Tentative ideas on moral truth
April 23rd 2007 03:44
Okay, just some really fast notes. Very very tentatively. Gonna take 10 minutes to sketch this out. Want to get it down before I forget it, before I do some more work on the project (probably in a couple of weeks' time), and before I have to piss off to do something else until then.
Can moral claims (like "Murder is wrong") be true?
In everyday talk, I think we're quite prepared to say that many moral claims are "true". So, as in many cases, it's only the philosophers who are bewitched by words and need convincing.
And there seem to be two main arguments why anyone thinks they can't be true.
Firstly, you might doubt that they even qualify as truth evaluable. You might think they're NEITHER true nor false. You might believe, for instance, that all moral talk, on analysis, is really emotional outburst, the equivalent of "Boo" or "Hurray".
Secondly, you might think that they ARE truth evaluable, but that they're all false. This claim takes some spelling out. One version of it has at least four steps:
-- 1. What makes any sentence true or false is its correspondence with things in the world. If "This table is blue" is true, then what makes it true is a state of affairs that there is a blue table.
-- 2. Sentences can be broken into subsidiary claims, and if any of the subsidiary claims is false, then the sentence as a whole is false. "The present king of France is bald" assumes "There is a king of France"; and since it's false that there's a king of France, it's also false that he's bald.
-- 3. Moral claims assert a state of affairs in the world. "Murder is wrong" asserts that there is a state of affairs that makes the sentence true (in the same way as does "This table is blue"). Perhaps there is a set of laws that comes from God, and what makes a moral claim true or false is its correspondence or lack of correspondence with those laws.
-- 4. Since there is no set of laws from God, nor any other states of affairs that make moral claims true, then all moral claims are false.
Well, very sketchily, the counterargument I'd want to make has a number of parts.
In reply to the first argument, I'd want to dispute the division into "truth evaluable" and "non-truth evaluable" sentences. The division goes back to Hume's "is/ought" distinction (in his Treatise on Human Nature, and absent, I'm not sure why, from the reworked Enquiries he later published). The is/ought distinction is basically the idea that there is no logical connect between what is, and what ought or ought not to be. Just because it's traditional to sacrifice your second-born child would be no reason you should sacrifice your second-born -- even though, says Hume, many people seem to make this sort of logical jump.
(But why divide language (though this isn't exactly what Hume was doing) into just two types, and not seven? What makes the categorisation scheme exhaustive? And what makes it the only one possible? For instance, Kant arguably divides language into "analytic" and "synthetic" (though Kant is talking not just about meanings and the logic of words, but also in a phenomenological way about concepts).)
These days, instead of "is/ought", people seem to talk about "fact/value" (or "cognitive/non-cognitive"). I'm not entirely sure why, but I suppose that "value" is a larger category than "ought", and that something can be a value claim (like "Philosophy is good") without being a normative claim (ie, without asserting that you should do philosophy).
But there are a number of reasons you can argue that fact/value is not stable. And if you don't have a basis for dividing language into two types in the first place, then you don't have a basis for declaring that one type of language is neither true nor false. Hilary Putnam mentions three arguments. I haven't read him (nor Ruth Putnam either), but this is a very very very vague hearsay summary of claims.
-- JL Austin argues that all utterances should be understood as acts, subject to certain social rules of proper performance. For instance you can't take the act of betting by saying "I bet on this greyhound race", unless there's a whole social system in place that allows you to take that action, and unless certain conditions are fufilled (eg, the race is not already over). Austin thinks that what are apparently straightforward truth claims also have performative dimensions ("The present king of France is bald" is not false, but "misfires", is an improper act -- compare Strawson's view in "On referring"), and that actions like betting (or even saying "Boo" or "Hooray") have truth-evaluable dimensions. Along similar lines, Iris Murdoch points out that virtues (like courage) can always be more fully known, one implication being that there is something there to learn about, some tangible facts to know, and that courage isn't entirely subjective. -- So on either the Austin or Murdoch line, moral claims have truth evaluable dimensions.
