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Some basic confusions in moral philosophy

I. Introduction

What is morality? What is the foundation of morality? Why should we be moral? I will come across some popular ontological and meta-ethical accounts in ethics like realism, skepticism, objectivism and subjectivism, descriptivism and prescriptivism. But first of all, I would like to clarify some important distinctions between these terms so that I can avoid unnecessary pitfalls and confusions during my research.

II. First order and second order ethics

There is a clear distinction between (1) descriptive ethics, (2) normative ethics and (3) meta-ethics and ontology in ethics. (1) Descriptive ethics studies the moral systems and moral codes we actually adopt within different social groups. It is an empirical study about how our moral systems work. (2) Normative ethics deals with the central question in moral philosophy: is a certain action morally right or wrong? What should we as a moral person do and what should not? In other words, it deals with what moral system and moral codes we should adopt. (3) Meta-ethics and ontology in ethics deals with more basic questions in ethics, namely what moral terms like ��good�� and ��right�� mean, and what is the essence of morality. Meta-ethics is a conceptual study about ethics while moral ontology is a metaphysical one. J. L. Mackie put them under the same heading second order ethics in his famous work Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. Of course they deal with different aspects in ethical studies but Mackie was right in the sense that they both deal with the status of moral values and the nature of moral reasoning. For normative ethics, Mackie calls it first order ethics, using it to denote all normative questions in ethics. My research will not deals with descriptive ethics and I will continue to use Mackie��s dimension between first and second order ethics to discuss the different ��ism�� in the later session, with some necessary remarks to distinguish between meta-ethics and moral ontology.

It should be noted that first and second order ethics are completely independent. For example, one can be a second order moral sceptic without being a first order one, just like Mackie who thinks that we do not have objectively prescriptive values without denying all moral systems and normative judgements. I will not go into details for his account but just to use him as an example to illustrate that when I am talking about some second order views, I am not committed to any first order view.

III. Definitions for different first and second order views

Before sorting out the confusions between these second order views, I will briefly define and explain them in a more technical way.

(A) Realism: it holds that moral qualities such as wrongness or goodness, and likewise moral facts such as the fact that an act was wrong or something was good, exist in rerum natura.(1) (R. M. Hare, 1985) It is an ontological thesis.

(B) Anti-realism: it is the denial of realism.

(C) Descriptivism: it is a collective name for all those theories that hold that the descriptive meanings of moral terms exhaust all their meanings. (2) (Hare, 1997) On other words, they claim that moral terms only have descriptive meaning. It is an conceptual analysis of moral language and therefore is a meta-ethical account.

(D) Emotivism: it is a collective name for all those theories that claim that moral judgements are just an expression of emotion and therefore not governed by logic. (Hare, 1997) On other words, they claim that moral judgements do not have descriptive meaning and are just speech-acts that express the feelings of the speaker. It is also a meta-ethical account.

(E) Prescriptivism: it holds that moral judgements have both descriptive and prescriptive or evaluative meaning. To say a certain act A is ��right�� means descriptively that A has certain properties but at the same time prescribe us to do A. Certainly, it is a meta-ethical account too.

(F) Objectivism:

(i) second order meta-ethical objectivism: it holds that the truth of an ethical judgement is independent of the person who make such judgement, and the time and space at which he makes them. (3) (J. Harrison, 1993)

(ii) second order ontological objectivism: it holds that there exist values that are objectively validated, independent of how people value them

(iii) first order objectivism: it holds that we should act in accordance with some standards that are objectively validated, if there is any. It may also mean that normative questions have objective answers.

(G) Subjectivism:

(i) second order meta-ethical subjectivism: it holds that moral judgements are report of people��s feelings and emotions. There is no objective moral truth independent of the person who makes this judgement.

(ii) Second order ontological subjectivism: it holds that moral values and moral properties like rightness exist only with the people who value them and who make such judgement.

(iii) First order subjectivism: it holds that everyone ought to act in accordance with whatever he thinks is right

(H) Scepticism

(i) second order scepticism: it holds that there is no objective values or moral properties. It is different from second order ontological subjectivism in the sense that it is a negative doctrine while the latter is a positive one. (4) (J. L. Mackie, 1977)

(ii) first order skepticism: it rejects all moral judgements and current moral standards.

