Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Moral Realism = Muddled Reasoning


It has long been my opinion that moral realists (aka theists) are confused about the difference between fact and opinion.  That's not surprising, because theists in general are confused about the difference between objective reality and fantasy.  They speak of God's existence as if it were an objective fact, like the existence of the table in front of me right now.  One might argue that it is only my perception of the table that makes me believe it exists, but that's not true.  I know the table exists as an objective fact because it impacts not only my perception, but it can be detected and measured by physical devices and instruments, as well as being seen and felt by other people.  Nobody says you have to believe first, and then you can see it.  It's there, and I can photograph it and weigh it.  Everyone can see it, regardless of whether they have a certain kind of mindset, or framework of beliefs.  That's the essence of objective reality.

Opinion, on the other hand, is not objective fact.  An opinion has no existence apart form the mind of the person who holds it.  People have differing views about something.  Their views are based on beliefs, values, preferences, and judgments they make.  The concept of beauty is a perfect example of this.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, they say.  What one person finds to be attractive may be seen as ugly by someone else.  This is something that most of us understand.  My opinion that something is beautiful is not an objective fact.  It is a value judgment.  Some may agree with me, and others disagree, but nobody can say that their own opinion is objectively true, like the existence of a table.  To do so is a kind of arrogance.  It places one's own opinion above that of others, and denies that other opinions have merit or validity.

To continue with the example of beauty, we can see that a judgment about the beauty of something is a matter of opinion rather than fact, because we understand that people don't all share the same aesthetic values and make the same judgments.  At the same time, there are some things that most people would agree are beautiful, and some things that most people think are ugly.  The vast majority of things fall somewhere in between, and the level of agreement among people isn't so high.  If you choose some arbitrary object and ask people to rate its aesthetic attractiveness on a scale of 1 to 10, there will usually be no widespread agreement on what that rating should be.  However, there might be some relatively small subset of objects that most people do agree on, especiacally at one end of the scale or the other.  There are things at the extremes that most people share the similar opinions about - an exceptionally beautiful bird, for example.  And even though most people agree that it is beautiful, that doesn't change the fact that this is still an opinion.  It just happens to be an opinion that is widely shared.  It would be wrong to state that this judgment of beauty is an objective fact, simply because most people make the same judgment.

To understand this better, consider something that is not quite at the far end of the scale.  Should its beauty be considered an objective fact?  For things in the middle, it is clearly a matter of preference and judgment.  As we approach the extreme ends of the scale, there is more and more agreement about the beauty of something.  But there is no magical point on the scale where opinion suddenly becomes objective fact.  Even if everybody agrees in their judgment, it is still a matter of opinion.  There is no absolute standard of beauty. 

The same could be said of moral judgments.  Most moral judgments are subject to widespread disagreement.  It would be absurd to call them objective facts.  And yet, Christians believe that they are God's judgment, not their own.  And as such, moral judgments must be objectively true (because God says so).  Nevermind the fact that God seems to express different moral judgments to different people.  Not everybody shares the same moral judgment about any given situation, but you would be hard-pressed to find a single Christian who thinks his own moral judgments differ from those of God.  This is the absurdity of "absolute moral values".  The only standard of morality that exists is the one that each of us has in our own mind.  And if we think that standard comes from God, we should be prepared to explain why it isn't the same for everybody.

If you ask a Christian to name an objective moral value, you will typically get a response something like the one that Victor Reppert gave recently:
Here you go. "It is wrong to inflict pain on little children for your own amusement." - Reppert 
Do you see what he has done?  He chooses an example from the extreme end of the scale - one that virtually everybody agrees about - and that becomes his basis for declaring that moral judgments in general are objective facts.  It's like finding a rare bird that everybody agrees is beautiful, and then claiming on that basis that judgments about beauty are objective facts.  Many theists are willing to concede that value judgments about aesthetics are matters of opinion rather than objective fact.  But for some reason, they refuse to concede that value judgments about ethics are opinions in a similar manner.

