leads.