Coloniality and Analytic Moral Epistemology in the Twentieth Century

This article is a contribution to the larger project of decolonizing Anglophone academic philosophy. It focuses on analytic philosophy and in particular on analytic moral epistemology. Decolonization is a multifaceted project even when limited to the context of academic philosophy. Our specific goal in the present article is to identify some fundamental assumptions of analytic moral epistemology in the twentieth century and to explain how these assumptions both presupposed colonial domination in philosophy and operated to perpetuate it. We illustrate our argument by focusing on the moral epistemology of Richard M. Hare and John Rawls. We conclude by indicating how twenty-first century moral epistemology might move forward after abandoning those assumptions. Our article draws on a growing body of work that seeks to decolonize academic philosophy as it is presently institutionalized in Anglophone countries. In this work, Eurocentrism is a constant theme. Michael J. Monahan, editor of a recent journal issue on decolonizing philosophy, writes, “Decolonization is in essence to dislodge or unsettle that normative narrative that centers Europe as the “home turf” of reason” (2019). Linda Martín Alcoff argues that one pervasive assumption characterizing Eurocentric philosophy is the “transcendentalist delusion,” which contends that the historical and cultural context in which philosophical claims are developed and deployed is not relevant to their meaning or validity (Alcoff 2017). We build on Alcoff's work to show how this assumption underlay the work of two prominent moral philosophers in the twentieth century and we explore some of its damaging consequences. Our article proceeds as follows. We establish the context for our argument by sketching the emergence of analytic philosophy in early twentieth century Britain and the United States and then outline the trajectory of analytic moral philosophy in particular over the course of that century. Next, we next focus more closely on the work of the two leading analytic moral philosophers in the latter half of the century and summarize the models of practical moral reasoning that they advocated. We identify some meta-level assumptions shared by those models, not all of which are explicit, and go on to explain their colonial lineage and implications. We conclude with some reflections on how abandoning those assumptions could enable a less colonial version of moral epistemology. Analytic philosophy emerged in England in the early twentieth century, a period when Britain ruled a worldwide empire. What was meant by “analytic philosophy” changed over the decades and it also varied between the Anglophone academies of Britain, on the one hand, and the United States, on the other. In England, the analytic approach was at first a reaction against the British idealism of T. H. Green, F. H. Bradley, Bernard Bosanquet, Harold Joachim, and J. M. E. McTaggart. To Bertrand Russell, a founder of analytic philosophy, “philosophical analysis” meant logical atomism. This recommended that, within a given domain of inquiry, philosophers should seek to identify the most basic concepts or words representing simple particulars, an analysis intended to reveal the atomic or irreducible facts from which our knowledge in that domain was built (Russell 1918, 1919). Another version of philosophical analysis appeared in 1936, when A. J. Ayer published his landmark Language, Truth and Logic. This introduced Viennese logical positivism to an English-speaking audience. The positivist Verification Principle stated that utterances that could not be empirically verified had no cognitive meaning unless they were tautologies. Ayer took this to mean that evaluative utterances, such as ethical claims, were cognitively meaningless and he analyzed them as being no more than expressions of emotion, an account nicknamed the Boo Hurrah theory of ethics. During the 1950s, the popularity of logical positivism declined and philosophical analysis became “philosophical logic,” the close scrutiny of ordinary language or of concepts as they were used in daily life. Led by Oxford philosophers Gilbert Ryle, J. L. Austin, and P. F. Strawson, this movement recommended a new method of analysis based on the slogan, “Don't ask for the meaning, ask for the use.” In the United States, analytic philosophy traced a different trajectory and developed a different character. At the turn of the twentieth century, most philosophy in the United States was taught by ordained Protestant ministers who were motivated primarily to address the concerns of Protestant élites, especially the apparent conflict between science and religion (Kuklick 2009). As in Britain, United States philosophy included a strong idealist tradition, which in the early twentieth century was led by Josiah Royce. However, naturalism quickly gained ground as the pragmatism of William James and John Dewey became increasingly influential. In the first decades of the twentieth century, philosophy in the United States was generally equated with pragmatism. Pragmatist philosophers sought to separate philosophy from religion while continuing to study questions of the good society; Dewey especially emphasized the importance of scientific inquiry. After World War II, when many European philosophers resettled in the United States, the influence of pragmatism waned. In the 1930s, several US philosophers, including Ernest Nagel, Charles Morris, and W. V. O. Quine, travelled in Europe and met with British analysts, Polish logicians, and German-speaking philosophers linked with the positivist approaches of the Vienna and Berlin Circles. As the threats from Nazism increased, US philosophers worked to find academic jobs in the United States for philosophers such as Rudolf Carnap, Carl Hempel, and Hans Reichenbach. Once these immigrants