Can Richard Nixon Teach Ethics?

By J. L. Speranza
for the Grice Club.

In The Immanuel Kant Lectures at Stanford Grice brought up the utterance:



Richard Nixon _ought_ to *get* the
Oxford Chair of Moral and
Pastoral Theology.


In such an utterance, Grice writes,

"Richard Nixon is spoken as being _both_

i. the person who is or should be
_concerned_ about what is being
stated to be a matter of necessity, but also

ii. the agent (or patient) whose doings (or
sufferings) are of concern."


"Now," Grice observes, this may be a trick, for although, "often the same person operates (as here) in both roles."

"But sometimes he doesn't."

"And where this is so, it is cosy to fall into the idea that

a single reference to the agent
(or patient)

-- i.e. our (ii) above --

is all that is needed, and so that the
person-relativisation can be eliminated."

"But things are not always like thus -- at least in some idiolects".

Suppose your uncle were to utter:


"It is necessary to Joe Garagiola
that the American public
retains its interest in baseball."


"Your uncle's utterance is different from the one about Nixon I opened my lecture with". "And in this precise respect I was talking about."

"I propose, then, we distinguish
between

i. the person _for whom_
something is a reason (or is necessary), and

ii. the person _about whom_ we are
talking when we say _what_ is necessary, or
what there is a reason for."

And that's still not final. "Moreover," he adds, "it seems plausible to suggest that,


if or when NO ONE IS EXPLICITLY
or IMPLICITLY referred to as a person
for whom
something is necessary (or as called
for by reason),

then

we are justified to assume that
the reason or the necessity
of what I shall call a GENERAL type.

-- A "public" or "objective", type,
rather than a "private" or "subjective"
type."

"The outcome of the aforegoing suggestion yields an interesting consequence for those who have been interested enough to follow me this far."

"For, the suggested treatment would represent it

as of GENERAL concern,
now, that Richard Nixon
apply for the mentioned chair, which is quite
inappropriate to say, the least, at least to my dear old friend, Thomas Nagel -- if I understood him correctly as I browsed through his engaging, _The Possibility of Altruism_."(Gr01:63).