As Chris Gowans (2011) notes, "moral relativism has the unusual distinction—both within philosophy and outside it—of being attributed to others, almost always as a criticism, far more often than it is explicitly professed by anyone". To this, I would add the following observation: straightforward debates about "moral relativism" have the unusual distinction of taking place more often between college students (perhaps under philosophically-inspiring chemical influences) than among professional philosophers. Nonetheless, I'm a college student myself, so I thought it appropriate to put in my own two cents on the issue.
I've always found discussions of moral relativism to be marred by vagueness and a failure to draw subtle but important distinctions. This tendency is perhaps most evident in the common practice of opposing "moral relativism" to "moral objectivism" (cf. Gowans 2011 and Shafer-Landau 2004, 8-12). In this essay, I propose my own definition of moral objectivism and argue that it is logically compatible with a version of moral relativism. Moral relativism and moral objectivism are answers to two quite distinct metaethical questions. Moral relativism is an answer to the question "Do the same moral principles apply everywhere?" In contrast, moral objectivism is an answer to the question "What is the ontological (and perhaps epistemic) status of moral properties?"
1) Cultural moral relativism (CMR)
In Whatever Happened to Good and Evil?,[1] Russ Shafer-Landau (2004, 146) defines moral relativism (he calls it "ethical relativism") as the view that "an action is morally right if and only if it is permitted by the ultimate conventions of the society in which it is performed". I wouldn't define moral relativism quite so narrowly. Consider the following claim: an action is right if and only if it is permitted by the ultimate moral beliefs of the individual who performs it. This claim doesn't fit Shafer-Landau's definition, yet I would call it a form of moral relativism.[2] Nonetheless, Shafer-Landau's definition captures at least one version of what I would call moral relativism. For convenience, I will henceforth use the expression "cultural moral relativism" (CMR) to refer to this version.
Shafer-Landau (2004, 146) defines moral objectivism (he calls it "ethical objectivism") as the view "that there are correct moral standards, and that these standards are true independently of what anyone, anywhere, thinks of them". CMR is clearly incompatible with moral objectivism as Shafer-Landau defines it.
In a sense, there's nothing for me to argue with here. Shafer-Landau is free to define terms however he wants, as long as he makes it clear what definitions he's using. However, if we want moral objectivism to be a claim about objectivity, then I don't think Shafer-Landau provides a good definition of moral objectivism. In the following section, I formulate my own definition.
2) Defining moral objectivism
2.1) Objectivity versus universality
Moral objectivism—the view that morality is objective—is often identified with moral universalism, the view that some moral rules are universal. This is a mistake.
A sci-fi scenario may help to make the mistake clear. Imagine that the basic physical laws in one place differ from the basic physical laws in a different place. In that case, there are no universal physical laws. Nonetheless, physical laws are still objective: it is objectively true that the gravitational constant is such-and-such in one place, even though it has a different value in another place.
Now replace "physical laws" with "moral principles": suppose that the basic moral principles in one place differ from the basic moral principles in another place. In that case, there are no universal moral principles. But moral principles can still be objective: it can still be an objective fact that the moral principles are such-and-such in one place, even if they differ in another place.
In short, objectivity is not the same thing as universality.
2.2) Defining objectivity
How, then, should we define objectivity? In answering this question, I'm going to make use of John Searle's distinction between "ontological objectivity" and "epistemic objectivity" (Searle 2010, 18):
- An entity is ontologically objective if and only if it is not ontologically subjective.
- An entity is ontologically subjective if and only if it exists "only as experienced by human or animal subjects".
- A judgment is epistemically objective if and only if it "can be known to be true [or false] independently of anybody's feelings or attitudes".
- A judgment is epistemically subjective if and only if it is not epistemically objective.
Thus, Searle claims (2003, 55), the meaning of a French word is ontologically subjective, yet a judgment about the meaning of a French word is, in an important sense, epistemically objective: the word has its meaning only from the perspective of French speakers, yet we can know what that meaning is regardless of any perspective that we might have.
One could doubtlessly object that Searle's definitions are themselves slightly ambiguous. However, I take it that most readers have an intuitive grasp of the distinction that Searle is trying to draw.
Note that an entity can depend for its existence on human mental states and yet be ontologically objective.[3] Imagine the following scenario. A magically-gifted child (unbeknownst to himself) has the power to create unicorns with his beliefs. If he believes in unicorns, then unicorns come into existence. I mean real, living unicorns that can interact physically with the world. However, the unicorns exist only as long as the child believes in them: if he stops believing in them, then they vanish. In this scenario, the unicorns depend for their existence on the child's mental states. Nonetheless, I take it that Searle would not want to call the unicorns ontologically subjective. The unicorns don't exist only from the child's (or anyone else's) perspective: as long as the child keeps believing in them, the unicorns simply exist, period.
