By PAUL PARDI [Philosophy News] – Do philosophers sacrifice something if they not only analyze and teach but proscribe and declare? One may argue that the complexities of life demand that philosophers go beyond mere analysis to clear declarations of how that analysis ought to be applied. And doing so will inevitably keep the discipline relevant to more people—at the very least, it will keep people talking. But it also could be argued that it is precisely because life is complex that a deep analysis of some issue should provide the foundation for pragmatics and not include practical proscriptions. Philosophers provide the critical foundation for politics but should leave the politicizing to the scores of individuals that are closest to the situations that politics affects.

In reality, any theory worth anything has practical implications. But implication is the operative word. A robust epistemology for example may not directly tell the consumer of that epistemology what he or she should believe about a given subject. But it most likely will provide a foundation for how to think about one’s beliefs or the way one forms beliefs, or what types of epistemic pursuits are worth following or all of the above. There’s an analogue in the sciences. Suppose science tells us that human nature is fully and exhaustively a product of our genes and environment and that free will is merely an appearance—a phenomenological product of the complexity of our brains—but isn’t “real” in the classical sense. Should science then tell us that current judicial systems like those found in the West are ill-conceived and wrongly applied? That prisons are evil? That society should not judge those who commit crimes like theft or rape as culpable?

“Well no,” the response may quickly come, “that’s for the philosophers.” And here is the rub.

Continued at Philosophy News | More Chronicle & Notices.