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Articles
Well-being and Social Sciences
José Porfirio Miranda
“La Jornada Semanal”, No. 257; May 15, 1994 pp; 32
The dreadful thing that has been dangled before us during the whole century is the scientific banning of moral justice, that is to say the banning of expressions such as “it ought to be done”, “it is just” or “it is unjust”. It has been useless to point out to them that by saying that something ought not to be done they are contradicting themselves. To them all is permitted, even contradiction, and they have entrenched themselves in denouncing the naturalist fallacy, i.e., in the strict logical observation that the ‘ought” cannot be inferred from the “is”; and so moral judgment itself does not have a basis, taking into account that the premises of all evidence must give proof (containing “is”) and that which has no basis is anti-scientific.
It is strange: they insist that we follow a process excluding all others, but this process they themselves call a fallacy. These strategies are more than well known: they consist, as Taylor rightly says, in “fixing the rules of discourse in the interest of only one position declaring incoherently the concurrent approaches” (1). It has been of no help that MacIntyre has stated:
“Calling an argument fallacious is always to describe it and evaluate it. It becomes very paradoxical when it is impossible to deduce evaluative conclusions from factual premises that have been presented as a logical truth when it is precisely in the logic where this coincidence of description becomes most obvious” (2).
I say these counterarguments are worthless because even authors as opposed as Habermas and Hösle (and we can cite many more) are still proving to be irretrievably affected by the denouncing of the naturalist fallacy. Habermas says:
“Made clear since Hume, as a matter of principle, the dualism between being and ought to be, between deeds and values, means that it is not possible to deduce from declarative or stated verdicts, prescriptive decisions or judgments of value" (3).
Mind you all of Habermas’ system, including the consensual theory, appears to be on balance motivated by such a denouncement. Well it is an attempt then (frustrated, in my opinion) to justify moral justice without taking into account the reality, the facts.
On the other hand, even though he rejects the Habermas system, he declares:
… even those who do not agree with Hume’s skepticism […] should still recognize that his two theories, the first that it is impossible to base categories on the empiric and the other that it is impossible to deduce from sentences with ‘is’, sentences with ‘ought’. These are two durable intellectual achievements that assure his place among the great philosophers (4).
Let us not cite others; all authors definitively seem to be impacted by this famous denouncement. I think it is now time to take the bull by the horns and reply with strict, logical rigour to it. Firstly it is worth mentioning only five extremely important points that, even though they are intimately related to what we are talking about, never seem to have been taken into account at all.
For example, when they say that a basis for moral justice cannot be established, what do they mean by establish a basis?. They would not mean to refer, I suppose, to the deduction of a singular proposition from a universal one; which by being universal is already included. This process is a mere tautology, it does not widen one’s knowledge, and it only explains what has already been said. That a proposition has been established can only mean that I am obliged to accept it. Morality is in the actual idea to be able to distinguish between the established and the non-established. It is not possible, based on this example, to exclude morality.
This brings us to the second point: logic itself. Husserl has already made us see this it is not that we cannot commit contradictions, but that we should not. The psychological possibility that two opposite rights co-exist in the same mind is not unusual to find in normal people and even in famous authors. Husserl stated:
“Erdmann interprets the impossibility of denying the laws of thinking as an impracticality of this denial. But […] it is impossible as an ideal, in an ideal sense. This ideal impossibility is not in any way opposed to the real possibility of negative judgment (5).
Respecting the principle of contradiction is, as few are, a moral obligation, given that, we realize on calm reflection, even by itself it does not oblige, not only when dealing with others. Logic is a very severe moral discipline. It does not compromise our whims; it can even go against our own advantage. In what are they thinking, therefore, those that fence with logic in order to exclude morality?”.
