Visitors to this blog can only comment. Authors have at it with duelling posts. And here I go again with Eric. (Nobody can say that NewAPPS is an echo-chamber.)
Aristotle said that "the good and the well reside in the function." Good carpenters are those who perform well at the function of carpentering. He was right. If it is a function of the philosopher to discern good and bad, then a philosopher who does this successfully is a good one, at least in this respect. One who fails is eo ipso bad in this respect. So my claim that "the end-result of philosophical discussion cannot be bad" is not merely "Panglossian"—though I don't want to hide my affinity for some of that silly man's doctrines.
It is important, though, to recognize that philosophy can be intentionally bad. There are, I have no doubt, some who knowingly peddle sophistries, hoping to win votes and influence for their evil causes, and in some cases to boost their speaking fees. (Yes, Ann Coulter: it's you that I suspect.) But there is no need for a professional code of ethics to shine a light on such poisonous dregs of civil discourse. They offend against a universal moral principle: Don't tell lies.
What I don't agree with is the invention—May I put it that way?—of a professional code to catch Brennan and Althoff. Their offence, if they have indeed offended, is either that they have sinned against the universal moral code, or that they have just been guilty of bad philosophy (or so I suspect). If the latter, why not just argue against them? You can't have a professional code of ethics against bad philosophy (though I think there ought to be one against sloppy scholarship and the like).
Finally, a small point. I am not sure what it means to say that something has a certain function "in practice." How is this different from saying it has the function period? If the doctrine of double effect was ever advanced with the purpose of providing a rhetorical fig-leaf for bad but powerful people, and not as a serious philosophical argument, then it violates the injunction not to lie. Perhaps it was originally meant this way, or is sometimes meant this way. If this is what Aquinas intended, then shame on him. But I don't believe that it is always meant this way, or that it cannot be discussed seriously. I don't think there should be a code of professional ethics that prohibits its being discussed.
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