Grice on 'free'

By JLS
for the GC

One reads from Grandy/Warner, "Stanford Encyclopedia": "Grice uses this general account of reasoning to investigate moral reasoning and moral reasons."
"Grice emphasizes the connections between reasons, actions, and freedom."
"It is convenient to divide Grice's approach into two stages (although he himself does not do so)."

"The first stage argues that one must regard the exercise of rationality in
the free adoption and pursuit of ends as an unrelativized good at which all persons should aim."

"The second stage examines the concepts of happiness and
freedom
to discover principles which persons — conceived of as rationally adopting and pursuing ends — must adopt insofar as they are to qualify as rational."

"The first stage."
"Why think that one must regard the exercise of rationality in the
free
adoption and pursuit of ends as an unrelativized good at which all persons should aim?"
"To begin with, what does Grice mean by an “unrelativized good”?"

"Grice grants that the concept of unrelativized value requires defense."
"After all, things have value only relative to ends and beneficiaries."
"So how is unrelativized value to be understood?"
"Grice defines unrelativized value
“in Aristotelian style [as] whatever would seem to possess such value in the eyes of a duly accredited judge; and a duly accredited judge might be identifiable as
a good person operating in conditions of freedom.”

"Of course, this is still to talk about what is of value for and to persons."
"The point is to avoid relativization to this or that kind of person or kind of end."

"So, why would a duly accredited judge see value in the
free
rational adoption and pursuit of ends, where such value is not ascribed because of the contribution that activity makes to some other end?"

"Grice's views on commonsense psychology provide the answer."
"As noted earlier, Grice thinks that commonsense psychology exhibits two features."
"First, parts of it are self-justifying."

"And, it contains principles for evaluating thought and action, where some of those principles are self-justifying."

"When he turns to ethics, Grice adds that commonsense psychology represents us as exercising rationality in
freely
adopting and pursuing ends."

"Moreover, this view of ourselves is self-justifying in the sense that we cannot coherently conceive of ourselves in any other way."

Hobbes could!? Democritus could?

"Grice's — very plausible — claim is that a “duly accredited judge” operating from within the theory of commonsense psychology would take the rational,
free
adoption and pursuit of ends as having unrelativized value."
"Hence, it does have such value."

"The second stage."
"What principles must a
free
adopter and pursuer of ends embrace in order to qualify as rational?"

"Grice addresses this question most fully in Aspects of Reason and The Conception of Value."
"The idea is that the combined requirements of rationality (outside ethics),
freedom,
and happiness impose substantive constraints on all persons."
"Grice develops this theme with great insight and subtlety."
"However, he did not complete the project, and the intricacies of his views are best left to the detail of his own works." So there.