On taking a shit

Ethics
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Some thoughts that occurred to me as I read @ink’s thread on values, and which, on revisiting, relate well to the recent threads concerning Philippa Foot. So I have decided to start a new thread on the topic.

Consider the desire to take a shit. It’s not a topic that comes to mind immediately in considering ethics and philosophy of action, but continence is at times amongst our most pressing concerns, so perhaps it is time to give it due attention. It is philosophically all the more problematic in being so emphatic. We get to choose in most other cases, but not here. Most of us retain some semblance of control over shitting—but “semblance” is the right word here. It amounts to a limited say as to when. And shitting places a great demand on our attention, becoming more immediate until it is all-consuming.

Ratiocination and the “narrative centre of the brain” are involved only in a secondary capacity, mainly in ensuring that the when and where are the least embarrassing available.

Partly, this is offered as a self-critique of my own previous line of thought, in which I suggested that facts can be understood as how things are, while values are understood as how we would have them be; a variation on Anscombe’s discussion of direction of fit. The “ought” in taking a shit makes itself rapidly apparent, regardless of the “is”. The background notion of “choice” drops out, as it were, in a way that the usual examples—promising, being thirsty, or paying an account—tend to hide. It strips us of the voluntarist machinery that makes a desire look like a choice.

Taking a shit might be seen as among the more pressing examples of Foot’s account of how the is/ought distinction is crossed, of how what is the case becomes what is valued. In particular, there is little here by way of practical reasoning. One doesn’t argue someone out of wanting to shit. It fits Foot’s natural-historical approach nicely; the need is very much recognised, and not deduced. Unless you have a colostomy bag, but that brings its own issues. Few things benefit an animal more in the doing, or harm it more in not doing.

But Banno, needing to take a shit is not a value; it has nothing to do with ethics! Needing to defecate is hardly normative! Well, sure, and that’s not the point. It is, however, a very clean case where a state of affairs generates a need: “This needs doing now!” There are structural similarities. Further, what does “normative” mean, if not generating a demand for action—and what could be a clearer case for such a demand? And Foot’s account is exactly concerned with whether ethical normativity is continuous with such basic biological normativity.

The language is deliberately provocative—I could have used “defecate”; I decided to use the Anglo-Saxon to keep things visceral. Those of a retentive disposition may find the topic off limits, but we fixative types may let flow.

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What are values?
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Great OP !

The is/ought distinction is theological. “Pure factuality” is an idealization, the world as seen by an omniscient narrator without feelings. But we who trade signs like “objectivity” do so precisely because we give a fuck. We don’t want the innocent man to hang. We don’t want our wishful thinking to lead us into misery.

This shrewd mistrust of wishful thinking helps explain the value of is/ought distinction, yet also reminds us that the distinction is itself quite motivated. We ought to keep in mind that things aren’t necessarily how we would like them to be. Check for toilet paper before you drop your drawers.

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No! No! No! You can’t derive an ought from a bunch of is’s. And yet, we move between them regardless. It’s the unfettered “ought” on it’s own that Anscombe showed is theological, the remnant of the fear of God’s divine commands.

The “ought” of taking a shit does not have a divine origin. It’s visceral. It is distanced from the niceties of logical inference by our recognising the need.

The is/ought distinction inheres in our language, in the saying, and here we are dealing with the doing.

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I don’t see any deep significance of needing to attend to one’s bung hole for Foot’s ethics. Ethics and morality occupy a different dimension altogether; nevertheless there are biological functions that we have to consider. Did Alexander the Great or Richard the Lionheart pass stool while they were conquering the (known) world and leading the crusade, respectively?

:thinking:

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I love me a little highbrow/lowbrow juxtaposition.

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Sure. It’s a fine pragmatic distinction. Like physical/mental. But philosophers go wild with this stuff.

Logical inference is more “ought” stuff, which is felt like the need to take a shit, but not felt in the same-enough way, it seems, for philosophers to come to an agreement. It feels good to have a coherent story to tell oneself. We don’t like when people tell us incoherent stories or impose “oughts” on us that make no sense to us.

“Just the facts, mam” can be read as an expression of autonomy. I will decide the “meaning” ( evaluation) of the situation. So “interpretation” is filtered out, leaving “pure” fact behind. Yet the factual basis is still entangled in interpretations that all parties in that community take for granted. For instance, the same set of objects plays a role in the reduced or neutralized story. So narration of “just the facts” remains theory-laden, but shorn of the controversial theoretical additions which are “visible” as such and therefore optional.

