Moral skepticism and "walking the talk"

Question

It would seem that a substantial minority of philosophers agree with the moral anti-realist position that we have a problem going from "is" to "ought"--that there is no objective correlate of the moral principles humanity deems normative.(1)

Why, then, do the overwhelming majority of philosophers seem content to let their own lives be ruled by these quite inexplicable values? You rarely(2) see a philosopher live according to a religious faith that he acknowledges has no basis in reality. And yet living by moral values, which are arguably just as unexplained and unproven as the most fabulous religion, seems to present no problem for these philosophers.(3) Please explain where the distinction lies.

Is it that:

• They acknowledge there is some as-yet-unknown reason that morality is "true" and therefore binding?

• They subscribe to one or more classical answers to Hume's question (e.g. Kant, Mill and Bentham) and proceed from there?

• It is some sort of Pascal's Wager: "If they are true, then we really need to. If they are not, then it doesn't hurt."

• They don't really feel it is right nor necessary to behave morally, but do so because there are subjective advantages?

• They don't think it is necessary in general to "walk the walk" of their philosophical conclusions?

I think that all but the second idea above may be at least partly contradicted by my religion example. Is my second idea, then, correct? Is some other explanation correct? Or could this be an example of inconsistency in belief and/or action by certain philosophers? (4)

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(1)Of course, many have suggested solutions to the is-ought problem; some, like Ayn Rand, have excused themselves entirely. I overwhelmingly sympathize, believing, for my own part, that the is-ought gap may be bridged by the naturalistic phenomenon of pain. But let us look for a minute at the many who think it is not so simple. (2) It seems there are interesting exceptions. (3) It could be that some philosophers, perhaps Nietzsche, aspired or did in fact live according to a prima facie rejection of moral values. Are there any others? (4) I realize there are many potential technical problems with what I have just written and I ask you to forgive me for not being an expert in this field, and to focus on the question you think I am aiming to ask rather than the question I have asked.

Answer 1

Psychology

I don't think a philosophy site is the best place to explain the psychology of philosophers' practical stance(s) towards morality. But some response can be made.

Fact/ value distinction

If moral realism is right, then values and valuations are facts or factual, so that there is no logical bridge-crossing from [factual] 'is' to [factual] 'ought'. For whatever reason, a large number of philosophers subscribe to some version of moral realism. In which case there is no is/ ought gap or problem for them.

Reading (below) : DeLapp, Putnam.

Hume's emotivism

Hume assumes a fact/ value distinction and responds that while logically we cannot derive an 'ought' from an 'is' (if there are no normative premises there can be no validly deduced normative conclusion), this is besides the point morally.

Hume observes that 'Morality ... is more properly felt than judg'd of' (A Treatise of Human Nature, III.1.2). We can continue to use the term 'moral judgement' as long as we realise that a moral judgement does not refer, despite appearances, to 'real' moral properties in a mind-independent world. Rather, a moral judgement expresses emotions (or 'sentiments'). Not just any emotions one happens to feel, however. Very far from it. It must express a moral emotion. And for a emotion to count as a moral emotion, there are two prerequisites or conditions.

Moral judgement - condition 1

Hume stresses that :

it is often necessary, we find, that much reasoning should precede, that nice distinctions be made, just conclusions drawn, distant comparisons formed, complicated relations examined, and general facts fixed and ascertained. (Hume, An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, I.)

Briefly put, moral judgement requires that we ascertain the empirical facts about a situation, distinguish them, see what they appear to imply, make sure that we are reflecting on the precise situation at hand and not on one merely deceptively similar to it, draw on relevant historical parallels : and so on. We need an accurate factual fix on the situation. Moral judgement is no flip emotional reaction; it needs to be factually informed.

But does Hume offer no criteria for just how much information, of what exact reliability, we need ? Partly, I think, he assumes that in many case we can use sociocultural standards to determine the degree of rigour and the extent of evidence required in making a moral judgement. Importantly, he doesn't leave us merely floating in this boat, however. In the Treatise of Human Nature, II.1.3 he lays down rules for the scrutiny of evidence, probability, and belief.

Moral judgement - condition 2

That is one condition for moral judgement. The other is that we must take a third party point of view. Of the moral agent, who judges, Hume says :

He must here, therefore, depart from his private and particular situation, and must choose a point of view, common to him with others. (Hume, An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, IX.1)

When these two conditions are met, we experience 'certain peculiar sentiments of pain and pleasure' - of approbation and disapprobation. Briefly, moral judgements express our sentiments - our emotional reactions - of approbation and disapprobation under these conditions. Moral judgement is causal through emotion, not cognitive through reason.

