James Liszka

The claim here is that semiosis is concomitant with life and not simply one of several possible adaptive mechanisms. Signs, particularly indices, serve as steering mechanisms for even the most primitive organisms, completing a circuit between the detection of energy sources and behavior that is conducive to acquiring those sources. Without that kind of agency, no form of life is possible. To show this, an understanding of the interrelation among energy, matter, information, and meaning is required, and how they are interlaced in the notion of work. One specific thesis of the paper in this respect is that meaning is the propagating work of information. Peirce’s theory, with some modifications, can be used to articulate this account of things, and brings a powerful analytical tool to the problem.

Peirce considered his esthetics to be one of a trio of normative sciences. Ostensibly, the sciences of logic, ethics and esthetics, would study the traditional norms of truth, goodness and beauty. Logic was normative in the sense that it studied how people ought to reason, if truth is to be the result. Similarly, ethics is the study of how we ought to conduct ourselves, if good is to happen. At the same time, Peirce seems to have difficulty fitting the study of the beautiful into this sort of normative framework. As Peirce says, esthetics was handicapped by its definition as a theory of beauty. Instead, Peirce sees esthetics as bound up with a study of ends. Peirce argues that ends are essential to normative behavior, understood as the deliberate pursuit of a purpose, the latter serving to direct and correct the behavior. Ends may be ideals, ideas, standards, or goals. In this regard, the study of esthetics is bound up with what ought to be pursued. The key problem of the normative sciences is to discover which ends ought to be pursued. In Peirce’s formative accounts, he seems to waver between assigning this task to ethics at times and esthetics otherwise. In some places, he argues that ethics defines the ends to be pursued and studies the summum bonum. On the other hand, esthetics is claimed to be the study of ideals, that which is objectively admirable, and the conditions of attractive and repulsive ideas. To that extent, Peirce claims in a number of places that the ethically good rests on a notion of the esthetically good, the morally good being a species of the esthetically good. Although Peirce notes his neglect of the study of esthetics, he does provide a preliminary study of ends, which prove to be instructive in getting a sense of what he counts as admirable to pursue. I argue that besides this positive esthetics, which identifies ends and the conditions which makes them worthy of pursuit, he also suggests a negative esthetics, one that is does not work backwards from the ideal to the means to achieve it, but sees ends as something that evolves forward as human endeavor attempts to correct those pursuits that have led to error and misdirection. Peirce’s negative esthetics is modelled after the way in which he accounts for the ability of science to self-correct away from errant hypotheses to ones less subject to error, converging toward the truth. In the same way, the pursuit of ends is a matter of converging toward the right end through self-correction.

: Although philosophers often focus on the essays of Leopold's Sand County Almanac, especially "The Land Ethic," there is also a normative argument present in the stories that comprise most of the book. In fact the shack stories may be more persuasive, with a subtlety and complexity not available in his prose piece. This paper develops a narrative ethics methodology gleaned from rhetoric theory, and current interest in narrative ethics among literary theorists, in order to discern the normative underpinnings of the stories in Part 1. The narrative ethics approach sidesteps the need to ground the land ethic in ethical theory—which has been a reconstructive and problematic task for the philosophical interpreters of Leopold—and suggests, instead, that it emerges in Leopold's very effort to narrate his, professional, personal, and practical experience with nature. The involves examining the stories in terms of their emotional, logical and performative aspects. The result is an analysis that shows not only how these stories express normative claims, but also justify them. One conclusion of the analyses is that, in the narratives, there is less emphasis on the problematic notion of an over-arching "community" than in the prose pieces, and more emphasis on the metaphor of other living things as "fellow travelers" in the "odyssey of evolution." Second, the narratives take on an ironic attitude toward the ecological order, less discernable in the prose essays. The order itself may not be ethically admirable, but should be preserved since it makes possible any ethical relations within it. Thus, the narrative reading suggests some temperance to the usual holistic interpretation of his land ethic and its concomitant criticisms especially the charge of ecofacism. We should not take the land ethic imperative at its face value, in the sense that the good of the order itself is an intrinsic good. In the narratives, individuals are shown not merely to be means to the ecological whole, but the focus of sympathy and concern, in a manner that demands their good should also be an object of moral consideration

