Moral Philosophy
According to William Crooks

Povera e nuda vai filosofia.

Philosophy, thou goest poor and nude!

Francis Petrarch (1304-1374), quoted by Schopenhauer.

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Es ist nicht sein Weg zum »Glück«, von dem ich rede, sondern sein Weg zur Macht, zur That, zum mächtigsten Thun, und in den meisten Fällen thatsächlich sein Weg zum Unglück

The path I am speaking of does not lead to "happiness" but to power, action, to the mightiest action, and in most cases to actual unhappiness.

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy and The Genealogy of Morals, translated by Francis Golffing, Doubleday Anchor Books, 1956, p.242, translation modified; Zur Genealogie der Moral, Philipp Reclam, Stuttgart, 1988, p.25

On June 15, 2025, I started receiving philosophy essays from someone named William Crooks. These were unsolicited and were not sent as submissions to The Proceedings of the Friesian School. Instead, the essays seem to be invitations to pay for access to Crooks's philosophy site at Substack, "for the full experience." It says I am a "free subscriber," but I am not a subscriber at all. Essays have been sent to me Out of the Blue. Which is fine, since I am curious about things like this, namely, someone trying to think independently.

The essays began with a couple addressing the question "What is Philosophy?" followed by one with a critique of Canadian psychologist and commentator Jordan Peterson. I either missed or deleted the first essay, and it was only the fourth essay that got more of my attention. This was addressing the question "What is the meaning of life?" Remarkably, Crooks regarded this as a meaningless question, although it was then followed by essays on Aristotle, on the principle that Aristotelian happiness, εὐδαιμονία, is about the best we can do for the meaning of life.

I have had some difficulty finding out who William Crooks is. He is identified as being a Doctor of Philosophy, but he is also identified as being a Ph.D. Student at Texas State University, which is in San Marcos, Texas -- without the Department or Field being specified in either case, although I suppose that we are left to assume that one of them, at least, is in Philosophy. Does this mean he is getting a second Doctorate, or that the cited Doctorate is in anticipation of graduating from Texas State? I can't tell.

Now I get an email from William Crooks with an address: 24 St. Francis, Sherbrooke, Quebec, J1M 0B3. It also says that this is for "The Pulse of the Eastern Townships" mailings, whose connection to philosophy escapes me. This is not from the same Substack address as the philosophy essays; but Substack is the host, and it is behind the same kind of pay wall as the philosophy site. So it must be the same William Crooks, although Quebec is a long way from San Marcos, Texas.

A November 2, 2025, email clarifies some things. William Crooks is indeed both the author of the philosophy site, now called "Philosophy Bites," and the "The Pulse of the Eastern Townships," where the latter will now subsume the former under its Substack site. Perhaps this means that Crooks has moved from Texas, whenever he may have been living there, to, or back to, Quebec. Sounds like an interesting Odyssey.

I am intrigued by the challenge of denying the meaningfulness of the "meaning of life," and by the recourse to Aristotle in response. A meaningless life, of course, is consistent with the Nietzschean Nihilism of modern academic philosophy and Elite culture, and Crooks does begin with the avowal of atheism, which sets us off in the same direction.

Virtues [colors]
	Love/Charity	Caritas	愛 ài
	Hope	Spes	望 wàng
	Faith	Fides	信 xìn
	Temperance	Temperantia	中 zhōng
	Justice	Justitia	義 yì
	Courage	Fortitudo	勇 yǒng
	Wisdom	Sapientia	智 zhì

But, in turn, Aristotle is not an atheist and in fact is the foundation of all Thomistic Catholic theology. So Crooks will need to change some things, as he does.

But, in general, Aristotle was not the best Greek philosopher; and he does not provide a good foundation for the development of modern philosophy. Aristotelian ethics is mostly trivializing of human life, which is why, in that it tends to survive mainly among Catholics, extra dimensions are added to it, as must happen to get an actual religious theology.

We see this in the table of virtues here. To the four "Cardinal" virtues at the bottom of the table, which actually go back to Plato, not Aristotle, the theology adds the three "Theological" virtues, above.

Crooks, who has his own list of virtues, as we will see, doesn't add those particular "Theological" dimensions, or the equivalent, which will gravely limit the value of his thought. Aristotle seems good enough to him, despite his shortcomings -- shortcomings inherently characteristic of the approach Crooks takes.

‘What is the meaning of life?’ has long been considered one of the most profound philosophical questions there are. But it is not. It is actually not even a question, for anything that counts as a question must have a logically possible answer. Often, people will answer this supposed question in the negative, by saying life has no meaning. Some will then see this as a cause to despair.

The meaning of life is not a meaningless question. We simply must specify what would qualify as an answer, such as would satisfy anyone who asks the question (the approach Crooks seems to acknowledge, later). In general, it seems that life must have a purpose or a value to have meaning. Although purpose may have some primacy -- What is life for? -- purposes are only meaningful in relation to an end; and the end, to be meaningful, must have some value. So we are returned to the question of value. A valuable life must then consist of some good; but if this means that life is actually good for something (an instrumental good), this merely returns us to the issue of purpose.

So meaning as value must be a good in itself, a category that has given philosophy some difficulty over the years, where G.E. Moore has famously held that such a good cannot be defined. As Socrates says to Euthyphro, "Tell me then, by Zeus, what is that excellent aim [πάγκαλον ἔργον] that the gods achieve, using us as their servants?" [Euthyphro, 13e, G.M.A. Grube translation]. Euthyphro cannot answer; and so he simply says, πολλὰ καὶ καλά, "many beautiful things" -- although this gives us a clue.

Rather than a cause for "despair," the nihilist sees his nihilism as license and liberation. No one has the right to tell him what to do. Thus, a meaningless life means, as Sartre says, "All is permitted"; and the nihilist can do whatever he wants, like murdering someone at "Burning Man" (30 August 2025). This is happily commensurate with any kind of infantile narcissism, the Holy Grail of modern life, and goal of all Leftist politics, where criminals, anarchists, and terrorists are heroes; and épater le bourgeois authorizes, as the Cynics thought, doing in public what anyone used to be ashamed to do in private. Quite par for the course in San Francisco.

But there is no need to despair, indeed, any despair here is the result of faulty reasoning. The actual solution to the problem, as is frequently the case in philosophy, can be found by ruthlessly questioning the intelligibility of the question.

‘What could possibly count as an answer to this question?’ one would be wise to ask first. The answer is: nothing. Nothing would count as a correct answer. This is because life is not the kind of thing that can have a meaning. Suppose one is walking through the forest and finds a stone in one’s path. ‘What meaning does the stone have?’ one may say to oneself, in a philosophical mood. Well, one might think, ‘maybe someone put it there for me as a sign’. Here, one might be able to discern the stone’s meaning using various clues etc.

But no one put life there in front of us as a sign. Life, like an unplaced stone, is simply a naturally occurring phenomenon. What about God? There are many good reasons to think there is no God, all of which, of course, I cannot cover now. For the sake of the argument, assume with me that God is not a possible part of the solution to this so-called question.

