CHAPTER 8: CONSEQUENCES

● Pragmatism
○ Variety of relativism
○ Stresses on the practical, on what works, on results or consequences
○ Focuses on the proximate end, not the ultimate end
○ It does not consider an act good or bad because commanded or forbidden by someone in
authority, but rather tries to find what it is that authority ought to command or forbid.
○ One of the strongest foes of traditionalism
○ Constantly calling for new social experiments to discover more beneficial ways of living.
○ Relativism in the form of pragmatism is chiefly concerned with the ends or purposes of
human living.
○ Closely associated with utilitarianism
■ Pragmatism - an epistemological theory; holding the true to be that which works,
so that the truth of propositions is to be tested by their consequences in
producing more satisfaction for the individual or group
■ Utilitarianism an ethical theory, holding the good to be that which works, so that
moral goodness is judged by its consequences for society in obtaining the greatest
happiness of the greatest number.
● Ethical relativism
○ There is nothing good or bad absolutely, but that all morality is relative to the individual or
to the society one belongs to.
● What may have good consequences to one person may be disastrous to another, what may work
in one part of the world or in one age may not in another, what may be beneficial to one form of
society or culture may be harmful in another.
● There is no common morality for the whole human race throughout all history, but we must be
content with a morality relative to our time and place.
OPPORTUNISM
● Moral opportunism
○ No moral principle
○ One can attain both physical and mental maturity without moral maturity ○
It is a refusal to have any principles.
○ The unconsciously adopted philosophy can be rationalized and protracted into adulthood.
○ It is a contentment to live on a day-to-day basis, looking only to the immediate prospect and
letting the far future take care of itself.
○ It is a deliberate intention to remain open and uncommitted.
○ In other words, where they still want to look moral but want to maximize their own
benefit
● Moral tramp or ethical hobo
○ A form of life that can be chosen quite deliberately.
○ One may indeed consciously choose to float with the tide rather than set a course, to shun
any fixed program so as to be free to reshape life as the main chance offers, and above all
to avoid encumbrance by embarrassing principles and responsibilities.
 ○ One may aim at aimlessness, rationally choose to live irrationally, but such conduct must be
branded as unworthy of man.

RELATIVISM AND PRAGMATISM

● For the opportunist, there is too much trouble in finding out life’s meaning if it has one.
● For the relativist, life can be somewhat meaningful in retrospect and in immediate prospect, but
its total and ultimate meaning is undiscoverable by us now and unnecessary for relatively
successful being.
● John Dewey
○ Calls his own form of pragmatism as instrumentalism
■ ethical relativism with a strong evolutionary bent.
■ Thinking is functional, instrumental to action, not done for the sake of finding the
truth but of making life more satisfactory.
■ A value is whatever a man finds satisfaction in doing in his world of experience.
■ An ethical question arises when a man must choose between values.
■ Selection is made by considering one’s capacities, satisfactions, and the demands of
the social situation, and by taking that which embodies the most foreseen
possibilities of future satisfaction.
■ A want arises only when a need is felt in a particular situation.
■ Only felt wants demand satisfaction, and a satisfied want automatically creates a
new want.

General case for a relativistic pragmatism

● Acute sensitivity to our limitations and to the folly of being ambitious beyond our known
possibilities should cause us to reject all absolutes.
○ If such an assertion seem too absolute, it can be softened into the observation that no
supreme purpose for man has yet been identified with certainty.
○ We do not see far enough into the future to be able to make assertions about it with
absolute confidence and thus cannot put before us an absolute goal without serious
danger of deception and disillusionment.
○ Intellectual humility requires that we lower our sights and probe cautiously into the
unknown.
● There is no need of absolutes to keep us from drifting with the tide, like the opportunist, not
caring where.
○ The shorter-range goals that experience puts before us are a sufficient guide toward
improving our own condition and working earnestly toward universal betterment.
○ We have to be ready for continual readjustment and change of course.
● We work chiefly by the trial-and-error method, experimenting with the data at hand.
○ Trial and error - is effective only to find the effective means to arrive to the ultimate end
○ As man progressively adapts himself to a constantly changing environment, he finds his
theories on morals, though lagging far behind, gradually changing into more enlightened
and humane judgments on human behavior.
 ● To many the very idea of an absolutely last end or ultimate goal appears too rigid and stifling.
○ Without novelty the adventure of existence would lose all its zest.
○ There is more joy in the excitement of the chase than in bagging the quarry, and when the
journey is interesting it is better to travel than to arrive.
● According to Dewey’s theory of continuity of means-ends, as there is no means that is not a
means to an end, so there is no end that is not a means to a further end.
○ The chain of means and ends is thus necessarily indefinite in length, and the notion of an
absolutely last end is essentially incoherent.
○ Anything like an ultimate fixed goal is both impossible as breaking off the continuity of
means-ends, and undesirable as curtailing the flexibility and freedom of human progress.

