On Morals
98 Responses
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think about people who sample cars widely and lovingly - are they necessarily better judges of a better car? If you jump in a car and love it, but the connoisseur hates it, are you wrong?
This reminds me of a happening many years ago whin I were just a kid. We had a visit from some famous racing driver, Jackie Stuart if I remember correctly, at our yoof club. When it came to questins I aske what he thought was the best car. His answer frustrated me at the time, he said "It depends on what you want the car for" so I said "well, there must be a car that is better than all the others" he stuck to his guns. My point was and probably still is, there must be an ultimate peice of engineering that is the best car, where everything works perfectly all the time and lasts forever. Like the human condition on morals, we ain't there yet and maybe we never will. Do we even know whether we are heading in the right direction, or is that the wrong direction, hmmmm...
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Why can't we have an edit button that allows us to edit AFTER dinner.
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My point was and probably still is, there must be an ultimate peice of engineering that is the best car, where everything works perfectly all the time and lasts forever.
It seems unlikely to me, because new things are always being invented to put into cars, and their stats are always improving. Also, price is a big factor in perfection.
Like the human condition on morals, we ain't there yet and maybe we never will. Do we even know whether we are heading in the right direction, or is that the wrong direction, hmmmm...
Maybe there is no such ideal car at all - Jackie was hinting at that. There could be an ideal car for each person, at a particular time, though. There certainly could be a best car, even if short of ideal. And there can be a best car in a fixed context, like a drag race. Well, one particular drag race, anyway.
I'm not surprised he stuck to his guns. A good car for a farmer with 8 kids is not the same as a good car for a single man living in a city with tiny streets, or a German who want to use the autobahn a lot.
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Yes Jackie was right and I was just a kid. My point was, really, that there is no such thing as "Best" and it is the same with moral questions.
If you take the Hippocratic oath at face value, as written, Doctors should not charge for their services nor charge for teaching their craft, neither should they perform abortions. Today Doctors still take a form of that oath but the morals have changed to suit the mores of our times.
Like I said, do we know if we are moving to "better" or badder times? and who can honestly judge? -
Well, I'd agree that there is no "absolute" Best, which is independent of the person(s) making the evaluation. But there can still be a Best (or several), given a set of criteria, which a person or group might settle on.
And I guess that's really my position regarding morals - there isn't one set that (as Steve Parks put it) is handed to us by God. But as humans, we may very well settle on some set of them and call them Best, that's not impossible. It may, however, be unlikely. But either way, it's a political process, rather than one that could ever come from 'first principles' or scientific inquiry.
I can't actually prove emotivism is true. There may actually be real independent morals. Most moral theories assert that there are. Whether we could ever be sure of them is another matter. In some ways it's a good idea to make the assumption that they do exist, and postulate them, rather like scientific theories, and then subject them to testing. But there remains the problem of 'moral observations', which, unlike a lot of science, are very hard to agree on. Even bitter scientific enemies can agree when a thermometer has passed a certain temperature (maybe disputing the exact moment, but certainly at some point they will agree that a point has been passed). But moral enemies will not agree on the observations themselves. Especially when they have a moral theory as the basis for their moral observations. In that case there is no resolution possible between conflicting theories.
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But moral enemies will not agree on the observations themselves. Especially when they have a moral theory as the basis for their moral observations. In that case there is no resolution possible between conflicting theories.
Which brings us, neatly, to compromise. There is no deity, or even philosophy to my knowledge, that would accept compromise, being that absolutism is the basis of "God given" morals and science for that matter. However, I think you would agree that compromise gives us the "best" of all possible worlds and that, I believe, is the state of real world democratic politics.
As for emotivism, if it feels right, then it must be. like I have always said "If you're doing it right, you're dancing. If you're saying it right, you're Singing. But if you think you're right you've probably missed something".
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Compromise is certainly vital in communal decision making. But as for the wisdom of absolutism vs relativism vs skepticism, it's not really clear what's best. Skepticism, where you pretty much take no stance at all, means you won't be wrong, but you also won't actually achieve anything more than that. Relativism, where you take the line that all of the viewpoints have validity, suffers of course from the problem that contradictory viewpoints can hardly logically be both correct. So you end up with a point of view that is also not really achieving much either. Hence the popularity of absolutism, with the only real problem that most absolutist positions are false.
I was most surprised when I studied the philosophy of science to find that almost all of the actual "scientists", by which I mean Science faculty students, were actually absolutists. Studying an Arts faculty subject like philosophy of science was allowed for them, and they made the mistake of thinking it was a soft option. Almost all of them were "realists" in the sense that they strongly believed that science was a pursuit of the truth, and that the theories they were studying were mostly true. In an absolute sense - not as some convenient human fiction. It made almost no impression on them that the history of science was completely full of total revolutions, in which the scientific view of the entire nature of the universe had changed dramatically a number of times. To them, it was like there was something highly special about NOW, that made it different to all the other times. I personally considered that naive, but I do also wonder whether such naivete is actually necessary if you wish to break ground in the understanding of the universe.
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Man, I go away for a few days (computer busted), and I come back to see BenWilson saying the sorts of things I would say. Well, seeing as this thread’s still in the top bunch, I’ll chip in again...
What you are trying to say is that the reasoning behind moral decisions is in some way superior to those kind of things.
No, not so much “superior”, as altogether of a different nature. Tastes can change, but not because of reason or evidence. Reason and evidence simply form no part of the discourse over taste, per se. You either like the taste of carrots or you do not. You do not reason that you do not like carrots – it is a purely subjective sensation you are describing. Saying “I like the taste of apples” is not an argument for the taste of apples, it is just an assertion of a sensation. “White people are superior to people of any other race” is not an assertion of a taste sensation – it is a statement of position based on understandings about the nature humans. If those understandings are not backed up by reality then the position is wrong in a way you cannot be regards your taste in veges.
You can't prove that moving from an anti-homosexual position to a pro-homosexual one is a rational decision, just because someone who became educated changed their position.