This gives us a clue. If Crooks were not an atheist, and if he did believe there was a God, this would immediately provide answers to the meaning of life. The Biblical God has instructions and purposes for us:

בְּכָל־הַדֶּרֶךְ אֲשֶׁר צִוָּה יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם אֶתְכֶם
תֵּלֵכוּ לְמַעַן תִּחְיוּן וְטוֺב לָכֶם וְהַאֲרַכְתֶּם יָמִים
בָּאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר תִּירָשְׁוּן׃

κατὰ πᾶσαν τὴν ὁδὸν ἣν ἐνετείλατό σοι Κύριος ὁ θεός σου πορεύεσθαι ἐν αὐτῇ· ὅπως καταπαύσῃ σε, καὶ εὖ σοι ᾖ, καὶ μακροημερεύσητε ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἧς κληρονομήσετε.

Sed per viam quam praecepit Dominus Deus vester ambulabitis, ut vivatis et bene sit vobis, et protelentur dies in terra possessionis vestrae.

Ye shall walk in all the ways which the LORD your God hath commanded you, that ye may live, and that it may be well with you, and that ye may prolong your days in the land which ye shall possess. [Deuteronomy 5:33]

This covers a couple of matters. To "walk in all the ways of the LORD" has a value in itself, in obedience to God. That is one kind of meaning. Obeying God is a good, and thereby feeling the favor of God informs life with value. But this obedience also has a purpose, "that it may be well with you," so that the believer will prosper and do well, specifically, in this case, in the Promised Land that God has provided. Or: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me" [Psalm 23:4].

Prayer is a ritual act that occupies a spectrum from a brief moment, as when the Navajo greet the sunrise with an invocation and a small offering, to an extended meditative act whose culmination may be the mystical transport recounted by St. Teresa of Ávila. All of this, like all ritual, is dismissed as meaningless by the atheists and secularists -- like Hume's contempt for Catholic "mummeries" -- apparently that Catholics kneel as well as stand and sit during services. Hume probably never saw Muslims pray, which he might have found particularly alarming.

Yet prayer, as communion with God, or even the ritual practice of Buddhism, chanting Sutras, where there is no God, constitutes much of the "meaning of life" for the religious. Prayer is not just asking for stuff, or good fortune. Whether there is good fortune or not, the sense of "thou art with me" valorizes whatever is happening. One is comforted in the moment and fortified for the activities or experiences to follow. The atheist is alone with the Nietzschean Void.

One might notice that rosaries are used in Catholicism, ʾIslām, and Buddhism. Since these are used for counting, they are indeed meaningless outside a ritual context, where a ritual sequence may be followed or particular prayers repeated. The contempt of this from atheists can be palpable, even while they have their own ritual acts and formulae, as when anti-Semitic demonstrators march and chant "from the river to the sea," calling for the massacre of Jews, echoing Mediaeval and Modern precedents. They are exalted by their own hatred. Very different from St. Teresa.

أَلصَّلَاةُ خَيْرٌ مِنِ ٱلنَّوْمِ
ʾAṣ-ṣalātu ḫayrun mini n-nawmi.
Prayer is better than sleep.

The Call of the Orthodox Muezzin, مُؤَذِّن (muʾaððin)

But, without God, or even ritual, there are other perspectives, as Plato might have noted. First of all, "Suppose one is walking through the forest" means that one might notice that the forest is beautiful. This is often why people go for walks in the forest. Or in Navajo religion, a religiously proper life is simply to "Walk in Beauty," with the Navajo lands themselves providing suitably beautiful landscapes. It is meaningful in itself, and it refutes what Crooks says here: "Life, like an unplaced stone, is simply a naturally occurring phenomenon."

However, the unstated premise there is that "naturally occurring phenomena" are as such inert and without meaning. Plato would disagree. Naturally occurring phenomena "participate" in the Forms and thus may reflect their beauty and, ultimately, the Good. Indeed, they derive their very existence, Plato says, from the Forms, and so are imbued with value in all their being. Since beauty can be seen, Plato naturally saw it as the gateway, perhaps even through the sexual attraction of a lover, to the appreciation of all value and meaning. Indeed, erotic beauty can verge on the numinous, at once fascinating and dangerous.

All that Crooks allows is that the random stone might be a "sign." But this is rarely what one thinks on a random walk. It makes Crooks sound like an incurious and aesthetically insensitive person. But some stone may attract our attention because it looks different. It may, indeed, be beautiful, or it may exhibit intriguing geological features. That leads off into other considerations of meaningfulness.

Many people have collections of stones they have picked up, not because they are "signs," but because they are intriguing, even if the collector doesn't know much about minerology or petrology, or they are momentos of a location or an occasion -- such that their contemplation evokes pleasant memories and associations -- i.e. they are meaningful and infuse lives with meaning, from our memory. Or the collector may be inspired to investigate the geology of the stone, because, as in the motto of Faber College, "Knowledge is good."

From what Crooks says, he does not seem to have noticed that the forest is beautiful, or that it contains intriguing objects, like animals and trees, and not just stones. You don't really need to be a Platonist to appreciate all that, although Plato provides a metaphysic for it, all but unique in the history of philosophy. In a later essay, Crooks tests his nihilism against the question, "Is beauty in the eye of the beholder?"

‘Aha! So, life has no meaning then!’ one might still think. Not so. Life neither has a meaning nor lacks a meaning, for, to reiterate, life is not the kind of thing that could logically have a meaning at all. Suppose a child told you they were sad the number ‘1’ was not blue. ‘The number ‘1’ cannot have a colour!’ you might respond. Since it cannot have a colour (or lack a colour, be transparent), there is literally nothing to be sad about. The whole issue is a confusion – the same goes for ‘the meaning of life’.

There is a bit of sophistry here. Crooks has assumed, not demonstrated, that "life is not the kind of thing that could logically have a meaning at all." That the number "1" cannot have a color is irrelevant. It only shows that not all predicates apply to all things, not that "meaning" does not apply to life. So the first part of Crooks' essay here only tells us that he is an atheist and a kind of nihilist, not that "meaning" does not apply to life, or forests, or stones. Apart from the "sign," he hasn't considered anything that "meaning" might be for life, or stones, despite the clues from religion and the history of philosophy.

True and false meaning, and morality.

Of course, human beings (and only human beings) can find things meaningful during the course of their lives. This is perfectly true. As I have mentioned before, it is clear many groups find their activities meaningful - religious or otherwise. From vegan protestors to the strangest cult, from food bank operators to mothers caring for their children, from terrorists to freedom fighters and beyond, all find what they are doing to be meaningful, as is evidenced by the care they show and sacrifices they are willing to make in the course of the various tasks they set for themselves.

Of course, the nihilist, short of suicide, finds some reason to live, which means that their life will have some meaning, purpose, or value, even if it is only to propagate their nihilism -- like the history of religion course at Princeton University that people call "the faith buster." Crooks even allows that meaning can be "religious," which of course means that, in the absence of God (or the dharma, धर्म), the meaning is an illusion. Even terrorists find meaning, which tells us that the mass murder of the innocent is as good, on these terms, as religion, child care, or feeding the indigent. Be still my heart.

We might wonder for a moment how Crooks knows that "only human beings" find meaningful things in their lives. Has he ever played with a dog? What is their eagerness and excitment? They don't tell us about it, of course, but humans, including Crooks, have some ability to read emotions; and I cannot deny that dogs exhibit emotions. Cats.... I don't know.

