Monday, April 20, 2020

What is meant by the subjective/objective dichotomy in morality? (and other questions)

Somebody on a discussion forum asked some questions about Christian morality, and I responded. This happened several years ago, but I was just looking for an old post and stumbled on this and thought it might make a good blog post. So here you go.

As you pointed out, the phrase "objective morality" gets tossed around a lot without defining terms. So let me define this phrase first because it can be taken in at least two different ways.

First way:
Morality is what we take to be right and wrong. Objective morality would then be moral conclusions we came to without the influence of bias or prejudice, but rather that we came to through a fair and impartial look at the facts informing our circumstances.

Second way:
Morality is, in fact, what is actually right or wrong. Objective morality would then include moral obligation we would have whether we choose them or not, whether we believed in them or not, whether we approved of them or not, etc. In other words, the moral imperatives would be incumbent on us independently of human sentiment.

When theists use the phrase "objective morality," we are using it in that second sense, not in the first. Since moral obligations do not derive from any human thought or decision, they must come from some source outside of humanity. We believe it comes from God.

So we humans do not invent right and wrong; rather, we recognize right and wrong. Moreover, morality exists independently of the Bible. It is not merely because some imperative is in the Bible that it is therefore wrong as if the Bible made it wrong. Rather, it is wrong already because God forbids it, and the Bible merely records it because it is true. So the Bible recognizes that certain things are true or false, but it doesn't make them true or false.

After all, Adam, Eve, and Cain were punished for their immorality before the Bible was ever written. God punished the world with a flood for their immorality before Moses ever received the law on Mt. Sinai. And other nations who never received the Mosaic Law were still punished for their immorality.

But as far as specifics go, most moral imperatives have prima facie force. That is, they apply in most circumstances but are not without exception. To be objective is not necessarily to be absolute. For example, it's generally wrong to lie to people, but there are circumstances in which lying is the right thing to do. I went into more detail about that on my blog.

http://philochristos.blogspot.com/2006/04/difference-between-moral-objectivism.html

All it takes for objective morality to exist for there to be any action at all in any situation that it would either be wrong to do or wrong not to do regardless of what any human thought. And it's not hard to think of examples.

1. A man who beats his wife with a baseball bat just because she forgot to get Oreos while she was at the store is doing something that is morally wrong.

2. A single man who has sex with the wife of another man is doing something morally wrong.

3. A woman who slips a date rape drug in her dad's drink, then rapes him while he is incapacitated is doing something morally wrong.

Conversely, I have never heard any theist offer a rational explanation as to WHY it can only be objective, when emanating from a deity or a "holy text."

It's because morality consists of imperatives. Moral law is prescriptive. It imposes obligation. It tells people what they must and must not do. Imperatives can only come from persons. If all that existed in all of reality were non-sentient material objects, nothing would be right or wrong. The universe could be thoroughly described merely with "is" statements, but no "ought" statements. Imperatives can only come from one person imposing their will on another person.

People have instituted governments that make laws which are also prescriptive. But no human law can make something that is otherwise wrong become right or vice versa. Even laws can be just or unjust. For example, a law that required parents to sacrifice their firstborn child in a fire would be morally wrong. It would be wrong to make such a law, and it would even be wrong to obey such a law if it were passed. So the moral law has authority over every conceivable human law, and it is the basis upon which human laws can be judged either just or unjust.

So the authority behind the moral law must be personal, absolute, autonomous, and transcendent. No conceivable creature could have such authority, even if there were a superior alien species from another planet. Something like a god would be necessary to ground morality. The fact that the God conceived of by Jews, Christians, Muslims, and even deists is a person who is autonomous and transcendent and responsible for creating everything else that exists makes that sort of God a sufficient source of morality. It is hard to think of anything else that would suffice.

If a moray is "objective," it is static.

That is not true. What gives a moral imperatives their objectivity is that they come from a legitimate authority whether that authority requires the same thing all the time or whether the authority requires different things at different times.

Can any theist state, specifically, which morals are "universal and objective" that cannot be derived outside of the "holy texts?"

A moral does not need to be derived from holy texts before they can be universal and objective. As I said before, it isn't holy texts that make things right or wrong. Holy Texts can only record things. Any authority holy texts have is grounded in God. God would have that same authority whether the holy text existed or not.

In my view, God created us in such a way that we are able, through reflection on our experience, reason, and intuition, to discern between right and wrong. As the Bible puts it, God's law is written on our hearts. While the Bible can clarify things for us in many cases, for the most part, everybody knows right from wrong even if they're ignorant of the Bible.

Once an "objective moral" has been defined, what significance could the phrase "appropriate to the time" possibly have on the objectivity of a moray?