I wasn’t saying he necessarily made the change because of rationality (although I rather suspect that he did, at least in part). I do not think people only change their moral views because of rationality and evidence, but the fact that they can is problematic for emotivists, as that isn’t the case for any other taste statements. My point with regard to the friend’s change of view was that he looked back at his previous position as being erroneous, not just different. Why is this always true of changes of moral position, but never of any other kind of change of taste, if moral statements are just like other taste statements?
Suggesting that countering "racism is wrong" must be done by argumentation is wishful – most of the ways that we counter such an idea are actually non-rational - we live with people of many races and find that they're not so bad.
I don’t hold that all changes of moral position must be done with formal rational argument, or that there aren’t other ways people change their views. But anyway, if you live with people from other races, and find that they are not so bad, that would be a rational change of view, based on evidence about the world. It’s certainly not arbitrary.
Sure, I don't like racism, but I don't claim to have the power of science behind me on this one. ... I'm happy enough just to consider it my preference, rather than claim it to be the one true preference. I would like other people to have this preference, and that is pretty much the effect I go for when I condemn racism.
But how can you condemn racism if you don’t think there is really anything at all incorrect in the racist’s assessment? But again, it’s not really about the “one true preference”. Some moral positions are more internally coherent, and more supportable by what we know about the world than other positions. There is plenty of science behind you in your position on race, by contrast to the white supremacist say, who thinks there are hard and fast distinctions between races, and that non-white races are qualitatively inferior. His views do not correlate with what we know about the world; that is, he is as wrong as the stubborn flat Earth believer.
Now we get to the bit where you sound like me:
And there can be a best car in a fixed context, like a drag race. Well, one particular drag race, anyway. [...] I'd agree that there is no "absolute" Best, which is independent of the person(s) making the evaluation. But there can still be a Best (or several), given a set of criteria, which a person or group might settle on.
Yes. Note that the best car for the drag race isn’t a matter of opinion: the best car in context is the fast one, not the slow fuel-efficient one. If the context changes (such as with the family on a farm) then what is best changes, but the assessment of ‘best’ isn’t arbitrary.
And I guess that's really my position regarding morals - there isn't one set that (as Steve Parks put it) is handed to us by God. But as humans, we may very well settle on some set of them and call them Best, that's not impossible. It may, however, be unlikely. But either way, it's a political process, rather than one that could ever come from 'first principles' or scientific inquiry.
I agreed till the last line! Why would you leave reason and evidence (which is what I take you to mean by ‘scientific inquiry’) out of the equation? How else do you discuss morality, when you’re not turning to the gods?
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Hi Steve, hope the PC's all good!
Reason and evidence simply form no part of the discourse over taste, per se.
This is as much of an assertion as the statement that reason and evidence are a large part of moral discourse. It would pay to be precise about what we are meaning by the terms (Reason, Evidence, Taste), if any further progress is to be made in the discussion. Then again, that is also likely to lead to further and further requests for clarity in an unending pursuit of justification for positions we've already fixated on. I think this is in many ways analogous to exactly how most moral reasoning goes.
So I'll try to stick to counterexamples.
I think reason and evidence can certainly affect our tastes quite a lot. Very often I've moved from disliking to liking a flavor, due to a more highly developed ability to distinguish subtleties. Sometimes a distaste has been caused much more by my mind than my taste buds - I think the fish has gone off and I don't want to touch it. But then the chef tastes it, and assures me it tastes exactly how it was intended to, and I'm perhaps tasting the dash of whiskey he splashed in there (I don't much like whiskey), and I'll try again, and guess what, I can actually convince myself it's pretty nice after all. Other things I used to like a lot more (like sugar in my coffee), but really don't like now. Not because I don't like the taste of sugar or of coffee, but because I know that I will be having far too much sugar that way, and something about that thought makes it tastes nasty to me.
Now you can probably argue that this degrades the idea of reason and evidence quite a lot. But you seem to be putting 'becoming comfortable with other races' as a reason and evidence based decision, and I just can't see much difference between the processes.
“White people are superior to people of any other race” is not an assertion of a taste sensation – it is a statement of position based on understandings about the nature humans.
That does depend on a particular parse of the quoted sentence. By "superior", a racist might not mean "Superior in every way" - certainly they will concede that other races than "white people" have dominated a number of sports, for instance. By superior they probably mean something far more like exactly what I'm saying, ie "White people are far more to my taste than people of any other race". Or "White people are the people I would like to be the rulers around here".
But how can you condemn racism if you don’t think there is really anything at all incorrect in the racist’s assessment?
I can't deny their assessment of their own taste. But I can (and do) have a very different taste in the matter. For any number of reasons I'd like people to know that, including the racists. It seems highly likely, on past experience, that people who express racist sentiments will act in ways I don't like (not just talk about it). That's how I can condemn it - because I think that condemning it might serve a purpose.
Now, there are other statements that the racist can make about which are simply statements of fact, and true or false on that account. Those can certainly be argued about, just the same as the statement "This dish is off" can be. And to that end a pigheaded racist is an unreasonable dickhead. But even if they made no other statement than that they did not like other races, a simple statement of taste and preference, without any counterfactual justification, it would still be in direct conflict with my tastes, and I would still oppose them. For that matter, even if they actually had quite a lot of evidence that white people are superior (and there are a lot of fields totally dominated by white people, and they form a disproportionate chunk of the ruling classes of the world), I would still hate their taste.
I agreed till the last line! Why would you leave reason and evidence (which is what I take you to mean by ‘scientific inquiry’) out of the equation? How else do you discuss morality, when you’re not turning to the gods?
Well scientific inquiry has much higher standard of 'reason and evidence' than moral arguments seem to. Scientific theories can, for example, be refuted by counter observations that any observer can make. In fact, I'd go so far as Popper does in saying that if they can't be refuted by such observations, they are not scientific. But in moral arguments, they always seem to come to an impasse, in which a crucial counter observation is simply seen different ways, depending on which theory you adhere to. This is a major weakness of moral theorizing IMHO, and means that the best a moral theory can aim for is internal coherence, rather than the loftier ambition science has of 'correspondence with reality'.
