Theodor W. Adorno: Problems of Moral Philosophy

1 Theodor W. Adorno (1903 – 1969): German philosopher, sociologist, and music theorist. Due to his Jewish background, he was in exile from 1934 until after World War II. He was the most influential German intellectual in the first two decades after WW II.

2 Preliminary remarks on Adorno’s philosophy
Shaped by the experience of war and the holocaust, his main question was why humanity fell back in barbarism, instead of entering a truly human state. After WW II, he dedicated much of his reflection to the holocaust and the importance of remembering what happened.
Philosophizing in the tradition of Hegel and Marx, he was looking for the logic that brought about the dictatorships in the first half of the 20th century, the war with over 50 millions dead and the holocaust. He found that in the logic of a one-sided, instrumental reason used only to control and dominate nature. Domination of outside nature, inner drives and fellow man go together as Adorno pointed out, right from the beginning of (Western) human history. (Story of Odysseus and his passage by the sirens.)
A further important background assumption is that within a capitalist society, human freedom cannot be achieved. The realm of human freedom exists only beyond the realm of material production, which has to be done for mere survival. Only if man has the possibility, to devote his time and energy to areas beyond the satisfaction of his essential needs, he will be truly free.

3 Cornerstones of his idea of moral philosophy:
3.1 “There can be no good life within the bad one” (p. 1):
There are two claims in this sentence to differentiate:
(a) The inseparability of the individual and universal: According to Adorno, the individual life is determined by the conditions governing society. The lives of human beings are interwoven with the (conditions of) life of the society.
(b) The badness of the (rules governing) society: Working within a Marxian framework, a society which is based on exploitation and divided in the “haves” and “have-nots” is negative and should be changed.
(See Emile Durkheim’s quote: „For individuals share too deeply in the life of society for it to be diseased without their suffering infection. What it suffers they necessarily suffer.“)
3.2 Strict separation of “lived”-world view and moral philosophy (p. 2): With Kant and Scheler, Adorno maintains that there is no direct connection between these two realms. He insists to his students, that he cannot give them “bread to eat” but only “throw stones at their heads”; i.e. that he cannot provide practical advice. (See point 3.7)
3.3 Definition of Moral philosophy (p. 5): Moral philosophy means trying “to achieve a true, conscious understanding of the categories of morality and of the questions that relate to the good life”. So moral philosophy is about establishing a consciousness about the contradictions we are confronted with while trying to act morally.
3.4 Morality goes beyond theory (p. 7 – 9): Morality has a moment of spontaneity that theory cannot accommodate. Adorno explains that with the reasons that were behind the assassination attempt on Hitler on the 20 July 1944; there is – he points out – “something shameful” about talking of morality “in the confort of a lecture room” (p. 8)
3.5 Explanation of the terms “morals” and “ethics” (p. 9 – 11): (a) Morals comes from the Latin “mores” meaning “custom”. However, it is problematic for Adorno to rely on customs, because “the possibility of the good life in the forms in which the community exists [...] has been radically eroded” (p. 10). (b) Ethics comes from the Greek word “ethos” meaning “nature” or “character”, somehow suggesting that it suffice to live according to my character. However, that is problematic for Adorno as the “self”; the character is determined already deformed by society.
3.6 Ibsen’s Wild Duck: The failure of the ethics of conviction and the ethics of responsibility (p. 158 – 165)
(a) Ethics of conviction: The motive of the agent is only relevant. (Exponent: Kant)
(b) Ethics of responsibility: This “in an ethics in which at every step you [...] simultaneously reflect on the effect of your action, and whether the goal envisaged will be achieved.” (p. 162, exponent: Hegel)
(c) “There is no good life in the bad one, for a formal ethics cannot underwrite it, and the ethics of responsibility that surrenders to otherness cannot underwrite it either. The question that moral philosophy confronts today is how it should react to this dilemma.” (p. 166)
3.7 Adorno’s practical advice (lecture 17):
(a) Moral philosophy is about creating consciousness: Repeatedly, Adorno emphasizes the moral philosophy today is about producing consciousness: “that essentially it would consist in the attempt to make conscious the critique of moral philosophy, the critique of its options and an awareness of its antinomies.” (p. 167)
(b) Self-Reflection: Adorno speaks of self-reflection as “the true heir to what used to be called moral categories.” (p. 169) If there is a good life, then it consists in “reflecting on our own limitations” and see “that true injustice is always to be found [...] where you put yourself in the right and other people in the wrong.” (p. 169) Adorno suggests modesty as the only cardinal virtue.
(c) Resistance: According to Adorno, we have to resist “to heteronomy in its concrete forms.” (p. 170) Any repressive norms – e.g. in the field of sexual morality – have to be rejected. After the positive religion “lost their power over people’s minds” (p. 171), these are still subjected to “the objective spirit [and the] cultural consciousness” (p. 171) that rule our lives. (E.g.: Resistance against blindly accepting any cultural norms)
(d) Politics: “In short, anything that we can call morality today merges into the question of the organization of the world. We might even say that the quest for the good life is the quest for the right form of politics.” (p. 176)

