Justification for the Moral Ought

Question

For this question, I would like to take the axiom of moral realism, as defined by SEP:

moral claims do purport to report facts and are true if they get the facts right. Moreover, they hold, at least some moral claims actually are true.

If I am correct, it seems that one could be a moral realist and believe that morality has no normative force, so the moral ought must be justified further, it is not entailed from moral realism.

I can think of two formulations of the normativity of morality:

1. Moral oughts, i.e. you ought to do/be x because x is morally good.

2. Rational oughts from moral facts, In as far as you ought to be rational based on non-moral facts, you ought to be rational based on moral facts, just as you act in a certain way because the sky is blue, you should act a certain way because x is wrong.

I do not accept formulation 1, for reasons articulated by many philosophers, one among them Schopenhauer:

That ought has any sense [Sinn] and meaning [Bedeutung] at all only in relation to threatened punishment or promised reward. Thus, long before Kant was thought of, Locke already says: ‘For since it would be utterly in vain, to suppose a rule set to the free actions of man, without annexing to it some enforcement of good and evil to determine his will; we must, where-ever we suppose a law, suppose also some reward or punishment annexed to that law.’ (On Understanding, Bk. II, ch. 33, §6). So the ought is necessarily conditioned by punishment or reward [...]. But once those conditions are thought away the concept of ought remains empty of sense. (BM §4, 123)

And further arguments from this paper

I also don't accept formulation 2. Firstly, it is not clear to me that one ought to be rational ¹. But even if I take the axiom that one ought to be rational, would that entail obeying the moral principles?

Rationality: the purely internal matter of having one’s mind in good order, regardless of how this matches up to external facts. As Kolodny describes it, rationality is “about the relation between your attitudes, viewed in abstraction from the reasons for them.”¹

It's not clear to me that it is more rational to obey moral principles than it is not to. One can just as easily have a coherent set of beliefs that result in action that does not act in accordance with the moral truths. For example, using non-moral facts, my coherent set of beliefs could entail that I act as if the sky is not blue, if this disposition was altogether better for me. It isn't clear to me why this would be irrational.

So my questions are, have I missed any formulations for the normativity of moral beliefs, and what reasons do moral realists have for believing morality has normative force? Further, I wonder how common it is for a moral realist to not believe it entails normative force?

Answer 1

One manifestation of this question (in mainline analytic philosophy, anyway) is the matter of Scanlon's "buck-passing" account of value (see also Suikkanen[??]). More generally, then, often enough there is a stipulative equation, or at least inclusion, of "ought" and (under) "reason." Now when reasons are discussed in this way, it is as if they are being quantified over, so there is some difference between, "I have a reason to do A," and, "It is rational for me to do A." Perhaps not a terribly deep chasm between them, and besides which I'm sure there are plenty of abstract bridges across anyway, maybe so many that the chasm is almost totally filled in as it is. (For example, it could be that "is rational" is code for "have the most reasons to do A" or "have the strongest reasons to do A.")

So in another sense, a moral realist could have a "clinically detached" attitude towards their knowledge (such as it is, if it is), at least on one level. Something about the ability to be "meditative" about ethical questions could separate motivation from intellection, here. Yet there still seem to be ways to translate various simple imperative codes into operations in deontic logic proper, so I would think that what is at stake is not all relevant motivation whatsoever, but the intensity of the motivation on different levels of consideration/attention. If I say, "Do this," and you ask, "Why do that?" and then I do provide a sincere answer, if you did not mean to do whatever it is that I said to do, if I gave you a sufficient "why," then why would you ask "why" in the first place?^A

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^AI realize that it will seem like your actual (OP) question is not sufficiently answered in this way. For you would ask, "But so is a moral statement like, 'Because it's wrong,' a substantive 'why' in any event?" But this was my reason(!) for invoking deontic logic: for there, we can start from (among many other things) "why" as structurally coinciding with OB (for obligation) and SR (for supererogation, if we have it), or then the whole gamut of the operators. And so by situating the concept of "a reason to do something" inside a network of deontic operators, one just constructs the "ought" (and the possibly quite different "must") that is generally at stake.

