The Mumford Method

This post is slightly out of the ordinary, as in this post I will not be talking purely about a recent reading, instead I want to talk about the wonderful method I am now using to collate my thoughts. The Mumford Method.

I have had the fortune to be enrolled on the excellent MA program at The University Of Nottingham, the same university where a certain Stephen Mumford is currently serving. His work in metaphysics has been highly influential, as well as his more recent work in philosophy of sport, and he is an early adopter of twitter (see @SDmumford) . In fact this is how I came to know about him before I had began my studies, and it was a brief meeting with him that convinced me Nottingham was the place (that and the wonderful campus, it really is so nice!)

The method I am using now is his method. It is known as the Mumford Method, (or #mumfordmethod on twitter) and has a few features which I am particularly impressed with. I had already read about it and was excited to hear that Stephen Mumford himself was to do a presentation. I booked a place and went to watch. (for the official version of the method, see Stephen Mumfords website)

Firstly it is a linear notation format, and as such it is a step on from the built points which we have all (well, I have!) writen out in an attempt to plan essays before I start to write. Unlike those one word bullet points the mumford method has overhung sentances, and rather than a linear list, the page is devided in to columns. This means that you can write much more, and a clear careful statement of each point can be easily captured. For a 2-4000 word essay a single page of A4 is probably enough. For more complex or longer works it might be necessary to use the reverse side, or even extra sheets to capture all the points.

I began by typing each point that had been haunting me down onto this document (Stephen Mumford calls it a handout for reasons I will go into). This process allowed me to have the key points right in front of me all at once, and it was a simple process to see what was there and group them under headings. For my Dissertation I currently have three headings, but I think it may grow as I continue to read and refine.

So once you have your thoughts down, and have arranged them under headings you have already got the skeleton of an essay. Next comes the clever bit; you can take this handout and show people. If you have the opportunity present it and give everyone who comes a copy. Don't worry if they offer criticism as that is the entire point. For each criticism, note something down on your handout, and then go and think about a good response, and add that to the growing document. You can tweet paragraphs to get feedback too! and having the entire thing briefly presented means it is easy to get someone to look at your entire argument, as it is all right there.

I look forward to presenting my shiny new notes, and for me the process has so far helped a lot. I think it is a valuable tool in the study-skills kit, and any writer in the arts would be advised to check it out. The people I have shared this with have all been positive, and at least one educational professional is very excited about the rumours of a book being published.

Have a look here for the offical Mumford method handout. By definition, a very very clear statement of the method: https://sites.google.com/site/stephendmumford/the-mumford-method

Spot the differences

Holism is the thesis that any given reason for action may be a reason for a different action in different circumstances. This can include being a reason for an action which is completely the reverse. Jonathan Dancy has argued that holism may be sufficient for Particularism, the thesis that moral principles do not exist, or can change or reverse depending upon circumstances. According to Brad Hookers arguments, Moral Particularism might actually be a long way from holism.

I want to know, what is the difference between reasons and moral principles?

One difference is that a moral principal is a reason to act, but a reason is not a moral principle. The category of principals contains the category of moral principles, an example of which might be "do not lie". The border category might include non-moral principles, like "if in doubt, turn left" as a principal for finding ones way in a maze. The "if in doubt turn left" principal only has a narrow area of usefulness.

Moral principles, like other sorts of principal, have a limited area of use. For a start moral principles are of use only when our actions effect another. At least I think that must be the case. What counter examples could there be to this? It seems that there may be some moral obligations one has to ones self, so it is perhaps best to include the principles which govern all agent regarding actions. Through notions like property, this can be extended further to the inanimate or to the non-agents. There is probably a lot more to say here about our moral responsibilities towards eco-systems and natural systems, I will note this, and leave it to one side just now.

What are reasons? I have a reason to do an action if I have a belief. There is a reason for a bridge collapsing which is not the same thing. In one case a reason is agent centred, something I may possess. In the other case the reason is prior to the event and causes it directly.

If reason is possessed by an agent as a belief, then it is not dissimilar from a principle. My principles are certainly something I might believe in, and act upon. So how does it all stack up?

If Principles are a subset of a subset of things that might be reasons, then it does seem that Hooker was correct about holism needing an argument to connect to Dancy's particularism.

Back to the books!

Useful Distinctions

http://www.relfe.com

Following my first look at Scanlon's insights about moral principles I have moved on to read Brad Hookers article Moral Particularism and the Real World (2007). This article is also insightful, and as it is quite detailed I will most likely write a few posts about it over the next few days. Firstly I wanted to jot something down about the useful distinctions which Hooker makes before he gets to his arguments, as I think they are the bet bit.


Firstly hooker notes that reasons can be ultimate or derived. It might seem obvious once conceived, but the end goal of any activity doesn't have an equal status to each step taken to get there. Hooker uses the example of meeting a friend by catching the late bus. Though we may want to catch the bus because it means we can be with our friend, and because being with our friend is a good for one or both of us, it follows that we want to catch it, but this want is contingent. If our friend were nearby, or we owned a car in those cases we would not need the bus.

I find the idea of derived reasons really interesting, because it might help shed light on moral principle. Derived reasons can always switch polarity if a situation changes because the reason they are derived from (or that justifies them) remains fixed. Hooker notes that no one would really dispute this, and therefore it cannot be derived reasons that Dancy is talking about (p15).

