From: "Jamie Morgan" <jamie-AT-morganj58.fsnet.co.uk> Subject: Re: BHA: values and social science Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2002 17:29:28 +0100 Hi James, Andrew Sayer wrote an article in JTSB on the normative limits of critical science to provide the concrete elements of moral and ethical practice. Late 1990s I think. Jamie ----- Original Message ----- From: "James Daly" <james.irldaly-AT-ntlworld.com> To: <bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu> Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2002 5:16 PM Subject: Re: BHA: values and social science > Hi Jamie, interesting reply! I agree, "really existing" spiritualities are a > patchwork quilt; religious Daoism is very different from Lao Tse or Chuang > Tzu (?), and Tibetan Buddhism is different from Zen. For that matter I > gather that Buddhism was a critique of Hinduism, and Advaita Vedanta a > reconciliation of the two. Religions as practised are disfigured by > superstition, bigotry, authoritarianism etc. as well as the well-known > characteristics, criticised by Marxists, of borrowing from and lending to > oppressive social structures. Recognition of that, and of the simple demands > of rationality (e.g. non-contradiction), is accentuated by the mutual > encounter of religions, and of branches of a religion such as Christianity, > leading to a downplaying of particular differences and a search for an > essential meaning, which has been a very important spur to the creation of a > universalising concept of spirituality (as it has in Vedanta). > > Your other point raises perhaps more problems than you advert to here. My > hope is that a critical realist social science (as Marx said "There will be > only one science" -- and he did not think science was value free) will > tackle the problem of human, spiritual values -- beginning with critique of > the bourgeois values of the myriad current artificially separated social > sciences, and of their separation. (To pass exams in history I had, although > a victim of it, to interiorise the Whig interpretation of history. I once > had to "teach" the Hobbesian tract *Lord of the flies*). One utilitarian > Marxist interpretation of Marx's saying about the unity of science is the > mechanical linear-progressive historical materialist one of saying each mode > of production fails to satisfy the desires created by it. That belongs to > the "muck of ages" quoted in my previous post. > > Another is Roy's critique of structures which require falsehoods (I'm a bit > out of touch at present with that area of his thought). This (to borrow > Habermas's term) "quasi-transcendental" argument seems to me valid but > anaemic. It seems to come from the same position as Rawls's confining > himself to a "thin" theory of the good, because he is fleeing from the > accusation of deriving values from facts. Dialectic and the Pulse of Freedom > speaks of moral realism and ethical naturalism, but all too briefly. It > seems to me that in spite of the use of the Aristotelian term eudaimonia, > there is here a non-Aristotelian loss of nerve about naming human goods, the > carrying out of which Roy elsewhere characterises as "utopian". Habermas is > coming under pressure at the moment to produce what is called a "less > Kantian and more Hegelian" type of argument; he has long ago on principle > ruled out a priori an Aristotelian approach. To my mind the concept of > eudaimonia belongs to the spiritual, rather than the utilitarian or > instrumental, concept of reason, and should be developed and debated. > > > > James. > > james.irldaly-AT-ntlworld.com > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- > > --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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