‘But wait,’ one may ask, ‘does that mean anything you find meaningful is meaningful?’ No, I do not think so. The logical forms being forgotten here are ‘truly meaningful’ and arguments about what one ‘should find meaningful’. Observations, and therefore a science, of what people find meaningful, and what, for instance, is going on in their brains when they find something meaningful, can be undertaken, but they do not determine what is ‘truly meaningful’ or what we ‘should find meaningful’. These can only be determined by the rational practical and theoretical arguments of philosophy.

Oh, but Crooks wants to avoid full nihilism -- even though he has just said, in detail, that life is not something that, logically, can be meaningful. But there is going to be a rational distinction between the "truly meaningful" and the practice of religious yahoos or murderous terrorists. Philosophy to the rescue.

Philosophy is only concerned with certain specific kinds of problems, logical problems in the case of theoretical philosophy and fundamental problems about what we ought to do in the case of practical philosophy. The problem we are faced with here is the question ‘what is truly meaningful’? Public intellectual Douglas Murray has said that in the search for meaning, one should look where others have found it before. This might be a rough and useful rule of thumb, but it is not philosophically satisfying, for it does not give the logical form of what is truly meaningful.

You will notice that in every case of what people find meaningful, some things are cared about and some not. The question of ‘what should I care about?’ is morality’s fundamental question, since the nature of moral truths (norms) are partly defined as essentially the most fundamental norms we ought to follow. Here, we have our key to what is ‘truly meaningful’. The ‘truly’ is determined by moral considerations (not factual ones). So, the question then becomes, ‘what is it to be a good person?’

"What should I care about?" is not morality's fundamental question. That should be "What is right?" Confucius says:

The superior man understands what is right.

The mean man understands profit.
Analects IV:16

In doing Douglas Murray's investigation, this is something we should take into consideration. And we should also take into consideration something apparently precluded by Confucius. What is profitable or of advantage, 利, is something that people care about a great deal. It is not a matter of morality, but of prudence, which Confucians do not seem to consider. Thus, a "norm," 矩 (jǔ), of prudence may be very different from those of morality.

At this point, I suggest we turn to Aristotle, the author of the greatest book on ethics in history: Nichomachean Ethics. Space restrictions force us to take up the argument next time.

Aristotle is a philosopher of prudence, φρόνησις (prudentia); but what he means by it doesn't look relevant to what will be at issue here. The difference between right and wrong is different from that between the prudent and the imprudent. Thus, while prudence is a significant part of ethics, it is not germane to morality proper, which is about duties. Most importantly, Aristotle regards φρόνησις as a kind of wisdom, but not the highest kind of wisdom, σοφία (sapientia), which is not about action, ethics, or morality, but only about contemplation.

The failure of Crooks to distinguish between prudence and morality is reflected in his larger failure to discern that not all of ethics is taken up by morality. This is not, indeed, unusual; so it is not a particular failing of Crooks -- although it may be more unusual that Crooks does not seem to consider that morality contains duties. It does mean that we are not likely to find original ideas in Crooks. Indeed, there is little in Aristotle that can found a modern theory of ethics. And since Aristotle's "practical wisdom" is mostly a matter of prudence rather than morality, and so of hortatives rather than imperatives, the whole business is off the rails from its inception. Crooks has ethics without prudence, but morality without duties.

Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics has many flaws and shortcomings. Even Crooks thinks so. He may not, however, have understood the worse ones, as we shall see. At first we get, as an aside, reflections on philosophy that do not really contribute to the analysis or the arguments. Because this is so, but to give Crooks the dignity of continuity in his essay, I have removed these comments to a footnote, where they can be considered separately on their own terms, if desired.

When Crooks now does turn to Aristotle, it is to consider "problems" with his thought, whose resolution, in Crooks' terms, may seriously damage aspects of Aristotle that are actually of interest.

Crooks continues his treatment in the next essay, the fifth. I have left out his preferatory summary, which is redundant, after we have read the previous essay.

Two problems with Aristotle’s account of morality

At least two interconnected aspects of Aristotle’s account are flawed.

Aristotle's metaethics in the "Nicomachean Ethics" is grounded in a teleological framework, where every being has a purpose or end (telos). For humans, this end is eudaimonia, or “living well and doing well”. Central to this is the function argument, which posits that the good for humans is to perform their function well. This function is rational activity, and performing it well involves acting in accordance with virtue.

However, every being does not have a purpose. Human beings are naturally-occurring organisms that were not created for a reason. I have touched on this previously, and will assume here arguments involving God or gods are flawed without further comment. If human beings do not have a purpose, then eo ipso their function cannot be rational activity.

Aristotle did not believe that anything was "created for a reason" either, since he didn't believe in creation. His theory of causality was simply that everything, naturally, has both an efficient and a final cause, i.e. a "cause" as a pool shooter (i.e. a British Empiricist) sees it, and a purpose as everyone has in most of their daily activities.

Crooks doesn't really have an argument for this, any more than for the absence of meaning for natural objects. He falls back on his preconceptions about "naturally-occurring" objects and simply assumes that, organisms or not, they do not have final causes.

This is certainly a postulate of modern science, and of philosophers since Spinoza. If Crooks were not an atheist, he would certainly not believe it (unless, indeed, he is a Spinozist), since there would then be divine Creation, in which God would have his own purposes for everything.

Otherwise, we must consider that the world of human consciousness is as full of purposes as Aristotle's universe. It is the elimination of consciousness from a materialistic universe that gives credibiity to the elimination of purpose. However, as we have seen in quantum mechanics, consciousness is no longer so easily eliminated;

William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress, Plate 8, Tom Rakewell committed to Bedlam (Bethlem Hospital) for the Insane, 1734

and philosophy has not yet come to terms with this, apart from desperate recourse to save materialism and keep consciousness out, mainly so that Nihilism can be saved and the libertine can continue his self-destruction, as we see in the marvelous engravings of Hogarth's The Rake's Progress [1732-1735].

A reckoning with consciousness requires something like what I have called Kantian quantum mechanics, where cause and purpose are given equal metaphysical weight. William Crooks is unlikely to consider such modifications of his metaphysics. Like many in academic philosophy, he may not think that materialism is metaphysics at all.

But, as is common with great thinkers, I think Aristotle’s view can be tweaked in a way that makes sense of moral phenomena. It is not human beings that have a purpose, but their practices typically do. Moral reasoning is an invented practice (where else did it come from?), a practice that itself has the purpose of eudaemonia.

Crooks makes it a habit of having his cake and eating it too. We preserve nihilism, but there is going to be some kind of meaning anyway. Human beings have no intrinsic purpose, but we are going to come up with purpose anyway, on the grounds that human practices have purposes, i.e. that the contract killer takes money for murdering people. That indeed contributes to his happiness, Aristotelian εὐδαιμονία. We might note, however, that in Aristotle's definition of purpose, "all things aim at the good," and happiness itself is defined as a good:

The human good [ἀνθρώπινον ἀγαθόν, anthrṓpinon agathón] becomes the activity [ἐνέργεια, enérgeia] of the soul according to virtue [ἀρετή, aretḗ]. [Nicomachean Ethics, I, vii, 15, p.33].

