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A Defense of Moral Objectivism
By: Justin Felux

The question of whether or not our ethical judgments have an objective basis is a question that has been grappled with intensely since the time of Plato. There has been a great deal of literature produced on the subject and the avenues of argumentation that have been pursued are copious in number. It would be a task that is beyond the scope of this paper to consider all the positions that have been ably defended by their respective adherents and to answer every possible objection that could be raised to the ideas that I develop. However, it is my goal to defend a modest form of moral objectivism (or “moral realism”, if you like) and address some of the most common objections leveled against moral objectivism by relativists or other noncongnitivists in general.

It is my contention that at least some of our moral judgments are objectively true or false, and that they are true or false regardless of the beliefs or feelings of any particular person or group about them. I am only concerned with the metaethical aspect of moral judgments. I will not be developing a system of first-order ethics or suggesting that my metaethical standpoint implies or does not imply the validity of any particular first-order ethical system, excluding a few exceptions (1). I will not be developing any kind of "algorithm" that can ascertain any and every ethical truth. Such a thing is impossible, and I believe someone would only expect an ethicist to come up with such an algorithm if they were ignorant of what exactly the business of ethics is. I am not defending a form of “moral absolutism”. By moral absolutism I mean a system of ethics that makes monolithic first-order claims that are allegedly applicable for any conceivable subject in any conceivable context. This sort of moralizing is typical of classical theism, and the form of moral objectivism I am defending will not depend on any appeal to the supernatural (2). I have no qualms about acknowledging the fact that our ethical judgments are both context-dependent and subject-dependent. I do not see this as an objection to moral objectivism for reasons that will become clear.

My moral theory (which is a form of “ethical intuitionism”) presupposes the existence of real universals and a priori knowledge. By “universal” I mean any predicable that can be instantiated in diverse contexts. I will not take the time to refute nominalism here because the problem of universals is beyond the scope of this paper, however it is my opinion that nominalism is plainly false (3). There is such a thing as “blueness” and that is all I will say about that. By a priori knowledge I mean any item of knowledge that is grasped through reason or some other means aside from sensory-perception, such as the general principles of logic or mathematics (4). I believe that ethics is a rational, a priori body of knowledge that is more or less of the same nature as mathematics. Ethical judgments are derived from self-evident moral principles. In our moral deliberations we find ourselves drawing conclusions from descriptive premises that seem valid to our common sense. However, upon reflection we find that there are actually suppressed premises that our deductions consistently rely upon. For example, “Hitler murdered millions of people, therefore Hitler is bad” presupposes that it is bad to murder millions of people. It seems that we are able to intuitively grasp the intrinsic value of things. Consider the following statements:

It is wrong to punish someone for a crime she did not commit
Genocide is wrong
Happiness is preferable to suffering
If it is wrong for one person to suffer X, it is wrong for two people to suffer X
Kindness is a virtue and not a vice

Is there really any rational person who doubts any of these statements? I have been careful not to include statements that are merely my opinion, such as “capital punishment is unjust”. It may be argued that certain moral propositions like “abortion is murder” cannot be deduced with the same level of certainty as the principles stated above, but I do not see this as an objection to intuitionism any more than I see Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle as an objection to physics or the fact that the continuum hypothesis is undecidable as an objection to set theory. It may be the case that certain ethical facts are unknowable or have equally plausible alternatives. However, most ethical judgements are derivative, not self-evident. The axioms of geometry may be self-evident, but most would agree that the fact that the distance between two points can be expressed by the equation ((x2-x1)+(y2-y1))^.5 is not exactly self-evident. It is a derivative fact, but still certainly objective. Philosophers have historically regarded mathematics as the most objective discipline in existence. The multiplication table in particular is presented as a prime example of an objective, indubitable set of truths. After some reflection, I believe it becomes clear that ethics and mathematics, though they differ dramatically in their subject-matter, are not very dissimilar at all in their methodology. As I said before, ethical judgements are both subject-dependent and context-dependent. Many other objective bodies of knowledge are as well. In mathematics, for example, 1+1=2 in the context of a numbering system that is base 3 or greater (in a base 2 or “binary” numbering system, 1+1=10). Water boils at 100 degrees celcius in the context of sea-level elevation. These are still objective facts, regardless of their context-dependent nature. Likewise, certain value judgements may be subject-dependent. For example, it may be objectively true that poetry is a greater expression of human creativity than skill at pushpin. However, for a person who lacks appreciation for poetry, pursuing pushpin as a hobby may be objectively the superior “subjective” choice.

