Thru most of my adult life I have been fascinated by science, the science of philosophy in particular. And one debate I have taken interest in in particular is the meta-ethical debate.
One very prevalent meta-ethical theory is Ethical Nihilism, the view of extreme skepticism regarding the truth value of ethical statements. Now, I am very open-minded in most ways. So actually I would be more open to this theory than the average person. But I still see problems with it, in my “limited” way (I’ve only had a little college, mostly community college).
One argument I would make against this theory is the argument that there are certain situations in human experience that demand answers. For example, there is a little girl trapped in an abandoned well. Do we save her? Ethical nihilism almost seems to suggest we should just leave her there. But wouldn’t that too be taking an ethical stance on the matter? Anyways, that is my argument against EN. Please correct me if it is not a valid one for any reason.
Also, hasn’t human experience taught us some things are “always” wrong, like slavery and denying women the right to vote? Again, I at least am confused that some things wouldn’t make for an argument like that.
Anyways, keep in mind these are just abstract philosophical arguments. Most philosophers, even if they are ethical nihilists, believe we should behave ethically towards one another (also, according to Wiki, BTW).
Also, there is a philosophical middle ground to this argument called Ethical Non-naturalism. (This theory avoids the troublesome “naturalistic fallacy”, while still holding ethical statements can be true.) That is where I at least am leaning to in any event. But as I said, I am very open to any theory too.
I’d argue that moral statements are inherently false but that people can follow them as they see fit. To simply categorise things as good or bad is arbitrary, and in the lack of an objective moral source (i.e. God) functionally meaningless. Slavery is bad in our society, killing is bad in our society (I’ll go with killing over murder, since murder is the name of a crime and so immediately suggests negativity), oppression of women is wrong in our society - however, in many other societies throughout history it has been fine, or perhaps even seen as noble.
What people often can’t get past is the preconception that in saying moral values are inherently false and arbitrary, that one immediately finds all ‘negative’ things to be acceptable. This is nonsensical because we are still socialised to view some things as wrong, however this is subjective perception and the reality is that without this socialisation and taken out of the context of our human experience, all of these actions are meaningless, until value judgements of right, wrong, good or bad are applied arbitrarily.
It’s ultimately a semantic or categorical argument. Yes technically nothing has ultimate meaning and there is no absolute good or bad. But things have meaning to people, and things are good or bad in the context of human goals, preferences, and experiences.
So it’s just quibbling over terminology. There’s no substance to the debate.
I’d agree, the predominant substance comes from the differentiation between objective, Godly morality and humanly fallible morality. Then again, it’s not as if people haven’t taken Kant’s categorical imperative to be correct.
I"m not certain that you are applying the concept correctly. It seems to me that M. N. is only commenting upon the objective moral value of any given statement or action and not the action in an of itself. It is basically a denial that ethics exist objectively outside of the social construct. In that regard, I think that it is probably an accurate position to take. However, like a lot philosophical thought, it doesn’t really lead us anywhere useful in application to social interaction. I usually refer to this type of thought as “nitpicky” philosophy. It may be technically correct, but it does not reflect real world processes accurately, or is helpful in day to day life.
A decent counter may be made by evolutionary psychology though. It seems that humans are biologically hardwired to find certain things objectionable and other pleasurable. There are exceptions of course, but it seems that the vast majority of us find basic concepts like reciprocity, cooperation and empathy to be ingrained. This would lead us to assign associated behaviours as “good” and disruptive ones as “bad”. The problem though is that those values are only useful as guides and do not have the absolute black and white assignation that we usually asscociate with “morality”. In this instance, Moral relativism might more accurately reflect reality.
To use your examples, Let us assume that in any situation there is an outcome that is “most good”, and one that is “most bad”. Usually we decide a course of action by balancing this concept against a personal, and societal measure: That is to say we look at how we as an individual benefit, and how we might benefit as a group. We usually make the decision that we judge to be “most good” on both axis. This process is affected by societal values.
So we have a little girl trapped in a well. Given only that information, we should save her. It is most good to save her life rather than leaving her to die. However, if the situation is changed, say that the well is in the middle of an active war zone; it might be most good to leave her and save the whole village by fleeing from the fighting.
Most of us would agree that is most good for women to vote. They are equal partners in our society. However, what if the situation changes? Lets imagine an absurd scenario where a group of castaways has created a new society. Theoretically it is a democracy, with decisions made by vote. Suppose though that the women begin to form a new religious movement whose precepts begin to be troublesome and risky to the group’s survival as whole. They refuse to abandon their irrational and dangerous faith. It might be most good for the survival of all to disenfranchise the women until accommodation with the faith is reached or reason prevails.
The same might be said for slavery. Suppose our castaways decide to leave the island and row for it. They will need the help of everyone to make the journey. Some small number do not wish to go, but are press-ganged against their will. It might be most good for them to be enslaved so that the group reaches safety. The lives of all are more valuable than the temporary freedom of a few.