Nonrelativists’ replies
- Should we be so humble as to refuse to look at the truth when it stares at us?
- Genuine humility shows itself in the acceptance of the evident truth more than in refusal
to submit to evidence.
- If the real motive is intellectual fear of being deceived or disillusioned, and if there is no
further reason why the relativist adopts his relativism, he makes this a last end and an
absolute, whether he cares to call it so or not.
- A proximate end is lifted to the status of an ultimate end without deserving the honor.
- Life does require continual adjustments, not of ends but of means.
- How do we know we are bettering our condition unless there is some fixed standard of
goodness by which we can measure our approach to it?
- If there is no end, why make the trial and how tell success from error?
- Relativism is likewise open to abuse, as it is possible to adopt false absolutes, not that
there are none.
- Why must a last end or a goal of life be something static that would freeze all further
growth instead of a condition of perpetually assured growth?
- The fulfillment of the human person would have to be something corresponding to the
nature of man, not some stifling suppression of it.
- If death is the end of all, it is the most static and rigid of all last ends, nothingness.
- There is no proof for Dewey’s theory of the continuity of means-ends.
- There is nothing in the nature of an end that must necessarily make it a means to a further
end.
- Perhaps only felt wants demand satisfaction, but it is false to assume that wants arise only
in an immediate situation.

ABSOLUTELY LAST END

● If there must be an end or purpose for each one of the parts, there must also be one for the whole.
● It is nonsensical to think that, whereas each single thing in life is seen to have a meaning, no
meaning can be found for the whole of life which these acts are meant to constitute.
● A thing is intended either for its own sake or for the sake of something else. The former is an end,
the latter a means.
● A means always supposes an end; it is called a means precisely because it lies in a mean or middle
position between the agent and the end.
● Intermediate end - both means and end in different respects, for it may be sought for its own sake
and for the sake of something further
● That which is sought for its own sake and not for the sake of anything further is a last end or
ultimate end.
○ It may be a last end only in a relative sense, meaning that it closes a particular series but the
whole series is directed to some further end.
○ The last end means the absolutely last end, which is directed to no further end at all, but to
it everything else is directed.
○ Since the end and good are identified, a being’s absolutely last end must also be its highest
good.
● In a series of means and ends we must distinguish the order of intention from the order of
execution.
● The first thing that comes to mind (order of intention) is the end, and the means are chosen with
a view to accomplishing the end; but in the actual carrying out of the work (order of execution)
the means must be used first, and the last thing that is obtained is the end.
● There must be an absolutely last end to which the whole of human life is directed.
● Planning (intention) is inverse order to acting (execution).
● They are first planned out in the mind and then transferred to execution.
● If the planning went on forever, nothing would ever be done, for in rational action the execution
cannot begin until the planning is complete.
● In any intelligent procedure apart from fitful and random behavior, one must already have the last
end in mind before beginning the first act.
● Man therefore not only acts for an end, but for a last end.
● The necessary logic of the argument carries it to all series of means and ends, and to all series of
series.
● A single series of means lead to an end requires that any series of series lead to an ultimate series,
the last member of which is the absolutely last end.
● Neither a single means nor a series of means nor a series of series of means, no matter how far
extended, would be chosen except for the sake of some end to which they all lead.
● Even the choosing of an absolute goal human error is possible.
● The decision can be reformed, as succeeding periods of self-examination bring greater maturity
and enlightenment.
● If further experience and reflection show that he has made a mistake, there is no reason why he
should not rectify it.
● The acceptance of an ultimate end in life is not the same as a claim for personal infallibility.
● Whereas subordinate ends may differ, the absolutely last end for man would have to be something
that is proper to man as man, and therefore would not be different for various persons.
● Man did not choose to be a man but finds himself one, like it or not.
● Only one last end or highest good is offered to us as ment.
 ● We may take it or leave it, but have no more option for a substitute than we have for becoming
something else than human.

THE RELATIVE AND THE ABSOLUTE

❖ If absolutely everything is relative, then relativity itself becomes the absolute and the distinction
between relativity and absoluteness disappears.
❖ If only relatively everything is relative, then the absoluteness of relativity could be diluted only by
the introduction of some nonrelative element, some absolute.
❖ Relativism does not go wrong by the admission of relativity, but by the exclusion of any absolute
to which all relatives could be relative.
❖ Certainly, there is no thing which is not related to some other thing, in fact to all other things.
❖ There is less relativity in ends than in means.
❖ The means exist wholly for the sake of the ends they serve, while the ends do not exist for the
sake of the means which lead to them.
❖ The end, besides its relative aspect toward the means, has also an independent and absolute
aspect.
❖ Relative aspect - looking at the way a thing is toward something else
❖ Absolute aspect - consider things merely as it is in itself, without denying but only disregarding its
bearing on others
❖ Relative Aspect - What is right or wrong depends on the situation
- Example: In this situation, it is okay to kill because the government legalize it for 3 hours
Absolute Aspect - Certain rights and wrongs are fixed for all people of all time - Example:
it is always wrong to kill
❖ The same thing can be both absolute and relative at once, though not in the same respect.
❖ Everything is relative in the sense that everything has a relative aspect, but it is also not relative in
the sense that nothing has any absolute aspect.
❖ When we speak of an absolutely last end, we do not mean that this end has no relation to us.
➢ It is absolute because there is no further end, relative because it is our end, one that we
must achieve.
➢ To put before us an endless series of ends implies that, when all is said and done, there is
no end to which we are related, and this is to make an absolute of ourselves.
❖ In ethics, everything else but the absolutely last end is relative, and even this, as we just said, is
relative to us though not relative to a further end.
❖ All the means of living the moral life are relative to the end of moral living and thus to the person
whose life it is.
❖ Pragmatism affords a very important secondary criterion of morality, for many acts are indifferent
in themselves but become good or bad because of their consequences.
❖ The difficulty with pragmatism is its insistence that every act is of this type and its failure to provide
any moral criterion for judging the consequences except by further and further consequences
forever.