Well, I’d edit this more… but then it’d never get done. So here it is…
Introduction:
There’s an old Sufi myth about 5 blind men who wanted to figure out what the deal with elephants was. According to legend, each of the blind men went and grabbed a part of an elephant, to investigate once and for all, the final truth about elephants. One blind man grabbed the leg of the elephant, and announced to his colleagues, “dudes, an elephant is like a pillar”. Another blind man grabbed the tail, and explained to his fellows that an elephant was more like a rope. Presumably in disagreement, the man holding the trunk remarked that it was much more like a tree branch. And the one pressed against the side of the elephant described it more like a wall. Finally, one blind man happened to grab the elephant’s cock, and described it like a fire hose. As one may imagine, there was much to debate and discuss amongst the 5 blind men. And there were disputes.
I recount this affair as it was recounted to me, in my youth, because I believe the situation we face in morality is similar to that of the 5 blind men. We have many disagreements amongst us, and perhaps many of us have a hold on some part of the truth, though none of us on the whole truth. But the point I intend to prove in what follows is that there is indeed an elephant, and whether it is most like a rope, or a tree branch, or a wall, or a cock—I leave it to others to take up those worthwhile arguments.
Of course, those who involve themselves in discussions about morality will doubtless have heard it said that the moral course of action is the one that proceeds from the maxim that can consistently be willed to guide the action of any other person—a universal law. We owe to Immanuel Kant a number of sufficiently pedantic re-formulations of the same general sentiment as the Golden Rule. But I have heard others say, “no, no, morality is about character, and we ought to exhibit the trait that avoids the vices of excess and deficiency in any given situation”. Fine and good, I say. Others are more legalistically minded, and assume that morality has a contractual basis, in the agreements made between people. Still others reduce morality, (and considerations such as the ones above), to considerations of pleasure and pain—thinking that there they have found the core of what’s intrinsically valuable to creatures such as us.
Just as with the blind men, there is much to debate and dispute among the proponents of any of these theories. About this, I will say very little. I argue only that there exists an elephant, if not two or three or four. At this point, it’s time to lay some conceptual groundwork…
Important concepts:
Morality:
Quite simply, morality is the topic that concerns how you ought to act. Period.
No doubt, someone will at this point object, and say, “Yo, then what’s prudence?” To that, I will accuse my objector of operating with a phantom distinction—a distinction without a difference. In what follows, it’ll become clear that to say the prudent course of action is objectively determinable, but not so for morality, is like to object to the claim that you are a professional whore, but concede that you’ll sleep with whomever, for money.
There was no distinction betwixt prudence and morality for the ancient Greeks. The distinction arose in the religious Dark Ages, where superstition carried the day. And the distinction was essentially between that which is good for you in this world (prudence), versus that which is good for you in the world to come—i.e., God’s world (morality). Ladies and gentlemen, we are not in the Dark Ages, and we needn’t carry with us the distinctions of a more superstitious era, particularly when they cause so many needless confusions. Clearly, if one thinks there is an important distinction to be had betwixt prudence and morality, then it is incumbent on the person thinking so to argue on behalf of it.
While I think there is no essential distinction between prudence and morality—both concern how you ought to act—I do think there is a difference of degree. We can say that morality concerns how you ought to act when how you ought to act matters most to you. In other words, we use the term ‘moral’ when the stakes really matter. Thus, whether you masturbate with your left hand and or your right is not a moral issue, though perhaps can be a question of prudence, and even some importance. But whether you will save someone’s life with your left hand or you right is a moral issue, and it would be a serious moral failure to attempt with your left hand when you are right-handed, and your right hand is freely accessible. –Someone’s life is at stake man.
Perhaps there are still objectors. Suppose someone wants to say that prudence is what concerns you, and morality is what concerns other people. That can’t be right, since if I break a promise even to myself, and let myself down about some life-project I have, that is a moral failing. I’m entirely willing to entertain other attempts at an essential distinction, but recognize that any burden is not in my court. Let’s move on…
Let me reiterate the point: Morality is about how you ought to act. That makes it an inherently practical topic.
Cultural relativism:
Our discussion here is a normative one. That means; we’re not talking about the descriptive truth that different cultures have different values. That’s hardly worth arguing about. Cultural relativism is the view that actual normative force is generated by culture, or “inter-subjectively” if you prefer. This is why if you are a cultural relativist, you are committed to the view that genocide in Nazi Germany was actually morally right—i.e., something that ought to be done.
