sparking popular interest in philosophy - or not?


The pronouncements of the new Pope about "relativism" seem to have sparked some interest in at least one area of philosophy among at least some of the public: namely, the area philosophers call "metaethics" (after following this link, scroll down to the item "metaethics" -- or look here, for example), in which questions such as these are taken up: "How do judgments about 'right' and 'wrong,' 'good' and 'bad,' etc., compare with judgments about factual matters?" "How do we find answers to moral or ethical questions and problems?" "Are ethical values 'real' or not, 'objective' or subjective'?"

One can only hope that this interest will continue and even spread, as well as deepen. However, as any philosophy student soon discovers, such questions soon become very complex and detailed as they are investigated further and further. I fear that most people's attention spans will be much to short to sustain their interest in philosophical questions like this long enough to learn anything productive from them.

Interest in abstract matters such as this seems to be inversely proportional to the difficulty of the subject and directly proportional to the motivation to slog on. That is, if a person who is new to the field of metaethics, or some other intellectual pursuit, really considers it important to learn about, she will persevere for quite a while, until she reaches a point that the mental stress caused by trying to follow the line of inquiry surpasses her feeling that she is getting something valuable from the effort. (I know that that has been my experience in any number of areas I had an initial curiosity about.) Then, the inquirer will suddenly find something more important to do, say, becoming more proficient in solitaire or jump-rope.

With respect to the subject of ethics, especially, I'm afraid that most people's interest doesn't go very far beyond getting others to agree with their moral views. After all, that is the basic pay-off of the "absolute values" position: if I think abortion, or war, is immoral, then I want everyone else to think the same thing, and what better way to do that than proclaiming that my ethical principles are inscribed in the sky, or somewhere, eternal and unalterable. To admit the possibility of free and open inquiry into ethics is just too scary for most people, it seems. So I don't expect this current rash of interest in metaethics to last very long.

Posted: Mon - April 25, 2005 at 06:36 PM           | |

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.