Lastly, the role of the notions of rewards, punishments, forgiveness, apologizing, and redemption in the fundamental definition of ethical terms (if there is any such fundamental defining to be done), is not so evident as Schopenhauer (or J. S. Mill, for that matter) proclaim. For Kant, for example, the sense of "ought" is actually a shorthand for "would, if" and he says "if reason determined my will entirely." Does this have anything to do with punishment or reward in the way of definitive characteristics of moral concepts? There is even a transcendental illusion in that the concepts of punishment and redemption are themselves the ones that are not definable without a prior sense of "may" and "must" and the like.

Answer 2

2. Rational oughts from moral facts, In as far as you ought to be rational based on non-moral facts, you ought to be rational based on moral facts, just as you act in a certain way because the sky is blue, you should act a certain way because x is wrong.

The way an ideally rational person arrives at a belief is:

1. They consider some evidence and arguments
2. Based on their current beliefs and the evidence, and based on rational standards, they decide if they would prefer to adopt some different set of beliefs proposed in the argument, instead of their current ones.
3. Goto 1.

The theoretical outcome of this process, after infinite repetitions - or more precisely, in the limit as all the evidence and arguments are considered - is some set of beliefs.

We would hope that this ultimate set of beliefs is the truth - or the most rational approximation to the truth as can be known from available evidence.

This same notion can be easily applied to moral truths. Theoretically, in the limit, what would the ideally rational person adopt as their belief about "I should do X"? That's a factual, well-founded question, assuming we can specify what "rational standards" the ideally rational person is applying in step 2. Specifying those standards can't be done at present, but does not seem completely impossible to do at some future point. Philosophers have been discussing what does or does not count as rational for thousands of years, and in many areas a consensus has emerged which seems objective. Cognitive science may also help reveal fundamental principles of how thought works.

So, in some sense you have your answer: what's moral is what an ideally rational person would conclude is moral if they spent forever thinking about it. As a theoretical curiosity, done and done. "Ought" has been reduced to "is."

(Although there is the possibility that the ideally rational person would in the end conclude nothing is moral or immoral, but at least that would then be an objective fact; the only moral fact.)

But although that's theoretically sound, of course it is not really enough of an answer. You want some idea of what the ideally rational person's specific beliefs would actually end up being.

Well, let me give one perspective. When we hear moral arguments, we may be persuaded to change the way that we act; we change our preferences. You learn about slaves in diamond mines in Africa, and you might be motivated not to buy diamonds mined in that way. And this subsequent motivation is better-informed, and thus in some sense simply better, than the previous one.

Preferences change when you realize what the consequences of that preference would be, and realize you do not prefer those consequences. Preferences can also change when you realize two of your preferences are inconsistent with each other; you might have "I should love my neighbor," and "I hate that guy," both in your box of preferences, not playing nice with each other. You're going to have to get rid of one of them or find some synthesis.

What would our preferences end up being, in the limit of such a process? How would the ideally rational person prefer to behave, after an infinity of contemplation? We may suppose this infinity passed in a dream, and then they opened their eyes and resumed living.

One possibility is they would desire nothing - they would be completely indifferent to all states of affairs, and if they had a human body they would die from not having any preference to eat or even breathe.

One possibility is that they would be selfish. They would care only for their own pleasure.

But a third possibility is that they would desire to act in ways that improve the world generally. They would see no reason why one single entity should be privileged over all the other entities. They would desire for the world to be more kind, just, and honest, and to strive towards greater heights of discovery, so everyone can be as enlightened as they are.

And if the third possibility happens to be the case, we would be justified in defining "morality" to be the preferences of the ideally rational being. Morality as preferences-in-the-limit. Morality as what you would want, if you knew more.

Answer 3

Your question is a legitimate one. One can accept moral realism, AND reject moral behavior. However, this is a rare position, most questioning of the derivation of "ought" question moral realism, for the reasons alluded to in the other answers. Your focus on rationality, and its Analytic approach to philosophy, is part of the problem you are encountering.

The basic issue you have raised is that one cannot close the logical argument from facts to actions. This is not just true of MORAL facts though. It is true of all facts, and even of the possibility OF "facts". One of the more important statements of the problem is the Munchausen Trilemma. Per the Trilemma, all of our justifications do not close, other than in fallacies. See this answer on the Munchausen Trilemma. https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/a/64646/29339 Our justifications all break down, if questioned thoroughly enough. Analyticity requires unquestionable "givens", and these cannot ever be found.

