Moral Realism
View: Moral anti-realism; Confidence: Medium; Importance: High
Objection 1: The strength of moral intuitions
My view
I reject universal morality. If there is a reason for someone to do something, then they must have some desire that would be served by doing it. This is called the Humean Theory of Reasons (HTR). Personally, I have desires to do nice things, like reduce suffering. These desires give me reason to act in a “moral” way, and I try my best to live-up to my own values.
However, it’s not hard to imagine a less nice person who was happy to inflict suffering on others. The sociopath might misbehave, say by stealing whenever they could get away with it or purposefully stepping on bugs. The HTR says that such a person would not have any reason to refrain from these behaviors.
Nonetheless, you will still catch me saying things like “that sociopath shouldn’t step on bugs.” What do I mean?
- Sometimes, I might feel-in-my-bones that the sociopath is doing something objectively wrong. My considered view is that I am mistaken in such moments.
- Sometimes, I don’t really mean anything other than a vague negative affect towards the person or behavior.
- Sometimes, I am saying that these behaviors conflict with my personal values.
I think most would call this view ethical subjectivism.
Objection 1: The strength of moral intuitions
HTR seems true to me. However, it also seems true to me that, regardless of who you are, it is always wrong to kill a random person for fun (WRONG-KARP-FUN). Since these two seemingly true statements are in conflict, I choose to reject WRONG-KARP-FUN to preserve HTR.
Those who disagree with me might argue that HTR is wrong. This would mean that some reasons for action, like moral reasons, are independent of the desires of actor. They might go to to argue that WRONG-KARP-FUN is a stronger intuition than HTR. If surveyed, I suspect belief in WRONG-KARP-FUN would be more universal than HTR. WRONG-KARP-FUN would seem immediately obvious to most people, whereas HTR would require at least some reflection. You will still catch those who choose HTR over WRONG-KARP-FUN talking as if they believe WRONG-KARP-FUN. The converse is much less common, suggesting more cognitive dissonance among HTR believers.
In a similar vein, I noted in the prior section that I frequently use language that seems to appeal to universal morality, despite claiming that I reject universal morality. I provided several explanations for this apparent contradiction, and one of them was that my use of such language was often mistaken. Why do I keep making the same “mistake” over-and-over again? Maybe it is not a mistake.
Prior views
Prior to 2009, I was a moral realist. Specifically, I was an advocate of the libertarian non-aggression principle (NAP), which states that the initiation of the use of force is always wrong. I believed this principle could be justified by appealing to an axiom of self-ownership. We all have an absolute right to be the exclusive controller of our own bodies. The use of force can only be justified as a means of protecting that right. The NAP was the basis for all moral claims. If an action violated the NAP, it was immoral. If an action did not violate the NAP, it was okay. I tried my best to accept all NAP implications, no matter how strange. In short, I was a hardcore deontologist.
I believed this moral system must be true, because all other moral systems were necessarily self-contradictory. This idea of proof via performative contradiction was popular among the “philosophers” I was reading at the time. As this ethical system was built on logical consistency, as opposed to intuition, it led me to advocate for positions that were both impractical and horrific. Whoops.
I abandoned these beliefs after realizing that logical consistency was a poor basis for a moral system. It turns out that it is very easy to create logically consistent moral systems. For example, a system where the only rule is “do whatever you want, provided that you are able” is logically consistent. Mere consistency isn’t a good reason to abide by a system of moral theory.