Thus we find ourselves at the third point: the search for truth. The denunciators of the naturalist fallacy say that it is impossible to know if moral judgments are true or false. Have they ever reflected what their own demands as to the truth mean?. This analysis from Durkheim is a little long but very pertinent:
“… logical life supposes that mankind knows, at least somewhat, that a truth exists that is different from its tangible appearance. What is more, how did they arrive at this conclusion? […] there is nothing in the immediate experience that would be able to suggest this; in fact completely the opposite. Neither child nor animal have the slightest idea about it. History shows on the other hand that it has taken centuries to blossom and establish itself. In our western world it was the Greek thinkers who, for the first time, arrived at the idea about ones own clear conscience and the consequences that it implies […] But if in our time it is expressed in philosophical formulae, it was necessary that it should be already present as a dark sentiment (6)”.
Hegel had already discovered this religious origin of the initiative to distinguish between true and false:
Religion is the conscience of what is the truth, in its most pure and indivisible determination. Everything else that seems to be true is valid for me when in accordance with its beginning in religion (7).
But the most interesting thing is that Nietzsche, clairvoyant through hatred, discovered the same:
“… we, the actual men of knowledge, the atheists and anti-metaphysicists, we also take our fire from the bonfire lit by the millennium faith, by that Christian faith which was also Plato’s, the belief that God is truth and that truth is divine (8)”.
Obviously, by repudiating morals and religion, Nietzsche has to repudiate the actual idea of distinguishing between true and false: “It is no more than a moral prejudice to say that truth is worth more than appearances” (9). This last text sharpens our debate: to prefer that truth is a moral decision. Moral prejudice, according to Nietzsche. It seems evident to me that we cannot justify our insistence of truth, if it is not because of a moral imperative that all mankind feels. So, it is a contradiction to reject the moral in the name of truth.
Our fourth point is: the scientific. We mentioned that certain authors reject moral judgments because, they say, they are not scientific. It seems to me that it underlines the ingenuousness of what being scientific means. In the first place we notice that the concept of science is and has to be a priori; it cannot be obtained by generalising what the disciplines known as sciences do. From there it follows, as we shall see next, that it can only be justified in moral terms.
On the one hand, all scientific theories that have been published are a priori. For example, according to the Vienna Circle, the laws that science uses should logically be deduced from direct observation of the facts; but all these laws are actually a product of a mental exercise with no logical base; no finite number of observations allows for a definite “all” or “always”, which are indispensable words when formulating a law. Nobody can observe an “always”, we only observe “a few times”. But let us not say laws. Neither can the supposedly observed theories (basic) be justified by observation alone. As Boltzmann says, “there is not one statement that is pure experience” (10). Whoever says tiger about a certain individual animal, says far more than what he is seeing. This word signifies a kind of being whose behaviour, physiology and anatomy are ruled by certain laws which are distinct from those referring to other species. Without this content of the laws the word tiger has no meaning. The Viennese theory of science, which says that it should be based on pure experience and logic, becomes a priori, but real science does not proceed in this manner.
From there Popper’s theory emerged: empirical observations cannot justify a universal law but it can refute it (prove it false); the scientific character of a law or theory is that it can be refutable; it is scientific to abandon laws that have been refuted by facts and keep those that have not been refuted (for as long as they are not refuted).
In passing we must note that this lucubration is logically unsustainable. It cannot be said that a fact has been proven false (refuted) if the affirmation that is contradicted is not verified at the same time. Popper himself occasionally wrote: “finding that an affirmation is false is the same as finding that its negation is true” (11). If no proposition is verifiable, then no theory can be proved false. Besides, this declaration of falsity requires the universal laws that Popper rejects be true; for, if there is no evidence in nature, i.e., if nature is not ruled by universal laws, a theory that is false today could be true tomorrow. What is more, for a universal proposition to be false it has to be collated with a basic and observed proposition. But we have already seen, and Popper has emphasised, that no basic theory is justified by observation alone because much more is said than what this contains. Even worse: Popper himself recognises that one or even various basic odd theories are not enough to invalidate a theory. But also it is necessary to have an empirical hypothesis which contradicts the theory and which is corroborated by experience (12). But hypothesis is a universal proposition, so that all the elements that Popper had rejected, are necessary for the Popperian declaration of invalidity; the subtleties and juggling that Popper introduces to try and distinguish between corroboration and verification are only a symptom of perplexity.