Preparation Questions for Oral Exam

Questions on the Different Philosophers

i) How does Wittgenstein try to prove that ethical sentence are nonsense? (And what can we learn from Wittgenstein radical approach?)
ii) “A happy life is a virtuous life”. What are and how does Aristotle link happiness and virtue?
iii) What is Aristotle’s account of the good and of the human function?
iv) What is the Categorical Imperative and how does it arrive at a decision? (Where is it able to provide a solution and where is it not able to?)
v) How does Kant discuss the four examples (suicide, promise keeping, developping one’s talent and helping) in his GMM? How can the formula of the end in itself help understanding these cases?
vi) What are the key features of Mill’s principle of utility? (And what might be the problem with his theory?)
vii) How can the different form of utilitarianism (negative, rule, pluralistic, preference) be understood as reactions to criticism?
viii) What are the main aspects of Spinoza’s understanding of a good life?
ix) What is Adorno’s critizism of Kantian and Utilitarian Ethics and what does he suggest?

General Questions about the Course

i) What were the key questions discussed in this course? (Or: What is ethics?)
ii) How does the course title “Foundations of Moral Value” relate to our discussion of the different philosophers?
iii) Is there a commonality between the different philosophers discussed?
iv) How did the fundamental distinction between IS and OUGHT appear in the different texts discussed?
v) What is the understanding and function of the concept of happiness in the different philosophical texts discussed?
vi) Which of the discussed philosopher is the most convincing? Why?

Points on Spinoza

1. Mechanical understanding of mind and body
Understanding, for Spinoza, means to grasp the causal relations. Everything in nature (and there is no outside) follows from necessity (Determinism). Thus, human life can be examined in the same way: "I shall consider human actions and appetites just as if it were a question of lines, planes, and bodies.” (Preface, III)

2. Differentiation between Action and Passion
- "The human body can be affected in many ways in which its power of acting is increased or diminished." (IIIPost.1)
- "The human body can undergo many changes, and nevertheless retain impressions, or traces, of the objects, and consequently, the same images of things." (IIIPost.2)
Having established the human body as a physical object among others, following the same logic, Spinoza introduces the differentiation between action (where the cause lies within ourselves) and passions (where there is an external cause):
- "Therefore, if we can be the adequate cause of any of these affections, I understand by the affect an action; otherwise, a passion." (IIId3)
In the first case, the reason is in control of the passions, in the second case the emotions are in charge.

3. How is the transformation of a passion through reason possible?
An example is given in IVp46, where Spinoza recommends to repay hate with love, not out of charity, but rather because of the ability to increase the power. (See IVp46d/s)

4. Good and Perfect
Spinoza understands "by good what we know certainly is a means by which we may approach nearer and nearer to the model of human nature we set before ourselves." (IVpref)
- "Men are more perfect or imperfect, insofar as they approach more or less near to this model." (IVpref)
- "by perfection ... I shall ... understand reality, that is, the essence of each thing" (IVpref)
Having stated these quotes of Spinoza, we see the Aristotlian outlook of his theory. I suggests in the whole of his ethics, not just a metaphysics, but a anthropology (discussing God, mind, affects, power of affects, and power of mind).

5. Again: Descartes vs. Spinoza
Descartes: mind acts on -> animal spirit -> influences emotions -> control of entire human being
Spinoza: Against the ability to control without conditions. To increase our power is not a matter of "pure moral will" but rather "a feat in applied medicine or engineering" (Bennett, p. 330)*

6. Three kinds of knowledge
a) Accidental knowledge of singular facts
b) Scientific knowledge
c) True insight into the essence and causality of the universe/nature (sub specie aeternitatis, under a species of eternity)
This knowledge of nature is knowledge - even love - of God, and the highest virtue and form of joy.

Notes:
- A good summary of Spinoza's ethics can be found at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza/#2)

- For further information on the background of Spinoza and the other parts of the ethics please see my presentation "Introduction to Spinoza"

- *For good discussion and explanation of Spinoza's text I suggest: Bennett, Jonathan, A Study of Spinoza's Ethics, Indianapolis: Hackett, 1984

Spinoza

(For an introduction please refer to the Powerpoint Presentation given in class.)