If anyone regards just one of these aforementioned propositions as true or “self-evident”, the case for intuitionism has been made. For if certain ethical judgments are self-evident or a priori they can, in turn, be regarded as the foundational basis for deriving other ethical judgments about particular situations. Also, in acknowledging the self-evidence of any particular moral judgment one has already implicitly accepted moral realism, as the following deduction seems to indicate:

[1] There are moral propositions
[2] Propositions are either true or false (Law of Excluded Middle)
[3] They are not all false
[4] Some correspond to reality (from [2], [3], and the correspondence theory of truth)
[5] Moral values are a part of reality (which is moral objectivism)

In accepting the self-evidence of certain moral claims one cannot question [3], which is the most difficult of the premises. One may question [2] on other grounds which we will consider later. One may also reject my invoking foundationalism as a basis for deriving ethical truths. David O. Brink provides prima facie valid criticisms of foundationalism (5) while at the same time arguing for a plausible form of moral realism based on coherentism (6). Regardless of the numerous technical objections that could be raised to these ideas, I think one should still default to moral realism. Noncognitivists bear the burden of proof, in my view, since they are presenting a metaethical system that is very counterintuitive and defies common sense. Noncognitivism should only be accepted as the conclusion of an extremely compelling philosophical argument, and I have yet to see such an argument. One might be able to draw the analogy between the controversy between noncognitivism and moral realism and the controversy between realists (in general) and skeptics. A noncognitivist may say “How do you know that X is wrong?”, just as an absolute skeptic may ask “How do you know that you aren’t a brain-in-a-vat or that you aren’t being fooled by a Cartesian demon?”. Is there any way to reply to such a question? (7) I don’t believe so. We simply regard the external world as self-evident because it is next to impossible for us to regard it otherwise. There is also no pragmatic reason for us to think we are brains in vats. I think the situation is analogous with regard to ethics. We (especially since we are social animals) will inevitably have to make value judgments at some point or another in time. We could no sooner refrain from doing so than we could refrain from believing in the external world. This is simply a pragmatic argument for moral realism (made only for bolstering purposes). We will now consider some of the most common objections to moral realism and why they fail.

The first objection I wish to consider is David Hume’s “is/ought” gap (8). Simply put, one can not, in principle, derive moral judgments from descriptive premises. Conclusions about one subject-matter cannot be deduced from premises that belong to a different subject-matter. No matter how much you feel, taste, smell, listen to, or look at something, you only get sense-perception. No moral judgments. We touched on this briefly when we examined the fact that all attempts to deduce ethical judgments from descriptive premises relied on suppressed premises. We solved this problem by regarding those suppressed premises as self-evident truths. This is how ethical intuitionism avoids the “is/ought” gap. Indeed, most intuitionists hold a firm belief in the validity of the “is/ought” gap (9). G.E. Moore even elaborated on his own version of it, which he called the “naturalistic fallacy” (10). It seems curious to me that most noncognitivists who reject moral objectivism on the grounds that it violates the is/ought gap do not reject mathematics. No matter how often my teacher shows me two pairs of oranges, I never see any quantities. I never sense a “2”. I arrive through pure reason at the conclusion that 2+2=4. Should there not be an “is/math” gap as well? Mathematical conclusions certainly cannot be derived from descriptive premises (this is even more obvious with maths than it is with ethics). Mathematics is the business of reasoning about certain universals (namely quantities) that we grasp through the faculty of reason and their relations to each other, and ethics is the same way; it just concerns itself with universals such as “goodness” and how they relate to other universals such as “life” and “happiness”. If one rejects the objectivity of ethics on these grounds, then I see no reason why that person should not also be forced to concede that mathematics is also not objective. Most consistent relativists actually do shun all objectivity and regard matters that we think “objective” merely as “intersubjective” (Richard Rorty is a prominent example of this). I would submit that at this point the noncognitivist’s position is reductio ad absurdum. I will note in passing that some have outright denied the validity of the is/ought gap. A.N. Prior presents two kinds of counterexamples (11):