Of course Nazi genocide doesn’t meet with your values, but if you are a relativist, your position is that if it meets with the Nazi values, then in that domain it’s morally right----not descriptively (which is an obvious statement of fact), but normatively. And moreover, the relativist is committed to the view that there’s not a single consideration you can levy upon someone who doesn’t already agree with you. That’s because there’s no proper domain of moral facts to appeal to.
Moral skepticism:
I take it that my opponent is not a relativist, but is someone who denies that there is normative force anywhere in the world, at all. In other words, it’s not that morality is relative to culture, or individuals—it’s that there is no truth about morality whatsoever. Call it, ‘moral nihilism’, or ‘moral skepticism’ if we’re more epistemically humble. Though, this is a position that can be pushed back into a subjectivist/relativist view quite easily—since moral skeptics tend to deliberate about their actions, and when they do, their actions betray their theory. (And morality is inherently practical).
Moral realism and objectivism:
For clarity, I am two things: (1) a moral realist, and (2) an objectivist. Being a moral realist entails 3 things:
- Ethical sentences express propositions.
- Ethical propositions are truth-apt.
- Ethical propositions are made “true” or “false” by facts about the world, independent of subjective opinion.
#3 is what makes me an objectivist. The goal here is to explain why moral realism is the more plausible view than thinking there’s no fact of the matter about how you ought to act. A few more clarifications, first.
Subjectivity and Subject-dependence:
There is one absolutely essential distinction that needs to be made before we get into the arguments. It is the distinction betwixt “subjectivity” and “subject-dependence”, since this may come up. The truths of many things rely on a subject to know them, and are true based on the kind of brain the subject has (such as math, or science, or logic—and ethics). That’s subject-dependence. Something is subjective if its truth is based on opinion. Math, ethics, and so on, are subject-dependent, but not subjective.
Context-dependency:
A few brief distinctions: I will not argue for universal moral principles. Nor will I argue that there is only one right answer to any given moral question. I will simply argue that there can be a wrong answer, and that you can be wrong about it, regardless of what your opinion, or culture’s opinion, happens to be. Morality (how you ought to act) depends importantly on facts about the context. Facts justify how you ought to act.
Objectivity is not at odds with context-dependency. Suppose you think pain is objectively bad, and pleasure is objectively good. (This is just an example). One and the same action could be morally right in one culture, and not in another. That’s because one and the same action could cause pleasure in one culture, and pain in another—just based on contextual factors about both cultures. This is not at odds with the objective badness of pain, or the objective goodness of pleasure.
Another example: You can have vastly different cultures, and predominant values within those cultures, that are significantly different than elsewhere. This is also not at odds with objective morality. Suppose the ideals of “equality” and “freedom” are both objectively valuable. (Again, the claim is not that they are, this is just an example). One culture could maximize “equality”—which always comes at the expense of “freedom”. This would mean that in that culture, everyone was equally well-off. The other culture could maximize “freedom”—which always comes at the expense of “equality”. This would mean some are very well-off, and some are very poorly-off. These cultures are incommensurable. That does not mean morality is subjective—because there is no conflict here with the idea that “equality” and “freedom” are objectively valuable. We do not need, even, to think of these cultures as incommensurable—it could just be that the same level of welfare exists in both, just with different distributions.
Many things taken to be clearly objective are incommensurable. For instance, some lengths are incommensurable, such as the length of the leg and the hypotenuse of an isosceles, right triangle. There are a host of other clearly objective things in which you find incommensurability. And morality is just one of them.
(plato.stanford.edu/entries/incommensurability/).
Neither of these cases brings you anywhere near cultural relativism. What cultural relativism says, is that what makes something right or wrong, in the first place, is just what the culture says. And as you can see, in the above cases of context-dependency, nothing about how you ought to act is invented by culture.
If objective facts are actually doing the justificatory work, then objectivity is absolutely entailed. You can certainly reference objective facts, without the objective facts doing any justificatory work—and that won’t entail objectivity. But if you think morality is justified based on objective facts, then you think morality is objective. This should be clear…
Arguments for objective morality:
Here’s a simple argument to the conclusion that moral realism is more plausible, just based on your experience.
P1. You experience that pain is irreducibly bad.
(In other words, pain itself isn’t bad because of something else; it’s simply bad.)
P2. Pain is real.
P3. If pain is bad, and real, then there is at least one thing intrinsically disvaluable.
C. Therefore, pain is intrinsically disvaluable.
You have good reasons to accept these premises. About P1, any number of experiments can be brought to bear to demonstrate its truth. Try having someone kick you in the balls. Or stab you with a fork. Or bend the knuckles on your fingers backwards. These are experiments you can do yourself, at home. I don’t advise it though. If P2 is not plausible to you after conducting such experiments, it’s likely because its self-evidently true.