Further issues: Have there ever been any "Moral discoveries"? In which a fundamental new and totally counter-intuitive moral fact was discovered, which led to a whole new theory? This happens in science all the time. For that matter, are there any established moral facts at all ? Name one! Tell me how you can possibly set up a moral experiment, in which observers could agree that some moral point has been settled. Most sciences seem to involve a great deal of mathematics - where's the deep and involved moral mathematics that we could expect to accompany a scientific field? Indeed, tell me why morality as a theoretical subject is only taught in the Arts, Theology and Law faculties in Universities, rather than science departments?
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hope the PC's all good!
There was a pop up from “Windows” telling us our PC had hundreds of viruses in all sorts of files, and we urgently needed to upload such & such. We found this unlikely, not least because we use the free version of Avira to do our pc security, so what the hell was this Windows thing doing? Either way we had at least one virus, so we rebooted, cleaned it up, and now pay for McAfee. I hope that’ll be more robust. It certainly has more bells and whistles. It tells me about PAS: “We tested this site and didn't find any significant problems”. (Obviously, they didn’t read the Copyright thread.)
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meaning by the terms (Reason, Evidence, Taste)
I have been using 'taste' in the limited sense of a sensation (“the flavour of apple is nice”) or an abstract preference (“my favourite colour is blue”). I have done this because that must be the sense emotivists mean. I’m not using “Reason” to be a straight synonym for “The scientific method”, which you seem to do. Your examples seem to be mostly examples of persuasion, psychological factors, or experience allowing the changing of tastes, which I’ve already agreed occurs. Emotivists say taste preferences are just expressions of a sensation, not statements that we can consider as propositions. They compare moral positions to taste to devalue the nature of the former, in the sense that they say morals are just expressions of an unarguable sensation. They literally claim that morals are nothing more than saying “yuk” or “hurrah”. If you expand the notion of taste to something that you can apply reason, you undermine the emotivist position. If they’re wrong to look at taste so narrowly, they’re already wrong about morality.
... you seem to be putting 'becoming comfortable with other races' as a reason and evidence based decision, and I just can't see much difference between the processes.
I think there is, and it brings up again a point you’ve not yet addressed. I’ve changed my taste in olives over the years, in part by eating them now and then and just getting used to the taste. But even so, I don’t consider that my younger self was mistaken in his view of olives as yuk. That was just my sensation. In your ‘other races' example, I imagined a situation like a child raised by racist parents in a small homogenous town. She gets lots of unkind stereotypes about other races. She grows up and moves to a cosmopolitan city, where she mixes with a variety of people and eventually comes to see that the stereotypes she was brought up with aren’t accurate. You were saying such an example was a non-rational change of moral position, but what is non-rational about that? Seems perfectly rational to me. And, like with all changes in moral positions, she will consider her previous position to have been incorrect - unlike with pure taste sensations like my change in appreciation of olives.
I can't deny their assessment of their own taste.
Of course not, hence what I see as the emotivist’s sophistry. Define talk of morals in a ridiculously myopic way – such that a person’s racism is seen as a “taste” in isolation from the reasons for the view – and then conclude we cannot deny their assessment of their own taste, just like we can’t say someone is wrong to dislike beetroot.
Have there ever been any "Moral discoveries"? In which a fundamental new and totally counter-intuitive moral fact was discovered, which led to a whole new theory? This happens in science all the time. For that matter, are there any established moral facts at all ? Name one! Tell me how you can possibly set up a moral experiment, in which observers could agree that some moral point has been settled.
These would be great questions to put to someone who argues that moral philosophy is a rigorous empirical science, like chemistry or physics. Fortunately, I’m not doing that. I am arguing against the emotivist view that moral statements are the same as taste statements. Moral statements clearly do not act like that for the reasons given by Brant. The only counter I’m aware of, and you touched on it here, requires expanding what is meant by taste to a point that vitiates the original case emotivists were trying to make. Interestingly, moral statements do act somewhat like statements we make regarding empirical matters about the world, but I would not go so far as to say that moral discourse is scientific.
As for why we don’t consider that we have moral facts? Well, allow me to bore people with more pontification, outside the original scope of my argument. I know sceptics dwell on how we are still debating moral issues today, as if that shows something isn’t proven, but I do think we make moral progress and would point to a lack of support for slavery as one. Millions of people still argue evolution is unproven; that is, to paraphrase you, millions of observers do not agree that an empirical point has been settled. Anyone who would argue in favour of slavery today should be dismissed like creationists. Maybe we have been handicapped by humanity’s previous default presumption that morality is given to us by an outside deity. To quote Derek Parfit:
Belief in God, or in many gods, prevented the free development of moral reasoning. Disbelief in God, openly admitted by a majority, is a recent event, not yet completed. Because this event is so recent, Non-Religious Ethics is at a very early stage.
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Emotivists say taste preferences are just expressions of a sensation, not statements that we can consider as propositions.
Probably more accurate to say they are expressions of a preference. "Yuk" is not a sensation, it's a judgment, possibly, but not exclusively, based on a sensation.
If you expand the notion of taste to something that you can apply reason, you undermine the emotivist position. If they’re wrong to look at taste so narrowly, they’re already wrong about morality.
Or I'm undermining reason, as I said. Reason itself could be seen as a series of judgments based on sensations. Any reasoning about the world, anyway.
They compare moral positions to taste to devalue the nature of the former, in the sense that they say morals are just expressions of an unarguable sensation.
They are expressions of judgments about sensations. But I'm not so sure that sensation is totally divorced from reason - the "theory ladeness of observation" (see Kuhn and Quine) is a well known problem in philosophy of science, and generalizes to other discussions of sensation. So I'm not so sure they're trying to devalue morals. They're just refusing to allow that the very basis of them derives from anything other than feelings we have about things.