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It’s an aspect of our shared culture, an object of national pride. :wink:

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This reminds me of Mary Midgley ( one of the Fab Four) and her analogy of philosophy as plumbing. Playing an essential role or function, maintaining systems of ‘good flow’ in the individual and society. How it malfunctions, and blockages are dealt with, they are identified as distorted thinking in conceptual issues.

‘Taking a shit’ is a vital function of the body. More pressing for Foot’s morality is ‘giving a shit’. Or the more ‘civilised’, old-fashioned idiom: ‘giving a fig’.

Different aspects of use of language and decorum or etiquette is part of the shit parcel. As such, ‘practical reasoning’ surrounding expectations and behaviour ( internal and external) — their expressions and implications — is a necessary part of the examination. It is not all theory.

And this is where we can see Foot’s disruption between the constipated anal-retentive analysts (Gods Commandments) and the more flexible, individual connections (natural intuitions or voluntary).

However, going with a heavy, loose flow can also disrupt. Is there a Goldilocks plumber available?

It is necessary to have guidelines or standards as the basis for our actions and values. So that individuals can function and grow in interdependent systems ( internal and external ) — perhaps finding ‘eudaimonia’. A blessed relief of a life well-lived.

Foot and Friends. Perhaps we can think of them as mild, moderate or severe philosophical laxatives?

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If fed up with reading, why not listen?
In Our Time - Philippa Foot - BBC Sounds

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most significant philosophers of the twentieth century, Philippa Foot (1920 - 2010). Her central question was, “Why be moral?” Drawing on Aristotle and Aquinas, Foot spent her life working through her instinct that there was something lacking in the prevailing philosophy of the 1950s and 1960s which held that values could only be subjective. Could there really be no objective response to the horrors of the concentration camps that she had seen on newsreels, no way of saying that such acts were morally wrong?

In Our Time - Civility - BBC Sounds

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the idea that Civility, in one of its meanings, is among the most valuable social virtues: the skill to discuss topics that really matter to you, with someone who disagrees and yet somehow still get along. In another of its meanings, when Civility describes the limits of behaviour that is acceptable, the idea can reflect society at its worst: when only those deemed ‘civil enough’ are allowed their rights, their equality and even their humanity.

Worth taking part if only for the end. Very English.

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Foot: Morality As A System Of Hypothetical Imperatives
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On second thought, feces does have some undesirable relevance to ethics, in general and not necessarily Foot’s. Passing stool is a basic biological function, follows naturally from eating. In horses, much of the nutrients is probably designated for the legs but in humans the lion’s share goes to the brain.

It’s not a secret that feces evokes disgust, can induce nausea and emesis - this same pathway may be repurposed for ethical situations. I don’t have evidence for this but anecdotes about women getting turned off by bad guys do pop up here and there. Must be propaganda. :sweat_smile:

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Thanks Banno. Good question

As an IBS sufferer I occasionally find this issue compelling ( in more than one sense)

I think there are number of facts here that impact on morality.

First shitting in the street is psychologically dissonant. Hygiene is a shared disposition. The point is explored in “why good people disagree about politics” by Johnathan Haidt. Even those who may be less easily persuaded by hygiene factors draw the line at public displays of defecation.

The second is that shitting in the street carries a risk of social sanctions including criminal charges. Aristotle is good on this. We share an ethical nature but it is underwritten by society and by the law.

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So what makes shitting an ought isn’t that it’s biologically natural but that it leads to flourishing. “Natural” isn’t what happens to be, but it has to promote humanity. Otherwise, a panic attack that leads me to flee becomes a value.

The is isn’t an ought because it is, but because it fulfills the goal under the theory that the ought is what is through the natural order of things. Shitting is the natural order of things but panicking isn’t because natural and flourishing are the same. Is this circular somewhere?

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Stoics thought that goodness and health are basically the same thing. Evil and disease are the same. This view is part of the Western heritage, transmitted to us through the Romans, and is reflected in some of the ways we use the word “ought.”

We also inherited the view that someone can be sick and poor, but still good. This view was an element of Judaism (see the book of Job) transmitted to us through Christianity.

Jung went nuts over the book of Job. Did you see that?

