Body and Nothing Else

A favorite saying in nursing is that "nursing is where caring and science meet." Still, it sometimes seems as though this meeting produces some discomfort.

In North America, accepted nursing diagnoses and approved interventions include "energy field disturbance" and "therapeutic touch," concepts which are regarded with suspicion by other sciences. Science reporter Sarah Glazer has suggested that the embracing of these concepts by some nursing scholars is paradigmatic of both the influence of post modernism on nursing theory, and the consequences of that influence on the theory and practice of nursing. Glazer's comments about post modernism and therapeutic touch met with mixed reviews from the community of nursing scholars. Also meeting with mixed reviews were Glazer's criticisms of Martha Rogers for putting forward the claim that human beings are "energy fields," and that "life has evolved contrary to accepted physical laws" - notions Glazer, and at least one physicist, have characterized as "wacky."

Postmodernist thought has also been controversial outside the field of nursing. At the center of the storm, in recent years, has been philosopher Richard Rorty. Rorty is often cited as being the most prominent defender of the basic postmodernist position that all the word "truth" can mean is an "inter subjective agreement between members of a community." Rorty's defense this conception of truth has drawn fire from philosophers holding diverse views.

In his paper Rorty and the Postmodern Rejection of Absolute Truth, philosopher Dean Gueras adopts Stanley Grenz's definition from A Primer on Post modernism:

" post modernism affirms that whatever we accept as truth and even the way we envision truth are dependent on the community in which we participate. . There is no absolute truth; rather truth is relative to the community in which we participate."

At the heart of this view, Guernas believes, is the position that there is always a gap between our sense experience and the reality that is reported to exist. We cannot escape our linguistic heritage when we examine our world. We see the world through a conceptual framework imposed by language, so even if all other skeptical doubts are put to rest, our knowledge of alleged external reality is obscured by language. This might be called the "linguistic obscurity problem."

The "linguistic obscurity problem" exposes post modernism for what it is, the wine of truth-value/reality relativism in a new bottle.

In an insightful article for the Stanford On-Line Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Chris Swoyer notes:

A common line of argument for several species of relativism, including truth-value relativism and reality relativism, turns on what we might call the mediation problem. This argument takes various forms, but the fundamental idea is that we are trapped in our concepts or beliefs or epistemic standards or, more generally, trapped in our frameworks in a way that precludes our checking to see if they match reality...One especially common version of this argument focuses on concepts. We cannot think without concepts (or talk without words), and so we cannot get outside our concepts (and words) to assess their fidelity to the world as it really is, independent of language and thought."

Thus the "linguistic obscurity" problem is the "mediation problem" under a different name. And, indeed:

"Most philosophers and scientists today now agree, though, that perception is theory-laden; our perceptual experiences in a given situation are influenced by the concepts, beliefs, expectations and, perhaps, even the hopes and desires, which we bring to the situation."

But, this is not the whole story, for:

"To be sure, different frameworks of concepts are possible, at least to some degree, and of course we cannot talk without language or think without concepts. But ...once we have a battery of concepts, truth often is completely clear and perfectly objective. (Even) if we don't accept the view that there is just One True Story of the world told in terms of The One Right Lexicon of Concepts, we do not need to check to see if our concepts are the right ones. Rather, we need to check to see whether our beliefs or sentences (framed in terms of our concepts or words) are true. And it is not necessary to go to a "neutral cosmic exile," or to find an "Archimedean point" outside all language and thought, in order to do this. It is something we do all the time, right from where we are; once I have the concept of a dog, it is often obviously and unproblematically true that there is a dog in the corner."

Simon Blackburn restates the point elegantly, noting that we can say that Oswald acted alone, or not, but it cannot be both; there must be a "truth of the matter" even if we can never discover it, and its determination involves film footage and physical evidence, not "crystal balls or linguistic usage." He goes to note that:

"one need not subscribe to any monolithic idea of truth in order to honor every day truth and a love of particular truth. This is because there's every difference in language that you choose to use and the truth or falsity of what you say with it. Rorty belongs to a generation of American philosophers who learned from Sellars that observation is itself a creature of language: your map determines how you see the landscape. So, they conclude there's nothing but maps, maps all the way down and there is no independent access to anything mapped. (It is difficult to remember) ... that sometimes it is not maps, but cliffs."