To that extent, it's a very powerful position, because it does not get caught up in overriding actual sensations of a wrong by a theory we have previously settled on. Nor does it fall prey to the usual problem of moral theories - that they just ignore anyone who disagrees with the most fundamental axioms. If I simply feel that the Categorical Imperative is bullshit right from the start, then arguments I have with people who base their idea about morality on it will simply be at an impasse.
Generally I think that the way people settle on a moral theory is to look at derived practical consequences of it. If they don't square with moral intuitions, then they don't like the theory. But having settled on one, there is still always the possibility of a consequence that hadn't been thought of or discussed. To disallow this is simply to settle on a dogma, and becomes less and less tenable, the more it overrides intuitions.
I think there is, and it brings up again a point you’ve not yet addressed. I’ve changed my taste in olives over the years, in part by eating them now and then and just getting used to the taste. But even so, I don’t consider that my younger self was mistaken in his view of olives as yuk. That was just my sensation.
I think I have addressed this. I said that you have failed to show that when you change your morals that there is a "truth" in the matter, that you were clearly right or wrong either before or after. You've merely asserted that you moved from wrong to right, because you used a process that you call reason for some of it. This, I would call the sophistry of the anti-emotivists. Certainly moral statements differ a great deal from taste statements in their practical implications, so it matters a great deal more to us what the moral tastes of other people are than their tongue tastes. To that extent we are far more likely to loudly claim distaste for certain things, like racism or slavery, because we have an inkling of what racists and slave-drivers will do if they are not disapproved of, and we don't like it (now).
I know sceptics dwell on how we are still debating moral issues today, as if that shows something isn’t proven, but I do think we make moral progress and would point to a lack of support for slavery as one. Millions of people still argue evolution is unproven; that is, to paraphrase you, millions of observers do not agree that an empirical point has been settled.
Are we back to scientific reasoning now? I thought you'd given up on saying moral theorizing was like that. My opinion on scientific statements is that they generally do have a truth or falsity, although I must confess it's only an opinion. I believe there is a world independent of my mind and there are other people out there, and the world is independent of their minds too. That being so, statements about that world are 'objective'. Of course it's only an opinion, and perhaps we're in the Matrix or any number of other Cartesian dilemmas. That can't really be disproved, I just don't like to think it's true - it leads nowhere.
But morality does not necessarily have any existence independent of ourselves.
I think the biggest challenge for emotivists is that morality does not necessarily *not* have any independent existence either. It's not a provable point, but to claim there is nothing objective about morals is currently as much of an assertion as the claim that there are. To that end, my feeling on emotivism is simply one of "support for a possible viable hypothesis, that challenges in a fundamental way the very basis of most other moral theories".
Like I said, the number of beliefs I hold "absolutely" is near zero. I just favor one or other. So I'm quite sympathetic to, for instance, Utilitarianism, particularly the Harm Principle. But when I make statements about right and wrong based on it, I'm always thinking hypothetically - "X is wrong IF emotivism is wrong. If it is not, then I just don't like X". But that's a real mouthful every time you're discussing morals, so I usually drop it, and just say "X is wrong, IMHO".
One of my biggest motivations for leaning towards it is actually "self distrust". I'm well aware that people can argue themselves into believing any position. That's a dangerous thing, if you think that because you've used reason, that you're therefore right, or even dealing with a subject on which it is even possible to be right or wrong. I don't trust 'reason' anywhere near as much as I used to, possibly an odd consequence of philosophy training, but also highly driven by life experiences of practical reasoning since then.
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But I'm not so sure that sensation is totally divorced from reason
Neither am I, but either way that doesn’t help the emotivist case. It might help some other case for subjectivism in morality, but not theirs. My point was they are trying to say that moral statements are like taste preferences in that they are not arguable. There is therefore nothing to be gained in expanding “taste” to be something we can argue over evidence about. Emotivists say reason and evidence play no part in taste preferences per se; moral statements are like taste statements; therefore, moral statements are also not amenable to reason and evidence. You don’t help their case by saying maybe we can apply those to taste. You then say that maybe you have undermined “Any reasoning about the world” - which would be all of it, I would have thought. Maybe so, and maybe not. But either way, that would amount to a different case for seeing morality as purely subjective. Emotivists weren’t trying to undermine reason, and I’m not trying to refute any possible case for subjectivism you care to put up.
I think I have addressed this. I said that you have failed to show that when you change your morals that there is a "truth" in the matter, that you were clearly right or wrong either before or after. You've merely asserted that you moved from wrong to right,
You’ve missed the point. The challenge to emotivists is to explain why, as Brant pointed out, moral statements do not appear to act like taste statements. I know you don’t agree, for example, with the hypothetical woman’s own view that her previous position on race was actually “wrong”, but the point is why does she treat this “taste” in that way? To recap Brant’s case on how moral statements clearly act differently to taste statements:
1] People can change their position on a moral issue due to reasoning from another person, and/or evidence presented. This is not true of taste statements.
2] When people do change their moral position, they see their previous position as having been mistaken. Not just different, but actually unfounded. This never applies to any taste statement.You’re response to [1] is to say maybe reason does apply to the sort of thing emotivists meant by ‘taste’ after all. As I said above, this fails to support, and in fact undermines, their case. For [2] you suggest that we really want to loudly claim distaste for certain things, so...? Not all moral changes are as significant as going from racist to not, and that doesn’t really explain the way we consistently view prior positions as unfounded. The simplest explanation is to conclude moral discourse is not like stating pure taste preferences, and that moral statements should prima facie be considered propositions.
Are we back to scientific reasoning now? I thought you'd given up on saying moral theorizing was like that.
I was consistent in saying that moral reasoning seems to have some things in common with statements we make regarding empirical matters, if that’s what you mean. In fact, I specifically stated that point in my last post, so I’m not sure why you’re confused.