I understand ethical nihilism to mean that there is no such thing as “should.” At least not without some context, of the form “If you want _____, you should do ____” (e.g. “If you want to get to the library, you should turn right at the next corner”)—but ethical nihilists can’t tell you what should go in the first blank.
I think trying to describe morality objectively is doomed to failure, but this doesn’t mean morality is arbitrary or imaginary.
The reason we have these concepts of good and evil is because we are a social species and so we have hard-wired instincts associated with how we treat others and how we are treated by them. And of course society builds on and formalizes these instincts because they are important for the functioning of society.
Another point, is that much of morality is actually tied to qualia. e.g. I would consider torturing an animal to be immoral because suffering is being caused. If I could somehow know that that animal was incapable of suffering, I would see nothing (directly) immoral about torturing that animal.
And this current limitation in our knowledge is also a factor in why an objective description of this_action = immoral is not possible.
How much of that is down to actual morality and not just knee-jerk emotional response? I could torture an animal if it conveyed some benefit, but it doesn’t and so it seems to me willfully destructive, ergo illogical and a waste of time to no foreseeable end.
A lot of this argument about how these things are ‘ingrained’ seems unconvincing to me, I believe far more of it is simply socialized based on the norms and mores of our society, because in different places and times things we are ‘ingrained’ to dislike were commonplace and accepted, including torture, rape, indiscriminate slaughter, leaving your children exposed to the elements so they’d die and so on. You only have to look to a war-zone to see behavior we’re supposedly ‘ingrained’ against become commonplace. To me, morality is just a form of social control, and none of it has any objective value, indeed I would go as far as to say it IS inherently arbitrary.
However, I am not an evolutionary psychologist, and any information/views either way are nonetheless interesting.
“Moral nihilists consider morality to be constructed, a complex set of rules and recommendations that may give a psychological, social, or economical advantage to its adherents, but is otherwise without universal or even relative truth in any sense.”
I find this statement a bit contradictory. The fact that a certain behavior gives a certain psychological, social, or economical advantage would seem to imply that it is moral, so long as it outways the psychological, social, or economical disadvantage it forces on someone else.
It is difficult to define an absolute morality because many, if not most actions are not beneficial to everyone equally. But I think it’s pretty easy to define when you are “doing good” and “doing harm”.
I understand where you’re coming from, but the point is, how you have decided to define doing good and doing harm is arbitrary, and none of the actions carry a real objective moral value, it’s just your subjective perception of the act and it’s consequences. It seems counter-intuitive because things we are socialised to believe are acceptable are labelled as good and this is reinforced until it becomes a core belief, part of our identities and can elicit strong emotional reactions.
It’s easy to see this in terms of religion. Religious people label masturbation as deviant, and when that was a dominant social value, it was considered deviant, now doctors will tell you it’s perfectly healthy and it is to a much wider degree accepted. To those people in the past however, such an idea would have elicited a strong emotional response, because they were convinced it was wrong.
I accept that the word torture implies suffering so it is essentially impossible by definition to torture something which cannot suffer.
However I was using the word more broadly, for the sake of brevity.
If we take a specific action, say gouging out the eyes of a living animal, I’m calling that “torture”, and saying that it is not immoral if the creature does not actually experience qualia (and there are no other side effects of this action, like shocking someone who’s watching).
A lot of the differences between societies can be understood in terms of how we define our “tribe”. Humans instinctively care about their tribe and couldn’t care less about people outside their tribe (and are actively hostile to competing tribes).
You still see these instincts a lot in the modern world, but what we’ve tried to do is make people feel as though everyone is in their tribe including many animals, for the good of the planet.
If morality were just created by society, why do we feel so strong about it? Why do we feel so upset to see great injustices or horrific crimes?
And why does it happen from such an early age? An infant may not have empathy yet, but they certainly notice things like unfairness.
To expand on what Thudlow said, I don’t think you’re phrasing it right. It’s not “we should just leave her there” for the same reason it’s not “we should rescue her.” It’s neither of those, because the nihilist’s answer wouldn’t involve either open-ended “should”.
A few people have brought up arbitrariness. Let’s be careful with that. Inches are an arbitrary unit of length; do we think length is arbitrary? If “badness” or “goodness” is arbitrary, is what they’re measuring arbitrary? That is, specifically, is morality a feature of the world we occupy, even if our ascriptions are imperfect, in error, or otherwise arbitrary?
When I said arbitrary, I meant that morality itself is conceptually arbitrary, not simply that our measure of it was subjective. That actions or intentions have an intrinsic moral value is the point I have contention with.
Just trying to clarify. Things like moral nihilism are not a critique on semantics of “good”, they’re the position that there’s nothing moral words could even attach to. If that’s your position, more power to you.
I said above:
“What people often can’t get past is the preconception that in saying moral values are inherently false and arbitrary, that one immediately finds all ‘negative’ things to be acceptable. This is nonsensical because we are still socialised to view some things as wrong, however this is subjective perception and the reality is that without this socialisation and taken out of the context of our human experience, all of these actions are meaningless, until value judgements of right, wrong, good or bad are applied arbitrarily.”
