How can one derive naturalistic moral principles without referencing utility?

Question

When considering the derivation of moral principles from a naturalistic point of view, it would seem to me that moral statements can only be conceived of in one way. That is, if we are trying to make a reasoned argument for why a moral principle ought/ought-not to be performed, you must argue about the utility/end of that action.

One ought not to steal because you run the risk of being arrested.

So if the outcome in this case ("risk of being arrested") is not preferred, then one ought not to steal. In fact, I see this as the potential solution to any is-ought problem: one ought to do something because the outcome is favorable - the outcome leads to some defined end that is preferable. (The nuance is of course deciding what is the most favorable action in a particular circumstance - you can only make the best decision given the information you have).

If someone states: Killing is wrong, it seems to me that they are really saying "I dislike killing", not that it is morally reprehensible. In this way, I do not see that they are really making a reasoned argument, they are simply stating their personal preference. To turn their scenario into one of utility I would say: "I have a preference against killing because it would bring upon an undesirable circumstance: a) It would lead to psychological disturbance on my part and/or b) it would lead to my potential arrest. Since neither of these options are preferable, I will state that I ought not to do it".

For something less extreme, the statement one should not lie could be unpacked into a consequence-based scenario: "I interact in a stable community of individuals whose successful cooperation is based on the principle of trust. I have observed in many scenarios that lying, generally, ends up causing further issues and may bring distrust onto me from the community. To maintain this social order for myself and others, I ought not to lie." Is lying permitted under certain circumstances? One could argue that a lie may protect someone (a consequence).

In this way, I could conceive of many moral systems in use today as being defined on this basis even if they differ in the particulars. The a priori assumption is that the moral principles chosen in the particular social context would maximize day-to-day predictability, structure/order, well-being, and facilitation of ideas. And for this reason, they have become the predominant set of standards followed by that group. I suppose we could call this a form of relativism; I'm not particularly sure.

I am having difficulty seeing other ways of conceiving of the justification of moral principles outside of this. The notion of certain things being an end-in-itself does not seem rationally justified and also seems subjective. So I can't see how someone might argue: You ought to perform good deeds because they are good by definition. This is not a reasoned argument to me and it seems to run into other problems such as how one defines "good" in the first place.

I can conceive of many moral questions being posed in this way. What are some counterexamples against this position? One counterexample I foresee is that one can never know for certain the outcome of one's actions in all scenarios. This might be true, but can't one reasonably be certain that various patterns of actions under probable circumstance can lead to a favorable outcome? Furthermore, even if one were following moral principles for another reason, they cannot be sure that their "good" action could have lead to a good outcome.

Perhaps I am being too simplistic here or I am abusing the definitions of various terminology. I welcome any counterexamples to help clarify my position.

Answer 1

From Kant.

Humans have an innate sense of their own limited interchangeability.

• It is consonant with our genetic nature, to encourage genes similar to, but not among, our own, in order to have an adequate variety to breed together.
• It is consonant with our dependence upon intellectual stability, in that it encourages us to help those that may not share our genes, but speak from similar experience and may preserve our "memes".
• It is a direct survival trait, in that it vouches for our individual social value in cases of disaster and excessive consequence (which may impair our utility, but may leave genetic and memetic value).
• It grows out of our social conscience, which may be partially inborn.

So one can consider it totally natural.

It is in fact so natural to so many of us that it is reasonable to follow that impulse into a moral system, via the Golden Rule, or its mostly-debugged rewrite, which is Kant's Categorical Imperative. What flies directly in the face of this notion of "There but for the grace of God, go I." is inherently wrong.

It provides an anodyne to runaway Utilitarian thinking. We know, regardless of its utility, murder is wrong, as we would not accept being killed for utilitarian reasons, unless they were exceptionally strong. Therefore one must allocate a much higher utility than would naturally balance a killing, in order to justify it. I would let myself die to protect my husband, but not just because I am taking up space someone else wants. So you may feel free to kill me in a war for survival of my people or my culture, but not to kill me just because you want my land, whatever the utility my land might provide you.

This does not do away with the reference to utility entirely. But it makes it a secondary consideration under the principle of fairness, and it so outweighs measured utility that it shortcuts the computation completely in a lot of cases.

For instance: It provides U.S. society very little added utility to arrange its social institutions around the possibility of people being gay. And there is a lot of utility to spend in making those arrangements.

Among other things, the tax code is shaped to encourage a certain type of marriage, which has a certain biological role that gay folks will not generally fulfill. (It overtaxes couples with equally high incomes, to allow for non-working spouses and the experience gap temporary absence from the workforce causes.) Making that subsidy less efficient wastes utility.

But we are going to do all of that re-arranging, eventually, just because you might have been me. We do not need to do the math, because the math does not obviate that possibility. Utility would have to really mount up to matter, and the differences are not great enough.

Likewise, most of our criminal laws exist primarily because the victim "might have been me". Libertarians are not idiots -- they can do math. It is not, in general, worth paying for most laws in a strictly person-to-person economic computation.

But there is more data. We do not want to deal with the fear that we might end up in the victim's place, so we establish authorities to keep us safe. Dispelling that fear increases the efficiency of the whole system enough that it offsets the expenditures. The return on investment is so great that most of economic history has been a succession of protection rackets. Insurance has a huge profit margin.

Still, we would never have discovered that, if our thinking were primarily utilitarian by nature. Each cave-man would think (rightly) that he was best off keeping his own kill and defending his own cave, or maybe stealing what he needed. Instead, he looked at the things happening to others, saw that he was not so special, and agreed that it would be better if none of the worst ones were allowed.