Understanding Robert Baker: The Analogies and Disanalogies of Moral and Scientific Revolution

This discussion is designed to identify gaps within Robert Baker’s work and determine what within his revolutionary historicism needs to be further extrapolated. To utilise Baker’s work as a model for moral revolutionary change it needs to be situated with the broader historical critiques of moral revolution and gaps within his work exposed. I will describe moral revolution as defined by modern moral theorist Baker’s and his pragmatic breakdown of a moral revolution’s components. As a prominent writer in moral revolutionary theory Baker’s work is important to unpack, thus, his work is here discussed to build grounds for arguing that despite the decisiveness of his components of moral revolution, that there are various avenues left unexplored which require determination before his work can be used as a model for present and future revolutions.
While there are few direct critiques of Baker, and none that pose significant threat, there is a prominent critique of modern moral revolution made by Palmer and Schagrin. This critique was originally directed at Parsons, but as Parsons’ and Baker’s work share the fundamental similarity of analogising scientific and moral revolution this critique can also be applied to Baker. The critiques offered by Palmer and Schagrin reveal two large gaps within Baker’s work. That of determining progress and lacking emphasis on the gestalt switch as a process that occurs within individuals. Moral revolutionary theory is often criticized for having no metric for determining progress unlike scientific revolutionary theory. Baker neglects to discuss the individual’s role within moral revolution to an adequate degree. Specifically, the individual’s role in relation to the gestalt switch and what leads dissidents to action. Using Baker’s work as a model for present and future revolutions involves understanding if moral revolution leads to progress for a moral community and the role of the individual within said community during a revolutionary period. Therefore, this chapter entails a discussion of Baker’s components, simplified into 4 categories, a discussion of the broader literature and critiques of Baker, and leads to said gaps being identified.
While there are few direct critiques of Baker, and none that pose significant threat, there is a prominent critique of modern moral revolution made by Palmer and Schagrin. This critique was originally directed at Parsons, but as Parsons and Baker’s work share the fundamental similarity of analogising scientific and moral revolution this critique can also be applied to Baker. The critiques offered by Palmer and Schagrin, along with the works of various contemporary moral revolutionary theorists used to show varying opinion in the field, reveal two large gaps within Baker’s work. Namely, neglecting to discuss progress and lacking emphasis on the gestalt switch as a process that occurs within individuals. Using Baker’s work as a model for present and future revolutions involves understanding if moral revolution leads to progress for a moral community and the role of the individual within said community during a revolutionary period. Therefore, this chapter entails a discussion of Baker’s components, simplified into 4 categories, a discussion of the broader literature and critiques of Baker, and leads to said gaps being identified.