Today's question: What does morality do?
If I tell someone that I don't believe in any sort of morality, I tend to get a response of shock and "moral panic". After the shock wears off, the arguments range from "how do you get out of bed in the morning?" to "that's what destroyed the Roman Empire". The consensus seems to be that if everyone were like me, the results would be terrible. So, I ask you, what are you afraid of?
Is it something physical? You might be afraid that without morality, our societies would destroy themselves in a civil war of greed. If that's what morality gives us, what separates it from mere practicality, or "advanced common sense"? What you're really afraid of is not that I'm discarding spiritual truth, but that I'm not smart enough to predict the consequences of my actions. It's a valid concern, but a physical concern.
Is it something emotional? Are you afraid that without a sense of universal good and evil, everyone would become depressed, apathetic drones? Then what separates morality from psychoactive drugs? It may be a natural remedy, and it may help me not depend on others for emotional support, but it doesn't have eternal, universal significance.
Is it something spiritual? Are you concerned for my soul? As I read it, Christian salvation doesn't come from morality, but from belief. Righteous behavior flows out from belief in God, but where does a belief in morality itself fit into the equation? If I don't believe in God, what spiritual difference would it make if I valued morality?
Maybe morality has some of those effects, but also has deep significance for other reasons. But then the shock and fear have nothing to do with its significance. If that's your stance, I can't argue, but don't pretend the fear is righteous. It's just pragmatic.
Please say what you mean, and stop hiding behind vague terminology and intellectual laziness. What you're hiding from is personal responsibility.
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5 comments:
David,
I think what most people mean when they fear subjectivistm is that they fear nihilism. They fear the idea that without a correct moral system binding on all and all alike, that the very notion of moral discussion (and moral oughts) will disappear.
I also think that people do not like the idea that strong moral opinions they have (raping is wrong, war is wrong, communism is wrong) may really only be their moral opinions (not absolute moral facts that everyone else would see if they only opened their eyes). People do not like being told that things they feel strongly about ar emore opinion than fact.
They fear the idea that without a correct moral system binding on all and all alike, that the very notion of moral discussion (and moral oughts) will disappear.
Of course that's the immediate fear, but it's about as true as the claim that without one world language, nobody could communicate. We can only ever understand each other if we have common ground to begin with, but that's an effect of degrees and not black-and-white. Absolute morality, from this perspective, is a misguided attempt to suppress and ignore individual differences to prevent some supposed intellectual armageddon.
People do not like being told that things they feel strongly about are more opinion than fact.
Definitely true, but many times morality is just a shortcut between distantly related facts, not a radical new way of thinking.
I like that you said "more opinion than fact", because I think it's somewhere in between: calling them "opinions" is almost as misleading as calling them "facts". It's the nihilist extreme. There's a huge correspondence between widely held moral principles and unadorned common sense, e.g. there's almost no way to argue with a statement like "killing all life on the planet is wrong".
People are afraid to let their beliefs be called "opinions" because they don't realize how much respect we have for "opinions". It's an arms race for them. If we offered to burn half of the money in circulation, but only burn 1/3 of their own money, they'd still complain.
"I like that you said "more opinion than fact", because I think it's somewhere in between: calling them "opinions" is almost as misleading as calling them "facts"."
This is where I think JL Mackie's error theory is helpful. We don't USE words like "right" and "wrong" as opinion statements, so moral statemetns FUNCTION like fact statements. But until someone can demonstrate that "right," "wrong," "good," and "bad" have some objective existence, or can be objectively true about actions or objects (at very least falsifiable), then they seem to have more in common with OPINION words like "beautiful" and "cold."
Dear David:
Greetings, from a friend of Kevin's. I noticed your discussion with Kevin and thought I'd chime in.
I can certainly understand that people react to your statement that you don't "believe in any sort of morality" with incredulity. Perhaps the feeling arises out of failing to understand what you mean by such a thing.
Consider an example, such as, "Killing another human being without justification is immoral." If someone walked up to me and said they didn't believe in such "silly moralisms," I might be afraid, and I think my fright would be especially justified if that someone were carrying, say, a cleaver.
To answer the question, "What does morality do?", it seems to me that morality functions to informally regulate human relations in the absence of formal regulations. For example, in the "Western World" it is illegal (as far as I know) to kill another human being without justification. That would be an example of a formal human regulation.
So, I suppose that I would say that I'd be concerned about human relations in places where people do not recognize morality where those places also lack formal human regulation. For example, it is a constituent of my own personal morality that it is immoral to saw a human being's head off for political purposes just because that person hails from a geographical location that I happen to believe is "the Great Satan."
I'm not sure what I'd call my belief, but I'd not call it physical, emotional, or spiritual. Instead, I suppose I'd call it rational.
In any case, I just completed a rather lengthy post responding to some of Kevin's recent thoughts on the "objectivist vs. subjectivist" debate within metaethics that you are welcome to join.
http://benjaminhayek.blogspot.com/2009/03/kevin-currie-on-moral-subjectivism.html
Best,
Ben
So, I suppose that I would say that I'd be concerned about human relations in places where people do not recognize morality where those places also lack formal human regulation.
So could I say that your concern is mostly physical and maybe somewhat emotional? Formal regulation's purpose is to prevent physical problems and foster an emotional sense of security. If actual regulation could be a substitute for morality, then there must be some overlap in their purposes. Would you say there's some difference, or could perfect regulation replace morality? Since regulation is supposed to be a practical tool, would you say perfect intelligence could replace morality?
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