The Argument from Moral Experience

The Argument from Moral Experience

I. INTRODUCTION

It is often said that our moral experience, broadly construed to include our ways of thinking and talking about morality, has a certain objective-seeming characterto it. No matter what turns out to be the case as far as metaethics is concerned, it is said, it seems as though morality is a realm of objective facts or truths. Or at least, various features of our moral experience are thought to presuppose that it is such a realm. So, for example, we often wonder what morality requires, as if we take it that there are objectively correct answers to our moral questions. Similarly, we sometimes worry about whether our moral beliefs are mistaken. But only beliefs about factual matters can be mistaken, it is thought. Indeed, this talk of moral beliefs is itself significant. Beliefs can be true or false in a way that mere attitudes and valuings cannot. In these and other ways, it is claimed, we experience morality as if it is a realm of facts or truths, or somehow presuppose that it is such a realm in our day-to-day lives.

There are two ways in which experience of this sort has been thought relevant to the central questions of metaethics. The first involves the traditional idea that moral experience—especially our dispositions to use the moral vocabulary in various ways—is among the best evidence we have about what it is we are talking about when we talk moral talk. Before we get too busy trying to answer our questions about the moral realm, we might think, it is important to make sure that we understand which of many questions it is we are asking (or wish to ask). And here our moral experience seems highly relevant.[1]

This benign nod in the direction of conceptual analysis should not be, but often is, confused with a second way, at least as common but far more ambitious than the first, in which moral experience is thought relevant to metaethics. The second way involves an inference from morality seeming a certain way (or our practices somehow presupposing it to be that way) to the reasonableness of a presumption that it is that way. More specifically, it is widely thought that the objective-seeming nature of our moral experience supports a presumption in favor of objectivist theories (according to which morality is a realm of facts or truths) and against anti-objectivist theories such as Mackie’s error theory (according to which it is not). The presumption can be defeated, it is claimed, only if arguments against objectivist theories prove successful. I will call the argument that our moral experience supports objectivist theories, the Argument from Moral Experience or the AME, for short.

So far, the AME is just the bare bones of an argument, of course: We experience morality as a realm of fact and are therefore required, absent evidence to the contrary, to presume that it is a realm of fact.[2] But we have reason to seek a more careful and thorough formulation and defense of the AME. In what respects (and to what extent) does morality seem to be a realm of fact, and why does that support objectivist theories? A few philosophers have made limited efforts at filling out the argument, but most have said very little. Yet the presumption the AME is said to ground is almost universally accepted. Thus we need to examine the underpinnings of the AME more seriously than has been done so far. In this paper, I argue that the AME does not support objectivist moral theories after all, and therefore that we should be more open to anti-objectivist theories like Mackie’s.

II. THE PERVASIVENESS OF THE AME

In some form or other, the AME (or at least the presumption it is said to ground) has played an important role in the debate over moral realism.[3] Many of those accepting it consider themselves to be moral realists and take the AME to support their realism.[4] Thus, Jonathan Dancy claims that a version of the AME is “the main argument for moral realism” and even “perhaps the only argument for realism, remaining thoughts being used for defence/offence.”[5] He describes “the simple form of the argument” as follows:

[W]e take moral value to be part of the fabric of the world; taking our experience at face value, we judge it to be the experience of the moral properties of actions and agents in the world. And if we are to work with the presumption that the world is the way our experience represents it to us as being, we should take it in the absence of contrary considerations that actions and agents do have the sorts of moral properties we experience in them. This is an argument about the nature of moral experience, which moves from that nature to the probable natureof the world.[6]

According to David Brink, the “presumptive case in favor of moral realism . . . shift[s] the burden of proof to the moral antirealist.”[7] David McNaughton puts it even more forcefully:

Just as in a criminal trial, the presumption that the defendant is innocent until he is proven guilty places the burden of proof on the prosecution so, the realist claims, the burden of proof in this debate rests with the non-cognitivist. The realist’s contention is that he has only to rebut the arguments designed to persuade us that moral realism is philosophically untenable in order to have made out his case.[8]

This assignment of the burden of proof helps to explain why so much of the debate over moral realism has centered on arguments against it, and far less has focused on developing arguments in its favor. If the negative arguments can be defeated, it is widely thought, then moral realism wins by default.[9]

