On taking a shit

Ethics
21

There’s little that is subjective about shitting. Which is why shitting works as an example for Foot’s later work. She came to think that moral evaluation is not grounded in attitudes, preferences, decisions, or prescriptions, but in objective facts about the life-form of human beings.

In common with others, I took it for granted at that time that a discussion of the rationality of moral action would start from some theory or other about what a reason for action must be: rather favouring a desire-fulfilment theory, with some special allowance for the force of considerations of self-interest. I now believe that both the self-interest theory of rationality and the theory of rationality as desire fulfilment are mistaken. Moreover, there seems to be a mistake of strategy involved in trying to fit the rationality of moral action into either theory: such an enterprise implying that we first come to a theory of rational action, and then try as best we can to slot in the rationality of acts of justice and charity.

Natural Goodness, p. 10

The discussion to take a shit is not the result of ratiocination.

The following is the summative paragraph of the first chapter of Natural Goodness. She sets out her thesis clearly and briefly. I have bolded the most relevant sentence.

What, then, is to be said about the relation between‘fact’ and‘value’? The thesis of this chapter is that the grounding of a moral argument is ultimately in facts about human life—facts of the kind that Anscombe mentioned in talking about the good that hangs on the institution of promising, and of the kind that I spoke of in saying why it was a part of rationality for human beings to take special care each for his or her own future. In my view, therefore, a moral evaluation does not stand over against the statement of a matter of fact, but rather has to do with facts about a particular subject matter, as do evaluations of such things as sight and hearing in animals, and other aspects of their behaviour. Nobody would, I think, take it as other than a plain matter of fact that there is something wrong with the hearing of a gull that cannot distinguish the cry of its own chick, as with the sight of an owl that cannot see in the dark. Similarly, it is obvious that there are objective, factual evaluations of such things as human sight, hearing, memory, and concentration, based on the life form of our own species. Why, then, does it seem so monstrous a suggestion that the evaluationof the human will should be determined by facts about the nature of human beings and the life of our own species? Undoubtedly the resistance has something to do with the thought that the goodness of good action has a special relation to choice. But as I have tried to show, this special relation is not what non-cognitivists think it is, but rather lies in the fact that moral action is rational action, and in the fact that human beings are creatures with the power to recognize reasons for action and to act on them. This in no way precludes recognition of the part played by ‘sentiments’ such as (negatively) shame and revulsion or (positively) sympathy, self-respect, and pride in motivating human virtue. I think that David Wiggins is right often to have stressed this side of Hume’s moral philosophy

Foot rejects fulfilling desires and self interest as the place to start in considering our actions, in preference for objective facts about the human life.

Shitting shows us that the reason for an act can be entirely independent of our attitudes and desires.

22

I’m not sure that the association between anal retentive behaviour and Divine Command Theory is quite as direct as you suggest. But I might be wrong.

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23

Digression: In the West, certainly. But a walk down streets in India or Nigeria will reveal people openly using the street as a toilet. And in early Australian history, it wasn’t unusual to find people relieving themselves by the side of a city street. So there does seem to be a cultural/developmental factor in all of this. I also wonder whether, if we hadn’t connected open sewage and human waste to common diseases like dysentery, typhoid, and cholera, we would have developed the same taboos we have now.

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One of my interests here is in the motivational aspect of shitting, which is somewhat different to the rational motivations so often found in ethics. It is an example - perhaps the most extreme example - of a group of motivations for which it is difficult to deny that rationality is secondary. We might include here thirst, hunger, pain and so on. The temptation os to think of these as distinct form our moral considerations, as different in kind; so one of the questions here is, how could such a distinction be maintained, if at all?

25

May I draw your attention to the paper Responding to Gut Issues: Insights from Disability Theory by Jane Dryden.

paper1dryden.pdf (272.3 KB)

The six concluding reconditions are excellent. Useful in disability advocacy.

The communal nature of sanction, mentioned by yourself and @Tom_Storm, is one that is not given enough consideration by ethicists. Ethics is political. Were we may disagree on why we ought do this and not that, we might find broad agreement as to that we ought do this and not that. This was the point of the example fo kicking puppies I;ve used elsewhere.

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I believe the difference between ethical motivation and biological function can be teased out from the fact that the latter emerges from the body and presents itself to us, sometimes inconveniently, while the former, though evolution has done a wonderful job of automating morality, arises from the top, the brain, and the middle, the heart.

Do you know that the gut has its own neural complex and dualistic innervation consisting of sympathetic (alert) and parasympathetic (calm) neurons. I’m not sure but do we pee and shit when terrified?

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I take the point that some explanations of what we do don’t pass through desire, but that doesn’t make morality a biological reflex.

Desire isn’t the whole story. Foot’s thought is that practical reasoning begins from the facts of human life—our needs, vulnerabilities, and ways of flourishing.

So, human life itself can supply reasons for action. That, of course, is not to deny the importance of regular bowel movements.

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Indeed, and this thread concerns one of those…

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Three in One. The Holy Trinity :folded_hands:

‘Lang may ye pee and fart, and nivver need a doctor’ — anon auld grannie.

30

I looked that up. He posited a fourth in addition to the trinity, being Satan. Part of God is evil.

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31

As I said here, you are talking about what is at bottom an involuntary act. Foot knows that ethics is not about involuntary acts, and that is why none of her examples are analogous to shitting.

32

You seem to have taken to citing yourself. Not a source I trust.

But the extent to which shitting is voluntary and yet charity is involuntary is exactly what this thread is asking; the extent to which choice is central to our moral actions.

Is there a clear difference in kind between taking a shit and a charitable act? That’s the OP.