IV. Realism and Objectivism

The two names bear similar outlook but with entirely different meanings. Realism is an entirely ontological thesis while objectivism is a board name for a cluster of theories with different senses. Even if I concentrate on objectivism in the ontological thesis, it still has a slight but important difference with realism. While realism claims that there exist some moral properties and values, ontological objectivism claims that these properties and values are objective. J. L. Mackie, who is assigned the name of an anti-realist, should then be proved to be innocent for such accusation. In his book, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, what he is trying to deny is ontological objectivism, that objectively validated values do not exist. He is thought to be anti-realist because most people think that the denial of the existence of objective values and moral properties equals to the denial of the existence of any values and properties. But if it is case, then the possibility of the existence of subjective values and moral properties is denied. In fact, most moral philosophers tend to accept that realism means the existence of values and moral properties that are objective, and they would tend to reject that if moral values and properties are subjective, that is assigned and therefore dependent on the people who makes them, then they can still be rightly called existing, for these values and properties do not exist in a priori of us. However, I think they are wrong because they are narrowing the concept of ��existence��. If moral realism just claims that moral values and properties exist, just as I have defined above, then it does not directly entail that these values and properties must be objective. We can have different senses of ��existence��: for example, (I) we can say that a certain quality A exists, if and only if we can meaningfully say of something that process the quality A. Or (II) we can say that A exists, if and only if we can truly say of something that has the quality of A. Or (III) we can say A exists, if and only if it can be referred to. (5) In fact, we can admit that moral values and properties exist in some senses while does not in others. They may exist in the same sense that number as a conceptual property exists, but not in the same sense that cows as a physical object exist. They may also exist in the sense of a secondary property like colours. I must admit that these different senses of ��existence�� make my definition of realism a vague one. However, I would still accept this definition because my job now is not to deny or support realism but just to show that there may be a kind of realism that may claim that moral values and properties exist, but not in the sense of an objective properties (may be in the sense of a subjective one or in other senses that I have discussed above). I think keeping the definition of realism in its most open and perhaps vague form is useful in the present stage.

My conclusion is: ontological objectivism entails realism but is not entailed by realism, under my definition of the two terms.

V. Objectivism and Subjectivism

As shown by the above argument, ontologically, both objectivism and subjectivism claim that moral values and properties exist; and in terms of meta-ethics, both claim that moral judgements can be said to be true or false. Objectivism claim that the meanings of moral judgement are descriptions of objective state of affairs while subjectivism claims that they are the description of subjective state of mind of the person who makes them. There are two main confusions about these two generic names, one being meta-ethical and one being ontological.

J. Harrison claims that a theory which is subjective can also be in a sense objective.(6) His argument is that a subjectivist meta-ethical theory just claims that moral judgements are reports of people��s feelings and attitudes, and a theory that claims that they are report of feelings of a particular person can also be named as a subjective theory. In this sense, a theory that claims that an act is right if it is approved by the person who did it can also be a subjective theory, though there is an objective answer for such judgement independent of who make such judgement. I think he has committed an error here: a conceptual or ��definitional�� error instead of a logical one. In this case, he has taken a wide definition of ��subjective��, and unfortunately it will involve even more confusion between the subjectivists and the objectivists. I would rather take the definition of subjectivist theory to be that they claim that moral judgements are the description of the state of mind of the person who utter it, but not of a particular person else. On other words, a theory is subjective in the sense that it is agent-centric, but not in the sense that it is about the feelings of people. I think it can help to avoid the confusion that a subjectivist theory can at the same time be objective.

Another confusion about subjectivity and objectivity concerns the problem of inter-subjectivity. It is an ontological issue. There can be subjective agreement over some values like love, honesty, and justice, which are agreed by most if not all of us. But such inter-subjectivity does not mean objectivity. The fact that there are some commonly adopted values does not necessary mean that these values are objectively validated, but may just because of subjective agreement. The possibility of inter-subjectivity does not directly deny ontological objectivism in morality, but it shows that we cannot rely on the mere fact that there are common values to prove the validity of ontological objectivism.