A 1. Tea drinking is common in England
2. Therefore, either tea drinking is
common in England or all New Zealanders
ought to be shot.

B 1. Undertakers are church officers
2. Therefore, undertakers ought to do
whatever all church officers ought to do.

This is simply a comical attempt to undermine the exact letter of the is/ought thesis. One could easily come up with a re-wording of the thesis to allow for such statements, but intuitionism would still be immune to its objections.

The second argument I wish to consider is probably the most common argument for moral relativism in existence--the argument from disagreement. People who make the argument from disagreement are utilizing a thesis that Michael Huemer calls “The Idiot’s Veto”. The Idiot’s Veto is the thesis that “any individual has the power to block a fact from the realm of objectivity or knowledge, merely by persistently refusing to agree with it, and resisting all efforts to educate him.” (12) The argument from disagreement essentially states that different people and cultures have moral views that vary dramatically, therefore there are no objective moral values. This argument, if valid, would not only refute all of philosophy, but also all of mathematics, logic, and therefore the entire foundation for any kind of knowledge. We have already demonstrated the manner in which mathematics is a body of knowledge not very much unlike ethics, so it would seem that the argument would apply equally to mathematics or any body of a priori knowledge (such as logic). I don’t believe this is a valid argument at all. There are disagreements in all sorts of fields of knowledge that moral skeptics have no trouble accepting the objectivity of. A moral skeptic may argue that those particular bodies of knowledge (say, the social sciences) have the quality of the external world acting as an arbiter between our own “subjective” beliefs and the truth of our propositions. This may hold for the social sciences, but it does not hold for mathematics and logic. Without mathematics and logic, not even the strict scientific disciplines are valid. Physics is not possible without equations, and physics is the basis for every other natural science there is. The argument from disagreement would indirectly refute all of science if it were valid. The level of disagreement that exists is exaggerated in my opinion. How many societies approve of genocide or unadulterated murder and torture? Not very many. Even if there is a significant level of disagreement, I don’t see why anyone should be surprised. How we act as moral agents has a profound impact on our daily lives. People care greatly about what is or isn’t right and wrong. If for some reason numbers were suddenly as important as ethics to people one day, I suspect the level of disagreement in mathematics would rise dramatically. We are fallible creatures with innumerable biases and varying levels of intelligence; it is only natural that we will end up disagreeing on a lot of things.

Another kind of objection states roughly that ethical judgments are really just expressions of personal sentiment and have no connection to truth or reality. The people who hold this view are called “emotivists” or “prescriptivists”. Saying “X is wrong” is like saying “Boo X!” or “I don’t like X”. This view is counterintuitive, to say the least. Almost all languages treat moral propositions as either true or false, with a few rare exceptions (13). When we sit down to discuss moral matters, we do so under the pretense that we are seeking the truth, not just exchanging personal expressions of sentiment. Furthermore, some people make moral judgments that are contrary to this theory. Take for example, a Christian who advises youths against sex. Is he saying “Boo sex!” or “I don’t like sex.”? I would think that he probably likes sex very much, but he doesn’t think it is moral. Also, I may reflectively observe that Einstein’s theory of relativity is good with no emotional sentiment attached to the thought at all. Judgment is the result of active deliberation whereas statements such as “I like X” are passive statements of fact. Judgments can properly be called true or false, but who would disagree with “I like X”? This argument is also prone to Moore’s “open question” thesis (14) since it makes perfect sense to say “I like X, but is X good?”. Ever since the demise of logical positivism, the popularity of this sort of noncognitivism has waned. Even renowned moral skeptics such as J.L. Mackie have admitted that the ordinary use of moral terms involves the belief on the part of the speaker that he is referring to such (real) properties. (15)