It is easy to fall into the trap of assuming that there are objective moral truths.  Even atheist  Hugo Pelland does this here.  Perhaps the reason is that moral instincts are so strongly embedded in the human psyche.  But there is a significant difference between these two propositions:
a)  It is wrong to inflict pain on little children for your own amusement.
b)  2 + 2 = 4.
The first is dependent on who the actor is and his reasons for doing it, while the second is independent of any mind or any actor.  If we say (as many Christians do) that God is not a moral actor or that God has no moral responsibilities to humankind, for example, then it is not wrong for God to do anything, including inflicting pain on little children.  Indeed, this is the basis of many Christian theodicies that explain evil in the world created by God.  For God, causing pain and suffering is not considered to be an evil act.  Alternatively, it may be regarded as the better of two options.  In other words, such an act is deemed as necessary in order to bring about a greater good, and therefore, it's not morally wrong.  (God is a moral relativist.)  Therefore, for a Christian to state that this is an absolute moral truth is incoherent in light of his own theodicy.  The logical truth of 2 + 2 = 4, on the other hand is logically indisputable (regardless of one's inability to provide a formal proof of it).  It would still be an objectively true proposition even if there was no person or no mind to argue the case.

This highlights the difference between something that is an objective fact and something that isn't.  If there are no people, then there are no moral propositions, and no moral truths.  Animals are not moral actors because they don't comprehend right and wrong the way people do.  People are moral actors precisely because of the way we think about our actions and their consequences.  Furthermore, we don't all think the same.  We make different decisions about what is right and wrong, and yet we can have perfectly valid logical reasons for making those decisions.  That implies that absolute moral facts do not exist.

24 comments:

  1. I think there are issues with this post. For instance, as far as I know it might be that most atheists are moral realists in addition to most theists. As a result, it would be odd to identify moral realists as being practically identical to theists.

    I'll try to address more later, but for now I'll just make a comment on what appears to be your final argument mentioned:

    Argument 1:

    1. We make different decisions about what is right and wrong, and yet we can have perfectly valid logical reasons for making those decisions.
    2. If we make different decisions about what is right and wrong, and yet we can have perfectly valid logical reasons for making those decisions, then absolute moral facts do not exist.
    3. Absolute moral facts do not exist.

    What justifies the truth of the conditional in premise 2, and what exactly is premise 1 saying? I gather that premise 1 says something like this: For any moral sentence M, it is always the case that M can have some logically non contradictory defence D.

    I assume from the start that you're granting there are moral propositions. I lean towards the position that there are no moral propositions, that the sentences we utter are actually without meaning. Regardless, supposing they are propositions, it would be a problem if there could always be a logically non contradictory defence of them. However, I think what is important is whether the truth of the proposition can be derived from the defence. i.e. If M is a moral proposition, then there is a logically non contradictory defence D of M which implies the truth of M. I think this is the premise that you should want to advocate, but I don't know how you could demonstrate that it is universally true. To make premise 2 work, you need to somehow show that it is logically impossible for there to be a moral proposition without a logically non contradictory defence that implies its truth.

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    1. I would restate argument 1 as:

      1. We make different judgments about what is right and wrong, and yet we can have perfectly valid logical reasons for making those decisions.
      1a. The basis we have for making ethical judgments are called "values".
      1b. Values are a matter of personal preference (based on instinct, experience, and learning). They are not objective facts.
      2. If we make different judgments about what is right and wrong based on our own values, then those judgments are opinions and not facts.
      3. Ethical judgments are opinions, not objective facts.


      With regard to the truth of propositions, your statement If M is a moral proposition, then there is a logically non contradictory defence D of M which implies the truth of M. is not something I would care to defend. I define truth in terms of correspondence to reality. Moral propositions are statements of preference. It may be perfectly true that one person prefers one thing and another prefers something else. There is no contradiction in this.

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    2. "Moral propositions are statements of preference" this is a popular view among moral anti-realists, and it is one I believe is correct, but it would be useless to use that as a premise AGAINST moral realism unless you can establish it. Similarly, defining "values" as being a matter of personal preference is also something that needs to be established to convince the moral realist that moral realism is false. Probably, a moral realist uses a completely different definition of "Value".

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    3. I agree that it's useless to argue against moral realism. It's the same as against theism. The proponents have no basis for their claims. They simply assert that it's true. I think that to assert that these (Platonic) "objects" exist apart from a mind that conceives them is sheer fantasy. I am not in the business of proving them wrong. I am simply pointing out that such claims are baseless nonsense.

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  2. Argument 2:

    1. If there are no people, then there are no moral propositions, and no moral truths.
    2. If it is the case that (If there are no people, then there are no moral propositions, and no moral truths), then it is not the case that there are objective moral truths.
    3. Therefore, there are no objective moral truths.

    Premise 2 is fine enough since we know that it is possible for there to be no people, and we'll gladly say that if a truth if objective then it would be true regardless of whether people exist. So the issue is premise 1. What justifies the truth of the conditional? A Platonist would surely disagree. We need an argument deriving the truth of the consequent from the antecedent. Without such a proof, premise 1 fails.