But those who view themselves as moral realists cannot appropriate the AME as readily as they have often claimed, for it can be argued that our experience of morality does not presuppose that moral realism is correct, but at most that morality is objectivein the sense (roughly) that there are moral facts, truths, properties, or correct answers to our moral questions.[10] All moral realists are objectivists, but many objectivists do not consider themselves to be moral realists.[11] For example, most Kantians and Kantian constructivists would agree that a claim of objectivity is implicit in our moral thinking, and that this supports objectivism about ethics. But they would not agree that ordinary moral experience thereby supports moral realism. On their views, certain moral judgments are practically correct even though moral properties are not real and the objective correctness of moral judgments does not consist in correspondence between our statements and the world.[12]

Even those in the broadly noncognitivist (or non-descriptivist[13]) camp, who hold that moral utterances are (primarily) something other than straightforward assertions of putative fact, often claim it an advantage that their theories can accommodate (or so they maintain) the most important features of the claim to objectivity. For example, Simon Blackburn says that “the most forceful attack” faced by the moral projectivist “is that he cannot accommodate the rich phenomena of moral life,” but goes on to argue that his “quasi-realism” can indeed accommodate these phenomena.[14] And “assertoric non-descriptivist” Mark Timmons says:

[O]ne may be guided in one’s metaethical investigation into moral discourse by various assumptions deeply embedded in people’s ordinary use of that discourse. The idea is to interpret the discourse in a manner that comports with so-called commonsense assumptions of that discourse; in other words, one wants to be able to accommodate those commonsense assumptions. So there are features of our ordinary moral discourse – for example, it is (or appears to be) fact-stating; we take there to be right answers to many moral questions; and so forth – that should (if possible) be accommodated by a plausible story about such discourse.[15]

In fact, Timmons only makes explicit what is almost universally presumed to be true, that a metaethical theory is to be judged in part based on its ability to find room for the objective-seeming features of our ordinary moral practices, beliefs, and ways of talking. And that is the heart of the AME.

The near universal acceptance of the AME also helps to explain why the error theory has had so few adherents in recent years. The error theory, made famous by Mackie, combines cognitivism, the view that the central function of moral utterances is to make factual assertions, with the view that all (positive) assertions of this sort are false.[16] Thus it is a prime example of an anti-objectivist theory. Insofar as our moral experience does have an objective-seeming character, the error theory holds, it is misleading.

A weak, burden-shifting, presumption in favor of objectivist theories would not be sufficient to explain why the error theory is held in such low regard, however. Instead, a much more ambitious version of the AME seems to be in play, one which holds that there is an overwhelming presumption against theories with seriously counterintuitive implications. The error theory is thought to have implications of just that sort. If the error theory is true, for example, then it is not morally wrong to torture infants for fun. This implication and others like it are not merely taken to place the burden of proof on error theorists, but to make that burden extremely strong.

Indeed, Mackie himself was in the grip of the AME. Mackie was convinced that “ordinary moral judgments include a claim to objectivity, an assumption that there are objective values.” This was the basis for the cognitivist component of his error theory.[17] But he also believed that in virtue of this claim, error theorists such as himself faced an uphill climb:

But since this is an error theory, since it goes against assumptions ingrained in our thought and built into some of the ways in which language is used, since it conflicts with what is sometimes called common sense, it needs very solid support. It is not something we can accept lightly or casually and then quietly pass on. If we are to adopt this view, we must argue explicitly for it.[18]

The objective-seeming features of our moral experience seemed to Mackie to place a very heavy burden of proof on the shoulders of those who, like him, rejected moral objectivism.

I agree with Mackie that moral objectivism should not be rejected lightly or casually. If moral objectivism either reflects a commonsense commitment or is needed in order to validate common sense, then it might be very disturbing to find out that it is wrong. But that it would be disturbing to learn that common sense is misguided, in itself gives us no reason to believe that common sense is correct. To see whether or not it is correct, we need to explore more serious attempts to support the presumption.

In what follows, I ask whether our experience of morality does in fact support moral objectivism. In assessing this question we need to break it down into two others: First, in what sense is it true that we experience morality as a realm of objective fact? I take this to be largely an empirical question, but argue that evidence we already have suggests that things are much messier than objectivists often assume them to be. Second, given an answer to our first question, what support if any does our moral experience (so understood) give to the claim that morality is such a realm? I argue that even if moral experience were to presuppose or display morality as a realm of objective fact, that would not in itself support objectivist approaches. The stakes are high. If I am right that the playing field should be leveled, than we have much more reason than has heretofore appeared to take anti-objectivist approaches like the error theory seriously.

III.DO WE EXPERIENCE MORALITY AS A REALM OF FACT?

