In ethics, we seek a theory of obligation whose predictions match our best intuitions.
Suppose that explorers on the moon find a booklet with pages of platinum that contains an elegant collection of moral precepts that match our best intuitions to an incredible degree, better than anything that has been seen before. When we apply the precepts to hard cases, we find solutions that, to people we think of as decent, seem just right, and the easy cases all work correctly. And every apparently right action either follows from the precepts, or turns out to be a sham on deeper reflection.
This would give us good reason to think the precepts of the booklet in fact do sum up obligations. But now imagine Euthyphro came along and gave us this metaethical theory:
- What makes an action right is that it follows from the content of this booklet.
Euthyphro would be wrong. For even though (1) correctly gives a correct account of what actions are in fact right, the right action isn’t right because it’s written in the booklet. (Is it written in the booklet because it’s right? Probably: the best theory of the booklet’s composition would be that it was written by some ethical genius who wrote what was right because it was right.)
Why not? What’s wrong with (1)? It seems to me that (1) is just too extrinsic to us. There is no connection between the booklet and our actions, besides the fact that the actions required by the booklet are exactly the right ones.
What if instead the booklet were an intrinsic feature of human beings? What if ethics were literally written in the human heart, so that microscopic examination of a dissected human heart found miniature words spelling out precepts that we have very good reason to think sum up the theory of the right? Again, we should not go for a Euthyphro-style theory that equates the right with what is literally written in the heart. Yet on this theory the grounds of the right would be literally intrinsic to us—and they could be essential to us, if we wish: further examination could show that it is an essential feature of human DNA that it generates this inscription. This would give us reason to think that human beings were designed by an ethical genius, but not that the ground of the right is the writing in the heart.
The lesson is this, I think. We want the grounds of the right to be of the correct sort. Being metaphysically intrinsic to us is a necessary condition for this, but it is not sufficient. We want the grounds of the right to be “close to us”: closer than our physical hearts, as it were.
But we also don’t want the grounds of the right to be too close to us. We don’t want the right to be grounded in the actual content of our desires or beliefs. We are looking for grounds that exercise some sort of a dominion over us, but not an alien dominion.
The more I think about this, the more I see the human form—understood as an actual metaphysical component intrinsic and essential to the human being—as having the exactly right balance of standoffish dominion and closeness to provide these grounds. In other words, Natural Law provides the right metaethics.
And the line of thought I gave above can also be repeated for epistemological normativity. So we have reason to think the Natural Law provides the right metaepistemology as well.
55 comments:
Alex
If ethics were literally written in the human heart or rather, in the human mind, then wouldn't they be responsible for "our best intuitions"too?
In that case, it seems we have a theory of obligation whose predictions match our best intuitions, without invoking the extremely ambiguous Natural Law.
@WVDA
Which theory are you talking about?
Alex:
I agree about the booklet. However, when it comes to the second condition, I think more difficult to say (it might depend on what actually is the case), and the idea of "grounding" complicates matters (e.g., what would constitute grounding?) But in any case, I don't see why the scenario you propose (e.g., "further examination could show that it is an essential feature of human DNA that it generates this inscription") would give us ground to support the view that humans were created by an ethical genius.
For example, consider a color analogy. Why makes an object red?
Maybe it is that it has such-and-such reflective properties (I'll assume that for now to simplify, but if you prefer an alternative theory, please let me know), so in that sense, it is extrinsic to us. But the fact that we have a generally reliable system that detects red objects (our eyes; we may assume there is conclusive evidence it's an essential feature of human DNA that generates this color vision we have) does not seem to give us reason to think that humans were created by anyone, let alone a color genius (though if you think otherwise, I'm listening). For that matter, if evolution had taken a slightly different turn, perhaps some other primates (say, humans*) would have color (or color*) vision slightly different from ours, and instead of redness, they would detect redness*, and so on. That we detect redness and not a very similar redness* may well have been accidental (some mutations happened and were adaptive; other, very similar adaptive mutations might have happened instead for all I know).