    Argument 3:

    1. If it is the case that people's moral beliefs differ, then it is not the case that moral realism is true.
    2. It is the case that people's moral beliefs differ.
    3. Therefore, it is not the case that moral realism is true.

    I gather you were advocating premise 1 by this:

    "we can see that a judgment about the beauty of something is a matter of opinion rather than fact, because we understand that people don't all share the same aesthetic values and make the same judgments."

    I think there is some merit to the first premise, but it I don't see how we can derive its truth. As is often pointed out in first year ethics courses, it is an objective truth that the earth is spherical, yet it is the case that people's opinions differ on the shape of the earth. Since it is possible for a proposition to be an objective truth despite there being differing beliefs about the truth of the proposition, mere differing opinions is not sufficient to conclude that a proposition is not objectively true. We need a greater connection to show that "If moral realism is true, then it is not the case that there are different moral opinions". On the assumption that moral Platonism is true, I don't think that proposition would be true. Similarly, I don't think it would be true on many varieties of utilitarianism, deontology, or other views. On Theistic specific views the proposition might be true if we grant that "if God exists, then there would be no false moral beliefs", but otherwise I'm not sure.

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    1. I don't have a particular problem with argument 2 as stated:

      1. If there are no people, then there are no moral propositions, and no moral truths.
      2. If it is the case that (If there are no people, then there are no moral propositions, and no moral truths), then it is not the case that there are objective moral truths.
      3. Therefore, there are no objective moral truths.

      First, I should note that all propositions are statements. If there are no people (or minds), then there is nobody to make a statement. Therefore there are no propositions, moral or otherwise.

      Second, there is no truth, except as the judgment that a proposition corresponds to reality. Without a proposition, there is no truth. Reality itself has no truth value. Propositions can have truth value, depending on how they correspond to reality.

      Finally, the existence of "objective truths" is problematic, given the reasoning I outlined. I would say that there are propositions that are objectively true, but none of them are moral propositions.

      Now, I understand that a Platonist would take issue with me. I don't care to argue with them because their position (about the existence of Platonic objects such as "Truth") is not supported by any objective evidence. They can think what they want, but I'm more interested in objective reality.

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    2. I think there is some merit to the first premise, but it I don't see how we can derive its truth. As is often pointed out in first year ethics courses, it is an objective truth that the earth is spherical, yet it is the case that people's opinions differ on the shape of the earth. Since it is possible for a proposition to be an objective truth despite there being differing beliefs about the truth of the proposition, mere differing opinions is not sufficient to conclude that a proposition is not objectively true.

      The difference is that a moral proposition is a statement of opinion based on values. A proposition about the shape of the earth is not based on values - it is based on objective facts (or other data that may be objectively false). These are not matters of opinion. A major point of my article was that moral realists don't distinguish between fact and opinion.

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  3. They can think what they want, but I'm more interested in objective reality."

    You need to refute moral Platonism to make your argument successful. If your argument is successful, that moral realism is false, then moral Platonism is false. If you don't tackle views such as moral realist views, then you cannot soundly conclude that moral realism is false.

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    1. I can't prove anything, and I'm not trying to. I think beliefs should be based on objective evidence. Such evidence does not exist for any kind of Platonic objects.

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  4. "A major point of my article was that moral realists don't distinguish between fact and opinion."

    This is question begging territory. Moral realists surely distinguish between facts and opinions all the time. The issue is this:

    1. If M is a moral sentence, then M is an opinion.
    2. If M is an opinion, then M is not a fact.
    3. Therefore, if M is a moral sentence, then M is not a fact.

    The above is essentially your argument. The obvious problem with it is that moral realists do not believe premise 1 is true. If moral realism is true, then there are moral sentences and a proper subset of those moral sentences are facts. Consequently, a moral realist would not believe premise 1. The issue then is not that they refuse to acknowledge the difference between facts and opinions but rather they falsely believe a particular class of opinions are actually facts. To argue against the moral realist, you would need to somehow prove that premises 1 and 2 are true in the above argument rather than assuming they are true.

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    1. I do not base my argument on premise 1 as you stated it. That does indeed seem like question-begging. I attempted to explain the difference between values and facts. Values are inherently subjective. Whether something is (judged to be) "good" is entirely dependent on the values of the person making the judgment. Facts are inherently objective. The truth of a proposition about facts is not dependent on what anybody thinks. I asserted that moral propositions are based on values, not on objective facts.

