Whether you preach to non-Christians to convert them to Christ or preach to Christians to edify them, the use of gospel messages will often involve repeating or paraphrasing Bible facts which the audience already know. I guess that an easy way to bore or patronize someone is by telling them too many familiar facts that they could quite easily have told to you first. If what you say is only a paraphrase of what they already know how can it be profoundly interesting to them ? I believe that Christendom's best preachers endeavour to avoid the pitfalls. They carefully study the art of being innovative and interesting. Their words are not heretical, misleading or envious, but they are worth hearing. The Penguin Dictionary of Proverbs says : Speak fitly or be silent wisely. It is profound ignorance that inspires the dogmatic tone. He that knows little often repeats it.
AN EDITED SECTION OF JONATHAN BARNES INTRODUCTION TO ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS
Concerning Ethics and Meta-Ethics : Any work of moral philosophy is liable to contain judgements of two different sorts. It will on the one hand contain, substantive moral judgements, to the effect that certain men or types of men, or actions or types of action etcetera, are good or bad, right or wrong, obligatory or impermissible, and so on. In short, it will offer opinion and advice on moral matters. A simple example from the Ethics is Aristotle's recommendation that young men should not study political science. On the other hand a work of moral philosophy will contain judgements about such substantive moral judgements, to the effect that they are or are not factual or objective or influential etcetera; that the concepts they use are to be elucidated in such and such a way; that they are logically interrelated in such and such a manner, and so on. In short it will contain adversions on what is sometimes called the logic of moral discourse. A simple example from the beginning of the Ethics is Aristotle's suggestion about the meaning of the term 'good'. It is convenient to have different names for these two sorts of judgements. Following an accepted custom I shall call the judgements of the first sort ethical and the judgements of the second sort meta-ethical. An analogous distinction can of course be made in any other discipline or branch of study.
Most philosophical writings on morals contain I think a preponderance of meta-ethical judgements. Indeed it is tempting to regard as the specifically philosophical aspect of moral philosophy precisely this self-conscious study of the logic of moral discourse. If moral philosophers hope by their philosophizing to make us better men, their proprietary path to that goal is meta-ethical. The articulation and elucidation of our thought about moral matters will, they trust, lead us to judge well and act rightly. Aristotle's Ethics is no exception to this generalization, and a major portion of the work is I think properly construed a contribution to meta-ethics.
More than once Aristotle emphasizes that the sciences cannot all aspire to an equal degree of precision. Different subject matters make different demands and the subject matter of ethics in particular allows only a modest amount of precision. This central notion of precision has aroused little scholarly comment and it remains somewhat obscure. In ethics the key concept seems to be that of generality. Ethical judgements are lacking in precision because they hold only 'for the most part'. Mathematicians may truly advance theorems of the universal form 'Every F is G'. But moralists are restricted to the nature of their subject to generalizations of the form 'Most F's are G' or As a rule F's are G. Why did Aristotle hold this view ? He was inclined to believe that the biological sciences in general did not admit universally valid judgements, so that anthropology and human psychology would not furnish the moralist with anything stronger than generalizations. And he was also impressed by the seemingly infinite variety of human circumstances and situations. He must have inferred from this that any ethical proposition of the universal form 'Every F is G' (Every courageous act is praiseworthy, Every promise is to be kept) would sooner or later be refuted by the occurrence of a situation in which, unusually but indisputably, an F failed to be G. To cater for this perpetual possibility the moralist falls back upon the phrase 'for the most part' or 'as a rule'. For 'As a rule F's are G's' will survive a limited number of cases in which F's are not G.' Reflection on the nature of law may have confirmed Aristotle in this belief. He insists that laws, though framed universally, cannot or should not be applied strictly in all cases. The virtue of equity is needed precisely to determine and adjudicate upon those situations in which the law's universality offends against the canons of justice.
Some judgements which are ethical rather than meta-ethical surely do attain precision. It is surely true that every generous man possesses a moral virtue, and that every murder is a wrongful act. Such judgements attain precision because in a sense they say nothing. They are tautologies or analytic judgements: their subject terms already include the notion of goodness or badness. 'Murder is wrong' is in this respect similar to 'Omnivores eat meat'. If I doubt the truth of 'Omnivores eat meat', then assuming that I know what it is to eat meat, I show myself unacquainted with the sense of the term omnivore. Equally if I doubt the truth of 'Murder is wrong' I show myself unacquainted with the sense of the term murder. Failure to distinguish between analytic and non-analytic ethical judgements is likely to march with failure to distinguish between meta-ethical and ethical judgements. For every ethical tautology or analytic judgement of the form 'Every F is G' can be paired off with a meta-ethical judgement of the form 'The concept of F includes the concept of G'. Thus the concept of murder includes that of wrongfulness.
The communication catchphrase of our Lord Jesus Christ is at Matthew 11:15 / 13:9 / 13:43, Luke 14:35 and Revelation 3:6 / 3:13 / 3:22. He that hath ears to hear let him hear. The Penguin Dictionary of Proverbs says :
A word to the wise is enough. Send a wise man on an errand and say nothing to him. Who wrong hears, wrong answer gives. Misunderstanding brings lies to town.
George Warner