In other words, sooner or later the sentences have to refer to something besides other sentences, and, when they do, you can check to see if the sentences are true. There is, or is not, a dog in the corner. As Swoyer says:

"a neutral, pure sense-datum language is indeed a myth, but most evidence suggests that the familiar world of physical objects is usually neutral enough to allow for tests of scientific theories and at least passable communication across cultural divides."

In other words, two hypothetical human cultures so different in terms of their language and conceptual schema that agreement is impossible between them on questions like "is there a dog in the corner?" only exist in philosophers' puzzles. Says Swoyer: " we cannot, on pain of hallucination, see just anything we hope or expect or are primed to

see."

Finally, irrealists (including post-modernists and "neo-pragmatists") must account for the fact that our values, beliefs, theories, concepts and ideas do change – and, as philosopher Kelley Ross notes in a paper entitled Foundationalism and Hermeneutics,often on the basis of evidence, Kuhn's theory not withstanding. In light of this fact, it is hard to see how we can be said to be completely trapped in our conceptual schemes, and unable to assess them in terms of whether they match something in, or about, the world. As Ross observes, while it is true that various interpretations of sets of data are usually possible, data impose limits on interpretaions.

So, what would make a post modern theory of truth appealing in the realm of nursing theory? Ross offers one suggestion:

“After all, even any presumed achievements of science, like modern medicine, hygiene, or technology, are themselves subject to deconstructive interpretation. In terms of its "lumpen Marxism," post modernism can dismiss all of science and its achievements as instruments of white, male, capitalist, Euro-centric (if not Zionist) power. It is just as likely that oppressed women and Third-World cultures have their own "ways of knowing," their own truths, even their own mathematics -- and theirs are certainly going to be less racist, sexist,classist, and species-ist and more friendly to the earth than capitalism.”

There is another possible reason for the attraction of post modernism for nursing theorists, and for Rogers' strained view of the physics of living systems. It might be the concern that if indeed life, and especially human life, is fully explicable in terms of "accepted physical laws", the religious/spiritual and ethical values that have informed nursing throughout its history will somehow lose their special character. This concern is not new, and is not confined to the field of nursing theory.

In his book “Darwin's Dangerous Idea,” philosopher Daniel C. Dennett argues that the picture the sciences give us of the universe, and in particular the explanatory power of the Darwinian synthesis, amounts to a "universal acid" that cuts through everything in sight. He also notes that " from the outset, there have been those who thought they saw Darwin letting the worst possible cat out of the bag: nihilism." (Dennett, Darwin , 6)

Some of Dennett's most vocal critics agree with him on this point. In an article entitled "Daniel Dennett's Dangerous Idea," University of California law professor, and ferocious Darwin-baiter, Philip Johnson disparagingly refers to "materialism " as being "the reigning intellectual paradigm of both experimental science and analytic philosophy," a fact he clearly believes to be unfortunate. Johnson's own distaste for evolution in particular, and "materialism " generally, appears to stem from the fact that these views seem to him to threaten certain religious beliefs that he cherishes (Johnson 4), but he doubtless also believes that they both " let nihilism out of the bag." He also clearly embraces Rodgers' conclusion that "man did not develop according to accepted physical laws," and, remarkably, indulges in a bit of postmodernist sounding rhetoric when he claims "scientific materialism and Darwinism are themselves socially constructed doctrines rather than objective facts."

Are the implications of scientific materialism and Darwinism so horrific that a post modernist theory of truth, and scientific "howlers," become attractive? That is too big a question to address in one short paper. But, on the question specifcally of whether Dennett's own views entail nihilism, at least one very good philosopher, Alexander Rosenberg, has weighed in.

