by Simon Smith
It is, perhaps, in the nature of
modern academia for fields of study to continually divide and subdivide into
increasingly narrow areas of specialisation, though it does seem a mite
peculiar. Specialisation in the sciences is, of course, perfectly proper. Given
that the classification of things into things-of-a-certain-kind is not
prefigured in or by the things themselves, the process is, in principle at
least, an indefinite one. There can be no single level of classification – or
system of classification, for that matter – which can be designated as the
ultimate, final, or real one. Any
limits we encounter mark the limits of our tools and our interests, not of our
world nor, nota bene, our abilities.
Otherwise put, there is, as someone once said, always so much to know in this
old world.
One might
fairly suppose that philosophy doesn’t quite work like that. One might even
think that philosophy is meant to offer an insight into the very nature of
existence, into being (whatever that
means), the fundamental nature of things or experience. Something like that,
anyway.
Consider, for
example, the Metaphysics of Science: a divisional heading which manages to be
overly specific while still remaining altogether nebulous. Not that there’s
anything wrong with attempting to articulate, explicitly, the metaphysics which
underpins scientific thought, although it might help to specify which science,
in particular, we’re talking about. There are so many of them these days and
there are sure to be differences. Nevertheless, digging beneath the surface of
a scientist’s professed beliefs to get to the chewy metaphysics underneath
seems like a perfectly useful occupation. But the whole point of metaphysics is
to grapple with the nature of reality or being
per se. To do metaphysics is to attempt to draw the biggest possible
picture of existence, to say “this – this,
is what reality is really like
beneath all the maps and diagrams and descriptions and discourses. This is IT.”
Whether we really can peak beneath the maps and diagrams is a moot point, of
course. Whether any one particular way of mapping and describing the universe
can have it’s own particular peak beneath the maps, its very own “big picture”,
is, perhaps, not. If metaphysics is a meaningful pursuit – granted the size of
that “if” – then surely its findings will apply to all actual and possible ways
of looking at the universe. If, on the other hand, we are isolating different
metaphysics-es, different types of fundamental reality, then perhaps we ought
to give up using the term “metaphysics”; or at least have the decency to
quarantine it within ironic scare-quotes.
Under the
circumstances, one might be forgiven for thinking that all the subdivisions and
specialisations of academic philosophy seem rather redundant; the sort of thing
an increasingly desperate discipline might resort to in order to demonstrate
its relevance and importance long after its expiration date.
Any such
supposition would, however, be entirely unwarranted, a baseless calumny of the
worst kind, in fact. If there is a whiff of sour milk or mouldy cheese
lingering about the hallowed halls of academic philosophy, it is, I am certain,
to be laid at the feet of the practitioners rather than the practice.
Ethics is
particularly active in this area, however. The subdivisions, that is, not the
whiff. At least, not just the whiff.
One hardly need turn one’s back and ethics to start subdividing like an amoeba
at an orgy.
Once upon a
time, it all seemed quite simple. There was talk about right and wrong and
there was talk about talk about right and wrong. Then, at some point, talk
about the application of right and wrong came along and that was fine too.
Somewhere along this trail, I was disabused of my illusions regarding these
supposedly different fields by one of the great American personalist
philosophers: namely, Thomas O. Buford.
I met Tom at a
conference in Nottingham, England, not long after I’d finished my D.Phil. We
had a mutual friend in my supervisor, Charles Conti, and Tom was gracious
enough to show an interest in what the last doctoral student of his old friend
was up to. I was, I told him, teaching Applied Ethics at the University of
Southampton. Somewhat bemused, Tom laid a kindly hand upon my shoulder and
asked, “what kind of ethics is it that isn’t
applied?” Well, that put the tin hat on it. Obviously, I realised, any
attempt to make sense of how we conduct our relations with others must,
somewhere along the line, have its point of application. Without that, why
bother? Rules in theory, abstracted from actual practice, aren’t worth the
penguin they’re written on.
Just how much
of the West’s ethical cannon will find itself blowing out its back end in the
face of such fearfully stringent criteria, let the reader judge for him or
herself.
Despite the
evident sense of this, fragmentation and specialisation continues unabated. In
addition to Applied Ethics, my own list of teaching includes Business Ethics,
Personal and Professional Ethics (no, I’m not entirely sure what the difference
is either), and Ethics and the Computer. All these courses, I taught at the
same time and with very little difference between them. The context was
(occasionally, fractionally) different; the reasoning was not. Surprisingly,
whether one is in the bedroom or the boardroom, the basic questions never
change.
The bedroom?
Oh yes. I once had to deliver a lecture on sex and ethics. It was, I suppose,
very much as awful as you would imagine lecturing on sex and ethics to sixty
first-year undergraduates would be, only rather worse.
And as
that particular memory of ghastly mortification sinks, bubbling and gurgling,
below the black and glistening surface of the mind, I find myself in need of a
quiet lie down in a darkened room where I can shudder and shiver in peace. We
shall return to the matter in hand once the mechanisms of an emotionally
repressive upbringing have done their work.
……Dear God! The hand gestures! I’d forgotten
about the hand gestures!