Although philosophers often focus on the essays of Leopold's Sand County Almanac, especially "The Land Ethic," there is also a normative argument present in the stories that comprise most of the book. In fact the shack stories may be more persuasive, with a subtlety and complexity not available in his prose piece. This paper develops a narrative ethics methodology gleaned from rhetoric theory, and current interest in narrative ethics among literary theorists, in order to discern the normative underpinnings of the stories in Part 1. The narrative ethics approach sidesteps the need to ground the land ethic in ethical theory—which has been a reconstructive and problematic task for the philosophical interpreters of Leopold—and suggests, instead, that it emerges in Leopold's very effort to narrate his, professional, personal, and practical experience with nature. The involves examining the stories in terms of their emotional, logical and performative aspects. The result is an analysis that shows not only how these stories express normative claims, but also justify them. One conclusion of the analyses is that, in the narratives, there is less emphasis on the problematic notion of an over-arching "community" than in the prose pieces, and more emphasis on the metaphor of other living things as "fellow travelers" in the "odyssey of evolution." Second, the narratives take on an ironic attitude toward the ecological order, less discernable in the prose essays. The order itself may not be ethically admirable, but should be preserved since it makes possible any ethical relations within it. Thus, the narrative reading suggests some temperance to the usual holistic interpretation of his land ethic and its concomitant criticisms especially the charge of ecofacism. We should not take the land ethic imperative at its face value, in the sense that the good of the order itself is an intrinsic good. In the narratives, individuals are shown not merely to be means to the ecological whole, but the focus of sympathy and concern, in a manner that demands their good should also be an object of moral consideration

Abstract:In Charles Peirce on Ethics, Esthetics and the Normative Sciences, I argue that Peirce was motivated to develop a normative science of ethics because of his growing concern with the corruption of science in the Gilded Age, and the recognition that the pragmatic maxim entailed an amoral instrumentalism. Rather than taking a Kantian approach to resolve the latter issue, he adopts an Aristotelian one, engaging in a search for an ultimate end that could order all other ends. What is right is what would be conducive to that end. As such he sees the necessity of a science of esthetics which would study such an end. However, rather than eudaimonia as the highest end, Peirce sees reasonableness as the summum bonum. Although barely sketched by Peirce, I argue that its principal sense is that of an ongoing process of self-correction away from error. In regard to this end, what is most important is the design of practices and the establishment of habits of conduct and sentiment most conducive to self-correction. For this reason, a proper community of inquiry with these features ought to be established, armed with the general methodology of science to assess the norms that guide the experiments of living together. Assurance that communities of inquiries are moving away from error and toward improvement is based on a convergence theory of truth.

Abstract:In my response to the commentators, I agree with Rosa Mayorga that Duns Scotus should be included as an important influence on Peirce's notion of agency, as well as his sense of the highest good. I explain, however, how Peirce's triadic view of agency is an improvement that relates to current debates between moral internalism and externalism. In response to Diana Heney, I defend Peirce's notion of evolutionary love as a form of intergenerational altruism, necessary to any community of inquiry. I also argue, in response to her query, that Peirce did not subscribe to moral perfectionism. Instead, there is good reasons to think that he was a meliorist in Dewey's sense. The end is improvement, which seems to be an endless process, rather than the movement towards a static end. I agree with Aaron Wilson's claim that the pragmatic definition of truth implies the convergence theory of truth. However, I explain how the convergence theory of truth might be elaborated as to apply to ethical claims. I also discuss how the 'would be' of the convergence theory of truth is a problematic measure of moral claims. Like progress in science, it is better to measure a moral norm in terms of its improvement from previous ones. I take issue with Wilson's account of moral reality and his claim that truth can be attained by individuals in the absence of community. I end by arguing that reasonableness has to be understood as a process rather than a perfected state.

The founding pragmatists were meliorists, arguing for the possibility of improvement in the human condition. At the same time, they did not think that progress was something inevitable. It was constrained by a tragic order that would prevent any movement toward a utopian ideal and could always lead to regress. Because they could not abide the notion of an absolute, pre-determined sense of the good, they did not subscribe to a moral perfectionism as well. Instead, Peirce, James and Dewey argued in different ways that progress was made through the correction of error and the solution of problems as they presented in the experiments of life. Thinkers sympathetic to this understanding of the pragmatist tradition, such as James Wallace, Frederick Will, Larry Laudan and Philip Kitcher, build on these insights. The aim of this article is to show how the work of these thinkers provides the basis for a problem-based ethic that can assist in determining what changes to the practices and institutions of practical life can count as progressive or regressive.