Nihilism can be either a metaphysical or a meta-ethical doctrine. Metaphysical nihilism is simply the notion that the universe has no purpose or goal, no teleos. The history of the Universe is the story of the operation of blind, algorithmic forces. Most philosophers would agree that Dennett's views are metaphysically nihilistic. But are they meta-ethically nihilistic?

Alexander Rosenberg defines ethical Nihilism as consisting of the following claims:

"a) normative terms-good, bad, right, duty, etc.-do not name real properties of events or things, either natural or non-natural ones; b) all claims about what is good in itself, or about categorical moral rights or duties are either false or meaningless; c) the almost universal belief that there are such properties and that such claims are true can be 'explained away' by appropriate scientific theory. Nihilism takes the form of what J. L. Mackie calls an 'error theory '. It does not deny that beliefs about norms and values can motivate people to actions. . . [and] the "felt internalism" moral claims, nor does it deny that normative beliefs confer benefits on the people who hold them. Indeed Nihilism is consistent with the claim that such beliefs are necessary for human survival, welfare and flourishing. Nihilism only claims that these beliefs, where they exist, are false. It treats morality as [merely] instrumental useful. . ."

An abbreviated argument to the effect that the " universal acid " of Darwinism strongly suggests ethical nihilism might go along these lines:1) A complete, Darwinian/adaptationist description of the biological basis of moral behavior can be given. This description can account for limited benevolence, sexual appetite, interest, reciprocal altruism, affection for children, sharing, resentment, cooperation, the role moral emotions as commitment, trust, fairness and the content and structure of moral norms; 2) it can be demonstrated that the apparent objectivity of ethical norms would be a social adaptation that strengthens social norms - simply put, an adaptation to believe that morality is objective creates an illusion of obligation that reduces deviation from moral norms. Therefore, 3) "biology can explain everything there is to explain about morality, including our most fundamental intuitions, especially the intuition that we ought to act morally." Transcendent moral values need not be assumed as they have no work to do.

Alex Rosenberg wants to hasten to re-assure us that:

" embracing Nihilism is not, as is commonly believed, a prescription for amorality or immorality. . . To be an ethical Nihilist commits one to nothing more than the denial of objective or intrinsic moral values and categorical imperatives. . . Darwinian nihilism explains away ethics by showing that our ethical beliefs reflect dispositions very strongly selected for over long periods, which began well before the emergence of hominids, or perhaps primates . . . these dispositions are so deep that for most people most the time, it is impossible to override them, even when it is in an individual's self-interest to do so, still less when there is no self-interested reason to do so. Hence, the Darwinian Nihilist expects that most people are conventionally moral, and that even the widespread acceptance of the truth of Darwinian Nihilism would have little or no effect on this expectation. Most of us just couldn't consistently be mean even if we tried. And we have no reason to try."

In other words, “Mother Nature” has left us inclined to punish the wicked and care for the sick, so there is nothing too alarming about meta-ethical nihilsm. This may not be as reassuring to most of us as Dr. Rosenberg intends. But, more can be said.

First, It would seem that the argument outlined above does not preclude taking a Kantian view. As Onora O'Neill points out, " Kant claims not to rely on any objective account of the good for man or any other form of moral realism..." Those finding Kant, and Baroness O'Neill, persuasive in this regard can, therefore, take heart.

Second, in terms of reason, purpose, and a teleos, more can now be said than simply that the Universe doesn't have them. It may be true that the Universe has no conscious design, ultimate purpose or teleos, but we humans (at least) are creatures who plan, have goals, do things for reasons and discern the reasons of others. We are able to discover the benefits our natural moral instincts have conferred on us, ratify and assent to them, and, where they are less than optimal in terms of our present goals and purposes, modify and optimize them. To paraphrase Alan Gibbard, we can decide that the kinds of inclinations to act morally that nature mindlessly endowed us with “are worth wanting--- for better reasons.