The role of sympathy in human nature and moral judgement

The whole picture rests on a picture of human nature as containing a capacity for sympathy which enables us (in Hume's language) to depart from our private and particular situations and take the standpoint of what Adam Smith would later call 'the impartial spectator' (Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, I.5). In this detached, third-person perspective, and factually informed, we experience the moral emotions which we express in moral judgements.

In a distinction which Hume draws between the natural and the artificial virtues, the arousal of sympathy occurs less directly in the case of the artificial virtues than in that of the natural. But sympathy is still the key to both. (Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, III.2.1.)

In view of all this, there is no logical bridge-crossing in Hume's ethical theory any more than there is, on very different grounds, for the moral realist.

Reading (below) : Hume online references, Cohon, Harrison, Mackie, Adam Smith online reference, Thomas.

Theory and practice

If ethics is a theoretical discipline, a philosopher can quite properly scrutinise it philosophically without any practical requirement to act on it. I could study political philosophy without any political involvements and without seeing myself as having any practical commitment to engage in political action. The same holds for ethics. One may regard it as an outmoded way of thinking, and the moral life a mere curiosity, yet still do deep and intricate conceptual and logical work on both. Work on which one closes the door when one leaves one's study and walks away without walking the walk.

Reading (below) : Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Bk X, where contemplation (theoria), detached from practice, is given priority over moral action. (This interpretation of Aristotle is defensible but open to dispute but it has certainly informed a stream of philosophical thinking which denies practical relevance to philosophy. Aristotle did not go so far as that.)

Amoralism and rational choice

This leaves only your philosophers who 'don't really feel it is right nor necessary to behave morally, but do so because there are subjective advantages'. May they not be rational choosers (subscribers to Rational Choice Theory) who act morally, at least so far as concerns behaviour and without any sense of duty or obligation, because in any of a number of ways it 'pays' ? Their position is foreshadowed by Glaucon's account of morality (though not his own position) in Plato, Republic, Bk II.

Reading (below) : Plato, Republic : https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1497/1497-h/1497-h.htm & J. Baron, Morality and Rational Choice, SBN 10: 0792322762 / ISBN 13: 9780792322764. Published by Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publ., 1993

Reading __________________________________________________________________

Online

Plato, Republic : https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1497/1497-h/1497-h.htm.

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics : https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/nicomachean/

David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, 1739-40 : https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4705/4705-h/4705-h.htm

David Hume, An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, 1751/ 1777 ed. : https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4320/4320-h/4320-h.htm.

Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759 : https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/smith1759.pdf.

Books

J. Baron, Morality and Rational Choice, SBN 10: 0792322762 / ISBN 13: 9780792322764. Published by Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publ., 1993.

R. Cohon, Hume's Morality: Feeling and Fabrication, ISBN 10: 019959497X / ISBN 13: 9780199594979 Published by Oxford University Press, U.S.A., 2012.

Kevin DeLapp, Moral Realism, ISBN 10: 144116118X / ISBN 13: 9781441161185 Published by Bloomsbury Academic, 2013.

J. Harrison, Hume's Moral Epistemology, ISBN 10: 0198750374 / ISBN 13: 9780198750376 Published by Oxford University Press, 1976.

J.L. Mackie, Hume's Moral Theory, ISBN 10: 0710005253 / ISBN 13: 9780710005250 Published by Routledge, 1980.

H. Putnam, The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy and Other Essays, ISBN 10: 0674013808 / ISBN 13: 9780674013803 Published by Harvard University Press, 2004.

Geoffrey Thomas, An Introduction to Ethics, ISBN 10: 0715624318 / ISBN 13: 9780715624319 Published by Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd, 1997 : 53-8 [Hume].

Answer 2

I will answer this by some examples. These examples will be a challenge to a naive interpretation of is-ought problem. Then I will produce another interpretation consistent with explanations on given examples.

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You ought to follow the law. Otherwise you will be punished.

Here is part is the one prescribing the punishment. It is interesting it is prescriptive being descriptive at the same time. The law-giver gives an ought to self making this claim. It stands as a foundation for the ought part.

You ought to follow the law. Nothing will happen to you if you do not, though.

This time it becomes arguable if this statement itself has any meaning. What's the point in making laws without a punishment? Putting "because" in the second sentence will result in non sequitur.

You ought to follow the law.

Since the second part is meaningless we get rid of it. The reaction of someone unfamiliar with a system of laws could be "Why?" if that person could speak English. This means ought seeks a justification. Ought cannot be justified by ought.

You ought to follow the law. Because everyone ought to follow the law.