The next argument I will consider was invented by Mackie and is called the “argument from queerness”. According to Mackie, if objective values existed they would be “entities or qualities or relations of a very strange sort” and that “if we were aware of them, it would have to be by some special faculty of moral perception or intuition, utterly different from our ordinary ways of knowing everything else.” (16) First of all, Mackie misrepresents the position of most intuitionists by implying that “intuition” implies the existence of a “sixth-sense” or some sort of quasi-perceptual apparatus specific to moral detection. This is simply false. My version of intuitionism, for example, involves the faculty of reason discerning self-evident moral truths and deriving other moral truths. Reason is by no means a “sixth moral sense”, and many other intuitionists have held views similar to mine. To quote W. D. Ross, “We apprehend that conscientiousness or benevolence is good with as complete certainty, directness, and self-evidence as we ever apprehend anything” and “an act, qua fulfilling a promise . . . is prima facie right, is self-evident . . . It is self-evident just as a mathematical axiom, or the validity of a form of inference, is evident.” (17) H. A. Prichard wrote earlier that “We recognize, for instance, that [the] performance of a service to X, who has done us a service, just in virtue of its being the performance of a service to one who has rendered a service to the would-be agent, ought to be done by us. The apprehension is immediate, in precisely the sense in which a mathematical apprehension is immediate.” (18) This refutes Mackie’s allegation that intuitionism requires some sort of “sixth sense”, but what of the “queerness” of moral knowledge? To be perfectly honest, I do not see this as an argument at all. Just because something is different from other things doesn’t mean it can’t exist. Colors are different from any other thing that isn’t a color, but they exist. Like many of the arguments we have considered so far, the argument from queerness seems to lead to some form of nihilism once it is taken to its logical conclusion.

At this point I would like to discuss what I believe are the consequences of moral relativism and conclude this essay. None of this is intended as an argument against moral relativism, save for maybe on pragmatic grounds. However, I still believe it is worth pointing out. There seems to be a trend among noncognitivists in which they believe they can separate ethics and metaethics and treat them as completely distinct fields of inquiry. In other words, Mackie can be a moral relativist while at the same time have strong moral convictions. This reminds me of Moore’s paradox: “It is raining outside, but I don’t believe it”. (19) Likewise the relativists seem to be saying “There is no right or wrong, but that is wrong.” Some relativists (especially emotivists or prescriptivists) may object to this and say that their moral convictions are the result of their own personal sentiments. It still seems to me that this position undermines the nature of ethics. If ethical judgments are mere emotive expressions, then saying “genocide is wrong” should have no more forcefulness than saying “I like seafood”. Clearly this is not the case; at least I do not believe it should be the case (and most would agree with me). Moral relativism implies a weak and passive ethical nature that I can only conceive of as having dreadful consequences. The Social Contract theory of John Locke was, in my view, a good attempt at establishing objective ethics that has lead to a great deal of prosperity, freedom, and happiness. What has relativism offered us historically? The Orthodox Marxism of the Soviet Union and postmodernist Israeli academics who don’t bother to protest their government’s brutal policies (20). Noncognitivism seems intellectually lazy to me as well. I don’t mean to imply that we should not question even our most firmly held convictions and inquire in to the nature of everything in the unending quest for knowledge. I think that sort of "healthy skepticism" is a very good thing. However, I don’t think that naively assuming that there is no moral truth just because people disagree about moral issues is an example of well-reasoned philosophical inquiry.

In this paper we have elucidated a plausible theory of moral objectivism. Moral principles are derived from other foundational, self-evident moral principles. We examined several objections to this theory, namely the argument from disagreement, the is/ought problem, the argument from queerness, and emotivism. On each account, we found the arguments given to be based on false premises or to lead to absurd conclusions. We then examined the numerous negative implications of relativism. We have seen that moral objectivism is the most rational, common sense metaethical position and that its adoption is not only rational, but is also bolstered by several pragmatic arguments.

