Has Taylor lost sight of her own restriction that she initially placed on herself? It seems as if Taylor has lost sight of her initial goal of proving the vices as bad for a person without claiming other truths accepted by virtue ethics (one hand tied behind her back). While this was becoming apparent to us on Tuesday when we were talking about aggression during class, now that we are talking about the self it seems like she has – purposefully of not – slipped into referring to objective truths like virtue ethics does. Does this weaken her point that the vices are self-destructive even if you don’t yet accept virtue ethics as your ethical preference? I think it puts too much dependence back onto objective truth, but let’s look at where this occurs in the chapter specifically.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Taylor Stealthily Uses Her Other Hand...
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3 comments:
I'm not sure how the quote you point out unties any hands. "That the assessments involved be by the agent believed to be true, and not thought merely to rest on the feelings of hers" relies on the agent's thoughts. In the way I read this section, the assessments do not have to be correct according to an objective standard. The agent only has to believe they are true for some reason, and the reason must involve publicly available qualities in the world. Thus the agent has some way to justify or defend her assessments when engaged in argument. This does not mean she must be objectively correct, as it seems to me that the agent can change her assessments in light of attacks on the world-based justifications. The agent just needs to engage with the world and be open to changing her mind based on publicly available objections to her assessments. So it seems to me that the quoted section is about flourishing for the agent and not based on an independent objective standard.
I had thought that the “one hand tied behind her back” referred not to necessarily throwing out most of the concepts of virtue ethics, but to relying on the subjective view of the individual as to what would make that individual most happy. Taylor has never seemed to have a problem with the idea that, if an individual’s information is incomplete, then so too is the individual’s feelings about their own happiness and life in general. To Taylor, the vicious live in a sad and self-deceiving world, and if they had better information about the world, were more able to come to grips with their own short-comings, or simply stopped deceiving themselves, than Taylor thinks that they would think that they are better off.
One can argue that Taylor is not really tying one hand behind her back here, as it could easily be argued that Taylor is basically replacing what she sees as objective truths with what she assumes the subjective individual will have to see assuming they understood the world better, had better information, and were not self-deceiving. Still, even if this were the case, then Taylor would have been disingenuous the whole time, rather than merely slipping into an objectively-based argument in this chapter.
P.S. I liked the Star Wars reference.
The quote selected is an interesting one and I personally am not sure whether it "unties the hand from behind her back". But i do believe that this chapter helps her argument that the vices are in fact self destructive and self deceptive. She mentions a few times in the chapter that some vicious people are unable to shift their views they hold on life. She emphasizes that such people are "incapable of ... self-assessments" (62). It seems to me that she is trying to say that the vicious lack self consciousness for they are unable to "consider the possibility that how the world appeared to them might be alterable by a shift of view" (62). To me this suggested that someone who acts according to certain vices (such as vicious pride) lacks a true self consciousness, they are unable to distinguish between themselves and certain experiences. And thus lack the capability to shift their view for they cannot separate themselves from their views. She mentions earlier in the chapter (54) that the miserly and envious are capable of recognizing this distinction. Those two being an exception, the other vices create a false self image which in my mind is self destructive. This false image of oneself makes it impossible to make evaluations and decisions which would benefit the self, for the person making such decisions does not know what the true self is.
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