-- Quine suggests (rather than argues) that you can make any claim true come what may if you're prepared to make drastic enough changes to the rest of your belief system. You can believe 2 2=5 if you're prepared to change enough of the rest of your beliefs. -- But on this approach, can't you also make any moral claim, or any other "value" claim, true come what way?
-- Feyerabend argues that there is no objective scientific methodology. I'll have to revisit the arguments to grasp them properly, but one claim there might be that there are values enmeshed in scientific procedure. Every time you opt for a theory on the basis that it's "reasonable" or "simple", you're making a value decision. -- Ergo, there is no such thing as a "pure" fact in science (and by implication in anywhere else): scientific facts are value-laden. Ergo, if you want to say that scientific claims or anything else is true, then the values in ethics don't preclude ethical claims from being true.
In reply to the second argument (that all moral claims are false), I'd quibble with all of the four steps. But basically one needs an account of what makes moral talk true, and an account of what truth actually is (what makes anything true).
To take what makes anything true first... I'd argue for a version of "game theory", which I take it is basically Huw Price's view. What makes a game is rules; and similarly there are rules to the way you use the word "truth". You assign the word under certain conditions, just as you assign a point in tennis under certain conditions. In a particular context, you might assign "truth" when a claim meets certain logical prerequisites, and when it corresponds to the world in certain ways. -- Now, what I'd want to suggest, without arguing for it properly, is that "truth" varies between time periods and cultures (that there is no word in other cultures whose rules of usage exactly correspond to the rules by which we use "truth"), and that truth varies within a culture between contexts (so that what makes a claim true in the case of talking about tables is different from what makes it true in the case of talking about rightness and murder).
So what are the rules of the truth game in a moral context? Well, here's three.
One of the rules is universalizability. When you say "Murder is wrong, don't you agree?", you're wondering, as a factual matter, whether everyone could consistently follow this general rule. So there is this sort of truth-evaluable dimension to moral claims, implicit in the way we use them.
Secondly, I'd claim (and this is a funny idea, but anyway...) that moral claims are like saying you like or don't like a movie. There's a sense in which there's no sense in saying you like or don't like a movie -- it's simply a position that you commit yourself to, that becomes a tradeable commodity in a gossip economy. You can then go on to talk to other people about how Adrian does or doesn't like the movie, etc. So when you say "Murder is wrong", among the things you're doing by way of this speech act is committing yourself to a position, that you are then expected to defend, and which has implications for your dealings with other people. And one of the truth evaluable dimensions of the claim, therefore, is the fact of whether you're prepared to take that position, or whether you're being insincere.
Thirdly, extending the gossip analogy in a different direction... Gossip is about social norms. One gossips, essentially, to have one's ideas of proper behaviour confirmed and discomfirmed. One approves and disapproves of this or that celebrity's behaviour. There is no order to gossip: it's an evolutionary tool to maintain social stability. And moral talk, though more rarefied, is ultimately no different. -- My position on moral claims is thus partly a relativist one. For I'm arguing that one of the truth evaluable dimensions of "Murder is wrong" is to do with the norms of a particular community, in the same way that what makes gossipy approval or disapproval well-founded or not is partly its correspondence with the norms of a particular community. It's possible to say "Murder is not wrong for that violent tribe" -- and you wouldn't be violating usage by saying this. Rather, you'd be commenting (in a truth-evaluable way) on how commonplace are inclinations against murder.
When you "consult your intuitions" to answer a question like, "Is killing one man to save five wrong?", the main fact that your intuitions are meant to guide you towards are the norms of your own society.
There are other rules to using moral language, but seeing that all three of the rules I've mentioned can be satisfied under some circumstances (I'd argue), and seeing that so can the other rules I haven't mentioned (I'd dodgily claim), then some moral claims can be true.
Can moral claims (like "Murder is wrong") be true?
In everyday talk, I think we're quite prepared to say that many moral claims are "true". So, as in many cases, it's only the philosophers who are bewitched by words and need convincing.
And there seem to be two main arguments why anyone thinks they can't be true.