Let’s leave this. What interests us here is that, as has already been shown by the historians of Science (Kuhn, Toulmin, Feyeraben and Lakatos), what is known as science does not work as Popper says it should. Lakatos balances this:
Popper’s criterion ignores the well-known tenacity of scientific theories. Scientists are thick skinned. They do not abandon a theory simply because the facts contradict it. Normally they invent some rescuing hypothesis to explain what they later call a simple anomaly or, if they cannot explain the anomaly, they ignore it and concentrate their attention on other problems (13).
There have always been empirical observations that contradict the theories in vogue since the moment they are conceived not just afterwards; scientists qualify them as of little value and dedicate themselves to more interesting things; for example to extract the consequences that come from the theory in all sorts of fields. The actual conduct of scientists is not what the theories of science prescribe. On the Lakatos’ theory we do not have to prove it, as he himself recognises: “After all, it should be admitted (pace Popper) that all the laws put forward up to now by philosophers of a prioristic science have been proven to be wrong according to the verdict of the best scientists” (14), “The majority of scientists tend to know about science a little more than fish about hydrodynamics” (15).
Given that real science is not as they say, the theories of science are a priori. On the other hand, the concept of science the scientist has, is also a priori. Observing his own actions, a physicist can tell us what he does; but when he also says this is scientific, he makes it evidently in the name of a preconceived idea as to what scientific is, which could be very true but is a priori. He cannot generalize from everything he does, because at times he tells jokes, at times he talks of the war in Bosnia, etc. He would have to select only that which is pertinent; to generalize only from that. But in order to select he needs a concept that guides him; therefore he already has the concept of science; it is a priori.
A non-scientist who attempts to obtain by generalisation the concept of science will come up against the same difficulty but firstly he has to identify who, amongst all men, are scientists. Dianetics and Christian Science and astrology and some talkativeness claim to be sciences; in order to deny them this title, the general public needs to have an a priori concept of what is scientific. University degrees are not enough as there are many charlatans with university degrees. And as if this difficulty was not enough, after identifying the scientists he would have to select from their actions, for not all them are scientific. Not even all that appear in the treatises could serve as a base for generalisation as here there are also metaphors, ironies, anecdotes, personal allusions, clauses, stories of fortuitous discoveries, as well as mythological arguments (Copernicus, Kepler, Newton himself). If the generaliser asks the scientists themselves, which of their actions are scientific, they might tell, but would base it on the concept of a priori, as we have shown; the generalize would simply have to accept by weight of authority as true the concept of a priori that the physicist transmits to him.
Secondly, then, we have the big question: if what is scientific is not based nor can be based on the true behaviour of science, how can the methodological precepts that it gives justify that idea?. Evidently they are justified in thinking that this method is the only one compatible with intellectual integrity. For example, when Popper states that a theory should be abandoned as soon as experience contradicts it; it is because he thinks that it would be an intellectual dishonesty not to do so. An a prioristic idea in science (and all are a prioristic) has no other way of being justified. Popper recognises that: “We have to learn to decide that intellectual integrity is fundamental in all we want to do (16). And Lakatos says referring to his own method: “The sophisticated methodology of disproving a theory gives us new criteria of intellectual integrity” (17).
Honesty is a substantial part of being scientific; we are only debating which methods are the best on which to found this honesty. Now then, can there be something more intensely moral than the obligation of intellectual honesty?. And so, what are they thinking, those who wish to banish morality in the name of science.