This bears remembering when I have previously defined "meaning" in terms of the good.

Furthermore, while the function of human beings is not rationality, one must be capable of rationality to reason morally, and it is abundantly unclear what other power human beings possess that would lead us to eudaemonia besides reason, overblown assessments of instinct and intuition notwithstanding.

"Reason" here is really undefined, and Aristotle's own theory of reasoning, i.e. logic, traces proofs back to self-evident first principles, which would seem to be known by intuition. So it is not clear what theory of "reasoning" Crooks is going to use. And if the "function of human beings is not rationality," then the definition of "man, the rational animal," must be incorrect. By what power or ability are humans "rational" beings?

Arguably, Aristotle was projecting the form of our invented moral practices back on to human beings themselves, but he was on the right track.

It is nice here to see an admission, by the way, that Crooks is talking about "our invented moral practices," although I can't say why it would be a problem that they are projected "back on to human beings themselves." Presumably, they have not been "invented" by anyone else, or "projected" onto anyone else. Certainly not God, or gods, as Crooks says.

Now we move on to what must be the second of the "two problems" we were told about. However, I don't see this as a particular problem in Aristotle; and Crooks doesn't seem to give us Aristotle's answer to this triple negation. Since Aristotle rejects Plato's own moral realism, Crooks, agreeing with this, would not regard that as his problem.

Neither transcendental, objective, nor subjective

Plato is famous for arguing that one must understand the Form of the Good to act ethically, which is, in effect, an argument that a transcendent set of perfectly correct (“most real”) norms must exist to guide our conduct.

The point, of course, is about the foundation of moral judgment. If we accept Hume's argument that imperatives ("ought"), or matters of value, cannot be logically derived from indicatives ("is"), matters of fact, then moral imperatives cannot be founded on experience, which consists of matters of fact.

The nihilist then happily concludes that morality is based on nothing, although that is not what Hume said. To Hume, morals are based on custom and habit, which, being matters of fact, cannot really motivate moral value, which Hume understood quite well, making him a Skeptic -- concluding that the mind "takes a step" that is not justified by reason -- which would sound like a problem for Crooks, who relies on our (invented) rationality.

If there is a real foundation for moral judgment, Plato and Kant concluded that it would be non-empirical, the former in terms of the transcendent Forms, the latter in terms of his own, idiosyncratic construction of "Reason." Confucius, of course, appealed to the "Mandate of Heaven," 天命, Tiān Mìng, without providing us with a theory of how we know it -- although he had figured it out by the age of fifty.

However, as Wittgenstein convincingly indirectly argues, this view results in an infinite regress, and is therefore incoherent. For these rules to be correct, they would need to be correct by some standard, but then you are left with another set of rules that would need to be thought of as correct, and on and on ad infinitum. The simple point is that there are no such things as correct or incorrect norms, for standards of correctness themselves can be neither.

Crooks here invokes Wittgenstein's infamous "rule following" argument, that no rule can be consciously applied and followed ("no course of action could be determined by a rule, because every course of action can be made out to accord with the rule," etc.), where users of natural languages use rules unconsciously, but which would make it impossible to program a digital computer, or debug it for what went wrong, since this must be done consciously and deliberately.

Plato, in turn, sees people unconsciously using moral principles, just as in natural languages, often in a confused fashion. Socratic examination then exposes and clarifies the principles -- a process of the Recollection of our memories of the Forms. This is the theory and the demonstration found in the Meno.

Wittgenstein's argument against the possibility of following rules is of a piece with his equally infamous "family resemblences" theory of meaning, that rational precision is impossible, which would make mathematics and logic impossible. But then Wittgenstein, or certainly the "later" Wittgenstein, is a nihilist after Crooks' own heart (Alles ist wahr und auch das Gegenteil, "Everything is true, and also its opposite," which characterizes Wittgenstein's "language games" theory), so we might not be surprised at the appeal here.

Moreover, Aristotle questions the practical relevance of Plato's Form of the Good, arguing that its abstract nature makes it too detached to guide human action. Even if Plato were right, how do we make day to day judgments with supposed perfect norms that we have no access to?

Of course, Plato's Forms are not abstract, but concrete, and would contain all the variety of their possible application. Also, it is not true that "we have no access to" them, since our actions are guided by our access to our memories of the Forms, according to Plato's theory of "Recollection." It also must be remembered, that Plato's whole theory, and his application of it at the Academy, was founded on the practice of Socrates in asking people precisely about their "day to day judgments," with questions of right and wrong, according to standards and norms, apparently accepted by the people themselves. Socrates' conclusion was simply that people were not wise and thus did not know the standards they were themselves invoking. Plato thought that the standards needed to be "remembered."

Others argue that moral standards are objective, but for Humean reasons, this can’t be right either. There is no such thing as a moral fact, for logically no ‘ought statement’ can be derived from an ‘is statement’. Objective statements are true or false depending on the way the world is, but moral statements (‘murder is wrong’), like mathematical statements, are true regardless of how the world might change.

This common construction of Hume's argument is, naturally, contradicted by Hume himself:

Take any action allow'd to be vicious: Wilful murder, for instance. Examine it in all lights, and see if you can find that matter of fact, or real existence, which you call vice. In which-ever way you take it, you find only certain passions, motives, volitions and thoughts. There is no other matter of fact in the case. The vice entirely escapes you, as long as you consider the object. You never can find it, till you turn your reflexion into your own breast, and find a sentiment of disapprobation, which arises in you, towards this action. Here is a matter of fact; but 'tis the object of feeling, not of reason. It lies in yourself, not in the object. [A Treatise of Human Nature, Shelby-Bigge edition, Oxford, 1888, 1968, pp.468-469, original spelling, boldface added]

Thus, Hume does not see morality as "objective" in the sense of being in external objects, "till you turn your reflexion into your own breast," and so find an internal object which is the foundation of moral disapprobation. In this Hume continues the tradition of "moral sentiment" in Scottish philosophers, which does not help Crooks much if he wants morality to be "rational" in some Aristotelian sense. "Rationality" is exactly what Hume rejects as the foundation of morality.

In fact, Crooks immediately rejects Hume's moral standards of subjective sentiment:

Finally, some argue that moral standards are subjective - effectively that whatever you feel, think, or believe is right is right. But this can’t be correct either. If a person says ‘x is right’, they are logically committed to the proposition ‘I think x is right’, but not vice versa. Others can intelligibly dispute their claim, and one can always realize one was wrong, regardless of what one thought before. Compare with mathematics again: I can think ‘448+452=902’, but redoing the calculation come to the correct answer of 900, which was correct regardless of what I thought previously.

Here we must give Crooks some credit, for a significant problem with Hume's morality of sentiment is that it excludes any grounds of rational dispute. We have known people, certainly, who reject dispute and argument with the pronouncement, "Well, that's how I feel." They will not welcome the next question from Socrates, which perhaps is why they put him to death.

So Crooks wants to use Hume to reject the objective (i.e. empirical) nature of value, but then he doesn't want to accept Hume's alternative, which is the subjective nature of value. At the same time, Crooks uses a bogus argument from Wittgenstein to reject non-empirical, objective standards of judgment. Which makes me wonder what he thinks Socrates was looking for, as when he asked Euthyphro what piety was, or how the Republic asks what justice is.

