Although I originally intended to write
an abstract of my essay, a particular piece of writing that I had
read for a different class (Critical Reasoning) was just too tempting
not to share and comment on. Admittedly, it is a long philosophical
article, and not particularly easy to read, but it directly related
to what we puzzle over in class every week. Unfortunately, it is password protected, and I don't know how to upload a PDF onto the blog. Regardless, I will attempt to summarize the philosophical arguement that is presented.
Within the article, Catherine Elgin
argues that the stereotype of opposition between statements of fact
(generally considered to be objectively true or false) and
statements of evaluation (considered to be subjective) is a false
dichotomy. She sets out to prove that, in some meaningful way, facts
are evaluative or subjective, and values are objective: that the two
exist upon a spectrum, not as discrete entities. To do so, she makes
the following arguments, the first in regards to facts and the second
in regards to values.
Elgin points out that, when we state
facts, we are also implying an underlying schema, or set of
assumptions. She claims that no statement can be made that does not
imply some sort of schema; that there are no facts in a vacuum. She
then gives examples where two different valid schemata result in
contradictory facts, both true according to their corresponding
schema (She uses the example of taxonomy, where in an evolutionary
schema, lizards and crocodiles are close relatives, wheras in a
phylogenetic schema, they are not). Through this opposition,
relativity in regards to objective facts arises.
In the second part of her paper, Elgin
makes a very similar argument for the presence of objectivity in
statements of evaluation. She claims that these kinds of statements
are, by necessity, also based within schema, and schema can be
patently incorrect. Her defense of this takes several forms, one of
which is that we expect people to be able to defend certain judgments
of evaluation, and debate their opinions rationally. Secondly, when
schemata are incorrect, judgments of evaluation often appear
completely wrong-headed (Elgin uses the example of grading
undergraduate papers to the standards of The Journal of
Philosophy, which is an
evaluative decision, but seems objectively indefensible).
All
in all, a fascinating paper, but not one without any potential
weak-points. I am not convinced that the judgments of evaluation she
uses are strong enough to really prove the point that some subjective
evaluations had an objective core. However, I would be interested to
see what my classmates might think of the argument that Elgin is
making. If possible, I'll try and find a decent link to the actual article!
I agree with the idea that facts and evaluations exist on a spectrum. What people consider facts are merely a special case of an evaluation where most everyone agrees. There's nothing so special and indisputable about facts; they are in fact subjective and subject to change. Take for example the "fact" that the Earth was the center of the solar system. This was merely a widely accepted evaluation. I think the ideas in this article are very relevant to this class. Thanks for sharing.
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