Our fifth point is the introduction to the direct answer we will give versus the denial of the naturalist fallacy. The theme is the concept of reality, of what exists, of being. The denouncers say that from a real act, an obligation cannot be inferred. Have they at any time asked themselves what is real and what is the origin of this idea?. Traditional philosophy, and even the most exigent empiricists such as Hume, Carnap and Popper, have already shown that the origin is not empiric, that the senses do not perceive the being, the real as such. Saint Thomas says this very well: “Although there is a being in perceptible things, nevertheless the being as such, the formality of being, are not apprehended by the senses, […] but only perceive the perceptible accidents” (18). Plato had said: “Conceive the being […] is possible, so it seems, by reasoning, impossible by sensation” (19). Similarly Aristotle, distinguishing between the tangible and the intelligible, says: “the intelligible are like the one and the being” (20). Kant also noted it: “the essence of a real object besides myself […] perception is never a given, but only can be added to thought” (21). And Hegel bitingly: “the being cannot see, hear, etc.” (22). Reasoning is very obvious: if we only could perceive colours, sounds, temperatures, etc., the idea of being would never have occurred to us, the idea that something is real; I am not denying now that the object is real, I am only saying that the senses do not know this, they do not get into the metaphysical.
Hume makes the same observation: “although every impression or idea that we remember is considered to exist, the idea of existence does not come from any particular impression” (23). And Carnap proposes a very clear proof: let us suppose that two geographers, each on his own, did an exhaustive study of a mountain in Africa; and let us suppose that, apart from their capacity as geographers, one is a realist philosopher and the other an idealist philosopher; the final reports they give would coincide in the verifiable empirical details but at the same time one of the geographers would be convinced that the mountain really exists and the other that it appears to exist. On this point they could not be in accordance through empiric data precisely because they coincide in everything empiric. The reality as such is not datum of the senses. This indisputable epistemological discovery; in which the most intelligent of humanity’s philosophers are in agreement, is the parting of the ways; there everything is decided.
The most immediate outcome of this is that the idea of real begins in introspection, taking into account that impressions cannot contain this datum. Of course, introspection is a metaphorical expression; what we mean to say is self-conscientiousness. Primordially “real” means spirit, that is what we understand by introspection. The spiritual is founded on being aware, on the act of realization itself; of knowing ourselves or things or whatever. It is not something that first exists and then we realize it exists, but that its existence is precisely this realization, this perception of knowledge itself (24). As Aristotle stated, “being is being able to perceive or think” (25) “the mind is nothing without thought” (26), “it does not actually exist before thought” (27). Or as Hegel said: “If we take away thought, the soul does not exist” (28), “I exist spiritually only as far as I know myself” (29), “that which we call the soul, what we call the I, is the concept itself in its free existence” (30).
Materialism’s error has been to say depreciatively: all these are just ideas. By saying this it shows they already understood: spirituality is the concept itself, thinking as such, the experience of living, life itself is the inner part of everything that perceivably happens and to be aware of it (including moral obligation). The mistake is to believe that these things are less real than rocks. A couple whose loving relationship does not become just a sexual one (in the majority of cases it does not) knows perfectly well that their marvelous mutual understanding and interaction of living are just ideas; but for this couple all that is more real than the floor and walls. And the real character of this life can only be denied by those who would have obtained the real concept from sensorial impressions: but we have already seen that these do not include this datum; the origin, the actual significance of “real” is the spiritual perceived in the self-consciousness. When we call other matter real, we make them metaphorical, derived and foreshortened. We should not be surprised: it is obvious that for the I there is nothing more real than the I; from here are derived other names for what is real (31).
Thus is explained the fact, tremendously obvious, that in 25 centuries nobody has been able to define matter in a way that distinguishes it from anything, in truth it can only be defined as “that which is not spiritual” but this definition is convenient also to nothingness. Today’s natural philosophers say: “The best thinking of today does not claim that the particles are not made up of time and space” (32): that is to say that matter is space. But space is the vacuum of nothingness. For his part, Aristotle’s definition says: “Neither something, nor such thing, nor a certain thing, not any determination of the real". These are just negations. By dint of which the only thing gained is nothing. Where there is no positive content, what there is is nothing. On the other hand, those who define matter as something that occupies a place in space, in the first place forget that we are asking what it is, not where it is; secondly they forget that a specific area of space the size of a basketball also occupies a place in space; luckily this definition is not able to distinguish between matter and space; but space is nothingness.