One of my biggest motivations for leaning towards it is actually "self distrust". I'm well aware that people can argue themselves into believing any position. That's a dangerous thing, if you think that because you've used reason, that you're therefore right,
That can be dangerous, but it isn’t “reason” that’s the problem. There’s a difference between being rational and rationalizing. You’re using reason here – how else do you think you’ve been trying to explain your position and counter mine? You haven’t been using mental projection or yogic flying, I’m pretty sure. Not valuing reason is more of a problem. Like I asked you before, how else would we begin to discuss morality?
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I'm not sure that the motivation behind the more famous proponents of emotivism can be so easily seen as attempting to ridicule moral statements, on account of their similarity to taste. It may well be that they simply want to establish where fact ends and opinion begins. Ayer was a positivist after all, and both he and Stevenson speak of a number of logical statements that can be made about moral inferences. I think it can be presumed that they thought similar statements could be made about tastes.
For example, one could say "1. Bob stole a wallet. 2. Theft harms society. 3. What harms society is wrong. 4. Therefore what Bob did was wrong".
4. Does follow from 1, 2, 3. But 1 and 2 can perfectly well be challenged. Perhaps Bob did not actually steal the wallet. Perhaps some kinds of theft don't harm society. These can be matters of fact, without undermining the emotivist position, and an emotivist can join with anyone else in rejecting 4 on account of errors in 1 and 2 alone, without needing their recourse to parsing 3 as an arbitrary taste. Or 4 could be "4(ii). Therefore Bob should have his hand cut off". This can be challenged as simply not following from the premises.
The emotivists differ from realists and subjectivists in saying that 3 can't be a statement of fact (or perhaps that the facticity of 3 can't be known), it is a judgment based on feeling. It may have it's own premises, but always at the bottom of it is a judgment based on a preference. 3 could perhaps come from "3.1 Something that harms society being accepted as a principle risks that it may harm me, or my loved ones" and "3.2 I don't want myself or my loved ones harmed." (some kind of appeal to selfishness). There are many other possible justifications for 3 (which may quite logically lead to 3) but in themselves will contain at least one completely arbitrary statement of preference. Wikipedia's article on emotivism puts it quite nicely:
"Ayer's defense is that all ethical disputes are about facts regarding the proper application of a value system to a specific case, not about the value systems themselves, because any dispute about values can only be resolved by judging that one value system is superior to another, and this judgment itself presupposes a value system."
I would probably be a little more careful by saying "all truly rational ethical disputes". Of course there are still irrational disputes, and disputes involving reasoning which is spurious.
Brandt simply asserts that reasoning is not involved in tastes of the tongue, with the aim for showing that morals are not arbitrary like tastes. I gave counterexamples. He also asserts that people never consider earlier tastes "unfounded" (you are correct, I have not yet addressed this point). I have to say that I have done that many a time. I had a completely unfounded dislike of Chinese food for quite a while as a child - I was of the opinion that it was too oily and salty. But I was simply wrong about this. I was making an ungrounded jump from my experience of the Chinese restaurants I had experienced in 1970's Auckland to all Chinese food. It is also quite possible that I was mistaken about it being too salty - as a child I knew nothing about MSG and was probably confusing the tastes. But disliking oily salty food at that time was a 'mere' preference, and it has changed with time.
Not all moral changes are as significant as going from racist to not, and that doesn’t really explain the way we consistently view prior positions as unfounded.
There are a great many things in moral positions that can be unfounded well before we ever get to the base assumptions - assumptions we may never challenge in our entire lives. We can completely change moral positions on account of some actual facts showing that a position we had derived from our base assumptions is wrong, without ever changing the base assumptions. In doing so we could logically say our earlier position was 'unfounded', without ever noticing that our current position is also unfounded. That's the thing about basic assumptions - you don't even notice them.
In the rare cases where our base assumptions change, I suggest it's seldom because our new position is 'more true'. It's almost entirely going to be due to very powerful psychological appeals, rather than rational ones. I did not particularly love children before I had some, now I do, and I value them more highly. But people who don't have them, and don't especially value them, are not necessarily wrong in any absolute sense. I just fundamentally disagree with them about the value of children.
The simplest explanation is to conclude moral discourse is not like stating pure taste preferences, and that moral statements should prima facie be considered propositions.
Ayer is pretty clear in saying quite a few moral utterances are propositions. But he thinks the base ones aren't always parsible into the "I don't like X" form. Sometimes they aren't even verbal at all. That is just one particular parse that highlights the arbitrariness - "I don't like X" is a proposition (it could be false - I could be lying), but it's not one anyone else can really dispute, if it does indeed merely report a feeling or sensation, or instinct, or upbringing.
I was consistent in saying that moral reasoning seems to have some things in common with statements we make regarding empirical matters, if that’s what you mean. In fact, I specifically stated that point in my last post, so I’m not sure why you’re confused.
I don't deny that 'moral reasoning' is just like any other reasoning, if it is to have any validity at all. It uses inferences and evidence, just the same as science does. The differences is that some of the evidence, upon which the very basis of the moral rests, is subjective, which separates morals very much from something like evolution. People who disagree with evolution are doing so in spite of objective evidence. People who reject utilitarianism are generally doing it because some bunch of counterexamples make them feel that it's wrong. In some cases it just doesn't strike any chord with them at all, as in the case of Nietzsche. I can't prove wrong Nietzsche's views of how most of the human race are morally irrelevant, and that unhappiness isn't bad, so long as you're feeling it strongly. I just don't like it.
Not valuing reason is more of a problem. Like I asked you before, how else would we begin to discuss morality?
That's really an impossible question to answer. Reason is not a clearly defined thing, so any alternatives I posited could just be called Reason.
Well, baby is fed and settled so I can go back to bed. Thanks for your responses - this debate is interesting to me, I confess to never having had a decent interlocutor before on this point.
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Thanks for your responses - this debate is interesting to me,
Yeah me too. I’ve had time for a good debate. But still, probably time to let this thread drop, so I’ll try to make this my last response...