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Notes and References

(1) Since my ethical theory presupposes a priori knowledge, universals, and intrinsic value, some first-order ethical systems will not be compatible with it, such as certain forms of egoism and utilitarianism. [Back]

(2) Those who believe in the supernatural have a convenient answer to moral relativism, namely that right and wrong has a divine mandate. I personally feel that all god concepts except for those of the pantheist variety (which I happen to believe in) fail to stand up to Occam’s razor However, it is hard to conceive of such an impersonal deity serving as a law-giver. I believe that an arguer has saddled himself with a burden of proof that is probably impossible to satisfy when he or she appeals to a personal, supernatural being. [Back]

(3) A good refutation of nominalism can be found in D. M. Armstrong’s Universals: An Opinionated Introduction. [Back]

(4) When I say that a priori knowledge is not gained through sense-perception, I do not mean to imply that it cannot be elicited through sense-perception. In fact, it almost always is. A teacher may show a child two fingers and say "this is two fingers" and then show her that two more fingers makes four fingers. The child now knows that 2 fingers plus 2 fingers equals 4 fingers, not the general principle 2+2=4. That has to be arrived at through reason. Incidentally, 2 pairs of particulars does not always equal 4 in the real world. Two cups of water will not equal four cups of water when poured together with two other cups of water, since water is partially miscible. This is not a refutation of mathematics, in my view. Empiricist epistemology would seem to indicate that it is though, which is why believe any serious philosophy must be at least a form of minimal rationalism.[Back]

(5) David O. Brink, Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 1989) pp. 100-143. [Back]

(6) I don’t believe that coherentism and correspondence are mutually exclusive. If one accepts, as I do, Brand Blanshard’s view that all rational thought proceeds on the postulate that reality is really one single, overarching, coherent, intelligible system, it becomes less clear whether the proper theory of truth should be called "coherence" or "correspondence", depending on how we define those respective terms. [Back]

(7) One possible reply would be to resort to a Sartrean/Husserlean view of consciousness. Namely, to be conscious is to be conscious of something. Consciousness itself has no content and is purely transparent. It is dependent on its object. This would avoid absolute skepticism because it affords the possibility of direct or "naive" realism. This, of course, is unacceptable to the moral relativist since we clearly are conscious of moral principles. The moral skeptic would have to argue that we are in fact conscious of something else when we think we are conscious of moral principles, but this path of argumentation would be quite difficult. [Back]

(8) David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (Penguin Classics, 1989), pp. 501-527. [Back]

(9) Many moral realists, such as David O. Brink (mentioned earlier) do not accept the validity of the is/ought dichotomy. Their reasons for rejecting it are plausible, but too difficult to enter in to here. [Back]

(10) G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica (Cambridge University Press, 1971). [Back]

(11) A. N. Prior, Papers in Logic and Ethics (London: Duckworth, 1976). [Back]

(12) Michael Huemer, March 1996: Why I’m Not An Objectivist (http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/rand.htm). [Back]

(13) The Aymara language uses trivalent logic. Rather than having the typical true and false values of Boolean logic, there is a third value for propositions that are indeterminate. This sort of thing is rare, however. It is also somewhat interesting to point out in this context that Chomskyan linguistics, if true, imply that we have an innate "language faculty" that compels a child to acquire a language.[Back]

(14) G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica (Cambridge University Press, 1971). [Back]

(15) J.L. Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (New York: Penguin Books, 1977), pp. 44, 59, 73-76. [Back]

(16) J.L. Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (New York: Penguin Books, 1977), p. 38. [Back]

(17) W. D. Ross, The Foundations of Ethics (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1939), pp. 262. [Back]

(18) H. A. Prichard, "Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?" in Moral Obligation and Duty and Interest (London, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), pp. 8. [Back]

(19) G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica (Cambridge University Press, 1971). [Back]

(20) Ran HaCohen, March 2002: Postmodernism Alive and Killing (http://www.antiwar.com/hacohen/h031602.html).

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