Last week we examined some problems with anti-realist views of morality: nihilism, the view that there are no moral truths and a range of views that take moral truths to be a matter of say so (whether God’s, the say so of cultures, or the say so of individuals). In spite of the philosophical problems we ran into, the idea that morality is a matter of say so or authority remains broadly popular. Part of the problem is surely that rather few people ever study ethics and think about the problems that views like DCT (Divine Command Theory) or CMR (Cultural Moral Relativism) raise. But there are other factors. We learn basic moral guidelines as a matter of authority. We are told to be honest and kind by our parents, teachers, churches, etc. When you learn something on the basis of someone’s say so it’s not entirely unreasonable to assume that say so is what makes it so. Until you consider the philosophical consequences anyway.
But the idea that morality is a matter of say so has straightforward logical consequences that are pretty unpalatable. Perhaps the central problem is that say so is arbitrary. Anything could be commanded by God or society. Indeed, many clearly morally awful things have been commanded under the authority of religious doctrine or social convention. So, the time has come or us to consider the alternative: that morality might be a ‘figure it out’ sort of thing rather than a ‘somebody gets to decide’ sort of thing.
If we are fully prepared to treat morality as something we can inquire into, then we need to remind ourselves of some key points about how inquiry works. As always in inquiry we start from a position of basic human fallibility. We each have our own limited grasp on the world, and our own individual experience doesn’t provide us with the full picture. This calls for humility, along with respect and tolerance for our fellow fallible inquirers. Hopefully, with this reminder, we can see that the view that there are moral truths does not fit well with dogmatic attitudes. People who think there are objective moral truths, and that they know what these are, may feel entitled to impose them on the rest of us. But the disrespect implicit in the imposing is a pretty good indicator that they are mistaken in thinking they know what the moral truths are.
Still, we require some starting point for inquiry. If there are moral truths and we can inquire into them, then we will require some starting point for inquiry, something like evidence. Lots of people find ‘say so’ views of morality appealing because they think we lack evidence in this realm. Perhaps we don’t have empirical evidence of quite the sort used in science. But then we all know how awful it feels to find that we might have done a bad thing. Perhaps this is a sort of evidence. Most of us are horrified at the idea of cruelty. This is a part of our experience, as much as observing an image under a microscope. Of course, this evidence is fallible (as are microscope observations). We might find some other explanation for our moral sense of approval for some things and disapproval for others. But we have a starting point for inquiry into morality in our moral intuitions and the scientist looking through a microscope can ask no more of what she observes empirically.
Lots of you will be worried about differences in people’s moral judgements. First, this presents no more difficulty for inquiry into morality than it does for inquiry into astronomy, say, or biology. The history of science is filled with differing interpretations of the evidence.
Beyond this, we should note that our moral intuitions and judgements more often agree than disagree, in spite of a handful of well-worn moral controversies. We all pretty much agree that lying, assault, rape, murder, etc. are wrong. We all pretty much agree that helping people in need is a good thing. Of course, the sociopaths among us may not agree, but that’s exactly why we take these unfortunates to suffer a pathology. We have little reason to doubt that some things are blue because some people are color-blind. The sociopath is in position similar to the color-blind person. This person is just morally blind. More generally, universal agreement is not required for inquiry into morality to proceed any more than it is required for inquiry into astronomy to proceed. Some of our initial perceptions will miss the mark.
Perhaps then, we are ready to dive in. We’ll be examining Utilitarianism and Respect for Person’s as theories of morally right action. We’ll want to consider how well they account for our moral intuitions and judgements, at least where these are widely shared. At the same time, the explanatory power of these theories may lead us to reevaluate other moral judgements and intuitions, widely shared or not. We’ll only get to scratch the surface of this very active branch of philosophical inquiry this week. But hopefully this introduction will give you some sense for how inquiry into morality proceeds.