2.3) Defining moral objectivism
What kind of objectivity does a moral objectivist attribute to morality? I take it that most philosophers whom we would call "moral objectivists" consider moral properties (rightness, wrongness, goodness, badness, etc.) to be ontologically objective.[4] For example, moral objectivists think that a particular action is either right or wrong, period, not just right or wrong from a certain viewpoint.
Whether moral judgments are epistemically objective may be more controversial among moral objectivists. One might claim that we grasp moral principles only through special intuitions or by means of moral sentiments. If these intuitions and sentiments aren't universal, then it seems that someone could be fully rational and yet be incapable of knowing which moral judgments are true.
I would note the following, however: if a moral objectivist accepts the Kantian principle that "ought" implies "can", then she has good reason to think that moral judgments are epistemically objective. Suppose that an agent is incapable of knowing moral truths. Then there's a sense in which the agent can't act in accordance with those truths (except by accident). And, in that case (one might argue), it seems odd to say that the agent ought to act in accordance with those truths. Thus, it seems that morality doesn't apply to the agent. Unless the moral objectivist wants to say that morality doesn't apply to certain fully rational agents, she should probably conclude that all rational agents are capable of knowing moral truths. In other words, she should probably conclude that moral judgments are epistemically objective.
At any rate, a view that regards moral properties as ontologically objective is clearly at least a version of moral objectivism. Henceforth, I will use the expression "moral objectivism" to refer to this view.
3) CMR and moral objectivism
According to CMR, the rightness of an action exists if and only if the surrounding society believes in the action's rightness. This is logically compatible with moral objectivism. Recall the child and the unicorns. The unicorns exist if and only if the child believes in them, but the unicorns are still ontologically objective. Likewise, the rightness of an action may exist if and only if the surrounding society believes in it, but the rightness may still be ontologically objective. Thus, CMR seems logically compatible with what I have been calling moral objectivism—the claim that moral properties are ontologically objective.[5]
At this point, one might object that I'm forgetting something. In section 2.4, I argued that a moral objectivist should probably hold that moral judgments are epistemically objective. But if CMR is true, then it is hard to see how moral judgments could be epistemically objective. According to CMR, even the most basic moral principles can change from society to society. In that case, how can one possibly know which moral judgments are correct in a given situation?
Notice that I can't respond to this objection by pointing out that social conventions are knowable. Granted, I can easily figure out what my society's conventions are. But, if CMR were true, how would I know that, within the borders of my society, moral reality matched my society's conventions? Moreover, if I migrated to a different society, how would I know that moral reality matched its conventions within its borders? To put the point more briefly: how would I know that CMR is the correct metaethical position?
This isn't much of a problem for me personally, because I don't believe that the correct metaethical view consists of a combination of CMR and moral objectivism. However, I can imagine a world in which CMR is true and yet moral judgments are epistemically objective: in that world, every agent has a direct intuition of moral principles, and the content of this intuition matches the conventions of whatever society the agent currently occupies.
The implausibility of the world that I just described shows how modest my aims in this essay are. All that I'm arguing for is the absence of any conceptual incompatibility between CMR and moral objectivism. But even that modest thesis leads to an interesting conclusion: far from being rival theories, CMR and moral objectivism address two distinct metaethical questions. CMR is an answer to the question "Do the same basic moral principles apply everywhere?" In contrast, moral objectivism is an answer to the question "What is the ontological (and perhaps epistemic) status of moral properties?" These questions differ in the same way as do the questions "Are all objects the same color?" and "What is the ontological status of color?"
4) References
Gowans, Chris, "Moral Relativism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2011/entries/moral-relativism/>.
Searle, John. Making the Social World. NY: Oxford UP, 2010.
Searle, John. Rationality in Action. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003.
Shafer-Landau, Russ. Whatever Happened to Good and Evil? NY: Oxford UP, 2004.
[1] Although written by a professor and published by Oxford UP, this book is intended mainly for non-academics and/or beginning philosophy students. Much more sophisticated analyses of moral relativism, moral objectivism, etc. are available. However, I think it's a good idea to make use of introductory texts when discussing a topic in such broad strokes as I will be using.
[2] Shafer-Landau would apparently call it "ethical subjectivism", where "ethical subjectivism" is distinguished from "ethical relativism" (cf. Shafer-Landau 2004, 8).
[3] This is a possibility that Searle doesn't appear to recognize, at least in his published works.
[4] Kant may be an exception here. I'm not a Kant scholar, but as I understand it, Kant doesn't think that actions are right or wrong in themselves; rather, he thinks that, due to the structure of practical reason, a fully rational agent has to think of actions as right and wrong. Kant thinks that the structure of practical reason is universal, such that everyone can come to know the same moral principles. Thus, Kant may be an example of a philosopher who regards basic moral properties as ontologically subjective but epistemically objective.
[5] Of course, one could accept CMR while rejecting moral objectivism. In particular, one could believe that moral principles only exist from the perspective of societies that endorse them.
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