Firstly, you might doubt that they even qualify as truth evaluable. You might think they're NEITHER true nor false. You might believe, for instance, that all moral talk, on analysis, is really emotional outburst, the equivalent of "Boo" or "Hurray".
Secondly, you might think that they ARE truth evaluable, but that they're all false. This claim takes some spelling out. One version of it has at least four steps:
-- 1. What makes any sentence true or false is its correspondence with things in the world. If "This table is blue" is true, then what makes it true is a state of affairs that there is a blue table.
-- 2. Sentences can be broken into subsidiary claims, and if any of the subsidiary claims is false, then the sentence as a whole is false. "The present king of France is bald" assumes "There is a king of France"; and since it's false that there's a king of France, it's also false that he's bald.
-- 3. Moral claims assert a state of affairs in the world. "Murder is wrong" asserts that there is a state of affairs that makes the sentence true (in the same way as does "This table is blue"). Perhaps there is a set of laws that comes from God, and what makes a moral claim true or false is its correspondence or lack of correspondence with those laws.
-- 4. Since there is no set of laws from God, nor any other states of affairs that make moral claims true, then all moral claims are false.
Well, very sketchily, the counterargument I'd want to make has a number of parts.
In reply to the first argument, I'd want to dispute the division into "truth evaluable" and "non-truth evaluable" sentences. The division goes back to Hume's "is/ought" distinction (in his Treatise on Human Nature, and absent, I'm not sure why, from the reworked Enquiries he later published). The is/ought distinction is basically the idea that there is no logical connect between what is, and what ought or ought not to be. Just because it's traditional to sacrifice your second-born child would be no reason you should sacrifice your second-born -- even though, says Hume, many people seem to make this sort of logical jump.
(But why divide language (though this isn't exactly what Hume was doing) into just two types, and not seven? What makes the categorisation scheme exhaustive? And what makes it the only one possible? For instance, Kant arguably divides language into "analytic" and "synthetic" (though Kant is talking not just about meanings and the logic of words, but also in a phenomenological way about concepts).)
These days, instead of "is/ought", people seem to talk about "fact/value" (or "cognitive/non-cognitive"). I'm not entirely sure why, but I suppose that "value" is a larger category than "ought", and that something can be a value claim (like "Philosophy is good") without being a normative claim (ie, without asserting that you should do philosophy).
But there are a number of reasons you can argue that fact/value is not stable. And if you don't have a basis for dividing language into two types in the first place, then you don't have a basis for declaring that one type of language is neither true nor false. Hilary Putnam mentions three arguments. I haven't read him (nor Ruth Putnam either), but this is a very very very vague hearsay summary of claims.
-- JL Austin argues that all utterances should be understood as acts, subject to certain social rules of proper performance. For instance you can't take the act of betting by saying "I bet on this greyhound race", unless there's a whole social system in place that allows you to take that action, and unless certain conditions are fufilled (eg, the race is not already over). Austin thinks that what are apparently straightforward truth claims also have performative dimensions ("The present king of France is bald" is not false, but "misfires", is an improper act -- compare Strawson's view in "On referring"), and that actions like betting (or even saying "Boo" or "Hooray") have truth-evaluable dimensions. Along similar lines, Iris Murdoch points out that virtues (like courage) can always be more fully known, one implication being that there is something there to learn about, some tangible facts to know, and that courage isn't entirely subjective. -- So on either the Austin or Murdoch line, moral claims have truth evaluable dimensions.
-- Quine suggests (rather than argues) that you can make any claim true come what may if you're prepared to make drastic enough changes to the rest of your belief system. You can believe 2 2=5 if you're prepared to change enough of the rest of your beliefs. -- But on this approach, can't you also make any moral claim, or any other "value" claim, true come what way?
-- Feyerabend argues that there is no objective scientific methodology. I'll have to revisit the arguments to grasp them properly, but one claim there might be that there are values enmeshed in scientific procedure. Every time you opt for a theory on the basis that it's "reasonable" or "simple", you're making a value decision. -- Ergo, there is no such thing as a "pure" fact in science (and by implication in anywhere else): scientific facts are value-laden. Ergo, if you want to say that scientific claims or anything else is true, then the values in ethics don't preclude ethical claims from being true.
