Objections

Replies to Some Objections

The following is paraphrased from discussions I had several years ago in the now defunct mailing-list discussion group ASP (Association for Systematic Philosophy).

First objection

"If moral principles are not based on fact, then there is no right or wrong, and everything is permitted. Subjectivists, however, no matter what they may claim philosophically, hold on to the view that some things are right and others wrong. But how can they consistently do this? And how can they argue with others, and try to convince them that their moral views are correct?"

This is a common argument against subjectivism, but one that is easily answered, for it rests on a couple of rather simple confusions. The claims that are implied by the objection are, first, that one cannot have a conviction about something unless one holds it as factually true; and second, that one cannot disagree with others except over matters of fact.

When people make moral claims, they are expressing their feelings about something. The objection makes it seem that people cannot express anything other than their beliefs. But such a view is completely groundless. If I say 'x is good' I am expressing my approval of x. This means that I do hold the view that some things are good and some bad, some right and some wrong. But I do not need to think of goodness or badness as properties in things, nor do I need to think of my views as factually correct. All I need to account for the existence of my views is the fact that I have certain specific feelings toward certain things.

People can disagree over their attitudes as well as over matters of fact. Thus, when people argue over moral issues, they are making an attempt to change each other's attitudes. But ethical debate also involves argumentation over matters of fact. There is nothing mysterious about this. Two people may agree to a great extent in what they value, but they may disagree, for example, about the consequences of a particular act. In debating the issue, each is trying to convince the other what the actual consequences of the act are. And that is a debate regarding matters of fact.

In the above objection we can see a failure to make the distinction between what is purely ethical and what is not, with the resulting confusion between fact and value.

Second objection

"According to subjectivism, at least as that theory has been presented here (see What Is Ethical Subjectivism?), values and facts are entirely separate. Thus it follows that there are no 'oughts' which are true. In other words, there are no normative truths. And yet it is impossible in practice to disregard truths of this kind. One may claim that one does not believe in them, but like the skeptic who nevertheless acts as if he believes in the existence of the external world, the subjectivist acts as if there are normative truths.

"For example, in order that a subjectivist may achieve what he desires, he has to value certain means of achieving his ends. If he does not value the correct means of achieving his desired ends, then he will simply not be successful in achieving them. But that means that he will have to admit, for instance, that one ought to be prudent. And that is a normative claim which he must regard as true. So why not accept other normative claims, such as that we ought to be benevolent or honest?"

Here once again we see the failure to make the same fundamental distinction, only in a more subtle form. That one ought to be prudent is a conditional truth. One ought to be prudent if one wants to achieve certain ends. But there is no ultimate 'ought', no fact that states one should act a certain way.

The distinction to keep in mind in this example is that between intrinsic value and instrumental value. Intrinsic values are 'pure', instrumental ones are not. Our ends, insofar as they are ends, are intrinsic values, and as such are not factually correct or incorrect. But our means are valued only instrumentally. There are correct and incorrect ways of achieving a desired result. So instrumental values, at least when they are held rationally, are not based on feeling.

Third objection

"When we feel an emotion, it is always in response to some belief we have. For example, we may feel fear because we believe we are in danger. Or we may feel pride because we believe we have achieved something worthwhile. In every case where an emotion is present, there is some belief that is more fundamental than the emotion, namely the belief as to whether something is good or bad. We do not feel an emotion in response to something we are indifferent about. We feel an emotion in response to our belief in the goodness or badness of some state of affairs.

"In order to understand what an emotion is, then, you must first understand what goodness and badness are. But that makes the concepts of 'good' and 'bad' more fundamental than that of 'emotion'. Therefore, emotions cannot be the foundation of ethics."

The reply to this argument depends on what one means by 'emotion'. If emotions always require some accompanying belief, then it does follow that they are not fundamental in ethics. This does appear to be true of emotions in general. Things such as love, hate, pride, hope, and so on, do seem to occur in response to beliefs. (I don't think it is necessarily true of everything that goes by the label 'emotion', however. Fear, for instance, is something that can in some cases be felt inexplicably, i.e., without an accompanying conscious belief, at least.) But even if that is so, it just means that those things which are fundamental to ethics are more fundamental feelings, such as desire, pleasure and pain. Whether or not we call such feelings 'emotions' is not the important thing. What is important is that such feelings, in their most basic forms, are not dependent on belief. They are expressions of what we like or dislike for its own sake.

