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Show Chapter I. General Introduction to the Project: The Enterprise of Socratic Metaethics 14 careful and unbiased look at the texts will support them. But I did not want to have to defend them here, or allow this General Introduction to the Project to turn into the exercise in Kant exegesis that I elsewhere undertake in earnest. So instead I finessed them through an attempt at intimidation; by insinuating, in effect, that ANYONE WHO'D TAKEN THE TIME TO STUDY THE TEXTS CAREFULLY could not fail to agree with my interpretation; and that any dissent from it would reveal only the dissenter's own scholarly turpitude. This is not philosophy. This is verbal abuse. This kind of bullying may have many causes. It may result from a dispositional deficiency of self-control, i.e. of "extreme patience in step-bystep unfolding of the reasons that support any assertion made." For Hampshire does not notice that this moral virtue of high civilization may be best suited to a mild, placid, even phlegmatic temperament; and may be largely unattainable for those of us who tend toward excitability, irritability, or an impatient desire to cut to the chase. But this does not excuse the indulgence of these tendencies at your expense. After all, part of the point of philosophical training is to learn, not merely a prescribed set of texts and skills of reasoning, but also the discipline of philosophy. We are required to discipline our dispositions of attitude and motivation as well as of mind in its service. This is no more and no less than cultivation of the character dispositions of transpersonal rationality requires. Philosophical bullying may also result from a negligence encouraged by the structural demands of professionalism, i.e. from a failure of intellectual discrimination. Excelling in any of the various branches of philosophy demands specialization. This may lead us to underestimate the importance of securely grounding with "step-by-step unfolding of the reasons that support" those parts of our views that lead us into other philosophical subspecialties - as, for example, political philosophy may lead into philosophy of social science, logic may lead into philosophy of language, epistemology may lead into philosophy of science, metaethics may lead into philosophical psychology, or any of these may lead into metaphysics or the history of philosophy. And since the scarcity of jobs and limited professional resources often places us in a competitive rather than a collaborative relationship with our colleagues in other subspecialties, we may be tempted, on occasion, simply to ignore, dismiss or bully our way out of the kind of careful attention to foundations that Hampshire recommends. Furthermore, most of us entered this field because we needed to make a living doing something (true Untertanen that we are), and enjoyed doing philosophy enough to want to make a living doing it. As with any job on which our economic survival depends, we often have to balance the quality of our output against the time or space we have in which to produce it. We are here to ply our trade, to speak authoritatively to the designated issues. And if what we have to say depends on unfounded or insufficiently argued © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
