Has anyone hear read this? Would be good to get some discussion going.
For anyone that hasn’t: this should appeal to a few people on here. An attack on objective morality and a naturalistic account of the development of right/wrong (as suggested by the title, we ‘invent’ it) but written in the academic philosophy style. Thats not to say its badly written…
Anyway, a few things I’m wondering after reading this.
Right, lots of us will agree that we invent right/wrong. It seems the obvious view. Mackie’s book, though, shares a common flaw with a lot of thinking in this area in that the arguments against objective moral values amount to not much more than saying its a kinda weird idea. I’ve always thought the real strength of what we can, for the sake of argument, call moral scepticism (i.e. the view that no objective moral values exist) is that it provides such a compelling account of what moral values could be. It is only in conjunction with this strong positive story that an attack on the ‘weirdness’ of moral values has any strength; if we could no more find a reasonable account for how we could bring moral values into existence than account for objective values then our charge of ‘weirdness’ against the objective story would have little force.
Here’s the thing with Mackie’s account. He starts by denying the existence of objectively prescriptive moral values (i.e. there is no such thing such that an action is both objectively wrong and objectively to be avoided). He then says that, in general, when humans make moral statements they are trying to describe objectively prescriptive values. Therefore, the mass of humanity is in error. He then develops a completely naturalistic account of what moral statements mean, what their content is and where they come from. In doing so he indicates where the error of taking moral values to be objectively prescriptive originates.
My question is: what is the relation between the thesis that, hitherto, our moral statements have been uniformly false (call this an error theory) and the positive account of where morality actually comes from. How does humanity move from making statements they believe to be objectively prescriptive to making statements they believe to be subjectively prescriptive (and then only prescriptive to those who accept whatever morality is being prescribed)? Should humanity do so? These questions are never really touched upon.
how does humanity change the meaning of language? arbitrarily…
act only in those ways that you would have universally applied (categorical golden rule…) while accepting only those actions of others which could have been universally applied (accepted golden rule…) as if in accepting you had the power to do otherwise… but in your righteous indignation of being acted upon by that which did not act in accord of the quotient of universally moral acceptability rise up and demand that they and the others act as you would have them act…
I’m not too sure what is in question here. If some of our moral pronouncements (e.g., it is wrong to break promises) are ‘false’, then this presupposes that certain other moral pronouncements must be true (e.g., it is right to break promises). Is this all you mean? Alternatively, are you investigating whether the generally-supposed basis of our moral pronouncements (those, say, that have a universalized character) is false? Or again, are you asking whether our moral pronouncements are capable of being true or false, which, on, e.g., an emotivist account, they are not?
Exactly yes. Its called an error theory. The point is that we think that when we make a moral statement, say killing is wrong, that what we are doing is describing an objective fact; objective just in the sense that we haven’t made it so. Linked to this, but I suppose should be separated, is that we think this ‘objective fact’ is universally prescriptive; it applies to you whether you think murder is wrong or not, etc. Mackie says this is mistaken, such facts do not, and cannot, exist.
What I’m interested is the tension between holding such a view on the one hand, and producing a naturalistic account of what morality could actually be (a system of rules and constraints on action designed to foster some kind of good for all that has no more claim to being the ultimate authority on practical matters than any other system we choose to devise). In short, Mackie thinks that the way we use morality is wrong, but he never explains how we go from mis-using morality (treating it as something objective) to using it correctly (recognising that it is totally subjective).
On this view they are most definitely capable of being true/false. The problem can be put this way: on Mackie’s error theory, moral statements must be uniformly false (thats what the theory is, moral statements attempt to describe objectively prescriptive values, these don’t exist, hence they fail to do so). But Mackie is giving us account of how we could make moral statements that are true; we need to recognise that all we are doing is describing a set of values that we have created. How do we move from making false to true statements?
Well, we’ll assume for argument’s sake that moral statements are either true or false. Evidently, we can legitimately regard a proposition as being true even if we stand in error over the basis for its truth. For instance, it would be true that the internal angles of a triangle equal 180 degrees even if we think that this total rests on the whim of some guardian spirit.
If, however, it is insisted upon that moral propositions (of a supposed universal nature) must have a basis, then this is irrelevant to their truth or falsity. Their having such a basis, i.e., something in virtue of which they are true, is of concern only for our knowledge – for our knowing they are true, or false.
Thus, the proposition ‘it is wrong to break promises’ may well be universalizable (or true in every case), even if there is no objective standard determining its truth. It just is true. The question of whether we can know it is true is, of course, a different matter.
The problem with contemporary discussions of ethics and morals is that they are forever getting bogged down in 1)debates about the semantics of the statements we use to talk about them, and 2)habitual dichotomies that serve no explanatory function and are merely holdovers from more antiquated ways of thinking . . .
The question of wether moral prescriptions are subjective or objective is ultimately just meaningless and confusing - i think everyone who asks it needs to think about why they are doing so and what they have invested in whichever answer they choose to argue in support of.