It is useless for them to continue attempting to define matter: as the significance of real is the spiritual, any definition of matter would have to be identified as nothingness. In this love of nothingness, in this being captivated by the nothingness is where western materialism and oriental religion coincide. Nirvana has already understood that reality consists of the acts of the spirit; it wishes to suppress this in order to annihilate reality and arrive at nothingness. Materialism is more radical: it finds itself in nothingness since the beginning.
And now, we will reply directly to the denouncers of the naturalist fallacy. The denouncement says: from a real existence one cannot infer an obligation. I reply: except if it is about a real existence of an obligation. In this case we shall infer from the obligation, and so there is no illegitimate logical step; but from an obligation that is a reality.
For the ordinary mortal the imperative thou shalt not kill is one of the most real things that exist. What an odd concept of reality possesses the person who claims it is not an obligation not to kill. The prejudice is flagrant: I am never really obliged. They imagine that only what can be touched by hand is a real entity. Nothing is easier than denouncing that an obligation exists: all you have to do is fix a narrow, convenient significance of ‘existence’, and soon you will find that no obligation appears to exist. A description that says “cruel” (which you should not do) has as much right to be called a basic proposition as one who talks about the size of a torturer’s scalpel. Who do the pseudo-scientists think they are, when they dogmatise which things are real and which are not?. How do they know?. In noticeable ways this datum is not there.
Emphatically be warned that the debate is about neither the conduct (which can differ from obligation) nor about compulsion or constriction, in which is included the perspective of reward or punishment. Immorality exists, and also reward and punishment, but actually this has nothing to do with the Imperative. Maybe what is happening is that some people can only conceive of a God as a remunerator. But this is confusing the conditioned with the categorical. Moral imperative does not say: if you want this, do that. God simply says: thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not deceive, thou shalt not hurt. And this is not Kantian purism: when I perceive “thou shalt not hurt”. I am in no way thinking of reward or punishment. If some people figure that this imperative is not God, it is because they believe that the Word of God signifies that of a respected bearded man.
Leaving that out of the question I repeat: it is not about either conduct or constriction. It is about obligation as such. I do not believe that the sceptic denies there are ethic requirements; what they are denying is that they are obliged. The only thing that the basis of morality has to show is that they are obliged. Also, the actual fact that the sceptic distinguishes between ethic requirements and that these oblige shows that he has the content of the idea of obligation. What is the origin of this content?. It can be no other than the fact that he perceives or at sometime perceived that he had been obliged. And so the obligation exists since he perceived it.
To explain, influenced by society, the origin of the idea of obligation is, or should I say confuses again the categorical with the conditioned, or to go back to the problem, so from where did those other men, those that influence me, obtain the content of the idea of obligation?. Above all there is the following: when they would have said to me the word obligation I would have understood absolutely nothing if my self-consciousness had not already had this idea. Hume backs this up:
“… had not men a natural sentiment of approbation and blame, it cou'd never be excited by politicians; nor wou'd the words laudable and praise-worthy, blameable and odious be any more intelligible, than if they were a language perfectly known to us, as we have already observed" (33).
Now we come to the most specific of the social sciences. Firstly, the biblically well known parting of the ways takes away the basis of the methodological prohibition of studying what the social actors think and feel inside. Such a method is the equivalent of prohibiting the study of reality and to force the study of appearances lacking in entity.
Be very aware that the trumpeted universal and inter-subjective proof of the empiric is clearly a perspicuous self-delusion. Only a few theses of proof are empiric for other people; but “universal” signifies that everyone could come and see; the theses of proof of other people, presumed empiricists, imagine them on introspection; they are a supposition. If you were to think about it, imagine how everyone would react confronted by certain data and what phrase would they use to describe this data if they were honest. It concerns a theoretic supposition on physiological laws of mankind’s senses and on a moral supposition of the intellectual honesty of mankind. As the positivist Hempel acknowledges, “The term verifiable indicates, of course, or to be more correct, the conceivability, the logical possibility of conclusive evidence for the outcome given” (34). The conceiving, to which Hempel alludes, is evidently an introspective act. They discarded the introspective in the name of verification, and what we have here is that it is introspective.