Some moral are stated in broad terms, then applied to specific circumstances. When the circumstances change, so does the appropriate action. On the surface, it may appear as if the moral obligation has changed since at one time, a person should do X, but at another time, they should do Y. But in reality, the reason they should do X at one time, and Y at another time, is because of some broader moral principle that hasn't changed at all.

For example, it might be appropriate to give a person medicine while they are sick, but once that person is no longer sick, it is no longer appropriate to give them medicine. So it isn't as if the moral law changed from "Give medicine" to "Withhold medicine." Rather, the general moral principle in both cases is "Take care of the person's health," and what changed over time was what the person needed to stay healthy.

So time and circumstances can affect the specific moral obligations we have in virtue of more general moral principles. That's where our "reason" comes into play. It isn't as if there's a moral code that specifies every possible situation you could be in. Rather, there are general moral principles we are instinctively aware of, and we have to use our reason to discover how they apply to specific circumstances, which change through time.

Who is the final arbiter of a disagreement between two (individual or groups of) humans regarding the "objective" moray within any holy text?

We have to make a distinction between moral ontology and moral epistemology. Ontologically, the final arbiter of any moral disagreement is God because it is God who determines what is right or wrong. But epistemologically, disagreements have to be settled on the merits of the arguments for and against both sides, and sometimes people never succeed in settling their differences. Catholics, Mormons, and Jehovah's Witnesses have an organizational structure designed to interpret scripture on behalf of everyone else, and they also settle disagreements.

5 comments:

Psiomniac said...

I like the way you developed the distinction between the ontological and epistemological aspects in your post, and the way you explain indexicals in an accessible way.

If I have one criticism, it is that the you beg the question when you say "All it takes for objective morality to exist for there to be any action at all in any situation that it would either be wrong to do or wrong not to do regardless of what any human thought. And it's not hard to think of examples."

I wouldn't argue with the premise, such an action would be sufficient, but when we think of examples, aren't we just thinking of things we find so morally repugnant that we are tempted to assume they must be true regardless of what anyone might think?

Sam Harper said...

Although I can see why you might think that's circular reasoning, it's not circular reasoning the way I meant it. Lemme explain.

Imagine two people are arguing over whether or not unicorns exist. Jim says they don't, and Bob says they do. And let's say Bob wants to prove to Jim that unicorns exist, so he takes him to the zoo and finds what looks like a horse with a horn on its head, and he says, "Jim, look at that. There's an example of a unicorn."

Jim might say, "Listen, Jim, the issue under dispute is whether there's any such thing as a unicorn. By claiming that's a unicorn out there in that field, you are begging the question. You're just *assuming* that's an example of a unicorn. I deny that it is, and since that's what we're trying to establish, merely assuring that's a unicorn begs the question."

Notice the structure of this argument is the same as the structure of a dispute about whether or not there are any objective moral imperatives. It is perfectly appropriate, if you're having an argument over whether or not a certain kind of things exists for one person to point to what appear to be clear case examples. It could be the other person might dispute the examples. Jim could claim the animals in the field aren't really unicorns. Maybe they just *look* like unicorns. Maybe they're illusions. Maybe somebody glued a horn on a horse and *called* it a unicorn. Jim might have a philosophical reason for doubting the unicorns that overrides his sensory perceptions. There are all kinds of reasons for why Jim might doubt they are unicorns. But that doesn't mean Bob is arguing in a circle.

If, however, the argument was over whether or not the animals int he field were unicorns, and Bob simply announced, "They are unicorns, because there they are--unicorns," then Bob would be arguing in a circle. And if I were arguing about whether or not it was wrong for a man to cheat on his wife, and I just stated that it was wrong or pointed to an example of a man doing it to show that it was wrong, then yes, I would be begging the question. But I'm not begging the question by pointing to examples of moral wrongs. That's precisely how one *should* argue for the existence of a class of things.

How do we know birds exist? Because there are examples of them. That's how we know any kind of thing exists. So if we're arguing over the legitimacy of the examples, then the accusation of circular reasoning would apply, but if we're arguing over the existence of the class, then using examples does not beg any question. At worse, the fallacy would be in misidentifying the examples.

So the objection you ought to raise is not that I've begged the question, but that my examples are not really examples of moral wrongs.

When I bring up examples of egregious moral wrongs in order to support the claim that there are objective moral imperatives, I'm hoping that the other person's moral intuitions will rise to the surface and that they will be honest with themselves and just see that they are wrong.

That's why a lot of moral realists argue by coming up with the most egregious moral atrocities they can think of. The more egregious, the harder it is to deny that they are examples of objectively moral wrongs, and the more absurd it seems to deny them. It only takes one example of an objective moral wrong in order to prove that the claim, "There are objective moral truths," is true. So a strategy I use and many other moral realists use is to try to come up with an example that the other person will find very difficult to honestly deny.

Psiomniac said...

Given your unicorn analogy, I think I understand why you don't think your argument is circular. Let me explain why I don't think you have really dealt with the circularity that I see.