I'm not sure that the motivation behind the more famous proponents of emotivism can be so easily seen as attempting to ridicule moral statements
I wouldn’t say ridicule. I did say 'devalue' at one point, but even that was followed by “in the sense that they say morals are just expressions of an unarguable sensation”, which still seems about right, other than perhaps to modifying to “expression of a taste preference based on an unarguable sensation or sentiment”. Like ‘olives taste yuk’, or ‘red is my favourite colour’ they cannot be true or false, or even more flawed or less flawed. From that Wikipedia article we have Ayers saying: ‘Thus if I say to someone, "You acted wrongly in stealing that money," I am not stating anything more than if I had simply said, "You stole that money." In adding that this action is wrong I am not making any further statement about it.’
I think this not the case, and it is not a useful way of looking at moral discourse.It may well be that they simply want to establish where fact ends and opinion begins.
I’d see that as more a problem of first principle or maybe ‘open question’ problem. But that applies to virtually all (if not all) forms of discourse, and I don’t see that the emotivist angle adds much illumination to the issue of where facts end and opinion begins. I think, Occam’s razor in mind, that Brandt’s approach is the better: treat any given moral statement prima facie as a proposition. If in any given case it can be unpacked and shown as nothing more than an expression of “yuk” or “Harrah” then so be it. But unless that process has been done, calling moral positions non-cognitive is not helpful.
Brandt simply asserts that reasoning is not involved in tastes of the tongue, with the aim for showing that morals are not arbitrary like tastes. I gave counterexamples.
Yes, but your counter examples weren’t about applying reasoning to the taste per se. There’s a subtle but important difference here between using a reasoned argument to directly change a position, and there being reasons behind a change of position. You may have good reason to reduce the sugar in your diet, but that reason is not itself the cause of your change in taste over sugar in your coffee. Similarly, I decided to try to inure myself to olives, based on reasons that could be put like this: often olives were snacks at some of the functions I would attend, and they were often in food others prepared so it would be good to get used to them and expand my tastes, plus they are good for my health. This could be seen as the ‘argument’ to try olives, but did not itself cause my taste to change. That process is perhaps rightly called non-cognitive, in that what caused the actual change in taste was the non-rational process of inuring myself to the (initially) unpleasant flavour of olives. That process is distinct from the reasons for putting myself through the process.
Compare this to a change like the hypothetical person in posts above regarding race (let’s call her Ann). She can explain the reason for her change in view. She could explain the reason and describe the evidence to another person, who could potentially reconsider their own view on the matter based purely on that argument. Ann sees her previous position on race as unfounded, and indeed the reason for her change of view goes hand-in-hand with her perception of the old view as flawed. So we have a reasoned case for the change itself, explainable to others, and a change based on coming to understand that a previous position was incorrect in some way.Now compare to a debate over the best electoral system for New Zealand. I have changed my position on this matter (from STV supporter to MMP). These sorts of discussions take place in a cognitive way: we debate based on reasons and argument over the evidence. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say my previous position was completely unfounded, I have certainly come to see my old view as having inadequacies in some ways, and my new position in favour of MMP is not an arbitrary change of electoral taste. I could explain the reason for my change in position, and those reasons go hand in hand with seeing my old view as in some way mistaken. Ann’s change in position over race seems very much like this, and not at all like my change in taste for olives. To call Ann’s change of position on race an example of something ‘non-rational’ and akin to a change in taste seems to me to be a peculiar stance to take.
That is just one particular parse that highlights the arbitrariness - "I don't like X" is a proposition (it could be false - I could be lying), but it's not one anyone else can really dispute, if it does indeed merely report a feeling or sensation, or instinct, or upbringing.
If it is just “I don’t like X”, as in “ X " causes me to feel icky in some way, but I have nothing else to say”, then that’s a taste preference and nothing more. “Two men kissing makes me feel ick” is a taste preference, but it is not in itself a moral position. I know people who don’t like seeing two men in a passionate embrace, but have liberal moral views on homosexuality. They don’t think homosexuals should be discriminated against in any way, but their preference is still not to view men kissing. The “Yuk, there’s two guys kissing!” reaction is something many males seem to have at some point. (It is not so often accompanied by the same reaction to two women kissing.) But in and of itself this is not a moral position. If someone were to base their moral view on homosexuality on their personal “ick” reaction and nothing more, and say for example that homosexual actions should be outlawed, the onus is on them to explain why their personal taste should be applied as some moral disapprobation. If they cannot, but stubbornly maintain “ick = it’s wrong”, then true, you can’t argue with that position any further. But they’re just being irrational – it would be like arguing with a flat earther.
People who disagree with evolution are doing so in spite of objective evidence.
In spite of what you call evidence. I say your view of “objective evidence” is just an assertion. I wish you would stop trying to impose your opinions of “truth values” on me.
Okay, I’m being facetious. But it seems to me these discourses might go all the way down on anything. An awful lot of people really do think you and I are wrong about the evidence. That is, they honestly believe the evidence of reality supports their “intelligent design” position better than evolution. Yet others will say your view of ‘reality’ and ‘science’ is the problem. How do you judge that view against yours, when “any dispute about values can only be resolved by judging that one value system is superior to another, and this judgment itself presupposes a value system”. Moral discourse can quickly slip into metaphysics. You can’t reason with someone committed to non-reason. I’d see that as more a case for choosing your battles, than for emotivism, as such.
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Yeah me too. I’ve had time for a good debate. But still, probably time to let this thread drop, so I’ll try to make this my last response...
Yup, I've pretty much said all my material, and now I just feel like we're pointing out where we think the other person didn't get some of it.
I’d see that as more a problem of first principle or maybe ‘open question’ problem. But that applies to virtually all (if not all) forms of discourse, and I don’t see that the emotivist angle adds much illumination to the issue of where facts end and opinion begins.