The efforts that behaviourists or Carnapians go to in order to eliminate moral or introspective terms “translating” them in terms of empirical ways, are also a fiasco. Scriven says it very well:
… although there are large numbers of examples of people giving alms to the church or to institutes for cancer research is it not enough to say fundamentally that someone is generous […] It is perfectly possible that the character of this person makes completely irrelevant the evidence that serves as a base if for example this person is pious or is afraid to get cancer (35).
The significance of “generous” can only be known introspectively; the behaviour may be due to other causes. And on the other hand, as Brodeck shows, the behaviourists have “to chose between a nearly infinite variety of those symptoms that can confidently be used in order to define the outcome in question” (36). Not only can the symptom that is chosen be due to other causes; but what is more, the behaviourist would not be able to justify why he chose it.
And what is worse: even to attempt to justify he would have to recourse introspectively to the significance that the word “generous” has for example. If helping a blind person cross the road is a plausible candidate as a “translation”, while the shaking of a fist or the harsh blowing of a horn would not be, it is because the behaviourist is quoting what we introspectively understand as generous. First we must understand what “generous” means, and then we look for some empiric data to see if it in any way corresponds with what we understand. Luckily even the attempt to eliminate the intellectual is based on the intellectual.
All objects of study are lost to social sciences if they do not revert to the intellectual. That a given abstract unit is the currency of a country is founded on the fact that the inhabitants are convinced that it is of value; where the law is unable to continue to convince (as in Germany in 1923), such a unit is no longer a currency. That a man is a colonel is because the soldiers believe that this man is in command; where authority is unable to sustain this belief (as in Russia in 1917), this man is no longer in command despite the visible badges. No institution or practice is identifiable as an object of study if it omits the intellectual; empiric details which maybe accompany them are neither univocal nor unique nor sufficient; they could not “translate it” let alone substitute it; such a translation would omit precisely what is, for the actors, real. In social science that which does not exist from the perspective of the participants does not exist at all.
But let us take the last step, the decisive one: in order to identify the object being studied, social sciences not only need the introspective in general, they specifically need the moral.
Everything revolves around the criteria by which we call something or someone rational. From what we saw in the first four cases it is clear that those who attempt to juggle the moral character of the adjective “rational” translating it as “founded on” or “logical” or “true” or “scientific” do not reach their objective. Specifically for the social sciences Weber put forward a castrated rationality: rational is putting the methods that serve a certain purpose, whatever that purpose is. Just as choosing between the ends is a moral judgment, it leaves out the content of this strange rationality of Weber’s which puts up a wall in front of the obvious fact that, if the end is irrational, directing us towards this end by whatever means is irrational too. Evidently, Weber did not realize that he committed an huge valid judgment calling this rational. I do not understand how he could not see that in this capricious plan it is possible to conceive very different types of rationality; and if he prefers one, he flagrantly commits moral judgment; his supposed neutrality does not exist. Actually it is strange that his rationality coincides with that of the businessmen.
It is fundamental to understand this: the social scientist cannot identify anyone’s social training without implicating that it lasts a certain amount of time and that it works. But by saying that it works, it is necessary to say that it works well to some degree. For example, a conglomeration of men where mutual insecurity and danger reigns could not say that it is working. There has to be some degree of “order”; but to judge that there is order in an evaluation admits that there are degrees. I do not see how it can be said that a group functions if there does not reign some degree of morality among the integrants. If reason could not find some agreement in it, something rational; in a social setting it could not be agreed that it works. But it could be seen as an object to study; t would be taken as “noise”. How can we overlook all the confusion of unconnected facts that exist around us to which we have to deny importance if we wish to have an object to study.
