Do moral properties really exist, or are we kidding ourselves?
What’s the Realist-Antirealist debate about?
The question which lies at the heart of the debate between moral realism and anti-realism is the following: are there objective moral properties?
What’s the difference between these positions?
The moral realistproffers, broadly speaking, a single claim, that:
(i) there are such things as moral properties and that they exist objectively(Fisher 5).[1]
The moral anti-realist, on the contrary,denies the existence of moral properties (5).
A further question divides moral realists: given that there are moral facts, what are they like? Are they natural (akin to scientific facts), or are they otherwise (whatever this might entail)?
The position which contemporary, American philosopher Shafer-Landau endorses[2] is referred to as moral realism, and specifically that division known asethical non-naturalism.
A brief schema
In following paragraphs I will attempt to accomplish three things:
(i) give an account of Shafer-Landau’s ethical non-naturalism,
(ii) claim and elucidate why I agree with his position, and
(iii) offer some critique concerning certain aspects of his nonnaturalism (e.g., his seemingly restrictive claim that moral properties are normative facts).
Shafer-Landau’s defense of ethical non-naturalism
Shafer-Landau’s ostensible concern is to provide a defense of ethical non-naturalism against potential (and established) anti-realist critiques.
As Shafer-Landau is primarily conducting a defense of ethical non-naturalism, it is necessary to tease out how much of his work (and what within it) constitutes a positive account of his position.
I will attempt to this with reference to his answers to three anti-realist arguments against moral realism, namely:
(i) widespread moral disagreement as sustaining an anti-realist diagnosis of ethical discourse,
(ii) moral disagreement as undermining belief in objective moral properties, and
(iii) the supposed causal inertia of moral properties as reason to deny their existence (55).
Before delving into the niceties of these arguments (and Shafer-Landau’s replies), it ought to be said that much of Shafer-Landau’s position is underpinned by the following claim, that:
Philosophy (and, by analogy, ethics) is fundamentally an a priori (and thus not empirical) discipline aimed at the discovery of objective truth which are not known exclusively by sense perception.
Much of the substance of Shafer-Landau’s replies makes generous reference to this analogy.
Objections and Replies
With respect to thefirst anti-realist critique (i),
anti-realism is a viable metaphysical stance because of what appears to be intractable, widespread moral disagreement
Shafer-Landau’s reply consists in the admission that moral disagreement might be explained in light of “insufficient nonmoral information”, or “adequate information” processed inadequately (56). Examples of this include “errors of instrumental reasoning”, or “failures of nerve, sympathy, empathy, or imagination” (56).
Given that ethical disagreements are much more personally involved than scientific disagreements (i.e., in that there is much more “personally at stake”), ethical disagreements introduce biasing factors (such as the above) that skew moral reasoning and moral perception (56).
While it is the case that moral properties are objective, since they are nonnatural, and so grasped by a priori moral reasoning, disagreement arises as a result of errors (nonmoral or otherwise) in such reasoning. Moral disagreement can thus be explained with reference to failure in, or the flawed acquisition of, moral knowledge through the use of reason.
The second anti-realist critique[3] (ii) consists in the skeptical claim that,
unlike empirical investigations, there is no adequate evidence to justify moral beliefs or to settle moral disputes.
In the absence of tangible (i.e., empirical) referents upon which moral beliefs can be predicated and moral disagreements rectified, ethical verdicts are left under-determined (58).
As a result, the moral realist (and specifically the ethical non-naturalist) is left with moral intuitions and convictions as the means by which moral beliefs can be justified and moral disagreements decided (58–59).
Shafer-Landau’s reply consists in the admission that this is no problem for the moral realist (and ethical non-naturalist), as these (intuitions and convictions) simply are the means with which the moral inquirer (and philosopher generally) is equipped in order to know, or which aid in know ing (59).
Moral knowledge (and philosophical knowledge generally) is furnished by means of arguments which appeal to our intuitions and convictions.
For example, to have determined whether or not free will is compatible with determinism is not the result of some empirical finding, but the result of consideration of arguments which rely upon appeals to our intuitions regarding hypothetical cases (59).
What Shafer-Landau has in mind, I think, is an instance of intuitive logic – say, the principle of non-contradiction, that a thing cannot be p and not p at the same time and in the same respect.
Moral properties, then, because they are non-natural, are not known with reference to tangible referents, but through rational inquiry.
The third anti-realist critique (iii) consists in the claim that,
because moral properties are causally inert, they ought to be construed anti-realistically.
