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Example research essay topic: Good Or Bad Moral Relativism - 4,406 words

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MORAL OBJECTIVISM 1 What is the issue The present essay is a defense of a view called moral objectivism and attack on its opposite, subjectivism or moral relativism. Moral relativism is probably the subject concerning which more nonsense has been written and said in modern times than any other in moral philosophy. I suspect this is partly because people wish to provide arguments in favor of relativism without first having a clear idea of what their thesis is; partly because the authors' arguments are mostly rationalizations; and partly because the authors have a poor grasp of moral concepts. There is little I can do about the second and third problems, but I will try to help the first here. In this section I define "objectivism" and important related terms and delineate several views that might be called subjectivism, which I contend are all demonstrably false.

I am not chiefly concerned herein to defend any particular moral claims, although I shall mention some uncontroversial moral truths for illustrative purposes. Rather, my concern is to show that questions of value have objective, rational answers but not to provide those answers. The latter is a task for another time. 1. 1 "Objectivism" and "relativism"Objectivism" denotes the thesis that morality is objective. Subjectivism holds that morality is subjective. Relativism holds that morality is relative. In the sequel, I am interested in distinguishing moral objectivism from its denial; therefore, I assume that "relative" and "subjective" both mean "non-objective." If they do not already mean this, then I stipulate that meaning hereby.

There are a number of people who believe moral relativism so defined. 1. 2 What is 'morality' I want to make two points about what morality is as I understand it. First, the term "morality" is subject to the same ambiguity as most other names for fields of study, which we might call the subjective / objective ambiguity. By this I don't mean to imply that using the word one way commits one to objectivism and using it the other way implies subjectivism or anything like that; there simply are two different legitimate definitions of "morality." On the 'objective' interpretation, "morality" refers to such situations as something's being right, evil, just, or the like. On the 'subjective' interpretation, "morality" refers to theories about or the study of rightness, evil, justice, and the like. For example, "People must not use violence against one another" is a claim about morality in the objective sense - that is, it is a value judgement. It seeks to say what is right, wrong, or the like.

On the other hand, "In Xanadu, the use of violence is strongly condemned" is not a value judgement; it can be verified or refuted purely by anthropological observation. It is a statement about morality in the subjective sense. It seeks to say what people consider right, wrong, or the like. I am not going to discuss which of these two interpretations is 'better'. I simply point out the distinction. An analogous distinction applies to many other words, such as "chemistry", "psychology", "zoology", "mathematics", etc.

If there were no people, would there still be chemistry? Well, chemistry in the objective sense would exist, but chemistry in the subjective sense would not: i. e. , there would still presumably be chemicals with certain properties behaving in certain ways; but there would be no study of chemistry and no theories thereabout. Second, in this paper it will be convenient for me to use "morality" in a very broad sense. I shall call "morality" (in the objective sense) all facts, if there are any such facts, about what is wrong, good, bad, evil, ill-advised, just, beautiful, or preferable, or any other evaluative property. Anything that is a value judgement will count as part of a morality in the subjective sense.

For instance, the fact that Aristotle is a great thinker is a moral fact in the broad sense, because it requires a value judgement to appreciate; so is the fact that it's best to eat when one is hungry, because stating it gives a prescription for action; so is the fact that the world would be better off without tyrants, because it requires a value judgement to observe (calling something "better" as well as calling someone "a tyrant" are value judgements). In particular, I stress that I do not wish to presuppose any particular theory about how people should behave nor any particular reasons why they should so behave. Most people appear to restrict the application of the term "morality" to prohibitions on actions satisfying desires. I disregard this convention. If desires must be held in check, then that will be a moral fact; and equally, if desires need not be checked but provide appropriate and rational reasons for acting (I don't mean merely that they make one want to act, which is a purely descriptive fact and not an evaluation, but that acting in accord with them is a good thing) then that will be a moral fact. In other words, my defense of objectivism, while it says that there is at least sometimes a way one should behave, does not actually recommend anything in particular. 1. 3 "Values are subjective" = "All values are subjective" We want to know whether there are objective values (which I take for the same question as whether morality is objective).

It may be asked, what shall we say if it turns out that some values are objective and some are not? The answer I give, by stipulation, is that in that case objectivism is true and subjectivism is false; that is, I interpret "morality is objective" as "some values are objective." I might have made the opposite stipulation - viz. that "morality is objective" = "all values are objective" - but that would be less interesting since, at least on the most obvious interpretation, this would make objectivism into a doctrine that no one holds. For instance, I don't think the value 'the right to punish slaves for disobedience' is objective because I don't think there is any such right.