VI. Subjectivism, emotivism and Prescriptivism

Some philosophers wrongly think that non-descriptivism, like emotivism and Hare��s prescriptivism are equivalent to meta-ethical subjectivism. It is based on a basic misunderstanding of the distinction between descriptivism and non-descriptivism. Both subjectivism and objectivism is a kind of descriptivist theory because both of them claim that moral judgements can be true or false depending on their descriptive meaning�Xthough two different descriptive meanings: the former a description of subjective state of mind while the latter a description of objective state of affairs. On the other hand, emotivism and prescriptivism are non-descriptive, in the sense that they claim that moral judgements are not, or are not simply, true or false statements. We can have a closer examination over the distinction between emotivism and subjectivism first.

Consider a hypothetical example: a certain person A says, ��murder is right!�� An emotivist theory would claim that A��s judgement is just a speech-act. In this case, it is an approval of murder by the speaker, namely A in this case. We cannot say that his judgement is true or false because he does not claim anything, just like we cannot say that it is true or false when we say ��hello�� to another. A subjectivist theory, on the other hand, would claim that A��s judgement does claim something, namely, it is a description of a state of mind (approval in this case) of A, and it can be true if such judgement rightly describe what A thinks or feels (that he in fact approve it). We can put such distinction in a clearer way:

(1): A says, ��murder is right���Xan approval by A to murder, it is a speech-act

(2): A says, ��murder is right���Xa description of an approval by A to murder, it is a statement.

(1) is the position of the emotivists and (2) is the position of the subjectivists. It is not difficult to notice that in (1), A does not describe anything like he does in (2), his act of making such approval does not describe but express his subjective feelings or attitudes. A subjectivist is also not an emotivist because he would not like to say making moral judgements are just like saying ��hello�� to others that describes nothing about the speaker��s attitude. In terms of meta-ethics, subjectivism and emotivism are two totally distinct sorts of theory.

Emotivism is misunderstood to be subjective mainly because it seems to entail first order subjectivism�Xthat we should do whatever we think we should do. It is a serious and harmful negligence of the distinction between first and second order ethics. Even the nature of moral judgements is the expression of ��subjective�� feelings of the speaker, and I can make whatever moral judgement I like (express whatever attitude I have), it does not mean we should do whatever we think we should do. For an emotivist, when facing a first order moral disagreement with another, he would tend to accept that it is an emotional disagreement and there is no objectively validated answer for such question. To resolve such conflict and reach an agreement between them, the method is emotional persuasion rather than rational debate (towards an objective answer). That means an emotivist would not, unlike a first order subjectivist, claim that the answer for normative question is the answer thought to be correct by us. When a first order subjectivist justifies his judgement that ��euthanasia is wrong�� because he thinks that it is wrong, an emotivist is not committed to agree with him that ��euthanasia is wrong�� if the emotivist himself approve euthanasia. If someone does something that he does not think that is right, a subjectivist would claim that he has done something wrong. However, an emotivist are not committed to say so, as he can have whatever attitude towards the person who did something the person himself does not think to be right.

It is easy to distinguish between prescriptivism and subjectivism in the same way. Prescriptivism and emotivism are identical in rejecting that descriptive meanings exhaust all the meanings of moral terms. Therefore, prescriptivism is not subjectivism (a kind of descriptivism) and it would not necessarily lead to first order subjectivism.

VII. Summary

I have finished a very brief analysis about these concepts. My purpose is not to deny nor support these theories but to set a clearer framework for later work. I must admit that I have not gone into details of these positions. Therefore I hope there can be more criticisms about my analysis (especially concerning section VI) so that I can avoid confusion in later work. Last but not least, there are some tables which specify the logical relation between these positions.

(1) R. M. Hare, ��Ontology in Ethics�� ed. Ted Honderich, Morality and Objectivity, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul plc, 1985) p.40

(2) R. M. Hare, Sorting out Ethics (Claredon Press, 1997)

(3) Jonathan Harrison, Ethical Essays Volume 1 (Avebury, 1993) p.160

(4) J. L. Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, (Penguin Books, 1977) p. 17-18

(5) Hare, ��Ontology in Ethics��, p.41

(6) Harrison, p.160

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