Analytical philosophy in a nutshell:
1) Deny the primacy of consciousness in the world; and
2) Now notice how hard it is to explain everything, and exert great efforts to come up with ingenious way to avoid admitting 1) was an error.

Analytical philosophy in a nutshell:
1) Deny the primacy of consciousness in the world; and
2) Now notice how hard it is to explain everything, and exert great efforts to come up with ingenious way to avoid admitting 1) was an error.

You quote Rorty as claiming that the grammaticality of a sentence is rarely a matter of doubt, while moral dilemmas leave us uncertain. But he may not be comparing equivalent sets.

There are huge numbers of sentences whose grammaticality is in doubt. A frequently-studied instance is the so-called “parasitic gap”, such as “Which paper did you read before you filed?” “What kind of person do you like whenever you meet?” and similar. Some people hate them, some people see nothing wrong with them, others are left in some kind of post-koan Zen state. These grammaticality judgements may be analogous to difficult moral quandaries.

On the other hand, depending on how you define “moral dilemma”, there may be huge numbers of them that are easy to decide and hence are not usually counted as dilemmas. For example, should I smack my mother for no reason? The answer is obvious to anyone, as obvious as the grammaticality of “The dog is happy”. These easy moral issues, which we solve quickly and unconsciously every day, may be analogous to standard grammatical sentences, which we produce quickly and unconsciously every day.

Note, too, that these easy moral questions are frequently mastered by the age of five to seven years, the same age that marks the mastery of the basics of one’s native tongue. My seven-year-old knows that one never says “dog the happy is”, and that stealing is morally wrong, regardless of whether you get caught. These laws of grammaticality and morality are unknown to most of the animal kingdom, regardless of how long they live. So Rorty’s assertion that moral codes are not assimilated especially quickly is also on shaky ground.

You quote Rorty as claiming that the grammaticality of a sentence is rarely a matter of doubt, while moral dilemmas leave us uncertain. But he may not be comparing equivalent sets.

There are huge numbers of sentences whose grammaticality is in doubt. A frequently-studied instance is the so-called “parasitic gap”, such as “Which paper did you read before you filed?” “What kind of person do you like whenever you meet?” and similar. Some people hate them, some people see nothing wrong with them, others are left in some kind of post-koan Zen state. These grammaticality judgements may be analogous to difficult moral quandaries.

On the other hand, depending on how you define “moral dilemma”, there may be huge numbers of them that are easy to decide and hence are not usually counted as dilemmas. For example, should I smack my mother for no reason? The answer is obvious to anyone, as obvious as the grammaticality of “The dog is happy”. These easy moral issues, which we solve quickly and unconsciously every day, may be analogous to standard grammatical sentences, which we produce quickly and unconsciously every day.

Note, too, that these easy moral questions are frequently mastered by the age of five to seven years, the same age that marks the mastery of the basics of one’s native tongue. My seven-year-old knows that one never says “dog the happy is”, and that stealing is morally wrong, regardless of whether you get caught. These laws of grammaticality and morality are unknown to most of the animal kingdom, regardless of how long they live. So Rorty’s assertion that moral codes are not assimilated especially quickly is also on shaky ground.

Rorty wrote : “Nazi parents found it easy to turn their children into conscientious little monsters.” He does not describe how nazi parents taught their children to be cruel with Jews. How did they accomplish such training ? By brainwashing as Pavlov…