In reply to the second argument (that all moral claims are false), I'd quibble with all of the four steps. But basically one needs an account of what makes moral talk true, and an account of what truth actually is (what makes anything true).
To take what makes anything true first... I'd argue for a version of "game theory", which I take it is basically Huw Price's view. What makes a game is rules; and similarly there are rules to the way you use the word "truth". You assign the word under certain conditions, just as you assign a point in tennis under certain conditions. In a particular context, you might assign "truth" when a claim meets certain logical prerequisites, and when it corresponds to the world in certain ways. -- Now, what I'd want to suggest, without arguing for it properly, is that "truth" varies between time periods and cultures (that there is no word in other cultures whose rules of usage exactly correspond to the rules by which we use "truth"), and that truth varies within a culture between contexts (so that what makes a claim true in the case of talking about tables is different from what makes it true in the case of talking about rightness and murder).
So what are the rules of the truth game in a moral context? Well, here's three.
One of the rules is universalizability. When you say "Murder is wrong, don't you agree?", you're wondering, as a factual matter, whether everyone could consistently follow this general rule. So there is this sort of truth-evaluable dimension to moral claims, implicit in the way we use them.
Secondly, I'd claim (and this is a funny idea, but anyway...) that moral claims are like saying you like or don't like a movie. There's a sense in which there's no sense in saying you like or don't like a movie -- it's simply a position that you commit yourself to, that becomes a tradeable commodity in a gossip economy. You can then go on to talk to other people about how Adrian does or doesn't like the movie, etc. So when you say "Murder is wrong", among the things you're doing by way of this speech act is committing yourself to a position, that you are then expected to defend, and which has implications for your dealings with other people. And one of the truth evaluable dimensions of the claim, therefore, is the fact of whether you're prepared to take that position, or whether you're being insincere.
Thirdly, extending the gossip analogy in a different direction... Gossip is about social norms. One gossips, essentially, to have one's ideas of proper behaviour confirmed and discomfirmed. One approves and disapproves of this or that celebrity's behaviour. There is no order to gossip: it's an evolutionary tool to maintain social stability. And moral talk, though more rarefied, is ultimately no different. -- My position on moral claims is thus partly a relativist one. For I'm arguing that one of the truth evaluable dimensions of "Murder is wrong" is to do with the norms of a particular community, in the same way that what makes gossipy approval or disapproval well-founded or not is partly its correspondence with the norms of a particular community. It's possible to say "Murder is not wrong for that violent tribe" -- and you wouldn't be violating usage by saying this. Rather, you'd be commenting (in a truth-evaluable way) on how commonplace are inclinations against murder.
When you "consult your intuitions" to answer a question like, "Is killing one man to save five wrong?", the main fact that your intuitions are meant to guide you towards are the norms of your own society.
There are other rules to using moral language, but seeing that all three of the rules I've mentioned can be satisfied under some circumstances (I'd argue), and seeing that so can the other rules I haven't mentioned (I'd dodgily claim), then some moral claims can be true.
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Comment by Damo
Perhaps my confussion from this post stems from this statement:
I'm not sure that you could find too many religious minded people to accept that statement. However there are some.
The other thing that is still up in the air for me is the 'Murder' and the morality attached to it. The unspoken question is 'what is murder' and how to we know a murder has happened. How do we know that we have murdered someone or have been guilty of a lesser crime like manslaughter accidental death? Or even no crime like self defence?
Using Moral Relativism to decide what murder is equally a problem because it fails to provide an answer. If an act done in this way is murder, then why should cultural circumstances make the same conditions not murder. It becomes a question of murder is murder when I say so subjectively. It presumes that there no such thing as murder in an objective sense.
The final problem comes when asked if Murder is wrong and there is no answer. Invariably the answer would be approval by default to commit murder based upon what ever rationization you can invent.
But what do I know I'm just humble blogger from the South.
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Thanks for the reply! A couple of thoughts in response.