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  5. Your mention of objective truths is unclear. You seem to be advocating the following:

    Proposition 1 - [If it is the case that propositions exist, then it is the case that utterances exist]

    Proposition 2 - [If it is the case that utterances exist, then it is the case that at least one mind exists]

    Proposition 3 – [If it is not the case that propositions exist, then it is not the case that truth exists]

    Proposition 4 – [There exists some propositions which are objectively true]

    It isn’t clear to me what proposition 4 means. If propositions 1 through 3 are true, then what exactly does it mean to say a proposition is “Objectively true”? You’ve used a bare minimum correspondence theory of truth by saying that “If a proposition is true, then it corresponds to reality”. Following propositions 1, 2 and 3, it seems the following conditions are necessary if a proposition is true:

    1. The proposition corresponds to reality.
    2. The proposition exists.
    3. Utterances exists.
    4. At least one mind exists.

    Following that, what would it mean for a proposition to be “objectively true” rather than just “true”? Generally, to say a proposition is “objectively true” is to say that the proposition is true independently from whether any person believes it to be true. Is this what you mean? It’s not clear to me that this is what you mean because you appear to be saying that the notion of “objective truth” is “Problematic” given propositions 1 through 3. If “Objective truth” means “P is true even if no minds exist” then propositions 1 through 3 would simply rule out objective truth from the onset.

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    1. I have tried to be careful in my choice of words. I don't conflate between the idea that a proposition is objectively true and the idea that objective truth exists (as some kind of independent entity). Truth is always a judgment about the correspondence of a proposition with reality. If there are no propositions, there is no truth.

      If I say that something is objectively true, it means that the proposition in question is based on objective facts. A proposition based on opinions or values rather than facts cannot be objectively true.

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  6. You restated argument 1, but frankly every premise seems unclear to me. For instance, I still don’t know what you mean by “perfectly valid logical reasons”. Here are my interpretations of what you want to argue:

    First interpretation:

    1. If absolute moral facts exist, then it is possible that ethical judgments be grounded in facts.
    2. All ethical judgments are grounded in values.
    3. All values are subjective preferences.
    4. Therefore, all ethical judgments are grounded in subjective preferences.
    5. No judgments grounded in subjective preferences are grounded in facts.
    6. Therefore, no ethical judgment is grounded in facts.
    7. If it is possible that ethical judgments be grounded in facts, then there is at least one ethical judgment which is grounded in facts.
    8. Therefore, it is not the case that it is possible that ethical judgments be grounded in facts.
    9. Therefore, it is not the case that absolute moral facts exist.

    Ethical judgment – [E is an ethical judgment about a sentence M from a person S only if M is a moral sentence and E is S’s reason for believing M is true or false]

    Second interpretation:

    1. If absolute moral facts exist, then it is not the case that all reasons for believing moral sentences are true or false have equal epistemic justification.
    2. For any moral sentence, every reason to believe the sentence is true or believe the sentence is false is a reason based on values.
    3. Any reason based on values is a reason based on subjective preferences.
    4. Any reason based on subjective preferences is an opinion rather than a fact.
    5. All reasons based on opinion rather than fact have equal epistemic justification.
    6. Therefore, for any moral sentence, every reason to believe the sentence is true or believe the sentence is false is a reason based on subjective preferences.
    7. Therefore, all reasons for believing moral sentences are opinions rather than facts.
    8. true or false have equal epistemic justification.
    9. Therefore, it is not the case that absolute moral facts exist.

    Numbering your premises is a good start at making your arguments more clear. However, you need to define terms sometimes, and as annoying as it might be you might want to consider rewording propositions.

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    1. This is why I prefer science to philosophy. I'm making a simple common-sense case that moral propositions are opinions, not facts. In turning my argument into a syllogism, you invariably insert statements that I never said, and don't mean to imply.

      For example:
      7. If it is possible that ethical judgments be grounded in facts, then there is at least one ethical judgment which is grounded in facts.
      I wouldn't say that. If it is possible that ethical judgments be grounded in facts, then it is possible, but not necessarily true that there is at least one ethical judgment which is grounded in facts. I don't understand how you derive your statement 7 from anything I said, and I can't defend it.

      5. All reasons based on opinion rather than fact have equal epistemic justification.
      I avoided talking about epistemic justification with respect to moral judgments. I think that gets into a quagmire. People have opinions about opinions (as in "I think your moral values are bad.") I can't defend a statement like your 5.

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  7. "If it is possible that ethical judgments be grounded in facts, then it is possible"

    What does it mean to say "It is possible that ethical judgments be grounded in facts"? What notion of possibility are you using?