Another point is: while, in a sense, what makes an object red is extrinsic to us (going by the theory above, at least), in a different sense it is not - namely, the visual system we have is what prompts us to care enough about the color red to pick a word for it. Humans* would not be able to tell whether an object is red, but then, they would not even care about or know about it, and instead they would go around identifying red* objects, talking about them, etc.
Red
The theory that ethics are written in the human mind.
Angra: Color is an "is"; not an "ought". Morals need grounding of the kind Pruss is looking for because they are normative about how things should be and how we should act. Color just is. So, the analogy breaks down in an important way.
Walter: By "human mind", do you mean "human brain"? And, by "written down", do you mean "encoded" in some way that lines up with what neuroscientists are wont to talk about these days? Because, I think Pruss intentionally picked the sense of "written down" as in having the words in tiny script that we can zoom in with a microscope and read; not "encoded" in some way that has to do with the sources of our thinking/intuitions.
Pruss: How does one get from an "is" about our nature to an "ought"? After all, if there is such a thing as objective, necessary moral truth; how do we know that our forms got it right? Perhaps in terms of what is "best" in the non-moral, prudential senses, our form would be a great grounding. But, are those things the truly right things to value? Could it be, for example, that a being whose form dictated the slow eating of a writhing, living thing (like some spiders seem to do) would need to adjust to moral oughts about the suffering of other creatures, even if that is suboptimal to their own form?
Michael
By "written down" I obviously mean encoded in some way and by "mind" I mean mind. While I don't think minds exist without brains, the theory I am proposing works just as fine with immaterial minds.
I think you are correct in that Alex really means the words in tiny script, but I decided to work from a somewhat more realistic scenario.
Well, Walter, you and I both know that the tiny script has important meaning for Pruss' point, and so "encoding" is just off-topic. It could even become a red herring, if Pruss had taken the bait. ;)
For what it's worth, I don't see how one inscribes OR encodes onto an immaterial thing. But, then, I don't think "minds" exist (either materially or immaterially), so there's that.... More red herrings on my part, I guess, if we want to stick to what Pruss is actually talking about here.
Michael
I proposed a theory that would satisfy the "close to us: closer than our physical hearts" requirement without invoking the (IMO extremely ambiguous) appeal to Natural Law.
Right, Although I guess the ethics being literally written on our minds in any form is much more unrealistic than natural law is "ambiguous".
Red
That's why I don't think they are "literally" written on our minds.
Agree and that is why I think this theory can't compete here.
Red
In order to know whether or not the theory can compete, you would have to know a bit more about the theory, I guess.
Walter: I don't think there is anything in reality corresponding to the kind of "writing" you are talking about. There's no such thing as a mind -- at least, not any more than there is such a thing as a "talent" or a "sake" (as in "do it for my sake" or "do something with those talents you have!"). And writing something on a brain (no matter how you did it; coded, encoded, English, Spanish...) would, at best, benefit someone who cracked open my skull and read/decoded it. Our brains are not decoders or readers.
Besides, even if I could "encode" or "write" something into a brain, such that it governed the intuitions or dispositions of the human being, that would just be another "is". It isn't any closer to an "ought".
Michael:
I don't think the analogy breaks down. First, because we can also put moral claims in terms of "is" (or "would be", etc.) instead of "ought". For example, "you (morally) ought to X" is equivalent (even analytically, I would say) to "it would be immoral on your part not to X". But more importantly, because there appears to be no particular reason why it would break down. It's meant of course as an analogy, not a perfect match, but the relevant part appears analogous - namely, that just as the fact that we have a generally reliable (though fallible, there are optical illusions, low light conditions, etc.) redness-detector does not provide good reasons to think this is due to a creator's choices, the same seems to be true of a wrongness-detector.
Let me put it in a different way: imagine some very intelligent social beings evolve on a different planet, and have a very different social structure. I would expect them to have a different sort of morality (or morality*, or whatever you call it), just as I would expect them to have a different visual system (one that does not pick up red). At least, I do not see any good evidence that this would not happen in the moral case.
Like I said, being so unrealistic makes the theory unable to compete.
Angra: The relevant difference is that moral truths are normative; they are by their nature "ought" statements. Sure, you can rephrase them as "is" statements, but notice that the "is" was about whether something was immoral, which just is a normative "ought-not".