Well then, trying to overlook the judgment of validity, some social scientists chose minimalism; they are happy with the fact that this group survives; this seems to them deprived of judgment of worth, when all is said and done animals also survive. But evidently they presume that it is good that a group of humans survive, that it is good that this group of humans survive; though, surely, there will always be a racist who denies it. If sociology does not thus value human survival and this definite survival, his attention would not be focused on the social education in question. He would dismiss it as “noise”, and would not have identified it as a point of study. But as well: do you think that it is not moral justice to consider it good that humans survive like animals?.
It is so, and is surely false. The social sciences depend, in order to identify its object of study, on its capacity to identify mankind, the rational being. Anthills and herds of animals are not objects to be studied by social science. Social groups are, but precisely because of the fact that it means mankind.
In order to identify mankind, science has to find some entity that deserves the name rational. In another article (37), I mention the failure of all intents to distinguish between mankind and primates by physical data. We will add here that it underlines a similar misunderstanding that we have just shown in the “translations” of the behaviourists and the Carnapians. They do not want to own that first one distinguishes between mankind and animals in other ways (by rationality) and then look for physical data in mankind that hopefully would not be found in an animal. They frankly become ridiculous in their anxiety to find such traces: such as Blumenbach who cited the earlobe as the decisive factor, or Morgan and Engels who cited the opposing thumb. Of course primates with earlobes and marsupials with opposing thumbs have already been found; but even if they had not been found, it is obvious that, just by proposing these characteristics it is asking to fail, first they needed to identify mankind by his rationality. And if on the least expected day they find a gorilla with 750 cubic cm of encephalitic mass (up until now they have only found one with 685), the physicalists would not know what to do. More exactly, they would know very well what to do: verify if this entity merits the qualification rational or no. That in reality is what they have always been doing, and all these physicalisms have been infantile manoeuvres to hide it.
But Weber’s rationality, putting adequate methods towards an end, is no use either for showing the difference. The spider’s web, the beehive, the bird’s nest (the texture of which is not found in natural surroundings) as well as the short stick, which is not its natural size, that has been cut from a larger one, that is used by the anteater to dig into an anthill, all are perfect methods to an end. The first two are indeed instruments much more refined than any used by primitive man. So we can throw out as well the intentions of paleontologists and anthropologists (and Marx) to fix the human stage of evolution with the use of instruments. Being human undoubtedly starts many millenniums later taking into account that the appearance of Neanderthals could have been that of a simple roving animal. Rationality includes a moral attitude towards others, but the rationality of Weber does not permit the distinction between sociology and zoology. We do not know when mankind started, but surely it was not too long ago. Since mankind is not proven physically, then that which is not rational does not belong in the history of Mankind. As a social scientist I cannot include a fact in my research if I cannot show that in some way this fact is rational; but then I am forced to justify my concept of rationality. And the most serious thing is that rationality is a gradual concept. If I call a depraved person, who does not respect the lives of others, rational, in some way I am lying which is anti-scientific; but I cannot take refuge in minimalism (Weber’s rationality) because then I cannot distinguish between mankind and animals. Maintaining that history does not have a goal towards which I must fight in order to arrive, implies maintaining that humanity as is, is rational, which in part is a lie; but in science we are not allowed to lie. While there is no justice, the word rationality can really not be justified. By calling something in social science rational has to be proven and that what we have today is not sufficiently rational and that consequently we are forced to fight for justice.
The only possible justification for moral judgment is to show the real existence of the imperative (cfr. supra), but this imperative does not allow a definition of justice in any way, but it gives it a precise significance: everybody has infinite dignity. It is the end not the means, subject but not object. And so, the word rationality is only justified when everyone is respected for their infinite dignity.
Notes:
All quotes are freely translated from the Spanish except that of David Hume (33).
(1) Charles Taylor, Die Motive einer Verfahrensethik, pp. 101-135, apud Wolfgang Kuhlmann, ed., Moralität und Sittlichkeit; Frankfurt, 1986, p. 109.