If we find x pleasurable, we desire it because it is pleasurable, and not because we believe something else about it. We do not value pleasure because, after thinking about it, we decide that it is good; we say it is good because we desire it.

These primary feelings, then, are the foundation of each person's moral views. Emotions are in turn based both on beliefs and on these primary feelings.

Fourth objection

"Everyone agrees to a certain extent regarding the proper meaning of moral terms. If someone claimed that the morally correct thing to do would be to cause unnecessary suffering, then it would be reasonable to conclude that he did not understand the term 'moral'.

"It is fine to point out that some terms have both evaluative and descriptive content, but not if that is supposed to imply that the two components are merely accidentally conjoined. There is a reason why certain terms, e.g. 'kindness', are always regarded positively. And that reason is the fact that there are certain things which everyone agrees are desirable. So why does the subjectivist fail to accept the fact that they are desirable?"

Because there is no necessity in any of this. It is indeed true that certain terms are universally used for moral approbation and almost always describe the same or sufficiently similar facts about a person or an act. 'Kindness' and 'courage' are examples of such terms. But all that follows from this is that the great majority of people have sufficiently similar moral views to allow for this. This I readily admit. Ethical relativism can be very easily exaggerated.

What does not follow from this is that it is necessary that someone find such facts to be good. Someone can disapprove of kindness or courage. We may regard such a person (i.e., someone who thinks that kindness and courage are always bad things, that is, bad in themselves) as morally depraved. But there is no contradiction in their view, as there is in the view of a skeptic who denies logical truths. A denial of a truth of logic (e.g., the claim that the law of non-contradiction is false) is self-defeating. A denial of a moral principle isn't.

An ethical objectivist might at this point argue that no rational person would deny the truth of the more fundamental ethical principles, such as 'kindness is good' or 'suffering is bad'. But what is meant by 'rational' here? We cannot equate such ethical 'rationality' with logical rationality, and call the morally depraved person irrational in the same sense as the logical skeptic. There simply is no basis for such an analogy to be made. The only meaning I can see that may be ascribed to 'rational' in the moral sense is something akin to 'agreeing with the great majority of humankind on fundamental moral matters'. And that, of course, is not a basis for ethical objectivism.

Fifth objection

"Obviously, ethical sentences are not merely expressions of the speaker's attitudes. If that were so, then no one would ever concede that anything they do is immoral. That is, if what everyone considers right is whatever they ultimately desire, and what they ultimately desire to do is what they in fact do, then everyone should regard their own actions as always right. But this is not the case. For the most part, people do not regard themselves as morally beyond reproach."

I think this objection only succeeds in showing that people's desires are too complex to be put into a simple formula. First, what someone desires at one moment is not what they desire at the next. So let's say for example that a child steals a piece of candy and later feels guilty about it. One might explain it this way: at the time when he stole the candy, he did not feel it was wrong; later, he changed his attitude, and therefore felt guilty about something that he now thought was wrong. This may account at least for some of the cases of moral guilt, although I don't think it really explains what most often goes on. More likely than not, the child knew all along that, by the moral standards he has been told to follow, what he was doing was wrong. A second explanation, then, is that people have desires at different levels, some which are more selfish and some which are more impersonal.

People have a certain moral sense, which is at root a desire to do what they feel is good. There are several reasons behind this impersonal desire: to prevent feelings of guilt, to get the acceptance of others, and, at its most unselfish, because genuine empathy is felt toward others. This moral sense is, however, only one among the many desires that may be present in us, each in constant battle with the others for a chance to surface to the level of conscious action. Thus, sometimes people 'succumb to temptation' and act on a desire that clashes with their moral sense.

What none of this shows, however, is that there is a moral sense that is independent of desires, one based on ethical truths. None of the many objections to subjectivism I have come across have ever succeeded in doing that.