If aliens see colors differently, we have no intuition that they might be "wrong" or that they should see them as we do. If they think torturing babies is morally equivalent to nurturing them, they are incorrect and should not think that way.
Michael
The "writing" is called conscience and it follows from consciousness.
Walter,
its certainly participating, but conscience alone is insufficient, as its merely gives us emotional accounts of morality without objective value. To get something objective rationality is required combined with something like the natural law. Only if the telos of specific functions is recognized, objectivity can arise
Dominik: Even then, I'm arguing it might be insufficient, since the natural law (or form) for a different creature might include things which are objectively wrong to do (like torturing a child; or even like regarding the torture of a child as morally equivalent to nurturing it). And, what happens when the natural law for two rational species are at odds in some important way?
Personally, I think the form of God might be needed. It would be metaphysically necessary (i.e. He would exist and be the same no matter what the other states of affairs happened to be, and indeed grounds all possible states of affairs). It would thus be non-arbitrary, and it would have a very plausible "dominion" and "closeness" (being the source of our very existence).
Dominik & Michael
Aristotle would call it an hexis.
However, an hexis does not possess an objective value, because it is non-stationary and therefore cannot be measured...
Rand: I don't know anything about "hexis", but I do know that we don't mean "value" in the sense of a numerical value; so measurement doesn't enter into it. We mean moral worth or what is morally good.
Interesting....
You believe a measurement requires a numerical value?
Does the aroma of coffee have value?
Moreover, while conscience gives us ethical knowledge, it doesn't ground ethics. I might have strong intuition that killing is wrong but killing isn't wrong because of my intuition.
Our concern here is what grounds ethics.
Pruss's writing refers to a stable disposition... in Aristotelian terms this is an hexis.
However, such a "disposition" is non-stationaly and therefore unmeasureable. This is why you cannot get to the bottom of the issue...
Rand:
"You believe a measurement requires a numerical value?"
Yes.
"Does the aroma of coffee have value?"
If you had asked, "does it have a value", I would have said no. It doesn't have a numerical value and it therefore isn't measurable. But, you asked "does it have value (no "a")", which is unrelated to the issue of measurement (and morals, for that matter).
Also, "dispositions" are not the issue either, as Red is trying to explain. Even if we did have such a disposition inherent to our nature, it wouldn't ground objective morality. It would just incline or force us into believing that various things were moral or immoral.
Red: I have come to the conclusion after close examination that killing people is wrong. For me to give up that knowledge would require me to change my entire world-view.
Rand: How do you know that?
Red: I believe it.
Red
That's why I reject Natural Law, because, as Michael correctly IMO, states, Natural Law can include things that are wrong to do. If ethics are to be objective, they should be necessary truths, just like 1 + 1 = 2 is a necessary truth. Properly functioning conscience gives us knowlegde of this necessary truth, in the same way properly functioning rationality gives us knowledge of the necessary truth that 1 + 1 = 2.
Dominik
Natural Law ethics are not objective unless they avoid an appeal to telos. That's what "my" theory (it isn't really mine, of course) tries to do.
Walter
1 + 1 = 2 is a necessary truth
Really?
Then why in the Pythagorean formula 1 + 1 = sqrt(2)?
Walter: Would a theory in which God is the ultimate explanation of all possibilities (a la Leibniz, sort of), and His own nature is the standard of moral perfection against which all other moral natures are judged, be adequate?
Rand: Are you philosophically trolling? Your contributions aren't actually helping. Walter could have given any example of a necessary truth; the example is beside the point. Besides, it is necessarily true that 1+1=2. It is also true that sqrt(1) + sqrt(1) = sqrt(2), with the weird side-note that the sqrt(1) is 1. But, taking two single units of anything and adding them together will always give a double unit of that thing.
Michael Gonzalez
Interesting...
proposition: It is necessaryily true that 1+1=2
proposition: It is true that 1+1=√2
So, what is the difference between the 2?
taking two single units of anything and adding them together will always give a double unit of that thing.
Is that a necessary truth... or just possibly true?
It's a necessary truth that taking one of something and then another one of that thing will always mean you have two of that thing. That just follows from the meaning of the words.