Similarly, any number of values could be enumerated that any given person would declare to be utterly non-existent and thus not objective. 1. 4 Three ways of being non-'objective's unposed I offer the opinion, "Colors are objective. " What then is it that I am saying about colors? What I am saying, I think, is that colors are 'in the object. ' In what object? In colored objects. What does "in" mean here? It means that a color - redness, say - is a property of the objects that are said to be red, that is, that the nature of those objects themselves and not anything else determines whether they are red or not.

Hence, to say that morality is objective is to say that whether an action is right depends on the nature of that action; whether a person is good depends on the nature of that person; etc. Well, that just sounds trivial. How could anything not be objective? So far as I can see, there are three and only three ways for some thing, x, to fail to be objective, for instance for values or colors to not be objective: 1. If everything is non-x; e.

g. , nothing has value or nothing is red. Goodness is not in the object if there isn't anything good. Redness is not in the object if everything colored is some color other than red. For example, if someone asked whether witch hood is objective, I might answer no, because nothing is a witch. 2. If some things are x, but whether a thing is x depends not just on that thing's intrinsic nature but on facts about the subject, i.

e. , the person who says or observes that the thing is x, as well. Redness is not objective if whether a thing is red 'for some observer' (if that makes sense) depends on the nature of the observer and not just on the nature of the object. Notice that if and only if a quality is relative does it make sense to append "for some observer" in sentences ascribing that quality; and in that case such sentences do not make sense without the addition. For example, word meanings are not objective; they are relative. A word must mean something only 'for some speaker or listener' and what it means depends on facts about that speaker / listener - roughly, what he has in mind when he utters / hears the word. It does not matter what properties the sequence of phonemes has, beyond pronouncibility. 3.

If it is neither true nor false that something is x. Someone who thinks values are subjective in this sense would say that value judgements can be neither true nor false. Well, that sounds almost incoherent: how is it possible for a statement to be neither true nor false? Doesn't that violate basic logic? So far as I can see there are just two ways this is possible.

First, if saying something is x is not a genuine assertion, then it is neither true nor false. I can't think of any examples of an x for which this is true, but there are numerous utterances that do not assert anything, such as, "Congratulations on your Nobel Prize" or "What time is it?"Congratulations on your Nobel Prize" is neither true nor false. It just expresses a certain sentiment. Second, if an assertion involves a false presupposition, then it may be said to be neither true nor false. For instance, "The king of France is bald" is neither true nor false because it contains a false presupposition that there is a king of France. Some people at any rate have argued that.

Another way of stating the thesis that morality is objective is to say that values are 'part of the fabric of reality; ' that is, there is some actual state of the world that corresponds to a value judgement. Again, that sounds trivial; how could any statement fail to correspond to some state of the world? There are the same three ways in which this could happen: if the statement is false; if it is true, but it corresponds to some state of the subject who observes it and not to the (external) world; or if it is neither true nor false. 1. 5 Several relativist theories Here are a few different things one could believe in order to be a moral relativist: 1. Moral judgements are simply universally in error; i. e. , contrary to appearances, nothing is good, right, evil, just, etc. These are concepts without any application. 2.

Moral 'judgements' are not genuine assertions. They don't actually claim anything about the world. Instead, they are mere expressions of emotion, as "Hurray" is an expression of emotion. 3. "x is good" means "I like x. " 4. "x is good" means "x is ordained by my society. " 5. What people do when they make a moral judgement is to project their subjective mental state out into the world. They confuse their emotions with some object in the world and mistakenly take the feeling in them to be some property of the object. This is the most psychologically sophisticated version of relativism.

An analogous theory might be held about colors: that when people see one of the objects we call "red, " we have a certain characteristic sensation, which sensation we confuse with some property of the object that causes it and call the property of being red. 6. Morals (in the objective sense) are established by convention; i. e. , in the same sense in which a society may establish a convention such that certain kinds of pieces of paper are money, or establish conventions such that certain activities constitute marriage, and so on, just so, a society may establish conventions such that certain things are good. Things become good or bad in virtue of conventions. 1. 6 What the issue is not Some people argue about whether morality or anything else can be 'absolute. ' "Absolute" might mean "certain", it might mean "exception less", it might mean "objective", it might mean "universal" in some sense, or it might mean something else. I don't know what it means in the context "There is an absolute morality; " therefore, I will not use the term. I am not interested here in whether morality is 'absolute' in any of the other senses than "objective." I am not concerned with whether there are some exception less rules for judging moral issues - whether there is an algorithm for computing morality.

My own opinion happens to be that there is not, but that has nothing to do with the present issue. I am also not arguing that there is a universal morality in the sense of a moral code that everybody either does or would accept. I am not arguing that we can know moral truths with absolute precision or certainty. I am not considering the issue of whether one should be tolerant of people with differing practices or differing views. That one should be tolerant or that one should be intolerant are particular moral conclusions that are each equally consistent with objectivism. I am not interested in the question of whether at any given juncture there may perhaps be several distinct, equally right actions available rather than only one.

