Certainly, moral objectivism avoids some of the major shortcomings of the two opposing views: subjectivism and cultural relativism. In particular, these latter views essentially do not allow for meaningful criticism of another’s moral beliefs, given that any such belief is simply recognized as a matter of opinion; and objectivism inherently accounts for this issue by proposing that questions of morality can be resolved by appeal to reason on an absolute scale. However, when applied to reality, the objective conception of morality does not seem to capture the nuances of worldly moral issues.
When presented with the choices of burgling others’ properties and sharing one’s possessions with those in need, it seems highly probable that the vast majority of individuals, regardless of cultural boundaries, would identify the second as the morally just course of action. This may be attributed to either natural human intuition or education in society. However, when presented with two more controversial options, in which application of the most universal moral values does not produce a clear answer, opinions can expectably be rather evenly divided. Should two rational individuals representing opposing positions attempt to defend their position with appeals to logic, it would not be unsurprising if they departed utterly unmoved by the opponent’s argument, convinced in the moral superiority of their own position. Each position has its benefits and drawbacks, and the importance one attributes to these ultimately determines one’s evaluation of the overall moral strength of the position. And, this phenomenon of attributing varying importance to different features of a moral position is highly subjective.
For example, one may seek to harm an enemy in response to an evil that this enemy committed. One moral “truth” is that we should not harm another in almost any circumstances. Another such “truth” may be that justice should be attribute appropriate consequences to one’s actions. The moral position described in the example thus violates one moral truth while upholding another, and so, in judging the moral integrity of the position, one must call upon one’s own, subjective views regarding the degree of importance of these facets of the position. The controversial topics of abortion, assisted suicide, and others, constitute other examples of moral questions that are very much dividing: one’s perspective on these matters depends predominantly on the relative importance one attributes to different moral “truths”. One can reasonably recognize that no absolute hierarchy exists that resolves this uncertainty and to which rational beings would commonly agree.
While an “objective” analysis of a seemingly straightforward scenario, such as the question of stealing or sharing, yields a clear answer by virtue of the effectively universal consensus on the topic, more divisive questions are answered by one’s personal, or cultural, inclinations, and not by a global system that could possibly attempt to resolve such issues. A comparison can be made between morality and beauty – while almost everyone would agree that a luxurious mansion is more beautiful than a run-down shack, based on values that almost everyone shares, it becomes significantly less clear when comparing two houses of “similar” stature. In order to choose the more beautiful between the two, one must draw upon one’s own opinions and priorities – and thus beauty, like morality, cannot be considered entirely objective.
Theo's post is thoughtful and interesting. I think it correctly identifies some of the reasons that many thinkers are drawn away from moral objectivism. Nevertheless, I do not think it constitutes a compelling argument against moral objectivism.
ReplyDeleteFirst, not that the argument really just is a version of the argument criticized by James Rachels in his paper, "The Challenge of Cultural Relativism". It is, in effect, that people disagree about moral issues, and that, therefore, there is no (objective) fact of the matter about those issues. But this argument is invalid, and quite obviously so.
Granted, Theo offers a somewhat more sophisticated version of this argument. For while he grants that there are issues that are easily resolved, he notes that many "real world" moral questions are not so easily resolved. But the fact that they are difficult to resolve does not show that there is no true resolution. Given that one is willing to maintain that there are some objective moral truths (as Theo does), it is difficult to maintain that there are not such truths in difficult cases simply because they are difficult. Perhaps Theo intends to argue that some moral problems cannot be resolved; and perhaps it can seem plausible to suppose that an issue that cannot be resolved has no answer, so there is no fact of the matter about it. I don't think that follows, but I won't pursue that point here. Instead, I would just point out that I do not believe Theo has provided sufficient reason to think the sorts of issues he refers to are actually irresolvable.
I am not sure why Theo says that the relative weights of moral features of a situation is subjective. If it is because different people assign different weights to them, then we are back to Rachels's point that this argument does not imply subjectivism (or relativism).
I think it is helpful to draw a parallel here with laws of nature, of the sort we learn about in high school and college. Such laws, regarding free fall of bodies, for instance, only accurately describe the behavior of objects in highly idealized circumstances. Actual, "real world" cases are much harder to describe accurately. But this does not mean that there are no facts about what laws govern the real world behaviors. The actual network of laws can be very complicated and difficult to disentangle. The actual way the various laws interact to produce the behavior in question can be extremely difficult to describe. Furthermore, we can point to laws of nature that, when applied individually to an isolated system, will produce different (contradictory) predictions about future states of that system. This does not mean that there is no objective fact of the matter about how a system will behave when both laws apply in an actual situation. The fact that simple moral rules like "never do harm" don't work is actual cases is no more reason to think that there are no moral facts than the fact that "bodies fall at 9.8 m/s2" doesn't accurately describe actual falling bodies is reason to suppose that there are no laws of gravitation. Actual moral facts can be complicated, just as actual physical facts are.
Moral problems are hard. There is no reason that they should have simple answers. But I think many people want ethics to be easy--more like basic arithmetic and less like chemistry or physics. But there is no reason this should be so. The difficulty--even the apparent irresolvability--of moral problems should not deter us from being objectivists.