Quotes from Book III

“The affects, therefore, of hate, anger, envy, and the like, considered in themselves, follow with the same necessity and force of Nature as the other singular things ... Therefore, I shall treat the nature and powers of the affects, and the power of the mind over them, by the same method by which, in the preceding parts, I treated God and the mind, and I shall consider human actions and appetites just as if it were a question of lines, planes, and bodies.” (Preface, III)

“Therefore, if we can be the adequate cause of any of these affections, I understand by the affect an action, otherwise, a passion.” (3d3)

“Our mind does certain things [acts] and undergoes other things, namely, insofar as it has adequate ideas, it necessarily does certain things, and insofar as it has inadequate ideas, it necessarily undergoes other things.” (3p1)

“The actions of the mind arise from adequate ideas alone; the passions depend on inadequate ideas alone.” (3p3)

“Each thing, as far as it can by its own power, strives to persevere in its being.” (3p6)

Suggested Readings

- Korsgaard, Christine: Creating the Kingdom of Ends
(Esp. Chs. 3&4. Korsgaard gives an interpretation of the different formulas of the Categorical Imperative, discussing - among others - how we should understand the notion of the "contradiction"; logical, teleological or practical)

- Smart, JJC/Williams, Bernard: Utilitarianism for and against
(Esp. Williams' critique of Utilitarianism. The small volume consists of Smart's defense and Williams critique of Utilitarianism and will help better to understand the pros and cons of this ethical theory)

Both readings can be found in the reserve section of the library.

Utilitarianism Beyond Bentham and Mill

1 Negative Utilitarianism...
... claims that instead of focussing on pleasure (or equally on pleasure and pain), Utilitarianism should concentrate on avoiding pain and suffering. Two arguments speak in favor of negative Utilitarianism: - “From the moral point of view, pain cannot be outweighed by pleasure, and especially not one man’s pain by another man’s pleasure.” (Karl Popper: The open society and its enemys, London 1945)[1] - “It adds to clarity in the fields of ethics, if we formulate our demands negatively, i.e. if we demand the elimination of suffering rather than the promotion of happiness.” (ibid.)

2 Hedonistic vs. Pluralistic Utilitarianism:
1.1 Hedonistic Utilitarianism:
Utility is conceived entirely in terms of happiness or pleasure. Pleasure and the freedom from pain or the only things desirable as ends. (e.g. Bentham)
2.2 Pluralistic Utilitarianism:
There are different goods that should be maximized and that are desireable as ends, such as friendship, knowledge, courage, health, beauty, some states of consciousness. All these goods have intrisic value, ie. are desirable as ends. An action than has to be measured in terms of intrinsic values it produces. (e.g. Georg Edward Moore)[2]
(Mill might be seen as a philosopher, who is somehow between the two forms, as J.J.C. Smart points out.)

3 Act vs. Rule Utilitarianism
3.1 Act Utilitarianism...
... considers the consequences of each particular act. In order to decide, what we should do, we have to apply the principle of utility to individual actions. Question to ask: “What good and evil consequences will result from this action in this circumstance?”[3]
3.2 Rule Utilitarianism:
According to rule utilitarianism, one has to act according to rules, which bring about the best consequences. “The conformity of an act to a valuable rule makes the act right.”[4]

4 Preference Utilitarianism
What should be maximized are the preferences or interests of persons. People (and other sentient beings) have interests various as not feeling pain, increasing one’s reputation and becoming more knowledgable. Intrinsically valuable is what people prefer to obtain. Preference Utilitarianism avoids the dispute between hedonistic and pluralistic utilitarianism and makes utilitarian calculations easier. (e.g. Peter Singer)

[1] See: http://www.socrethics.com/www.negutil/www.monuism/NU.htm
[2] For a short account of hedonistic and pluralistic Utilitarianism see: Beauchamp, Tom and Childress, James: Principles of Biomedical Ethics, New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979, p. 23f.
[3] Beauchamp and Childress, p. 27
[4] Beauchamp and Childress, p. 30

Reflections about the Film "Can the End justify the Means?"

One would expect utilitarianism to come up with a clear answer on the question whether to build the dam or not. However, it gives raise to many different questions:

- Who should be part of the cost/benefits or maximization of happiness calculus? Human Beings? All sentient beings? Or do other values matter too like biodiversity?

- Do we have to take into consideration just happiness or do other things have intrinsic value as well (like art, love, friendship and wisdom) as ideal/pluralistic utilitarianism suggests?

- Jonathan Glover: We actually do make choices weighing costs and benefits, e.g. when parents decide whether to send one child to a better school or the other to a holiday. However, incertainties remain about the precision and the prognosis

- Utilitarianism gives an account of when a sacrifice of one group of people can be justified, which is one of its harsher aspects. What are the implications of that?

- Utilitarianism can be understood as research project: Long and thorough investigations only will provide an adequate answer (which is the result on the emphasis utilitarians put on the consequences).