I'm sure the 1 + 1 = sqrt(2), and many other weird statements that follow from all roots of 1 being 1, has an answer in complex mathematics (where the geometrical meaning of roots is spelled out as vertices of n-gons in imaginary space or some such mess). But, I am not here to defend anything about that. Walter could have used any example of a necessary truth. Picking on the example is not helpful.
Michael
The theory you are proposing still requires the necessity of ethical truths, so it doesn't really add anything. Sure, there may be a perfect example of a morally prefect being, but that's it.
Problem again is, whatever is wrong with natural law its still more realistic than what you,re proposing.
Walter: Their necessity needs a ground which is itself necessary (they aren't analytic). And it needs to be the kind of thing that can value one thing and repudiate another, which it seems to me can only be a personal moral nature. Given that God is also the source of our natures, it satisfies the "close; but not too close" requirement.
Your approach, if I've understood it correctly, suffers from an arbitrariness problem that mine doesn't. After all, if what is written in our own minds is at odds with what's written in some other rational species minds, we would be at an impasse. Whereas, if we are at odds with the perfect being that is the source of all things and that wouldn't be different no matter what else was different....
Moreover, God makes sense of the move from a mere value to a duty (which is not a straightforward one, btw; e.g. it is a moral good to pursue a career in medicine and help people that way, but we obviously have no duty to all be doctors). God can issue commands, which we are in an intuitively obvious position of being required to obey (for lots of reasons: out of indebtedness, contingency for our existence, respect, inferior wisdom and understanding, etc etc).
Michael
God cannot offer a ground for moral truths because in that case, moral truths could be anything. It is because, say, torturing an infant for fun is necessarily wrong that God cannot possibly condone such action. If it were not true that torturing an infant is wrong, there would be no basis for the claim that God cannot possibly condone such action.
It is because moral goodness necessarily consists of certain elements that God must have them, not the other way round. That would be arbitrary.
A moral duty is just that: a value that is morally good to pursue solely for the sake of that very value. Nobody should obey anyone else except because that person is right.
Red
I haven't explained in detail what I am proposing, so how could you possibly decide that it's less realistic than Natural Law? In fact, what I am proposing is a kind of Natural Law, but one that doesn't require anything supernatural.
you said "The theory that ethics are written in the human mind." when I asked you about it, that sounds unrealistic to me.
Walter: I'll back away from duty for a moment (just so the posts don't become too long); but I do think there is a genuine problem there.
As for value, I disagree that they could just be anything. Or, at least, I disagree that they are any more susceptible to "just being anything" than they would have been on any other ground.
Also, yes, it is because such things are true that God must agree with them; I'm not saying God has any control or say in what they are. They would be part of His own intrinsic nature, which is metaphysically necessary and couldn't have been otherwise.
When you ask what God can offer for these moral truths, I would list things like the following:
1) Metaphysical necessity (despite their not having straightforward logical necessity; there is no self-contradiction in saying that torturing children is good or that moral nihilism is true).
2) An anchor point that any rational creature would have reason to acknowledge.
3) An anchor point in that which made us as we are (including our moral intuitions that more-or-less properly detect moral truths), thus giving the "close-but-not-too-close" feature. And thus connecting moral ontology with moral epistemology in a straightforward way.
4) Some account of how we could adjudicate in disagreements between ourselves and (say) a very alien race of rational beings.
And so on.
Still, despite all that, I can see why it feels like there is still a gap as to why His nature should happen to be the morally good one. But, try looking at God as the only concrete locus of unity among all the possible states of affairs that could ever have obtained. He's the collection of things that are true no matter what else is the case (leaving aside analytic truths, because I think straightforward self-contradictions are actually meaningless strings of letters). As such, we detect Him when we realize that many of the most basic things about reality could have been otherwise (thus, we run a Leibnizean sort of argument for what must ground all of possibility and what must have picked the actual world). He is the ultimate end of the chain of explanations in that case. Likewise, we detect that there are some normative "ought" truths that would have been true no matter what else was going on, and so we are likewise drawn to that same sort of ultimate end to the chain.