It is indeed a first principle problem. It's hitting ethics right before it begins and asking an extremely important question, one that will set the tone and nature of any debate had in it. That question is "are ethical statements even capable of being statements of fact?". It's not a question about supporting statements to an ethical judgment, which could be factual or not in an objective sense. It's not about reasoning within a framework, which can be cogent or uncogent (and if it's uncogent then that's a good reason to dismiss it without looking further). It's about the very founding principles of the framework - the basic observations of rightness or wrongness upon which every ethical judgment ultimately rests. If these are just "yuk" and "Hurrah" then ultimately there is no rational resolution to them, and no point discussing them any further.
I think it sheds a huge amount of light on ethics, because so many disputes in Ethics do come down to exactly those final position, after centuries of argumentation. Yuk or Hurrah. I think they usually started that way too. Most of the bit in between, with all of the arguing at cross-purposes, steadily getting more and more hostile as it becomes clear that reason is not working, was never going to work, and is actually simply being used as a Yuk or Hurrah tool.
Slavery (your only example of moral progress so far) is a great example - bugger all of the end of slavery was because of ethical discussions held in a rational way. It was decided by economics and violence. Slavery was uneconomic, and non-slave nations were stronger.
I'm inclined to think that reason should still be applied as much as possible, mostly to avoid bloodshed, to find out if in fact we would Hurrah the same things and are simply disputing real facts (which could actually come to a resolution non violently). But at the end, you need to know when you're up against a Hurrah rather than a reason. Then it's just about who's the better cheerleader, or as in so many real ethical disputes, the better fighter, or the richer and more powerful, etc.
You point out that there is a difference between rationality and rationalizing. That is certainly true when what is being disputed is something factual. But if it is not, then there is actually no difference. It might feel like there's a difference, but that feeling is no more trustworthy than any other Hurrah.
If they cannot, but stubbornly maintain “ick = it’s wrong”, then true, you can’t argue with that position any further. But they’re just being irrational – it would be like arguing with a flat earther.
Indeed you can't. OTOH, you really don't have much more basis for a position of "Ick, discrimination is wrong". Somewhere down the chain of why, you're going to have to come up with some statements of ickiness, and if they're less ick to other people than allowing gay people to do their business, then they just won't agree with you, and will think you are the flat earther.
That doesn't mean that such a tack is pointless. Often, people do find that the other ick is worse (to them) and change their position. Rationality was used, as a tool to move from one arbitrary position to another, one that is more comfortable for both parties, and a process that didn't require arbitrary use of power.
I'm pretty sure in the case of gay rights, this is exactly what has happened. It still is icky to a great many people, but they have realized that they do icky stuff too, and think they should be allowed to. So the idea of 'keeping out of other people's bedrooms' has appeal, more because we'd feel much more icky about someone sticking their head into our one than we do about thinking about what's going on in other people's bedrooms. This also explains why it is that people who don't have any action of any kind going on in their bedrooms are quite often the least tolerant - they see that they have nothing to lose.
Moral discourse can quickly slip into metaphysics. You can’t reason with someone committed to non-reason. I’d see that as more a case for choosing your battles, than for emotivism, as such.
Disputes over objects that are imaginary have a tendency towards non-reason. If there were any evidence at all that morals are statements of fact, other than that humans would like to believe it to be true, I would not have such difficulty giving up the position of emotivism. Until then, it's still a possibility, and an excellent counter to nearly any normative moral theory. Just find the right ick, and they come crashing down.
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I did say I’d try to resist responding at all, but, oh well. I will be (comparatively) brief.
If these are just "yuk" and "Hurrah" then ultimately there is no rational resolution to them, and no point discussing them any further.
Maybe, but that’s an “if”. At the very least, it would make sense to apply rationality unless we could know for sure there is only yuk and hurrah at the bottom, so to speak. You don’t need to resolve the “open question” issue in many actual debates.
I’m not sure which you mean is getting more hostile: purely philosophical debates about ethics, or the world in general due to a lack of resolution about ethics. If the former, I don’t see that’s the case, and anyway, hostile ethical debate is often over the stuff you said this isn’t about (supporting evidence, reasoning within a framework) not so much first principles. If the latter, you’d be wrong. (That speech isn’t primarily about rationality in ethics, but it touches on it, and it’s just interesting anyway. More rational and enlightened times roughly equals more peace.)
I'm inclined to think that reason should still be applied as much as possible
Yet, you also say it’s clear that reason “is not working, was never going to work, and is actually simply being used as a Yuk or Hurrah tool”.
OTOH, you really don't have much more basis for a position of "Ick, discrimination is wrong".
“Ick, discrimination is wrong” isn’t a position; the ‘ick’ adds nothing. You can think ‘ick’ over something, and not be against it. It’s not one ick vs the other. If someone thinks homosexuality is icky for some indefinable reason, that alone doesn’t justify discrimination, so I don’t even need to provide “more basis” for anything. If they think ick alone is justification, then as you suggest they’d be buying into that being turned on them. Most people who really wanted to discriminate would come up with some reason or another, and then we shoot that reason down.
Until then, it's still a possibility, and an excellent counter to nearly any normative moral theory. Just find the right ick, and they come crashing down.
Have you looked at Pragmatism at all? I haven’t read a lot (one book by Richard Rorty and a few articles) but it might just be your cup of tea.
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Maybe, but that’s an “if”. At the very least, it would make sense to apply rationality unless we could know for sure there is only yuk and hurrah at the bottom, so to speak. You don’t need to resolve the “open question” issue in many actual debates.
That's a reasonable point. I also think the 'if' is unlikely to be resolved. But it's still there...
By debates getting more hostile, I'm referring to any number of debates that have involved heated ethical disputes and ended in open warfare. Slavery in the US would be a good example.
> I'm inclined to think that reason should still be applied as much as possible
Yet, you also say it’s clear that reason “is not working, was never going to work, and is actually simply being used as a Yuk or Hurrah tool”.
These positions are not mutually exclusive. In an altercation with some drunk in a bar, I'm always going to start with the talking, trying to get them to see reason. But that doesn't mean it's going to work, or was ever going to work. I just think it's worth trying because I don't have a taste for violence as a means of solving disputes. But I do think violence is almost inevitable in many disputes (and I think it's wise to be prepared for it).
