http://publicreason.net/2008/08/21/the-questions-of-social-political-legal-%e2%80%a6-philosophy/ a blog for political philosophers Wed, 07 Jan 2009 00:48:09 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.1 http://publicreason.net/2008/08/21/the-questions-of-social-political-legal-%e2%80%a6-philosophy/#comment-761 Andrew Jason Cohen Thu, 28 Aug 2008 03:52:13 +0000 http://publicreason.net/2008/08/21/the-questions-of-social-political-legal-%e2%80%a6-philosophy/#comment-761 Hey Bill- I'm definitely OK with the oddity about meta-ethics. I think of meta-ethics as bridging ethics with both metaphysics and epistemology, so it would have to "branch" up to those (making an odd looking tree). As for descriptive social philosophy: I suppose I'm OK with broadening the first question to "What is the social world like and what should it be like?" My worry about that is only that there will be some attempts to answer "What is the social world like?" that I might not want to count as philosophy. Some, for example, will be good sociology (of course, still others will simply be bad armchair sociology masquerading as philosophy). Of course, once we do this, it may seem odd that Social Philosophy is in the "middle" of the tree. Perhaps it, too, will have to branch out/over/up to something else! Hey Bill-
I’m definitely OK with the oddity about meta-ethics. I think of meta-ethics as bridging ethics with both metaphysics and epistemology, so it would have to “branch” up to those (making an odd looking tree).
As for descriptive social philosophy: I suppose I’m OK with broadening the first question to “What is the social world like and what should it be like?” My worry about that is only that there will be some attempts to answer “What is the social world like?” that I might not want to count as philosophy. Some, for example, will be good sociology (of course, still others will simply be bad armchair sociology masquerading as philosophy).
Of course, once we do this, it may seem odd that Social Philosophy is in the “middle” of the tree. Perhaps it, too, will have to branch out/over/up to something else!

]]> http://publicreason.net/2008/08/21/the-questions-of-social-political-legal-%e2%80%a6-philosophy/#comment-760 Bill Edmundson Wed, 27 Aug 2008 03:38:28 +0000 http://publicreason.net/2008/08/21/the-questions-of-social-political-legal-%e2%80%a6-philosophy/#comment-760 Andrew, Metaethics sticks out at a surprising place on the tree. Shouldn't it be up there with metaphysics, rather than in the middle, with social philosophy? Another point: you characterize social philosophy as primarily normative. Mightn't there be a descriptive social philosophy? Hart approached the philosophy of law descriptively. A social philosopher might take the same line. (I don't say that Hart wasn't a social philosopher: I think he was.) Andrew, Metaethics sticks out at a surprising place on the tree. Shouldn’t it be up there with metaphysics, rather than in the middle, with social philosophy? Another point: you characterize social philosophy as primarily normative. Mightn’t there be a descriptive social philosophy? Hart approached the philosophy of law descriptively. A social philosopher might take the same line. (I don’t say that Hart wasn’t a social philosopher: I think he was.)

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