So much for these dead ends. But what, then, is the full answer? It is to this we will turn next time.

Still on the way to a modified Aristotelian account of morality

In my last column, I criticized aspects of Aristotle’s account of morality, but showed it is preferable in some ways to some other venerable views in the Western tradition. These views (that morality is subjective, objective, or transcendental) are not just cloistered in philosophy departments, but constantly invoked to promote one ethical viewpoint or another, or in bad faith to disrupt ethical considerations when there is disagreement.

I would be surprised, dear reader, if you have never heard “it’s all relative” or “it’s subjective” when in a moral or political discussion (or perhaps said it yourself? *tsk tsk*). The reason these phrases have power is because there is an element of truth to them, but not in the way those who tend to use them think. Also, when any conversation gets philosophical, people are usually out of their depth, for philosophy is a very difficult and complex subject. Nevertheless, it is of ultimate value and we must forge on despite all challenges.

Mr. Crooks' seventh essay begins with these comments. It is noteworthy that while Crooks says that Aristotle's views are preferable to the ideas that "morality is subjective, objective, or transcendental," he didn't actually say what Aristotle had that is different -- even though this was presented as presumably a "problem" in Aristotle's own system. Here we learn that there is actually an "element of truth" in relativism and subjectivism. The first time we've heard about relativism at all.

Before moving on, I need to point out some of the real problems with Aristotle's ethics. Most importantly, Aristotle's theory is both postivistic and heteronomic. The former means that actual practices are given normative moral value, which violates the principle we've aleady seen in Hume, that imperatives cannot be deduced from indicatives. This produces grosteque injustices in the law, where the principle of "judicial positivism" is that justice is only positive law and the practice of the courts. This means that laws cannot, by definition, be unjust, and that whatever the courts do is, by definition, justice. This is absurd, and an outrage to any sense of natural justice. Yet they teach it in law schools.

With heteronomy, we go back to how Aristotle thinks that virtues are inculcated. Thus, ethics itself is a matter of habits. That is what the word, ἔθος, means, "custom, habit." So you find a virtuous person and do what they do. Imitate them. This gets you in the right habits. Obviously, you better find the right person. O.J. Simpson would not do. But this is precisely Kant's meaning of "heteronomy," the "law" that comes from "others." To which my answer might be, "Nobody asked me."

This is why Mr. Crooks would reject Plato and Kant. For them, moral knowledge comes from within. It is a matter of autonomy; and it carries us back to Socrates asking people, that if they guide their actions by what they think is good, what is that? They had difficulty answering. Aristotle can foist the answer, or no answer, off on someone else. "Well, I do what he does," whoever "he" is.

Aristotle confirms all this by saying that the study of ethics is not for the young. Only the older have the experience needed for the development of virtue. Indeed, the young do need guidance and correction, but they also may have the annoying habit of asking "Why?" The Aristotelian has no ad rem answer to that; but there is always a threshold of maturity where such questions become appropriate.

Hence the difference between Aristotle and Socrates. And we see how Plato addresses these features of the human condition. The young are ignorant; but education is not just to tell them what to do; it is to foster Recollection, by which they mature into moral autonomy. They will not become adults who simply say, "I was following orders."

Crooks never says anything that would direct us away from Aristotle's version of positivism and heteronomy. He cuts us off from any objective ground of morality, external or internal, immanent or transcendent, and yet also denies Hume's recourse to subjectivism. This leaves only the custom and habits of society and of paradigmatic individuals. A version of this, of course, can also be found in Hegel, where the "real," meaning existing practices and institutions, is "rational," meaning generated by the historical Dialectic. Such notions are popular now because, as Leszek Kołakowski says, "This is a convenient foundation for any ideology of slavery."

If Crooks says there is an "element of truth" in relativism and subjectivism, we can see why he thinks so. We get the relativism because we find a variety of behaviors in people, and cultures, that we might regard as Aristotelian "role models." We have no way of differentiating them out of our own resources, of which we have none. So they all seem relatively true. Not much help when push comes to shove.

In turn, this all seems very subjective, since the behaviors of our role models are not then based on anything else. Hume, Edmund Burke, and even F.A. Hayek thought that custom and habit were somehow self-validating, i.e. they were proven through history by their success. But that simply sounds like Utilitarianism, and it means we must already possess some criterion of success, which must have come from somewhere. Returning us to our original problem.

Back to Aristotle. Aristotle, who was so great he was often referred to as “The Philosopher” in medieval times (like Shakespeare is “The Bard”), is famous for defending possession of the virtues as constitutive of being a good man.

According to Aristotle, virtues are means between extremes of excess and deficiency, something he labelled as the "Golden Mean." I don’t think the “Golden Mean” notion is quite right, but it is roughly correct. Here is a brief account of some key virtues described by Aristotle:

Aristotle was "The Philosopher" until Neoplatonism arrived in the Renaissance, and people like Johannes Kepler realized that Plato understood and valued mathematics, as Aristotle had not. Then Descartes overturned Aristotle's whole idea of philosophy. While Aristotle remains valuable for many, and especially in Catholic theology, the mainstream development of Western Philosophy left him behind, even while some issues, like concern over the First Principles of Demonstration, call for the occasional Aristotelian refresher course, as in Fries and Popper.

Aristotle's "Golden Mean" test for virtues is mostly meaningless, since there is no real principle involved, and each virtue involves its own issues. Heidegger's exortation to "resoluteness" (Entschlossenheit) worked just as well for the Nazis as for anyone else and thus ignores any real moral issues involved with the "virtue." Thus, the list of virtues that follows in Crooks' seventh essay is almost entirely irrelevant to the argument. As above, I will give them, except for the treatment of justice, in a footnote.

Justice (Dikaiosyne)

Justice is a central virtue in Aristotle's ethics, encompassing fairness and lawfulness. It involves giving others their due and acting in accordance with laws that promote the common good. Justice is the mean in the sense of balancing one’s own interests with those of others and society as a whole.

This does not, of course, tell us much about justice, especially when we may get a bit of drift from this that justice is a socially "collective" matter. This, and all the issues about Aristotle's virtues, and particularly justice, will be a problem for other recent philosophers who appeal to Aristotle's "virtue ethics."

Καὶ πρότερον δὴ τῇ φύσει πόλις ἢ οἰκία καὶ ἕκαστος ἡμῶν ἐστίν.

Thus also the state is prior by nature to the household and to each of us.

Aristotle, Politics, Loeb Classical Library, Aristotle XXI, translated by H. Rackham, Harvard University Press, 1932, 1998, pp.10-11, translation modified.

From this, we see how individual rights will not be a foundational matter for Aristotle. Indeed, we get a nice, explicit assertion of judicial positivism from Aristotle:

Again, we saw that the lawless one [παράνομος] is unjust [ἄδικος] and the lawful one [νόμιμος] just [δίκαιος]. It is therefore clear that all lawful things [πάντα τὰ νόμιμα] are just [δίκαια] in one sense of the word, for what is lawful [νόμιμα] is decided by legislature [ὑπὸ τῆς νομοθετικῆς], and we say each of them is just [δίκαιον].

Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, V.i.12-13, 1129b12-14, Aristotle XIX, Loeb Classical Library, translated by H. Rackham, Harvard University Press, 1926, 1934, 1982, pp.256-259; translation modified after Terence Irwin, Nicomachean Ethics, Hackett Publishing Company, 1985, p.118.

So justice as "lawfulness," as Crooks says, will mean the priority of positive law; and we are left to wonder about Crooks whether Leftist "social justice," which means robbing (and demonizing) the productive to buy votes and sustain parasites (including politicians and bureaucrats), will be the main thing in his conception of "justice."

Aristotle’s virtues collectively outline a framework for achieving eudaimonia (“living well and doing well”) which he thinks is the ultimate goal of human life (as discussed, we have modified this to be the goal of morality as a whole). By cultivating these virtues, individuals can live balanced, rational, and fulfilling lives.

We see some grave shortcomings with Aristotelian εὐδαιμονία here. This is not a goal of morality at all, except for attendant actions that are the fulfillment of moral duty. In general, happiness is the goal of non-moral ethics and of hortative goods, as we see in the Polynomic Theory of Value. Crooks is obviously thinking of "morality" as constituting all of ethics, even while we are not told what actions, or what virtues, involve moral imperatives.

Aristotelians, indeed, can get the idea that happiness is a moral duty, which is absurd. "Living well" and "doing well" are more specifically matters of prudence. In fact, it takes a fair amount of luck, τύχη, for things to go well, as the Greeks were well aware: Solon is reported to have said that no one could be counted happy until after their death, when nothing more could go wrong for them. For happiness, the end, if it can be achieved. For morality, the means, which are what one does constantly.

At the same time, a "fulfilling life" depends on the value of the goal, and people find happiness in doing different things, and living different ways. The life of a contract killer may be happy and fulfilling. Lawrence Block's hitman, John Keller (beginning with Hit Man, 1988), seems to have such a life (however fictional). Yet everything he does is a violation of moral duty, and a crime. This cannot be a "goal of morality."

Next time, we will show how this view, with some further clarifications, is preferable to some other venerable views: deontology, utilitarianism, consequentialism, hedonism, and ethical egoism. Until then, ask yourself: What problems would a person who possessed these virtues face and cause for others?

If Crooks does all this, he still cannot show why happiness, on the Aristotelian view, is really fulfilling, or why moral duties would preclude certain kinds of lives. Perhaps "problems" that we would "cause for others" will give a clue.

Nevertheless, "What is life for?" seems to be a question for which "happiness" may be a trival answer. If we have a happy life from "walking in the ways of the Lord," there may be more involved.

Moral chess: Are we playing by the rules or making them up?

I presented my argument in a step-by-step, interrelated manner, aiming to build a logical foundation for the idea that moral norms must have an intrinsic purpose. Here’s how I laid it out:

I don't see how Crooks has done this, save by stipulation, not by argument. If happiness is the purpose of "morality," then this will mean many things to many people, and "moral norms" would seem to be necessary conditions, morally, of a life, happy or not, and not what would be sufficient, as matters of prudence, for happiness.

1. Moral norms are fundamentally meant to guide action. This idea is simple yet powerful: when we say "murder is wrong," it isn’t a statement of belief; it carries with it an imperative—"one shouldn’t commit murder." The purpose of a moral norm is to influence behavior, directing us toward certain actions and away from others.

Now this sounds serious. If "murder is wrong," then John Keller is not living a proper life, and not just as a matter of prudence. But "Murder is wrong" is indeed a proposition of belief, belief in a moral imperative. But a "moral norm" isn't just to direct us to or from "certain actions," but to preclude moral wrongs. It is how we got from prudential virtues, contributing to happiness, to moral imperatives that are the problem in the theory here by Crooks.

2. I proposed that moral norms must fall into one of three categories: they either have no purpose, some arbitrary purpose, or an intrinsic purpose.

This is basically irrelevant. Kant's "categorical imperative" is a duty regardless of consequences, which means its only purpose is righteous action. It is not like the purposes of ethical hortatives, whose ends are, in general, goods. Morality is only about one good. The variety of hortative goods makes for the varieties of human life and the different conditions of happiness for different people. "I am happy collecting beetles," will work for some, but probably not many, people. Yet it is perfectly innocent, unless the collector is a thief or otherwise commits crimes in his collecting.

3. There are an infinite number of potential moral systems. This premise acknowledges the vast array of moral frameworks that humans have developed across cultures and history. Each system offers different principles and norms that could theoretically guide our actions.

Now we see the Relativism. Yes, Hitler had his own "moral system," as do the Jihadists. Aristotle certainly regards the mores of the Greeks as superior to those of the Persians or Egyptians, but we would nevertheless worry that the Spartans had different "values" from the Athenians, while Aristotle himself wasn't an Athenian and served the Macedonian King. He didn't worry about Relativism, which Plato had examined, because the value of his own mores was self-evident.

4. On any given occasion, we choose which moral norm to apply. While we may not always consciously make this choice, the fact remains that in practice, we often decide which moral rule to follow in a particular situation. For instance, in scenarios where honesty and kindness may conflict, we must choose which norm takes precedence.

This is absurd. What warehouse of "moral norms" to choose from is Crooks consulting in his choices? He has admitted that there is a "vast array of moral frameworks that humans have developed across cultures and history," so if the question is whether to kill the Jews, what weight will he give to the values of Hilter or the Jihadists in making a choice?

Or perhaps Crooks is thinking of moral dilemmas; but I don't see much else about that here -- there is no actual treatment of moral dilemmas -- and Crooks' dilemmas may simply involve the stock of incommensurable "norms" from which he makes his choices.

5. If moral norms have no purpose, they cannot guide action. This follows from the earlier premises. Without a purpose, norms lack the necessary criteria to determine which should be applied in any given situation. This would render them ineffective as guides for action.

As I said, moral norms only have one purpose, which is to preclude wrongful action. But Crooks is confusing them with hortatives, which involves goods that are the purposes of general human activity, perhaps even leading to "happiness." Or perhaps just getting the plumbing fixed.

6. If moral norms have just any purpose, they also fail to guide action. Here, I argued that if norms had any arbitrary purpose without being intrinsically purposeful, we would still face the problem of selecting the correct purpose. This would again lead to a paralysis in decision-making, as we would have no definitive way to choose between conflicting norms.

Since purposes reduce to the value of their ends, it is not the "correct purpose" that is to be selected, but the correct good for the end. And moral goods, as imperatives, are not a matter of choice at all, unless they are to be violated, perhaps in a dilemma.

7. Thus, moral norms must have an intrinsic purpose. Given the failures of the other two options, I concluded that moral norms must inherently possess a purpose that compels us to follow them and remain moral. This intrinsic purpose is what gives them their guiding power.

Although Crooks' heading for this section is "Moral chess: Are we playing by the rules or making them up?" the issue of whether we are just "making them up" doesn't seem to be addressed. Instead, the "moral norms" just seem to be out there, somewhere, among societies, cultures, and history. Hume, or Hayek as well, would not say they are thereby just "made up," but they are developed by historical trial and error.