arrived in the United States, they “interacted fruitfully with the American tradition of pragmatism” to develop the neo-positivist philosophical approach known as logical empiricism (Føllesdal and Friedman 2006). Logical empiricism held that science was the only authoritative knowledge and it was taken to rely on empirical evidence in conjunction with logic, where logic included not only mathematics and formal logic but also induction or confirmation. In a popular article for The Nation, Reichenbach attacked classical philosophical systems or Weltanschauungen on the grounds that they were “speculative,” failed to separate facts from values, and ignored science (1947).1 In addition, a new conception of reason known as rational choice theory gained prominence in the United States after WWII. This defined rational choices as those that most efficiently maximized the preferences of individual choosers and it came to dominate behavioral sciences such as psychology, political science, and economics.2 Through the prestige of these sciences, it also influenced moral and political philosophy. Following WWII, analytic philosophy became dominant throughout the world of Anglophone academic philosophy. So-called “Continental” European philosophies, such as phenomenology, existentialism, and later postmodernism, were often treated scornfully by analytic philosophers, as was American pragmatism.3 Philosophical approaches with non-European roots, such as Confucianism and Buddhism, were excluded from departments of philosophy and relegated to departments of religion. Indigenous thought was studied, if at all, in departments of anthropology or regional studies. Even though the philosophers who laid the foundations for analytic philosophy had written mainly in German, by the middle of the twentieth century analytic philosophy was conducted almost exclusively in English.4 “(O)ne has to read English in order to have access to the best scholarly contributions and write in English in order to be read by the best scholars” (Føllesdal and Friedman 2006). Moral philosophy in the analytic tradition was shaped inevitably by that tradition's core preoccupations with meaning and In the early twentieth century, English philosophers focusing on which they took to be a philosophical that not address normative questions but the of and the meaning of moral Analytic is generally taken to with the of E. which moral from the of the is for he the which he thought in moral with some or empirical such as argument was with logical positivist claims it a for normative ethics. was that ethical claims could not be verified empirically and if the logical were that utterances that were of empirical had no cognitive meaning, then utterances that to normative ethical claims were meaningless and no at ethical utterances were taken to be in daily and for the next two decades the leading analytic philosophers if at all, moral language might a as the logic and language of of the twentieth century, the of analytic moral philosophy normative even though some leading Anglophone philosophers of such as and had with the of their This was not most leading analytic philosophers were or was from the was a and several of the German-speaking philosophers who to the United States in were who had from American However, analytic philosophers that political were of their philosophical Reichenbach be a to philosophy to be a in the the which he to the In the 1950s, it was that such as were and and that, if it was to be than In that the political philosophy is was the of political philosophy in by analytic philosophy, such as existentialism, and In the decades of the twentieth century, many analytic philosophers by the political of the of moral increasingly in and new and to philosophy of and and new philosophical were including the philosophy of philosophy, and philosophy. political theory was also In John of and it was closely in by and on rational choice The philosophical turn practical moral inevitably the of how moral might be as of the moral reasoning for them were close at could to shared where several were they could to moral in how the should be and against other. it was to how to moral that of different moral which to be more often to different even when were they might be or over moral of Indigenous they the where the is to be laid as an in a narrative that meaning to the shared of a of the be no more than a The first moral with the of that as in with the the of in which are to be and it is not to them to the In to such some analytic philosophers moral and of new in moral epistemology analytic Moral epistemology seeks to the of how moral knowledge be and In the next we at two models of practical moral reasoning by prominent analytic philosophers in the half of the twentieth century. 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Michael that a for decolonizing philosophy is to the of and philosophy is and it As Alcoff and have this on the of philosophers and of the historical and cultural of our philosophical Anglophone philosophers moral we from our and within a that are and in that of and The present article is intended as one contribution to the for decolonizing moral epistemology by how the analytic philosophical tradition that we has shaped by and to perpetuate colonial We are to the for the of to our The no of In the of philosophers, and those in leading departments of philosophy throughout the M. work not of and his to in no of and and the and M. to to have close to a of we as the academic and to those of the or of the It is that it is the of to an to questions as to of or as they are questions which it is held and not to that is not the of Moral or which is primarily with the and of and only with of as the of them of and method by At the in philosophy, philosophy, and philosophy of science, for with empirical the of philosophy, of analytic philosophy, with the a based on