A few comments about pain: Pain is a physiological condition, which means it has a physiological referent, and that means that it is in principle empirically quantifiable by science. In order to claim that it’s not, you have to claim that pain is not a physiological condition, which would make it something like a spiritual substance.
Here’s another simple argument—very similar—based on experience.
P1. You think moral sentences are sometimes true.
P2. A sentence is true only if the truth-making relation holds between it and the thing that makes it true.
P3. Thus, true moral sentences are true only because there holds the truth-making relation between them and the things that make them true.
C. The things that make some moral sentences true must exist.
This argument is the equivalent of the first one, it just has nothing to do necessarily with pain. It could be about anything you think is intrinsically valuable or disvaluable. I suppose P1 would be the most objectionable to a moral skeptic. Do a thought-experiment: Imagine that I am carving your eyes out with a fork, out of the kindness of my heart, that I would not have you see what I am about to do to the ones you love. You think that what I’m doing isn’t kind at all. On the contrary, perhaps you think I’m doing something I shouldn’t be doing. Plausible?
What’s the point, here? Well, this leads to another simple argument:
P1. You talk, think, and act as if morality were real.
P2. Common-sense would tell you there are things you should do and things you shouldn’t.
P3. The best explanation of common-sense, and how you talk/think/act is that there are moral facts.
P4. The best explanation is the one we consider true.
C. Moral facts exist.
There are very clear cases where we want to say that our judgements are more than mere matters of opinion. Moral judgements are often like the above. Imagine someone who risks his life to save a helpless suffering person, when no one is watching, and no one will hear about it. Should we call that brave? Yea, probably. Is it just our opinion? —Doesn’t seem like it, does it? Imagine someone raping and killing while he makes their loved ones watch. Should we call that cruel? Yea, probably. Is it just our opinion? —Doesn’t seem like it, does it?
And surely there are less clear cases, where we’re not really sure what to say, about whether our opinion is doing the deciding. The reason we’re not sure in those cases, is because people disagree. However, the fact that people disagree is no reason to think that all judgements are relative—only that it’s “too close to call”, that the values in play are incomparable, or etc. But, in clear cases like the ones above—it becomes obvious that the burden of proof is in the relativist’s court. So, offer an explanation as to how the above cases really are a matter of opinion—that’ll put the burden back in my court.
Here’s an odd argument, that I’m not sure what to say about…
P1. If you attempt to describe a (im)moral act (e.g., rape), then your description refers to cognitive beliefs about objective (mind-independent) facts in the world. (E.g., the pain caused, the autonomy denied, the agreement broken, etc…).
P2. Your description of the (im)moral act will not make reference to your subjective mental phenomena (i.e., desires, wishes, past history).
P3. Therefore, (from P1 and P2) the simpler explanation of “morality” will make reference only to cognitive beliefs about objective (mind-independent) facts.
P4. The simpler explanation is the better one. (Ockham’s razor)
C. Therefore, morality is objective.
If you’re a relativist, here’s a disjunctive syllogism you should consider…
P1. Morality is either objective or it’s not (i.e., it’s relative somehow).
P2. The best arguments for relativism are wrong.
C. Therefore, morality is objective.
Why think the best arguments for relativism are wrong (as P2 says)? Well, here’s the best arguments for relativism:
#1
Argument #1:
P1. Different cultures have different moral norms.
C. Therefore, the truth of moral norms is relative to cultures.
If I were to run this argument in the case of any disputed scientific proposition, (and its disputants), I would rightly be booed off the stage. And nobody running such a bizarre argument is likely to want to allow the converse, namely:
P1. Different cultures agree about most moral norms.
C. Therefore, the truth of most moral norms is universal.
This is also a terrible argument, but it’s what a “relativist” is committed to if he commits himself to the first one. At this point, I could not think up another reason to be a “relativist”. So, I researched. I found the following, which is called the “Cultural Tolerance Argument”. It runs as follows:
#2
Argument #2:
P1. We should be tolerant of other cultures.
P2. To believe other cultures can be morally wrong is intolerant.
C. Therefore, moral relativism is true.
I would be ashamed of myself to adhere to an argument to the relativity of morality that contains as its first premise a moral premise (about what we should do). What happens next is bizarre… the truth of the conclusion would make the first premise false. And the truth of the first premise would make the conclusion false! Absurd!
This all supports P2 of the original disjunctive syllogism.
Want a constructive dilemma?
P1. Morality is either objective or its not.
P2. If it is objective, then we can consistently have productive discussions with other people/cultures and speak meaningfully (without talking past each other). We can even criticize each other, legitimately. We can do things we should be able to do, like reflect on our past, claim to have grown, etc. In fact, we do these things anyways.