Mr. Crooks began his eighth essay with the "Moral chess" treatment above. The principal content of the essay, however, involved an exchange he had with Dr. Severin Schroeder, who is in the Philosophy Department at the University of Reading, although Schroeder began his career in Germany and his earliest works, going back to the 1990's, are in German. The University of Reading website lists his specialties as Wittgenstein, Aesthetics, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. With a speciality in Wittgenstein and Nietzsche, where there is no ethical theory with the former, and an ethic of the strong exploiting the weak in the latter, we might wonder what kind of contribution Severin Schroeder can be prepared to make to Crooks' moral philosophy. Crooks does not say how his exchange with Schroeder happened.

Dr. Schroeder’s challenge

Dr. Schroeder was quick to challenge several key aspects of my argument. He focused particularly on the idea of "choosing" moral norms, questioning whether we actually make such choices. He pointed out that certain norms, like "do not murder," are not typically chosen in the way we might choose the rules for a game -- they are simply accepted as givens in our moral framework.

Of course, if Crooks was thinking of dilemmas, choices will be involved. If Crooks was thinking of a sort of ethical buffet of moral systems, laid out by different cultures or philosophers, then choice might be a little unusual, except for philosophers.

Moreover, Dr. Schroeder raised the possibility that norms could be arbitrary and still guide action effectively. He cited examples from rituals, etiquette, and the rules of games, where norms often seem arbitrary but nonetheless serve to guide behavior.

Schroeder may be thinking of Wittgenstein's "language games" theory. But then the rules of such games are not individually chosen either, since Wittgenstein insists that they must come from a linguistic community. Whether or not arbitrary rules "guide action effectively" would seem to be a matter of chance. If our arbitrary rule is "Play Russian Roulette," this is not liable to turn out well for most players.

The idea of Hume that a moral system is validated by its historical success doesn't seem to involve elements of arbitrary choice; and anyone following in that tradition must face the moral problem that arbitrary choices, just to see what will happen, which may result in damage or death, can then be accused of callously playing with people's lives. No, innovations in moral systems are always motivated by someone thinking that their suggestions already sound morally correct -- even when common sense might regard them as dangerous or vicious, e.g. Communism.

This forced me to reconsider my position. I asked Dr. Schroeder to clarify what he meant by "choosing a norm." In my view, while we might not choose the norms themselves — such as the prohibition against murder — we do choose to apply these norms in specific situations. This distinction seemed crucial to me, as it underscores the active role we play in moral decision-making.

A murderer might see himself as "choosing" whether or not to apply a moral prohibition against murder; but this is not the reasoning of a morally mature or correct person. What "specific situation" is it that Mr. Crooks would "choose" not to apply the prohibition against murder?

I also questioned whether moral norms could truly be arbitrary. Drawing on the work of philosophers like Wittgensteinian Paul Johnston, I suggested that moral norms are paradigmatically non-arbitrary. If they were arbitrary, I argued, they would lose their authority and binding force, becoming little more than suggestions rather than imperatives.

Of course, if a moral imperative is properly a duty, it is neither chosen nor arbitrary. Not even Aristotle would say so (although he does say nothing about moral duties), even while the social norms upon which he relies have no proper claim to moral force.

Even if Mr. Crooks' "moral norms" are not arbitrary, they do not therefore have any "authority and binding force." They are only authoritative and binding if they are right and good. The force of social norms is, in practical terms, one of force, not justice or goodness. Thus, when the IRS tells Mr. Crooks to pay his taxes, this will not just be a "suggestion," however arbitrary. Men with guns may show up.

The debate deepens

As our conversation progressed, Dr. Schroeder offered an intriguing analogy between moral norms and the rules of chess. In chess, the movement of the knight is arbitrary — there's no inherent reason why it moves in an L-shape rather than any other way. Yet, these rules are universally accepted within the game, allowing it to function coherently.

Here we may be seeing a Wittgensteinian "language game" application again. If you break the rules of chess, you simply cannot play chess. If you break the rules of morality or justice, you are wicked and/or a criminal. Wittgenstein's claim that language is a game "because it is played," is false because language isn't "played"; and users of language can break the rules of grammar for effect quite frequently. They may thereby well be counted clever, not wicked; and in time the grammar of the language may itself change, producing a new language, i.e. French from Latin.

While I agreed with this analogy to some extent, I argued that even in games, there is a kind of purpose or goal that is a part of the rules’ meaning. Without a coherent set of rules and objectives, the game would fall apart. Similarly, I suggested that if morality lacks a 'winning condition' or a clear purpose, the whole practice risks disintegration.

Crooks continues to overlook the component of duty and obligation in morality. Games do have rules for a purpose, which is to play the game. Morality is not a game, and its rules are simply for the purpose of righteousness, which itself is justified as morally good. If rights are respected by moral action, then their observance removes conflict and crime from society; but if rights are violated, the failure of a "winning condition" is trivial, where harm, loss, damage, and death may result.

This led me to a broader question: can we view morality as a game without a clear objective? And if so, what keeps it from collapsing into chaos? Dr. Schroeder responded by asserting that morality is not about achieving a win but about adhering to deeply ingrained and non-negotiable norms. He saw my approach as overly instrumental, focusing too much on the importance of potential ends.

If Schroeder's morality involves "deeply ingrained and non-negotiable norms," then nothing about them can be arbitrary, and we are still left wondering where they come from, and how they obtain the status Schroeder now gives to them. They are not going to get it from Wittgenstein or Nietzsche.

If Crooks' approach is "overly instrumental," this may be a way of saying that it is trivializing, although Schroeder use of the "game" analogies sounds just as trivializing, as it does in Wittgenstein. Yet Crooks could object that in Aristotelian ethics, there is a primacy of the end, since Aristotle thinks that everything aims at an end, for which εὐδαιμονία is the ultimate end for human life.

Crooks and Schroeder thus may be somewhat at cross purposes, with the former looking at Aristotle's prudential ethics and happiness, while Schroeder may think of a more Kantian sense of moral imperatives as ends-in-themselves -- although I don't see how he would get that from the philosophers in whom he specializes.

This response made me pause and reconsider the role of reason in moral discourse. If moral norms are not about achieving specific ends, how do we justify them when someone plausibly denies a moral claim? For instance, if someone questions the norm against lying, how do we reason with them if not by appealing to some broader purpose?

Again, it is not clear to me what Crooks is even going to mean by "reason." We do reason about lying, which is sometimes justified, often depending on its purpose. Kant wants there to be an absolute prohibition against lying, as an instance of a categorical imperative; but lying to the Germans about the Jews you are sheltering might later get you celebrated as one of the "Righteous among the Gentiles" -- or murdered by the Germans. That's a choice.

Crooks seems to think that all moral reasoning is about purposes; but, as we have seen, purposes always lead back to goods-in-themselves, which Crooks never considers. Respecting the autonomy of others is itself a good-in-itself and cannot be justified by any sort of ulterior purpose, as one would do in Utilitarianism. Similarly, the Supreme Court sees free speech justified by its effect in society and politics, while free speech is actually to be justified as a natural right and a feature of one's own freedom and autonomy. It is a right to speak the truth.

Reason vs. emotion

Our discussion eventually touched on the role of emotion in moral debates. Dr. Schroeder pointed out that reason often takes a back seat to emotion and prejudice, complicating the resolution of moral disputes. I couldn't disagree with this observation; however, I still hold that reason has a crucial role to play, especially when individuals share some foundational values.

