Stephen Toulmin: Cosmopolis (1990)

The final philosopher in this review is perhaps the most significant because he was a genuine insider in the classic theory-centred view of Modernity. In Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity, Toulmin presents a stark contrast from what he now calls the ―received view‖:

Looking back at the ―received view‖ of Modernity after fifty years, my inclination is to retort, ―Don‘t believe a word of it!‖ From the start, that whole story was one-sided and over-optimistic, and veered into self-congratulation.¹⁰²

Toulmin used this exaggerated claim deliberately because his main criticism of the Enlightenment project was not the ideal of rational enquiry but the exaggerated product and historical inaccuracy of many of its major advocates and because the Modern project assumed too much. His change of mind begins with what he refers to as the hidden agenda of Modernity, the ―Erwartungshorizonten, or horizons of expectation,‖ that he says dominated Modernity.¹⁰³ Toulmin uses the term ―received account‖ to describe the confident assertion that human rationality could transcend traditional presuppositions of religion and culture. He

101 Richard J. Bernstein, The New Constellation: The Ethical-Political Horizons of Modernity/

Postmodernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991), 336.

102 Toulmin, Cosmopolis, 16.

103 Toulmin, Cosmopolis, 1.

is not saying that the Enlightenment project itself was a failure because major advances did occur in almost every field of human enquiry.

In choosing as the goals of Modernity an intellectual and practical agenda that set aside the tolerant, skeptical attitude of the 16^th-century humanists, and focussed on the 17^th-century pursuit of mathematical exactitude and logical rigor, intellectual certainty and moral purity, Europe set itself on a cultural and political road that has led to its most striking technical successes and to its deepest human failures.¹⁰⁴

The first chapter of Cosmopolis describes an increasing distrust over the received wisdom of Modernity. Toulmin says the scientific blessing of the Enlightenment (especially in medicine) was that scientific enquiry has made significant progress since Galileo and Descartes. However, this progress was itself a long-term product of prior ―17^th-century revolutions undertaken in physics by Galileo, Kepler, and Newton, and in philosophy by Descartes, Locke, and Leibniz.‖¹⁰⁵ Toulmin‘s change of mind focuses on what he calls the ―shared assumptions about rationality‖ as the starting point of Modernity.¹⁰⁶ He claims that acknowledging the limits of rational enquiry is less contentious now in science than it is in philosophy because scientists ―share in more or less agreed-upon tasks‖ whereas philosophers do not.¹⁰⁷ The more or less agreed-upon task of scientific enquiry is the standard model approach referred to previously.

104 Toulmin, Cosmopolis, x.

105 Toulmin, Cosmopolis, 9.

106 Toulmin, Cosmopolis, 9.

107 Toulmin, Cosmopolis, 10.

Further, Toulmin says the self-doubt of philosophy, and thus his own, necessitated a fresh start because the ―burden of proof‖ shifted once the dream of finding a scratch line for epistemic claims failed to materialise.¹⁰⁸ John Dewey‘s Gifford Lectures (1929) provide the starting point for Toulmin‘s critique. Taking his cue from Wittgenstein, Toulmin suggests that the theory-centred focus of Modernity is over and done with because the ―destructive work of Dewey, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, and Rorty‖ has left philosophy with limited options. Toulmin thinks there are three possibilities for philosophy:

[1] It can cling to the discredited research program of a purely theoretical (i.e. ―modern‖) philosophy, which will end by driving it out of business; [2] it can look for new and less exclusively theoretical ways of working, and develop the methods needed for a more practical (―post-modern‖) agenda; or [3] it can return to its pre-17^th -century traditions, and try to recover the lost (―pre-modern‖) topics that were sidetracked by Descartes, but can be usefully taken up for the future.¹⁰⁹

The Modern project, according to Toulmin, did not provide certainty for

―intellectual problems—let alone, practical ones,‖ and the claim that philosophical or scientific problems could be de-contextualized was itself based on an historical motivation. He uncompromisingly rejects the Modern assumption that rationality was commonly available to anyone ―who sets superstition and mythology aside‖

in ways ―free of local prejudice and transient fashion.‖¹¹⁰ Toulmin‘s criticism of

108 Toulmin, Cosmopolis, 178.

109 Toulmin, Cosmopolis, 11.

110 Toulmin, Cosmopolis, 11.

the false assumptions of Modernity has broadened to become a critique of rationality itself.¹¹¹

After fifty years of reflecting on the received view of Modernity Toulmin argues that it was simply over-optimistic.¹¹² He is not suggesting a rejection of all aspects of the standard account but argues that it was simply over-optimistic and that its worst defects are matters of historical fact. He highlights three basic historical assumptions of seventeenth-century rationalism. First, he argues that general historians have long since rejected the myth of social progress that many philosophers still cling to. Second, also on historical grounds, he rejects the assumption that the Enlightenment led to freedom from ecclesiastical tyranny.

Third, he claims that the assumption of a clean intellectual break with the Middle Ages is at best a half-truth.¹¹³

At this point in his reconstruction for a modern Cosmopolis Toulmin sets the scene for a re-evaluation of pre-Modernity because one aim of seventeenth-century philosophers was to frame questions independent of context. Toulmin claims that his task is now to ―recontextualize the questions these philosophers took most pride in de-contextualizing.‖¹¹⁴ For Toulmin, the social implications of the new Cosmopolis share one feature, which is that they foreshadow a notion that has recently played a part in political and social rhetoric.

