authors:
- Schmidtz, David
content: 'It is widely assumed that political philosophy is dependent on moral philosophy.
That is, in order to argue about political issues, one has to first sort out morality.
The philosopher David Schmidtz argues in his book "Living together. Inventing moral
science" that it is the other way around. The problem of how to live together, that
is, politics, is primary. Morality then becomes part of the solution. The question
"how to live together?" is more fundamental than "how to live?".
The book takes the form of a set of separate essays which are arranged to fit together.
This is successful up to a point; a few of the chapters do not really contribute
all that much to the main theme. It makes for an uneven reading experience. Some
of the chapters are excellent, with insights that make you think, while a few are
more technical and not very inspiring.
Schmidtz uses the term "moral science". This refers to the constellation of subject
fields such as social science, philosophy, economy, anthropology, etc, which can
or could contribute to the study of how humans could live together and flourish.
During the Scottish Enlightenment, whose main figures were David Hume and Adam Smith,
moral and political philosophy was an empirical project. Their salient question
was "what works?". However during the 1800s, and even more strongly during the 1900s,
the discussion changed topic to "how to act?". This was a change for the worse,
in Schmidtz view.
Schmidtz points out that in a world where there are multiple agents, each with their
own project(s), it is not enough to just consider how to act. One must include the
fact that others will respond from the very beginning of the analysis. These others
will not necessarily want to act according to your wishes, and they will not have
the same goals. Every act of yours will entail a response from them which will affect
the outcome. Living together implies having to deal with this. Moral and political
philosophy must therefore seriously consider the problems of living together and
the strategies that can be employed to solve these problems. Schmidtz accuses, among
others, John Rawls for making assumptions which amount to serious evasions of several
basic conundrums of life in a society. Strategy is essential and cannot be approximated
away.
The book contains a very interesting discussion of idealist versus realist positions
in moral and political philosophy. One important strand here is the argument that
justice cannot be derived from axioms, but is instead an evolving response to the
human condition. Empiricism, in a certain sense, must be the focus, rather than
deductively arguing from first principles.
I am intrigued and happy to see that David Schmidtz towards the end of the book
makes explicit the point that I believe is implicit in how he starts out his argument.
Namely, that one must consider the evolutionary history of the human species to
fully understand justice and morality. He writes: "We are social and political animals,
and justice is a human adaption to an ecological niche." In a chapter written with
Jason Brennan titled "A Brief History of the Human Condition", there is a description
of how important cooperation is for humans, and how it has evolved and formed our
species. I wish that this would have been the starting chapter of the book, because
this story is in fact central to how moral and political philosophy should be restated.
There are many thoughts and arguments in this book that invite discussion. Indeed,
there are many that are not fully developed or joined together in a more coherent
fashion. I leave the book with a sense of having seen glimpses of a new start for
moral and political philosophy. But it is tentative, which is both good, since it
opens the door for further development, and bad, since as it is, the account is
too fragmented and does not form a sustained and complete argument.'
date: '2023-08-08'
edition:
published: '2023'
publisher: Oxford University Press
goodreads: '62559516'
html: '<p>It is widely assumed that political philosophy is dependent on moral philosophy.
That is, in order to argue about political issues, one has to first sort out morality.
The philosopher David Schmidtz argues in his book "Living together. Inventing
moral science" that it is the other way around. The problem of how to live
together, that is, politics, is primary. Morality then becomes part of the solution.
The question "how to live together?" is more fundamental than "how
to live?".</p>
<p>The book takes the form of a set of separate essays which are arranged to fit
together. This is successful up to a point; a few of the chapters do not really
contribute all that much to the main theme. It makes for an uneven reading experience.
Some of the chapters are excellent, with insights that make you think, while a few
are more technical and not very inspiring.</p>
<p>Schmidtz uses the term "moral science". This refers to the constellation
of subject fields such as social science, philosophy, economy, anthropology, etc,
which can or could contribute to the study of how humans could live together and
flourish. During the Scottish Enlightenment, whose main figures were David Hume
and Adam Smith, moral and political philosophy was an empirical project. Their salient
question was "what works?". However during the 1800s, and even more strongly
during the 1900s, the discussion changed topic to "how to act?". This
was a change for the worse, in Schmidtz view.</p>
<p>Schmidtz points out that in a world where there are multiple agents, each with
their own project(s), it is not enough to just consider how to act. One must include
the fact that others will respond from the very beginning of the analysis. These
others will not necessarily want to act according to your wishes, and they will
not have the same goals. Every act of yours will entail a response from them which
will affect the outcome. Living together implies having to deal with this. Moral
and political philosophy must therefore seriously consider the problems of living
together and the strategies that can be employed to solve these problems. Schmidtz
accuses, among others, John Rawls for making assumptions which amount to serious
evasions of several basic conundrums of life in a society. Strategy is essential
and cannot be approximated away.</p>
<p>The book contains a very interesting discussion of idealist versus realist positions
in moral and political philosophy. One important strand here is the argument that
justice cannot be derived from axioms, but is instead an evolving response to the
human condition. Empiricism, in a certain sense, must be the focus, rather than
deductively arguing from first principles.</p>
<p>I am intrigued and happy to see that David Schmidtz towards the end of the book
makes explicit the point that I believe is implicit in how he starts out his argument.
Namely, that one must consider the evolutionary history of the human species to
fully understand justice and morality. He writes: "We are social and political
animals, and justice is a human adaption to an ecological niche." In a chapter
written with Jason Brennan titled "A Brief History of the Human Condition",
there is a description of how important cooperation is for humans, and how it has
evolved and formed our species. I wish that this would have been the starting chapter
of the book, because this story is in fact central to how moral and political philosophy
should be restated.</p>
<p>There are many thoughts and arguments in this book that invite discussion. Indeed,
there are many that are not fully developed or joined together in a more coherent
fashion. I leave the book with a sense of having seen glimpses of a new start for
moral and political philosophy. But it is tentative, which is both good, since it
opens the door for further development, and bad, since as it is, the account is
too fragmented and does not form a sustained and complete argument.</p>
'
isbn: '9780197658529'
language: en
lastmod: '2023-08-08'
path: /library/schmidtz-2023.html
published: '2023'
rating: 4
reference: Schmidtz 2023
reviewed: '2023-08-08'
subjects:
- enlightenment
- human-evolution
- liberalism
- morality
- political-philosophy
title: 'Living Together: Inventing Moral Science'
type: book
year: 2023