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Is the argument that shitting is good but panicking not because shitting causes flourishing and panicking not and so that makes shitting natural and panicking not? If that is the case, then you can’t fail to flourish when you act according to nature, which in this case is shitting. But some have shat without flourish, so it’s not personal, but it’s overall I suppose. My shit might be one of regret, but we should expect my neighbors and such to flourish.

This means as I always suspected, which is my shit don’t stink.

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This ethical view requires you to look at the outcome to determine whether the thing was good. If you panicked and fell ass backward on a guy who then split his skull, and it turns out he was about to go shoot the president, but you stopped him, then the panic attack is judged accordingly to its fruits.

Your shit is also judged according to its fruits.

The point is, following nature leads to good, but we can’t always tell what nature demands. We learn this by observing the things that lead to success. If you’re successful, all is good. If you’re ailing, something is fucked up somewhere, and you’re receiving Nature’s punishment.

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The contemporary error is to fail to understand the close intertwining of the intellect and the will, and thus to mistake thoughts for volitions:

This is how Hare looks at practical thinking, and hence why he calls its conclusions imperatives. He also calls these imperatives volitions, but this is a mistake. The imperative is an act of thought, but the act of volition belongs to the will. These two acts do, indeed, necessarily go together, but they are different acts and belong to different faculties. Aquinas speaks more correctly when he says that to command is an act of reason which presupposes an act of will (he also says, significantly, that an ‘ought’-judgement is an indicative way of expressing a command; ST: Ia IIae, q17 a1).

Peter Simpson, Goodness and Nature, 216

As has been pointed out ad nauseum, Foot emphatically rejects these subjectivist approaches in her later work (cf. the post here and the one immediately following).

On Moral Authority
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You come to repeat every tale that’s ever been told, for we are the same as our fathers have been, we drink the same stream, we see the same sun, and we run the same course our fathers have run.

William Knox

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The error here is to conflate need with an involuntary act. You have probably found that as you get older you need to anticipate when your shits come as often as you voluntary take them. That’s why the elderly wear diapers just like babies. At bottom you are therefore speaking about an involuntary (or semi-voluntary) act and trying to make ethical hay out it. If this were correct then @Hanover’s dog would be a moral philosopher.

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The Stoics thought that we should be indifferent to bodily health and that virtue was the only good. The main obstacle to virtue was ignorance of what was good.

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I don’t think we’re in disagreement. Stoic ethics starts with the concept of the telos:

Zeno represented the end as: ‘living in agreement’. This is living in accordance with one concordant reason, since those who live in conflict are unhappy… Cleanthes, [Zeno’s] first successor, added ‘with nature’, and represented it as follows: ‘the end is living in agreement with nature’. (Stobaeus, 63B)

Although our Stoic sources record a number of further descriptions of the telos, some of which we will consider below, the formulation attributed in this passage to Cleanthes (and elsewhere to Zeno himself, see Diogenes Laertius 63C) – “living in agreement with nature” – offers a convenient entry-point into the Stoic ethical system.
Stoicism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Virtue is basically acting in line with nature, which for a human, means rationality:

To bring our mind into this state of agreement and achieve the telos, the Stoics argue that only one thing is needed: virtue. Virtue is the perfected condition of human reason (Seneca, 63D), or “a soul which has been fashioned to achieve consistency [or agreement, homologia] in the whole of life” (Diogenes Laertius, 61A). Having developed her own power of reason to its fullest extent, the virtuous agent not only lives a life that is the highest expression of human nature – the best possible condition for a human being to be in, given the kind of creature we are – but also replicates in herself the condition of the divine (Seneca, 60H; Plutarch, 61J). To live virtuously is therefore to live in agreement with both human nature and cosmic or divine nature at once (Chrysippus in Diogenes Laertius, 63C).
Stoicism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

This perspective generates a conflict, described in the SEP, which goes like this:

To be in line with your own nature, you should never be conflicted. You should accept everything as the will of Zeus (Zeus being the active principle of the universe). But this means you should be happy while being tortured, as long as you’re virtuous. Some Stoics believed that, but others thought it’s crazy, so an amended Stoicism says that if you’re sick, it’s natural to seek medicine. If you’re hungry, it’s natural to seek food. This leaves the agent having to decide which parts of nature to accept, and which parts to fight against.

Critics of Stoicism said this is a contradiction that makes Stoicism self contradictory.