Simply repeating that there is will not cut it.

The central idea of Natural Goodness is exactly this sort of thing: that natural normativity is explicitly modelled on cases that are not voluntary at all. hence the examples of the gull not recognising the cries of it’s chick, the owl’s night vision, these are not voluntary. Foot’s argument is precisely that the same kind of evaluation based on natural-historical, life-form-grounded, non-attitude-dependent truths, extends from these involuntary capacities to the human will.

Hence the pressure from the OP.

The alternative would be that shitting is not an action at all, but merely something that happens. This is surely not the case for most of us.

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I think it means socially generating a demand for action. I think that’s a really important distinction.

Also, good to see you’re still at it. I am the artist formerly known as Reformed Nihilist.

34

I need to come back to this, for the reason bolded. The core here is whether that the need is recognised, not deduced, is compatible with that human life supplies reasons for action. How do we differentiate between recognising a need and having a reason - and does that distinction even make sense?

For Foot, the distinction may collapse.

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35

Yes, I find myself agreeing - and this is a point of departure from Foot, it seems. I do not think she put enough emphasis on the communal nature of ethical discourse.

:grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

I’ll do my little happy dance at your return. It will be a great boon for the fora.

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36

The is/ought equivalence argument demands some sort of evaluation of natural order, where we can say that a gull who ignores the cries of her chicks is unnatural, despite that gull being as much part of nature of the maternal gull.

“Nature” then gets reinterpreted to not just being what is, but in being what ought to be, namely that which leads to flourishing.

The naturalistic fallacy disolves because what is isn’t necessarily what ought be, but acknowleding sometimes nature gets it wrong. Those instances are argued to be “unnatural” because they interfere with flourushing, which is the real criterion for the good.

The point being that Leon isn’t wrong to point out shitting is of no moral consequence and that those with digestive disorders are not morally defective because they ought shit more effectively. They are unnatural, not because they aren’t fully part of nature, but becasue they don’t flourish.

The assessment of man’s nature is therefore meant to decipher what promotes its wellbeing in a very holistic way, with general reference to flourishing, akin to asking what makes a person thrive or whatnot.

Shitting serves as an anology therefore not to teach us how to act, but to teach us to locate which behaviors lead to our fulfillment of our natural inclinations and which don’t suppress those behaviors we wish to express.

The shitting example therefore is a distantly abstracted metaphor where incontinence like broken wings, are similar representations of walls blocking achievement of natural flourishing.

But it is true that metaphor goes only so far because literalized it is true that shitting and a bird flying properly are of no moral consequence.

Only when we get closer to the concrete does this analogizing hold true weight, as in, if one could not love, one could not empathize, and one could truly not do as one ought. Unlike shitting, empathizing is of moral consequence, but looking to amoral examples (shitting and broken wings) is meant just to describe how the inquiry into what is natural is to be conducted.

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37

Looking to these analogies which come from Foot, what she is doing is setting up the idea that humans have natural ends just like other animals. For example, the bird needs wings to flourish and the human needs to be able to reason to flourish (among other things). But Foot does not think that animals are moral agents.

The reason humans are moral agents is because they can reason and make choices about which path to follow. Indeed, they do this by identifying the proper human ends and then using their volition and reason to achieve those ends.

Why isn’t shitting the sort of end that Foot has in mind? It is because the ends that Foot has in mind are things that are difficult to achieve, thus requiring deliberation and effort. Shitting is not like that. Shitting will happen of its own accord without any deliberation and without any effort. The primary effort humans apply in the sphere of shitting is precisely in not shitting (i.e. continence). When you get to the toilet you don’t do anything special. You just stop not-shitting. And those who lack continence simply wear diapers, whether in young or old age.

Human hygiene and social mores do come into morality, but the hygienic end of not-shitting-oneself is fairly remote from ethics. Again, if not-shitting-oneself is some kind of special ethical achievement and consideration, then a well-trained dog is a master ethicist.

Note too that Foot talks about mundane things, but she doesn’t talk about shitting. She talks about humans needing good eyesight, for example. And she could incorporate various crafts into that ethical consideration, such as medicine, optometry, ophthalmology, etc. These are all ways that humans order their activities towards proper human ends. Shitting, not so much. To paraphrase Aristotle, “We only deliberate about things that are within our control and can be affected by our actions.” Shitting has very limited mileage, ethically speaking.

38

Try giving an argument for your thesis that they are the same kind of thing. And remember that Foot is opposed to non-cognitivism.

The reason they are different is because the first is inevitable and the second is difficult, and ethics has do to with things that are at least not inevitable and at most difficult.

Naturalistic ethics requires natural ends (i.e. ends that are unchosen), but it also requires voluntary actions aimed at reaching those ends. That I poop or that I breathe or that my heart beats is not a properly ethical end because these things will for the most part occur with or without my voluntary action.

39

Defecating is a physiological response. It’s how the body gets rid of digestive waste at the end of the alimentary canal.

At the end, there is an anal sphincter that we control so we can determine where and when we eliminate the waste. So, this is where human choice applies.

Normally, we go poop in a toilet. This is the normative response. But sometimes the act is used to send a message, usually of contempt. For example, shitting on your neighbour’s car or front stoop after an argument with them.

And there are stories of prisoners smearing their shit on the walls of their cells, in a message of contempt for their jailers. In this case, it may be the only expression of personal power that the prisoner feels they have.

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There are minor forms of choice that come into it, but the ability to defecate in a toilet is not some great ethical achievement. A three year-old can be taught to do it.

Sure, but that is a rather different question than regards the simple act of defecating, namely the fact that fecal matter can be weaponized.