-- About God... It's possible that religious-minded people can rely on divine command theory as the basis for making moral claims true. Though one famous problem is this: what if God commands you to commit murder? Would that make murder okay?
Some would argue that it's not the fact that God commanded something that makes it right (ie God doesn't have the power command anything whatsoever) -- but rather, it's because something is right that God commands it. God didn't make it right, but God knows what's right. But if this is true, then things are right or wrong irrespective of whether God commands them. And this leads on to interesting questions about where exactly those moral laws then exist, and how we can know them.
-- It's true that I treated the definition of "murder" as relatively unproblematic, and that I might have been wrong to do so. Maybe it's the case that not only is "murder" itself vague, but that there are difficult questions in any particular fact scenario as to whether the label "murder" applies... But I can't say much more at this point without thinking more about it. But thanks for the interesting thought.
-- It's true that moral relativism means that there is no objective wrongness about murder. I don't know whether it means there's no objective definition of murder. That's more of a linguistic question.
But the iceberg whose tip you're touching on now is how to decide morality in a world without God, or without believing in objective morals.
Of course, you needn't give up on objective morals. But if you do... what then? -- Let me suggest four answers off the bat. Many have been proposed.
One is the Kantian route, where you try to argue that morality can come from pure rationality instead of some set of laws existing somewhere.
Another is some sort of social contract theory. Since there is no set of divine laws to judge with respect to, what's moral becomes a sort of democratic matter. Everyone (or most people) agree that allowing murder is not in their self-interest, so everyone bands together to ban murder. Not only is this in practice what happens, but, says the social contract theorist, there is no other basis on which to decide right and wrong.
Another is the intuitions route. This tends to be the most popular. Rights-based moralities are the most obvious version of it. Utilitarianism, I'd argue, is another. Instead of building your morality on divine authority, you build it on what people feel is right and wrong. -- But not all one's intuitions are in harmony. So you try to work out some system of "reflective equilibrium", meaning that you think about your beliefs, and surrender some intuitions, and cling fast to the deep-seated others.
Finally, there's the existentialist route, where you say that you're free to make up any moral system you like, regardless of your intuitions, but you have to take responsibility for the consequences of whatever you decide.
Comment by Damo
I won't pretend to be skilled in theology.
However I see a chicken and egg problem with pondering over whether morality is divine instruction or just devine observations.
It is a bit like trying to be psychiatrist to the universe. With proper theropy we can cure it.
Using Murder as example of simple morality on the surface seems simple but it can also be extreemly complicated. Even a violent death may not be murder under the correct circumstances (self defense?). Also if a person is unaware what they are doing is wrong are the guilty to the same degree as a person who knows that they are committing murder. So even if we agree in the absolute that murder is wrong, there will be degrees to which a person is culpable.
Personal conscience to decide right from wrong is problematic because it presumes no one is unconscienable enough to find murder perfectly acceptable. In some cases it may even be desirable.
Social morality presumes society is somehow collectively moral even if all its individuals are not. Dodgy assumption.
Consequentialism make perfect sense until your moral choices affect another person. You may be willing to test karma and risk reincarnating as a slug but what about the person you killed?
In the end there is no simple answer if everything is up for grabs.
Comment by Cibbuano
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Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
But as a matter of moral psychology, it's almost certainly true that there is a discrepancy between our official moralities, and our evolutionary programming. So, knowing what is right needn't give you the motivation to carry it out.
This is a difficult question: how do you promote morality? I heard someone give a paper on this recently -- I was at an ethics conference over the weekend. A variety of suggestions were made, including interesting ones to do with providing institutions and corporations with the administrative support to ensure that their conduct was moral. But I won't go into it...
Comment by Horyd
Comment by JaneJane
Inside the mind of a superspy
ASIOJane
Thoughts and Thin Kings
Are you really asking the question: Is there is a right and wrong?
You correctly state that for some people tradition is a necessity and what is necessary (for them) is right. For some people if murder were a tradition it could not be wrong. There are potentially two opponents to this, the people who believe the tradition is wrong (I want to be a free thinker) and the people who think they know about murder and believe it is wrong (I don't want another person to kill me).