Although philosophers often focus on the essays of Leopold's Sand County Almanac, especially "The Land Ethics," there is also a normative argument present in the stories that comprise most of the book. In fact, the shack stories may be more persuasive, with a subtlety and complexity not available in his prose piece. This paper develops a narrative ethics methodology gleaned from rhetoric theory and current interest in narrative ethics among literary theorists, in order to discern the normative underpinnings of the stories in Part 1. The narrative ethics approach sidesteps the need to ground the land ethic in ethical theory--which has been a reconstructive and problematic task for the philosophical interpreters of Leopold--and suggests, instead, that it emerges in Leopold's very effort to narrate his professional, personal and practical experience with nature. This involves examining the stories in terms of their emotional, logical and performative aspects. The result is an analysis that shows not only how these stories express normative claims, but also justify them. One conclusion of the analyses is that, in the narratives, there is less emphasis on the problematic notion of an over-arching "community" than in the prose pieces, and more emphasis on the metaphor of other living things as "fellow travelers" in the "odyssey of evolution." Second, the narratives take on an ironic attitude toward the ecological order, less discernible in the prose essays. The order itself may not ethically admirable, but should be preserved since it makes possible any ethical relations within it. Thus, the narrative reading suggests some temperance to the usual holistic interpretation of his land ethic and its concomitant criticisms, especially the charge of ecofacism. We should not take the land ethic imperative at its face value, in the sense that the good of the order itself is an intrinsic good. In the narratives, individuals are shown not merely to be means to the ecological whole, but the focus of sympathy and concern, in a manner that demands their dood should also be an object of moral consideration.

The aim of the book is to complete what is incomplete in Peirce’s study of the normative sciences, and to get a good sense of his ethical thought. This is not merely to understand Peirce, but to introduce an insightful account of ethics. Peirce’s work in ethics is fragmentary. The goal is to take the leads Peirce provides, develop them further in that direction and fill in the gaps. Peirce was primarily a logician and scientist. But he became interested in the study of ethics once he saw how scientific reasoning was being used instrumentally in the Gilded Age of 19th century America. Peirce realized that logical and scientific reasoning needed ethical direction in determining its proper use. The introduction provides an overview of how Peirce manages this task. Peirce sees moral agency as primarily purposive. He uses a desire-belief model of human motivation to analyze such conduct. He realizes that the sort of practical reasoning entailed in this model leads to an amoral instrumentalism. What is required to fix this problem is an account of good ends and righteous means. The normative sciences of ethics and esthetics are to fix this problem. Peirce’s convergence theory of truth serves as a guide for determining what are good ends and ideals of conduct, and his account of a community of inquiry reveals the sorts of norms needed to be successful in such an effort. In a different sense of esthetics, Peirce sees it as an aid to ethics in determining ends worthy of pursuit.

A teoria convergente da verdade de Peirce é uma abordagem intuitiva e razoável da verdade. No seu sentido mais geral, vincula a verdade aos resultados da investigação. De acordo com a máxima pragmática, Peirce percebeu que as consequências práticas de afirmações verdadeiras são de trazer investigações à fruição e resolver opinião. No entanto, a teoria da verdade de Peirce é muitas vezes difamada e mal-entendida. Argumenta-se, aqui, que uma vez que se entende que a teoria convergente é uma inferência e generalização oriunda do notável teorema matemático conhecido como a Lei dos Grandes Números, e como esse teorema fornece certeza matemática à indução como o cerne do método científico, muitos dos problemas desaparecem. Parte do mal-entendido também se deve ao fato que Peirce tinha três sentidos distintos de convergência, os quais muitos comentadores confundem ou interpretam erroneamente. Com esse entendimento, será mostrado que ao contrário das análises de Cheryl Misak e Christopher Hookway, Peirce argumenta que investigação persistente por bons métodos não é apenas um ideal regulador para atingir a verdade – uma esperança intelectual – mas uma possibilidade comprovada matematicamente que já resultou em verdades estabelecidas.