The Context of Logical Rationalization - Essay Example

There are people who claim that there are no plausible truth-makers for moral ments, and so moral anti-realism must be correct. However, it seems quite clear that we all have sensations and feelings that we experience positively or negatively. These feelings and sensations can very easily serve as truth-makers for moral judgments, can’t they?  Considering that feelings and sensations possess elements with which we may put forth a judgment on whether or not there exists a truth on something, we may claim to certain a extent that such emotions or sense perceptions can function as truth-makers for moral judgments. To support this argument on proper grounds, we must understand that realism basically rests on the premise that concreteness of objects as they appear is separate in function from the way these same objects enter perception. Anti-realism or idealism may hold true assuming that moral realists make no adequate plausibility of accounts during the process of formulating truths and that commonsense intuitions are generally proposed to agree with moral realism. By experience, commonsense intuitions are partly concrete and partly abstract since it can only be admitted as useful by an individual who has encountered tangibility of a case or matter on a regular basis, yet, because there emerges quite a number of uncertainties over time, making such case or matter seem to acquire properties that bear new or different impressions, the real portion is rather evaluated by the realms of the unreal. This is to demonstrate that the loss or decrease of logical grounds in establishing the truth is brought about by changes in the literal truth as well as the nature of its presence after the apparent sight and sense of reality. Naturally, it is the reality that gives shape to truth and our experience of reality under frequent terms enables us to decide about the truth in its degree of completeness. To this point, it turns out that commonsense intuitions are able to cover and justify both positions of moral realists and moral anti-realists who each have the capacity to form and distinguish between views according to how reality is confronted by their principles of living. Commonsense on measuring truth in matter is primarily earned by constant engagement with the physical object which realism may eventually treat as valid. On intuiting with commonsense, however, part of looking at the object as real may be deducted from the cognitive process of placing more subjective effort on understanding its existence in truth so that this becomes reasonable. This is in the context of idealists who prefer to determine truth by a higher form of resolution in addition to the use of sense perceptions especially in the absence of sufficient pragmatic evidence. For this situation to yield an interesting consequence, feelings and sensations ought to accumulate in a fashion, which upon combination with a more profound philosophical thought or movement would proceed to lay foundations of truth bound to remain constant despite constraints of time and evolution. In the light of realism, experience occurs to be a sphere in which sensations and feelings are spontaneously taught to be learned so as to realize truth. Feelings and sensations, nevertheless, are an outcome of interactions or responses to stimuli that are exchanged within human population based on significant events that involve objective concerns either seen or felt. Rationalizing around this stage, it then makes ample sense to argue that emotional or sensational impact can possibly bring truth to solid creation. If by any chance this arrives instead at a complicated discourse of having to present the substance of ethical realism and of moral anti-realism in scrutinizing detail, the endeavor should necessitate relevant theories by Descartes and Hume whose respective concepts regarding rationalism and empiricism can be utilized to settle conflicts on proving which set of beliefs is greatly responsible for the materialization of truths. Descartes’ suspicion on senses may well assume the side of the anti-realists in this issue, whereas, Hume’s suspicion on reasoning is similar to the manner by which realists deliver their claim as truth-makers. Explicitly contradicting the emphasis on sense-based experience, which the Aristotelian school of thought proposed, Descartes presents his argument for rationalism by executing around relations of ideas. Since an a priori knowledge is essential to rationalists, conceptions of philosophy ought to be formulated in the context of logical rationalization or one that is carried out via deductive cognition. Descartes, hence, substantiates his perspective of rationalism with a series of cognitive exercises as indicated by his program on ‘Meditations,’ whereby, a rational meditator is claimed to seek truths by intellect in full measure beyond any regard to senses. Empiricism after Hume’s philosophy, however, requires an a posteriori knowledge apart from analytical endeavor for such theory posits that matters of fact in the world may only be ascertained by perceiving through the senses. In the light of an empirical attempt for one to obtain certainty with truths that may be contingent, Hume necessitates engagement with observations wherein an observer becomes capable of designating philosophical connections with contiguity and identity of objects. Descartes is suspicious of the senses because for him, in order to fathom a significant truth, one must doubt all perceived knowledge. Since preconceptions are normally acquired by the senses, then these senses should be subject to scepticism as well. Once the intellect has been purged of its old content with the attached senses by the method of doubt, only then can scepticism be defeated on its own ground in the process of rebuilding knowledge upon pure cognition that enables a rational person to yield to clarity and distinction of ideas. On the other hand, Hume suspects reasoning on the basis of arguing that causes and effects are physically adjacent in space so “the causal inference must be grounded in experience, not in any intuitive knowledge of ‘essences’”. If causes exist in reality, according to Hume, no reasoning can possibly channel this information to people unless sense perception is employed. While the method of Descartes recognizes the cognitive potentials of conceiving notion prior to acquisition of knowledge and living proof, Hume’s analysis provides a path for empiricism to back up causalities with the senses for anticipated truths to be synthesized. A bulk of experiences drawn from the physical environment induces feelings and sensations that are real enough to be neglected in the search for truth. Though conducting behaviour with real senses typically bears a more abstract influence that idealists may readily contradict by through the essence of practical approach, sensibilities generated by circumstances are vividly influencing that it would be improbable to acknowledge or convey them as untrue. Works Cited “Is Either Moral Realism or Moral Anti-Realism More Intuitive Than the Other?” Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. 2007. Web. 22 Feb 2012. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-anti-realism/moral-realism-intuitive.html. “Rationalism–ReneDescartes.”2012.Web. 22Feb2012. http://science.jrank.org/pages/10983/Rationalism-Ren-Descartes.html. Harrison-Barbet, Anthony. “Philosophical Connections: Hume (1711-76).” 2011. Web. 22 Feb 2012. http://www.philosophos.com/philosophical_connections/profile_068.html. Read More