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(14) “[Dworkin] runs moral relativism, moral subjectivism, and moral skepticism together, treating them as different names for what he calls ‘external [moral] skepticism.”[xxxii][32]
I do not run these various theses together, nor — this is much more important — do I describe them as forms of “external” skepticism. The central argument of the article Posner cites was exactly to the contrary: that these positions can make sense — can even be intelligible — only as global forms of what I called internal skepticism, that is, as forms of skepticism that themselves rest on hidden positive moral beliefs or assumptions. Once again, his comment is a repetition: he made it in his Arizona Law Review piece, and in my response to that piece I pointed out the mistake. I said that if my actual argument were correct it would undermine many of his own opinions about morality and moral theory, and I therefore invited him to read my article more carefully and to explain if and why he thought it mistaken.[xxxiii][33] Instead, once again, he has simply repeated the mistake. This is particularly regrettable, because it has contributed to his making a dog’s breakfast of much of his essay.
(15) “Dworkin [calls pragmatism] an intellectual meal fit only for a dog (and I take it he does not much like dogs.)”[xxxiv][34]
This one is my fault. Long ago I said that pragmatism was philosophically a dog’s dinner.[xxxv][35] My comment troubled Posner, who has referred to it repeatedly over the intervening years, taking it to have anatomical, then scatological, and now caniphobic implications. I thought the expression a familiar one; perhaps it is more familiar in British than in American usage. The Dictionary of Slang defines “dog’s dinner” as “Noun. 1. A mess. See also ''dog''s breakfast''.” Under the latter entry we find: “Noun. A mess. E.g. ‘I''ve made a bit of a dog''s breakfast of that essay.’” As it happens, I like dogs very much.
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[i][1] March 9, 2000.
[ii][2] Belknap Press/Harvard University Press (1999.
[iii][3] 11 Harvard Law Review 1637 (1998).
[iv][4] So far as I am aware, no one has given particulars of any misrepresentation of mine in the way I try to do in this note. Perhaps this example will encourage others to use the Internet for that purpose.
[v][5] Problematics, 287
[vi][6] Problematics, 117.
[vii][7] Problematics, 117.
[viii][8] Problematics, 97
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