In this scenario even the opponents to murder are not making a distinction between right and wrong, but making a distinction between what other people want and what they want. Perhaps right is what most people want and wrong is what less people want (and if you don't tell anyone what you want, there's no one to tell you if it's right or not).
But I'm sure there is more than one scenario.
(forgive me, I have not read everything everyone else has said, when the arthritis is good, I type)
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
I suppose one thing I'd want to add to your story is that there probably wouldn't have been any one point at which morals were formed. I don't think it's as if a group of cavemen got together one day and decided, "Henceforth, murder shall be abominated." I'd want to put more emphasis on the feelings part of your account, and say that morals are evolutionary device. It's been claimed, for instance, that kinship obligations, obligations of reciprocity (like revenge and gratitude), and sexual limitations are common denominators across all primate societies, and that these behaviours have clear reproductory advantage.
Check out this post on Darwin!
Dear JaneJane,
I personally don't think my parentheses are particularly beautiful, but thanks.
I'm sort of asking "Is there a right and wrong?", but it depends on what exactly you understand by the question.
I don't know if this will address your comment properly, but I think there are two schools of thought on morals: there are people who believe that morals are "objective" (that is, that morals are mind-independent, and would exist even if humans didn't exist), and people who believe that morals are "subjective" (are mind- and human-dependent).
The people who believe morals are objective include: (1) those people who believe in God -- morals might simply be God's commands; and (2) those people who believe morals exist separate from God, are laws of nature like physical laws, and are somehow woven into the fabric of the universe. Ordinary language arguably is committed to one of these positions. We arguably talk about "murder is wrong" as though there were a fact of the matter, like "this table is blue".
When you suggest "Perhaps right is what most people want and wrong is what less people want", you take a step back from these grandiose conceptions of objective morals. And I think you embrace a kind of social contract theory.
I have a lot of sympathy with this position. But I suppose one counterargument to make against it is intuitions. For instance, a person might say, "This just feels wrong to me" or "This feels too right to be wrong". So, regardless of what the majority might think, it seems that we do carry around some sort of personal barometer to decide right from wrong, and that our concept of morals isn't precisely equivalent to "what the majority think".
Comment by Anonymous
I wonder, further to your last point above, if the intuitive moral feelings are necessary to move the social contract morals into different areas. If not, the morals in a social contract society might not develop.
I don't know enough history but it seems that here in the UK definitions of morality have shifted hugely in the last century (for example on sexuality, marriage, death sentences, etc.). But perhaps there are periods lasting centuries when the morals of a society change very little.
Perhaps the intuitive morality needs to reach a critical mass in order to change the social contract morality - to say that actually as a society we'll be better off if we accept what this particular set of individuals is saying.
Sorry - they're not well formulated thoughts...
ominic.hurst@googlemail.com">Dominic
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
To get a grip on what you're talking about, I want to take the example of a society dominated by particular ideas. Say, religious ideas or political ideas. An Islamic country, a communist country, a nineteenth-century European country, whatever. In such a society, there is a sort of official belief set that everyone must pay lip service to even if they don't personally believe in it. What would it take to change the official position?
Well, I think there's a complex story to be told, because the official beliefs, whether moral or political or scientific, or whatever, are supported not just by sheer numbers of people, but by all sorts of institutions and entrenched powers. So at any one time it might well be that the people who sincerely believe are in the minority.
If enough individuals change their minds, then the orthodoxy will change. I think you're correct. But there are two important perspectives to bring to bear on this. Firstly, there is the question of all the power structures in play -- so numbers aren't everything. Secondly, there is the question of what brings individuals to change their minds. And a sociologist might be more inclined to talk not in terms of individual choice, and rational persuasion, but in terms of largescale forces that individuals are at the mercy of -- propaganda, economics, trends and fashions of all kinds.
To put this more concretely, what exactly liberated people's views on sex? Or what persuades Russians to prefer capitalism to communism?
The answer would be ridiculously complex, and the picture wouldn't be of a stable morality across a society, but of a constantly changing field of belief, varying according to all sorts of factors.