111 Cf. Edmund Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1954), 22-25, 57-68.

112 Toulmin, Cosmopolis, 16.

113 Toulmin, Cosmopolis, 18-20.

114 Toulmin, Cosmopolis, 21.

Toulmin claims that throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, clerics and educated laypeople understood that problems in social ethics were not resolved by appeal to any single universal tradition so when they confronted serious moral issues they appealed to multiple considerations and coexisting traditions that were weighed against one another.¹¹⁵ For this reason Toulmin now argues for a return to casuistry in ethics – to re-contextualise philosophical truth-claims for a modern Cosmopolis:

Until the 17^th century turned ethics into a branch of theoretical philosophy, ―case ethics‖ was as intellectually challenging as constitutional interpretation in the judicial practice of the United States. It did not aim to provide a unique resolution of every moral problem: rather, it triangulated its way across unexplored ethical territory, using all the available resources of moral thought and social tradition.¹¹⁶

In a collaborative project with Albert Jonsen, Toulmin argues that a moral agent can resort to type-cases or paradigm cases without becoming an absolutist.¹¹⁷ A type-case uses standard principles as referential markers so that an individual case can be compared and contrasted with the typical. Jonsen and Toulmin argue that standard maxims such as ―don‘t use violence against innocent human beings,‖

―don‘t lie,‖ and ―don‘t take unfair advantage of other people‘s misfortune‖ serve as ―markers or boundary stones that delimit the territory of ‗moral‘ considerations in practice.‖¹¹⁸ A central concern behind Toulmin‘s recent work resembles MacIntyre‘s reconstructive project when he suggests that because the criticism of

115 Toulmin, Cosmopolis, 135.

116 Toulmin, Cosmopolis, 135.

117 Albert R. Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin, The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 307.

118 Jonsen and Toulmin, The Abuse of Casuistry, 307.

leading philosophers ―undermines the whole ‗foundationalist‘ program,‖ a new Cosmopolis is now required that favours a research program ―concentrated on narrative and practice.‖¹¹⁹ Toulmin argues that the search for ―common grounding,‖ based either on Cartesian rationalism (clear and distinct ideas) or on Lockean empiricism, has not produced common results and a new ―grounding‖ is required that focuses on the ―overall narrative of conceptual history.‖¹²⁰

2.9 Conclusion

The seemingly secure path that philosophy embarked on at the start of the seventeenth century had by the end of the twentieth century diverged into numerous and often disparate versions of the original position. The various types of moral enquiry advocated by Rorty, Williams, Dancy, Bernstein, and Toulmin represent a non-foundationalist shift in emphasis, even though they provide a diverse range of alternatives. This diversity, however, seems eminently reasonable, given Aristotle‘s insight that ethics is a practical rather than a theoretical science. In Book III of the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle argues that a rational agent does not spend time deliberating about ends when he says that ―a doctor does not deliberate whether he should heal, nor an orator whether he shall persuade, nor a statesman whether he shall produce law and order.‖¹²¹ For Aristotle, a rational agent ought to be more concerned with practical intelligence or prudence and thus the concentration of thought for doctors, orators, and

119 Stephen Toulmin, ―Theology in the Context of the University,‖ Theological Education 26/2 (Spring, 1990): 51-65.

120 Toulmin, ―Theology in the Context of the University,‖ 51-65.

121 Aristotle, ―Nicomachean Ethics,‖ 1113^a, 359.

statesmen is to ―assume the end‖ (health, persuasion, and law and order) and to spend time contemplating ―how and by what means‖ the end ―is to be attained.‖¹²²

Aristotle‘s concept of practical wisdom stands in stark contrast to the decision making models currently being advocated in practical ethics. For Aristotle, practical ethics is forged in a shared teleological activity of a specific practice (i.e., medicine→health; law→justice; politics→civil society), and the virtues of these practices are shaped by hands-on engagement of the practitioners concerned.

Doctors, lawyers, and politicians can and do achieve standards of excellence sufficient to be labeled as experts in their respective fields. Aristotle‘s engaged version of practical wisdom is very different from the most popular contemporary versions of practical ethics that argue for a disengaged process of decision making. The motivation for the contemporary focus on practical ethics was driven, in part, by a level of anxiety over modern medical techniques and the corresponding desire to be able to deal with these issues independently, free from traditional moral divides, and with a level of professional expertise. Singer and Wells make this claim when they argue that, when faced with complex ethical issues, we should be ―a little more ready to gather together those [ethicists] best qualified to consider the issues in an open and informed manner‖ because their understanding and qualifications provide ―an understanding of the nature of ethics and the meanings of the moral concepts‖ and ―a reasonable knowledge of the major ethical theories.‖¹²³ The overriding difficulty with this approach is that

122 Aristotle, ―Nicomachean Ethics,‖ 1113^a, 359.

123 Peter Singer and Deane Wells, The Reproductive Revolution: New Ways of Making Babies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 199-200.

those people who are ―best qualified‖ in philosophy are no more likely to reach agreement over complex moral issues than less qualified people from other disciplines.

Clearly, as stated before, philosophers can and do reach thin agreement on moral issues, but this type of agreement is also shared by many others who are not moral experts. Even if it were true that philosophers derive common conclusions from shared premises, this would still not help solve a significant practical problem associated with ethical decision making in a modern liberal democracy. A modern liberal democracy provides space for people from numerous cultural and religious persuasions. The inherent pluralism of a modern democracy allows people to hold to a variety of competing positions, and the search for an approach that ignores this diversity is misguided. The next chapter will explore the historical and theoretical background behind the types of justificatory arguments currently being posited in contemporary practical ethics. The aim of this analysis will be to show that the attempt to simplify the decision making process was misguided from the start because the type of divisions one finds in connection with complex moral issues is precisely what one ought to expect in a modern pluralist society.