Table Of ContentLOGIC AND Enncs
Nijhoff International Philosophy Series
VOLUME 41
General Editor: JAN T. J. SRZEDNICKI
Editor for volumes on Applying Philosophy: LYNNE M. BROUGHTON
Editor for volumes on Logic and Applying Logic: STANISLAW J. SURMA
Editor for volumes on Contributions to Philosophy: JAN T. J. SRZEDNICKI
Assistant to the General Editor: DAVID WOOD
Editorial Advisory Board:
R.M. Chisholm (Brown University. Rhode Island); Mats Furberg (Goteborg Univer
sity); D.A.T. Gasking (University of Melbourne); H.L.A. Hart (University College.
Oxford); S. Komer (University of Bristol and Yale University); H.J. McCloskey (La
Trobe University. Bundoora. Melbourne); J. Passmore (Australian National Univer
sity. Canberra); A. Quinton (Trinity College. Oxford); Nathan Rotenstreich (The
Hebrew University. Jerusalem); Franco Spisani (Centro Superiore di Logica e Scienze
Comparate. Bologna); R. Ziedins (Waikato University. New Zealand)
The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume.
Logic and Ethics
edited by
PeterGeach
with the editorial assistance of
Jacek Holowka
SPRINGER SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Logic and ethics / edited by Peter Geach, with the editorial
asslstance of Jacek Holowka.
p. cm. -- (Nijhoff international philosophy series ; v. 41>
Includeslndex.
ISBN 978-94-010-5481-2 ISBN 978-94-011-3352-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-011-3352-4
1. Logic. 2. Ethics. 1. Geach, F. T. (Peter Thomas), 1916-
II. Ho{âwka, Jacek. III. Ser ies.
BC55.L54 1990
160--dc20 90-20243
ISBN 978-94-010-5481-2
Printed on acid-free paper
AII Rights Reserved
© 1991 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1991
Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover Ist edition 1991
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
incJuding photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.
CONTENTS
1. Ethics and the Limits of Consistency 1
R. Bambrough
2. Negative Values 21
H. Elzenberg
3. Whatever Happened to Deontic Logic 33
P.T. Geach
4. The Ethical Root of Language 49
M. C. Gormally
5. The Principle of Transcendence and 71
the Foundation of Axiology
A. Grzegorczyk
6. Deontic Logic and Imperative Logic 79
J. Harrison
7. Against Tolerating the Intolerable 131
J. Jackson
8. Winning Against and With the Opponent 145
J. Holowka
9. Meaning-Norms and Objectivity 167
J. Jack
10. On the Logic of Practical Evaluation 199
S. Korner
vi
11. The Deductive Model in Ethics 225
1. Lazari-Pawlowska
12. Truth-Value of Ethical Statements: 241
Some Philosophical Implications of the
Model-Theoretic Defintion of Truth
M. Przelecki
13. On Subjective Appreciation of Objective 255
Moral Points
J. Srzednicki
14. On Fair Distribution of Indivisible Goods 275
K. Szaniawski
15. Needs and Values 289
B. Wo lniewicz
Index 303
NOTE FROM THE SERIES EDITOR
This volume is to a large extent the result of the invitation for a term as
visiting professor at the University of Warsaw that Geach accepted in the
year 1985.
During this period Geach initiated a number of discussions on the subject
of Logic and Ethics, and it became apparent that a number of philosophers
both in Poland and in the United Kingdom were working in this area. Thus
the idea of a collective volume came into being. This became one of the
highlights of his visit to Warsaw at that time, and implemented with further
contributions from scholars invited by Geach resulted in the present book.
I.S.
1
ETHICS AND THE LIMITS OF CONSISTENCY
Renford Bambrough
Walt Whitman contradicted himself, a critic said. Very well
then, Whitman replied, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain
multitudes.
A philosopher faced with Whitman's plea will either take a
tough censorious line or a charitable and pacific one. he may say
that a contradiction is a contradiction and there's an end on't: no
purpose can be served by deliberate contradiction, and the
exposure of a hidden contradiction is a matter for regret and
satisfaction; regret for the error and satisfaction at the oppor
tunity to correct it by giving up one or other of the conflicting
assertions or implications. But he may say instead that there is
not really a contradiction at all. What Whitman meant was quite
different from what Whitman said, both on the occasion of the
initial complaint and in the brazen reply he now gives.
When we answer 'Yes and no' to a plain question about the
weather or the state of our health or of the stock market we do
not mean to say that the weather or the health of the body or of
the market is good and is also bad, wet and also dry, sick and
also sound, bearish and bullish at the same time and in the same
sense and in the same respect. If necessary - and it is not always
P. Geach (ed.), Logic and Ethics, 1-20.
© 1991 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
2
necessary - we explain. Gilt-edged are in demand, but equities
are still sliding. The sunshine is welcome, but not the humidity.
My heart is as strong as a horse, but my lumbago won't lie down.
Heraclitus said that we are and are not, that we do and do
not step into the same river twice. He or one of his commentators
explained that what he meant was that over one who is in a river
different and different waters flow. Some philosophers still need
such explanations, even of the plainest paradoxes.
The modes of expression in which we verbally contradict
ourselves without contradicting ourselves are so widespread, and
may operate so subtly, that it is much harder than we often think
to be sure that we are faced with a contradiction. There are the
plain cases, like those where my statement of my total debt is
less or more than the sum of my statements of my particular
debts. There are plain cases at the other end, like those where I
say of a young man that he is an old woman, or of a widow that
she was married to her husband only after he died. But in
between there are all the debatable cases. If I say that a person is
human, do I contradict myself when I add that he is also divine?
Does Hume the backgammon player contradict Hume the
sceptical philosopher? Suppose I conclude and declare that all
human actions are in principle predictable and causally
explicable, do I contradict myself when I add that some are
voluntary and some are not, or when I praise Captain Oates and
revile Corporal Hitler?
Self~ontradictions are only one species of contradictions. We
are more often concerned with conflicts between what you say
and what I say, or between what they say and what we say. And
again there are the plain cases but also the cases in which some
3
are sure that the two parties are fundamentally opposed while
others are still saying that there is a misunderstanding and they
are only at cross purposes.
Some conflicts are about the nature and incidence of conflict.
Wittgenstein speaks of the superstitious horror of a mathe
matician in the face of a contradiction. There is a school of para
consistent logicians. Can we preserve what they mean - even if
not what they say - and still remain convinced that nothing is
both true and false, that reason calls for the resolution of every
contradiction by the rejection of one or more of its elements? In
debating these issues, as in discussing most of the questions of
philosophy and morals and religion, we shall often need to
consider whether what I say is or is not in conflict with what you
say.
There is a story of a woman who kept two pug dogs, Caesar
and Pompey, and said of them: 'Caesar and Pompey are so alike
it's impossible to tell them apart - especially Pompey'. The story
is told as a joke. If the dogs are virtually indistinguishable, how
can it matter which of them is before us - matter, that is, to our
chances of knowing which is which?
But this joke is a good test of a person's attitude to more
important and wider-ranging questions. In the first place, people
divide more or less sharply into those whose reaction goes no
further than to laugh at the joke, and those who go on to wonder
what can have made the woman say what she said. The idea that
the woman was being merely stupid or confused will appeal to
one group more than to the other. The latter will look for a
plausible or at least charitable interpretation of what she said.
A first attempt might be this. Perhaps the only thing that