Re the ick question, you are changing your usage of ick constantly. You say that ick adds nothing to "discrimination is wrong" and an emotivist would not disagree, they would see it as synonymous with "is wrong". But that's not the same ick as any misgivings you might have about homosexuality. It's a competing ick, and it may be a stronger ick.
I personally don't want to, for instance, see my parents shagging, or even to imagine it. But I have no problem with the idea that they are allowed to, and furthermore my very existence required that they did. One ick is against seeing an act, the other is against my own non-existence that would be a consequence of this act never happening.
Have you looked at Pragmatism at all? I haven’t read a lot (one book by Richard Rorty and a few articles) but it might just be your cup of tea.
Not in great depth. My 'hunt for a compatible moral theory' seems more and more like a 'hunt for evidence to confirm my prejudices', the longer it goes on. But I'll give it another look, this debate has rekindled some interest in ethics. My only real knowledge of Pragmatism is as a position on knowledge and truth, one that I initially agreed with, but generally lean away from in favor of Realism now. To me it's a little bit too akin to Solipsism. But I'm undecided/skeptical on all these isms, I must say.
On Ethical Pragmatism I lift this from Wiki: "Pragmatism sees no fundamental difference between practical and theoretical reason, nor any ontological difference between facts and values.". I have to say that I disagree with this position almost entirely. I think values are not facts, in fact I think this is exactly the position of Emotivists. But I don't think it's a provable thing, so my reasons for opposing Pragmatism might actually be quite understandable to Pragmatists. As I said before, I found it initially quite odd that most science students were Realists, but have subsequently figured that such a stance might be highly practical (in a funny twist), whether it is true or not.
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By debates getting more hostile, I'm referring to any number of debates that have involved heated ethical disputes and ended in open warfare. Slavery in the US would be a good example.
Okay, good, the Pinker link I provided is pretty relevant to that.
But I'm undecided/skeptical on all these isms, I must say.
That's kinda what I was thinking of: I guess pragmatism seems like an anti-ism ism. I'm probably thinking more of the recent stuff exemplified by Rorty, what sometimes gets called "neopragmatism". They are against trying to find "the truth", for a start. Also, "[Putnam] is particularly struck by the suggestion that pragmatist epistemology, by emphasizing the communal character of inquiry and the need to take account of the experiences and contributions of other inquirers, provides a basis for a defence of democratic values. This may be related to Rorty's suggestion that pragmatists insist upon the priority of democracy over philosophy." Reminds me of some of your views.
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That's kinda what I was thinking of: I guess pragmatism seems like an anti-ism ism.
Or is it still an ism? Even skepticism is an ism, so perhaps we can't escape being part of some ism (trying to might be called escapism ;-))
I'm not convinced my views are that analogous to pragmatism - pragmatists seem to be more akin to relativists, giving away 'absolute' truth altogether. But I still hold out for the possibility of some absolute truths, certainly logical ones and maybe scientific ones. Democracy of ideas strikes me as a form of solipsism. History is too full of examples of majorities being dead wrong on matters of fact to think that it makes sense to define truth in those terms. But I also think there are some things nonetheless about which there is no truth . Tastes are one example, and I think some kinds of moral statements (the fundamental judgments) fall into that category unless I hear of a reasonable proof otherwise. So far I've only heard assertions, and the (not altogether unreasonable) problem raised that emotivism doesn't give any useful framework for discussion of morals. Perhaps not (I think it's underdeveloped), but then again, there may be no such framework that would make sense to anyone who can't accept the idea that morals are arbitrary, so that kind of criticism may be akin to criticizing evolution because it doesn't give any proper account of angels and the devil.
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Rorty claimed not to be a relativist, but I agree it's hard to see how he wasn't, given some of what he said. I'm going to have to read more of his work though. (Fortunately, regardless of whether I agree fully with him, he had one the best prose styles of any philosopher - at least as good as Eco.)
the (not altogether unreasonable) problem raised that emotivism doesn't give any useful framework for discussion of morals.
That's pretty much where I stand. I do have a theory I'm developing that allows for a starting point for moral discussion that avoids the "Boo, Hurrah" or first principles problem. (I will not elaborate here, for fear of Russell locking down the thread to shut me up.) But even putting that aside, I see the issue as an open question problem, rather than necessarily an acceptance of non-cognativism. Had you not mentioned emotivism and instead just said you thought infinite regress was a problem for moral philosophy, I probably wouldn't have argued. But where would the fun have been in that?
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But where would the fun have been in that?
Indeed, I think a position that makes a claim is often worth having, whether the claim can be proved or not, if only to spark off debate. Almost all ethical theories are like that, and emotivism is no exception. It's just one that makes it's claim early in the ontogical chain. If people will make no claims they can't prove, then they have really become mathematicians, and talk only about the relations within structures. A worthy skill but it's only a fraction of thought, and I like to cast my net wider.
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Just to totally derail from the most recent discussion, a bit of a response to the initial part of the thread about polygamy. Robin provided an explanation that polygamy refers to multiple marriages with all genders, with polyandry and polygyny being the 1-woman-plus-many-men and 1-man-plus-many-women scenarios.
This is great in an anthropological sense, but it should be said that these were fairly technical coinings. For all intents and purposes, and even now, polygamy is generally understood to refer to one man with multiple female wives, generally with some kind of religious dimension to the set-up. And, indeed, that was effectively the only kind of set-up referred to by the word "polygamy" until the alternatives were adopted by social scientists in the early part of the 20th Century.
If you want to discuss consensual relationships between multiple adults, a useful term to know is polyamory. This was coined by 60s open-marriage types quite specifically to get away from terms like "polygamy" and all its baggage (and specific reference to marriage). There's certainly been quite a bit of discussion on it in the media in more recent times.
Anyway, it always astounds me how much moral judgement is imposed on those who are consenting adults and whose actions don't impinge on others, whether it's polyamorous relationships, kinky sex, committing suicide (although of course that can impact on others), or participating in gay pride parades.
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