    I understand you're trying to make a common sense case against moral realism, but if your arguments are logically invalid, or they have false premises, or the arguments literally have meaningless premises (Which it appears yours do), then your arguments will fail. I insert statements you never said because your arguments on their own are plainly invalid and apparently without meaning in some respects.

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    1. Hold on. That's not my argument. It's your formulation of my argument that I already said I couldn't defend because it doesn't reflect what I actually said or what I would say.

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  8. "I avoided talking about epistemic justification with respect to moral judgments. I think that gets into a quagmire. People have opinions about opinions (as in "I think your moral values are bad.") I can't defend a statement like your 5."

    OK, if you aren't talking about epistemic justification, then what are you intending to assert by saying the following?

    "We make different decisions about what is right and wrong, and yet we can have perfectly valid logical reasons for making those decisions"

    Whatever you mean there you claim it IMPLIES absolute moral facts do not exist.

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    1. What I mean is that we can have good reasons for the opinions we hold. It doesn't imply that those opinions are right or wrong, or that they correspond to "true beliefs" in an epistemological sense.

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  9. "If I say that something is objectively true, it means that the proposition in question is based on objective facts. A proposition based on opinions or values rather than facts cannot be objectively true"

    So a proposition being true is to say a proposition corresponds with reality, and a proposition being objectively true is to say a proposition is based on objective facts. What is the difference here, if anything? Can a proposition correspond with reality but not be based on objective facts? Can a proposition be based on objective facts yet not correspond with reality? Is a "Fact" any feature that corresponds with reality that can be expressed in a propositional form?

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    1. I don't distinguish particularly between a 'proposition being objectively true" and a proposition "based on objective facts". I do distinguish between fact and opinion. Surely you know the difference.

      A discussion of the shape of the planet is based on objective fact. We can quibble about what constitutes a sphere, but once we settle on a definition, then we can say that the earth either fits that definition, or it doesn't - and this is not a matter of opinion. On the other hand, we might discuss whether gay people should be allowed to marry. There is no objective fact of the universe by which we can test our proposition to say it is true or not true. It is a matter of opinion. The only "standard" we could have is to ask people what they think.

      There shouldn't be anything controversial about this. It's quite straight-forward.

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  10. Here are some introductory books by a moral realist:

    https://ethicalrealism.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/introduction-to-moral-philosophy-09032011.pdf

    https://ethicalrealism.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/god3.pdf

    You might be taking an emotivist view, but you also might be advocating a moral relativist view. It's hard to say. Regardless, there are many different views on moral realism and moral anti-realism, and further topics to discuss such as moral motivation, moral judgments, and moral theory debates (Like Deontology v Consequentialism).

    Probably, you have heard of John Mackie if it's the case that you have been involved in discussing on the logical problem of evil. Mackie was partly known for a defence of moral error theory which you can find here:

    https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-anti-realism/moral-error-theory.html

    Also relevant:

    https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-anti-realism/index.html



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  11. "In turning my argument into a syllogism, you invariably insert statements that I never said, and don't mean to imply."

    This, btw, is a problem. If turning your argument into a "Syllogism" requires adding sentences which you did not assert nor intend to assert, then the argument was simply invalid from the start or was worded too poorly to be understood without making interpretations of the argument. Even if an argument is presented informally, if the argument is logically valid then you should be able to pick out the premises and conclusion to form a logically valid formal argument. e.g. you should be able to go from an informal paragraph form to a more formal form where all the premises are numbered, the conclusion is numbered and all the statements in the argument are listed horizontally.

    Numbering the statements in your argument and listing the inferences done should not be avoided. It's the most effective way of presenting an argument. Presenting an argument with a formal language such as a first order predicate logic would not be effective outside of an audience of philosophers, mathematicians, and some scientists, but making your argument more formal without the use of a secondary language would be useful even for lay persons. Informal logic books are partly required precisely because informal methods of presenting arguments make it mysterious as to what the premises and conclusion actually are. People will be trained to look for conclusion indicators such as "Since, therefore, because of...", but that could largely be avoided if people would simply explicitly list their premises, conclusions and inferences.

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    1. That's fine. If you want to formulate a formal syllogism from my argument, you should start with things I actually said. My argument was mainly about the difference between fact and opinion, or between objective and subjective, and your syllogisms don't seem to reflect that.

      Start by defining the difference between fact and opinion (this is something that I spent quite a few words on), and then trying to show that moral judgements more closely fit the definition of opinion, not objective fact.

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