There is a very similar problem for reasoning itself, and logic. Reasoning is not rational, and logic is not logical. https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/a/115875/29339 The existence of logical pluralism with an infinity of logics, makes "logical" and "rational" basically meaningless terms.

The only way I know of to try to close the problem of "why do anything" is to go fully pragmatic. Failure to respond to pragmatically likely facts, failure to apply our best guesses as to how to reason, leads to apparent catastrophe. The babies who make this choice in their first year of life, "fail to thrive" and die young. That same Darwinian process applies to us in adulthood. "Failure to thrive", fatally, is the outcome of rejecting facts and reasoning -- even if we cannot rationally or logically close the loop of justifications.

there are two things that make MORAL oughts different:

1. there are so many disputing moral POVs, that the reality of moral oughts is actually reasonably questioned.
2. even if one concedes moral realism, the different natures of the proposed moral structures of our universe have pretty significant differences in how one should pragmatically respond to moral facts.

For 1) there are ways to partially justify belief in moral oughts.

Option a) IF moral objectivity is true, THEN it is reasonable that we have a moral sense to observe this objective aspect of our universe, AND we seem to have just such a sense. Our moral sense is clearly skewable by social training, so is not purely reliable, BUT, if one identifies the characteristics of morally admired people cross culturally (cross cultural sainthood), and widely accepted cross cultural moral theories, one can identify the nature of the moral reality by the common denominator cross culturally.

Option b) IF morality is an emergent aspect of human societies, we can still identify what is essential to this "human" morality by the methods of a), to sort socially unique features from the "human" features of this emergent reality.

But even with options 1a and 1b, the details of moral thinking lead to wide differences in how one responds to moral choices, per 2).

This difference is most pronounced in the Eusocial vs. rational egoist moral stances, looking from the POV of a red blood cell near an injury. The skin and blood cells right at an injury will kick over to their genetic programming to dry out, die, and form a scab, to try to staunch the flow of blood from an injury, and allow more interior cells to rebuild that region of a body. There is usually not enough local cells, and more blood cells flow into the injured area and die and scab as well. A blood cell that is a rational egoist, may recognize the benefit to the community of this process, but still seek to redirect down some distant capillary to avoid becoming part of a scab itself... Eusociality theory notes that there is a continual conflict between rational self interest and eusocial good, and when members of the community defect to rational self interest, the community suffers. HOWEVER, for red blood cells, they will not survive the death of the communal body, but individuals humans -- sometimes DO survive the death of their community.

There is a reason the tension is higher for humans than for blood cells. This is because the different framing of who or what is the object of moral reasoning: individuals, individuals summed, the community, or even Gaia as the object of moral thought -- will change both the facts, and how one should pragmatically respond to them.

Rational self interest tends to be an outlier vs. other moral thinking. But IF one treats moral facts as emergent from society rather than intrinsic, then abandoning group morality in favor of always defecting when a society is dying, then re-adopting collaborative emergent morality when a society is re-formed, makes more pragmatic sense than it does when a society is functioning.

The need to consider defecting if a society is at risk of breaking down is an evolutionary explanation for why we are more skeptical of moral realities than we are of reality and reasoning in general, despite the similarity of failures of rational justification for all of the above.

Answer 4

This is so thoroughgoing (as far as I can tell, either you only need to respond to 1 or your use of 'rationality' is just odd; even if we cannot include aesthetic virtues, existential ones, ones about mental health or consistency, religion and why not all normativity, I have the sense that trying to adumberate norms - to show that they aren't moral - that aren't moral is vanity) as to not be convincing.

my coherent set of beliefs could entail that I act as if the sky is not blue, if this disposition was altogether better for me. It isn't clear to me why this would be irrational.

Sounds a bit like Rand (not the denial of reality), the claim that what is good for me (a phrase she approved of), obviously a maxim of selfishness, is rational. There are many egotists. I see that Nietzche mentions "good for me" in the Gay Science, calls it an "error" that has been conducive to life but clashes with other life impulses as well as "truth"; it may well be irrational to have attitudes that are not in my interest, and the conflict necessary to establish when that is, is thinking.

This is linked, God only knows how, and apologies for being deep in thought