The second distinction, one I like but have heard before, is between thick and thin moral properties (p16). These are not introduced as an either/or distinction. Instead there is a continuum between the thinnest properties of goodness, and the thickest properties somewhere down the line. Towards the thick end are the usual moral principles, like "do not lie" and "do not kill", and obviously it is these I want to look at in more detail.

I wonder, however, that there may be a problem with presenting these two distinctions together. Because one might think that an ultimate reason might be the same thing as a thin moral property. "Act for the good" seems to be both of these things. Hooker persuasively argues that Dancy must be talking about ultimate moral reasons, and also that he cannot be talking about thin moral principles. If moral principals and ultimate reasons are the same, then Hooker has eliminated all of Dancy's talk as meaningless through these distinctions.

The answer, of course, is that moral properties and reasons are different things. The word 'moral' must be getting in the way, along with the differences between a reason and the property of an act. My guess is that the discussion about ultimate or derived reasons is meant to translate across to the one about moral properties, but that that requires further argument. This problem perhaps offers a key to dissolving another apparent difficulty with the text.

An important part of Hookers paper, is its criticism of the idea that holism is the theory of reasons that supports particularism. Holism is the thesis that a feature that is a reason in one case may be no reason at all in another. To move from holism to particularism, Dancy must, according to Hooker, make another step. This step is to show that holism entails or supports particularism if it is construed as a doctrine about moral properties (p16). This is opposed to the particularism construed as a doctrine about moral thought. According to hooker, the two are importantly different, and the second requires a metaphysical view which hooker describes as;

[...] whether a property (other than a thin moral property) counts morally for or against an act that has that property depends on the circumstances, to the extent that the very same (non-thin) property that in some circumstances counts morally in favour can in other circumstances be morally neutral or even morally negative.(p16)

Picking this sentence apart is the difficult bit. First by 'property' we mean only non-thin moral properties. I think it can be better phrased:

Meta 1

A property P counts morally for or against an act that has P. Depending upon the circumstances of the act, P can make that act positive, neutral or negative.

This way of construing particularism relies upon moral properties, not upon reasons. The question remains, how do we get from the variable acceptance of a reason to the abandonment of moral principles?


Bibliograpby


Hooker, B. ‘Moral Particularism and the Real World’, in Mark Lance, Matjaz Potrc, Vojko Strahovnik (eds.), Challenging Moral Particularism, Routledge, Oct. 2007, pp. 12–30.
Dancy, J. (2004) Ethics Without Principles, Oxford University Press, 

The 'Tip' of the 'Rule Iceberg'

Today I have, on the advice of a friendly professor, been returning to the works of T. M. Scanlon. His book "What we owe to Each Other" has been helpful before, but I did not remember his work on moral principles until this re-reading. 

It strikes me that this account might be thought of as quite weak. The debate is highly interesting, partly for that reason. The way the debate is stated, for reasons I will go into, make the account sound circular. Obviously Scanlon is a clever chap, so I do not want to say he has got things obviously wrong. So when he defines principals it seems strange to say this:

Principles.. are general conclusions about the status of various kinds of reasons for action. So understood principals may rule out some action by ruling out the reasons on which they would be based, but they also leave wide room for interpretation and judgement (p190)

Scanlon wants to support the idea of moral principles and says as much, but he also supports the idea that they are not simple rules, and require judgement to hold in a particular case. The principles are not rules - as I would have initially thought - but rather the conclusions we as agents reach about reasons for action. These 'reasons' seem like atomic bits of principals, but I think that Scanlon would resist this idea. 

Firstly, he does not think the reasons or principals are the sorts of things that make sense without an agent’s judgement (p190). Secondly he admits that there are possibly an indefinite number of principals (p201). This thought first makes me think that the principals themselves are so numerous that more basic entities are not needed.. but then I think that chemical substances are numerous indeed, and yet the a finite range of elements make them up. Perhaps that is the kind of analogy Scanlon has in mind, of reasons 'supporting', 'building', or 'acting as foundations for' principles, except we cannot 'transmit' these judgements exactly. The judgements are something we get once we 'get' the principle itself.

It is at this point it starts to sound wrong. If principles are founded on reasons, but we only 'get' the reasons once we understand the principles then haven't we come full circle? If we are looking for a clear definition then perhaps we have, but I think that this is the point. There is no clear definition to be had of moral principles, because they always rely upon learned judgements which the agent cannot easily convey. Scanlon seems to think there is a necessary barrier to conveying these reasons, because they rely upon the complications relevant to each principle. The complications in even simple principals like "do not lie" rely upon a great deal of agent specific knowledge about when such rules can be broken, if at all.

I think this is a good introduction to the topic, and having taken a lot of notes I am going to mull it over. 

What this is all about

Hello

From  http://www.keele.ac.uk    

This blog is purely here for me to put some thoughts down for my dissertation. I am an MA student at the University of Nottingham, and have chosen to write about moral particularism, especially Jonathan Dancy for my dissertation. I want to look at the notion of an ethical principal and see what it really is. My 'naive' view (if you can still get such things at this stage) is that ethical principles might be many things: the 'simple' rule that one ought not to kill has many aspects to it, and may be composed of more basic units. I have no idea currently how this can form the basis of a criticism of Dancy, and to be honest I like his writing style and bravery for backing a difficult position as particularism. It remains to be seen what I shall think. My working title is;

A Critical examination of the conception of moral principles in Dancy's particularism

Enjoy!