Moral properties are supposed to be causally inert in that they do not possess independent causal powers of their own (59).
Their causal powers are not separate, say, from the things upon which they (may)[4] supervene (59).
Generosity, thoughtfulness, and injustice as supervenient properties, for example, do not possess independent causal powers separate from the facts upon which they supervene, but merely inherit those causal powers (59). Their causal power, simply put, is dependent upon the facts which subvene them (59).
Shafer-Landau’s reply is not to dismiss this claim about the causal nature of moral properties (he agrees), but to extend the causal test so as to show that its implications are absurd.
To do so is to admit that nothing exists save atoms in the void, as most if not all supervenient properties are not identical, and thus reducible, to the ontological powers of their subvenient parts (60).
Thus, complex supervenient entities (e.g., atmospheres, dandelions) don’t exist per se (60).
Shafer-Landau also attempts to show that the critique is misdirected: moral properties are sui generis, and are a species of normative fact(60) .
Moral properties don’t possess independent causal powers because they are a kind of normative fact (60). Normative facts “cause nothing of their own accord” (60).
Epistemic principles are correlative to moral properties in this regard; they exist, but not in such a way as to be causally efficacious (60). Epistemic principles dictate what ought to be believed, but do not cause belief itself(60).
Moral properties are not meant to describe facts about the world or to cite the causes of things.
They prescribe what should be fact, and which things ought to be brought about (60). They are evaluative, in that they indicate what sort of actions would merit approval or disapproval (60).
Assessing Shafer-Landau’s defence
The most convincing facets of Shafer-Landau’s defense, and the reason as to why I agree with his position, are to be found in his reply to the third (iii) anti-realist critique – namely, his claim that the causal test is problematic.
The epistemic principle underpinning the causal test presupposes an entity, a “good reason” for believing in something (i.e., that something exists in that it “impinges” on our existence), which is itself not empirically confirmable (51).
That the causal test refutes itself in this way, in relying on the necessity of something which it cannot itself prove, is amusing. This admittedly small chink leaves the path open for various other entities which are not scientifically confirmable, and thus non-natural.
Something similar occurs in the case of the ontological principle. The ontological principle underpinning the causal test, that the only real things are those which are scientifically confirmable, leads to a dilemma (61). If it is claimed that the only existential truths are those which have been confirmed by scientific investigation, this is obviously false, as there remain truths yet to be discovered (61).
Even in the case of a perfected science, this claim is still false, in that it presupposes the existence of entity (a principle not scientifically confirmable) to which it refers and is justified by (61). As Shafer-Landau pithily puts it, this kind of claim is “a thesis from metaphysics, not physics” (61). With the threat of the causal test having been dismissed, the moral realist can be open to an ontology which may include non-natural entities.
Where I disagree with Shafer-Landau
While I do think that hat moral properties are prescriptive, it seems as though Shafer-Landau limits moral properties to this existence alone (that they are just prescriptive).
It also, quite frankly, seems like a sleight of hand to admit that moral properties are such as to be known by intuition, and yet be causally inert entities whose only function is prescriptive.
A question arises: if moral properties are just a species of normative fact, what makes them objective in the sense of being mind-independent?
Why are they really real, as opposed to the quasi-real of Blackburn’s projectivist approach?
I can accept that moral properties, as supervenient properties not reducible to their parts, are causally inert.
I do, however, think that there’s a nuance to the perception of moral properties that is not simply the recognition or acknowledgement of a moral prescription. The perception of a moral property (e.g., goodness) is somehow akin to sense perception. In this way it’s akin to the aesthetic experience. The beauty of a beautiful person is not reducible to a series of geometric lines, contours, or colours. It supervenes on them. The phenomenology of the experience is such that it feels like beauty really is there. The beauty in the object feels real. Shafer-Landau’s account, I think, does not aptly explain this.
Works Cited:
- “Introduction .” Metaethics: An Introduction, by Andrew Fisher, Routledge Taylor and Francis, 2014, pp. 1–9.
- Shafer-Landau, Russ. “‘Ethics as Philosophy: A Defense of Ethical Nonnaturalism’ .” Ethical Theory: An Anthology, edited by Russ Shafer-Landau, Second Edition ed., John Wiley & Sons, Inc. , 2013, pp. 54–62.
Footnotes:
[1] Moral properties are objective in that they exist independently of an individual’s judgements regarding them (Fisher 5).
[2] Purportedly.
[3] The most important facet of which, I believe, is the following.
[4] As someone might contend that supervenience is not “a thing”.