None of those things is the issue. The issue is only, as I have said, whether moral properties are in the object. Perhaps I shall take up the other issues in other essays, but not now. By clarifying the theses of objectivism and subjectivism, I may have just drastically reduced the number of opponents I have, for many readers may have simply dropped out of the relativist camp by reason of hearing what exactly relativism is. Indeed, I suspect confusion with other issues may be relativism's strongest means of gaining support. Nonetheless, I have no doubt there is still a substantial number of people who endorse relativism as I have defined it. 2 The consequences of relativism The concern of this section is slightly off topic.

Here I will argue that, unsurprisingly, moral relativism undermines morality and leads to nihilism because it has the consequence that any morality in the subjective sense is both arbitrary and irrational. I say this is off topic because this particular thesis does not show that moral relativism is true or that it is false; however, the issue seems important enough and enough subjectivisms fail to understand it, leading them to hold inconsistent positions, for it to be worth addressing. The argument is extremely simple. Since rational judgement presupposes some ground apart from the judgement on which for it to be based, the denial of objectivism implies the intrinsic impossibility of rational moral judgement, since said denial means that moral values cannot have any independent existence apart from the mind. To put it another way, in order for a judgement to be rational, one must make the judgement because it is true or at least because evidence indicates it is true. That means that the thing must already be true, or already be supported by the evidence.

Since according to subjectivism, quite to the contrary, evaluative propositions can never be true prior to being judged correct since moral values can not exist independent of such judgements, it follows that it is impossible to make a rational moral judgement: i. e. , rationality requires that a judgement be validated before it is accepted, but relativism implies that it must be accepted before it is valid if it can ever be valid at all (one version of relativism saying that such judgements can not ever be valid - but every version implies that they can not be valid prior to their being accepted), so relativism implies rational moral judgement is impossible. Relativism makes moral judgement not merely non-rational but positively irrational, insofar as it implies that moral judgement must always proceed according to a manner which is directly contrary to what reason demands - must always occur without basis, that is. Every action and every moral judgement is, if subjectivism is true, arbitrary - that is, groundless - because any ground for some thing must by definition be prior to that thing and, since (a) the notion of a ground or reason is normative (it implies 'justification') and further (b) in this case the ground in question has to be the truth of the proposition judged, relativism states that no such things as grounds can exist prior to the making of moral judgements. One version of relativism (see above, section 1. 4) implies that whatever moral values we adopt are ipso facto right, but that means that a decision about which values to adopt must be arbitrary since anything we picked would be right. Another version implies that whatever values we adopt are wrong since value judgements are always false, which means that we can have no valid values, which means that every decision must be arbitrary.

What this shows is that if one knows moral relativism to be true, then one cannot rationally believe any moral judgement. One cannot do so because in order to rationally believe something, the proposition must first be justified, and as a moral relativist you know that no moral proposition is true before you believe it, so you would not have any justification for accepting it. I should note that several influential relativists would presumably deny my analysis. J. L. Mackie, for one, claims that his view that moral values are not "part of the fabric of the world" is consistent with any moral views - i.

e. , he can still make ordinary moral judgements that this or that is good and so on. (1) Subjectivist philosophers, including Mackie, standard draw a distinction between first- and second-order moral views and hope by this to show that they can maintain their 'second-order' view without giving up any of their first-order moral views. A 'first-order' moral view is a claim about what is good or bad, right or wrong; while a second-order moral view is about the nature of first-order moral views (e. g. , what it is for something to be good or bad or right or wrong). The argument, presumably, is that since first- and second-order views are about different things, a second-order view cannot be in conflict with a first-order one, so we won't have to reject any first-order moral views as a result of accepting moral relativism. Relativism is, as it is said, not an ethical theory but a meta-ethical theory. Frankly, I find that argument preposterous.

If your 'meta-theory' consists in the denial of the existence of any subject matter for your theory, how can you continue to have a theory? Suppose that it were claimed that chemicals have no objective existence: can anybody imagine that the adoption of this belief would have no effect on the science of chemistry? Obviously, the entire science would be undermined. By analogy, if someone says that values have no objective existence, moral philosophy is undermined since it has no subject matter. It is then comparable to the study of unicorns. Nothing positive you say about unicorns can be true since there aren't any unicorns.

And it makes no sense to say, "Well, I agree that unicorns are not real, but I still think this is a unicorn. " How is it any different to say, "Well, I agree that values aren't real, but I still think this is a value"? 3 Arguments for subjectivism Here I will attack the four main arguments for subjectivism that I know of, each of which is a very bad argument. 3. 1 Cultural variance of moral codes First, it is pointed out that there is wide variation in moral codes from one society to another and from one time period to another. Even people in the same place and time, as in our society, seem to have great difficulty in agreeing on moral issues. Moreover, there does not seem to be any decisive way of resolving disagreements. The best explanation for this situation, says the relativist, is that there are no facts there to determine or to agree to to begin with.