I think there are two strands to your argument, one is an appeal to moral intuition. You attempt to engage this by pointing to egregious examples. The other is to link this to moral realism by using their egregious property to prime our intuition that they count as objectively moral wrongs. From the existence of even one such objective moral wrong, as you rightly say, moral realism would follow.

If we accept the step that strong intuition is sufficient to speak to the ontological status of moral facts then your argument isn't circular. Pointing to examples is a necessary step.

I hope we agree so far?

I think an interesting feature of analogies, is that the mapping from one domain to the other is never total, so the elements of dis-analogy mean there is room for different interpretations. That's the fun of them!

So let's turn to the unicorn analogy but look at it with a different lens. Bob wants to prove to Jim that unicorns exist. Fortunately a new zoo exhibit has opened boasting unicorns, so he takes Jim and sure enough, there are horses with horns in the enclosure. Jim says "Hold on, I have read about this, some people say they are real, but others have objected that they are just horses with horns grafted onto them." Bob replies "But look how unicorn-like they are. They are really really unicorn-like aren't they!"

Perhaps the objection I ought to have raised was to target this step more clearly. We are not debating about whether moral wrongs exist. If you ask me whether agree that your examples are moral wrongs, I say yes. I dispute that the strength of my moral repugnance is sufficient to establish they are ontologically objective though. This is what I meant when I said "aren't we just thinking of things we find so morally repugnant that we are tempted to assume they must be true regardless of what anyone might think?"

Can you see why it seemed circular? Let's try another analogy. Suppose Jim tries to persuade Bob that redness is inherent in red objects. Jim points to some very red apples. Bob says that the redness is a secondary characteristic resulting from the interaction of light striking the surface of the apple and then interaction with our visual system. Bob says that our perception is projectivist in that it is useful to see the redness as 'out there' in the world. Jim says ok, come into the garden, I will show you something so red that you would be foolish to deny that it is truly objectively red.

Another analogy would be if Bob tries to persuade Jim that gold is inherently valuable. Imagine a society where gold is used as money. Bob says there is something about gold that just is objectively valuable, "look at how people behave, they can trade gold for goods or labour, they will even kill for it. You're net telling me that its value is just in people's heads?" Jim replies that the value of gold is real, but consists in institutional facts, that is, what people think about gold. It would do Bob no good to point to examples that demonstrate how valuable gold is such that Jim could not honestly deny its value. The matter at issue is what that value consists in.

Sam Harper said...

I think I understand your red apple analogy. No matter how intensely red the apple is, that doesn't do anything to show that redness is an inherent property of the apple rather than just a subjective experience of the apple. So if a person thinks morality is subjective, then no amount of egregiousness in an action should move the person one inch toward moral realism.

I think that's a great analogy as far as demonstrating that examples of egregious moral wrongs don't prove moral realism just by virtue of how egregious they are. I agree with that wholeheartedly. But like I said, the purpose of bringing up examples of egregious moral wrongs is to cause the person's moral intuitions to rise to the surface in hopes that they will simply recognize that some things really are wrong. If I can just get them to consider the egregious example and recognize that it really is an example of an objective wrong, then that example will serve as evidence for moral realism.

I am not trying to get them to draw the conclusion that it's immoral on the basis of how egregious it is. That's the disanalogy with your red apple scenario. The egregiousness of the example doesn't work like a premise in an argument. Rather, it works like a poker, poking at somebody's moral intuitions.

I admit that this isn't, strictly speaking, a proof of moral realism since there's no way to prove that the example really is objectively wrong. But in the same way, pointing out a unicorn in a field isn't proof of unicorns if it's the example itself that's under dispute. If the example itself were under dispute, then it definitely would be circular reasoning to point to that example as evidence.

But it isn't circular to just point to something and hope the other persons recognizes it as an example of the broader class of things you're trying to get them to believe in. And if you succeed in getting them to recognize it as an example, then that example can serve as evidence for the broader class.

Psiomniac said...

So I think we agree that goal of the poker serves to stir someone's moral intuition into recognising a particular moral instance as an objective moral wrong. Once this is established, moral realism follows.

As we can see with the red apple analogy, if objectivity is the property you want someone to intuit about moral wrongs in virtue of their egregiousness, just as the vividness of the red is silent on redness as an objective property, so too is egregiousness on moral objectivity. Unlike the unicorn case, where the particular examples might be horses with surgically grafted horns, it is what redness per se consists in that is at issue.

So perhaps we agree, this isn't circular in the sense you meant it, but it does rely on the premise that moral intuition extends in scope to be able to speak to the ontological status of moral wrongs. From your other post on the Mosaic law, I can see why you might take as a premise that morality is inscribed on our hearts by God and becomes available to us via our intuitions. But given that premise, it's game over anyway :-)