Michael:
I would be inclined to think that aliens that have a moral* sense of sorts (by which they make assessments similar in function and feeling to our moral sense, as well as assessments as to what things, events, etc., are positive or negative (akin to our assessment of good or bad situations, etc)) that leads them to, say, attributes the same sort of value (say, neutral) to torturing or nurturing human babies, would be making moral assessments at all, but have a different set of rules.
However, if you make the aliens too human-like, or alternatively add other conditions, sure you can make the intuition that you mention appear. Yet, you can do that in the color case too. For example, suppose the aliens see colors just like us for the most part, and they live on a planet just like Earth, but under some light conditions (common both on Earth and Earth*), they see all sort of color changes in the objecs around them, and get confused unlike they solve the problem with some high-tech glasses or whatever, whereas we can just see the colors without a problem. Well, then, they have a faulty color sense. Ours works better.
Now suppose some other aliens live on Earth** and see colors mostly just like us, but better: there are images that trick our eyes to see colors incorrectly, but humans** see them right in most cases, and they never see them wrong when we don't. Then, I would say humans** have better color vision than we do, because it's less faulty.
That is all doable in the color case. The moral case seems similar in this regard, as one can either trigger the intuition you mention or not depending on how one construct the scenario, how similar to us one makes them, etc.
For instance, suppose the aliens are very different from humans, they evolved from something like, say, squid, and have moral*** sense of sorts by which they make assessments similar in function and feeling to our moral sense, as well as assessments as to what things, events, etc., are positive or negative (akin to our assessment of good or bad situations, etc). Suppose their moral*** sense yields no objections to, say, killing the babies of individuals of other groups, just because they're not part of their group (where their groups are formed by either close kinship or alliances). Assume - as in Alex's scenario - that the code in question is in their DNA. I would not be inclined to say they're making false moral judgements. I'd be inclined to say they (very probably, though as usual more information can change the assessment) are not making moral judgments at all, but rather, they are making moral*** judgments, and (probably, though that also depends on more details) their moral*** sense is generally reliable, and there is nothing immoral*** about their killing of out-group babies.
Michael
The point is that, by your own admission, metaphysical necessity does not require God.
Even if humanity popped into existence completly incaused three weeks ago, it would stil be the same humanity and hence, torturing for fun would be wrong in that case to. now you might object that humanity cannot exist without God, but that's another discussion.
"An anchor point that any rational creature would have reason to acknowledge."
See abovve. God is irrelvant as an anchor point.
"An anchor point in that which made us as we are (including our moral intuitions that more-or-less properly detect moral truths), thus giving the "close-but-not-too-close" feature. And thus connecting moral ontology with moral epistemology in a straightforward way."
Again, see my explanation above for why this is irrelavnt once you acknowledge that morality is metaphyscially necessary.
"Some account of how we could adjudicate in disagreements between ourselves and (say) a very alien race of rational beings."
The metaphysical necessity of morality accounts for why there would not be significant disagreements between ourselves and a vey alien race.
Now, Michael, I am not going to respond to you any further. This thread is becoming too long IMO. If you want to have the last word, be my guest.
Thank you for the interesting discussion.
Angra:
I think your points just illustrate the need for an objective grounding beyond us or anything like us. After all, it is because there is an objective fact about the red color of this apple that humans* who see it as green are simply incorrect. But morals are not objects. They are statements and norms, and there needs to be something real in the world to ground those statements and norms such that it is possible (or even meaningful) to say that the humans* might be actually incorrect, while we are actually right about a moral issue (or vice versa).
Walter: I have no desire for the last word, but I do want to make sure this one point gets cleared up. Feel free to respond or not....
You can't just grant facts metaphysical necessity by stipulation. Strictly logical necessity holds because contradictions are meaningless. But, to talk about metaphysical necessity, you're going to need an account and a grounding, such that, when fully spelled out, any false moral statement will turn out to entail a contradiction. You haven't offered that. Even if it were metaphysically necessary that a human being, by definition, would always be "wired up" to believe in certain moral statements, that wouldn't go one step toward showing that those are the objectively true or accurate statements. The statements themselves need grounding in something that transcends any contingent reality (including humans, all rational beings throughout the physical world, even the physical world itself).