Emotion and prejudice certainly can complicate moral debates, but they are irrelevant to the actual justification of moral imperatives and hortatives, unless "emotion" means Hume's moral sentiments, or "prejudice" Hume's custom and habits of social tradition, which certainly would not suit Crooks' (or Hume's) idea of "reason." Schroeder, however, may be thinking of "ordinary language" again.

I also suggested that moral norms might evolve over time, much like a person's beliefs might shift due to new experiences or challenges. Dr. Schroeder acknowledged this possibility but remained skeptical about the power of reason to fully resolve moral disputes, especially when there are deep-seated differences in values.

It is not "moral norms" that can evolve over time, but our understanding of them. To a positivist, however, these are the same thing, in the sense that social practice is the "understanding" we would talk about. Schroeder is certainly going to be "skeptical" about reason in moral disputes, when his philosophers, like Wittgenstein and Nietzsche, are essentially irrationalists. But then Crooks has given us little about how ethical reasoning is going to work, except for his Aristotelian appeal to purposeful ends. But Aristotle, of course, as a heteronomist, doesn't really appeal to reason himself, but to the habits of those with good moral reputation, like Bill Clinton, whom we should emulate -- after Socrates, of course, concluded that those with the greatest reputation for wisdom were actually the most deficient.

Finding common ground

Despite our differences, Dr. Schroeder and I found some common ground by the end of our exchange. We both recognized that while radical moral differences can make discourse difficult, there is often enough shared ground to make reasoned discussion possible. I advocate for the progressive refinement of moral systems, emphasizing the need for resilience and adaptability in the face of moral challenges.

"Shared ground," unfortunately, depends on who is doing the sharing, which is perhaps why Socrates concentrated on the internal coherence of what individual people were telling him. The "progressive refinement" of our moral understanding may be helped by suggestions or contrasts or challenges from the thought of others; but neither Crooks, nor Aristotle, nor Schroeder seem to be the kind of people to engage in a proper foundational inquiry, which requires a proper metaethical epistemology and metaphysics. We do not see that here, certainly not from Aristotle or the likes of Wittgenstein or Nietzsche. Schopenhauer might help out Schroeder's understanding, but I expect that is overwhelmed by the other influences.

Ultimately, this conversation highlighted the complexity of moral philosophy, where questions of purpose, arbitrariness, and reason are deeply intertwined. The answers are rarely straightforward, and the journey to understanding is ongoing. While Dr. Schroeder remains cautious about the limits of reason in moral discourse, I maintain that it plays a crucial role in guiding the evolution of our moral systems.

This exchange with Dr. Schroeder has deepened my understanding and pushed me to refine my thoughts. The discussion is far from over, and I look forward to where these reflections might lead next.

I have trouble seeing how the exchange between Crooks and Schroeder improved anything in Crooks' treatment, whose problems were beyond what Schroeder, with his background, would have been prepared to address. Schroeder is drawing on philosophers with little respect for reason, however that is construed, while Crooks is trapped within the confines of Aristotelian ethics, in which "reason" plays little role, once we understand his positivism and heteronomy.

Crooks has sent more essays since the ones I have addressed here, and his treatment of beauty, as in the "eye of the beholder," may occasion some interesting reflections, since his aesthetics cannot be of a realistic kind, as it would be in Plato or Schopenhauer. So I may return to that in time.

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Philosophy According to William Crooks, Note 1

On the way to a modified Aristotelian account of morality

The concepts ‘and’, ‘good’, ‘evil’, ‘breath’, ‘apple’ etc., i.e. huge areas of our vocabulary, have not really changed over time, which is evidenced by the basic fact that ancient languages are, for the most part, translatable into modern forms.

While a tremendous amount of debate and reflection goes into word usage in philosophy, this is mostly because it is extremely difficult to think through, in an abstract and comprehensive way, all the logical connections between our concepts. Moreso, philosophers commonly introduce new abstract concepts, like ‘a priori’, ‘conceptual’, ‘analytic’, ‘empirical’ etc., to do their work, which themselves stand in need of complete clarification and assessment.

But this is precisely why so many of the problems of philosophy do not go away from generation to generation, for each new cohort must think through philosophy’s issues afresh. It is also why the great thinkers of the past can say so much that is still valuable to us in the present. Aristotle’s account is best because it does not succumb to the serious flaws of other standard accounts: transcendental, objective, and subjective.

Philosophy According to William Crooks, Note 2

Courage (Andreia)

Courage is the virtue related to facing fears and enduring hardships. It lies between the extremes of recklessness and cowardice. A courageous person confronts danger with confidence and perseverance but does not seek unnecessary risks.

Temperance (Sophrosyne)

Temperance pertains to self-control and moderation, particularly concerning bodily pleasures. It is the mean between self-indulgence and insensibility. A temperate individual enjoys pleasures in a balanced and reasonable manner without overindulgence or total abstinence.

Liberality (Eleutheriotis)

Liberality involves the appropriate use of wealth. It is the mean between prodigality (wastefulness) and meanness (stinginess). A liberal person gives generously and appropriately, without being extravagant or miserly.

Magnificence (Megaloprepeia)

Magnificence, related to liberality, is the virtue of spending large sums of money on worthy public causes. It lies between vulgarity (tastelessness in spending) and niggardliness (excessive frugality). A magnificent person invests in grand projects that benefit the community.

Magnanimity (Megalopsychia) Magnanimity, or "greatness of soul," is the virtue of having the proper self-regard and ambition. It is the mean between vanity and pusillanimity (lack of ambition). A magnanimous individual recognizes their worth and strives for noble goals without arrogance or undue humility.

Proper Ambition (Philotimia)

Proper ambition involves the right desire for honour. It is the mean between over-ambition and lack of ambition. An individual with proper ambition seeks recognition for their genuine accomplishments and contributions without being overly driven by the need for external validation.

Patience (Praotes)

Patience, or good temper, is the virtue concerning anger. It lies between irascibility (quickness to anger) and lack of spirit (failure to feel anger when appropriate). A patient person experiences and expresses anger in a controlled and rational manner, responding proportionately to the situation.

Truthfulness (Aletheia)

Truthfulness is the virtue related to honesty and integrity. It is the mean between boastfulness (exaggeration of the truth) and self-deprecation (downplaying the truth). A truthful person presents themselves and their achievements accurately without deceit or false modesty.

Wit (Eutrapelia)

Wit is the virtue of engaging in pleasant and appropriate humor. It lies between buffoonery (excessive or inappropriate humor) and boorishness (lack of humor). A witty person uses humor to foster social bonds and lighten situations without crossing the line into offensiveness.

Friendliness (Philia) Friendliness, or amicability, concerns the appropriate manner of interacting with others. It is the mean between obsequiousness (excessive friendliness for personal gain) and quarrelsomeness (hostility). A friendly person maintains harmonious and respectful relationships.

Modesty (Aidos)

Modesty is the virtue of having a proper sense of shame. It lies between shamelessness (lack of regard for moral or social standards) and excessive shyness. A modest person recognizes and adheres to appropriate social and moral norms without being overly inhibited.