(2) Alasdair MacIntyre, Against the Self Images of the Age, London, 1971, p.258.
(3) Jürgen Habermas, Legitimationsprobleme in Spätkapitalismus, Frankfurt, 1977, p. 140.
(4) Vittorio Hösle, Die Krisis der Gegenwart und die Verantwortung der Philosophie, Munich, 1990, p.29.
(5) Edmund Husserl, Investigaciones lógicas, 2 vols., translated by Manuel Gracía Morente and José Gaos, Madrid, 1985, I, p. 129s.
(6) Emile Durkheim, Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse, París, 1968, pp. 622s.
(7) G. W. F. Hegel, Die Vernunft in der Geschichte, Hamburgo, 1980, p. 125.
(8) Friedrich Nietzsche, genealogía de la moral, Hamburgo, 1980, p. 125.
(9) Id., jenseits von Gut und Böse, núm. 34, translated by Heidegger in his Nietzsche, II, p. 119.
(10) Cited by Paul Feyerabend apud Feigl and Maxwell, eds. gen., Minesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, IV, 1969, p. 113.
(11) Karl Popper, Objective Knowledge, Oxford, 1973, p. 13.
(12) Ibid., The Logico of Scientific Discovery; New York, 1968, p. 86s.
(13) Imre Lakatos, La metodología de los programas de investigación científica, translation by Juan Carlos Zapatero, Madrid, 1989, p. 12s.
(14) Ibid., p. 177.
(15) Ibid., p. 84, note 212.
(16) Karl Popper, the Open Society and its Enemies, 2 vols., London, 1974, II, p. 59.
(17) Op. cit., p.53.
(18) I Sent 19,5,1 ad sextum.
(19) Teeteto 186 D. see also Fedón 65 C and Fedro 247 C.
(20) Metafisica XII 107Ob 7.
(21) Kritik der reinen Vernunft, A367.
(22) Geschichte der Philosophie, 3 vols., Frankfurt, 1975, I, p. 517.
(23) Treatises, III, III, i.
(24) The classical definition of truth, “real knowledge is that which agrees with reality”, has two repairable errors; first, it implicitly supposes that knowledge is not reality; second, it defines the most well-known (knowledge) by it (reality) that we can only know through what we are attempting to define. If we realize that knowledge is the most real thing there is, we correct both mistakes. Instead of being in accordance we affirm the identity of knowledge and of reality. Those who object to solipsism would be supposing that what is real is “outside” of the mind; but this has no meaning, as the mind is not a spatial entity. (With this note I underline what I said in my book I Appeal to Reason about the classical theory).
(25) Eth Nic., IX, IX, 9.
(26) De anima, 429 b 32.
(27) Ibid., 429a 24.
(28) Op. cit. (in note 22), II, p. 48.
(29) Ibid., I, p. 51.
(30) Asthetik, 2 vols., Stuttgart, 1971, I, p. 175.
(31) As Kant showed us, the self-consciousness is the essence of all perception and its possibilities. The intersubjectivity, which is in the origin of subjectivity, does not stop the fact that this really exists.
As the “inter” is not a local place, as it is not spatial, the intersubjectivity, Habermas and Apel overlook the specific ontologic character of the entity called spirit, whether intersubjective or not. For the “intersubjective: to have some significance it needs first that “subjective” has it. It is true, the sprit is a bi-polar entity (or multi-polar), but it is self-productive, as it only exists where the point is seen.
(32) E. F. Taylor y J. A. Wheeler, Space time Physics, San francisco, 1966, p. 193.
(33) David Hume, Treatises, III, i.
(34) Carl Hempel, Aspects of Scientific Explanation, New York, 1965, p. 104, note 3.
(35) Michael Scriven, in Minnesota Studies (note 10), II, p. 191.
(36) May Brodbeck (ed.), Readings in the Philosophy of Social Sciences, New York, 1968, p. 285.
(37) "Indigenism Rights versus Human Rights", in La Jornada Semanal, 20 June 1993, p. 44.
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