In other words, I could imagine a bunch of humans popping into being uncaused with ideas about, say, the laws of physics. That doesn't mean those are the actual laws of physics. They could all just be mistaken. Likewise for moral truths. No transcendent grounding = no objective validity.
Michael Gonzalez
You have scored an own-goal and defeated your tabled position with your own tabled position concerning "measurement"!
Number determines colour. If 9 people see an object that is red and 1 sees the object as green... it is number that determines the colour, i.e. the object is red.
Number determines morality. If 9 people believe killing people is wrong and 1 person believes killing people is right... it is number that determines the morality, i.e. killing is wrong.
So, you see.... the ONLY metaphysical grounding of your theory is:
NUMBERS RULE!
Rand: Numbers are needed for measurement; but whether something is wrong is not a measurement.
Michael:
If, say, humans*** who see the apple as green*** would be incorrect, unless they believed that the apple is green, rather than green***. There is a fact of the matter about the meaning of the words. The English word "red" has a meaning. And so does "green". Those are words in the English language, not in the English*** language. The truth conditions are given by human usage, not by human* usage. So, if a human*** (or anyone else) claims that your apple is green, he is mistaken. But if he claims that it is green*, what do I know? It depends on the meaning of green***. Chances are the truth-conditions are such that humans* usually make true statements about color***, but not about color (they make no color statements at all).
Now, in the particular case we can say that humans*, we can say they have a faulty color vision not when they perceive things different from the way we do, but rather, when they do so in a way that shows malfunctioning. It's because the scenario was set up that way. For that matter, we can also say that our own eyesight is faulty in a number of ways (even if that's written in our DNA so to speak), so that we get color illusions and other optical illusions.
In a similar manner, humans*** could have a sense that makes judgments akin to moral judgments, but associated with other (very different) behaviors, situations, etc. I would see no good reason to think, in general, that they would be mistaken in their moral assessments, but rather, that they would probably be correct in their moral*** assessments. Now of course, just as we can set things up so that some aliens have some faulty color* sense, we can set things up so that they have a faulty moral* sense, but that would be one specific scenario, not a general fact.
That aside, while I think thought of "grounding" is generally ambiguous, colors need some stuff in the world "out there" so to speak that we perceive - but it is our language that sets up the truth conditions, and that is informed by our own faculties. But for that matter, if instead of colors we talked about, say, psychopathy, there is no need for something outside humans, because the statement is indeed about a human mind (or at least, any sufficiently similar mind). And moral statements are also about some sorts of minds (similar to human minds, at least).
Michael
I think you should reread my comments and you'll find the answers you are looking for.
Walter Van den Acker
Walter Van den Acker:"God is irrelvant as an anchor point."
Anchor point: Now, Michael, I am not going to respond to you any further. This thread is becoming too long IMO. If you want to have the last word, be my guest. Thank you for the interesting discussion. [Walter Van den Acker]
Michael
I think you should reread my comments and you'll find the answers you are looking for. [Walter Van den Acker]
So, Walter.... was your anchor point a deception? Or incontinence?
Michael Gonzalez
Whether something is wrong is not a measurement.
[Michael Gonzalez]
Then how is wrong gauged?
Clearly, an anchor point is a gauge, i.e. a probe for measurement.
Rand: Something can have a grounding or anchor without being the kind of thing that can be enumerated or measured.
Walter Van den Acker:"God is irrelvant as an anchor point."
Michael Gonzalez has tabled his agreement with the above statemet:
Michael Gonzalez: Something can have a grounding or anchor without being the kind of thing that can be enumerated or measured.
You have highlighted the anomaly in Aristotelian metaphysics, i.e. a metaphysics without any empirical grounding, and therefore a metaphysics that contradicts itself!!!!
Rand: That is a complete non-sequitur, but I'm convinced now that your whole purpose is to troll, so I won't respond anymore.
Michael Gonzalez... You write before you think...
You state:
Something can have a grounding or anchor without being the kind of thing that can be enumerated or measured.
YOU ARE COMPLETELY WRONG!!!!!!!!!!
Something is a thing that is identical with itself
AND THAT IS A MEASUREMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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