I think the level of disagreement is exaggerated. I think it would be widely agreed that courage, honesty, and kindness are virtues; that life and happiness are good; &c. The argument basically takes the most extreme and atypical examples to make its point. But more importantly, one glance would show the absurdity of the logical extension of this argument.

Disagreements in questions of history or biology or cosmology do not show that there are no facts about these subjects. In fact, the situation described above, wherein people disagree widely and there doesn't seem to be any way of resolving their disputes, is characteristic of all of philosophy. And it is characteristic of every field that is important to people - religion, history, law, politics, metaphysics, ethics, cosmology, etc. People seem incapable of agreeing on whether God exists or not, and there are no arguments or observations that can resolve the dispute to everybody's satisfaction. Does this show that there is no objective fact of whether He exists?

Why is it that people argue interminably about religion but not about mathematics? It is not because numbers are objective and the existence of God and similar issues are subjective. It is, mainly, because ordinary people do not care about the properties of numbers. But they do care immensely about God, life after death, and the like. And they care at least as much about morality and values. And when people care very much about something, and have a vested interest in the answer, they are likely to develop strong, dogmatic opinions and to allow their emotions to prejudice their judgement.

Additionally, as Aristotle pointed out long ago in a remark that richly deserves to be listened to but has not been, [I]t is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each discipline just so far as the nature of the subject admits; it is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician scientific proofs. (2) Seemingly contrary to popular opinion, there are plenty of perfectly legitimate fields of study that are not exact sciences. 3. 2 Simplicity Second, it has been argued from time to time that moral relativism presents a simpler picture of the universe than objectivism. Objectivism postulates these entities, objective moral values, that we could explain the world just as easily if not more easily without. Therefore, the burden is on the objectivist to prove the existence of these things. I think this argument is insincere; that is, nobody ever became a relativist because of this. It was invented after the fact to confuse objectivist's. The argument is exactly analogous to the following argument for mathematical relativism: Objectivism postulates these entities, objective numbers and numerical relationships, that we could explain the world just as easily if not more easily without.

Therefore, the burden is on the objectivist to prove the existence of these things. Since he cannot do so, I conclude that all mathematical statements are arbitrary and subjective. The flaw is that saying that ethical (or mathematical) statements are objectively true or false does not imply that there exist some supernatural, ethereal substances that are values (or numbers). It just implies that some things have quantities (for mathematics) or some things are good or bad (for ethics).

I am not postulating the existence of any new substances. I am only judging that some things are good, and goodness is a quality, not a substance or object. Since, presumably, if objectivism is true then it is necessarily true, and since it is a conceptual and not an empirical issue, the question of simplicity or ontological economy does not arise. If anything, we should say that the burden of proof is on the moral relativist, for advancing a claim contrary to common sense. 3. 3 Where does moral knowledge come from? Third, the relativist asks, by what faculty does one come to know about moral truths? If one cannot explain how one knows about something, then it is not plausible for one to make claims about it.

Is there some special faculty comparable to perception? The answer is that one figures out prescriptions on the basis of descriptive facts. For instance, one finds out that something is good by rationally drawing this conclusion on the basis of its other properties. It is an old platitude in moral philosophy that you cannot derive an 'ought' from an 'is', so it is supposed that what I have just enunciated is impossible. Well, in one sense, you cannot derive an ought from an is - in the sense that the prescription will not follow analytically, or just in virtue of the definitions of terms.

But in another sense, you can derive an ought from an is - i. e. , it will follow necessarily and a priori. Many, if not most, philosophers seem to find this kind of cognition incomprehensible, probably because of a confusion of the notions of necessity, analytic ity, and a priori city. However, examination of just about any mathematical proposition would reveal this mode of cognition - you cannot derive most theorems solely on the basis of definitions. You must also have some intuitive judgements, usually made explicit in the form of axioms.

Likewise, you cannot derive substantive moral judgements solely on the basis of definitions (G. E. Moore showed that in his discussion of the naturalistic fallacy), but you can make intuitive judgements. Moral intuition is not comparable to a special faculty of perception, because moral judgements are supposed to be necessary (given the other, descriptive facts) and not empirical.

So moral intuition is just the general faculty of reason applied to a particular subject matter, viz. , values, just as mathematical intuition is not a separate quasi-perceptual faculty but rather the faculty of reason applied to numbers. That we in fact derive moral judgements from descriptive judgements all the time can be exemplified by just about any argument about moral or political subjects. For instance, it may be argued that communism is a bad system of government on the basis that it has caused tens of milli...


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