Isn't it important to be able to coherently express yourself to others? And that's on the most basic level. (Usually, I wouldn't suggest beginning a sentence with "and" to students, but I find it appropriate to punctuate my point with a colloquial sentence fragment).
On a more intellectual level, being able to cogently express one's thoughts, especially on the university level, is extremely important and necessary for the communication of the ideas that power our constantly changing and developing world.
Grammar isn't just a list of rules to follow, a set of hoops one must jump through in the writing process because "that's the way it works;" grammar is the only way one can ensure coherency of expression. Communication would be impossible without regulatory rules.
Now, as to the question of whether grammar is an adequate metaphor for morality, in relation to a recent article by David Brooks in the New York Times, I think it's perfectly appropriate. Brooks discusses morality's connection to successful evolutionary traits, positing our emotions as the major actors in our moral decision making process: 'Or as Jonathan Haidt of the University of Virginia memorably wrote, “The emotions are, in fact, in charge of the temple of morality, and ... moral reasoning is really just a servant masquerading as a high priest.'"
In opposition to Socratic thought, which advocates emotionless, independent "deliberation" on moral questions, Brooks and other researchers believe that our moral "instincts" (the word stands in stark contrast to "deliberation") come from an evolutionary trait: our inheritance from generations of successful cooperators.
How does this relate to grammar? Grammar is by nature descriptive. It doesn't determine how language works, it looks at how our language operates and creates "rules" (more accurately, descriptions of a language's predictable behaviors). In reality, when one says that language follows rules, one really means that language operates in predictable ways, which can be described by "rules."
At the most basic level, language developed to enable us to communicate, to solve problems, and to express ourselves. Grammar simply describes the ways in which our language adapted to the problems of self-expression. Take verbal conjugation, for example:
A cave-woman is attempting to convey to her small social network an anecdote, in hopes that her experience may be useful to others and subsequent generations. She describes a day in which she and two other women go out to forage. She and the two other women discover a new technique for retrieving nuts from a tree. In describing the actions they took to her gathered audience, the woman must convey the fact that two of the women stood on the ground, holding baskets, while another woman climbed the tree to shake the branches.
We hold.
She shakes.
The way the verbs are conjugated reveals that more than one woman held the baskets, while only one shook the branches.
This may be a confusing example, and I am sure English verbs are far too irregular for this purpose (and I'm sure ancient cave-women, northern European or otherwise, did not speak English), but I think it illustrates my point.
Grammar is a tool used to describe how language customarily works, for optimum ease and coherence of communication. "Morality" or "ethics" is a system used to describe the customary actions and beliefs which have allowed our ancestors to cooperate successfully within various social systems, throughout a long expanse of time.
The article by Brooks is well worth a read. My own little comparison might not do this new view of moral studies justice. If you aren't considering reading whole article, here are the last two paragraphs to give you a taste of the significance:
"The rise and now dominance of this emotional approach to morality is an epochal change. It challenges all sorts of traditions. It challenges the bookish way philosophy is conceived by most people. It challenges the Talmudic tradition, with its hyper-rational scrutiny of texts. It challenges the new atheists, who see themselves involved in a war of reason against faith and who have an unwarranted faith in the power of pure reason and in the purity of their own reasoning.
Finally, it should also challenge the very scientists who study morality. They’re good at explaining how people make judgments about harm and fairness, but they still struggle to explain the feelings of awe, transcendence, patriotism, joy and self-sacrifice, which are not ancillary to most people’s moral experiences, but central. The evolutionary approach also leads many scientists to neglect the concept of individual responsibility and makes it hard for them to appreciate that most people struggle toward goodness, not as a means, but as an end in itself."
No comments:
Post a Comment