Here’s a thought experiment: Ask yourself the objtve/sbjtve question with regard to “rightness and wrongness” and then dismiss it with an emphatic “who cares?” and see what you’re left with . . . now start thinking about “rightness and wrongness” again with the dichotomy cast aside . . .
what do we have at this point? we have a phenomenal event - an experience of actions, behaviors etc as being desirable or undesirable in some way . . . now, at this point, DON’T (for once) jump ahead to the question of wether or not those experiences are “correct” or “misguided” or indicative of some higher truth about the actions and behaviors which are their referents - instead, go the opposite direction and ask yourself how these experiences come to be what they are, why we experience them that way, what we take from them, etc. - all the while, remembering that experiences themselves are never correct or incorrect.
That, i think, will begin to take you in the direction you seem to want to go, IW . . .
In the final analysis, I think all our moral notions are grounded on our own feelings; in particular, those of pain, suffering, anxiety, happiness, contentment, joy, and so on, and we have the gifts of sympathy and empathy allowing us to imagine what it is like to be others whom our actions affect. The ‘morally aware’ among us strive to behave in ways that promote these positive feelings in others and subdue the negative.
It is, therefore, our inbuilt qualities of sympathy and empathy that serve to universalize moral notions.
It seems the tension might come from the (futile?) endeavor of attempting to systemize something that seems forever resistant to having rules and constraints placed on it – morality is far too relational and dynamic, and every rule or constraint one prescribes to such a theory is immediately vulnerable to some perspective that contradicts it. One can challenge, quite legitimately, even the purported aim of such an endeavor – “to foster some kind of good for all” – which once again brings us back to that elusive notion of ‘good’ and its conceptual antipode, a point uglypeoplefucking touched on regarding semantics and definitions.
Here we’d have to assume not only that we know what the nature of good is, but also that what is good for one is good for all – that there exists some notion of good which has universal applicability. This stands on a table and screams dubious. Let us set our ideals and prejudices aside for a moment and consider this question: how certain are we that we can even know what is good for us, even in our own personal case? Take for example pain and suffering, which one would habitually reject in favor of joy and pleasure, convicted that the latter truly is in our best interests (short and long term), and the former the opposite.
But is it true that pain and suffering are to be avoided by all in the pursuit of the good? That joy and pleasure are somehow more instrumental and conducive to the good? He here who has openly and honestly posed such questions to himself discovers vistas of possibility and further open questions. What we’re facing here is necessity, which often (always?) opposes the human ideal.
The self-indulgent hedonist who immerses himself in ever more things from which to derive more pleasure is often the one struggling the most in attaining his good, because his good is defined with a superficial and underdeveloped notion of its opposite. These terms are antipodal and necessarily define each other in virtue of their relationship; our understanding of ‘good’ is not only derived from, and is also coextensive with our understanding of bad/evil/etc. Eventually it will be necessary for this hedonist to deepen his understanding of pain and suffering (e.g. by experiencing it) in order to experience and understand new and higher forms of good. Perhaps this experience of suffering, given his circumstances, would need to come from someone acting “wrongly” and immorally toward him, and thus a system condemning such “wrong” actions toward others would, in effect, also be condemning actions which most positively promote its very aim and purpose (to foster good). There are endless other examples which hold true to our actual experience of the world.
One can see, in this light, the problems here in trying to universalize or systemize anything concerning morality, as it is far too relational and dynamic, ultimately boiling down to a perspective.
If, in that last sentence, you say “others AND ourselves, both ‘by extension’ and ‘in addition’ to”, then I agree, but i would go even further than that - I would say moral notions are all reducible to functions of a single, broadly defined notion of desirability - which is, of course, a characteristic who’s properties depend as much upon the sentiments of the perceiver as they do upon the aspects of the object: meaning, among other things, that morality is, by extension, largely a function of us intellectually justifying many of our most common types of emotional reactions (more desirable qualities or more undesirable qualities?) to commonly recurring types of situatons (to kill or not to kill?) - But then you’re left with a chicken/egg type question, so a person’s preferred choice of moral code will be determined by whether said person is more emotionally prone to think of a given emotional reaction as being a function of the applicable moral, or of the applicable moral as being a function of the emotional reaction. Morality as a topic, then, is just wadded up layers of subjectivity that ultimately constitute a big philosophical object serving as a constant source of dispute between human subjects. Meanwhile, it’s that subject / object dynamic (subjects in dispute about subjective meanings who’s status as objects they agree upon but who’s status as truths they do not) which always confuses us into the mistaken view of moral truth as being necessarily either strictly subjective or strictly objective in the more traditional sense.
But, practically speaking, are there any universalized moral notions?
I’ll try to respond to other posts later, apologies.
I only have time for a little point here which I’ll expand upon later. Mackie does not think, and I entirely agree, is that there is such a universal good for all. The point is just the following: there are various things which we call good because they satisfy some desire/need/etc that we have. This is what we mean when we call a drink good: it stops us being thirsty, it tastes nice etc. Everybody has different goods, different long term goals etc. There is no ‘set’ of goods such that we all desire them. Here’s the thing: morality is seen as very much a social contract type deal. But it isn’t meant to secure some kind of ‘universal good’. Rather, morality, as a contract, is what enables us to secure whatever goods we, as individuals, happen to have. There is no universal good that our system of rules allows us all to possess, rather it is in virtue of the system of rules that we are able to secure the goods we, in particular, desire.
Its like in Hobbes: in the state of nature lots of people will go unsatisfied, whatever their goals. It is by engaging in morality that we can be satisfied.
Never is there any thought that morality is any more than this; a means by which we can secure our own personal aims.