A person might ask why is everyone ought to follow the law. No ought you produce will be a proper justification. You ought to use is for the justification.

I saw no successful normative theory having no justification. Ten commandments presuppose punishment, Kant has a pretty long explanation why CI should be followed, virtue ethicists use virtues for the justificiation. The list can be continued, but should it? One can produce an ought statement without justification. But I have not seen a successful one.

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Now to your 4 points.

They acknowledge there is some as-yet-unknown reason that morality is "true" and therefore binding?

Sometimes, yes. People just have similar attitudes and behave in similar ways because they think in similar ways. But not all of them and we see it in the existence of different normative theories, challenging each others. This is an approach explained in Geoffrey's answer.

They subscribe to one or more classical answers to Hume's question (e.g. Kant, Mill and Bentham) and proceed from there?

I am not aware of Kant's answer on is-ought. It is true, though, he didn't believe everyone would accept his Categorical Imperative, thus in some sense agreeing with Hume. Otherwise he would not think about theory of justice. Mill's solution uses oughts as solutions for desires, method capable of fulfilling them. But one does not need to be a consequentialist to think this way.

They don't really feel it is right nor necessary to behave morally, but do so because there are subjective advantages?

There are enough people who do not break laws (prescripting something more than a small fine) only because the do not want to be imprisoned or severely punished in any other way. But not only a punishment can be such force making those people behave in ways others want them to behave. There also is a reward. Anf those people, if reward is seen by them great enough, will gladly do what other want from them.

They don't think it is necessary in general to "walk the walk" of their philosophical conclusions?

Again, any necessity follows from a reason. people do not "walk the walk" without a reason, but they can follow rules they have been taught just because they get used to it and it is more comfortable for them to behave the way they have been taught.

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What exactly can is-ought problem stand for, then? I would in fact call this problem is-is problem, stating that different people can have different views on the world and thus when one person sees a justification, another may not. And it is common undestanding of this problem: "Why is someone ought to have any particular goal?", that's the common question and interpretation. Do we try to persuade serial killers what they do, the goals they have, is wrong? If they are serial killers, probably, it is too late and it does not work. Therefore we just imprison them, escaping ought. It is too late to speak in the terms of ought. Those people ignored empathy, common morals and not even a threat of punishment could stop them.

So, you can't use an explanation to justify your oughts universally, for everyone. An unsatisfactory justification problem (however, this can be extended beyond ethics). And this is how is-ought problem can be interpreted.

Answer 3

Keeping it very simple: some who are moral non-realists (such as myself) act in ways that could be called "morally" just out of personal preference. I greatly dislike causing harm or suffering to those that can feel it, and so I make a point to not do that, even if it means my inconvenience, though I'm not quite as I would like to be (I could always get better with my purchasing decisions, for example).

Maybe this is covered by your point about "subjective advantages"?

Answer 4

Why not?

Why, then, do the overwhelming majority of philosophers seem content to let their own lives be ruled by these quite inexplicable values?

Because why not? The is-ought problem doesn't just apply to morality, but also to rational choices. So, if no action is more rational than another, why not follow a live by quite inexplicable values? It's no more or less rational than, say, hedonism, for example.

In particular, just as there is no binding force making people be moral, there is likewise no binding force making people be amoral.

If you accept that there are no rational choices and no binding forces, you are essentially accepting that your brain is governed by the laws of psychology (and indirectly, the laws of physics). So the question of "will I be a moral person" becomes a scientific problem, a problem whose answer is partially yes, because that's just how humans work, but also partially no, because that is also how humans work.

Answer 5

You might enjoy this short article

A phrase I've seen, which I like, is normative "authoritative reasons" (I've meant to read this book for years now; it discusses the phrase in relation to Mackie's skeptical argument from queerness).

I can't speak for philosophers at all, but:

1. without any authoritative norms at all (Bernard Williams says that desires etc. count but others disagree) I'm really sure how anything can have value.

2. it would be unspeakable to "walk the walk" and be wrong, so why risk it? Especially for your metaphysics.

Answer 6

The overall notion of social construction allows for a morally anti-realist position that still respects the current state of human decision making as a useful reference. Science does not know anything, absolutely, and yet it can predict how things work because it has made observations and continually adapted its expectations to meet them.

All other negotiated human decision-making systems similarly lack access to any ultimate reality, but have continually adapted to the observations of other humans. They are the overall consensus of a large composite intelligence that is likely to continually improve its ability to make useful decisions.

Observing that science works, and works well, without presupposing upon anything absolute, why is it hard to understand how most of us can accept a similar approach to morals?