C. Therefore, morality is objective.
Modus tollens?
P1. If cultural relativism is true, then genocide was moral in Nazi Germany.
P2. Genocide was not moral then. (This would be question begging, I suppose… except it’s true under any moral theory ever talked about)
C. Therefore, cultural relativism is false.
Let’s put aside the arguments right now, and just talk about the benefits of morality being objective.
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One benefit to claiming objectivity is to give you a reason to discuss moral questions with anybody else, in the first place. What would be the use of two scientists comparing notes, if they lived in utterly different empirical worlds? --But that’s the case, (between individuals or cultures), when all normative force is just something you make up, with no boundaries for correctness. Oh, sure, you can go and tell someone, “I like this”, “I like that”, but you haven’t a single consideration to offer a foreigner to care about what you like, or to keep listening to you. If you had something to appeal to in common with a foreigner, that would be grounds for going beyond your subjectivity.
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Beliefs have consequences. Beliefs have consequences on how you act. If you honestly believe that actual normative force is generated by cultures, or individuals, that will lead you to be tolerant when tolerance is a bad thing. Suppose you see some cultural practice that someone might think is wrong. If you actually believe that normative force is generated by cultures, then that culture is doing exactly what they ought to do. And you know that, because that’s exactly what your theory says. It’s not a descriptive claim, it’s a normative one. That’s your belief. And it has consequences. You simply cannot respond by saying, “well my culture thinks it’s wrong, and that I should impose”. That’s inconsistent with your relativism… it’s like saying, “yes, cultures generate normative force… but just not that one”. And if you ever feel justified in imposing to stop the stoning, or whatever, you are basically acting as if your culture was somehow more right than another—and that would be inconsistent.
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How do you judge your own culture, if morality is a cultural construct? Your culture would be supplying the criteria by which to judge it’s own criteria. And so what’s the reason to ever think you could improve—if what counts as an improvement is defined by the culture. You’ll likely say that, “oh, there’s subcultures, and so small groups, and so on”. …Then I ask the exact same question about the subcultures and small groups. IOW your view is a recipe for not being a philosopher, and not reflecting on why you think what you do—because the justification of it is that you just happen to think it.
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Another benefit is that claiming objectivity actually makes sense of how you feel, the phenomenology, how you talk, how you think, and how other people do. This doesn’t make morality objective, but it does make it more likely that morality is objective. What’s the use of a theory that’s inconsistent with what you actually seem to think when you talk about morality?
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Criticizing others. Allow me to emphasize: If you believe morality is subjective, then you act hypocritically any time you ever judge someone else’s morality. That’s because you believe that the source of any normative force is the subject himself, so for you to go and impose a view on some other subject you would violate/contradict your position that that subject is the source of his own normative force.
Someone may be wondering: What physical sense do we use to perceive objective morality?
I think there’s two general ways of answering this. The first would be the Rationalist’s way, who would tell you that your question is misguided or incoherent, or something along those lines. And the Rationalist might ask you what physical sense you use to perceive logic, or math—and then ask you if you think either of those are objective, (and of course they are).
But I’m inclined to think it’s a good question, and tell you that all 5 senses are open to you to use, just as you would if you were a scientist. Think about this answer by analogy to science. When you repeatedly observe the same thing, time after time, you can formulate a scientific law. Of course, as you know, there’s no physical sense used to perceive a law of nature. Doing science requires certain assumptions—that nature is orderly, that natural phenomena is causally related, etc.
It’s open to anyone to also adopt a moral law, or a law about value; something like, “pain is bad and pleasure is good”. What sort of empirical experiments would bear this out? Well, why don’t you go and stab yourself with a knife. And another time try drinking poison. And another time have someone kick you in the balls. And another time try going without food or sleep for 5 days. These things will give you pain. You’ll experience and observe them. If you want to say there’s no one sense used in all of this, that’s fine. Likewise, you can do these things to other people, and take a survey. In every case, you’ll find that you think pain is bad, and pleasure is good. And other people will tell you this, too.
Another answer in the empiricist line: Many scientific theories make ontological commitments about things they can’t observe in any way—things like quarks. They do this because of their explanatory role in explaining natural phenomena. Likewise, in morality you could do something similar with moral facts, to explain why you think and talk and act like an objectivist about morality—despite when you step back afterwards and say, “nah, it was just my opinion—yes, I said the painting was beautiful because of the brushstrokes and so on, but I really meant, ‘I was just making shit up in my head’”.
In conclusion, it’s most plausible to think the elephant exists, whether it’s like a rope, wall, pillar, or cock.
I am a river to my people.