Frances to Chris... The philosophic theory of architecture should clearly include aesthetics and even aspects of the beautiful, and it should also include logics and its aspects of the reasonable, and it should include ethics, but it is not clear to me whether aspects of the moral and the social should be part of an ethical mix. The argument for social democracy as the best polity may fall apart if the vast majority of voters freely elected a communist or racist or anarchist or fascist party to establish a national government. The collective community as a corporate body without a federal polity is likely the best approach, but this may defy ethics if nationalism and its patriotism are held to be natural and good and right and correct. The main principle of ethics after all is to use good ways and means to good goals and ends. The most worthy goals under ethics are perhaps the pursuit of a whole happy life, and yielding the greatest good for the greatest amount of people, and not using humans as a means to even a good end, and having the will to respect just law. The pragmatist principles of morality can include value and worth and economy, but of polity it can exclude capital or profit or money. Any object of value simply satisfies a need, aside from any ethical or moral concern. Any object of worth merely incites an inference. Any object of economy is realized mainly in the wise use of scarce resources. The moral argument for pragmatism turns on behavior being natural, and then on beneficial benevolence and beneficence. Fitting this to suit a theory of architecture may prove to be difficult.
Chris wrote... So far, Frances' has not yet taken her discussion of "architecture and philosophy" into the territory of moral philosophy, but that was where Louis Sullivan's primary theme was developed: "aspirant democracy" is the need or function; "democratic architecture" is the expression (or form). Where Democracy is defined as "the altruistic activity of the Ego" (as opposed to Feudalism which is selfish) "Democracy is a moral principal, a spiritual law, a perennial subjective reality in the realm of man's spirit. It is an aspiring power whose roots run deep into those primal forces that have caused man to arise from the elements of earth, and slowly, through the ages to assume a rectitude and poise that are of man alone." "You may trace its vicissitudes, obscurations, perversions, decadences and resurrections, its metamorphoses, disintegrations and reformations - but it is not to be denied! ...and will surely find in its amplitude of organized consummation a new philosophy of man." I have a problem with this assertion because, as we trace those vicissitudes, one might well find that "the altruistic activity of the Ego" is more endemic in some societies that have been called feudal (where so much is done out of obligation) rather than democratic (where so much is done for personal gain). And one of the first letters that was published in response to Sullivan's attack on the immorality of contemporary architecture questioned whether "a man who makes a mistake in (aesthetic) judgment is as bad as a defaulter" (possibly an unkind reference to the Sullivan's own bankruptcy) "It may be deplorable (to design a building of "bad character") but it gives us no moral shock." Or does it? Clearly, Sullivan expressed moral shock about such things. Are there any "teachings of ethics or moral philosophy" that Sullivan could use for justification? I don't know. But if humans can be recognized as extraordinary "copying machines" (especially when we're young), wouldn't it be harmful to establish a public, permanent example of "bad character?" (even if the right to do so should be protected by law - and that protection is characteristic of a democratic, rather than a feudal, society.) I also like Sullivan's use of the term feudal to suggest servitude to some fixed rule. I don't think it's possible to separate Sullivan's recreation of ornament from his architecture or his moralizing; in fact, I think it was the central issue for him. His ornament was an organic expression of life force organized by a rigorously rationalized geometric system, one that becomes effulgent in the best sense of the term. Rather than being applied to architecture, his ornament produced architecture. Some scholars (like Van Zanten) suggest that his ornamental concepts as shown in his drawings were really incipient city plans so that not only the building but also the whole city can grow from them. Sullivan was one of those who anticipated the 20th century obsession for utopian society.