In what sense is it true that we experience morality as if it is arealm of objective facts or truths? To begin, “our moral experience” is not as uniform as that expression suggests.[19] Undoubtedly there are both cross-cultural and intra-cultural differences. Still, there are some obvious commonalities for many of us, and perhaps we can base a reasonable gloss on “our moral experience” on these.

Brink presents one of the fullest cases for the claim that our moral experience has an objective-seeming character, pointing to several features, in particular:

—The syntactic form of moral judgments: Moral utterances are often in the declarative mood. For example, “It is wrong to steal,” has the appearance of being a statement of fact.

—The content of certain moral judgments: The substantive content of a number of moral judgments, widely thought to be plausible, seems to Brink to reflect a commitment to moral objectivism. Thus, he argues, our beliefs that, “one should not be held responsible for actions one could not have known were wrong,” that “goodness deserves reward,” and so on, contain implicit references to moral properties, facts, or knowledge.

—Our attitudes and behaviors regarding morality: We often wonder what morality requires, and when we do, “we often deliberate as if there is a correct answer to the question before us.” We disagree with one another about moral questions, and when we do, we sometimes reason with one another. We think that some people are mistaken about moral questions and we recognize that we have been mistaken in the past and that we may be mistaken now. And just as we believe that we can be wrong, we believe that we can be right—that there are answers to our moral questions, or facts about morality, in at least some cases, Brink claims.[20]

David McNaughton adds another element:

—The phenomenology of our moral experience, or the way our moral lives feel to us: We experience morality as if it is in the world apart from our happening to encounter it, he claims, and not as something which depends for its existence on our subjective inputs. Thus we seem to have moral perceptions, which, although not strictly analogous to visual perceptions, nevertheless are like them in that they seem to be of something outside of us. We seem, in some sense, to see of immoral behavior that it is immoral. It is not as though we see certain conduct (say, some boys throwing stones at an injured animal) and then overlay it with our judgment that it is wrong. We see it as an immoral act.[21] And, adds McNaughton, when we are moved to act morally, it seems to be in virtue of our recognizing morality’s authority over us.[22]

Following Sturgeon, we might wish to add:

—The role of moral properties in putative explanations, as in “Hitler did what he did because he was a bad man.”[23]

And finally, we can add another feature, perhaps implicit in much of the discussion surrounding the AME:

—The strength and confidence with which we hold our moral beliefs. It is sometimes said that people hold at least some of their moral beliefs as firmly as they hold any of their beliefs. Furthermore, these beliefs are often thought to figure in valid—and for that matter sound—inferences.

So far, we have what appears to be an impressive case in favor of the claim that we experience morality as if it is objective. But we need to remember that few non-philosophers have thought about the issue in terms that make explicit reference to moral objectivism, and it seems illegitimate to attribute such a theory to most ordinary people. Still, people often seem to recognize a distinction between realms of fact and other realms (such as fashion) in which normative facts are not thought to play a central role. Perhaps people would be disposed on reflection to place morality in the former category. Or it might be that our moral practice and thought (including our beliefs about less abstract matters) in some more inchoate way presupposemoral objectivism. For example, the claim that we can reason about moral questions can be true, it might be claimed, only if morality is objective. Our moral beliefs and practices are appropriate; the thought seems to be, if moral objectivism is correct, but not if it is incorrect. This does not imply even an unconsciousbelief in moral objectivism, but rather a commitment of some more indirect sort.

But is it clear that even this more limited commitment is being made? To begin, we should note that this question is largely an empirical one. It is surprising how often philosophers are willing to generalize about such matters based merely on their own experience and intuitions. Moreover, the question is a complex and subtle one. The evidence may well take us in more than one direction. People’s beliefs, especially their beliefs about philosophical matters, are often intrapersonally inconsistent, and interpersonal and cross-cultural differences surely complicate the picture even further. Even if we find substantial evidenceof a commitment to (or presupposition of) objectivity, it is likely that we will also find evidence against such a commitment.

Indeed, certain features of common moral experience suggest that we experience morality as something that is not objective.[24] For example, just as we talk about moral beliefs, we often talk about moral feelings and attitudes as well, and in other contexts these words typically signify something other than beliefs. In fact, some people hold beliefs that seem quite incompatible with moral objectivism, such as the belief that in ethics “it’s all relative,” or that what it is right for a person to do depends on that person’s own decisions. We cannot dismiss such statements as the products of confusion or carelessness merely because they appear to conflict with others that we think are widely held.[25]