by J. L. Speranza
for the Grice Club.
KRAMER, in "Grice and Grice on contracts and contracts" (commentary), this blog:
"Contracts do likewise. Morality can be made to look
like a contract because any strategy that looks like it
honors an obligation can be made to look
like adherence to a contract."
I loved that. I wonder if Kramer may reconsider 'strategy'. I was so in love with that word, till a Russian fellowess, of all people, told me, "You sound too militaristic".
Indeed, in Greek, 'strategos' is 'general'. Grice was NAVY! From where I come, the admiral (the head of the navy) HAS to yield to the GENERAL (the head of the army). So, in fact, the general is BASIC.
In the old days, it was just the general. Why 'strategos', which is a pretty rich, colourful term of Greek provenance (indeed Greek) should be translated by something as bland as 'general' I wouldn't know, but should care to know why not!
In any case, I would use 'strategy' a lot. Especially since attending a seminar by O. N. Guariglia on 'discourse' ethics and having to digest some of the silly things by Apel based on Weber. For Weber, there is means-end rationality, which is directed towards THINGS (or objects), but there is also strategic rationality (actually this is Apel's label) which is directed NOT to things but to co-agents.
Apel and Habermas have a hidden agenda here. (I discussed it in a paper that Habermas refers to in his "The pragmatics of communication", MIT -- it sprang from a seminar with Habermas I attended). In any case, Habermas's hidden agenda is to overuse 'strategy' to go on and critise the IDEA. His whole point about 'COMMMUNICATIVE' rationality (or action) is that it is NOT strategic.
Somewhere in between I came across Anne Weiser. This smart lady had written a short, very badly typed, thing for the Chicago Linguistics Society. These were the days before Grice's 1975 "Logic and Conversation" when everybody was quoting from his 1967 mimeo, as Weiser does. But what she does, in a footnote, is to distinguish.
And this is the
strategy-strategem distinction.
which I swallowed whole then, but I'm not sure I would today. For Weiser, a strategy is GOOD. A strategem is BAD.
The good-bad distinction here has to do with a CRUCIAL topic in Griceianism: covertness of intention. Sneak. Cheat. For Grice (apres point made by Strawson in "Intention and convention in speech acts", 1964, Philosphical Review), you cannot mean that p if you hold an inference element regarding this which you keep FROM your intended addressee. This would invove, in Weiser's use, a strategem. She keeps on using 'strategy', though, to refer to what I'd now refer -- as I did in my PhD dissertation -- to as just a 'procedure' in one's repertoire (of procedures, that is).
A strategy is a procedure. There is something vacuous about that, and which trades on the rather hateful (by Grice, or hated by Grice, rather) token-type distinction. For 'procedure' has a general ring to it, and I'm not sure 'strategy' does. Or not.
In any case, in the instance by Kramer:
"Contracts do likewise. Morality can be made to look
like a contract because any strategy [emphasis J. L. S.'s] that looks like it
honors an obligation can be made to look
like adherence to a contract."
there does not seem to be anything militaristic about it.
What's wrong with 'militaristic' at this point? In my view, what is wrong here is that the war-context or scenario it suggests (or literally says) goes vis a vis or against what it means? This is all about aboveboard constitution of obligations which are reciprocal, etc., and so to bring in an element which belongs best to the 'theory of war' may be misleading? (Not just to a pacificist, or conscientious objector!). Or not!
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I'm going to use "strategy" until a shorter word for "set of principles for choosing among available courses of action" comes along. Nominations are open, however.
ReplyDeleteThanks. For the record, I post here your excellent closing passage to your comment to "Grice and Grice on contract and contract". Note that a lovely, "if I may be inaccurate" may do when you don't want to GO there.
ReplyDeleteFor you write in great prose, as is characteristic of you, and which only me playing pedant for the club finds amusing, when you write:
"With Hobbes, I think morality is a strategy (the Golden Rule), and "moral obligation" is merely a contractual metaphor for that strategy's tactics and the social consequences of not adopting them. Metaphors are useful, but they are not explanations."
Note your use of 'strategy' which is perfectly clear here. Who wants the longer, 'set of principles for choosing among available courses of actions'. And beware of 'principle' (I hope it's not the archy that the anarchist feels obtuse!).
"With Hobbes, I think morality is a strategy [empahsis mine. JLS] (the Golden Rule),"
O. N. Guariglia would have the trembles. My ethics teacher. But I used 'strategy' just to provoke him! (My 'strategy' paper was published in the journal he edited, and I had to credit him!). On the other hand, perhaps,
"Honesty is the best policy, says I" IS ironic!
----
Note Kramer's use of the similarly briliant, 'tactic'.
If War is LIKE love ("all is possible in war and love" vis a vis the rather sillier hippism, "make love, not war"), then I shouldn't see why we shouldn't use 'strategy' and 'tactic' openly. Cfr. also Ovid on Ars Amatoria. Tactics lovers use. It's only when they THINK they are being devious that they may even become MORE interesting -- I cherish a poem by Coventry Patmore, "The Kiss", on this, as cited by S. Blackburn in his chapter on Grice for his "Groundings in the philosophy of language" (Oxford University Press).
Kramer:
"and "moral obligation" is merely a contractual metaphor for that strategy's tactics and the social consequences of not adopting them. Metaphors are useful, but they are not explanations."
You gotta love, 'strategy's tactics'. There is a lovely pluralism there, in that it's seldom a 'tactic' -- cfr. 'semantic'. One may even wonder (and wander) as to why 'tax-', the Greek root, 'tac-', to put, is militaristic like that. I wouldn't be surprised if the Greeks used 'tactic' originally to mean things other than militaristic (less sure about 'strategos' but you never know -- until you try it, the Liddell/Scott online. (Incidentally, I'm having loads of problems wanting to SEARCH that gem. That's why I'm more often quoting from the Short/Lewis Latin counterpart!).
"that strategy's tactics and the social consequences of not adopting them."
I also enjoy the use of consequence (vis a vis consequentialism, revisited, etc. -- vis a vis Grice on effects and responses), now qualifying 'social' rather than the more abstract 'legal'. Or not (by 'or not', I am questioning that 'legal' is not necessarily more abstract than 'social' -- cfr. Durkheim on 'sociology', the most abstract of disciplines, in some reading!).